# Ep. 244 | George Mills | MARSOC JTAC, ANGLICO, and Marine Infantry

An episode of [Former Action Guys Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1475060182), 12 Jul 2026, 2 h 05 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72942463/7de7516f_81e0_44de_8308_6fd45c25d72c.mp3

George Mills has one of those career paths so unique that it’s almost hard to believe. He enlisted as an infantryman and soon found himself holding a Yankee White TS security clearance, which he later lost after an off-duty incident. From there, he moved on to the newly formed Anti-Terrorism Battalion for a deployment to Iraq before leaving the Corps to work as a contractor. Eventually, he missed the Marine Corps and joined 4th ANGLICO as a reservist, where he gained fire support experience across multiple deployments before becoming a JTAC with the Marine Raiders. Support the show https://www.jcramergraphics.com https://www.ANGLICOshop.com George's site https://divelogix-scuba.com/ 00:00:00 Intro | Military High School 00:05:22 Joining Marine Infantry | Security Forces 00:10:05 Presidential Security | Yankee White 00:21:31 Security Forces vs Special Operations 00:25:47 Fired From Presidential Security 00:29:56 Anti-Terrorism Battalion 00:33:44 Israeli Military Training 00:40:33 Deployment to Iraq 00:44:54 Afghan Culture Shock 00:57:44 Security Contractor 01:05:04 Iraq Contract Gig 01:11:03 Rejoining the Marines | 4th ANGLICO 01:36:43 MARSOC Fires 01:43:51 Joining a Marine Special Operations Team (MSOT) 01:54:28 MARSOC Fires vs ANGLICO

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Any nation that draws too great a distinction between its
[0:02] Speaker 1: scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by
[0:06] Speaker 1: cowards and it's fighting done by fools.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Oh, I haven't heard that in a long time. That's
[0:09] Speaker 2: a good one. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm actually
[0:13] Speaker 2: gonna copy that. I put quotes in my photography. Fake
[0:15] Speaker 2: sometimes that might be one I throw out there. That's
[0:19] Speaker 2: true though, you know, I mean there's and there's such
[0:23] Speaker 2: a divide between and I don't mean like negative divide,
[0:26] Speaker 2: just a misunderstanding from the general public and the military
[0:30] Speaker 2: because the general public's not really touched by the military
[0:32] Speaker 2: as much. Back when, like there was a draft, so
[0:34] Speaker 2: everybody was involved. Everybody wanted to know what's going on.
[0:37] Speaker 2: Because now we're for sure, you know, it's pretty good
[0:39] Speaker 2: odds I could be sending my kids to go do
[0:40] Speaker 2: something where now it's an optional and like one percent
[0:44] Speaker 2: of the country does it, so it's like very few
[0:47] Speaker 2: Americans are touched by it.
[0:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
[0:50] Speaker 1: And you know that was kind of my calling card,
[0:52] Speaker 1: was you know, I was I happen to be in
[0:54] Speaker 1: this all male military high school. I'm a senior, and
[0:57] Speaker 1: I'll be honestly I fake sick that day. One of
[0:59] Speaker 1: the nurses off offic I was like, dude, you know,
[1:01] Speaker 1: I'm sick, so chewed up some M and ms, drink
[1:04] Speaker 1: some milk. Made it look like you know, She's like,
[1:06] Speaker 1: go to SIQ here in bed rest. I'm like sweet.
[1:08] Speaker 1: And that was nine to eleven. So I'm sitting in
[1:11] Speaker 1: my bed and I'm kind of relaxing and reading up
[1:13] Speaker 1: on some notes and watching this little thirteen inch color TV.
[1:16] Speaker 1: And I turn on the news, Fox News just in time,
[1:19] Speaker 1: and I see the second plane hit the tower, and
[1:23] Speaker 1: right then and there, man, I kind of made the decision.
[1:27] Speaker 1: I'm enlisting in the Marine Corps. Like absolutely right that
[1:30] Speaker 1: that was a people tell stories in a linear format,
[1:33] Speaker 1: punctuated by these events, you know. I think that that's
[1:36] Speaker 1: kind of the way that we like to go back
[1:38] Speaker 1: and remember things. But that absolutely was a punctuated event
[1:42] Speaker 1: for me.
[1:42] Speaker 3: You know.
[1:43] Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, I mean, if you're old enough to remember,
[1:46] Speaker 2: how could it not be right? You know, It's like
[1:48] Speaker 2: that's one of those things. It's like Kennedy getting assassinated.
[1:53] Speaker 2: That's like Pearl Harbor. I mean, that was a major
[1:55] Speaker 2: world changing event that we're still filling the repercussions of today,
[2:00] Speaker 2: you know, and it really it really affected a lot
[2:03] Speaker 2: of people, both on our side on on around the
[2:06] Speaker 2: world from the different campaigns that have been waged in
[2:08] Speaker 2: the name of you know, that's what kind of started
[2:11] Speaker 2: that ball of rolling. So when you were in high school,
[2:14] Speaker 2: did you choose.
[2:15] Speaker 3: To go get Yeah?
[2:18] Speaker 1: So, so I'm from so I'm a I'm a Florida boy. Right,
[2:21] Speaker 1: I'm from Boytan Beach, Florida. Kind of a little beachside community.
[2:24] Speaker 1: So I grew up surf and listened to Sublime, Bob Marley,
[2:27] Speaker 1: you know, just just totally chill. And But when I
[2:30] Speaker 1: was a little kid, I remember, I think it was
[2:33] Speaker 1: like sixth or seventh grade, my parents moved to Erie, Pennsylvania.
[2:37] Speaker 1: Eerie like Eerie, dude. So if the steels made in Pittsburgh,
[2:43] Speaker 1: there's a lot of refinement in Eerie. So this anyway,
[2:47] Speaker 1: my point is my mother, she was a CPA and
[2:50] Speaker 1: she had a chance to run about fifty percent of
[2:52] Speaker 1: the family business. So she was going to go take
[2:55] Speaker 1: over the finances, which meant relocate. So I get there
[3:00] Speaker 1: and I get in school and I'm talking to these kids.
[3:02] Speaker 1: They all got fast mouths, you know, they just they
[3:05] Speaker 1: just talk sharp, sharp shit. And you know, I'm from Florida, man,
[3:09] Speaker 1: where we chill. And so, you know, started getting bullied
[3:13] Speaker 1: and I go home to my dad. I'm like, yeah, man,
[3:15] Speaker 1: what's up. He's like, fight back. I'm like, okay, you
[3:19] Speaker 1: got it, pal, What do I do? He's like, I
[3:21] Speaker 1: want you to get a sock, right, and I want
[3:23] Speaker 1: you to put a bunch of pebbles, and I want
[3:25] Speaker 1: you to put some gravel and some dirt in it.
[3:27] Speaker 1: And I want you to find the sob who's been
[3:29] Speaker 1: bullying you and wait for him to come through the door,
[3:32] Speaker 1: and I want you to beat the shit out of
[3:33] Speaker 1: him with this sock.
[3:35] Speaker 2: So damn you da.
[3:38] Speaker 3: So I was like, okay, a firm dad, you got it.
[3:40] Speaker 1: But uh you know, of course, back then you're a
[3:42] Speaker 1: little boy, you're kind of scared. But you know, I
[3:45] Speaker 1: think that's like a pivotal moment.
[3:46] Speaker 3: Man.
[3:46] Speaker 1: So I wait for this eighth grade bully and he
[3:49] Speaker 1: comes walking to the door and I'm hiding behind, you know,
[3:51] Speaker 1: kind of the wall, and as soon as he comes in,
[3:54] Speaker 1: whack dude. I crack him with this thing. And uh
[3:57] Speaker 1: I didn't stop. So I got kicked out of that school.
[4:00] Speaker 1: The gist is, I came home and I've always been
[4:03] Speaker 1: fascinated with the military. So in Boyton Beach back when
[4:06] Speaker 1: I was home, I remember my neighbor, mister Tidwell. This
[4:09] Speaker 1: guy was an Army master sergeant. He gave me AMMO
[4:11] Speaker 1: cans and all this cool army stuff, and I, you know,
[4:15] Speaker 1: he was coming home in Camis every day and I'm.
[4:16] Speaker 3: Like, wow, dude, that's so cool.
[4:19] Speaker 1: So anyway, man, the gist is kind of had the inkling.
[4:22] Speaker 1: So I asked my parents to send me to Fishburne
[4:24] Speaker 1: Military School in Waynesboro, Virginia, kind of an all male
[4:27] Speaker 1: military boarding school and it starts in eighth grade and uh,
[4:31] Speaker 1: you graduate high school there. But it's a it's a
[4:33] Speaker 1: prep school. It's a feeder school for vm I, the Citadel,
[4:37] Speaker 1: the service academies, very heavy dope as far as.
[4:41] Speaker 3: Uh, you know, the education side of the house. Virginia
[4:43] Speaker 3: does a good job.
[4:45] Speaker 2: But you never had like, uh, did you have a
[4:49] Speaker 2: want to go to college afterwards? And maybe what was
[4:53] Speaker 2: nine to eleven? Like nope, I'm skipping on all that
[4:55] Speaker 2: and I want to go straight in.
[4:56] Speaker 3: He's a great question, man.
[4:57] Speaker 1: So remember I was talking about my mom, you know finance,
[4:59] Speaker 1: you know, Aster's degree, CPA.
[5:01] Speaker 3: My dad had a GED.
[5:03] Speaker 1: But I'll tell you he worked his ass off man
[5:05] Speaker 1: and provided well for us and he made good income.
[5:07] Speaker 1: That being said, he had this brown leather jacket that
[5:09] Speaker 1: he would hang up in the closet. He's like, hey, son,
[5:12] Speaker 1: because you don't go to college, I'm telling you, you're
[5:14] Speaker 1: gonna be wearing this brown leather jacket. You could be
[5:16] Speaker 1: a damn truck driver. When I'm a little kid in
[5:19] Speaker 1: the emphasis was dude, go to college, you know. So yeah, man,
[5:23] Speaker 1: my plan was to go to the Citadel, and you know,
[5:26] Speaker 1: but nine to eleven happened and just kind of diverted.
[5:31] Speaker 1: We had these marine recruiters walking around on campus. There
[5:33] Speaker 1: was a sergeant and a lance not corporal, but one
[5:37] Speaker 1: of them was a sniper and the other one was
[5:39] Speaker 1: a neo D tech. So of the two types of
[5:42] Speaker 1: recruiters to have walking around, these ds were heavy hitters.
[5:45] Speaker 1: And I just remember, you know, being so young and impressionable,
[5:48] Speaker 1: I was like, dude, like, how do I how do
[5:50] Speaker 1: I do this?
[5:51] Speaker 3: Sign me up? Man? Yeah? Yeah, that's kind of the.
[5:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it's a young man, you know,
[5:57] Speaker 2: as a young man. A lot of people see you
[5:58] Speaker 2: see that as a challenge. It's like, you know, this
[6:00] Speaker 2: is something that seems cool. I get to go hang
[6:03] Speaker 2: out with my homies, you get to shoot guns and stuff.
[6:05] Speaker 2: You get to like repel out of helicopters. You know,
[6:07] Speaker 2: like it looks cool. You know, like how would you? Yeah,
[6:12] Speaker 2: it makes complete sense that that people want to that
[6:15] Speaker 2: young men want to go and join the military, and
[6:17] Speaker 2: that draw is there. I wanted it since I was
[6:19] Speaker 2: a little kid as well. You know, that just just
[6:22] Speaker 2: natural because my dad would be.
[6:23] Speaker 3: And you know, I hear people, man, they tell me stories,
[6:25] Speaker 3: well I was.
[6:25] Speaker 1: Going to join the military butt or you know, it's
[6:27] Speaker 1: like okay, cool dude. But the answer the question every
[6:31] Speaker 1: man's heart is, you know, do I have what it takes?
[6:34] Speaker 1: You know, I mean even today, I think we always
[6:36] Speaker 1: constantly are reevaluating that. So I wanted to answer my question.
[6:40] Speaker 1: So was I nervous? Yeah, you know it was I hesitant,
[6:43] Speaker 1: you know a little bit, maybe not too much. But
[6:46] Speaker 1: you made the Pearl Harbor analogy, dude, and I just
[6:48] Speaker 1: felt like it was the call. You know, like here
[6:50] Speaker 1: I am eighteen, fit, you know, ready to rock and
[6:54] Speaker 1: roll and yeah.
[6:56] Speaker 3: Man.
[6:56] Speaker 1: When I got my ship date for boot camp, my
[6:58] Speaker 1: parents were pretty pissed.
[6:59] Speaker 3: I kept that. I kept that a secret.
[7:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, where did you talk about?
[7:06] Speaker 3: South Carolina? What year? Two thousand and two?
[7:09] Speaker 1: So my official start date there was December third, two
[7:12] Speaker 1: thousand and.
[7:12] Speaker 2: Two, and you enlisted his infantry.
[7:15] Speaker 1: Three eleven brother, the you know, the ASVAB. I scored
[7:20] Speaker 1: pretty high. My GT score was I think it was
[7:22] Speaker 1: one seventeen. Just as you know, I qualified for basically
[7:27] Speaker 1: every MS. You're an ounder one twenty five I don't remember,
[7:31] Speaker 1: but you get the gist. So the recruiters are trying
[7:33] Speaker 1: to talk me into all these other ancillary jobs and
[7:35] Speaker 1: I was like, hey, man, like what is the most
[7:38] Speaker 1: direct route to where I can go overseas and you know,
[7:42] Speaker 1: lay down the sc onion. So he kind of tricks me.
[7:46] Speaker 3: Man.
[7:47] Speaker 1: So he's like, all right, O three eleven, you want
[7:49] Speaker 1: to be a rifle Then.
[7:49] Speaker 3: I'm like, yep, done. He's like all right, well have
[7:52] Speaker 3: you heard of the security forces stuff. I'm like, so
[7:56] Speaker 3: you're still an instrument right? He's like yeah, And I'm
[7:58] Speaker 3: like what's that.
