Today I’m talking about operational Pineapple Express in Afghanistan with our guest, Lieutenant Colonel retired Scott Mann. Scott is an Army Green Beret. He’s got tours all over the world; Columbia, Iraq, and multiple tours in Afghanistan. He is a true storyteller warrior. He’s the founder of rooftop leadership and the author of the instant New York Times bestseller Operation Pineapple Express. This is a third-person narrative that details the harrowing stories of the veterans, volunteers, and Afghan allies who navigated the US abandonment of Afghanistan in August of 21’. He since founded the 501 C three operation Pineapple Express relief to help the emergent needs of the Afghani allies with safe passage out of Afghanistan plus unforeseen resettlement needs. He’s got three grown sons, and he lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife of 27 years. 

Mark Divine 3:01

Scott Mann super stoked to have you here. Thanks for joining me on the Mark Divine show.

Scott Mann  3:05  

Thanks, Mark. Yeah, it’s a real honor to be here, man, I love, I love your show.

 

Mark Divine  3:08  

I appreciate that. And I love your work. And I know we had a little chat a while ago about your work, and I want to get into, you know, Pineapple Express and the book and everything you’re doing now with your nonprofit, but um, you know you’re you’re a Special Forces guys, so warriors at heart. But I always start these shows by getting a sense of, like, Who’s the man before or the woman before they became the courageous warrior that happened to be on the Mark Divine show, right? Because the latest courageous warrior that were out there chatting, because, you know, we all have a unique origin story and the trials and tribulations in the hero’s journey that kind of led us to where we’re at. So what’s yours?

 

Scott Mann  3:45  

I appreciate that. I think that’s one of the many things you and I have in common is a love of storytelling. And for me, I wanted to be a Green Beret from the time I was 14 years old. 

 

Mark Divine 3:54

 

Scott Mann 3:54

Wow. Was Yeah, it was a very, very early early thing for me. And it was because I grew up in a little logging town in Mt. Ida, Arkansas. My graduating class was something like 36 people. And one day, a Green Beret named Mark came into our town walked into our soda shop. And just the way the guy looked, he had his dress uniform on it just for me, was a true game-changing moment. And I didn’t even know what the guy did. But I was super, super small, Mark, I mean, I was a runt I was, you know, pretty bullied as a kid. I moved around a lot and was kind of always on the outside looking in, and there was just something about this guy and the way that he conducted himself the way that he carried himself that just spoke to me as that’s what I wanted to be. And then when I sat down with him, though, and that was probably the coolest thing was that he actually took the time to sit down and talk to me.

 

Mark Divine  4:45  

No kidding. What was he there on like a recruiting thing or was there

 

Scott Mann  4:49  

He was there on leave. His dad actually owned the soda shop and he was there on leave. 

 

Mark Divine 4:53

Nice

 

Scott Mann 4:54

And you know, it was a pretty novel thing in a little town like that anytime a stranger came in town, you know, but to see somebody, this guy’s caliber, and the way he carried himself and he just you could just tell there was something special about him. You know, who’s really when he when he sat down with me, and I just felt like the guy saw me. You know, I think I felt I felt like it was one of those rare moments as a child that I was seen by an adult for what I could be. 

 

Mark Divine 5:18

That’s cool. 

 

Scott Mann 5:19

It was cool. And I try to never forget that, whenever a young person comes up to me and asks me about Special Ops or Special Forces, I try to, you know, go back to that time when I was so enamored with Mark, but when he when he explained to me Mark what they did, as far as working by with and through indigenous cultures, and kind of helping the little guy stand up against the big guy, that whole Lawrence of Arabia thing, just, man, he spoke to me. And so from that point on, I started preparing training, I probably watched John Moray or John Wayne, Green Berets, and you know, Rambo 1000 times and just never looked back. I went into the Army as a second lieutenant and ultimately tried out for SF. I think I probably recycled Ranger School and selection, you know, more times than anyone in modern history.

 

Mark Divine  6:07  

 

Scott Mann 6:08

Yeah

Really. 

 

Mark Divine 6:08

You weren’t going to quit, though. You weren’t going to…

 

Scott Mann  6:11  

No, I finally made it. And you know, it was just the most amazing, amazing ride. I got to. I’m sure you would agree. Like just it was the guys that I got to hang out with it was the guys that I got to be around, and just say that I was around them was the most meaningful, powerful thing in my life was to run the miles with those guys like it was I even to this day, I’m still in awe that I got to hang out with those guys.

 

Mark Divine  6:35  

Ya know, I feel the same way. And I think that’s one of the the really unique aspects of Special Forces, regardless of which branch or you’re in, we have that camaraderie and that depth of love for your teammates, which is just so rare. 

 

Scott Mann 6:48

Yeah, 

 

Mark Divine 6:49

Ya know, it’s one of the things I’m trying to give people a taste of through SEALFIT, but it’s so rare, and it’s so necessary, like, 

 

Scott Mann 6:55

Yeah,

 

Mark Divine 6:55

Ya know, people crave that. They’re hungry for that. What can you say about the very famous Q course that, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, changed you? Like you were when were you before you went in, and you were different as a result of that training?

 

Scott Mann  7:07  

Well, what a great question. I would say the the number one thing that changed me in that Q course was the validation of engagement and relationships. In the final part that they call Robin Sage,

 

Mark Divine  7:23  

it’s a simulation, right? That’s the unconventional war.

