The Insider Threat: How a US Soldier Planned for Years to Kill His Own Unit with Bart Womack

Justin Beals:

Hello everyone, and welcome to SecureTalk. I'm your host, Justin Beals. It's March 2003. The world watches as the United States prepares to invade Iraq in what would become one of the most controversial military actions of the 21st century. President Bush has declared Saddam Hussein a threat to global security, claims of weapons of mass destruction that would never be found.

Across the Middle East, anti-American sentiment is reaching a fever pitch. Massive protests fill the streets of world capitals. Even within the U.S. military, soldiers are grappling with questions about the mission they're about to undertake.

For our guest, Bart Womack, it's 1 a.m. in Kuwait, March 23rd, 2003. He is a command sergeant major watching Tiger Woods play golf back home. He is loading ammunition for his sidearm. And around him, 5,000 of his fellow American soldiers are preparing for an invasion that has divided the world. In just four days, they will cross the border into Iraq.

The final preparations are complete. Everything seems routine. Then a grenade rolls into the tent. What unfolds over the next few hours shatters one of the most fundamental assumptions we make about security, that our greatest threats come from outside our walls. But in this moment of global tension, religious conflict, and moral uncertainty, the most dangerous enemy turns out to be wearing the same uniform, taking the same oath, sleeping in the tent next to yours. 

The attacker's own diary would later reveal his motivation. “Destroying America was my plan as a child. You guys are coming into our countries. You're going to rape our women and kill our children”. This wasn't a spontaneous act of battlefield stress. It was a calculated attack planned years in advance by someone who had successfully infiltrated the very institution he intended to destroy. 

This story illuminates the perfect storm conditions that create insider threats, ideological conflict, institutional pressure, moral uncertainty, and the deadly combination of legitimate access with malicious intent. 

When someone believes they're fighting a holy war,with the very organization that has trained and armed them, traditional security measures become not just inadequate, they become the weapons turned against us. The statistics are sobering. Insider threats account for some of the most devastating security breaches in modern history. In our schools, we've witnessed teachers and students turn weapons on their own communities. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech.

In corporate America, trusted employees have stole billions in trade circuits and sold customer data to competitors, sabotaged critical systems. Chinese intelligence operatives have recruited trusted government employees and defense contractors to steal our most sensitive military secrets, from stealth fighter designs to nuclear submarine technology. At Fort Hood, a military psychologist opened fire on the soldiers he was supposed to heal.

These aren't random acts of violence. They're systemic betrayals by people who had earned our trust, understood our vulnerabilities, and use that knowledge to inflict maximum damage. But the devastation doesn't end with the initial attack. In the aftermath, we've seen how these tragedies become weaponized by conspiracy theorists and extremists who spin fantastical narratives that further. 

When Alex Jones claimed Sandy Hook was a hoax with crisis actors, he didn't just dishonor the memory of murdered children. He created a secondary attack on the families who survived. When insider threats strike, they don't just damage organizations. They create fertile ground for the very ideological divisions that breed more insider threats. It becomes a vicious cycle where real violence feeds conspiracy theories, which feed polarization, which feeds more violence. 

What makes insider threats so devastating isn't just their access. It's their intimate knowledge of how to hurt us most. They know which systems are critical, which defenses are weakest, and most importantly, they know how to blend in until the moment they strike. 

The external hacker has to break down the door. The insider already has the keys. And when they use those keys, the aftermath reverberates through our culture for years, often creating the very conditions that spawn the next generation of insider threats. Today, these pressure points exist everywhere.

Political polarization has reached levels not seen since the Civil War. Religious and ideological extremism spreads through social media with unprecedented speed.Workplace tensions, economic uncertainty, and social isolation create the same psychological conditions that turn trusted insiders into active threats. The question isn't whether these pressures exist. Recent workplace shootings, insider trading scandals, and data breaches have proven that they do. 

The question is whether we're prepared to recognize the warning signs before they explode into violence.

So here's what makes today's conversation so powerful. Our guest didn't just survive an insider attack, he learned from it. He took that terrifying experience and transformed it into a systematic approach for recognizing the warning signs that too often go unnoticed until it's too late. His insights bridge the gap between military combat experience and civilian security needs offering practical strategies that could save lives in offices, schools, and communities across America. 

The question isn't whether insider threats exist. Recent events have proven they do. The question is whether we're prepared to recognize them before they strike. Today's conversation will challenge everything you think you know about trust, security, and the human dynamics that make us most vulnerable. I am very glad to welcome Bart Womack. 

Bart Womack is a distinguished retired command sergeant major with 29 years of exemplary service in the US Army's elite 101st Airborne Division where he held multiple leadership positions including division and post command sergeant major. A combat veteran and survivor of insider threats, Womack has transformed his military experience into a powerful mission of protecting others through his work as a professional speaker and thought leader in safety and security. He holds an MBA from Waynesburg University and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Business Management from Park University, combining his military expertise with strong business acumen. Since transitioning from military service in 2006, Womack has dedicated himself to mitigating active shooter and insider threat attacks through engaging keynote presentations and strategic consultations.

