Author Ken Kraus and Publisher Constance Payne

Intro: [00:00:05] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX Studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:16] And welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I am your host, Sharon Cline, and today is a little bit of a different take. It’s not so much business as it is a personal life experience we have in the studio. Ken Kraus. He is the author of the book A Marine Endures Hell, the first marine held hostage in Iran during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, and the publisher of his book, who’s a repeat person here on the show, Constance Payne. She is an actor, a forensics cleaner, and an entrepreneur here in Atlanta. Welcome, Ken and Constance to the show.

Constance Payne: [00:00:55] Hey, hey, hey.

Ken Kraus: [00:00:56] Hi, Karen.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:58] Hi. Thank you so much for being willing to come in. And your book has just been published this past week. Um, and it’s a whole new venture for you in the publishing world. So I’m very excited to talk to you about how important this book is, not only just for the publishing experience and, and Constance involvement with you, but just reliving and talking about how the experiences that you had while being held prisoner and what this has, how this has affected your life long terme. It’s so fascinating to me, and important because you have a perspective on different, um, events that have happened all around the world that people don’t have if they haven’t been through what you have. So do you mind if I kind of get started a little bit in the beginning of, of when you were a sergeant in the Marines?

Ken Kraus: [00:01:45] No, ma’am.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:46] Go ahead. Okay. So you were 22 years old. Uh, you were a sergeant in the US Marine Corps. You were sent, um, to from the embassy in Cyprus. You were sent to Tehran. Um, and you were going to be helping support the marine detachment in Tehran.

Ken Kraus: [00:02:02] That’s correct.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:03] And then on Valentine’s Day 1979, in the morning, there was a siege. Can you talk about what happened? And I don’t know how much detail you’d like to go into, but please feel free to take it from there.

Ken Kraus: [00:02:16] Yeah. Basically, we had gone, um, on a 24 hour, uh, shall we say, patrol or alert status. We really realize that because so many Americans were, um, getting brought back onto the embassy and the consulate to be evacuated out of the country, it put a lot of stress upon the the embassy personnel, which were already down to a skeleton crew anyway for what they need working, uh, very similar about what’s going on over in the Middle East now, um, in Gaza and Israel, where they’re pulling people out. But when you put that many people through the ringer of the red tape that takes to get out of the country and to to wait around it, it really is a security nightmare. You, you know, for terrorists or anybody, it just gives them a hard target and a and a soft target, you know, to focus on. So, you know, with that being said, um, it was, uh, the Shah had just left the country. Shah Reza Pahlavi. And now that the, uh, Ayatollah Khomeini was coming back in, there was a vacuum there in the political world. So what was happening is that really, nobody had a handle on what was going on, who was going to take over, you know, this new type of regime that’s a theocracy, which, you know, nobody’s ever seen before. Remember, this is only 1979. This is just barely five years after, um, Saigon, you know, I mean, it’s it’s, uh, American military, you know, wasn’t looked upon with a lot of the prestige they are today.

Ken Kraus: [00:03:44] And the Vietnam veterans that came back, you know, they weren’t they weren’t honored the way they should have for their service. So we’ve seen that. And so people a lot. Today, 44 years ago, people couldn’t even find Iran or Iraq on the map. I mean, people couldn’t, you know, they didn’t they didn’t even have operational maps at times. You take a look at it, it looks like this, uh, the desk here, you know, it’s all one color because it’s a sandbox over there. Middle East. Yeah, that’s that’s the way that is, you know, and if it wasn’t for the satellite, you know, navigations and the type of communications, it’s hard to even find out where you’re going there. So especially if it’s not your embassy. And, you know, I was sent from Nicosia, Cyprus. Um. To try to fit us in with another detachment even is is is a kind of a sideways show to begin with. So with that being said, we knew within about oh, 24 hours ahead of time something, something was brewing. And because we’ve we’ve had riots before, we’d had thousands of students, demonstrators, anti-shah or pro-khomeini, whatever. Which way you want to look at it, start over in the giant soccer stadium. And this would be 20, 30,000 people. Okay. This isn’t just, you know, downtown, you know, a couple hundred people. You’re talking thousands of people.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:59] You said you in the book that you had a feeling something was wrong that day. Absolutely.

Ken Kraus: [00:05:03] Because there’s, uh, uh, the night before, uh. Then the post that I was standing is very, uh, uh, very restricted area. Uh, on the back of the embassy and not very many people allowed to use it to come through there anyway. Uh, that morning when I had gotten off of duty, there’s something seemed strange because I knew this, that there wasn’t the Farsi police officers that are normally out there. You take a look at the embassies in Washington, D.C., you’ll see just outside the embassies that they have, uh, GSA or regular police. They’re not the same police officers that are in the Washington, um.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:41] Like at the white House or at the white House.

Ken Kraus: [00:05:42] So when I saw that they weren’t there that morning when I got off, I was thinking, you know, it’s not a special day. It might be Valentine’s Day, but not in a muslim country here. I mean, what’s what’s up with that? I didn’t think much of it until I got my, uh, my relief, uh, came I gave them the brief, and then I went back to the marine house. Actually, I had gotten off, and, uh, I had some breakfast at the caravanserai restaurant. And then shortly after that, I went back to the marine house, and I was going to get some sleep. And, I mean, I was just.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:09] All hell broke.

Ken Kraus: [00:06:10] Loose, dead ass tired. And it was cold that night. It’s February up there in the mountains. This is, uh, it’s a really cold area. And, uh, I remember, uh, basically taking my gear off and getting ready to hit the rack, and, uh, I just started to hear, uh, gunfire. And I know that since the State Department had taken away, uh, the Marines, M16s, our our automatic weapons, and they given a shotguns. So we raised hell about that. But for the most part, we work for the State Department. So, you know, for whatever their security, uh, generating generation, generic terms are going to be for whatever their threat assessment is, we basically got to go with it. And so I’m saying, no, these shotguns aren’t really good for, you know, more than about 50 yards. Yeah.

Constance Payne: [00:06:56] Those are close range weapons.

Ken Kraus: [00:06:58] Absolutely. And the, uh, you know, you’re talking about a 27 acre compound, you know, with different buildings in it. So I’m wondering what, you know, drastic, asinine thinking this is coming up because it’s not very tactical at all, give or take that. So when I, when the firing first started. We were wondering where. It was it was small arms fire. And we recognize that pistols basically. Then we heard rifle fire. Now, since we didn’t have rifles, we were wondering. And the loud crack of a rifle so close. You’re wondering. You know who who who’s got the rifles? It wasn’t the Marines. Then we heard the, uh, we heard, uh, uh, the radio traffic come across or coming over the wall or coming over the wall. I’m taking inbound. I’m taking in fire. In fire. Request permission to fire back. And I know who it was. It was. It was Corporal Downey at the front gate where there’s three Marines at the main gate, and there’s just being overrun. And then it went from rifle fire to sustained automatic weapons fire. So now you’re in, you know, a full bore firefight.