[7:59] Speaker 1: He's like, well, basically you get to you get to
[8:01] Speaker 1: be part of a CQB team and I don't know
[8:03] Speaker 1: what that was back then. He's like, we're gonna get
[8:05] Speaker 1: the MP five's and shotguns and you're gonna you're gonna
[8:07] Speaker 1: get some advanced training and learn some extra stuff that
[8:10] Speaker 1: your average infe treatment doesn't get and he left it there.
[8:13] Speaker 2: I was like, that sounds like all right.
[8:15] Speaker 3: I'm like cool, dude. You know. I'm like, hey, these
[8:18] Speaker 3: army guys are giving out bonuses. What's up with that?
[8:20] Speaker 3: Are like, we don't do bonuses, dude, like the bonus title.
[8:25] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[8:25] Speaker 1: I dug on that though, because there's it's like, hey,
[8:27] Speaker 1: do you want to join or not? If not, there's
[8:29] Speaker 1: the door, get the f out of my office, you
[8:31] Speaker 1: know what I mean. So that was even more of
[8:33] Speaker 1: an attractive thing for me, was it's like, hey, dude,
[8:36] Speaker 1: we'd love to have you, but frankly, we don't need you.
[8:39] Speaker 2: So they remind you of that like the entire time
[8:42] Speaker 2: you're in the military too. They're like, you're just part
[8:45] Speaker 2: of the machine. You're a cog in the machine, dude.
[8:46] Speaker 2: The machine will continue running after you leave.
[8:49] Speaker 3: So I found that out.
[8:50] Speaker 2: So he got you at Security Forces though, huh.
[8:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, man, and Security Forces guys get a bum wrap.
[8:56] Speaker 1: We'll talk about that when you want to, uh, you know,
[8:58] Speaker 1: as we progress. But I had a freaking blast.
[9:02] Speaker 2: So for that, you go to stuff, You go to
[9:04] Speaker 2: boot camp, and then you go to s OI, the
[9:06] Speaker 2: School of Infantry, and then following that you go right
[9:09] Speaker 2: into Security Forces.
[9:11] Speaker 3: Yeah. So after yeah, so there's options. Right.
[9:15] Speaker 1: So Uniform Whiskey is the original program that I signed
[9:19] Speaker 1: up for, which means you're going to be part of
[9:21] Speaker 1: a I think they're called RTT teams. It's been a
[9:24] Speaker 1: while reactionary take back teams. So you're either going to
[9:27] Speaker 1: wind up in I think it's Banger, Maine or Kings Bay,
[9:29] Speaker 1: Georgia where all the nuclear subs do r f dfs
[9:32] Speaker 1: refuel defuel missions. But there's also you're protecting you know,
[9:36] Speaker 1: nuclear assets for our nation too. So the the draw
[9:42] Speaker 1: was that it requires a TS clearance.
[9:44] Speaker 3: Right.
[9:45] Speaker 1: But while I'm in Infantry school, you know, and and
[9:48] Speaker 1: as I graduate Entry school, become a rifleman, and I
[9:51] Speaker 1: ship off to Security Forces school. It's called Naval Naval
[9:55] Speaker 1: Naval Support Facility Chesapeake right outside of Norfolk. So I
[10:00] Speaker 1: get there. They call it gun school because that's how
[10:01] Speaker 1: you do a lot of shooting.
[10:02] Speaker 3: It's pretty cool.
[10:03] Speaker 1: But when I get there, I get approached by the
[10:06] Speaker 1: dudes who run the school and they're like, hey, man,
[10:09] Speaker 1: would you like to switch it up to the Yankee
[10:10] Speaker 1: White Program.
[10:11] Speaker 3: I'm like, what the hell is that?
[10:12] Speaker 1: You know, you know y w Right, And they're like, well,
[10:16] Speaker 1: that's the presidential support program, you know, for presidential security.
[10:20] Speaker 1: I'm like, uh, why not like you know, beats the
[10:24] Speaker 1: shit out of Georgia or like, what am I do
[10:26] Speaker 1: to go to DC? They're like, yeah, man, you're gonna
[10:29] Speaker 1: be waiting on a T S. SCI Yankee White cat
[10:31] Speaker 1: too clearance and it's going to take about twelve months
[10:35] Speaker 1: for your clarence to come through. But while you're there,
[10:38] Speaker 1: you'll be providing security for the chief and naval operations
[10:41] Speaker 1: in the common on the Marine Corps.
[10:43] Speaker 2: Oh.
[10:43] Speaker 3: She was like done.
[10:45] Speaker 2: You know, can you explain because you just went through that,
[10:49] Speaker 2: you know that security clearance title really quickly, can you
[10:51] Speaker 2: explain to people that may not know what that means,
[10:53] Speaker 2: what that means?
[10:55] Speaker 1: Great call, dude, So you know it's they they've changed now, right.
[10:59] Speaker 1: It used to be like fidential fou o, then the
[11:01] Speaker 1: next level secret, and the definition of that is you
[11:04] Speaker 1: known any information that can provide harm to the security
[11:08] Speaker 1: posture of.
[11:09] Speaker 3: The United States.
[11:10] Speaker 1: Top seekert is any information that can provide grave harm,
[11:14] Speaker 1: you know, to the security posture the United States or
[11:17] Speaker 1: its assets. And the SCI is sensitive compartmentalized information. So
[11:23] Speaker 1: like picture a pie, right, so they slice it up
[11:28] Speaker 1: and you have your slice of the pie. So right
[11:30] Speaker 1: here is like your compartment, right, so this is what
[11:34] Speaker 1: there's special access prooris and the things that you can
[11:36] Speaker 1: get read into and you'll work it within the confines
[11:39] Speaker 1: of the slice of your pie, but you never really
[11:41] Speaker 1: know how it fits into the rest of the pie,
[11:44] Speaker 1: you know, I mean. And just because you have clearance
[11:46] Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have access, you know what I mean.
[11:49] Speaker 3: So it's it's cool.
[11:50] Speaker 1: To get a clearance, but yeah, man, like you're not
[11:52] Speaker 1: going to get read into anything until there's a need.
[11:54] Speaker 2: So and then but yeah, yeah for sure. And then
[11:58] Speaker 2: the Yankee white and then you said Yankee white KAT
[12:01] Speaker 2: two meaning that you can carry a firearm.
[12:04] Speaker 1: So my understanding of it was there's three categories CAT
[12:07] Speaker 1: three dudes, those are like your due two open the
[12:10] Speaker 1: doors at the White House, you know there you're guys
[12:15] Speaker 1: that you know are wearing dress blues that you see
[12:17] Speaker 1: on TV all the time, and you know your ceremonial marchers,
[12:21] Speaker 1: your band folks. So guys that are you know, guys
[12:23] Speaker 1: and ladies, they're going to have close proximity to the
[12:26] Speaker 1: president to potus, which at the time, of course, with
[12:30] Speaker 1: George W. Bush, Kat two means you can hold a
[12:33] Speaker 1: load of weapon next to your authorized to hold a
[12:36] Speaker 1: load of weapon next to the President of the United States,
[12:39] Speaker 1: and Cat one is a little bit more elusive. I
[12:42] Speaker 1: know that, you know, peak folk. I'll just put it
[12:45] Speaker 1: like that hold Cat one clearances, which you know is
[12:49] Speaker 1: kind of yeah.
[12:50] Speaker 3: I leave it there. Yeah, yeah, we'll leave it there.
[12:54] Speaker 2: So what do you think about that, like getting i
[12:56] Speaker 2: mean getting asked to do that. I remember a kid
[12:58] Speaker 2: in my boot camp platoon got qualified for it and
[13:02] Speaker 2: he ended up having to do a bunch of extra
[13:03] Speaker 2: stuff in boot camp because they'll start picking people from
[13:06] Speaker 2: there if they can. And I remember he had like
[13:08] Speaker 2: a stamp on his SRB that said like Yankee White
[13:11] Speaker 2: or something. I can't remember what it was, but it
[13:13] Speaker 2: was something like that or Presidential Security or something like that.
[13:17] Speaker 2: I was like, holy shit, that's kind of crazy, dude.
[13:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, man, So what happened, was this dude.
[13:21] Speaker 1: I graduated infantry school and it was it was a
[13:24] Speaker 1: tear in my heart, dude, I saw so I for
[13:27] Speaker 1: whatever reason, I just remember my company was like what
[13:29] Speaker 1: Bravo company or something. But half of my class immediately
[13:34] Speaker 1: went to pick up their shit, get their initial issue,
[13:37] Speaker 1: and they were getting on a plane and they were
[13:38] Speaker 1: flying their ass to Iraq to be combat replacements, like
[13:41] Speaker 1: right now, like, do not pass go, do not collect
[13:43] Speaker 1: two hundred dollars your asses going Iraq. So I'm looking
[13:46] Speaker 1: over at these folks and they're stoked. And the reason
[13:50] Speaker 1: why that's rad is because you got understand the timeframe, man,
[13:53] Speaker 1: and I'll get to the Yankee white thing. But the
[13:56] Speaker 1: dudes that joined in it, like in that particular time, say,
[14:01] Speaker 1: right after post nine to eleven, right, like, no shit
[14:03] Speaker 1: after nine to eleven, These weren't dumb folks, you know.
[14:07] Speaker 1: These were These were guys that were truly motivated to
[14:09] Speaker 1: be a patriot. I had guys in my that were
[14:12] Speaker 1: just trying to be grunts three eleven's.
[14:14] Speaker 3: They had master's degrees. I had a guy who was a.
[14:16] Speaker 1: Criminal defense attorney. I had a dude from the eighty
[14:19] Speaker 1: second Airborne from the army. He was I think he
[14:21] Speaker 1: was a sergeant, a buck sergeant E five, So you know,
[14:25] Speaker 1: looking at his little ribbon stack going, you know, wow,
[14:28] Speaker 1: he's got jump wings already, and he he wants to
[14:30] Speaker 1: be a marine rifleman. You know, the gist is everybody
[14:34] Speaker 1: was motivated. Nobody was there for benefits. Nobody cared about
[14:37] Speaker 1: the gi bill, nobody cared about you know, all the perks,
[14:41] Speaker 1: Like they just wanted to go fight. So the you're
[14:45] Speaker 1: playing for keeps that all the bullshit was cut in
[14:48] Speaker 1: boot camp. All the bullshit was cut in sy like,
[14:50] Speaker 1: we are going to train you to be combat effective
[14:53] Speaker 1: and to be an absolute ferocious dude. I dug on that, man,
[14:57] Speaker 1: that was really cool. At least that's what I picked
[14:59] Speaker 1: up anyway. So after all that crap, I go to
[15:03] Speaker 1: Security Force of School, same kind of thing.
[15:06] Speaker 3: Man.
[15:07] Speaker 1: You know, we did a lot of shooting, a lot
[15:09] Speaker 1: of cool stuff, but we knew that we were, you know,
[15:12] Speaker 1: the security posture of the nation was heightened, and therefore,
[15:15] Speaker 1: you know, the like the emphasis on getting good training
[15:17] Speaker 1: was was a little bit higher than I would say, probably,
[15:21] Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how to see this correctly,
[15:22] Speaker 1: but maybe now, maybe not now because of the rant thing,
[15:26] Speaker 1: but you get the gist. So when I get to
[15:28] Speaker 1: d C, they're like, all right, dude, we're gonna put
[15:30] Speaker 1: you on a plane. You still have to screen for this,
[15:33] Speaker 1: Like all right.
[15:34] Speaker 3: So I'm like, I might not make it.
[15:36] Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, there's like a pretty freaking good probability
[15:39] Speaker 1: you're not gonna make it, dude, just but we're gonna
[15:41] Speaker 1: give the old college try. So I show up in
[15:44] Speaker 1: I'm in my chucks and or my Alphas, I think,
[15:47] Speaker 1: and which is like the green coat, you know, tan shirt.
[15:50] Speaker 1: I mean, you're still looking pretty cool, but you got nothing,
[15:52] Speaker 1: you know. And there's thirty six dudes lined up to
[15:56] Speaker 1: go into this room. And the room is a conference room.
[15:59] Speaker 1: And by the time my turn came, I go into
[16:03] Speaker 1: the room and there's one chair in the middle of
[16:05] Speaker 1: the room, which is awkward. So you know, I got
[16:07] Speaker 1: to bang on the door, request permission, enter, march to
[16:10] Speaker 1: this center of the chair, do a side step, you know,
[16:13] Speaker 1: ask permission to be seated. They tell you to be seated,
[16:15] Speaker 1: you know, left hand, left knee, right hand, right knee,
[16:17] Speaker 1: head nine straight to the front kind of thing. But
[16:19] Speaker 1: you are one hundred and eighty degree semi circled surrounded
[16:22] Speaker 1: by you know, E nine's, and the head of the
[16:24] Speaker 1: table was a I think he was like an O
[16:27] Speaker 1: five lieutenant or a commander Navy.
[16:30] Speaker 3: Psychiatrists or psychologist. So now the interview starts.
[16:36] Speaker 1: You already have to fill out like a I think
[16:39] Speaker 1: it was three or five parts of personality. You know,
[16:42] Speaker 1: they want to make sure your personality is intact, that
[16:44] Speaker 1: you know you're you're not wacky, So you fill out
[16:47] Speaker 1: a personality profile and don't want to make sure your
[16:51] Speaker 1: answers are consistent. But now it's the oral interview board.
[16:54] Speaker 1: So yeah, you sit before these cats and you know
[16:57] Speaker 1: they basically read your body language. They're listening to your tone,
[16:59] Speaker 1: now your delivery, how you construct your sentences. They're trying
[17:02] Speaker 1: to gage your intelligence, and you know, just see if.
[17:05] Speaker 3: You're a good dude.
