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Andy Stumpf

It is safe to say that I have wandered a bit. I served in the military, flew some jets, jumped out of most, climbed mountains (I jumped off of them too), taught fitness, owned a gym, and have spent the last few years speaking to organizations and leaders. It has been a journey, and in all honesty, I have no idea where it is going. I seek the things that make me uncomfortable. I move towards things that scare me. I think you should too

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Today · 2 hr 19 min
The Ranger Account of Takur Ghar | Josh Walker & Chris Cunningham | Ep. 471
Josh Walker spent 24 years in uniform. He started as a young team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion, left for Florida State and ROTC, then came back as a signal officer and went on to serve in 7th and 3rd Special Forces Groups, logging close to three years in Afghanistan. Chris Cunningham was working as a chef in Vermont when his brother told him not to sign anything that didn't say Ranger. He listened, and served 22 and a half years. In March 2002, both were part of the Ranger quick reaction force sent to Takur Ghar. Neither had been in a firefight. Josh's helicopter, Razor 01, was supposedly headed to a refueling point. It was shot down on the mountaintop instead. Chris's element on Razor 02 landed below and climbed for more than two hours through deep snow, under mortar fire, to reach them. They walk me through the assault on the bunkers, a Hellfire that had to prove itself before anyone trusted it, the wait for exfil, and washing a friend's blood off his rifle before the younger Rangers got back to camp. I also asked why Rangers so rarely tell these stories and about the importance of people knowing the names of those that didn't come home. Today's Sponsors: Mars Men: For a limited time, listeners get 50% off for life plus Free Shipping AND 3 Free Gifts at https://www.Mengotomars.com Surefire: https://www.surefire.com/
Sunday · 4 hr 43 min
Roberts Ridge and the Fog of War vs. the Facts | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 470
Mitch Hall served in Naval Special Warfare, Brian Bloom came from film and games. Neither of them set out to spend six years on a single morning in March of 2002. They did anyway. Their project, Ground Truth, is built on seventy-five interviews, a trip back to the summit of Takur Ghar, the full unedited Predator and AC-130 footage, the radio traffic, the jock logs, and a forensic team that reconstructed the terrain and every camera orbit down to the inch. Part one of three this week. The episode lays out the uncontested account first. A friendly fire incident that almost ended Operation Anaconda before it started. A reconnaissance element pushed onto the tallest mountain in the valley on a compressed timeline, without the delay it requested, and told the summit was empty. A SEAL out of a helicopter under fire. A crash landing miles off target. A second attempt with no armor, no rucks, and ten minutes of fuel. Four Rangers killed on and around a ramp as the sun came up. Seven Americans dead by the end of the day. What follows is the part that has never been public. The viral video most people cite as proof is nine minutes assembled from an hour and forty-nine minutes of raw footage, out of sequence, with a closing sequence taken from four minutes after everyone agrees the fight was over. The technology credited with reopening the medal case is examined by name. So is the bunker, the two fighters said to be inside it, and the decision to pull air support with the quick reaction force on final. Two Medals of Honor came out of this mountain. So did a feud between two branches that has run for more than twenty years. Ground Truth Documentary: https://www.groundtruthdoc.com/ Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanknifecompany.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com
Friday · 1 hr 2 min
They Don't Need A Warrant Anymore | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.18.2026
I asked for positive news this week. What I got was surveillance, a global humiliation, and a man duct taped to his seat at thirty thousand feet. We open with reporting that Homeland Security has been analyzing the financial data of American citizens, and that some units have used it to steer local police toward pretextual traffic stops. Banks have run keyword filters on transactions. Agencies have swept up bulk records from money transfer services. Credit reports, utility bills and location data get purchased outright from private brokers, which sidesteps the Fourth Amendment entirely. There is a term for where that ends up. Turnkey totalitarianism is a system where every pillar of mass surveillance is built and operational, waiting on one person to connect it. I could not steel man the argument that we are not already there. From there we get into age and capacity in elected office, Apple's attempt to certify that a photograph is real, and why current AI produces novel output but not novel thought. Then it lightens up. A competitive fitness scandal goes worldwide. An actor announces what he would do to people in a fight. A first class passenger gets restrained with zip ties and duct tape between Dallas and Newark. We close with 163 missing children recovered in Florida in four days. Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code CLEAREDHOT for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95. Or use the store locator to find Willie's on shelves near you, like your local Total Wine, Specs, ABC or local liquor store AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!
