Security Halt!

Alan Mack: 35 Years of Flight, Fight, and Legacy

• Deny Caballero • Season 7 • Episode 372

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In this episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Alan Mack, a legendary military pilot with 36 years of service. Alan shares his journey from aspiring aviator in junior high to flying high-stakes missions in special operations. He discusses how 9/11 reshaped military aviation, the value of mentorship, and the teamwork that made complex operations possible. Alan also opens up about the emotional toll of early deployments, the critical role of support staff, and his mission to preserve history through storytelling. It’s a powerful look into service, sacrifice, and the skies of war.

 

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SPEAKER_00:

Secure to Hab Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up an episode description and check out Titan's Arms today. New York adjacent. Alan Mack, welcome to Secure to Have Podcast, sir. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. It's an incredible honor. I think that every special operator, every veteran, infantry, grunt, non-grunt, at some point wanted to be a pilot. And somewhere along the lines, whether it's education or just uh the cards don't work out for you, you end up doing something else. But I think all of us grew up with uh a little bit of hope that we'd find our ways into the sky. Uh I had to do it uh a little bit differently, had to get on a free fall team to uh experience the art of flight as a human missile. But I was always fascinated by my brothers that uh didn't stop dreaming that even after achieving something as amazing as being a Green Beret, continued onwards and became a pilot. And uh, anybody that's ever deployed, gotten to Afghanistan or Iraq, you've been on a hilo. And what you guys do, Alan, is remarkable. Being able to keep that machine that wants to constantly tear itself apart in the air on Infill and Xville, sir, it is remarkable what you guys do. And today I want to dive into your story, but before we hit the accolades, where did this career start? How did you start this dream of being a pilot?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it started uh quite frankly back in uh like junior high. You know, I was interested the uh probably even before that, you know, the Vietnam War was going on when I was a kid. It was on the evening news, and uh it's no secret that you know, every night and they showed the body count and all that kind of stuff, the helicopters would be whizzing by on the video, and I was like, that's what I want to do. And at some point, uh I showed up at a recruiter's office and said, I'd like to be a helicopter pilot. And they said, Well, wait a minute now. You know, you're in high school, and they said, Yeah, I've seen the ads, you know, high school to flight school, you know, and they said, Well, it doesn't quite work that way, you know. So um they convinced me to join the army as an enlisted aircraft mechanic. I did that for about nine years, went to flight school, and ended up flying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's not uh that's not a short time. That is uh a long time turning wrenches and working on the machine, those beasts. And uh what airframe did you um did you work on in those early years?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, in the early years I worked on uh AH1 Cobras, UH1 Heels, OH 58 Alpha Charlies. So yeah. I was in like the old-fashioned cavalry units, you're right. So they were you know like 20 aircraft. Nowadays a cavalry troop is like, you know, six helicopters or something, but back in the day it was 21 helicopters, I think.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Nine years working on those. That is a lifetime.

SPEAKER_01:

