Living Outside the Wire: The Human Side of Law Enforcement with Gary Eddington

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:04

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast on, such as iTunes, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It helps this podcast grow and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, those platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people that never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. My very special guest today is retired bond enforcement officer of 30 years in Southern California. Gary Eddington has an incredible story about his career and what he did in it, but he also went through quite a bit of just traumatic incidents. Gary suffers from PTSD, and when you hear the story about how his dad was brutally murdered on duty and Gary was three weeks into the academy, you'll understand why, plus some other things that happened in Gary's career. Gary is also an author. He writes an incredible book called Outside the Wire and shares some of his other experiences in some other parts of his career. That is very fascinating that he did with the US government. Now let's jump right into this podcast. My very special guest how are you doing, Gary?

Gary Edgington: 1:33

I am fantastic. It's great to talk to you, great to meet you.

Jerry Dean Lund: 1:37

Yeah, it is awesome to have you on. It's awesome. There's so many topics we could talk about. Hopefully we'll cover the important ones that need to be shared today.

Gary Edgington: 1:47

Absolutely, absolutely Looking forward to it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 1:50

Gary, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Gary Edgington: 1:53

Sure, I'm first off. I'm way older than I care to admit now and for years and years throughout my career in law enforcement I was the babyface kid and I was always the babyface kid, even when I was in the detective bureau. My nickname was the lad, because I was a kid, and now not so much. But anyway, born and raised in Culver City, california, my dad was in the Coast Guard and then got out in 64. He was a senior chief petty officer and went to work for the LA County Heart Patrol. That's where I first got any glimpse into the world of law enforcement, where I spent my career. I went to public schools. My mom and my sister and everybody all had this idyllic, very idyllic home life. I graduated and went to junior college and I also became a police explorer with the Culver City Police Department and did that for several years and then got hired on as a cadet which is a paid position, a non-sworn paid position and worked in the identification bureau going to crime scenes and stuff and taking photographs and then did operations, dispatching and stuff like that and patrol and detectives, which is where I really sort of was in the third week of the academy, and my father, who was with the LA County Heart Patrol, as I mentioned, was attacked by a crazy guy armed with a buck knife and my dad was able to get one shot into him, but he didn't even really break stride. The attack occurred at probably 10 feet or less, which is well within the lethal zone for a knife attack, and he got my dad's right cross, stabbed him in the chest, knocked him to the ground. My dad was not wearing a vest. As I said, he got one shot off into him and hit him in the left hip and the round split into two and one piece exited out his lower abdomen. But he was able to hit him in the chest with a knife and then got him on his back and cut his right carotid artery and, as you know, that's it. And then he picked up my dad's gun and he walked through an area I don't know if you're familiar with, moreno Del Rey in Southern California, but this occurred where the Cheesecake Factory is now. Back then it was Chuck Steakhouse and it's right next to a kiddie beach, cabanas and small beach, waiting beach kind of thing. And it happened on an idyllic Sunday afternoon, actually right around noon 1130 is actually when it happened, september 30th 1979. And I was in the third week of the Sheriff's Academy and had actually had breakfast with him that morning. I had come home from a ride along with my parent agency and dealt with some, you know, froggy drunks and other stuff, and we talked about that. And we talked about a case that was very, very much in the news back then in LA. It was the Yule Love shooting, which involved a couple of LAPD officers who were attacked by a woman armed with a knife and they ended up having to shoot her as she threw the knife at them and it was a big mess. And bru-ha-ha and you know, the media actually, you know, mischaracterized what was going on. They were actually there investigating assault with a deadly weapon because she'd hit the gas company employee who was there to turn her gas off because she hadn't paid her bill, hit him in the head with a shovel. So LAPD responded to an assault with a deadly weapon. They weren't there to collect the rent, collect the bill. But that's, of course, what the LA Times reported, which is how did they get away with this crap?

Jerry Dean Lund: 6:09

You know, I don't know, it's disgusting.