September 14 · 2 hr 6 min
Air Traffic Control Is Running on Windows 95 | Dan Rickert | Ep. 469
Dan Rickert graduated from West Point and commissioned into the cavalry, running Bradleys and gun trucks through Iraq in 2008 before going to selection and finishing his nine years in uniform on a Special Forces team with 10th Group. He left the Army in 2015 and spent the next eight years at Palantir, moving from project management to international work and eventually to chief of staff on the defense side. He is now VP of Operations at Air Space Intelligence, the company the FAA selected to rebuild the software that runs the national airspace. Much of this conversation is about what people get wrong about the defense industry. He argues that competition produces a better product for the people using it, that a human has to stay in the loop on any decision that matters, and that skepticism is healthy either way. We also worked through privacy and security, and whether the two actually have to be traded against each other. From there we covered drone warfare and trench fighting in the same conflict, rebuilding an identity after the uniform comes off, and the work of modernizing air traffic control. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Betterhelp: Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.BetterHelp.com/clearedhot
September 11 · 1 hr 2 min
25 Years Later - Be Worthy of the Sacrifice | Full Auto Friday | 9.11.2026
This one airs on the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I'm not dedicating the whole episode to it. I don't tell people how to think or how to feel. But I do open with where I land on it now, a quarter century later, and why the reverence fading for people who didn't live it doesn't surprise me anymore. Then the questions. A 27-year-old learns through a DNA test that the man on his birth certificate isn't his father. He wants to know whether to tell the rest of the family. A guy who has run audio at his church for 21 years wants to know how to finally ask to be paid without turning it into an ultimatum. A future Naval Academy midshipman asks what a SEAL officer actually does on target, and whether the enlisted guys respect him. Also covered: why we round the edges off pain as a species, what constant exposure to war footage does to a person, and why describing your own military service as vanilla needs to stop. Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm ⁠https://www.firecracker.farm Hexclad: For a limited time only listeners get 10% off your order with this exclusive link. Just head to ⁠https://www.hexclad.com/clearedhot⁠
September 7 · 2 hr 51 min
460 Days in the Darkness of Somalia | Amanda Lindhout | Ep. 468
Amanda Lindhout grew up in small-town Alberta and waited tables to pay for backpacking trips through Latin America, Asia, and Africa. She taught herself the job along the way and turned into a freelance foreign correspondent, filing from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan with no network behind her and no one responsible for her if it went wrong. In August 2008 she flew into Mogadishu to cover the famine. It was supposed to be a one-week trip. She was ambushed on the road outside the city and held for 460 days. Her memoir about it, A House in the Sky, became a New York Times bestseller. This conversation covers the whole arc. Why she kept choosing more dangerous places, and what she can see now that she couldn't at 27. What captivity actually looked like day to day. The escape attempt and the punishment that followed. We also spend real time on the aftermath, which she says was almost as hard as the captivity. Complex PTSD. Going back to Somalia and why. Coming off the medication. Plant medicine. And why she stopped saying she forgave them. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Brunt: Get $10 off at BRUNT with code "clearedhot" at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/clearedhot and enter THE BRUNT POTTY OF GOLD SWEEPSTAKES for your chance to win $50,000. No purchase necessary. Ends 9/18/26. Official rules apply.
