Well, That Was Fun - I Need to Step Away for a Few Days (Patreon)

It's not the message I wanted to write today.

I had a panic attack at the store.

I don't have panic attacks.

People who know me, have done conflict reporting with me, my former search and rescue mates, or my former co-workers from RealNetworks in 2001 during the Nisqually Earthquake will tell you that I am the coolest, calmest person you could ever be around when it hits the fan. If World War III started, I'm the guy in the basement who would be saying, "OK, this is all going to be OK. Here is what we need to do," and people would go, "I'm going to listen to that guy."

If you're wondering, the whole "I think I am having a heart attack and I'm going to die" thing - that's pretty much spot on. I don't recommend the experience.

Once it was determined that I wasn't having a heart attack (fun fact: I have a very minor mitral valve problem, and I have not been keeping up with my fitness regime, so I had some basis for I think I'm dying in the middle of a store) and the wife is there, and I'm asked some awkward questions about my mental health and if I have stress from the hospital staff - I just kind of broke down.

I've been going almost non-stop for over 600 days. Even when we went to Hawaii last year over the Christmas holiday season, which wasn't just for me - it was a full team stand down, I was still working (you may remember) with doing podcast Interviews on my end. There's a whole back story of how I lost an entire day on Hilo trying to find useable public WiFi or solid cell reception. My travel to California for the last two years has been all family-related, dealing with my mother in declining health or business. 

And the one day - literally the one day last month when I disconnected in San Francisco after a morning at the Israeli Consulate (that's a whole different story), I had some - unpleasant notes from some Patreons asking how on earth I could take a day off. Drop dead serious. OK, maybe not the best cliché. My least favorite "exit report" on Patreon, "Malcontent News wasn't as active as I expected."

What? SITREPS 7 days a week on two wars, flash reports, back on TikTok, podcast six days a week, four reporters on the ground in Ukraine. How in God's name do we become "more active???"

When I've been exhausted, I keep reminding myself - that Ukraine doesn't get a break. They don't get to stop. So I can't stop. But that isn't true. The only country keeping soldiers on the front for 600+ days in a row with no true rotation to the rear is Russia. And yes, there is a war going on within the information space, and if you've been following Twitter (X) and Telegram, you have probably seen a number of high-profile accounts that have actively tracked the truth in the Russia-Ukraine War, throwing in the towel. They're burned out. Much like Ukraine, we (the collective small journo and OSINT we) are outspent, outgunned, and under-supported compared to our Russian counterparts. I keep waiting for our George Soros, CIA, FBI, DoD, and NSA money - never mind the accusations that I'm also a vatnik. I haven't even gotten my 5-kilo bag of potatoes from Belarus yet. Oh yes, I've been called a vatnik - within the last week.

COVID? I struggled and pushed through - and likely gave myself long-COVD that took almost a year to shake off. 

My unit commander from my search and rescue days died, and I had to jump on a plane to Massachusetts and see metaphorical battle buddies (stress metaphorical) in over 20 years. Ya - I kept doing SITREPs and scripts instead of sitting with said battle buddies to remember the times when we had hair, flat stomachs, and how I was carried out of the Wind Tiki restaurant because I drank a Scorpion Bowl for six by myself and couldn't walk and they propped me up in the lobby of my girlfriend's apartment, leaned on her buzzer for 30 seconds and ran for their lives. 

After a heart-to-heart with my wife, my last true vacation? 2019. Everything else since February 2020 has been work, funerals, sick mom, or a pretend "working vacation" where I didn't do much - vacationing.

None of this is your fault - this is my fault. All of it. I've been ignoring all the red lights on my personal dashboard and talks friends, family, and my wife have had over the last six months.

One thing that people don't see is the work that goes on behind the curtain. Even when I say, hey - I'm going to take a day (like in SFO), and I try to detach, I don't. I'm reading the raw analyst report (a daily TXT file with all the links and descriptions in the links cataloged by local and time). I'm signing off on map updates to make sure they match the intelligence report.

Since February 26, 2020 - the first COVID death in the U.S. (fun fact: 1.6 miles from my home), I have not been "off" for more than 48 hours, and that was the two days I had COVID so bad I just wanted to sleep.

Israel-Hamas likely tipped me over. To get personal for a minute. The anti-Semitism has moved from, "Meh, we know it's there," to, "Yes, my love, you're right, we need to get a bedside gun safe." My poor wife was surprised several years ago when I wanted to put a mezuzah on our door post (we're incredible bad secular Jews who love bacon cheeseburgers). She was worried even then it was a, "Hey, Jews live here," as our town is a shocking hotbed of neo-Nazis and white nationalists. One of the founders of Atomwaffen in Washington came from one town over, and some of the original founders of Patriot Front right in this town. You'd never know it if you visited here. The mezuzah was my "oh Hell to the no; I am not going to be in fear. I love the Constitution and 25 of the 27 amendments (the whole prohibition thing was stupid), especially the first 10 amendments. All ten of them." 

There has also been a lot of drama. No, not the way before times stuff. Since Israel-Hamas started, the analyst team has been a team divided, and I've had to spend far too much time trying to keep everyone's emotions in check. As someone with a spicy brain myself. Take a bunch of guys and a couple of women who are very smart, very good at what they do, have varying degrees of pattern recognition, understand war and combat, spicy brains with a deep sense of right and wrong, and then toss in something as polarizing as Israel-Hamas. Whoa. There are a lot of people smarter than me, behind me, you don't see, who are truly responsible for the brilliant analysis and predictions.