Gary Edgington: 6:15

And so anyway, so fast forward. The guy, the suspect his name was Stuart Schwebel was murdered by two deputies that were responding to an officer down, call A couple witnesses, a nurse and some other people picked up the radio on my dad's bike and put in officer needs help, officer down. And they responded and countered the guy you know on the other side of the beach there and he slashed him with a knife and he had my dad's gun and his waistband and so they knew that this is the suspect. He was covered in blood and everything else. So they fired around a couple rounds at him and missed him and then they chased him across the street, engaged him again and dropped him and he expired at the scene there, which is a good thing for me, because I'm not sure it was hard enough to deal with, as you can only imagine. But having to deal with the nonsense of a trial in Los Angeles County, it would have been probably too much for me. This individual had already been arrested about 18 months before for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder on police officer. He was armed with a rifle. He had to have a lover's coral with his roommate, picked up the rifle in Marindell Ray and started blazing. My dad responded. A bunch of other people responded, took him into custody. The court found him criminally insane and sent him off to a Tuscadero State mental hospital where he spent 18 months. Then they kicked his butt out the door with a handful of thorazine and told him to sin no more. Of course, being a lunatic, he stopped taking his meds and lost his mind, and the rest is history, as they say. Yeah, it's a failure on many, many fronts Failure of training from a law enforcement standpoint, criminal justice system failed. We were robbed of our father, he never saw my children and all of that I mean. It's such a tragedy. Unfortunately, though, it's not isolated Any police officers who have been killed by individuals who were supposed to be in jail but were not, because the criminal justice system in Southern California failed. So this is not the first time, unfortunately, and probably not the last.

Jerry Dean Lund: 8:50

Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, gary. I mean I have to ask why did you continue? You've been asked this a lot.

Gary Edgington: 8:59

Why did you?

Jerry Dean Lund: 9:00

continue.

Gary Edgington: 9:01

You know what? The thought never occurred to me to stop. I had known officers who had been shot gravely injured, actually One particular officer at Culver City. So I was aware of the dangers and but the thought of not not finishing just never occurred to me. I had worked so hard to get to that point in time. Law enforcement jobs were hard to get, especially if you didn't have prior military, because all these guys were coming back from Vietnam and this was 1979 and they were applying for jobs and they had a leg up on pretty much anybody unless you had an in ski like a cadet and an explorer and all that stuff. It was hard and it just never occurred to me. I'll never forget the day of the funeral. One of the guys came up to me In fact. In fact in my book my agent at the time had said give the protagonist Rick a little bit more of a backstory, tell us a little bit more about his background. So I actually fictionalized the, an account of what happened. My character, rick is, is a retired LAPD lieutenant, but at the time he was with his training officer. In this, in the story I tell and one thing that happened. I'll never forget this as long as I was standing out on the lawn in front of my our house and of course there was reception at the house after the funeral and one of the guys came up to me, tom Tom Diviak, and said Gary, it now it's up to you. You got to get these people off the street and I carry that with me my entire career. I've never forgotten that. I'm sure I've kind of paraphrased what he said, but he basically said the baton has passed to me to get these people off the street, to protect the public, and that's what I did.

Jerry Dean Lund: 11:13

So did that make you feel like you had a more of a burden, though?