 

Scott Mann  7:26  

It’s an unconventional warfare simulation, it spans five counties and generations of role players going all the way back to, like, 1952,

 

Mark Divine  7:35  

no shit, holy cow,

 

Scott Mann  7:37  

it’s like, there would be a grandfather out there, you know, dropping off four harvested deer to the guerrilla force with his grandson, you know, and he’s completely in character, he owns the farm, you’d have a subway shop owner drive in a cattle truck to deliver gorillas to a drop off point, like the whole part of North Carolina’s in on it. 

 

Mark Divine 8:00

That’s cool

 

Scott Mann 8:00

And, you know, that for me was I’ve always always valued human connection and storytelling and relationships and that kind of thing because I’m a child of Appalachia. But seeing that in real-time, and seeing the amount of effort that the Q Course put into this, I thought, my God, and then fast forward, you know, some years later, not too long after the war on terror started up, you know, I got into Afghanistan. I was talking to some young team leaders and captains about what life was like out in the villages for them. And they said, just like Robin Sage, sir, 

 

Mark Divine 8:31

No Kidding

 

Scott Mann 8:32

 I was like, wow, that was pretty powerful.

 

Mark Divine  8:35  

That is cool. What was you know, everyone wants to think about hard, you know, like, Navy SEAL training is the hardest, or is it Rangers or Green Beret? What was hard about selection in the Q course for you? Yeah,

 

Scott Mann  8:47  

Yeah, I think for me, I was not great at land navigation.

 

Mark Divine  8:53  

I would put myself in that category too. By the way, I got some funny stories. Navy SEALS were supposed to be good underwater, not necessarily on the land.

 

Scott Mann  9:00  

I got good at it because I had some great NCOs that were like Jesus, sir come here like you know when I wasn’t really great at it going in, and I so I failed this thing that’s called SF stakes. I know you guys have something like it when you go through, but it’s basically where you do these long movements, you know, on your own. And what I found was I’d already failed it once. No, man, I failed it twice. So I was on my third movement, my third time, and that was it. They made it super clear to me, dude, you fail this one, you’re, you know, you’re going back to where you came from, and being alone in the Pisco national forest with just my rucksack and my thoughts and really the self-sabotage that was coming forward and telling me dude you not cut out for this? This is not what you should be doing. And the head chatter that was going on and trying to find a way to tell myself a different story and quiet that was one of the hardest things I ever did, and it served me more in combat than and any tactic I ever learned.

 

Mark Divine  10:01  

Yeah, I believe it. Yeah, controlling that inner voice feeding the courage wolf instead of letting that fear wolf kind of drive your drive your thoughts.

 

Scott Mann  10:08  

That’s such a great metaphor.

 

Mark Divine  10:10  

That’s funny. In SQT, which is after buds, we did a land nab that was similar to that we didn’t get our Trident. We had to go to the team. Then we went through STT SEAL Tactical Training, which is, you know, became SQT. And then after that, that four-month thing, then you had a board, and you had to go through all the PQS. And then, you know, they get bigger and still kick you out. 

 

Scott Mann 10:29

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 10:30

And one of the things that we had to pass was our version of that, right, we did our thing in buds, but this is our version SQT. And, and we jumped into an army base, which you know, really well, up in Fort Lewis, in Washington. 

 

Scott Mann 10:41

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 10:42

And it’s pretty thick up there, and

 

Scott Mann 10:43

That’s tough terrain

 

Mark Divine 10:43

Yeah, jumped in. No comms (military communication) with anyone else, we had to then find our first sight and yours truly, literally. I don’t not know, to this day how I could possibly fuck up this badly. But I had my compass upside down, and I was following the complete opposite bearing for where I was supposed to go…

 

Scott Mann 11:00

I love it. 

 

Mark Divine 11:01

I’m just, like, cruising. You know, thinking I’m doing great. I find myself I’m going over like fences. And I’m seeing all this civilian shit. 

 

Scott Mann 11:06

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 11:07

I’m like, damn, I think I’m off base. Like I’m doing something wrong. So I figured it out. 

 

Scott Mann 11:12

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 11:12

I literally like a Navy SEAL. I ran back on that bearing as best I could. And I found the drop zone. 

 

Scott Mann 11:18

Oh my god

 

Mark Divine 11:19

I swear it started off on the right…

 

Scott Mann 11:20

You started over. 

 

Mark Divine 11:20

Yeah, started over. And now it’s like four in the morning. It’s raining like shit. And, and I’m thinking there’s no way I’m going to make this this point. You know what I mean? 

 

Scott Mann 11:29

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 11:30

So I just sat down. I did what I knew how to do, which is just sit and do nothing. And I learned that by meditating, you know, before I joined the SEALS, I was like, maybe if I just sit here meditate, some answer will come to me. 

 

Scott Mann 11:39

Wow. 

 

Mark Divine 11:40

And that was it was kind of like praying. So I’m sitting there. And I’m just kind of scanning the forest. kind of wondering what’s going to happen. What I’m going to do. Maybe this is the end, and I’m looking in the distance, I see something that just looks a little out of place, like this marking on this tree, this coloring, you know, and so I was like, huh, so I just got my gear, and I’m just soaking drenched, walked over. It’s about five minutes away. I walked over to this spot, and I look up. The first thing in my head was like; God bless the army. Because on that tree was a sign that had a grid coordinate on it. I kid you not.

 

Scott Mann  12:13  

Unbelievable man!

 

Mark Divine  12:15  

Unbelievable, I’m like, okay, there I am.

 

Scott Mann 12:16

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 12:17

Okay, well, there I am. 

