Special Guest Episode: Command Sergeant Major retired Bart E. Womack

🎉 Special Guest Episode! I recently spoke to Command Sergeant Major retired and author of Embedded Enemy Bart E. Womack about situational awareness, insider threats, and his harrowing experience with the 101st Airborne.

Topics:

➡️ What happened with the the 101st Airborne in Kuwait when Hasan Akbar attacked?
➡️ "If this can happen in the Armed Forces, it can happen anywhere."
➡️ What are the warning signs that someone could be dangerous? Did Akbar present any signs that were missed?
➡️ How can organizations or individuals prepare in case violence breaks out? What can John or Jane Doe actually do?
➡️ Situational. Awareness. Put down that phone! Pay attention to what's happening around you.

Links:

https://bartwomack.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Enemy-Insider-Bart-Womack/dp/0989800806

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bart-womack-28170417/

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Sara's book Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld is available now! Click here to buy it on Amazon. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Bart Womack, US Army, combat veteran, embedded enemy, 101st Airborne, Kuwait attack, grenade explosion, insider threat, situational awareness, proactive measures, domestic terrorism, social media monitoring, training and prevention, military service. 

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. I am joined today by Bart E. Womack. Now if you've not heard of Bart before, he was a Command Sergeant Major. He's retired now, but he served in the US Army with distinction for over 29 years as a professional soldier, providing focus, leadership and mentorship to all officers and enlisted soldiers. Some highlights of his distinguished military career include drill sergeant, Ranger, instructor and sergeant of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He culminated his career in dual roles as a commandant of the non commissioned officers Academy and the 101st Airborne Division Command Sergeant Major. He is a combat veteran whose awards include two bronze stars, one for valor, the Legion of Merit, the combat infantry man badge with star, the tomb guard identification badge and the Army Ranger tab just to name a few. Since his retirement, Bart has continued to assist veterans to enhance their careers and excel in post military life. He sits on the board of directors for veterans Media Corporation, and serves as a producer and show host for the veterans channel. He's also the co founder of the Armed Forces Equestrian Center, and he works in the entertainment industry as an actor and a military technical advisor. I want to get into some information about his publication of embedded enemy that will be something very much of interest to the audience here at conservacy theories. But first and foremost, thank you so much. Bart, I want to give you a warm welcome, and thank you so much, first of all, for your service to the country, and then secondly, for coming on today to talk to us.

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you on the show, and I appreciate the justice for service. Thank you. 

 So your book Embedded Enemy details the shocking attack within the 101st airborne so can you walk us through what happened that night in Kuwait?

