Inside the Pentagon on 9/11 | Ambassador Matthew Klimow

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1:22Ambassador retired Matthew Klinnell. He retired as a colonel out of the military and then served in the senior executive staff. Senior executive service. Thank you. At State Department. For over 20 years and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO for transformation, and my other overseas assignment was five years as ambassador to Turkmenistan. And his book is as the Pentagon burned as we're going to talk about you were in the Pentagon on 9-11. So we'll get into all of that. But thank you for coming into studio. That's a great pleasure, Jack. Yeah, Maya, your work. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. So you know, I ask pretty much all of the people on this show if you could tell us, you know, your origin story like how did you grow up and how did that sort of take you towards military service? Yeah, thanks for asking. For my generation, it's kind of a typical story. I grew up in Johnson City, New York. It's a upstate near Binghamton. Triple cities was an ethnic city, a factory

2:29town. All my grandparents were born in Eastern Europe, Slovak, Polish, what's now Ukraine, and my neighbors were same thing. Either first, second, or third generation Americans seemed like all the Slovak countries were represented in a North side of Johnson City, the Irish around the south side, Indycott, New York, next to us, big Italian American community. And we had big factories there. Indycott, Johnson, Shoes, factories dotted the whole valley. And IBM, that's where Thomas J. Watson and Tom had his factories. But they were manufacturing things too, not software, but hardware. My mom and dad, I had the perfect match, Jack. My dad was the sweetest man in the world. I mean, everybody just adored him. Didn't have a mean bone in his body, but my mom was a driving force in my

3:29life. And that's how I ended up at West Point. I'm sure of it. Dad fought in World War II. He was at the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, I took him back when I was stationed in Germany to retrace his steps through Belgium and Germany, because he was not only at the Battle of the Bulge, but he was in the town of Melmady, huddled near the train station, hiding when they got word that the POWs were being gunned down by the Nazis. So I talked about how much fury he had. And he was at Ramaghan Bridge when it actually fell. So, you know, your dad was he immigrated from Eastern Europe. No, I grandfather. Oh, your grandfather did. Okay. Is there some people who immigrated here and then got drafted into the military and sent right back out. But he had an eighth grade education. My mom finished high school. And he worked in a factory for 40 years, but he always dressed well.

4:32Here I am in my in my French cuffs. And he he didn't talk a lot about the war, but when he did, you know, you pay attention when you're a little boy. Yeah. I remember watching the Army Navy television with him and just being so blown away by the kittetson uniforms in the midshipman. But it I was a good student, but not a great student. And I never thought I could ever get into an academy. But the typical story I had a high school history teacher who really believed in me and said the West Point recruiters coming next week. And I want you to go and meet with him. And I was kind of surprised. He said that, but I went and got the nomination from a local congressman. And you had accepted. And that was a life changing, obviously. But at West Point was not to me,

5:32you know, this is going to be an Army career. It was a destination itself. I didn't know it was going to come here. What year was this that you show up? It was 1970. So, you know, as I explained to somebody recently talking about the turmoil that we see in our own country right now, you know, a child of the 60s. I went, you know, I was a teenager in the 1960s. We saw Washington burn and Detroit burn. And there were race riots on the rapleships. I mean, so, you know, I know our country has had its ups and downs and I'm a strong believer that it will will see our way through this. But I remember being asked by my political philosophy instructor, a guy named Wes Clark, went on to be a four star general and a pro-addo commander, wasn't it? Yeah. And he asked me what my career plans were when he was a captain and I was a kid at. And I said, I probably just do my five year commitment and get out and maybe go to Washington and he said,

6:36politics, that's where the power is. It was a clock. Really believed in that, obviously. But I had a great experience. My first assignment was in Germany during the Cold War, which was great because you're in the field all the time. And you had a real training mission. It was also great because I met my wife, Edie, who was an Army nurse. And they didn't get married right away. It took me a little while to wake up that this was the one she's here patiently watching just also the security camera. And but we did get married. And so we are an army family in the richest sense of it. Speaking of the difficulties the country was going through, I mean, the stories I've heard about the post-Vietnam army, particularly in Germany. You hear some wild stuff. I mean, were there some leadership challenges for you as a young officer? Right. Perfect question. And that's not set up because you didn't know the history here. But in 1972,

7:38for my summer training as a West Point cadet, I spent a month, maybe six weeks in Germany, training with an infantry unit, 154 infantry at a Bamberg, Germany. And our rotation and graphing veer was during my time there. So we had a lot of field time. And we had a race riot in the company I was in. And boy, it was an eye opener. And it was rough and tumble. But it was a great experience, though. And the young soldiers that I worked with, they, I think, took me under their wing. And I'm not talking about the senior NCOs. That's their job. The young enlisted soldiers, draftees, who had no intention of staying in the army very long knew that it was, I was kind of a unique kind of thing to have a West Point cadet there. And it in Hasselme, I think they really tried to teach me. And it was a wonderful experience.

8:44So I knew I wanted to be in the infantry when I graduated. And that's what I chose. Not that I was high enough in a class to have a lot of choices. But it was perfect for me. It's through me in the Breyer patch. And so when you got back, you said, you know, your unit in Germany had a real world mission that you were prepared for, preparing for the, you know, what we thought was an unit Soviet invasion. Well, you know, you went to, not only in the field, just training in general, but you actually went to the sites, the exact locations that you would go to as they used to say, if the balloon goes up, you know, here's the routes you would take. This is where your armored personnel carrier will be. This is where the tank platoon that supporting Union will be, which is, you know, pretty remarkable. But we had a great experience because the second armored division, I'm sorry, the 11th cavalry regiment had to do their rotation at Grafenbeer. So we

9:51took their place. So we had for two months border duty on the East German, West German border. And you know, you could just imagine running up and down the fence and seeing East German soldiers in the towers and a real sense of purpose. And so the Cold War was dangerous at, you know, in some ways, but it was a great experience for a young lieutenant and I wouldn't have traded that for anything. You knew your wife to be running around Germany at the time. It took her up to the border. There used to be a one kilometer zone you couldn't go into because a lot of the area of the border is not obvious. The fence that the Warsaw packed soldiers put up was behind the border so they had room to shoot at people trying to escape. So you could easily wander over the West German border into East Germany before even saw a fence. So they kept American troops away, but I took my bride

10:53to be up there to show her my border sector and wander around. We had some good times. So it sounds like you fell in love with the army during that, you know, your initial platoon leader experience. You know, I had a pretty typical infantry career in some ways and some ways not. Coming out of, for those of familiar with the army, coming out of the advance course, the assignment that I got was to the third infantry regiment, the old guard in Washington, DC. So I had to distinct honor of commanding the honor guard company, which includes the two of them, the unknown soldier and the presidential honored company that marches at the White House and for the official receptions of heads of state and everything, which was pretty neat. And that was there for President Reagan's first inaugural actually escorted President Reagan

11:55from Capitol Hill after he's swearing in and we marched down to the reviewing stand at the White House. During his speech, this is this is a true story. I sat next to Jimmy Stewart and Johnny Carson, who are watching their buddy, Ronald Reagan, become President to their astonishment. It's another thing I'll never forget. So the army presented many great opportunities, but that's a very high visibility posting for you, you know, as a commander of that unit, because of how visible it is in Washington, DC, right? Yeah, and it's also indicative of where I was heading, I suppose, because that Washington bug had bit me and I knew I wanted to come back at some point, but not in a ceremonial position. I knew I wanted to be on some high level staff in the Pentagon, maybe in the National Security Council, even at that point, Abina, a junior officer. And you know, that's a point I make Jack to

13:00young, not only young military officers when I was still in uniform, but to people that I meant to or throughout my career, 20 plus year career as a diplomat, young foreign service officers, setting goals and knowing where you want to go, managing your own career. And one of the goals, as I mentioned, was I knew I wanted to go back to Washington in a policy position. And because I had that goal, I made a strategic career choice. I was a battalion commander, I was selected for the war college. And you get a choice of not a choice, but you could list your top three choices that are Fort Knox. Well, no, this is the war college. So you can go to the Army War College, the National War College, or the sister services, the Naval War College Air Force. But they had maybe six or seven fellowships. Most of them were at prestige places like Harvard, Stanford, the Atlantic Council. But they had one slot at the Center for International Relations

14:07at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. My wife, Edie, and I had been on vacation to Kingston. It is on the Thousand Islands where the St. Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario, Lake America. It's beautiful, beautiful. And Queens University campus, I remember as a tourist, seen it. And I said, nobody is going to sign up to make that their first choice. And if I listed, I'm pretty sure I'll get it. And I did. And that changed the whole trajectory of my military career from being a typical infantry officer. Because when I was at Queens at the Center for International Relations as a visiting defense fellow, I was teaching a course on national security. And I invited my old mentor to come and speak to the students there. And then give a lecture at the Royal Military College, which was across the way. And Lieutenant General Dan Christminkane

15:11and the Canadian students all had their long knives out for an American general. And he was the smartest guy in the room. He graduated number one in his West Point class and had been on the National Security Council and had a career that I am being. And he came up and he spoke to the students and then to the Royal Military College cadets and had a wonderful time. And he said, I don't know where you want to go after your fellowship, but I'm going to take care of your next assignment. And then next thing, you know, I was his executive assistant where he was the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General John Shelley Cushfield. And my first day in the job are office suite, a joint, the chairmans and General Shelley Cushfield introduced me to the directors, the joint staff, all the three stars in the room. And the vice chairman at the time was a four star admiral, Admiral Owens. And our job was to travel with the Secretary of State wherever Secretary went overseas.

16:17So General Crispin and I for one year traveled with Warren Christopher and was a Secretary of State. The war in the Balkans was raging and that was our focus along with looking at NATO enlargement. And I was also put on an inter-regency arms control team that was negotiating the start three treaty framework and the conventional forces Europe's CFE treaty extension. Warren Christopher was a gracious, a real gentleman, just a gracious guy. So I'm a, I'm a Colonel, small fry in this Coderay. We're traveling on the Old Air Force ones, which became Air Force 2's when they got to 747. So these are the, those beautiful 707's. I remember flying on the same plane that took John F. Kennedy's body back from Dallas on one of these missions that we undertook.