[17:08] Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into it, but the court
[17:10] Speaker 1: the basis was, you know, are you are you loyal
[17:14] Speaker 1: and allegiant and faithful to our nation? And the other
[17:17] Speaker 1: basis was are you a scumbag? Like do you do
[17:21] Speaker 1: scummy shit? Like do you gamble? Do you drink? Like, hey, kid,
[17:24] Speaker 1: we know that you're nineteen, about to turn twenty, but like,
[17:26] Speaker 1: you know, you're booze it up, and I mean, yeah, man,
[17:31] Speaker 1: my dad taught me how to drink when I was
[17:32] Speaker 1: like sixteen. He's he's like, I'm going to teach how
[17:34] Speaker 1: to drink like a gentleman with gen and tonics. But
[17:36] Speaker 1: I left that part out. I was like, man, I've
[17:38] Speaker 1: been drunk one time and I threw up thirty seven times,
[17:41] Speaker 1: and I'll never do that shit again, you know. And
[17:44] Speaker 1: that seemed to land pretty well, so I'm like, all right, cool,
[17:47] Speaker 1: So I still have no idea. So you know, we're
[17:50] Speaker 1: kind of waiting, and they picked three of us.
[17:53] Speaker 2: That's good stuff. Yeah, that's did you I assume you
[17:58] Speaker 2: didn't tell him about the rocks and a sock incident
[18:01] Speaker 2: from your Actually did?
[18:03] Speaker 1: I just you know, I told him, hey, but I
[18:05] Speaker 1: left the I didn't. I didn't talk about the rocks
[18:07] Speaker 1: in the socks, but you know they were they go
[18:10] Speaker 1: back ten years, right, so didn't want to look at
[18:12] Speaker 1: all your schools and talk to your teachers and stuff.
[18:14] Speaker 1: And even I mean ten years from eighteen.
[18:17] Speaker 2: Is kind of off, kind of off topic. But because
[18:20] Speaker 2: he's gone through that process, isn't it interesting did you
[18:24] Speaker 2: hear about that CIA agent a few weeks ago or
[18:26] Speaker 2: like a month ago that got busted with like ten
[18:28] Speaker 2: million dollars of gold in his house and then they
[18:31] Speaker 2: found out that this guy lied, Yeah, because he started
[18:35] Speaker 2: a special access program that was basically paying himself gold
[18:39] Speaker 2: and he lied about being a Navy pilot and stuff
[18:43] Speaker 2: like that, Like he somehow got into the CIA as
[18:46] Speaker 2: a as an agent and lied about his military service.
[18:49] Speaker 2: That's bananas, how I mean, cause you know the process
[18:52] Speaker 2: of going through and getting those different levels of clearance
[18:54] Speaker 2: is like, how does that even happen?
[18:56] Speaker 3: You know, brother, I can't even fathom it.
[18:59] Speaker 2: Man, that's so crazy. Like when I heard that, I
[19:02] Speaker 2: was like, so it's just I don't know. That popped
[19:03] Speaker 2: in my head when we were sitting here going through
[19:05] Speaker 2: Like how in depth? Because you said, you know, they
[19:07] Speaker 2: go back ten years and that's like legit, Like they'll
[19:09] Speaker 2: go talk to your neighbors, I'll go talk to your
[19:11] Speaker 2: old teachers and stuff like that.
[19:12] Speaker 1: Like back then it was called a single scope background investigation,
[19:16] Speaker 1: So I think there's a different name for today.
[19:18] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[19:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's pretty in depth though, and it's
[19:23] Speaker 2: it has to be right. You're giving you permission to
[19:25] Speaker 2: stand next to the president with a gun.
[19:27] Speaker 1: So pretty much. Yeah, there's two places from here you
[19:30] Speaker 1: can wind up, so your initial duty. So okay, you know,
[19:34] Speaker 1: you're like, hey, you're clear hot, right, Like all right, dude,
[19:37] Speaker 1: you made it cool, but you didn't quite make it.
[19:39] Speaker 1: So let's let's put you now the name of it,
[19:42] Speaker 1: like member scout sniper basic course. That's nothing basic about that.
[19:45] Speaker 1: That old school course was a twelve week course, like
[19:48] Speaker 1: you know, and I know there's some follow on training,
[19:49] Speaker 1: but the gist is guard School is what they called it,
[19:52] Speaker 1: and it sounds stupid, but it was actually pretty legit.
[19:56] Speaker 1: Everything from you know back then anyway, advanced camera systems
[20:01] Speaker 1: to alarm control center stuff, visitor badging and access escort
[20:04] Speaker 1: pologies procedures, and then we did a lot of you know,
[20:08] Speaker 1: just from the whole presentations with the duty gear that
[20:14] Speaker 1: we were issued. So we were getting reps, which was cool.
[20:18] Speaker 1: We went to we went to Quantico. I don't know why,
[20:21] Speaker 1: I did some fast roping out of some fifty three
[20:23] Speaker 1: helicopters that had absolutely nothing to.
[20:26] Speaker 3: Do with what we did.
[20:27] Speaker 1: But you never know that maybe they threw it in
[20:29] Speaker 1: there as like a little you know, like a little
[20:32] Speaker 1: but no, it wasn't sexy. It was straight up guard duty, dude.
[20:35] Speaker 1: So you're standing in front of the commanant's house, the
[20:38] Speaker 1: commanant comes out, and then of course at Marine Barracks
[20:41] Speaker 1: eighth and I in Southeast in d C. Every night
[20:44] Speaker 1: they had the Friday evening parade. So the little Silendarpletune,
[20:47] Speaker 1: the ceremonial marcher dudes, and these guys the SD you know,
[20:51] Speaker 1: the Solentdropletune guys. Maybe a little bit, you know, they're
[20:54] Speaker 1: like your blockhead marine man.
[20:56] Speaker 3: They love shit.
[20:57] Speaker 1: They're all about marching and twirling rifles and they live
[21:01] Speaker 1: for it. The ceremonial marchers. All they wanted to do
[21:03] Speaker 1: was go overseas and kill people. And here they are
[21:06] Speaker 1: stuck like chuck, you know, iron in their uniforms. Yeah, dude,
[21:12] Speaker 1: you had to get two haircuts a week there, man,
[21:14] Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday.
[21:16] Speaker 2: I have people I think it's crazy when I tell
[21:18] Speaker 2: them that I had to get my haircut every week
[21:19] Speaker 2: in the Marines. They're like what. I'm like, yeah, dude,
[21:21] Speaker 2: And if you don't like people make it a big deal.
[21:24] Speaker 2: It's like a thing. You know.
[21:25] Speaker 3: They're like, what, I like your haircut. What do you
[21:28] Speaker 3: get haircut?
[21:29] Speaker 2: Like haut Hey, I wanted to ask you know you
[21:32] Speaker 2: did you did the guard program there, you did the
[21:36] Speaker 2: other security forces stuff before that. Later on you were
[21:39] Speaker 2: working with MARS socket stuff, or you were working in
[21:42] Speaker 2: special different special operations capacities when you did that training.
[21:45] Speaker 2: How much shooting difference was there was? I mean, I
[21:49] Speaker 2: know the different I know there's gonna be different types
[21:51] Speaker 2: of shooting, but like volume and like how much hands
[21:54] Speaker 2: on you got. I feel like working around the President
[21:57] Speaker 2: or in that kind of vibe or nuclear you know,
[22:00] Speaker 2: you would almost get the same amount of training as
[22:02] Speaker 2: you would in like special operations or am I completely
[22:04] Speaker 2: off base.
[22:06] Speaker 1: Off base but not really the I'll give you a
[22:11] Speaker 1: quick story to kind of emphasize the difference. It's December,
[22:15] Speaker 1: it's like negative twenty with the wind chill. I'm standing
[22:17] Speaker 1: off front of the Commanant's house and at the time,
[22:19] Speaker 1: I think it was General Hagey and I'm in camis
[22:21] Speaker 1: and I've got my little my snivel gear under my
[22:23] Speaker 1: camis because you can't, of course wear an overcoat and
[22:26] Speaker 1: because we never practiced.
[22:28] Speaker 3: Basically it covers up your.
[22:29] Speaker 1: Pistol and we never practiced drawing from the holster with
[22:33] Speaker 1: gloves on. So I'm sitting there in negative twenty with
[22:35] Speaker 1: no gloves on and my hands are stiff, dude. So
[22:39] Speaker 1: the combanant comes walking out right, and I'm staying at
[22:41] Speaker 1: ceremonial parade rests just kind of chilling, and of course
[22:44] Speaker 1: I snapped to attention, salute them, you know, get them
[22:46] Speaker 1: a proper draining of the day. And shit, he goes, hey, Marine,
[22:49] Speaker 1: what's up. I'm like, uh, nothing, sir, you know, just
[22:53] Speaker 1: kind of stand in my post watching the streets, you know,
[22:57] Speaker 1: some clever shit. And he's like, well, you know, you're
[23:01] Speaker 1: you look cold, man, Like, you know, why don't you
[23:03] Speaker 1: put gloves on. I'm like, sorry, I can't put gloves on.
[23:07] Speaker 1: He's like why not, Like we we haven't practiced drawing
[23:10] Speaker 1: from our holsters with gloves on, you know. He's like,
[23:13] Speaker 1: so warm up your hands, man, He's like, you know,
[23:15] Speaker 1: how are you gonna be effective with cold hands. I'm like,
[23:19] Speaker 1: put on your pockets.
[23:20] Speaker 3: He's like, yeah.
[23:21] Speaker 1: Like thing was General Hagey at the time. You have
[23:22] Speaker 1: to google it two thousand and two. So yeah, man,
[23:25] Speaker 1: he's like, we'll put your hands in your pockets. I'm like, what, like,
[23:29] Speaker 1: no way. The commandant just told me to be like
[23:31] Speaker 1: fucking note, say no more, man, say less, So hands
[23:34] Speaker 1: go in the pockets. I sir, you got it, Hands
[23:38] Speaker 1: going in the pockets. Commandadt was wrapping with me. I
[23:40] Speaker 1: feel cool, and now I have an order tour. I'm
[23:43] Speaker 1: like the only dude in the Marine Corps who put
[23:45] Speaker 1: his freaking hands in his pockets. So I'm running with
[23:47] Speaker 1: it man. And anyway, immediately the camera sees me, you know,
[23:50] Speaker 1: they're like, you know, Papa wan, Papa one, this spopa tudo.
[23:53] Speaker 3: Why do you have your hands in your pockets. I'm like, hey,
[23:55] Speaker 3: the commanant just said I could man leave you alone.
[23:58] Speaker 2: It's start made with the Marine Corps comes out? Are
[24:01] Speaker 2: you doing?
[24:01] Speaker 1: Be like, I don't know, No, that's a true story.
[24:04] Speaker 1: So my point is back to your training. Like that's
[24:06] Speaker 1: the difference, right, like common sense man, you know, like
[24:10] Speaker 1: come on.
[24:11] Speaker 2: All ceremonial, Well yeah, I meant, I guess I meant
[24:14] Speaker 2: necessarily more like in the initial training and stuff like
[24:16] Speaker 2: you're shooting packages and stuff like that, like coming up,
[24:19] Speaker 2: I know once you're on guard due to your fucking.
[24:21] Speaker 1: So they have a Rogers range at Security Forces school,
[24:23] Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. You have little steel plates that
[24:25] Speaker 1: pop out they have they have sliding steel targets that
[24:28] Speaker 1: you have to engage from different positions. You you know,
[24:31] Speaker 1: you have to earn your draw so you practice doing
[24:33] Speaker 1: a little bit of fighting. You fall to the deck,
[24:35] Speaker 1: shooting between your legs, rolling, you know, shooting proned out,
[24:38] Speaker 1: shooting from soup pine and then back then they did
[24:42] Speaker 1: have that little that little board where you are basically
[24:46] Speaker 1: shooting through you know, different you know, different holes and
[24:49] Speaker 1: different sized apertures. So it was pretty neat, I thought
[24:52] Speaker 1: at the time, was pretty advanced. We did a lot
[24:54] Speaker 1: of nighttime training to night shoots. They had little police
[24:56] Speaker 1: lights going on behind you. The code lights were rapping,
[25:00] Speaker 1: so you know, red and blue. But the point is
[25:02] Speaker 1: that threw your depth perception off. You turn out all
[25:05] Speaker 1: the other lights and now you're trying to get that
[25:07] Speaker 1: site picture with these old three white dots and it's
[25:10] Speaker 1: red and blue and everything's flash and so that part
[25:13] Speaker 1: was neat. But as far as round count and volume,
[25:16] Speaker 1: as I progressed through my career, there was definitely a
[25:21] Speaker 1: lot more shooting. When you get to the special operations
[25:24] Speaker 1: side of the house. As a matter of fact, it
[25:25] Speaker 1: was encouraged that you just go draw ammo and practice
[25:29] Speaker 1: on your own too.
[25:30] Speaker 2: So that was pretty cool.
[25:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was neat.
[25:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean all these are I mean, all this
[25:35] Speaker 2: sounds awesome, man, I mean that's uh, I mean besides
[25:39] Speaker 2: standing guard duty.
[25:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was terrible.
[25:42] Speaker 2: That kind of sucks. But you know, what are you
[25:43] Speaker 2: gonna do?
[25:43] Speaker 3: Right?
[25:43] Speaker 2: You got to you gotta.
[25:44] Speaker 3: Earn your keep up there. Yes, sir, so I got
[25:47] Speaker 3: kicked out.
[25:48] Speaker 2: Let me know about that.
[25:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk about it, man, because that's how we progress.
[25:53] Speaker 1: So you know, I don't know, man, turn twenty and
[25:57] Speaker 1: all my friends, for whatever reason, I felt needed to
[26:00] Speaker 1: like bullshit them about my age because I didn't want
[26:02] Speaker 1: to let them know I was a young cat, because
[26:03] Speaker 1: I think a lot of the dudes there were a.
[26:05] Speaker 3: Little bit older.
[26:06] Speaker 1: And when you're nineteen, you know, a twenty two or
[26:08] Speaker 1: twenty three year old, they seem, you know, like, why
[26:11] Speaker 1: so mature some reason? Yeah, oh yeah, you're this guy's
[26:14] Speaker 1: so dial like, no he's not. But yeah, so I
[26:18] Speaker 1: back then we had the green eyeds Man, and I
[26:20] Speaker 1: remember my buddy showed me how to peel the back
[26:23] Speaker 1: cover off with an exact o knife and an iron
[26:26] Speaker 1: to heat it up. And I was born in eighty three,
[26:29] Speaker 1: So I just cut out this with an exact knife.