Gary Edgington: 11:23

No, not at the time. Then I was like I mean to be very, very honest when I look back upon it now I received no counseling. I received, no, you know, no, nothing. I was off of the Academy for a week. I didn't even cry until Freelow was on a Friday, my, my fiancee and I. I knew I needed to do something because I had all this inside of me. So I, we went to a movie together which affects me to this day, called the Onion Field, and it's a crazy movie to go to after having just endured something like this. But I knew I needed something from a cathartic standpoint, to kind of open the floodgate, so to speak. And it did. It did that and it still does to this day. But I think I was so numb that the thought of of having that burden never really occurred to me. It was now a question of I'm in the third week of the Academy, I have 16 more weeks to get through, and that was where my, my, my concentration was was to get through that Academy, that next 16 weeks of of fun and games. Yeah, yeah, you know. And one of the things that happened to me on my first day back to the Academy was. We're in the middle of a vehicle code lecture and it was one of these typically mundane vehicle code lectures and vehicle code in California is like three or four inches thick and basically if the rule of thumb they used to say is, if it looks wrong, it probably is so. So it's pretty boring. And so all of a sudden, in the middle of this vehicle code lecture they stop and they get the film projector out and they show the Sheriff's Department's Department of the CHP New Hall shooting where four CHP officers lost their lives to two dirtbags and it was just the Sheriff's back then did a pretty damn graphic reenactment, I mean, with chicken guts and squibs and blood bags and everything I mean it was like. And they used to show that video to the new guys to scare them, you know, to get them to quit right, and they've showed it's a couple of times during the first week or two. And then all of a sudden they showed it at that moment on my first day back, and there is no doubt in my mind that it was specifically to see if I could, if I could hack it. And you know, obviously I did. You know I mean people sitting behind. I'll never forget this one guy sitting behind me was a retired Marine and it's like it's okay, gary, and he's like rubbing my shoulder, you know. It's like you know, hanging their buddy, hanging their buddy, and but it was yeah. And then at the end of the Academy I'll never forget this as long as I live my di, who was a he was, he was a good guy. He used to tease me all the time because my, my skin was so, so pale and I'm working in Manhattan Beach and he was a boater, so he's like, you know, you need a suntan, you need to get out there anything. So at the end of the Academy and he used to, he used to, you know, he used to kind of screw with me a little bit every once in a while and he said to me, gary, he said when I, when you were, when you got here, I wasn't sure what to quite, you know, whether you belonged here or not, but he said, if anybody deserves to graduate, you do. And I've never forgotten that as long as I live. You know that was a moment that was like so elevating and you know, because this was, this was the ramrod, he was the authority figure for our class. He barked and people jumped, believe me. But when he said that, to me that was a really big deal, it was a very that whole, that whole thing was such an such a formative and important, you know, impact had such an impact on my life and my career, my career choices, and I think that you know it was. You know, it's amazing to me though, looking back on it now, that nobody said, hey, you know, we should probably send him to a shrink and see how he's doing. I mean, that's crazy. You know, when you stop and think about it now, it's crazy. And when and I'll tell you something interesting you you'll find fascinating when I was a training in training at Manhattan Beach, we did 90 days of training, three months. I had two incidents in Manhattan Beach, which is a tiny little beach town, involving crazy guys armed with knives, which I never saw another one after that. It was like somebody upstairs was testing me to see if I could, if I would, I make it, and in the last one it was really close. It was a kid who completely lost his mind and was standing on the on the terrorizing his family with a big old butcher knife. And he, stark, naked, standing on the on the at the stairwell of the house and me and my FTRs are crouched behind a a hedge and he looks at me and all we had back then we had our guns, we had batons, we had flashlights, we didn't have pepper spray, we didn't have tasers, you know. Basically that was it, you know. And he looked at me and he said, gary, if he comes around that hedge and he's like 20 feet away, he says I got my stream light, I'm going to throw the stream light at him. And if that doesn't stop him, it's up to you. And I'm sitting there with my 45 in my hand and I'm going oh crap, this really got very real, really fast, you know. And. But fortunately it worked out. We talked him down, nobody got hurt, it was good, it was all good, but that was, that was a moment I will never, ever forget. I'll tell you that I can still see that, see that hedge and see the kid in my mind's eye and my gun in my hand and thinking, oh my God, you know, this is, this has just gotten really serious. This is not a game.

Jerry Dean Lund: 17:38

Yeah, so, oh, gary, I want to go back to something you were talking about, like in the Academy, and then you were talking about the feeling like very numb.

Gary Edgington: 17:47

Yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 17:49

Did that just numbness continue I mean past your Academy and then past those two other incidents to just continue to be become numb or like. What were you feeling like? Are we just shoving everything?