 

Scott Mann  12:17  

You were totally, like, literally, in that moment, totally lost. When you look back on that now, like, what would you say is the biggest takeaway from that moment for you?

 

Mark Divine  12:26  

Well, that’s a great question. For me, kind of like what you were saying is managing my emotions and the mental chatter. If I had been, like, beating the crap out of myself, I would have been toast, right? 

 

Scott Mann 12:36

Right

 

Mark Divine 12:36

I never would have seen that sign. 

 

Scott Mann 12:37

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 12:37

And I learned this so many times that if you just relax and kind of surrender to the moment and open yourself up to possibilities, then usually the answer is right in front of your face. 

 

Scott Mann 12:47

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 12:47

Or it’s handed to you in some synchronicity moment. I bet you had those moments in combat. I had several of them, which saved literally saved my life. 

 

Scott Man 12:55

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 12:55

This one, this one wasn’t a lifesaver, but it was more it helped me to realize that you know, just pushing through and doing doing doing, you know, if I had tried to just rush toward where I thought the point would be, I would have missed it. Right? Sometimes just pausing and doing nothing.

 

Scott Mann  13:09  

And listening for that moment. It taught you to listen for that moment, you know, and yeah, that’s so true. And and I think, to your point, yeah, there were definitely times in combat and in higher stakes situations where I had to do a version of that, but it was learning that in training, and just fucking up and learning that even in the worst mistakes if you don’t quit on yourself, there’s a pathway out of it.

 

Mark Divine  13:33  

And that’s what the instructors are looking for. They’re looking for good decision-making, not flailing. We try to teach that in our SEALFIT is like, Pause, Breathe, Think this through, using all your resources, not just your linear rational brain, think it through, and then act. So PBTA is the acronym. 

 

Scott Mann 13:50

It’s a great one.

 

Mark Divine 13:51

And I think that was an early version where I started to learn that, and you know, I didn’t actually get to the point exactly on time. I was a little late in the debrief. I told them the story, and the instructor were just laughing their asses off because, A that the army, the army would put the grid coordinates on the tree, and B that I was that lucky or that dumb enough to be that lucky. 

 

Scott Mann 14:10

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 14:11

It isn’t that dumb? is actually kinda smart.

 

Scott Mann 14:12

Like, I want that guy in my platoon, man. That dude’s lucky. 

 

Mark Divine 14:18

So after a Q course, you went into you put on the Green Beret. And what was your career like there? 

 

Scott Mann  14:25  

Well, I went into the seventh Special Forces Group. And you know, I think the SEALS do this now East Coast, West Coast, you all apportion and align to certain parts of the world, at least you try to.

 

Mark Divine 14:35

That’s right.

 

Scott Mann 14:36

That’s SF that has been doing that a long time. And so I had already served in Panama when I was a lieutenant, and I loved it. I loved Latin America. I met a lot of seventh-group guys, a lot of seventh-group NCOs. And I was very enamored with the mission with the way those NCOs carried themselves. And so I was assigned to the seventh group at Fort Bragg. And that was in the ’90s, where the bulk of my junior officer time was in the drug war,  in the Andean Ridge, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, that kind of thing. And I loved it.

Mark Divine 15:06

What were those missions like? 

 

Scott Mann 15:08

Well, there was, you know, it depended on where you were, but but mostly it was mostly combat advisor by with and through kind of stuff. Where you know, you could get out. And you could do some things with the partner force, the Commandos, the lead line settles, but it was very much with them in the lead. And you know, you weren’t, you are truly an advisor, and you had to really play it that way. And what was great about it, Mark, for me, was that you had zero authority over these individuals. You had very little resources. What you had was your mindset, your skill set, and your relationships, really. And that’s what you brought to the table, and some damn good NCOs, who these guys had known since they were privates. And who they respected, I got to walk missions and do missions with these SF NCOs, who were just iconic, they could walk into, you know, like the Joint Chiefs office in the Colombian pentagon and put their feet up on the desk and have a conversation with the Colombian Chief of Staff, like, they’d known this guy like he was talking to a lieutenant.

 

Mark Divine 16:13

Right.

 

Scott Mann 16:14

And not in a disrespectful way, but in a way that they’d run the miles together. And man, I just like I fell in love with that. I fell in love with that idea that a segment of our Special Ops population could have that kind of relationship cred in times of duress with partners. So yeah, I stayed there and did that couple of commands until 911 happened, and then we completely reoriented on Southwest Asia and Afghanistan.

 

Mark Divine  16:40  

Right. Yeah. Back to that point. I think that is one of the coolest things. And this is why like in the SEALs, were such a small force. 

 

Scott Mann 16:47

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 16:47

it was pretty routine, like when I was over in Iraq, Commander Wilson, you know, he would grab us an E-five, and most SEALs are E-five or above? 

 

Scott Mann 16:55

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 16:55

You know, send them into town and put a pair of Lieutenant bars on him? 

 

Scott Mann 16:59

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 16:59

He didn’t promote them?

 

Scott Man 17:01

Right. yeah

 

Mark Divine 17:02

He says wear these…

 

Scott Mann 17:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah

 

Mark Divine 17:03

Cuz they could carry their own. And then, you know, when the guys got really deep in, you know, of course, they didn’t need to do that. And it was all about the relationships and the trust that was built. And, you know, we’re actually this is kind of like, what makes the story of Afghanistan and what happened and what you wrote about so terrible for, for the Special Ops, because we had, like genuine relationships built.

 

Scott Mann 17:23

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 17:23

that, you know, and build on trust and promises. 