17:17And we went to Berlin for some talks and got to the hotel and I was in my T-shirt and there's a knock on the door and there's Warren Christopher asking if I'd like to go out to dinner. And so it was a dream job. But after one year General Crispin left and Warren Christopher left and it was the second term for President Clinton and Madeline Albright became Secretary of State. And I wasn't sure if I would fit in if they would welcome me into her close circle because when you're on that airplane, you're, you're, you know, mixing with her immediate staff, her senior staff. Our first trip was to Brussels when she was a secretary. She was going to give her first interventions beach at the North Atlantic Council to NATO. And my job, Jack, was to review her speech for any military equities and make sure everything was aligned. Before the trip,

18:24this is again when the Balkan War was, was really ugly, terrible. There was a meeting in the Pentagon and the Vice President, Snashem's security adviser Leon Firth came over for the, the prep meeting for her first trip to NATO. And he said, we should create a NATO Russia brigade. And Shalikashvili, the chairman said, that, that's a stupid idea. I don't want to hear that again. Just poopooed it. Yeah, I paid attention. So now two weeks later, we're on the flight over the Atlantic Ocean. I always sat next to my buddy who is the speech writer, Tom Melonowski, who became a congressman. And Tom gave me a copy of the speech. And I read through it and everything looked fine to me. And I put my big fat initials in the top corner. And I learned when I started to fall asleep in these arms control meetings, overseas that I should pop an ambient and get my sleep

19:25when I could. So I popped an ambient, close my eyes so it could be fresh when we arrived in Europe. And Melonowski gets this phone call and the phone's on the bulkhead. And it's from Vice President Gour's National Security Advisor. And he says, Tom puts something in there about creating a NATO Russia brigade. So he isn't known. He puts it in. Oh my god. She gives her speech. It's front page news around the Europe and all hell broke loose. Not well received. Everybody in Washington knows who the hell is this new secretary? Do you think she is? The proposal was the idea that it's like in cooperation with the Russians. Yes. But you know, creating a brigade, it wasn't, you know, you have this sector and we have this sector. It was a totally different concept. So then next morning, I'm called in with Tom Melonowski, a speech writer into this holding room. And because I later served at NATO, I get to know, well, but it's a big, big room. And there's only two people in it. It's Mel and Albright and her chief of staff,

20:27and we're going to talk to her and she said, look you two. I screw up enough for myself. I don't need you to screw it up for me. Don't ever let this happen. So I said, yes, ma'am. And I did about things like a good soldier. And I said, thank god I had one good year with Warren Christopher because I just got fired. And I went to the hotel and I just put on my workout stuff and went to the gym and worked out. Man, I am finished. And then we got on the plane. We're going to Moscow next. And I had already had a dozen, 14 trips to Moscow as part of the Sarmz control team. And we met with the foreign minister, Premakov, leader became prime minister of Russia. And Premakov was toying with Madeleine Albright. I could see it. I was a back venture. I was sitting far in the back as I could get. And she gets fed up with it. And she goes, I want a

21:2915 minute break. I team come with me. So her immediate staff and the ambassador scurry out. And I'm left there. And there's a big fruit bowl on the conference room table. I'm picking through the fruit bowl and her chief of staff comes out. Colonel, the secretary wants to see you. And I've, oh my god, not again. And I walk into this room where they're meeting. And everybody stops talking and looks at me and my heart just looks long. And I said, this is going to be the worst moment in my life. She said, Colonel, I understand you're on the Sarmz control team with deputy secretary Talbot. I said, yes, ma'am. She said, well, what's the history here? Why is this? Why is he not cooperating? Why is he so adamant? I don't even remember what the topic was. I said, ma'am, I don't know. No, for sure. I could just give you the history. And I related where we were in the talks. And she said, that's helpful. Thank you. We got on the plane. We're going to Japan. This is around the world trip. And I got, it's far back in that 707 as I could get.

22:35And we got to cruising altitude and mail and all bright comes walking down the aisle. And she comes right. She sits down next to me and she puts her arm on me, my arm is, she says, Climo. What kind of name is Climo? And I said, I think it's Slovak. We don't know a lot about my grandfather. And she says, well, you know, I'm Czech. She said, we should go to Prague together. And I said, ma'am, that would love that. That was it. That was her way of saying it's all okay. Always forgiven. And for the next two years, I traveled with men. Wow. Right. All kinds of exciting trips. I would shopping for a match can get overwhelming fast. Too many options, too many opinions and no clear way to tell what's actually right for you. That's why Gospat built their online mattress quiz. It's quick. It's simple. And it helps narrow down the right Gospat mattress based on how you actually sleep. You answer a few questions about things like your sleep position, whether you tend to sleep hot and the feel you prefer. And the quiz gives you a clear recommendation from the

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29:56realize that and for West Point cadets you know they're the three answers yes sir no sir no excuse so but you know again junior officers junior leaders people just coming in the workforce that's kind of an eye opener for them the second thing I want to mention real quick is after Lieutenant General Dan Christman left become superintendent at West Point guy replaced them was Lieutenant General Dick Myers U.S. Air Force and we clicked just as I did with Christman and I love working for him and we had a really good relationship people who don't understand the joint staff wonder how you could work army air force but that's the beauty of the joint staff isn't it I mean you're bringing all your service traditions and all the pride that comes with it but you are so much stronger as a staff when all those expertise all that expertise and all those specialties are looking at a problem

31:00together so the joint staff is a remarkable place so after two years of battle on the knob right I get picked up for brigade command and to my astonishment when they called me said hook up and shuffle to the door and I said what are you talking about and you say you'd go into Fort Bragg North Carolina and you got a command 18th Airborne Corps combat support brigade whoa and I hadn't jumped out of airplanes since I was a lieutenant in Ranger School that's a bit of it doesn't normally work like that yeah I've got to stay out of your assignments in Washington work if somebody please tell I don't know yeah I you know I fought in the first Gulf War in a heavy armor brigade and expected that that would be my fate but that was open and that's where they wanted me to go and of course that's where it went and jumping out of airplanes when you're a young lieutenant is a lot different than when you're

32:02colonel so when I went for my refresher they were just zooming through it because a lot of people would rotate through you know the refresher for it's just another day on Fort Bragg yeah whoa time out I haven't jumped in 18 years or what you got to go slower than this and I had a great star major thank god he was wonderful and Edie and I had just a really good time at Fort Bragg we it wasn't a typical parachute regiment like in the 82nd we had a Hodgepodge we had a chemical battalion a signal battalion and EOD company and public affairs detachment all kinds of Hodgepodge we wanted them to feel they were part of a cohesive unit and we did a good job so near the end of my tour um star major came in and his eyes were kind of what'd you do wrong you screwed up sir there's

33:05a four star general on the phone wants to talk to you and that my book is bad news and I'm thinking who and that could just be and I got to be general dick mires who um when he left um the Pentagon uh put him on his fourth star to be the Pacific Air Force commander and then was the commander of norad and uh US space command and there were rumors he was coming back to Washington and he said I can remember it claimo the fun is over you're coming back to Washington he said don't ask and he said I needed there in two weeks I said two weeks are I'm still in command for another forgot two months he says I already called general shinseki it's set up so um it gave me four weeks and uh he became the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff on the number two and by law the number two uh most senior officer in our pyramid our architecture and uh I got there

34:09and uh uh the kernel who was only down the position was joe dumpford uh marine kernel who would go onto his four stars and become chairman of the joint chief of staff in the future and we had a two week um overlap and uh it was back to the chairman's suite I was familiar with it the you know that first year was kind of typical and from what I remember we did a lot of international travel but everybody kept asking me um about all the newspaper articles that he was in the running to be the next chairman of the joint chiefs and uh I I felt that was probably pretty good chance I had seen him interacting with uh secretary rumsfeld um and I knew that there was enough room for the two of them in one room and I knew I knew virtually all of the other four star admirals in generals who listed as being on the short list and um you know general dick mires doesn't have that huge ego um

35:14he's uh midwestern kansen and uh that midwest upbringing um just you know I think was what president bush was looking for secretary rumsfeld was looking for and he had a good relationship with the current chairman general uh Hugh Shelton oh yeah um so um my money was in him this is like two thousand yeah um no it was uh two thousand one and the president really was brumsfeld I think um they're kind of late in announcing the nomination so um it's a funny story if we've got time yeah please really quick so um I I had worked with general I was general mires exec one he was a three star I was as he could see exec again as a four star I knew him and he was family um and I knew for a while he really wanted the job and um but he was always the

36:14last person and mentioned in all these newspaper articles and also in the running is Air Force General Richard B. Myers um but then there was a front page story in the Washington Times and it had down to two and it had a picture of uh the chief enable operations verand claire and again the this time he got a whole paragraph also in the running is the Air Force General Dick Myers and um Jamie McIntyre was the CNN correspondent in the Pentagon at the time he comes bursting in the office no not gonna door anything and he said we want to be the first to congratulate the general we got it frights from the White House he's gonna be the next chairman and joint chiefs so I knock on the inner office door and walk in and say hey sir congratulations you're gonna be the next chairman I knew by this time he was so fed up with the process he didn't care I really knew he he went yeah I heard it before he he was beyond it but which was kind of healthy and um

37:20when McIntyre saw me talking to the general he realized he doesn't know which means maybe our scoop is wrong because surely he would have known that so you would think yeah he goes running back to his office comes running back says we verified it with the White House correspondent he's gonna be and then the phone rings and its secretary rumsfeld and secretary our our office secretary Mary Turner says sir mr rumsfeld wants to see you myself he came back and said close the door and leave me alone and he became the nominee to be the next chairman and which leads me to my book by the way yeah yeah so yeah let's get into it a little bit um you know what i mean you talked a little bit about if you can tell us a little bit more detail about this position you had with the joint chiefs leading into you know September of 2001 well um let me take you right up to it yeah because that's um primarily what i wanted to talk about

38:22and hope you your listeners are interested in as we approach the 25th anniversary of that tragic of that so um you know i think all of us were stunned by the brutality and the suddenness and to from the american point of view this senseless attack um the uh presidential daily brief that was became infamous that said uh basama bin lion is intent on attacking american um america in america um i was privy to read that um it just tuck it away and um as well circulated in washington but if you don't have particulars you know what do you specifics yeah so on the morning of september 11 2001 there were already big changes taking place in the pentagon uh general hew shelton was reaching the end of his four year tenure as the chairman and president uh bush had formally nominated general mires to take his place and that change

39:25of responsibility was to take place in nineteen days on one october more importantly general shelton was doing his farewell tour so he got up very early on the morning of 9-11 and went to andrews air force base and took off for budapest hungry to uh meet with all the defense chiefs in uh NATO by law the goldwater nickels act of 1986 when the chairman's out of the country the vice chairman is automatically um the acting chairman of the joint chiefs of staff so as events begin to unfold on 9-11 general shelton was in the air over the Atlantic Ocean um general mires who was just days away from being sworn in as chairman was left behind back in washington um because he still had to go through his confirmation hearing in three days he was scheduled for a series of courtesy calls with senators on capitol hill normally i would go with him uh for meetings

40:25take notes and do taskings when i got back but he said i'll just take my head to camp and you could stay back in the office so he left for capitol hill and um our office was in the earring of the Pentagon um facing uh the Potomac river so i could see the Washington monument big windows beautiful rare privilege to have a window like that in the Pentagon um i always kept the television on mute and when i looked up from my desk there was the world trade center smoking so i turned down the sound and they were speculating that it was a small plane or some air control mishapper and i wanted to believe that jack i um i i could that was in denial i knew something was wrong i knew there was more to it than this but denial prevented me from picking up a phone from

41:26calling either the general or our command center um i just wanted to believe and um i started to get worried about the possibility flying glass from our picture window so i asked Mary Turner our scheduler um to close the heavy draperies thinking just in case there's a bomb that goes off i couldn't imagine that a jetliner was barreling toward us at that very minute and then suddenly the red switch ring on the left side of my desk in the red switches um people would call it a hotline it's the global secure telephone conferencing system that connects the white house the Pentagon and all our major commands around the world um and um it's it's a push button phone uh the top left is potas so if you put it it rings in the oval office and it bleeds and it started bleeding and i picked up the red receiver and on the other end was general ralf ed everhart the commanding general of norad calling from colorado he said uh Colonel get general mires on the phone i said sir he's on

