Matt Damon @ aol.com

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00:06
Laura Tedesco
The destruction of the Buddhas— not just in Bamiyan but these artifacts we're talking about in the National Museum— that was a political gesture on the part of the Taliban, and it was iconoclastic and there were a multitude of motivations for destroying this material. The act of trying to repair it and bring attention a) to the destruction which happened 20 years ago, and then b) bring attention to its restoration, is in a kind of crude way, it's giving the finger to the Taliban and their iconoclastic mandate. And then displaying these artifacts which was the ultimate goal, these restored artifacts, and inviting Afghans in to see them. There's something rehabilitating in that. Maybe it could symbolize all kinds of positive messages.

01:03
George Gavrilis
The book Monuments Men tells the true story of art experts and preservationists who are sent as soldiers to recover priceless art stolen by the Nazis. The mission was dangerous. It often took place behind enemy lines. Robert Edsel's book is riveting, sobering. All around, a great read. It was turned into a movie with a star-studded international cast: Matt Damon, George Clooney, Hugh Bonnevile, Cate Blanchett. They played some of the real-life heroes in the book. Did I mention Cate Blanchett?

01:40
George Gavrilis
Now, the book and film are set in Europe, not Afghanistan, but they cross paths with our podcast in two ways. First, Monuments Men inspired the title of our podcast, which as you know, is a title Laura accepted with the greatest reluctance. Second, Laura unexpectedly saw Matt Damon at a film screening. She could have talked to him about the time she Jason-Bourned her way through a barricade of cars. Instead, she invited the star to Kabul to meet some real-life Afghan monuments men. In this episode, you'll find out if he obliged.

02:21
George Gavrilis
This is Monuments Woman with Laura Tedesco. I'm your host George Gavrilis. We will be wrapping up Laura's journey in Afghanistan in the next episodes. If you are new to this podcast, we recommend starting with Episode 1. For everyone else, welcome back. Let's jump in.

02:41
George Gavrilis
When I've taken on various short term jobs with the UN and other international organizations, no matter what the job is, even if it involves a trip to a conference, you have to go through this rigorous online training, you know, which is to watch these videos made by some overpaid consulting company about different security scenarios and what you should do, what you shouldn't do.

03:09
Laura Tedesco
Where are you going to conferences?

03:11
George Gavrilis
Well, it's a standard UN thing, that anytime you sign up for some sort of UN work, even if it's just for a few months, and you're an outside consultant—

03:19
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

03:20
George Gavrilis
If you're working with people, and there's the expectation that you might wind up in one of the offices abroad or traveling for the project, you do these, yeah, security videos that say things such as, make sure that when you get your room key at the hotel, the receptionist doesn't speak out your room number—

03:42
Laura Tedesco
Right, right.

03:43
George Gavrilis
And stuff like that, you know? Which, when you're just organizing a conference, you're like, who's gonna kill me at this conference? But I bring it up because I know that all of my security training just pales in comparison to what you went through to go to Afghanistan.

03:58
Laura Tedesco
Yeah, there was some fairly intensive security training required, and rightly required, before I was dispatched for my first trip to Afghanistan. And it lasted a good two weeks. And it had various components. There was some medical emergency training, where if you are faced with something rather dire happening in the field, like how do you tie a tourniquet and things like that. And then we got some training on how to know if you're being surveyed, or being followed, what things to look for, and how to notice patterns if you happen to be followed by someone or a group of people, when you're being listened to, and things like that.

04:49
Laura Tedesco
And then some other training on how to drive cars in very dire situations that hopefully you would never encounter, or how to take the wheel of a vehicle if your driver has become incapacitated, as in shot. And to successfully drive that car so that it doesn't careen or go crashing somewhere. And then also some training on how to shoot a number of different types of guns, which I had zero experience doing. I don't think I'd ever even shot a BB gun in my life. I'm not anti-gun, it just wasn't interesting to me.

05:30
Laura Tedesco
And all of that was fairly intense in the span of two weeks, like day after day after day. And I remember on the final day of the training, which was a Friday, and it ended in West Virginia, and I had to get from West Virginia to D.C. and catch a flight that same day to fly to Kabul. And being bleary-eyed from the whole experience. And then somehow, 30 hours later, showing up in Kabul.

06:00
Laura Tedesco
Anyone who was going to Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan had to go through this training, and not having had any prior exposure to any of these topics before, it was pretty intense. I remember one night sitting in a hotel on the phone in tears with my husband and saying, I can't shoot guns. That was after the day of learning how to shoot them. Like an AK-47. Have you shot an AK-47?

