Did you negotiate with terrorists this week?

No, I’m not talking about a toddler who won’t eat his broccoli or a comedy club manager who “knows funny.” I mean real terrorists - the kind who kidnap children and plant bombs at marathons.

Well, that’s what my most recent guest did for a living.

Kyle Vowinkel is a West Point graduate and retired FBI executive who mediated the peaceful surrender of the Boston Marathon bomber, helped to save a 5-year-old boy who was abducted by a crazy man in an underground bunker in Alabama, and participated in over 100 high-risk missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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One of only five agents ever to serve on both the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team and Crisis Negotiation Unit, Kyle received the FBI Director’s Medal of Excellence, FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Counterintelligence Investigation, and the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Heroism, the Department of Justice’s highest award for valor.

In other words, though he would never put it this way and he doesn’t come across with this energy at all, Kyle is a law enforcement badass who served his country in ways you and I will never fully appreciate.

His new book, Shaping Chaos, is the story of his incredible career, the grueling training he endured to prepare for it, and the impact that service had on his family.

It also reminds us of the sacred duty of law enforcement and the critical importance of the Department of Justice’s political independence.

Get Kyle’s book here.

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FBI Hostage Negotiator Kyle Vowinkel