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Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer. Hey, joining me now in studio, no stranger to America now, Jack Carr, number one time, number one New York Times best-selling author, former Navy SEAL and creator of the Terminalist. His new book is the fourth option. It is a novel, but based on everything that he knows. And by the way, just one of the best podcasts, most respected podcasts in the country.
Jack, welcome. Hey, thanks so much for having me on. This is awesome. Great to see you. Great to see you.
Great to hear about your new book coming out in a few months here. Yeah, Uniting the States. I'm going to talk about that, but I also want to talk about your book. But first off, those 10 years that you served at a Navy SEAL. When you went in, was it to be Special Forces?
Yeah, yeah. It was 20 years, 20 to Wake Up, I like to say. That had sufficient at that point. But yes, as a little kid, I always wanted to test myself somehow and found out about SEALs at age seven and a little research that I did because back then you could find the end of the internet because it was a library shelf. Wow.
And what I found out from researching SEAL teams was that, hey, these guys are some of the most elite fighters in our arsenal. And the training is some of the toughest ever devised by a modern military.
So at age seven, they have. Me, I was in and went in in 96, got out in 2016. And when I first got in, we thought we were kind of going to go across the quarter deck after Buds at our first SEAL teams and go do the save the world op and come back in time for beers. And that was not how it was before September 11th. But after September 11th, then we started to do those things that we all thought we were going to do when we came in.
So it was a very busy time from September 11th onward. I haven't seen the stats. But just anecdotally, it seems like special operators have less PTSD. Than than uh conventional forces. It seems to me, but yet you seem to be more active than and with more missions.
I mean, most of you guys, multiple missions in and out, back and forth. I know it's a big strain in the family. But how do you do you think that's correct? What do you think?
Well, I don't know. It's a different kind of mission.
So I have the utmost respect for that, let's say, 18, 19, 20-year-old kid who is in the middle of the day standing watch on a street in Iraq, watching a car head towards him, and maybe it has bad suspension or maybe it's loaded down with explosives. He doesn't know. And that is the last decision maker in a long line of decision makers that starts with the President of the United States and goes all the way down. But that kid and that group of soldiers doing something like that, they're not choosing the time and place of their engagement. We as special operations, not all the time, but primarily, we are stacking the odds in our favor.
We're choosing the time and place of our engagement. We're going out two in the morning, grabbing somebody out of their bed. We have a trigger that lets us know that they're there. We have disassociated human networks corroborated by some sort of technical intelligence.
So we know the guy's there. We know exactly where he is. We grab him out of his bed, pull him back for interrogation, get some intel, and then go out again.
So we're stacking those odds in our favor, whereas most of the military. When they're doing things like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, don't have that luxury. The one thing, I don't want to get you involved in politics unless you want to get involved, but I look at this Graham Platiner. And he says the Nazi tattoo and this his his declaration of I'm a communist and socialist and horrible things he said about women and rape.
Well, he said I had P T S D. And coming back from the military, that's how I reacted, but I'm over that now. I feel in a way. as is someone who doesn't have it. That that makes people with PTSD look bad.
Like, is that an excuse? I mean, who becomes a Nazi because of PTSD? I don't know. I can't really speak to that. But the guys that I know that are dealing with it, you know, I don't know anybody that has had that sort of a transformation.
Have you ever heard that before? I have not heard that. But I guess, you know, anything that happens to you in life and you want to blame something else, I mean, you blame your parents, you blame whatever. You see that all the time. But hey, it's personal responsibility, regardless.
But yeah, the PTSD thing, I incorporate that into the latest novel in this fourth option that comes out on May 12th. And it's really the first time I've explored it in the depth that with all the other novels in this type of detail. Do you have it? And I feel very, I feel extremely fortunate that the decisions I made under fire worked out for whatever reason. And you can make the exact right decision under fire, and the enemy gets a vote and things go south.
And then you can make the wrong decision if we were talking here and doing something on a sand table and talking about tactics and decision making and leadership. You can make the exact right decision, go south. You can make the wrong decision. And it might work out. There's just too many atmospherics of a gunfight, too many votes the enemy gets.
Everyone's adapting in real time on the battlefield. And really, whoever adapts faster than the enemy is going to be the one that comes out on top.