Constance Payne: [00:07:59] And if you guys want to know more about the firefight, you’ll have to buy the book.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:04] I love you, Constance, because to me, it’s like, of course I want to hear and know more, but that’s why you have a book. So one of the, um, quotes that you have in the book is that in, in, during the gunfight, that it was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Can you describe to me why that is? I mean, I know that you’re trained military to defend and fight, but to have that reality of it happening at you at that moment, what was that like?

Ken Kraus: [00:08:33] I think it, Sharon. I think what happens is that, uh, while we were in that firefight with the, the the attackers that were there, they had the range of fire, the rate of fire. They had the, uh, they had the high ground on us. And we were we were outmanned, outgunned, outranged we had they had everything in their favor, you know, element of surprise. They had taken over control of our radios. So we were basically incommunicado. And the building where myself and the other two Marines were the was the caravanserai restaurant. And that’s where we kind of held up like an Alamo and holding up there. It’s just a matter of time before, when they come in, that they know that there’s somebody in that building, you know, and then once they try to get through the building, that’s where the fire, that’s where our our little individual firefight, along with all the main, other little firefights were going on at the Chancery building, the, uh, chargé D’affairs house, all the different little buildings that were there.

Constance Payne: [00:09:22] But and this was like, this was the first firefight you’d ever been in as a marine before. Then it was just training. Absolutely. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess that would be the exhilarating part that like, all your training had kind of stirred up to this. I mean, nobody wants to be in a firefight. Absolutely. But you are ready for it.

Ken Kraus: [00:09:40] So to, to to balance what you’re going to say, I think where it comes from and I’ve thought about this, but you don’t think about that over the years. I didn’t think about it at the time. But where you your training comes back in, where your tactics are, what you and where your marksmanship and being alert. Make sure nobody’s taking a bead on you or you know you’re not you’re not getting shot at. You’re more worried about a ricochet or something. But when the exhilarating part of it is, is that. You are in a fight that you know you want to win, and the only way you’re going to win that is if you stay in it. And when you have bullets shot at you that miss you and hit everything around you, and when you shoot back and you hit somebody, you hit another human being. It’s it’s a, it’s a sword that’s got a double edge to it.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:26] You had said in the book, if violence is the process that our enemies have chosen to negotiate with, then I say, let’s give them all that they want, because that’s what that’s what they’re negotiating. That’s their terms.

Constance Payne: [00:10:37] Yeah, that’s what’s the other choice. Die.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:39] You have to fight. You have to fight.

Ken Kraus: [00:10:41] There’s no diplomacy there. Even though it’s a diplomatic mission. It goes out the window as soon as somebody starts, you know, raking you with automatic fire with intent to kill you, you know? Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:50] Changes things. What are you going to do? Yeah. So you had. You were in. Do you mind if I talk a little bit about the the next steps? So you were in in the firefight. You were taken hostage. Um, and you were held hostage seven days. Is that right? Eight days. Eight days? Yes. Damn. So some of the descriptions of what you experienced and what you witnessed are just unbelievable to me. And I was thinking about just myself, you know, I can’t stand to see anything suffer. I don’t know, it doesn’t animals. Nothing. But what would have happened to me or just just an average person to witness, not even to yourself. You’re suffering in your own way, physically, but to watch someone suffer and be tortured right in front of you, right in front of you. And. Have have that in your psychology. You can’t not see all of this. What effect did that have on you?

Ken Kraus: [00:11:46] Well, to back it up a little bit, the the initial part of it is when, uh, shall we say we had, we had about 20 Americans that were noncombatants and uh, they were basically stuck there with us at the restaurant. Uh, long story short, uh, once they once the terrorists knew that they were in there and they wanted them and they tried to come through the doors. That’s what started the fight. Okay. Um, we exchanged fire back and forth, and it’s just a matter of time before they were going to overrun us. You know, we just running out of bullets. That’s getting down. And we knew that. You want to think about something that in hand-to-hand combat, what we call cold steel, you got to sit there and think about, I’m going to have to take a knife. Uh, a ka-bar a marine, and I’ve got to stick it in somebody with direct intent to take their life. And of course, if it gets down to that and, you know. So that’s your first reality, is that how close is this going to be, then you realize that once they get through us, these Americans are going to be slaughtered at slaughter. They’re at their mercy. And so there, there, your charge. Yes. So when it comes down to it, and I talk in the book about the miracle. Yes. That first miracle is that if I had not if I had not gotten lucky or a miracle hadn’t happened, that I got that guy, I captured him basically in the window. Yes. And and I had thank God he decided to want to live that day. And I wasn’t going to shoot him because if it went any other way, I shoot him. Then we’re just back to square one. So with that, it was able to get those 22, those 2022 workers safe and out of there. But to to bring up where the first amount of what you’re talking about shock and trauma was that morning that uh my friend the waiter monarchy. Yes. Had.

Constance Payne: [00:13:32] Well yeah. I will have to read more in the book. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:35] In the book.

Ken Kraus: [00:13:35] Yeah. And when he dies in my arms, he steps in front of me and he dies in my arms. I mean, that’s the first.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:40] The first trauma. You had known him for a while and had been so kind.

Ken Kraus: [00:13:44] And I just had breakfast with him. And then to get beat down like I did, uh, before I was taken out and then shot. Now, once you’re shot, I don’t know what happened. I mean, I guess nobody knows. To this day, I’ve taken off the confusing.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:57] It is because there are moments where you’re actually having some kindness happen to you, and then moments where it’s completely taken away. You know how confusing and disorienting that must be. Yeah, it.

Constance Payne: [00:14:06] Started off as a regular day, and then it just everything changed for him.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:10] Yes, yes. You say that? Um, well, okay, so President Carter was, um, able to negotiate your release.

Ken Kraus: [00:14:20] So I was told.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:21] So you were told, you said. And that leads me to the next part, that there’s a disparity between the media account of what was happening and what was really happening. Do you want to talk about that?

Ken Kraus: [00:14:30] Imagine that. Yeah. Really? So, uh, the embassy actually, in fact, they did not even know it had been hit and overrun. Um, they were trying to contact them. And for whatever reason, back in 1979, whatever type of communications they had, they were trying to get it from the BBC. Uh, UPI, AP and they were the ones that were saying, hey, uh, Washington, you know, your embassy is on fire over there. Yeah. You know, you can’t talk to your ambassador. Do you know that the American flags have been taken down? The embassy is burning. You may want to check that out and see. Of course, I didn’t know any of this because I was. I was taken off the, uh, off to the hospital and then from the hospital, kidnaped out, taken to that that hellhole called Avon prison. And, uh, that’s something if you want to Google that and look and see what the history of that is, uh, you’ll it’ll it’ll change your lifestyle. It’s places where in the book where I talk about, uh, having to have come up with a different name for some of these people because I couldn’t speak Farsi. And I talk about, you know, turkey motto. And then you look at that. That’s the Spanish Inquisition. That’s how far it goes back of what you were saying to watching other people, uh, be tortured in such inhumane ways. I said, first of all, who thinks this stuff up?