As a freelance public speaker specializing in situational awareness and security, he has spent over a decade empowering audiences across workplace environments, academic institutions, and places of worship with proactive security approaches. Beyond his speaking career, Womeck has served as a board member for the Veteran Retreats Foundation, contributes to Veterans Media Corporation, and works as a military technical advisor for film and television productions. 

His published work, Embedded Enemy, further establishes his authority on insider threat prevention, making him a sought after expert who bridges the gap between military experience and civilian security needs. I'd like to deeply thank Bart, both for joining us on the podcast and being open-hearted about sharing his experience. I'd like to caution that we dive deep into both his experience and the experience of insider threats and violence in this particular episode. Thanks for joining us today.

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Justin Beals:

Well, Bart, we really appreciate you joining us today on SecureTalk.

Bart Womack:

Well, I appreciate you having me. I'm thrilled to get started.

Justin Beals :

Excellent. Well, let's just kick off with a big part of your background. You served 29 years for the US military in the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. I so wish I had that on my resume somewhere, Bart. That's really amazing. And you really rose through your military career. How did you get involved in, I think, the nation state aspect of security, was it something you were interested in at a young age?

Bart Womack :

No, no, not at all. I mean, I stumbled upon the military. I won't go all way through that whole story, but it really, really stumbled upon it. Even though recruiters are in our hallways in high school trying to get people to join the military way back when I had no interest in doing it. So I actually stumbled upon it to come into the military. Didn't know that I would stay. I didn't know much about the military at all. So I had to learn everything on the fly. Like every, every day was a learning experience, you know? So when they, said, there was someone to recruit people for airborne school. said, what's airborne? He said, jumping out airplanes. You gotta be crazy. And I said, well, you get extra $55 a month. I said, I'm in, let's go. 

Justin Beals: 

That made you crazy.

Bart Womack :

It was the root of good things and not the root of evil at that particular time.

Justin Beals: 

That's right, yeah.

Bart Womack:

But that was kind of learned on the fly. I know anything about paratroopers or anything like that. I had to learn all those things. So I think each and every term was a learning experience. Then I found myself as a drill sergeant at a very young age. And I think that was probably the leadership catalyst that kind of spun everything to say, like you're deep into this now. You're taking people like you've been here, you were here once. Now you're taking people who are just coming off the streets, if you will. Now you have to transition them and turn them into soldiers. So I think it got very, very serious at that particular time in terms of the military for me. And then things just kind of snowballed to upward mobility thereafter, because the drill song was kind of the creme de la creme of service and position and respect and honor back in those days.

Justin Beals:

Yeah, I find it very interesting. I think that I've had friends, of course, that have joined the military, and it did unlock a potential for them. You Know? Everyone's experience is unique. I want to own that. But certainly, you found an opportunity to provide leadership and obviously a knack for it. That must have felt like a fish in water as you arrived there. Yeah.

Bart Womack: 

Yeah, it's, um, I guess I think the drill sergeant of leading young people early on who didn't know anything, excuse me. Uh, I think that was really callous that said, okay, you're, you're actually leading, leading now. Um, and the next position after that, and the ones after that, you get more people under your care, if you will. And I do mean cares, there's charge and there's also care. They're kind of go hand in hand.

We become responsible for not only that service member, but also that of their family, their overall welfare. And like I said, it gets pretty serious at that point. You're kind of guiding your children, although you may only be a few years older. It's that experience that you gain as a leader that you're imparting on them throughout their entire lives.

Justin Beals: 

Yeah, there's this clarity and certain amount of joy in a shared mission and executing it together. Absolutely. You were awarded two bronze stars for valor during your time in the military. And you can tell us a little bit about how the combat experience may have shaped you and your consideration.

Bart Womack: 

Yeah, one was for valor and it's a very unknown story. I'm sure you can do some Internet searching on it, but that's probably the only way you're going to find it. So this happened way back in 1984. I was serving in what's called the Joint Security Area in Korea. Joint security areas where they have the peace talks. That's what in North and South meets in that particular area to have the peace talks in the buildings there are the main building where they would have the talks.

You know, that whole thing is the DMZ. And to represent that DMZ, there's a, there's a kind of an extra wide sidewalk on the outside that separates the North from the South. But inside that one building that they would do the talks, there's a long table. And on the table, which is about the width of the entire Quonset building, there's microphones facing each side, North and South. And then there's wires for those microphones. The wire represented the DMZ represented the line inside that building. So we were there, it was Thanksgiving, 1984. And every time that there was a tour from either side, there would be guards outside. So if there was a tour from the American side, we'd have our guards out there in a cordon to protect them. And the same was true if the North had a tour, but it was Thanksgiving day. So we didn't have any tours on our side, but they did, they had one.