Yes, so it's it's March 22 2003 we've just finished putting the final touches on our plans to invade Iraq. This is the Saturday, and at that time, we were scheduled to cross the border into Iraq on a Thursday. So, but those things being done that was kind of the bulk of everything, in terms of our operations. And I had planned to watch golf all night, the unit that was in the area that where we were in Kuwait, that was called Camp Pennsylvania. There, they found a television someplace, and when they moved out and we moved in, the television was there, and I figured out how to get American golf on TV. Went to the PX and bought some snacks and everything. It was going to hunker down that night and watch some golf that I had done two previous nights watching Tiger Woods play. But a big fan of that in a tournament was the honor Palmer Invitational. So I'm sitting at my desk there with my snacks or ammunition. Just came in that day. My driver had bought me my ammunition, so I was going to spend that evening watching golf, eating my snacks, loaded ammunition, and spending some time on the computer doing bill pay. Believe it or not, they had Bill Pay in 2003 Oh, wow. Um, I'm sitting there, and the tent flat that was to my right kind of kind of moves, and I this object comes in, into the tent. I don't really see the object, but I see, once the object kind of halted. It hit the tent wall. I see that it has sparks, and I immediately think that this is a grenade. Some type of grenade is sparking before it's going to explode. We're in the land and not quite right. And that's not quite right grenade, and but it is something that's going to explode. It in a matter of seconds. Let me get up. I rush up, run to the back of the tent. Our commander was back to sleep. This is now into March, 23 about 01, 100 hours in the morning. Our commander had gone to bed down there. About 2200, hours, so 10pm the first night that he's gone to sleep that early, so I go back there to wake him up. Our executive officer was in the tent as well. I knew he saw what I saw, so he could kind of take care of himself. But the commander, being asleep, had no idea what was going on. I get him up and say, Hey, grenades about to go off. We got to get out of here. A lot of them time to get his boots on. And then. I countered the three, and we took off running down the middle aisle of the tent. I make it outside of the tent. He doesn't I start calling for him, and he's not there. And what happened as we were running down the aisle, that first grenade didn't explode, but another grenade was thrown into the tent that did explode and threw him back into his sleeping area. Oh, my God, I called for him, of course, again, he wasn't there, and outside what I thought he was. And then I hear a gunshot, and I knew it was our executive officer. So three of us stayed in the intent, myself, the commander and the executive officer, and I knew it was him. And I pull out my pistol, cock it, or attempt to cock it, just to realize that it will not cock. It had a magazine in there, but no rounds, and attempt to cock it, it's not going to cock. So I am, I'm not really on. I just have a pistol. So you don't bring an empty pistol to a gunfight. By now, a grenade has gone off and shots have been fired, and I'm not going to win with no ammunition. So I turn around and run to the talk that's about probably 15 meters or so to my rear, and I run in there asking for an m4 as well as ammunition and night vision gobblers, so I can see when I go back out. At the same time, I'm positioning people in the tent to be able to guard the tent and to keep people from coming in of all the interests. And I get everyone rallied to do that for all interests into the tent, my father, you get, get this weapon, and nods as we call them, and I'm go back out, and I go straight to my tent to look for the commander and executive officer. And they're not there. You know, it sent on my men a posture to try to seek out the enemy that's created all this, this chaos. And I can't find an enemy either. I go back to the tent, summon someone to look for the commander, the executive officer. Why look for the enemy? Because when I went out there like there was no one outside, but come back out the second time, and then now there's three people outside, our people, and someone asked me, what happened? I said, Well, I don't know, but major Romaine has been shot, and then he tells me that Captain Seaford has been shot. So now we know we have two, at least two casualties, and I would say that the commander being hit by that grenade. I didn't know that at this particular time, simultaneously, a grenade has gone off into the second tent and into the third 10. The people in the second tent hadn't began do kind of stand up from the chaos in the first 10. So gnat explodes at a 15 degree radius, and if you are under that 15 degrees, you're probably okay. Anything above that, you're going to catch fragment. So a few of them got it pretty bad in the second 10 because they had been standing up when the grenade was rolled in. Actually one ended up with 83 grenade shrapnel holes in his body. The third tent was where Captain Seaford came out of the grenade was rolled into that tent people had already begin to come out, and then once that Rene was rolled, Captain secret was shot in the back, one person in the third 10 had would have made it out and uninjured. But as he was approaching the exit, he realized he didn't have his ammunition. Went back into the tent. I'm sorry, yes, went back into the tent to retrieve his ammunition, and then when he tried to come out, the second time, the grenade exploded 17 inches from where he was standing. So of course, threw him in there, big somersault, tore his leg all apart. So all this is going on, and now we're beginning to try to identify the enemy. It has to be the enemy, the borders six kilometers away. I'm extremely frustrated at our guards. I had gone out to check the towers many times before this night, and they were doing all the right things. Our this camp was I said, I told people 10 football fields, because it's hard to explain how huge it was, but all around it was 12 foot sand berms, literally impossible for someone to climb up those berms not be detected before coming over massive concertina wire to Get into the camp, but they had to have done this somehow. They had to have breached this somehow to get in to create all this chaos. So I'm extremely upset at the guards, like they had to have gone to sleep and vote for this to ever happen. I make a call on the radio to get more help over there. So in our unit, it's probably 5000 people in this camp, we're the headquarters, and then everyone else is supporting the units. On our camp, there are subordinate units. I call for a platoon to come over to assist in looking for the enemy while that's going on. The local aid station at Santa field, litter ambulance in the vicinity of where the chaos was going on, to be able to evacuate those that were wounded. So the triage is going on to get them sorted out, to see who goes on the letters first, and get in the FLA and take it to the aid station for further evacuation. While we were looking for the enemy. Realized that something had to have changed in his camp, and we've been here for 20 nights or more. But what's changed? Something had to change. Someone says, Well, Sara major, interpreters came in last night. Bingo. It has to be them. Go find them. So we finally locate the interpreters, get them into a room and interrogate them, just to learn that they have no idea what's going on and therefore did not commit this so now we're back to square one, the first so by now, helicopters come in to evacuate our the first load and take them to the combat sport hospital. That's about probably a minute ride. You know, it's probably just 500 meters away, pretty much up and down. That one lifts off. The second one lands, it begins to get loaded. Once that one's loaded, a huge explosion is in the sky. We don't know what's going on, but we think it's a coordinated attack. So not only are they hitting us from the ground, they're also hitting us from the air. And that was a potential Scud that was going to come in and, you know, rock our camp yet again. But what happened there? We learned that a picture of battery had picked up a fast moving object on its radar and shot it down. But it was not a Scud, it was a British fighter jet returning from the mission. So one of our allies was shot down in friendly fire by the United States. So as you can imagine, a very, you know, extremely chaotic situation that's going on here. Once we learned that it's not that interpreters search is still for these insurgents that we have no sign of, I deduce that we're going to get annihilated when the war starts, because we have totally underestimated their fighting will. They're fighting strength and how good they are, if they can come here and do this without us seeing that all our commander, who was concussed from that grenade, kind of comes out of that. He's in a talk and says we need to get accountability personnel. We make a call on the radio to do that, and we learn that one person, a sergeant aside, Akbar, is missing, and so are grenades and ammunition. So that's when he becomes the number one suspect, and the search is for him and no longer insurgents. Our intelligence officer had been going around the bunkers all night, kind of giving people some comfort, asking who was in the bunker each time. He noticed, after we learned about this name and this suspect, there was one bunker that he hadn't checked that was kind of straight out from the talking into the right so he goes to that bunker, and, as he had done all night, walks up to it and asked who's there, like who's in the bunker? And the response is Sara nak bar. Well, Akbar didn't know we're looking for him, so major Warren, the intelligence officer, posters his weapon so he doesn't appear to be a threat, and then just keeps walking toward the bunker, gets behind Akbar and takes him down. And that's how Akbar is apprehended. You know, he's asked immediately, like, why'd you do this? He says, to keep y'all from killing our women and raping our children. So. So at the time of hearing I had no idea what oh you are our meant. I didn't, I didn't put two and two together of his name being Akbar that he was, you know that his face was, was was Muslim, but that still didn't necessarily go and give me an answer to why he committed this attack. I take his weapon, I smell it to see if it's been recently fired, and it smelled like it had been recently fired. There was a piece of brass by my tent where he had shot the executive officer. So I took that weapon to that brass, because if that extended brass that it came out of that weapon, then it would have matched all the rest of the rounds that were still in the match. Magazine that was still in the weapon, um, we call that dotic numbers, and they were, in fact, a match. So Akbar was, was our embedded enemy?