Sharon Cline: [00:15:42] How what kind of mindset do you have to have to make it okay for you to do that to?

Ken Kraus: [00:15:46] I I’ve never you.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:47] Know, I don’t I don’t know either, thankfully.

Ken Kraus: [00:15:49] And then to, uh, you know, keep these people alive long enough for whether you want an information from them. I don’t know whether you just want to be mean and revenge, you know, tactics.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:58] At some point they can’t speak, and yet they’re still being beaten and tortured. So it’s like, what’s the point?

Ken Kraus: [00:16:03] It’s it’s hideous. And though I.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:04] Can’t imagine.

Ken Kraus: [00:16:05] Um, they’re doing this to their own people. Now imagine me, you know, a combat marine who just, you know, got in a firefight, fair firefight. And we we killed a bunch of them, and now they’re going to take it out on me. So whatever I’m watching here, I’m going to get just as much or worse. And I was already wounded, already beat and bones broken. And so I hadn’t had anything to eat or sleep in two days. So, you know, strip naked and you’re looking at this is how much more can you take?

Sharon Cline: [00:16:32] You talk about how, um. It didn’t matter what they were going to do to you. And I think at the end of your sentence was just, I’m a marine like that ended your sentence. And I was like, oh, it’s so like touched me. You know, I felt like that I could feel the energy behind that sentence. So I’m wondering, how did you feel like you were prepared enough for what you went through? And how can you prepare? Really? But you, no matter what you were going to experience, you were still going to stand by being a marine.

Ken Kraus: [00:17:02] Absolutely. And it all comes down to I knew that nobody knows where I was.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:07] Yeah. You gave them some truths and some some lies to confuse the heck out of stripped me naked.

Ken Kraus: [00:17:12] I have no idea. I can’t no no dog tags, ID, nothing, you know. So here I am, down in this hellhole. My. I don’t know what happened to the embassy. You’re inside and he get this time deprivation because you don’t get fed on a regular basis at all. You don’t see light whatsoever. So you never know when you fall asleep, you literally pass out. Was I out for a week, a month, a day, you know, and it didn’t matter.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:36] It didn’t.

Ken Kraus: [00:17:36] You didn’t matter. But when it comes down to it and you realize that, you know, I’m not going to get out of this situation. And, you know, you go back to, you know, why you joined the Marine Corps and, you know, your core value is inside. And you say, you know, I signed up, I’m an American fighting man. I’m the United States Marine. I served in the forces that guard our country and our way of life. I’m prepared to risk and give my life in their defense. And that’s what you look at when you look at a blank wall. There’s no mirror and you say, okay, however it’s going to be, you know, they can they can beat me up, they can kill me, they can eat me. And that’s the worst they can do. And they just have to accept that because, I mean, it was there was nothing else. You, you know, you’re in a position where all you there’s even no hope that, you know, you want to keep the hopes open, but you say hope for what? Because then you try to be logical, you know, nobody knows where you’re at and there’s no way, etc., etc., etc..

Sharon Cline: [00:18:33] Who knows what’s gonna happen to you in the meantime?

Ken Kraus: [00:18:35] And I said, you know, basically getting no medical attention whatsoever. I know my wounds are going to go septic. I’m going to die here. I know it’s just the thing that bothered me the most is that, you know, when I had to accept that, you know, with a spiritual relationship, I just had to say that I asked, uh, I asked the Lord to say, you know, there’s one thing I just really wanted to get across is that I know that, you know, whether I just die here or whether they, you know, execute me, whatever it’s going to be is that they can take me out here and put me my picture in the newspapers like they have with so many others, and they can accuse me of all kinds of heinous crimes, ugly things, you know, and as I could imagine what kind of crimes that they could accuse me of. And, um, as an American, as a marine and the Marine Corps and, and my family, they would have no closure on that, say, there would be no defense whatsoever. You know, you wanted.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:31] Them to know the.

Ken Kraus: [00:19:31] Truth. And I want yeah. I just want to say, hey, you know, if you know you’re going to kill me, then I’m going to go out and just, you know, as as a fighting man and just leave it at that. And he was a marine that died and, you know, and the defense of the country. And if that’s all that I wanted, you know, the Lord to say, because I know I’m not getting out of here. So if that could be my epitaph or whatever they, you know, was left in my body, even if they gave the body back, I don’t know. But please don’t don’t embarrass me or my family’s name. And you know already there’s been enough things from Vietnam and we’re just five years later, so we don’t need any more of this. Yeah.

Constance Payne: [00:20:03] You wanted to die with honor if it was going to happen.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:05] Rightfully so.

Ken Kraus: [00:20:06] Pretty much.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:07] It makes me wonder how many Marines or military don’t because they don’t have that opportunity. Or maybe not don’t, but they no one really knows their story. No one really knows their mindset. And there must be so many.

Ken Kraus: [00:20:20] Especially the ones that go, uh, deep undercover and operations that we never hear about, you know, and, you know, the when they don’t come home, sometimes you’re kind of you don’t even can’t even, uh, give them the accolades. You can’t even talk about it. No medals conferred. And the families just said it’s a training accident or they never recovered the body back. You know, didn’t you.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:40] Say in the book that the two men that you were with in the, um, restaurant, you didn’t see them again after a certain point.

Ken Kraus: [00:20:46] Never saw them again.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:46] So we don’t.

Ken Kraus: [00:20:47] Know. Well, I have talked to one where we found him. He’s up and he retired and he’s up in, in, in New England. And, uh, he just wants to be have a quiet life and, you know, no accolades or anything.

Constance Payne: [00:20:59] But that was the first time you had talked to him since you saw a gun to his head as you were being carried out.

Ken Kraus: [00:21:04] Got you. That was on his, uh, it was.

Constance Payne: [00:21:06] In my office, too. Yeah. Oh. You’re kidding. Yeah. We did the call in my office and we filmed it. We’re going to put the that some snippets of that conversation on YouTube.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:14] I can’t imagine what that was like.

Ken Kraus: [00:21:15] I was in.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:15] Tears. How could you not be how could you? There are only a few people on the planet who know what that was like exactly. To be in. Um, what do you think people have a misconception about for during your time that you were a hostage, but also in the ensuing months, 144 days, I believe it was that they were or 400 and.

Ken Kraus: [00:21:36] 444.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:37] Days.

Ken Kraus: [00:21:37] 14 months. Yes. Yep. And well, for one is that the media itself doesn’t go back and follow it, you know, take a look at just yesterday, Pearl Harbor, there was hardly a mention on on media out there. Oh my.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:51] Goodness. I didn’t even think of that.