42:33capital hill he said this is urgent get him to a phone i need to talk to him immediately so i hung up the red switch reached over to the other side of my desk picked up my on secure phone and called captain christana you an army green beret now christ was um christ is an unflappable intense um just a tough soldier and um had no idea that new york city was under attack so i said christ get get the old man on the phone put him on he says i can't i said what do you mean you can't he's in with the senator i said get in there he said you want me to walk in i said get general mires on the phone general mires came on the phone i said sir you know what happened in the york he said the senator staff just inform us we just turn on the television i said everhart needs you right now can you get back to the Pentagon he said i'll be there in 15 minutes i'll call general leberhart from my sedan so i hung up the phone now your combat veteran like i am jack you know

43:33sometimes things that happen a long time ago still trigger emotions and um something you see or smell or hear and i'm still haunted by the sound of what happened next because the red switch ring again and unlike the point-to-point red switch call with norad this was a conference call being built by the white house situation room and because you're on a top secret line and you open it to various people there's an echo chamber if you are going to make a movie you would add this sound effect for drama so the the white house operator said stand by for a significant event conference and he started to patch leaders from around Washington into the call the head of the FBI the head of the CIA um and um he said all parties are on the line stand by and i thought kind of Aliza rice must be coming on but it was general everhart from norad and he said like a remember

44:37exactly what he said we have several airplanes on radar and i know a number of them and hijacked i pulled out my pad and started taking notes um two f-15s from otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts Spectre to New York City American Airlines flight 11 confirmed hijack it's headed to Washington well this in fact was erroneous information flight 11 had already hit the north tower the where a world trade center 45 minutes earlier that was emulmatic of all the chaos and confusion we are going to wrestle through and flight 11's miss identification would cause ripple effect throughout that morning now about this time you know i'm intensely taking notes and merry turn our scheduler starts to wave at me and i'm thinking can't she see it's as important and she has a phone in her hand she starts waving it she says it's general shelton the chairman he's calling from his airplane he wants to talk to you now so i kept the red switch and my left ear picked up the on secure phone

45:40put it to my right here now you may not remember general shelton but he is a six foot five and four guy square jawed hard bit not back and yes and um he is does not suffer fools and so what that is going on back there and i said sir i'm on the red switch with norad and the white house a relay information so i'm listening relay and information focused on these two calls when the merry turners just jumps up it says the billing moved and suddenly there's pandemonium outside her door people screaming and yelling running down the corridor i said merry close the door i can't hear it's just so focused i didn't feel a billing shutter and finally after a minute the watch officer from inside the Pentagon the the phone lines continue to work even yes after the so on the red switch from inside the national military command center which is in the inner rings of the Pentagon the watch officer broke into the red switch calls said the Pentagon's been hit by the

46:44binar plan we have smoke coming so as calmly as i could i took a deep breath and relayed the information to general shelton i could hear him um consulting with his staff on the plane and then the line dropped and seconds later general mires called and he was coming over the 14th street bridge over the Potomac river he could see the smoke rising up the ass of 4 ok and i said yes sir he said i'm three minutes out meet me at the river entrance so i put down both receivers and i grabbed merry and we made our way into the hallway and people were coming out but what amazed me jack was in the few minutes from impact the Pentagon's largest office billing in the world is 17 miles of corridors we are on the north side of the building and the plane hit on the west side but it's already filling the smoke so we joined the crush of people coming down the stairs general mires sedan pulled up he grabbed my arm we made our way through the crowds back up the

47:46stairs and two uniform security guards halfheartedly stopped us and said general we're not allowed to let anybody in it's not safe we pushed our way past these well intentioned officers we made our way into the inner rings of the Pentagon the national military command center and you know this is a cold war command center and it looks like it it's a great movie set like something from doctors preys exactly so rabbits worn of dead end corridors and cubicle farms televisions hanging from the ceiling there's a two-story deck you could imagine and the watch officer the chief of operations can stand on the deck and see everything going on below him inside at least as it was configured in 2001 there's a self-contained conference room it's about the size of a conference room this is where the deputy director of operations maintained the 24 hour watch we call the DDO shack and it was part of the nuclear node for the event of a nuclear war this would be one of the

48:51critical nodes in Washington it had its own circulations so when we entered we walked past all these soldiers sailors airman marines and the outer portions of the NMCC's haze of accurate smoke filling the NMCC but they are all at their stations doing what they're supposed to do when you walk into the DDO shack there's been a dozen or more televisions screens all showing the world trade center just like in a TV control room and then on the far right there's a huge screen it shows the track of our top secret intelligence satellites the center there's a long conference table with rich witch telephones miraculously general Myers had been the NORAD commander just prior to that assignment as the vice chairman so he understood the air defense scenario better than anybody in Washington and he began this conversation with the NORAD commander general laborhard he said Ed we don't have ROE to shoot down a civilian airliner do we rules of engagement ROE and

49:55ever heart said no sir we don't he said that's first order of business so what they're doing and you appreciate this there this is modified mission analysis condensed mission analysis yet to the guidance that we need to do they need the president the way in on that we'll talk about that and what they they wanted to do was shorten the decision loop they didn't want to put the burden of making the decision decision to shoot on the shoulders of a single fighter pilot but they didn't want to have that pilot have to go through layers of command leading all the way back to Washington so they delegated the command authority to a two star general Larry Arnold at the northeast a regional NORAD center in Rome New York it's an old Air Force base up there so he had the authority to give that command now as NORAD began to disseminate the rules of engagement

51:01the famous fog of war started to descend on us because I known to us the FAA and the secret service in Washington had a hotline between the control tower at Reagan National Airport across the Potomac River and secret service headquarters in the White House or their command center in the White House and the FAA called the secret service said we have a flight on radar we know is coming to Washington we know it's hijacked it's light 93 should eventually crash in Pennsylvania so the secret service took the initiative to call the Air National Guard Commander at Andrew's Air Force base and tell him scramble jet aircraft well secret service can't give orders to the staff so if the time is a brigadier general uh worldly and he said I don't take orders from the secret service and they this they you could imagine what the I don't know exactly what the agent said listen can't you see what's happening on CNN this is this is an attack and he said I can't take

52:06orders from you I need someone an authority to give me that the authority and they went back and forth I don't know how many minutes but it's documented finally general worldly related and um unlike the norad fighters which are stationed around the nation on strip alert you know these were national guard fighters had a mission but um not equipped like norad and not a complete strip alert and not armed with the same kind of weapon systems um so now they're spinning up and um general or I'm sorry vice president chanie um was advised by the secret service that they've got pilots um that are going to be in the air shortly for mander's air force base and he gave the authority to go to weapons free meaning the pilots could fire at their own discretion right not knowing of course that norad at different rules of engagement these were on uh different radio frequencies coming out of Langley air force base in southern Virginia um in a different chain of command and these two flights coming from different air force bases had no idea that the others were in the

53:11air who they couldn't communicate and those communication problems were not solved even when they finally realized that um somewhere up above us is another flight of f-16 um just another kind of um example of of the chaos and in terms of leadership and at the end of each chapter uh jack of my book I have leadership observations um at the end of this chapter I talk about where leaders should be um to command and to control two different things so those fighters coming out of norads Langley air force base control center did exactly what they're trained to do and that's what we like to say um fight the way you train and train the way you intend to fight they took off and had a duest over the Atlantic Ocean and kept going for 60 miles over the Atlantic Ocean because that's what they were trained to do even though they all knew that the world

54:16trade centers had been hit by commercial aircraft um but they were told and they were trained to always get out of the busy north south commercial airline quarter you never break the the sunbar or barrier overland get over the ocean and your threat is to look for a Russian launched cruise missiles when they had their after action review the pilots really couldn't articulate why they didn't click you know things click and they head to Washington yeah I think there's another reason and this is my own supposition I should talk about in the book um two f-16s were unstriple alert but three f-16s took off from Langley air force base two or three jet fighters better than two in this case I'm not sure because the third fighter was piloted by the supervisor of flight whose job was to be in the in the norad control center um he was the only commission officer

55:18in the control center but he wanted to lead his jet his fighter pilots on a real mission and I don't blame him that's what I wanted to do as an infantry officer um that's what the firefighters wanted to do to to be at the point of impact the point of action um but I wonder if he had stayed in the control center his place of duty would he have the situational awareness to say okay hit your afterburners get to Washington now um instead of wandering out over the Atlantic Ocean so those are the kind of leadership questions you know I pose at the end of each chapter now at nine fifty eight the world uh south tower the world trade center collapsed and I can remember watching it on these big screens that were in the DDO shack and I was mesmerized it was I realized what was happening in real time could change the world and I don't know how many seconds or minutes

56:24just in short I was watching this um fixated on it now like every unlike everybody else in the national military command center I didn't have a job everybody else had specific duties to my only job was to be with General Myers as his exact and when I turned around from the television screens he was gone and it's the only time during the day that I panicked um I couldn't imagine where he was I screamed out of the DDO shack through the NMCC out into the main quarters of Pentagon the the evacuation siren and recording was still blaring it's just so annoying it just filled with this accurate smoke I ran to our office and I something's if I hadn't taken notes I wouldn't remember but some things I remember I remember standing in the center of our office it was empty and I thought where is he and then it hit me rumsfeld he must have been looking for

57:25secretary rumsfeld so I ran up the staircase outside our door and he was General Myers is coming out of secretary rumsfeld's office and um he said he's not here I said sir we've got to get back to the NMCC there's nobody in charge so we jogged back down the NMCC and now the fog of war was was hitting us again these false reports of a bomb blast at the state department and I should mention that you know this is a command and control issue also is that your talk your operation center so to speak is there on the Pentagon but the Pentagon has come under attack and that has to be pulling everyone in two directions as well yeah I'm gonna talk about that in a second that's really really strategic point um secretary rumsfeld came into the NMCC about that he had initially rushed out to look at the damage to the Pentagon it was an iconic picture of him it's a great book by guy named graph called the only plane in the sky and there's a picture of

58:28rumsfeld carrying a stretcher out of the burning Pentagon very dramatic just like that fighter pilot wanted to lead from the front and the firefighters you know he wanted to be there but for 30 minutes he was out of communication our secretary of defense a member of the national built or the military chain of command could not be reached his security detail you know what they're here pieces could hear people calling for them but the communication systems were overwhelmed and no one could hear their replies um I remember he described the fiery scene and what had happened but he was calm and cool as everyone was um and we got down to business we general mires updated him on the rules of engagement and he called vice president chainy and um I got to work for vice president chainy after this I met the Pentagon after a year and a half

59:31and um I asked the vice president what had happened that day because I had seen the other half of it and he told me about the confusion the rule I actually he told me about the rules of engagement and knowing what I knew about the rules of engagement we issued I finally put two to gather and understood you know they were talking past the right right he said when um the secret service got that call from the FAA his protected detail burst into his office reached behind and picked him up by his belt and have carried him down to the P.O.C the presidential emergency operations center you with him the White House yes okay and and president bush was in the air I believe right president bush was in Florida when the first plane hit so they they pretty much carried him down to the bunker underneath the White House um and um now uh president bush is getting very frustrated um we had all these assumptions that Air Force One is the flying White House

1:00:32but the communication links were not as good as they could have been he couldn't get television reception um so he landed initially at an Air Force base in Louisiana and then they decided the safest place to go smartest place would be um off at Air Force Base our strategic command headquarters there they've got great communications and they've got an underground bunker it's in the center of the country far from any overseas threat so when he landed president bush asked to speak to key leaders in Washington so um we had to leave the DDO shack and go to a skiff a sensitive compartment information facility which for your your view is simply a um subproof room and um it's just big enough for six or seven people but it's part of the N.M.C.C. okay architecture it's just not in the DDO shack so when we walked out that haze of smoke is still there there's our sailors soldiers airman marine still at work so proud of them um it was secretary rumsfeld general mires um the