Wow. So how, how did it feel when you realize that the attack was not from an external enemy. I know you said that you were thinking, oh my god, we're hopelessly outmatched in this war. We've underestimated our opponent. But how did it feel when you realized that the attack was not from an external enemy, but from someone within your own ranks?

Yeah, the immediate reaction when hearing the name, you know, of course, it said Sergeant. So we knew it was one of ours. And I knew I had to go tell senior leaders, you know, who we were looking for. Now he's dressed just like everyone else, so we kind of catch a break that he ended up going to that bunker. But I remember telling several senior leaders that they were looking for son, Akbar, and that was all I said, and it's and they their response was, you mean, it's one of our own? I said, Yes, and I allowed them to tell their subordinate, their subordinates, how they were going to and how they were going to transfer that message. I wasn't giving them any insight on what to do or how to do it at the same time, we're trying to emit friendly fire, you know, on the ground there. I really didn't process it so much that I didn't really think about it was one of our own versus We gotta stop this threat, and then kind of move on from it. I don't know to this day, well, to this day, it's a different story of learning that is, that it drone, and that is a few takeaways are that no profession, level of education, ideology or religion is above reproach. There is no profile. The insider threat is closer than you think. So I immediately going on in life. Am not awestruck by a uniform that someone served, and all those things. Thank you. I'm glad you do, but you gotta show me more than that you than the fact that you wear this uniform and it says your branch of service on one side and your name on the other, and you took this oath, or whatever, already saw a guy who took the same oath I did, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and did not abide by that oath. So immediately learning that one, that quote, and two, that we don't go home with people at night, so we don't know what they're doing, anyone can put on anything and fake allegiance of values and all these things. But you know, what? Does that really mean it. And you have to show me like every day, every second, that you are kind of all in versus you just wear this thing and you come to work. 

Mmhmm, yes, and, and I was reading in your account from Embedded Enemy that the official military stance is still that this was not an act of terrorism, and you and others strongly disagree with that classification. So why do you believe that this attack should be classified as a terrorist attack? 

Yes, I'm extremely upset with the armed forces, Sara, I'm going to tell you extremely upset because not only have them not calling it a terrorist attack. They haven't called it anything. They haven't called it friendly fire. They haven't called them enemy of our country. They haven't called it a hate crime. They haven't called it anything, and like, call it something. But here's the reason why it should be deemed a terrorist attack. Two years two years later, we learn in that in his diary, and two years later, 2005 from the trial, because that was a part of the trial he had written in his diary, starting in 1993 I do not like the military. They have too much control over people's lives. I suppose I'm just anti government the Muslims, and see himself as a Muslim, only his loyalty should be to Islam only. Now I want to say, before I move to the next quote of it is that, in my opinion, religion does not pull the trigger people, though 1996 he writes, anyone who stands in front of me shall be considered the enemy and dealt with the quarterly 1996 and this is probably the kicker. Destroying America was my plan as a child, as a juvenile and in college, my life will not be complete unless America is destroyed. Destroying America is my greatest goal. So that ended up at. Self defines an enemy of our country, and then, because of this attack on the country, makes him a terrorist. Now, those three quotes that I read you was before he joined the army. He didn't join the army until 1998 Oh, wow. Then in February 2003 which is the month before we went to Kuwait. He writes, you guys are coming into our countries. You're going to rape our women and kill our children, same thing he said once he was apprehended. And then this last one, I am not going to do anything as long as I stay here. And this is that for camera before we deploy. But as soon as I am in Iraq, I'm going to try to kill as many of them as possible. So if that is not an enemy of our country and a terrorist, I don't know what is. You know, arguably, had Osama bin Laden said it is my goal to destroy America. Is my greatest goal. Then he'd be a terrorist. Now we know he already was, but my point is, even while he was him, saying that just layers the fact that he's a terrorist. But for some reason, the Armed Forces can't connect the docs that Akbar is so these victims have not been awarded the Purple Heart, really, as a result, in 2015 there's a there's an update to the regulation that was put in there in 2015 and But still, the military did not address from 2003 until 2014 number one. But the addition states that the attacker must have been in communication with a foreign terrorist organization, and that the attack was inspired and motivated by that communication. Now that entry was put in there really solely to accommodate the attack that happened at Fort Hood in 2009 because that attacker, although the similarities that he was still in the military major Nadella, sign he was in communication with a foreign terrorist organization. Now let me explain communication. First of all, it's six years down the road. Internet is more advanced Akbar then probably didn't know, I can't speak for him, that he could Google and align with the foreign terrorist organization, but this major Adele Hassan did so communications. I send something over to foreign terrorist organization. They respond, boom, that's communication. It's not necessarily what's in the text. It's the fact that you reached out and they answered, arguably, because it's a copycat world, and Adele Hassan saw Akbar not only commit this attack, but pull it off, I'm going to commit an attack and I'm going to kill and wound people. He did the same thing in this particular case for the same reasons, the same ideology, right? 