Ken Kraus: [00:21:52] You’re right. Exactly. They don’t teach it in the schools anymore. How how often are they still talking about the hostages? 52 hostages. What happened to them? I can name most of them. And I know the ones that have committed suicide are the ones that have passed away naturally. And, you know, they don’t. They don’t teach it in the schools. So part of the misconception is that the it goes away and that, you know, that’s never going to happen again. Well, you know, just a few years ago they attacked they attacked the same way in Benghazi, you know, and some of the very politicians that were there, what does it matter? It mattered a lot of people when they drug the United States ambassador naked. Yes. Through the streets. See what I mean? So when you don’t remember those things, you are bound to commit the same problems or get into the same problems and end up with same, same similar solutions. So that’s the misconception is that these people won’t attack and, you know, they will attack. They will attack again. They don’t attack Russian embassies. They don’t attack Chinese embassies. Why is that? Why is that just their misperception? Nah, because they don’t show up with a Swat team. You know, they’ll show up with about eight divisions. Just annex your country, you know, so there’s a there’s a bigger fear over there than, um, you know, they.

Constance Payne: [00:23:03] Don’t mess around over.

Ken Kraus: [00:23:04] There. They don’t mess around. No, they they bring the heat. And that’s not always the best answer. But sometimes, sometimes violence and military operations is necessary. For instance, Normandy, Normandy invasion. D-day. They don’t even talk about that much. You know, the largest, greatest invasion in military history in human history. And some people don’t even well in the.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:26] Potential lives that it did save right by ending.

Ken Kraus: [00:23:30] Was there any other way to get rid of Hitler?

Constance Payne: [00:23:31] You can’t solve terrorism with hugs. That’s just not, you know, it’s just not a thing.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:38] So when you came back, um, and you were released, you were given the Cross of Valor in 1979, and you were given the Purple Heart and a Navy Commendation Medal. What was that like for you?

Ken Kraus: [00:23:51] That was amazing, Sharon, because, uh, I learned about the medals on my flight over here. I mean, I’ve, uh, my flight from Germany when I was, uh, evac’d out. We went to Germany, stayed over night. They looked at my wounds, and they had to find a uniform for me and everything. And then on the flight, I was briefed about, you know, what would happen. And, uh, I was saying, well, that’s that’s amazing. Where’s the other Marines? Where? Because I never talked to any of them since then. And I said, how about the other accolades that they’re going to be getting? And, you know, when am I going to see them? He says, well, let’s the officer that I was, you know, briefing me, it said that it was, um, I said, that’s above our pay grade. We don’t discuss that. So he said, uh, he said, you know, that this is a, uh, an oncoming election year. And it’s just people when you get off this plane, here’s what, here’s what to expect.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:39] Their cameras and.

Constance Payne: [00:24:40] Everything. Here’s the dog and pony show.

Ken Kraus: [00:24:41] Oh my God. I mean, it was it was a picture.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:43] Of you hugging your mom, you know.

Ken Kraus: [00:24:46] Iconic. But, uh, to actually when you you look at the book and you see the photos of the entire marine eighth and I band out there, the president’s own, and, you know, for them to stand at attention and the band to play and for you to get a salute like that from them and to walk down that ramp knowing that, you know. 72 hours ago, I was minutes away from death. I was doomed to be executed and a firing squad. And now I’m here. I said, is this real? You keep biting your cheek. You say, how does this happen? I said, usually, you know, when you eat, you meet the commandant, you meet the. You go through the whole dog and pony show. Senator John Heinz, um, Secretary of the Navy, Graham Claytor, um, all of them, they’re all have, you know, to salute them. Put the put the pin on you read this, read the citation. And you wonder, you say usually when, uh, soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, any kind of veteran does something like this. They vet them first and they check it out and they say, hey, we want to see, you know, everything that’s involved, who else was involved, etc., etc. how they went from not knowing where I was in that hellhole down there to whirlwind overnight. Now they can they can come up with this entourage of this. What’s going on here? I mean, it is overwhelming. It really is. And to know that, um, you never got any decent sleep or, you know, medication, anything like that, and, uh, the stitches that were in my, my chest and my stomach when my mom ran up to me, I could just barely hold on to her. And I go, oh my God, I picked her up. You can see it’s not a normal stance. I had to separate my my feet boots to hold my back up, uh, because otherwise I said, oh, there goes my stitches. Oh, God. You know, but.

Constance Payne: [00:26:24] You just finally got him in. They had taped you together before, you know, that was it.

Ken Kraus: [00:26:29] And, you know, I said, come all the way back here to, you know, die on the on the tarmac with a hug from your mom.

Constance Payne: [00:26:35] But the cameras. What a way to go out.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:38] So, Constance, I would love to talk to you about how you and Ken got to know each other. There’s a restaurant that’s, um, sort of military themed restaurant here in Woodstock called Semper Fi.

Constance Payne: [00:26:49] Yes, yes. Now, their rally point and they move in just up the road as we speak, I think actually. Right, Ken? Yes. Right. But, uh, but yeah, we met there on February 1st of this year. Um, it’s just it’s got chit chatting.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:02] Just got to chit chatting.

Ken Kraus: [00:27:03] While we’re sitting at the end of the bar. And I just got in from, uh, having a having a beer and a burger and the, uh, from a disabled American veterans, uh, uh, convention or meeting. Anyway, so I had taken my book bag, which tells you how old I am, and I put it on the chair next to me, and all the other chairs were taken, and Constance came in and she looked around and she asked, is that seat taken? And I said, oh, no, ma’am, it’s, uh, be my guest. I said, let me move my book bag. And she kind of giggled, you know, book bag, you know, grandma, grandpa, things like nobody carries book bags, but but because I was working.

Constance Payne: [00:27:36] He had this silly look on his face, too. He’s like, please sit next to me.

Ken Kraus: [00:27:42] So I so I moved, I moved my quote book bag that had the books in it that I was working on at the time or released. Think I’m working on it. The research. And she said, don’t you mean a computer bag? I said, yeah, it’s got a computer in it, but I’m writing a book. And she goes, oh, you’re writing a book? And boom! Um, because she’s had experience in that and has been an author and a publisher, I said, what’s the odds of that right there? You know?

Constance Payne: [00:28:02] Yeah. And then we talked about, uh, forensics and stuff like that, because he went on to be a forensic detective after the Marine Corps.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:09] Department I saw until 2016. Yeah, she.

Ken Kraus: [00:28:11] Had shown me pictures and we were showing, you know, photos back and forth. And she owns her own forensic cleanup. Yeah, I.

Constance Payne: [00:28:16] Had just come from a cleanup. I kind of normally do that. Like, I’ll go to, you know, just to decompress. Yeah. Decompress. And. Yeah, I like to sit around, you know, people that are respectful and honorable. And it was he was the first person to ever talk to me in that bar in the year that I had been going there after work. Um, so I was like, this little guy’s got some balls. It was hilarious. So I, you know, and I usually go there just to get, you know, a moment to myself. But I enjoyed our conversation and we just kind of gave the synopsis of our lives and we, like, totally brought out. It’s it’s kind of an odd friendship, you know, I’m 37. He’s 66. Uh, but but think.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:52] About how just even being in the forensics world, how you all can compare, like bringing out, like, looking at your. Yeah, your battle wounds.

Constance Payne: [00:28:59] Yeah. It’s like, here you go.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:00] Yeah. This gun, you know, fight and this. I just can’t imagine what it was like to talk about things that you only the two of you in that kind of.

