Learn more about the iconic Kilroy Was Here WWII meme: Kilroy Was Here: The Infamous WWII Meme That Lives On

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After a short break, we’re back with another episode of Return to Base! This time, we’re talking to former Army Cav. Officer and novelist Brett Allen. After graduating college and being commissioned through ROTC, Brett went on to serve in the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY. Luckily, having grown up in Michigan, he was used to the ridiculously cold winters and snow. Then, the Army saw fit to send him to another ridiculously cold location halfway around the world - the mountains of Southern Afghanistan. There’s something about the military; soldiers are plucked from their lives and inserted into a delegation of characters from every corner of the country and world. What better to do than take note and turn them into characters in your satirical novel? That’s exactly what Brett did in his novel Kilroy Was Here, a semi-autobiographical take on his time in Afghanistan. We talk about how 9/11 played a part in his decision to serve, how being plucked from the Army’s best job, Platoon Leader, is like being “s*domized,” and how, if you shove 20-something peeps into your mouth, you will be laughed at and may be yelled at. You can pick up a copy of Kilroy Was Here on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

Return to Base Podcast Ep. #16: Brett Allen and “Kilroy Was Here”

Cliff 00:00 Hey everybody. Welcome back to Return to Base. This is the 16th episode of this podcast. Thank you for joining us and if you've listened to all the podcasts, thank you for your continued support. So Brett Allen, Brett served as a lieutenant with the 10th Mountain Division where he served in Fort Drum of course and then later on in Afghanistan as a staff officer. So he channeled those experiences into a novel, Kilroy Was Here is a satirical novel that follows lieutenant in extraordinary events that occur while deployed to America's longest war. If any of you out there have deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, wherever you know, that there's just a list of characters and funny things that happen as tragic as war is its pretty ***** funny too. So without further ado, Brett Allen. Enjoy. This is returned to base, a veteran live podcast. Brett Allen, what's going on, man? Brett Allen 01:16 How’re you doing Cliff? Thanks for having me on. Cliff 01:18 Yes, thank you for agreeing to come on. I know I had to twist your arm a bit. We don't get too many renowned authors and such… and certainly not any officers and gentleman on the Return to Base podcast. So I appreciate you coming on and, and would like to take this time really just to hear your story and hear what advice you have and the route you take. See here on Return To Base, a lot of times what we'd like to do is veterans who are getting out or have been out sometimes have no idea what they want to be when they grow up. And who would have thought that we had enough people in the army who knew how to read and write. We have one here who wrote a book Kilroy Was Here. So thank you once again for coming on. So a Cavalry officer, what would you say a Cavalry officer is considering? We have that many horses in them anymore, in the military, right? Brett Allen 02:22 Right! And you'd be surprised that it is the number one question I get from people when I tell them I used to be a Cavalry officer. They always asked me where they keep the horses in the army. So- Cliff 02:38 At Burlington? Brett Allen 02:43 -Yes, exactly. So our training at Cavalry… Well, they won't be all in his armor [phonetic 02:48] officers to begin with. So you get to fort. While I was at Fort [unintelligible 02:52] when I was there. Now it's all down and I believe in the Maneuver Center. But our training was almost entirely on Abram’s Tanks. So we got to rotate through all the positions on the tanks. And then we all got divvied out to our units. And about half of us ended up going to like Cavalry units where we never saw a tank again. So for ourselves, once I got to, to Fort Drum, we were on Humvees for all of our training. All the gunnery and stuff was done on Humvees. And then once we got into Afghanistan and 09 [phonetic 03:20], we were all on MRAP’S [phonetic 03:38]. But of course, I was on staff by then. And so I was in a desk chair for the entire- Cliff 03:41 Ride in that chair. You know, a good friend of mine and a mentor, he once told me that his time spent as a calf scout was his favorite time in the military, [unintelligible 03:55]. And you know the stories that I've heard sounds like it's kind of like the best of both worlds. Brett Allen 04:02 Yes, yes, I absolutely loved my time as a platoon leader. That was that was the funnest job I had in the army by far. Being up at Fort Drum with a tent mountain, I mean they pretty much just use you like a small infantry unit. I mean, we had half the number of guys. And we were basically running the same battle drills that all the infantry guys were running and we weren't doing anything crazy. [Unintelligible 04:30], specific. We had a few guys that got kicked out, like reconnaissance schools and stuff like that. But yes, it was just pared down infantry from where I started. Cliff 04:41 Yes, you know, I can't skip this section of your history without that might be skipping ahead a little bit, but that's fine, right. But whenever I think of Fort Drum [phonetic 04:56], what do you think I think of first? Brett Allen 05:00 Probably, snow? Cliff 05:01 Yes, yes. Snow, winter, and all that sounds ***** horrible if I’m going to be honest. But you said you're from Michigan, right? Brett Allen 05:10 Yes, so I was used to the weather I wasn't used to the packing list. So every time you hit the field any time after like October 1st, or something like that, the packing list just triples. And you have to take every ounce of cold weather gear that you've been issued out of the field with, just in case, you happen to get snowed in while you're out in a shooting range or something. So that was interesting… The weather always played a giant part in how long we were going to be able to stay out and training. And… but yes, it was pretty much like Michigan here. So I’ve been dealing with it all my life. Cliff 05:51 Right, and my basic training drill sergeant, he spent some time up in 10th Mountain and you know, it would get cold. It would snow or sleet. And we'd all wonder, hey, it's like PT going to get canceled. And he'd always just tell us he's like PT never gets canceled at Fort Drum. We would be in… He would you know, I don't know if these are tall tales or not. But he basically said they would be in all the cold weather here they had in formation running in the snow. And I always thought, please don't go to Fort Drum. Brett Allen 06:30 You get issued just layers and layers of thermal gear. I still use some of the thermal year that I got issued for hunting. Cliff 