Yeah, you would think that it would be an open and shut case, but it sounds like they haven't treated it that way.

No. I mean, it was, I guess, in terms of the trial, you know, from that case perspective, but not, not the Purple Heart issue. I guess the blessing is that these things are never closed. They've asked me for new evidence. There's really no new evidence. I need you to look at the evidence has been provided, which are those quotes? Nothing states anything more than that, uh. Sara didn't he didn't say those things. He committed the attack, but his victims received a Purple Heart just because he sent an email to a foreign chance organization.

Well, your experience highlights something that leaders in every industry need to be aware of, ie, the insider threat. So in your experience and the work that you're doing now, what are some of the warning signs that someone might pose a hidden danger?

 Yeah, I, I think that they need the first to kind of look at things from the inside. Look at it from an insider threat perspective. You know, even, even with mass shootings, those things occur, but that's the result. In most cases, it is someone from the inside that's that's the first thing you need to kind of grasp and hold on to. But some hidden things are typical mix, you know. So if you're a situation where you're paying attention to kind of everything, if there's one thing that nine one has caused in this country, it is an alarm for security, and, more importantly, more of it, you. And that it costs a lot, so when you don't have the funds to do it, we need kind of everyone to do their part and just pay attention. We're just talking about something of being situationally aware. So I would say it starts with a 10 when your employees are coming to work, or your students are coming to school, your parishioners are going to their place of worship. You know, it's a temperament. Probably won't see it that much in a place of worship. But the aforementioned ones, you will, um, I think a lot of cases people will, will, will tell you, I think they start, kind of, everyone starts kind of 50% and something triggers something in them where they're upset about something. It could be an ideology you don't align with mine, and I don't like it, so I'm going to keep leveraging it until I get you to like it. I become radicalized about it, I become extreme about it, and then I want to do something to you because you're not in line with mine, or it's something that happened at home, or they're bringing that to work. If you're kind of paying attention to those things that they're bringing to work, you can be alerted that way. So those are the tenement things, and then how they escalate, and then their reactions to it. They usually are putting it out there if you are paying attention. Sometimes they want you to stop them. Sometimes they just want you to know.

Pssst. Just a brief interruption to your regularly scheduled programming to ask if you've purchased your copy of decoding the unicorn, a new look, a dark hammer, should it's perfect for anyone interested in history, the Cold War or intriguing biographies. You can find it on Amazon today, now on with the show!

Gosh, that's a great point. And we do often assume that threats come from the outside. There's sort of like a confirmation bias maybe, where we don't want to believe that somebody within our own community, within the own our own workplace, within the school, could do something but as you have said, if it could happen inside the armed forces, it could happen anywhere. So how can organizations, whether they are military or civilian, it's something academic, it's a workplace, etc. How can they prepare? I mean, as you mentioned, sometimes budgets are tight. There's not always the money and the infrastructure to do something grand. So what can you do on a more practical day to day level to prepare for a possibility? We don't want to think about it happening, but in reality, we know that it does.

Yeah, it is, it is training. I think more of it than less. And I know we talked about the budget constraints, so it depends on what you're spending your money on, but then that situation awareness. But people have to be trained in that. They got to be have to be trained on what to look for, what to listen for. It's not that, at least the way I leverage it and the way I teach it and talk about it, anybody can do it. And I tell stories how even you know, teenagers can do it. So if teenagers can do it in a college setting, obviously teenagers can do it in a high school setting, but we need them to do it at every level. Sara, because you know, these are tax especially as schools are happening at the elementary school in engine high and obviously in high school and in colleges. So it is the it is the training, and is that situational awareness that's going to kind of help stamp out some of those things. Everyone then have the money for a resource officer. They may not have money for security people in the workplace, they may not think it's a need for it. I'm here to tell you that it's 2005 and things are just changing for whatever reason, people will bring their grievances to the workplace and and in academic institutions just because they can.

