606: Jack Carr - Writing Thrillers (The Terminal List), Working with Chris Pratt, Fighting Wars as a Navy SEAL, Putting In The Work, & Never Missing an Opportunity To Make Someone's Day

22:46So you have that in common with all these guys that you're going downrange with. And really, it's about creative problem solving, aggressive, creative problem solving. And you're looking for gaps in the enemy's defenses. Yeah, you're looking how to capitalize on momentum. You're trying to put yourself in your enemy's shoes, trying to outthink them as far as how are they going to adapt to us? How do they adapt to the guys that were here before? What would be the next logical step in that progression of adaptability from the enemy's perspective? Then how do I outthink them? How do I get inside their decision-making loop and adapt faster than they are?

23:18And as a leader, those are things that I'm constantly thinking about, but I'm taking input from everyone around me because in the SEAL teams in particular, and that's my only experience in the military, Everyone's coming from such a diverse background that you're bringing people that have never seen the ocean before that show up at Bud's. You have people that grew up in the mountains, people that grew up in cities, but everybody's bringing this kind of this different background that allows them to also be creative and be part of that team when it comes to solving these problems. So I think that really helped us when it came to conducting mission sets that maybe we weren't traditionally thought of or trained up for that sort of thing.

23:54village stability operations in Afghanistan. We started doing that one, moving well away from the water and maybe even doing inter-Meraki government official executive protection, something we weren't trained up to do. And then we just figured it out and adapted essentially on the fly. But once again, I think that's where we excel is in that creative problem solving, being thrown into this mission set that maybe you're not prepared for, but stepping up and using all that training that you have, and then all the training that your peers have, all those diverse backgrounds when it comes to creative and aggressive problem solving.

24:26And it's also something that I do on the page. But obviously, if I mess up on the page, I can sleep on it, I can come back, I can edit, I don't need to make split second decisions, but it's still the same thing. I'm problem solving on the page, I'm aggressively solving problems on the page. But I don't have to worry about anyone coming home in a body bag if I mess it up. And I have time to go back and think about how do I make this as good as I can possibly make it. Whereas downrange, you have to be ready to make these split second decisions that are going to affect everyone around you for the rest of their lives and their families.

24:55So you, for me anyway, and this is another thing that I think I got from the power of popular culture, I didn't want to be that person that I'd seen in movies, like sitting on the couch, thinking about back then, back to Vietnam, what they could have done differently to save the lives of their platoon. That was just like something that was part of TV and books and movies back then. It was the veterans struggling with decisions made in the past, looking for redemption, that sort of a thing. So I wanted to make sure that if I was ever in that position, that I knew that if I was sitting on that couch, I had done everything possible to prepare my, there's nothing, I didn't leave anything on the field.

25:30And I did everything possible to train myself up to be the best leader, best operator I possibly could to make the best decisions possible under fire. So I didn't want to be thinking about that. But once again, I didn't get that from the military. I didn't get that from a mentor or anything like that. I got that from popular culture from viewing these movies and reading these books. So I think that I did that. I was always reading, always training, always figuring out how to be a better operator today than I was yesterday. And that's so that I wouldn't have to be in that position one day. Yes.

26:00And making a little bit of a transition here, Jack, I thought it was cool when I saw that this one is the new book, okay? That I'm hearing from your team and they're like, hey, we got a nonfiction one coming. What do you think? Do you want to read them? Like, of course I want to read it. It's Jack car. So they sent me this big one, Targeted Beirut. And I just thought, wow, okay. And I'm getting into it. And you write it with a Pulitzer Prize finalist. So it's like you wisely partner with somebody who is really good, which is what I think great leaders do, right? You partner with people, you work with those to either fill in gaps or lift you up in certain areas.