So it one guard out there with them and two visitors. One visitor had his back to the south, and he was standing beside the guard, and his buddy was taking a picture. So as his buddy was taking a picture, the guy had his back to the south, turned around, starts running to the south side. And the guard starts chasing him and starts shooting. Well, bomb night, that caused a huge firefight between the north and the south. But it was just between us and them.

We had an opportunity. Opportunity was made up of half Korean soldiers and half GI soldiers. I want to say I had about 14,15 people in my squad, half were Koreans, half were GIs. This fight ensues, this firefight, you know, back and forth. And the Korean soldiers did not come outside the fight. It was just us. So if opportunity had about 39 people, you cut that in half. And then there's checkpoints throughout the JSA and half of our forces on the checkpoints, probably about 10 of them. So now we're down to 29, but we cut that in half because the Koreans aren't fighting. But it was that small of US soldiers fighting against however many KPA that was in the Gok. And that's their big building that they had up there. You can see that building very clearly. I forget the name of the James Bond movie, but it starts out with Pierce Brosnan, I think he's captive or whatever. He's trying to get someone released and they're doing an exchange. And during that exchange, you actually see the big building that is called the Gok in North Korea, on the North Korean side of the JSA. But a big old fight ensues there, mean, five of them, end up killing five of them, wounded and three others. We had one of our Korean soldiers that was outside guarding a worker. um, him and a G I, um, they were, they were hit the Korean soldier got killed and the GI, uh, the bullet went straight through his head when it was kind of fatty necks, it just kind of went straight through there. And that was his injury. So the, the bronze star for Valor came, came from that attack. We, uh, my team and I, went upstairs to our building, and there's a thing called a sunken garden. And that's where the KPA had moved to.

And they were on, there was some pretty, I don't want to say serious high ground, but they were higher than us. So they were up here and we were down here. So boats are going back and forth, but no one's getting hit because we're not rising up to the same level, right?, of where the elevation was. So there's going over our head. Although we put in a lot of boats that way, they're not really affecting anything for the most part. So we go upstairs and bottom line, start shooting M203 rounds, which is a

two or three devices a grenade launcher, 45 millimeter rockets, little small grenades, but that was the thing that kind of caused the injuries.

Justin Beals:

Wow. Of course, I've never been in a situation like that. I can't imagine the intensity, but certainly kind of in a situation exploded, it unfolded in real time. This was not any sort of planned exercise. And I guess at that point, you're left deeply with your training, with your team, and what you're gonna do.

Bart Womack: 

Yeah. mean, aside from training tactically for, you know, different type of fight in different area, we never really just set aside to train for something like that happening in the JSA. Never did, surprisingly.

So I guess we maybe thought that nothing would ever happen up there. I don't know. But just the overall training in terms of, there's a force, there's a force. You look for a cover and concealment, and all those types of things is always going to kick in.

Justin Beals:

Yeah, I mean, this is just, I think broadly a challenge in security. We do talk to people on the technical side of security for businesses, and it is kind of a situation that unfolds in the moment. You certainly train and prepare for it, but it's always not quite what you plan for even in the best of situations. 

Now, you wrote your book, Embedded Enemy, and I think that is a similar type of expertise that you have around insider threat. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about, you were watching Tiger Woods play golf at 1 a.m. when an insider attack unfolded, is that right?

Bart Womack:

Yeah, and this story, the embedded enemy story is almost like the firefight in Korea. Like,truly, unbeknownst. And if you go through one of those things, you kind of pull a check mark on there that something like that, fighting a KPA isn't going to happen. And then you have this second thing that happens that's not supposed to happen. It's surreal.

So I'm watching Tiger Woods play golf, as you mentioned, it's about, you know, zero one in the morning, just turned into March 23rd. We've been in Kuwait for about 20 days or so. And we just finished putting the final touches on our particular plan to cross the border into Iraq. And at a particular time, so this is early, early Sunday morning, we were supposed to leave on a Thursday morning. So about four days away-ish.

And I'm watching Tiger Woods play golf. We just got our ammo that night. I am loading my ammunition from my 9mm. So I'm loading those magazines and I'm watching Tiger play golf. And this tip flap would move because the wind would blow. So it moved once and I looked at it and I kind of realized it's just the wind. Then the second time when it kind of made some noise, I didn't pay much attention. And lo and behold, this object comes in, which I didn't see come in at the time, but I saw these sparks and I said, when in Atlanta, not quite right. And that's a not quite right grenade. It's for some reason sparking before it explodes. And, I jump up something's wrong here, and I wake up the commander because he was asleep. He had gone to bed early, about 10 PM that night. My ex was in a tent. He saw what I saw. So I knew he could take care of himself, but the commander was in a back sleep, had no idea what was going on. 