Gary Edgington: 18:04

down, exactly, I was shoving everything down. It was always like right here, you know, I mean it was just ready to pop and and I mean there were moments when I had to step away because something triggered that emotion and I just got emotional and because of the grief and never really feeling like I really really dealt with it, you know, and and it manifested itself in other ways too I think I became more suspicious and more defensive because of it. I mean I certainly and and you know, on a positive side, it taught me that I can't take anything for granted. I have to be careful all the time, you know, and be aware and ready for anything at any moment. And and as throughout my career, the incidents shootings occurred or incident violent incidents occurred frequently when you absolutely least expect them, when they are completely routine, things that are happening and all of a sudden, everything goes to hell in a blink of an eye and your likes, and when it's all over, it's like what the hell just happened. How did, where did that come from? You know it's never. You know the times that that I have been close never, never fired a shot in anger at all, thank God, you know, but the times I have come very close. Most of them were completely unexpected, absolutely routine, you know, and all of a sudden something changes and you are now, like you know, in total, you know fight zone, you know in, you know prepared to do what it takes, and I think it made me more aware, it made me take, you know, survival trainings more seriously. I always wore my vest, always, always, always. I never. I always wore my vest when I work, when I work patrol, and because of what happened to my father, I was never casual about that at all. I always. You know, I've always had a real respect and for for edge weapons, for knives. I carry one every day. But I mean, like my dad said, son, you got to carry pocket knife, but but I know what they can do, you know, and they're. And anybody who says I don't understand why they use deadly force against somebody who was coming at him with a knife doesn't understand or know what the reality is and which is unfortunate, because you see that all the time why did they shoot them? Well, they, you know, because they people who asked that question have no understanding of how lethal a knife can be. You know, we used to do training and I was on the range staff and and the the the tactic staff, and we would do training where we would have an assailant armed with a rubber knife, a blue knife, and you'd have the officer standing there 20 feet away, 25 feet away, with, you know, a blue handled gun in their hand, with a training gun, and the mission was to get a shot off before the guy's on you, and nobody could do it. Yeah, the guy was always on you and if you got a shot off, it was at the very, very last millisecond and chances are it's not going to be a shot that's going to drop them, because we're talking about a small area here where you can actually instantaneously drop somebody, and that is that, is that divine hand of God. If that, if you make that shot in that circumstance, it's just blind luck, you know. And so, yeah, I knife scare the hell out of me. They really do.

Jerry Dean Lund: 22:13

But I mean all for perfect, perfectly good, good reasons, you know. Yeah, so did the? Did the numbness like ever wear off, or did it just keep like? That probably had to manifest a self in other ways, like you're, in home life too as well.

Gary Edgington: 22:32

Yes, it did in ways I was unaware of. It's only been in the last year or so that I actually really started working on this and got professional help to help me cope with it, because I was talking about it a lot and I realized that there's a lot inside of me now, 40 years later, that I need to address and I needed to deal with. And I did get some help with it and I think it's made me better. It's it's. It's one of the it's never going to go away. These things never do. There's always going to be and I'm always going to be. You know, I'm always going to have the traits that most, most people that you know we're in my profession have. You know, looking head on the swivel. You know, back to the wall, all that stuff, back to the wall when you sit in a restaurant. All that crazy stuff that we do as cops is stupid, but we do it. But you know it is still. You know it's. It's something that will never leave me and I will probably have. You know I'm better now than I was. Let me just say that I'm better now than I was, and I know that it did manifest itself in my home life with my wife and kids and things like that. But I think now I'm a better person, a much better, calmer, calmer person, you know, than I was. Yeah, I think, of course, if you ask my wife, she'll say I'm still nuts. But what are you going to do? Yeah, probably right.

Jerry Dean Lund: 24:12

Well, there's just some things that you can, you can get help with, you know, but there's also just some habits and traits that are going to stick with you a lot longer. I mean, right, the trauma work from therapy is great and it helps the things, but you've learned over that long career that you had all these other things, so you have to, you know, try to figure out how to unwind those things. That's, that's work on your own. You know, not necessarily something that a trauma therapist or someone can do for you.

Gary Edgington: 24:45

Exactly. No, that's very true. That's very, very true. You know, I, I try to say, you know I, I stay active and I do CrossFit. Not if you look, if you, you know, if you met me you'd go. This guy doesn't do CrossFit, but I've been doing it for a long time and I'm not very good at it, but I do get my butt kicked all the time I went this morning got my butt kicked. I try to stay healthy, you know, and I'm not one of those guys that said, and Terry, and because I know that that helps me psychologically, it helps me. You know, after a tough workout I feel more relaxed, I feel like a lot of stress has gone and, you know, I feel much better and I I firmly believe that that exercise, any kind of exercise, even if it's just going for a walk, is really really good for clearing the head, clearing the mind and and bringing people and things back into, or giving you a better perspective on things. You know, yeah, we're so inundated with everything all the time the media, the phones, the email, the all of it that you need a break and you need to, you know, sweat and and get away from all that stuff. So I try to do that. And I'll tell you something else too. That's really been wonderful has been that little guy that I was telling you about before we came on. That little, that little dude, my, my, my best buddy there, declan, that guy, I mean, no matter how crappy the day has been and until I retired I was having some crappy days there for a while but when I look at that little guy it's like man, he just puts a smile on my face, no matter what he's doing, he just puts a smile on my face, you know, and and so I think you know, I think that's cathartic, you know, and helpful too, you know, because that and I also think it kind of gives you a little more perspective on the important things in life- you know, you know we get so caught up in our careers and everything else. And for me, you know I just retired, you know, from my my final double dipping, you know retirement gig after 10 and a half years of chasing bad guys for this company as a corporate security investigator. And I got really caught into it, you know I'm, you know I was chasing bad guys and running all over the place and everything, and so having him around really taught me to slow down a little bit. And you know this stupid retirement gig is not the priority. The priority is that little guy. you know that's that's the thing that it really taught me and because you know he's what matters, you know our families are what matters. In the file analysis Nobody's going to say, yeah, that guy, gary, he was a great agent or he was a great detective or he caught a lot of bad guys. They're going to say, yeah, you know. Your family's going to say, yeah, he was a great dad, he was a great father, you know, grandfather, whatever. Those are things that are important and they make the and they make the most difference.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:58

