Ty Harris and Kaylea Harris

00:03 All right. My name is Ty, Harris. I'm 50 years old. Today's date is May 11th, 2021. And where in Seattle. My interview partner. Today is Kaylee, Harris, my daughter.

00:20 And go ahead. My name is Kaylee Harris. I'm 19 years old. It is May 11th, 2021. We are currently in Seattle. And this is my dad. His name is Kai.

00:35 Alright, well you just a little, maybe a start with a bit of an introduction. I was in the Air Force for 21 years and retired but about eight years ago and we left Washington DC area, Northern Virginia and move back to my hometown, actually bought the house where I grew up in and so we moved all the way back home for me. But not you guys. Obviously, you guys were born all over the place. So I guess that's the the context are there. You grew up through this. You were born. Gosh, maybe my 6th or 7th year in the Air Force. Are there questions about whether the career or, or just things that you just assumed and, you know, it's it's over and now it's as part of its part of my life, but

01:35 It's also part of your life. So.

01:39 It wasn't a surprising. It wasn't like. Oh my dad. Just join the military. And now we're going to have

01:46 I was born into it, like you said, so, but I actually, I feel like I was one of the few siblings that liked how much we moved. I love like, creating a new image and like, being a new kind of figuring out myself every single time we moved and I really like that. And so I, I think it there was a lot of positives, when I think a lot of people seem, it's it's just make, it isn't a lot of times cuz I do have to leave, or you be gone. But like the positives was that we could. I feel like the more we moved, we actually grew closer as a family because our Traditions were things that we hold the clothes. We would hold it in closer because of how much we move. So that was I feel like really positive and I feel like I really was able to figure out my identity at such a young age because I had to when I would move to New school and I had to be this new person. And so I felt like he was really I kind of like that aspect the movie.

02:46 When your older brother and a three-year younger sister, do you feel like they share your thoughts on that or do you how do you think it affected them younger sister? She did not have, I think she's a little too young for a while. Cuz while you were deployed, I I don't think she remembers much of that. She was still wet for somewhere around then. So she was out by the time you've already, we're done deploying. She was still a little bit younger and then you were you just got older. Now. She wasn't thinking about that sort of thing anymore cuz you were almost close to being done. Or understanding time until we came back, but I feel like with Chase. I know that was pretty hard for him. My brother older brother.

03:44 Only because I think.

03:47 She had an even deeper understanding of the military than I did about what was going on and what could happen. And so I think it affected him even more in the sense that like on a deeper level of, are you coming back or you not going to come back? And and I think she also struggled with switching changing lives and things like that and changing schools. I don't think he likes. I mean she obviously likes the military enough cuz now he's in the military.

04:19 A little bit harder for him. Do you see it? I mean, there were lots of deployments that might, my crew is kind of backwards in the sense that all of my kind of in Garrison, training her, or my my jobs where I didn't have to leave or go anywhere. Those were the first part of my career before you guys are born and when we heard you were maybe one or two and by the time you guys were three or four, I start traveling a lot, not necessarily deploying but you would be gone for at least a week, a month and and then it kept getting more and more and then the deployment started to roll in when you were maybe six or seven. Do you see them? Think I did a bunch of like three of them that were the only maybe 90 days one that was eight months and then a couple others that were maybe a month-long.

05:17 Those ones were the two bigger ones. I believe Iraq was eight months, but the other ones were juicy. And like, all one thing or am I going to be another one? Like, probably the most that was I remember that distinct time. I think that one was probably the hardest also, because I think it was during a time where this is like on the news a lot, what was going on overseas was like,

05:53 I feel like it's talked about on the news now but its necessary. It's kind of just faded in certain things or its new with Xperia now and things like that, but it's like when it was Iraq and Afghanistan or also during like Obama's time. It was on the news so much more. So I was like a little kid singers on the news and I was like, oh shoot my dad's there. So I think it was a little bit harder during that time. Knowing that you like at the beginning of what he just became president knowing that you were there. And seeing I was seeing things like what I thought was only in the movies like explosions. I was like, oh my dad's probably right next to that explosion, not understanding the all that. So that was probably the hardest one, I think in the sense of worrying for your safety because even if you were right next to that bomb or not, like I think I understood that you have the same chance of getting