 

Scott Mann  17:27  

Yeah, there’s something I say in the book in Pineapple Express that, you know, there’s a promise that we make as Special Operators to each other and to our partners, which is I have your back. And sometimes, it’s explicit. And sometimes, it’s implicit, but it’s always there. And I know that you saw this in Iraq, Mark, but you know, we spent the bulk of our youth honoring that promise, I would say, I can tell you, I’m here because of the actions of several partners who stepped into the breach and did some things they didn’t have to do. And so you know, it’s a reciprocal relationship. And I am in awe, honestly, at institutional leaders who scratch their heads and go, what’s the big deal? Like why why are is everybody so up in arms over this and I just, to me, it’s, it’s unfathomable that, after expecting our Special Ops community to build the levels of partnership that we did in this war on terror for two decades, and looking at how we were struck on 911, because of an absence of partnership, to be an antibody to Al Qaeda, like how in the world we could expect anything other than what the Special Ops volunteers did is beyond me.

 

Mark Divine  18:40  

Yeah. Yeah, we’ll come back to that. I’m in agreement in, you know, we have to deal with that, right, because we’re not ultimately in charge. You know, we’re following orders. And and we have to do what the big man says. But let’s talk about your your foray, your initial foray into Afghanistan, I have read stories about the Green Berets and the guys who worked for the Northern Alliance, you know, riding horse riding around in horseback that really was kind of Lawrence of Arabia type stuff, like back to the roots of what you’ve always done. Now you say you’ve been doing it and training with Robert Sage, I mean, everything. But typically, those are with countries that we’ve been in for a long period of time. 

 

Scott Mann 19:18

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 19:18

And yeah, and now suddenly, you’re parachuting into hostile territory and trying to make friends with people that you don’t even know if they’re supposed to be your friends or are willing to be your friends. You don’t know how to trust? What was that? Like?

 

Scott Mann  19:29  

You know, I was not on the original, the initial group that went in, that was the fifth group. But you know, I’ve done a lot of work in that space talking to those guys and capturing lessons learned. And, you know, what I can tell you is that, from an institutional memory perspective, what came out of that, where the quote-unquote horse soldiers went in, you know, made those connections, you know, even in the beginning when they went in, they didn’t have really any pre-existing relationships with Afghans. And I think that’s really important to note. Particularly where we are right now in the world. But, you know, when the Afghan embassy fell, in I think it was 1978. And then the Russia, you know, the Soviets came in, and you had the agency work in, you know, basically, with the Northern Alliance and others through Pakistan. So there wasn’t a ton of direct engagement. And if it was, it was agency; there was no SF involvement in that country for decades. And then you had the Civil War, and then you had the Taliban. So by the time fifth group rolled in, man, then there was no pre-existing relationship with the Northern Alliance. So these guys actually worked with pilot teams from the agency, who brought operators out of retirement.

 

Mark Divine 20:42

No kidding.

 

Scott Mann 20:43

Who had worked with the Northern Alliance years back. And the Jawbreaker teams consisted of at least some guys who were the only guys who had that relationship. I tell you all that because, you know, relationships over the long term in SF, Special Ops hell business, organizational relationships are so important. And when you don’t have them as they’re handed off from one operator to the next, or one detachment to the next, and you have to roll in blind and establish relationships when risk is high. It is not the same thing. And you better bring a lot of cash.

 

Mark Divine  21:18  

So we we go in there, and we, fortunately, we had some relationships, but we did also bring a lot of cash. 

 

Scott Mann 21:24

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 21:24

Like you said. Lots of it, pallet full of cash. 

 

Scott Mann 21:28

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 21:28

And, and that’s, that’s, you know, cash can only buy you so much trust. 

 

Scott Mann 21:32

That’s right. 

 

Mark Divine 21:33

So the trust is built one day at a time by basically saying we’re going to do this for you, and then doing that for them. 

 

Scott Mann 21:40

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 21:40

Yeah, and then rinse and repeat, you know, 

 

Scott Mann 21:42

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 21:42

Then the doing that is not necessarily, you know, like, what people most think of Special Ops is doing is like, you know, helping the set up the school and getting the water, you know, healthy, or building a well, or whatever, you know. So what were the things that that seven-group did that developed those trust relationships, mostly besides going down and chasing down the bad guys?

 

Scott Mann  22:04  

Well, look, I will tell you that for the first ten years of the war, I think it’s a fair statement to say that most of the Special Forces and Special Operations, counterinsurgency engagements on the non-kinetic side, were generally oriented on getting after targets. In other words, I might do a medical treatment thing, but in doing so, I’m looking for information on bad guys while I’m doing. But in 2009, the Special Forces community made a major pivot in how we were engaging, and we really got away from… We’ve very much kind of taken on a direct action role and really kind of gotten away from the by-with and through Lorentzian approach. And so we got back to that. And we did a program called village stability operations. I wrote a book about it called Game Changers but think of it as like a modern-day Magnificent Seven. The SEALs did a good bit of it in Zabul province as well. But basically what it was, was moving into these communities and literally working alongside the villagers growing out the beards, you know, living in the community. And what I would say there, Mark, is, in all the time that I spent in Afghanistan, I found that to be the most profound, impactful experience in that living and working alongside these villagers, these Afghan Special Forces in the day to-day life, getting to know their sources of instability around low tech agriculture, getting to understand the issues they had with dispute resolution and tribal dynamics. Like, I think if I can summarize it, it is really everything in life comes down to what’s local, like people’s local context. And unless you can relate to their pain and be relevant to their goals, it’s really hard to get them to move to take action in a meaningful way. So I would say those were the things that we did, but it took us 10 years to figure it out. It was really too late at that point. So the program only lasted for a couple of years. It was very impactful. But then we kind of reset and went back to the top-down kinetic approach. But that’s what I actually teach her in the civilian world is was that local human connection approach in the day-to-day is where you can really achieve strategic impacts.