So you're trying to anticipate your enemy's next move and think about in their shoes what they're seeing as they're evaluating you. And then think one step beyond that.
So it's a game of constant adaptation.
So, Jack Carr, but you were just explaining PTSD, right?
So sadly, you have a lot of people you could talk to about it because most of your friends and people that you serve with have it. A lot of people dealing with that emotional and interesting. You said, because I had control, things worked out for me. Do you think people get PTSD when things go wrong and they try to redo it in their heads and can't get it out of their heads? Exactly.
I think, well, you know, I can't speak for everybody with PTSD, but obviously. But for me, a lot of this came from popular culture. Let's say in the 80s, there was those protagonists of TV shows and movies and books, and a lot of these guys had Vietnam experience, and even though it's fiction, but they were sitting on their couch. Couch all these years later, wondering if they could have done something different at the time. And so they're dealing with PTSD, and now they're a police officer, they're a private investigator, they're a stuntman, whatever that is in the 80s that has these heroes and these TV shows and movies.
And I thought, you know what, I never want to be that person who is wondering if I could have done something more to prepare myself.
So I feel like I did leave it all on the field. Meaning my family knew that the pendulum was on the side of the team. They were on board with that. You have to have that conversation with your spouse, especially in special operations, because that pendulum has to be on the side of the team. That's what you owe the person to your right and left.
That's what you owe the team. That's what you owe the country. That's what you owe the mission. And that, I think, helped a lot because anytime we had time off, I was training. I was shooting.
I was running. I was reading about the enemy. I was trying to make myself a better leader, better operator today than I was yesterday. Today, I want to be a better author today than I was yesterday. I want to be a better citizen, a better husband, a better father today than I was yesterday.
But in the SEAL team, it was all about being a better operator and leader.
So I was just focused on that.
So that helps with the PTSD, I think, prevent that because I knew that I hadn't left anything on the field. Interesting. But I was just thinking about your family too, because I know if you work a lot, you go away for a week or two, that's a big deal. But you're going away in a moment's notice, and then you don't know when you're getting back. When you get back, you might go back again.
And now you say, when you do get back, I got to go train. Oh, yeah. It's so easy to understand the stress of a family. Oh, yeah. The divorce rates in the teams are fairly high.
But when you deploy, it's six months at a time. And then you come home, like you said, and you're away for a month training, let's say doing desert warfare training. And I mean, you talk about some, especially when you're not doing some super secret mission or something like that. I mean, not too secret what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So you can talk about some of it, but you don't want to bore your spouse with just tales of your experience downrange.
So you tend to not talk about it with anybody else, just with the people in your team. You know, I was at West Point. Uh Tuesday. Oh, nice. And I had a chance to talk to everyone at every level, from the instructors to the commandant in charge and everything.
I just think that your generation is as good as any generation of warfighters. And people take a step back and go, I don't like the way Afghanistan ended, or maybe how Iraq ended.
Well, that's nothing to do with you. I mean, you won everybody, you guys battle. The way you adapted to the battlefield, what you have done to make to lessen the number of casualties, how you innovated and took on when, okay, when I were in urban fighting, I was told to avoid that, but we're in it. How do we survive it? You actually cordoned off Ramadi.
You got ideas for everyone. You know who was coming out, and then you took it down. I mean, think about how they're going to write. Maybe it's only going to be in a war college. Maybe they're not going to get to detail into grammar schools and high schools.
They should. But you guys should be so proud of your generation.
Well, appreciate that. It was sustained combat operations, and we hadn't really been in sustained combat operations since Vietnam. We had flashpoints to places like Desert One, Grenada, Panama, Mogadishu, first Gulf War, which was fairly limited in scope and scale. But then September 11th happens, and we are in sustained combat operations for 20 years and plus now.
So that's a lot of experience, and that's a lot of adaptation real time, tactics-wise. And then also with the gear, the evolution of gear weaponry over that time period took huge leaps forward. And I can only imagine what the guys are doing today with the technologies that they have out there and building on the foundation that essentially my generation built up after September 11th. I remember the Iraq. We did not have bulletproof Humvees at the beginning.
So you guys were putting Kevlars in the doors. Doing all sorts of taking sandbags and putting them on the floor of a truck bed and sitting on those as you rode into Ramadi or rode into.
