Warriors over Fobbits: LtCol Asad "Genghis" Khan, USMC (Ret.)

The story starts with a hard correction: observation isn’t enough—orientation wins. 

A Marine who grew up in Pakistan and rose through the Corps brings a view you do not get in a briefing book. LtCol Asad “Genghis” Khan, USMC (ret) talks straight about war, culture, and the cost of bad decisions. No polish. No excuses. Orientation wins, always.

He walks us through the real OODA fight, the one where context beats checklists and judgment beats slogans. He shows how cultural understanding is not a side quest, it is the ground you stand on. He lays out why leaders who skip the deckplates lose the plot, and why the people closest to contact often see the truth first. We talk warrior ethos, accountability, and the pressure of command when the plan meets a living adversary.

Khan breaks down Afghanistan with a clear eye. The Taliban’s advantages were time, terrain, and tight social fabric. Ours were power and technology, often blunted by cultural blindness and shallow engagement. He explains how local respect and plain talk open doors that armor cannot. He tells the hard parts of combat, the weight of sending people forward, and the duty to come back and face them eye to eye.

He does not spare senior leadership. Promotion games, safe consensus, and distance from ground truth reward the wrong habits. Strategy that ignores economics and social reality creates debts someone else must pay. We talk about reform that starts with contact, listening, and accountability, not new slogans.

NWO Intro with Boyd

March 25, 2025

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Table: Boyd And Ethics
• 3:26 Orientation Over Observation
• 7:26 Pashtun Roots And Early Hard Lessons
• 12:56 Becoming A Marine: Tough Schools, Tougher Mentors
• 21:26 Doctrine, SAW, And MCPP
• 25:56 9/11, CENTCOM, And Cultural Reality Checks
• 34:26 Pakistan Liaison And Improvisation
• 40:26 Afghanistan Deployment: Training, SOPs, Night Attacks
• 47:26 MEU Friction And A Preventable Loss
• 53:56 Eleven Days Of Fighting And Danger Close
• 1:01:56 Awards, Extensions, And Disillusion
• 1:08:26 Investigations, Retirement, And Silence
• 1:13:56 Speaking Out: Sentinel And Accountability
• 1:19:26 Systems Failure: Promotions, Troop Time, Three Tracks
• 1:25:56 Leadership Presence vs Strategic Corporal
• 1:31:56 Force Design 2030 Critique And China Myths
• 1:38:56 Culture, Corruption, And How We Lost The Thread
• 1:45:56 Practical Counterinsurgency: Wells, Food, Respect
• 1:52:26 Mountains, Grit, And True Toughness
• 1:58:56 Digimob, The Book, And A Call To Lead

Transcript

Mark McGrath : 0:57

Well, today we have a fellow Marine that's one of the, I think one of the at the currently one of the leading Marine celebrities that Ponch and I watch the stuff that you put up on the Sentinel Assad and we just go, Man, I wish I said that. Or we were just talking about that. And we know that we see the world the way that you do, and we're so honored to have you come and uh in a conversational atmosphere. Tell us your story and and what's behind it all, because we can't get enough of your commentary more to the point. Hopefully this is complimentary. There is an entertainment aspect of it. The depth of what you talk about and the meaning of what you talk about for our orientations as John Boyd disciples and students and working on his theories and corruption and evil were things that he was trying to fight against. It's very obvious to us that you're at the front line of this and uh and doing the Lord's work, as Boyd would say.

Asad Khan : 1:55

Yeah, I mean, uh, I appreciate it. Uh, you know, thanks for asking me, and I really appreciate you guys having me on here. And I think it's important for us to all to have this discourse and have this discussion. And it's and not not really because we've all sort of lived our lives and we're sort of, you know, moving to the future, but it's really for the subsequent generations, right? And uh and hopefully they learn from our experiences and our mistakes and our successes, you know. So you gotta talk about both of them. And you know, I was a I was a student at Boyd, and I'll kind of go into that when I was at you know Naval War College, we kind of talked about it. But they talked about it in a very esoteric manner, right? And they never got down the details. What does the odor loop mean? You know, what does observation really mean? What does orientation mean? You know, and and what is you know, decide. And and to me, orientation is probably the most important aspect because that's where you're really you know getting the information that you need to get to the decision phase, right? And uh then then what does act mean, right? And uh what are the decisions you have that you make and you know how quickly can you act upon it to get that ODIS loop faster and faster and faster? And I kind of applied that, um, and I'll talk about that when I was uh you know battalion commander, first battalion, sixth marines, uh, because our decision-making cycle is much faster, uh, not only than the enemies, but also our higher headquarters. They could they couldn't keep up with us, you know. So we're just operating at a different level because and it really got down to observation, right? Because observation is sort of like muscle memory, right? Because I pick up things because of my background that you may not necessarily pick it up. Now, you put me in you know, in South Korea, I'm a fish out of water, right? Because I don't know the culture, I don't know the languages. I do like kimchi.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 3:34

Asad, if you don't mind, I'm gonna reorient you right now because you and I are both foreignary officers, and and that's about orientation. That's about understanding culture, that's about getting inside. And to go back about that observation. The only way you can have that observation is if you have that finger spitzing of feel. If you understand the culture, the language, the politics, what's going on, then the reason they make fails out of tactical guys is because one, we can become really proficient when it comes to strategy, right? We understand what we have, we understand all these things. That is an orientation that many people don't understand anywhere. And that it isn't about it's not about observations, it's about implicit guidance and control. It's that that fingertip feel, that that understanding of the context you're in as to why, uh and I'll talk about the Navy, why the Navy followed the other services in creating a foreign area officer program, which which I happen to be part of. I'll call it Failight, because I didn't have the deep experience in uh and language uh like you do. But I just want to make sure that when when we talk about the ODA loop, it's not about observations. It is orientation and that IGNC that gives us that ability to understand what's happening in a region. So I just want to kind of have that discourse with you here.

Mark McGrath : 4:40

I mean, that's why we asked you to come on, Asad, because you are reorienting a lot of people and showing them um a perspective that not many that have been on the outside could even understand or relate to. And you do you do put it in a way that, as John Boyd would say, you're shattering orientations and you're forcing people to rewrite and so that they have a different understanding of of what's actually going on inside of orientation. Boyd had genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experience, uh the new information, the ability to analyze and synthesize. And here you go, you watch any of your videos, you're applying all of that, and it's evident that you're not just you're you're not just um you're keeping it dynamic because you're continuing to take your previous experience, but you also you're making it relevant to the new information and you're revising and you're updating. And people, I think that that that's again what we it's appealing to us. It's really drawing people in, and you're saying, man, this guy is giving perspectives that nobody else is talking about. And and this is like so necessary, it's ridiculous. And we look at the counts that you're getting, we're like, I'm glad that many people are watching this. And I hope I hope more do, because more people need to hear this.

Asad Khan : 5:52

Yeah, I think I think both of you are absolutely right. I mean, it's part of uh, you know, and and and that's sort of going back to my upbringing. That's the question you asked, right? And going all the way back to the beginning. So I was born in uh in Pakistan, right? And uh in 19 uh 60, my father was a naval officer, my grandfather uh was in the in the army, my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather, right? So this is all uh going to be part of my book. I kind of talk about my ancestors, and they're all from the Northwest Frontier province, which borders Afghanistan. And we're part of the Afridi tribe, you know, Pashtuns. So we've got deep roots in that area, and Pashtuns by nature are very proud people. And that saying that you've heard Mattis sort of coin, uh, you know, no bet no better friend, no worse enemy, that really is a Pashtun saying. And he got it from me when Mattis and I met back in 2001 when he was Task Force 58, and he sort of you know went with it, and that's fine. So uh, and that's our view, and we're very hospitable people, and uh you know, and even in um in our culture, if you could be my enemy, but if you're traveling through my area, I am bound to treat you like a guest and provide security to you, you know.

Mark McGrath : 7:05

You eat first that's Pashtunwali, right?

Asad Khan : 7:07

That's that's our code, right?

Mark McGrath : 7:08

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 7:09

So I was brought up in that environment, and because due to circumstance in 1970, uh when Pakistan, East and West Pakistan sort of split up, right? And it was really uh due to racism, I believe, or bias, because we always believed that Bangladesh or Bengalis were inferior, right? But East Pakistan was the larger part of Pakistan, right? Because you've got East Pakistan, you've got India in the middle, and you've got West Pakistan. That's how the British carved it up. British are masters of this shit, right? Because that's how they that's the mess they made in the Middle East.

Mark McGrath : 7:41

That's where that's where our countries like Iraq and Jordan and Palestine and Syria, they're all made up stuff, right?

Asad Khan : 7:47

That's just a key. So so anyway, so uh so there's a person by the name of Majibur Rahman that won the elections, democratic elections. West Pakistan is said, no, we don't want a Bengali to be the prime minister. So East Pakistan basically said, Hey, screw you. You know, so there's a civil war, army went over there, India came to help uh East Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the whole thing collapsed, right? And uh one of my uncles was uh uh commander-in-chief, they call him commander-in-chiefs over there, service chief for the Pakistani Air Force, Air Marshal Azgar Khan. And he basically came out publicly and said, Hey, we destroyed this country because this guy didn't want a Bengali to be the prime minister. So they put him under house arrest. I believe he stayed under house arrest for like seven years. He went after all my father's brother, all of them were in the military and uh very prominent family and uh highly decorated. One of my uncles uh won the military cross in Burma for Kennedy Peak. And uh so all these guys are put in jail. So they attacked, and you know, we we sort of have uh these uh you can call it our family home, was on this hilltop with a stream going around it. So one night they attacked our home. And I kind of vaguely remember that, and the next day we crossed into uh Afghanistan, and we were basically refugees in um Kaaba. You know, I mean, think about that. This is back in 1970, 71 time frame.

Mark McGrath : 9:06

Yeah, no spoiler, spoiler alert, this is gonna go full circle.

Asad Khan : 9:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does. It does. And essentially about 30 years later, I end up in the same spot.

Speaker 2: 9:15

Boom.

Asad Khan : 9:16

Yeah, it's crazy. So uh so all this is going on, and um and eventually we end up in the United States. We were from Afghanistan, they try to get us there. We go to Iran. We I lived in Iran for about a year, eight, eight months, ten months uh around that time frame. Went to school there, and then uh from there, and that's uh time of the Shah, and that's the first time I saw a color film in Tehran.

Mark McGrath : 9:40

Do you remember what it was?

Asad Khan : 9:41

Yeah, hell yeah. Ten Commandments.

Mark McGrath : 9:43

Ten Commandments. No way.

Asad Khan : 9:46

I I should not. Yeah. That's epic. Yeah. And uh first time I saw Kentucky Fried Chicken. Anyway, so from there we went to like uh Spain, from Spain to England, England to the United States, ended up in Connecticut, you know. So that was kind of my childhood. And then uh, you know, eventually uh my father was able to reclaim his business. You know, he was a big commercial poultry farmer, sort of like Tyson of Bakastan. And uh, you know, so he was able to reestablish later on. And then um, you know, so I went to school in in West Hartford, Connecticut. And I remember the first day of school in class, the teacher called upon me to introduce me to the rest of the students. I stood up. How old are you at this point? What grade is this? I must this isn't this must have been around uh fourth or fifth grade. Okay. So I stood up because that's the way we were taught. You know, teacher talks to you, any adult talks to you, stand and speak. And uh the whole class started laughing at me. Like, who's who is this freaking, you know, zipperhead? And the teacher instead of saying, hey, this is how you respect Ellie, she said, No, no, you don't need to do that here. You know, sit down. So I sat down. And uh after class, I'm in the hallway, and this kid shoved me into the into the remember the hallways had lockers. I don't know, school. We were all weird little wall lockers, so he shoved me into one of the wall lockers. I turned around and boom. You know, you you don't want to really hit somebody of our freedom background, because you know, we'll throw it on. Evidently, I hit him and I broke his nose. So he's laying on the ground bleeding like a stuck pig. Teachers come, I get dragged into the principal's office. Yeah, I mean, I I went, you know, but I didn't I didn't realize what I was doing. Shit, I'm brand new to the country. So I get I get suspended and all that shit, right? And uh so eventually my parents figured out that this school is not the best environment for them. So they put me in in a boarding school, right? I have no clue what's going on, right?

Mark McGrath : 11:30

Which which one? I I live in Manhattan, so I hear about these, you know.

Asad Khan : 11:33

Yeah, so this it was a prep school called Avon Old Farms. Oh Avon, Connecticut, where you had to play sports, where you had study hall in the evening, which made Marine Corps very easy for me because I mean it instilled discipline in me. So I I I joined uh, so I went to Avon, and this uh principal was Mr. Troutman, big guy, one of the biggest human beings I'd seen at the time. Evidently he played uh for the LA Rams, you know, offense and defense. Big guy. And he basically said, You're gonna come to Avon, you're gonna play sports here and all that stuff. And uh, what sport do you want to play? All I knew was like football, right? So, you know, eventually I go down to the gym. Next day I'm getting my gear and all this crap. They're giving me pads, helmet, and I'm thinking, shit, you don't play football with this stuff. I have no freaking idea, man. And they teach me how to put this stuff on. We go down to practice, and we're doing uh bull in the ring because they want to see how tough I am, right? And I I have no clue. I didn't realize it was American football. I thought it was soccer, right? I didn't realize there's two different words and all this stuff. So bull in the ring, and I remember uh, you know, that you make the two lines, and people are like, you know, getting in front of me, getting around me, and it and they're setting me up because I went up against a guy, and I probably weighed maybe 160 pounds, 150 pounds. And they we had a postgraduate program where you know people did an extra year of high school and uh to go to a better college, they were athletes. And I went against up against this guy by the name uh Ray Benoit, right? And he weighed 230 pounds. And when he hit me, his freaking lights out, man. I was out. I thought this guy hated me. So when we water break, I said, Hey Ray, you know, did I piss you off or what? He goes, Oh no, get used to get tough this football, you know. I mean, the guy could barely speak, he's a freaking gorilla. So anyway, so Avon was great for me. I really enjoyed it. And then I went off to Babson, and I also played lacrosse at Avon. I played lacrosse in college.

Speaker: 13:27

Okay.

Asad Khan : 13:27

And uh then went to Babson, and then from Babson, uh I ended up getting uh going to the Marine Corps. And in the interim, I did an art stint with the army. I was to hang around with a couple of brothers, and I didn't and and they did talk me into joining the army, and I didn't realize he's gonna get a stripe for for getting having me enlist. You know, I was dumb and stupid. So I went through boot camp at Fort Dix and uh got assigned to Fort Rucker, Alabama, Flight Operations Coordinator. I freaking hated it. It was just a complete waste of time. We'd fly out to some conic box for their aerial land navigation course, and I'd sit there monitor radio. Warrant officer candidates would come in with and then you know, they're getting their ass shoot just while they're doing their aerial navigation. And uh and then they'd come pick me up in the evening and I fly back to the airfield and go to the barracks. I was like, this sucks. So that's why I you know took the Babson options. I went to Babson, graduated from there, and then uh what happened was to get out of my army contract, I stopped going. So I started getting this uh letters from the aviation battalion in uh Hartford, Connecticut, that hey, you're gonna get show up, you're A-Wall, you're gonna get court-martialed. So finally I go see uh my XO, the Battalion XO, and I was like, sir, I I I like the military. I've got ancestors, you know, but we don't do anything. We come here, you know, I drive two hours and we're sitting around a bunch of fat guys. I don't like it. So uh, you know, so he's like, uh, you ever thought about going to the Marines? I said, I didn't even know what Marines are. So he said, well, you know, and he was a former Marine that went in the army. So he transferred my contract to the Marines, and I kind of played along. I said, shit, they'll forget about it. Well, when I graduate, guess what? The Marines come knocking because they need a warm body, right? And uh, so I was like, okay, you know, that's my commitment, I'll do it. So I went through OCS. I absolutely loved it. I loved OCS. What year was this? This had to be 84, 85, the winter. And uh I absolutely loved it. You know, and and I and and it was really good. It's what I wanted. And but the problem was we all had reserved commissions, if you remember, you know, so it was a four-year stint. So I was like, okay, we'll do it. And from uh from then we went to TBS, TBOs was okay. IOC was a ball buster. I mean, it was hand and I mean hands-on. I mean, I got smacked around at IOC by instructors and shit, you know. And uh and uh and it was good lessons. I I don't knock them. When you do something stupid, you pay a price. And they just thrashed you, you know. I mean, all you did was get thrashed. And but you learned a lot. And then from there I got uh orders to uh 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. Now here's the deal. Now this this is this is this is the Marine Corps that I'm used to, right? I check into 7th Marines, 2nd Lieutenant Khan, uh Regimental Commander, go report to Regimental Commander, is Jay Vargas, Medal of Honor recipient. I mean, guys that I have read about.

Speaker 2: 16:12

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 16:13

And I'm reporting to him, right? And he's a nice guy. I mean, he's just a good guy, but you know, you can tell he's hard as nails, right? And the reason later on I found out because he's always walking around. And they'd call you, you you know, called Bravo Company or any company in the in any battalion and say, hey, get him out to the regimental headquarters, you got half an hour. Regimental commander's inspection. So you always had to be inspection ready, right? Because in those days we didn't have the money, so that you know there's different ways that you maintain your readiness. So uh from 7th Marines headquarters, they send me down to 1-7 and uh report to the XO and he said, uh, you're gonna meet the battalion commander about the pull-up bars at noon. Have your PT gear on. I'm like, holy shit. Okay. So I go there and the battalion commander's, you know, at the pull-up bars. And uh we go on a run, and he's thrashing me. I mean, he's just freaking and he's trying to figure out, you know, what's my mental toughness and physical toughness framework. And if you hung with them, you got a rifle platoon. If you didn't, you went to a staff job. That's it was a mean eater's world, right? I mean, everybody was fit. Uh so you know, from there I, you know, platoon commander did deployments with them, and then I uh ended up going to a Marine Corps Recruit Depot, which I thought would be my B billet I can skate. And that was just as hard as the infantry.

Mark McGrath : 17:23

So you could Paris Island or San Diego?

Asad Khan : 17:25

San Diego.

Mark McGrath : 17:26

San Diego.

Asad Khan : 17:27

Damn mountains, right? The mountains. And uh we used to hump from Weapons Training Battalion up to uh Camp Horno, right? And San Anoy Freight, you know, where and uh and then then cross over to uh San Mateo, where the the the the you know where the field portion was up Mount Mother F MS.

Mark McGrath : 17:44

Yeah, Mother Effer, yeah.

Asad Khan : 17:46

Yeah. So uh, you know, so I did 15 cycles down there, and I really loved it. I loved it. My claim to fame is I never lost a DI, nor did I cover up anything. And the only reason was I developed this trust with them that uh I was always around. My officers were always around, you know, and they got used to it. And as and my view was if I'm around, they're not gonna do anything stupid, right? And uh, and you know, they once in a while they do something stupid, but nothing outrageous that you couldn't fix right there on the spot with counseling or something, or send them home. You know, he's stressed out and go home. And after MCRD, I went to uh AWS and uh which was which was good. You know, I got reintegrated into the Marine Corps, and then I got sent to uh Saudi Arabia.