[26:31] Speaker 1: I cut out the center part of the three, and
[26:33] Speaker 1: I took a map pen, a fine point map pen
[26:35] Speaker 1: like we using land NAF, and I made it a
[26:37] Speaker 1: complete zero and it looked amazing. So I put the
[26:41] Speaker 1: back cover back on. Man, and now I have an
[26:43] Speaker 1: idea that says, I am however much old, you know,
[26:45] Speaker 1: for your military ID, A military government issued ida I forged.
[26:50] Speaker 1: So I start going to South. I went to frickin Georgetown,
[26:55] Speaker 1: you know, which was that's where you go, you know,
[26:58] Speaker 1: M Street, And I go to this place called Rhino Bar,
[27:01] Speaker 1: and it was pretty cool, man. I you know, I
[27:04] Speaker 1: didn't know any girls. I didn't know, you know, any
[27:07] Speaker 1: I had a couple of friends and they would go,
[27:08] Speaker 1: you know, go out with me and kind of watch me,
[27:10] Speaker 1: you know, or watch drink with me, watch over me,
[27:12] Speaker 1: kind of protect me, you know, like I guess that's
[27:15] Speaker 1: what boys do, man, They get each other's backs.
[27:17] Speaker 3: So the Marines were hated.
[27:20] Speaker 1: So you know, we try to look like I mean,
[27:22] Speaker 1: but with the stupid haircuts twice a week, it's hard
[27:24] Speaker 1: to blend in. But we always had each other's backs,
[27:26] Speaker 1: is what I mean by that, And that was pretty cool.
[27:28] Speaker 1: But they don't know I have a fake idea, right,
[27:31] Speaker 1: So I go to the bar and I find this
[27:33] Speaker 1: blonde check who's really cool. I ended up dating her
[27:35] Speaker 1: for a little while and I get I think that
[27:38] Speaker 1: my sergeant at the time also knew her, right, and
[27:43] Speaker 1: but she didn't dig him, and he dug her, and
[27:45] Speaker 1: it was a weird thing. So I was like, well,
[27:46] Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna yeah, let's let's continue chatting. That
[27:50] Speaker 1: pissed him off, so they sent us on a six
[27:53] Speaker 1: mile run. He rap fucked my room, found my fake ID,
[27:57] Speaker 1: you know, brought me down to the company gunny, and
[28:00] Speaker 1: I just owned it, you know, you know, don't lie, cheater,
[28:04] Speaker 1: steal kind of thing. So I was like, hey, look,
[28:06] Speaker 1: yeah I did. I turned my government i'd into a
[28:09] Speaker 1: fake you know, I'm sorry about that. So I got charged.
[28:11] Speaker 1: I got a company level n JP and I got
[28:13] Speaker 1: charged with a destruction of government property, false official statement.
[28:18] Speaker 3: So I just I took the hit.
[28:20] Speaker 1: So they're like, hey, man, we're going to let you
[28:22] Speaker 1: go from the you know, the Yankee White Program, you know,
[28:24] Speaker 1: you're going to go to the grunts, and they were
[28:26] Speaker 1: using it as a threat.
[28:27] Speaker 3: But I'm kind of stoked. Finally, hell yeah, finally I
[28:30] Speaker 3: get out of here. You know.
[28:31] Speaker 1: The downside is I really wanted my my picture in
[28:34] Speaker 1: the Oval Office with the President, which is the one
[28:36] Speaker 1: thing you get, and I wanted my twenty four care
[28:38] Speaker 1: Gold Presidential Support badge. It's serialized to you. So I
[28:42] Speaker 1: didn't get that either. But Marine, like Marine Online was
[28:47] Speaker 1: the program that just came out at the I think
[28:49] Speaker 1: it was kind of new, and you could log in
[28:52] Speaker 1: and check all of your career stuff, you know, your
[28:54] Speaker 1: thrift savings plan, your MS. You could look up all
[28:56] Speaker 1: this information the Marine Corps has on you. And there
[28:58] Speaker 1: was a subtab called orders. So I click on web Orders, man,
[29:02] Speaker 1: and somehow I was able to get in there and
[29:04] Speaker 1: have the permissions to access like where my orders were
[29:06] Speaker 1: going to land me. And I saw this unit called
[29:09] Speaker 1: the Anti Terrorism Battalion, and I'm like.
[29:13] Speaker 3: That sounds cool, so.
[29:15] Speaker 1: I click it and no shit, man, I got orders
[29:18] Speaker 1: to the Anti Terrorism Battalion. And when the orders came
[29:21] Speaker 1: down the pipe, that same sergeant, you know, he's really
[29:25] Speaker 1: like they wanted me to go to like three six
[29:26] Speaker 1: or just some standard Victor unit in the grants and anyway, man,
[29:30] Speaker 1: they're looking at you know, fourth MEB Anti Terrorism Battalion,
[29:34] Speaker 1: They're like, we you know, what the fuck Mills? And
[29:36] Speaker 1: I'm like, hey man, lucky mey, I guess you know,
[29:38] Speaker 1: so I it was.
[29:39] Speaker 3: Like a latter move with maybe an upward kick.
[29:42] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Was it a lot different going from that
[29:46] Speaker 2: from you know, because you were already going through security
[29:49] Speaker 2: like the Security Forces program anyway, So was it weird
[29:52] Speaker 2: going back to that that kind of world?
[29:55] Speaker 3: What to campell Gin or.
[29:57] Speaker 2: Was it different like the Anti Terrorism Battalion which were
[30:00] Speaker 2: what was that? That wasn't Fast Company?
[30:01] Speaker 3: Then? No, not at all.
[30:03] Speaker 1: So it was an experimental unit. There was a guy
[30:05] Speaker 1: named Lieutenant Colonel Killian who stood it up. He was
[30:07] Speaker 1: the battalion he was the battalion commander. Now, Lieutenant Colonel
[30:10] Speaker 1: Killian had a vision for this, and now I don't
[30:13] Speaker 1: want to say it quite it came really close. He
[30:17] Speaker 1: was going to blend the way that Ranger Battalion operates
[30:21] Speaker 1: with Marine Corps Infantry with some with some Fast Company emphasis.
[30:26] Speaker 1: But he wanted everybody in that battalion alpha bravo Charlie
[30:29] Speaker 1: and Delta Company to be basically experts at Back then
[30:33] Speaker 1: we called AUC Advanced Turban Combat.
[30:35] Speaker 3: So we got to go to some cool schools.
[30:37] Speaker 1: Man we did. We had a really mean work up.
[30:40] Speaker 1: I did a lot of heavy weapons, a lot of
[30:42] Speaker 1: a lot of machine guns stuff. Basically I got to
[30:46] Speaker 1: go to Desgnated Marksman School, but back when it was
[30:48] Speaker 1: called SOTG Special Operations Training Group. So did some high
[30:51] Speaker 1: angle shooting, you know, using M fourteen designated marksman rifles.
[30:55] Speaker 3: That was pretty cool.
[30:57] Speaker 2: But the kicker is that the battalion that they turned
[31:00] Speaker 2: into the third when the close.
[31:03] Speaker 3: Oh that's such a good question, man.
[31:06] Speaker 1: So yeah, so I spend my time in Anti terrorism Battalion, right,
[31:10] Speaker 1: and we pump out to Iraq northeast of Baghdad in Bakuba.
[31:15] Speaker 1: I'll tell you about that mission in a minute. But
[31:17] Speaker 1: when I came back there was a new unit that
[31:19] Speaker 1: stood up called FMTU, the Foreign Military Training Unit, and
[31:23] Speaker 1: the f MTU dudes, a lot of guys from a
[31:26] Speaker 1: T battalion were popping smoke over to f MTU, right,
[31:30] Speaker 1: So it was kind of one was one hand was
[31:32] Speaker 1: feeding the other.
[31:33] Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
[31:34] Speaker 1: So I remember at that point, though, bro I was
[31:37] Speaker 1: dead set on getting out, Like, dude, I'm going home.
[31:40] Speaker 1: I'm going to go to college. You know, I applied
[31:43] Speaker 1: for a school cut to get out three months early.
[31:46] Speaker 1: So the gist is Colonel Killion calls me and he's like, hey,
[31:48] Speaker 1: George man, like, you had a successful deployment to Iraq.
[31:52] Speaker 1: You know, I went to Raeli counter terrorism school. That
[31:54] Speaker 1: was pretty cool. You know, you got some good schools
[31:57] Speaker 1: under your belt for being a junior dude. You know,
[31:59] Speaker 1: you're a corp looking at picking up sergeant and he goes,
[32:01] Speaker 1: would you like to go to f MTU, go to
[32:03] Speaker 1: language school, you know, go to foreign Weapons instructor.
[32:06] Speaker 3: Course And that was basically called it.
[32:12] Speaker 1: Call it like they were working on fid ISH like
[32:14] Speaker 1: foreign internal defense style mission. So we're going to go
[32:18] Speaker 1: train indigenous forces to help plus themselves up from the
[32:22] Speaker 1: ground up approach, so you know, this host nation can
[32:25] Speaker 1: protect itself for at least this a little segment of
[32:26] Speaker 1: the populace. So the f MTU dudes ended up becoming
[32:30] Speaker 1: third M.
[32:31] Speaker 2: Sob okay, that's what it was.
[32:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, So the culture permeated, right, So first and second
[32:37] Speaker 1: M saw back then was you know, first Force Recon
[32:40] Speaker 1: and Second Force Recon. But the f MTU cats, yeah,
[32:44] Speaker 1: they became third I heard.
[32:47] Speaker 2: I was at Lejun when all that was going on,
[32:49] Speaker 2: and third m SAB, the new Third M SAB was
[32:52] Speaker 2: the only one that wasn't out in whatever Stone Bay
[32:55] Speaker 2: or whatever. It was over by like the supply warehouses.
[32:59] Speaker 2: And I remember someone saying that it was over there
[33:03] Speaker 2: because when they first started, this is before they made
[33:05] Speaker 2: the Death Star like huge headquarters and stuff. They said
[33:09] Speaker 2: that they were over there because they were the only
[33:11] Speaker 2: one that wasn't a rec didn't start as a recon unit,
[33:13] Speaker 2: so they had them like separated from everybody else. I
[33:15] Speaker 2: was like really, I was like, that's fuck.
[33:16] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[33:18] Speaker 2: I guess they got ship on a little bit when
[33:19] Speaker 2: it first start stood up because they were the only
[33:21] Speaker 2: ones that weren't recon guys.
[33:23] Speaker 3: And they did. Yeah.
[33:25] Speaker 1: My buddy Mike roy Uh, he was a scout sniper
[33:28] Speaker 1: that was in Anti Terrorism Battalion with me. He ended
[33:30] Speaker 1: up going over to uh FMTU and then went to
[33:33] Speaker 1: Third TIM sob He was a good guy. You know,
[33:35] Speaker 1: he's no longer with us, but he's a He's one
[33:37] Speaker 1: of my better He was one of my best friends.
[33:38] Speaker 3: Man.
[33:40] Speaker 1: You know, I deployed with him do Iraq with Anti
[33:41] Speaker 1: Terrorism Battalion. He was a good cat. But yeah, man, if.
[33:45] Speaker 2: You talked to him, you talked about going to what
[33:48] Speaker 2: was it in Israeli school? So I've heard that when
[33:51] Speaker 2: I first came in the Marines, going and training with
[33:54] Speaker 2: his Israeli seemed like a more common thing than it
[33:57] Speaker 2: is now. What was that like? Like working with them?
[33:59] Speaker 2: What you know, how professional were they and that kind
[34:01] Speaker 2: of thing?
[34:02] Speaker 3: We got our nuts kicked in?
[34:05] Speaker 2: Really?
[34:06] Speaker 1: Oh man, humility looks good on everybody, and we were
[34:10] Speaker 1: not humble.
[34:10] Speaker 3: Man.
[34:11] Speaker 1: We went there cocky and arrogant, but like I don't
[34:13] Speaker 1: want to say, like you know, they didn't care. They
[34:17] Speaker 1: were just kind of laughing. Then under their breath they're like, okay, man,
[34:19] Speaker 1: well you know, wait to get through this course.
[34:21] Speaker 3: We you know, we might have some stuff to show you.
[34:23] Speaker 1: They were super humble, super kind, super respective, I mean,
[34:27] Speaker 1: respectable and receptive to us. So but I'll tell you what, man,
[34:32] Speaker 1: their viciousness, their violence of action, the speed and the
[34:36] Speaker 1: intensity at which they train. And these dudes send rounds. Brother,
[34:40] Speaker 1: they shoot all day, all the time and do not care.
[34:44] Speaker 3: So the full name of the school. Uh.
[34:46] Speaker 1: In Hebrew it's called low tar lota r. I have
[34:49] Speaker 1: no idea how to say it in Hebrew, but in
[34:52] Speaker 1: English it's CTMSS Israeli counter Terrorism Marsmanship in sniper school.
[34:57] Speaker 1: So separated into two parts, you had the legit no
[34:59] Speaker 1: shits sniper school and our scout snipers ended up going
[35:02] Speaker 1: to that. There was an emphasis on, you know, precision
[35:06] Speaker 1: marksmanship and shooting good, but the vast majority of what
[35:09] Speaker 1: we did was siki be oriented.
[35:11] Speaker 3: Right.
[35:11] Speaker 1: So this was a full on in the shootouse with
[35:13] Speaker 1: some krav maga, you know, getting your ass kicked. So
[35:16] Speaker 1: I'm six to two back then, I think I was
[35:18] Speaker 1: like two hundred and five pounds and I got my
[35:20] Speaker 1: ass handed to me by this like five foot eight
[35:22] Speaker 1: Israeli dude. And but we did a lot of shooting, man,
[35:26] Speaker 1: and we learned some new styles of shooting, like, for example,
[35:30] Speaker 1: they carry their pistols condition three you know, no no
[35:33] Speaker 1: round and chamber right, really really strange, Like why.
[35:36] Speaker 3: Would you carry a pistol if you don't have a.
[35:38] Speaker 2: Round in the chamber in combat?