26:36And then you add your skillset and boom, you got something that's this awesome. So talk to me a little bit about what made you say, let's go nonfiction. I want to start talking about this untold origin story of the war on terror from this awful moment in our history, but maybe not talked about enough or because I wasn't as aware until I saw your book on this and started reading about it, that this was such a big part of our history. Yeah. So history is, I've been a student of history my entire life. I weave it into the stories, into the thrillers. I talk about it on my social media. And I always knew that eventually I would diversify into the nonfiction space.

27:15So when I got to about, I guess it was three years ago now, maybe two and a half, around there, when I thought I'd built up enough capital, political capital with Simon & Schuster to be able to make this next pitch, I wrote something out and told them I wanted to start writing books and do a series that looked at different terrorist events, because that has been such a part of my experience and my own education over the years. I want to look at a different terrorist event with each book and really inhumanize that event, but capture also the strategic, the operational and the tactical lessons learned.

27:45That's the least that I can do as an author. We're not very good in this country at taking lessons of the past and applying them going forward as wisdom, but the least I can do is capture them. So I wrote down between, let's say, end of World War II, up to the time that I pitched this about three years ago, about three pages of different terrorist events. And I kept coming back to Beirut, 1983, because it was such a turning point in our relationship with the Middle East. The shadow of what happened there still looms large over our foreign policy. The enemy learned lessons from Beirut 1983 that they still apply today as a model from back then that they're still following today, Iran specifically.

28:25And so I pitched it to Simon & Schuster. They loved it. And I said I wanted to work with a Pulitzer Prize finalist, military historian, because if I make a mistake in a thriller, I can say, hey, it's fiction. But if you're doing a story like this, you have to get it right. There's no room for error. And they said, well, who do you want to work with? And I said, well, I want to work with this guy, James Scott, but I don't know anything about him. And I think I should have probably watched a YouTube video about him or something. You get a feeling about how he is as a person, but all I knew was the work.

28:53So he has five other books, four on World War II. So it was all about the work. I just loved his work. And I thought, gosh, I had no idea if he would want to even be interested in working with me. So they said, I was on this call with my agent and publisher and they said, well, who's his agent? And I looked in the acknowledgements or, you know, whatever it was, or maybe the author's note in the front, whatever it was. And I said, well, he's thanking this guy named John Glusman and my editor and publisher, Emily Bessler. She said, what? She's like, that's my husband. He's, and so they connected us and we hit it off.

29:22And, and James is just such a good guy. And, and I wanted to make sure that I got this part right also, because you're telling someone's story who either survived the event and is still dealing with the emotional and in some cases physical trauma of that day or you're telling the story of someone who passed away and whose family sat an empty chair at that dinner table ever since and so that to come that comes with a lot of responsibility and i wanted to get out of the way of the story that was from the very beginning something james and i talked about was that this isn't our story this is their story and We want to get out of the way of that and just have this story be told in the most thoughtful way that we possibly can.

30:04And we want to get it right. And so to have these guys trust us with this story and have families trust us with boxes of letters and in some cases, audio tapes that they had made, some people that didn't make it back, to have them trust us and have these veterans trust us with this story was humbling, humbling. And it was an honor to do it. So can you describe what happened on that day in 1983? The Marine Corps, I guess this is the greatest single day loss of life since the Battle of Iwo Jima. A truck packed with explosives crashes into the headquarters, barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Can you go deeper on what happened?

30:37Yeah. So we decided to start it in April of 1983 with the embassy bombing. And so there's an embassy bombing in April. The Marines are there as peacekeepers. They're put in there as peacekeepers, prop up the government of Lebanon. And they were just put in an untenable situation, tactically disadvantageous position, kind of like we saw once again, at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan in August of 2021, a lot of similarities there. So they're put in this situation. And what I didn't realize when I started, especially as someone who is fairly well in tune with different terrorist events, what happened between April and October?

