In this episode, we test Hamody Jasim author of The Terrorist Whisperer and discuss how to take a stand.
In this episode, we test Hamody Jasim author of The Terrorist Whisperer and discuss how to take a stand.
Hamody Jasim grew up in Iraq under the height of Sadam Hussein’s rule. He was arrested and tortured as a young teenager for getting on the wrong side of a corrupt police officer. Then he came of age just as the Iraq War was breaking out, and decided to join the newly formed Iraqi military. He went on to lead a security team that foiled several terrorist attacks on Americans, including catching a mole high up within the Iraq military who was assembling a suicide vest in the Iraq ministry of defense. He now lives in North Carolina with his family.
After our interview, Alice and I will talk about what makes Hamody’s story so powerful.
Character Test Challenge: What do you stand for? What would you die for? I want you to take out a piece of paper and spend ten minutes reflecting and writing down what you stand for. If you were put into a situation where you had to fight or die for something, what would it be.
Character Test is brought to you by The Write Practice Pro, a premium critiquing community for creative writers. You can learn more about The Write Practice Pro and join the community
They planned every single thing perfectly that nothing would stop them and they would do this fast. Nobody would see them, nobody would notice it. And nobody would hear it.
I'm here to be a catalyst for our, you are a character in your life. So what kind of story are you telling? Is there any good or is it kind of boring?
Let's put it to the test. This is character test. With Joe Bunting.
Welcome to character test my podcast about the characters we love and hate in the books we read, the films we watch in the lives we lead. My name is Joe bunting and I'm a bestselling author and the founder of The Write Practice,
and I'm Alice, said Lowe. I'm the editor in chief of The Write Practice and a story grid certified editor.
Today we're changing things up a bit. Normally we start by testing a character from a book we're reading or film. We're watching and ask, is this actually a good character? But today we're going to start by interviewing Hamody Jasim. Hamody is the author of the terrorist whisper. He grew up in Iraq under the height of Saddam Hussein's rule.
He was arrested and tortured as a young teenager for getting on the wrong side of a corrupt police officer. Then he came of age just as the Iraq war was breaking out and decided to join the newly formed. Iraqi military. You went on to lead a security team that foiled several terrorist attacks on Americans, including catching a more high up within the Iraq military, who is assembling a suicide vest in the Iraq ministry of defense.
He now lives in North Carolina with his family. After our interview, Alison, I will talk about what makes Hamody story powerful. All right. Let's get into our interview with Hamody.
All right. Hamody does seem welcome to the character test show.
Thank you very much for having me here. It's an honor. So I'd
love to start kind of in a different place. You are originally from Iraq and you moved here. What year did you move to
the U S I came here in July 28 of 2008. Okay.
Yup. So you've lived here for over 10 years and now you're married. You have a child, and I'd love to know how did you meet your wife?
Oh God. I met my wife through one of the American officers that actually saved in Iraq, and I got to work with . Close, throw the surge in 2005.
I met her about, I'll say about a year and a half after I arrived here. I was living in Virginia when I met her. She was living in Connecticut.
So you were introduced by a friend.
Yup. By an American soldier. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Yep.
And was it at a party, like what did you think when you first threw him?
It was like literally, I think we were dating for about two months. And then, you know, in my culture, we don't take a long time to really get determine marriage. You know, like for us, marriage is just a conversation.
You know, for American culture is like very much like, you know, it takes forever. You lift together and then you kind of go from there and you really, for us is really different. You know, for us is that you met somebody, that's it. You'll get married and you move on. And I think
that what happened, did you meet her, asked her to marry you?
Yeah. That was it. You know, it wasn't like anything in my culture. You can't tell people I live with somebody and you're not married. Right. So it was like, unless you marry the person, then it makes sense. If you say, I live with a female, it just doesn't sound as good. And so it was a way what I was trying to adapt between my culture and by the new American culture as well.
and it was a unique experience in my hand because, you know, it was like I came here and very much, you know, it's like you are listening to music from all the way up high, and then all of a sudden you went with no music. And that's how my life turned in 2008 is I came from all the actions that was going on in the world.
I was right in front of Al Qaeda and Islamic state. These are the people that I was challenging in the daily basis, and all of a sudden you're an airplane. 13 hours later. You're in a different environment. That was very big difference for me because I was not like an American soldier who's coming home or come into an environment that they're already missed or they're used to.
I just came through an environment I've never seen before. So for me, this was difficult time to adapt. I knew in my head that I needed Tom to adapt that this is my reality. Now I can't go back. This is a one way ticket. Definitely. I can't go back to Iraq.
You know, I became, I came out of the place of being the highest ranking command Sergeant major in the wacky military, being the intelligent asset this by that guy, and then all of a sudden I'm nobody.
I am just starting my life all over like a 2122 years old. Yeah. It was a very different experience. It was, you know, it took me about six months, chicken things out. I think I spent about. Good amount of a month of those six months, just go into the Smithsonian's every single day, you know, visiting the museums.
I went to Arlington cemetery to visit the graves of the people I fought with that died, and you know, they brought their bodies home, but I never got the chance to pay respect. And it was interesting experience for me to look at the side of the war from the American side
I think the moment that I walked into Arlington cemetery in 2009 I realized that, you know, I kinda got a complete idea of what the war was like until I walked there.
So it was a unique experience in my, you know, if you're in my shoes, you will see it in a different way. Yeah.
`So I got married in 2010
okay. Was any of your family able to attend. No.
Yeah, absolutely not. Absolutely. I mean, you know,` I wasn't involved in my family life since 2005 literally 2003 yeah. But once I went undercover in 2005 once I started working for the U S intelligent as an intelligent asset, I was not allowed to communicate with my family.
I was not allowed to make any connections with them. How soever not even a cell phone, not even a phone call. Because at the time I'll kind of had access to the phone records and if you were making a phone call to asserting places, they can trace that number. They can figure out who it is. And if you hear the stories of many American intelligent assets that made a mistake, you might not have to die, but one of your family members, well, or your parents or your brother, your sister.
So you're going to told already not to make that mistake. I kind of just disappeared out of their life. And I think to this day it remains in their heart like, why the hell I didn't want anything to do with them? And I just disappeared. Yeah. It was the way to do it. And that's what the job required you to do.
`So I don't, I didn't speak to them. And I think until about 2009 I told them, look, I met somebody and I'm like, get married. And that was the next conversation and that was it. So. They probably had two conversations with me the amount of eight years.
You know, every decision I was making, I was on my own.
Every thing in my life was in my own.
Wow. So you grew up in Iraq, your father studied in England. Right. And what is part of the military? Before Saddam Hussein came to power, and when. Saddam came to power, he became kind of more and more of an outsider in Iraq. And so did your family, but can you talk about your relationship with your father?
Were you close to him?
I mean, at the point in my life you are not close as much because you never saw him. I think cause my dad was working and the military and then he would come home and he would go drive like a taxi to make more money. And a lot of people don't understand that. A lot of people were like, well, how could in Iraqi general would work at the time and her Saddam, if you are considered a closer person for the government, your salary is different.
Your life, his style is different. And perhaps they had an ID. It's called a friend of the president. That's what it means. If you're a friend of the president. And it doesn't mean that you're a personal friend, but it means like it's a check Mark that you are an ally. You're not somebody they can doubt or they can't trust.
But at the time, my father had a brother, which is an uncle of mine that has tried to carry out an attack against Saddam's regime. So we were already marked with an X. There was already an ax on the family, so there was not enough money coming in. You have to make living, you have to survive. And. It was difficult, so I never got to see him home as much.
