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Mike Drop

A Tier 1 SIGINT Operator’s View of Delta, DEVGRU & Iran | Ep. 287 | Pt. 2

Mike Drop

Mike Ritland

News, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Politics

4.96.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2026

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Joe England (The Stoic Viking) delivers a firsthand account of life inside America’s most secretive intelligence unit, Task Force Orange (Intelligence Support Activity/ISA). He details attachments with Delta Force and DEVGRU SIGINT operations in Iraq and beyond, working against Iranian Quds Force elements during the rise of ISIS, and the challenges of clandestine missions under alias across multiple continents. The conversation also covers his transition out of the unit, rock-bottom struggles with identity and loss, his path to becoming a Black Hawk pilot, and how stoicism helped him rebuild purpose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'll give you an example of like a, not a specific operation, but an operation that would go down,

0:10.6

is that we would say that they were going to assault something, maybe in a couple days.

0:17.8

They would have the recid troop go out.

0:23.2

And, you know, especially if there's like,

0:30.4

imagine there's two different targets to be watching over. So a recie troop has, in Leasancy Squadron, or in the, in, in, in Cag has two recic teams. So they would split up and then we go. I

0:36.6

would go with one recid troop and my other compatriot would go with the other recid troop. And they would split up and then we go. I would go with one recid troop

0:37.7

and my other compatriot would go with the other recoup

0:40.5

and we would infiltrate with them.

0:42.2

And then while they're doing a lot of their tactical reconnaissance,

0:46.1

we are doing reconnaissance from, yeah,

0:49.0

specifically from the SIGAN side of things.

0:51.0

And we bring a whole level of like communications in a tactical suite or a SIGAN intelligence

0:58.1

suite that we are able to do things mobile that, you know, you would probably only, you

1:04.9

would find in skiffs.

1:06.2

Wow.

1:06.4

Right.

1:07.0

And so because of this, our rucks were much bigger.

1:10.7

We would, if we were jumping, like I did a couple jump operations.

1:15.4

My ruck was 125 pounds.

1:17.6

Wow.

1:18.8

I mean, can you mention at all the gear that you're bringing or is that super sensitive?

1:22.9

No, well, one, it's some of it's not even like, you know, like that, a lot of it is collection equipment,

...

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