Constance Payne: [00:29:07] You don’t often meet somebody that see, you see eye to eye with. Yeah, exactly. Especially right off the bat about so many different topics. So it was a good conversation for sure.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:17] And that led to the book. The book. Yes. So, Constance, you have, first of all, just the most cool person ever on the planet and just such a fan, um, actor forensics cleaner, of course. But you just I didn’t even know that you had a publishing side. So you have done some publishing for other authors in the past?

Constance Payne: [00:29:34] Yes, yes. I used to work for a third party companies in my early 20s when I was actually doing radio. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:40] That’s right. You have a great voice for radio. Thank you, thank you.

Constance Payne: [00:29:43] That’s kind of what got me into that. It was it was really random. I was working at a biker bar and, uh, the the old lady that owned it wanted me to give these tickets away for her concert or whatever. So I didn’t know that you just call the sales department. Like, I had no idea. I’m, like, 21 years old. And so I just kept calling up the DJ, and I started doing my funny voices and just being like, hey, give these tickets away. And that kind of led into radio. But I tribute both of those aspects into being a successful actor, you know, because I understand my voice, how to throw it and then character development, what it really means, you know, especially in book publishing, like people can publish all they want. If you don’t have a page turner, you’re not going to get good reviews. People aren’t going to continue to buy it, they’re not going to recommend it or anything like that. And so helping to create and craft that through, you know, interviews with him that were verbal and his notes and just meshing those things together to, to make it what it was. And, and then in the final publishing process, seeing him go through page after page, because I said, all right, Maureen, let’s read it. You got to read this and you got to read it and criticize it. If I’ve missed something or I messed something up, now’s the time. And he just kept page after page. He’s like, great, great. And it was it was a very emotional experience. It took about four hours for him to go through the whole book and really line I line it.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:04] I was going to ask you as well, like, what is it like as in your 60s, going back to your 22 year old mindset? Like, how did it feel? Did you realize things different?

Constance Payne: [00:31:15] I don’t think he’s ever matured past 22.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:18] I haven’t either. We’re we’re kindred spirits. Then, because I am totally not my chronological age. I think I’m Arrested Development.

Constance Payne: [00:31:25] Go ahead, answer that one. Ken. I had to step on you on that.

Ken Kraus: [00:31:29] The, uh uh, in in reflection, you look at it and you’re thinking. The stuff that you went through that you saw, how did it affect your life now and then you stop for a second. You realize it’s. Uh, it’s a continuing process that you become. Specifically myself. I had created an alter ego and I didn’t realize that. And it suffered in in some of the jobs that I, that I wanted to go for, for instance, air traffic controller, which I was in the military, my first MOS, my first job before I went embassy duty. And then I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to take the stress and have people’s lives again, sitting in a dark room for 20 years. That and a couple of divorces where you realize this alter ego is something that I’m never going to be a hostage again. That’s something you say, hey, I’m not going to be sausage. You know, financially, I’m not to your emotions. And I had a hard time with people giving me, um, I wouldn’t say direction, but ultimatums, you know, I said it’s not going to be that way. It’s my way or the highway. And I said, I’m not going to be put into a corner. And I’m always out trying to think people. That was. What was your, uh, initial, I’d say initial, um, emotional thought process when you contacted me about something. What is your intent or motive?

Sharon Cline: [00:32:51] Yeah.

Ken Kraus: [00:32:51] What’s your what’s your motive and your intent for me. Exactly. And it was, uh, not paranoia, but it was what I. I didn’t want to call it paranoia. I just wanted to call it heightened awareness, you know, super sensitive, being cautious.

Constance Payne: [00:33:03] You know, I do the same thing.

Ken Kraus: [00:33:05] And the, uh, you’re very guarded in your feelings and letting people in. And then even then, when you you share, it’s, uh, it’s not complete. It’s just enough to, you know, get them to feel comfortable with you and, um. Going on with that. That’s the emotional part and the mental. Then there’s the there’s the physical where you would you hear a certain music or sound? Um, I, a certain smells that would bother me and, you know, curry and things like that. I love curry, but it’s the way it’s cooked and it brings back. It brings back memories. It’s visceral.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:36] Right? It’s like.

Ken Kraus: [00:33:37] A absolutely. Yeah. Um, sometimes when I see people from the Middle East and dressed in their cultural garb, um, I look at them and it wasn’t too long ago where I saw one, uh, a female and not a full, not a full burqa, but, uh, half half of it with, uh, at least a chador is what we call it. And, uh, you could, you know, definitely tell that they were from the Middle East and pushing her cart in, uh, in Walmart. I come around the corner, and it would never bother me any other day. I don’t know why it bothered me that day. I just looked at her and the first thought came in my mind is that does she have a baby in that little stroller, or does she. Does she have a bomb in there? Who in their right mind thinks like that? I don’t get out of bed, you know, hating people or loving them any which way, shape or form, but something like that. And you look at them and you didn’t want to. I didn’t want to walk by her. I didn’t know what her face looked like, or if she had a baby in that carriage, I’d have turned my buggy around. I said, oh, we’ll come back down this aisle another time.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:34] I think it’s so interesting how PTSD in itself is so unreasonable. Like, you can you can tell yourself you’re safe. You can tell yourself there’s nothing that you there’s no reason why you should feel what you’re feeling. But it is like completely irrational responses. But they’re still very real. You know, the sights and the sounds and the smells. All of those things I can imagine can bring you right back to a place of fight or flight.

Constance Payne: [00:34:59] Yeah. And then other days they don’t bother you, you know, you’ve got good days and bad days and. That’s right. Why does your brain do that?

Ken Kraus: [00:35:06] If you knew something that triggers you, you stay away from it, okay, not so much. But sometimes the subconscious things will just pop in, especially in your sleep. You know, you say, you know why? Why do you wake up screaming? You know, why do you? Why are you sweating like you know so bad and sometimes you don’t know. And then it’ll keep you. It’ll keep you awake for a while. And you say, now this is instead of having a nice, you know, slumber, sleep and waking up refreshed, ready to do your itinerary for the next day, it’s now interrupted. That has now changed your lifestyle, and you know you’re going to be a little cranky. You know you’re going to put some you know why you’re gonna put some Baileys in your coffee.

Constance Payne: [00:35:41] It sounds like a plan. No kidding.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:42] So you were in the Marine Corps until 1986, and, um, in, like, I think it was from 95 until 2016. You were a detective, a detective with the Roswell Police Department here in Georgia. How did your experience impact your being a detective?

Ken Kraus: [00:36:03] That’s interesting, because I’ve often thought myself as that. Why would you go back in and do something so stressful? Um, something that was so much a high level liability nowadays and and dangerous, you know, at dangerous at times. And it boiled down to saying, um, what drew me into it was I went to work for the Department of Energy and Nuclear Swat officer. We transport nuclear materials around the country. Long story short, and through that, working and going to conventions and going to Swat competitions, I met people in the law enforcement, civilian part of the field. I moved here to Atlanta. So, you know, when I hooked up with the Roswell Police Department, um, it didn’t take me long at all from going from, uh, foot soldier and a uniformed police to detective. I just had natural instincts about it, and I focused on it. And I really like forensics at the time. The OJ Simpson trial from 9495, the CSI. Before that, people didn’t know what CSI was, right. They couldn’t even spell it. And then two years later, you got every city in the every city, you know, in America has got, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:07] A CSI department.