It was never a lot. And you know, for me it was just. A schedule that I had to fill every single day, going from one place to another, and the regime was definitely, you know, was everywhere. You had over three, five intelligent agencies and policing you in that country at that time, you're just couldn't do anything.
Wow.
And you were bullied. Pretty brutally. And I think bullying is something many people can relate to. I was kind of bullied as a kid, but I think the level of bullying and the reason you were bullied was different. Can you talk about your experience living in neighborhoods in Baghdad and being bullied?
Oh God. I mean bullying in Iraq, there was no such a law that prevent people from bullying. There's nothing. Protects you like it is here in America. You know, here in America you can say something wrong to somebody and they can say you're bullying them. You can do it verbally. Where in Iraq it was a physical bullying.
Okay, but you couldn't defend yourself. The the, the sad part, there was no education to society about bullying. It was. The stronger state. That's how it was. I wasn't a violent person growing up as a kid. I wasn't a violent person. I was very innocent person. I tried to make friends and be friendly to everybody, but you are living in a forest.
On the wild forest and it was rough, especially when you knew you couldn't fight back. That was the difference is that you couldn't fly back. You couldn't defend yourself. If you hit the wrong person who is coming from a family of power, you could end up. Only God knows what could happen to you or your family.
So sometimes you don't only worry about yourself, you worry about your family members, about the situations men you ran into. I try to avoid trouble as much as I can, but at asserting points where you get cornered in a corner and you only had to defend yourself or you lose your face. Yeah. So I actually, that forced me to go learn how to Russel play judo, try to learn how to defend myself.
And you know, that was a way of getting the bullies off of you because once you hit them hard, once they leave you alone. If you don't, they're just going to continue on and on and on.
And you did hit the wrong person one time, right? Who had a Bathist connection and you had to change schools. Right.
It was a twice in my life that I actually ran into trouble.
The first one I got out of it easily. I had a guy who actually lived in my neighborhood. His mother was a very high member of the bath party, so Down's political party. He was somebody that just got in my face and I couldn't avoid him in any way possible. And I had at the time in my pocket, which was, and now clipper and inside of that nail clipper, if you know the old ones, there is a two things that comes with, it was a knife.
can opener. I dunno if you've seen that little pointy head. And at the time I try to defend myself. He was bigger than me and I pulled the nail clipper that I had in my pocket, which is I forgot in my pocket. I don't carry it to hit people. I just forgot in my pocket and I took the can opener. And I hit him in his throat so many times and I didn't realize I actually, until he passed out and he was bleeding and my family tried to figure that one out.
I was trying to defend myself. I didn't have any options. He was a violent person and I just didn't really know how I can avoid him. So I had the option either I get beat by him badly. All I defend myself and I'm in trouble anyway. And the second time I rent a bath party member outside of my school who tried to take my money, and that's when I went to prison action.
Yeah. I want to talk about that. But before we get to that, you know, at the end of the Gulf war, you said in your book that Saddam kind of blamed the people living in Southern Iraq and thought that they were traders and really threats to his rule. And you were a child with your family in Southern rock.
And you had to flee. What was it like being a child and running from the government as they are kind of rounding people up and killing them?
I think at that point in my life is that you realized you were working with against our regime. That does not distinguish or know the difference between a child or an elder or a woman or anything.
Once you're considered an enemy of the state. You are a surrogate for them. And at that point, you grown up hearing about the violence, hearing about Wars. This was part of your reality. I would say. You know, if you were shocked that if you had a trauma neuro, you're just lived, you lived at every single day in your life, you live the point that where someone could kill you at any second, someone could end your life.
A lot of people are ruthless. And, um. I think at that point in my life I couldn't understand as a child why, why this things were happening, why would they want to kill me? I didn't do anything, but at a certain point, as I grow and I got older, I realized that mentality that was looking at me. And we had the mentality of a criminals.
I mean, if you look into how sat down came to power, how sit down rule the country, how the house a dam control that country with a fist for 35 years, it was all by fear. It was all by budding fear. I mean, imagine you as a child in elementary school and they will say chores half of the day. They will say, school's canceled.
You're not going home. You're going to go out there to the field and watch someone get executed. Wow. Just say ecologically. Mess with you and tell you if you ever thank you growing up, you can mess with the government. This will happen to you. So fear was already planted in your heart, and it was up to you to make a decision to whether you live up to this fear, whether you break out of it
You're lucky if you survive. So for me, I didn't understand things at that age. I was listening to what elders were telling me if I had to run. Elvis says, run. It means run. It means the people, if they capture you, they'll kill you. You just have to run.
Yeah. This is a quote from your book. You are. In Southern Iraq as a child with your family.
The Republican guard is kind of coming down through the villages, village by village, and you're there with your family. And the book says, as the Republican guard entered, they use tanks and infantry on the ground with large empty trucks behind them. They would use these empty trucks to take people from the villages and dump them in large mass.
Graves dug and waiting. They separated men from the women and children. The men were lined up in shot. The women and children and elders were taken to the mass graves.
It was a confused moment of your life that you didn't know what was going on at the time. You only heard the elders talking to each other, debating what is the right decision to make at that point in your life.
I didn't know what I was doing at that time in my life. I heard. The Americans were there, and then the Americans pulled out, which when people in the South, when the Americans came through, when all the way down to Baghdad, people thought that Saddam is gone because the Americans have one through the South and move all the way down towards Baghdad.
They didn't realize that the Americans got all the way down to Baghdad and then they pulled out. Yeah. And once they pulled out the Republican guards, so damn. Which this is information that I learned after 2003 after Saddam had been taken down, sit down, actually prepared his bags, and he was getting ready to leave the people that assured him there was a last chance that they could take a rack bag.
It was his son in law, Hussein camo, which he later on killed and his cousin come a Kalali. And when these two get in on a military operation. It's brutal. These are the most lethal criminals that operated under Saddam Hussein. So perhaps these individuals have committed the crimes that Saddam Hussein's AFC committed.
Sit down, I'm gonna say, did not commit these crimes physically by himself. These were the people that executed every single massive crime this Adom carried out. So when chemical alley came to a place, there was no mercy, and that guy's heart. He brought trucks. He was looking to bury people alive and he had actually said in a radio, the station threatening people, knowing that people are listening to the radio because they didn't have any TV.
They didn't have anything. He said that, I just need the whole entire blanket. I need the soil of that land to be burned. I don't want to leave anything alive. And when they came by, they had to figure out a way. How could they kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time. So they think that the best way is move a place by blaze.
Try to tell people that are evacuating them. Once people get on the trucks, that's it. They will drive the trucks and two holes they buried in desert. And perhaps to this day in Iraq, they're still finding gray sites. To this day in Iraq, some sites were found, some sites, nobody knew where they did it. It was in the desert, some of the sites, because bed wounds, people lived in the desert, wetness them.
And after 2003 they came around and talked about it and people went and dig and some places now and imagine taking a whole entire families with their children, with their infants, everybody, and just burying them a life.
And how old were you at this point?
I was about five years old.
And with your family, you kind of.
Ran into the swamps, yeah. Near your village and hid out there for several days until the Republican guard was gone.
You know, we were lucky that they had the whole entire South to clear, because this whole entire self fail once the American came through, fail under the control of the resistance. But once the America's pulled out.
They had to clear all this half of the country to get sit down bag in his crown. Yeah. So when they came by, we were lucky that they were rushing, just taking whoever's in front of them, and if they have people that they doubted, they weren't sure if they fought against the government, have they didn't, they weren't sure if they had reports or Intel reports about them.