[35:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, man, nick and the yeah from the holster there
[35:44] Speaker 1: they have a way to the they do put the
[35:46] Speaker 1: round into the chamber and make a condition one weapon
[35:48] Speaker 1: as they're doing the drawstroke. It's like little stuff like that.
[35:52] Speaker 1: The other things that were different were basically clearing a
[35:57] Speaker 1: majority of the room from the doorway right instead of
[36:00] Speaker 1: just making entry and you know, button hook limited cross
[36:04] Speaker 1: or it was or a button hook across or limited penetration.
[36:09] Speaker 3: Right. They had some some neat.
[36:12] Speaker 1: Tactics and the reason for that is just the different
[36:14] Speaker 1: types of threats that they faced. So when they go
[36:17] Speaker 1: into a doorway, man, they don't know if the rug
[36:20] Speaker 1: behind the door is great with a dude under it,
[36:23] Speaker 1: you know, with a weapon pointing upwards. I mean, they
[36:25] Speaker 1: have some really they've learned a lot of.
[36:28] Speaker 3: Hard lessons, you know, and they wanted to pass that down.
[36:31] Speaker 1: So anyway, the other thing that I took away from
[36:33] Speaker 1: that was everywhere everybody gets five rounds, so right, so
[36:39] Speaker 1: as you're making your way through the house, you got
[36:42] Speaker 1: to remember who you shot, and then you were to
[36:45] Speaker 1: stand over them and put a security shot in their
[36:47] Speaker 1: head to make sure they're dead, like absolutely confirm.
[36:50] Speaker 3: Right.
[36:51] Speaker 1: So when we left the course, you know, we were
[36:53] Speaker 1: our or our company commander Chris Graham at the time, Grandbo,
[36:57] Speaker 1: we called him he is super cool.
[37:00] Speaker 3: He uh.
[37:00] Speaker 1: He was like all right, Joe, it's like you cannot
[37:02] Speaker 1: do that, Like that's against the Geneva Conventions. You will
[37:05] Speaker 1: go to jail, you know, like you know if you
[37:08] Speaker 1: smoke an enemy combatant and then you just want to
[37:10] Speaker 1: confirm that he smoked and stand over his head and
[37:12] Speaker 1: put around into it like that's a hard no go.
[37:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, that's crazy. I mean I
[37:18] Speaker 2: thought it'd be. You know, they got all their stuff
[37:20] Speaker 2: going on with hamas all the time and everything like that,
[37:22] Speaker 2: and there's obviously a divide on what people think about
[37:24] Speaker 2: him and stuff. But I mean you can't you can't
[37:27] Speaker 2: argue against that. They're militarily their military is highly effective
[37:31] Speaker 2: and a lot of the stuff that they do long
[37:33] Speaker 2: same thing with their intelligence services, you know, the whole
[37:36] Speaker 2: thing with the pagers last year. Crazy. You know, it's
[37:40] Speaker 2: like stuff like that. It's like, wow, that's pretty impressive.
[37:44] Speaker 2: But again, I don't I don't once the Global War
[37:47] Speaker 2: on Terror really kicked off, I don't think we really
[37:50] Speaker 2: did a lot of training with those guys anymore. Because
[37:52] Speaker 2: I always heard guys, you know, when I came in
[37:54] Speaker 2: guys before the war and stuff would go on a
[37:56] Speaker 2: mew or with the early days of the war, they'd
[37:58] Speaker 2: go on a mew or something and they'd go over
[38:00] Speaker 2: and they'd spend some time in Israel. They spent some
[38:02] Speaker 2: time in like Greeze, they spent some time you know,
[38:03] Speaker 2: Roda or whatever.
[38:05] Speaker 1: But it was it was named Operation Noble Shirley, and
[38:09] Speaker 1: we were told that we were the very first unit. Now,
[38:12] Speaker 1: I think my company commander Chris Graham, who you can
[38:15] Speaker 1: google and look him up. He's very interesting. Cat, had
[38:19] Speaker 1: a great career at d i A. You know, he's
[38:22] Speaker 1: he's not with us anymore, but he's a beautiful man,
[38:24] Speaker 1: awesome dude, handsome, nice hair, you'll love him anyway. He
[38:30] Speaker 1: massaged that and we were told that we were the
[38:32] Speaker 1: first American unit to train with the Israelis there in
[38:35] Speaker 1: about five years.
[38:36] Speaker 3: So sick.
[38:37] Speaker 1: I mean, how special do you feel now, you know?
[38:40] Speaker 1: So they rolled out the red carpet for us man's
[38:43] Speaker 1: from the airport.
[38:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know, I mean, obviously people are gonna
[38:47] Speaker 2: just because it's Israel, people are gonna hate on it
[38:48] Speaker 2: and stuff. But to have that kind of training opportunity,
[38:51] Speaker 2: you know, I think anytime that you can work with
[38:53] Speaker 2: a capable foreign for us. It's always interesting, like you
[38:58] Speaker 2: were talking about, to see how their tactics solve whatever problem.
[39:03] Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It may not be a
[39:05] Speaker 2: problem that you are going to encounter a lot, but
[39:07] Speaker 2: like seeing someone you know, introduce a problem that you've
[39:11] Speaker 2: never really seen and seeing how they counter it. It's like,
[39:13] Speaker 2: oh shit, you know, it's like almost turns on a
[39:15] Speaker 2: light bulb bl like, oh, I never even thought of that,
[39:17] Speaker 2: Like I didn't even think that was a thing.
[39:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, one example that as you talk, more things pop
[39:22] Speaker 1: into my brain.
[39:23] Speaker 3: I didn't even know it was.
[39:25] Speaker 1: So like, you know, we went to no Leet the
[39:27] Speaker 1: Weapons and Tactic School, you know, their SOTG course, and
[39:31] Speaker 1: you know, we were doing riot control stuff.
[39:34] Speaker 3: When they have riots that.
[39:36] Speaker 1: Become super raucous, you know, like really getting out of control.
[39:40] Speaker 1: They use a Ruger ten twenty two with a scope
[39:43] Speaker 1: accurized and they look for the main agitators in the
[39:47] Speaker 1: crowd and they shoot him in the leg. And the
[39:51] Speaker 1: reason is the folks around them. Well obviously, so now
[39:54] Speaker 1: you know you didn't kill the guy, but now you
[39:57] Speaker 1: know it's going to take three or four other folks
[39:59] Speaker 1: around I'm going to pick this guy up and shimmy
[40:01] Speaker 1: him out of the crowd. So not only did you
[40:04] Speaker 1: reduce one at you know, major agitator, you got the
[40:06] Speaker 1: four guys around him to you know, to get him
[40:08] Speaker 1: out of there because I mean, but they whatever they
[40:12] Speaker 1: got to do to control those because that can that
[40:14] Speaker 1: can get.
[40:14] Speaker 3: Pretty dicey really quick.
[40:16] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[40:16] Speaker 1: But another thing we were told never to do, you know.
[40:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's a lot. Always people are
[40:22] Speaker 2: always saying, well, just shoot him in the leg, and
[40:23] Speaker 2: it's like, well, that's not really.
[40:25] Speaker 1: The greatest idea, Like, no, this is a horrible idea.
[40:27] Speaker 2: Well it's extremely hard too. That can actually kill them
[40:30] Speaker 2: pretty quickly if you hit the wrong spot. So let's
[40:34] Speaker 2: move on to So you were talking about your deployment
[40:36] Speaker 2: iraq mm hmm. What was that kind of deployment because
[40:40] Speaker 2: it wasn't a traditional infantry battalion.
[40:43] Speaker 3: No, we were structured.
[40:44] Speaker 1: Uh so we had we had one company, actually we
[40:48] Speaker 1: had two companies in our battalion. Or correction, we had
[40:52] Speaker 1: two platoons, so it was Bravo Company, Anti Terrorism Battalion, right,
[40:57] Speaker 1: and we made this deployment I want to say five, and.
[41:01] Speaker 3: We stretched into six.
[41:03] Speaker 1: So my understanding was that the State Department came down
[41:07] Speaker 1: with a tasker for US because we were we were
[41:09] Speaker 1: fishing for deployment Iraq. Everybody wanted to go, but we
[41:12] Speaker 1: were pumping out small teams of dudes to go do
[41:17] Speaker 1: you know, go to advisory role stuff, to go be
[41:19] Speaker 1: advisors on the border. So anyway, this one was we
[41:23] Speaker 1: were going to go.
[41:24] Speaker 3: To a base called oh Man.
[41:27] Speaker 1: It was called Bob Spartan, but there was another name
[41:30] Speaker 1: for it. But it's again it's northeast of Bakuba and
[41:35] Speaker 1: basically it housed what's called the People's Muji Headen of Iran,
[41:38] Speaker 1: the Mujahaden of Iran pm AY. The pm AI is
[41:43] Speaker 1: a group of exiled Iranians and they're about thirty five
[41:46] Speaker 1: hundred of them and.
[41:47] Speaker 3: They have this city.
[41:49] Speaker 1: It's called actually it's called Ashraft City right now, I remember.
[41:53] Speaker 1: So the city was totally strange. I mean it's like
[41:57] Speaker 1: it's like you take Iraq and then you have it
[42:00] Speaker 1: out of small square and then there's the PMY. But
[42:04] Speaker 1: during the invasion, as everybody was pushing north and US
[42:07] Speaker 1: forces encountered the pm AY, they were on the US
[42:11] Speaker 1: terrorist list and were of course we're flighting Global war
[42:14] Speaker 1: on terrorism, but they weren't hostile toward US. They were
[42:17] Speaker 1: hostile toward Iran, so they were anti Iranian Iranians, and
[42:22] Speaker 1: they were all very smart. They all spoke like four languages.
[42:24] Speaker 1: Russian was a big one there too. They were all educated.
[42:27] Speaker 1: But they built their own little city because Saddam built
[42:29] Speaker 1: it for them. So basically they were cast out of Iran.
[42:32] Speaker 1: Saddam said, hey, we'll take you, and he built him
[42:35] Speaker 1: a neat little city where they could just keep to themselves.
[42:38] Speaker 3: But he used them.
[42:41] Speaker 1: And they had artillery, they had weapons, they had snipers,
[42:44] Speaker 1: they had you know, obviously infantry folks. They had vehicles,
[42:47] Speaker 1: they had technicals with vehicles with mount of machine guns.
[42:51] Speaker 1: And apparently they did they did some they did some
[42:53] Speaker 1: dirty work for Saddam, which pissed off the surrounding area.
[42:57] Speaker 1: So we essentially not we there, like the Army's military
[43:01] Speaker 1: police had to set up a compound and basically protect
[43:03] Speaker 1: these guys because they didn't do anything. They surrendered to us. Right,
[43:08] Speaker 1: So now you have thirty five hundred dudes in their
[43:10] Speaker 1: own city that surrendered a US coalition forces as we invaded,
[43:14] Speaker 1: and everyone's kind of scratching their head as like what
[43:15] Speaker 1: the hell do we do with these guys? You know,
[43:17] Speaker 1: can't send him anywhere. They're on a terrorist list.
[43:20] Speaker 3: You know.
[43:20] Speaker 1: But the gist is, now the Anti Terrorism Battalion is
[43:25] Speaker 1: guarding a group of terrorists during the Global War on Terrorism.
[43:28] Speaker 1: I always thought that was ironic. I kind of made
[43:30] Speaker 1: that up, but it's absolutely true. So we had two
[43:33] Speaker 1: patoons that was standing security do a three sixty perimeter
[43:35] Speaker 1: of our little fob, and then we I was part
[43:37] Speaker 1: of the Mobile Assault Platoon, which I got lucky. So
[43:41] Speaker 1: we had six gun trucks up armored, two fifty cows,
[43:44] Speaker 1: two Mark nineteens too, two forties, and then we had
[43:47] Speaker 1: two cat teams Cat Cat one and Cat two, so
[43:50] Speaker 1: there was three of the same so we basically had
[43:54] Speaker 1: the same mission as the Cat teams. They had no toes,
[43:57] Speaker 1: they didn't have you know, it's just straight up machine
[43:59] Speaker 1: gun and our job was to conduct vehicle mounted patrols
[44:05] Speaker 1: of the local area and also act as the QRF,
[44:07] Speaker 1: the Quick Reaction Force. So yeah, we had a little
[44:12] Speaker 1: city north of us called you Dame, and that was
[44:15] Speaker 1: my very first gunfight ever. It took me like two months,
[44:18] Speaker 1: but you Dame popped off and it was a major
[44:22] Speaker 1: you know, anti American forces slash al Qaeda. You know,
[44:25] Speaker 1: back then it was a Qi al Qaida of Iraq
[44:28] Speaker 1: stronghold to include the women, and you know, it was
[44:31] Speaker 1: the whole city was basically in support. So the Iraqi
[44:34] Speaker 1: Army had a tent with like forty dudes in there
[44:38] Speaker 1: and them being you know, the Iraqi army being in
[44:40] Speaker 1: the Iraqi army, and they decide in the middle of
[44:42] Speaker 1: the day to go to sleep and rack out. It's
[44:44] Speaker 1: like one dude stood post by the radio. So of
[44:47] Speaker 1: course AQI caught it and they pulled up with a
[44:49] Speaker 1: couple of technicals and smoked everybody in that tent. So yeah,
[44:53] Speaker 1: we got launched as the QRF and uh, you know,
[44:57] Speaker 1: I'm like for real, like cool, you know. So we
[45:01] Speaker 1: basically set up an L shape the city. City was
[45:04] Speaker 1: shaped like a square. He had north south running roads,
[45:06] Speaker 1: east east west running roads, and then off to the
[45:09] Speaker 1: northwest was kind of a like an irrigated field with
[45:13] Speaker 1: a canal. So our job was to kind of push
[45:17] Speaker 1: these insurgents through the city out into the open so
[45:21] Speaker 1: the apaches could come and clean them up. So, you know,
[45:23] Speaker 1: the army had tank support there and there was definitely
[45:26] Speaker 1: a rotary winging aviation support that was doing some gun
[45:28] Speaker 1: runs hooking, and so my humby was stationed down a
[45:32] Speaker 1: narrow street and basically, you know, once we got positive
[45:36] Speaker 1: idea bad guys we were trying to cross that street,
[45:38] Speaker 1: we just smoked them. So it was it was unique.