Ken Kraus: [00:37:08] Yeah, exactly. You know, so and, uh, plus the, uh, the technology is coming out. Dna was now, you know, you know, out out there for everybody to look at. And they started vetting, you know, fingerprints and some of the disciplines in CSI. And it was long overdue. And I’m glad it did, you know. So you were there.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:26] For all of that.

Ken Kraus: [00:37:27] Oh, absolutely. So with that saying is that I’m saying people ask me, I said I, you know, I just wanted to continue to serve. I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me, and I never went back in embassy duty. And that wherever I went after embassy duty, um, I always had a stigma. I was like, hey, you know who he is, you know who he is. And and it’s. Yeah, my name’s Ken Krauss. I’m I’m now a staff sergeant. I said, but, uh, you know, as I move along, but you’re always going to have that stigma of being the person at that time when it went down. So when that stopped and, um, you know, and I got out of the Marine Corps, it was, uh, I still had a hole in my life where I didn’t have I didn’t have a job, or I didn’t have an identity to be something where I’m still serving the public. And it just fell into being a forensic detective. And I was good at it. And, you know, I. I’m not so much of an author, but I’ve a lot of people still come to me with. Things. How would you do it this way and how would you work? You know, this type of crime scene way?

Constance Payne: [00:38:24] I heard a rumor that you once got a fingerprint off of a grape. That’s true. Yeah.

Ken Kraus: [00:38:30] And I wrote it in a forensic magazine. I wrote the synopsis of how it happened. Captured a captured a burglar.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:37] From a grape?

Ken Kraus: [00:38:38] Yep, from a grape. And that’s.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:40] Incredible.

Ken Kraus: [00:38:40] He was.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:41] You were good at it.

Constance Payne: [00:38:42] He was hanging out with this grape for, what, like a week? It was your little buddy. Grape? Yeah.

Ken Kraus: [00:38:46] One grape. And it was a it was called the, uh, the Lunchtime Bandit. And they nicknamed me that because he was going from Roswell, Alpharetta, Sandy Springs. He would. He’s a, uh. He’s like a cat burglar. He would case the place a very professional. And he’d make he’d make entry, uh, usually without damaging to anything. And he would go in, and he he had a knack for looking at, uh, women’s jewelry and and telling the difference between the good stuff and and the and the costume stuff. And he wouldn’t he wouldn’t wreck the place. He just take what he needed. And usually he would make himself a sandwich, or he’d have something to eat out of your refrigerator. Leave it there. And when you came back to work from home, you go, who the heck’s been in my house? It was, uh. Anyway, so, uh, what happened is that a young lady had, uh, a mother had left her, uh, some fruit out on, on the table for her daughter, who lived right near a, uh, the Roswell High School. And she usually comes home for lunch, walks across the street, whatever, and has lunch or something like that. Well, that day she has something to do with, um, uh, in school. High school. And she didn’t get over there for that day. Okay. Well, he had just happened to hit that house, and the mother didn’t realize when she came home. Okay, because some of the fruit had been eaten when, uh, anyway, she talked to her daughter and said, uh oh, yeah. You like that fruit today we had today, etc.. Oh, mom, I didn’t get a chance to come home. I’m sorry. Whatever she said. What? What?

Constance Payne: [00:40:02] So who’s been in my house? Who’s been? Yeah.

Ken Kraus: [00:40:05] Who’s been who’s been eating my porridge?

Constance Payne: [00:40:07] Right.

Ken Kraus: [00:40:08] So she called the police in anyway. So they initiate a and she goes. Yep. Sure. Sure enough, there’s been, uh, somebody’s been in here and, you know, this is missing. She started making a list of what’s missing. She goes, man, we’ve been robbed. I said burglarized, but, you know, it’s technically so. My sergeant asked me to go over, and I sat down. You know, there’s nothing I could do. No evidence, no fingerprints, nothing. I mean, it was a forensically naked is what we called it. But then the next day, when she was cleaning in her kitchen. She had underneath. I think it was the stove or the refrigerator. She saw a grape and she went to pick the grape up and she said, oh, wait a minute, somebody touched that grape and it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t her daughter. So she called my she called my sergeant and, uh, and got through to him and was telling him about this, and he said, okay, ma’am, don’t touch it, you know? So he calls me to his office and he says, uh, you know, how to get fingerprints off of a grape. And I’m sitting down thinking, is this a punch line? Or, you know, I’m waiting for the joke here. And he goes, no. And he tells me what he had. I said, well, that’s gonna be a new one on me. So I went over there and I sure, sure enough, I captured a grape, you know, photographed it.

Constance Payne: [00:41:13] Captured the grape.

Ken Kraus: [00:41:15] And took it into custody.

Constance Payne: [00:41:18] With little grape. And I’m saying.

Ken Kraus: [00:41:20] And I’m gonna make you wine.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:23] Oh, my gosh, I was a dad joke. Nice.

Ken Kraus: [00:41:27] It comes with it comes with the territory. Anyway, so it says, uh, uh. Anyway, so we said, well, what’s the possibility of this? And I said, I don’t know. So I contacted people at GBI and FBI and nobody knows. And he goes, we better hurry up because that grape is going to turn into a raisin after. So it happened so long, you know. And, uh, so what I did is went and got, uh, went and got a similar type of grapes from the grocery store and tried different forensic, uh, mechanics on it. And what worked out best was that, um, it was to use, uh, cyanoacrylate, which is basically a fume it with superglue, that’s what happens and it sticks. But then when you try to take a photograph of it, you’re not going to be able to peel that grape off to use it, you know, the skin. So basically, um, I when you would try to photograph it, it was, it was, you know, so but it would if you, if you used uh, for, for fluorescent fingerprint powder. Okay. Interesting. And. Yeah. And then under a certain nanometers, um, of, of ultraviolet light. It was able to be photographed with a special lens. And photographers that, you know, been through that they’ll realize under a certain light. And it glowed and it was beautiful and it gave me it looked just like I can almost tell you with two fingers he used, you know, on the side, on the side of that grape.

Sharon Cline: [00:42:47] Did you catch this guy, ma’am? You caught the you caught the guy.

Ken Kraus: [00:42:51] Well, what happens is we take the we get the fingerprint and we run it through the aphis, you know, machine. And basically, it’s not like what you see on television. It’s, you know, where these two, uh, patterns, you know? Yeah, they match. They match. Like, I wish I had that, like.

Constance Payne: [00:43:05] Maybe fun to look at. Yeah. Really?