1:01:36chief council of the department of defense uh Tory Clark the spokesperson for the defense department my counterpart vice admiral edgie and bastiani who was the military assistant to secretary rumsfeld and i remember closing the door to the skiff which is about this thick and sealing it and um i got in the back of the room next to the admiral and um it was a remarkable um conversation with the president president bush came on he was at his best and i remember his exact words were i want everyone who could hear my voice on this call to know that no faceless thugs will hold our country at bay i want you to find out who did this i want you to track them down and i want you to destroy them because we assumed there was a summer ben line but we weren't sure now someone on the conference call outside the Pentagon said well fuck ben lad and president bush came right back on he said now wait a minute first get the facts second clean up your language

1:02:40and that's exactly what happened it broke the tension on the call the bushes instincts were and perfect and you know we all cracked a smile and chuckled but as the phone call went on i got sick i thought i was going to pass out and my head was foggy and and i had a headache and to make things worse admiral g and bastiani was just yapping in my ear and i just thought i could remember thinking well you please shut up finally grabbed my arm he said colonel colonel he says you don't understand i'm a summer encampment there's no oxygen in this room it's filled with carbon dioxide and i said are you sick he said yeah he said come with me so we skirted around the table we got out of the room he said look we got to get to an alternate command site he said let's go to the navy get everybody out we'll go to the navy operation center i said admiral that's where the plane hit and they lost everybody

1:03:43all the navy casualties that day were from the navy operation center i said sir i've been on the phone several times with the army op center it's in the basement he said okay we better make sure we could get there i'm gonna do a recon he said and i want you to go find an air monitor and see how bad the air quality is so he takes off and i'm standing there thinking an air monitor air monitors and some rains but where am i gonna find an air monitor in the pentagon so i did what every good infantry colonel would do call for my captain captain donna you go find an air monitor and christianna you look at me and didn't ask what's an air monitor where can i find one do it he said yes sir and took off few minutes later the admiral comes back shaking his head he said were trapped they're trapped in the basement the quarters are blanketed with the thickest black smoke you can imagine you know jet fuel yeah and the burning of things inside the pentagon yep yep

1:04:47so we turned around and here comes cap donnie who with the our leechs and county fire department air quality expert he not only found an air quality he's pretty good the guy could use it and so he said him to work the firefighter came back and said look in the other portions of this command center you're at 33% oxygen but in that little somprue for him you're at 16% you can't survive at 13% you need to leave so he said also you know i remember he said the the corridors are filled with karma and monoxide that carbon dioxide which is what we were suffering from carbon monoxide and heavy metals right so we were in danger now again the fog of war the fire chief the incident commander the deputy fire chief of virlington county had been told the pentagon was evacuated completely of anybody alive so with the fires raging and they would burn for three days he shut down the air handling units we didn't know that so the admiral and i went back in a skiff

1:05:48and interrupted secretary rumsfeld and general mires and said sir the air quality is bad they will fire department told us we need to evacuate and general mires like a good troop commander you know said we probably got up to 20 people in here mr secretary they're not going to leave until you do and rumsfeld shook his head and said we cannot leave this is the symbol of america's military power we have got to stay and then he looked at the admiral and me said you to get the word out tomorrow is a workday at the pentagon everybody reports for duty as normal at eight thirty wow a fire chief knew the fire was not going to be out yeah yeah the next day and the FBI considered the whole building the crimes and yeah but rumsfeld would not be denied so the admiral said sir we've got an alternate place in in osd office of secretary defense we can move there we still got comms we need to get out of this room so something significant happens here

1:06:52so we're leaving the skiff and the six of us are walking through the nmcc and rumsfeld stops us in our tracks whatever we thought of yet what can the enemy do next and general mires said nbc nuclear biological chemical attack in the order to see brith units down camp was you to be preposition outside of new york and washington so at the end of this chapter right you know i talk about a leader's instincts you can't we were getting lethargic maybe it was from the carbon dioxide lack of oxygen but we are sleepwalking and rumsfeld had the sense to wake us up now you can't write that in an s op you get to this point shout out something it's just what a leader instinctively knows has to be done and so i asked people of leaders to to think about that and talk that away so um we went to a different part of the command center and

1:07:56secretary says we need to raise our alert level we raised our force protection level already but he said we need to go to defcon 3 which is a dramatic decision and some historians have questioned the wisdom of it because that put all of our that was done to put our air defenses unlike full or yes but when you go to defcon 3 it also alerts our nuclear forces yes and the Russians were conducting drills in the in the barring c area near Alaska which made things a little dicey the Russians did agree to stop i should point that out but another interesting thing here because someone just as you said you know what has to be decided by the president the general counsel for the defense department um Jim Haines said whoa whoa whoa i don't know if you have the authority to do it and this is the days before digitization and smartphones and so uh kernel in the command center

1:08:56picked out um a three-ring binder and flipped through it and it was all there and said Mr. Secretary you have the authority to raise the defcon level and he did and that put it all of our military forces around the world at a higher level um about four p.m um we went outside to look at the crash site and i could remember my heart beating um just thinking about what i was going to see when i rounded that last corner and when i came around the corner the first thing as i was at the brieffield just someone said it was like confetti it was just bits and pieces of american airlines flight 707 on the ground um just one big piece i could see arrested shreds and were you guys aware um flight 93 by this point uh yeah gone down in pennsylvania and i don't know if there's ever been like an official weighing in on it but i mean we suspect that they were headed to the white house right

1:09:58i don't think anybody knows i feel everybody agrees it was headed to Washington that's a great question jack um two things i want to point out first um around 10 a.m the there was an alert that went out from the f.a. i know an aircraft approaching five miles from Washington so when that alert went out because of white 93 um the incident commander chief shwarts pulled all of his first responders out of the building to get him away from the Pentagon in a group of soldier sailors airmen and marines who had left the Pentagon watch this and they were indignant and said we're going in and uh they got together and started marching to get back in the building and rescue their comrades if the firefighters weren't going to do it they were going to do it the firefighters stopped them um it's a great quote from one of them i've seen a video of it

1:11:01said there's no place for you in there you don't know what's in there you're not equipped you're not trained you will be a victim in minutes um so now this is stand on and i call it the clash of cultures you know here are soldiers they're used to taking orders from authority and the firefighters are clearly in the authority um in this in this situation but these are young men and women trained with the ethos of never leaving anybody behind risk taking um and um they were going to cut wind and then finally you know the the the alert kept coming airplane approaching airplane approaching and everybody realized they need to get back but those were blips on radar from the helicopters part of the cog the continuity of government plan the COG and they were coming in to ferry key leaders from Washington to alternate command sites right right for the Pentagon its site are well outside the beltway was it where's it raven rock yeah so raven rock and um so

1:12:10a lot's been written about this first um it it worked the way it was planned in terms of the launch Steve Hadley was a deputy national security advisor um triggered the cog um the helicopters who coming out of Andrews maybe also out of Fort Belvoir they all had the routes tragically one of those routes that was practiced was the uh that 2024 helicopter um that hit that commercial airlock yeah i'm yeah i caught that hit that airliner coming in to a Reagan national airport in 2024 but that's what they were rehearsing and um the thing that that didn't go according to plan and i didn't say didn't work because i have a different different opinion about this than some people is none of the key principles wanted to leave right anyone in the chain of presidential succession who did was Dennis Hastert who was then speaker of the house he got on a helicopter and went to the where the house has their alternate command site and um everybody else um refused to leave in the

1:13:16center deputies there is a great quote from rumsfeld's autobiography knowns and unknowns Paul Wolfowitz's deputy defense secretary comes in and i remember him walking in i could see it clearly he said you know mr secretary you're supposed to leave and go to cedar and he said i'm not going to cedar that's what deputies are for you're going to cedar and he put on the helicopter to go out there um so um there's a reporter who bemoans the fact um he wrote a great book called on that day really good book um said you know we failed in that regard but i i think leaders made the right decision rumsfeld and hindsight you know it's easier to say airplane could hit the pentagonal we could have lost rumsfeld as well but um but the comms aren't as good you're everything's better inside Washington so it seemed at the point that he made a decision so let me take you back outside

1:14:17yeah please um doctor john backster us air force colonel um and physician whose general mires physician and mine came up and described the triage his team had been providing and it was remarkable um and i remember very well he described the horrible burns of a woman whose hands and face were were severely burned and the pumptu with morphine put her on the helicopter and took they took her to the Washington burn center i couldn't know it at the time of course but um four days later my mom and dad called me from upstate new york and that was my high school classmate whoa Louise Rogers and um the tragedy is not only of course her injuries but it was her first day working in the pentagon she just got a new job as a civilian working in um HR and they were listening to the radio with her her office mate when the plane hit um she survived um

1:15:19you know life changing wounds um my wife edie and i visited her at the burn center just a strong woman and she's living in upstate new york again um but um just a reminder if this is not just you know tragedy for a nation tragedy on such a individual human scale the fire chief and the um chief of security came up to us and i remember being shocked that the windows on either side of this deep gash which are still smoking um we're still intact and the security chief john jester said you know we were very lucky mr secretary because either the five wedges is the pentagon this is the only wedge that had been remodeled the other four are slated for remodeling um but because of that you could see through the wreckage there are steel girders there are no steel girders on the other four sections they held for 32 minutes and allow many people to escape um but every action

1:16:22has its unintended consequences those were reinforced ballistic glass windows this thick um you know i actually have a piece um that uh tell you how i got it from the embassy actually we replaced our embassy glass it's about eight inches thick and um they saved untold damage to brief flying but because those windows held in place that kinetic energy was trapped so all that explosive force shot towards the outside bounced off those ballistic windows and back inside the pentagon and they raced as fireballs through the corridors and the passageways of the pentagon um the firefighters arrived and they could not break the windows to rest people the uh the smoke and the heat uh we went back inside and there was a major army major bloody uniform banched you know armidestling and he described the the blackness um and trying to

1:17:26help people escape and the souls of his shoes it started to melt that fire was so intense now about this time my counterpart general Hugh Shelton the chairman's exec called um we had served together before i knew him well dug loot um army currently at the time retards the three star like me became the United States ambassador um he was our ambassador to NATO so we've got quite a history and he called from general Shelton's airplane still over the Atlantic Ocean he said that we finally got permission to come back to Washington i said well i thought you'd be here by now he said it's just everything's closed all the airspace he said where do you want general Shelton to go so i saw runs fell in my ears conversing and i interrupted them i said sir i've got general Shelton's exec on the phone where do you want him to go he's coming back to Washington and they turned to me and in unison said cydar he said cydar he said cydar he said doug cydar

1:18:33that was very cheap as i said he said cydar i said yes sir and i hung up and i knew general Shelton would not be happy he's gonna hit the roof um he stole the chairman they joined Jesus staff for 19 days um he's a warhorse but it raises an interesting question you know where do you want everybody to be you got rumsfeld and Myers there Myers had been in charge all morning he had the continuity of what was happening more importantly he had been a norad commander until recently and he understood the air defense scenario better than anybody watching too and in 19 days you'd be the next chairman um on the other hand you want Shelton Myers and rumsfeld there at the same time or you displace Myers's side on him is a tough decision as i understand continuity of government it was it can be used for different things as it was on 9-11 it could be used you know when there's a pandemic for instance but it was designed really to keep the united states government functional during a nuclear exchange um but this wasn't that