Mark McGrath : 18:24

What years was were you at A AWS?

Asad Khan : 18:28

This had to be 92, 93, maybe.

Mark McGrath : 18:32

So it's likely then around that time, that's when Boyd was briefing around AWS and hanging out there quite a bit in those days, like late 80s, early 90s. It was interesting.

Asad Khan : 18:43

Yeah. So uh yeah. You know, but I mean shit, I was a young captain, I had no freaking clue.

Mark McGrath : 18:50

Yeah, yeah.

Asad Khan : 18:51

All I knew was how to PT. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I'm not, you know, I'm not and I was gifted, I could always run, and I could all, you know, I could still do 20 pull-ups, so it's not an issue. But uh so anyway, so uh at AWS, after that I got orders to Saudi Arabia to be an advisor for one year. So I went to Saudi with Saudi uh Royal Marine Corps, and after that I came to 1st Battalion 2nd Marines, was a company commander, and I'll tell you what, it was fantastic. That company out at that moment in time, there was no tougher company in the U.S. Arsenal than Bravo Company 1-2. I mean, it was they were just we just had them locked on. And, you know, we we deployed to Gitmo, did the Okinawa and all that stuff, and I came back and they made me the OPSO of the battalion. And then after the OPSO, I was exo. So I was there for almost three and a half, four years, right? And then after that, I got selected for Naval War College, so I go up to Newport, and uh, while I'm there, one day, you know, I used to hang out with this Army Ranger dude, and he could he could uh run like a step faster than me, and I could bench press maybe five pawns more than him. So we were we were all this push each other, right? It's really and he ended up retiring as a four-star just recently. And uh so so while we're there, one day I'm in the in the gym and this colonel comes up to me and goes, Hey Genghis, he goes, Are you applying for this saw? And I had no idea, man. I came out of an infantry unit. I could barely write a cogent paragraph. And I was like, hell no, sir, I'm barely surviving here. He said, Listen, stud. He said, Don't sell yourself short. If you don't apply, you're just making it easier for somebody else to do it. Get that billet, right? So I was I thought about it. I said, screw it, I'll apply. So I apply, go to the interview process, and at the last interview, they asked me, why do I want to go to Saw? I said, I want to get back to the fleet, sir. That's the only reason I want to go. Because, you know, I'll be a planner, you know, which is School of Advanced Warfighting, uh, and that'll get me down to a meth, and I'll work my way down to uh a regiment or something. And they were shocked. They said, You're the only one who said that. The rest of these officers want to go to the Pentagon and be General's aide or be on the joint staff to get their joint ticket. And uh and my reasonable.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 20:51

So they want to be somebody, right? Yeah, they want to be somebody.

Asad Khan : 20:55

There's a reason for it. That's a flaw in our system because the Goldwater Nichols Act, 1986, mandated that you had the joint designation. So everybody's getting on the joint track. So everybody's focused on staff, right? I want to be a staff officer, staff officer. So your troop time is going down, right? I want to be with the troops because I loved it. That's why I joined the Marine Corps. And uh, you know, so so when I, you know, and so I I get selected for SAW. I was one of uh 16 officers to get selected across the United, you know, United States and international. I went to SAW and it was good. And then from SAW, I thought I'd go down to a MEF, right? That didn't happen. They sent me to MSTP and I was just heartbroken. And I'll tell you what, the MACTAF staff training program probably gave me the intellectual side of being an officer uh because I had to teach. I saw the entire Marine Corps uh because we had to teach them. I saw, you know, three generations of general officers that went through there, the general officer warfighting program. So I really interacted well with them, and then one day the director calls me and he goes, Hey, Genghis, get in here, and I want you to uh get this pub published called Marine Corps Planning Process. I had no, you know, I was like, sir, I I you got the wrong guy. There's other guys better than me in here. He goes, No, I got the right guy. You got, you know, three months. Get it out the door. And they give you a team, they give you a bunch of contractors and they're phenomenal writers and stuff, and you basically have to work with them every day and you know, you just keep pushing the ball forward. The problem is in a lot of these spaces is people get in these esoteric discussions, you know. What does coup de we mean? What does center of gravity mean? And they're just wasting time. Hey, come up with a freaking definition we all agree with, let's move forward, right? I I, you know, instead of pontificating. So I'd give them like, you know, literally, you got five minutes. You got five minutes to give me an explanation, and that's it. We're moving forward. So I kept pushing it, kept pushing it. We got it published. General Bedard signed off on it. I had to go to General Bedard's office and say, hey, sir, you know, can you please, and a stack of freaking stuff on it, you know, and Bedard hated doing paperwork. He's like, What do you want, Gangus? I said, Well, my pub's in there, General. Sign it. He goes, I haven't even read it. I said, I guarantee you, sir, it's good. Sign the damn thing, will you? And signed off on it because he trusted me, right?

Mark McGrath : 23:03

It's a high trust organization.

Asad Khan : 23:05

Yeah, so uh, so we come back and I'm a hero. And then my my director calls me back and he goes, uh, okay, now you need to, and Marine Corps planning process is probably about 70% completed. So it's just the 30% that you know the when people getting hung up on these stupid words. And uh so we got that out the door. Then he said, I want you to do Marine Corps operations, which was sort of a brand new pub. The Marine Corps didn't have an operations pub. And I'm like, sir, come on, give it to somebody else. No, he goes, You're gonna do it. You got six months, get it out the door. So I started doing my research and I found an Army's field manual, an Army's operations manual from like the 1930s. Right? And I started looking at it, and I'm sitting there staring at this stuff, and I'm thinking, man, nothing has changed really. So the army is, you know, so the you know the army's come up with their buzzwords, and we've come up with ours, expeditionary warfare, and you know, amphibious and all this stuff. So why don't I just take the army's operational concept and wordsmith it and put expeditionary in there? I mean, literally, that's what we are that's what we did, and it worked. You know? Uh because uh, you know, army we talk about MagTAF officers, right? Marine Air Ground Task Force officers. You know, that's that and it's all so damn arrogant because that's assuming that army officers are not MagTAF or airground task force officers, right? ACTAFs. They all are. You have to think combined arts, right? That's what warfare is all about. So anyway, so uh Marine Corps operations got signed off. Now the Marine Corps's got an operations pub and it's got a planning publication, right? Doctrinally, right? Which was huge for the Marine Corps. So I do that, and uh I go down to 2nd Marine Division uh and got made the division plans officer. You know, every day I walk in a vault hating freaking life, working on O plans and tit fids and all this for shit. And uh one day my gunny comes around and he goes, sir, turn on the TV. And I was like, turn it on, gunny. So he turns it on and the first airplane hits. A few minutes later, the second airplane hits, and I'm like, holy shit. And right then and then I knew my life is gonna change, right? And and it did. So, you know, so I get orders down to Tampa and I told the gunny, Gunny starting to cross, great guy.

Mark McGrath : 25:12

And then you're going to CENTCOM at that point.

Asad Khan : 25:14

Yeah. So I said, hey, you do my travel, you know. I I I gotta get down there. So uh so he's got me a cirtuitous route to go to like uh Texas to freaking Colorado back, you know, because the airplanes aren't flying, so he's trying to find these flights. And I'm like, Gunny, what what the f, man? I mean, just get me a flight down to Tampa. So he's like, sir, I'll try, but but the way you look, I don't even know if I can get you on an airplane. Yeah. Shit, that's funny. So I uh, you know, so and and he had a point. So I was like, you know what? You're right. Don't don't waste time, I'll just drive down there, screw it. So I hop in a car, I go down, I go down to Tampa, and we commenced to uh planning, right? Because I mean, it's just chaos, right? I mean, it's just every you know, and uh some really good guys down there, and uh I actually had the president's laptop because they didn't have enough computers. So I was, you know, doing my my stuff on his laptop, and you know, so this is where we were talking about it. So I went to brief the plan to uh the Consul of Generals, which is the deputy sync and all the directors, and uh I'm briefing the plan, and these guys are just some of them are just spouting hot air, just stupid freaking, you know, because everybody wants to show that they know what the hell they're talking about. So one idiot, yeah, yeah, he was an idiot. I'll stick with I'll stick to that word, comes up with this plan that we're gonna throw Qurans out of the back of airplanes to show that we respect Islam. And I'm sitting there listening to this clown. And uh finally I said, you know what, uh, that's blasphemous because you can't have a Quran. I mean, that's showing disrespect. That's you know, and uh, you know, just little things like that, you know. And uh anyway, so we're like two and a half hours into this brief, and I'm sort of tired. It's supposed to be a 45-minute brief, so I'm sort of leaning on a podium. And uh, you know, the the conversations about Afghanistan. So I told uh the General DeLong, Lieutenant General, Deputy Sinkh, Marine, good guy. And I said, hey sir, I said, I said, we don't have to worry about Taliban. These guys are mullahs, they're scholars. Taliban means you know, student, and uh, they're not the majay deans of the past, and we'll we'll we'll bulldoze through them. But in the process, if we lose Pakistan, I said, World Trade Center is gonna be an afterthought. He's like, What are you talking about? I said, they got strategic weapons, sir, and I know them, they'll use them. And he's like, You're talking Armageddon. And I'm leaning on the podium, and I was like, uh, your words, not mine, General. Any freaking law.

Mark McGrath : 28:15

So hold on. So for context, so you're a lieutenant colonel leaning on the podium in the front of a bunch of generals, and you're telling them how things actually work.

Asad Khan : 28:23

Yeah, I mean, and that goes back to I knew the environment, right? I knew I didn't have to read about it. I just reflexibly knew it, right? It's in my DNA, it's in my genes, right? And uh you can't study that shit. That's that's the difference, right? So those are the experts you gotta rely upon. And uh, so DeLong freaking lost it. He's tired, I'm tired, we're all tired. He throws me out. He said, get me some Jedi Knights. You know, Jedi Knights means some big planners, right? Saw guys. He didn't realize I was a Saw graduate and all this shit. So I go down to my space and I'm packing my little box because I'm gonna go back to Camp LeJune and you know I got a battalion, I'm command selected. And my one star Air Force guy comes on. He goes, Hey, what are you doing, Genghis? I said, sir, he fired me. I'm I'm heading back. He doesn't need me. She's like, no, no, no. He likes you. He says he wants to see you in his office. So I go up to the suite and he goes, get in here. Because I want you to get over there. I'm like, get over where, sir. He goes, I don't know. Just get over to Afghanistan and figure. And I go, to do what, sir? He's like, I don't know. You know the area, just figure out. Be my eyes and yours and just report back to me. I was like, okay. So I go down, grab some calm gear and all this shit, get on a plane to London. From London, I get on a flight to back then. The airport was in Rallopindi, and I come out of the airport and I'm thinking I'll see the suburbans, right? Every embassy has those suburbans, right? And there's nothing there. So I was like, shit, now what do I do? And I've got all this classified shit on me that's in my backpack that I'm carrying. And uh so I get I hop in a cab, right? I mean, think about this. What else am I gonna do? So I hop in a cab and I'm uh I get in a cab and I tell the cab, take me to Serena Hotel. I don't want to tell him take me to the U.S. Embassy, because you know, I said, take me to Serena Hotel. He's he's driving to Islamabad, taking me to Serena Hotel. We're shooting the shit. We get to Serena Hotel, I say, take a ride, take a ride, take a left, take a left. And finally we get to the checkpoints, he can't go any further. I get out, I pay him, I leave, I walk to the embassy, get to the gate, and they're like, Who are you? Embassy's locked down, you know, all the non-essential personnel are gone. And uh so five of the guards bring a Marine out, and uh he's like, You're a lieutenant colonel? I go, Yeah, you know, it's my ID and all this shit. And you know, he's a young corporal, and he's like, uh, sir, how many how many boot camps in the Marine Corps? You know? I'm like San Diego and Paris Allen. Sir, who's the grand old man of the Marine Corps? You know, Arshabald Anderson, you know. I mean, I know this shit. He's testing me to see if I was a Marine, brown-skinned guy. And then he's like, uh, you know, how many buttons on a on a dress blue blue? And I was like, shut the f up, you know, let me. I go in there and uh turns out there's a few other uh military personnel in there basically passing through, and there's a lot of I didn't realize it's the Air Force has a lot of these uh aviator types that go all over the world checking out ATC routes and all this shit, right? And uh so we all cobbled a cell together and we're introducing each other, and uh, this you know skinny guy standing there and like, who are you? He goes, uh, I'm Ron Sams. I go, Ron, you got a rank? He goes, Yeah, I'm a brigadier general. I'm like, holy shit, good stuff. Definitely in the Air Force. I said, You're in charge. He goes, I don't want to be in charge. He goes, I don't know what's going on. I said, Nobody does, sir. We'll figure it out. And anyway, so we cobbled together this liaison cell, and I tell you that was instrumental because all there's something like over a hundred thousand sorties went through the Baksani airspace, right? They have 65,000 troops along the border when we started bombing. And I didn't realize all this. You just can't go and bomb a country, right? You have to have CSAR capability because something happens to the airplane, pilot bails out, you got to be able to rescue. And uh to develop that capability, we needed air bases in Pakistan. So we got air bases and talked, and and they're very supportive, you know, very supportive. And uh, you know, they asked us, uh, yeah, I had no clue. I'm doing negotiations with this stuff. They're like, uh, so how many airplanes are you gonna have on there? I was like, probably five to seventh, sir. Uh how many people? About 300. It ended up being 70 airplanes and 5,000 people. And these generals, Bakksani generals hated me. They're like, man, you don't know how to do math, you know.

Mark McGrath : 32:17

Well, you are you are a Marine. And by the way, that is an MCI. I was like, we still joke about math for Marines. Yeah, I never took it. Yeah, I should have.

Asad Khan : 32:25

So, you know, and stuff like uh we needed fuel because they're bringing fuel in from cutter, right? And fuel is uh heavy, as you all know, and it takes a lot, and you need a lot. So they wanted me to work with the Boksanis and get fuel from them directly. And I go to the meeting and they're like, what kind of fuel do you want? I don't have a clue, right? I'm like, uh, what kind do you have? They go, we've got JP4, we got JP5, we got JP7, we got JP9. So I'm thinking, shit, nine's gotta be the highest. It's probably the best. Did you not? I was like, uh, we want JP9, sir. And that was the right decision because I guess that's kerosene. It could be used for everything, you know, whatever the hell it is. And so uh so they're very supportive. And uh, you know, they'd set up that screen line. I did some special missions in Afghanistan, which I opened the embassy and some of the stuff down south I did uh with um the special forces. And then I came back home and went back and when I came back home, nobody's interested. Nobody wanted to talk to me, right? All that experience, all that knowledge. You know, we got the Marines.

Mark McGrath : 33:28

Tell us more about that, unpack that a little more. Who who doesn't want to listen? Who doesn't want to get your perspective?

Asad Khan : 33:33

No, so then so they had me go back down to CentCom to talk to you know all the directors, you know, all the the two stars, and they're just too busy. They were busy with uh OIF because planning had already started for Iraq, right? And we're talking early, we're talking 2002, probably May 2002 timeframe. So everybody's focused on that, and they didn't really care about Afghanistan because it's a done deal, right? We we threw the Taliban out, we're in charge, and the problem is, yeah, you're in charge. The baby's crying. What are you gonna do with it? Who's gonna change the diapers and stay up with that baby all night, right? Nobody cared because they're all focused on Iraq. So I kind of sat around for a couple of days finally as you know, screw this, I'm out of here. So I got back on a plane, went back to LeJune, you know, went back to division plans, and I'm hating it because everybody's ramping up to go to Iraq. And uh I told the CG, who I knew, really good guy, I said, hey sir, you gotta get me out of that freaking vault. You know, I gotta get down to, you know, so he promised me that he'd get me down to 6th Marines as the XO. I was like, shit huh. Maybe I'll go to Iraq. I go down to 6th Marines. It turns out that's the regiment, the only regimental headquarters of the Marine Corps that stayed behind. You know, with a phenomenal regimental commander. I mean, this guy was awesome. Uh retired as a major general David Garza, really good guy. And uh so, you know, so we got all the non-deployables. Now think about this. You got all these Marines that are not going to Iraq for a variety of reasons, medical, family, whatever. And but they can't, because stop loss is going on, so they can't exit the Marine Corps. They're pissed off at the world, right? So you have to keep them fired up and motivated. So we did that, and then uh eventually I was with them for about a year and a half, and pretty soon that command selection cycle, you know, you break it, you gotta go up for so I said, you gotta send me down a battalion. You know, this is ridiculous. So I went down to 1-6. And uh, you know, then then the kind of story sort of begins because 1-6 just come back from Okinawa, and uh they gave up something like 350 uh Marines to deploying units to Iraq. And uh, you know, so they raided uh something like 78 sergeants and uh had 15. Wow. You know, I mean the battalion was gutted. Each commander, every company commander, every staff officer was replaced. So, you know, this is what I inherited. And yet, you know, and then then I got like 350 non-deployables, the same people that are up in regiment, you have to put them someplace. So these these people don't want to train, and I'm not gonna expend munitions on training them because it's a waste. They're not gonna deploy with us. So I sent them uh, you know, I told them, I said, here's the deal. Uh, how many are carpenters, painters, electricians, welders, you know, raise your hands. They raised their hands. So we made a maintenance platoon. So they would go through all the barracks that were emptied out at Camp Lejeune and fix them. Base maintenance loved it. And did the Marines loved it because they're gainfully employed and they're walking around with their carpenter's belt on all cool and shit because we don't have to train. But it but it kept everybody happy and employed, right? We used them to their advantage, so I think that was important. And then slowly, slowly, uh, we started training the battalion. I got new officers in. I started teaching classes, you know, on stuff like warrior ethos. And I'm gonna do an episode on this this week. Uh, you know, we I did a couple of last episodes on what is warrior ethos. I kind of defined it at a high level, but then how do you implement warrior ethos? You know, Hexet just, and that speech was phenomenal. Let me tell you, I'm I'm you know, and I understand the dynamics and the optics and all that stuff. I get all that stuff, but those words needed to be said. And the reason they needed to be said is because we've gotten away from the foundational aspects of what it means to be in the military, right? You've got to be in shape, you gotta be well groomed, right? And you gotta be really focused. You know, I always, always viewed being a Marine not as a job, not as a career. You know, it was a calling.