September 4 · 1 hr 2 min
Seven Minutes and Nowhere To Run | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.4.2026
Michael was tasked with finding something uplifting. He failed. This is what a slow week for good news looks like. We open on the flooding in Nepal and what you can realistically do when you live in terrain that gives you seven minutes of warning. One school got 14 minutes and everyone made it out. Then the part nobody wants to say out loud: reading the news is taking something from you. I talk about how I decide what to let in. National debt past forty trillion. Bonds selling off. Printing money and calling it something else. Blind loyalty to a party instead of judging what is actually being delivered. The Kennedy Center. Roughly 800 wounded U.S. service members in Iran in six months, the classification that kept those numbers quiet, and a reported airstrike on a wedding. The Lindsay Clancy verdict that never came. Cities cancelling Flock camera contracts, 214 jurisdictions pulling them out, officers using the data to track people they should not be tracking. None of it is a reason to quit. Today's Sponsors: Helix: That's https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 27% off sitewide. AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!
August 31 · 2 hr 42 min
The Weight of the Navy Cross | Nick Jones | Ep. 467
Nick Jones enlisted in the Marine Corps at 18 out of Olathe, Kansas. Mortarman, then scout sniper platoon, then selection and 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, where he came up through element member to element leader. Twelve years, five deployments. On March 8, 2020, his team went into the Qarachogh Mountains in northern Iraq to clear a cave complex and lost their team leader and their team chief. He was shot going back for them and kept fighting until he was pulled off the mountain. Six surgeries and eighteen months later he medically retired as a staff sergeant with a Navy Cross and a Purple Heart. He now runs the Talons Reach Foundation. In 2019 he built a mountain warfare training package for his team in Montana. It got denied. The reason given was that they wouldn't be fighting in the mountains. Ten months later they were. He proposed on top of Lone Peak and told his wife they'd build a family in Montana in ten years. They got there in one. Five years later she broke down on the drive back from Jackson and told him she had no life there. That conversation moved everybody to Wyoming. Talons Reach Foundation: https://www.talonsreachfoundation.org/ Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Hexclad: For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head to https://www.hexclad.com/clearedhot
August 28 · 1 hr 1 min
You Fall to the Level of Your Training | Full Auto Friday | 8.28.2026
Recorded two of these in one week because when this drops I'll be in Maine at the Origin Immersion BJJ camp. So Michael gets another pass. Nobody knows what he does with his time anyway. First question comes from a firefighter who watched a man beat a woman in a McDonald's parking lot. He called 911 from behind a block wall and did not physically intervene. He's been carrying it ever since. Good and bad is the wrong lens for that. Capability is the right one. What you can actually do under stress, not what you picture yourself doing. Range, training, tools, and why a black belt is not magic. Plugging holes matters as much as making them. Second question is one I've never been asked. A 15-year-old found out his mother has an OnlyFans page because his baseball teammates were passing it around school. Live your life however you want. The consequences didn't stop with her. A police officer who wants out and thinks nothing he does translates. It all translates. He just needs to stop telling himself otherwise. Today's Sponsors: Ridge: For a limited time only head to https://www.ridge.com and use code "Clearedhot" at checkout for 10% off your order AND a chance to win Ridge's biggest sweepstakes ever Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai
August 26 · 1 hr 58 min
The Zone of Chaos | Casey Stumpf | Ep. 466
Casey Stumpf is a nurse practitioner and my sister. Years in emergency medicine and hospice, a stretch inside military medicine at Camp Pendleton, and now her own practice in Montana treating hormones full time — perimenopause, menopause, testosterone for men and women. She is one of roughly 4,100 providers in the country holding the MSCP certification. There are 75 million American women in some phase of menopause. The math does not work. She is back to answer listener questions and to explain why estrogen patches are disappearing. The FDA says there is no shortage. Pharmacists say otherwise. Best estimate on a fix is two to three years. She lays out what the 2002 Women's Health Initiative did to an entire generation of women, and why the black box warning finally came off. Testosterone for women, prescribed off-label because no FDA-approved formulation exists. GLP-1s and what they pull out of you besides fat. Hormone therapy after breast cancer. Vaginal estrogen, UTIs, and hip fractures. The suicide risk in perimenopause that standard screening misses. Contact Casey Here: https://theradiantwelltality.com/ Today's Sponsors: Ethos: Get your free quote at https://www.ethos.com/clearedhot Cash App: Download Cash App Today: https://cash.app/ Terms apply. Bitcoin services by Block, Inc. See the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast.