[45:41] Speaker 1: It was my first taste of combat. But we didn't
[45:43] Speaker 1: lose anybody, none of us. None of us got killed.
[45:45] Speaker 1: You know, a couple of guys got shot in the
[45:47] Speaker 1: plate or one guy got shot in his IFAC or
[45:49] Speaker 1: something simple, but we had zero casualties. So we fought
[45:53] Speaker 1: all that day, all night, and then the next morning
[45:56] Speaker 1: we got ripped out of there by you know, another
[46:00] Speaker 1: another team of assets that came to plus us up,
[46:02] Speaker 1: and we went home and rekitted, refueled, re armed, and
[46:06] Speaker 1: uh stood by for another tasking. But yeah, man, we
[46:10] Speaker 1: were riding the high from our first little sniff of combat.
[46:13] Speaker 1: And it's great when you're giving it, man, but as
[46:16] Speaker 1: you'll know later, it's not so great when you're you're
[46:19] Speaker 1: getting it.
[46:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, for sure. Yeah, it's definitely easy to
[46:24] Speaker 2: I think this is awesome, you know that's happening on
[46:27] Speaker 2: your end, you know, I.
[46:28] Speaker 3: Think we killed like two hundred and fifty al Qaeda.
[46:31] Speaker 3: It's crazy.
[46:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's uh. I mean that was what year
[46:35] Speaker 2: was that again?
[46:37] Speaker 1: Two thousand and five? Actually this one I think was December.
[46:39] Speaker 1: This was like December ninth.
[46:41] Speaker 2: I think like, yeah, that that five O six O
[46:44] Speaker 2: seven you know, bled into seven basically from like four
[46:48] Speaker 2: to like seven was like real rough in Iraq.
[46:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, I got dicey.
[46:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that was a crazy That would have
[46:55] Speaker 2: been a crazy time to have been there.
[46:57] Speaker 1: It was real quick, man, it was. It was a
[47:00] Speaker 1: strange mission. So anybody who wants to research this, I
[47:03] Speaker 1: think it's I think it's very interesting. We found a
[47:07] Speaker 1: ton of UXO, like a ton, We found a ton
[47:10] Speaker 1: of gas masks.
[47:12] Speaker 3: We found some evidence.
[47:13] Speaker 1: That, you know, there may have been VX there at
[47:16] Speaker 1: one point, you know, nerve agents.
[47:19] Speaker 2: So that was pretty much WMD missing link. Are you
[47:22] Speaker 2: the one that knows.
[47:24] Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. Yeah.
[47:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone thinks nukes when they think w m D,
[47:30] Speaker 1: but they don't realize that biological and chemical weapons count
[47:32] Speaker 1: just as much.
[47:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that'd been that would have
[47:37] Speaker 2: been creaty stumble upon a bunch of fucking biological weapons
[47:40] Speaker 2: or something.
[47:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, let's get out of here.
[47:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't heard. I haven't talked to anybody that
[47:47] Speaker 2: was part of that battalion that had deployed before. So
[47:50] Speaker 2: that's really interesting, uh, to see how you guys were
[47:52] Speaker 2: utilized since you're, again you're not like a traditional battalion,
[47:55] Speaker 2: so you probably don't have you know, you normally, I
[47:57] Speaker 2: don't think they would give your own battle.
[47:58] Speaker 3: Space, you know, we did have an area. Yeah.
[48:02] Speaker 1: So the other thing that we did was we did
[48:05] Speaker 1: routine convoy security because the PMOI, we're trying to lobby
[48:08] Speaker 1: for themselves, so they would make routine trips to Baghdad
[48:12] Speaker 1: and to just north of Baghdad uh Anaconda LSA. I
[48:17] Speaker 1: think it was like logistical support ANAX. I'm not sure
[48:20] Speaker 1: what LSA means, but LSA Andaconda was the major firm
[48:23] Speaker 1: base that people would.
[48:25] Speaker 3: Fly in and out of. You know, it was a huge,
[48:27] Speaker 3: huge base. So we take these.
[48:29] Speaker 1: National Guard folks and you know, even as a corporal,
[48:32] Speaker 1: and that's another thing people don't understand about the Marine
[48:34] Speaker 1: Corps is leadership being pushed down to the lowest level.
[48:38] Speaker 1: So as a young corporal, I found I'm like the
[48:40] Speaker 1: assistant convoy commander, you know, and we're transporting thirty six
[48:44] Speaker 1: Army vehicles you know, through down black routes, which we
[48:47] Speaker 1: should have had aviation support. But I remember this. This
[48:51] Speaker 1: female Army soldier shows up and she's got a troll,
[48:55] Speaker 1: you know, with like purple hair hanging on her.
[48:59] Speaker 3: Like god, man, I walked up to her.
[49:01] Speaker 1: I ripped that thing off and stomped at the doors.
[49:03] Speaker 1: What the hell's wrong with you? You need to get
[49:04] Speaker 1: your hat on straight, you know. And anyway, we go
[49:08] Speaker 1: to Anaconda. This is a cool story, dude. We go
[49:11] Speaker 1: to Anaconda and one of the majors, a female major,
[49:15] Speaker 1: she bought like twenty pizzas. You know, we didn't know that,
[49:18] Speaker 1: so she put them in her vehicle. We're coming back
[49:21] Speaker 1: and these routes are leading with IEDs. This is the
[49:23] Speaker 1: notorious ambush type stuff. And she keeps calling short halts
[49:27] Speaker 1: so short and long halt. Short hault is two minutes
[49:30] Speaker 1: or less, a long halt is anything more. She's like
[49:32] Speaker 1: short halt, like, well, you know what the hell is
[49:34] Speaker 1: going on back there?
[49:35] Speaker 3: You know she's handing out pizzas, dude.
[49:38] Speaker 2: Oh no way to the local yeah.
[49:41] Speaker 1: Man, Like in some of the you know, what are
[49:43] Speaker 1: you doing? Like, I get that your heart bleeds, but
[49:45] Speaker 1: come home. We can't be doing that stuff.
[49:47] Speaker 2: Handing out pizza to the people that don't understand that.
[49:51] Speaker 2: In some areas, if you try to do something like that,
[49:54] Speaker 2: you will be overwhelmed by people, like swarming you because
[49:58] Speaker 2: people are hungry or want water or whatever. Like anytime,
[50:01] Speaker 2: anytime you go out and do a humanitarian mission like
[50:04] Speaker 2: that where you're handing out food, water or doing medical
[50:07] Speaker 2: you know, checks on people, that's a mission. There's like
[50:10] Speaker 2: security layers and stuff that have to be set up
[50:12] Speaker 2: because you can easily become overwhelmed by these desperate people.
[50:16] Speaker 2: You know when you just start yeah, that's I mean,
[50:18] Speaker 2: I like you said, I get that, I get what
[50:20] Speaker 2: your intent is good and you're trying to be a
[50:22] Speaker 2: good person.
[50:22] Speaker 1: But that's a three time you don't feed the seagulls
[50:26] Speaker 1: at the beach.
[50:27] Speaker 2: Brother, That's exactly what happened. You start getting, you get formed. Yeah, yeah,
[50:35] Speaker 2: that's funny though, I mean, that's what you know. I mean,
[50:37] Speaker 2: some people it was crazy bananas. Yeah, when you came
[50:44] Speaker 2: back from when you came back from that deployment, what
[50:47] Speaker 2: were you feeling, How are you feeling about it about
[50:49] Speaker 2: the Marine Corps about you know.
[50:51] Speaker 1: I caught contractor fever man.
[50:53] Speaker 3: I saw.
[50:54] Speaker 1: That was my first taste of seeing aegis Aernis Armor
[50:57] Speaker 1: Group Incorporated Blackwater Triple Canopy. I saw all these dudes
[51:00] Speaker 1: running around and they were cool, dude, like at least
[51:03] Speaker 1: in my mind, and they're making fifteen grand a month
[51:06] Speaker 1: basically doing the same stuff we're doing. And I'm like,
[51:11] Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't in it to be a careerist.
[51:13] Speaker 1: I have no idea how I did so long in
[51:15] Speaker 1: the Marine Corps. I got out four times, dude, So
[51:18] Speaker 1: I just I kept coming back every time there was
[51:20] Speaker 1: cool stuff to do. And I'll tell you about the
[51:21] Speaker 1: marsk thing later how that happened. But the gist is
[51:24] Speaker 1: I wanted to go home and promise my parent finished
[51:27] Speaker 1: the promise to my parents to go to college. So
[51:29] Speaker 1: I went to FAU.
[51:31] Speaker 3: But yeah, that's how I was feeling. So I went about.
[51:33] Speaker 1: I went to FAU for like three months, and I
[51:36] Speaker 1: hated it, like I could not stand. I'm like, this
[51:39] Speaker 1: is a giant waste of time. Everyone here's an idiot.
[51:42] Speaker 1: These professors are all liberals, even the folks on campus
[51:45] Speaker 1: and you know, the girls I was trying to talk
[51:46] Speaker 1: to because I was a young single man, Like I
[51:49] Speaker 1: couldn't stand more than five minutes of conversation with you,
[51:52] Speaker 1: and I'm like, dude, get me out of here. So
[51:55] Speaker 1: I applied to Special Operations Consulting Security Management Group or
[51:58] Speaker 1: sock SMG back in the day. Now it's just sc Incorporated.
[52:02] Speaker 1: And I got picked up quick man. I got picked
[52:05] Speaker 1: up on a d D contract and I was out
[52:08] Speaker 1: of there. And I think I was home when I
[52:11] Speaker 1: got out of the Marine Corps for like three months. So
[52:13] Speaker 1: the turnaround time was, you know, so I toltally, you know,
[52:17] Speaker 1: Killian No. Thanks on the FMTU gig, brother, I dig it.
[52:20] Speaker 1: Thank you so much for thinking of me and considering me.
[52:22] Speaker 1: It's a real honor. I just want to go home
[52:24] Speaker 1: and go to college, go to Florida, listen to sublime surf,
[52:27] Speaker 1: you know, and get my Bob Marley on. And then
[52:30] Speaker 1: I found out really quick that I'm kind of not
[52:32] Speaker 1: that guy anymore.
[52:34] Speaker 3: You know. Now now I'm like I wanted more. I
[52:37] Speaker 3: wanted more.
[52:38] Speaker 2: You've seen the world, you know, yeah, trying to relate,
[52:41] Speaker 2: You're trying to relate with people that have never This
[52:43] Speaker 2: is probably if they're in college, just might be the
[52:45] Speaker 2: first time they left their hometown. And you've already gone
[52:49] Speaker 2: around the world. You know, Like how old were you
[52:53] Speaker 2: at this point? How old were you so.
[52:55] Speaker 3: You know you joined me were eighteen?
[52:56] Speaker 1: I was twenty two, maybe twenty three exactly.
[52:59] Speaker 2: You've already had a top secret security clearance at the
[53:01] Speaker 2: highest level. You've already like been to combat, You've already
[53:04] Speaker 2: done all these things. And you're trying to have a
[53:06] Speaker 2: conversation with like college students that have done nothing other
[53:10] Speaker 2: than like live at home and then go to class
[53:11] Speaker 2: and maybe party some.
[53:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you don't want to be a
[53:15] Speaker 1: resentful guy, but like I just I resented these folks
[53:19] Speaker 1: because you know, here you are sitting on your ass,
[53:23] Speaker 1: you know, while we're all shit. Like I'm looking around
[53:25] Speaker 1: at these quote unquote men, I'm like, what's wrong with you?
[53:28] Speaker 1: Like physically, Like what's what's wrong with you?
[53:30] Speaker 3: Like?
[53:30] Speaker 1: Why are you not serving your nation right now? Like
[53:33] Speaker 1: it don't you understand the call, you know, back.
[53:36] Speaker 3: To the Pearl Harvard thing. But I mean that's their
[53:38] Speaker 3: right too, But you know.
[53:40] Speaker 2: Well, you know I'll say I'll say that, I will
[53:43] Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people have what you're talking about,
[53:46] Speaker 2: that resentment. They come back and they're just kind of
[53:48] Speaker 2: they get that like you weren't there, You don't understand
[53:51] Speaker 2: you couldn't, you know. And then my my kind of
[53:54] Speaker 2: counter to that is, like, would you want them to
[53:57] Speaker 2: you know, especially when you're talking about family, like your family,
[53:59] Speaker 2: Like my family just doesn't understand me, or they don't
[54:01] Speaker 2: understand what I've been through, But would you want them
[54:04] Speaker 2: to understand that? Like, would you really want them to
[54:06] Speaker 2: experience whatever tragic or traumatic thing that you did or
[54:10] Speaker 2: went through, so just so that they can understand that.
[54:13] Speaker 2: Be glad that they don't understand it. It's not a
[54:15] Speaker 2: bad thing. It's a good thing that they don't understand
[54:17] Speaker 2: that kind of trauma.
[54:18] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Well, that's where the professional
[54:20] Speaker 1: warrior comes in.
[54:21] Speaker 3: Right exactly.
[54:22] Speaker 2: You don't get that when you're young.
[54:24] Speaker 1: No, so you start, you know, as you as you
[54:27] Speaker 1: as you mature, you start to realize that, hey, the
[54:31] Speaker 1: reason I'm doing this is so you can you can
[54:33] Speaker 1: live your life and not have to worry about any
[54:36] Speaker 1: of this crap. So I'm going to keep the wolf
[54:38] Speaker 1: away from your doorstep and going overseas and I'm going
[54:41] Speaker 1: to be a quiet professional about it and do my
[54:42] Speaker 1: job and when I come home, just be quiet at it,
[54:45] Speaker 1: you know. But at the time, I guess I was
[54:47] Speaker 1: so amped up and so young and probably to be
[54:51] Speaker 1: fair immature. Oh yeah, I was just riding the high
[54:54] Speaker 1: because it would have been a different story if we
[54:56] Speaker 1: took casualties. Man, like the folks that were in Fallujah,
[54:59] Speaker 1: the folks that you know we're doing other missions, we
[55:01] Speaker 1: were tracking on them.