Ken Kraus: [00:43:07] Yeah. The Hollywood anyway. But uh, to, uh, to get that and then to put it on a digital, a digital mat and run it through, you get a, you get a list of potential fingerprint.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:19] Um, narrows it down.

Ken Kraus: [00:43:20] People narrows it down. So we say, no, this one’s not here. He doesn’t live here. This one, he passed away. This one’s still incarcerated. How about these two? And then after those two, they go, oh, yeah. Run his rap sheet. What do you think? What do you think it’s been? Burglary, etc., etc., etc..

Constance Payne: [00:43:34] I wonder who it could be.

Ken Kraus: [00:43:36] So then we take the fingerprint and we give it to, we give it, uh, for peer review. And we said okay, we sent it to, to the GBI and tell them nothing about it, let them run it the same way. Boom. Who do you think they come back with? Oh, you are kidding. Let’s try it one more time. Send it to the FBI. Boom. They come back. So we’re three for three. Yes. You know, it’s enough to get a warrant and then, uh, you know, out, out it goes.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:55] And you look at what you did.

Ken Kraus: [00:43:57] Yeah. Got lucky.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:58] Think about this, though. You have a spirit to serve and help, you know, whether it’s within the military or within the police department and helping people feel safe.

Ken Kraus: [00:44:09] Absolutely.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:10] It’s part of who you are.

Ken Kraus: [00:44:11] It’s a very rewarding, um, attribute. And I’m glad. I’m lucky. And I’m blessed to have it.

Constance Payne: [00:44:17] People and puppies. Yeah. He loves his dogs. Yes, he saves animals all the time. When I was going through his Facebook and checking it out, I was like, I just was like, oh, you’re like this. I never looked at your whole timeline before. It’s nothing but puppy dogs and military memes. I.

Ken Kraus: [00:44:37] I look at, I look at them and I see him in their cage, and I’ve been in a cage so I can feel for them, you know? And so it’s I try to I’ll take them home and I’ll find them. I’ll work with one and, and then find them a, a foster home like that, a forever home. And we’ll go back and do it again.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:54] What are you hoping will happen as a result of this book?

Ken Kraus: [00:44:58] Actually, this I want to get this out and I would like to see it, you know, in a production mode in a, in a, in a movie. And I don’t know who the heck would play me, but I mean, Brad Pitt for sure. Yeah. I mean, he’s gonna have to be young guy.

Sharon Cline: [00:45:13] I know, right?

Ken Kraus: [00:45:13] Yeah. And, uh, and to get it out and to let people, um, see what it’s like to, uh, go through a trial of, of fire and hell and not give up on anything, because when, when you read the book, there’s at least seven different areas there of miracles. And at the end of the book, you’ll see it says miracles. Believe in them, if any one of those. Events if you want to call them. Okay. Ironic events happen a different way. The world be different for me and I wouldn’t be here. So just the timing of exactly those things that happened, what could have went wrong, what didn’t go wrong, and what specifically had to happen for this domino effect to go positive? It’s all miracle after miracle after miracle. If you don’t believe that, then it’s, you know, there’s you’ve got an emptiness in you. Well, you lived it. Absolutely.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:03] You know it.

Ken Kraus: [00:46:04] So I mean, I just I have faith now. I mean, um, you can hope for things like that, but I mean, you have to have the, the faith of, like, what they said in a Bible of a mustard seed. You have to know it’s going to grow and nurture it, believe it, see it, make it happen, live it, smell it, you know, act it. And there’s no there’s no downside to that whatsoever. You know, it’s just a matter of, you know, the clock ticking and the world spinning just a matter of time cost you.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:28] What does it cost you to have that attitude?

Ken Kraus: [00:46:30] I just can’t imagine not having hope, you know? I mean, at one point there, I knew that, uh, I could figure out all the logical ways that that no one’s going to know I was there. And if if it is my fate, then. Then that’s why I went, you know, and I prayed that, hey, you know, just send the body back home. Don’t make a mess of it. And don’t lie about me. Just say, you know, he came over here, he stuck his nose in where it don’t belong. He was a he’s an invader. Call me what you want. You know, everybody know I was a marine and I died in the line of duty. But as long as they went out with my dad with. With a degree of honor, you know, they say. And that’s the that’s what the long blue line of Marine Corps has. I mean, that’s that’s our fighting spirit. That’s our traditional heritage, uh, the way it is. And the baton was passed to me that day, and I’m just glad I didn’t drop it.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:18] Constance, do you ever think the the the serendipity, the moment of meeting and how that leads you? Well, this has happened in so many different times of your life. It is kind of crazy when you think about it. It’s like that is your theme, but you also are a go getter, like you saw an opportunity to really help this man. And now here you are in the. And now here we are doing it.

Constance Payne: [00:47:38] Yeah, yeah. Pushing it forward and keeping going. You know, it’s like I, I needed this friendship in my life at, at this time throughout this whole last year just as much as he did, you know, and being able to be a part of telling his story and, and helping to produce it, uh, is, you know, it’s been amazing. It’s I mean, I’m, I’m very thankful. Like, and I do see like a future in a movie potential on it, you know, like I, you know, helped design and lay out the book just to start with the firefight, go back and forth with his memories and stuff like that. So so it is that page turner that we were talking about earlier and not just, you know, your typical biography, where I was born on this day and then this happened. Yeah. And then we have to get, you know, five chapters in to figure anything out.

Sharon Cline: [00:48:24] You refer to your father often, Ken, um, in the book about kind of how that relationship informed the different thought processes you had during your time as a hostage and and some of these really very deeply spiritual moments. But to not have the context of that, it doesn’t impact the same way. So I appreciate that you went back into his history. Oh, yeah.

Constance Payne: [00:48:44] Absolutely. And that’s the thing is, when he was, you know, giving me his writings and stuff like that, and I was looking over him and he would he would hand some stuff over to me and he’d be like, you’re not going to think any different of me. I just finished some of this prison stuff and and I was like, no, man. Like, I’ve been through. I see a lot, and I’ve been through a lot in my life. And when I was shaping the book out, what was the hardest part for me was the love he had for his father. That was the hardest part. All the torture stuff, all that, you know, like that didn’t bother. I mean, it’s a horrible thing, but, you know, I’m just saying, like what bothered me the most was, um, you know, the fact that he loved his father so much and I never had that in my life. I wish I could have said that, um, or at least had one parent that I could have said that about. And, uh, and it was, you know, that was the sad part for him to lose his father at 16. Yes. But he’s always with you in spirit.

Sharon Cline: [00:49:35] He is. And he speaks to you. Do you hear him? You hear him.

Ken Kraus: [00:49:38] You can hear it. I mean, people say, no, that’s not a voice. You can not you can hear a voice, but it’s it’s a it’s a deep inner impact of you feel it and hear it at the same time. It’s almost like telepathy. I think, you know, it’s it’s it’s coming from outside. You sense it as if as much as when you talk to yourself and you have to make a list of things you have to do today. You, you, you hear yourself talking about it. I mean, that’s normal. But then to hear somebody else, you know, like your father or somebody close talking, you say, wow. And they are changing the aspect of the, the issues because you would.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:11] Have chosen differently. Exactly. There’s one point in the book where you hear him say to you, pray, son, pray for what your heart wants most in this situation. Believe it, see it, know it, command it, and it shall be. I was so moving to me in the, in the in the very first day of what was happening to you. You felt your father and you heard those words and the comfort that you got from that.