So you had to adapt. You had to think on your feet. But you had those guns rolling around in those gun trucks without a thin-skinned vehicle with gun trucks. That was pretty dicey.
So tell me about the fourth option. Ah, fourth option.
So there's a new and out May 12th. And this is a new protagonist for me.
So it's a new storyline. And this is really about what happens when law enforcement, the prisons, the legal system fails. There's this fourth and final option, and that's Chris Walker, former SEAL, former ground branch operator with the CIA, who's battling these demons. But also, he's a philosopher at heart.
So he has these philosophers battling within his soul at the same time as he deals with his post-traumatic stress, the emotional trauma of the battlefield, losing his friend, and then gets pulled into New Orleans. I always wanted to write a book that had New Orleans as a backdrop. Not just a chapter or two, but for a full book, full story. White White New Orleans because of this. And they're training.
So much color there, so much color, so much culture, a lot of corruption there as well, just kind of endemic to the system. And so it's a perfect backdrop for something like this. But the foundation of it is Have Gun Wheel Travel, which was a radio show first in the 1950s, then a TV show in the late 50s, into the 60s, and a Western.
So it's a my take on the modern Western, the stranger comes to town narrative. But instead of jumping on his horse and riding to New Orleans, Chris Walker jumps in his Volkswagen bus, pops up camper from the 80s with his Belgian Malinois dog and heads to New Orleans to dish out some outlaw justice, some long-forgotten old West brand of justice.
So how did you prepare for this? Look, you're listening to those past shows from a different era? Oh, yeah, they were all part of my experience already, watching those with my dad when I grew up.
So, Pale Rider, a little drop of Pale Rider in there, Shane, High Plains Drifter, Magnificent Seven, and then, of course, as a child of the 80s, people who are fans of Lethal Weapon, the first film, we'll see a couple little dashes of that. Maybe a little Airwolf, maybe a little AT, maybe a little Magnum, and Equalizer from the 80s.
So, there's some touch points in there because those are all part of my experience. All the books that I read, the movies that I've seen, all the TV shows that I've watched growing up, those all became part of my experience. I think what you do between age 8 and 18, 10 and 20, just imprints on you differently. And so, luckily, I was reading all these books by the Masters, watching these old TV shows and watching these movies, and now that's part of the foundation that I'm building on right now. And do you talk to, I imagine with your podcast and with other people you know, and people are asked to talk to you?
Are you able to get their stories? Oh, yeah, yeah, talking to people that worked in the Ninth Ward down there in New Orleans, dealing with the drug situation down there, people that are dealing with corruption. In the police force down there, people that are working in human trafficking, trying to dismantle those syndicates.
So, I guess talk to a lot of people that are in those worlds and incorporate some of their stories into the book here. I know New Orleans is kind of interesting. Number one, I did Andrew Jackson, The Miracle. Yeah, yeah. That was a great book.
So, I went to New Orleans multiple times, and then my son went to Tulane. Oh, nice. So, we were going down there constantly. And I would say colorful is one way to say it, right?
Well, let me know what you think when you read the book here. See if I captured the feel of New Orleans, which is the goal. Do you find, Jack Carr, do you find. finishing up a book as satisfying as finishing up a mission? Very different.
So I moved on from that life, but there's something about coming in when all your guys are okay. Whether the mission was successful or not, whether you've got the package, the touchdown, whatever you were going out there to do, but having the guys come back and be okay, maybe just a couple scrapes and bruises, and you're coming in and the sun's coming up over whatever city you're flying into, and you have a beautiful sunrise and you're coming back on the Hilos or whatever it is, or maybe the gun trucks. That's a pretty cool feeling, knowing everybody's okay.
So that's, I haven't thought about that in a long time, but that's a pretty special feeling. If I talk to a player on any level, then any type of success as a pro. They would always turn back the clock and say, I would love to play one more season. Very rarely, I was done. The only reason they feel that way is because maybe their body was breaking down, it was getting frustrating.
But If you could do additional missions, were you that person, Jack, that was done? Or were you saying, I physically should stop? But I'd love to keep doing this. I got to a stage with my rank where I wasn't going to tactically maneuver guys on the battlefield anymore. Like when someone says they were commanding officer or something, it sounds impressive, but really you're back in a tactical operations center and you have to have good people to do that, to allocate assets.