Yeah, you know yeah, I think there's there's a lot to unpack there because I feel, you know we we don't look at that part of our lives probably as much as we should. You know it's, it's a lot of it's taken for granted and I would say that meaning that by any means, am I, am I? Am I perfect? I I'm still learning and learning these things and trying to adjust and change things about myself to help with that, but that, like you say, we're so involved with work that we basically can't unwind ourselves to somebody different at home, like very few of us can do that.

Gary Edgington: 28:43

Well, you know we're both. I mean, in your career and in my career we're used to dealing with more so with you than me, because I always used to say roll the paramedics, but. But the fact of the matter is you're dealing with life and death situations all the time, at critical incidents all the time, and and in that has to way take a tremendous toll, because you know it is. It is a mission that is so critical and so important and the consequence of error is so grave that that's a heavy, heavy burden. That's a really heavy burden. You know when. That's. That's why I love, I love the, the name of your, of your show and during the badge, because that's really true. You know anybody puts a badge on. You know they're picking up a lot of of responsibility and you know the public looks to them for help at their worst moments and when you fail it has consequences that last forever. You know and so you can't fail that you know it's a, you know it's a zero. It's a zero mistake world that you live in and and that's a lot People don't understand that. You know people in the media, you know politicians, you know people who've never walked in those shoes do not understand how serious the world is, that we occupy, you know, and what we, or what I occupy and what you occupy, I mean that's a very, very heavy burden, very heavy burden.

Jerry Dean Lund: 30:26

You know. You know that is try to put into perspective in some ways that you know to be a amazing baseball. You know they're batting, you know if they're four out of 10, they are amazing, they're elite, they're the best. There's no way we could survive in this career with being the four out of 10. Couldn't do it.

Gary Edgington: 30:52

And you know, I mean when I worked counterterrorism, when I was at the Task Force Commander in LA for California Department of Justice. You know, if we failed, if we missed something, something bad could happen. So the consequence of error is pretty high, right? So you know that was, that was a burden that I carried. It was, you know, are we? Am I making the right calls? Are we following the right person? Is this, is this a case we should put time on, or should we move on to this other one? Because we have finite resources and we're trying. Our mission is to protect California and protect Southern California, protect the United States, and we're dealing with people who are relentless and we have to be right every time. They only have to get right once and that's and that's the grim reality of counterterrorism your adversary only has to be lucky once. You have to be lucky every time.

Jerry Dean Lund: 31:45

Yeah, that would be tremendous pressure right, Because the magnitude of missing something is it is.

Gary Edgington: 31:51

And I didn't realize how much pressure I was under until until it was over and that was like wow, boy, that was really a lot. You know and and you know I wasn't running you know I wasn't seeing the kinds of things somebody at the national level would be seeing on a daily basis from throughout the country in the world. I was dealing with a small part of that, a tiny part of that, and it was still stressful.

Jerry Dean Lund: 32:17

Yeah, I mean you've done a lot of different things. I mean you wrote the book outside the wire Like what, gary, what was your, what was your favorite thing about your career? You've done a lot of different things, like what was the favorite thing or position post, whatever.