06:28
George Gavrilis
I have not shot an AK-47.

06:31
Laura Tedesco
They're very heavy. And evidently they're relatively light in this context of big guns. Like— anyway—

06:39
George Gavrilis
What's the recoil like? The recoil must be crazy.

06:43
Laura Tedesco
I don't even know how to compare the recoil of that to the recoil of something else other than I just remember them being very heavy to me, and thinking, Oh dear God, please don't ever let me have to do this in real life.

07:04
George Gavrilis
And there was some other stuff too that you did. I think that they demonstrated the explosive force of different kinds of bombs.

07:12
Laura Tedesco
They did, yeah, where you have to really see firsthand.

07:16
George Gavrilis
And this isn't just a video. This is you at a site—

07:19
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

07:19
George Gavrilis
—where bombs are going off?

07:20
Laura Tedesco
Yeah. Yes. And you're behind a blast proof plexi. Maybe it was 50 yards away that you're watching a car laden with bombs. It's pre-set, this is part of the training, so you can see the power of it, and feel that blast force.

07:37
Laura Tedesco
In real life, I remember one morning I was sitting, was early morning, I was jet lagged, I was in Kabul, on a short visit. Maybe it was 2015. And I was sitting in a shipping container. They're sort of rectangular-shaped, and you have a window at one end. So I was sitting in front of the window and had the window open a little bit.

07:59
Laura Tedesco
And I'm facing Massoud Circle, which is this prominent traffic circle in Kabul, that the U.S. Embassy was very close to. And on the other side of Massoud Circle is the Supreme Court building. And a car exploded. Very close, let's say, a couple hundred meters from where I was. And before I even heard the sound of the explosion, the window of this shipping container fell in on top of me, because I was sitting right in front of it at a little tiny desk.

08:35
Laura Tedesco
And I knew what it was, it was the blast force of this explosion, but the window fell in before I even heard the sound of the explosion. That wasn't the first explosion that I had been present for. But that training enabled me to know like, Oh, that's really the blast force. That was pretty intense.

09:01
George Gavrilis
And there was some smaller stuff but just as important in many ways, like learning how to tie a tourniquet.

09:07
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

09:09
George Gavrilis
What did you practice on?

09:10
Laura Tedesco
So, how you affix a tourniquet to somebody who's bleeding heavily, it might save their life, if you can't get to, you know, real medical professionals. And then what to do if you are with someone who has trauma to their face, and they can't breathe for some reason. And you don't have the knowledge or the expertise to help them in any way other than to try to help them breathe. And so one of the specific things was, how do you shove a tube up somebody's nose to help keep their airway and their nose free?

09:48
Laura Tedesco
So the doctors, they're like, Okay, we're gonna need you all to practice. Somebody is gonna have to do the shoving of the tube and someone's gonna have to be like the shovee. And no one raised their hand. I mean, I don't really like having things put up my nose.

10:05
George Gavrilis
That's the kind of thing that you don't even need to say—

10:08
Laura Tedesco
Right? Like, as if I need to say that?

10:11
George Gavrilis
Who on earth is like, I'll volunteer for that. I love having things shoved up my nose.

10:15
Laura Tedesco
I know. And I was like, All right, I birthed two babies, somebody can put a tube up my nose. I can handle that. And I did, and I laid down, and I had like three or four people practice shoving a tube up my nose and— Picture like a flexible rubber tube that's maybe half a centimeter to three quarters of a centimeter in diameter. And it's about six inches long, and it's got to go up a nostril and then into the back of your throat. And then somebody pulls it out. Three or four times, I was the volunteer for that. Very memorable.

10:53
George Gavrilis
Were you giving people guidance as they were shoving the tube up your nose?

10:57
Laura Tedesco
No, I was like, just closing my eyes and trying to, you know, imagine I was somewhere else.

11:04
George Gavrilis
Aim away from my brain, please.

11:06
Laura Tedesco
I know!

11:14
George Gavrilis
The defensive driving course— it sounds like it should be called the aggressively offensive driving course.

11:21
Laura Tedesco
Oh my God. Yeah. So, I'm not an adventurous driver, I need to lay like a couple of groundwork details about me out. When I'm driving, I'm the slow lady in the right lane going the speed limit, very annoying to anyone who might be a passenger in my car. I'm driving, I'm going the speed limit, people can pass me, I don't care.