They just shot everybody. But if they captured people who actually fought against him. Usually they would put a and explosive devices on there, pockets or on them and just blow them up and move. And there's actually videos of that and they just continued. With that Brava Gunda with that kind of violence, and we were just lucky that the elders at the time were making the right decisions that are people in the villages that actually did not make the right position.
They just stayed. They figured we did not do anything. We did not resist, so they'd probably would leave us alone. That wasn't the case when it came to chemical alley. Comical. Alia had no mercy and he would not care or feel bad. Four. A one year old, he wouldn't care. So we're just, we're lucky that people made the right decision.
We were able to run and get away from that site, and after the Republican guard has passed, we immediately went back to Baghdad, who, where we came from.
So when you were living in Baghdad, when you were 12 years old, you got into an altercation with a corrupt police officer. Yeah. You to be in prison. Can you tell that story?
I was walking out of my middle school and I finished a, it was like a second shift in school. We went in two shifts and I walked out and. I was there with a couple of my friends and I was just walking. It was a common thing where if a bath party member or a police officer stops by you, it's not like an American police officer that's following the law or the guidelines or state law.
We didn't have any of that. If they pulled by you, they could do whatever they want and it was a common thing that they asked for. What's in your pocket? If there is money, they just take it away from you. And obviously they knew that you're not someone that's power because you are walking, you are not having a military Mercedes with a two guards and a driver, military driver driving home.
You're just walking, so you're just a random guy. And he asked for my money. I had money in my pocket and I saved some of it in my socks and I knew that this would happen or if I get stolen or anything and I refuse to give him my money and I just kept walking. I ignored him and I just got around him and I kept walking and he got out of the car.
We exchange words and I ended up. Cursing him. He slapped me very hard, took me down to the ground after I cursed him. This was a big thing in our, in our culture. If you curse somebody and you said something about their sister or their mother, it's a big deal. So I said something to him, he hit me down to the ground and he grabbed me and threw me in the truck.
And I got, and the truck to sit between two police officers. You was sitting in the front and there was something about him that you knew, a bath party member. You can spot them about a mile away from the way they dress, the way they talk, the way that our badges are. You can tell this is a person of power, and this is not a person of Bob.
Perhaps I was able to distinguish him among three other police officers. I was able to distinguish his power, his accent, where he's coming from, what area in Iraq he was coming from, and I knew that point of my life that I made a mistake. People like that you should not argue with. You should not mess with it.
At that point of time, I was a child, 12 year old. I had a big mouth and I just fought back to keep my money. I believed in my heart that it's my money. He should not take it, which is the right thing to do, but that doesn't go or work in that environment. And I remember just a conversation that went on between him and the officers who were sitting next to me and they said, Hey, he's just a child.
Why don't you just hit him, let him go home. And he said, if you guys continue to talk out through them, I'll throw you guys where I'm throwing him tonight. I stopped at that point and I realized I wasn't going home and they drove about 45 minutes and I ended up going to actually a prison inside of the raccoon ministry of interior, which is called a test for rot, which is pretty much a big, hello local prison.
This is where people get executed, where people really get tortured and. I went from being out of school out of my classroom, walking home. So 45 minutes. I am in the most lethal prison in Iraq.
In your book, you talk about that experience, you said for about three weeks I was detained in jail. Every day the guards would take me out and beat me and torture me.
Every time they took me out of the cell to take me to the interrogation room, they put on the cuffs on so tight. I couldn't feel my hands. They would also make you bend forward at the waist when you walked, and this would make the cuffs pinch even more. When we got to the room, they would hang me upside down and kick me.
They would blindfold me and punch me. The worst was when they would whip me. I cannot describe how bad it stung and I will never forget the sensation. The reason for the torture was so they could break you down and get you to confess to the crime that was written in the report. I didn't confess her refuse to die for a crime I didn't commit.
Yeah. I think once a human loses dignity, and that's something that the regime there was doing in Iraq, it was all about breaking your dignity, taking your dignity away, trying to assault you to break you in every way, way possible. And Iraq at the time was known. For the brutality. Perhaps sit down with saying older son Uday, how bought an actual old Roman book that specialize in how to torture would be so everything that was implied by them.
It was a studied. They were studying to know what actually could torture a human. The most things they were doing where they painted the rooms red, no windows, but you upside down hangs you from your feet and have you look around four walls of nothing. But it's just they were freaks. And when they brought a child to prison at that time, they had to say why they brought a child to prison under what law and or what accusation they had to say why you were there.
And they needed to make the most dangerous out of you because they're not going to go say, Hey, there's a 12 year old who refuse to give 250 Iraqi Diener. They refuse to do that. They want it to say, this person is very dangerous to your regime. This person tried to attack our police patrol. This person is known to be very violent.
If this person grows four or five years from now, he's going to be a threat to your Regina. So the Regina at that point, we'll look at you saying, eliminate him. We don't want to have this guy to be a threat five, six years from now. Eliminate them now. Put him in prison. And at that point of my life is that I realized it was a confession is that I didn't have, for half of the time they were beating me.
I didn't know what they were talking about. I was a 12 year old. I don't know exactly what they were talking about. I didn't know what they wanted, but something that I noticed in prison is that most of the people were torturing me, had the same last name as the guy who brought me to prison. They were from the same tribe, and because I cursed him, it became personal to them.
So when I was getting hit, he actually had made a recommendation as I was getting thrown in prison. mess me up. To hit me as hard and I was more of the trouble guy that he was focusing on. So when he threw me in there, the people who were hitting me happen to be all like from his family members. They're all happened to be working in the same place.
They all happened to be from the same tribe. And this was common in Iraq at the time, and the brutality they used with me, as I said, it was like an enemy of the state. I was not being treated as a child. I was not being treated as somebody that just. You know, uh, even if I broke the law that day, the punishments I was getting is of somebody who was trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein.
That's the way that I was being dealt with. And, um, at that point, I think the first two days were really hard for me. About three days. Became a reality. Right?
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so you. Did get out, you bribed a guard with your last little bit of money and uh, got
ahold of your family. Got me out though.
You got a hold of your family though. And they
call my family without money. My family actually paid their own ransom of the money to get me
out. Yeah. And I read that you made a vow when you were leaving prison.
What was that though?
The vow that I made is. I was told that if I ever make any trouble again, I'm done. My life is over and that I had to walk by the wall as we say, and just never do anything or say anything. And if anybody hits you, say thank you very much and walk away. And when I left it, that prison, something in my heart told me like if any day of my life, if there was a way to get these people back, I would do it.
Cause at that point in life when I left, I was not that same child anymore. I had a clear understanding of what was like being inside. I have met and talked to everybody that was inside and got to really see where we live. And I realized it would be stupid out of me if I go come out of that place and focus on my life and just take off a positive life or a great future.
There was no future. Right after I went into that place, I knew that there was no future in Iraq. There was done. I promised myself there was a way one day to stand up to these people that I would do it, and it happened 2003 just a couple of years later, thanks. Change the table turned around.
March, 2003 the United States evaded.
Iraq and after that initial invasion, they begin recruiting people to join the new Iraqi military. You were 17 years old at the time, and you decided to sign up. You were one of the first recruits, right? So why did you decide to sign up and also, you know, what did your parents think about that decision?
Your dad was in the military previously? Uh,
w my dad said, you're crazy. You're going to die. Because you are truly, he was right. Might not have said you're nuts because you're going to die. You're coming out to face about 95% of the country. It's going to be against you. They let go of the old Rocky military and they were looking for new recruits.