Speaker 2: 37:29

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 37:31

Awakened moment, I used to think about how can I be a better Marine? How can I train my Marines better? When I was asleep, I'd dream about this stuff, right? And I wake up in the middle of the night and jot a note down, right? So next morning I can act upon it. So, and that's the type of mindset you got to breed in everybody, right? And it's it's not just, you know, an uh and and and and how do you do that? And so back in 2003, I gave a pitch to my battalion on warrior ethos. How do you develop it? And I'm I'm gonna do an episode on it here uh this week. So the young officers can see what it entails. Now, this is not a hundred percent solution, you know, it's uh it's probably a 60% solution, but at least gets the juices flowing in the next generation. Say, hey, how do you implement warrior ethos? Uh so I think that's important. Nonetheless, so uh normally they give you six months to form as a BLT. I got three weeks, just give you an example. I was screwed up, three weeks. And uh so we form up and you know and go off to where we're going to Afghanistan, which is fine. I've been there, I know it, I know the culture, and I'm very comfortable with it. And we load uh so you know I did two rotations at AP Hill, which was and the the beauty of that time period was all the ranges were empty. And I fired two and a half times of the Muse allocation, not the BLT, but the Muse allocation of ammo, right? Lighten shit up. Yeah, but it was it was every every round was counted, right? But I'll tell you, I'll tell you stupid stuff that we do in the infantry, and I think this is important because if you really want to get good at it, you really got to pay attention to what the hell you're doing. So if the first time we went there and we're qualifying all the cruise serve weapons, and the saw was considered a cruise serve weapons because you got another person carrying the barrel, right?

Mark McGrath : 39:12

Carrying the bags, yes, spare barrel bag.

Asad Khan : 39:15

Every one of them failed the ORE. Every one of the saw gunners failed the ORE. And I remember standing on the range going, what the hell is going on here? And it dawned on me what happens in a Marine Corps fire team. The new kid that comes from SOI, they give him the heaviest weapon. Here you go. Young PFC, right? He has no freaking clue, you know? And uh so stopped everybody there, reassigned the weapons, and we fired everybody, everybody got qualified, right? And each company had a very explicit, direct objective from me. You had to be able to do a non-illuminated night attack, company night attack. And my view was if you can do a non-illuminated company night attack at night, not kill each other, right? You can do it safely, you're shit-ha. That means you can operate daytime. But it doesn't, it's not gonna happen overnight. You got to plan it out about six months out, right? The crawl, walk, run approach, and then rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until everybody's comfortable doing it, right? Because you don't want to get anybody hurt either. Not stupid. And I remember one time we're doing squad attacks, and uh, I don't know if you remember Major General Tom Jones, T.S. Jones. He had he had training and education command and uh was my regimental commander, 2nd Marines. So he came down to AP Hill to see us. He's also commanded, he's also CO16 in uh Desert Storm. And uh so he wants to go with the squad. We're doing squad attacks, envelopments, and he wants to go with uh maneuver squad, enveloping squad. So I was like, okay, Raj, that's sure. You know, so I'm with the base of fire, he goes off, and uh the base of fire is to either is to shift and then cease. So signal comes to shift the base of fire, they shift to the next objective, but before the Marines come across, you gotta cease, right, to make sure there's no rounds in the weapons here. Well, what happens? Well, uh you know, they didn't check a machine gun here. And these Marines are coming across the objective, and all of a sudden, boom, round goes off. And I'm like, holy shit, right? Stupid stuff. You can't take people like that to combat because in combat, 30% of your uh uh um uh uh injuries happen and fatalities from fratricide, right? That's what happens because they don't have their shit together. 90 degree offset, weapons handling, muzzle awareness, and all that stuff. General Jones comes back and goes, Genghis, he goes, You guys are screwed up. I said, I know I'm screwed up, sir. That's why I need help. So he goes, how can I help you? So I'm I'm thinking, uh, well, can you get me some AT4 rounds, you know? So I got a much attempt again, right? And uh so anyway, so we did Yeah. So uh so we do so we did all that, and uh, you know, and and they were good. By the time 1-6 got done, it was very compressed. Uh, you know, just getting the Marines out to uh for their uh Christmas leave was tough because we just didn't have time. Then you then you had so TG uh you know uh certifications that you have to do. Now you gotta remember when you're uh a regular infantry battalion, your skill set is different, right? But once you become uh a BLT, you you have to be able to do mechanized raid, boat raids, helicopter-borne raids, you gotta do trap, you know, all bunch of different missions, right? You've got to, I think it's like 21 different mission skill sets or some shit you gotta do.

Mark McGrath : 42:30

Well, it's a very agile formation to do lots of different things.

Asad Khan : 42:34

Yes, very much so. As long as it's tethered to the ships. As soon as it gets ashore, it's an amoeba. I mean, it just keeps growing and just sucks every resource that it has. And I'll get into that. So when we got certified and everything, you know, everybody's clapping, but they don't realize the amount of work that it went through. When we got to the battalion in the beginning, we had to rewrite every SOP as a conventional infantry battalion. When we became a BLT, again, we have to rewrite all the SOPs, right? Because if you don't have good SOPs, that means your staff hasn't done the thinking, right? And even in combat, I would make them write op orders. Why did I do that? You know, for this part. Yeah, it's because we have to think and you have to put this on paper, right? Because the Marines' lives are valuable. So nonetheless, so we get to Qatar, and you know, then we cross over to uh Kondar, and you know, then we start, we're gonna go north, and just north of Kondar's in Orzgan province, the place called Tern Coke. And uh that's where the Mew decides to go, right? And uh so they established a fob there, which was five miles perimeter and sucked up 400 of my Marines. So I went from 1200 Marines down to 800, right? And uh that's so the RD battery went to the Mew to provide security for them, right? Yeah, and then the 81st platoon went as a trap, right? And then they took another platoon uh for QRF, right? Because they're thinking we're gonna fight like a Mew, right? The problem is you can't really fight like a Mew because you got redundant headquarters, the BLT and the Mew headquarters. And the BLT headquarters was operating faster than the Mew headquarters. Mew headquarters was still operating on PowerPoint slides. You know, we just had our battle rhythm down, our staff functioning down, and we were shit hot, you know. And uh so we get there and uh they're all of a sudden trying to transition into this I don't know what the hell they were doing. Like they'd come up with this bogus Napoleonic model of intel, hey, we've got intelligence because they thought the Taliban was fighting in formations. They don't fight like that.

Mark McGrath : 44:39

Yeah. So I would get this BS. Wait, when you say formations, that was it like uh this is how the Soviets would have fought? And the reason I say that because when I was at artillery school in 1999, they were teaching us Soviet formations, and everybody, at least the Marines for sure, were looking around like, well, I don't know, we just came from TBS and we learned about all the stuff that happened in Mogadishu and other places. Like, why are we learning why are we learning Soviet formations?

Asad Khan : 45:08

And and the main reason is because uh, well, they did a disservice, right? Because they didn't update the curriculum. And it's hard to do because the approval process, right? So they're just stick with it because it's just easier to stick with it than then rock the boat. And in our case, what they were, you know, they thought that Taliban was, you know, moving through this area. Shit, I can't tell who Taliban is. How the hell are you telling me that they're moving through this area? So uh anyway, so the first operation, uh, we just wasted time. I mean we spent millions of dollars on this first operation and nothing happened. And now you got a picture of a triangle, right? Or or uh or sort of a uh you got you got Terrancoat up top, you've got a Kike, which is Fob Payne, later on I called it for the Marine uh that was killed, and I'll get into that. And then you got checkpoint 231. So basically 60 kilometers each direction, right? And then Condor at 60 kilometers down. And uh so they wanted to keep a platoon, LAR platoon at checkpoint 231. And I'm like, that makes no sense because they're out there by themselves. No way we can reinforce them. I it'll take me three, four, five hours. It'll take you three, four, five hours. You don't have the combat power to reinforce them. This is stupid. But they wanted to show that they're a brigade, right? That they've got all these maneuver elements, right? That they're controlling them.

Mark McGrath : 46:30

Still fighting the last war.

Asad Khan : 46:32

Exactly, right? Yeah. And uh they're not a brigade, right? It's it's it's basically a reinforced infantry battalion with two headquarters, and uh, so that's where the problems happen. One is, hey, I'm in charge, I'm the Mew, and the other one is I'm the BLT. These are my people, I'll employ them as a BLT or a battalion, right? So this is this is the friction that you have. And we had that friction. And uh so when 231, you know, I used to always tell the Mew commander, hey, 231 is freaking dangerous, you know. I can get local Afghans to guard it. If you want people there guarding a checkpoint, I can get people. No, no, no, no, no. You know, you you worry about your shit, fine. Well, sure shit. One night in a meeting engagement, they get in contact, and I get a Marine killed, a couple injured, and all that stuff. And I'm fucking pissed, you know, because I knew what happened. But this is not the time to point fingers or any of that shit. And uh, and we ended up replacing them with the Afghan militia, you know, which was costing us literally $100 a day for $3,000 a month, this son of a bitch, you know, got exposed Marines. And the story gets better, right? And uh so, you know, then we start doing all these stupid operations. Oh, we think the Taliban has moved to this area. So we go there and nothing, right? And all the operation names are just ridiculous. Asbury Park, Cadillac Ranch, you know, Bruce Springsteen's songs. And I'm sitting there thinking, how do I translate this stuff into Pashto?

Mark McGrath : 47:55

Into Pashto, yeah.

Asad Khan : 47:57

And it's just, it makes no sense.

Mark McGrath : 47:59

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 48:00

Because we weren't culturally attuned, right? And we had taken all, you know, and here's another example. So all my terps, every squad had a terp, every one of them I'd gotten from the local area, Pashtuns. The Mew brought in terps from up north, contract terps, right? They were Tajiks, Panchijis, and all that stuff. They're hated because of ethnic rivalries, right? That they just hated it. And our our our ours, and and that turned into another problem later on. So anyway, so so we do a few operations, nothing happens, and then the game is over, right? We just wasted all this time. Nothing really happened. We've got we got one Marine killed for no reason, and uh, we're gonna pack it up. Well, in the meantime, I developed some local relationships, and I get a call from this guy by the name of Shadi John that the Taliban is uh forming up to attack his compound. So I said, shit, Shadi John, I'll be there. So you know I talked to the Mew, they said, and we're heading back to Kandar. I said, I'm gonna go towards Shadi John's, work through this valley up to uh Dejapan, Kalat, and then hit them uh is he like a tribal, uh like a chieftain or like an elder or something like that? Or yeah, for a district, right? District elder. And uh then I'll work my way down the ring road and we'll meet you in Kondar. So yeah, sounds good. So we get to Shahijan's compound, and uh sure shit, the Taliban's they're like freaking hornets all over that area. So for the next uh 11 days we fought. Every freaking day I fought these bastards through this valley. Every day, every day, every day we fought. And you know, ambushes and all this stuff. And uh the Marines did fantastic, they're incredible. And uh so we get to De Chopin finally, and the museo shows up, and like, you know, Rommel is just showing up in his freaking helicopter and all this bullshit and telling me, you know, how great the battalion did and you know, all this nonsense, taking pictures with me and all this. And we've all lost 25, 30 pounds. We're just we're done. And I'm just ready to get out of there and get my Marines back to Condor and get home, right? And uh so he flies back, then he calls me in the radio, goes, Hey, I got some good news. I'm like, uh, what's that? He's like, uh, we just got extended. So what do you mean we just got extended? Yeah, we just got extended for two weeks. It's great because we'll be the longest Mew in Afghanistan. And I'm like, listen, I said, we're tapped up. This is bullshit, you know? So he goes, no, no, this is great. And uh I said, Are you ordering me? He goes, Yeah, I want you to come back to his fob and fight all the way back through this this valley. And I remember I was so freaking pissed. I threw the freaking handset down and I walked away to this bluff, and my officer, really good guy, he realized something wasn't right because he'd heard part of the conversation. He comes up to me, he goes, You okay, sir? I said, No, I'm not fucking okay, Brian. I said, Let me tell you something. Because his father's a general. Brian Christmas. I said, one day, I said, you're gonna be a general one day, and don't you ever fucking forget what just happened here. This is not what you do to Marines. And I got the Marines together, I said, hey, here's the bottom line. You know, we're Marines, we're gonna execute the order, we gotta go back. Well, I had about 400, 300 to 400 Afghan militia, right? They were fighting with me for five bucks a day with this warlord by the name of John Ahmed Khan. He was my ears and eyes. He knew the terrain, he knew the people, he'd get me the intel, you know, he'd kind of set the set the stage for us to go fight. So I told John Ahmut Khan, he's like, no, he goes, I'm going to Kondar. That's what our deal was. My vehicles are destroyed. You don't pay me enough. I'm not doing this, blah, blah, blah. So I said, Jamal Mut Khan, that's fine. You go to Kondar, I'm going to take a right at the road, you go left. The next day we move out, I take a right, and all of a sudden I get a call. Jamal Mut Khan's following us. And I stopped the convoy. I walked back, I said, What are you doing? And uh he's like, uh, you're my friend. I can't, I can't let you go. I'll go with you. So I was like, shit on. Let's do it. And I said, I appreciate it, you know. And we went back, we fought, we ended up at 10,000 feet chasing these bastards. I dismounted my heavy guns, 50 cals. Kamal Makan didn't want to go up this mountain. He said, You got to get me a donkey. So I said, fine, I'll get you a donkey. So we rented, we buy a donkey for 100 bucks. He's I got a great picture of him going up the mountain and a donkey. But it was a great idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because then we ignore donkeys and we put our, you know, all our calm assets on there, the heavy radios and our uh 50 cals.

Mark McGrath : 52:09

Hey, it's in the small wars manual. Donkeys are in the small wars manual.

Asad Khan : 52:13

So we go up to 10,000 feet, and that evening, uh, nothing's happening, and it's getting cold, and everybody's like, sir, let's go back down there. I said, nah, we're gonna spend the night here. Because I just had a feeling, you know, it's a gut instinct. Ootaloop, right? And uh, because I know these these guys have gone someplace, and if they went, and there's nothing up there. I mean, so they had to be somewhere around here. Sure shit, as the sun is setting, they open up on one of my platoons. And uh, you know, they'd always do it when uh they're transitioned to light, right? Because their optics were. And so I got this platoon pinned on. It was an Afghan platoon uh with some American uh liaison officers, and uh, you know, they're we're calling in for air support. Well, that day, Bogram and Condar were you're uh you know, brought out. Nothing's flying. And there they give you a squadron common freak. So we get on the squadron common freak and we get an airplane. So, you know, what aircraft are you, what ordinance you got? It was a U-2. And I'm freaking pissed, you know, because you're amped up. So I was like, I said, Well, why the hell are you wasting my time? You know, I'm yelling at him with some profanity, obviously. And he's like, Genga six, he goes, calm down. He goes, I can relay it for you. Wow. Right? Wow. And uh, so he goes, uh, tell me what's going on, and I'll set it up for you. So we give him the brief, JTAC brief, and he calls back, he goes, We got a B1 inbound, he's going supersonic, he'll be at your pause in three minutes.

Speaker 2: 53:38

Wow.

Asad Khan : 53:39

So I think he's coming out of Diego Garcia. I don't know where he was in relationship to us at that time at that point. So while we're setting it all this up, the J-Dime and all that, the Chaos and Cutter, combined Air Operations Center, and these bastards are denied permission to drop. Because the reason being was because that platoon didn't have a JTAC with them. Right? These are the new rules they've added on. But I've got my air officer, I've got two facts next to me. I can see the ridgeline. And legend has it that I said, MF, if you don't give permission to release, I will find you and I will kill you. Because I got Marines, I got Marines that are, you know, in danger. And uh, some one star comes up and he goes, uh, this is General So-and-so, Genga 6. Tell me what's going on. So I said, Sir, I'm the senior guy on the ground. And uh I've got a JTAC standing right next to me. I can see the ridge line, blah, blah, blah. Request permission, immediate grub. He goes, pilot comes back and he goes, uh, I can't do it. And I'm like, he gotta be shitting me. After all that, yeah. He goes, uh, danger close is like, you know, thousand meters. And uh we were 400. And you remember that point I told you, I remember that point I told you that uh when I got smacked around in IOC. And the reason I got smacked around was I was trying to use a mortar as an as a as a uh point weapon to drop the motor on off a tank and rather than as an aerial weapon because of the frag pattern. And I remember an instructor smacking me so hard my helmet went flying off my head. And he said, You dumb shit, it's an aerial weapon. Okay, you're not a freaking VC sniper with the mortar. And I remember the frag pattern. So I asked him, I said, What's the frag pattern on this J Dam? He said, straight up. I called my guy down there with the platoon, I said, Hey, what's the elevation separation? 200 meters, right? From the machine gun where the enemy is to where they were. 200 meters, 400 meters, 200 meters, frag pattern straight up. Hey, you know, I think we can do it. So I briefed him.

Mark McGrath : 55:35

The math for Marines came in handy again.

Asad Khan : 55:37

Yeah, so you know, so I briefed him. I said, hey, you know, my air officer is fantastic. My all these guys, we're all working the solution, right? So and I told them, hey, this is what we're doing on our account, get everybody down, God be with you. You know, I'm getting chills talking about it. And uh they dropped a J Dam, freaking enemy position wiped out. The aircraft goes on the other side of the ridgeline, comes back, and his uh sensors are picking up a group of a group with camels and donkeys and shit. And those are the guys we've been chasing all these days. So uh I said, take him out. You know, so he drops two more J Dams on the other side, and next day there's like dead camels and 30 some dead insurgents and all that bullshit. And uh, and that was a wrap, right? So we get back to the Fob, the main Fob, Ripley. He named it after Colonel Ripley, right? Yeah, oh yeah. I named mine after a a Marine that was killed. Anyway, so we get to Fob Ripley.

Mark McGrath : 56:26

Not that Ripley wasn't deserving, but I I see what you're saying. It's another generation, another epoch. It's not relevant to what you guys are, it's not relatable to the Marines at the moment. There's no bridges there either, right?

Asad Khan : 56:38

Yeah. I've been to that bridge, Dongha.

Mark McGrath : 56:40

Dongha, yeah.