11:46
Laura Tedesco
And so it's all about driving fast and knowing quick maneuvers, which does not come naturally to me at all. Already, I was a little bit of a nervous wreck in doing this, because, you know, it's not my cup of tea. And among the things we had to learn how to do was, if you are driving, and two cars form a kind of block on the road you're driving on, and they kind of go in a slight V, nose to nose those two cars, we were instructed, okay, and there's no way you can go around them. You're on kind of a specific situation, say, a narrow road that might be a dirt road or bumpy and there's no shoulder.

12:32
Laura Tedesco
And we were instructed: put the pedal to the metal, foot on the gas, and you plow through those two cars, you just bam! Dukes of Hazzard your way right through those. I'm driving, it's my turn to practice this. We have a very skilled driving instructor in the passenger seat next to me going Gun it! Gun it! Go for it! And I'm speeding up and speeding up. And as I get to the two cars, I reflexively slam on the brakes, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do. I don't want to crash these cars! I want to stop! So I got a big fat F on that assignment.

13:16
George Gavrilis
So that F was not enough to keep you from going to Kabul, clearly. Did you have to redo it until you crashed through?

13:22
Laura Tedesco
I think I had to do it a couple of times. Oh, and by the way, you have people in the backseat of the car with you while you're doing this.

13:29
George Gavrilis
Why?

13:30
Laura Tedesco
Well, you know, like you're all supposed to have the experience— you have the experience driving, you have the experience being a passenger. So you know what this is like. The people in the backseat are like a blur to me. I don't know what they were shouting at me or not shouting at me. All I know is I slammed on the brakes because I didn't want to crash into these parked cars that were blocking my way.

13:53
George Gavrilis
So the passengers are thinking, great we are dead if she's in charge.

13:58
Laura Tedesco
Oh my god.

14:08
George Gavrilis
But back in the hotel, you said that when you called Franck, that you were in tears. This is before you've even gone to Afghanistan and you're about to get on the plane to go. Did you at any point in time say: if this is what I'm being trained for, did I make the right decision to take this job?

14:22
Laura Tedesco
I think that I did. Those questions weren't enough for me to bail. I was too far along now. I wasn't going to bail and I had other reasons for wanting to go to Afghanistan, or wanting to launch into this job and this professional opportunity and this personal experience and personal journey. But there were definitely moments sitting on the floor in my hotel room crying. And I hadn't even arrived yet. I was like, Well, I gotta keep driving.

15:08
George Gavrilis
You've got a Matt Damon story that relates to your work. And not many people can say that.

15:13
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

15:14
George Gavrilis
Tell the story.

15:16
Laura Tedesco
So this would have been, what was the year, 2014, that the movie—

15:21
George Gavrilis
Early 2014, the movie comes out.

15:24
Laura Tedesco
So this movie called Monuments Men comes out, based on a very well done book about World War II, and this group of military folks who were dispatched across Europe to help recover art that had been stolen mostly by the Nazis. And Matt Damon happens to be in the movie among other stars like George Clooney, Bill Murray. Oh, my favorite French actor— Jean Dujardin, is in it. I love him. And some other actors. Oh, Cate Blanchett is in it.

16:02
George Gavrilis
Yes, she's the best.

16:03
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

16:04
George Gavrilis
And John Goodman.

16:05
Laura Tedesco
Is he in it?

16:07
George Gavrilis
Yeah, he was, he was in it.

16:08
Laura Tedesco
And the guy from Downton Abbey—Hugh Bonneville.

16:20
Laura Tedesco
So this really pretty great cast. And there was a screening of the movie taking place at the White House in February, right as the movie came out, and I, by sheer luck, got invited to this screening on like a Tuesday afternoon or a Monday afternoon. I got this piece of paper or maybe it came as an email. Show up at such and such gate at the White House at like 3:30 pm on a Tuesday to watch a movie. I'm like, Yeah, I'll be there.

16:53
Laura Tedesco
I had to walk quite a bit from the metro in D.C., I remember I was wearing my tennis shoes. But then I had a pair of presentable, you know, business attire shoes and my purse, and I had to change my shoes as soon as I got to the White House, because I didn't want to walk in in my tennies.

17:11
Laura Tedesco
I go in, and into what is like a lovely sort of sunroom type portion of the White House and there's like a bar set up and hors d'oeuvres, and people are arriving slowly. And I kind of recognize some folks, and there were a few other people from the State Department there, and some other maybe from the Smithsonian, but I didn't really know people very well who were there, almost no one. So I'm kind of standing awkwardly around, and nibbling at whatever hors d'oeuvres they had.