06:37 Yes, so your time at Fort Drum was well spent in the packed snow that [unintelligible 06:48] Right? Brett Allen 06:48 Yes. So I got there in November of 2007. So I got to endure a nice cold winter right off the bat. And then we left in December of 2008. So I got a partial winter on the… on the back end. Cliff 07:07 Yes. So let's back up a little bit here. So you know we like to know about the person. And part of that certainly is whatever compelled you to join the military. So you entered the military, after ROTC in 2006, right? So basically, you were finishing high school, and deciding to go ROTC in the almost immediate aftermath of 9/11, right? Brett Allen 07:40 So I was a senior in high school, when 9/11 happened. And I had contemplated joining right out of high school. My parents kind of talked me into getting some college in. I had already been accepted to state. So I did that. And I didn't join ROTC right away. I didn't really even consider that as an option. I did my first year at state, still wasn't 100% sure. I'm one of those people, like you said earlier who doesn't know what they want to be when they grow up. So I was switching majors. I switched majors like seven times. And then sophomore still was kind of floundering. And then my dad found this two year ROTC program that has like a Catch Up program in the summer before your junior year. So a buddy of mine from high school and I both signed up for that program. We got sent to Fort Knox for a month. And it was kind of like a shortened basic training with drill sergeants and the whole nine yards. And then we actually got lucky enough to get to airborne slot. So we went from there to Fort Benning and went through Airborne School, and then came back, and signed our ROTC contracts. And then started off in ROTC, our junior year and went through senior year. So that was… I felt compelled to serve since 9/11 happened and it just took me a while to get there. Cliff 09:22 Yes, it seems like you took the short route man, can you believe it that there's some nerds out there who did like four years of that? [Laughter] Brett Allen 09:31 I got a party for two years. Cliff 09:33 You had a party for two years finding yourself in a freaking Box Hill and Fort Knox. Racking up Heartbreak Hill [phonetic 09:40]. Yes, it's actually interesting because my basic training was actually at Fort Knox and the old infantry barracks. And I wasn't- Brett Allen 10:00 [Unintelligible 10:00] Cliff 10:02 Alpha246 was my basic training company barracks and I got to basic training September 22nd, 1998. And apparently the barracks had been used most previously, or most recently by ROTC cadets in the same type of program you got. So during one of our throw down inspections where the drill sergeant just goes, *****, they found a bra in my room. Last, my last name starts with a V. So they did everything alphabetically. And so there's a bay of people where everybody slept, and then those of us who had the letter T or above, we had like four man rooms, right? And so he came in our room, just tore everything up because it wasn't right. And he's like, what the ****? He knew. I mean, do you know what I mean? And we're like, my battle buddy, whose name also started with a V was like, [unintelligible 11:14] I don't know what… where that came from. And he was just, you know, he was playing the part but it was really funny. It was like, what the hell and then come to find out. He was like, yes, these barracks are used by ROTC, in the summer. So anyways, it’s kind of interesting that you went through the same program and hell could have been people you knew? Not quite I guess but this it happened a couple of years earlier. But yes, so what was your… What did you think of your first experience in the army there at Fort Knox in 2003? Brett Allen 11:55 Yes, it was… yes, it would have been summer 2004, maybe… I don’t know. It was what I expected. So usually, with those, like cadet programs, from the sounds of it, they're usually like, pretty tame on them. Because they know they're going back to college in a month anyway. But we were informed before we went that we were going to be part of a test group that got to experience- Cliff 12:26 That’s always good. Brett Allen 12:28 Yes, that got to experience like the full drill sergeant experience where you get like the Shark Tank at the beginning and all that good stuff. And so it was it was interesting. I mean, they definitely went hard on us, at least for the first two weeks. And there… we found out later that like 50% of the people that went back to their programs at university and didn't sign contracts they wanted to do. So I think they kind of scrapped that and went back to the kinder, gentler officer training. But the real fun was Airborne School afterward. And we got down there and the… the normal Alpha Company barracks was being renovated so [unintelligible 13:20] shipped over to this, like it had been condemned and was being used as kind of a transient barracks for a while. And there was like, inch thick mold over every surface in the bathroom and cockroaches under the beds and stuff. And the first night we were there, they called us all out of the barracks at like midnight, and one of the sergeants just reamed everybody for how dirty the barracks was. And most of us had just walked in the door. So like the next five hours, just scrubbing that thing from top to bottom. And it only got worse from there. But it was definitely interesting. Being a kid that that hasn't even signed an army contract yet, you don't get treated very well. Cliff 14:10 That's pretty wild, when you think about it, but- Brett Allen 14:13 Really, and when I went through there, yes… Cliff 14:16 -you know, the funny part about that is when I went to Airborne School, I was at e5. And they were like, you come here and, they call you November, they called us November was was what the NCOs were. And when I found out that all the officers just stayed in hotels, I was like, wait, what? We're over here, like getting woken up at 11pm and scrubbing for crap only for the lieutenant's and stuff to be literally in hotel rooms. Yes, ma'am. Brett Allen 14:51 Drifting into formation after everybody else… Yes, that’s fun. Cliff 14:57 You know, it is what it is. It was a good experience. I didn't break anything. Thank God! Did you hurt yourself? Brett Allen 15:03 No, no, I was good the whole way through. Cliff 15:06 Awesome! Brett Allen 15:07 I had a mean poison ivy [phonetic 15:08] though. At Fort Knox before I got down there. So like my entire right side of my body was just poison ivy. And then it was July that we were there, so hot and humid and sweating the entire time just, it was… that was miserable. Cliff 15:25 [Unintelligible] is miserable. Brett Allen 15:26 Yes. Cliff 15:27 Coming into Fort and going into formation at like 3:30 in the morning and just dripping sweat while standing in formation I was like how is it this hot? It smelled like a paper plant. And it