Um Yeah, you know, and people ask me all the time. So I did over 35 years, close to 36. And um people say, How'd you do that? It's like, well, it was really two separate careers. You know, the enlisted time was great, you know, I loved working on helicopters and you know, nine years, but I was gonna get out if I didn't uh you know get accepted to flight school because the contracting gig for mechanics was pretty good. Yeah, and then you know, I did flight school, that's about a year, and then the rest of the time was spent flying. So it was two separate lifestyles, really.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, we talk about a mentorship on the show a lot, and for all of us, at some point somebody saw something in us. And I have to imagine flight team, flight crews are different because you're right there with the warrant officers, with the junior officers as they're learning and and and getting a hang of things. Who helped you along the way in those early years? Who gave you the inspiration? Because it's one thing to have a dream going into that career field, but uh, you know as well as I know, once you get in there, there's a lot of jaded individuals that can make our dreams seem like unimaginable, impossible things.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You know, um, in the enlisted years, there really wasn't anybody uh that I can think of that you know mentored me toward being a pilot. But once I got into being a pilot, you know, I was taken under the wing literally of you know several senior warrant officers. A lot of them had been uh Vietnam pilots, and then you know, I got out of flight school and right away we went to Desert Storm, so or Desert Shield. So I I spent about six, seven months uh flying the whole time, you know, because every time nobody wanted to fly in the desert, you know, it was really nasty. These um, you know, the mentors would go fly with me. They'd be like, all right, we'll take the woge, you know, the warrant officer junior. And uh I learned a lot. You know, I would got to fly almost every day for um you know seven months. I got really good at dust landings and flying in the dust and navigating where you can't see any real terrain features. And you know how the desert is, right? The terrain features move, you know, from what's on the map. You know, it's like, oh, this road should be right here. No, it's not, it's you know, a mile that way now. Yeah. But uh yeah, I had some great, great mentors. And then I'd like to think I was a good one uh as I got up. I was a Chief Warrant Officer Five, and so I had a lot of say in how we did things. And uh you know, like you said about the uh the guys with the negative attitudes, you know, we had plenty of those and the conventional forces, and when I moved into special operations, that was almost non-existent. I mean it was still there, but almost non-existent, and it made it a much more fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I for those of you that don't know, it's a whole different world, and and and we're gonna dive into this. Like, it's one thing to become a pilot, an already difficult thing to take on. You you do something that a very small percentage of our military can do, and then you get you have this this dream of like, man, like I love these guys, I love the unit, they're great people, but there's only one sixty, there's only one special operations unit, and it's one sixtieth. Like, what was how did that come about?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, actually, it was kind of it was weird. I was um an instructor at Fort Rucker teaching people to fly Chinooks. I was a young chief warrant officer too. I really wasn't ready for that administrative environment. I wanted to be, you know, the tip of the spear kind of thing, and that's just the way it I felt. And so after the first couple classes, I was just bored silly, and I knew a couple of guys in the 160th, and they kept saying, Al, you gotta join, you gotta join. They won't take me, you know, because I didn't think I was good enough. And um eventually I just somebody threw an application on my desk. I slowly filled it out. You know, nowadays it's all online, but back in the day it was you know it was like uh you know, a packet like this, yeah, number two pencil. And uh I just filled it out a little bit at a time, and when it was full, I sent it in and they said, Hey, come on up. So I assessed and and and got in. You know, once I was in, I stayed there uh about 17 years.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it it's easy to glance over it, but that uh even now, even now, everybody that goes there, everybody from brand new guy that wants to turn wrenches on the aircraft to the pilots, everybody goes through the that pipeline, that selection. It is not an easy thing.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and you know, um a lot of people are surprised to know you kind of alluded to it in the beginning. You know, we had a lot of uh Green Berets, Rangers, we had some SEALs, some X Delta guys. Uh they either get promoted out of the job they like doing and decide to be pilots, or they, you know, their body has given up on them a little bit, you know, their knees, their feet, you know, it's like, okay, let's go hurt my back now over in the helicopter. So, but you know, that's the the the mentality of the guys that are in the unit when we're supporting the ground forces is because almost all of them have been, you know, in some special operation. Uh very few people, like I didn't. I was just a straight up pilot. So my that was my strength, was my flying skills. The other guys might be good pilots, but they also understood you know the ground force mission set and could anticipate things uh you know, maybe better than I could in the early days. You know, it took me time to learn that. But they they know that right up front.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I have to imagine the um you know for a lot of us, we came into the service, you know, 9-11 is that definitive marker in memory for a lot of us, Chi WAP veterans. Like this happened when I was a kid, drove me to be enlisted. You were already in, you were already a pilot, you had experience. Um, what was it like going from you know, relative peacetime? You've experienced combat, you've had time in theater, now we got peacetime, now definitive event 9-11 happens. What was that shift like in mentality? And did you know that you were going to be that guy going in?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I didn't know. Uh, as a matter of fact, well, because I was a flight lead, and there's very few of us, um, you know, if somebody was going to go, it would probably be me or definitely one of my peers. But you always wanted to be that guy that gets to do it, right? I mean, you want to be put me in the game, coach.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. You want to carry the football.

SPEAKER_01:

We we had been in um in uh Kuwait two years in a row for uh uh operations called Desert Thunder, and one was Desert Fox. And the idea was uh Saddam Hussein had kicked the nuclear inspectors out, and we were going to you know force him to bring that back. And we never ended up doing it. But we stayed there each time, I want to say about six months out of the year there, and for two years in a row, and there was a couple of times the fifth group guys wanted to cross the border by helicopter and blow up uh some radio towers that the Air Force was trying to take out with you know with bombs, and they couldn't hit it. You know, and this this is back in the late 90s, you know, the munitions were a little different. But we tried to get that con op approved, and we were told, no, you're not taking any helicopters into Iraq. So the mindset we had when we got to Uzbekistan, which was just north of Afghanistan right after 9-11, was that uh you know, we were there for personnel recovery initially, and then when the fifth group guys came over from Task Force Dagger and said, Hey, we'd like to talk to you about uh you know infiltration missions, and we're like, get out of here. They're not gonna let us do that. And we actually tossed them out because we were busy planning the personnel recovery stuff. And you know, it turns out, you know, like two weeks later we're flying them in to Afghanistan, you know, but we didn't that just goes to show you the mindset that we just didn't think the national will, you know, the sect depth would would let us do that. And probably if it wasn't Donald Rumsfeld, we might not have done it. I don't know. I mean, he was kind of he was pushy, you know, he's like, do it.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, people tend to think uh we and we've done to ourselves in movies that these things happen like instantly and we forget about the military planning process um and everything that goes into that detail because you're you're flying in Afghanistan at the time. There is there's some credible, credible intel that you know, there's some things that can probably reach out and touch you in the sky. That how did you guys go in? There's nobody it's easy when you're the third rotation in, the fourth, the fifth, the hundredth rotation, you fall in on information, you fall in on templated targets on intel, you don't have any of that. No, and people don't realize the entire mechanism that goes into planning these missions. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01:

That was insane. Uh we did get, you know, one of the things that's neat with the 160th is there's uh sources, resources, assets. And one of those is the intelligence agencies, and we would once or even twice a year, we'd go to DC and we'd visit all the three-letter agencies and get a tour and just put a face to a name. And my favorite was DIA because they had our best interest at heart, unlike the CIA that might have some political uh, you know, I don't know how I want to say it. They've just got different uh agendas. And but DIA was able to, when we you know, we didn't know, we looked at the the terrain, the elevations, and the performance of the aircraft, like, oh, this is gonna be this is gonna be tough. There's places we can't go with what we normally carry. And the ground force is gonna be pissed when we tell them they can't carry what they normally carry. So we've we've got to figure out why did the Soviets fight the way they did with their helicopters? So DIA put us in touch with uh are you familiar with The Bear When Over the Mountain, that book?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right? So we we read that, and then he put us in touch with people in that book that could tell us, you know, our act we could actually ask questions, hey, you know, why did you do this in the Battle of Organi? You know, why did you do this in Ghazni? And they could tell us, you know, what the limitations were, and we could compare that to what we were dealing with and decide, okay, that's because they didn't have night vision goggles like we have, or it's because their aircraft didn't have the performance or you know, whatever the ground force didn't have the equipment or skills to do X. And so it was uh it was amazing. And then we also had, you know, nowadays you look at uh Google Earth, right, put it in 3D mode. Well, back then that was classified stuff, right? And we were able to put that into our flight simulator and fly up to the mountains on the northern ridge of Afghanistan. We could look back north along the ingress routes that we were planning and see if there were blind spots uh based on these simulations, you know, the actual DTED and imagery and all that kind of stuff. And that helped us to get in past some very nasty weapons. You know, I mean, man pads were you know, they were there. We had 16 of them fired at us over the course of the first six months. And I had two fired at me on one day. Uh, you know, the flares decoying like in the movies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, let me tell you, man, it's one thing that everybody, everybody that's ever been on a mission on a CH 47 or or or any Hilo, and you're a Terry Nice call, man, and there's something different. When you're on the ground and you see Tracer Fire, it's like, all right, I'm in the game. Not up there, man.

SPEAKER_01:

You're in control. A 23-4, you know, ZPU, you know, when that thing's shooting at you, it's 23mm, man. It's like a you know, it's a little bigger than a 50 cal. And that thing's snaking across the sky like you see in the news newsreels or the movies, it's coming at you. And those things look big. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We took one out in in the north. We took one out. It was still they still had them up north in the kundus area.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. That is not they had a lot of those in the beginning, you know, and uh our dapps took one out one night. Uh it's the the armed blackhawks. Yeah. Those guys, those guys are great.

SPEAKER_00:

Man, oh gosh. Like that's um it's it's I have to imagine it's different because the the first Gulf War wasn't we initially everybody initially thought this is gonna be hard hitting, we're gonna be in this dogfight. And uh it really wasn't that way. It was hard and heavy for a little bit. Going into Afghanistan, did you have some of that hesitation or that feeling of like, fuck, we're going in here. This is the Wild West.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You know, I um you know, I don't know if you I wrote a book, uh Razor Zero Three and Night Soccer's Wars, right? And I detailed on there, you know, I probably didn't even do it justice. You know, the other flight lead and I, there were two of us, we were leading two teams of two Chinooks, infill infilling uh SF teams. And uh after the first, I don't know, mission or two, we were able to get some Jack Daniels from one of the CIA pilots, guy named Ned, uh who by the way I mentioned him on a podcast one time, and he he found me on email. He's like, dude, awesome, you know, thanks for the shout out. But uh anyway, we we snuck off and uh had a little snort and uh it was you know hey man, what do you what do you think? And we both agreed that we would probably not survive another mission or two uh because of the challenges that we were pushing the aircraft to their limits, and and by that I don't just mean by power, I mean the the radar and the systems and the air defense systems. If there was something bad, we were going into it, you know, not because we wanted to, but because that's where the teams had to go. And or it could be a Kazovac, we did a couple of those. And you know, when you're doing a Kazovac, the bad guys know you're coming, and so they're ready for you, and now you've got to deal with that. And uh, we for the first couple months honestly did not think we would survive you know another day. And each day that went by, it was like, oh, well, there's another day. Guess tomorrow we're gonna bite it, you know. And uh you just string enough of those together, and you you know, I'm on the other side now going, wow, all right, that was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, but it's it's it's the same feeling. It's the same feeling. Yeah. Whether you're the guy on the bird flying, uh part of the crew, or the guys uh that you're uh that are infilling with you, um, and man, there's nothing, there's nothing more encouraging, and not trying to take anything away from our like our CAV units regularly, like amazing fucking pilot. Shout out to you, Captain Denny, wherever you are, ma'am. Great, great officers, great crews, great people. But when you're jocking up and you're seeing if Task Force Rangers going out, they're getting every fucking resource. That's just it. But if they fall off and you see, like, hey, um, gunships on station, that's now an asset. We got it. It's like, oh, did we get uh the or did we get the one sixtieth? Yeah, we got the one-sixtieth, dude. The amount of joy and sheer excitement when you're you now bumped up and you're like, fuck yeah, we we got the fucking varsity team. Those missions are always on the top because it's like it's those missions are right here, and then when you have Afghan air mission, we're like when you're infilling with Afghan air, it's like fuck. Everybody say a prayer, everybody send an email to your family just in case. You're MI8 or MI17. Yeah. It's just different, man. It is and I have to imagine back then in those early, early uh, you know, deployments, uh, it it was still kind of you know, touch and go. You still have it was still developing that sort of um different mentality because war, it's one thing to have the the lived experience of different pilots coming back and doing the PDSS, doing the mission in brief. But those early years, it's just you and the other flight lead that was just there. How did you guys continue to push the envelope and TTPs and learning and this the minute, you know, trying to pass off like, hey guys, when you're flying into this area, make sure you have X, Y, and Z and do this. How do you guys continue to advance and develop in those early years?