August 24 · 2 hr 14 min
From the VA Prescription to the Street | Travis Gribble & Brandon Spangler | Ep. 465
Brandon Spangler did five years in the Marine Corps. He broke his neck, crushed his lower back, and walked out with a VA prescription that turned into eight years of addiction. The last stretch was heroin. He got sober in 2013, started college from zero, and is now a licensed clinical social worker with his own practice for cops and veterans in northwest Montana. Travis Gribble spent 24 years in law enforcement, 16 on SWAT, and retired out of Mesa PD in 2022. He now works for the Boulder Crest Foundation. He walks through the jump from pharmacy to street, detoxing cold turkey three times, and a month and a half living out of a truck in the Blue Mountains waiting on a bed. The second half is the system. Why cops are carrying moral injury more than post-traumatic stress. Why a diagnosis turns into a cage. What five days of training did that years of therapy did not, the 400 to 600 traumatic calls a cop absorbs over a career, why the average officer dies seven years after retiring, and the retainer model that put a therapist inside a sheriff's office. The Boulder Crest Foundation: ⁠https://bouldercrest.org/⁠ Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com⁠ Take the Operator Code Assessment: ⁠https://www.theoperatorcode.com⁠ Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: ⁠https://www.montanaknifecompany.com⁠ Firecracker Farm: ⁠https://www.firecracker.farm⁠
August 21 · 1 hr 7 min
The Conversations Nobody Wants to Have | Full Auto Friday | 8.21.2026
Four questions this week... An F-18 simulator is going into the coffee shop sometime in September. I don't know why either. Carrier landing competition to follow. The opener is about reaching the age where you become the caregiver for your parents. Medical directives, DNRs, wills, trusts, and why the hard conversation needs to happen before you need it. A 33-year-old sold everything, traveled the world for eight months, and came home with no next goal. I never had a plan either. Not knowing what comes next is fine. Being paralyzed by it is not. A guy got promoted over his best friend of 22 years and won't have the conversation that could save that man's career and a large payout. What you allow in your presence is your standard. Someone asked why I haven't covered the killing of Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar. Straight answer on what I make and what I don't. And a listener found out his wife spent a year with a coworker. He is trying to save the marriage. I could not do what he is doing. Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95. AG1: https://www.drinnkag1.com/clearedhot\
August 17 · 3 hr 10 min
Butler, the Correspondents' Dinner, and the Truth | John Constantine | Ep. 464
John Constantine spent almost 23 years in the United States Secret Service. Fifteen of them on the Counter Assault Team — the assaulters who exist for the day everything goes wrong. Team leader. Instructor. Operations supervisor. He stood with a rifle next to four presidential administrations, worked in almost 90 countries, and finished out in the Dignitary Protective Division running foreign heads of state. He wrote a book about the part of it nobody sees. It's called Hallways and Stairwells. He breaks down what actually happened at the Correspondents' Dinner, why the security plan worked even though the magnetometer checkpoint didn't, and how far that guy really was from the President. Butler gets the same treatment. The layers of security people never see. Why hunkering down has never worked, anywhere, ever. Then it goes past tactics. Mission, men, then you. Getting swatted at his own house over a function fire and suspended for it. Refusing to send guys and guns overseas as a favor unless somebody put it in writing. Two thousand eight hundred agents doing the work of ten thousand. And the part that almost killed him. His identity got ripped out with the job. His wife found him on the bathroom floor. He talks about the climb back. Hallways and Stairwells: https://a.co/d/00SrmoEJ Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com
August 14 · 1 hr 6 min
Vote For The Garbage Can | Negligent Discharge Friday | 8.14.2026