sounded like cicadas all the time. My experience… so you did your two years at ROTC. And you were [unintelligible 16:00] or did you get to select, how does that work out, how did you become an officer and you said that they just treated you as armor at first, right? Brett Allen 16:09 Yes, so we got to make a wish list in ROTC so armor was actually top on my list. So I got my branch of choice… The- Cliff 16:23 Was it the [unintelligible 16:25]? Did you want those [unintelligible 16:30]? The straps [crosstalk] Brett Allen 16:31 I was actually pretty geek because like you find out if you're going to be CAV or armor once you get your first set of orders. And I got my orders worth 173rd in Schweinfurt, Germany at the time CAV unit. And I was pumped. I was going to airborne CAV unit. I haven’t been [unintelligible 16:54] better. And I had one of my best friends at ROTC, he got branch same thing, same ***** assignment. So we were going to be to the same place. We got a Fort Knox like the first week of Officer, basic. Me, him, and two other guys that were supposed to go there got diverted. Two guys still got sent to JRTC to be platoon leaders down there. And then me and this other guy had to get a stay at Fort Knox for any basic training for a year. I mean they got the 173rd guys they were deploying… they would have been like a couple months before we finished an AOBC I think it was. The weird thing is though, is they actually deployed and took over for the unit that I ended up going to Fort Knox or I mean, Fort Drum. And then they're the unit that replaced us in the Logar province when we left in 2009… at the end of 2009. So regardless of what unit I went to, I would have been going to the same locations but [cross talk] Cliff 18:08 Fighting season or not fighting season. Did you spend a year [unintelligible 18:16]? Brett Allen 18:16 Yes, I was there from Christmas Day 2008 to 2009. Cliff 18:23 Wow! I myself had never had to endure a whole year. 10 months was long as I had to do so Yes, I couldn't imagine its like, oh my god! Whole calendar. So you were sent to Fort Drum obviously, you said that that you know you were used to that type of weather that type of environment which was which is hunky dory for you. But how'd you find your first unit you come into you come into Fort Drum, you immediately a platoon leader or you do something to prove yourself to be… because that's an awesome job. Yes, one of the guys that get saluted… Brett Allen 19:12 So I came in a little bit different situation because I had that year at Fort Knox. I was already a first lieutenant by the time I got there to Fort Drum. So I guess everybody ***** assumed I had like a little more experience which I did not. But… Cliff 19:33 You had an infantry. Brett Allen 19:34 Exactly. Yes. I mean… Cliff 19:36 [Unintelligible] by then. Brett Allen 19:41 But yes, I went they were… they had just come back from their deployment. They had a 15 month deployment before I got there. And they were still refitting and getting everybody into new positions and I fell right into a platoon and I was extremely lucky because I had one of the best NCOs you could ask for as a platoon sergeant. This guy was a monster. He was like, one best Ranger competition. At one point in his career, he yes, this guy was a stud. I don't know if you've ever run across... He was Sergeant First Class Hegley at the time. But I think he's last I knew he was a First Sergeant. I don't know. But this guy was awesome. And it was an easy job. But I had no problem because I had really good NCOs. And there were a few bad apples in the platoon. And we did what we needed to do. But I am pretty confident that I had a pretty good relationship with my NCOs. And I love that job. I want to stay there forever. But… Cliff 21:08 Was there… I mean, knowing that we'll get to you right in the book and stuff. But I don't know, did you have this feeling that eventually you were going to write a book? And were you like picking out character traits as you went along? It was like something that I would [cross talk] Brett Allen 21:28 Not until I got to the squadron stat. Cliff 21:31 Ah, gotcha. Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that right. Brett Allen 21:35 Yes, I mean, we, I had some definite characters in my platoon. And we had one bad NCO at the beginning where it was just, he was in e6 that had gotten where he was, simply because he had been there for a very, very, very long time. And it was more of it's your turn kind of thing than it was a merit kind of thing. And we had to do what we had to do to make sure that there wasn't going to be because at the time, we thought we were going to Iraq and like, a **** show at the time. And I was like, I'm not taking this guy. He's going to put people in danger. And so we got we had to shuffle some things around. But by the time we were ready to deploy, I had a solid boots I was very comfortable with where we were at. I don't have any… anybody I would want to right into a satire novel for sure. And then right when we got it, right where we wanted it, I got plucked from the platoon because a new Lieutenant came in and I was the guy and I got put up on staff because our troops already had an XL. Cliff 22:59 So what does that feel like? Brett Allen 23:01 That *****. Cliff 23:03 So give me a solid metaphor to what that feels like. Brett Allen 23:12 Well, I'll say this. So the reason… one of the reasons I got plucked was because at Fort Knox before I left there, I had done a spur ride, which for me, you know, is a Cavalry initiation where you go through like, it's anywhere from 24 hours to 48 hours of just like, constant like drills and stuff. That's a different thing. But it was like when you get out of your platoon. That's, that's a good analogy part. By the last exercise in this spur ride, we were doing some mount training. And we were clearing a building. One of the guys was simulated casually, so I picked him up and came fireman carrying them out the door, I stepped off the steps and my knee buckled in the opposite direction. There was a loud pop and a lot of cursing. And it turns out after multiple army doctors were visited, I blew up my ACL and tore my meniscus. So I didn't find out that until like eight months later, because the Army doctor at Fort Knox told me I was fine. And let me continue on. And so I had been training with this thing for a long time. And then it finally it just kept popping out and I kept biting it every time we do a platoon assault or anything like that. So I ended up getting my ACL completely replaced and my meniscus repaired and all that jazz. And then I was on the end of my couple of month recovery from the knee surgery when I got shifted up to staff and so blowing out my knee was less painful than getting taken out of the platoon and moved up to squadrons. Cliff 25:10 I feel Yes. So at one point, I was a Special Forces team sergeant, which was the greatest job I can ever ask for on a halo team jumping out of 14,000 