Yes, absolutely, and I appreciate what you're saying about paying attention and being situationally aware, because so often in modern society, we're not, and that includes kids. There are little kids now that have cell phones and tablets, and you sort of walk around in society, and you see that people are super glued to the phone, they're on the tablet, they're playing on social media, they're doom-scrolling whatever it is they're doing on these devices, and they're not even looking up, you know, their video security footage of people walking into potholes or going out into oncoming traffic, because they're not even focused on what's happening in The world around them, they're so engrossed in a device. And I'm also, you know, thinking about the diary entries that you read, and those are just chilling. I mean, so we're sitting here now, in hindsight, getting access to these diary entries, and it's like, oh my god. So this guy had a plan from early on. He's talking about in childhood. You. Wanted to destroy America like this is serious business. So if you were thinking about it now, hindsight is always 2020. We know that cliche, but are there any red flags and this? I think this will be good for the audience, because if they are thinking right now about a situation that we hope is not going to pop off, but that could in their workplace or at school like these that they say, if you see something, say something, were there any red flags about Hassan at bars behavior before? And you know, why were they overlooked? If you think they were there?

That's something that stays with me, but it has pushed me into this work. What's pushed me into this work is the belief that there was a sign and that it was missed. So you have to understand that the this leadership hierarchy, and it's not all about Bart Womack, but you gotta have the command level, right? Yeah, and then, then, you know, the tree branches down. And there's 5000 subordinates on this on this camp, and subordinate units, right? So his was down there a ways to where that level of leadership would have had to have seen something if it was there. Now I don't believe that there was a sign that said, when the ammo comes, I'm going to commit this attack. I don't believe that one bit, because he didn't know when the ammo was going to come, although he had written in his diary that soon as he get over, he's going to try to kill as many as possible. And that was something no one knew. Now, was there something else now he was said to have been not, not the perfect performing soldier, but you know what? He wasn't only one of those, I can guarantee you that. But what, what was he just playing? So I put it this way, and I wasn't down there at that level to see it, but if at any time that the unit was or the squad or the team or the section was getting together to do something. Let's say they're doing activity, or they were playing football or anything, you know, in the camp or whatever, and he every time everyone wanted to play, and he's like, the only one not or, you know, stand back or whatever, that's a sign of something. And I think some signs would be out there, and everything we've talked about thus far, there's a sign of something, and those signs beg a question. So if everybody's on one side over here and doing something, and there's one person that isn't participating, like all the time, I think it begs the question. Someone said, ask a question in our environment of that of getting ready to cross the border to start a war. It could have been family situation at home. It could have been, I'm scared to go fight anything that begged the question. So I can't, I can't say that there was a sign there that was missed, just in my heart of hearts. I just feel that there was something now we're talking about, you know, a vast difference in the leadership level of me being able to see something or spot that something may have been on, but it would never to have been that he was going to try to kill as many of us as he could when an animal showed up.

And you've spoken about how domestic terrorism is a growing threat, and I think that people should take that seriously. Because I think sometimes, as Americans, we really still have this idea, and it's probably a holdover from the Cold War. To some degree. I'm I'm born toward the end of Gen X, but even in my lifetime, in growing up in the 80s, there was the evil empire, and Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall. So I think that we still have this idea sometimes as Americans, that the threat is external. There's a boogey man, there's somebody from outside the country that might come to get us, but it would never be anything from within. And yet, that's another form of bias, I think, because we hear these terrible stories all the time on the news about attacks that happen in schools, in office buildings, in communities and churches or synagogues. So help us take some lessons here, when you think about what you went through in Kuwait and then finding out that it was actually another soldier. It was not some insurgent from outside, but it was actually another soldier. How can you take those lessons from what happened in Kuwait, and then connect them and give some good lessons now for people, just as they're out and about in daily life, on how to stay more aware when they're at school they're at church and and to understand that there may not be a communist boogey man that's coming to get you like in the old days of the Cold War. It could be an enemy from within.