Gary Edgington: 32:40

I would have to say that the high point of my career as a sworn peace officer was commanding the, the task force in Los Angeles and being, yeah, I was stressful, but it was in challenging, but I also worked with the best of the best and and I worked with, I got to see and do a lot of really interesting and cool things. I worked with some great people on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, with the FBI and other agencies who are dedicated to, you know, to keeping America safe and you know we're true believers in the mission and the goal and that was a great, great, great experience. I was. I worked on the task force from 1999 to 2008, when I retired, and I stood up the task force for the California Department of Justice in late September of 2001, post 911. And, you know, recruiting the people and training them and, you know, getting them embedded in different task forces, like the Joint Terrorism Task Force and other things. It was. It was challenging, but it was extremely rewarding and very exciting too.

Jerry Dean Lund: 33:57

Yeah, I bet very challenging, especially during those times. I can't even imagine the challenges that you would face because of something being completely so new to Americans.

Gary Edgington: 34:11

It is. And you know we would get back then because 9-11 was fresh. We would get reporting all the time from local law enforcement and from the public and we'd have to vet those reports and make sure that you know and evaluate them and look at the ones that seemed credible and the ones that weren't credible. And sometimes the ones that don't seem credible actually were credible and the ones that you think are coming from an impeccable source were actually garbage and white noise. And there's so much white noise that it gets in the way of what's important and what's real. You know, because of the volume of reporting coming in, you know, as you can only imagine, I mean, everybody was seeing a terrorist on every corner and of course that wasn't the case at all, not even close Right. But there were a lot of people out there. They weren't necessarily terrorists but they were functioning in a support role, either funding or assisting in other ways, assisting with immigration documents and fake marriages and you know all kinds of other scams and things and or conducting reconnaissance. Or you know of vital, you know critical node, infrastructure nodes and things like that. We used to. We got that stuff all the time and some of it was absolutely real. It was the real deal and some of it was not, and it was up to us to separate the wheat from the chaff. Wasn't always easy. Yeah, it was interesting.

Jerry Dean Lund: 35:48

Yeah, I'm definitely interesting and I, once again, can even really imagine trying to sort through that much information. What possessed you to write the book?

Gary Edgington: 36:01

That's a good question. I asked myself that pretty much a dozen times a day. Why did I do this? Because it is. It is probably one of the most challenging and difficult things I've ever done, but also probably one of the most rewarding things to, because I, as I said to you earlier, I get to meet guys like you, people who from all walks of life, and it's been really fun in that regard. But I, when I was over there, I had done some writing in the past, a little bit of writing. I sold a couple of magazine articles. I had a script option 25 years ago our murder mystery and it wasn't produced or anything but so I've done a tiny bit of writing, but I had I while I was over there, there were a lot of unfortunately and this is once again goes back to the stresses of the job and not being able to cope with them. There were several suicides at Camp Victory while I was there in bag dead, and and then there was an attempted murder at another forward operating base. That was in my kind of area of responsibility. So I was aware of these things and and then one day I was walking back from the chow hall and literally and thinking, and I had just heard a story about another suicide and I started thinking, wow, you know what, maybe there's a story here someplace, maybe like a murder mystery, like a like a Agatha Christie 10 little Indians kind of story, where a detective or retired detective, working embedded, you know, with the army kind of finds himself involved in helping out on a case, a multi victim murder case. But that kind of morphed into a terrorism, international terrorism story, because terrorism was kind of my thing, that's sort of what I've been interested in since the 80s, and so it was kind of a natural progression to move this from a murder mystery although there are two murders in the book. In the beginning of the book it begins with two homicides but it morphs into a race against the clock thriller, you know, international terrorism story and and so that's that's. And the thing that that I think makes this book unique is that there's a million books about war, there's a million books about the global war on terrorism, and most of them are written by military people. This is one that takes a look at that world from a standpoint of a civilian who was never in the military and, you know, half the time didn't understand what the hell they were saying, because they were speaking in acronyms and was not and it's a different world, a different way of looking at things, and so it's sort of a. It was kind of a duck out of water kind of story in a way, because in that and I wrote the book in first person and frequently Rick, the protagonist in the book, will kind of look at the reader and go I have no idea what the hell they're talking about or what they just said. There are moments like that and I think that's what makes the story different is because it's told from a standpoint of. It's a war story told from somebody who's who is not a soldier or a military person, who is a civilian cop, and he's looking at things as a detective, how you know would look at things not as a, because the military has a different way of operating. They don't really operate like detectives and civilian law enforcement, you know. And so there's a, there's a cross, a conflict of cultures is probably the best way to say it a conflict of cultures. It's like, you know, why are you guys doing it this way? Why don't we just go talk to them? You know, you know as opposed to you know some of the things I saw the army do and the military do you know? It's like wait a minute. Why don't we just go talk to them and see what's going on? You know this is an investigation. you treat it like an investigation, you know, and which is why I was brought, why we had people like me over there, was to kind of help the military, specifically the army, conduct investigations, because the war had morphed at that point time into a counterinsurgency thing and the and the military was bound to use the Iraqi criminal justice system such as it is, in the furtherance of keeping the peace. And so here we have soldiers you know from you know, all sorts of different units now are collecting evidence and processing crime scenes like a detective would do or like a crime scene investigator would do, which is completely out of there. You know, they had to learn how to do all of this stuff. One of the things that I did was come up with a plan to in order to break up IED emplacement cells. Just like any criminal enterprise, there's money involved, there's people actually making a profit from that the bomb maker is probably the most highly paid of all of them and there's a financier. So if you take their money away from them, then they can't play games, they can't do their nasty stuff. So that was one of the things that we did was the army, the guys would go in and they'd kick doors in and they'd find piles of money and go well, this is nothing. This is not bombs, it's not bullets, it's not explosives. Who gives a shit, right? Well, an actual fact is really important. So we came up with a plan to seize that money and take it away from the bad guys utilizing the Iraqi criminal justice system, and I'm sure it was effective. I mean, it would have to be, you know, because money is the root, is at the heart of politics and crime.