feet, all that good stuff. And when I was removed from my team, it was just my turn to move on. And it felt like I had postpartum depression for like, a year. I've just felt like, dammit, every, like, at that point, I became a former action guy. Brett Allen 25:48 Was sure your cool days are over. Cliff 25:53 Cool days are over. It's like, I became a staff dude. And that wasn't any fun. So I got out. But so the then you have to go deploy to Afghanistan where I *****ume you're at the battalion level. And your team or your platoon is… was maybe on some like outstation or something like that. And did you feel a little bit like you had to live vicariously through this new Lieutenant but also you probably hated his guts. Yes. All those things. Was he a good guy? Brett Allen 26:40 He's a nice guy. I… we still… I mean, not very often, but I talked to him about a year ago. Yes, he's a good dude. And he took good care of the guys. Everybody in the platoon loved him. So it was just… so the way it worked was when we got the FOB Altimur. We were already in a pretty austere location. And there were no like outposts from there. So part of our squadrons job was establishing those outposts. So for the first couple of months, the entire squadron operated out of FOB Altimur, so I got to go on a couple patrols with them. And then we started building cops after that, in even more remote locations. And I was always keeping tabs on the Cherokee troop guys, I had been one of them. And it was, I mean, one of the most intense memories I have was just hearing that my old platoon had hit an IED on one of the routes down to that camp that we were building. And the intensity of just waiting in the [unintelligible 28:09] for reports come back on if anybody was hurt and praying to God that there was no report of KIAs so turns out the platoon leader was the only one who got a minor energy injury and a bruised ***** from IED but it’s still… Cliff 28:33 Yes, yes, those are those are some intense times that people who haven't been there definitely don't understand. And there's no words that you can use or maybe you could since you're a novelist, but no words that I can relate to anybody that would properly communicate what that feels like. I suppose to use an analogy would be finding out your child was potentially injured or something. Brett Allen 29:08 So you're waiting in the waiting room of a doctor's office for a bad diagnosis there's something. Cliff 29:13 Right. Well, thank God that everybody made through there. And by the way, I know where you were in that province and that province is to say the least, like when God was building the earth and was like this is going to be a beautiful place and this is not.. He definitely made it a beautiful place. He just forgot to add any trees or clay… it's just filled with like dust and the time I spent there was… it was this horrible. [Cross talk] Yes, it is like the surface of the dam and when it rains it was super nasty, and it was just desolate. I think it was maybe one of the most desolate places I've ever been in. And just like looking around like people, why are we fighting for this place? I mean, right. [Cross talk] But Yes, high desert is probably what like 10,000 feet at that airfield and just windy as hell all the damn time. And- Brett Allen 30:33 My luck… the weather there was pretty much like it was at Fort Drum. Cliff 30:36 -But drier. Brett Allen 30:39 We got, I would say just as much snow there was that winter as we did at Fort Drum the winter before, it was ridiculous. Cliff 30:46 Yes, well, no, but made it out of there. [Laughter] So at this point, you're saying 2008, 2009… And I know you ended up transitioning out of the military in 2010. Was this a part? Was this because your name was all jacked up? Or did you make a decision like it's my time? Brett Allen 31:11 Well, I mean, there was a multiple factors. So I went in to all of this, I'd never really intended to make the army a career. I was kind of just playing it by ear. But then with the knee getting jacked up, not getting any PL time in on deployment. And being in a staff position, the whole deployment, it just- Cliff 31:40 ***** the life out of you. Brett Allen 31:43 -Yes. And I mean, at that point, I'm going up against all of my peer group who most of them have had PL time on a deployment. And it just felt like, I'm not doing anybody any favors and going to a career course and trying to command a Trooper company with no combat experience or no experience deployed in a company level. So I just, I made the decision pretty much while I was over there, that I was going to be done. And I'm glad I did. Especially where I'm at now, none of this would have happened if I would have stayed in. So everything happened for a reason. Cliff 32:28 Yes, Yes. I mean, having the… you got to grow up a little bit to realize that, in fact, everything does happen for a reason, right. And as painful as some of those might be, because… I mean, nobody, or I wouldn't say nobody, but a fair amount of people don't join the military during the time of war. And hope, Oh God! I hope I don't get tested, especially in Combat Arms. Right. And ****, 2008, 2009, you got two words [phonetic 33:04] to choose from, like you said, you guys were like, Let's go to Iraq. We're going to Iraq. And then we're like, wrong war. Now, I mean, the [unintelligible 33:14] are actually pretty slim if you're not in two Special Forces units, basically. The likelihood of you really deployed and seen any action is pretty slim. So… but I understand that the position you're in is… was having to compete against folks who just by sheer luck may have had a leg up on you. So you said to get out, then what would you do upon exiting God's army? Brett Allen 33:50 So I had no plan- Cliff 33:52 Oh God! That always seems to work out. Brett Allen 33:56 I had actually… was thinking about the writing route then. But I wanted to get into film and screenwriting so- Cliff 34:07 Of course you didn't tell anybody that when you were in the military… you're perfectly fine. [Laughter] Brett Allen 34:12 I kept… I was studying for the GRE while I was in. I kept all that pretty close to the [unintelligible 34:19]. So I got out though, and then like the minute I got home, my now wife asked me on a date. And so I never ended up. I was supposed to move to Philadelphia with a buddy that was living there. I came home to Michigan because my nephew was supposed to be born. Started dating my now wife and never ended up going to Philadelphia other than to drive there and pick up all of my junk that the army had shipped to Philadelphia and then drive it back to Michigan. I ended up… my brother's a financial advisor for Edward Jones. And he talked me into giving that a try. So I spent a year as the world's worst financial advisor. And knocking on doors was not for me that's like what you do as a Edward Jones guy for the first day. So I ended up going… falling back on my supply chain management degree