Yeah, there's no communist boogie man. It's coming. And when they do, it looks like 911, so it's not this school over here. They may be collateral damage, but it doesn't look like that. It's coming from within, with all these attacks to include this one, obviously, they're right there on. The inside, there's no one walking down the street with a firearms and saying, let's go and shoot up this school. It's the student who already goes to the school, or it's a student who just left the school the year prior, a few years prior. They only have extreme familiarity with the environment that they are attacking, and it's a copycat world. Even from the very beginning of this attack, Akbar was way, way, way ahead of his time, way ahead of his time as a lone actor. So it didn't have to be in communication or affiliation with a foreign terrorist organization if your ideology, if you're so strong about that, and you become radicalized and then extreme about it, where you'll take matters into your own hands to commit an attack for it. That's all it takes you. Don't talk to anybody. I can turn a television on now and watch something that I don't want to watch and just get all into it, to where I become radicalized and extreme about it, to where I'm going to take an action about it, just because that's how strong I feel about and I don't have to tell you. I don't tell anyone in my house, my neighbor, anyone I communicate with frequently, I have to put it on social media. I can just go do it. That's just a lone actor, and I do it in the name of what I believe in, whether I left the note, if I kill myself afterward, or I come out and tell you. So it's a copycat world. And once one attacker pulls it off, everyone see how it goes. And they can do the same thing, either for the same belief, or their own belief, or whatever reason they want to do it. And it could be from, again, from an ideology. It could be from something social media. It could be the fact that they were, they were bullied, cyber bullied, or bullied in any other way. You know, when the student is bullied and they've had enough, and they come to school and or they tell someone, I'm going to do something about it. They tell themselves first, but then they have to tell someone else, and it's kind of a warning. It's like, stop me or don't stop me. But they kind of want you to know. And that gets back to the situation awareness, if you paying attention, it wasn't being said, but at some point in those particular instances, someone's at you've took them to their boiling point. They've had enough, and now they want to do something about it, but they're probably going to articulate that they've had enough of it, and they're coming in and looking for Mister Jones. You know, Mister Jones is embarrassed them and bullied them in a way as the teacher, and now they're talking Mr. Jones, and they're gonna do something about it, and everyone else is in the way around Mr. Jones, and that day is just collateral damage. And then we have to pay attention a little bit more closely to to mental health. And that's a tough one. That's a very that's a very tough one, but the schools have to work with with the parents. And, you know, parents have to tell us schools what's going on as regards to to that for their child, and then the schools, I think it's their responsibility to report back what's happening in the school to the parent as it relates to that. At the end of the day, we're trying to make make people better, but it takes both sides to that. Here's here's a big problem that happens at home. So it that inside is that the closer you are to the would be potential, the person that ends up being an attacker, the attacker it, the harder it is. The parent cannot possibly fathom. It's like we couldn't. We couldn't we couldn't possibly fathom that one of our own soldiers would want to try to kill us. The parents can't possibly fathom that their child would want to take someone else's life and commit an attack like this in their 14, 15, 16, years old. They can't even fathom them when they're 40, let alone when they're, you know, a teenager or younger, and but they see it all the things are right in front of them that have potential for an issue, but they are in such disbelief, and a lot of times not equipped to be able to handle it from a preventive or just stop it standpoint, that they don't know what to Do. But more importantly, they're in disbelief, where they don't do anything, and it's right there, but then after people are killed and wounded, then they said, Well, I saw, I just didn't. I just, I just, I just did. And you notice I didn't finish that on purpose, because that's the way they sound.

Yeah, and that's another form of bias, like, I can't imagine that it would be my child. I can't imagine that it would be my neighbor. I can't imagine that it would be somebody at my church. And we definitely have to move away from that. And I I really appreciate that you train organizations on situational awareness and proactive prevention. And I'm just thinking for people in my audience, if someone's listening to that. And maybe they're a stay at home parent, maybe they're a grandma or a grandpa, and they're thinking, Well, I live in the suburbs, nothing, nothing big and scary ever happens here. I know everybody at my church, we've been going to this church or this synagogue for the past 40 years, and nothing bad has ever happened. What do you feel like are some key. The ways that the average person, if somebody, is sitting there and they kind of have their blinders on a little bit and they're thinking, well, nothing ever happens here. We're just in a sleepy little town in the suburbs, and nobody would ever do anything crazy out here. What are some things that they can do in order to stay safe? 