Jerry Dean Lund: 42:00

Yeah, so you know, and there probably isn't a lot of difference between politics and crime either, but that's a whole other story.

Gary Edgington: 42:10

But the fact of the matter is you take their money away, then they can't buy their toys and build their toys and hire their people to plant the bombs and build the bombs and do all the other stuff that they do the whole chain. There's a whole chain in planning bombs and that would disrupt that. So that was one of the things. And the other thing was developing procedures to process shooting scenes, sniper shooting scenes, because there's a lot of evidence that could be collected and we had highly sophisticated, very, very capable crime labs over there at Camp Victory. They were capable of doing everything from DNA to, you know, forensic analysis of spent shells and bullets and all kinds of stuff, fiber analysis, everything and then what we didn't have there, we had back in the States, explosive analysis and things like that, and so it was really important to collect evidence properly, not just throw it in a duffel bag, but actually collect it and mark where it was found and take pictures and photo, just like we would do, you know, at a regular crime scene state side. They had to start learning how to do. So that was another thing that you know I came up with, because these guys sitting in hides waiting for the good guys to come along take shots at them. They're drinking, you know, sodas and water and eating crap and leaving DNA evidence all over the place. And it's important it's not trash, it's actually evidence. And that's what we had to do is encourage the soldiers, the war fighters, to actually collect evidence so we could identify these bad guys and take them out. So, yeah, that's interesting.

Jerry Dean Lund: 43:52

Yeah, it's kind of fascinating because I, you know, I hadn't really thought of it. You know, from that perspective before, like I would just assume that they had these processes and everything already in place, but I could see how they probably wouldn't, because this is something new.

Gary Edgington: 44:09

Yeah, exactly, I mean, the army is really good at breaking things and blowing stuff up and killing bad guys, but when it comes to collecting evidence, your average Joe, you know, is not going to necessarily be that hip to it. Now, maybe they are training them now to do that, but I would think that probably not, because this was now in a counterinsurgency war, as opposed to, you know, a set piece conflict, you know, with armies and tanks and planes and all that stuff. This was more of a you know ugly counterinsurgency, you know, up close and personal kind of struggle. Yeah and so, yeah, so, and they had to collect evidence to present to the Iraqi criminal justice system, which was fascinating.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:05

Yeah, I can imagine, can imagine how that would actually play out and probably extremely difficult.

Gary Edgington: 45:14

I can't imagine Go ahead.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:16

Oh, what do you want the reader to get from reading your book?