Michael is moving to Missoula, so this one opens with a resignation and gets worse from there. A man in a garbage can is polling at 20% against Nigel Farage in Clacton, and his platform makes more sense than it should. Term limits, and the unelected career staff who actually run the machine. Early access to Truth Social posts for $60,000 to $100,000 a month. Trading firms have already signed up. A president clearing north of two billion in his first year back in office, and why the silence around it is deafening. A California mayor who pleaded guilty to working as an unregistered agent of China. A former Marine home after four years in a Russian prison. What prison is actually for. Punishment, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and where the line sits. A carrier at sea 250 days straight, what that does to 5,000 people with no end date, and the guy I watched grab a fire extinguisher and jump. Also: a four mile run, PT school, and a second wiener dog named Beans. Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farms: https://www.firecracker.farm Tiny Health: https://www.tinyhealth.com/clearedhot
August 10 · 2 hr 49 min
Welcome to the Age of Collapse | Drew Miller | Ep. 463
Drew Miller is an Air Force Academy honor graduate with a master's and a PhD from Harvard. His dissertation was on underground nuclear shelters and field fortifications. Thirty years in uniform across active duty, Air Guard, and Reserve. Intelligence officer. Strategic Air Command, the Pentagon, and a DoD think tank. Retired colonel. He founded Fortitude Ranch, a survival community with eight locations, and the Collapse Survival Institute. His new book is Preparing to Survive in the Age of Collapse. His model puts the annual odds of a collapse disaster between 16 and 57 percent. Bioengineered H5N1. The grid going down. The economy stops, and law and order goes with it. We disagreed on a lot of this one. He wants superintelligent AGI outlawed and says he would nuke a data center to enforce it. I don't get there with him. We went back and forth on facts versus assumptions, on what a real fight with China looks like, and on whether this government is salvageable. Also covered: the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, civil war inside states instead of between them, two million prisoners with no power, and surviving an AI takeover by being too boring to kill. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Better Help: Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.betterhelp.com/clearedhot
August 7 · 1 hr 3 min
The Fingerprint You Leave On Your Kids | Full Auto Friday | 8.7.26
Just me today. Michael also dropped some news on me — he's moving on in a few months to go better himself, so there's a change coming to Negligent Discharge Friday. Three questions this week. All of them heavy. A woman facing divorce asks whether military culture makes it easier for a man to disconnect from family life. Military marriages aren't a single lifestyle. They're an independent one. But the five people you spend your time around will pull you one direction or the other. I talk about my own divorce. Nineteen years and eleven months. The writing was on the wall a decade before I made the call. My biggest regret isn't leaving. It's what my kids absorbed while I stayed. They were sitting on the stairs listening the whole time. A 28-year-old with money, milestones, and no mountain left to climb asks how to get motivated again. I tell him he's aiming too low, and that the money trap gets everybody eventually. An 18-year-old just found out about his dad's affair and ships to boot camp next June. Quick to think, slow to act. Fixing his parents' marriage was never his job. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Drownproof Conversation Starters: https://www.shop.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 20% off sitewide AG1: https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot
August 3 · 2 hr 4 min
Jail, Lawsuits, and The Comeback After Everything Fell Apart | Mike Glover | Ep. 462
Mike Glover served 18 years in Army Special Forces, worked as a contractor for the CIA, founded Fieldcraft Survival, and wrote the national bestseller Prepared. He's been on this show before. A lot has happened since. The legal case that consumed the last 18 months is finished. He talks about the week he spent locked up — teaching breathing drills in a holding cell full of hard dudes — what the arrest cost him, and how family and a small circle of friends carried him through. Fieldcraft dissolved. He bought the pieces back. Now he's rebuilding it from the roots. There's also a long stretch on the bin Laden story — O'Neill, Bissonette, the recorded debrief, the point man, and litigation nobody needed. Plus Roberts Ridge, the Jessica Lynch raid, Tillman, and why drama in the special operations community has real downstream consequences. TRT, alcohol, helicopters, faith, veteran suicide, and a tribute to a Green Beret they called Swede. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt: For a limited time listeners can get ten dollars off at BRUNT when you use code "Clearedhot" at checkout. Just head to https://www.BRUNTWorkwear.com, and while you're there, enter THE BRUNT POTTY OF GOLD SWEEPSTAKES for your chance to win fifty thousand dollars.