SPEAKER_01:

I think, you know, you you hear about it in corporate speak, you know, critical thinking, right? Out of the box thinking. So one of the things that I always gave myself a little credit for is I I have this huge imagination, right? And I'm always thinking, you know, um, if I'm a bad guy, what and I know you're coming in with a helicopter, where am I gonna hide to get you, right? And then you try to plan around that or you divert Intel uh resources uh to see if there's something there or not. You ask the ground force, hey, can you check this out for me? Um, you know, there's that. And then you know, there's just that attitude. You know, the the night stalker attitude is the same as you know, any of the special operators, you know, is that it's we're just we're going to do it. You tell us what the mission is and we're gonna find a way to do it, and I'd like to live through it, you know, and you know, my crew impossible. My crew would like to live through it. So we've gotta you've got to. I just always uh you know, the guys used to make fun of me because they'd say I would always drop a good idea grenade in the room and walk out. You know, it's like, hey, what if we you know use this equipment to do this? You know, throw it in and walk away. And like, was he serious? I mean, that's kind of insane.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, that's uh that's a the typical warrant officer uh good idea fairy moment. Yeah. Man, I gotta imagine um all of us, whether you're ground pounder or or pilot, crew member, you always remember that last mission. For us, like I'll never forget that last final objective on the ramp, watching Afghanistan fade into the background and and knowing that that's that's my last one. This is the last one I am I'm probably Afghanistan probably not gonna have much longer. I mean, my last combat mission wasn't in in uh 2020, that last that last year. Even though COVID hadn't happened yet, you kind of felt like there was a shift in the air. Like nothing had come out officially, but you just kind of knew, right, I'm not getting another rotation out of this. This is this is it. Did you have that ability to have that last flight and just have that awareness of like, okay, this is my last one?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I didn't. Uh and you know what's what's interesting is when we got there in 2001, the intention was we would take the country, which would probably take about a year, and then we'd be done. We would go home because you know the 160th in particular is not outfitted and resourced to be gone like that. We don't have enough people, not enough aircraft, not enough equipment, which is why you know you fast forward to extortion one seven, which was the aircraft carrying all the seals.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

The reason they were on a conventional aircraft is there weren't special ops uh airframes to go around, and they kind of got the short end of the stick there. But um when it was funny because Torobora was just kicking off, right? So this is December, November, December time frame of uh 2001. And we're told at Task Force Dagger that okay, we're sending some guys down, we think we got bin Laden pinned up, we're gonna you know bomb him, get him, that kind of thing. And then my so uh a guy named Arlo is the other flight lead, he's down there at Bogham first, and I'm up at K2 still, and I'm moving the SF teams that we'd infilled earlier, I'm moving them all to different um forward operating bases that are C 130 capable. And the what we're told is once the last team is put in, we're going home. Right? So everybody's cheering me on as I'm moving around the country, moving people to their bases, and I get the last team position. They were over near Condu's, I think. And I remember coming back, everybody's high five, and all right, you know, going home. And then Torobora actually kicks off, and then um it drags on, and I go down and replace Arlo, he comes back to replace me, and you know, we never go home, right? And then, you know, in our opinion. And then, you know, the the over the course of the calendar years, you know, the battles, you know, came and went, and the you know, there was a period where like when Iraq kicked off that we didn't have any assets to really do any missions. So you kind of did a lot of ash and trash, you know, supply runs, that kind of stuff. And we thought that would be it. And then it finally ramped up again, and I went to Iraq, and then when that closed down and went back to Afghanistan. And the reason I didn't know where my last mission was is because I came back and unfortunately my wife uh was addicted to prescription pain meds and alcohol, and it was getting worse and worse and worse to the point where she overdosed and died. And so, you know, I'd come back from overseas, this happens, and now you know the the regiment was really good to me. You know, they were like, Well, what do you want to do? You know, they were gonna create a position for me, you know, where I could deploy or not, whatever. I mean, they were really good. But instead, um I unveiled a statue in New York City. It's called America's Response. It's uh a horse soldier thing, right? And uh ground zero. So I did that, and while I was there, I found out that West Point Aviation had a job open. It's a warrant officer position.

SPEAKER_00:

So I put in four and I got it. This episode is brought to you by Titan SARMs. Head on over to Titansarms.com and buy a stack today. Use my code CD10 to get your first stack. I recommend the Lean Stack 2. Start living your best life. Titan SARMs. No junk, no bullshit, just results.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh so I left the regiment because I really needed to change a venue, I thought, you know, and and it did work out really well because I'm remarried and you know, I'm still living here. It's it's great, you know, but that's why I didn't have that, you know. So like 20 2012, 2013 was my last combat thing. Damn, that's what I came back to doing work.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a long time. 2001 to 2012, yeah. And I was deployed most of that. Damn. That is that is insane to think of in in in terms of not just career-wise, but the amount of missions, the amount of close calls. That takes a toll, and and it's I have to imagine it's the same within your demographic of guys and gals. Because for us, by and large, the majority of guys they don't have their their issues manifest while they're on the job, while they're out there running and gunning. It's when they take a step back and they take that position at S3, or they take that position at being the school's NCO. When you made it to West Point, now that ail-static load is a little lower, you're not on the flight line with your brothers, your sisters. Did you see things manifest? Did you see problems? Did you see yourself finally deal with the grief and loss? Um, what was that transition like?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what's nice about that West Point assignment, and I say this all the time, is if I had just gone from you know doing, you know, flying pipe swingers into the X, you know, to the S3 job, I probably would be a total mess. But because I went to West Point and I was the commander, even though the job itself wasn't demanding in the same way, the the job as the commander was. So I had like just enough straight. It was like a ramp, like an off-ramp, you know? Yeah and so I had this pressure. And what I liked about it is I was very family focused. So the guys, you know, I I hope this is true, but they all seemed to really enjoy being in the unit, you know, with me as the commander. And I mean, to the point where even my Alistair mechanics would come up in the middle of the week and go, hey sir, can we do a bonfire tonight? Uh sure. You know, and everybody would come, bring their kids, and we the our little compound if you will, was fenced in. So kids would run all over the place, you know, you they couldn't get on the runway, but we it was all fenced in with a with a little wreck area that was built, and uh you'd do a little pot. So it was great, you know. And then the other thing I did is I met the cadets of the parachute team. You were talking about being a meat missile. So uh I learned how to skydive with these guys. Nice. And uh they actually coached me, which was awesome. And I ended up getting my B license out of the deal. But uh but but those kids, kids, they're young men and women, they were so fantastic, so positive, so full of, you know, um, you know, what does the future hold for me, you know, that it it transferred over to me. So, you know, when I'm sitting at home alone, does that feel great? No. But you know, I had this, and then I met my you know, my wife Patty now, and uh, she brought a whole bunch of new joy into my life. And uh yeah, it would it could have really, I think, emotionally and mentally gone south really hard, but it didn't because I mean it you know, it is its little ups and downs. But uh, you know, for the most part, you know, I'm I'm happy and healthy, which I am grateful for.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's important to understand that having a mission and purpose play a vital role in that. And that's why when guys get shuffled over to a position that doesn't challenge them, that isn't the most rewarding, isn't fulfilling, and kind of feels like you're getting kicked in in the ass every day. Yeah. No wonder guys are having stressful issues, no wonder guys are dealing with it anxiety and depression is because they're removed from the team, they're removed from the family they once had. Whereas in your story, it's it's it's a perfect um description of what we can do better. Give guys a mission. If they need to take an E, don't just put them in a place by themselves. Give them give them a mission again and check in on that. And the thing that was awesome is you found the community again. You found people, positivity. And that's often enough the one thing that we if if we can provide that for our brothers and sisters, like you're gonna see benefit. You're gonna see people that are willing to reach out, willing to stay connected. And when they're ready, ask for help. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's the key. You know, I I've had people ask me if I would have done anything different, and I kind of think probably not a whole lot because it was the way things were, you know. But what I would have done knowing what I know now is I would have sought help sooner. Because it when I finally reached out to the regimental uh shrank, you know, they were able to help me, you know, find a direction. They steered me over to uh Al Anon family groups, you know, it's kind of like AA, but it's for the family members. Yes, yes. That stopped my little emotional free fall dealing with my first wife, you know, and I would have done that sooner had I known.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's a great organization, man. People don't realize that there are resources and support groups for the family. Because oftentimes the issues that you know are are plaguing individuals in our community, like alcoholism or drug addiction. Yes, the individual suffering that needs help, but the family needs support too. It's different. It uh it bleeds off on you. You have issues that you need to deal with, and it's okay to ask for help. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. Especially now, we've been at war, we were at war for over 20 years in the last time.

SPEAKER_01:

We may be ramping up again. I don't know. I mean I saw the news the 160th is down in the Caribbean, you know. Yeah, yeah, here we go again.

SPEAKER_00:

It's scary the way and and war is a constant and it constantly evolves. But the one thing that I I am always grateful for is I'm grateful that drone warfare was just us with a Mavic drone as an organic asset to get forward eyes on something. Very, very rudimentary. And nowadays, I can only imagine what the current 160th pilot is thinking about when they're going through their normal routines of of training, like drone warfare. That's a thing now. Like, how do you come back? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

And you know, the 160th, the 160th has its own drone unit now, right? They've had it for a couple of years. They're considered the most deadly uh aviation unit in the world. No way. Yeah. Deadly isn't the right word, uh lethal. Lethal, yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think they're the ones, you know, I don't know for a fact, but I think those videos you're seeing of the uh narco boats getting hit. Yeah. I think that's our guys.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I wouldn't doubt it. And then it's uh yeah, it it's um things are getting spicy in South America again. It makes me makes me miss the Red Empire days. Good luck, Sabbath Coop. I'm rooting for you. But yeah, the do you um I have to imagine you do you ever miss it? Do you ever miss um flight?

SPEAKER_01:

Not so much. Um you know what I miss? I miss the guys. I miss the people. Yeah, I miss the mission. You know, I miss, I miss um one thing I really enjoyed doing was mission success for my ground force. You know, like uh, you know, Al, can you get us here? You know, can you can you do this for us? And you know, other guys might turn them down just cold, and I always look at it as well. Let me see what I can do. That's what you want, let me see if I can do it. And I really enjoyed doing it, you know, and uh, you know, the SEALs liked that I was doing it because they always seem to up me. Al, can you do this? It's like, dude, I told you last time I didn't really want to do that. And like, yeah, yeah, but we need you, all right. And I go do it next time. It's a little higher, you know, and it's like, come on.