06:49 Killer are not being able to come back. So that was, that was really scary. And also seeing mom, my mom, Stacy, she going through that and you can't hide all of it, especially as, like, a curious kid. Like I would always see her sometimes in, and see her either crying or hear her FaceTiming or FaceTiming with something yet, and see, her really upset. So, I think, that's what I knew. Oh, so this isn't just a kid being sad. There's an adult being sad. So that means it's serious. We had pretty good connectivity most of time so I could I could Skype every other day or maybe if he came less and less, maybe we go every three days only because you know, how was your day, fine?

07:49 Who really wasn't peanuts at 8 or 9 year olds perspective? Probably not. The most interesting thing. It would just be like, a black room and or like, to be dark and I feel like if we did see you, so, why would you like wait till everybody has gone home for the night? And I'd come come back into the office. And anyway, just wood plywood tables plywood walls, play with ceiling and no windows, and the windows are sandbags. And so it was dark in there usually. And, and there was nothing but a bunch of laptops work state.

08:49 Things and the dartboard that was like, a little kitchen that thing. That was a good guess for context. I mean, being an Air Force guy. It was very much, an on Air Force deployment, not being on planes or not being in an air type thing on the grind. Cuzzo, you know, when I first started traveling a lot, it was all, you know, planes and working aircraft networking things like that. But this one, we, it was a, it was a group as we were in Southern Virginia, but I'm stationed at a Navy base in a joint group, and it's a group of a fairly senior people. I got, I was old, I've heard for a combat zone. 37th ancient, you know, everybody.

09:49 There's normally maybe a handful of guys charge. But because the fees that we were in of operations, he was basically just trying to get the araki's to stop killing each other and had to accept there. Really two governments. There was the government, that existed and then went into Exile. They elected a new government will then the government came back out of Exile after the fighting stopped a little bit. And so they're two governments, we needed them to get along and then they could be pretty violent towards each other and even more violent towards the group's, the remaining extremist. This is an odd rahmati, which is kind of a Way Out West the right way, west of bed Baghdad, so past Fallujah, so you can you drive for a couple hours, get the Blue, Jay Feather, an hour and a half to get the ramadi. I was way out in the desert toward Syria, and but it's a big town. It's

10:49 Represented by a lot of tribes that have been there for thousands of years, right? On the banks of the Euphrates River. So agricultural, but also a business network is smuggling Network again since the dawn of time and not getting along very well in our role was to pacify it. So we could hand it off to their Rocky National Army and get out of there. So we took over a hundred and fifty of us is old old folk took over for a bit, relatively senior officers took over for an army battalion Brigade of a couple of thousand. So we replaced a couple of thousand troops with a marine Brigade. The one nine dead walkers.

11:43 And they were made, they have the job of maintaining Security in ramadi and we had the job of fixing the economy, getting power restored, getting the governmental institutions running. Again for me. Particularly. I had Economic Development and local governments. So I was going to all the City Council meetings and and the Town Council meetings in each neighborhood had their own council meeting. I go to 210, Council meetings a week. Why was Blake? I I totally believe it. It's important to like help other people in other countries important for the US for that specific place. Not for some specific time to sure like the transition.

12:43 And and there's there's a kind of an interesting answer to that when I was out amongst, it was relatively safe and I was traveled with Marine escorts. And yes, I had I had a group of maybe 10 10 guys with security, but I would go to Business Leaders to to governmental offices and sit down with people, just workout bureaucratic problems and economic problems and sometimes I and I didn't work normally younger groups. They have an interpreter who is in a rocky National, you know, whose loyalties you can't be certain of and what they're saying to your, to your counterpart, to your account, but you have no idea, you have to trust them and then that dead. So it's an interesting Bond. I had a really unique situation because I had an American citizen who had been an American citizen of 20 year.