Now, keep in mind, I see those sparks, but I still think that's some type of grenade that's gonna blow up. Well, tell me to get up, there's a grenade bug off front, we gotta get out of the So I'm gonna count to three, I give him time to get on his boots, I count to three, and we're gonna run straight out of the tent. Count to three, we take off running, and all we can do is go down this little slim aisle and back to the front of the tent, passing where that grenade was. The back of the tent was all kind of roped off, if you will, because of, you it's a tempered tent, so the air conditioner heating you was in the back and you it would be in the way if you use that as an interest exit all the time. So it was kind of roped off. So we had to go out the front. So we start running. I get out of the tent. He doesn't get out of the tent. I get out. I call for him and he's not there. I don't know what happened, but he's just not there. And I'm calling in hushed tones because I know we're in some type of attack. I don't want to civilize myself. But he's not there. So I hear a gunshot and then I hear a yell. I know that that's the executive officer who got shot.

I just know that I pull up my weapon, cock it, but it doesn't cock because it has a magazine in but no rounds. So it doesn't cock. If you had rounds, goes chh chh. If it doesn't, it chh chh. And so I'm screwed, and I realized, okay, I need a weapon, I need ammunition. the tactical operations center, TAC, is about 25 yards behind me. I take off running to the TAC to get a weapon, night vision, goggles as well as ammunition. So I run in there asking for those items. I begin to put people into security positions throughout the talk, just to protect their interests is there. And I finally get those items. come back out of my tent, back out of the talk, go to my tent to look for the commander and executive officer, and they're not there. I go back to the talk. I summon someone to go in the vicinity of my tent to look for them while I look for the enemy. There's no one else outside.

And I know that the enemy has to be here someplace. I saw no signs of them and there was no one else outside. So I wanted to focus on trying to find the enemy while someone else looked for them. So when I go back out again, I'm challenged. So now one of our own soldiers are out there. ask me what's going on. I say, I don't know that, but the executive officer has been shot. Then he tells me Captain Seifert has been shot. So now I we have two casualties.

When I was in there that second time, I'd asked for reinforcements and to send a platoon over into the vicinity to look for the enemy—and also received a call on the radio asking if we needed a FL light, which is a field litter ambulance. So I knew that one person was shot at that particular time. So I told them to send one in the vicinity of the top. Again, I go back out and learn now we have two casualties. And then other people would start coming out of tent.

The sirens going off the scuttle or sirens going off people move into the bunkers as per your drill And we are consistently looking for insurgents at the same time. We have a huge issue with casualties mounting. So after the gunshot and Then later on a frag grenade blows up in my tent One blows up in the second tent then one blows up in a third tent

So in the second tent, they had to begin to stand up because they heard a gunshot and an explosion. So grenade blows at 15 degree radius. So if you're below the 15 degrees, you're probably okay. Anything above, like you're in trouble. Some of them had to begin to stand up and got a lot of shrapnel as a result of being well above that 15 degrees. In the third tent, now they're up and they're moving out of the tent.

One person had started out of the tent, was almost out, realized he forgot his ammo, went back in the tent and he slept all the way in the back, got his ammo, started back out of the tent again. And when he did, that's when the grenade exploded in that tent, he was 17 inches away from the grenade. So now we have matched casualties. We have to make a decision based on all these casualties, where do we put our casualty collection point? And it ended up being in the second tent because their injuries are more

their injuries were worse. So we put the what we call a CCP casualty collection point in that second tent. So casualty being treated as they we can move them they're put on the on a litter I'm sorry and then put on the FLA moves to the aid station that's on the camp and we repeat that process until we get them all over there. At the same time we're looking for the enemy with no signs of the enemy. We're putting people in security positions throughout our headquarters area.

And I should have painted this picture in the beginning, but so imagine you have this big old camp, I'd say like 10 football fields. There's approximately 5,000 people on this camp. 4,200 of them are in my command. And the headquarters is in the middle of all this. So as we were looking for insurgents and security, our perimeter, we're only securing our little headquarters area perimeter. And when they're there in that perimeter, they're facing out to protect the inside, but guess who their weapons are pointed at as they are facing out? Or are they pointed at? Or are they soldiers? So all this is happening at the same time, and we're looking forward to insurgents, casualties are being medevaced. A helicopter lands, the first few casualties are put on that helicopter, it takes off, it takes a one-minute ride to the combat support hospital. I mean, it's literally a one-minute flight.

Second helicopter lands, when that helicopter lands, there's a huge explosion in the sky. And now we think we're being attacked from the ground and the air that that's potential scud. So that second helicopter landed, and once it got loaded, they were told you cannot take the one minute flight to the cache that's a minute away. You have to go 75 kilometers to a different cache. That likely cost one of our guys his life.

So they finally even take off and still looking for insurgents. The Patriot Battle had spotted what they believed to be a scud, a fast-moving object in the sky and it shoot it down. Now, again, our whole division had been there for 20, 20 days, maybe a few more. And even though there was scud alerts, it was the first time that anything had been shot down.

So you can imagine with all the gunfire and the explosions, the petri battery thinking that it's a scud, but it was actually a British tornado fighter jet returning from a mission. So now we have friendly on friendly fire going on. Our search continues. I say that something changed in this camp that we've been here all these nights, and nothing like this, you know, remotely came close to happening. What changed is someone says interpreters came in last night. Boom, has to be them go find them.