31:13And it's is something that's not really talked about too much. If people are aware that something happened in October of 1983, and that a lot of people lost their lives, a lot of Marines in particular, they know that. But fewer even know about the embassy bombing. Okay, that happened in April. And almost no one knows what happened between those dates. And these Marines were in combat. And the reason that most people don't know about it, even if they're of an age where they might, if they were interested in the news back during that timeframe, because the administration is obviously before social media and independent media, the talking points were that these guys were not in combat.

31:48And that's but there were casualties, people did die. And from the administration, it was, well, was it indirect fire or direct fire? Well, a sniper is pretty direct fire, if you ask me, but they tried to keep it as these are peacekeepers there, they're not taking sides. And it was just an awful position for these guys to be in. So they took casualties throughout that summer. And then in October, the Iranian proxy group we now know as Hezbollah had learned lessons from April and they crashed a truck into the Beirut, the Marines headquarters and barracks on a Sunday morning, which was the time when everything was the most lax.

32:26Marines got to sleep in a little while longer. And it took this building, it took it all the way down. About 350 people were sleeping in the building at the time when the truck crashed into it, detonates, and 241 will ultimately lose their lives to say nothing of those that were wounded. So it sounds like obviously it is a very dark day, dark story, but there's hope in it. And also I wasn't really aware of that until I got into the research as well, because what happens after that is something very similar to what happened at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan is those people that were blown off their feet or blown out the windows in the building that survived.

33:05They got up, they dusted themselves off and they started digging through that rubble with their bare hands, with K-Bar knives, maybe a shovel, maybe a crowbar, if they could find it in this race against time to rescue their brothers in arms. And the last person pulled from the rubble was five hours later, a chaplain, Danny Wheeler. And he was on the fourth floor, rode this thing down. And he was essentially saved by two walls of concrete that fell on top of him, but left just enough room for him to be able to breathe, but complete darkness couldn't move anything. It's slowly crushing him as they're trying to dig him out.

33:39And he's thinking back as a chaplain, he's having this conversation with God, this argument with God. And he's also thinking back to Louis L 'Amour novels that he read and about mine cave-ins and these like cowboys and miners having to dig themselves out and survive these different scenarios that Louis L 'Amour put them in, in these novels. So the stories from that day of survival and of these guys who stood up to rescue their brothers in arms, two dentists that are there to do root canals and teeth cleanings, and they end up running the rescue and recovery effort, something they're not. So the stories that we tell in the book to humanize it, because at the same time, Like you hear 241 people, daddy, you read that in a magazine and it doesn't tell you the perspective of those people that were affected by this and the families that were affected by this.

34:26So it's just a number. And for people, even at the senior levels of government who make these decisions, who knows if they'll ever read it. But it's so important that they understand that the decisions they make up here in the executive branch, there's a chain of command. It goes all the way down. And the final decision maker in that long line of decision makers that goes all the way up to the president of the United States is an 18, 19, 20 year old kid with a rifle off safe, finger on trigger, watching a vehicle approach at some checkpoint somewhere around the world, not knowing if it has bad suspension or if it's weighed down by an explosive.

35:01That kid is the last decision maker, the final decision maker in that chain. So these decisions that are made up here in air conditioning offices, thousands of miles away from the battlefield, they have not just an impact on this kid or the person to his right or left. It's the families as well that have to deal with that empty seat. So it's a multi-generational impact of these decisions. So that means that up here at the top, you have to understand the nature of the conflict in which you're about to commit US forces. That is vital. That is your job. And we fail at that time and time again. We saw it at Abbey Gate.

35:34Beirut, someone is held responsible, the commanding officer, amazing guy, Colonel Garrity. And he knew it. He was a recruiting poster Marine. He probably would have been commandant of the Marine Corps had his career continued, but it gets derailed because of this incident. Obviously, he takes full responsibility and is held accountable for what happens there. And he knew it. And he gets up and he keeps moving forward in another direction outside of the Marine Corps, which is a great lesson for us all. But Abbey Gate, difference, one, no one held accountable. And, but a similarity is that same thing that happened in Beirut is those people who hear the explosion, who are thrown off their feet, who run to the sound of the guns, who run to that explosion, who run to that building that has collapsed.

