Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Hello. And welcome back to the SPFI guys. Recover spy facts, spy fiction, and everything in between I'm Zach and I'm Christian. So last week we did Jack Ryan with our guest star, Lance and I have a microdot for you that this episode of Jack Ryan reminded me of. All right. I'm interested and curious. Here we go. My sources for this are the, an article by the independent Wikipedias cia.gov and the Washingtonian. Okay. Okay. So the protagonist of our story today is Johnny Michael Mike span, spelled S P a N N. And his first name is spelled with an E a L. All right. This is because his mother was of Irish ancestry. Ah, so he's a good old boy from Windfield, Alabama, the son of a real estate agent. Mike played football in high school and at 17 became a private pilot. You're a private pilot license. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 00:01:06 He went to Auburn university and joined the Marine Corps reserve that went on to officer candidate school after graduation. Okay. Mike wanted to go into aviation, but became a fielder Tilly officer. Instead he served for six years with the Marines was stationed in Okinawa, Japan at camp LA, June, North Carolina, eventually becoming a captain. So yes, he achieved the rank of captain with the Marines. And then in June, 1999, he joined the CIA and trained at the farm where he met his future wife, Shannon knee joy. Okay. He was known as silent Michael. He was there. So he met his wife there. Jack Ryan is maced on by one of his coworkers there. That's where this is going. Really? <laugh> hold on. There's more. Okay. All right. All right. So this got me thinking about love at the CIA. So I Googled that and according to the Washingtonian in February, 2021, the CIA had published a series of posts on Instagram called love at Langley.
Speaker 1 00:02:09 It's the story of three couples who worked together at the CIA two, met and fell in love while working there while the other couple met prior to being hired, couples are pretty common here. It says CIA spokesperson, Nicole de hay, those of a variety of jobs, but they're all centered around the same passion to serve. Plus if your spouse or partner also works at the agency, they especially understand the secrecy that sometimes the accompanies the question, how was your day? You think he could talk to Kathy about that? I don't think so. <laugh> well, yeah. Okay. Fair. I've we, I feel like we talked about this recently in alias. No. Or some show, what show were we talking about? Yeah, no, I, I think it was alias that's right? Yeah. So one of the unnamed participants said, I laugh about this, but it's kind of nice to know that the person you're dating and future spouse in my case has been done through a thorough background investigation.
Speaker 1 00:03:06 She says it was good to know that everything with this guy was above board. So the Washington concludes for those looking to head to Langley, to find love the road to joining the agency is difficult, but anything for love? <laugh> of course, we already talked about joining the agency back in alias again, mm-hmm <affirmative> anyway, back to Mike, back to lake span. So he was assigned to the ground branch of the CAA. He served a news Stan in the Balkans, and he returned to the United States on September 8th, 2001. He was at HQ during nine 11. Okay. He actually protested the order to evacuate saying everyone should stay and do something on October 17th, 2001. He was one of eight members of the CIA's team, alpha. The first people in, they were inserted into Afghanistan and two helicopters. Okay. They met up with some green bras. Mike was quoted as saying, there are no rules here.
Speaker 1 00:04:04 We're making the decisions. And our LZ is going to be called LZ Jake after his infant signed. Okay. But then, and here's the real reason why I brought this up on November 25th, 2001. So only a couple months after nine 11, Mike and David Tyson, a CIA case officer traveled to Kala E Jan G fortress, which is a prison for Al-Qaeda prisoners. Huh? They, they questioned John Walker. Lynn, do you know John Walker? Lynn, that name sounds familiar. He was an American citizen who basically joined Al QA. Who's a trader that's probably why that name sounds familiar. So while they were there, a prison riot started that would later be called the battle of Kala. Iji approximately two hours after interviews began, a number of prisoners suddenly attacked their captors who were outnumbered four to one. Woo. Two Afghan doctors saw what happened to Mike. He swung around, raised his rifle to his shoulder.
Speaker 1 00:05:03 He shot two or three of them before the prisoners. He had been interrogating, jumped on him from behind ING him to the ground. Mike then pulled out his pistol fired one or two shots before he was overwhelmed, disappearing, but he hit the pile of attackers. AEs. His friend Tyson ran towards span after hearing his car red shout, Dave, Dave, Dave Tyson used his pistol to shoot dead for Al-Qaeda prisoners on top of Mike, but he saw his blood on the ground. He included Mike was dead. He grabbed his rifle and used it among other weapons fight his way into Northern half of the Fort killing at least a dozen and possibly up to 40 Al-Qaeda members. Whoa, Afghan forces recovered Mike's body on November 28th as CIA officers looked on. There's a whole thing about the battle, us army British special vote service members eventually que the uprising.
Speaker 1 00:05:55 Some sources say that that span fought with his AK 47 until it ran out of ammunition, then emptied his pistol. Then kind of like Davey Crockett fought hand to hand before being overcome. Wow, but who knows how much of that is conjecture and who much is not a military autopsy concluded that span died from two gunshot wounds to the head. Ooh, he was buried on December 10th, 2001 in Arlington national cemetery. He was post home humanly awarded the intelligence star in the exceptional service medallion. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, there's a little bit about tributes to him. People said that he was quiet, serious and absolutely unflappable. He was the first CIA officer to die in Afghanistan, but not the last as we've discussed in previous episodes. Right. And then finally in August, 2021, Mike's father publicly criticized Joe Biden's decision to withdraw the United States from Afghanistan as quoted by the independent. So that is the sad story of Mike's span. As you can see, Jack Ryan reminded me of it.
Speaker 2 00:07:00 I can, I can see that. Why? Yeah. That, that last scene in the, the pilot that we cover. Definitely would've reminded me of that if I had known about his story beforehand.
Speaker 1 00:07:09 Yep. So here's to him, he's not truly gone as long as we remember him.
Speaker 2 00:07:13 Well, thanks for that, Zach. And thank you all for joining us. You could find us on social media at the Spotify guys on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram until next time I'm Christian
Speaker 1 00:07:23 And I'm Zach
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