 

Mark Divine  24:15  

Why did it go back to the kinetic? Was it just a change in leadership that said, Okay, we got to go back and play Whack a Mole.

 

Scott Mann  24:21  

There were some politics involved on the Afghan side. President Karzai did not really like Special Forces teams being down in the tribal village level. He had some, some concerns with that because he was obviously dabbling in that arena. So he didn’t like, you know, SF guys being there. There were comments made to the National Command Authority here in the United States about it. And so there was a lot of pressure from the Afghan government in some because they made them very nervous, with SF guys and teams being down there at the tribal level, very effective against the Taliban. And we might actually empower local communities to stand up on their own, which is you know, if you look at Afghanistan’s history, In their longest-running period of stability, which was the Musa Hibben. dynasty from the 1920s, to the 1970s. It was a period of time where communities were very autonomous, very empowered, and shared a relationship with the government on civil society. 

 

Mark Divine 25:16

Right. 

 

Scott Mann 25:17

And that’s what we saw. We started to get back to they loved it. But it made a lot of Autocrats very nervous.

 

Mark Divine  25:24  

Interesting.

 

Scott Mann 25:26

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 25:26

So let’s kind of pivot and talk a little bit now, toward the end, right? So, how did the Taliban kind of reconstitute their power? Was it because we kept pulling back? And, you know, we weren’t doing as much work? I mean, what was it that led to the Taliban to gain all their power back and…

 

Scott Mann 25:41

Right 

 

Mark Divine 25:42

And, set themselves up to do what, you know what happened? In the end?

 

Scott Mann  25:45  

I think the first thing we have to consider is that the Taliban mounted what is a rural insurgency. You know, that’s the first thing that we have to understand is that the nature of the insurgency was a rural insurgency. So the power base was in the rural areas, not the urban areas. The prize was the urban areas, right, Kabul, Kandahar, but the actual source of power was out in the rural areas where, you know, if you go any direction in Afghanistan, this is probably true in Iraq as well. If you go a kilometer off the pavement, you’ve really exceeded the reach of the central government. Right. So now, in that realm, it is a bottom-up status, tribal society that handles its own affairs largely. And what had happened was the Soviets had decimated that rural system in the 70s and 80s; they had killed off most of the elders, then you had the Civil War, then you had the Taliban. So there was a complete just destruction of Afghan civil society in these rural areas, and the Taliban knew that. We focused all our effort on the what, on the urban areas, right? We put our people there. So they understood that if we could, if the Taliban could set up shop in these outlying villages and Co-Op the rural Afghans to their narrative, then by the time we started in the cities and got to the villages, they would start in the villages, and they would be at the gates of the city. And that’s exactly what happened with the fall of Kabul, they mounted a patient, multigenerational rural insurgency, and they bled us dry. 

 

Mark Divine  27:17  

Hmm, that makes sense. So I don’t have all the details straight in my head. But if I recall, when Trump was in office, there was some discussion that, hey, we’ve been at this for 20 years. We’re probably not going to be at this forever. So we’re going to figure out how to draw it down and kind of turn this thing over. We’re working on turning it over or creating some sort of partnership relationship with the Taliban, you know, a lot of skepticism that that would have been effective, right? Any kind of partnership with the government, and we knew the Taliban wanted to take it over. But, um, do you think that would have worked? What was the path, in your opinion,, that would have the best chance of success?

 

Scott Mann  27:51  

Yeah, it is totally understandable that both administrations or both sides of the political aisle and a large segment of the American people looked at this 20-year war and said, What are we still doing there? Why are we still there? Why are we involved in this? And I don’t think that the senior military leadership and even guys that operated at my level did a good job of explaining the real nature of this war and the fact that, like, what we were really doing, there was capacity building, ground intelligence capability, and a partner force that was capable of being an antibody, to strategic violent extremism, right. That was ultimately where this thing was heading was we had built a commando force and Afghan Special Forces capability, even an Air Force, special mission wing pilots who they were doing a damn good job of keeping the Taliban off balance. They were carrying 98% of the combat load. 66,000 Afghans were killed in combat, you know like there was a sizable partnership underway, but you’re talking about the army only had been in existence for 19 years. I mean, you know, most 19-year-olds, as my friend Jason House says, you know, how competent are they, you know, we have this fledgling army that like there was no way it was ready to be unilateral. So I think what happened was, we built this army in our own image. We built it to be highly technical and highly reliant on optics and, platforms and contractors. And it was a preferred Western approach that we had. And the reality was it required us to be on station to be at their shoulder to continue to advise them. And when President Trump made the decision to deal directly with the Taliban and leave out the Afghan government, I think the fix was in at that point. It completely obviated the Afghan government, it cut their knees out, and it made them irrelevant. And frankly, their willingness to I think, serve as a partner to us was severely damaged and then, when, you know, the coup de gras was President Biden, after that, following through on that plan and pulling the contractor support out without warning in June, it left the Air Force unable to fly. You know, it was just a series of those kinds of things on both sides of the political aisle, uninformed policy decisions that left us in a place where the House of Cards ultimately just fell.

 

Mark Divine  30:24  

I recognize that that was a tricky problem. And you would have had to have a whole different story to, like, reinvigorate a new strategy, you know, of sustainment and maybe capacity building the story that would have inspired me, and I think Americans is what we did for the women of Afghanistan. 