13:43 What was from rahmati? His parents still live there? And he went by kind of hit his identity a little bit cuz you don't want people to know that his parents were there. But he was an American citizen at Clarence and could speak eloquently and translate culturally. So I would say, yeah, I had I had certain things that I was trying to get across and I needed to get across the various groups. I'd say couple words. Hey Sammy, go tell him about this and he would just lay out and it apparently, the way he spoke was really compelling, people would listen to him and he would, he would just go on. He was a little bit introverted. But as long as I gave him the fed him, the more I need, I need you to explain how this governmental program work, so that we can get more people on unemployment or whatever the case may have been. He would do a great job of explaining it. So we had this amazing partnership and it was important. Sometimes I would get in discussions with just random arachis in the market because I'm just

14:43 Market survey to see and I'll do you have you know, where you able to get goods and services of the borders don't open that sort of thing. There. Is there cash flow issues in the little markets places and kaylea. We'd have to pay to say this. But I love you guys. I love to a good political debate and there were those who were persecuted under Saddam Hussein and there were those who were absolutely dependent upon him, you know, the the style of the baathist party was like a a very deeply socialist government. In the sense that everything was given to you by the state. So you didn't eat unless you got food belcher's from Baghdad. And if you behaved poorly, if your town was was behaving in a way that displeased at Hussein regime, you didn't get to buy food vouchers for the week. So you didn't eat.

15:37 And those who were in fate you are in good favor with the Hussein regime resented. The fact that we were there, they resented. The idea that they had to buy food. That was upset. I had a lot of conversations with especially older gentleman that were very angry about the fact that, you know, food is so expensive. Why do I even have to buy the food? You should just be, you know, I should just be given a voucher and and they wanted to go back to that. You know, I'm sort of communist or socialist system and and you know, where

16:13 Yeah, that's it. That's an interesting argument. A challenging argument. You know it, but you're very dependent. It is it is an independence that that were trying to help out with and that's why we had to be. There is is to make that a peaceful transition, us invaded world. Not just it was it was going to make things easier for like future endeavors, our future things that sort of thing. Is that what you're saying? Like, I think when you, when we invaded in 2003, we broke a system. That wasn't a great system and it definitely persecuted certain people, but it also was a system that many people are dependent on and when you break it and then Colin Powell, so you break it, you buy it. The Pottery Barn thing, and we broke it and now we've got to fix it and there were some mistakes made early on that made fixing it just

17:13 Exponentially more complicated, mistakes on the D pacification policy, probably the worst decision ever made which essentially took the Millet, it fired the military fired, all the civil servants, like you being part of the Communist Party in China. And anybody who has any sort of rank in business, or in government, has to be a member of the Communist Party, part of the rules. And this was very much, the same thing. If you had any Authority whatsoever. It came from the baathist party to everybody. Who is anybody? All the bureaucrats people who made, you know, who made the the lights. Turn on the sewer systems work. Water supply, power supply. All those things were controlled and if you fire everybody who doesn't, you can't just reconstitute that overnight and and that's what you're fired everybody and and you fired the arm.

18:13 All right, turn in your weapons. Go do something else. You tell, you know, a hundred thousand young men that you don't have a job anymore when I get to pay you and then we're taking your weapon. We're going to go over well done. And so, you know, you had mass unemployment people with no future and in the money coming in from the US was going to the people who had political control of sharing that money. So so he's there was a definitely, we definitely broke the way Society worked and it fixed it.

18:55 At various times. It's been closer to 6, fixed. I mean, when you anytime you you break at system, it takes generations to fix it. We really made a lot of progress in our eight months. I mean, we probably triple the amount of power coming in the demand for power, you know, blew up as as 10 times, more rack. He's had air conditioning after we left there but we started, you know, people's demand for for televisions. All those things went way up. So the power to man went up, we fix that you do. We fix the broken system between an unemployment checks coming from the central government. Men being distributed at the local level and end from the banks. We always fix that. That was awesome in those are some of our, but in a most rewarding things probably within two years of us leaving now, Kata has been pushed out have been in a literally and figuratively killed off.