Yeah, before I get into those, I want to share with you that in my book, in doing this work, I started following different mass shooting attacks and the ones that were foiled, one that was foiled, I want to say, in 2010 a 19 year old student at Portland university, you know, based on his ideologies, he was going to commit this attack, he was working. So when you ask for a certain amount of explosives to blow something up, you end up talking to federal agents right along with you, and they will give you everything that you need. I mean, it's not the explosives, but they will give you, if you want, a van full of explosives, they can provide you the van. They can provide you, provide you with a detonator, and then as soon as you depress that detonator, even though nothing is going to blow up, you essentially, you didn't know that. You thought it was so now we had charge you with a crime, a deeper crime. The rest of it is just a plan so, but he says, When asked why he chose that he was, he was he was blowing up a he wanted to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland. And he says he's 19. He says it's Portland. No one's looking at Portland. Wow, yeah, because what was people looking at? Oh well. It happened in 901. Happened in New York. So now we have to look for Dallas. You know, DC again, Houston, big cities. Houston, Texas, LA, big cities around the country, not Portland. So you can't go by the I live in this area. Nothing ever happens here. 2018 Santa Fe, Texas, and that school shooting? Well, that shooter provided all kinds of signs way ahead of time, but after it happened, one student says, I always knew it was going to happen here. I would say that for your listeners and for the world, expect it to happen, and put in preventive measures, proactive measures, as opposed to this. It won't happen here because fill in the blank, because they don't get to control that scenario. But what organizations can do in these situational awareness, proactive situational awareness strategy I provide, I get what say, emphasis on the proactive part. So number one is press, no one. If there's one thing I learned from the attack that I was involved in was that same person, the person who took the same month I did you know, shot people in the back. He shot Captain seafood in the back, in addition to killing one other, the person who suffered 83 grenades, shrapnel wounds died two days later, and he's responsible for that British tornado jet being shot out of the sky, even though end up being friendly fire. Had that chaos not started on the ground, that jet would not have been shot down. So it's trust, no one. So I prove to people that, hey, that's what happened to me. It only took the same open water, same uniform and all those things. So trust goes out the window. And I say, Trust No One, because I don't. People are going to think. And maybe you thought, what's that we kind of trust somebody? I don't know that you have to. But the point here is that you truly think about how you trust. Some people do it differently, like I say, Trust no one. You gotta show me a whole lot before you're going to get my trust. I can probably name one and a half people who I trust, right? One and a half. And I'm being serious, I didn't think of one and a half, but because all of them don't know everything, because I can't trust them with everything, so to get pieces that I can trust them with, that's Bart Womack, um, but some people would just say, well, I trust them till they give me a reason not to. And I think so. I say trust no one. So people can think about that. Next is observe, listen and report. I've talked about this just a little bit, and some of the things I explained in terms of observing things and listening things and then then reporting. And you mentioned before the government's thing of See, see something, say something. So I was a apartment building manager in Los Angeles. Years back when I got out of the military, I was working in Hollywood as an actor and military technical advisor, and I was also the manager of this apartment building. And I just took over. I came out one door and the light wasn't on, and I said, Well, let me start. Do an inspection of all the outside lights, went back in and got a piece of paper and a pencil, came back out, started writing, went back in, came out another door, did the same thing. So I'm writing this time. I say, if someone sees me, if someone's looking at me, right now, they should think that this is suspicious behavior. It's casing, right, right? Well, I go back in and come out another door. Do the same thing, go back in. So now I say, Okay, I might as well start taking the interior lights. I just taken over this disposition, right? And as I'm doing the interior lights, I get up to the fifth floor, and then I hear freeze. Well, that usually means that someone has a weapon pointed at you. Their back was, I mean, my back was to them, so I've been taught enough not to turn around or move suddenly and all that type of stuff, and say, Put up your hands. Put my hands up. Drop us in your hands. There goes a peep, there goes the paper, there goes a pencil, whatever my mind and hand company say, Well, you fit the description of someone that was called in. I said, No, I am the description because I already told myself what someone was watching, they should think this is suspicious behavior, and that's what happened. So I applauded the efforts of whoever was watching. Now, the apartment building is right across the street from UCLA. On either side of it was a frat house, so someone in the frat house saw me and thought there was suspicious behavior. I applaud them for that good thing. Five police officers, Sara that showed up didn't do anything to me, right? If I needed five, he could only have called in that someone's outside a building, writing on a piece of paper looks suspicious, so the dispatcher, or everyone available just had to come and respond to that suspect with a pen and a piece of paper. Okay? I digress, but that's an example of observing, and at least they listen. I'm sorry, they observed and they reported. They couldn't, couldn't listen that particular scenario, uh, next one is know your neighbor, not say you know your neighbor. So this applies to you know your next door neighbor, people on your street, but more importantly, your co workers and your your fellow students or parishioners or wherever environment you're in knowing them. Um, not saying everyone needs to be friends someone, but find out what you can know. The more you know them, the more they're going to tell you, because people just gotta talk. And they will tell you everything. They will realize. Some people tell you everything, but as they are telling you things, we may get to you know some, some bad things, if they talk long enough. But if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you anything. Some people void their co workers eyes, I'm like, not addressing get a little closer, you might find out something next is listen, don't just hear. So here's one for Listen, don't just hear. There was a exchange student went to a Catholic school in the state of Pennsylvania. He had told a fellow student that he was going to come to school. He actually told his fellow student, don't come to school on May 1, because I'm going to shoot up to school. He had 16, I'm sorry, 1600 rounds of ammunition and a gun he had put together by ordering the pieces individually. But the mistake he made was telling who he thought was his friend. Couldn't think his friend's gonna tell anybody. So that's one. Here's another one where college students are in a classroom and they're talking about guns and criminology class, so 19 year old sophomore, and they get on the subject of guns, of course, their professors there, and if you say, Well, I have a gun, no, says I have a gun. Another guy says I have a AK 47 and it's in the trunk of my car, and it can take one with the class, right? Yeah, there you go. Thank you. So were you where you were listening? Right? Not just hearing, um, everyone else in that classroom was not except for 119 year old. His response was that sounded awful, matter of fact. So after class, he went and told he went and told someone in the dorm, and once that student came back, he was escorted to his car. Got about 100 100 yards from his car, and then he tells them that I just want you to know before we get to my car, have AK 47 in a truck in my car. So obviously, not supposed to have them on a college campus. Now, he was not planning any ill will. He was supposed to link up with a fellow student and take it over to the fellow students dad's house, who lived in a rural area, and the dad was going to lock it up, and then the two students would come out there, you know, his son and his son's friend will come out there on the weekend and shoot, and dad will lock it back up again. But they missed link up the day prior. But the mistake the student made was running his mouth on that day of. Talking about guns. Of all days, that's when you don't say nothing, cuz first of all, you're not supposed to have it on the campus, so you want to get in trouble for that. So you keep your mouth shut. But he couldn't resist, as most people don't, but only one person was listening. Everyone else was hearing. So he did what he thought he should do about it, and he said he told me this. So he said that I don't know what you're going to do with it. I just this is I was listening and heard this. So there you go.