July 31 · 1 hr 6 min
Mid-Flight Exits and Robot Gun Rodeos | Negligent Discharge Friday | 7.31.26
No guest. Just Michael, a stack of conversation cards, and whatever the internet served up this week. Opening cards: simple is not the same as easy, and failures are tuition payments, not a definition. A flight instructor in Argentina jumps to his death mid-lesson. His student lands the plane alone. The viral robot gun turret video. Reaction time, technique, and a full review of the dismount. Big announcement: a full F-18 simulator is coming to the coffee shop. Aircraft carrier landing competition. $25 per entry. If you have ever flown an F-18, you are not invited. The Blue Angels' 40-foot pass over Pensacola Beach, and why the investigation should be allowed to happen. The Titan submersible documentaries. Carbon fiber, "seasoning," and 20 milliseconds. Getting fooled by AI images and satire headlines. A public meltdown caught on camera, and what a mental health crisis looks like from the outside. Grab your set of Conversation Starters Here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/ Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Ridge: For a limited time only head to https://www.ridge.com and use code "ClearedHot" at checkout for 10% off your order. Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai
July 29 · 2 hr 5 min
The World's Greatest Mic Drop | Jack Osbourne | Ep. 461
Jack Osbourne grew up with cameras in the house. The Osbourne's made his family the biggest thing on television, and he was earning seven figures by 15. He got sober at 17 and has held that line for over two decades. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 26. Since then he's built his own lane — adventure television, paranormal investigation, two podcasts, and a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. Last July, his father played the biggest farewell show in rock history. Seventeen days later, Ozzy was gone. This conversation carries weight and goes sideways in equal measure. Making serious money as a kid and learning the hard way that the people hired to protect it don't always deserve the trust. Grieving a parent while untangling the business that comes with a famous last name. The final concert — a living wake where his dad got to say goodbye on his own terms — and the week at home together afterward. Then the throttle opens: the UFC card on the White House South Lawn, a month in the Australian jungle on 500 calories a day, ghost stories he can't explain, the Nazca mummies, a plan to buy a decommissioned aircraft carrier, and bringing OzFest back. Today's Sponsors: Peluva: Use code "Clearedhot" for 10% off at ⁠https://www.peluva.com⁠ Bubs Naturals: Listeners are getting 20% OFF at ⁠https://www.BUBSNaturals.com ⁠by using code "clearedhot" at checkout
July 27 · 3 hr 31 min
The Secret History of Operation Red Wings | Ross Schneiderman | Ep. 460
Ross Schneiderman spent his career as a reporter and editor. Newsweek, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, ESPN. He covered mixed martial arts, then ran a foreign desk working alongside Afghan and Pakistani correspondents. In 2016 he wrote a Newsweek cover story about Mohammad Gulab, the Afghan villager who sheltered Marcus Luttrell. He never went to Afghanistan. He never covered a war. He spent six years piecing this one together anyway. For twenty years, Operation Red Wings has been told one way. Lone Survivor turned it into a legend. He FOIA'd the documents. He read the MERC chat, the debriefs, the after-action reports. He interviewed SEALs, Green Berets, and Afghan sources who were there. What he found doesn't match the movie. We go through it in order. The comms that were supposedly never made, and the records that say otherwise. The vote that never happened. The phone call, and who really made it. The stinger missile that wasn't. And why a story meant to honor four men became a recruiting tool built on things that weren't true. This isn't about tearing anyone down. Many men died doing the best they could in a terrible spot and situation. This is about what happens when an institution picks the myth over the truth. Politico Article: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/20/operation-red-wings-lone-survivor-luttrell-00833548 Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm

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