1:19:37right so america was under attack but to take all those key leaders and to sequester sequester them in cydar i think would have been a huge well take and we of course we have the benefit of high side we are um in my book i could tell you the exact time but um at one point general Myers turned to me and and said matt call um off at air force based strategic command and have them launched the neoc the the national airborne operation center that's the big the doomsday plan that's what they call yeah he did stay playing and um there's more than one and one was sitting in and was air force base and was launched why um we didn't know what would happen at that point in the morning but there's also in addition to cod the cog the continuity of government plan there's the coup the continuity of operations plan that every federal agency has for emergencies and crises below um uh extensual threat to the nation right so the coup plan is is a different very similar

1:20:44in some ways but different but yes the cog is part of that survival of the nation plan very much so so um things are starting to quite down around six or so as i remember and the adrenaline starting to fade and there's still you know a little buzz in the national military command center i look up and they're standing in the door is general huge shelter he did not go to cydar i know we've been waiting and talk about leadership again so when a leader walks into room the chemistry should change the whole dynamic um and for an awkward few set in seconds shelton standing there because nobody sees him so my best command voice i said gentlemen the chairman of the joycheeza staff and everybody turns around and looks at me like what are you talking about you stand next to my ears fires have been in charge all morning and then general shelton strode in the room that big

1:21:48iron jaw set there's this look of reproach even anger on his face and i remember he looked the whole room is just silent standing in attention and he went to vice admiral tom wilson who is the director of the defense intelligence agency said tom did we have any squeaks on this at all and admiral wilson who interestingly was on navy hill for those familiar with navy hill at the time it's been demolished now but um it sits above the pentagon or did and in his office up there he watched flight 77 plow into the pentagon that's an aside so admiral wilson said general you know we did have some reports of some suspicious possible bad guys taking jumbo jet training a few months ago honey so we had bits and pieces i think there's an FBI agent a moment who peace this together and

1:22:49tried to get the attention of people but you know we had failed so um president bush after kind of leesa rice and vice president chanee saying please mr president don't come back to washington yet said i'm coming and um landed um i think before seven pm and andrews air force base and was going to make an address to the nation at eight thirty pm so um general shelton and secretary rumsfeld uh went to the white house for that event and before he left general shelton told general mires when i get back i want the directors of the joint staff um to gather in my office or not my office in our conference room we're going to have meeting uh directors are joint staff are three stars um plus the vice chairman is four star and uh i think we all remember bits and pieces of president bushes um uh addressed to the world not just the nation general shelton came

1:23:54back and uh going back to that chapter in the book and the leadership saw observations i made jack everything changed it's just remarkable that's what you was leader must do when you're the leader when he walked into that room at about ten p.m um the whole dynamic changed you don't want to go to see with a ship captain is afraid of rough waters or flying an airplane with a pilot is afraid of turbulence and you don't want to go to war with someone who's not ready to fight and shelton was ready for a fight he was positive he was brimming with confidence he said we're going to war and this is not going to be any pinpricks and we were just just to turn around as it's just turned everything around from being on our heels back heels from right feeling helpless that's the day and he came back and we were ready to look to the future and take the initiative

1:24:57so you know we met for a couple hours um after that it was around midnight general mires and i went back to the office he sat down at his desk and he said we got a big day ahead of us he said let's go home so eating i and i haven't talked about eating i should do that we lived in our leton virginia at the time just a few minutes for the pentagon our son was in middle school um and the students had been told that the pentagon was under attack and he had images of terrorists with machine guns roaming the quarters of the pentagon uh and wasn't sure what had happened but panic parents in the area where picking kids up heady is a retired army nurse she's knows her way around the army she thought when she heard the news on the radio i'll go to fort mire next to the pentagon where general mires had his quarters because she's good friends with

1:25:59marijole mires his wife and she would get the best information but unlike the friendly military police at the gates they were bristling with armed weapons and they were geared up and when she said she wanted to go to vice chairman's house and she showed her ID card they just put over there and they were very tense and suspicious and she said i think i should leave so she went to her son's middle school and when he saw eddie in the hallway our son you know thought the worst so i talked a lot in the book about you know we didn't you called your wife by this point yes obvious question you know when that after the world trade centers were hit i called her and said turn on the news i don't have time to talk but marry turner um our scheduler got on one of the hill copters to cedar and um had the good sense to call everybody on her staff including Mrs. Myers and and eddie and so she knew we were safe so when i got home around midnight you know the house was dark but i opened the door and eddie

1:27:03was standing right there we just embraced and she said you stink of smoke so next morning it's just remarkable i i got there you know in the book jack i described a typical day on the joint staff at least for high level staff you know i was in my desk at my seat at 5.15 every day not driving to work not getting coffee you know i was going through the message traffic from overnight arranging desk for general Myers with all the key cables he arrived at 6.15 um he we went through the traffic talked about the data comm 6.30 the cia briefer arrived with the president's daily brief the pdb same briefing given in the office that lasted for 30 minutes at 7 a.m the directors of the joint staff came to the conference room we had an hour meeting with the joint staff directors at 8 a.m. secretary rumsfeld met with the vice chairman and chairman

1:28:05for an hour so by 9 a.m. there's an old army recruiting tv commercial said by 9 a.m. you've done more as a soldier than most people do an entire date which was absolutely true but when i was sitting at my desk at 5.15 two teams of high jackers were leaving their motel rooms one in loral marlin and one in hernett vrgina and they were driving to vellis airport and when general Myers was going at 8.15 to capital hill they were boarding flight 77 so i described in the in the book i just juxtapose the high jackers and what we were doing it those different points the day and then so the next morning when i got there i got there at a little before five and you know it's less than 24 hours and there were no police bearcage no yellow tape just a black corridor and i started walking down the corridor and it got blacker and blacker and

1:29:09blacker and and have a light and it just spooked me fine it couldn't go any farther it couldn't see it was wet and i just knew there were probably my comrades down there and went back to the office uh general Myers came early at 8.30 like everybody was supposed to they wouldn't allow anybody park to park in the pentagon parking lot so all the pentagon employees parked downtown and came over the the Potomac river bridges this great story and um and i'm going to tie this all together now two vignettes um first uh as i think was the day after maybe it was two days after we got all these maps out of afghanistan and we were talking about basing rights and with the the j5 um general john adizade and the j3 and vice chairman and uh somebody said well you know kirkistan and uh it was

1:30:19back a stand and i knew about pakistan and i knew about afghanistan and i i knew very little about central azia this five stands and there's this 500 mile border with Turkmenistan so i naively said well gee what what about Turkmenistan and general adizade looked at me and said you fuck a crazy man that place is an enigma he said it's it's run by this egomaniac whose statue rotates with the sun made of gold and it's where no way we're going to go there and that's the first time i ever heard a Turkmenistan 18 years later i was the ambassador um so that's one way of wrapping this up um that's three ways the second is my wife eatie or not only retired major in the army but she was a community health nurse and um so dealt with army families on a one-to-one basis and she volunteered to work for lieutenant general john van alstein who was a remarkable leader um and they

1:31:24set up um banks of phones and meeting rooms to um welcome to to help the families of those who lost um their loved ones in the pentagon attack and eatie worked phone banks and met with people and um you know it was a tough tough duty but she was well equipped to do it and really proud of her and then the final story so to bring this all full circle um i was the ambassador to Turkmenistan in 2021 when cobble fell and uh it was testimony to my staff the embassy staff the diplomats and our defense attache team that uh we had built a relationship with Turkmenistan it changed a lot in 18 years so when the planes were evacuating people um out of cobble i went to the foreign

1:32:28minister on a sunday afternoon and said can we get landing rights and overflight rights and refueling rights and the ability to translate people um so the planes could leave fully loaded and refuel and cross-load people inside Turkmenistan and without hesitation um the relationship i had with them was so good he said yes no publicity um why don't you quiet but um yes you can do it you know it's a crisis um the the remarkable thing is you know i sent my defense attache team my political officer out to this little airport near the afghan border actually is a brand new airport um for civilian use and um they allowed us to set up there and uh we were able to do the things that we asked to do and um we're really proud of the team the last flight i recoupled of courses all chaos and the commanding general of the 82nd airport division was famously the last man to

1:33:32get on that plane made your general leader to become forced our general christina you was your captain in the pentagonist not you who is there at the beginning of this who uh fetched general mires who found the air quality expert um to give us readings in the skiff is there at the beginning is there at the end and i mean what was it like in the subsequent like weeks and months at the pentagon after the attack for you i write about that to check because you know i write about in the spirit of of being a resilient army family and and now having brought in my experience 20 years as a diplomat 30 years as a soldier resilient diplomatic families to um our diplomats overseas face challenges and dangers that most people associate only with the military um after 9-11 um anthrax remember we

1:34:34were yep people in washington were not only receiving anthrax in the mail they were dying from it people forget people died um and then there were the um the washington snipers oh yeah the lvc snipers dc snipers so um i remember we had a vokestwagen camper van pop up which we still had it remarkable vehicle and then at that time 300 dollars seemed like a lot of money and i so we put 300 dollars in the van and kept the van gassed up at all times and i told eddy something bad happens don't wait grab daniel from school and head to tenisee where you know her family sprung and um get safe second thing that happened was um general miers had been the pacific air force commanders of four star and they invited him back on that dramatic day of um seven december to commemorate pearl harbour day and then we got on a us air force g5

1:35:39gall string five corporate jet and we're flying out to hawaii so he could deliver that speech he was then the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and uh we're over the pacific ocean and um flight crew came back and said uh hey colonel k you got a you got a phone call from washington and i picked up the phone and the bulkhead and it was uh general john abbasade who would become from the j5 the director of the joint staff he became commander over became four star sencom commander um and i had served with him before too army general mat and he saw the real cheery just not good and i said yes sir right back at you he said listen i don't want you to worry about anything but god we tested all the post post office boxes in the pentagon post office for anthrax and yours came up positive

1:36:39and i said he said don't worry he says we got a doctor waiting for you at hickum air force base and hawaii he's gonna give you a sipro and we get you all pumped up and it's gonna be okay and i said general i'm not worried about me my son daniel we kept them out of school this morning he's he's running a fever he's probably got anthrax can you call my wife he said i take care everything so you know parents worst nightmare your kids sick maybe in danger this is actually a genetic from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass.com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen i may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and i'm thinking this is exactly what i needed so just go to resort pass.com

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1:39:51is just how afraid everyone was at that moment in American history and I don't think people today who didn't live through it really understand what that feeling was like I remember the gratitude of people in Los Angeles had when that right after shortly after General Myers has sworn in and the public affairs people made a plan for him to travel around America I guess you could say to rally support not that it needed to be done but the I think I should remember the venue but there's a there's like a world council people interested in international affairs and just humidity spirited people have guest speakers come in and he we flew out to Los Angeles he gave a speech there but what I remember was how much gratitude they expressed because they felt kind of left out being so far from New York right Washington right but you know to go to your point the whole country