19:55 You know, the Isis came about Andre invaded Romani and Romani was run by ISIS, and unfortunately, many of the people that I work with our dad intentionally, not. I mean, I have friends there than the business community that I would love to reach out to, but I can't, I don't want to accept their websites once in awhile, but they haven't changed in years. And yeah, I don't know. I don't know the security, if, if I reach out to them as an American Indian. No way I can make them. Yeah, I'm sure that my presents at their house or my presents at their place of business where they're being

20:37 When Isis came in was, you know, you're a collaborator, your dad, your family's dad, whatever, you know, that. That was so compromising just because the Iraqi Central military wasn't strong enough to hold ramadi and and so they araki's have to become very pragmatic because they could be in, in, in one generation. They could have military overlords of of every persuasion by 10 times in a lifetime. And, and I can't imagine living in those circumstances. And, and so. All right, it's Isis. Okay, I'll be, you know, I'll be Altra. Orthodox, conservative. Everybody will wear the proper attire and I'll marry my daughters off to this, you know, too. That warlord. Know. Why was so my family will survive and then the Americans come in me. Maybe multiple times over. Okay, well,

21:37 Now, we're never liberalize, we can wear regular clothes and listen to music and, and it'll be out after dark and, and, you know, women can get educated again and they do that. You're just having to go back and forth in a battery juice. Within five years, Dave. They had to talk go back and forth through four times.

21:58 Like friends and people.

22:02 Current climate and things like that, like,

22:07 Wake up, your time. Is there, is there people that you're still that you still have the ability to be like be in touch with without fearing for their safety or yours that you can still you're still friends with tractors. I mean, there's there's a couple characters that I really died. I would go visit them. I mean, I just realized some of these, some of the older folks that I met with, you know, if they were over fifty while I was there that means they were in Iraq. During the Heyday where it was a Cosmopolitan place, and many of them spoke English book a day, but many were educated in the Western College, is Serena win in France. And in the US Germany, very worldly. People are freaking out the middle. Absolutely nowhere. Very, very worldly individuals that that I just was do, you know, they really fast.

23:07 Canadian culture and and I, I mean, I'm fearful of reaching out and I do keep my my linguist Sammy. I would say, of all the things that I did the things I look back is my absolute favorite moment, was he hadn't actually seen his mother father, and he was quite a bit older than me. So his parents were in their seventies, which is a million years old for somebody in, Romani against his parents. In 10 years while he couldn't communicate, made it known that he was an American now, I'm preparing food in bed cuz I still live. Where is his family? Would have been dead. They would have been killed by Al-Qaeda than by ISIS. So he always kept a distance. So me and I think I turned on the tenant Colonel there. So I was one of the more senior ranking guys on the on a rather big bass. And the people guarding the gates were for my unit or where, you know, you got ins

24:07 Are you down in contractors, who I play soccer with every night. So I knew all the gate guards. Well, I had Sammy's somehow reached out to his parents. They had a cousin we smuggle them on the base. Basically without any, you know, what would have been completely illegal to bring them on? I brought them on Adam in a shack. So nobody could see him know another contractors. No locals could see them and and we did that a few times. I brought them through and hid them in a little Shack in the corner. And you got to spend the day with with them, and he has been with the time for years and he got to see his parents 3 days. And those are the three days that we smuggled him, you know, various times on the base and fortunately, you got to do that cuz he wrote me, I still keep in contact with them. And you wrote me, maybe five years ago, that he helped that of our group that brought him on. And then, you know, I was just, it was a fairly wide known conspiracy that we

25:07 All this going on. And

25:12 Is his mom passed away? I believe that I just a year or two later and then Dad, you know, it at your two after that. And just having that opportunity to spend time with them. So you cousin, see if you would have never seen 15-20 years without having seen his parents again, passed away recently, good now, and you'd have to have to have that relationship that I had a very trusting relationship with them, and that, you know, it takes, you have to be willing to bend the rules, and really just a relationship with, and then they broke back.

26:05 Your trust is an interesting word and in other cultures with Americans have a different view of trust.

26:14 In-N-Out, I'll say that in the context of corruption. What were the American word corruption? Is it, everything goes work is very negative word. But in many cultures it's not negative at all sir, part of doing business. And I think there was always a struggle for us to hear cuz the illegal for us to allow for corruption to be involved in in in the wreck. A darn thing gets done. Without wheels getting greased, you we would always have to keep an arm's awake. I would budget for it and ensure that whatever was being done, whatever building was being built, you know, knowing that there were Kickbacks mean, I can't prove it. It would be illegal if I could meeting I go and build a fun project, but the Project's going to save people's lives or get that person from you know, shooting the Rival tribe. We are launching orders over at them. So it's it's the right thing to do it, but he agrees the right thing to do. Let's go build. That's cool. But I know there's kickbacks.

