The Righteous Arrows – Brian J. Morra (INTERVIEW) – Episode 93

The Buddy Book Club podcast was extra intelligent this week. That’s because the Buddies sat down with former U.S. intelligence officer and award-winning author Brian J. Morra to discuss his new book, The Righteous Arrows. The second book in the Able Archers Series takes place in war-torn Afghanistan in the 1980s and once again follows characters Kevin Cattani and Ivan Levchenko. The Buddies got to ask questions about Brian’s writing style, the ripple effects of the conflicts discussed in the book, his thoughts on the OSI, and they even got a sneak peak of the upcoming books. So, join us and pick up the newly released The Righteous Arrows now!

Intro (0:00-1:46)
Interview w/Author Brian J. Morra (1:47-40:01)
Stock Up/Down (40:02-53:42)
Favorite Scene (53:43-55:32)
Love/Hate (55:33-1:01:27)
Conclusion (1:01:29-1:03:51)

NEXT BOOK: Columbus Day by Craig Alanson

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to the Buddy Book Club.
I’m Dylan here with my undercover brother.
Keith, what’s up, buddy?
Hey, how’s it going?
Have you seen Undercover Brother?
Back in the day, maybe.
It’s better than you would think.
I actually think it’s decently rated on Rotten Tomatoes,
too, like high 70s.
Oh, is that the scene that’s get it pop and done?
Thanks, though, yeah.
Have you ever seen that one where the white guy’s
dancing to that?
That’s a really great scene.
Yeah, I did.
That’s it.
All right, well, here at The Buddy Book Club,
we’re breaking down some best sellers.
And this week, we’ll be discussing The Righteous Arrows
by Brian J. Mora.
The book is hot off the presses.
It was just released on April 16th.
And today, we are fortunate to talk with Brian about the book.
So it should be a lot of fun.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach
out to us today, past episodes, you can visit our website,
buddybookhub.com.
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can see, podcast.
So please download, give us a review, five stars.
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But still give us five stars.
If nothing else, give us a follow on the social channels,
please.
And thanks.
Keith, do we want to go straight into our interview with Brian?
Let’s get it.
It’s a longer interview.
We’ve done a few of these, and this is a longer one.
But we’re talking to an actual intelligence officer.
It’s kind of crazy to think about.
Who allowed us to do that?
Who came up the right to do that?
Don’t make any sense, but.
So the two of us sit down with the author, who is,
and you’ll gear, an actual intelligence officer,
and a lot of good stuff in there.
So it’s longer, but it’s all fun, and he was a great sport,
so we appreciate him coming on.
Yeah, we’ll take you right to the interview,
and then we’ll get to our normal categories afterwards.
So here, enjoy.
All right, well, let’s jump into it.
Brian Moore, thanks again for coming.
He is a retired Air Force Intelligence Officer and Aerospace
Executive who has taken his talents
to the literary world.
His first novel, The Able Archers,
was a hit with the fans and critics alike,
winning the National Indie Excellence Award
for Best Historical Military Fiction.
He is sitting down with us today
to discuss his newest novel, The Righteous Arrows.
Brian, welcome to The Body Book Club.
Thank you, thank you, Dylan.
Thank you, Keith.
Happy to be with you.
Absolutely.
So as a writer and kind of your writing career,
just taking root, were you surprised by the success
of your debut novel, The Able Archers?
Everything about writing books is surprised me, yes.
Yeah, it’s been kind of a wild roller coaster ride,
but was happy to see, of course, the positive reception
that The Able Archers received,
and I’m hoping for the same with The Righteous Arrows.
And so far, it looks pretty good.
So yes, I was pleasantly surprised.
Yeah, well, we both thoroughly enjoyed it,
so I’m sure everyone else will.
One thing from the book and your firsthand experience
working at the Pentagon and being an intelligence officer,
I noticed there’s a lot of egos and nepotism
that seems a bit rampant in that community.
Is that true to what the book was kind of portraying,
and how frustrating is it to do your job
while you have people that maybe don’t have the experience
or expertise somewhere else making decisions?
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of truth
and the way I depict the inner workings
of the intelligence community and the military.
And in fact, last week I was doing an interview
with one of the organizations of former intelligence officers,
the biggest one, actually, in the United States.
And I was being interviewed by their president
who’s a retired, very senior CIA operations officer.
And he was talking with me mostly about The Righteous Arrows
because it was the launch of the new book last week.
And he really keyed in on, he said,
I know every one of those guys that you’re depicting.
Yeah.
I’ve met them.
And he mentioned one in particular in The Righteous Arrows.
Who?
Rand Bottoms?
Rand Bottoms, of course.
And he said, I know that guy.
I’ve met hundreds of them.
I think what you’re getting at with your question also
is one of the underlying themes of both books,
both the able archers and The Righteous Arrows.
And it’s probably brought out in sharper relief
in The Righteous Arrows.
And that is the theme of disconnect
between what people are seeing on the ground
and what decision makers, policymakers, back in Washington
are doing based on their perception of reality.
And that’s something, again, that interview
where Keeter and not in the book, he was an operations officer.
So he spent most of his career overseas.
And that’s something that I wanted
to make more of a major theme in The Righteous Arrows.
So I’m glad you picked up on that.
Yeah.
And even how it trickles down to the general public
through media outlets, even him picking up
the Wall Street Journal at the end
and just reading that op entries, they’re whatever.
It’s just like, oh, great.
This is not at all what’s happening.
And I just came back from there.
Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that little vignette
because I wrote that purposefully to, again,
give the reader that sense of disconnect
and almost of living in a parallel universe.
And I’ve had that sensation many times back
when I was a younger man and back during my days
as an intelligence officer, where you just
get that sense that, oh, my goodness, either I’m really,
really wrong about things or the other guys,
the guys back in cubicles in Washington
are just living in an alternate reality.
So for The Righteous Arrows, which
is the sequel to your first novel, The Able Archers,
with the two main characters returning for another clash,
but it also acts as a standalone novel.
Is it difficult to write a sequel while also knowing
that some readers are going to be picking up this book
without first having read The Able Archers?
In a word, yes.
It’s a bit of a challenge because you
want to try to strike the right balance between making
references to the earlier novel without confusing the reader
or making the reader feel like, well, I’m not really sure
what’s going on.
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
So what I attempted to do, and my wife, who is my editor,
helped me a great deal with this with The Righteous Arrows,
was I tried to give it a light touch,
allude to things, and give the reader enough information
in The Righteous Arrows such that if they had not read
The Able Archers, they’d still be
able to kind of get the nuance or get the reference,
and then move on with the story that’s in front of them.
Yeah.
And I think that was successful because we didn’t have
the privilege, unfortunately, of reading The Able Archers,
although I will go back now and check that out.