So that was likely the "last straw." Not the coverage of it, the impact of it. That and the stress of trying to keep the coverage balanced while not upsetting the base paying the bills while telling the truth because the truth matters in an environment where no one is telling the truth. And overshadowing all of it is the most stunning coordinated social media disinformation campaign I have ever seen in my life. The amount of troll farms and "oppositional marketing firms" paid disinformation on social media about Israel-Hamas is staggering. And it's hitting at a time when Twitter, also known as X, gutted almost all of its controls, and TikTok has been around long enough now that agencies have gotten incredibly sophisticated at manipulating the algorithm. I can't even call it screaming into the void because even in the void, you can hear yourself screaming.

So, in the end, I screwed up.

I pushed, and I pushed, and I pushed, and now I'm in this wonderful state of "I am not good for anyone" because I should have rotated off the zero line - probably back at Hawaii. Or even further back, when I got COVID. 

In the past, we have talked as a team about doing SITREPs 6 days a week or 5 days a week, but my argument has always been we set the expectation seven days a week, and we're pulling intel every day even if we don't produce a report so why build raw intel reports and not use them. Oh, it's OK, I got that covered. Hey, no problem. I know it's tough; we all need to step back for a while. I got it; you take the time you need the doors always open. And there was a joke in 2022 in particular that every day I would tell the analyst team, "Hey, I'm going to sleep in tomorrow and catch up," I'd wake up and find out Ukraine advanced 40 kilometers in some direction. The big joke was - you should get a good night's sleep more often.

Ya.

Ya...

So what's next?

I have to step back because otherwise, I will be in the hospital for a full physical or mental health breakdown. And I can't make excuses. No looking at maps. No, looking at intel reports. 

I need to rotate off the zero line. Stress - ROTATE - not leave.

So, I'm stepping back to 10%ish involvement through November 13. (two weeks). 

Wait, what's this 10% involvement crap?  I'll still make some videos - more accurately, publish some draft videos that are in the queue. Zarina (ya, I know, some of you aren't happy with her stories; others love her) will keep doing her thing. If World War III breaks out, I'll come back. Hey, remember when "if World War III breaks out" was just a joke? Fun times.

But I can't sign off on SITREPs and lead the analyst discussion, and there is no one - particularly on Israel-Hamas - that I can go, "Hey, can you take this over." Because the right/wrong, what's proportionality? They did what? Yes, Israel has a right to defend itself, but look at this video and justify this (remember, there are a lot of things we see you never see, and be grateful you don't see it). My role for the last 600 days has largely been the balance you get without getting into "whataboutism" or the slippery slope of false parallels.

Map updates will continue, and if there are any big changes, not "minor frontline changes based on new intelligence," there will be a post here - a 99% chance not from me nor signed off by me.

We are looking into whether there is a way to suspend your subscriptions - that is, don't have your clock running for the next two weeks. I believe the answer is "yes," but this wasn't a contingency on my or anyone else's radar. I'm 99% sure that if we do suspend, that means we can't post anything, so then it is truly lights out here for two weeks. If that's the case, we won't suspend.

Wait, what about the raw intel reports? Can you share those? No, absolutely not, because the raw intel reports contain misinformation, disinformation, misattribution, etc. It also contains notes from our strategically placed network of hedgehogs.

1) Raw intel is gathered through the day - mostly while it's night in the U.S., as Ukraine is 10 hours (currently 11 hours until the upcoming weekend) ahead of the U.S.

2) The U.S. side reviews raw intel for geolocation, verification, checks for 3 sources on single source info, root source analysis, etc. From 15% to 30% of what's in the raw intel report never sees the light of day. It could be fake news, rumor, "an unnamed source said," needs further analysis or do not publish (typically graphic content, POW videos, etc.). It also contains information that, if we put it in the public domain, could violate OPSEC.

3) The map is updated based on geolocation intel or deeply trusted sources using terrain analysis. On occasion, we delay edits to support OPSEC, but we're not as aggressive as DeepState.

4) The evolved raw intel report becomes the foundation for the SITREP. That goes through an editing process, so it reads like one person wrote it, not ten.

5) There is a review of any "assessment sections," ideally as the Euro is waking up and the U.S. is going to bed.

5a) Cross our fingers that there isn't a big missile or drone attack or some breaking news story that blows up steps 2 through 5 and creates a rewrite situation.

6) The podcast script is written.

7) A final set of edits (not all the time - depends on timing).

8) SITREP published.

Sharing the raw Intel report would share unvetted information and provide direct links to graphic violence and POW videos. It's a nope.

So, I ask for some grace. Because I have to step back and find my way back to myself. Then, I can come back rested and with a better plan for moving forward.

So that's it. That's the whole story. Back in full on November 14, unless World War III breaks out. You'll see critical updates, map changes, and some fact-checking videos, and we'll cross-post them here.

One last thing. If you're in the United States. Please. Regardless of your party affiliation. Call your congresscritter. Tell them to stop playing politics with United States national security and put the Biden budget package for Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, Taiwan, and the southern border onto the floor for a vote. Well, if you agree with that. I have rarely asked for political activism. Our NATO allies, particularly Poland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Czech Republic, have sent clear signals in the last 2 to 4 weeks. If aid for Ukraine ends, Europe needs to prepare for war. Russia has made it clear that Ukraine is only a stepping stone. It will be Americans dying in Europe in your lifetime if we falter in our continued support, and China and Iran are watching.

Malcontent - out - well down and out - but I'm going to get back on my feet