from state and got a job with Gordon Food Service, which is a food distributor here in Grand Rapids, and worked there for five years. And then I was working on this novel, I was getting close to being done with the first draft. But I mean I had two kids in that time period. And I was basically writing when anybody else in the house was unconscious, or anytime I could steal at work. And then my buddy, who is a lawyer, who runs his own firm, he had a paralegal that basically just ditched him. And he was in need of a new paralegal offering a competitive salary. And he told me, I could write anytime I wasn't actively engaged in firm business. So I made the jump over that. So I'm now working for my best friend from college right whenever I get a chance, and it's been a pretty good gig since then. So yes. Cliff 36:29 That’s awesome, Man! That is really cool. It's interesting, too, that you brought up the financial planner thing just because… when I retired, I got a lot of calls from people asking me if I wanted to be a financial planner. And I think it's something… it's especially Edward Jones is really good at recruiting people in the military. What are let's ask… let's put you on the spot. Two things you liked about it. And would tell veterans, is a good reason to do it. And two things you didn't like about it. And you would tell veterans to steer clear. Brett Allen 37:09 So I got a lot of exercise. I walked for hours a day. Because you get like a territory where you go and you just knock on doors, and you introduce yourself to people and you try to strike up a conversation. A lot of times you just get- Cliff 37:29 My name is Brett, do you have any money? Brett Allen 37:32 -Right, nobody wants to talk about their finances on the doorstep. But I probably lost about 20 pounds in the year I was doing that. I was like the lightest I'd been since I was on a cross-country team in high school. And so that was… that was good. I trimmed away a lot of extra weight there. But the… Wow! What other thing did I like about it? I got my own office so I was running my own branch. So that was nice. I was my own boss, which was good and bad. Because in the days you don't want to do anything, nobody’s there to make you do it. So that was good. A couple… the bad things are just like, unless you have like a sales personality, it’s hard to make it in the first couple of years if you don't already have a good book of business handed to you- Cliff 38:33 Sounds like in your life, I mean, you didn't have to pursue your wife, right, like so your rejection is not in your DNA. [Cross talk] Brett Allen 38:46 But, I mean, there’re guys that were great at it. I had a friend who was one of like my mentors while I was there, and he would come every once in a while walk the territory I was walking where I was getting like no response. And this guy would strike up a conversation with everybody who came to the door and be there talking to them about their finances for like 10, 15 20 minutes. I'm like, Holy ****. Like I get 30 seconds out of this person before they slam the door in my face. So if you got it, you got it. And I think people that are just inherently good at selling and talking to people it's a great route to go but if you're an introvert you should stay away from it. Yes. Cliff 39:30 So that's what’s negative probably. What's another thing you would caution people against? Brett Allen 39:41 Just… you know when you have to sell investments that are all pretty much the same, like our big thing was mutual funds. And then we had like eight mutual fund families and they're all good. Like, they're not going to offer you a bad mutual fund family, but you're supposed to pick one and learn their story and be very passionate about it. And then inevitably, whatever person you're trying to pitch these things to is like, well, what makes these mutual funds better than the other mutual funds and like, I had a hard time being like, nothing like [cross talk] Cliff 40:28 [Unintelligible] Like, I have five playing cards, pick one, right? [Cross talk] They're all with the index, because that's the smart thing to do. Brett Allen 40:42 So I had a hard time getting around that, like sell something that I knew really wasn't much different than the other options we were offering. Cliff 40:52 And it sounds like the whole time you were thinking about how do I make time to write a book at what time in your life did you think [unintelligible 40:56] fit? I like to tell some stories. This like a Stand by Me thing where when you were like a kid, you went on a camping trip? And you would just tell your friends discussing stories that you made up or did it just develop over the fact that like, when you're in the military, you come across characters who you could not make up in fiction? Brett Allen 41:22 Yes, definitely. I mean, I started like, I really got into like, the young authors thing when I was like in middle school and stuff like that. But I started writing for a friend's website in college. His website was called lies about Ben. And it was every day he would post a different lie about his brother Ben. [Laughter] So he had a couple of like contributing writers that would just make up stupid posts and write about it. Cliff 41:59 Did Ben exist? Brett Allen 42:01 Yes, Ben exists? I don't know. [Laughter] [Cross talk] But I got a lot of good feedback on some of the blog posts that I made for that. Cliff 42:14 It's just because you're like an inherent smart*****. Brett Allen 42:17 I think, a little bit. Yes, no, I probably spent more time on a lot of these posts than I did my homework in college. Like it was something I enjoyed doing. So I put some effort into it. But I kind of put that aside here in all the army stuff. And but on deployment, we had a lot of ridiculous stuff. And I remember telling one of the other guys in the [unintelligible 42:46] like, nobody would believe this was, like true to life until I put this in a novel and told everybody, it was fake. So that's kind of what sparked me thinking, like, I should like start jotting some of this stuff down and revisit it later. And it was about probably two years outside of the army where I started outlining in earnest, a storyline and writing things down. So- Cliff 43:17 Did you have a mentor who kind of coached you through it, or was it just something that you kind of had to… was your wife like pushing you and saying, “Hey, you should definitely do this” or she was like, Dude, no, we have two kids. Like writers don't make ****. Brett Allen 43:36 No, I mean, she was good with it. I just like I said, I did most of my writing when everybody else in the house was sleeping. And I just kind of stole time where I could that wasn't interfering with her, the kids and Yes, I didn't really have any, like, mentors to bounce things off from. I did a lot of reading. So that's one thing you hear constantly. When you're researching how to do this stuff, everybody's just like, read endlessly. So I wrote