36:15Same thing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan. Those who are in the vicinity of the blast, those people who are elsewhere on that airfield, they run to the sound of the guns to try to save as many of their brothers and sisters, in that case, in arms as they possibly can, try to save as many civilians, innocent civilians who are blown apart there as well. So we lost 13 people in Afghanistan at Abbey Gate, to say nothing once again of those people who are dealing with the emotional trauma and the physical trauma of that to this very day and will forever. but it's the same service member who runs to the sound of the guns to try to save as many of their fellow service members as possible.

36:51That's the same person who was in Beirut, 1983. It's the same person who was at Abbey Gate, which really goes back to that who you're fighting for that person to your right and left in those foxholes. So that part gives me hope. The lack of accountability at senior level leaders, that part, that's one we've been struggling with really since the end of World War II or since the reorganization of our military and intelligence apparatus in 1947. We've been dealing with this lack of accountability. George Marshall held people accountable up to World War II, all the way through World War II, which got us to all the generals and admirals we can name today who led us to victory.

37:26But the people who couldn't make it, George Marshall fired. He held them accountable. And for some reason, when everything is professionalized at the NA, use that term loosely, that professionalism, that term is when you take this and turn the military and the intelligence apparatus into an industry, which will really happen in 1947. And all the supporting industries around that in Washington, D.C., somehow a lack of accountability goes along with that. And that's something we hadn't really seen before in our history. Go back to the Civil War. It took Lincoln a few different generals until he finally got to Grant once again, but held accountable and replaced when they couldn't do the job.

38:03George Marshall, another great example of that in the lead up and all the way through World War II. And then in 1947, for whatever reason, because of this change, when we changed the Department of War and the Secretary of War to the Department of Defense and the Secretary of Defense, something changes there in 1947. And there's this lack of accountability that we see all the way through Vietnam and all the way up through Abbey Gate and up to today. Lack of accountability, though. You're obviously much more well-versed than I am, but what is it? Why do we struggle with this now and have for now?

38:31It sounds like a very long time. Yeah, certainly. the, well, what Eisenhower called the military industrial complex. And that's, I don't like to just throw that out there because people need to watch the entire speech instead of just take that one clip. And I encourage everybody to go do it. It's not very long, but there's a lot more to it than just that one line. But certainly having this pipeline of admirals and generals who one day are signing or approving gigantic budgets to private industry who then leave the military and end up sitting on those boards, that's part of the system. And that's just one part of it, to say nothing of all the lobbying and the whole ecosystem that surrounds the intelligence and military industrial complex is a real thing.

39:19It certainly is a real thing. And it just so happens to coincide with this lack of accountability. And people have been fired, but for the most part, it's for a lack of confidence that goes along with sleeping with a subordinate or getting too many DUIs or pissing positive on a piss test in the military, something along those lines, but not for performance, not for losing a war. And Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, I think back in 2006, maybe 2007, he wrote an article where he said, a private who loses a rifle gets in more trouble than a general who loses a war. And that is certainly true. Wow.

39:54What do you hope people get from reading this? What is your hope that they finish this thing and they think, oh my goodness, wow. What's your hope for them? Well, that first duty being to remember, especially for these guys, because it wasn't an event that affected a generation overtly, let's say like World War II or even Vietnam that people were affected, obviously that went, and then people who didn't go as well. It was just a change, obviously, in the country, but it affected a lot of people. This was a very small number of Marines, and this wasn't raising the flag on Iwo Jima. This wasn't a glorious day for the Marine Corps.

40:32So in talking to these guys, something that stands out to me is that they kind of thought that they were, I shouldn't say kind of, they thought that they were forgotten in the wake of what happened because it wasn't a glorious day in Marine Corps history. So I would say I would like first people to remember and then for senior level leaders in the military and elected representatives to understand the repercussions of their decisions made in these air-conditioned offices thousands of miles away from the battlefield or a potential battlefield and really understand that their decisions are going to affect not just those people that go downrange, but their families.