A lot of people hate that decision about Iraq. A lot of people say they should never let the old racket military go. This works in my favor because the table turned and now I became the law. Hmm. And they were looking for new recruits and not many people had the balls at the time to really go and sign up to die.
If you join the racket military at that point of time, it means you're signing your desk ticket, you're going against your country. That's how it is. That's how they looked at it. For me, it was the first time in my life to have a constitution. It was the first time in my life to have a law that would have protected me, that would not let anybody go through what I went through.
But in order for you to force that law or to apply that law, you have to fight for it. Somebody has to fight for it. Somebody has to come out fight and force that law. I felt I needed to do that. I had the option either I stayed home. And just let them rule my life again, not as about 40 members, maybe as Al-Qaida members, because now they went and became even worse and Al Qaeda and I was just winning among them and now they became radicalized because they're fighting someone who is a, from not the religion of Islam was a foreign occupier from a different country.
So that gave him motivation to turn from bad guys, a religious bad guys. And it's the same individuals, same people. And that's what I realized that I had to make a decision out of my life. If I wanted my freedom, I either are going to have to die for it, either I'm going to have to earn it. That's the only way that you could have survive in that environment.
So in one of your early missions, your platoon was assigned to retrieve the bodies of actually new recruits. To the Iraqi military who had been killed as they made their way to the base. Can you tell the story of what happened
in 2004 you know, that was the beginning of the surge. Iraq was going through a very, very crazy time at that point.
Uh, the insurgency in Iraq has gotten more violent because they were not sure about the reaction of the American military. They were not sure what the equipment was. And once they read it, realize the Americas were not what they thought they were. They got more violent. They started attacking more American troops.
At the time, the U S military had none armored Humvees at that point of time. So when they shoot an RPG and one truck, three American soldiers are dead instantly. This was a violent time, and they were nervous about having Iraqi soldiers fighting side by side. The Americans at the time, they had recruited.
What's called ING Iraqi civil defense court and I, and were locals, people from the areas where they operate it. And that makes it hard because you're not an actual military. You're still going to go home and the end of the day as a national guard or or whatever and or a police officer and they can compromise you.
So there was a big possibilities that you could be working for both sides because you're trying to protect your life. But we were actually the first actual. Iraqi military, traditional Iraqi military, the unit that got established, it was about 150 of us that started. They were nervous about having people of that background because we were mixed from all over Iraq.
We were Kurds, Arab , Shabak Christians. You didn't care about where you were deployed or where you working. You just did your job as a soldier and that made them nervous because we are Iraqis. We're native. We can tell just by talking to them who they really are. They were nervous about that, and they knew that would cause them more damage.
Perhaps they were more afraid of us than they are afraid by the Americans because they knew the Americans wouldn't distinguish them, but we would easily, and they bought their whole entire mission in 2004 and how to capture an Iraqi soldier in uniform. And unfortunately, I ended up going into that, um, Bush in 2004 with my soldiers, with a 29 of them.
And I ended up leaving there with nine. It was a tough day. Now Bush that was designed by pretty high up famous. Terrorists named Sade Hicham, who was to be a Colonel in their BubbleQ and guard. We specialize in ambushes, and their goal was de to actually capture someone in uniform bad and put them on national TV, so that way that discourages anybody from letting their son.
Our daughter joining the Iraqi military, and it was a tough day. It wasn't like any other firefight in Baghdad during our time. I mean, we were in the embar province. We participate in a lot of the campaigns, but this firefight was not only through the rotation of the raccoon military, if we all have gave up, only God knows what happened.
We probably would not have Iraqi military today, but you had to fight for the name. You have to fight for your existence that you were there army, you were the law, and you're the ones that's going to have to force yourself and. We just fought to the last moment of it. That's how it was for us.
You went to retrieve these bodies and it turned into an ambush.
I remember you talking about how the resist sniper on the other side, and they kind of picked you off.
Yeah. They designed their own Bush in a very good way where the place they let us to, which we kind of felt as we wanted to hide, restrict what we knew, me and my Lieutenant at the time who died that day.
We felt that. Something wasn't right because usually the road is busy. There's a lot of noise going on and all of a sudden we drove through the road and was it quiet and we knew something. What's going on? Something was happening that we were not sure what it was until we got to the location and we saw where the bodies were.
Our orders was we had to pick up the bodies because the families of those recruits cannot come to that place. We're the only ones that can stand there. And have the power to do that, so we had to pick them up and go to the Rakhi hospital and put them on the morgue. When we saw the bodies laid up in top of each other right under the bridge, and the river was just right behind him, we knew there was a point why they wanted us to go there.
At that point. We weren't really sure what to do, but as a military unit, we were prepared if something happened that we would have a QRF, quick reaction force that's in the base ready to go, that will come back us up. So we were not afraid at that point that we would get stuck. This was not in our head that we would get stuck.
We thought something may happen, someone might get hurt, someone might get killed, someone might get shot, but we were not planning on being there for hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes. That was not. In our plan that we would not have the equipment for it. And once we really got to the bodies, and the first RPG flew to the first truck, that's when we knew that this was an ambush.
And about maybe 15 minute. And through that firefight, we realized they were not going anywhere. And we were not going to where either because as we passed, they placed IDs and high fifth street. Knowing that our quick reaction force will be coming for us through that road. Once we heard on the radio, our quick reaction force was getting hit.
We knew that we were not leaving there, and within about a few minutes, I'll say about an hour total, say it, Hashem himself, start communicating with us and through our radios, and he was talking to us directly. Wow. Yup. He spoke to me personally on the radio, asked me to give up and put my gun down and told me that you guys are Iraqis and the end of the day, we're not going to kill you.
We just want to kill the Americans. And I knew that day he was looking for us and we were the ones he was looking for. And I shut down the radios, throw him in the river, and just continue to fight. And for me that day, the biggest scary thing for me was I didn't want my family to watch me get beheaded on TV through the whole entire fight.
I was thinking of that moment. If you ran out of the ammo, what would happen? I think about an hour and 20 minutes, hour and 25 minutes, we decided to take a bullet out of each Mac we had and we placed one bullet in our pocket, and if nobody was coming for us, if we ran out of ammo, it's the last person we were just going to execute ourselves, shoot ourselves in the head, don't let them enjoy because you are going to die in the most horrific way possible.
And we knew this was the goal. So we just continued to push each other. You don't have, most of my guys were shot. I did not know at that point that I have lost that many people. And when I looked to my left ride that sniper had actually shot three of my soldiers that was trying to take high ground cause they were higher than us.
And I figured if one of my soldiers get to the top of the bridge. And it's try to see where they are. I'll be able to see who is coming at me. I'll be able to see how many they are. And it was really like a more of a mind game. They kind of knew how many we were, but they weren't really sure how many they shot of us and they are trying to figure out how many is there still out there and with the shooting and everything that was going on, we were trying, our biggest goal was to take the high ground and the first soldier that ran through the bridge.
Got shot, which we didn't realize it was a sniper. And then one of my teammates got shot as well through his kidneys trying to save somebody. And I realized at that point that there was somebody slowly taking us out without even noticing. So we realized there was a sniper, a presence in front of us, and we didn't have many times to resist.
So if you shot out of one place defending your position, you will have to switch it and go to the other side to figure out where they're really the sniper is. And then I realized, actually at that point I realized that sniper was to the right side. Oh, of me. Because everyone that got shot. By that sniper was actually to the right side and I think a three attempts on that ladder that goes from, it's not a ladder, it's like a stairs that goes from under the bridge to the top of the bridge.