1:40:53was affected by this and they didn't want to be forgotten they didn't want their emotions to be ignored and of course now people talk about you know how the country came together and somebody said you know is that still possible is today I say absolutely yes you know the right not because of tragedy alone I mean that could happen the the right leaders the right moments the right vision you know I say said right at the beginning of our talk you know the child is 60's not that I look like a child anymore you just have a full head of hair I 9-11 you could find pictures of me you all recognize me full head of hair um but uh yeah I just believe in this country and our ethos and our in our values one of the great things about being in the United States ambassador is every 4th of July you host them big party you can host and you just we had 400 people at our 4th of July events

1:41:55my five years there except for COVID and boy I just love talking about the declaration of independence and we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and means something in a country like Turkmenistan they had they're not in Islamic Republic they're not in a dictatorship but it's an authoritarian and all those hidden messages and the declaration of independence they understand they get it they want it and um just makes me so proud to be an American and uh so the more we talk about those values and things I think greater opportunity we have to um to be the nation that still is that beacon on hill how long after 9-11 did you retire from the military I had a great opportunity um I was General Myers exec for the first year the war on terror we were yeah traveled extensively I've been mentioning name dropping uh generals um I just wrote a letter

1:43:02and sent a copy of my book to General Buster Hagenbeck who commanded the 10th Infantry Division the first full division in Afghanistan I think they got there in 2001 maybe two early 2002 the General Myers and I went visit in my I was a battalion commander under him when he was a brigade commander and I wanted him to have my book and uh so we you know I had these experiences of we went to Afghanistan 2001 2002 um traveled all around the region and what didn't completely click with me because even though you're the chairman's exec you don't know everything as we we started to make visits in the region um and preparation for the invasion of Iraq and um uh you almost always General Myers would have made in meetings if I post in meetings with heads of state taking notes and um a couple meetings just one on one and that's what it was

1:44:05about we started to lay the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq and then in the summer of 2003 um I'm sorry yeah summer of 2002 General Myers said you know you you've been going almost 24-7 for a long time uh just had a meeting with the vice president and he's looking for somebody to set up a homeland security section within the office of the vice president and um I think you be perfect for it you're interested in um national security verse he's looking for some one of your credentials so I was detailed as a colonel wearing civilian clothes every day to work for vice president chanie which was absolutely stunning remarkable experience and this was part of standing up dhs good question jack I I can't say with certainly I and vice president chanie's died um and out remember if it's in his memoir um but it was pretty clear me he was not in favor of

1:45:09the stabbleshane the department of homelands interesting I'm almost I'm much more than 50% sure that he was not in favor of it but that's what you know the powers to be to include his boss the president wanted and when the decision was made like a good soldier um not that he was one but um he said okay you know that's what we're gonna do and um so he wanted a little cell there were three of us um to work homelands security issues um because he had um ambassador Eric Adelman who's a friend of mine and later uh ambassador toria newland as his national security advisors um we were his homelands security advisors but we didn't participate in particularly in standing up dhs but I worked on two very significant projects which with a privilege of a lifetime at that point um one we had no kid in very credible um not rumors there was gonna be a terrorist attack on

1:46:15subway system in new york and um he called me in vice president called me and said I want to know everything you could tell me about on shenrykyo and the the japanese cold yes the attack on the japanese subway system that took place and forgot what year yeah 1990s so there's it for those of you who've never had the honor of serving in the white house the is an hour executive office building that chase it to it as a beautiful library um just most beautiful library you could imagine and I went to the library and there and said I got a project for the VP and I need to know everything I could possibly know about um the ancient rickio attack on subway system and you know they did all the gathering of all the this research and um next thing I know I'm getting the tour of the the subway system with the chief of um uh subway police uh then what is the metro no not the metro

1:47:15we have the mta here in new york yeah um the new jersey new york um the port authority yeah yeah and um the washington metro system I got a tour of that now it's just brief the vice president um and uh that was just really really neat and they they got word of a pending alcada attack plan to attack obviously didn't happen yeah and I can't tell you you know white didn't or if we shut down that cell or what I really didn't know but um that was one of the projects I worked on um the second one was really interesting was uh if you remember during this time two essay sevens were launched at a commercial airliner in africa it was a 1977 rodigia well no this was um current you know a current 21st century um they launched two missiles they missed because they didn't super

1:48:18elevator it did super elevate it was a Israeli charter jet seven thirty seven and um so so the they stood up a task force in uh Washington and um the vice president said you know you're my rep on that task force you could speak for me this is a leadership lesson and I learned this when I joined the vice president staff when I left that meeting my my comrades the colleagues came up and said you're everybody said I said what do you say what do you say you said you could speak for me you don't use your boss's name unless you tell you don't say the vice president wants me to do this gotta get out of jail free card from my dick chaining yeah that's BS you well you you use your your own with skill discretion yeah influence and you never use the bosses yeah yeah unless he says you can did you have to pull that out I didn't even realize he said that to my colleague said

1:49:19yeah this is that's a big deal he doesn't say that often um so um there's another leadership lesson I had no idea it was gonna tell this story but you're good at drawing stories out of people so in what to the task force meeting and this is interagency and there must have been 60-70 people in the room and I don't want to cast this dispersions on anybody in particular I don't even know this woman's name and it's a long time ago and the agency's a famous one and they've they've changed radically since then I hope for the better I think so but this is a lesson about bureaucracies and how we are locked in our lanes right so the meeting started I don't remember who chaired the meeting probably it had to be someone from the national security council on the president's staff and I'm sitting in the room with 50-60 other people and just as the meeting started some woman jumps up and she says in a very indignant voice my name is

1:50:22Jane Doe I'm from the FBI that stands for the federal bureau of investigation we investigate things we don't prevent things I don't know what anybody else thought in the room this is a year a year and a half after 9-11 and she's for all intents and purposes said we're not in the prevention of a 9-11 I'm pretty sure FBI is in the anti terrorism business it was just stunning but you know it's just we get locked into these things yeah the third thing that I didn't realize was significant until I came back my my colleagues from the White House after I retired from the army and started working in the state department inviting me over to the White House mess and they said you know you've got a lasting legacy and and I didn't realize and he said here's what it is you put that matrix together for the vice president and what I did was I looked at every major city Chicago LA Denver New York you name it and what

1:51:28equipment NBC equipment they had in first responder vehicles what's in the trunk of police cars what's in the fire engines and of course there's all Denver because they're local and we then we we met with the experts on what would you want a typical fire engine police car ambulance to carry can't carry everything right right and and then we funded that vice president went to Congress and got the funding for it and so something tangible happened from something that did in Washington those things actually ended up in the cars and trucks of first responders well what were the what kind of equipment did you like a protective man hi yeah I'm sure it was detectors detection yeah I really don't remember but yes so tell us about retiring from the military and moving into diplomacy yeah um I guess it goes to another leadership lesson half for junior

1:52:31officers and young leaders um lifetime goals you know I wrote down at a young age that I wanted to go to Washington work at a policy arena that's how I ended up going to that um war college fellowship instead of a regular war college slot um but uh you know when you travel with the secretary of state born Christopher for a year mad on all bright it's not just a secretary state she was a secretary you do that for three years boy that you know that diplomacy bugged despite you and uh and I learned as much from General Myers as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as I did from the secretary's uh he is a statesman not just a chairman um I I had the privilege in three years with the secretary's one year with General Myers's chairman and another year when he was vice chairman really five years of sitting in this close to heads of state kings prime ministers

1:53:35countless foreign ministers so I felt I was well equipped um to become a diplomat and I knew my army career wasn't gonna last forever and I was in a sit room working for vice president chaining the situation room in the White House and Warren Christopher's former chief of staff moral heart he was there and best of her hearty um was the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs and she said mad I haven't seen you in years what do you do in that she said listen you got a retire from the army at some point I got a job for you um you have to qualify for it's it's in the senior executive service but I know you'll qualify so why don't you apply and then well rigour morole and it's not easy and you go through it but so yeah that's how I ended up there as a biggest it was the biggest uh is the biggest bureau in the department of state that was the executive director for consular affairs and it was a significant job at that point because

1:54:36that's when we were going to um change our entire visa system um to biometric passports biometric visas um different criteria for taking fingerprints at the visa line um so I was there to oversee all of that and then but I wanted to be an ambassador and I had goals and I don't know you'd never know how you're gonna reach a goal if you're foolish you can try to map it out I just know that often a distance when opportunities arose um you know I would avail myself and here's a big difference Jack you've been in the army and then no self-respecting army officer would would openly campaign to be a brigade commander or a division commander I mean okay yes you know you maybe drop a hand or but it it just beyond the pale um but at the state department and I admire this I want to make it very clear but you got to ask

1:55:40you got a campaign you got to put yourself out there they want to see you want it yeah you know army command positions are centrally selected you don't ask for it they just put your name in the hopper and then the board meets in Washington and they look at everybody's file and they want to went down and they draw the line and everybody above that line gets selected in the state department you can't even know what diplomatic positions are open unless you ask for the list usually about 30 embassies are coming open every cycle um and so you and have to have enough courage to say can I see the list of ambassadorships that are coming open in this cycle and I got the list at about 30 now try to make this short because it took me three tries and my dear wife said you're not gonna try a third time I said yeah I want to do this um and I saw a couple countries I thought it really this will qualify and um so then you knock on doors you see every assistant secretary

1:56:40I saw every under secretary is willing to meet with me and I made an appointment to meet with the deputy secretary and I attribute is to my army training that to me personally but when I was done the number two person deputy cabinet secretary um she said that's the best interview I have ever had with anybody for any job and it's just army training of you know being ready for any question that comes anticipating um being open and honest having EQ emotional intelligence reading body language and people and then when you don't get the question you want being able to kind of twist it too you get to your points in um so this is a great story uh and I had a like under secretary is kind of my champion and he said looks good looks good and I was working on a secret project involving uh Karina Peninsula and I had to give us a briefing

1:57:41and a military headquarters in Hawaii so I flew out to Honolulu I was feeling pretty good about everything and um I was the first briefer in this conference we were having I forgot which which of the outposts our army posts we're doing this ad I didn't know Hawaii very well I've been there a few times but I had GPS in my car and uh got up in the morning looked at my phone and then call Washington call the under secretary where are you call me now it has oh my god I picked up the phone and it's the under secretary and he said the deputies committee is going to meet in two hours you're hanging by a thread you need two more ambassadors or former ambassadors to weigh in on your behalf so I get in the car and I got the GPS sent and I'm driving and I'm calling people in Washington I find two ambassadors and can you call you know the deputy secretary get out of the

1:58:41briefing and I look at my phone and my under secretary said done exclamation point and I thought oh yeah so I was slated to go to a small African country and then which is fine I'm not here I wanted to be capped on the my ship and don't forget to ask me about that um I wanted to to lead and then to be out there in the front lines in the field so when I got back to Washington under secretary said you don't want to go that little country you could go here you could go here you could go to Turkmenistan you could go here and I said Turkmenistan 700 mile border with Iran 500 mile border with Afghanistan and where we're fighting warmer Soviet Republic wow but I don't speak Russian and the Russian speakers will elbow me out and then I'll be left with nothing I'm happy just leave it alone I'm happy going in Africa two weeks later after I've been studying Portuguese you're going to Turkmenistan and so I was just