Asad Khan : 56:42

We get back to Fob Ripley, and we could tell there's tension in the air, right? And they're excited because all this combat that they're gonna get the combat action ribbon. They haven't done shit. They're sitting on a fob. And uh then he's all excited saying, hey, we gotta extend it again for another 10 days. This is great. And I want you to go up north and clear that area because we think the Taliban is, you've pushed the Taliban up north to that area, which is all bullshit. This intel is just nonsense. So uh we go up north. We didn't do anything, we just wasted, you know, 10 days, minor firefights, nothing serious. We come back down and then uh then we're done, right? And then uh in a staff meeting he says, hey, everybody's uh that was in the Mew is gonna get at if Fob Ripley is gonna get combat action ripping. I'm sitting there listening to this horseshit. And I saw him afterwards, I said, I don't agree with you. Well, he said, well, it's not your call, it's mine. I said, you know, I understand that. When we get home, I'm gonna bring it up. You know, that the Marines at this FOB never saw combat, so they listed 28 incidents. Three of them was the BLT. There are five other incidents. One was uh an aircraft took fire, and the FOB was so big at an airfield, took fire at final approach. Now it could have been celebrity fire wedding or some shit. The next one was uh two rockets were fired at the FOB but landed outside, didn't go off. The third one was uh there's a patrol about five kilometers outside the FOB that came in contact, right? The patrol deserves a combat action ribbon, not sitting at the fob. The next one was the fob perimeter got in an engagement with two unidentified people. The unidentified people were the militia that John Almoth Khan, our warlord, had put outside to protect us as a screen line. We shot our own people and we're claiming that was an incident. Just horseshit, right? So uh so we got done there, and uh we get to Kondar, and uh the generals are everybody's excited. We and I I had no idea what these Marines had done by then because we're we're cut off, right? We had not changed our uniforms. I wore the same uniform for uh a hundred days, right? Uh we didn't eat any hot chow, we didn't take a shower, you know, just we're just gutting it out. And uh so we get down to Condor and the generals are coming, slapping us on the back. They had a big breakfast with the Marines, and then all of a sudden, uh, so I'm sitting there with the assistant division commander, good guy. And all of a sudden they say, uh, and he's like telling me, hey, con he goes, uh, you tell me what you want to do, you want to be General Pace's aide, and I was the chairman at the time. We can make it happen, blah, blah, blah. You've done fantastic and all this stuff. All of a sudden, they say, attention to orders. I'm like, shit, pop up. And uh they give the mute commander a bronze star. And I'm just looking at this. I'm like, my Marines have not even been recognized yet. The kids who did the fighting. And this pound is getting a freaking bronze star. And so afterwards, we sit on, and uh, and so the assistant division commander goes, so what do you want to do? I said, I'm gonna retire, sir. He's like, for what? I said, You see that shit? You know, my Marines didn't even, we haven't even given a single award, and this guy's getting a bronze star. I said, This is not the Marine Corps I joined, you know? I was like, I'm done with this happy horse shit. And uh so that's basically was it. So then we came back, and uh on the way back, there's evidently uh a documentary done saying that the Mew had uh abused some prisoners, which was false because the when the prisoners were taken into the detention handling facility, they're all given a physical, so they're you know the clothes and shit are taken taken off, right? And the Afghan culture that's that's not cool.

Speaker: 1:00:08

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:00:09

So they they viewed that as but but it could be explained. Then they had another picture of the the artillery battery commander yelling at Marines and shoving a Marine. Now on the internet it says it's me. It's it wasn't me, right? It was him. But I kept quiet about it because I'm not gonna throw a young captain under the bus. So that came out, and the Marine Corps didn't know what to do. So he calls me in one day, he goes, hey, we gotta uh we gotta relieve this captain. I'm like, for what? And uh for this. So I said, okay, I'll counsel him, it's not a big deal. So he's like, no, no, no, the meth commander said we gotta relieve him. I said, well then the meth commander can relieve him, you know. So he goes, no, he wants you to do it. I said, I'm not gonna do it. Or you know, you do it, you can do it, you do it. So anyway, that poor kid was uh relieved and it it broke my heart. And then then he calls me back in and he's like, hey, then now the meth commander wants to do a command climate investigation on you. And I'm like, for what? You know, he said, uh, because of your toxic command climate. I said, toxic, we're in combat. I said, I can tell you it sucks. We all lost 25, 30 pounds. You don't need to do an investigation. I'll tell you it sucked. So and I in my mind I'm thinking I'll talk to the meth commander because the meth commander loved me, right? General Osmond. I was like like ranked number one lieutenant colonel in the meth and all that bullshit. I said, I'll get back to Camp LeJune, I'll talk to him. Little did I know the meth commander got changed. A guy by the name of Amos. What a freaking weasel he is, right? We can talk about that later if you guys.

Mark McGrath : 1:01:33

Well, I've uh I would tell people to watch the video that you did on him because it's pretty it's Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:01:40

I mean, so you know, so so anyway, I didn't know Amos, right? So uh anyway, so this investigation happens, we get back to Campbell June, and uh Two, three weeks later, I get called and they uh we're gonna relieve you. I'm like, fine. Do whatever you want to do. You know, I don't really give a shit. And uh so I, you know, because I I so I I said I'll retire. Amos is such a piece of work, and I'm being polite here, that he starts another investigation on me, right? And they charge me for assault and conduct on becoming an officer. So I go in front of the Jag and all this bullshit. And what are the specifications? Well, because uh you grabbed a Marines flak jacket in combat, which I did. Yeah, I did. I said, okay, that's fair. I said that, but then we gotta call in General Gray because I remember General Gray smacking me in the back, telling me I did a good job. That's assault too, right? Uh they go, yeah, you're right. Then they said, okay, what's the next one? Conduct number coming off. What's the specification? Well, you use the F-word. I said, the meth commanders use the F-word. New commanders use the F word. I said, we'll put them under oath. Chaplains use the F-word in the Marine Corps, or else they can't communicate with anybody. Exactly. So so they figured out, hey, this is all horseshit. They threw everything out, and uh, so I'm gonna retire, but then they start another investigation.

unknown: 1:02:50

Right?

Asad Khan : 1:02:50

Because that's what they do to muzzle you. So I got another investigation going on. Finally, I said I have enough. I got a hold of this guy by the name of Charlie Gittons. You remember that uh EA6B that hit that Gandola in the United States?

Mark McGrath : 1:02:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:03:00

Yeah. Right?

Mark McGrath : 1:03:01

Yeah, back in uh Aviano. Back in Avi Avi.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:03:04

Yeah, one of them became a blue angel. I don't know if you know that.

Asad Khan : 1:03:08

I don't know. Yeah, you did. So uh so so so uh so Charlie Gittens goes, hey Colonel, he's got the Southern Draw. He goes, Colonel, I've wait been waiting to hear from you. He goes, tell me your side of the story. And I did. He goes, You willing to go on 60 minutes? I said, Absolutely. So he goes, okay, I'll call you back. He calls the Commandant's SGA. He goes, I got this war hero, silver star. Are you guys willing to go on uh 60 minutes? Because he's got a story to tell. Eight hours later, I was retired, right? Uh this is how shady these characters are, right? But here's the kicker. Same time frame, April of 2004, 2-1 had an incident where they fired a mortar round and it landed on top of one of their companies. Two Marines and uh interpreter were killed, and over a dozen Marines and soldiers were wounded, losing legs, eyes, and all that shit. The regimental commander, Tulin, recommended that the battalion commander, the fire support coordinator, and uh the watch officer all be charged. Right? General Mattis, our hero, and all that stuff, decided no, they shouldn't be charged, right? And uh so the whole thing got covered up. Three years later, uh Harry Tillman comes across the story. She starts digging into it. Commander, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps had to go in front of Congress and apologize because the Marine Corps had told the families that this was from uh an enemy incident. We lied to our families, and this is Mattis. I mean, you gotta be shitting me.

Mark McGrath : 1:04:41

No, and Tulin became a general too.

Asad Khan : 1:04:43

Well, Tulin tried to do the right thing, but he got pushed aside, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:04:47

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:04:48

But Hagee was the Commandant at that time frame. Doesn't a Commandant have an obligation to treat two battalion commanders the same. I had no direct as a consequence of my command, no Marine killed. We had a bunch wounded, you know, no fractuide incidents, nothing. And I got shit canned, and they keep this other guy who retires as a three-star general. Think about that one, right? I'm not gonna take names because it's unnecessary. So this go this goes back to so when I was retiring, my commanding general called me in, you know, he's pissed off at me. He goes, Why'd you put the retirement papers without talking to me? You know, I said, Well, I don't need to talk to anybody, you know. I I'm done with this gun club. No, we can take you to Iraq and you know, we'll give you command, you can recover. I said, I don't want to fight for the Marine Corps anymore. I'm done. I I just don't want to do it. And uh I said, I'll tell you something. I said, you keep promoting that guy, the mute commander. I said, one day he's gonna make a big mess. And unfortunately, I wasn't wrong. Guess who the mute commander was?

Mark McGrath : 1:05:42

Hey, hold on, let me guess. Hold on. Mackenzie. Yep. Man.

Asad Khan : 1:05:47

Guess who were named the other day in the speech?

Mark McGrath : 1:05:50

Yeah, he got named the other day.

Asad Khan : 1:05:53

Right? But but get but guess who's responsible for the Kabul withdrawal? Mackenzie was.

Mark McGrath : 1:05:58

McKenzie was.

Asad Khan : 1:05:59

Right? So, and all this past 20 years, 17 years at that point, I'd kept my mouth shut. We're at war. I didn't want to run my mouth. I don't want the Marines to lose confidence in their senior leadership. I just kept quiet. Nobody even heard of me. They they actually thought, hey, that guy is guilty because otherwise he would have said something. I just professionally said, you know what? I'll keep my mouth shut. Because the cobble withdrawal happened and Schiller was thrown in the brig for doing the right thing. He went about it the wrong way, but he wanted accountability, then threw his ass in the brig.

Speaker 2: 1:06:28

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:06:28

Right? That's when I said, I gotta speak up. So I opened a LinkedIn account because I hate Facebook and all that shit. It's just a sewer pit. And I started, you know, leaving a couple of comments here and there. People got interested and people wanted to hear more. I start telling them more. Some there's a Marine that said, sir, you gotta start a YouTube channel. I was like, shit, man, I don't even know how to all this stuff you see around me, it's just you know, so I I learned all that stuff on the fly and I started making YouTube videos, and all of a sudden it's just freaking because there's an appetite for the truth.

Mark McGrath : 1:06:56

Yeah, people want the truth.

Asad Khan : 1:06:58

Yeah, they want to know the truth, right? So that's the first part. And the second part is if you go back in history and you look at, you know, all the way from Korea, Vietnam, you know, all the absent uh desert storm, we haven't done well. And the reason we haven't done well is not because of our equipment, our training, and our young troops. The reason we haven't done well is because our senior leadership sucks. They're terrible.

Speaker 2: 1:07:21

Yeah, yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:07:21

I've taught them, I've taught them, I've fought with them, and I've seen them. These guys hide behind PSDs. You know, I when I was a battalion commander, I didn't have a PSD. My PSD was the main effort. You know, 140, 160 Marines I was with. Hey, you know, my Linus Corporals don't have a PSD. Why the hell do I rate one? So I never had one, right? They sit on Fobbs and they hide on Fobbs and then they then they bullshit and embellish the truth and write themselves up for awards, and at the end of the day, they become, they end up being incompetent senior military officers. They're not the Terry Allen's that was a master of the night attacks, would be with his troops, you know, leading them. You know, they're not Brigadier General Roosevelt on D-Day lands with the assault wave.

Mark McGrath : 1:08:07

You know Terry Allen's you're talking about Terry uh De La Messa, Allen?

Asad Khan : 1:08:12

Yeah. Yeah. He's a madman.

Mark McGrath : 1:08:14

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:08:15

Big red one.

Mark McGrath : 1:08:17

Yeah, yeah. Um, a lot to say about that, because you're right on.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:08:22

It's it's amazing that these guys get uh you know, it's like Genghis, I want to share a couple insights with you uh from an aviation standpoint and what have I done overseas. So uh one of the things we saw quite a bit was the need to fly aircraft into areas to get tax-free money for uh the month, right? We've seen I've seen that. Uh that's that's unbelievable. Flying into country just to get an air medal. Um, hey, let's send up and just get in the airspace and fly around and turn back. So, you know, my first time in combat, uh, I got to release a weapon. That's the first time ever, right? And then and I remember coming back and the next night um some senior officer in 05 released a weapon on his last flight, and he was pointing fingers at me. He's like, I spent 20 fucking years in the Navy doing this, and this guy shows up and releases a weapon the first night. And that's when I realized it's not about there's a there's a big gap between the I'd say folks like us, guys that want to actually do something for our country, and the guys that want to be something. And that and that that started to frustrate me, right? And then even going into the FAO community when we saw uh Arab Spring emerging, uh, when I was sitting in in Africa over at the Stuttgar, uh, the guys next to me in North Africa desk were seeing this and we were reporting it, and nobody did anything, right? When here we are writing for Secretary uh uh Clinton. We're writing these things up, saying, hey, this is what's happening, and nobody's paying attention. So I I want to make sure our listeners understand this isn't a comment, this is an orientation I believe um Moose and I share, and that is uh a reason we have this podcast is not to tell you what to think, but help you think through things, like what's actually happening around me? Who do I need to listen to? These guys that are experts in the field, um, and and I'll call you an expert in and uh you know, being a foreign area officer, understand the uh the culture. You're the people that you need to listen to, right? Just like in business, when people need to listen to their folks on the front line, not the guys in the ivory tower. Nothing's changed between business and war, by the way, right? This is exactly the same. So what you're telling us, and what we're hearing or what you're sharing with our listeners is is hey, take an accounting of what happened from multiple perspectives, right? Find out those folks that are actually in the business to be part of the system, right? And go back and listen to Hegseth this past week. And he's identified, he's pointing them out. It's time to do something for your country. And I'm telling, and there's plenty of leaders in the Navy that uh have done this to me. And I've seen I've had awesome commanders that actually stuck their neck out and you know that their careers were done because they were looking out for the well-being of the community, our fighter squadrons, they were doing everything that I thought was right and they got shit canned. What's that tell a junior officer, right? Don't do that thing. If you want to get somewhere, just shut up, right? So I just wanted to share this because I think it's important to frame this that what we're hearing from you is an accounting of what happened. We have an accounting. We've had folks come on the show talk about the uh COVID vaccine, the mandate inside the DOD, and the other one, uh, help me out there, Moose, the the one we had 20 years ago. Anthrax, right? Anthrax. And here we and then we get emails from people in Germany who saying, uh, you can't talk about anthrax and COVID vaccines because it's it's all known that it works. And you're like, fuck you, go away, man. I don't need you to listen to my show, right? Yeah. What I need you to do is listen and go, hey, there might be a different perspective out there. And I I just want to take that time to thank you for coming on and talking about this and kind of go on this rant because do you think you're saying Genghis, here's a question for you.

Mark McGrath : 1:11:40

So, you know, you're a little older than we are, and and we talk about you talk about like the Terry Allen of the world or whatever, and at some level, the system did promote Peter Pimp's principle where a guy like Terry Allen, who's a very successful combat leader, George Patton or whatever, they're gonna get politically sidelined. Because the the way I feel is that that's just gotten worse over with each with each passing year. The system's driving the behaviors to create less of those and more. You know, you brought up Amos, you brought up McKenzie and some others. That this the system's not designed for the warfighter. The system's designed for the here's a here's an example. So we talk about the book uh Once an Eagle. You know, there's the Sam Damon, and there's the Courtney Massingale. The Massingale is the one that's always going to rise to the top, and the Sam Damon's the one that's always gonna do the right thing by his troops, by his peers, but is always gonna be the one that gets punished.

Asad Khan : 1:12:29

Yeah, I mean, that's right on the money. And you need both of them, right? You need Massingale, you need Damon's. But here's here's the problem in the in the U.S. military. So I've I'm a big advocate of the three-track system, right? The problem is because you've got all these staffers.

Mark McGrath : 1:12:42

Walk us, walk, walk the listeners to three tracks so they understand that.

Asad Khan : 1:12:45

So the problem is we've got all these staff officers that are sitting in these big headquarters, and for them to get promoted, they need to get the joint designation of the staff. So that's and the staff is a comfort area, right? You get nine to five, you go home at night, you know, you sleep in a warm bed. And they come to on the command, they know they got to get their check in the box for command. So they come to command for two years and they'll do the bare minimum to get by. They don't know how to train the troops, they don't know how to do a night attack. When they go do a live fire, for them a live fire is a static live fire, right? Rather than fire and maneuver, fire and movement. Big difference because you can get people hurt and they don't want to take that risk. So they're very risk averse. Now, I did it, I did an episode where I took commanders in World War II, the Terry Allen's, the Patents, and all that stuff, and looked at how much troop time they had. Okay? They were hovering around 40 to 50 percent of the career was in troop time, leading troops.

Mark McGrath : 1:13:36

I mean actual troop time, none of these fake troop time that we talk about versus like an Omar Bradley that never had troop time until he was like a two-star general.

Asad Khan : 1:13:45

Right.

Mark McGrath : 1:13:45

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:13:45

You know, but but I'm talking about combat command.

Mark McGrath : 1:13:48

Yeah, combat time, right.

Asad Khan : 1:13:49

So what the way the way we sort of fudge it is, and we lie to ourselves, like Mars Scent, we say it's a command billet. Well, it's a freaking staff headquarters. There's nothing, you're not commanding a damn thing unless you're at war. And the last time Mars Scent was activated really was in Desert Storm, right? Yeah, they went to Cutter during uh OEF and stuff, but they didn't really command anything. So my point being is so I did a study on existing commanders, the main ones, you know, the Mattis's, the Kelly's, the Allen's, you know, the Dunfords, the McKenzie's and all that. Guess what their average uh troop time was in their career?

Mark McGrath : 1:14:23

Pretty minimal.

Asad Khan : 1:14:24

20 to 25 percent, half of what World War II generals were. Half of what they were, right? So troop time is essential. So I started thinking about it. So I'm thinking, we need a three-track system. So first is the technical track. Technical track is primarily, you know, your pilots. They're technical, they got to focus on flying, and you know, your technical is communicators, cyber guys, weapons guys, you know, EOD, all those, that's all technical stuff, right? And then you've got staff track, where all and the staff track immerses themselves in doctrine, in planning, and and and how to conduct operations, logistics, and all that stuff, right? That's what staff focuses on. And you get promoted within your track. You can, you know, if you if you're a if you're a lieutenant colonel, you can be a regimental opso. You're a colonel, you can be a division opso. If you're if you're a brigadier general, you can be a core level of so, right? And within within the command and staff track. And you can go all the way up to a three-star general, not a problem. And then you've got command track. Command tracks are the guys that are physically and mentally tough. They know how to train troops, they know how to discipline troops. And they've got this shtick about them. They'll walk in the room and everybody goes, hey, you know, patents are here. You know what I'm saying? Part of leadership is also acting, right? It it is acting because you got to inspire troops, right? When you're down, when I was down or out, you know, uh, I couldn't sit there and just sulk and say shit and and go in my cocoon. I had to act that I was, you know, uh, that I was positive, I was motivated and all that. Just like when Mackenzie uh extended us. I went, cried on the on the bluff side. I said, you know what, get your head out of your ass. You're a Marine, and you're not gonna cry in front of your Marines and get them fired up. And I went and gave them a speech, hey, we're Marines, uh, we got to do our duty and all that stuff. I don't like what happened, but we're gonna do it. And I expect you to do it, right? And I and here's the difference. I don't want my Marines to love me. They'll eventually love me if I train them right, if I train them hard. You know, I want them to fight for me. That's the bottom line. So it's like a coach. Your job as a leader is also to be a coach, right? You get you got to put everything into it, and you gotta train with them so they understand, and then you gotta fight with them. I'll tell you this much. There's a great quote a young Marine sent me the other day. He's telling me, he said, You're one of the craziest motherfuckers I've ever met, right? And he's telling me this story. We got ambushed. I hop out of my vehicle, I just drive my own vehicle, I hop out of my vehicle, I grab my M4, and I assaulted the ambush. And right up the right up the mountain, right past him, he said. And he said he looked up. I didn't have a flag jacket, I didn't have a helmet, and I have a camelback, you know, and he said he said he's sitting there thinking, this guy is nuts. You know, he's 22 years old and he's gonna get the old man Lieutenant Colonel assaulting past him, right? But that's that's what inspires Marines. That's what they joined the Marine Corps for. That's the leadership they want. And this kid, you know, randomly writes to me and is like, you know, you left an impression on me, and this is 20 years later, so you know, whatever years later. So those are the people.