SPEAKER_00:

One more pinnacle landing.

SPEAKER_01:

But I do I do miss that, you know, and but you know, actual flying I don't really miss. You know, it's fun, but uh you know, every once in a while I'll go across the George Washington Bridge north of uh New York City and you and you get the same view looking up and down the river as I would get when I flew down to the city from West Point, you know, and that's on a nice day. That's the only time I kind of go, oh, you know what? I kind of do miss flying, you know. But other than that, you know, it was always in crappy weather, you know, it was always at night, you know, that green hue of the tubes. Yeah, that was it. Yep. So, you know, that's yeah, got its element of fun, but uh a lot of stress.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, uh don't don't probably don't miss blackout, you know, landings and and uh having to hear a scream for you and roping you in.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, dust landings suck. Even with the newer equipment, you know, they've got some stuff that makes the the landings a lot easier and it still sucks.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. God bless you, pilots. You do amazing stuff. I gotta I gotta wonder though, did um when it came to sitting to sit down and finally write this book, did you feel any sense of like imposter syndrome, hesitation? Because like, who am I to write this book? Who am I to put these stories out there? Because now more than ever, people are are it's not that they're jaded, but there's been so many books and so many different things, and there's this growing voice of you guys should be quiet professionals. We don't need to have all this stuff out there. Why are you writing this book? And I'm on the other side of it. I'm saying we need more of these books, we need more of these stories, because that's what inspired so many of us to serve in the first place. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And you know, when I wrote my book, you know, it's from the perspective of the pilots and the air crews, and and you don't get a lot of that. You get you know, the seals and the delta guys may do it, but it's like I remember telling Doug Stanton one time he wrote Horse Soldiers. Yep, great guy. He said, you know, there's a whole story behind how they got there, you know, and in your book, it's like they got in a helicopter and they got on the other end, and that's it. And it's like, yeah, yeah, that flight was hell. But so I did that, and you know, I talked to the 160th uh public affairs, and I said, Hey, are you guys okay with this? Because uh I don't want to get hated, right? I mean, I won't write it if you're mad about it. And they're like, No, no, no, no. We believe in being quiet professionals, not silent professionals, right? And so the silent professional, you don't tell anything, nobody knows anything, so you don't get any recruiting. You don't get any recruiting, so you don't get any money. You don't get the money, you don't get the equipment, you don't get the training. And so there's a fine line there. And the way I got it figured is uh if they don't want me to write it, like I've written a second book, it's already gone through the Pentagon Security Review, the 160s has already looked at it, it'll be out sometime next year. But if you don't like it, tell me I won't write it. And so if they're still happy with it, I'm happy with it. And you know, the cool thing with my story, especially the first one at Razor03, is because of who I was, I was one of the senior flight leads, I was involved in almost everything. Any big story you saw, you know, in the news, I was probably somewhere involved in that. So that's why I picked those missions in the book, is because they were stories that had been uh on the news. The second book is more Iraq-based and not as many stories that you've heard about. So there's actually some better stories, but you know, they didn't necessarily make the news. So there we go.

SPEAKER_00:

That's that's what we gotta dive into that a little bit, whatever you can tear about, because for a long time Afghanistan's been the f the primary focus for a lot of us. I think we've like completely forgotten, for the most part, we've forgotten about a lot of the stuff that went on in Iraq. You hear about you still remember some of the big battles and stuff, but by and large, there's this big focus on the and we romanticize it, the mountains of Afghanistan, the wilds of the Taliban out there, and I'm like, hey man, like we we got two big campaigns we fought, we got Afghanistan and Iraq, like we gotta s we gotta remember and talk about those. And there are a lot of units or a lot of conventional fo soldiers and and Marines that feel like fuck, like are we just dog food? We're just forgetting about what we did. Like, what was it like to sit down and um you know dive back into Iraq?

SPEAKER_01:

It was uh It was interesting because you know, because I was involved in the very beginning, the very first two missions I was involved in. Then toward the end, you know, I got to watch Iraq actually close up and then go back to Afghanistan. And I got to watch the development of TTPs, weapon systems, imagery. When I was flying in Afghanistan in 2001, I had these Russian topographic maps, one over 50s, because the contour intervals were very hyper accurate, but the coordinate system was a different datum than we used, right? So it was it didn't go into the GPS the right way. So you had to kind of interpret on other maps what you saw on the Russian maps, and the imagery was 10 meter CIB from 1993, right? And this is 2001. So it's kind of like a it's just nothing compared to what you get right now, right? And then as as I got into Iraq and I think it was 2006, is when I went to Iraq, uh the imagery was all one meter, you know. I mean, it was day of, you know, if you wanted it, you know, and it was so great. You know, the AC 130s in the early days were not very good, you know, and then you know, either they tweaked the systems or learn to do some things different, and uh then they became hyper deadly, you know, and it was amazing. Oh yes, I get the one, I get C 130. But uh to watch those systems change and the TTPs evolve, you know, we you know, we would you mentioned earlier the the mission planning process, right? We used to use a 96 hour planning cycle, right, for uh SF infills. 96 hours. And then Afghanistan had to, for personal recovery, they wanted us to be in the air within the hour.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_01:

Which was almost in almost impossible based on the tools we had to calculate flying in the mountains, right? Because you didn't have computer programs that we had about a year later. This was all charts and and paper maps. It was hell trying to do that. And those tools just improved so much that you could then plan a mission and be in the air in about 40 minutes or or even 30. Yeah. You know, in Iraq, we would get the air in 20 minutes from knowing a uh high confidence hit on a on a you know uh device. And um, you know, in order to get off the ground with the black hawks, it takes a shinook a little bit longer to run up. I would have to every morning go out, run the aircraft up, come to a hover, do all the checks, set it down, refuel it, and then you know, I could when the second time I ran it up, I didn't have to do all the same checks. So I could keep up with the Blackhawks. But so every day, so you know, you go from 96 hours to like 12 hours to you know, five hours was considered a TST in uh 2002, because you had still had to get um fighter from uh Diego Garcia, and it would take five hours to get F-15s from there. So you couldn't you couldn't launch any sooner than that. So it that evolution was just amazing to to look back on, and I get to see that in the book, you know, as I'm writing about these different things. It's like people that read this are gonna go, well, why didn't they just do this? It's like because that, whatever it is, didn't exist, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Man, and it it's it's important to highlight these stories because I know I know you 100% probably already did this in the books and and and continue to do it, but it gives an accurate representation of everything that goes on and the people involved. That's what gets left out a lot of times in Hollywood and in TV shows. It's just the aircraft getting up in the air, but you're you're not talking about the kids, man, 19, 18-year-old kids that make it so that aircraft can fly. Securing that aircraft in the air, the the gunner, the the crew chief on that on that platform.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, there's a saying that I I don't know who started, I I can't find out, but it that's one of those like the soft truths, you know. It's uh don't determine your importance by your proximity to the X. Right? So, you know, everybody thinks the guy that you know lands next to the bad guy's door and drops off, you know, the Delta guys, you know, that's the the thing. But it's like you just said it, you know, the guy that pays you, the guy that takes care of your family, the guy that fuels the aircraft, works on the aircraft, the medic, you know, that makes sure you're healthy. Everybody makes a difference there. You can't do it without them.

SPEAKER_00:

No. It's remarkable when you see the the full frame picture of it. Like we get a lot of coverage, and everybody sees the guy with Kit getting in the back of the helicopter. But nothing's more remarkable than seeing a team proud of what they're doing, doing their rehearsals, working on the aircraft, and and just taking a step back and watching them work. They're not jaded, they're like, I wish I was this guy. They love what they're doing. They're proud of what they're doing, they're putting hours of maintenance and work. And that's one thing that I was able to take away from my time and service on deployments. You know, you're doing the cold loading, every every deployment, every trip, you're going out there, you're meeting the crews, you're working with them, they're showing you everything. Seeing how proud they are of their impact, of their job, of their service, and they don't get a story, they don't get a cool guy movie, a reel, but I'm here to tell you that behind every one of these cool, sexy historical missions that you read about, watch on film, at the very, very cusp of it, at the heart of it, is a young 18, 19-year-old kid, 20-year-old kid that is making that aircraft mission ready, mission capable, doing the crypto, doing everything to get it up in the air. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And they fucking think how often, especially in a changeover night, you know, we would always carry the two the two fills, and you couldn't talk to somebody, you know? So it's it's great when it works. And you know, one of the things I I talk about in my second book is uh we used to get on to Baghdad and do emissions out of our mission support site. Um they were all high-profile things for the most part, and so I didn't have a lot of parts and and mechanics down there, so I would bring my own team. They'd put a gator with uh, you know, common things that would break, you know, and so I'd have an engine guy, an electrician, an avionics guy, you know, hydraulic guy, and we'd drive them down there and they'd just sit and something always went wrong, and they'd be over there. It was like a NASCAR or a Formula One pit crew, you know? It was like and it was amazing. And that's the kind of thing you didn't I didn't get, you know, in a conventional unit. You know, I mean I there was good mechanics, but nothing like this. Uh these guys were very dedicated, like you said, very skilled, so they knew what they were doing. You know, it was great.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's the beauty of our military. Um, you're gonna find amazing, passionate individuals that are fucking killers at their job. They know that air cafe inside and out. They can tell you exactly what they need. And the thing I love about it too, it's the oftentimes it's the kid with a Marlboro red hanging out of his mouth. And it's just like prime example, we had uh we had an issue where the um aviation unit up Afghanistan, our last rotation, needed um something happened, they didn't get their fill. And uh we grabbed all our 18 echoes and we're going out there, and there's this 18, 19-year-old kid out there on the flight line just smoking Marlboro Red, just be like, come on, let's fill it in. I'll we'll get all the birds. Any other unit would just have called it and like, yeah, you know, something's going on. We'll we won't we'll roll, we'll do 24. But we're like, fuck no, we're gonna make this mission happen. And that kid was like, fuck yeah, we're making this mission happen. Let's go, let's get this, let's get the fill going, let's fill these radios. And I'm just like, fuck, anybody else, any other, and you just would have just accepted no, we got comms issues, we won't go. That one individual was right there on the spot, filling those aircraft, getting them ready to go. And I'm like, that's what makes our military so great. That's the thing that I love about it, because it's not about always being that sexy cool guy on TV shows. Sometimes it's that kid that just wanted to be part of the aviation unit, was great at being a mechanic, was great at doing this, and now that's his calling, that's his service, and we gotta be able to celebrate that.