27:14 Send.

27:15 So, so trust, do I trust them to do? Everything aboveboard and have full accountability of our money. No chat. When I never put you in Harm's Way that I can eat a dinner at their house. That when I'm there, they're not, it's not a setup that I got poison me. I know there's no trust between us.

27:49 Or for certain words in the world's largest kind of like about how they hold your life and where they not just a I thought you lost this year. Like you're not going to talk crap about me behind my back. It's more just like all my going to kill you and that I respect you enough that you know, we will we will do business together. You will look for them. But today, I would go with, think it's a, a preferential treatment. He wasn't preferential treatment. It was just okay, who's going to accomplish what I need done, most effectively, and damned if you're in no shape, that's in charge of the tribal neighborhood. And when we give you money, you actually built the thing we've asked you to build, and people have jobs and it's relatively peaceful in that neighborhood. We're all good. It's a trusting relationship. No,

28:49 Budget for what you could spend or how you could spend it and was there, things that, that, that budget would be going towards that you disagree with what I control the money that I was now in this is universal Inn in budgeting in governmental budgeting and I grew up in the air force learning to fight for money. So I was pretty good at it and it actually was kind of weird. I was an Air Force guy working for the Department of State and in a reconstruction on a reconstruction team provincial reconstruction team supported by a marine unit. So you have. Money, we had their word. It must have been ten different agencies American agencies that we had money in the area. I usually use Department of State money. So I fly to Baghdad. Go say, hey, I'm going to set up this project. I'm going to set up this microphone and think I need this much money, and if my argument is compelling.

29:49 Back with the money in and we would handed out and then try to do the best accounting that we could, you know, and then make sure that if, you know, he is using money as a weapon system. It's it's I need these people to act peacefully to make a peaceful transition of power and then stop shooting each other, you know, stop creating. It's not that vicious cycle. You shot somebody for my truck. Now, I'm going to shoot somebody from your tribe are your political party that sort of thing and just keeps repeating itself. So I was just trying to eat in that cycle. You like, you mostly agree with what you were doing and just tell her like a position of power related. You were you ever in a position of power to be like, no, we're not going to do what you just said. There's two things that when you come up by it adjusted,

30:42 Witnessing abject slavery is very very difficult amongst. So I need to work with the shakes but every whatever, but once a month to shakes and I'll disappear and they would fly somewhere, take those pictures to go on there and Jordan there somewhere. And then come back when you can, or somewhere. They were indentured. Now, you're, you might be a family living in a palace, but you know, which was better than, you know, the hot. They came from in Venice. But usually, if you can't leave, you don't have a passport. God knows how they got you in and, and their servants their, their, their slaves. I mean, whatever whether they were Somali. And

31:32 Served by a slave is, is a horrifying experience and end at your having the balance that morality. So, so you're giving, will you ask him where I got this?

31:46 Being served by a Slave.

31:49 And knowing that, you know, keeping the smile on cuz you can't or anybody else.

31:59 There's there's a moment. Oh well by doing this, you know, okay. Well if I walk out, okay, well that invalidates all this work productivity all the opportunity for, you know, people not to kill each other.

32:16 It extends the word knead on your mind.

32:23 Yeah, that hurt.

32:27 I can imagine.

32:31 But I'm sure that the work that your you were able to do in those months.

32:39 Made it. So one day that those people don't have to be there anymore.

32:45 Air, I'm a pause that compose myself. Otherwise, I might you be able to answer the next question.

32:59 Rose Goodwin.