So the search begins for interpreters, they're found, they're interrogated, learning to have nothing to with it. Now it goes back to the insurgents again. The grenade, the frag grenade, rolled into my tent and exploded. Actually hit the commander. Had a couple of pieces of strap moving his arm, but more importantly, it threw him back into his sleeping area, and that's why he didn't make it out of the tent.

When he came out as a concussed state, he said we need to get accountability personnel to do that, to learn that one person, Sergeant Akbar is missing, so are grenades and ammunition. So he'd become our number one suspect. So we hear that, we leave the talk. I remember there me and intelligence officer Major Warren. He goes one way, I go another. He had been walking around all night with his pistol in his hand, checking the various bunkers, making sure people had some instruction, making sure they were okay.

He realized there was one bunker that he had not gone to all night. So he goes to that bunker. He asks who's in the bunker, just like he had done all night. The response is Sergeant Ackbar. So he has a word with all the hostages, weapon, keeps walking toward the bunker and takes Ackbar down. And that's how he's apprehended.

After he's apprehended, I'm in that same area where he's apprehended at. I had went to my tent to finally get my ammo and my gear and everything. And as I was going in, I realized that there was a piece of brass on the ground. And I figured it had to be from when our executive officer was shot. I go inside my tent. Our unit colors are all burnt up.

I look back in my area to see that the frag grenade that exploded in my tent had blown up my entire sleeping area. So that's when it hit me that had I not been awake watching Tigers play golf, then I'd be dead. It only blew up where I slept. So I was pretty pissed. So I went to do something to him. So I get my gear, I go back out, I walk B-line straight over to where he had them.

So I was pretty pissed. You know, flex cuff at this point and to do something. I don't know what it's going to be, but an iPhone eye and someone else was coming up trying to get to him and I spent my time holding him, holding him back. So I didn't get to do whatever I thought I was going to do. You know, that never happened. So I'm handed, someone gives me his weapon. I smell it to see if it's been recently fired and it had, and I put it on safe, but I did not normally immediately clear weapon, you know, take that right out of the chamber, take the magazine out even, I didn't do that because I knew that if, again, it had been recently fired, if the ammo in this weapon matched that one round expended that I saw, then no kidding came from this weapon. So, I took the weapon back to that piece of brass, told someone to guard it, you don't leave until I tell you to leave. So each round has some numbers on the back of it that they call a dotic. So again, those things will match if it came from that weapon.

Um, he's taken to a security area or a different area away from everyone else and then ask, you know, why he did it. Said, he keep you off from killing our women and raping our children. Now I had to pause for moment to think about what's our, O-U-R, who is our? I thought you were in the army. I thought you, that oath you took to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic was, was what you were here to protect.

You know, but not the case. You know, so my takeaway from that was, you know, there's, was a few things. One, I wanted people to know about the story. So when we came back, I didn't start writing the book at that particular time, but I wrote a few sentences to tell myself that I was actually going to do it years before I actually, you know, put pen to paper there. I guess start typing, but I wanted people to know about the story. I wanted people to know that United States service members went through this and a fellow U.S. soldier did it. 

And for security reasons that people can use the military to come in to commit attacks. Now what we didn't know that night that we learned in the trial was that he had stuff written in his diary. And I keep this paper here, this quote to read you from his diary quotes. I do not like the military. They have too much control over people's lives. I suppose I'm just anti-government.

And this is written in 1993. It goes on to say, a Muslim should see himself as a Muslim only his loyalty to be the Islam only. Now, anybody can have any religion they want to. In my opinion, religion doesn't pull the trigger. People pull the trigger. 1996 he writes, anyone who stands in front of me shall be considered an enemy and dealt with accordingly. 1996 he writes, destroying America was my plan as a child.

As a juvenile and in college, my life would not be complete unless America is destroyed. Destroying America is my greatest goal. Excuse me. 1998, he joins the army. So this was planned all along. Then he goes on to say, you guys are coming into our countries. You're going to rape our women and kill our children. And that was in the diary as well. Then lastly, he says, I'm not going to do anything as long as I stay here at Fort Campbell.

But as soon as I'm in Iraq, I'm going to kill as many of them as possible. So it was planned all along.

And what bugged me in writing the book was like, what did we miss? I started out by telling you very early on it as a young leader, we were responsible for our soldiers and know their welfare. So you have to know them pretty well in order to take care of their welfare. So if we know them so well, how do we not know something here? 

Now, were we ever going to know that when the ammo comes, he's going to commit that attack? Probably not. But I like to say, you if you didn't play in the reindeer games, maybe that was a sign. In reindeer games, let's say you're doing some curricular activity that's not actual training, mandatory training that you have to do playing football or whatever, right? And everybody's doing it, but he's not.

He's over there doing his thing, maybe just says he wants to do this or read or that he wants to do certain things. To me, that begs the question.