We had three attempts in the three soldiers died right in there, and they tried to take it. We try to have somebody that would take a high ground, maybe try to cover us, and we would just run through, but we realized they had a sniper on him and he knew that we would use that ladder or that stairs. And that's why they put a sniper on it.
And, uh, at that point I decided that I was going to stay behind the columns and not move anywhere and just do it until hope shows up. And at the time, the first Calvary unit, the American military has figure it out what the situation was, were notified or through the Rocky operation center that there was a truce and content stuck in there.
And they came cross the tigers river from the other bridge and came from behind us. And that's when they ran away. And that point is when I started counting how many people were around me and I noticed that its own commander was scaled. My a team mate who I was trying to keep alive with shot in the kidney has passed.
At that point, I did not have the proper medical equipment. Perhaps I had a medic in my platoon and net medic was shot with the other group and killed and his equipment was right on him, but we didn't have the capabilities to get to him. So we were trying to treat him and trying to, but uniforms or clothes or anything to stop the bleeding.
But once the bullet exit, it was too big of a hall in the add pass at that point. And, um, that's when I was notified by American medic that I was shot myself. I had a shop all by my eye and I had to travel by my knee and I was sold that. There was only nine of us, and I asked one of my corporals to go back and count to find our Bitcoin commander and came back and he just looked at me and said, there was only nine here.
That's what I see, and I didn't realize who is dead, who was alive at that point until I got to the hospital from the hospital. I got to the base. And when I got to the base, that's what I, you know, I saw it. Dead bodies and people getting ready to be put in boxes.
At that point, did you want to quit or were you more motivated?
Honestly, I wouldn't say I was more motivated. I think it was a tough decision because people who are not in firefight quit. People who are on the base just saw dead bodies came through. They wash, you, leave the base, and then way wash same people came back dead at that point. People who had families.
People who had responsibility. I'm not mad at them. I wouldn't say, you know, they were traders. They were cowards know it was a different situation. And then of the day you're going to have to go home. If you have kids, you're going to have to go home. He had a kids and wife and you're forced to come out.
You're scared to come out of that base because if they knew who you are, you get killed. You could get killed. If you lived like in anywhere in Iraq, there is possibility of you getting killed, going home five, six times every time you go home. I mean, imagine that. I couldn't imagine the pressure they were on.
They watching dead bodies. It was a no win situation for them. So a lot of people. Just what the uniform down, collected there, belongings and left and okay. I decided to stay because I had nothing to lose. I didn't have anything to go back to. I was going to die anyway. I'm like, if I was walked out and went to my neighborhood, they would just butcher mean hang me a life.
I just decided that, you know, if I was going to die, I was gonna die in my own Terrance. I was going to die in my way and it wasn't going to be fair for the ones that died and fought to the last bullet they had on them. It wasn't going to be fair for me to take off my uniform. We'll walk away. So for them and out of respect for their lives.
I didn't want to leave. I wanted to carry on, and I knew he put us on an ambush, but I promised my commander that if I come back again, he would not be, be able to beat me down like the way he did. You would not be able to control me. My soldiers, if I go back again, I'll go back on my own terms and I'll be able to get to them.
And uh, it happened a week later, so I got promoted. I became a command Sergeant major in the racket military. I got my battlefield promotion at the time. It was a big deal. I was the youngest in history too, received his honor. But. I didn't care. Honestly, I didn't give a damn at that day what was my rank was going to be, was it whether it was going to be a Sergeant major or specialist or a Sergeant.
I just wanted to go back, unload my gun on these guys. I want it to go back and be able to be in a better position than I was. I felt this wasn't fair. This was a trick, and I needed to go back and have an equal fight with him and I felt, you know. If it wasn't for the training for the American instructors that they, which you probably read in my book.
If it wasn't for that training, we probably would not have been able to handle ourselves that long. You know, if this was a civil defense Corps unit, they would probably have killed everybody after 20 minutes. The cease fire training, the discipline off of shooting, that would really got us to understand what was happening around us and analyze and say, Hicham at the time thought this would probably take about 20 minutes.
And every time he tried to attempt to get closer to the columns, some of his people were shot, so he wasn't really sure he thought it was. Many of us are still around. He wasn't sure about the number of soldiers. In reality, there was about maybe 10 of us that was fighting to the last moment, but they thought they'd probably bought like maybe another 20 of us.
And we just ceasefire renew. We'd kind of make turns who'd shoot if they get close. And we made the rule was a 15 meter engagement. We just sat there, looked at them, they looked at us, unless they make 15 meter, unless they pass the 15 meter distance. And that's when we opened fire on them. And we were preserving our ammo and just keeping it ourselves.
And that ran him out of his patient because he knew someone else was gonna make it. Yeah. And this was not in his plan, and he was afraid of the Americans showing up. And you know, that day I would say my infantry training by MPRI, the American company and the retired Vietnam veterans paid off. Wow.
So you were promoted, you found yourself brought into head up security in the Iraq ministry of defense, and you quickly in that posting, realized that the Bathist and Al Qaeda had infiltrated.
That new Iraqi military and that they had a plan to capture an American intelligence analysts
at the beginning of that war. I think they weren't really sure what the American. Capabilities are, they thought the Americans had a way of knowing everybody who was who, but in Iraq, we didn't have a digital database.
You really couldn't tell who's who. And then members of Al Qaeda, Islamic state and Oxford bandies batter Corps, all these bad people stop forming political parties, which to this day, they control Iraq. At that point, you had the former Iraqi military Goss, the generals who came back from the former Iraqi military, and they were not big fan of the new Iraqi military.
People like myself and new faces, people who are trained satirically by Americans, which means they're Americanized. They're not put under the fear of the Iraqi military generals. I didn't care if the Rakhi military general did whatever they did. They couldn't break my rules. We put those rules in position and that was it.
And. The blending of the kidnapping. That was until the Iraqi government was getting divided, so there was no minister of defense that would just be a qualified person. It had to be as Sunni or she out or whatever. They, that part of the government got cut off amaze a terrorist organization could actually get that job, could get that position.
So at the time we got an administrative defense from a lumbar problems. So we went from someone who was from , Iraq, and who is a British citizen. And he left and we immediately got replaced by a guy who was a member of the Muslim brotherhood and from the Anbar province from Fallujah. And that was just a different shift, different change in the Iraqi mod at the time and the faces that God brought in with him at the time.
He came in and he let his nephew be the head of his security. He was a member of Al Qaeda. He was actually fighting a non-BAR province, and he brought about 200 men from the Anbar province to be there just with guns and just to protect the minister. That was the excuse. We're here to protect the minister, and you look at the faces, the people you're looking at, you just knew immediately.
Like right now you're just sharing a compound. We'll all . That's how it is. And you don't know what they're up to. But that was the reality every single day in my life.
Wow. When did you realize that these people were not on your side, that they were working for the other side?
Literally the first day I saw him because 99% of the people in Anbar province were evacuated.
The Marine Corps was heavily engaged in 2005 with people on the armbar province. I mean, look, 1200 Marines died in that area. It's a lot of Marines and including major. Megan McCulloch was a good, a friend of mine. This was a golden opportunity. If I was them. If I was Al Qaeda, I would have done the same thing.
This was an opportunity. You went from being a Fujitsu, being chased by the Marine Corps, and I'm Bob province to have it in Iraqi mod ID card to go inside of the, almost, you're about one foot away from the green zone and you're in a place where 50 Americans who are not combat prepared. Cross every single day from the green zone through a door with maybe a nine millimeter in their belt.
