Hindsight, Part 2

Serial - Serial S02 - Ep. 9: Trade Secrets

You don’t make peace with your friends.

Serial S02 - Ep. 9: Trade Secrets

How do you manipulate an entire country to get an enlisted soldier home?

Our greater bureaucracy is telling the families to just shut up and waste.

I think I can get that done for you, but he really likes Johnny Walker Black label.

In order to exchange you, the Taliban is waiting for all the prisoners, you know, all the prisoners, you know, all the Muslims around the world to be released.

From this American life in W.B. Easy Chicago, it's cereal.

One story told week by week. I'm Sarah Canig.

The day Bo gets picked up by a special operations team in Afghanistan.

He's quickly pulled onto a helicopter, leaving the ground like that, with space suddenly all around him, after five years of being locked in rooms.

When they landed at a nearby base, Bo wanted to communicate with these guys who'd rescued him, but he couldn't talk yet.

He hadn't spoken sentences, much less had a conversation in so long.

He says he could think of the words, but he couldn't make them come out of his head.

What I ended up doing was asking for something to write on.

And the first thing I asked them was if there are special forces.

And then when they told me there are special forces, I immediately went into giving them intel and names.

And then they got me onto the plane after a few minutes.

Serial returns with a history of Guantánamo told by people who lived through key moments in Guantánamo’s evolution, who know things the rest of us don’t about what it’s like to be caught inside an improvised justice system.

Serial Productions makes narrative podcasts whose quality and innovation transformed the medium. “Serial” began in 2014 as a spinoff of the public radio show “This American Life.” In 2020, we joined the New York Times Company. Our shows have reached many millions of listeners and have won nearly every major journalism award for audio, including the first-ever Peabody Award given to a podcast.

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0:00.0	How do you manipulate an entire country to get an enlisted soldier home?
0:07.4	Previously, not cereal.
0:09.0	Like how can I get in deaf Afghanistan?
0:11.0	Or how can I get into Pakistan?
0:12.0	I mean, I get my bag, I get my passport.
0:14.0	Our greater bureaucracy is telling the families to just shut up and waste.
0:18.0	I address the Pakistani armed forces.
0:20.0	I think I can get that done for you, but he really likes Johnny Walker Black label.
0:25.0	In order to exchange you, the Taliban is waiting for all the prisoners, you know, all the prisoners, you know, all the Muslims around the world to be released.
0:40.0	From this American life in W.B. Easy Chicago, it's cereal.
0:43.0	One story told week by week. I'm Sarah Canig.
0:49.0	May 31, 2014.
0:51.0	The day Bo gets picked up by a special operations team in Afghanistan.
0:55.0	He's quickly pulled onto a helicopter, leaving the ground like that, with space suddenly all around him, after five years of being locked in rooms.
1:04.0	He said it was like crossing an abyss.
1:07.0	When they landed at a nearby base, Bo wanted to communicate with these guys who'd rescued him, but he couldn't talk yet.
1:13.0	He hadn't spoken sentences, much less had a conversation in so long.
1:17.0	He says he could think of the words, but he couldn't make them come out of his head.
1:21.0	What I ended up doing was asking for something to write on.
1:24.0	And the first thing I asked them was if there are special forces.
1:28.0	And then when they told me there are special forces, I immediately went into giving them intel and names.
1:36.0	And then they got me onto the plane after a few minutes.
	...

Serial S02 - Ep. 9: Trade Secrets

Serial

Serial Productions & The New York Times

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