But the way that you did it, you could tell the relationship
between Yvonne and Kevin was there,
and it more made you want to go back and learn more about that.
And I think it also helps for people,
because I’ve read, you know, some of you read a sequel,
and after reading the first book,
you realize the first 100 pages is just rehashing
what had already happened in the first novel.
And so that can be a bit frustrating,
but I think you were, like you said,
had that light touch here, and we’re able to do that successfully.
Yeah, well, thank you.
I hope I did.
You write in more of a first person in journal entry format,
and at one point, I had to go back and be like,
wait, is this a fiction novel, or is this?
But what percentage of this book would you say is real,
or may have happened, or, you know,
I don’t know how much you can divulge there?
He might have to kill us if he tells us.
Yeah, yeah, right, exactly.
And use a writer, is it easier to write first person
or third person, or how do you go about choosing that?
Yeah, that’s a very good question.
When I started writing The Able Archer’s,
the first book, which is also written in the same fashion,
and with the same format, essentially,
I was into the writing a bit,
I don’t recall how far along I was,
but I made the judgment that I think I need to write
this first person, because I want to put the reader
right inside the head of these two individuals,
and it’s a little unusual to do first person narration
with two characters, and that’s what I’m doing,
as you know, with Kevin Katani,
and then with Ivan Lefchenko.
And I thought that it would honestly make it
a little easier for me to write it,
and then I also thought, more importantly,
that it would give more immediacy
to the reading experience,
and it would enable the reader to kind of inhabit
these two individuals, and be right there in the room,
or whatever the setting might be with them.
So that was why I did it that way.
Much like The Able Archer’s,
this is based on real events,
so the history is accurate,
and I had to do a fair amount of research
to make sure the history was correct,
even though I lived through some of these events.
What I do in terms of my personal experience
in both of these books is it does lean
on my personal experience,
but what I also do is blend my experience
with that of former colleagues,
and things I knew that they did
or experiences that happened to them.
So that’s on the Kevin Catan side of The Ledger,
on the Ivan Lefchenko side.
I created the Russian character Ivan Lefchenko
based on my interactions back in the 1980s,
mainly with defectors, with Soviet KGB and defectors.
And so I got to know these defectors very well
because we would spend lots of time with them,
we would travel with them, we’d go out to dinner with them,
and to an extent that was impossible with active,
let’s say GRU officers,
and GRU is Soviet military intelligence,
I should point out.
KGB was the civilian intelligence
and security service of the Soviet Union.
We did interact in Germany, for example,
with active duty GRU officers,
and you picked up, definitely you picked up
important elements from them,
but it was the defectors that we were able
to really spend a lot of time with,
and so they influenced how I wrote Lefchenko very heavily.
And what I tried to do was in Lefchenko,
I wanted to make him a sympathetic character,
I wanted him to be not a stereotypical ogre.
So what I did is thinking of those defectors I do,
I blended into him or I encapsulated in him
the best characteristics of those guys.
So let’s make this kind of my ideal GRU officer.
Including their affinity for American country,
Western music?
Yes, exactly.
Have you gotten any pushback from the intelligence community
or have anyone snocked in your door and said,
hey, you can’t have that in the book,
or is it now that we’re 30 to four years out,
get a little bit more away with stuff?
Well, both of these books have gone through
the full total nine yards of clearance review
with both the Department of Defense
and the intelligence community.
Oh, wow, I didn’t know that was a thing.
Because even though I’m writing fiction,
it’s based on real events,
and in both of these books,
there are things I talk about that in some cases
have never been discussed before openly.
So I wanted to make sure the FBI
would not be knocking at my door.
Yeah, right.
I wanted to get pre-explorist.
It was my wife, she’s the editor.
Yeah, yeah.
And right, so I go through that process
and in terms of redactions,
there were some redactions in the righteous arrows.
I probably shouldn’t say which agencies,
but that they demanded shockingly for me
in the able archers, one of the intelligence agencies
held up the able archers for quite a few months.
And then at the end of the day,
they requested no redactions.
They let me publish it as it was.
And I did do some self-editing.
I write something, I’d say,
yeah, I better not say it.
And I would pull it out.
But yeah, so the books go through this process
and they’ve got the seal of approval
from both the DOD and the intelligence community.
And it’s my understanding that a lot of this material
was only fairly recently declassified,
is that correct?
Yes, and that’s especially true of the able archers.
It’s also true of the righteous arrows,
but it’s more true of the able archers
where most of the events around the great
Soviet nuclear war crisis of 1983,
which is what the able archers focus is on.
Most of those events were kept highly classified
by the US government until 2015, 2016.
And in fact, they’re still keeping things classified.
But there’s a war story about one particular document
that was declassified in February 2022.
And then CIA sued in federal court to have it reclassified.
And in October 2022, a decision came down
from federal court reclassified.
How do you do that?
If the cat’s already out of the bag.
And that’s what I put in mind as a former director of CIA.
And I asked him about that.
I said, you know, there is the internet exists.
Yeah, right.
It’s what’s on the internet.
It’s out there.
And he took his head and said, I know,
I don’t know what they’re doing.
Oh, that doesn’t bring attention to it.
It makes people look at that probably more.
That was my argument that you’re just throwing a spotlight on it.
There’s still a lot of sensitivity
around that 83 nuclear war crisis,
which was just as bad as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
There was a lot of sensitivity.
And the redactions came from some of the personalities
that I was writing about.
Again, ask me demanded that I take those out.
Also, we’re sensitive to some locations
that I was talking about.
So I took those out.
And I don’t think any of those redactions
had a material impact on the right to Zeros.
But I also still have security clearances.
So I want to stay on the good side of the law.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, it’s a good thing they didn’t
redact the red-haired major because he was a great character.
I don’t know if that’s based on a real person or not,
but he was a fun character to read, that’s for sure.
Yes, the red nature is based on a real person.
Amazing.
Amazing.
Got to meet this guy.
So one of the things I love about the book as well
is the appendices.
With all the acronyms that are inevitable
when government and military organizations are involved,
I mean, even on the 20 minutes we’ve talked,
you had to explain to us a couple.
So I appreciate that.
It’s nice to be able to quickly reference them.
And then also the biographies of the protagonists.
It’s just made the book seem real.
I don’t know if as you’re writing the book
to help with the writing process,
you put these biographies together,
but I liked them being in there
because it made them feel like real characters.
Is this something that you came up with between the appendices?
I mean, even the timeline of the Soviet Afghanistan war
in there was helpful to put everything in context.
So is this something that you came up with?
And why don’t more people do it?
Because I thought it was a great addition to the book
and I don’t see it that often.
Yeah, thank you for saying that.
I did come up with that myself.
I guess it’s in my view, it’s about helping the reader.
And many people are just not familiar with these events.