In Kuwait, getting right across the border to fight a war and when 90 % of the force has not fought a war before, been in combat before, it could mean he's scared. It could mean he's got a call and his family is at home. He's trying to figure out how he's going to deal with that. saying, know, I said, I want to play games right now. This is on my mind. He's not going to tell you this on his mind unless you ask. My point is certain behavior begs the question.

So even in security space, when things, when people say, well, we didn't think there was a sign, or we didn't get it clear at all. It's not always going to be, hey, this person is going to shoot up the workplace tomorrow, but what are they giving you? So you have to learn to take the things they're giving you. So I always struggled that our young leaders did not pick up on what was given. And I'll probably keep that for rest of my life, that something was there that we didn't pick up on that they didn't pick up on. They, we, still my soldiers, right? But you know, what I learned from this is that we don't go home with people at night. So when we don't go home with them, they're putting this stuff in their diary that anybody can put on a uniform and show you anything, as long as they don't slip up. And he didn't slip up. He was just ruled as, well, not the best performing soldier, had some problems over here, problems on that. The problem is one, I'm gonna kill you when ammo comes. Problems are never that. I would tell you there's a whole bunch of soldiers on that camp that weren't the best at performers. 

This is very true, they are the best at performers. But it doesn't say they're gonna do something like this. So I came up with a quote that no profession, because we would think the military, and we still need a home high esteem, there's gonna be rogues everywhere. But no profession, level of education, ideology or religion is above reproach. There is no profile. The insider threat is closer than you think. That became my takeaway from this. And then I began to watch the various attacks that became my hook for the book. It wasn't just that people didn't know about the story. was like, how can I prevent or help mitigate and assist people to protect themselves from something that I went through. Because I think that we should have known something, right? Okay, well, we didn't, but how can, what can I put out there to help people so they don't have to go through what I went through and what my soldiers went through? So it became these proactive situational awareness strategies.

Justin Beals:

I feel like one of the things, first off, I want to hold out some space to the hurt, the pain, the violence, the suffering. And just, I'm heartfelt about how difficult that can be and grateful for telling the story to its part. I know it takes strength and courage to do that. 

Certainly one of the things that resonates with me when you mention about understanding that an insider threat is available is recognizing the humanity of the people around you. And when they're not there and present as another human being, to your point, no matter race, creed, color, religion, etc., we do have a shared goal, mission, community. And you're sensitive to the fact that they're not engaged in that.

Bart Womack: 

Yeah, you know, like I said, religion doesn't pull the trigger. You know, in that quote, I mentioned ideology because I feel that someone forms an ideology is as strong to them as anything in the world. And they get to do that. It's theirs. You know, it's not mine. It's not yours. It's theirs. I say that people start with a belief. And we encourage, we encourage children very early on to not necessarily, we don't say believe, but it's like, what do you want to be when you grow up? We start forming those things, right? And then we send them off to school or wherever they go and they become influenced, but they are more influenced, they're influenced more today than they ever were. They're by social media and people and all these things because they have the ability to find things that you and I couldn't find when we were their age. So it becomes an influence. So we have to speak to our children often, let them talk, and we need to listen to figure out what those things are that are influencing them. 

So that way when they come home after high school, after university, whatever, and they're talking to all this stuff, like where'd that come from? We never did that in this household or whatever. Well, there's an influence out there and they believe in whatever that is. It starts with a belief. As the belief gets stronger, then they become radicalized. And then if it gets to the next level of extreme, then it's just a matter of time before it's boom. Evolution, disbelief, radicalized, extreme.

Justin Beals:

Let's talk a little bit or maybe you want to relate some of these proactive strategies that really stand out to you. One obviously is modeling the staging of where someone might be before a thread is realized. Is there another one that stands out to you Bart?

Bart Womack:

Well, I have six and with trust and I say trust no one. Now I don't know what went through your mind before you said, hmm.

Justin Beals:

Well, in the cybersecurity space, we have all kinds of pithy little advertising phrases like zero trust and stuff like that. But I think you're going to talk about the real deal part.

Bart Womack:

I say trust no one because people are going to have the same reaction you did. And I want them to because the mind says, I'm ultimately have to trust someone. I don't know what you have to. Maybe you ultimately want to. But the point is, is I hope that makes you think about how you're to trust, how you trust. You don't just have to give it to them.

But some people will say, well, I trust them until they give me a reason not to. I don't like that one. I hope all those people hear me say trust no one, so they can think about it a little bit more and understand what that means. So I do believe that we have expectations of people. We may expect them to do certain things in regard to us and vice versa. I don't know if that's fully trust or not an individual has to figure that out. But I want them to truly think about what that is. 

Because I trust it. I trust it based on, like, if we head on those military uniforms right now, I'm trusting because you wear that uniform. Because I know before that, you took the same oath I did. I trust that. I trusted that branch across your chest, where it says Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, whatever it says. I trusted that until this attack.

And let tell you how fast trust went out the window. That same night, like again, I haven't wanted a more throughout that whole day, right? And I told you what the camp looked like headquarters in the middle.