17:55
Laura Tedesco
​​"February 19, 2014, Wednesday. Worth noting this week's visit to the White House. So many impressions. The nervous conversations. Harry Ettlinger present in his wheelchair, smiling. I shook his hand. He reminded me of Uncle Den."

18:22
Laura Tedesco
There was the author of the book, Robert Edsel. And one of the original Monuments Men, and who was featured prominently in the book. And he has since died. But seeing him, and I shook his hand, that was very impressionable in part because there aren't many and there are now even fewer.

18:45
Laura Tedesco
But in 2014, there weren't a lot of opportunities to meet WWII veterans. I just felt a great deal of deference to this very old man who was present at this event, but also having a sense of who he was and what he had done as a young soldier. That left quite an impression on me, meeting one of the original Monuments Men.

19:20
Laura Tedesco
I go into the ladies' room, and there's a woman standing in there who is incredibly beautiful and very skinny. And I remember thinking, she needs a cheeseburger, like wow. And I come out of the ladies' room and suddenly in this sunroom that I just described, where the hors d'oeuvres and the cocktails were being served, I see George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray.

19:46
Laura Tedesco
The invitation to the screening never said the cast of the movie was gonna be there. And I came to learn moments later that the very slender woman in the ladies' room with me who needed a cheeseburger was Amal, George Clooney's— I don't think they were engaged yet, then.

20:07
George Gavrilis
Yeah, yeah, his girlfriend.

20:09
Laura Tedesco
She was his girlfriend at the time. And, of course, being very, I can be a little bitchy sometimes.

20:18
George Gavrilis
Yes, please.

20:19
Laura Tedesco
I was evaluating her outfit, and it was this off-the-shoulder pantsuit. Oh my god, it's a Tuesday in Washington. You do not wear an off-the-shoulder pantsuit to the White House with rhinestone earrings.

20:32
George Gavrilis
Weren't you the one showing up moments ago in tennis shoes?

20:36
Laura Tedesco
[laughing]

20:38
George Gavrilis
Just saying.

20:39
Laura Tedesco
I changed my shoes.

20:41
George Gavrilis
You did, you did, yeah.

20:51
George Gavrilis
Can you please just give me like a one sentence description from your memory of Clooney, Damon, Murray?

20:59
Laura Tedesco
Okay, George Clooney. I was neutral on him. I never thought he was particularly handsome. When I saw him in person, he was 73 times more handsome in person than you would ever imagine on screen. He just sparkled, the way he carried himself, his eyes were bright, there was an ease. Charisma, he just had this charisma, it was remarkable. And his father was with him. Same way, total charisma.

21:30
Laura Tedesco
Then, Bill Murray, you know, Bill Murray lives in Charleston where I live. So he's seen around town a lot. He's kind of a goof. You know, everybody loves Bill Murray.

21:52
Laura Tedesco
So, then Matt Damon—

21:55
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

21:56
Laura Tedesco
I didn't notice him at first. He's more sort of a blend-in. He didn't have quite this sparkle that George Clooney had. Or maybe he wasn't seeking the sparkle. I don't know. But some people were talking to him. And I was obviously standing off to the side awkwardly, silently, because I didn't know how to start a conversation with these movie stars.

22:25
Laura Tedesco
And a colleague of mine, very kindly said, Come here. Come here. I want to introduce you to Matt Damon. And there had been an article in the newspaper that had come out like the day before— that I was a part of this newspaper article. So she used this newspaper article as a kind of, like, introductory thing to Matt Damon.

22:48
George Gavrilis
Washington Post article that came out that February 2014 has a very interesting title. This is the headline: "For Real Monument Woman, Saving Afghan Treasures is Unglamorous But Richly Rewarding." Alright. They called you Monument Woman.

23:06
Laura Tedesco
And she said, my colleague, who was very kindly doing this, Oh, Laura, she works in Afghanistan. And Matt Damon said to me, Oh, what's that like? And I was like, Oh, wow. Well, that's a big topic. And then I was like, Okay, I got one chance here to talk to Matt Damon. Don't fuck it up.

23:28
George Gavrilis
Did you say that out loud?

23:30
Laura Tedesco
Um, no, no, that was the bubble over my head. But, but the word had like the little asterix in it, you know, so like it wasn't even the full word. I started telling him the story of the National Museum and Mr. Massoudi. You can't go wrong with a Mr. Massoudi story. And I told him about the Bactrian treasure, and how it had been excavated. And everyone thought it was lost during the Civil War or assumed that it had been stolen. And that had actually been very secretly, and stealthily rescued.