Mark McGrath : 1:17:15

Well, that's why we wanted to have you on, because Punch and I talk about this stuff all the time, and and and and I don't think anybody's doing as good a job as you're doing of calling out these things uh publicly that that really need to be called out. And and and some of the general themes, general pun intended, is that at the highest levels, the incentives are not there to do the right thing. You know, the incentives, you know, we you talk about an admiral that uh just got locked up. We've talked about on the show, the if you're familiar, I'm sure you are with the Fat Leonard scandal, which has plagued the Navy and even the Marines for a long time, and it's still not over. But you see all the wrist slapping and and bad letters happen at the top and all the ruined lives and careers. To be fair, these some of these guys did some horrific things and needed to be punished, but it you know, shit rolls downhill, and it's always somebody, you know, 06 or below that's getting uh getting their ass slipped for these things. It's not but do you think this is my question because we we talk about how systems drive behaviors? You know, there are personalities that emerge. You've mentioned many of them. What do you think is the system, the system failures that are uh that are more pervasive, that are creating these guys to even flourish uh in the first place?

Asad Khan : 1:18:35

I think it's a Marine Corps promotion system, the culture of Marine Corps officers. I can talk to the Marine Corps, right? And the promotion system is purely what? It's subjective, right? It's not objective. If you kiss ass to your commander and your reviewing officer and uh he likes you, you're gonna do well. But there's no there's no mechanism of training, of testing you, or evaluating you. There's no mechanism, right? And it's objectively evaluating you. I'll tell you this much. On my own dime, I went to the Army's uh commander's course at Fort Limworth two weeks, right? For two weeks, I had to write my own op order every day. Every day I had to write a full-blown op order, and then we put that in simulation and I had to fight it with a green uh with a gray beard sitting next to me uh evaluating me. And I'd come out every evening out of the sim center, freaking soaked in sweat. It's like I just ran, you know, PT. And the reason being is it was rigorous. And when I walked away and I flew back to uh then right after that, I went to the Marine Corps commander's course, which is, you know, stand there and we talk about uh the key volunteer, the key wives, and all this happy horse shit, which hasn't got nothing whatsoever to do with war fighting, but we're just we're we're just you know, we're we're licking the self-licking ice cream cone because the commandant said so. And I'll tell you this much. Let me tell you this. When I was at MSTP, all the MEFS X's that we did, the MEF level exercises, core level exercises, I never saw the Commandant of the Marine Corps attend a single one of them. So how the hell does he know how all his lieutenant generals are? He doesn't, right? When I went to the Army's warfighter exercise, the Army Chief of Staff was there, General Shysinski, right? And this is what Shysinski said. He got up and he said this, and it still resonates in my freaking brain is that I it's they and his words are they say that it takes 50,000 troops to train a general. I can't afford 50,000 troops. So you better show me what you got here. And I'll tell you what, the pucker factor went up in that warfighter exercise. Every general was like an iron major all of a sudden, right? And uh so the culture is we have to objectively be able to select the right type of officers within these tracks, right? They're technically proficient, they know how to staff plan operations, they know how to lead troops and com train and lead troops in combat, and then uh find a way to evaluate them. So that's the first part. The second part is, and this is heresy, the Marine Corps officers are very dangerous breed. Okay, we're cannibals. Okay, when I was a rising star in the Marine Corps, everybody would kiss my ass. They would stand outside my house and say, Hey, Colonel Connor, how are you, sir, and all this stuff. The day I got fired, they wouldn't even look at me. Right? But we say Semper Fidelis.

Speaker 2: 1:21:03

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:21:04

It's cutthroat business because we we we pit each other against each other. We don't build teams.

Mark McGrath : 1:21:09

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:21:10

It's all fake shit.

Mark McGrath : 1:21:11

Speary valves. Remember Speary Val?

Asad Khan : 1:21:14

Yeah. So you know, so so the culture is wrong, and the culture is wrong. Why? Because it starts at the top, it starts right there. And until this isn't fixed, but this is all gonna be screwed up. The last time we really had a good Command that I remember in my lifetime was General Al Gray. You know, he was phenomenal, a fat little pudgy guy, but he's a warrior. You know, you don't have to be a muscle bound. You just gotta be you just gotta have that warrior instinct and you gotta love your Marines. It's all about love. And the reason I fought with my Marines, why? Because they're my kids.

Speaker 2: 1:21:46

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:21:47

I love them. Yeah, and that's the bottom line, you know? And and it just breaks my heart that that we lost those Marines at Abbey Gate, and that's the driving force. Until their families get justice, I'm not gonna shut up. I'm gonna keep speaking out. And you know, this channel that that resurrected it, so I don't know, I don't know how the hell happened, because I don't know shit about YouTube. It just happens and I just keep doing what I'm doing, you know. And uh, and but I try to answer every comment. And the reason I do that is, you know, because I value those comments and I value somebody watching my podcast, and I'll try to answer you in the comments, right? Because I because I uh because I think it's it's well worth it, right? Because I'm getting feedback, and the reason what I'm trying to do is I'm hoping that senior officers, and I'll tell you something else here in a minute, that senior officers are reading the comments because that those comments are a mirror for us, right? It's telling us what these people are thinking about our leadership, right? And and I know there's people in the Secretary of War's office that are watching that channel. And they're getting ideas from it. And I think that's that's so damn powerful that and they're they're reading the comments, they're getting ideas from the comments. And you could see in his speech he's talked about things that we talked about, you know, physical fitness, mental toughness, accountability.

Mark McGrath : 1:22:58

Yeah, you you you could argue about the the publicity of it or whatever, but the content, the the messaging, I think is was was pretty clear.

Asad Khan : 1:23:09

Hey Luke, I'll tell you what, I'm not a I'm not a Hexette fan. I mean, you go back there, there's a there's a brief I did on Hexeth because you know I I it will go all the way down your I did one on Hexet. I'm not a Hexet fan, right? But here's the bottom line, okay? I'm an American, right? And uh you know the the bottom line is he got nominated by the president who was elected, right? And then the cop then the Senate confirmed him, right? So I want Hexet to do well. If he does well, the military's gonna do well. Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:23:36

Absolutely.

Asad Khan : 1:23:37

Okay, and and and here's the other thing. Yeah, we can we can sniffle around the around uh around the margins about his most recent speech, but here's the bottom line that people are missing the point. Okay, now you got all these generals hiding behind retired generals and stuff and saying, oh, Hexet insulted me, he did this, he did that, you know?

Speaker: 1:23:54

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:23:55

My view is A stud, you're a general officer. If he was insulting you and he hurt your feelings, why don't you have the guts to stand up and walk out, put your stars down, and say, you know what, I'm done, I'm resigning. Yeah. You know, why don't you do that? And that's called moral courage. That's calling speaking truth to power.

Mark McGrath : 1:24:11

When was the last time in your assessments? It's interesting that you mentioned Shinseki because people argue that he spoke truth to power. In the Marine Corps, we had uh Greg Newbold, Lieutenant General Greg Greg Newbold. Yep, I served with the my father's classmate at West Point, uh John Batiste a two-star. There's very few generals that are willing to actually do that, and there's very few generals that won't, until they're retired and they're safe, that will say something. You know, you can you can dig up a general on either side of the political spectrum anytime there's an incident to comment or whatever. But to your point, a lot of these guys were when are the last times that people are doing the right thing when they were in uniform and cashiering themselves and putting themselves in uh the you know the in in front of the bus?

Asad Khan : 1:25:00

They don't. They don't. I mean, they they need all our general officers need to go on TRT, honestly. I mean, they're their estrogen levels so damn high that they've forgotten what it takes to be a freaking man. I shit you not. Yeah, you know, I I would give if if I was if I was Secretary of War tomorrow, and if somebody's listening to this podcast in the in this in the Department of War, give every general officer a total testosterone test and a free testosterone test. Take a look at it, and if they're low, put them on TRT. I'm telling you, it's a hormonal issue. Uh, and people think I'm nuts, and maybe I am, you know, but here's the bottom line. You take a bunch of women together, their minister cycle starts being the same. This is this is scientifically proven, right? They all their hormonal cycle starts being the same. The same thing happens to men. You put a bunch of guys, high estrogen guys, together, and guess what happens? They end up being the same. They just become this low testosterone type dudes, and that's what we got. We got general officers walking around with man boobs. I mean, you gotta be shitting me. Okay, these guys are supposed to be warriors. We should be, you know, the Chinese should fear us. They should fear us. You know what? Now they mock us. And they mock us because of our leadership.

Speaker 2: 1:26:04

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:26:04

You know, that damn parade that that Trump did, which I which I criticized. I thought it was stupid, and it turned out to be even worse. It backfired, right? With these these these freaking disheveled guys, they weren't even, I don't even know what the hell they're doing. They're just you know bordering around. Yeah, yeah.

Mark McGrath : 1:26:20

Unreal. It's absolutely unreal.

Asad Khan : 1:26:22

You know, and if I was a president of the United States, I would have freaking reamed somebody for that fiasco. Yeah. Right? That's setting the standard. And and I'm telling you, I guarantee you, when the Marine Corps' 250th birthday parade happens, you wait and see. And it's not because of the Marines are going to do it better, because they know what's going to happen. What you know, because how Trump felt about that last parade, and he's absolutely right. You know, I don't I don't agree with many things that Trump does. But he's our president. I want him to do well. The nation does well. That's the way I look at it. I'm neither Democrat, I'm not Republican, I'm not liberal, I'm not conservative.

Mark McGrath : 1:26:54

What's interesting is when you when you go to your uh when you go to your YouTube channel and you look at when I hit most popular videos, you know, you've got a couple, you got two lieutenant colonels, Stu Scheller, uh, that we're we're familiar with, and Lomayer. And then everything else is about toxic, corrupt, groveling uh generals. Yeah, a general going to prison, and and and you're getting hundreds of thousands of views on these, hopefully more after we uh we we do our part to help get you more attention. But there's so many concepts that are universal, not just to the military, but these things are happening inside of corporations, these things are happening inside of other organizations too, that there's a lot of things that you're you're pointing out that people need to be aware of. And it's these systems, again, that are driving behaviors where the worst are rising to the top.

Asad Khan : 1:27:56

And I'm gonna talk about the systems. If you can just go to the shorts page, I just uploaded a video today and and watch that one because it's a short three. I'm just learning how to do short videos. In fact, I learned it this morning. Yeah. So I just threw one on there. And basically, what I talk about in that shorts video from this morning, right there, that ugly face right there. Let's see if this works.

Mark McGrath : 1:28:14

I mean, boom. That was awesome.

Asad Khan : 1:28:18

I dreamt about this shit last night. Honest to God, it's the first thing I did. I woke up this morning. I had to make this video because I was dreaming about it, right? Because I I it's it's passion, man. It's it's a big deal. You know, my son was a Marine too. And I'll tell you this much. You know, I got I got I got twin grandsons and another one. I I don't want them going to the military with this type of leadership. Yeah, I don't I'd rather go myself as an old man and go fight on their behalf than than have them go and work for these clients.

Mark McGrath : 1:28:40

So Punch and I have had this conversation quite a bit about, you know, what would you tell your children, what would you tell your your friends' children? And yeah, it's it's very hard to recommend the military as a as an option sometimes. And for me, it it it because it's so far removed from you know defending the Republic and the Constitution and all that stuff, i i it uh it has become a uh a corporate career path that if you're not gonna play the corporate career game, you you uh you lose.

Asad Khan : 1:29:12

You know, and and and at the end of the day, General Eisenhower was 100% correct, and we failed to listen to him. We failed to listen to General George Washington when he talked about entangling alliances, and we keep going on foreign misadventures. On my channel, I wrote a mission statement, and there's three simple parts of two, you know, public accountability of government officials and military senior officers. That's it, that's the first one, right? No more foreign misadventures. That's the second one. And the third one is come up with practical solutions. That's what Sentinel does, right? And that that's what that's what we're all about, and that's what we have to come up with because this is serious business. We're spending a trillion dollars a year on this stuff when we've got 50 million Americans that are food insecure. America's in deep trouble, you know. I mean, our infrastructure's decaying. There's something like 200,000 bridges that need refurbishing or repair.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:30:03

Well, let's not forget about our veteran community, too. The suicide rate, the mental health problems, right? Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:30:08

22 a day. 22 a day. You know, are you and and just in the in the past week, we've had two Marines that went, did that that mass shooting, and we had another Marine that frickin' choked his wife to death. There's a frickin' problem. And the problem is these foreign misadventures.

Mark McGrath : 1:30:23

We uh we talk a lot, we've had a lot of episodes around psychedelic therapies for veterans to help mitigate uh the effects of trauma. And we had Keegan Gill, calls sign Smurf, who's the uh correct me if I'm wrong, Ponch, he's the only naval aviator to survive a Mach 1 ejection.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:30:41

It's close to Mach 1, yeah.

Mark McGrath : 1:30:42

Yeah. Just underneath him. It's insane. Yet at the same time, his miraculous recovery, he actually did wind up flying again. And also, though, he got inducted into the VA system and it nearly killed him. And a lot of it had to do with things like prescription drugs or whatever. Um, and he's become an advocate for psychedelic therapies to treat trauma for veterans. Because to your point, yeah, we're losing, we're losing veterans to suicide. We're losing, I think we're losing our soul in that respect. That that that uh desire that we all had to to go in there and be a part of something, it's hard to see that. So when a young person asks, hey dad, should I go into the Marine Corps? Hey, dad, should I join the Navy? You know, or if they say, Dad, I don't want to join in the Marine Corps. And my 18-year-old son recently told me that I don't want to, I don't want anything to do with it. And I said, I can't argue with you. Like I I can't argue with you.

Asad Khan : 1:31:31

And it's a shame, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:31:32

Yeah. It's a dead thing. Well, and it's it when you when it's a shame, and at the same time, it's not a surprise. And you're calling these things out, and we're looking at these things. And again, when I look at the videos that are getting the most, the most uh the most views, I mean, it's like there's a there's a market for truth. And and it's it it's it's comforting to me to know that there's people like you out there that you know amplify the things that Ponch and I believe and our you know our business partners that have experienced this stuff too firsthand and speak truth to power. And it it it will come at a cost. I mean, that's what Boyd knew. Hey, it's gonna cost me my uh I'll never be a general, you know, and and so I'm gonna venture to say this, Moose.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:32:10

If if your orientation is such that you want to be part of a system, if it's in corporate America or part of the military, you're not gonna enjoy this conversation that we just had, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:32:18

That's yeah.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:32:19

Because the whole part of part about uh evil and corruption is hey, I need to suppress information like this in order for me to thrive in my environment. If my objective is to be somebody, right. Fuck these three right here, right? Well, I'm not gonna listen to these guys, right? I need to shut this down. And we saw that during COVID, right? We saw that um four or five years ago. Where that information that's flowing into a system, if it doesn't align to your orientation or forces you to update an orientation, the easiest action, our easiest thing to do is take action to suppress it, right? That's what the OODA loop tells us is we suppress that information that we don't like, right? And I think people are not gonna like this. I think some of our listeners will hate this because they're used to being part of a system and they're not the ones that are gonna change, and that's fine. We don't want them around here because this is an open invitation. Here's an accounting, here's a way to look at things. What are you gonna do about it? And the chances are if you suppress this information, run away from it, you're the problem.

Mark McGrath : 1:33:13

It's to be or to do. John Boyd would, at the crossroads, would sit a young officer down and say, you have two options. You can be or do. And if you want to be, then you'll get all the promotions, you'll get all the glowing fit reps, you'll have all the club memberships. But if you want to do, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to get used to people hating you, not liking you. You're gonna have to accept, though, that you're the one that's actually doing what's right for the country. You're the one that's right doing right in his case, the Air Force. And too many people that do are we're the pariahs, you know, the the the doers of the pariahs over the over the beers, and the system rewards the beers, it rewards the massingales. The system rewards the Courtney Massingales and it punishes the Sam Damons, or it deters the Sam Damons from even from even going to OCS or from even going to boot camp. They're like, I don't want to be a part of that. I'd I'd go do something else.

Asad Khan : 1:34:02

Yeah, so you know, the the issue is you really gotta be, you know, the massingales are fine because they're readily identifiable, right? But the ones that are dangerous are, you know, uh they're the daemons, right? They're Massing Gales pretending to be the Demons. They're fucking dangerous.

Speaker 2: 1:34:18

Yeah, right.

Asad Khan : 1:34:19

Tell us more. They can destroy an organization. I'll tell you, you know, real life's example, and I'll, you know, I got no issue with it. Mattis is a great example. That's a person you got to study. Now, Matt Mattis, to one segment of the population, is the monk. He's the hero, right? He's he's everything, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:34:33

Modern pattern.

Asad Khan : 1:34:34

Right, the modern pattern. And I've seen Mattis in action. I've I've been in combat with Mattis, right? And I've seen him work the room also, right? And then when Mattis says, I love to get in a brawl, have you seen Mattis? I don't think he could do three pull-ups. Right? But this guy isn't in he he's got the talk, right? And everybody goes, Oh, he wants he likes to, you know, get in a get in the brawl. Give me a break. You couldn't even carry a 30-pound pack. You know, you just don't have the physical attributes to be a Sam Damon. I mean, it's really that simple, right? But you're pretending to be. That's the fundamental claw.

Mark McGrath : 1:35:11

Maybe I ask you this for, and it could be a historical example, but just in your time from when you were commissioned from when you're retired, you know, who who are the who are the senior leaders that you mentioned General Gray. I mean, who are the other ones that gave you reassurance? Like, hey, there's still there's still some good ones out there, you know, like there's still some of the- The Vietnam officers.

Asad Khan : 1:35:29

I mentioned Jay Vargas, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:35:30

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:35:30

Because Jay Vargas taught me about leadership by walking around, right? Colonel Wild Bill Simone taught me about you have to be mentally and physically tough. He's going out there as a battalion commander and thrashing a young lieutenant, second lieutenant just out of TBS. He's setting a standard. This is the bar that I expect you to operate at, right? Then you had General Livingston, right? I mean, these guys, you know, Ripley is another example, right? General Fox uh Colonel Fox, another example, right? But what happened in the Marine Corps was when Krak came in. When Krulak came in, he came up with this bullshit theory of strategic corporal. I mean, are you shitting me that he's a strategic corporal 21 years old? This kid is a strategic corporal? You're abrogating your responsibility. You basically told all the officers, hey, just dump all the decision making on this young kid and just back off. Right? And what does that do? That puts sets him up for failure. It's your job to make those decisions, right? And then we came out with everybody in the Marine Corps, the John Alens or the John Kelly, Dunfords, uh, the McKenzie's, all these guys were the part of the same clique. Right? It's a cobble. And if if you go on McKenzie's most recent book, go go on Amazon, look at the forwards on his book. It's these same guys write for each other.

unknown: 1:36:45

Right?

Asad Khan : 1:36:46

I'm gonna do an episode on that. Right? So they're complicit because they're doing that.