Well, Bart Womack almost got killed. One person thought that they saw two people kind of run away after one person got shot. And even though the investigator, CID said, no, there wasn't a case, you he did this by himself, that kind of stuck in my head. And so I had a platoon of my soldiers guard the headquarters that second night, the first night after this, guard our headquarters.

But again, they were guarding our headquarters from who? Our own soldiers. Trust went out the window in less than 24 hours.

And no one attempted to stop me. My commander said, Sergeant Major, not doing that. No, didn't say that. But trust went out the window that fast. Somebody wore the same uniform, took the same oath, got to kill me. So all of you might, I don't know, but that's my point about Walmart Max Trust. Next is Observe, Listen, and Report. I have stories for all these. I'm not sure what our time looks like, but I think that in any situation,

if we are observing and listening and reporting. But if we get two of those in there, if we get two of them in, we can help solve something. Because we may not see it, we may have heard it, and we have to report it. We may not hear it, but we may have seen it, and then we have to report it. So we have to report it always. We may see it, we may not, we may hear it, we may not.

Justin Beals:

But you need everyone in that proactive mindset.

Bart Womack:

That's right. Yep. The next one, know your neighbor. Now, it's not just know the person next door. It helps that way. Six months down the road, when the police show up and there's a meth house, didn't hear later on, say, I had no idea. Well, we always get that after an attack. There's casualties everywhere and no one has any idea. They never have any idea because they're not being in situation where I don't have an idea. It's not just know the person next door. I'm talking about your coworker. I'm talking about your fellow students, when you go to the gym, depending on how tight everything is, all those little groups and everything that you're in, how well do you know them? If you know them, they will tell you stuff. 

People can't stop talking. They will talk and tell you everything. The coworker is going to tell you what the experience was the night before, or the family member who driving, whatever the case may be. They will tell you that they may have had a one-on-one with the boss and the boss is looking at making cuts and it's going to be them first or whatever the case may be, that that court is going tell you they can't can't take a loss. I don't know what I'm doing if I if I get fired. If get fired or the boss didn't like me so I'm gonna come and get them. They will tell you everything in some way, form or fashion if you're listening. So that's why you need to know them. Then listen don't just hear.

And so it depends on what's being said that you need to pay attention to. Here's a story real quick. College students in a criminal justice class, sophomore class, you get on the subject of guns, weapons. And if you have them say, well, I have a gun, I have a gun. This morning guy says, I have an AK-47. And they go on talking some more. Then he says, it's in the trunk of my car. And you keep on talking. And there's a professor in the class, right? 

But one 19-year-old student,when he heard it, he said it sounded a matter of fact. It cannot sound a matter of fact if we're not listening.

So he comes back and then he reports it. He says, I was in class, this is what happened. So and so said this. Now on this particular campus, I was not supposed to have guns on campus period, right? But there was more control on this campus where you could just walk the student to his car. So he was walked to his car and I was the person that was told. We'll walk into his car and get about a hundred yards from his car. says, as much as you know, before we get to my car, I have AK-47 in trunk of my car.

So the point here, the 19-year-old was listening, not just hearing. All the other students just heard it. The adult professor just heard it. Knowing that students aren't supposed to have guns on campus, didn't report nothing because he was just hearing. But the 19-year-old was listening and reported. Now, no ill will was planned with this. He's supposed to link up with his buddy and take it and locked it up in secure area over there, or his buddy's dad's house, who lives in a little area, they'll go out there on weekends and shoot. Say, keep maples over his mouth. Like I said, they'll talk if you're listening. But it was listening.

Justin Beals:

Yeah. I mean, I think that's a clarion call for security leaders in the business world, chief information security officers. I like what you're saying here, because too often they shell themselves into their office and they don't step out and talk to the staff. And I think I've been banging this drum that if you're going to be a security leader, you need to be deeply empathetic. Like it is a emotional IQ job. Yeah.

Bart Womack:

When you have an organization that has silos like that, they won't come out until there's a meeting. They don't want to go to that meeting. They may sit in a meeting until you ask them something very, very specific about their part for this particular thing, then they'll say something. Aside from that, they're going to say nothing because they're going to not allow you to take them out of their silo. So you're spot on with that. They will always do that.

The next one is, I'm sorry, next one is gut check. Our gut is our strongest sense. We often ignore it. It's telling us something. Our brain is telling us that they're working back and forth. I don't know if that's the scope there. And when it's talking to really, really pay attention to it. But when it really comes out is after an attack. Then we get, it's, I always knew, I thought I felt it was too late now. People are dead and people are wounded.

A thing you thought that you felt so strongly about, you should have reported it. know, back earlier, there's our listen report. I was a apartment building manager for an apartment. And the apartment building is right across the street from UCLA's campus. And I just took over and I noticed that these lights weren't working. So I came out, started taking inventory of lights that worked and didn't work. I started writing them down. Go back in and come out another door, write down. And I say, this is before I wrote the book.