I don’t remember in some cases
that I’ve remembered the Soviets had a war in Afghanistan.
I thought it would be helpful for people
and I did it in the able archers as well.
And it seemed to work there.
So I thought I’ll just continue it.
The biographies, that’s an interesting point you make.
Were those, is that kind of an outline in a way?
And I probably should have done it that way,
but I didn’t.
The biographies are kind of, I do them after the fact,
after I’ve written and seen where the characters
are going and then I try to summarize their life stories.
And in the future books I’m writing in this series,
I’ll continue to do the same thing with the appendices.
Yeah, hopefully other authors catch on.
Especially those fantasy authors who have 10,000 characters
with these crazy names that you can’t even follow.
It’s like I need that at the front of the book.
Let me have all the characters listed out
so I can go back and reference who they are.
So yeah, I thought that was a great addition.
And the name of the book itself, The Righteous Arrows,
is a reference to the Stinger Missiles.
The US government was covertly supplying to the Mujahideen.
It was just the tail end of the war, correct?
Yeah, the Stinger’s did not start showing up until 1986
and the Soviets were completely out of Afghanistan
by early 89.
Yeah, it was certainly the last third of the war.
Although effective at dampening Soviet air superiority,
our main characters express concern over the ripple effect
and handing over smart weapons to Islamic fundamentalists.
Do you feel that sharing these technologically advanced
weapons directly influenced the rise of Islamic terrorism
we saw in the fallout of the Soviet Afghan war
and are still seeing today?
Well, here’s what I believe.
I think that the supply of Stinger’s
and other advanced weaponry during the Soviet war
in Afghanistan served to help militarize Afghanistan’s side,
which despite popular misconceptions
was not a militarized society previously to the Soviet war.
I’m not placing all the blame on the United States.
I mean, the Soviet Union was the main actor
in militarizing the society.
But what occurred was that much like our own war
in Afghanistan,
Afghanistan became a magnet for jihadists
in the Soviet war.
And you had people showing up from Europe,
from Africa, from the Middle East, of course,
and they were getting supplied
not only by the United States,
but China was supplying these Islamic rebels
and there was supplied coming from Saudi Arabia
and from Iran.
And it was again, not unlike our own experience.
So I think what I’m suggesting in the book
is that yes, this war, including our supply
of advanced weaponry, opened Pandora’s box.
Even though we never supplied weapons to al-Qaeda,
we still militarized elements of Afghan society.
And then worse, once the Soviets withdrew, so did we.
And we left these different warring elements
to their own devices.
And what ensued was a number of years of civil war
inside of Afghanistan.
And it also helped to facilitate,
ultimately, the rise of al-Qaeda.
Yeah, we didn’t supply al-Qaeda,
but al-Qaeda was empowered by what happened in Afghanistan
during the Soviet war and afterwards.
And in many ways, it set us all on the road to 9-11.
It’s fascinating just the idea of during the Cold War
all of these proxy wars that took place
and like I was saying before, the ripple effect
through time that that has.
And I think you captured that really well
in the righteous arrows.
Early in the righteous arrows,
I talk about Kevin Katani’s experience in Southeast Asia
in Cambodia, specifically with the Khimir Rouge
and the Khimir Rouge were born out of the war in Vietnam.
And the path that Lao who were Laocean communists
similarly were born out of this conflict in Vietnam.
So Vietnam spawned all sorts of nastiness
to beyond the borders of Vietnam.
And Vietnam was a proxy war
between the Soviet Union and the United States.
And most people in my generation and older
of the Vietnam generation of which I’m not quite part,
but even to this day, they don’t really understand that.
That that’s what Vietnam was.
It was a proxy war.
And by the mid 1980s, one of the motivations,
and I saw this firsthand at CIA
for supplying to Mujahideen was revenge.
This was all about payback for Vietnam.
Yes, this was payback.
And there were CIA officers that I worked with
who were adamant and very open
that that was their motivation.
Interesting.
I mean, there is conversation in the book
between discussing what the objectives are.
Is the objective to kill Russians
or is the objectives to get them out of Afghanistan?
And it wasn’t really clear what the objective was.
So the idea being a little bit of both
probably makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, it was both.
And especially at CIA, I saw that there more than,
well, they were running the covert war.
So it was logical it would be there more
than anywhere else, I guess.
But yeah, it was a very, very, very strong element
of retribution.
Yeah, makes sense.
And the righteous arrows, as you pointed out,
the title comes from what some of the Mujahideen
called the stingers.
And the full phrase was the righteous arrows
of retribution because they were trying to get revenge
against the Soviet Air Force that had devastated
so many of their villages, killed tens of thousands
of civilians.
So the stingers for them were payback,
for the hurt they had endured.
And for CIA officers, the stingers were payback
for the hurt we had endured in Vietnam.
It must be fascinating to have been one of those tribesmen
who is trying to take down Soviet helicopters with RPGs
and small arms fire.
And next thing you know, you’re good
and handed this stinger missile,
which can use the heat signature of the helicopter.
And all of a sudden it’s down.
It must have been like getting the most advanced technology
at the time.
It must have been wild, honestly.
It was a game changer.
There’s no question about it.
And for your listeners, there’s an excellent movie
about the Soviet war in Afghanistan
called Charlie Wilson’s war that stars Tom Hanks
as Congressman Charlie Wilson, who was a real person
and he has a cameo appearance in the righteous arrows.
Charlie Wilson does, not Tom Hanks.
Oh, yeah.
And so Tom Hanks plays this congressman
who was instrumental in getting the CIA the money
to supply the stingless.
Is he the Texas congressman
that gets brought up a couple of times?
Correct. Yes.
Okay, I picked up on a couple of movie references
and I didn’t pick up on that one.
And I’m a big movie buff guy over here.
So, because I haven’t seen it.
It’s on my list.
I just haven’t seen it yet.
So it’s getting knocked up to the top of the list
and I’ll be watching it soon.
I recommend it with the highest of recommendations.
It’s very good.
Sold me.
I’m gonna ask more lighthearted ones now.
I know we’ve got some serious questions.
So, in no offense to the OSI,
but the OSI of the United States Air Force Office
of Special Investigations,
basically like the HR of Air Force.
And before I’m getting up on the book, right?
Does everyone hate them or is that maybe your opinion
or is that actually what I should take away
or no offense to them?
But I’m just, that’s kind of what I took away from the book.
The OSI, yes.
The Office of Special Investigations
is the Air Force version of NCIS,
which is the famous television series
that’s been like 300 years now.
And I think that as an intelligence officer,
and they’re the counterintelligence people
within the Air Force, the OSI,
they’re the ones that are counterintelligence.
So as an intelligence officer,
we kind of had a love-hate relationship with them.
Seems like more hate, but yeah, okay.
Yeah, I’m.
Yeah.