So you were off the battlefield.
So I got back from my last Iraq deployment.
So I did seven and then got to this stage where I was a lieutenant commander, troop commander. And about that's the last time that I'm going to be able to tactically do the job.
So that's what I'm good at. I know I'm not good at the administration, not good at the garrison stuff.
So it's important to know your strengths and weaknesses. And I was ready to move on after that. The name of the book is The Fourth Option. It's available next week. It's a novel.
More with Jack Corr in just a moment because I got to get your take on your days in Iraq and how you view Iran. Let's do it. Don't move. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying.
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Hi, Mr. President. Can you tell us what you think about the extracting the uranium from Iran? We're going to get it. How will you get it?
We're going to get it. So that's the president yesterday at the Oval Office. It was a day for wives of the military, and Melania spoke to, and he was asked, because he's always talking, he was asked, what are you going to do about the 1,000 pounds of uranium that Iran has? He goes, we're going to get it. Jack Corr is with me now.
His book's coming out next week. And it's called the fourth option, a novel, but Jack also fought in Iraq. And I wonder, we know about what they did with the EFPs, and we also know they killed over 600 Americans and wounded thousands, probably your friends. How do you feel about this operation? Yeah.
Well, now that we're in it, we have to, there's no choice but to win it because what the enemy learned by watching us in Iraq and Afghanistan, 20 years in Afghanistan, decade plus in Iraq, I think there's a direct line between there and the situation we're in now globally, meaning direct line between that and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Obviously, what China is learning or what they did learn from Iraq and Afghanistan was that America cannot use their military effectively and efficiently.
So now we have this opportunity to prove that we can. After World War II, as you know, we essentially guaranteed trade routes around the world. We didn't keep the land that we fought for. We gave those back to the countries that we liberated in World War II. That burden fell on the taxpayer.
It fell on the military, the Navy in particular, to keep those trade routes open. And it ushered in decades. Decades of the most prosperous time in the history of the world.
So we did all that.
Now we've kind of lost that deterrence. We've lost that deterrence because we've shown that we can't use our military effectively.
Now we have that opportunity to do that. We did it in Venezuela.
Now that we're in Iran, we have no choice but to win this thing. What does it look like? What does a win look like for you, Jack Corr? Meeting all those goals from the negotiations ahead of time. Of course, you have to have those.
And then when we stepped into the military realm, those shifted a bit because now you have to destroy a Navy, you have to destroy an Air Force, you have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. You have to do in addition to those things that you were negotiating for at the outset.
So all of those things have to be checked off. And then new leadership, obviously, in Iran, that's going to work with us. And, you know, who knows what will happen with the Iranian people, but that's really not the goal to liberate them. It's to get those negotiating points that we needed to get at the outset of this thing to check those things off. If I told you that I'm going to kill, I'm going to give Jack Corridor.
The opportunity to kill the 80 top leaders in Iran and then see what we have. You probably think your odds are pretty good you're going to be successful. That's what we did. It's wild. It is wild what has been accomplished.
Also, what the Israelis did, even not now. Even what they did, say, the spring, summer into the fall of 2024. You can go back and look at some of those operations as well, which were essentially, even though they weren't training operations, they laid some of the groundwork for what they did now in Iran.
So it's remarkable what these two military issues.
So, Jack, do you think it's important for us to physically open up the strait and not end it in talks now? Are you okay? Yeah, you get to the negotiating table. That's what you want. You want to get to the negotiating table and not have to kill any more people.
But. You have to get what you what you saw. To flip you out, that robots in battle. Ukraine is getting Russian units to surrender to robots. That's insane.
I had not seen that yet. I've been in Vietnam for the last 10 days with eight Mac V SOG veterans taking them back there for the first time since the war.
So I'm still on Saigon time. And people still call it Saigon, actually, which is pretty interesting. But the whole how the technology has evolved, I feel like I had good timing with these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because drones and robots and all the rest of it, I'm glad I'm writing about that now. How about that? But you got to continue to study and continue to put out great books and turn into great movies.
The fourth option, a novel, Jack Card, New York Times, best-selling author. This is certainly go number one again. Thanks so much, Jack. Great to see you. Thanks for having me on.
