“Snake-Eaters, Detachment A, CIA” – A Conversation with James Stejskal
Spook. Warrior. Author. This week’s guest is one helluva interesting guy. He was in a clandestine Special Forces unit in Berlin during the Cold War, “stay behinds” who would sabotage, subvert and generally wreak havoc should World War III break out. He was badly wounded after driving over a land-mine in Somalia in 1992, almost losing his entire leg and suffering a serious head injury. In a subsequent life, James was a CIA officer in Africa when the US embassies were blown up in Kenya and Tanzania and saw the Agency pivot in the aftermath of 9/11. Oh, did I mention, he also dabbles in combat archaeology. “Hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” If this sounds like your last trip down the I-95, listening to your blowhard uncle at Thanksgiving, or what it’s like to watch Jets vs. Giants, it’s purely coincidence – for it’s how this week’s guest characterized Army life.