SPEAKER_01:

Listen, we had uh in aviation, you've got a I can't think of the MOS number, but it's a flight operations you know guy, right? And they typically are the guys that are they file your flight plan, they're doing your your flight time, right? So you get paid and that kind of stuff. In Afghanistan or Iraq, these guys had such responsibilities, you know, each aircraft had a tracking device on it, and you had to run that whole system, and then you know, they'd check and you know, know, for example, which hospitals uh were at capacity, you know, the field hospitals. Uh, you know, if so if somebody gets injured, can I take them to this cache versus this one? And then fuel, which is you gotta have fuel, right? And some of these little outposts would have fuel, but you know, all it takes is a Chinook to go in there and drain them dry and you know, until they get resupplied. We did that many times, unfortunately. Uh but they would keep track of that stuff, and it's like a lot of responsibility for you know some young E4 who and any other unit is just keeping track of your flight time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. God bless them. We need them. And it's not um they're unsung heroes, man. Everybody has a vital role, and we need a I just wish we had more movies or or TV shows that captured um the importance of everybody in that in that whole entire uh organization. Because behind every friggin' cool operator is 20 or 30 dudes that are doing a monumental task to keep that individual ready to go. And it's no different. Yeah. You know, as we're winding down, you know, you've got 35 years of serving, nearly 36, almost 36 years of serving. Yeah, 30, 35 years of living. Yeah. Is any part of you like, man, I have to be careful.

SPEAKER_01:

You could have done it. Yeah, well, you know how it is when you get out of the army, they they they pick the date on you, and it's like, can I make it this date here so it's an even 36? No. All right, whatever. But every once in a while I'll just say, Yeah, I did 36 years, and I'm like, oh great. The way everybody's like shooting each other apart on uh you know podcasts nowadays is like he's a liar. He didn't do 36 years. It's like it was close. I am rounded up.

SPEAKER_00:

It's 35 and 11.

SPEAKER_01:

So yes, I acknowledge I rounded up.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh man. Fuck him. There's uh it's math. Who needs math anyways? I hate math. It's an art, not so much a science. You know, at this point in life, you know, as you're reflecting, as you're writing more books. I have to ask you, what was your favorite airframe and do you have a favorite mission?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I had a favorite airframe. It was the uh MH 47 Echo, right? I I flew D's, E's, and G's, and the Echo was really the the one that we flew in that those very early days. And uh favorite mission is that very first one, you know, Infill and the Horse Soldiers. You know, they weren't known as that at the time, you know, until they rode the horses.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But uh that was my first, and it was one of the first. You know, it's 30 minutes behind the other ODA. That's a long story in itself, and we're we're toward the end here for another time, I guess. But that's definitely the favorite.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, man. Alan, you're you're forever cemented in uh history and GWAT history, and uh yeah, I cannot wait for this next book. But tell us where we can get your first book right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, uh the easiest way is just Amazon. You know, it's uh on Audible. I I narrated it myself. The paperback just came out. The hardcovers are still available, but you the paperback just came out. Uh you can get it anywhere else, you know. It's generally not in the bookstores. I don't think I've seen it in very many bookstores, but all you know, Barnes and Noble stuff you can get it online. But uh or if you want to sign one, you can go on my website, alanc.com, and click on uh personalized thing, and I send you a signed copy with whatever you want me to write in it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, hell yeah, I'm doing that today. Guys, do me a favor, pause the episode, go to the episode description, click those links, and uh request, you know, let's let's make Alan work a little bit now that he's in retirement mode. Buy a personalized copy, get him to sign it, just make him have arthritis, you know, 36 nearly 36 years. Get yourself a signed copy because this is history. Um you never know if you're a veteran, you know, your days of serving are over. But uh you never know what that bookshelf with that book in it is gonna do for your kid or a loved one that happens to be thinking about going in the military. Uh I am a great example of that. I found uh you know SOG Legends. Uh I've early on read about Roy Benavitas, and that got me thinking about service. Um, I didn't go straight into being a Green Beret, I doubted myself for a long time. But eventually, those books and those stories caught up in me, and I said, you know what? Why not me? And so please do yourself a favor, go to the links, buy a book, and uh share it with people. Alan, thank you so much for being here. I can't thank you enough for sharing your story for absolutely. Do we have an estimated time when the second book's gonna come out, or is it still sort of just waiting for approval?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh no, it just so it got out of the uh Pentagon uh about a month ago. Uh it took it took uh almost a year to get through the process. But I've sent it all off to the publisher. Now it just has to wait for the publishing cycle. So I'm not exactly sure. It's so it'll be within the year. You know, I don't know if it'll be in the spring. I'd like to see it in spring, but it'll probably be uh closer to next fall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Well, shoot. Whenever that comes out, I'm gonna reach back out and have you come back. All right, nothing like sharing old war stories, especially from your perspective. Alan, thanks again. Thank you all for tuning in, and we'll see you all next time. Till then, take care. SecureDob Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up an episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.

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Deny Caballero

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