read a lot of books on writing. I read, like, Stephen King's book on writing, I read, like textbook style stuff. [Cross talk] But then a lot of stuff in the same genre that I was trying to write, I mean, one of my favorite books is Catch 22, and that's kind of what I tried to. So Yes, I read a lot of humorous fiction and satire and books on writing and just I did it all the wrong ways a lot of times before I got out the right way. So… Cliff 44:51 Do you throw in a little like, Slaughterhouse fire in there or- Brett Allen 44:59 Oh, I love Slaughterhouse fire. [Crosstalk] Cliff 45:04 I mean do you identify, at all, with him? Brett Allen 45:07 A little bit… Cliff 45:07 This conversation goes in a dark turn here. So alright, let's take a slight detour. Full disclosure, I hadn't got a chance to read the book yet. Brett and I connected and I just happened so fast. I didn't get a chance to read it yet, but I will. I've read all the books of the folks who've written things on the podcast so far. So I can't break that streak. But did your time in Afghanistan, and your time in the military, did the quagmire of it all feed your desire to write something, the absurdity kind of, you know, the global war on terrorism, right? And by the way, I've always been flag waving supporter, you know, I think we had to go do what we had to do myself… you know, I had to go to Iraq. And in the end, you look back, in my perspective, at least I look back and I think, well, these are all just people. Every house, I went into that I wasn't invited in, like, well, you know, these are just people, they made a decision. And now I'm here. Yes. And instead, did that kind of feed your perspective of for writing Kilroy Was Here? Brett Allen 46:48 A little bit. I mean, I think the most patriotic thing you can do is to question the things that are being done and why they're being done and ensuring that they're being done for the appropriate reasons. I guess I when we were there, I never really had any qualms about why we were there, so much as how we were going about the things that we were doing while we were there. And I tried to lay that out and as funny a way as I could in the book. A lot of it is funny and both aggravating at the same time. And everything is exaggerated. It's exaggerated for the sake of the story. It's just… it's meant to be a comedy and kind of over the top. Even though like a lot of what's in the book is based on actual events and things that has happened, probably more than most people realize that have read the book. But yes, it's… I don't know. It's hard not to like, question everything while you're there, and especially when you've got a lot of time to think about it when you're sitting in a staff office the whole time, too. So… Cliff 48:28 Yes, I get that. And from that staff office perspective, there's a dark comedy of it all. Because when you're in, you know, obviously you didn't you get a chance to be able to lead in Afghanistan. But, you know, when you're that close to being on a deployment, you think of do I have the right kit? Do I have the right load out? What's going to happen if I do, if we come under contact, if we take a casualty, so you don't have that 10,000, literal 10,000 foot perspective where, you know, you're at staff, you're looking at things from a drone, right? There's been times where people are sitting in the FOB in the op center, knowing that there's an ID, you know, hundreds of yards away from your people and you can't get the message to them. You're just like, oh! you know, but at the same time, because of your perspective, there's nothing wrong with appreciating the dark humor that is the fact that if you keep sending meat into a grinder, you're going to make sausage. You know, and in sometimes by the way that sausage needs to be made. And for whatever reason, and you know, I don't think any of us needs to understand it fully. But, but that sausage is going to be made one way or another, right? But it does get infuriating when it's, you know, we've all lost people, friends, and we can look back now years later think, man! like when we left Afghanistan, I was like, ****, dude. I lost these friends and for what you know. And if nothing else is they were there for a season to flavor our own lives and experiences and you know, we carry that with us. So you know, these things need to be told, these stories need to be told no matter how dark or how funny, or how tragic some of them may be. These are stories that need to be told. [Unintelligible 51:00] And this is kind of why you know, I was saying I had the courage to putting yourself out there. You have the courage to like, go write something and put yourself out there. So it's kind of one of the reasons why you decided to do that? Brett Allen 51:14 Yes the reason I decided to go the comedy route, just I mean, aside from like, that's just the way my brain is wired. Cliff 51:28 Do you think you're funny? [Laughter] [Cross talk] Brett Allen 51:36 But like, I just, you know, I felt like that was like a gap that needed to be filled. Because a lot of the stories coming out of the guy was… they're all either like the kicking indoors stories, or they're the broken soldiers stories of like, coming home with PTSD and those that don't get me wrong. Those are very important stories to be told to. But I felt like there was a gap with I mean there's a lot of funny **** that happens. And not all people come home from deployment. With- Cliff 52:26 PTSD. Yes… Brett Allen 52:27 -Yes. PTSD or scarred. I mean, there's not making light of like the people that do. But there's a lot of people that are underrepresented in the literary world from that perspective. And if you’ve heard of the book Hobbit [phonetic 52:50]. So that book, I found out about that well, after I was into writing this, and I was like, god dammit! Like somebody already stole my thunder. But no, that's a great book. The author of that actually, he edited my next book. So but it was, it was kind of cool to see that from the Iraq perspective. And I'm hoping that this book kind of fills that that gap from Afghanistan perspective. Cliff 53:16 Do you feel that as you continue your writing career that it'll always be military stuff forward? Brett Allen 53:25 So this next one is not military at all. So I made a complete departure from the military fiction. And it's actually based in a small town in Michigan where like their mayor of seven years dies gruesomely. And there's a contentious mayoral election that follows in the town kind of gets divided. So it's kind of a political satire… Cliff 53:57 Where do you come up with this stuff, man? Brett Allen 54:01 Just read the headlines and you're good to go. Cliff 54:04 You’re probably right… [Cross talk] Brett Allen 54:09 No, it's again like a dark humor brings in a little bit of the Michigan dog man legend, and it's a fun book, so I'm hoping it does well. Cliff 54:20 I love it. It's regional. Do you have a title for it yet? Or… Brett Allen 54:23 