That's it. This was a big chance for them, you know, like this was and big deal for them, a big opportunity and the first day they got there, I knew that these guys weren't going to be like. They're going to do something. My biggest fear was they will put a suicide belt, blow themselves up in the building.
That was the biggest thing, so I made sure that they were getting searched, that none of them can go through asserting areas in the mod. I gave him shirting all 30 where they can be, where they can be, and at the time my job was to protect these American advisors of all costs and to make sure that they get protected.
Nothing happens to them. They walk every day out of the mod at 4:00 PM and watch these guys at all time. I had my own team inside of the mod was deployed and their job was to actually watch these guys. Well, their job was to be there, perhaps I placed, one of them is right in front of the ministers office and they asked why that person was there, and I said, because it's a military person.
And he's able to do certain things, and you guys are not, you guys are just body guards and just leave him alone. Let him do his job. And I kept an eye on them a whole entire time, but no one what exactly they were up to. I knew about it maybe three minutes before they attempt to get an American officer when they came at night around 1130 and midnight trying to.
Kidnapped somebody. I that point in my life, I realized that they were there to actually cause some damage. And once they brought like a tool, like a truck that moved to you walls and they, the way they planned their things, I knew that they were cooking for something, but I try to keep myself distance so they wouldn't know what that was doing.
And at that point, that's when we realized something wasn't right.
Yeah. So one night you're at the mod, a truck comes in or you saw it parked there and it's designed to move those kind of barricade, like concrete things, and you realize that something was happening that night.
And the thing is, they thought, I know my building very well.
Like I knew every single piece of furniture inside of that building. I knew everything about my building. And that's the one thing that the American military have taught us at the time, is to pay attention to your detail, to know exactly what your surrounding is. And once we ask the question, if it was anybody else.
Well, I've asked that question why that truck is in there. The execution was very reasonable. It was, we were moving furniture for the minister's office. The minister has the right to buy new furniture, to change his furniture. He just received office so. They had every excuse, they had everything planned correctly, but when they said that, execute that, I got that back.
I immediately knew that the furniture, the minister's office were actually furniture's of sit down with st. This was a presidential furniture and it can not be moved. Some of it is heavy as anything, and when you look at the size of the truck they brought. This has nothing to do with moving furniture from the second floor.
You knew they were using that for something, but when I looked at the teeth of that truck, I knew that they couldn't get out because if they did kidnap somebody or kept somebody, my biggest fear that they were going to kill somebody, not kidnap somebody. That was not in my head. Once I noticed where the truck location is, and that's the one thing is it makes you buffer and think and think where the truck was parked.
It was the only. Unsecure area. Oh, the mod, because it backed up to a road that's completely blocked by the T walls, and if that T will moves, they can just drive straight out. That's it. Done. Once they make it out of that wall, they're done. Nothing could stop them.
No. Did you do
so I immediately, actually, when they came, why have kept an eye on the truck?
I had soldiers that were kept an eye on the truck and when they came, and I got the radio on the call, I had to evacuated about four or five Americans that was working in their Acura operation center who were ordered there to work overnight. So this was a very fast job for me, is if you see something, something isn't that right, evacuating and immediately give them back to the green zone.
And that was what I was doing. And when I went in, I went in towards doin my thing. Once I knew the moment they walked into the building at that time of the night, I knew that there were not going to do any. It's either they were gonna attack an American and Golan or something is going to happen. So I decided if I get the Americans out of the building, there is nothing for them to do.
Hmm. And if there was any target, it's the Americans, not us, not us as Iraqis. So once I actually got to the first floor trying to evacuate everybody, I had sent two of my soldiers just sweep the second floor just in case. If anything. Just in case, even though everybody have gone in their orders on time, because we weren't sure what they were looking at.
We found somebody in the second floor who was supposed to be out of the building by 4:00 PM and that person has repeated that few times, which that's where they were focusing at. That obviously had some of their guards have noticing him doing the same thing every day and decided this would be the easy target because where he is sitting in the mod goes to the door, to the back of the building.
It's easy access. They can just take him out and that night they actually broke locks. They planned every single thing perfectly. Yeah. That nothing would stop them and they would do this fast. Nobody would see them. Nobody would notice it, and nobody would hear it because the building at night, it's a huge building and nobody would hear you.
It's an empty building so you can scream as much as you can. And the guards and the army, it's all on the outside. But his side, there was not many people at night. Yeah. So at that point, I just ran, when I got that call that there was someone in the second floor and I immediately got notified. The locks were broken.
I immediately knew this was a kidnapping attempt. So we ran upstairs, and as we ran upstairs, my soldiers were like, there was only about. 1213 of us, and there's about 150 of them downstairs. And they said, what if we meet them in that hallway? They will just shred us if they want it to force it, but at that point we knew if they did something like that or where they wanted to force a kidnapping, they will put that minister in jeopardy, his job, his position.
So we knew they were doing this quietly without anything happen. And them opening fire was definitely not an option for him. So when I ran there, we got them out. We let them ran ahead of us, we got him out, we evacuated him, we let him rent half of his weight towards the green zone. We told him to leave, just get out.
There's a security threat. And we got away and it was about like maybe a minute later, they actually got up the stairs. Wow. They got up, they walked into the room, they saw the lights were on. They went to check the bathrooms in case if he went to the bathroom. And once they realize he just disappeared, they pulled out slowly and they walked away.
And when I called American intelligent officer, which is in the film as well, the film was on Amazon, you'll see it. And once I called him up, he didn't answer at the time he was sleeping was the middle of the night. And I was kept calling him and calling him. And then. Once he picked up, I told him what happened.
It was early in the morning and immediately general Patraeus ordered like a travel ban to the mod. So no Americans walked into the building the next day for about 72 hours. It's all done. And at that point, I think the Americans had sat down and try to figure out how they were going to operate to build a new Iraqi infrastructure.
Working with that, I mean, the same building. Yeah. This was new and shocking to the American leadership in Iraq and at that time it was just a very weird two days. We didn't want to do something where they would notice salt within 72 hours. They started coming in groups. The American soldiers started walking in American officers and groups.
And that's when I got a phone call from intelligent officer at the time who was in charge and not told me to meet with some intelligent agents outside of ammo data, secure location and, and a whole entire intelligent operations got but on the ground. Because of the area they were coming from. They were coming from the embar problems where the Marines were heavily engaged, people were evacuated, and this turned around from them having an attempt to get an American to pressure the American troops out of down bar literally us knowing what their next steps is.
And at that time I was young. I was confused. I wasn't sure why the Americas are not taking actions right away. I perhaps was asking them to detain them right in there and the mod. Now let's just go detain them and take them out of the building. And they said, no, just leave it alone. Let them do what they doing and we're just going to wait.
And once I met with intelligent agents who came from the Ambar province, they sat down, they asked me to work for them. And at that point it just, I was confused. I said, you know, why won't you just go and detain them? Why? Why do you want me to just give you more information? You already saw what happened and at the time they had their own data.
They already saw on camera where they were doing what they're attempting to do. the agent took, Tom explained to me why they were wanting to get them and arrest them in the Anwar province because that will get them to see the network. They having a non-BAR problem was where they were coming from. And once things were explained to me, I was ordered to go and collect more information.
So that was when I officially became an intelligent asset for the U S intelligent. I went inside, collected enough information, and I think within about a week or so, they went home and they got detained by in lumbar province.
