Welcome to Otherworld.
I'm your host, Jack Wagner.
This was one of those interviews that seemed fairly simple at first,
but as I got to know the person and heard the story,
every new detail surprised me and ended up adding so many layers to an already strange story.
It comes from a guy named Mike.
He's a father of two kids.
He lives in Texas and currently works in banking, doing fraud investigations.
Before that, he was an army medic and was deployed during the Iraq War.
His wife is from Taiwan and was raised Buddhist.
And I think that all of these things from Mike's background make his story so much more interesting to me.
He is a person who has experienced war and all of the extremes that come with it.
He also has medical training and it gives him knowledge of what can happen to the body and the mind under physical and mental stress.
And that training is sort of intertwined in the way he processes the many things that happen to him in the story you're about to hear.
And by the way, this episode contains a part with graphic descriptions of violence.
If that's something you want to skip over,
the scene takes place right after Mike walks into a store.
I think you'll know what part it is when it comes up.
This episode is called, Holy Warfare, and you're listening to Otherworld.
Hello?