It’s called Sly Fox Hollow.Cliff 54:26 Sly Fox Hollow and when can we expect to see that on Amazon… Favorite bookstore Brett Allen 54:33 Your guess is as good as mine. Cliff 54:37 You ever watched the movie Misery? I know you like Stephen King. Brett Allen 54:42 I have not seen it or read it but I know of the book and I know kind of the storyline. Cliff 54:47 So are you are you like actively avoiding it? Brett Allen 54:52 I… it’s going to sound bad, but the only book I've ever read by Stephen King is his book on writing. Cliff 54:59 No way. Weird. That is totally weird, man. Because I mean, he's written so many books. Brett Allen 55:09 Yes. And I've seen a lot of the movies. I'm familiar with the books I just have never. Cliff 55:16 When you said you have to read a lot to go to this writing route, is it? Do you feel like you have to be selective about reading? Because do you? Do you feel like you're influenced enough where you might accidentally start writing like somebody else? Brett Allen 55:39 It's funny, you say that, because that definitely happens. So, like, especially like if I pick up a Vonnegut book, or something, like, kind of, I want to write like this and, like, try to emulate that. But then you pick up another book that you end up really liking and you're like, you start noticing that your writing kind of sounds like that. So the whole process is just like taking in all of these different styles and letting them kind of meld and like form your own style. And I think a lot of authors just is a matter of time before they find one that they zero in on, a style that they zero in on, so Yes. Cliff 56:32 I've read a few books by… I can never get his damn name right. The author of Fight Club, I can’t [unintelligible 56:40] Brett Allen 56:42 Oh, Yes, Chuck. [Cross talk] Cliff 56:44 He definitely has a style. As a matter of fact, like once you get through like two books, this just seems like it's the same tone. I'm just reading at the same time, Bret Easton Ellis, same thing where you're like, I hate reading American Psycho. I just couldn't do it just because it seems so like, pretentious. But, but you also, you know, I'm not a writer, but I start playing stories in my head, as I'm like, recalling things in my head, from like, my real life. I'm telling myself as if I'm like Bret Easton Ellis telling a story, you know, or Chuck and that's a sick *****, by the way. We, my buddy and I did a, it wasn't a competition. But we just went through a thing with let's Google the most shocking and fucked up books in history. And in a lot of checks are on there. And so if you if you don't want to see anything horrible, you should not read. Here's the last step you shouldn't [unintelligible 58:05]. But there's also some other stories, not by check the Wasp factory, don't read that one. I don't recommend it. And then there's a story by Chuck that has something to do with a swimming pool. Don't read that one either. Do you know what I'm talking about? Don't look it up. Anyways. So Alright, so we're kind of running short on time here. And we have we've kind of like we've kind of touched around the edges of Kilroy Was Here. So if you don't mind, tell us a little bit more about the book. What somebody should know, or what to expect when picking it up. And if they're considering picking it up. You know, what are some of the redeeming qualities that you think as the author that would compel somebody to grab it? Brett Allen 59:04 Yes, so Kilroy Was Here. It is loosely based off from my 2009 deployment to Afghanistan, in the Logar province. So the whole book covers the span of single year of deployment. The opening scene is them flying into Bagram Air Force Base, and the main character Lieutenant Jared Rye [phonetic 59:34] is loosely based on myself. And he's kind of in a similar position to where I was, as an officer that's kind of in transition. He is hoping to kind of leave his mark on the war in Afghanistan. He's hoping that he'll get some platoon leader time and see some action and things of course, don't go that direction. And he gets tasked in two different positions. And it's all about his time in a staff position as he goes through this deployment at FOB Altimur instead of [unintelligible 59:59]. But it's got like a laundry list of pretty quirky characters. You've got there, they're mostly staff officers, and higher level NCOs. Yes. Alright. [Unintelligible 1:00:40]. So, you know, just kind of follows him through this year where he's hoping to leave his mark. And he just kind of sees that his deployment is not going to be what he hoped it would be. But he ends up finding a little bit of sanity in the relationship he builds with one of the squadron’s interpreters who has been indelicately just dubbed [unintelligible 1:01:18] number two. And their relationship kind of builds throughout the deployment. And he kind of gains a new perspective on why he's there and his hopes for Afghanistan as he leaves a place a year later. Cliff 1:01:34 Oh, I can't wait to read it man. And it sounds like you did have a career in sales. After all, you just had to push it a little bit further. So you're synopsis of Kilroy Was Here… It's interesting, because do you feel that this book is and I imagine so but it's self-reflective? Right? Like, it hadn't been? Would you consider it a healing experience? Writing it as cliché as that sounds, but you had a canvas to put your memories and emotions and, and maybe what you felt were your shortcomings on? Brett Allen 1:02:19 Yes, definitely. And it definitely helped kind of like sort out some of the, the feelings I had about- Cliff 1:02:32 FOMO? Brett Allen 1:02:33 -Yes, I had a lot of FOMO, when I was sitting in was the squadron staff there really was missing out. And, like, you come back from a deployment like that, where you've, you've been your primary duty felt like it was to make sure the coffee was right, for the squadron and squadron commander. He just kind of like what the hell was on doing there, like, I didn’t sign up for that. So the book… writing the book was kind of a cathartic way to, to process that, to put it in a little bit different perspective… force myself to think of it in a different perspective than what I had initially come out of it with. And it was a good way to connect with some of the guys that I had been there with, like, kind of lost a little bit of touch with after we got back I don't know how many guys from my unit contacted me after the book came out and was like, we're like, Holy ****! I'm so happy you wrote this book. Like I remember all of that. That was really cool to get the feedback from those guys and know that I did it justice. Cliff 1:03:51 The other platoon leaders who were in the squadron, is that what they call them, right? Did they realize and by the way, again, I haven't read the book yet, but the way you have summarized it where it's a guy who's hoping to get some PL time in country, have any of them said dude, we know the only way you