If anyone's watching me right now, they should think this is suspicious behavior. It's casing. Right? I go back in. Now I start inspecting the inside so I can make one order when I do the lights. Get to the top floor here, freeze. Well, I know what that means. And they're behind me. They say, put your hands up, put my hands up, drop the pen, drop the paper, you know, all those things. They handcuff me and they say, well, you fit this the description of someone that was calling. said, no, I am the description. Because I already told myself that if anyone is watching me right now, they should think this is suspicious behavior. So I got called in. Someone observed it. They couldn't hear anything. And they reported it. Now, I will say that the dispatch, either the dispatch escalated it or every police officer, every law enforcement officer that was in the vicinity came because there was five of them.

Justin Beals:

Yeah, we're extra careful.

Bart Womack:

Yeah, because the guy has a pen and a piece of paper. But I digress in that particular part, but the main part is that someone was observing and someone reported. So you can report anonymously. I never knew who it was. I didn't ask. I didn't really care. From my security perspective, they did the right thing. And that came six years before the book was published.

Justin Beals:

Yeah. I think one thing you point out here is that the most dangerous outcome for us from a security perspective is like the false negative. The thing we don't wonder, I'd rather get a false positive, right? I'd rather see something and report it and it wind up not being an issue. Yeah.

Bart Womack;

Yeah, there's one where a college student, she was in her dorm and she heard these things sound like gunshots. So she calls 911. There's gunshots, you know, I can hear them from my dorm. You know, if you call that from a campus, not only are the campus police are going to come, like every law enforcement in the vicinity is going to come. Right?. So they all assume on this campus, and they're searching and they can't see any signs of gunshots or any activity like that. Of course, they know they're gunshots. It's not. Well, bomb line, fast forward. They learned that it was someone popping plastic in their room. But this student thought it was gunshots. So I say, OK, well, great police drill. Don't don't don't execute her. Good on her for realizing that it could have been and you guys got a great drill. That's it. Yeah.

Justin Beals: 

Yeah. I wanted to ask you one question before we wrap up, because I think Bart, what stands out to me as a very obvious superpower is, in the heat of an issue, an unfolding security challenge, kind of a calmness and an ability to execute decisions. Is there things that you think were important, either about your training or the community in which you served that helped you be prepared to engage in a useful way during a difficult time?

Bart Womack: 

That's a great question. I mean, I would say it's in the training. Although not categorized or specified in the manner of what you just said, you can only control what you can control. 

I don't think you can control much if you're not in the best of state. If you're erratic, it's going to be hard to control it, especially in situations where they're harder to control in the first place. So there's a level of maturity there that I would say you get overall from training. And when you are maneuvering pieces and those pieces are human bodies to get them in certain positions to do certain things, know, as the leader, it's your job to trying to put them in the best position to combat the enemy as well as save them at the same time. 

So I guess you can probably imagine the amount of maturity and calmness that it takes to do that. It can't be erratic. Now, I'm telling you now in a calm voice, I won't say that everything was calm when I've been in a calm voice with everything going on, but it is a controlled calmness when the chaos is happening.

Those are the things that you have to kind of mature to. But we always had pride in ourselves in the training of making it as realistic as possible. So when you make it real, that's what you're going to end up being in. Although you don't want to be in it, it's preparing you for when you are in it. In the rarest of cases that you may be in it, it is that preparation. So it is, and the best scenario is you can make it real. Those are the ones where you're going to see, you know, all your leaders, they're going to show you, then make it real.

Justin Beals: 

Yeah, I have to imagine that I love this style of communication during a difficult scenario. You like you said, it's it's there's a I've seen this kind of situation where I've had to I call it raising the precision, but basically my communication gets more and more pointed or more and more specific. And I have to imagine being a drill sergeant kind of allowed you to translate exactly what you wanted to say to that person at that point in time about what needed to be done next. And in even, you whatever the volume or the intensity of the communication, that there was real intent behind it and they needed to get that done.

Bart Womack:

Yeah, I mean, it's always going to be situation dependent because that's fluid as you're going through it is consistently changing and you may have to shift and all this stuff. may have to someone go over here 100 meters just to come back to go 100 meters in different direction. Now they're not going to like it. I've been on both sides of that where it's, know, and 100 meters is pretty far, but you sometimes it happens like that.

But the enemy isn't gonna do the same thing. They're say, we're gonna do it this way, just so you know, so you can prepare and it doesn't work like that. Or any situation, I say any, but you know what I mean, it could be anything that's going on that you have to make an adjustment to. So if you make an adjustment in an erratic state, they're gonna be erratic and then all of you lost control of situation if you're like that. So someone has to be calm in some of these situations.

Justin Beals:

Bart, I'm really grateful for you sharing your expertise and your insights and certainly your stories with us. As with many of the service women and men that have joined us on Secure Talk, we're always grateful for your service and the work you've done there. And super appreciate you coming on SecureTalk today.

Bart Womack:

Well, I appreciate you having us. a thrill. Thank you very much.

Justin Beals:

Excellent.