Mark McGrath : 1:36:50

It's a self-licking ice cream cone.

Asad Khan : 1:36:52

There you go. So so what happened in the 90s was John Allen's and stuff when he had IOC and everything, everybody started reading books. Mattis comes out with, hey, I got a library of 3,000 books. Right? So what's a young officer thinking? Shit, if I get a library of 3,500 books, I'm gonna be like Mattis, right? So everybody starts reading. Well, you can sit there and read all the muscle magazines you want, but until you get in the weight room and start throwing weight around, you ain't gonna get big. Right? So we had all these officers reading books, right? But they weren't applying what they were reading.

Mark McGrath : 1:37:24

That's interesting. So, so Boyd with Mike Wiley and and General Gray, they bring the reading list in. And to your point, is the reading list of because you I I think that you have to read at some point. It can't, you can't be all asked, you do have to be someone that can engage intellectually, learn from philosophy and history and how you're gonna apply things in real world situations. Have these reading lists evolved into just checklists? Because I I question a lot of the things that I actually see on the reading list anymore. Like they're not things that challenge your assumptions, they're not things that that like shatter your cohesion to what you think. You know, they're they're not they're not making you uncomfortable when you when you read them.

Asad Khan : 1:38:02

I think the problem with our reading list is this. Now, you know, I haven't gone to all the schools, I've read every freaking book there is, you know, uh about military history, tactics, all that shit. You know?

Mark McGrath : 1:38:13

Yeah, and we're not you're you're not saying don't be a reader. You're just saying No, not at all.

Asad Khan : 1:38:18

But you got you know, the the issue is I've read Napoleon's Wars like three times, right? But I never understood. I read Clauswitz probably five times, but I never understood it. Right? Just reading doesn't just make you smart. You know, it's the synthesis and analysis part, right? You got you gotta synthesize all that shit and you gotta and it's gotta start making sense. But if somebody doesn't sit down with you and talk about that book, and that was the advantage of Saul, right? You did the reading next day you came around that group, your conference group, and you talked about, you know, and you got different ideas, different perspectives, right? But then you gotta apply it. So we we did the World War II Normandy landing, you know, and uh while we're at the schoolhouse, we're we're criticizing the landing. You know, this could have done because history, you know, you got the benefit of hindsight, right? And then we actually went out there. We went out to Normandy. And when you stand on the terrain, and then you come back to the schoolhouse after the Normandy trip, and they have you rewrite the plan. And guess what? It was exactly the same that uh Eisenhower wrote. Exactly the same. Why? Because geography matters, right?

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:39:19

Because context matters, right? You can't get that context from a book. You have to go experience, and this goes back to the orientation. You gotta go to the front lines, you gotta be present, right? Yes, yes, yes.

Asad Khan : 1:39:29

And that's where Mackenzie failed in his duties. There's a congressional hearing where uh the congressman asks him, where were you on 26th August? And he clicks Tampa, he clicks off of it. What are you doing in Tampa when your main effort is in Kabul? At a minimum, at least being cutter, right? So the commander has to be, you know, follow me, lead from the front. What does that mean? It's not just in peacetime or in PT. In combat, you gotta leave from the front. And unfortunately, we've forgotten that culture because we just think, hey, you can read about it. I can read about it, I can watch an ISR tape, but you don't feel the dust, you don't feel the sweat, you don't see how your Marines and soldiers are doing. You know, you don't feel any of that stuff. And I think that's so important to get that feel and that orientation that you're talking about. That's absolutely critical. Now, the question, you know, you you gotta ask is after my Marine Corps career, you know, I I went in the corporate world and it was just another cesspool, you know. So as and I was making buku money and all that stuff. And uh, thanks to General DeLong, he rehired me. Believe it or not. I love that guy. Unfortunately, he's passed away. And he fired me a couple times too in the corporate world, and that's fine. Then he rehired me again, but I refused to work for him until I renegotiated my package. So you have to give me more money every time, right? It was, you know, it's just uh but my point being is the same leadership principles apply in the corporate world. I'll give you an example. I was in charge of this office. You know, they used to get 45 minutes for lunch. I gave an hour and a half. They're just like, hey, this is great, right? Yeah, but you're going to the gym with me. Yeah, you want an hour and a half lunch? Come to the gym with me. They started going to the gym, they started calling HR. This guy's nuts. He's taking us to the gym. HR's calling me, like, what are you doing? I said, Don't worry about it. We'll talk in six weeks. Give me six weeks. In six weeks, when they started seeing improvement in their body conditioning, they're loving it. The corporate loved it, uh their medical costs started coming down. So the same leadership principles apply. You got to demonstrate that. You got to show people that you care. And you gotta have systems in place, you know, that you're operating faster than your competition. And the part of the UDA loop is understanding your competition, the threat, right? What the enemy's doing. And you gotta develop it. Because they get a vote.

Mark McGrath : 1:41:33

They get a vote.

Asad Khan : 1:41:34

You know, and I'll tell you, the the the Taliban, the insurgents were phenomenal. The problem was the reason we're successful in Afghanistan, the battalion, was because we didn't have a fob. They don't know where we're going tomorrow. They don't know where we're going today. Sometimes I do a U-turn and go around another valley, right? Wherever I felt like going. You come out of a fob, what are your options? You can go straight, left or right.

Mark McGrath : 1:41:55

So, okay, so that that that begs some like strategic operational tactical questions for you. So let's let's agree. Do we agree up to this point? We've been talking about a big bloated bureaucratic system that's slow to move, it can't turn around, and it's and it's it's it's a self-licking ice cream cone. You're our adversary, you're America's adversary. You can actually be really successful with insurgency, information warfare, media warfare, lawfare, all the things that the Chinese officers talked about in unrestricted warfare. You can actually be real, real successful with that because these behemoth that we've built doesn't have an answer for that. And a corporation's yeah, we don't know how to operate in that grid.

Asad Khan : 1:42:40

We we've forgotten how to operate in that grid. But back in the Revolutionary War, we knew how to do insurgency. We were the masters at it. That's how we defeated the British Empire, right? Back then back then. And since then we haven't. So what we've done is we we've we've taken these high-end individuals and we've made them experts in insurgencies, but we don't have enough of them, right? Because they just can't get through the Q course. That's that's the issue. So what happens is when you go on these austere environments where we can't cycle information fast enough, right? Where the where the environment itself is arduous, we don't understand the language, we don't understand the culture. I'll give you an example. Whenever you see a picture of me, rarely you'll see a picture of me sitting on the ground with Afghans. Why? Because Afghans want somebody in authority. So I would have a field chair, you know, I would sit in a field chair and they're all sitting on the ground around me. Why? Because they want a person in authority. If I sit on the ground, I'm one of them. So little nuances like that. I'll give you an example of a very good one. I always told the Marines when you damage something, settle it right there and then, right? We used to have surf funds, you know, paying them. You hit somebody's wall with the seven-ton, figure out what the damage is, give them the money. Because normally they're supposed to, you know, put a claim in through civil affairs, fill out forms, then the government transfer the money to the bank account. They don't, first of all, they don't have paper, they don't have a pen, they don't have a bank account, right? So we just pay them right there and then.

Mark McGrath : 1:43:57

So that's an example of off-trogs tactique. That's an example of so there are cases where the strategic corporal, maybe, maybe not capital S, capital C, but you're empowering somebody to handle something right away because they understand your intent as their commander clearly, that they can make it happen without having to ask dad every time. They can just get it done.

Asad Khan : 1:44:15

And then they're executed in the guidance. Yeah. They're executing the guidance, right? That's all they're doing. Guidance, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:44:19

Do you think do you think to be fair to the strategic corporal, do you think that, again, maybe small C, small c, small s, small c, do you think that that was the intent that the strategic corporal is not someone that gets the buck passed to him, but that that we're pushing decisions down to a lower level so that we can main operational tempo faster? Or do you think it was then it was abused, then it was misunderstood?

Asad Khan : 1:44:41

It made it made the leadership lazy. We started sitting in our offices, right? Then the officer stopped, stopped going to the barracks, and then all of a sudden our barracks got all screwed up, and then the then the assistant comrade of the Marine Corps had to come on national TV and apologize. And we got bad barracks and we promise you we'll get them squared away. That's why? Because we stopped inspecting, right? And this and and don't get me wrong, you know, my NCOs are phenomenal, but I spent a ponderous amount of my time with my NCOs because I wanted them to know how I thought. I used to teach classes. I used to, Friday evening, we used to have one of the classrooms, you come up, have a beer, right? If you're an NCO above, you come have a beer. You know, and I'd buy the beer for the troops, you know, and the beer, not a problem.

Mark McGrath : 1:45:22

So you're talking about you're talking about presence, you're not talking about overbearing micromanagement.

Asad Khan : 1:45:26

Yes, no, the big difference, yeah.

Mark McGrath : 1:45:28

Totally.

Asad Khan : 1:45:28

Yeah. I mean, they they they they gotta know how Khan is gonna think. In the absence of orders and guidance, they gotta know what would Khan do? That's the question they gotta ask in their mind. That little voice, right? Yeah. That little voice has to be talking to you. And that's what you got to develop in the mind of these kids. But the notion that you're gonna just put it put a young corporal out there because it's a corporal, and all of a sudden you're a strategic corporal, you know, go out and uh, you know, take over Afghanistan. What do you think gonna happen?

Mark McGrath : 1:45:50

What do you think the Marine Corps has kind of uh lately in the last two commandants has really been trying to identify like where are we headed? And there's been a lot of rupture and rioting about internally about Force Design 2030, which you know, depending on who you talk to, they're either all for it, they think it's beyond question. I mean, I you know, people when I when I raise questions or ask questions, people walk away from you. They don't want to hear it. They kick you out of chat rooms, they they unsubscribe you from their uh from their substacks because they don't want to hear criticism of the commandant or the previous commandant with four.

Asad Khan : 1:46:24

They're cowards. They're cowards. If you can't have discourse, you know, then and those those are guys that shouldn't be thinking if they can't have discourse.

Mark McGrath : 1:46:30

What is it? What does it say about an initiative, a strategic initiative that that some do believe that it's beyond question?

Asad Khan : 1:46:36

It's asinine. The commandant 2030 is freaking asinine. I'll tell you why, quite simply. We don't know our own pronoun anymore. Third Marine Division does not exist anymore. They don't it's uh it's on paper, it's there, but they don't know what's their mission. What are they training to? What are they responsible? Who's doing what? Everybody's confused, right? Because we're gonna do this island hopping missile campaign against the Chinese. We've done that, we fought that war. We fought that war. How are you gonna sustain these units? Logistics, right? That's number one. Number two is casualties. Do you know what it takes to evacuate a casualty?

Mark McGrath : 1:47:15

Oh yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:47:15

Like for everyone, there's there's a whole apparatus around it that four to six Marines it takes to evacuate a casualty, carry the litter, to hold the IV bag and all that shit, right? If they went down, we're gonna try the eight-man squad. Well, you know what? You get one casualty squad's done.

Mark McGrath : 1:47:31

It's over, yeah. Right?

Asad Khan : 1:47:32

Or we're going to 10-man squad, you know. I mean, it's just stupid shit, right? Our bread and butter mission is what? To be America's strike force. That was our mission, right? We were expeditionary forces. First we're amphibious forces, naval, you know, naval landing forces, then we became amphibious forces, expeditionary forces, then we became Magtafs, then we became EWGs, and uh, you know, now we're we we don't know what the hell we are.

Speaker 2: 1:47:56

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:47:57

Because Berger, I taught Berger. I know Berger. I I know Berger. I taught him, right? I taught him planning. He wasn't the smartest bulb in the room. I'm telling you that. And I'm being honest. You know, he's a good guy, he's somebody I want my sister to marry. I I want my sister to marry a guy like Berger.

Speaker 2: 1:48:10

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:48:11

Okay. But he he he is not the smartest guy in the room. And I'm telling you, he just keeps quiet and people think he's smart. Silence doesn't mean you're smart. So silence may mean you don't know what the F you're doing. So that's one issue, right? And so what are the other problems with uh FDT? First of all, we're not gonna get there. And second of all, is a service uh uh uh chief can't come up with a fighting concept. You gotta go and talk to the combatant commanders and see what's in their O plans and OP plans, right? And and what's in their TITFIDS. What type of forces do they want? What capabilities do they want? Are they really asking for these island hopping campaign marines in the Pacific? I don't think so. They're probably asking for some amphibious forces, uh, you know, and they're in their old plans. I mean, I know some of the old plans, so I gotta be careful what the hell I say. But they're not asking for a lot of this stuff, you know? Uh and it's so we we we have to be very, very careful in how we posture the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps is pretty soon gonna be out of a mission. If you look at it, the Army's taking over, the ready brigades are taking over our missions, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:49:11

Was it your channel I saw that like we we couldn't even do a NEO in Sudan? So, yeah, I mean, so then the the the the question is the Chinese also, too. If we're if we're arguing about these tenets of Force Design 2030, the Chinese are taking into consideration too. And if you've read their own doctrine, their own documents around unrestricted warfare, why would anybody ever think in a million years that there's gonna be some naval show down in the South China Sea?

Asad Khan : 1:49:36

I've been to Taiwan. You know who's Taiwan's largest trading partner?

Mark McGrath : 1:49:41

United States. China. China, yeah, China, yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:49:45

It's that simple. So they're they're cousins. They're cousins. There's the all this bullshit about China's gonna be China already, Ch China already controls them. It doesn't need to occupy them.

Speaker 2: 1:49:56

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:49:56

It already controls it, just like how it controls Hong Kong, right? If it controls them through economic power. That's what the Chinese model is. They don't need to put their military in Taiwan. This is all this is all freaking dog and pony, you know, smoking.

Mark McGrath : 1:50:09

Well, I was saying more like too, like the asymmetry asymmetries that they talk about in unrestricted warfare, like, you know, putting fentanyl over our borders and controlling the media or controlling uh, you know, Hollywood or that kind of stuff. Like they the Chinese have other ways to get at us that all these little missile bases in the South China Sea, they're already irrelevant.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:50:30

Yeah, it's it is irrelevant. You know, I mean it is irrelevant. So I want to go back to Taiwan and China, and and I think we're missing something here. You said a dog and pony show, right? Is this a by who? Who is driving that show?

Asad Khan : 1:50:42

Well, the couple of things. I mean, every time you look at uh, you know, how the wars that we've been involved in, how we get sucked into them, because we throw money at every every problem, right? And the more money we throw at it, people get rich. Now, forget about the military industrial complex and people at home, right? But there's people overseas that are getting rich. Now, look at Afghanistan as a classic example, right? Afghanistan in 2001, I recommended that we put a small nuclear reactor at Bagram. People thought I was freaking nuts, right? And the reason I recommended that, at that time we did a study, the total requirement for Afghanistan was 10 megawatts. That was it. That's nothing, right? And then it became, once you, once you figure out where you're gonna generate the power from, then it becomes a transmission distribution issue, right? Getting the power out to the areas. But a country, if it doesn't have electricity and power, it can never improve economically. You can't create jobs, it'll never get out of the stone age, right? So that was the issue. So what what the the alternate option they came up with was, hey, we're gonna build power plants in Afghanistan. Okay, fine. That works.

Mark McGrath : 1:51:47

What was the megawattage again? 10. So I just looked up really quick. It says for here in New York City where I live, 30,000 megawatts.

Asad Khan : 1:51:56

So so Yeah, it was just ridiculous. Yeah, because back then it was like one light bulb in everybody's house, right? But here's the issue. So we couldn't do power plants, so we started putting generator sets, big generator sets, gen sets, right, in different places and calling them as power plants. Sounds good. Very inefficient, right? Because generators suck up a lot of fuel, right? Diesel fuel. So all of a sudden we needed a ton of fuel coming through Pakistan. So a lot of people went in the fuel business and trucking business, right? So the Taliban sees this, they start attacking the trucks. So then we go to the security companies and saying, hey, you're gonna guard these trucks. Security companies figure out real quickly, we'll just pay off the Taliban to stop attacking the trucks. We'll make our money, they'll make their money, everybody's happy. And that's exactly what happened. Right? So now, fast forward, so we built these generator sets all over Afghanistan. When we pulled up, they don't have the money to get the uh the diesel from Pakistan. So everything collapsed. You get my point?

Speaker 2: 1:52:58

Totally. Right? Break orientation.

Asad Khan : 1:53:01

Yeah, you know, so they they're not thinking, they don't think about what the hell they're doing.

Speaker 2: 1:53:04

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:53:05

And that, you know, so and and they're so wrapped up in their own degrees and their own experiences. And at the outset, I said, you know, if we're in Korea, I'd be useless, right? Except for eating kimchi and maybe drinking some soju, that type of shit. But when somebody is in an area that they know the area like the back of the hand, for God's sakes, listen to them. And we had all these highfalutin generals, Treas, McCursto, Allen, Dunford, you know, uh uh and what was that other guy? Barno. And you know, but they just thought they knew more than an illiterate Taliban did. That illiterate Taliban was a lot smarter than us because his UDA loop was a was a tighter circle and operating much faster. Because when he's standing there looking at your fob, you're coming either straight, left, and right. And he flashes a mirror, gives a signal, and they know which way you're going.

Mark McGrath : 1:53:53

And as you said, as we agree, with orientation being the most important part, they're they're oriented. They know what's actually going on. They're attuned with their environment, they understand that the medium is the message, and and they're really, really good at it. They've been really good at it for thousands and thousands of years because they've repelled every single empire that ever tried to get in, going all the way back to Alexander the Great.

Asad Khan : 1:54:15

And and and time's on their side. It's not on our side. And I told I used to I used to I used to talk to generals going to Afghanistan, right? Give them uh orientation stuff. So one time I had a bunch of generals, and I asked them, I said, name me five countries in uh in Iran, or excuse me, five cities. Name me five cities in Iran, China, and Russia. Right? So it should be fifteen, right? The answer? Guess what the highest was?

unknown: 1:54:39

Seven.

Mark McGrath : 1:54:40

Seven.

Asad Khan : 1:54:41

Seven, right? And these are the same generals that are talking about bombing Iran, going to war with China, you know, and Russia. Total number of cities they could name was seven. That tells you that these guys can't think without their staff. Do you think you meant the room?

Mark McGrath : 1:54:58

You you mentioned Clauswitz earlier. You think too much Clauswitz and not enough Sun Tzu?

Asad Khan : 1:55:03

You know, I think it's not enough street smart, honestly. Because the Taliban has not read Klauswitz or Sun Tzu.

unknown: 1:55:09

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:55:09

Amadel Shira, the the the ISIS president of Syria now, that was ISIS at one time. Do you know do you know the guy I'm talking about?

