Upon graduating from Sapulpa High School in 1990, Eric Maddox attended the University of Oklahoma where, just months before graduating he made an appointment with an on campus recruiter and enlisted in the United States military. Four weeks after graduation, Eric left for the U.S. Army as an infantry paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division where he became a jumpmaster and entered Ranger School. After spending three years as a paratrooper with a Ranger tab, Eric reenlisted as an interrogator and Chinese Mandarin linguist.
In 2003, three months after U.S. forces invaded Iraq, Staff Sergeant Maddox received unexpected orders to report to the Baghdad International Airport. There he was assigned to a Delta Force Special Operations team in Tikrit. The team was a part of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for tracking down the most wanted men in the world, or the infamous Deck of Cards.
During his six month tour with this Delta Force team, he conducted over 300 interrogations and collected the intelligence which directly led to the capture of Saddam Hussein. For his accomplishments, Eric was awarded the Legion of Merit, the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Director’s Award and the Bronze Star.
Following the capture of Saddam Hussein, Eric was hired as the first civilian interrogator for the Defense Intelligence Agency where he continued to work with the Joint Special Operations Command in tracking down the U.S. military’s most wanted radical extremists. Since 2003, Eric has conducted over 2,700 interrogations of prisoners from 25 different countries while deploying eight times including: two tours to Iraq, three tours to Afghanistan; and tours to The Philippines, Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as undisclosed locations in Eastern Europe.
Eric served in the U.S. Army and the Defense Intelligence Agency for over 20 years before retiring in 2014. He continues to help corporations, organizations, universities, CEOs and audiences worldwide in the art of questioning, negotiations and information gathering.