33:12 So I suppose the other challenging you to do did we do things that we disagreed with like things that I funded her work? Very moral. They're hyper more. I'll let you know everything I could be. No, we had it all around like we were funding orphanages bringing books to two women schools. There was a bad about women's and need to be like up the equivalent here would be battered spouse but essentially women had to run somewhere with their kids to the shelters were there. Educating those kids have fun at the hell out of those. You do any chance we could get to the other thing that I did for the microfinance phone was actually created like a women's entrepreneur arm of it. So so I had you know, just a regular one. Then I was each time. I went back to Baghdad. I would create another arm of this thing to get more money into the microphone. And so, you know where you just getting like a few hundred. $300 is a little loan. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean,

34:12 You to buy a sewing machine, whatever crap you were doing. So I had, I went back and did one for, for women entrepreneurs and went back to me wants to Farmers one, for every little segments that I could get to keep money, flowing through the, I didn't even care. If I pay it back, you know, they did a payment return because it was tied up, and in the very much your perceptor, you know, how people perceive you and your family, so the very high repayment, right, but that wasn't the intent. I just wanted to get as many people enough money to do good things with as it could. So so we've come up with all sorts of excuses to push the InnoTab. Accelerate, the pace of capital, have those things continued or like, because you're not no longer in the military. Can you still check in on those dates or like, is that something that you are like legally able to do ask somebody was in the military?

35:12 Can you check on this for me? Or like what is it like there or is there even people there anymore to do that sort of thing there that could you know, so I know what kept getting better and then it. Ramada, I believe she fell again to Isis. Maybe a year-and-a-half two years later and likely know, there wasn't, there is a remote. He had to recover from 2006/2007 where it was basically destroyed. Every building was blown out into because of the fighting over if you keep getting like, Al-Qaeda out of there, like, where we are at worst worse than you can. Imagine everything was was flattened and and and, you know, there was shooting in every block and so it, we recovered from that.

36:01 The follow-on conflict. It was never that scale or so. It's a lot of the infrastructure that was built out, Rose ever built things like that that stayed, but now you're under Isis. And so a lot of the institutions that we don't are probably gone. I can't free them and I'm sure that it was, I'm sure there was casualties individually and people in charge, you know, if it's just a

36:30 You know, lots of good things were done. Lots of good institutions were built and I fear that their, you know, maybe they've reconstituting Ken now that Isis has pushed out, but, you know, it's going to be different characters. Yeah. I think the best thing we can say is for a little while we elevated it. Hopefully we padded some bank accounts. So that when I just left, there was some resource and, you know, some infrastructure that was better than when we start. I think we can say that the say that that the microfinance bank still exist. I doubt it. I hope I have no means to know, have you ever liked wanted to be an obvious lie. I am quite ignorant on one of the subjects, not in the military.

37:19 Like, I know there's been times where I see something on the news that like, oh my gosh, that makes me just want to join whatever I have to just to help that cause or just wish that you could just like, be back in it when it read you so much in that 8 months. It wasn't enough. I mean, good lord. It's something you need to do for for 5 years. I feel like that's all I'm trying to do now make enough money so that your mom and I can go. Do you know, once you guys are on your way she's a nurse where you know, I do crisis management and resiliency in governance and all that sort of thing. We want to go back and maybe work usaid. And

38:05 Yeah, do it professionally and then this time with all the learning that I had from the past maybe not so much negativity. I'd be better at it.

38:16 But it's not easy. Like I said, two young persons game. People out there in their fifties and sixties struggle, in the 240 degrees and you have to wear armor. Are you worried? Like now that my older brother Chase your son. He's in the Marines, a section of the military where I guess you could say.

38:45 I don't want to say it's it's more dangerous, but you will most likely more likely be in a position where it could be more dangerous because of what you do and especially for him infiltrate and being and things like that. Like are you worried after your experience for him? And what are those worries?

39:07 Trying to make it a worry thing. I say it's an opportunity. If he gets half the experience that I had then you know that that will be, you'll be a better man for it. You know that it will it will make his his life in a sense. You know, it's in that I just have a tremendous amount of pride in it. It's it's service. He's he's serving his chose to serve in the in a very challenging role of it may not be easy. There will be many moral. You'll run into the same moral ambiguity. He'll run into the, you know, how many challenges bed. I know. I'm happy he's doing it to get so it'll be a good Adventure. Well, I hope that you

39:52 But you are here where you are today, and I decided for him. I'm excited for the way. I did not expect that. I did not expect the conversation would go there.

40:12 Thank you. Love you.