Mark McGrath : 1:55:16

Yeah, that General Petraeus just had a nice fireside chat with. Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:55:20

Yeah, I did a video on it. Yeah, oh that's one of your better ones. Yeah. Ready to get on his knees in front of him, right? The thing is, you gotta bring him in and you gotta talk to him and you gotta pick his brain. How did you beat us? How did you beat Assad, the dynasty? But we don't do that. You know, we should go into Afghanistan. I'll lead the effort. Let's go sit down with the Taliban, drink some chai, and say, okay, what did you guys do that beat us? You know, and they'll tell you exactly what they did. You know, it was our what we defeated ourselves with our corruption. Our corruption was one of the biggest things. And here's another little thing that we have in the FAR, right? The federal acquisition regulation. So those contracts that were given out in Afghanistan, there's a clause in there that they have to certify, self-certify, that they will not support the ban on Israel. Now think about that. You're sitting in Afghanistan and you're trying to explain to an Afghan, he's like, what does this have to do with Israel? You know, and my response just sign the damn thing, right? Don't worry about it. It's just American regulation, just sign it, right? But what is that doing? That's reinforcing the Taliban propaganda.

Speaker 2: 1:56:24

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:56:25

You see what I'm saying? And I brought it up to the generals, and I brought it up to generals, and not a single general had the gumption to get that removed.

Mark McGrath : 1:56:32

I mean, it's like a cultural dis not at being not attuned to cultures, you know. Yeah. Um we had Bing West on the show and talking. Yeah, and while he's talking about uh I wanted to bring him on, and we Punch and I had a conversation about the village and about the uh combined action program, which John Boyd was a big fan of. And you know, you could take 15 Marines, basically a squad plus two, and and and go into a village of 2,500 people, and you could reduce the violence, you could reduce people wanting to be part of the Communist Party, um, and you could you could turn the war around that way and nobody wanted to do it. You know, crew like basically that that crew.

Asad Khan : 1:57:12

There's a couple of nuances, right, that we we'd never kind of address. One is our conduct, right? Our conduct was offensive. Just day-to-day conduct, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:57:22

You're talking about Vietnam or Afghanistan, or both? Afghanistan. Afghanistan.

Asad Khan : 1:57:27

Vietnam was different. Because Vietnamese people are different, right? So in Afghanistan, like walking around with Afghanistan.

Mark McGrath : 1:57:32

Bing did say that, by the way. When he was on the show, he did say that Afghanistan and and Vietnam are not the same.

Asad Khan : 1:57:39

So not at all. Yeah. Not at all. I spend a lot of time in Vietnam. I go there every year. But the difference in Afghanistan is they don't like people walking around without their shirt on. And it's very common for us to walk around without our shirt on, especially on the FOBS, right? So that's that's considered nudity, right? So that's the first part. The second part is pork, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:57:57

All our MREs have all the MREs all over the place.

Asad Khan : 1:58:01

They find it offensive. You know, they think it's blasphemy because they follow the Bible and the Quran. It says don't eat Leviticus 11 and the Quran. It says avoid, you know, the uh the pork. So that that's the second issue. How about drinking? Uh drinking is uh is another one, right? Especially in rural areas, right? But not in Kabul and stuff, but people, you know, but that and and the thing is you gotta remember the word travels, right, through word and mouth. So what may happen in Kabul two weeks later is gonna end up in uh Lashkagar, right? Word of mouth. It's you know, the word travel.

Mark McGrath : 1:58:30

Networks, those networks, those non-electronic networks are pretty they're pretty effective over there, huh?

Asad Khan : 1:58:36

They are because of the corruption, right? So the corruption, what happened was they lost faith in the government institutions, so they would go to the Taliban institutions, which were in parallel. So if there's a government in uh in one province, you know, let's just say Zabo province, this the central government's representatives, they also had Taliban representatives.

Speaker 2: 1:58:53

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:58:53

These guys were honest. These guys weren't. They wanted money and they're always trying to grab your land. But these guys were following some sort of norms. And in many cases, the government officials would go to the Taliban courts to solve problems. Arbitrate, right? And we never got a head around that. Because we got sucked into these New York Afghans that were, you know, that came in there wearing suits and speaking American English, and uh they took us for a ride, man.

Mark McGrath : 1:59:19

What what do you think of um James Gant's One Tribe at a time white paper and and and the stuff that he was doing with tribal engagement?

Asad Khan : 1:59:28

I think, but you know, how do you do it on a large scale?

Mark McGrath : 1:59:31

Yeah. Well, that was his message, one tribe at a time. You can't you can't do a one-size tribe.

Asad Khan : 1:59:36

But then you run out then then you run out of time, right?

Mark McGrath : 1:59:38

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 1:59:39

So you remember we came up with this theory, you know, about government in a box or whatever the hell it was. You remember in Helmand? And I remember talking to Larry Nichols about it when he's going to Marja. I said, Larry, I've never heard about Marja. Why are you even going there? You're gonna make that place famous, it's gonna suck up Marines, and it did. And guess what? We left and Marja's back to the way it was. But we're gonna, you know, do this one-stop shop, government in a box, and all this happy horse shit. And it never materialized, right? Because you can't do it at scale. Because the problem is, you know, it's going back to that strategic corporal. You can't get enough of strategic corporals to make it happen. You just can't train up that many people at the same time. So that's that's the thing. How do you train these people up? So they're all equally as affected. And we just unfortunately just can't do it. There may be some outlayers out there, some real smart corporals, some real sharp corporals, and the same thing in officers, young lieutenants. How do you do it?

Mark McGrath : 2:00:34

Well, you're you're an interesting example of that. So you're ethnically from there, you're actually from there, you speak the languages, you know the culture, and and the system says, ah, he doesn't know what he's talking about, or uh, well, this is more important, or whatever. People weren't weren't listening to you before you went downrange, and then you then you actually go downrange and you're you're you're showing them these things firsthand, and they still don't consider those things.

Asad Khan : 2:00:56

Uh, I think because part of it was was envy also. So I'll tell you, one of my greatest satisfactions was uh I was sitting one day outside this village, and I'm thinking, man, I gotta help these people. You know, we just we can't kill our way out of here. So I told the Marines, I said, go give him the shopkeeper. Now the shop there is maybe eight foot wide by twelve foot long mud hut. And he's got cheap candy, rice, cigarettes, sugar, and uh flour. That's all he sells, right? So they bring this guy to me, he comes and grabs my feet. I'm sitting in the chair. Sir, I'm not telling them. I said, I know, grab a seat. I give him some chai. I said, uh, so what do you do? She said, sir, I'm a shopkeeper. So I said, you're like a businessman, right? Yes, sir. I said, what'd your father do? Oh, he's a shopkeeper too. Your father's a businessman, too, right? Yes, sir. I said, Well, I got a business proposition for you. I want you to dig a well in your village. He's like, sir, I don't know how to dig a well. So I said, Neither do I. But you just told me you're a businessman. Go down to Condor, find the well digger, go dig a well. Well, whatever it costs you, I'll pay you double. You got two weeks. I'll be back in two weeks. If I don't see a well there, I'm gonna bury you in that hole. You understand me? You know, well, yes, sir. I said, You don't have time to finish a chai. That's for effect, right? Part of the leadership is I said, get going. So he didn't finish chai, he ran off. I said, Go to Condor right now, two weeks. I'll be back. Two weeks later, I come back. I got a great picture. They got a well dug, they got water coming out of it. Right? Because at this high altitude, you know, it's it's high, high desert. They don't have water. We dug 14 wells. 14 wells. Right? Guess what the cost was? So the total cost for digging the well was 199 something, right? Change. I told my finance guy said, give him two two thousand, round it up, give him four thousand. Right? Fourteen wells. He dug. Gave him a phone. I said, every two weeks you'll call us. My Marines will come check the well and they'll give you the money. And he dug 14 wells. It used to cost USAID $65,000. We did it for $4,000 using local resources. And it helped, and it helped us. So it's just different ways of uh you know getting effect on target, right? Okay, that's an average guy from Iowa can't do it. I'll tell you the battalion that relieved us and went back, they went about eight kilometers from Mackenzie's Fob, eight kilometers, turned around and came back. Because when they went up in that mountain, they said it's just too damn hard. We can't do it. You know, because it's it's ambush alley. You know, there's big ass cliffs on both sides. You don't know what the hell's going to happen.

Mark McGrath : 2:03:17

Yeah, those guys, and those guys have a lot of strength and altitude endurance and big giant legs.

Asad Khan : 2:03:24

We want to hear a good story. I went to K2. I didn't I didn't summit, but I went to the base camp. And it's probably one of the top five hardest things I've done in my life. Right. And and the reason being is because we were on the glacier for three weeks. And you can't hide on a glacier. There's no place to warm up, there's nothing. It's just it's and as I'm trudging along, and the highest we won was 21,000 feet. The summit is about 28, so we're about 7,000 feet below the summit. I'm thinking, what a great place to bring young officers and train them here, right? What an awesome place this would be to really give them that warrior ethos. And what struck me was the local uh the Sherpas. Skinny guy weighing maybe 130 pounds, each of them would carry 90 pounds on their back, right? 90 for $5 a day. Think about that. They were tougher than nails. We had all the high speed catch-me gear and all that stuff, Gore-Tex and all this shit. Sleeping back tents. These guys didn't had had nothing. They would put up a uh a stone wall, right? A little windbreak, and they'd throw a tarp on top of it, they're all crawling on the top, and their bodies would keep them warm. They wore Chinese plastic sandals. And when you had to cross glacier melts, you know, we had to take off our boots, put them around our necks, because you can't get them wet, obviously. And uh these guys would walk in that water with their sandals on, which is brilliant, because they get the other side, the sandals dry out. While we're walking barefoot, you know, getting beat up by rocks and shit. It's they're operating on a different domain. We're not even close. Not even close. You want to learn frickin' how to survive in arduous conditions, go to that environment. Go to northern Pakistan in the Himalayas, the Hindukush, and the Karakura Mountains.

Mark McGrath : 2:05:08

You ever you ever been to the Hunza Valley?

Asad Khan : 2:05:11

Yeah, yeah. I go once a year. Come join me. I go on a motorcycle.

Mark McGrath : 2:05:15

I will do it. I will do it. And I have uh someone that wants to come with me. We we want to go to the Hunza Valley because we've talked about it quite a bit. And I I've seen videos of it. It looks like you ever read the book, I can't think of the author all of a sudden, about where the term Shangri-La comes from. Lost Horizon, the book Lost Horizon. They say that it's based on the Hunza Valley. They say it's one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Asad Khan : 2:05:37

So my family, my cousins own uh the Shangri-La Resorts.

Mark McGrath : 2:05:40

Oh, wow.

Asad Khan : 2:05:41

In Skardhu. So you can Google it, Shangri-La Skardhu, and just see it. Just type in Shangri-La and Skardhu S-K-R-D-U and look at the picture of those chalets around that lake. So I go every year I will go on a motorcycle ride up through uh the northern areas of Pakistan, and it's absolutely freaking gorgeous, right? And it's uh so I spent two weeks camping up there, and we go as high as about 14,000, 16,000 feet. It's absolutely incredible. Did you find it?

Mark McGrath : 2:06:06

I'm gonna share the screen here. It got my Yeah, this is we should punch. This is where we're gonna go do our next off site, I think.

Asad Khan : 2:06:15

Yeah, so my uncle who uh who received uh military cross is buried there. Yeah, look at that. Just to the right of that tree line where his grave is.

Mark McGrath : 2:06:24

Unreal.

Asad Khan : 2:06:26

Yeah. It's actually looking the wrong way. If the the video turns the other way and you see the peaks, it's mind-blowing stuff. So this is on our planet? Because I've never seen anything like it. Look at that, look at those peaks. You see those peaks? Wow. Look at that.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:06:39

Shit.

Asad Khan : 2:06:39

Yeah, it's it's uh yeah, it's in Skardhu. And now they've got direct flights from Skarhu uh from Dubai to Skardhu. Otherwise, it takes you like a couple of days of driving to get up there, but it's fantastic. Well, there's a flight from Islamabad to Skardhu also. And from Skardhu is where you start your uh trek to uh That's my cousin. He's gonna be 80 this year.

Mark McGrath : 2:07:00

Wow. No kidding. Wow.

Asad Khan : 2:07:03

And his father was an incredible warrior, and that's one of the main reasons I came to the military. He's the one who uh received the military cross at Burma, Kennedy Peak. Uh huh. Incredible, incredible person. His father was. So the best thing to do is get some motorcycles and you ride, you dride uh through the Hunza Valley. Hunza's on the other side of that, right? So Hunza's probably uh they've built a highway now. So you can it'll take you maybe about three, four, four hours to get to Hunza from Scott. You can go, but you can go the other way where there's a place called Desai Plains. This is a plains at 14,000 feet. Absolutely mind-blowing place, man. I mean, I I just I literally I just go sit there and I, you know, you you just sit there and you go, wow, no, this is incredible. So I've done a lot of mountaineering, uh, done a lot of trekking in uh in different places. I've been to Everest also, a broad peak, Gasherburn one.

Mark McGrath : 2:07:51

Did you go to mountain warfare school in the Marines?

Asad Khan : 2:07:54

I did, yeah. And then uh then I did uh there's one more I want to tell you. Nungapurbat. Nungapurbath is google Google that N-A-N-G-A, P-A-R-B-A-T. More people have gone to space than gotten to the top of this mountain. It's the ninth highest. N-A-N-G-A-P-A-R-B-A-T. P-A-R-B-A-T. Yeah, it's two words. Got it. Look at that mountain. Let's see here. Absolutely gorgeous. Look at that. Isn't that incredible?

Mark McGrath : 2:08:26

And that's Pakistan.

Asad Khan : 2:08:27

That's yeah, northern Pakistan.

Mark McGrath : 2:08:30

Wow.

Asad Khan : 2:08:30

It's the best kept secret, man.

Mark McGrath : 2:08:32

Yeah. Well, that's the feeling I got from what looking at this guy's videos um on uh on Hunza Valley. It looked, it just looked unbelievable.

Asad Khan : 2:08:41

Look at that glacier. See that glacier coming down? Yeah.

Mark McGrath : 2:08:44

That's crazy. This is kind of where like the Hundu Kush and the Himalayas meet, right?

Asad Khan : 2:08:49

So there's a place called Junction Point, close to there, maybe about two hours away from uh what the pictures you're looking at. And junction point is where uh look at that. Gorgeous. Wow.

Speaker 2: 2:09:00

Unbelievable.

Asad Khan : 2:09:00

Uh junction point is where uh the Himalayas. That's uh the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karakurum come together. All come together. Yeah, look at that picture. Wow. I mean you you're looking at 28,000 feet, the the top of that mountain is. It's no joke. You call it Killer Mountain.

Mark McGrath : 2:09:21

That's what I hear.

Asad Khan : 2:09:22

Ferry Meadows. Incredible. And you got a hike up there, so it takes a little bit of doing about four-hour hike.

Mark McGrath : 2:09:28

Unreal.

Asad Khan : 2:09:29

Yeah, anytime you guys want to go there, let me know, and uh I'll organize it. I'll go with you.

Mark McGrath : 2:09:34

Let's do it. Well, did they is there anybody up there that needs uh a speaker on the flow system or the ootaloop, you know? I think it's the other way around. I think they know what they're talking about. Yeah, yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:09:45

I'll tell you, I've met I've met people, this will freak you out. His name is Con Big, right? This this man, uh 85 years old. And when he shakes your hand, you can feel like a bear paw grabbing you, right? And the guy is so damn fit. And every day he'd disappear for about 45 minutes. He's got he's got like a hiker's uh you know, rest house type thing, you know? I was staying there and uh he'd disappear. So I go con big. Where do you go every day? He goes, Oh, I go cut grass. I'm like, what? For what? He goes, for my cattle for the winter, you know, because they get snowed in. So every day he cuts grass for 45 minutes and throws it in this barn. So he takes me in his village, shows me the barn, and sure shit, you know, he's stacking grass up there. And this guy was a high-altitude porter. So that means he's taking people summiting all these mountains, right? And he is so physically fit that he just puts us to shame. And the the beauty about this whole area is the Hunza Valley is the people are so damn nice. You'll see kids standing on the side of the roads, these baskets of apricots for guests, right? And they don't want your money, they're just offering, it's offerings, right? And they take take it, yeah.

Mark McGrath : 2:10:50

It's it's fantastic. So so from what I've studied, the food looks absolutely ridiculous, too.

Asad Khan : 2:10:55

The food is uh, yeah, the food is a lot of meats, a lot of kebabs, uh, the bread is fantastic, uh, you know, a lot of beans. And if you like sort of Bakhsani, Bakhsani food is more meats, Indian food is more uh vegetarian type stuff. But it it's yeah, the food is good. I mean, the whole thing is good. And I'll tell you what, you go to many places in Pakistan being a foreigner, they won't take your money. So you can go in a store and pick something out, and the guy will say, Nope, you're my guest, please take it. You know, and then you have to fight over it, hey, I want to pay you because you're trying to earn a living, man. But they won't do it. You know, it's pride, it's a matter of pride. And I tell you so many stories. I I went all the way up to Kundrab Pass, the border of China and Pakistan, and I think that was about 16,000 feet. And on the way back, I got a flat tire. So I told my guide, who's on another bike, I said, you know, he said, hey sir, hop on my bike and we'll go and I said, No, you go get somebody. So when he left, I'm sitting there thinking, man, that was stupid, because the sun is beating on my head. But I can hear a stream. So if I'm hearing a stream, I'm thinking, okay, if there's a stream, there's got to be a small uh, you know, walking bridge across it, so I can find some shade. So I follow the stream and I find the little walking bridge. So I get underneath it. I'm fine, I got water, I got shade, I can survive. And about 30 minutes later, this old man shows up out of nowhere with a with a cup of tea. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, what the hell? He goes, I've been watching you. So I said, what do you mean you're watching me? He goes, Yeah, I'm a I'm a shepherd, goat herder up on the mountain. I was watching you. I figured you want some. And I'm sitting there thinking, here's one of the poorest people on this planet is giving me charity. Right? So it made me think it's hospitality, but it makes you don't need to have wealth to give charity or be hospitable to other people, right? That's the lesson I learned. And uh just fantastic people. I love it. I love being over there. And um definitely, definitely need to go. And you need to go sooner rather than later because that you know the world is starting to show up because people have advertised what a great tourist destination it is. But do you know how to ride bikes, Moose?

Mark McGrath : 2:12:53

Uh motorcycles? No, I'd have to I'd have to crunch my learning curve on that one. I'd have to get spun up.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:12:58

Yeah, how about you, Punch? What kind of airplanes do you fly? I did Tomcats, but uh riding bikes when I was younger.

Asad Khan : 2:13:04

Fuck man, you can do it. If you can fly a Tomcat, I can drive, I mean I can drive a stick, so I know I know the general concept of uh It's easy, and you're not you're not it's not rough riding because you you know you're you're on mountain roads, you're going maybe 40 kilometers an hour, you can't really go fast, and uh there's hardly any traffic. So uh you know, in a day or two you'll be proficient.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:13:22

You know, we have to go off of we we have a lot of e-bikes around here. I'm sure that's not what you're talking about, though, right?

Asad Khan : 2:13:28

No, no, no, no, no. This is this is like this is like a Suzuki 150 type.

Mark McGrath : 2:13:33

Yeah, it's probably not a charging station up at the time.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:13:36

I think I saw a couple generals on e-bikes around here recently. No, I didn't see those.