[55:02] Speaker 3: Those are a lot of our bros. I mean, the
[55:03] Speaker 3: marine course.
[55:04] Speaker 1: Tight, it's small, and they had a totally different out
[55:07] Speaker 1: you know, outlook than me. But you know, all you
[55:11] Speaker 1: know is how to look at things through through the
[55:13] Speaker 1: lens of your experience. So but for me, yeah, the
[55:16] Speaker 1: contractor fever thing was cool because I just I want
[55:19] Speaker 1: to go check it out.
[55:20] Speaker 2: So yeah, no, that makes sense. Before we I want
[55:23] Speaker 2: to talk more about that, but like real quick, I
[55:25] Speaker 2: want to just add on. You know, I'm with you,
[55:29] Speaker 2: and I was kind of like, why wouldn't you know
[55:31] Speaker 2: people if you you should join the military. At the time,
[55:34] Speaker 2: it was definitely like why aren't you joining it? Kind
[55:35] Speaker 2: of like you're saying, well, what did you do during
[55:37] Speaker 2: the war, Dad, you know that kind of thing. But
[55:40] Speaker 2: now looking back, you know, I've told like my brother
[55:43] Speaker 2: in law this, I've told other people this that are
[55:45] Speaker 2: like construction workers and stuff like that. As long as
[55:48] Speaker 2: you did something positive for the community over the last
[55:51] Speaker 2: twenty years, then you did your part. Man, Like if
[55:54] Speaker 2: you like, you know, I know these guys that are
[55:56] Speaker 2: construction workers and stuff. I talk about my brother in
[55:58] Speaker 2: law specifically multiple times. He's built help build multiple buildings
[56:01] Speaker 2: at Purdue University. I'm like, how much more productive and
[56:05] Speaker 2: good for society is that compared to what I did
[56:08] Speaker 2: in Afghanistan? You know what I'm saying. Like, So that's like,
[56:10] Speaker 2: don't hate on yourself if you as long as you
[56:12] Speaker 2: came and you did the The contract is is we're
[56:15] Speaker 2: going to go do this bullshit over in other country,
[56:18] Speaker 2: so you don't have to, but we want you to
[56:21] Speaker 2: do your part for your community. You know, be a
[56:24] Speaker 2: good positive like aspect of your community. Be nice to people,
[56:30] Speaker 2: clean up your streets, you know, take care of your community.
[56:33] Speaker 2: And that's all we.
[56:34] Speaker 1: Ask and I wish the So the one thing that
[56:37] Speaker 1: they wanted the product right the end state was to
[56:41] Speaker 1: just develop a guy who's going to go out there
[56:43] Speaker 1: and execute.
[56:44] Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's that's it.
[56:46] Speaker 1: There was not until later, not until I started, you know,
[56:49] Speaker 1: going to Anglico and eventually in MARSK did I did
[56:52] Speaker 1: I start thinking that way? Because that you know, that
[56:56] Speaker 1: type of thinking was never either encouraged. I mean, you know,
[57:00] Speaker 1: but as you mature in your career, you know, you
[57:02] Speaker 1: start to you know, you start to develop a philosophy
[57:06] Speaker 1: and now you that's that stuff becomes evident, like all
[57:08] Speaker 1: right man.
[57:09] Speaker 2: Especially, and it's it's even more pronounced in these smaller,
[57:12] Speaker 2: more specialized units because you're it's required for you to think.
[57:17] Speaker 2: There's not always someone there to tell you what to do,
[57:19] Speaker 2: and this is how things happen. You know, when you're
[57:21] Speaker 2: on a small team. Anglico has what nineteen guys on
[57:24] Speaker 2: a team. When you out there's nineteen of you, you guys,
[57:27] Speaker 2: between the group of you, if you're all together, which
[57:29] Speaker 2: a lot of times are not, between that group, you
[57:32] Speaker 2: guys got to figure it out. You know, you don't
[57:34] Speaker 2: have a whole battalion worth of people and staff and
[57:36] Speaker 2: everything else to figure things out. It's you guys to
[57:38] Speaker 2: figure it out. So I think that thinking is required
[57:41] Speaker 2: and encouraged in those kind of units. But I want
[57:44] Speaker 2: to talk about for the contracting, when you know, when
[57:46] Speaker 2: you got into that, I was I've interviewed a couple
[57:48] Speaker 2: other contractors that went to like Blackwater, and I was
[57:50] Speaker 2: kind of surprised by how lax the the like application
[57:56] Speaker 2: process and like training before deploying was. For I thought
[58:00] Speaker 2: it'd be way more in depth, you know.
[58:02] Speaker 1: So the and I'm probably mispronouncing this just I haven't
[58:06] Speaker 1: thought about it in a while, but the Nazara Square
[58:08] Speaker 1: shooting incident in Baghdad, right, okay, So I got hired
[58:12] Speaker 1: after that by Blackwater. I did my contract with SC
[58:17] Speaker 1: I signed up on a six month contract. I ended
[58:19] Speaker 1: up staying for seven and a half months in Iraq.
[58:22] Speaker 1: I'll talk about that in a minute.
[58:24] Speaker 3: But of course.
[58:26] Speaker 1: I initially got I initially put in for a gig
[58:28] Speaker 1: with Triple Canopy and got hired as a d DM
[58:30] Speaker 1: and Dosigny defensive marksman. But then Blackwater also accepted me.
[58:34] Speaker 1: So I was like, you know, just for pure namesake
[58:37] Speaker 1: and exploratory reasons, I took the Blackwater application, said I'll
[58:41] Speaker 1: take that, and that was a State Department gig whips
[58:44] Speaker 1: the worldwide Personnel Protective Service. So I showed up to Moyak.
[58:49] Speaker 1: Now that was an that was an intensive screening process.
[58:53] Speaker 1: So by the time I applied to Blackwater, I maybe
[58:57] Speaker 1: it was lax at first. SC was a little bit
[59:00] Speaker 1: more relaxed, but it was a d D contract and
[59:03] Speaker 1: we were we were alone and unafraid. Man, we had
[59:05] Speaker 1: no comms nothing, I mean, we were yeah, we'll talking
[59:07] Speaker 1: about that in a minute. But when I went to
[59:09] Speaker 1: b DUBS, that was, hey, man, we're we're now you
[59:13] Speaker 1: have to have a DOS security clearance, right, at least
[59:16] Speaker 1: a secret level clearance. And the background check on that
[59:20] Speaker 1: resembled the TS clearance on the do D side of
[59:22] Speaker 1: the house.
[59:22] Speaker 3: It was.
[59:23] Speaker 1: It was pretty in depth. So yeah, I showed up
[59:27] Speaker 1: to Moyank. I went through the screening process, and about
[59:30] Speaker 1: four weeks into the Personal Security Specialist Course or the
[59:33] Speaker 1: PSS course, I noticed that, you know, back then I
[59:37] Speaker 1: had this one track mind of I served in all
[59:40] Speaker 1: male units, and I saw them, you know, the females
[59:42] Speaker 1: that were hired, and they were failing the machine gun
[59:44] Speaker 1: calls because they couldn't put the fifty cow in the
[59:46] Speaker 1: full load, you know, right, So it was fifty cows
[59:52] Speaker 1: too forties. They're struggling with the two forty. But that's okay,
[59:55] Speaker 1: I guess, but not really. You're you're passing them, but
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: they're hard failing. So I brought I made the mistake
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: of bringing that up to one of the instructors because
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: I didn't dig that. And I'm like, hey, look, if
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: I go to a new shootthouse and I shoot a
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: no shoot target, I can be terminated and sent home.
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: Right now.
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: It's like, I'm watching them fail the heavy weapons qualifications
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: and the medium machine guns and I don't understand why
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: you're getting passed. Yeah, So they sent me a plane
[1:00:24] Speaker 1: ticket and said, well you don't I could go home
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: pal and they fired my ass. So I went back
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: to the Marine Corps. But the point that you're trying
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: to make, which is also funny, I think it's hilarious now,
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: but back then I was kind of pissed off. Me
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: and a recon sniper grant theory and he was awesome.
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: We both got shit can at the same time. But whatever, man,
[1:00:43] Speaker 1: it turned out for the better. The point, though, is
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: my understanding is that the State Department came down on Blackwater.
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: They said they kicked them out of Iraq. They never left.
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: So the Man Camp and Baghdad Camp Victory, they caught
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: it the Man Camp, right, So, I mean their ship
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: was in connex boxes, kind of staged, ready to rock,
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: and they may have had a reduced footprint. But of course,
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: like they were working on, you know, getting another piece
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: at the State Department PI.
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: So and they did, you know, they got reapproved to
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: continue on with the OS contracts. So that's when I
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: got brought on. And the way it was explained to
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: me was like they had a lot of pipe pitting dudes, right,
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: a lot of former Soft operators, a lot of former
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: Ranger Bat guys, a lot of former Marines of you know,
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: higher caliber, and these dudes were just straight up you know,
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: I already said it pipe pitters right now. They wanted
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: to kind of tone it down. So in my class,
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: I kind of had some I had a Florida Highway
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: Patrol guy, you know, I don't know, we had you know,
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: we had some tankers like guys are on tanks, you know.
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: We had some support personnel, some logistics personnel. So I
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: think that you know, maybe seventy five percent of that
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: Blackwater personality was still kind of there. But now they're
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: injecting about a quarter of twenty five percent dose of
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: more tame individuals, if you will, and the purpose of
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: that was to make the DOS happy.
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: You know, like does that make sense?
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I see what you're saying. But I mean
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: so early on, I or I've had a few guys
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: that I interviewed that were black Water, and they were
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: all really early on, Like I think some of them
[1:02:26] Speaker 2: were like in the first class, and they made it
[1:02:29] Speaker 2: sound like it was more like you were already kind
[1:02:31] Speaker 2: of pre screened by the military. You know, you already
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: got all these other qualifications, so we're just going to
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: come in and bring you in here and kind of
[1:02:37] Speaker 2: make sure everything's good to go. So I think what
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: you're like you said, there's that incident occurred and they
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: had to like tighten it up farther on. I don't
[1:02:46] Speaker 2: necessarily I'm not necessarily against like bringing in people from
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: other fields, because I see it as almost like guys
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: that are trying out for special operations. You know, just
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: because you're a mechanic doesn't mean you can't do this job.
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: Maybe you just didn't get the opportunity to, you know,
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: go into whatever beforehand to you know, set you up
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: like special you know, recon or something before you go contracting.
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: So I think if you can come into it and
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: you again meet the standards, which you obviously you said
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: you had people that weren't meeting the standards. But if
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: you could come in and meet the standards, then I
[1:03:18] Speaker 2: don't know, you know what the issue, But I also
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: understand the mentality. The attitudes are different, the thinking is
[1:03:25] Speaker 2: different from someone that's been a career special operations person
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: moving into that and someone that's been more on a
[1:03:31] Speaker 2: support side moving into that, you know.
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: And and again we're back to maturity, right so they
[1:03:37] Speaker 1: they I would have fired me, absolutely, you know, they
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: had every right to, and they made the right call.
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: The your Your point though, is now I do see
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: so back then it was you know, if if you're
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: not X, Y, and Z, then you know what even
[1:03:52] Speaker 1: doing here?
[1:03:53] Speaker 2: You're not training for this, but we're bringing in all
[1:03:55] Speaker 2: these leaf eaters.
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you know, go sip some
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: wine and hug that tree, pal. But the but the
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: the reality of it is, they did train you to
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: walk the box man, they did train you to provide
[1:04:08] Speaker 1: close protection. This was a legitimate school counter tears and
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: driving was a huge.
[1:04:14] Speaker 3: Part of it.
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: You know, they had they had some pretty good trauma
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: and first aid courses. But yeah, defensive tactic, I mean
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: everything was a part of it. And if you didn't
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: meet the standard minus the machine gun folks, then you
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: didn't meet the standard. And it was not more than
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: ten seconds. The second that happened, they would rip you
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: out of the room and they would get you a
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: plane ticket and you pack your stuff and you are out.
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: So it was Yeah, it was tight.
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: They ran a tight ship there and I was very
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: impressed by it. The facility was world class, super cool.
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: I think they have one out here. I think there's
[1:04:48] Speaker 2: one here by the border. I think there's an old
[1:04:50] Speaker 2: I don't know if it's still owned by Blackwater, but
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: I think it was originally built by Blackwater. It's down
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: by the prison and down by the border here at
[1:04:57] Speaker 2: San Diego's or by one of the one of the contract.
[1:05:00] Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's Blackwater, but I could be wrong
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: about that. So you so you left that decided to
[1:05:07] Speaker 2: come back home to the Marine corpses.
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was sad, bestoked, like six or seven of
[1:05:13] Speaker 1: my friends from s OC. You know, we've already spent
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: time in We all got hired together and that was
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: really neat, right. So Gloria Scheidel's hired. She was a
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: sweetheart and she was at the you know, she was
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: hr there. But yeah, she was part of the Blackwater
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: family for sure. And a bunch of my other buddies.
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to go down the name list,
[1:05:35] Speaker 1: but one one of my better friends, Mark these he
[1:05:38] Speaker 1: ended up in Danny Costello. It just is that these
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: guys were just solid man. Garrett Schwindell another good friend
[1:05:46] Speaker 1: of mine. He was a ranger, bad guy. They they
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: moved forward, you know, they didn't get acts like I did,
[1:05:51] Speaker 1: and they had a blast and they had a hell
[1:05:53] Speaker 1: of a career on the PMC side of the house.
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: But going back to the Marine Corps it pulled up
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: my heart strings too, because you know, you're back in
[1:06:01] Speaker 1: the gun club, you know.
[1:06:02] Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. Is Danny Costello? Look, I'm trying to look
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: him up. Is he the guy that's in that famous
[1:06:06] Speaker 2: Blackwater video where he's sitting there sniping from that rooftop.
[1:06:10] Speaker 2: It's just like taking a shot.
[1:06:12] Speaker 3: That's Travis Haley. Travis Haley, Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, Travis Haley.