would get platoon time is if one of us died. [Unintelligible 01:03:59]. Where you're thinking I would love PL time, but somebody there has to be fired or killed. Brett Allen 1:04:35 I haven't heard that from a lot of the guys… Cliff 1:04:42 But have you thought it? It’s okay to admit it, man. It's okay to admit it. Like you have to think that since you're like Dude, if one of these **** goes down, I'm ready to pop it. Boom! like that. Brett Allen 1:04:54 Yes, I guess I haven’t vocalized that. [Laughter] Cliff 1:04:58 You're welcome. There. Therapy is free here, bro. Brett Allen 1:05:03 You're right. I don't know. By the time it got to that point we had like, I don't know, I felt like our squadron commander was like hoarding lieutenants. We had like lieutenants in the [unintelligible 01:05:20] as battle captains and like extra [unintelligible 01:05:22] So it was whoever's gas was going to get tagged to move down to a PL position if anybody had to. Cliff 1:05:31 Yes. But you know, there's this weird perspective from people who haven't lived it where we all I don't want to say lionize, but from an outsider's perspective, people feel like we're all robots. And also that we're all [unintelligible 1:06:00]. And every time you know, everybody who became a casualty was some type of hero. But if you're in long enough, and I was in 20 years, and you know, you got to go to Afghanistan in a time where a lot of stuff was going on in Afghanistan, but, you know, eventually, you're going to read a name of somebody who got blown up or whatever. And people don't like to hear this, but sometimes you look at that name, and you're like, that **** but that dude was an *****hole. We're like, Man, I know, that guy stole somebody's wife. Maybe he got what was coming to him. You know, and people don't like to hear that. But that's, I mean, it that’s life. It's the same as if you're a construction worker, and you know, ***** load of bricks lands on some dude. That construction worker’s probably like, yes, probably got to him on popular opinion, and maybe I should just stop talking. Brett Allen 1:07:06 I think when you do, like this type of… that type of work, like, especially for you, I mean, you've been, you've been in 20 years. And you just develop a different relationship with that type of thinking. Like when most people that go into the army, I was only in for four years, but I did a fair amount of thinking about death and about being blown up by an IED or I being murdered. Like, you just, you change your wiring on that kind of thinking. And it becomes easier, I guess, to joke about it, or to just accept that that's a part of what you signed up to do. Yes, and I guess that's why it was fairly natural to write this book. And like, a lot of people that have read it that are civilians are like, oh my God! It’s like, doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Like I just I formed a different relationship with that kind of stuff. Cliff 1:08:13 Yes. Have you ever done an audio book? Brett Allen 1:08:16 I actually bought this microphone for the purpose of that, recorded the first chapter and I was like, Holy ****! Nobody’s going to want to listen to me talk for an entire book. I put the pause on that later, but… Cliff 1:08:31 Well, so we're going to wrap it up here, but and I don't want you to give away anything from the book, per se. But I like to, either… It's always fun to share either embarrassing, or the funny stories, man. So pick one. And, and let's hear it from embarrassing or maybe some funny anecdote from your time in service. Brett Allen 1:08:58 Okay, so this is actually in the book. I'm okay with giving this piece away. Cliff 1:09:04 Spoiler alert! Brett Allen 1:09:08 So around Easter timeframe, when we were over there, we started getting all these care packages and people were getting peeps, like just never ending ***** flow of peeps. And so we had in the s3 shop [phonetic 1:09:27], we had this pyramid of boxes of peeps, and our squadron op Sergeant Major, who he had developed this fascination with challenging me to all kinds of like different, like eating competitions and things like that. He wanted to see how many peeps I could fit in my mouth at one time. Cliff 1:09:49 Tell me [unintelligible 1:09:50] Brett Allen 1:09:51 Yes. To the extreme. So we set a time and he gathered up, like all the NCOs and all the officers on the FOB that he could find and brought him to the s3 shop [phonetic]. So I had this huge crowd in the s3 shop [phonetic] and people were like taking bets. And so I ended up… I got 26 peeps in my mouth and was able to close my mouth before I roped them into the trash can. And like right as I got the last peep in, the squadron commander, kick the door open and just let everybody out, shoot everybody out. And then slammed the door and then I like puked in the trash. Cliff 1:10:42 Oh my God! The Fun Police? [Crosstalk] Yes, people have died from Chubby Bunny. Brett Allen 1:10:52 I was close. It was… he pushing it. As far as I know, I'm still holding the RC East record for Chubby Bunny. Cliff 1:11:01 Yes. And you know if you own that record right now, it's never going to be broken. Think about that. Brett Allen 1:11:07 Well, I like to think that the Taliban’s breaking into a contract somewhere and finding like all the old male and [unintelligible 1:11:10]. Cliff 1:11:12 If the Taliban got a hold of chubby buddies, they're shoving it up a different orifice. Alright. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you for joining me, Brett Allen, the author of Kilroy Was Here. You can get it on Amazon. Is there any preferred location for people to get it from? I know that Amazon takes the king's ransom. Brett Allen 1:11:38 Yes, I mean, you can get it on Amazon. You can order it from Barnes Noble. And you can, I mean, you can go into any bookstore and ask them and they'll bring it in for you. Cliff 1:11:50 Right on. And obviously Brett spent time as the CAV officer at Fort Drums served in OEF Afghanistan and now he is putting his time on the Return to Base podcast. So I appreciate your time, Brett and best of luck to you and can't wait for… Hold up. Wait for it. Sly Fox hollow…. can't wait to see Sly Fox Hollow. I expect my autographed copy personalized. I'll take the transcript… the manuscript. So appreciate you joining us. Brett Allen 1:12:26 I appreciate you having me on, thank you! Cliff 1:12:38 Alright. So that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Return to Base and if you can, go out and support Brett Allen by getting his book Kilroy Was Here. It's available at Amazon or wherever you'd like to buy books. And he also has another book coming out Sly Fox Hollow which was seems pretty interesting. So go to veteranlife.com. Check out our website, follow the Return to Base podcast if you haven't already and go out and buy Brett Allen's book Kilroy Was Here, wherever you can. Thank you for joining us.

Conclusion

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