I went a little, maybe a little overboard with that
in the rest of the night.
This is how I felt.
And a lot of what I described in terms of the interaction
with the OSI at Bowling Air Force Base in Washington, DC,
which is, I think what you’re referring to,
a lot of it actually happened.
So I was kind of channeling things actually happened.
So they do a very important mission.
And for any of your listeners who may be OSI agents
or family members.
Let us know.
Let us know.
Please, please, if they’re out there,
I wanted some reader emails about that.
They do an important mission.
My hat’s off to them.
It’s like when you watch The Wire
and they just talk about it, you know, internal affairs
or whatnot, and they’re always,
they’re always griping on them.
But yeah, yeah.
There are a few movie references in the book.
Charlie Wilson’s Boy I didn’t pick up on,
but Apocalypse Now was touched on
the man who would be king also touched on.
I feel like those two are kind of similar movies.
And although not an explicit movie reference,
the commander of the GRU Special Forces
is named Visily Zitesf, who some may know
is a Soviet war hero and the focus of the movie
and enemy at the gates.
So are you a big war movie buff?
Is that why you put that in those in there
or just happened to be watching them as you’re writing?
What a great question.
I wasn’t watching them as I was writing,
but I was channeling those memories, I think.
And I think that, you know, with respect to Apocalypse Now,
which is for those of you who don’t know,
is a great Francis Ford Coppola movie about Vietnam.
A lot of Katani’s experience in Cambodia was kind of that ilk.
And then when Katani goes to Pakistan for the first time
and he sees the high mountains and he’s revived,
he is seen, he himself has seen the man who would be king.
So and he was a reader of Kipling and other books
about British wars in Afghanistan.
So I didn’t really consciously, I guess semi-consciously,
I had to be referencing those.
But, and I didn’t reference Charlie Wilson’s war specifically
because that had not been made yet, right?
So that’s a fairly good movie.
Good point.
And so I didn’t want there to be a disconnect historically.
I can only have Katani reference things
that would have appeared in his day and age.
And then Zaitsev, yeah, I thought it would be kind of interesting
to have a character named Zaitsev.
And I was thinking of this real person who is a hero
of the great patriotic war is the Soviets called World War II
of Asalee Zaitsev.
And I use that name because I wanted to set up
this kind of generational disconnect between Levchenko,
who’s in his mid 40s and these young conscripts
in Afghanistan, Levchenko knows who.
Yeah, but they don’t even have any idea who he is.
They have no idea.
You know, they have no idea who he is.
And it kind of brings Levchenko a little bit down to reality,
I guess, in the sense that, oh, these kids
are from a completely different generation.
Their experience is so different than mine.
And I need to kind of meet them where they live
and not expect them to know what I know.
Do you have a favorite war movie?
Ooh.
Well, I am kind of partial to Apocalypse Now,
which may say something about the darkness of my soul.
I don’t know.
But that movie made a big impression on me.
And actually, I saw that it was released
when I was a very young intelligence officer
and doing some things like Captain Willard was doing.
And it kind of really resonated with me.
And I think a lot of us in that age identified,
if we were young intel officers at the time,
a lot of us probably identified in some way, shape,
or form anyway with Captain Willard.
That was my dad’s favorite.
He probably let me watch it at too young of an age,
but I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time.
I’m more of a lightheart, dirty dozen does it for me.
I like a half-serious, half-covity.
That’ll do it.
I mean, obviously, there’s so many good ones.
But if you like Apocalypse Now, there’s a,
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but there’s a documentary
of the making of that movie called Hearts of Darkness,
which is really good.
It’s crazy what they went through to make that movie.
It’s wild.
It is.
It’s like they were going for it.
Yeah, exactly.
Co-pul wanted them to feel like they were doing that.
It was a really interesting one.
And then also, Katani during the Soviet bunker raid,
he randomly says, Viacondios.
And he’s like, I don’t know why I said that.
But I know that’s in point break, the greatest film of 1991.
So I don’t know if you were channeling
a little Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze,
but I love the line.
It’s a great line.
Yeah, I was thinking of point break.
Oh, yes.
Actually, but I, again, I think that this did come more
from real life and what Katani actually said to this guy.
To this OSI guy.
But I was actually thinking, I guess from point break,
is that it’s so good.
Awesome.
And I think it’s from one of the Terminator movies, too.
I think Arnold Schwartz and Eggers’ character.
He does a hostile Avista baby.
He does a hostile Avista.
I think if Katani said hostile Avista baby,
it would have taken you out of the moment.
Viacondios is a better choice.
It’s a better choice.
Point break is a better reference point.
100% couldn’t agree with you more.
I heard that in the rumor mill that this book or the previous one
may have been purchased for an adaption.
But if you could cast any characters or dream set
of actors that are actresses for your adaption,
who would that be?
And I don’t know if there’s an update to on any sort
of future plans there.
The Abel Archer’s has been optioned by legendary entertainment
with an eye toward making a limited television series.
Unfortunately, we’ve run into some Hollywood politics.
No, the OSI of Hollywood.
We’re kind of regrouping, I guess, right now.
We’re at the regroupment stage.
But I do have an agent in Hollywood who’s excellent.
We haven’t given up on that.
And in fact, I wrote a TV adaptation
for the Abel Archer last year, which I’d never done anything
like that before.
And it was actually an incredibly helpful exercise in writing.
It was incredibly valuable for helping me
with storyline and story arc and character development
and all that.
So in any event, we’re still hopeful that it will get made.
In terms of actors, legendary actually
did ask me for some ideas.
Lefchenko is a little bit easier for me to cast than Katani
because of Lefchenko’s age.
Lefchenko’s in his mid-40s.
One name that we toyed with was Benedict Cumberbatch
to play Lefchenko.
He’s got the depth and so on.
Another actor who you may or may not know
is a German actor named Tom Vellatsaha.
Tom Vellatsaha was in Game of Thrones.
He played the man with no face.
The guy that trained Aria.
He was also in the last season of Stranger Things.
And he played a Soviet guard.
And so he speaks Russian and he speaks German, obviously,
like Lefchenko.
And he has kind of the right look too.
So he would be terrific.
And when I mentioned him to legendary, they said,
oh, that’s a great idea.
They love that.
But as far as Katani, you really want
to have somebody who’s in their mid-20s or can pass for it.
My wife has come up with a couple of actors.
One guy is a little bit older that could do.
It would be Austin Butler.
He was great and Masters in the Air.
Yeah.
And he played Elvis, of course.
And I think he could be wonderful at it.
Not the easiest guy to get, I’m sure none of them would be.
And I think these roles are pretty meaty roles.
I think actor would gravitate toward them.
So hopefully there.
And then the red-haired major, I’m asked who would play
the red-haired major.
And I’m sorry to say I don’t know this actor’s name.