Asad Khan : 2:13:39

Weren't quantico when they came up?

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:13:41

Yeah, no, in Virginia. Imagine so.

Mark McGrath : 2:13:45

The um well, no, we'll have to figure something out then. Uh how we can continue the dialogue and uh and and and change the world and talk about these things because I think that they're really important. And um, you know, these systems that we're we're calling out, you know, we're talking about, you know, there's there's there's another way, you know, and it's not just destruction, there's also creation. There's there's there's other ways to do things that uh more and more people need to think and consider.

Asad Khan : 2:14:11

Well, I'll tell you this much. I've been to over a hundred countries, that's top com. And in my travels, China is in the 22nd century, Dubai is in the 21st century. United States is in the 20th century going to the 19th century. So we're we're slipping backwards where the rest of the world is moving forward. So every time, you know, when I land back in the US and I kind of look around, first thing that strikes me is how fat people are. Right? So that's the first part. The second part that strikes me is uh the decayed infrastructure.

Speaker 2: 2:14:46

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:14:47

And the third part that strikes me is how confrontational everybody is. Like they just amp up like that, right? And nobody so when you go to these other countries, everybody's willing to give way. They just give way, right? So, like in a lot of the Muslim countries, there's a there's a cultural nuance where anybody to your right has the way or somebody older, right? They respect elders with this beard. If they see that, you get head-in-line privileges in anything. You see an older person, it's yours, you know? And nobody challenges, and they treat you with dignity and respect. And we've forgotten those things. I remember coming to the United States when I was a kid, we had all that stuff, right? And unfortunately, I think what happened is, and I, you know, I don't want to make this into a political statement, but I think, you know, after the Reagan era, we kind of lost it. And uh, you know, maybe it was during the Clinton era that we started deviating from our true asthmuth. And then, you know, subsequent administrations, you know, Republican and Democratic, we just lost our way. And then you got these organizations like Docowatts and all that stuff. I mean, you know, they were good organizations because they opened the door for women, but then they become advocates for feminism. And that led ways to, you know, LGBTQ and the trans movement and all that stuff. I remember you know, a few years back, I made some smart ass comment to my daughters, you know, and then they're my sanity check, and they freaking wore my ass out about LGBTQ stuff, right? And I told them, I said, be careful. I said, you watch what happens, because this is nothing more than a conduit for the next movement to come along. It started with feminism in the 60s and 70s, you know, they did LGBTQ or TQ or LGB, and then TQ got added on, and something else is going to get added on. You know, pretty soon it's gonna be sheep at the end of it or something. Crazy, right? So the issue comes back is you know, you can't be everything to everybody. Right. And I think that's part of leadership also. And that's it's very important because in the military we start accommodating everybody. I'm not talking about LGBT now. I'm just talking about we start accommodating everybody's feelings. Feelings don't matter. Right?

Mark McGrath : 2:17:02

Look at all the stuff about the Heggs speech. He heard general's feelings. He called them fat.

Asad Khan : 2:17:07

But he's speaking the truth. They are fat.

Mark McGrath : 2:17:10

No, I know, but I'm just saying, like, that's the national dialogue about it right now. It's like people are worried about it. Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:17:17

And if that person was so insulted, he should have gotten up and said, you know what? Secretary of war, here's my stars. I'm out of here. Yeah, I'm retired.

Mark McGrath : 2:17:25

They won't do that. They would never do that.

Asad Khan : 2:17:26

But they won't do that, right? Because we've we've they're cast rate, they're they're eunuchs. You know what a eunuch is?

Mark McGrath : 2:17:31

Oh, yeah.

unknown: 2:17:32

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:17:33

Mamelukes, right? They're like mamelukes, right?

Speaker 2: 2:17:35

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:17:35

Yeah. So again, going back to that point where you guys thought it was funny, but I'm not being funny. You all need to take a testosterone test. Their estrogen level's too high. I'm telling you. And you need to figure it out. They gotta get some oomph in them. And most of these generals don't have it. I mean, look at the picture. Pull up the picture of the general, they're all sitting there like this. And I'm looking at this picture and thinking, holy shit, if I was a young troop, I wouldn't follow these guys into battle. You know? You wouldn't. I mean, you look at Patton. Patton was an old man, but he had, you know, style about him, right?

Mark McGrath : 2:18:06

Panache.

Asad Khan : 2:18:07

A polished model. But yeah, Panache. And I and I was watching a video about his driver, and they told the story, you know, that helmet that was shiny. He said it was like five coats of lacquer they had to put on that freaking helmet, right? And every night they would have to buff it and his his and his uh ivory grip pistols and all that stuff. I mean, look at these guys. I mean, look at this guy right in the front. This dude, this Air Force guy with how many stars he got on him. The thing's a Space Force.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:18:32

That might be Space Force. I'm not sure.

Asad Khan : 2:18:34

Yeah, but look at him. Look at the dude directly behind him. I mean, I'd take his lunch money. Look at the guy to the two over to the right, smallin'.

Mark McGrath : 2:18:42

We have it. One thing we hadn't touched on though is the actual raw number of generals and admirals that we have. I mean, it's a 800. Holy shit. It's unreal. Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:18:51

Yeah. I mean, these guys are. I mean, if I was a Chinese dude looking at them, I was like, you know what? We don't have to do much more. Stop where you are. We're we're ahead of these dudes.

Speaker: 2:19:00

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:19:01

You know, I mean, I look at some of the now. Don't get me wrong. I know a lot of generals in there. They're just tough, tough, tough dudes, right? They're good dudes. Again, they've been handcuffed. And I won't take any names. I mean, they're phenomenal officers, but they've been handcuffed.

Mark McGrath : 2:19:14

I w my uh my emergency contacted nice. She and I were watching the uh the video, or not the video, we were watching it live together. And at some point, though, I did hear like some. Like I heard some they those generals must have they they they probably just cashed in their careers, maybe.

Asad Khan : 2:19:29

I think it was Sergeant Majors, probably.

Mark McGrath : 2:19:31

Oh, okay. Well, there's some there's some there's some hard charges in there for sure.

Asad Khan : 2:19:35

No, there are I know some generals in there. You know, I look at the bookies, I'll like, you know, and they're good guys, but I'll tell you, and and the problem is they've been fenced off. You know, they can't they can't be themselves because if they are themselves, they will never get promoted. Yeah, so well that's the issue.

Mark McGrath : 2:19:52

While we're still recording, you want to talk about the book or you want to save that for uh Which book? Aren't you coming out with a book?

Asad Khan : 2:19:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Betrayal Command. And it'll be out here in uh next couple of weeks, two, three weeks, uh, hopefully.

Mark McGrath : 2:20:04

Where are you publishing it?

Asad Khan : 2:20:06

Well, you know, I I went to uh a publishing house, I won't take any names, but they started we started arguing about words, right? And that's so they wanted me to uh dilute some of my language, right? And there's a way I speak, right? I mean, this is the way I am. I've always spoken like that. I was like, no, this is my book, that's the way I want to do it. And we went back and forth. I said, you know what? I'll make it real simple for you. I won't publish with you. So then somebody told me, hey, just do it on Amazon, right? Uh, because you control the content. And uh, and I'm not looking to make money out of it. I don't even make money out of my damn channel. You know, it's it's got nothing to do. And then people are after me, do merch, because we came up with this statement called Digimob. You know about that?

Mark McGrath : 2:20:44

Digimob, no, tell us.

Asad Khan : 2:20:46

Well, there's a general officer that was assigned, I forget her name. It's on my uh my videos. She's assigned to Korea as Marf.

Mark McGrath : 2:20:53

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, Valerie. Right?

Asad Khan : 2:20:57

Yeah, so yeah, I know you were talking about I made a video about it saying she's not qualified because she was like the Marine Corps historian, some shit, right? And that video blew up. And so some general got in touch with me, said, Hey, you know, why did you do that? I said, I did what? I said, Oh I'm saying she's not qualified. I mean, what's the issue? She's a she's a woman and a component command, right? And he said, Well, you know, she's made so many sacrifices and all that. And uh I said, everybody's made sacrifices. Well, then you put her picture all over the place. I said, I got the picture of the Marine Corps website. So I didn't do anything. All I'm telling you is my views. You know, so he says, Well, you've uh you've uh you've created a digital mob. And that's when I lost it. I said, let me tell you something. I said, all my viewers are retired veterans, or they served honorably in the military. And how dare you call us a digital mob? And you do that again, I will freaking embarrass you. I said, It's your last warning. And I kind of mentioned in a video, then all of a sudden, you know, the viewers went crazy. Hey, sir, we're the digimob, you know, and they want t-shirts, they want mugs, they want stickers and all this stuff. And uh, yeah, it's good stuff, you know. It's it's a it's it's something they rally around, but uh I'm not in it for the case.

Mark McGrath : 2:22:06

This one about uh, yeah. This is the one you're talking about, right?

Asad Khan : 2:22:11

Yeah, she's she's a nice lady.

Mark McGrath : 2:22:13

Yeah, I've met her, she's good to go. Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:22:16

Yeah. You know, but but she's not ready. And and the and the issue with that command is you know, it's it's held by reservists.

Speaker: 2:22:23

Uh-huh.

Asad Khan : 2:22:23

It's the reserve rice bowl, right? So they always assign a reservist to it.

Speaker: 2:22:28

Uh-huh.

Asad Khan : 2:22:28

And uh, you know, and I don't know her from Adam, but I'm just thinking, you know, that's probably if North Korea is such a threat, you probably want somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger there, you know, to intimidate the enemy, something like that. I don't know. And then there's this misogyny between uh the Koreans, right? How do they view women? What are they gonna think about a woman marine and how how are they gonna interact?

Mark McGrath : 2:22:50

So that so there's an example, and you and you kind of alluded to it uh in Afghanistan. Is there a point where people just like, no, we're Americans, fuck you, you're gonna do it our way. We don't we don't care about your culture, so we're just gonna throw it down your throat and you and you're gonna adjust, not us. Like when we're in the what like we're in a host country. Is that is it is that the sort of thing that you're talking about?

Asad Khan : 2:23:11

Where in a while?

Mark McGrath : 2:23:12

Well, like just in general, like there's a like like do we as Americans we have a lack of cultural sensitivity where we we think that we we're just gonna jackhammer people into to seeing it our way?

Asad Khan : 2:23:21

No, I thought no, not at all. I think Americans for the most part are very, very accommodating, almost too accommodating, right? Yeah. But the problem is we get taken for a ride, right? We latch onto these people, they're connivers. That's what the issue is. But I think for the most part, Americans, if you tell them, hey, don't do this, don't do that in this culture, they'll play by those rules. And uh because, you know, we we're a very uh pluristic society, right? I mean, we we e pluris unum from many one. So we understand how to do all that stuff. But the problem is our lack of knowledge. Americans are very forgiving people. We're very patriotic, you know. But by the same token, our our our knowledge level is about an inch deep. Uh, you know, just because we saw a sound bite, we think, oh, we know Afghanistan. You know, I read I read, you know, the bear went over the mountain. I understand it. Well, you know, you don't. You don't understand the 30-some different ethnic groups that are in Afghanistan, right? I don't understand all of them. I just know the ones that I know. So uh, and we're not willing to go deep into it. That's part of the problem. I mean, some of the cardinal mistakes we made was bringing in these interpreters from other ethnic groups. That right off the bat, we lost credibility. So if you if Petraeus as the commander is down in southern Afghanistan with the with a Turk that's from up north, he's done. Nobody's paying attention to him, right? Just switch off. He brought the enemy there. And that that was an issue. So I had an issue where my militia group, with Jamal Mut Khan, about 400 of them, uh, you know, and my ANA force was from uh this intermingled ANA force, primarily from up north, was brought down south to to uh operate with us. And uh I had villagers say, we're gonna shoot on them, right? Uh, because they're going in our homes and uh disrespecting our women. All that means is they looked at the women. They didn't physically disrespect her, they just looked at them. You know what Jamal Muskhan told me? He said, if these guys don't go away, I'm gonna attack them tomorrow. So it's that type of animosity within them. And I had to get in the middle and say, nobody's gonna fight anybody. I'll kill both of you. So that type of shit. Yeah. So uh so we you gotta understand the cultural nuances, you gotta be really quick on your feet, you know, and people can judge me for what they want, but nobody had you had used Marine Corps principles, UDA loop, and all these frameworks that we have with Marines, right? But on the other side, I've got this Afghan militia that are essentially illiterate bandits that steal, they kill in a heartbeat. So I had to play these dual, multiple roles amongst them. And these guys operated on fear. These guys, the Marines, operate on trust. And I don't think a commander at uh my level has ever done that. When you've got these militia groups that are just bandits, and then you got these guys, and remember the fracturicide issue also that I talked about. How do you deconflict all that? So we use engineer tape, you know, on arms to identify one Afghan from another, and some days we change it on the other arm, and you know, just to have uh different uh signal plans and uh IDs. So it's you always got to be thinking, that's the important thing. Another one, uh lesson I learned. So first time we go out on this mission, you know, I had MREs for everybody, right? So we had like a truckload of MREs. And next morning at sunrise, I'm walking around. There's freaking MRE rappers all over the place. And I'm screaming at Marines, like, what the F are you, you know? They go, sir, we didn't do it, it's the Afghans. So I go over there and start yelling at Jamal Khan, what the hell, man? You can't leave this place like this. And you know the deal, you know, enemy knows. And uh he goes, listen, Colonel, he goes, calm down. He goes, when you eat our food, you get sick. When we eat your food, we get sick. My people don't want your food. So I'm like, what? I said, then how do we solve this? How are you guys gonna eat? He goes, buy me four sheep every day. I'll take care of it. I'm sitting there thinking, holy shit, this is even great. I can buy them four sheep every day. It just cuts my logistics issue by a third. I don't need all those MREs. So I bought them four sheep every day, and they you know, slaughtered them, they make kebabs out of them, make their bread, and they were eating better than we were. So, but but so uh the lesson I learned there was maybe I should have talked to them ahead of time and said, okay, what's your food plan? How can I help you? Right? But I didn't. Because I learned along the way also. So I mean, these these are things that are you just gotta get in there and just do it. And the saddest day for me was one was leaving Afghanistan uh because of corporal pain at checkpoint 231. And the other was we didn't really accomplish, you know, we what do we do?

Speaker 2: 2:27:35

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:27:36

You know, that to me was very sad, right? Yeah. I mean, we just went there for glory for certain people, so they get promoted in some unit accolades. But at the end of the day, what the hell we really do. So my book really getting back to my my book, I really go into basically what I outlined here. I go into the details, and then I talk about at the end, I talk about reflections, right? How should we have done things differently? And uh and I think it's gonna be a good read. I think it the important thing is because I've never told my story except for you know your podcast and another Marine had me on. So aside from that, nobody really knows my story aside from the snippets of it. But here I lay it all out there, right? And I've got documents, I mean I'll show you.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:28:18

Uh I'll have some to share after we stop recording, so I just wanted to that's why I'm smiling. That's why I'm kind of looking around at things right now. I'm like, I gotta bring up something later on. It it does come back to something we talked about in the last five minutes.

Asad Khan : 2:28:30

Well, anyway, so I've got I've got original documents. And you know, think about this shit. I saved this stuff for 20 years, I'd throw it in some footlocker. Yeah. And now for my book, I've got original documents in the in the back of it. So everything that I've said, I've got original documents backed up, you know. So uh if anybody wants to challenge me, have added. You know, for the book. So every everything is backed up. So it'll it'll it'll be good. It'll be good. I I a lot of people that read it for the critical review part that I sent out, uh, they said it's right up there with about face, which is which is one of the highest honors I could get. Right?

Mark McGrath : 2:29:03

Uh, because uh, you know, if you remember That's a guy that spoke truth to power.

Asad Khan : 2:29:07

Yeah, and it's the same, you know, so it's basically the same book written 30 years later.

Mark McGrath : 2:29:11

Yeah.

Asad Khan : 2:29:12

Well, and we haven't learned those lessons.

Mark McGrath : 2:29:14

Well, I don't know. You've got my vote for uh most interesting man in the world. No, no, no. Not at all. You're up there. No, I mean, we're you know, we're not gonna stop talking about these issues, and we know that you aren't either. And and uh it's always good to have people that uh, you know, sometimes you're like, God, are we the only ones? We're not, you know, and it's good to it's good to be encouraged and see other other people like yourself taking a leadership role calling these things out because there's so many lessons that you could take and apply in any organization. It doesn't have to be in the military, and there's a lot to reflect and think about. So we'll wind down the uh the recording of this and we'll talk offline. But why don't you go ahead and uh give us your parting shot before we close it? What would you what do you want to do?

Asad Khan : 2:30:01

I appreciate you guys bringing me on here. I mean, my main main reason to come on here is really to share my insights and my thoughts and reflections for the next generation. I think that's so damn important that that they learn from our experiences. You know, and I and I honest to God, I wish them well. And the reason being is, especially if you're an officer or a staff NCO, you have an incredible responsibility to your troops and don't take it lightly because they're gonna remember you for the rest of their lives. And I'm just finding this out now. You know, I mean I'd lost contact with them for the past 20 years, and now they're sort of we're rehashing our our experiences together and uh you know, talking about the impact that we had on each other. I think that is so important. So, you know, when we say Semper Fidelist, always faithful, it's not just when you're in uniform, it's when you get out of uniform. You got to stay connected, and that that is very important because unfortunately we don't do that, and we just go to the winds, and then when people have problems, they got nobody to lean on. When I came out of combat, combat is a very personal thing. My experiences are different than yours and yours. And the reason they're different is because we're all looking at combat through a soda straw. Yeah. And it's the commander's job and the historian's job to bring it all together in one picture and figure out what these pixels mean. So it's a very personal thing. And when you come back home, uh you can't really relate to other people of your experiences because they weren't there. So how the hell are you gonna talk about this? How am I gonna talk about when the militia had, you know, six people lined up in a ditch and they're gonna shoot them? And the only thing between bullets in their head was me and me threatening my militia that if you shoot them, I'm gonna shoot you, then your people are gonna kill me, then my marines are gonna kill you, and we're gonna have a big freaking mess in our hands. How do you explain that to somebody who wasn't there? So combat is a personal thing. So it's very, very important that we all stay connected together and take care of each other. And uh, if we do that, we're gonna do great things. And uh if our Senior officers and senior leaders, if you're out there, you're listening to this, just do your damn jobs, man. You guys have so much riding in you, and honest to God, we all look up to you. The reason I'm critical is not because uh of of of any shortcomings. There's great senior leaders out there, but we gotta change our cultures. And the only people that can change our cultures is you. That's the bottom line. Or do it.

Mark McGrath : 2:32:09

Reform is an act of love. Make no mistake about it. Reform is an act of love. That's all I gotta say. All right, Asad Genghis Khan, we're gonna send everybody over to the Sentinel. If you're not tuned into the Sentinel, subscribe to this channel and put the notifications on because it is important. It's critical. So thanks for coming on uh No Way Out and uh sharing time with us.