24:01
Laura Tedesco
And it wasn't until years and years later that the people who had hidden the Bactrian treasure raise their hand and say, no, it's actually safe. And they go in with welding devices to the bank vault because the key had been broken in the lock. And they open up the bank vault with this Russian archeologist who had excavated it, Viktor Sarianidi, you know, we've talked about this, George.

24:25
George Gavrilis
Yeah.

24:28
Laura Tedesco
And Sarianidi is there with his original excavation documents to take inventory of what's in the bank vault. And that every artifact was there, not one thing had been stolen, or melted, not one little bauble or button was missing.

24:46
Laura Tedesco
While several people were involved in this effort of hiding the artifacts, I was really featuring Mr. Massoudi in this story that I was telling Matt Damon. And he was nodding. And he seemed interested. And he's like, that sounds fascinating. And then I said to him, why don't you come to Kabul, and I will introduce you to Mr. Massoudi, you can just have a cup of tea with him and go to the National Museum. Then he seemed to get a little bit nervous like, huh, ah, yeah, great idea. And I was like, No, really, you know, it doesn't have to be a big deal. You just go, spend a night at the Serena Hotel, and meet Mr. Massoudi, and see what's in the museum. It might change your life a little bit.

25:46
Laura Tedesco
While chatting with him, I see out of the corner of my eye, a beagle, like the dog, on a leash in the room where we're all standing. And there's a guard who brings this beagle in. Why is there a dog here? This is what I'm thinking to myself. And the dog was sniffing things. I again, didn't quite realize what was happening.

26:10
Laura Tedesco
A moment later, President Obama walks into the room, and was welcoming everyone. And of course, everybody's attention shifted. No one cared it was George Clooney in there anymore.

26:23
Laura Tedesco
That's a face we've all seen on TV and was incredibly familiar. But what struck me right away was how tall he was, and how very slender. There was also a kind of ease in his posture, and he didn't seem rushed.

26:41
Laura Tedesco
I was observing a lot of what was going on because it was startling. The invitation didn't say a) the cast of the movie is going to be there and b) President Obama might pop by. That wasn't on the invitation.

27:56
Laura Tedesco
So he says some remarks about the importance of heritage preservation and culture in general as this unifier and as this expression of human achievement. He spoke unscripted, or he didn't have any note cards or anything, about culture in a way that resonated a lot for me, and I, you know, listened very intently. Because what I crave, is for people in power, whether it's Obama or others that I work with at the State Department, or whomever, a minister of a foreign government, or my kids, even, to talk about culture in a way that gives a sense of its significance to how it shapes our lives and how we look at the world.

27:54
Laura Tedesco
And then there was a receiving line. Maybe there were 30 people, maybe 35 in this room, so not a big crowd. And he goes around, President Obama does, after he said some remarks, and George Clooney said some remarks thanking the president for hosting the screening, etc. And President Obama goes around and shakes everybody's hand. And he comes around, it's my turn, I'm in this line.

28:24
Laura Tedesco
Then I said, President Obama, I really appreciated your remarks today. I'm Laura Tedesco. I work for the State Department on cultural preservation in Afghanistan. We're shaking hands. And I think he said, "I know." But I might have made that up. And it's a little bit of a blur. He might not have said that. I might have just imagined or wished that he said that.

28:56
George Gavrilis
Well, what are the chances? What's the percent that he said, I know, I know who you are, Laura Tedesco?

29:03
Laura Tedesco
Maybe 7%.

29:06
George Gavrilis
Not seventy?

29:08
Laura Tedesco
No. Seven.

29:09
George Gavrilis
We'll just round it up to 70%.

29:12
George Gavrilis
So after President Obama acknowledges your work—

29:17
Laura Tedesco
So then he says, okay, so he can't join us for the screening. He says he had some important business to take care of that evening. By this point, it's like five o'clock in the evening. We're all ushered into the screening room and invited to get a drink and some popcorn before going in to watch the movie. The actors in the movie, they left, they didn't come in for the screening. And it was just the other people at this reception who were invited to watch the movie. So I watched the movie there. And then I left. I put on my tennis shoes, and I walked to the metro.

29:52
George Gavrilis
And the whole time, are you like, Obama knows who I am?

29:56
Laura Tedesco
[laughs] No.