But he was also in Game of Thrones.
I was picturing that guy the whole time
I do what you’re talking about.
Who?
One of the wild things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He does the lawn commercials now.
He does the Scottsky.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now we’re exactly.
Yeah, that’s exactly the picture.
And what’s funny is he looks like the real red-haired major
looked back in the day.
And the red-haired major was a Scottish extraction.
And so he is the red-haired major as far as I’m concerned.
I’m just picturing Austin Butler.
I’m hanging out at your house trying to get notes
and whatnot from you.
It’s just like all of a sudden Austin Butler’s at your side
asking you about what would Kevin Catani do right now?
You’d be like, oh, OK.
Yeah.
So it’s my understanding you have several more book
ideas in the hopper.
Are we going to see more of Kevin Catani and Ivan
Lovechenko in the future?
Or are you pursuing other characters?
Well, I’m doing both.
But my main focus is the Able Archer series.
As we’re calling it.
And the next book I’m working on it,
I’m polishing it up now.
The publisher would like to have it a couple of weeks ago.
And I’m not quite ready to give it to them.
But I’m trying to get it into the queue
so that it can be released next late winter, early spring,
about a year after the righteous arrows are hopefully
a little less than a year.
And yes, it’s the same characters.
And the big pivotal event in book number three
is the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The events leading up to it and the repercussions
of it occurring and the impact that it has on the lives of our heroes
and which is pretty significant.
And I am introducing a new character in book three
named Vladymur Putin.
Oh.
And I hesitated to do that.
I thought, well, that kind of looks like it’s a little gratuitous,
maybe.
But I’ve actually been doing a lot of research
on what the KGB was up to in East Germany when Putin was
in Dresden between 1985 and 1990.
He was there from 85 to 90.
So he was there when the Berlin Wall came down at 89.
I’m finding some really interesting stuff.
And I’ve been interviewing former CIA and even MI6
British intelligence officers who served in Berlin then
during, again, the years leading up to and including
the fall of the wall.
And I think I’ve got a really good basis now
to have a pretty juicy character in this Putin individual.
That’s kind of fun to write.
That’s book three.
And then I do have a manuscript for book four.
It concerns two pivotal events that happened in 1991.
One was the Persian Gulf War Desert Storm, as most people
remember it by.
And the other is the fall of the Soviet Union.
And both of those events occurred in 1991.
And they are related in ways that most people don’t comprehend.
And here again, I’m continuing to draw up on my own experience.
I was no longer on active duty in 91,
but I was recalled to active duty for the war.
So I have direct experience in the Persian Gulf War
that I’m bringing in to that book.
Because a lot of the people involved in the desert storm
are still alive and they’re friends of mine.
So I’ve been able to interview a lot of people.
And I think that gives that book a richness
that I hope people will find compelling.
So those are the four that are kind of in the can,
just to some extent.
And then I am working on book five,
although I haven’t had much time to get to it.
And that book five is set in the very late 90s
with the war in Kosovo in 1999 that NATO fought
against the Serbians.
Most Americans don’t remember, but they sure do in Russia.
That war was cited in 2022 as a major reason
for the invasion of Ukraine.
And it still reverberates in Russian politics today.
And Putin brings it up all the time.
The book is really more about the rise of Putin
and what it means for La Chango
and what it means for people in Russia
and what it means for the United States.
So that’ll be one that hopefully people
will find of interest too.
And then I’ve got two more planned beyond that
for this series and then that may be it
for the Able Archer series.
But I am planning a total of seven books eventually
for the Able Archer series.
Amazing.
I’ve got a lot of source material, that’s for sure.
And the characters are already fleshed out.
So we’re excited to see where it goes.
And you’re obviously with seven books
and already working on three more.
You’re a very busy man.
So we appreciate you taking time to chat with us.
Brian, it has been an absolute pleasure
talking to you about your newest novel, The Righteous Arrows.
Listeners can pick up that book wherever books are sold.
And while you’re at it, grab a copy of the Able Archers,
pick one up for us, send it our way
because we want to read it as well.
And Brian, thanks again, we look forward
to reading these next books.
Again, thank you for the opportunity.
And I would just offer one caveat
to what you said about the book.
It’s these books are not widely available
in bookstores unfortunately, but they are available
at Amazon and bookstore.com and booksamillion.com
and barnsannoble.com.
So they’re available at all those major online.
Yeah, I mean, who are we kidding?
That’s where everyone buys their books these days.
I mean, it’s right.
Yeah, so there are ample places for people to find them,
I think, and they can also go to my website
where I have got direct links to those booksellers
and my website is just brianjmora.com.
Yeah, and tons of other great information
on those websites, whether it be interviews or reviews
or stuff that you’ve put on there about the book,
some background information.
So yeah, if you’re interested, definitely head
to the website as well.
Thanks again, Brian.
We really appreciate you coming on.
Thank you very, very much.
We really enjoyed it.
All right, thanks again, Brian.
We appreciate you coming in.
And I hope everyone stuck around for the whole interview
because honestly, talking movies at the end
with people who are in the intelligence community
or military or asking doctors what their favorite
doctor movie is.
I love that stuff because I always wonder,
we all love media.
We all love entertainment.
So when you’re pouring a glass of scotch on a weekend night,
sitting there with a wife and a ball popcorn,
what are you going towards?
What’s the movie?
We’re all the same once everyone gets down on the couch
and watches something good, you know?
So well equal on that.
Exactly, 100%.
Once we’re sitting down, they’re going to be really cool.
I like that idea.
All right, righteous arrows, Keith.
Stock up, stock down.
What do you got for stock up?
Stock up, TPS reports.
Obviously, this is a reference to office space.
But making a mistake in office space
and having to report to three bosses
actually doesn’t sound that bad after reading this book.
And the intricacies and the overarching
like bureaucracy of the government where Kevin will do
something that wasn’t great.
And they’re like, all right, now you’re going to go talk
to 15 different people.
We have fly out over here.
You’re going to go to this place.
There’s no such thing as like sending a letter.
And he hasn’t responded to like 15 different departments
and made the TPS reports in office space,
not seem that bad.
So stock up on those.
For those that haven’t read the book,
shame on you because it’s been out for 10 days.
So get your shit together.
No, they’re in Afghanistan during the Soviet Afghanistan war.
And they’re talking about like, oh, something just went down.
All right, so you’re going to fly back to DC
and then you’re going to get debriefed.
And then like tomorrow you’re coming back to Afghanistan.
Yeah, that’s crazy.
What?
Pick up a phone, people.
What’s going on here?
Can’t we just have a Zoom meeting?
Maybe stock up should be Zoom or something along those lines
because we could settle this all pretty quickly.
Granted, I know that there’s secure lines that are needed
and all that stuff.
Also, it’s a 15 hour flight.