1:59:50thrilled beyond belief country with that kind of geographic significance and of course everybody you know there was a British adventure tourist writer adventure tourism was big for a while and he went to Turkmenistan and wrote about it and said it's a cross between North Korea and Las Vegas because it's a white marble city all white cars all white buildings but at night because it's all white marble it's a light show everything's lit up with neon and colored lights and laser beams and it's it's like Las Vegas it's just lights up the desert so in addition to that and the geographical location tell us about Turkmenistan and how our relationship evolved with them from when you first heard about the country yeah and it sounded like it was on 9-11 or close to it to what 18 years later when you're the ambassador it's when official visitors come to Washington or

2:00:54came from Washington the first thing I would say is Turkmenistan will surprise you almost always in a positive way why well first of all it's an Atlantic Manic and it is a very close country relative to other countries but as I immediately are right in them this is not North Korea and I resent people who try to characterize it like that they don't make bombs they don't threaten their neighbors they're a neutral country by constitution and they walk that talk they really practice it to the extent that it's to my advantage and disadvantage it's to my advantage is the American ambassador because as a former Soviet republic Putin wants to draw the man but they have a legitimate reason to say or happy to cooperate but but yeah only this country here or a neutral country and you know I can very legitimately tell them it's you don't have to play to Russia all the time

2:01:56we're here too and by the way you're neutral so you have to play it you have to play fair right and they did it's positive neutrality that's what they call it because they want to be engaged they don't want to be a little Switzerland mining their own business they want to be a regional player in terms of conferences and talks and and to be at the table when central Asia is being discussed but they're not going to weigh in on the conflict and like Afghanistan or Iran or Ukraine or very hard to get them to make a political statement yeah but I'm gonna now come on thank you the uh I had a when I got there in 2019 um it was just it was a friendly relationship wasn't frosty at all um but it was just perfunctory and um I was just determined to to turn on the charm and

2:02:58to use what and I think people now maybe look cast aspersions out soft-forward but to use everything I had in my toolkit to to draw the men to look to the west American particular but to the west in general not just to the east geographically and politically because of their former Soviet ties that's where they naturally would look now this is the silk road they're natural entrepreneurs it's in their DNA I mean my wife Edie it created the woman's economic society up to Kmetistan started with seven women who wanted to trade their handicrafts or code and learned and through by time she left five years later two thousand members in all the provincial capitals because they're they're traders they're they're they're perfect for capitalism frankly um so I did a lot of work in an area I knew nothing about business relations and there's an American uh US

2:04:03Turkmenistan Business Council USTBC a guy named Eric Stewart runs out of uh Washington area and big companies are there Boeing general electric turbines just power that country all the Turkmenistan air fleet Boeing there's a jacknickels golf course there jacknickels has been there 17 times so big companies yes but I was drawing in smaller countries the companies it's the fourth largest gas natural gas reserves in the world and you know I can't pay in hard to get them to make more inroads to send natural gas to Europe rather than have the Europeans buying gas from Russia right and before Nord Stream 2 was blown up um that was important when Russia invaded Ukraine everything changed dramatically uh one of the things that I think it's fair to say Turkmenistan

2:05:06values um as much as neutrality is the ability and Ukraine starting a war not only with Europe in Europe but on the margins of uh Eurasia or part of Eurasia um was extremely um uncomfortable for the Turkmen stability that's what they're looking for um so there was no doubt in my mind they would hue towards being a stable I'm sorry in a reliable neutral country um but it was starting to shade towards the west um because they were uncomfortable with what Russia was doing when um you know there's a big celebration on the 9th of May to celebrate the end of World War II and um in the Soviet days was the biggest ceremony on red square you can imagine now all the former Soviet republics

2:06:10had soldiers who fought that war so in Asuka-Bak the capital of Turkmenistan on a hilltop there is the most amazingly beautiful um emotional tribute to those who lost their lives in the Great War and on the other side by the way is a beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives in the 1948 earthquake that devastated the capital city of Asuka-Bak tens of thousands of people oh my god so a 9 May all the diplomatic core lines up to lay wreaths and flowers and it's a somber occasion and it's dramatic and um in a lot of people who are diplomats don't realize it but most countries you line up by order of rank as diplomats and the rank is determined by how long you served in country so um the by chance the Russian ambassador had been there for well over 12 years on 9 May 2022

2:07:18and was therefore at the far right of this row of ambassadors and we're all holding bouquets of roses and um president pulls up or in a half months after the invasion of of Ukraine he walks by the dean of the diplomatic core the Russian ambassador and walks straight to the Ukrainian ambassador at racism I knew then that the world had changed in that part of the war it's it's really fascinating I think with those central Asian countries that because of where they are geographically they have to play the game with Russia to some extent but they're not at puppet states they're they're independent countries and they have a will of their own and um there's a great book called great games local rules by Alexander Kuhli wrote the book and he he makes the point in it that these countries in central Asia actually very shrewdly uh determine their own destiny and play

2:08:22Russia in America off against one another being a neutral country constitutionally um puts them in a much better spot than their neighbors um they because their neighbors like to say oh we don't want to pick sides but they could say it's in our constitution and um they mean it the other thing that happened um was that uh you know we we made these inroads inroads economically with American businesses um geopolitically you know I really think um the Europeans were were much more reluctant to deal with a country like to withstand with a very uh spotty than being generous uh human rights record um then we were and you know I had to be very careful not to reward them for bad behavior but I I found it frustrating when Washington wouldn't reward them for good behavior um there were 19 political prisoners um that were eventually released during

2:09:26my time as ambassador and the deputy foreign minister came up to me and said we're releasing them because of your insistence and um that's the kind of good diplomacy that we practice as Americans but you just can't use a stick um that you know my predecessors they tried to get those prisoners out um but I was trying to use both carrot and stick and then luckily I had leaders in Washington who granted me that leeway um and um so you know by time we left we you know we had made some real progress the signature signature um initiative for my wife ED and me dealt with women and um expanding their opportunities they it's not in Islam Republic they're not veiled you could wear blue jeans um but um women are definitely in a patriotic

2:10:28patriarchal society um women riding the back seat of a car um and um in general there's no rule no law but you know that's what's expected it just as as an example but by time we left we had made some real inroads and I had this thing about women driving licenses we had over 300 locally employed staff at the embassy and I found that um at some point there was something happened in the country and young women were no longer being able to pass their driving test we had a few women in the embassy had driving licenses but they had gotten them years earlier and now they were having trouble renewing them so I didn't that didn't sit well with me because and this is what I used as my excuse um some of the women could not get promoted in our embassy hierarchy without a driving license so I use that as leverage to to say yeah I'm not trying to tell you how to run your your business here

2:11:33in Afghanistan Army Turkmenistan and who could get a license I'm not trying to tell you how to you know treat women I'm just trying to get my women unequal footing so they could get the next promotion that's all it's about of course they knew what I was all about I was about women's rights and trying to get them um something that they deserved you take the test as a young man maybe four or five times you pass you take it as a woman we had women in the embassy took a 55 times that's great they couldn't be so you know I have a favorite saying a good diplomat never loses his or her temper unintentionally get it it's okay to lose your temper intentionally um so I went to the driving testing station with five of my embassy employees Turkmen women and we had practiced the test with them dozens of times and and then you know my American staff picked these five gals out and said you know they're ready and um first one came out and I said you passed

2:12:35she said now I knew I screwed up in the parallel parking second what came out and I'm not sure in third one came out she says I passed I passed I saw it I saw it but he changed it I want to talk to who's in charge here my god I raised a fit and come down come they called the foreign ministry the desk office in the American desk officer came flying down the road mr. ambassador please calm down please calm down I made a big scene and the next day the deputy foreign minister called me he said let's talk please give me a list tell me who you want to pass jeez he said mr. ambassador he says it's not culture you know it changes slowly give us time so I went to my deputy and we made a tactical error you know I was thinking we'll give her our best drivers and she's my deputy said let's give her we got 44 women let's give her my 44 aches

2:13:38nothing happened so a year went by and I kept beating the drum and and went to the foreign minister he perled his eyes he said I'm good friends with him I had a great relationship he says you really want to talk about riding license you know we're there's a whole list of things we need to talk about and I said I got back to the embassy and there was a note said give them a list and so this time we chose five women and then finished this story when I hit the five year mark my successor still hadn't been confirmed by the senate but I told everybody five years and took my stand so enough from my seven days it's time to retire and we had a fourth of July celebration you couldn't beat and that was my farewell as well and when we got back a week later we came after I left I got the sweetest note and photograph from one of the six women that were on the list

2:14:48I passed and on it was a handwritten note that I put in my personalized stationary tour saying you are a woman of courage you have never given up you have a big heart I know that whatever you do you will be successful in something like that picture that note in a picture of her driving sweetest thing hardly got do you feel like Turkmenistan is generally heading in a positive direction or is it backsliding in some ways oh I you know I've been gone for two years so you know I have to give you that caveat sure absolutely trajectory is definitely positive they're more engaged their economy is stronger than it has been we still get notes from entrepreneurs what I would like them to do is diversify more not only in different sectors but as I said mostly natural gas

2:15:50yes and textiles but the fourth natural a fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world should be going to Europe and what they need is a pipeline under the Caspian Azerbaijan is on the other side of that little of them a little of Turkmenistan but you know this excuse that we've heard for years that the Russians will stop it you know I don't think that holds anymore I think they really want to do they could do it there are other big their biggest sellers 80% of that natural gas goes to China and I think China views them as a good provider and they think China is a good supplier they're not in debt to China the debt trap you've heard so much about doesn't apply to them in Turkmenistan but you know I think diversify look to the west not just to the far east or to the near east and they do have a pipeline they're making to Harat with the plan to go to Pakistan and onto

2:16:53India it's happy interesting so can I travel there without diplomatic immunity glad you ask as I said before Turkmenistan will surprise you for anybody who's got an ounce of adventure in them go to Turkmenistan yes you could go but it is the but they welcome tour groups so if you want to go by yourself probably not going to get a visa but it's very simple to go online and find these tour groups and when you go in a tour group you're not constrained you know you can't go here you can't go there they'll set up first of all it's probably wise because the road network the transportation network is not set up for tourists and so you need that kind of help anyway unless you're the biggest adventurer but when you're when you're there you have the freedom to look around into to experience the culture of Turkmenistan which is extraordinary this is the silk road

2:17:54they have the cell juke archaeological 12 11 to 12 century cell juke archaeological sites that are being excavated some of them are being renovated or excavated with the help of American taxpayer money through the ambassadors fund for cultural preservation they are extraordinary is it going to be like a UNESCO site it's a little different than UNESCO you know it's it's just pittance of money but that big plaque that says from the people in the United States of America is on these archaeological sites and they're dramatic the silk road caravan sorais where the camels would come in the traders would would camp in the center these these beautiful caravan sites and the camels would be in the outside and they're spaced throughout the silk road the city of murve was once the largest city in the world until jangus con came and killed everybody in

2:18:58gags con killed every man woman and child in the city and it never fully recovered but the rooms of murve are dramatic because they're superstructure so you're not just looking down into archaeological pit the superstructure is still there and attacked and to think tens of thousands of people lost their lives there in the 12th century is just haunting and moving people are warm they're generous this is the silk road generosity you read about they they're if there's some anti-american we encounter looking at my wife here no i mean just a great country to visit you know i'd be interested to hear you know what i'm taking away from this conversation with you is that you're a big advocate of soft power this is actually a kinetic from the almost famous podcast you ever noticed you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything

2:20:02that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass calm there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen i may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and i'm thinking this is exactly what i needed so just go to resort pass calm choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good to resort pass calm slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort pass calm slash almost famous shop vans and albertons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and albertons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown

2:21:04grape-a-ray cotton candy grapes are two ninety nine per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or seven up 12 ounce cans are four ninety nine limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or albertons.com for more deals and ways to save your will or trust needs more than an a i template legal zoom offers guided tools and attorney support with no hourly rates visit today legal zoom provides access to independent attorneys and sell service tools legal zoom is not a law firm which is not provide legal advice or in diplomacy and the idea that america can do good around the world in a cooperative sort of framework um can you make the case for folks out there for soft power in the twenty-first century in the united from the united states absolutely it's inexpensive number one um it doesn't cost much we had five cultural centers in turquoise and they were the most subscribed in the world of any american embassy and we have embassies around the world why because

2:22:11they restrict internet use in turquoise and at the cultural center in ashkubat there's no restrictions so kids of course love to come there but they have three d printers american movie night um it's just wholesome it's you know giving kids an opportunity to practice their english so in this world that um not only live in now but for our children and our grandchildren do you want them learning russian do you want them learning chinese do you want them learning english i know what i want them to learn english it makes it much more natural to look to the west than to the east um and um any good soldier will tell you that uh going to war is the last resort um not the first so we need um people who when things go wrong we could pick up the phone and call

2:23:11and call in our chips ask for favors or ask them to not do something um when regionally not necessarily in their country we need that kind of support and i go right back to the evacuation of Kabul when we were desperate for overflight rights and landing rights um and we had built the kind of relationship where i could go to the foreign minister and ask for that kind of help and they were cool with it as long as you kept that low key um so you finish your time as the ambassador you have a second retirement i take it at this point and well you know you're good at drawing out stories so let me go right back to the first question you asked about my upgrade i told you my dad was the sweetest man you ever know when i retired from the army i was working in the white house for dip chanie and uh at my retirement

2:24:11ceremony he's you know chanie loved the military and uh actually went with him to the battle field of cichamagua um to walk the battlefield where his great great grandfather fought well um and i had taught military history and it spent two days in the battlefield teaching history there and so we went so he he said you know currently you've been driven all your life by goals and you know military um promotions and sending your sights on one assignment after another what are you going to do in retirement i mean what what's your goal and without knowing he was going to ask me that and without thinking i said my goal is to be more like my father we just man in the world and i still haven't gotten there so when i retired from uh 20 years as a over 20 years as being a diplomat um i was really anxious to do i wanted to keep doing it i'm somebody's big compliment to me

2:25:16i overheard someone said nobody could outenergize the ambassador you know i was that i got up every morning at five fifteen and i ran or swam at the embassy pool um that my bodyguards when my first got there could not keep up with me these are big hulking guys yeah i embarrassed them so much they got buff they got in shape um then i would have breakfast and i would still be at work at the embassy before anybody else um even as a kind of life i led and uh so i i wanted to be um i wanted to write i wanted to uh write that book because i've been thinking about it i wanted to be on some boards advisory boards and maybe teach and um so i'm on one advisory board now the Caspian Policy Center in Washington i've got my second book in train it's about my our five years in in Turkmenistan i can't wait to read that and um i've got a third book

2:26:18concept in taking notes for on leadership but there all be leadership books but i'm you know i am trying sincerely and not ingest real i'm realizing realizing that i don't need to do all this stuff uh and um so yeah i'm i purposefully want to cut back and uh we built a retirement home in Tennessee and a high-rig line overlooking the Cumberland Mountains it's just spectacular view and uh i sit in the deck watch the the wildlife drink some coffee yeah it's just incredible in the book as the Pentagon burned leadership in human excellence in the face of the 9-11 attack yeah where can people go to find this thanks for reading the full title the subtitle leadership in human excellence in the face of the 9-11 attack because i wanted to emphasize human excellence in the face of crisis it's on amazon.com um barge and nobles online um you could

2:27:20order it um some local bookshops in the Washington area uh politics and prose in the Washington area carries it um but i think mostly through amazon.com i'm where i'm getting big sales and it did hit top three amazon.com that's great i'm excited to actually read your book about Turkmanistan because that's it's it's just a country that it's hard to parse information out of yeah um do we have any any alibis from your wife yeah tell me what i got wrong edie any embarrassing stories you want to tell oh my gosh edie was so beloved we were walking in a bizarre once in one of the provincial capital cities and there was some there were a few young girls there and i could see them looking at us in whispering and i thought i want to come say hello they walked right past me and went right up to edie because they knew she created the woman's economics oh and um the the girls

2:28:28just looked up to her i mean and um in a familial society like that they everything's about relationships they they honor their parents and grandparents and so we were grandparents figures for them i guess you could say the woman's economic society has continued not at edie's gone we're worried it might fizzle out but yeah that's amazing yeah wow that's great uh in any final thoughts no i want to thank you for uh bringing me in but but thank you for the work you do yeah thank you it's really given people a voice and in a place to turn to um i know a lot of people are out there with similar approaches but i think here's a special jack and really appreciate i appreciate um behind the scenes and um it's great to be in New York City

2:29:34on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9-11 to uh to really take that in yeah absolutely and um you know i'm really glad you reached out and i'm really glad that we'll be able to this will essentially be the podcasts 9-11 anniversary show um i think it's a good time to take a pause and just remember that uh so folks you can go and find as the Pentagon burned uh by ambassador of retired Matthew Cleamow Cleamow it is out now um and thank you for joining us we'll see all you guys oh actually later this week i just noticed the claimor yeah you like that made it jeez who would have thought of this hello everyone if you're here in this uh you are not a member of the patreon you can get your hands

2:30:35ad free episodes that come out early and you can ask us questions maybe we'll answer them you can also watch the teamhouse podcast completely ad free and early and you can also watch it live as we interview our guests um and it's the best way to support the channel so if you can if you're open to it you can go to patreon.com slash the teamhouse that link is in the description uh we appreciate the supporters and we hope you would consider being one so it's patreon.com slash the teamhouse thanks god this is actually a canady from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spous keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass.com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools in spas and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen i may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it

2:31:35felt like it was a whole different world and i'm thinking this is exactly what i needed so just go to resort pass.com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are gonna ask where you are good to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous shop vans and albertons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and albertons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for $199 per pound limit 10 pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are $299 per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are $499 limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or albertons.com for more deals and ways to save.

2:32:48this is actually a canada from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass.com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort pass.com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation you're going to ask where you are good to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code

2:33:51almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous shop vans and albertons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and albertons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts for $199 per pound limit 10 pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are $299 per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are $499 limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or albertons.com for more deals and ways to save Toyota's easy choice sales event is on whether you're looking for the performance of the camera the versatility of a rap for the efficiency of a corolla or all electric driving in the bz there's a Toyota that's just right for you and with great deals across the lineup now's the time to find yours but hurry these deals won't last long Toyota's easy choice sales event and soon we make it easy Toyota let's go places

2:34:55this is actually a canada from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass.com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort pass.com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $1,25 once you post your daycation you're going to ask where you are good to resort pass.com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100

2:35:58that's code almost famous at resort pass.com slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are 2 ninety nine per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are 4 ninety nine limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save McDonald's is putting value back on the menu whether you're craving a big mac McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's make it a meal and save your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too extra value meals are back get a big something extra with a big mac or 10 piece McNuggets fries and a medium coke all for just nine dollars limited time only promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing

2:37:01this is Ashley Iconetti from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass calm there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spas and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort pass calm choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good to resort pass calm slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100

2:38:06that's code almost famous at resort pass calm slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are 2 ninety nine per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are 4 ninety nine limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or Albertsons dot com for more deals and ways to save meet the redboard dragonberry amurge it's one of the many new drinks out now who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire try them all only at my toes this is actually a canada from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse

2:39:07keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass dot com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly so just go to resort pass dot com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just one e five dollars once you post your daycation you're gonna ask where you are good to resort pass dot com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get twenty dollars off when you spend a hundred dollars that's code almost famous at resort pass dot com slash almost famous shop vans and albertons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and albertons get

2:40:08fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are two ninety nine per pound with digital coupon plus twenty four packs of canada dry are seven up twelve ounce cans are four ninety nine limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or albertons dot com for more deals and ways to save toyotas easy choice sales event is on whether you're looking for the performance of the camera the versatility of her at four the efficiency of a corolla or all electric driving in the b z there's a toyota that's just right for you and with great deals across the lineup now's the time to find yours but hurry these deals won't last long toyotas easy choice sales event and soon we make it easy toyota let's go places

2:41:10this is actually a canady from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort past calm there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort past calm choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $1,000 dollars once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good to resort past calm slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort past calm slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for

2:42:11fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for $199 per pound limit 10 pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are $299 per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are $499 limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save at urgentcare kit.com slash blue urgentcare kit.com slash blue

2:43:18this is Ashley Akinetti from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort past calm there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort past calm choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation you're going to ask where you are good resort past calm slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort past calm slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings

2:44:21every time you shop this week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for $199 per pound limit 10 pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are $299 per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are $499 limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or Albertsons dot com for more deals and ways to save hi this is Dave Roberts heading into summer without a medical emergency kit that's a risk summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything that's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit it includes doctor prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses so if you wake up sick at home or on the road you already have what you need it's like having an urgent care and pharmacy say $45 with code blue at urgent care kit dot com slash blue urgent care kit dot com slash blue

2:45:28this is Ashley Iconetti from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort pass dot com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools in spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort pass dot com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good to resort pass dot com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort pass dot com slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for

2:46:29fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are two ninety nine per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or seven up 12 ounce cans are four ninety nine limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals won't last visit vans or Albertsons dot com for more deals and ways to save hi this is Dave Roberts heading into summer without a medical emergency kit that's a risk summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything that's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit it includes doctor prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses so if you wake up sick at home or on the road you already have what you need it's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home say $45 with code blue at urgentcare kit dot com slash blue urgentcare kit dot com slash blue

2:47:36this is Ashley Iconetti from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort past dot com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort past dot com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good to resort past dot com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort past dot com slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for fresh

2:48:38savings every time you shop this week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts for $199 per pound limit 10 pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are $299 per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are $499 limit one with digital coupon enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal hurry in these deals last visit vans or Albertsons dot com for more deals and ways to save hi this is Dave Roberts heading into summer without a medical emergency kit that's a risk summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything that's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit it includes doctor prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses so if you wake up sick at home or on the road you already have what it's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home say $45 with code blue at urgentcare kit dot com slash blue urgent care kit dot com slash blue

2:49:43this is Ashley Iconetti from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort past dot com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort past dot com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good resort past dot com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort past dot com slash almost famous shop

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2:51:53this is Ashley Iconetti from the almost famous podcast you ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away but you never actually plan anything that was us until we did something fun and spontaneous we went to resort past dot com there are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy you can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay and listen I may have only been like 15 minutes from home but it felt like it was a whole different world and I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed so just go to resort past dot com choose your resort choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $25 once you post your daycation people are going to ask where you are good to resort past dot com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100 that's code almost famous at resort past dot com slash almost famous shop vans and Albertsons for

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