29:59
George Gavrilis
I would have literally turned to the person next to me on the Metro and said, President Obama knows who I am.

30:06
Laura Tedesco
[laughs]

30:14
Laura Tedesco
The next day, I go to work, and I have to report what happened at the screening. And I tell one of my bosses, oh, and I met Matt Damon. And oh, by the way, I invited him to go to Kabul, hope that's okay. And she's like, Oh, we should totally follow up with him. Call so-and-so who will give you Matt Damon's publicist's phone number.

30:37
Laura Tedesco
So I call so-and-so in the State Department. And I'm like, hey, I need the number to reach Matt Damon, please. And they give it to me. No, she gave me the email address. So I email, you know, Matt Damon @ aol.com or something, but it's really his publicist.

30:55
George Gavrilis
Wait: so are you sure it was AOL?

30:57
Laura Tedesco
I don't think …

30:59
George Gavrilis
Because that's really bad.

31:01
Laura Tedesco
No, I don't think it was AOL.

31:03
George Gavrilis
It's not even Yahoo. It's AOL. Oh my god, Matt Damon, come on. Come on, man. Gmail is free.

31:13
Laura Tedesco
It might have been Yahoo. I don't know.

31:17
George Gavrilis
So what happened? You emailed the publicist.

31:20
Laura Tedesco
So I emailed the publicist. It was a follow up. I got a very polite response, but with a firm, no wiggle room, No, he's never going to Afghanistan. But thank you for your interest.

31:37
George Gavrilis
Do you think it's because he's scared?

31:45
Laura Tedesco
Jason Bourne, scared? I think, you know, it wasn't en route to some other place he was going. You don't make a layover in Kabul, where you just jaunt into town for 12 hours and then jaunt back to the airport.

32:00
George Gavrilis
All right. Fair enough. He's definitely not going now.

32:05
Laura Tedesco
Oh, he's not.

32:14
George Gavrilis
It's winter, it's 2022. Afghanistan is not in a good place today, the Taliban are in control of the country. And back in 2014, this is like eight years ago, when you're at the film screening and meeting Obama, that's a different time. Your work in Afghanistan is at its peak. And so—

32:34
Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

32:35
George Gavrilis
How did you walk away from that film screening, thinking about the future and the work and what was possible?

32:42
Laura Tedesco
Hmm.

32:44
George Gavrilis
I know it's a tough question to ask because our view is so colored by what's happened the past several months. But I wonder if you can push the noise away of the present and think to how you felt after that moment, in the weeks that followed.

32:58
Laura Tedesco
Right. I always had a sense of insecurity in my job that I never knew how long it was going to last. You know, I was hired by the State Department for an assignment that was to be one year long. And I went in with eyes open knowing, okay, after a year, I'll probably have to find another job. But it kept going. And the work kept going. And there were many moments along the way where I was told overtly or not overtly, I don't know, like this cultural stuff, it's not really a priority.

33:40
Laura Tedesco
And so I was acutely aware that my job could go away at any time. But when the movie came out, and that presented an opportunity to go watch the movie at the White House, and to hear President Obama say what he thought was important about culture in general, and preserving culture, specifically in conflict zones, I think it may have given me a little bounce to my step when I put on my tennis shoes and walked back to the subway at the end of that evening at the White House, of like, I'm probably okay with the work for a while more. Because there's a lot more to do.

34:25
George Gavrilis
That's, that's awesome. I'm glad I asked.

34:32
George Gavrilis
You've been listening to Monuments Woman with Laura Tedesco. I'm your host George Gavrilis. As we count down the final episodes of Laura's journey into Afghanistan, we want to take a moment to thank you, the listener, for joining us on this journey. To stay in touch, follow us on Instagram, at the_monuments_woman.

34:55
George Gavrilis
This show is produced by Christian D. Bruun and May Eleven Projects. It is recorded by Audivita Studios, and edited by Shaun Hettinger and Greg Williams. The theme song is This Love by Ariana Delawari, featuring Salar Nader.

Ep 26: Matt Damon @ aol.com — 2010 training and White House Screening

Topics Covered in this Episode
2010 Security Training
Demonstration of bomb explosives
Laura volunteers as trauma patient
Defensive driving course
Not going to bail
"Monuments Men" film
White House Screening
Harry Ettlinger, Monuments Man
Cheeseburger
Celebrity Sightings
Matt Damon
Obama appears
Meeting the President
Matt Damon revisited
The impact of Obama

Recorded on January 7, 2022