 

Scott Mann 30:43

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 30:44

An entire generation of women, tasting freedom, tasting education, you know, tasting soccer for the first time and, and being able to participate as not 100%, but you know, beginning to the early spring of being, you know, equals and in that frickin door, nobody talked about that. 

 

Scott Mann 31:03

Right

 

Mark Divine 31:04

That wasn’t, you know, a strategic initiative. But I swear to God, I think our country and our world, just like we see in Ukraine, you know, people said, Yeah, let’s, let’s go Ukraine, they would have said, Let’s go women of Afghanistan, it’s worth, you know, keeping 3000 troops. And by the way, our NATO allies would have probably just jumped on that one, too, right? 

 

Scott Mann 31:22

Yeah

 

Mark Divine 31:23

Cause we’re talking about half the population of the world, who would have backed that. 

 

Scott Mann  31:25  

And, you know, it’s one of the things I talk about in the book is that it was very disappointing when all of this happened. And the collapse happened, you know, there was a real opportunity, I think, to double down and stand up for at-risk women. 

 

Mark Divine 31:39

I agree

 

Scott Mann 31:40

I mean, there were, for example, the the Minister of women’s affairs, the head of was on the run, and asking for help, you know, and ended up coming out through, you know, the Pineapple Express, because there was no government entity to get her out. This was the Minister for Women’s Affairs, you know, like represented represented everything you just said, you know,

 

Mark Divine  32:04  

okay, so let’s, let’s talk about the fall. And you know, what people have equated to, like the fall of Saigon, you know, this completely this mess, right? Suddenly, like, like, we jerked everyone out, didn’t have the support. Now, everyone’s trying to get to the airport and Kabul; what a disaster. What was that? Were you there at that time? Are you out of the country?

 

Scott Mann  32:23  

No, no, no, I was never on the ground. Our approach with pineapple was a remote approach Mark, where we worked, you know, just leveraged relationships and the signal app on our cell phones to basically be the eyes and ears of our partners and help them present them responsibly to the men and women on that gate, so that they knew they were looking at highly vetted individuals that were, you know, at risk, that was our job. And that’s, that’s how we came at it. So when the collapse started to happen, really, for me, it was one individual in Nizam, who was a former Afghan commando and Special Forces NCO who was in duress. You know, there were several of us trying to help him. It was one of those things where, like, I didn’t want to get involved in Afghanistan again. To be honest, with I had been out for 10 years, and I retired from my time in the army, because things were going in a direction I didn’t agree with. So I left. And so, to get back into that was not what I wanted to do. But man, it was complete chaos. I’m telling you, it was one province at a time, falling very rapidly. And it was in a freefall. And you know, our friends like Nizam were in complete duress; they had no options. They had no way out. And for me, looking at him going through that and not surviving, it was like everything that had happened in that country over 20 years was all kind of resting on whether he lived or died. And that’s, I think, for most people who got involved, that’s what it was, it was a personal connection to an individual or individuals that we felt obligated to because of our partnership, relationship over all those years.

 

Mark Divine  33:54  

Right? How many people do you think you, your organization, which wasn’t an organization at that time, but you know, it’s become one, how many people do you think your, your network, and others really helped get out of the country?

 

Scott Mann  34:07  

Yeah, you know, that’s, that’s a great point you make is that like, all of these groups, you know, like Dunkirk and Sacred Promise and Moral Compass and Pineapple, they all come across as if they were like these task forces, but in reality, is a bunch of retired old farts, you know, like trying to do what they can. And you know, as my buddy Duke says, it was trying to solve an Uncle Sam sized problem with our pension funds. You know, it was just way, way out over our skis. But it was a group of volunteers, both active duty and veterans who, who formed these ad hoc signal rooms, basically. And it was very, very spontaneous. It was a self-organizing system in many ways, Mark, and it was all around this notion of honoring the promise. It was all around this notion of just connecting and trying to help our friends And, and it grew, and it grew. And it grew until the ISIS K explosion, you know, at the end of August, and that shut everything down. Really. I mean, the the efforts are still underway to this day. They’re still volunteer groups who are still actively trying to get allies out of there. But it has become almost impossible.

 

Mark Divine  35:19  

Really? 

 

Scott Mann 35:19

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 35:20

Why did the explosion shut it down? That was our government that said, don’t do that anymore. It’s too dangerous or?

 

Scott Mann  35:27  

Yeah, I mean, because the Neo or the Noncombatant Evacuation that was spearheaded by the 2nd was already wrapping up, you know, so we knew that somewhere around the 31st of August, the last plane was going to leave Afghanistan.

 

Mark Divine  35:39  

So you were just trying to get people vetted to be on those planes? 

 

Scott Mann 35:42

Yes, that’s it

 

Mark Divine 35:44

There really not much you can do unless you were to fly over there yourselves. And there’s no,there’s no way to get into the country. There’s no way…

 

Scott Mann  35:50  

Right. And you know, guys like Glenn Beck and others sponsored these these massive aircraft, airlifts that happened. And that was great. But we were kind of just taking it one thing at a time, which was how many can we get out now? Before they leave. And then the other ticking clock was a lot of people knew that there was an ISIS K bomber, you know, floating. And this was an emerging threat that people were talking about it. Taliban were even talking about it. So it became two ticking clocks; you had the, you know, the 31 August deadline. And then you had this unknown bomb threat that was lurking around at the gate. So it became kind of this frantic push to get as many people out as possible, I would estimate, and this is an estimate, that somewhere around, you know, 750 at-risk Afghans were evacuated with pineapple connections and direct involvement before the explosion. And then, you know, all told, maybe 1000, several weeks after that, we were able to overtime, get several 100 out, but there were 1000s and 1000s. Left Behind, you know, that we were unable to affect?