Yeah, that's a great reminder to that. And I would say that even can also tie in with general situational awareness, like people are telling you who they are. As you say, the boy was just matter of fact. Oh yeah. By the way, I have an AK 47 in the trunk of the car, and it's like, Wait a minute. What that should be? A moment for everybody to be like, Wait a minute. What do you do? Why? What are you planning? But only one person actually heard and listened to hear, listen to understand, as opposed to just filtering it out automatically.

Yeah, there was an adult in there. The person who was listening was a 19 year old. That's that's the thing. That's why I say that anybody can do this. If you apply the situation or whatever strategy, if you apply these techniques, anybody can do it. The adult was there. Didn't do anything you would expect the adult to stop the class right to the side. Call another administrator. He wasn't a principal. He's just a teacher, you know, call someone. But he did nothing. Even in the aftermath, did absolutely nothing. And then the last one is gut check, no, probably our strongest sense. And you could, you could argue that some of these things your guts, telling you before you hear your guts, telling before you crush your guts, telling before you observe your guts, telling, you know, your neighbor, etc, you know, but the gut is the strongest one, because in the end of all these things, you know, we hear, I thought something looks as pissed. I thought something of your gut is the thought nothing about it. And now we have chaos. So listen to your gut is telling you the right thing. And in the end, I guess in most cases, the worst that happens is, you know, you got someone with a gun pointed at them, and they're told to freeze, and then they're handcuffed just find out they were doing what they supposed to be doing. We hope that that's the worst of the outcome. So here's another one where as bad as they could possibly get, there's a student, another student in her in her college dorm, and then she hears, here's these things that sound like shots. There's several ladies, Pops, so she calls 911, and says, there's a there's a shooter. I don't know where they are. I'm in my room, but I keep hearing these gunshots. And so they always find if you make a call about potential gunshots on a campus, like, everybody comes, right? Everybody comes, and even not just your precinct or district, or whatever they're coming from all over, and they all showed up, and it couldn't find anything. Have helicopters in the sky and all that. And what was revealed was that someone was in their room popping the plastic bubbles. 

Oh my gosh.

But the student thought it was gunshots and took action. So what's the worst that happened? Well, police got a little drill. They spent some fuel in the helicopter. They didn't like it, but that was the worst that happened, right? And thank God it wasn't real, thank God it was just the plastic bubbles. I'd rather have you spent more fuel that day than carnage. 

Yes, absolutely. And if, if somebody is listening today, maybe they own their own small business. They're a people manager at work, or they're a college professor, they're a teacher at a school, and they're hearing the message. They're not just listening to the episode while they're driving in the car, and they've got Spotify on, but they're really listening and hearing what you're saying. Maybe they don't have a big budget, maybe there's not something that they can do in terms of a grand gesture, but they know they want to do something. So if somebody is just starting out and they want to get a better level of situational awareness, they want to have better proactive prevention in the workplace or in their classroom, in their small business, making that first step. What do you think that that very first step should be?

Without having any strategies, but if you listen in the car now you do, I would say, Write those down as you can stop. Don't do it while you're driving, but try to do a playback so you can have those you can buy my book embedded enemy. These are listed in there intentionally. It wasn't just to tell the story. It was also to give people a way to mitigate. I didn't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else. Dollars. So that was reason I got into this work and created these strategies, because it's a proactive approach. So situation awareness overall, find a way to put money in your budget so that you can can have the training. The training is what's going to save the lives. But it's not just the reactive training. It is the proactive trainer. You're trying to keep the shooter from coming there in the first place, trying to stop it from the very beginning, not once the bullets start start flying. We need that too. But if we can keep the bullets from flying in the first place, I think we're going to be better off. So anything that's proactive, but it goes to, you know, knowing our students, we have to, we have to know our and that's why I get back to knowing, knowing the neighbor. If fellow students know each other, then they're going to hear something, even if it's not people that they know, they will hear something might not be on your block and it'll live in that direction or whatever, you will hear something if you are paying attention. But the same thing is true when in organizations, in the workplace, but it goes to like, Who are you hiring? Do you really know who you're hiring? What are you doing in terms of background checks and everything. Of the people that you hire, I would add that it's 2025, and you should look at their social media, because things they post is things they do, things that they support and things that they feel strongly about from a belief perspective, from an ideology perspective, and then how far they will take it, because if they're doing it on social media, they're going to eventually bring it to work. 

That's a great point. So you mentioned your book embedded enemy, and as we close out the episode, I want to give people an opportunity to understand where they can go. So if people would like to find a copy of your book, where can they do that? And then, if they want to follow you and your work, where would you like for them to go to do that?

Yes, you can find the book on Amazon. You can also find it from our website, bartwomack.com there's a link there that goes to Amazon to purchase the book, and then just from LinkedIn. From that point forward, I put a lot of things on LinkedIn. 

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and share it with others.