And that’s one of those big military planes
that they have to stop and a bunch of stops it sounds like.
And it’s the most uncomfortable.
Like, can you imagine?
Oh, I would be so upset.
Honestly, it sounded pretty great to me.
What?
I know.
You’re not bringing a DVD player laptop on the plane.
You’re just sitting there with your thoughts for 15 hours.
Well, you can have a book.
There’s a lot of lights in there.
Have you ever seen those things?
There’s like hangers.
There’s nothing.
There’s no like comfy chairs or whatever.
It’s just dark.
It’s just like sitting there.
Yeah, but it’s wide open.
It’s the same as the plane on con air for those that aren’t familiar
with what we’re talking about here.
But there’s no one else on the flight.
So it’s like your flight.
Yeah.
And it’s 1986.
Like you get two packs of siggies and you’re good.
Like good boy.
You just chilling there, ripping heaters.
I found the cockpit.
I’m like, I’d be good with that.
It’s like chilling the cockpit.
I mean, they’re smoking cigarettes in the cockpit back in the day too.
So we’re good.
I mean, they’re drinking probably.
Oh, yeah.
Time of that life.
But my issue with flying is just that there’s so many people on top of me.
Yeah, that’s true.
That’s a good point.
You know, so in this situation, it’s like, oh, it’s not even like a row.
Like you have the whole plane to yourself.
You could play flag football back there.
I think having one other person that’s pretty chill on the flight with you is really all
it would take for me to be like, yeah, it’s not too bad.
Although it is freezing because there’s no like of those amenities.
Yeah.
My first stock up is tube technology.
No.
Okay.
Not the tube technology from my brother’s video games or tenacious D albums for those
in the know, but the two technology that allows for a single man on the ground to effectively
take out an armored military aircraft.
That’s what I’m talking about over here.
Okay.
Because that’s what stinger missiles are.
And I kind of talked about this in the interview, but it just kind of blew my mind.
And if you look at the cover, you know, I was going to ask him about this, like who
decides on what covers of books should be.
It just kind of blows my gourd that a single person who is just slightly trained in the
use of this shoulder mounted surface to air missile launcher can take out the biggest piece
of helicopter technology.
You know, it’s armored.
It’s a gunship that thing can do everything.
It can transport people.
It can kill lots of people and just one guy with a shoulder mounted rocket launcher who’s
read the manual can pull a trigger and take that helicopter down, which also has a pilot
who has presumably spent hundreds of hours training on this thing and in theater time.
The use of technology and warfare, it blows me away and we talk about Dan Carlin a few
times on this podcast, but he’s a big history buff and talks about things through history.
But it just seems like governments and cultures that create these huge shifts in technology,
like they’re eventually going to even out once everyone gets their hands on them.
But there’s this brief moment where it’s like, oh, holy shit.
And it feels like we’re witnessing that through this book.
I just, I thought that whole thing was, was pretty wild.
Yeah, it was a lovely playing field.
Yeah, to your point, it’s just like, okay, they just pressed a button and they just shot
down a helicopter worth like $50 million.
Yeah, I was doing some, some like research myself on this.
And it said that during the first hundred days that the US had started giving the Afghan
tribesmen, these stinger missiles, and the first hundred days they were averaging one
downed aircraft every day.
That’s crazy.
So for, for the Soviets have air superiority over Afghanistan, it’s like, all right, it
doesn’t matter.
We can fly wherever we want.
We can do whatever we want in the air and they can, yeah, they can shoot an RPG here
and there once they’ll get lucky, but you know, it’s not something that’s really going
to hurt us.
And then overnight things change.
It’s just so wild to me.
What else do you have to stock up?
Stock up having red hair.
Oh, ginger vidus.
Red hair people get a lot of shit.
My brother has red hair.
I feel like it’s kind of an open season.
I know South Park did a whole thing on it.
I don’t really get it.
I feel like it’s kind of kind of mean spirited.
100% of course.
But this book, it puts, puts on for red hair people.
I also thought at one point, Kevin, they said it fair hair or red hair too.
So I was like, wait, do both of them have it?
Obviously the red-headed major, probably the best character I’m entering.
I’ll spoil my favorite character, but him walking into that meeting and with the OSI
guy, I’m talking about that.
That’s the stuff that gets me off.
I mean, what?
Was that when he walked into the meeting that Kevin was in and he was just like, get
the jag guy out of here.
Yeah, he’s like, get this guy out of here.
And he’s like, who are you?
He was like, it doesn’t fucking matter who I am.
All right.
Like, I loved it.
But yeah, I thought it was a good character for red-headed people.
Hot take.
Yeah.
I agree that we do slight the jingers and I will continue to do something.
I’m just kidding.
I don’t have one way or another.
I think just like anything else, if it’s your close friends and it’s friendly shitting
on as the only way I know how to put it, then it can be like some way, some sort of a love
language.
If you’re just talking about other people like that, then check yourself for yourself
because it’s just rude, you’re just being rude.
You probably have some of your own issues that you got to deal with.
You don’t want to get beat like red-headed stuff child, right?
Yeah.
Well, we always make fun of my little brother because he’s one of those people and maybe
he’s just at that age because he’s 20 years old, but he’ll make fun of people just for
whatever.
And I think it’s because he’s balding and it’s hitting him hard and he doesn’t…
Fence mechanism.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
He doesn’t know what to do about that.
So instead, he turns that on to other people.
That’s tough because you’ve luscious hair, right?
I know.
Yeah.
That’s just me.
Yeah, it really is.
And I’m also just kind of picking on him right here because I love him and he’s really
not that mean to people.
He’s a wonderful person, but you know, you just see those things happen.
You just see those things happen.
My second stock up is DSB.
Are you familiar with a DSB Keith?
No.
Well, if you look in the back of this book, there’s a glossary of terms and I was going
to ask him this, but I was like, I can’t.
I honestly cannot ask him this because they might have railroaded the whole thing.
He’s a glossary of terms.
He’s like CIA, what it is, DIA, what it is, GRU, what it is.
But DSB wasn’t in there, but our friend, the red haired major, is talking about DSB.
It’s deadly semen buildup.
Yeah.
So yeah, it was another piece of gold from the red haired major.
He was talking to Kevin Katani.
He was like, hey, you got to get it together.
Like, are you suffering from DSB?
He’s like, what?
He’s talking about it.
It’s like deadly semen buildup.
At least you need a release.
Yeah, once again, like I said, my mother listens to this, so I probably shouldn’t even talk
about that.
But you know what?
I’m here for the people.
I do it for the people.
But I thought it was hilarious.
And especially after talking to Brian Mora, the author, and also seeing his picture on
the back of the book, I just picture him sitting down to write this chapter and putting DSB
down.
And I’m sure this is something that people have said back and forth and he thought was
hilarious.