Ken Kraus: [00:50:35] And that’s where when I in the caravanserai, I was in the bathroom and I said, hey, it’s, uh, the deepest thing I’ve ever asked for in my life, you know, and then went from him to actually prayer to, you know, to the Lord. And I said, this is it. Um, I can’t ask for anything else. I can’t buy this. I can’t rent this. There’s no other way to earn this. It just has to be given, given as a gift. And, um, he comes by and says, you have to believe it, but you got to believe in yourself, and you have to know what do you want most? And that’s when I said, you know what? I’ll sacrifice my life for the other 20.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:09] Let me just get all these people out of here.

Ken Kraus: [00:51:11] Yeah, they don’t deserve this. And, um, when in the book where I’m talking to the other two Marines and we’re realizing, you know, that one more assault and we’re going to be out of ammo and it’s going to be hand to hand. And he said, yeah, you know, they’re going to slaughter these people back here. And they were standing right there in the corner and a couple of overheard it. How embarrassing do you think that is? I mean, I didn’t realize, you know, in the environment there that these people just realized, you know, that their lives are in our hands as soon as we die, they’re coming minutes later. And, uh, that’s not something I could deal with. So whatever it took to whatever to, uh, every spiritual realm or to even call about my dad, I said, uh, you know, what do you got for me? How can you get me out of this? I mean, help me.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:54] Do you mind if I quickly talk about the, um, the Palestinian, the Israeli, Palestinian, Palestinian conflict that is happening right now? Do you mind if we talk about it briefly? No, ma’am. How does how does your experience, um. Being a hostage and and really understanding, um, the conflicts that happened during that time. How does that inform your understanding and your opinion about what’s happening right now?

Ken Kraus: [00:52:20] Opinions are tough because although I’ve been through Israel several times, I’ve trained with some of their military. I see some of the terrorism that that they, that they face. Uh, there’s always going to be a political point of view that you have countries, you know, um, like Iran, you know, state sponsored, uh, you have you have Syria, you have Lebanon. They all have their identity as a country. They got a flag, they got a government, they got a they got a culture, you know, and, um, for the last 50, 50 something years, uh, the place where they call Palestine, it really never existed. It was it was a historical value of it. People won’t take it into context. They just assume that, you know, somebody stealing, stealing their land. Well, it’s basically all those other countries that use them, the Palestinians, as cannon fodder. And you’ll see that the other countries are now basically at a, a impromptu or, say, a, a de facto, uh, section of war. And they’re not fighting against Israel. But yet you get these political terrorists like the Hamas and the Hezbollah, they take over a country and they’re literally running it, and they’re going to run it right into the ground. You and they’ll use them to fight and kill the Israelis, uh, over the land that no one wants to go back.

Ken Kraus: [00:53:41] To work out. In an amicable way for both sides. If you don’t go back to the beginning of how it got there, all you’re going to do is keep kicking that can down the road. And with Hamas and Hezbollah, you can see what they do. They just they attack and they attack and they teach their children, okay, how to die and how to be martyrs. Israeli children, they don’t learn that that’s not what they learn. And, you know, you know, with that being said, is that you’ll you’ll look at the Hamas goes into, you know, the area in Gaza and do they build them roads or schools? And no, they don’t, you know, they’ll build them some mosques and that it but um, the roads, hospitals. No they don’t, they don’t build them. You know, you see the little kids running around learning how to throw stones and learn how to hate the Israelis and how to hate everybody else and anybody that supports Israel. So you know that just and there’s always a lull you’ll see every few years. You know, you had the 56 Sinai War, then you had the 67 Day War, and you had the 73 Yom Kippur War, and then the 83 up there in, uh, Intifada, uh, up in Lebanon. And it’s just, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:54:47] It’s cycle cycle cycle cycle.

Ken Kraus: [00:54:48] Cycle, cycle cycle. And, you know, you get a, you get a terrorist type organization that is run by state sponsored. And we know that Hezbollah comes from Iran. And now what Iran is trying to do, build a nuke. Now they get their hands on nuclear material and nuclear weapon. What is the first country you think they’re going to use it on? I’ll let you take a guess with that one. So if you don’t watch them and, you know, keep a leash on them, it can get out of hand somewhere where, you know, 911 is going to look like a picnic, God forbid, compared to a small tactical nuke. Zimmer. There’s only about three cities in Israel. I mean, that’s about it. You know, I don’t think that they would deliberately do it to Jerusalem because that’s a very holy place for a lot of a lot of religions. But Tel Aviv Ashcott, you know, there’s any one of them could go, you know, so you got to keep a you got to keep an alert on it. And if people would go back and look at where the, the, the, the brunt of this started, I think that they’ll be able to admit what the truth is. And it would take a lot of the hate. And that is, uh, fomented by outside agencies like Hamas and Hezbollah and take them out of the equation. And when you do that, you’re going to find people that are basically back to their Bible, their basic roots of of Islam, basic, you know, roots of, you know, being Hebrew and knowing that they, they can get along. And when they can’t get along, then they don’t have to fight like they’re doing today. But you ignore it. You’re going to have to pay that bill again every few years.

Sharon Cline: [00:56:20] It’s interesting too, because what you’re talking about is, is taking away all of the political aspects of it. But looking at people as just the humans that they are, which is, I think, what you’re so good at in the book with you and Constance together, writing it in a way that helps to really humanize something that we can talk about in a Wikipedia way, but we’re talking about the human aspect of it, and hopefully that will encourage just a great deal of compassion and understanding and a willingness to look at everyone as just humans, which is what we are on the planet, you know, not just people who are trying to win, you know, or use their force or don’t care if anyone suffers. That’s right. So I really appreciate your being willing to be so vulnerable in the book as well. With was with me today. And Constance, thank you so much for helping him to write this book and I can’t wait to see where it’ll go. Ken Krauss, thank you so much for coming in to Business RadioX and sharing your story. If anyone wanted to get in touch with you or Constance Payne, what would be the best way.

Constance Payne: [00:57:21] You’re going to want to go to Ken krauss.com? You can always shoot an email to Ken at Ken krauss.com for any type of media or book signings or you know, we’re that’s what we’re really looking at right now is where can we get Ken at any other events that are so we can, you know, set up a book table and have them be able to sign his autographs and sign his books for his fans. Excellent.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:45] Well, if there’s any way I can help you, I would love to.

Ken Kraus: [00:57:48] You’ve done so much. Today is a healing. Every time I sit and talk and let people appreciate what I’ve gone through, it’s one more inch that I healed. Thank you Sharon.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:56] Well my goodness, thank you. It’s an honor. Thank you so much. And thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Klein reminding you with knowledge and understanding we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.