Gary Edgington: 45:21

Well, one of the things that I hope that, besides being entertained, because I'm very, very proud of the accolades the book has received on and I've got, I'm up to like, well over 50 reviews between Goodreads, barnes, noble and Amazon and but one of the things I want people to come away with from this book is a newfound respect for our men and women in uniform and the sacrifices and the miserable conditions that they endure to serve this country and keep us safe and protect us. You know it's. I was lucky, I was kind of. You know, the fun times I had was when I got to leave Camp Victory and actually go in the field and be with the soldiers in the field. And Camp Victory is, by army standards, is fairly plush, but it's still not that pleasant. It's not like going to the Brits Carlton, trust me, it's really not. And Iraq is not a garden spot that I would recommend on any level. The dust, the smells, the heat is just unbelievable, unbelievable. But they endure it and they are they. I'll never forget one time going on a dismounted patrol with a bunch of soldiers into a town that was full of bad guys and marveling at them because they're carrying all this crap, you know. I mean they carry a lot of stuff, you know, plus their body armor, and I'm carrying, I'm wearing the body armor and it's freaking. Like 30 pounds is what it weighs when you got the plates in and all that stuff and the helmet and everything, and I'm sweating, you know, and it's hotter than the blazes and it's like midnight it's still hotter than the blazes. And and you know the bad guys are there, because you're hearing the sounds of like the call to prayer, which is like a signal that they will broadcast a call to prayer which is being broadcast at the wrong time so that people know that. You know Popo is in town. You know the bad, the good guys are here, so we better, and they're just like they're just going along, you know, and you know laughing not laughing while they're doing this, but I mean they're just, they're so stoic and so fit and so professional. They know everybody knows their job, knows what to do and does it, and in the harshest circumstances. You know, and that's what I want people to see and recognize in the book that it is. You know that it is kind of showcasing how wonderful our service people are, our men and women in uniform are. They really are, and I came away so impressed, you know I was. I was predisposed to because I kind of grew up around the military to a degree. But when I got over there I was like blown away by by how impressive these young people were, how impressive. So many of them were doing these long, difficult jobs and then doing online college classes so they could get their degrees. And many of them were in the military specifically to get their degrees, to get a bachelor's degree, to help, you know, uncle Sam, help you pay, pay for your bachelor's degree. That's why they enlisted and I think that's so impressive you know it speaks volumes about them and their character and their drive. So anyway, yeah, that's why that's what I hope.

Jerry Dean Lund: 49:12

Well, it sounds like you achieved that, I'm sure.

Gary Edgington: 49:15

I hope so. I do I tried?

Jerry Dean Lund: 49:21

Yeah, and I know people like 50 reviews, like it's really hard to get reviews.

Gary Edgington: 49:27

It is so hard, it's a struggle.

Jerry Dean Lund: 49:30

It's a struggle to get reviews, so 50. For you listeners that mean you may not think that's a lot, but 50 reviews is a lot because people don't take time to do it. No, they don't know when they love it and they tell you're gonna do it, they don't do it.

Gary Edgington: 49:46

I know, I know and it's like and you know, the thing has been so amazing to me people that I went to high school with that I haven't seen since 1975, send me messages saying, hi, I read your book, it was amazing, I loved your book. And it's like I'm telling you when that happens. Or my doctor I'll never forget when I'm at my dermatologist you know, of course I'm, you know, english, irish. So I'm like a skin cancer waiting to happen and he comes in he's going to do the whole check and everything. Hey, I read your book, it was fantastic. And then he tells his PA hey, you got to read his book, it's really, really good. And I'm like, holy shit, pinch me, is this really happening? You know, but it's a struggle to you know. It's a struggle because there's so many books out there and it's, you know, it's a fight every day, you know, and but, but you know, getting to be on shows like yours and talk about it and is is what makes it worthwhile and I really so appreciate that.

Jerry Dean Lund: 50:41

So, yeah, thank you, gary, I think it's just fun. It's fun for me because I get to share, you know, things about the author and then the things about the book, right, you know? And I think that's what makes it a good blend for listeners just having no, you know, gary, a little bit more now, and now, that makes the book even better.

Gary Edgington: 51:02

Yeah, and, and you know the book. The book was inspired by my experiences in law enforcement in the United States and, of course, you know my experience in Iraq. Many of the things did happen to me. A lot of them did not happen to me. Fortunately, I always tell people read the book and then then reach out to me and ask me which ones were the real ones and which ones weren't.

Jerry Dean Lund: 51:29

There you go. Yeah, so well. Thank you so much for being on today. Thank you.

Gary Edgington: 51:34

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure, real pleasure, to talk about it and meet you and everything. So so now, thank you very, very much yeah thank you, Gary.