And I just put it in there and I appreciate that.
So yeah, stock up DSB.
Yeah, let’s go.
Let’s jump.
Stock down being attractive.
That’s great.
This book and I’ll stick with my current attraction level, I guess, not being very attractive.
But anyways, Keith, you’re beautiful.
I wasn’t reaching for a compliment there, but please tell me more.
But Lydia, by all accounts is like kind of a super smart, speaks Russian.
It’s out on this mission.
But like every single person’s talking about how good look it is.
Holy shit, it was this girl.
She’s like turning heads left and right.
Yeah, she’s like Jessica rabbit.
Yeah, that’s a great comment.
Yeah, she just sticks out of like a sore thumb, especially in like the military community
where it’s probably mostly men.
They’re on a military base after this terrible thing that went down and she’s dressing provocatively,
which hey, by all means, girl, you do whatever you want.
It is your figure, your body strut.
I’m not telling you not to do that.
I’m just saying it’s an interesting place to decide to do that.
But it’s also good because of like, if I were attracted when I got drunk and tried to hook
up with someone that has a significant other and then like they turned me down and I started
like throwing stuff at him and like getting all moody.
And then the next day I held that grudge.
No, that would never happen.
What happened to me if I ever did anything with that, I would have the absolute worst
on his carries.
I would have the worst anxiety of all time the next time.
I would not be able to look at that person in the eye forever.
But she kind of like held Stan Pat.
I was like, I don’t know what you’re what do you like.
Yeah.
I get if something happens and you’re stone cold sober and you felt like you were slighted.
But if you get wasted and push yourself on to somebody and they do not consent and they
say no, no thank you, then the next day I am feeling the most shame I’ve ever felt in
my whole life.
I would do anything to not see that person for the rest of my life.
Right.
Yeah, of course.
And she just holds it.
And then she holds that grudge, which maybe that’s respectable.
You know, maybe she’s like, no one turns me down before this guy did that some bullshit.
So yeah, I respect it.
It’s one of those like, I hated so much that I respect it kind of energy.
And it obviously worked because Katani though, you know, as he’s getting shot at in Afghanistan
later in the book, he’s not thinking about his ex girlfriend who is also stunning.
He’s thinking about this woman who he turned down in a hotel room after an encounter with
some Soviets and a bunker.
My first and only stock down is the sportal across.
So yeah, yeah, it took a couple hits.
Our friend, the Redhead major, he says the crosses for Pussies.
And I as a high school lacrosse player and captain of my lacrosse team and most points
scored on the team in 2004, 2005.
Yeah, I had my good times with the spoon, but I had to take a long look in the mirror
after here.
I was just going to say, make up for Pussies.
And yeah, I concluded that I am indeed a Pussie.
So he’s right.
Definitely.
I swam, but you’re definitely the Pussie.
You’re shaving your armpits in swimming for aerodynamics.
Yeah, stuck down the cross.
Although they were talking about this guy who was like in Syracuse lacrosse player or whatever.
I mean, Mitch Rapa is a cross player.
So what do we do?
Yeah, I was about to say exactly.
I was going to say, you know who also was a serious cross player?
Mitch fucking.
I don’t learn the same universe.
That’s really great.
It would be interesting.
But I was able to sleep because as I was crying myself, the sleep thing I was supposed
to say was like, wait, wasn’t Mitch Rapa lacrosse player?
Yeah, there you go.
We’re back.
Do you have any other stockdowns?
Also, I’m just quick.
Being too big for your britches, stock down.
I don’t really know what that means, but you know what it means.
This relates to my ego question.
I asked him, but it seems like too many people are just like, no, you messed up.
It’s like pointing the finger and getting angry at people.
And it’s happened from a lot of other books we read in the military community.
So I don’t know if that’s just what’s going on there, but it seems like just being a nice
person seems to get you a long way.
And I did appreciate the end.
Both Kevin and Ivan, good dudes, got promoted.
So that’s the word I want to live in.
Yeah, it was interesting at the end where it’s like, all right, you get a promotion.
It’s like, oh, wait, what?
Like three years early?
Like, oh, really?
It must be nice.
And then it’s like, oh, what’s Ivan up to?
It’s like, oh, he got promoted.
So I guess it’s stock up to all the people that are just out there working hard and putting
their head down and not looking for promotions as opposed to those bureaucratic dingbats
who are trying to screw things up in hopes that they’ll be seen in a meeting or just
people that decide to talk in a meeting because they want to feel important, but really the
important people sometimes with the silent folks.
That’s the way it is.
Did you have a favorite scene in the righteous arrows?
I already mentioned like the conference room with the OSI guy.
I thought that was hilarious, the Red End major, but I also really did like the helicopter
battle.
Well, we got both perspectives.
Both Ivan and Kevin sided like what was going on.
That was a cool thing to see.
I agree.
Also the like only real action sequence outside of a little Viacom Deos early on in the bunker.
So in a book that a cover is showing an Afghan a trismen shooting a stinger missile at a helicopter,
I wanted that.
So it took us like 250 pages to get there, but I enjoyed it as well.
I thought it was I thought it was worth it.
But also I think Ivan probably did the best job because it was his first experience in
actual combat.
And I think his perspective was super interesting because he’s just talking about how you can’t
see anything.
Say, I have no idea what’s happening around me.
It’s just noise and dust.
And I think that’s probably one of the more accurate representations of a battle that we’ve
read in literature.
Yeah, he thought I was going to be Henry V Shakespeare’s can he’s like, what is going
on?
This is not what this is.
Yeah, he’s like, this is just chaos.
You know, somewhat controlled chaos, but it’s chaos nonetheless.
And I mean, granted, I have never been in battle and I thank all the people that do that on
my behalf so I can be pushing play the cross.
But I thought it was probably a pretty good take, especially, I mean, we talked about
this on another one that I’m reading that that war book, Sebastian Younger, and a lot
of that kind of same vibe flows through there.
So I thought it was interesting.
Keith Regisero’s just came out.
What’d you love?
I felt like I was reading somewhat of a history book because he referenced it.
He’s like, well, people don’t know a lot about the tour.
And I was like, that’s me.
I don’t know anything about the Afghan side of the Russia.
Yeah, that’s an interesting take because honestly, the only thing, but there was like
post 9-11 book that came out that was like a graphic novel of this situation that happened
to get to this point.
So it was interesting because it went back to the Soviet Afghan war and it’s a graphic
novel.
So, you know, I like looking better than reading.
So I was able to just like look at pictures and also read along.
But I was, I had no idea.
Granted, I was 14 at the time, but I was like, wait, what?
What happened?
I was in Amotah.
Who, these people that just had killed, you know, all these people in New York?
What the hell’s going on here?
So the other thing I liked is the action stuff.