Wow. So you were recruited as an intelligence asset. You were eventually called a terrorist whisper because of your ability to get information from these people, and we don't have time to talk about it right now, but you eventually helped uncover a plot involving an Iraqi Colonel who was assembling a suicide vest within, was it the ministry of defense?
And that's an amazing story. I think everyone should read your book to find out about it, but I, you know, eventually that led to you having to leave Iraq because you are compromised. You then killed by Al Qaeda and others for. You know your role in that, and then you came to the United States and it kind of watched from the sidelines really.
And as an American, I watched the events around the rise of ISIS and the aftermath of the Iraq war with kind of a detachment and even cynicism. But for you in the fall of Mosul happened. And as the Iraq military retreated in the face of ISIS, that wasn't something you were detached from. You were living in America at that point, but those were very personal events for you.
How did it feel to watch those events unfold?
You know, for me, I think in 2008 when I came here, war was over for me. I came here and I couldn't believe what the hell I was doing in Iraq. Because I didn't realize I was only 2122 years old until I bought. I got here that job, the volume, the responsibility, the whole entire situation.
I didn't know my age. It was a job that was required. Somebody who was about maybe 25 years old, older than me to do, and I was not living that young teenager or whatever life I was living in a life of a 50 years old. And when I came here, it kinda came back to my normal life. I started to know what my normal look like and know.
I think I'm a proud of everything that I have done in Iraq. I enjoyed the part that a 19 year old kid was able to stop a terrorist organization or the toughest terrorist organization in the world on his tracks. And that's something that I couldn't believe is that if you have the well, and if you are protected enough.
It was an enjoyable moment for me to see that the kid version of me was actually messing them up.
Wow. You had people who you served with who were in Mosul when ISIS came, people that you knew who were killed. When you saw the news that Mosul had been evacuated and taken by ISIS, what was that experience like?
I mean, it was sad experience because this was the first time you see a whole state and Iraq just fell under the control of the enemy. Since 1986 since we lost all foul to the Iranians, it was sad to see the Iraqi army was getting demolished. And getting destroyed by ISIS, which later I learned the details of that as well.
It was sad to see most of my guys there, so the people that I fought with, we're losing their lives, and it was a devastating moment because they were fighting in a frontline with no ammo, no equipment corrupted. People in the Rocky government was stealing every bit of thing out of them. Even their food was getting stolen from them.
And when you have at this motivate a soldier. Who has no motivation, who you are stealing every bit of his goods and his power and his strength. Definitely that soldier is not going to be able to fight or hold the ground and the mentalities that was surrounding them. It was sad for me to see that that was the sad, negative part of it, but also there was a positive part to it.
Is that the children you fought for. And the surge that people who grew up in search are now the people who join the Rocky military in one back to take the land. So there was a positive and negative out of it, and I was amazed to see at generation that was not raised under fear like me, I generation that made a better decision than some of my soldiers did.
And they just went at it. And this generation today is standing protesting in Iraq against the bad guys. They don't want them there. It was an amazing moment. I think that made you feel everything you fight for, it was worth it.
Well, thank you so much. Hamody is, is amazing to be able to hear your experience.
I have one last question for you. Who is your favorite character from a book or a film?
One of my biggest. Iconic figures out of like books. It would be Tom Norris. Yeah. Tom Norris is a medal of honor recipient, and so as Michael Thornton, they fought in Vietnam. I consider these guys are like the golden generation because they were the ones that trained me in Iraq in 2003 I think the basics, that character, they carry as amazing.
I loved their relationship. Tom Norris and Michael Thornton had among that war. When you're in a conventional war, um, the relationships and the brotherhood that you build with people, it's very genuine and sacrificing for your friend or your teammate. It's a different level of friendship, different level of, it's just a different thing.
And I saw that. On that old generation, like, because I think maybe because they trained me in 2003 like the Vietnam veterans were in charge of my training and had us all suffer together. But I would say, you know, unfortunately they're not, movies are done about Tom Norris. Yeah. Which is, should be. But I loved the friendship of Tom Norris and Michael Farrington, the friendship that remained real genuine.
A lot of people now, you know, all the seals from the recent Wars in Iraq, you know, they come home and everybody goes into his own business writing his own books, or, you know, I think these two guys were very, it's kind of stayed together. Each one of them is a hero in a different way. And I love both of them.
I loved every think about themselves. It wouldn't be an actor that I would like to say, Oh, an actor is a somebody, but my favorite actor is Dwayne Johnson. You know?
But the man,
you know, I think if there are two people that would like to meet one day in my life, it would be Tom Norris and Michael Farrington.
You know, I had the honor of getting to interview Eric Olson, who is a seal and a four star Admiral, and he talks about how when he was thinking about becoming a seal, he was actually in the hospital, and while he was there, he met Tom Doris, and it was a life changing experience for him. So I know that the impact that he's had on so many, and it's cool to hear.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think Tom Norris and. As alleging among the seal community, him and his friend, the friendship, and you know, these were the just very simple guys. You know, there was no drama. There was no controversy. I love the way they talk because when they talk about an ally, they get a value of their Vietnamese allies.
So to the people they fought with, there was never a disrespect. I never heard one negative thing from their mouth about their ally, even though they had an ally. That actually. Didn't want to fight or do, were not motivated enough to fight. Still didn't insult him or, you know, we're unfortunately, nowadays you hear people who came out of Wars are saying terrible things about Iraqis or Afghans or anything like that because they think this is the way they get to earn the love of the American public by saying bad things about the people they worked with.
And. Different level. You know? That's why I enjoy these guys because they're genuine, they're real. And if something comes out of their mouth is real, and there are professionals, in my opinion, who did their job professionally, and it truly, one day I would love to make Tom Norris myself. Yeah.
Well, thank you so much.
How many, and your book is called the terrorist whisper. You also have a documentary available on Amazon called the terrorist whisper, so thank you so much.
Absolutely. My pleasure. You can get my book from my website. The terrorists will spur.com they come autographed and the documentary on, it's on Amazon and it's called the terrorist whisper as well.
And it's the first military intelligence documentary to be released to the public.
All right. Well, thank you so much.
All right. Let's get into our character study segment of the show. This is normally where we ask what we can learn from how many story and apply to our own lives as we try to live a better story. But for me, Hamody story was so powerful, almost like a real life action movie that we wanted to put it to the test.
Using our four criteria for what makes a good story. We've never done this before. It could be awesome. It could be less than awesome, but I'm excited about it.
I mean, I think it's cool because this whole concept is talking about. People as if we were characters in stories. And so here we get to approach a person as if he's a character in a story.
The way we approach fictional characters as well.
All right, so let's talk about the first test of a good character, which is whether they want something, whether they have a goal, good characters have strong clear desires, they have a goal, in other words, and they commit to that goal strongly enough. To endure the challenges that come later.
So the question is, does Hamody have a goal and what is his goal? Alice, what do you think?
So you'll probably be able to add more nuance to this, but to me, the core goal, the foundation of his story really goes back to what you said earlier about this. Being an action story. The core goal and an action story is to stay alive and to save other people.
But survival, survival is the goal. And that's what really strikes me throughout his story is it's this goal of survival because this is a very, very high stakes experience throughout his whole life that he's had, where his life was in danger at many times in many ways. And so at his core, it wasn't so much about can I get into the right college?
It was. Can I survive until tomorrow? Until next week? Until next month? Until next year.
Yeah. I think that's definitely true, especially in his early childhood, and then again, later on when he was in the military. I mean, she really, I had some very close calls.
