Joe Kent Walks Through the Loadout He Carried in the Middle East

On the Shawn Ryan Show, former Green Beret and CIA operator Joe Kent answers a simple question: what did you actually carry on missions in dangerous parts of the Middle East? The answer covers pistols and an Uzi, but also a pen and a stack of cash.

Key points

• Everyday carry: usually a Glock 19, which he says conceals well and is still a full-size pistol, or a Glock 43 depending on what he was wearing and where he was.
• Intelligence tools: a pen, paper, a pocket-size digital camera and about $1,000 in cash. "No pen, no paper, no intel," Kent says, and sources who don't get paid don't come back.
• Go bag: a beat-up courier bag from around 2005 that he took on every deployment, almost as a superstition, to grab when leaving a vehicle.
• Long guns: 416s for a while, then a standard AR. He ran an MP7 a few times but stayed skeptical of its small bullet.
• Close quarters: a suppressed Uzi as a lap gun in a car on one trip, and UMP45s in Baghdad, where he says everything happened up close.

Quick take

Kent's list follows the job he was doing, with the pen, paper and cash mattering as much as the guns. He also covers what he would carry today, with drones and counter-drone gear as his first priority.

Watch the full video: Shawn Ryan Show