41:06And it's going to be a multi-generational impact when things go south if you haven't thought things through. So for me, that's it. It's humanizing this event. It's remembering this event. And then for those in positions that can that can impact foreign policy is to really think through committing U.S. forces overseas, particularly in the Middle East when it comes to this book and this event. One more, Jack, when it comes to advice to those who see what you've done and what you're doing, all these amazing novels and now going to nonfiction, turning them into TV shows with the most famous people in the world.

41:43Obviously, you could see how a lot of people would want to do what you've done, whether they're a Navy SEAL or not. If someone's like, I want to be a writer, I want to write, I want to publish, I want to change people's lives in a positive way by taking the thoughts in my head and putting them down onto the page and publishing them. What are some general pieces of life and career advice for a person who wants to do that, but isn't currently? Yeah, it's put in the work. I can guarantee you if you don't put in the work, it's not going to happen. That I can guarantee. Can't guarantee it will happen if you put in the work, but on the flip side, if you don't, it certainly will not happen.

42:22So it's putting in the work and specifically to writing. When it comes to nonfiction, it's a little different, but in the thriller side of the house, you have to have a finished manuscript first. So today the danger is you can study how to do something forever because there's so much information out there. You can listen to podcasts and buy how-to books and follow someone on social media tells you you need to jump in the cold plunge in the morning and, and, uh, you know, eat this and, and sleep in this chamber and in the sauna and then do your workout and, you know, whatever else. Great. I think that's wonderful if that's your thing.

42:56And if you think that's going to help you get where you want to go, but if you want to write a book, you need to write it. So for me, it wasn't about doing the cold plunge and being in the sauna. It was about doing the work and writing the book and getting it to be the best that I could possibly get it. And then sending it to Simon & Schuster, then trying to figure out the agent part and all the rest of it, not worried about, I didn't have a social media presence before this. I had no idea about social media. I had no website. Part of the allure of wanting to be an author is that I'm very introverted.

43:24And I think in the military, I had to figure out how to be extroverted to make my voice heard type of a thing. But as a kid, part of the allure of wanting to be an author is that I could go to a cabin in the mountains and have no one bother me, write a book. And I thought, send it to New York. Maybe do one interview and start the next one. That's part of the allure, being an author. And today, unless your name is, let's say, a plant seal, he's passed away, but the books continue with other authors, Grisham, King, Patterson, guys who built up readerships in the 70s, in King's case, but 80s, 90s, and forward, it seems, unless you're an outlier, that you have to do these other things.

44:00But don't worry about those things yet until you have the finished manuscript, and it's as good as you can possibly make it. and that's the time you want to show it to an agent and start doing that side of the house. So don't worry about agents. Don't worry about publishers. Don't worry about social media presence. Don't worry about the movie. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about any of that. Just make the book as good as you can possibly make it. So putting in the work and that's outside of publishing as well. I'm not an advice giver, you know, typically, but if someone asks, it's putting in the work.

44:28That is 100%, right? Your light needs to be on when everyone else's light is off. You'd be getting up before everybody else if that's the case. and it's, yeah, it's tough, but it's the unsexy part, right? It's not the hack. There is no hack. Gosh, there was one that I heard the other day and where did I hear it? And I can't remember, but it was about that same thing. People, they want that end result, but they don't want anything that it took to get there. Where did I see that? Anyway. The Ronnie Coleman one, everybody want to be a bodybuilder. Nobody want to lift these heavy weights. Yeah. That's one of them.

45:00There's different versions of it. that was a different version, but general idea. And then the other side of that is something I pass on to my kids and it's never missed an opportunity to make somebody's day. And that's how that the book got to Simon and Schuster because of the reputation that I had in the SEAL teams and someone took a risk with their political capital and, and got that, got the introductions that got the book to the right desk at Simon and Schuster, which is the only desk that I wanted to land on, which is Emily Bessler's because she was Vince Flynn's editor and I wanted her to be my editor and publisher as well.