I already referenced that as my favorite scene, but it all kind of matched up with the hate,
but I wish there was more of it, honestly.
I know like that would probably make it less realistic and you wanted to make it grounded
in reality.
So I appreciate that.
But honestly, I was like locked in when any time they’re like the battles or anything.
I was like in the field was going down.
Yeah, I agree.
And I loved the idea that he, as in Brian J. Moore or the author, has he been a little
ability to write a nonfiction book about all this stuff.
And he has can give a lot of references and everything like that.
And it would be boring as all hell to read that.
So he decided, smartly in my mind, hey, if I’m going to talk to these idiots out there
and these idiots is you and me, then why don’t I make it around a story?
That’s going to be the best way to do it.
Let’s create some characters.
And then I can feed them history facts as I’m also telling a story, which is the best
way to do it.
So I love that idea of deciding to do a novel, but then teaching us stuff because I learned
stuff from reading this that I would never have known before.
And will I go around telling everyone that this is all true?
Absolutely.
You know?
Yeah, correct.
I’m going to say I read a nonfiction book about the Soviet Afghan more because I’m that
smart.
But yeah, so I was a big fan of that.
And I think that’s probably a great way in general to get young people or dollars like
ourselves interested in stuff they might not otherwise be interested in.
That’s getting into the hates, baby.
What did you hate?
Well, I hate the fact that I now know that if you leave a body bag unzipped or zipped
all the way that the pressure will make that body explode.
I didn’t want to know that.
I didn’t need to know that.
So I think the pressure makes the bag explode.
No, I think the body, I think the gases in the body explode.
I don’t know.
Well, I know that can definitely happen as we’ve seen here in Cape Cod when your whale
gets up.
You know what I mean?
The whale, the dead whales come up and then their bodies explode.
So I think that can happen.
But I think it was more about like the bag itself blowing up.
But then when the bag itself blows up like all of the smell.
Either way, the bodies are blown.
Yeah.
Yeah, let’s just.
Let’s just go with that.
Yeah.
The biggest gripe was that I didn’t as much as he wanted to make a story out of this.
I didn’t think the storylines involving any of the women made any sense whatsoever.
And I’m sorry, Brian.
I really hate to dig on you like that.
But it just seemed like they were kind of forced in because Sandy, let’s use her for
example, Kevin’s wife or girlfriend, excuse me, she is half Japanese and half black.
And he knows his dad is super racist.
But she’s wondering why they haven’t met his parents after four years.
And at no point does he say, well, my dad’s a super racist.
He’s a loser.
You can sugarcoat in the sense that he fought in the Pacific theater in World War II.
You know, he’s probably got some serious PTSD at the same time.
He’s still a piece of shit.
And at no point does he bring this up during their relationship.
And then he goes and meets his parents before meeting Sandy.
He doesn’t decide to tell his dad then that she’s half black and half Japanese.
He waits until his dad meets her.
And then they meet obviously bad things happen.
And then afterwards, he’s like, yeah, we should probably just break up.
That makes the most.
Well, she broke.
She was on that.
No, she broke up with him.
And then he’s like, yeah, you’re right.
As opposed to just apologizing and saying, we don’t need to ever see those people again.
I love you more than I love them because he obviously doesn’t care about them.
I think he was thinking about Lydia.
I think that’s what it was.
Yeah, it was almost like he didn’t want to be if we talked to Brian again and we could
have that kind of a little bar open conversation.
And he was like, Oh, Katani didn’t even want to be with Sandy.
Like he was looking for an out.
Then that is a smart play.
You know, I turned my whole story around.
Yeah.
And I think that’s the general.
It just it didn’t seem like a lot of made a lot of sense.
He should be like, why don’t we ever see them?
It’s like, because my other racist and I love you.
And that’s all that matters.
One other thing too, for me was that Ivan keeps on being like, I think they might bring
stingers.
They might bring stingers and they’re like, all right, they’re stingers here.
And he’s like, I got to devise a strategy.
It’s like, bro, you’ve been thinking they’re rumors of this the whole time.
I like Ivan, but start doing some planning, maybe start thinking about what you’re going
to do.
You know, if you think the rumors are true, maybe start doing some strategy differently.
Yeah, so you’re saying the Soviets at the time didn’t know if the US were supplying
stingers, but he thought they might be.
And then once the helicopters get shot down, he’s in defense mode.
Like, oh, we got to figure out a tactical plan to how to how to evade these stingers.
It’s like, wait, you haven’t been thinking about this for years.
If he was like, holy shit, what the hell is this rocket that’s hitting us all of a sudden
and make more sense?
But it said he was like, oh, yes, stingers are here.
I know those are.
Righteous arrows came out last week, really.
Would you recommend it to our listeners?
Yeah, I think if you like history and you want something that’s kind of in the, I would
say like the mid-rap realm, but more history based and more real, I think this is one.
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
I totally agree.
It was, it was honestly a quick read.
It was three, it’s three under pages.
It’s on the verge of a beach read because it is a story.
There’s not like, it’s not like dense history.
It’s just set in a time that we’re not as Americans, I think, that familiar with.
And so it takes an interesting perspective and also teaches you a little bit about that
while also telling a story about two people and from two perspectives, you know, from
the Soviet perspective and from the US perspective.
And I think the first person makes it more of a beach read.
For whatever reason, that just makes it easier.
I think you can soon.
Exactly.
I agree.
Yeah, I think this is something that I pass around to like my dad or my stepdad is like,
oh yeah, you know, here it’s on the bookshelf, like you’re in town, like give it a read
when we go down to the beach.
And they would probably be like, oh, this is very good.
And I would say I’m glad you like it.
Good story.
So yeah, that was the righteous arrows.
And obviously we hope you listened to the interview with Brian Mora, the author, because
we had a lot of fun doing it and he seemed like a grand old guy.
So we appreciate that.
And I don’t mean old like old, I just mean like old like O L apostrophe.
Okay.
I hear you.
Keith, what do we got coming up next?
This is a reader recommendation Columbus Day by Craig Allen.
It’s a, it’s a start of a series.
So it’s book, the first book, but this has gotten some pretty good reviews, I think expeditionary
force, I think is what it’s called is the series name in a center of recommendation.
So we like it.
I’ve almost finished it.
I’m 48 minutes left.
You know, it tickles that sci-fi, but also military thing we got going on for sure.
And there’s an interesting AI character who I’m excited to talk about.
All right.
Well, that was righteous arrows.
Thanks again to Brian for sitting down and chatting with us.
And we’ll catch you guys next time for something that will also be military related, but definitely
not historical in Columbus.
All right, Keith, hey, you rest up now.
You had a, you had a long day going to Vegas and back.
We appreciate you doing it for all of us out here at the buddy book club though.
All right.
Bye now.
Bye now.