Yes,
yes. And to that, I would add, you know, there are certain stories in literature and in film called revenge plots, and I think his story has something of that as well.
You know, being in a situation where he was unjustly and present. Okay. And tortured and getting out of that situation. And you know, he had a clear moment where he said, I am going to get. Back at those people who did that to me, and in some ways he did that later on in life. It's crazy to be in a situation where you have to that kind of revenge.
Yeah. Especially as a child. Really.
Yes. That was one of the things that struck me most about this story is just how extreme it is. He talks at the beginning of this interview about how. Different it was to come to the United States. And I didn't fully grasp what he meant by that until later on where I started realizing just the, the absolute extreme level of danger and strife that he experienced throughout his entire childhood.
It colored every moment of the way that he grew up and experience the world. And so his goals were really heavily influenced by that.
Yeah. So the second test of a good character is whether they have to overcome. Challenges to accomplish their goal. When you just get what you want right away, that makes for a really bad story.
But good stories and good characters have to overcome a lot of challenges to achieve their goal. So does Hamody have to overcome challenges? What.
Oh, for sure. I mean, I felt like the scale of danger that he was facing only increased as he grew up, and especially as he made choices that put him. More in a place to be able to further that goal of revenge, more in a place to be able to further the goal of survival for himself and for his family and for the people that he cared about as he pursued that goal.
The scale of danger increased. Tremendously. And so he was consistently in higher stakes situations, higher stakes, not only for himself, but for the people around him. He was given every time he was successful in any situation, he was given more responsibility, which led to higher stakes again for himself and for the people around him.
Yeah. Well, you didn't get a chance to talk about this in our interview, but there was this one. Moment when he was on the hunt for this mall within they Iraqi military, and he was kind of undercover with, I think the CIA working to uncover this small, and they kind of narrow in on this Colonel in the Iraqi military, and he has to kind of clandestinely sneak into this guy's locker.
Who is Wei, you know, superior to him. Just by accusing this person, he could, you know, get in major trouble and definitely by sneaking around in his locker, he could be a major trouble. And he has this moment of terror and panic as he's like breaking into this guy's locker at picking his lock. And then he discovers the suicide vest that the guy had been assembling for months because they're metal detectors and he had been sneaking this stuff in.
And this is a crazy story, and I'm super bummed that we weren't able to get into it because, you know, had that not happened, you know, something really terrible would have happened. So he really saved a lot of people. But I mean, that is an example of very high stakes and high danger. Overcoming that challenge.
Yeah. I mean, and he was put in that position. He was given that assignment because he had risen to other challenges. Yeah. Previously. So every time, like the acts of getting closer to his goal, the act of getting closer to saving people and to pursuing his own interests in this conflict, that act put him in place of greater danger every time.
Yup. All right. So the third test of a good character is do they make decisions? Good characters don't just let life happen to them. They take ownership of their fate and make really tough decisions. And for me, the clearest time when Hamody did that is when he decided to enlist and they're Rocky military.
And that was a decision that was really difficult because. It pretty much carried a death sentence at the time, and it did end with a death sentence for many people who joined the Iraqi military, but he decided. To do that, to spite all of that, and was one of the first people to join because he was so personally invested in that fight.
Yeah. And not only a death sentence, but a choice where he lost contact with his family for a long time. It very much changed. The tone of his life, and I agree with that. I think that that is one of those pivotal choices that shapes the story that comes after, and I think good stories have pivotal choices like that.
I think that character is also displayed in some of the. Decisions around those pivotal choices as well. And one of the things that stuck out to me in this was that he consistently held his ground in the face of incredible odds. And so like thinking of the time when he was ambushed and held his ground and continued fighting, and did not give up in the midst of incredible odds, the time when he talked about saving the Americans and the embassy and how.
In my head as I'm imagining this, I'm thinking he has this kind of like minute long window of realization that there is a threat. The threat is imminent, and he has maybe enough time to address the threat. He does have enough time to escape the threat if he chooses to save himself. But if he chooses not to go straight for saving himself, he might not have enough time to save anyone.
And so. He held his ground there. He knew how to navigate the situation in order to save the people who were still working in the building, and he chose to make decisions that put him at greater risk, but had the greater reward of saving people. And that, I think. Is a major Testament to his character, just as a consistent way that he approached situations throughout his life.
Yup. So the final test of a good character is, are they empathize? Hubble, can we relate to them? We don't necessarily need to agree with a character for them to be a good character, but we do have to understand them and at some level like them. So Alice, do you think Hamody is an empathy, sizable character?
I
think that this one was a challenging one for me to think about, a challenging interview for me to wrap my head around. As I was thinking about this question, what it kind of felt like to me is thinking about superhero movies, and I think that marvels spends a lot of time and puts a lot of work into making sure that captain America and iron man all have these backstories where we can.
Relate to the backstory of the character, even if we can't relate to their super powers, but there's still this sense in which they have a degree of power and responsibility and capacity that is removed from me. I wouldn't see myself directly in their shoes, and in this case, I had that sort of admirable but removed from me kind of sense.
Like I. Can't say that I would make the same kinds of choices that he made throughout his life. He faced a lot of really difficult choices, and I don't know if I would've had some of the fortitude necessary to make some of the choices that he made. So I think yes and no is my answer. I think that this is a challenging one, not necessarily in a bad way, just that there is a lot here.
There's a lot of intensity here, and it's because of that. It's a little bit. More challenging for me to kind of grasp onto it.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think he has such an intense story and it's almost difficult to put ourselves in his shoes, and it's a powerful story and an engaging story. Also. Would I make some of those decisions if I were an issues?
And sometimes, yeah. And sometimes I'm not sure. Sometimes I would hope I would, but I don't know. And I think we need
stories like this too, show that it's possible to make decisions that we think are beyond us.
Yeah. Yeah. I do think I find him to be empathized double, especially as a child being bullied and being in situations where he was treated really unjustly.
I think I could put myself in his shoes in those moments, and. If I were in a situation where my family had been systematically removed from power and I had been bullied and been prejudiced against from cultural and even kind of religious standpoint, uh, you know, would I make some of the same decisions?
I don't know. Maybe that I think I get it. All right. Last question, what can we learn from Hamody and his story? And the lesson for me is really what it was really, how to stand your ground. And you know, like you said so many times, even as a kid, and then again, later on, Hamad, he stood his ground. And chose, you know, his own set of values against kind of the unjust treatment that he was seeing the world.
And it cost him a lot. You know, a huge amount. And you know, there were also benefits from that, you know, including being, you know, the youngest Sergeant major in Rocky military history, which has a short military history, but still,
he was still very young.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think. Standing your ground and standing for what you believe in, in your values, and you know the people in your family and in your community is something that we all need to do in certain times in our lives, and I think this is a good lesson and how to do that.
And both the costs of doing that, but also how to do it well.
Yeah. The value of doing that, the fact that. Standing your ground, the facts that holding to something you value is worth a very high cost. And he was recognize the height of the costs and was willing to pay it. And it's a really solid challenge to think of what kinds of things am I willing to pay a very high price to stand for?
So that's our character test challenge for you. What do you. Stand for? What would you die for? I want you to take out a piece of paper and spend 10 minutes reflecting and writing down what you stand for. If you were put into a situation where you had to fight or even die for something, what would it be?
Then when you're finished, take a picture of your paper and send us what you wrote to character test show@gmail.com. All right, that's it. That's our show. Thanks to pictures of the floating world for our theme music. Have a great week, everyone. One last thing, please go to your podcast player. Find whatever button you need to leave a review.
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