45:31And so that side, and then it got to Chris Pratt from a SEAL buddy who called me in November of 2017. So a few months before the book even came out and asked me if I remembered what I did for him and the SEAL teams. And I said, no. And he said, well, five years ago, I hadn't talked to him about five years, but he said, you're the only person that sat me down and talked to me about transitioning out of the Navy when I told you I was getting out. You introduced me to people in the private sector. You followed up with me and no one else did that. and I always wanted to thank you. And I said, no problem.

46:00And he said, well, I heard you have a book coming out. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, I'd like to give it to a friend of mine if that's okay. And I said, yeah, no problem. Who's that? And he said, Chris Pratt. And so that's the way Chris Pratt got it. But if I hadn't taken that time, and obviously that's not the reason I did it. I did it because Jared Shaw is his name. And now he's in the show, executive producer, writer, actor. He plays Boozer in the show. And we're creating this thing together. But that obviously wasn't why I helped him. I helped him out because he was a good guy, a great operator.

46:25and I wanted to help him out as he made the transition out of the military. And it just so happened that he was best friends with Chris Pratt and gave it to him all those years later when I had a book coming out. So I'd say it's putting in the work 100 % and then also don't miss an opportunity to make somebody's day. Never miss an opportunity to make someone's day. I just sense you're the type of guy who you just go around doing it. You're not expecting anything in return and you do it so much that you don't remember all the time. There are people in my life, I know that. that they've helped me or they do things they don't remember because that's their default setting.

46:59What an amazing quality, man. What an amazing quality in a person. And I hope if nothing else, we all try our best to never miss an opportunity to make someone's day. Help them out, give them a piece of advice, make an introduction, whatever you can do. You don't do it hoping to get anything in return. You just do it because it's the right thing to do. And it seems by behaving that way that things just seem to work themselves out. Opportunities pop up and boom, here we go. You got an Amazon shows and movies. And like, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I love that as a perfect, perfect way to close. Jack, thanks again, man.

47:39The new one, first nonfiction. I'm already excited for your next one. I won't ask you what it is yet, but I hopefully talked to you for the next one. But Targeted Beirut, the 1983 Marine barracks bombing and the untold origin story of the war on terror. it's not surprising it's so so good but Jack thank you so much for being here and I look forward to our next conversation when you get your next book out man it's going to be great yeah me too sincerely appreciate it and you take care thanks man

48:09it is the end of the podcast club thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club if you are send me a note ryan at learningleader.com let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jack Carr. A few takeaways from my notes. Never miss an opportunity to make someone's day. Let's make that our default setting. Let's work to add value to others' lives. Make their day. Help them. Make introductions. Listen to them. Offer ideas to help others solve their issues. Never miss an opportunity to make someone's day. Then commonalities of the most effective Navy SEAL leaders. Trust up and down the chain of command.

49:00High character. Great decision making. The decisions you've made in the past are your currency. Then do things you don't have to do. Run with your team. Put rounds down range. Now, you don't have to be the best at all of those things, but you should be very good at all of them. be able to do the same things that the people you're leading are doing on a daily basis. Really big. And then put in the work. Jack has been putting in the work since he was a little kid. He read books for the magic in those pages. All of that reading has helped inform him what great storytelling looks like. And then he continues day after day to put in the work.

49:45If you want to be a published author, you need to write. It's that simple. Do the work. get the manuscript done, and then take the next step. A lot of people want to be published authors. Not everyone wants to write. Like Ronnie Coleman said, a lot of people want to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift these heavy weights. You've got to put in the work, and I think Jack is a great example of someone who does that. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Jack Carr.

50:14I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that, And you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you subscribe to the show and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.