 

Mark Divine  36:55  

And what do you think their fate is right now? Are they able to assimilate and kind of go to ground? Are they known entities where their lives were at risk?

 

Scott Mann  37:02  

It’s a great question. I think the commandos and the Afghan Special Operations Forces are severely at risk. And that’s being borne out in so many ways. They’re being hunted and targeted by the Taliban by the Haqqani Network. One of my fears is that they’re starting to be co-opted by Iran, Pakistan, ISIS, and CO opted for use as potential terror, opportunity opportunities, or even fighting in Ukraine.

 

Mark Divine 37:28

Right

 

Scott Mann 37:28

You know, which is a huge problem.

 

Mark Divine  37:30  

It is a big problem. Why is this such a big deal to you beyond, you know, the code? I mean, what other meaning does this have to us? As a nation, do you think?

 

Scott Mann  37:40  

Well, I think for me, it’s, it’s about once about national security. That’s I think the reason that the veteran population is so upset about this is because they recognize that one, if we’re going to deal with near-peer threats, like Iran and Russia, or we’re going to deal with al Qaeda or ISIS, it’s not going to be unilateral. We’re going to be dealing with surrogates, and we’re going to work with partners. And right now, our partnership cred is shit. You know, and it goes all the way back to the monton yards in Vietnam, the Kurds in Syria, the Iraqi police, the Iraqi military, and now the Afghan military and police have all been left by this just systemic abandonment, this wholesale abandonment that we tend to do when policy conflicts start to happen. And our young Green Berets, our young SEALs, we have really put them in a tenuous position to go do partnership work around the world. I worry about that. And I think a lot of veterans do. But then also I think that Afghanistan has become a playground. Al Qaeda is reconstituting right now Bin Laden’s son, Zawahiri’s son-in-law, or in Afghanistan. ISIS has moved their flag from Syria to Afghanistan. And now we have evidence that the Iranians and the Russians are recruiting commandos to go fight in Ukraine, like, I mean, 

 

Mark Divine  38:59

People that we’ve trained, yeah.

 

Scott Mann  39:01  

these are our partners that are being mobilized, co-opted. And so it does represent, and I think that more than anything, after fighting and bleeding for a partner force for 20 years because of what happened on 911. And then to literally turn the page on it and be stuck back in that, again, is not it’s just, it’s hard. It doesn’t sit well with veterans. And I think that’s why they’re so involved in this.

 

Mark Divine  39:23  

Yeah. Last time we spoke, you made a comment to me, which struck me is like, Where were all the senior officers? 

 

Scott Mann 39:31

Yeah. 

 

Mark Divine 39:31

Where was their voice? Because the people 

 

Scott Mann 39:33

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 39:33

Cause the people speaking out about this and saying, Hey, this is wrong are real. We’re like mostly NCOs and J. O’s. 

 

Scott Mann 39:39

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 39:40

Right. You didn’t hear a peep from the Generals?

 

Scott Mann  39:43  

No, man. It’s such a good comment, Mark. I mean, look at the public space right now. Like just look at the public space, and you really don’t see very many active or former flag officers or senior enlisted advisors talking about the accountability of this thing. We’ve had one public hearing in Congress. I mean, are you kidding me? Like, there’s not a lot of conversation around the moral injury and the mental health tsunami that I think we’re on the front end of right now that we’re probably going to feel. And I interviewed dozens and dozens of really iconic Special Operators who spent years on the teams and years in the groups and the OTAs. And they’re all saying the same thing. Where are the Generals? Like, where are they right now? You know, set politics aside, set accountability aside, how do we move forward from here? I think we really need senior leaders to step into the space, even if it’s former senior leaders, and start to give us their words of wisdom and their leadership on how we move forward from here as an institution because this has had a devastate if you look at recruiting, look at retention, you know, public trust in the military dropped 11 points since August. 81%, spike in calls to the VA hotline. I mean, like, you know, this isn’t, I mean, the numbers bear this out. So I really am looking for, I think, more overt leadership from our senior officers right now.

 

Mark Divine  41:07  

Well, I think that my personal view on that is that what we’ve seen happening in the last couple of years with the pandemic and the silencing of any kind of dissenting opinion toward, you know, vaccine safety and all these things, the censorship, yeah, canceled culture, all of that insidiousness has put a lot of fear into people who formerly would have felt like they have a platform or the capacity to step out. And so just shows you that, you know…

 

Scott Mann 41:36

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 41:37

…what can happen when you start to, you know, have these kinds of totalitarian tendencies. 

 

Scott Mann 41:42

Yeah.

 

Mark Divine 41:43

the courageous ones don’t always step up and speak out against it, because they don’t want to be the next one decapitated.

 

Scott Mann  41:50  

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard like GOs. And flag officers say, Scott, like, you know, I can’t get involved in this. I mean, I appreciate what you’re doing. But, you know, I have to stay in the shadows on this.

 

Mark Divine  42:02  

is kind of fucked up, isn’t it? I

 

Scott Mann 42:03

It is.

 

Mark Divine 42:04

It is that really a slippery slope? In my opinion, you know,

 

Scott Mann  42:07  

I’ll tell you this between, you know, just on this call, I’ve had very, very highly placed officers in the military whose PAOs and others have been handlers had said to me, the slippery slope going the other way, like, because I’ve said, you know, a lot of people in the veteran community are disillusioned with the leadership, and they are wondering why no one resigned, you know, and I had this slippery slope thing thrown back at me like it’s, do you want Generals and Admirals resigning when they disagree with leadership? And I’m like when it’s immoral? Yes, I do. You know, and that’s how that’s my personal opinion. But I think a lot of individuals feel this was just egregious. And the page has just been turned. And it’s just like, just move on. I don’t think particularly when you consider the fact that Afghanistan could very easily follow us home, what comes out of this, you know, the shadow on this administration, and, frankly, the administration before it, might not be the abandonment, but rather, the cataclysmic attack that follows on the homeland as a result of the safe haven that was re re empowered. And I think veterans get that. And they understand that, and they’re not good with that.

 

Mark Divine  43:19  

Right. It’s a what’s considered a wicked problem. 

 

Scott Mann 43:22

It is a wicked problem, indeed. 

 

Mark Divine 43:24

And the wicked from that doesn’t have any answer. 

 

Scott Mann  43:27  

Yeah, no, it really does. And I just think that the key is we got to communicate with each other, we got to talk to each other, we got to take care of each other. We need to, I think, pay attention to our veterans, who are the moral compass of this nation. I think they’re what they’re talking about in terms of the Afghan problem and the mental health issues and all that goes with it. We need to hear them. Because this systemic habit of abandonment has got to stop. If we’re going to continue to be relevant in the world.

 

Mark Divine  43:55  

It’s a great place to put a pin in it. To your book operation Pineapple Express, I saw that you were a New York Times Best Seller already. You just released congratulations. That’s phenomenal. 

 

Scott Mann  44:06  

Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. And thanks for giving us a voice here.

 

Mark Divine  44:10  

I’m happy that they gave you the attention.

 

Scott Mann  44:13  

Yeah, yeah, I was surprised. I really was surprised. And I think what it shows is that a lot of Americans do care about this. 

 

Mark Divine 44:18

Yes

 

Scott Mann 44:18

And they understand that you know, what I would leave people with too is that this? Yes, there’s a lot of pain around this. But there’s also a lot of pride in the fact that you know, our veterans and other volunteers. When they saw that nobody else was coming. They stepped into the arena, and they lead, and they showed us what leadership looks like. And at that moment, that was their Pineapple Express. And I think we’re in a place in this country where we need leaders civilians to do the same thing is that’s what’s your Pineapple Express and step in there and lead even when you don’t know how it’s gonna go, or you don’t have a title because that’s, I think, what might pull the country back.

 

Mark Divine  44:54  

I agree. And that’s why we and our teammates are doing what we do. We can show through our example and through our teachings that there is a way to lead with courage, lead with an open heart, not a fist, and also to be accountable to our actions and to admit that we don’t have all the answers, but you know, we’re gonna together figure things out a better path forward. 

 

Scott Mann 45:15

Yeah, 100% 

 

Mark Divine 45:16

It’s very different than the type of leadership we’ve been, you know, exhibited in the boardroom and in the political offices. And I think that if people are kind of done with that.

 

Scott Mann  45:25  

They are, they are bottom-up leadership and Grassroots Leadership. Robert Putnam wrote a wonderful book called The Upswing that talks about in the early 1900s, when Americans, you know, did a very similar thing to what you’re doing Mark with what you’re building with your community, and where leaders just said, you know, what, nobody’s going to get me sober. Let’s have a meeting. And they called it Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, in the Rotary Club and the Junior League, and really all of the organizations of social capital that we grew up with as kids were started in the early 1900s as an unprecedented movement of bottom-up leadership. So there’s actually a macro-level precedent for that in our country. And Putnam believes, and I do, too, that we are on the precipice of another upswing. In fact, I think Pineapple and Dunkirk and all these things that happened and what you’re building is kind of that first shot across the bow of Americans stepping back and taking their country back. And I think we can.

 

Mark Divine  46:16  

agree. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Scott, for your time, thanks for your service, both in and out in uniform and Pineapple Express. You find that wherever books are, where can people find you and learn more about your work?

 

Scott Mann  46:28  

Yes, thanks. If you go to ScottMann.com to ends, all of my body of work is there the nonprofit and our play Last Out. All of the work that we’re doing with Afghanistan, ways to get the book? Yeah, absolutely. ScottMann.com has all of it there, and we’d love people to check it out.

 

Mark Divine  46:43  

Awesome. And social media, anything there that you know, people can hashtag you and find you and follow you.

 

Scott Mann  46:48  

Pretty much anything. I think Scott Mann is my handle on all of it or Rooftop Leader. I’ll shoot those over to you as well.

 

Mark Divine  46:55  

Rooftop Leader, Awesome. All right, Scott, Hooyah!

 

Scott Man 46:58

Thank you, brother. 

 

Mark Divine  46:59  

Stay focused and stay safe and keep charging. 

 

Scott Mann 47:02

Alright, Thanks so much, Mark.

 

Mark Divine

Lead the Way, or Rangers lead the way. What Special Forces do? Ha, ha ha…

 

Scott Mann  47:08  

they presa libera. They free the oppressed.

 

Mark Divine  47:09  

Free the oppressed. There you go. Okay. Well, you’re doing a good job with that!

 

Scott Mann  47:13  

Right on, brother. Thank you, now.

 

Mark Divine 47:14

All right, brother, take care.

 

Transcribed by Catherine and https://otter.ai