[1:06:16] Speaker 2: Danny Castell's that name sounds familiar.
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: Danny cost Yeah, he's out there, man, Yeah, Hi Danny,
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: what a gig man?
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: I mean, I think contracting would have been cool. I
[1:06:28] Speaker 2: think that would have been a cool gig. And I
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: but I see the plus and plus and minuses of both.
[1:06:32] Speaker 2: Right of being like a contractor. Obviously the money you're
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: making a shit ton of money if you're doing that.
[1:06:37] Speaker 2: Minuses are you don't really have the like support structure
[1:06:40] Speaker 2: you have with the military, and you could like get
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: acts at any time, but you can also quit it anytime.
[1:06:46] Speaker 3: Yep.
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this is this is interesting for
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: folks to know. This is a huge part of the
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: war that not a lot of people are either read
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: in on or educated on. The contract that I got
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: hired by SOOC was it was under the Army Corps
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: of Engineers. It was called the Coalition Munitions Clearance Project
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: or the CMC project. So basically during Shock and Awe,
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: of course, we bombed off Saddam C two notes, all
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: of his command control notes. We took out his infrastructure,
[1:07:13] Speaker 1: We bombed the Iraqi Army barracks. You know, we tried
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: to but ASPS ammunition supply points. What are they filled with?
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: Aircraft munitions, artillery munitions, mortar munition, you know, recoilleiss rifle rounds.
[1:07:27] Speaker 1: I mean there's some there's some heavy munitions in these asps.
[1:07:30] Speaker 1: So if you send, you know, you send a couple
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: of jadeams through the roof for some penetrating bunker buster bombs,
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: keeping things you know, not going through you know, GBU
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: or you know, I'm not going to go through the
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: crazy nobenclature for our audience, but you get the gist.
[1:07:45] Speaker 1: Once you bomb these things, all did was it mushroom
[1:07:47] Speaker 1: clouded and it spread that unexploded ordnance through the desert.
[1:07:51] Speaker 1: So now you have let's call it a let's call
[1:07:55] Speaker 1: it a four click perimeter, a circular, you know, four
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: kilometers and there's U XO all over the place. So
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: once we transitioned from you know to more of an
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: ied fight, all the you know, all the Mujahideen or
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: AQUI had to do is go drive to these old
[1:08:12] Speaker 1: a sps and pick up whatever the hell they wanted
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: to throw in the trunk of their car and drive off.
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: And they could build as much as many i ds
[1:08:18] Speaker 1: as they wanted to build.
[1:08:20] Speaker 3: So our job was this. We partnered with tetritech in
[1:08:24] Speaker 3: EOD Technologies eo DT. Those were the EOD.
[1:08:27] Speaker 1: Techs that were retired that were contracted. Now while they're
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: digging bombs out of the dirt and they're every day
[1:08:34] Speaker 1: we're doing a bit, we're blown in place, you know,
[1:08:37] Speaker 1: a half a ton shot, a one ton shot, however many,
[1:08:39] Speaker 1: however many munitions we can dig out, they're putting C
[1:08:42] Speaker 1: four on it and bibbing it. Well, somebody has to
[1:08:44] Speaker 1: provide security because now we're we're pissing off the you know,
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: the bad guys by denying them access to UXO. So
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: I think, you know, we were on that contract. We
[1:08:55] Speaker 1: were truly alone and unafraid. There was maybe thirty of
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: us maybe you know. We had up armored F three
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: fifties with and we would build you know, fighting tubs
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: out of the rear. We had to weld that stuff ourselves.
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: All we had was saws, M fours and nine milimeter
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: pistols and we had nothing but Motorola radios and all
[1:09:14] Speaker 1: they could do is talk to each other. But we
[1:09:17] Speaker 1: had another company called the ie PC, which is the
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: Iraqi something protection company. They basically hired a bunch of
[1:09:24] Speaker 1: former Iraqi soldiers as contractors, and we hired like five
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: hundred of them. And by and by we, I mean
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: sok right. So they were the outer perimeter, outer cordon,
[1:09:34] Speaker 1: and they had you know, pkms and machine pkm machine
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: guns and like century posts set up while in the
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: inner workings of our circle we were providing close protection
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: for the EOD text while they dug out the you know,
[1:09:47] Speaker 1: the unexploded ordinance. Now these were called remote sites. So
[1:09:51] Speaker 1: ASP fifteen Bravo, for example, was just over by Takrit
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: Saddam's hometown cop spiker. I think anyway, I might might
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: have got that wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's right,
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: just Is Man. We would spend two to three months
[1:10:06] Speaker 1: at an ASP before it was cleaned up, and then
[1:10:09] Speaker 1: we'd go to a new one. And when we went
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: to the next one, the EO detector or the eodtect
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: dudes would take these specialized mental detectors called sean stats
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: and they would figure out basically figure out and map
[1:10:22] Speaker 1: the perimeter of where all this UXO, you know, like
[1:10:25] Speaker 1: how wide do we need to set up securitys to
[1:10:27] Speaker 1: just what's our working area going to be defined?
[1:10:29] Speaker 3: As does that make sense.
[1:10:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're almost like you're almost like plotting out
[1:10:33] Speaker 2: a minefield.
[1:10:34] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: And then and then dude, honestly, rinse and repeat. So
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: dig up as much uxo as you can, bip it,
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: you know, make sure it's clean enough ish, and then
[1:10:42] Speaker 1: let's rock and roll over to the next site. So
[1:10:44] Speaker 1: that that brought me from damn uh you know, up
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: into krit all the way down to Baghdad, all the
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: way west through.
[1:10:52] Speaker 3: Nasarawas Salam to West Ramadi. And yeah, man, it was.
[1:11:02] Speaker 2: Yeah dude, Yeah, when you got done with the contracting,
[1:11:05] Speaker 2: is that when you moved over to Anglico.
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's funny. Man.
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: So I got done with the contract, I got shit
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: camped by Blackwater, and but like I've got money, so
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: I'm on this like whatever, dude, I'm in Florida. I've
[1:11:18] Speaker 1: got a ton of cash in the bank. I got
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: a two bed you know, two bath condo and boker
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: a tone in Florida, you know what I mean, just
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: living man, L I V I and brother. So yeah, man,
[1:11:30] Speaker 1: it was cool because I'm going down near Pombi to
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: International Airport one day and this Belvetere Road and I
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: see this Navy Marine Corps Support Reserve Center, and I'm like,
[1:11:41] Speaker 1: what the hell is that Marine Corps? I see these humbies.
[1:11:44] Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, Repel Tower. I'm like, let's go
[1:11:47] Speaker 1: check that out. You know, I still got a military ID. Yeah,
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: so yeah, dude, I walk into civilian clothes, kind of
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: got long hair, and I'm just going I'm walking down
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: the hallway and the left side of the building as
[1:11:59] Speaker 1: you walk in the Navy the right size all Marines,
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: and this is fourth Anglico Aeronaval Gunfire Liaison Company, Right.
[1:12:05] Speaker 3: I have no idea what the hell it is.
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: I saw a second Anglico while I was at Campbell June,
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: but I didn't know much about it.
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: Man, nobody does. Nobody knows who Anglico is. Even the Marines.
[1:12:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, even half the guy's in Anglico don't truly understand
[1:12:20] Speaker 1: what Anglico is and what is capable of.
[1:12:22] Speaker 3: Right.
[1:12:22] Speaker 1: So, but dude, imagine this man, here's this dude in
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: me right, kind of kind of weird. As you can tell.
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: Everybody listening knows this guy's pretty weird. But I'm walking
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: down the hallway and this gunny pops his head out
[1:12:34] Speaker 1: and he's one of he's like super friendly. His name
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: is Reid Hollander. He goes, hey, Marine, and I purposely
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: just kept walking. I'm like, he's not talking to me.
[1:12:44] Speaker 3: Can't be.
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: I'm a civilian, but I'm the only dude in the hallway.
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: So he goes Marine, Hey, Marine, and I'm like, ah,
[1:12:51] Speaker 1: he's got me pegged. So I turn around. I'm like, hey,
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: what's up man. He's like, hey, I'm going to be
[1:12:56] Speaker 1: starting Hollander.
[1:12:57] Speaker 3: You know who are you.
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: I was like, I'm George. What's up man? He's like
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: are you a marine? I'm like you know. So he's like,
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: what's your would you do in the Marine Corps? So
[1:13:08] Speaker 1: I basically told him everything I told you in short
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: order and uh. He's like, hey, do me a favorite
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: coming to my office? Bro, let's have a chat. So
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: he sends me down and he explains to me the
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: core mission of Anglico and kind of what they do.
[1:13:21] Speaker 1: And I'm like, wait a minute. So although I'm a reservist,
[1:13:26] Speaker 1: I can pump out and like, you know, you'll join
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: me to your unit as an O three eleven. He goes, yeah,
[1:13:31] Speaker 1: you know, you'll be an MS mismatch, but we don't
[1:13:34] Speaker 1: really care. You know your experiences is needed here. I'm like,
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: all right, man, let's do it.
[1:13:41] Speaker 3: I'm in.
[1:13:42] Speaker 1: So basically I call the prior service recruiter and get
[1:13:45] Speaker 1: a contract and I rock out at Fourth Anglico and
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: I just loved it.
[1:13:51] Speaker 2: Were they going to make you when you since you
[1:13:53] Speaker 2: were going there with the wrong MOS at some point?
[1:13:57] Speaker 2: Were you going to have to go back through an
[1:13:58] Speaker 2: MS school?
[1:14:00] Speaker 3: Yeah? So I fought it.
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: I fought it tooth and nail. I wanted to be
[1:14:04] Speaker 1: I wanted to remain O three something, just because that's
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: how you're brought up. And again you're talking to me
[1:14:09] Speaker 1: about your exactly, dude, and I didn't want Hey, you
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: said it, not me, brother, But I had no appreciation
[1:14:17] Speaker 1: for enablers or you know, uh, support personnel like I
[1:14:21] Speaker 1: just I didn't get it, you know. So finally I
[1:14:25] Speaker 1: do a deployment as an O three eleven. No, actually
[1:14:29] Speaker 1: check that I did. I did retrain, but there was
[1:14:31] Speaker 1: no plan. Right, So the way this worked out is,
[1:14:36] Speaker 1: you know, I get put on orders to basically be
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: active duty at this joint, right, so I'm helping out.
[1:14:41] Speaker 1: I'm I'm in the shop every day. Now, I'm showing
[1:14:43] Speaker 1: up at zero eight. I'm out of there by sixteen hundred,
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: so you know, I'm one of the guys making friends.
[1:14:48] Speaker 1: Everyone's super cool Anglo bros. Right, everybody's brody, and these
[1:14:52] Speaker 1: dudes are hyper intelligent. And one of the things I
[1:14:54] Speaker 1: appreciated about the reserves right off the rip was this
[1:14:58] Speaker 1: is not your average marine unit. Everyone hears from South Florida.
[1:15:01] Speaker 1: Everybody's a de agent or everybody's you know, like some
[1:15:05] Speaker 1: kind of high end law enforcement dude. You got a
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: lot of firemen, which is what I am now. And yeah,
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: just you know again, there was another guy who was
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: an attorney in there. There's just various jobs. A lot
[1:15:17] Speaker 1: of guys are working, you know, with there were contractors,
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: so you had some talent, Like there was a talent
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: pool here and people knock on reservists. But man, these
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: dudes were smart, so you always want to be the
[1:15:29] Speaker 1: dumbest guy in the room. So I dug it, like
[1:15:32] Speaker 1: where do I sign? I meet this fighter pilot, Sam Griffith.
[1:15:35] Speaker 1: He's a Ford Air controller. And now I start learning
[1:15:39] Speaker 1: that our pilots get ripped out of the cockpit for
[1:15:41] Speaker 1: a three year factor for a Ford Air controller. So
[1:15:44] Speaker 1: I meet Sam Griffith, and anyway, he's like, hey, George,
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: I'll make you a deal. I'm like, what's up, man,
[1:15:50] Speaker 1: He's like, if you teach me the grunt stuff, the tactics,
[1:15:53] Speaker 1: you know, the shooting stuff, I'll start training me up
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: and you know, we'll look at becoming a j tach.
[1:15:59] Speaker 3: How does that sound? Like?
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: All right, it sounds pretty cool, you know. So yeah,
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: I go to eight six to one school, which I
[1:16:08] Speaker 1: hated and back then it was it was but I
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: love the last part of it in Coronado. Oh it
[1:16:14] Speaker 1: was so cool. But I go to four weeks in
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: Fort Sill. I go to four weeks in Coronado, California
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: for the Naval Gunfire Spotters course, and in that moment
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: I fell in love with being an O eight six
[1:16:25] Speaker 1: to one in Coronado.
[1:16:27] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man. And when we went out to uh
[1:16:30] Speaker 3: went out to San Clemente, did the naval gunfire exercise.
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: They don't even do that anymore.
[1:16:36] Speaker 3: I know, it's a bummer.
[1:16:37] Speaker 2: I heard that they moved it from Coronado and it's
[1:16:40] Speaker 2: I think it's like a digital course now. Just at
[1:16:42] Speaker 2: the end of Fort Sill, I was like, oh.
[1:16:46] Speaker 3: Oh yeah that you really can't you need to see
[1:16:51] Speaker 3: to appreciate your MOS, you need to see the power
[1:16:54] Speaker 3: of even five inch guns. You need to see the
[1:16:57] Speaker 3: power of naval gunfire.
[1:16:58] Speaker 2: I'm with you. I think that it's biggest thing.
[1:17:01] Speaker 3: It thrashes the earth.
[1:17:04] Speaker 2: I mean, not even any weapon system that you're being
[1:17:07] Speaker 2: expected to employ if you've never seen it drop live,
[1:17:10] Speaker 2: that's that's ridiculous. Which and I'll say this. I say
[1:17:15] Speaker 2: that as a guy that went to TCP school and
[1:17:18] Speaker 2: then when I went to go do my deployment. So
[1:17:20] Speaker 2: when you go through TCP school on the East Coast,
[1:17:22] Speaker 2: you're using almost all dumb training ordnance. You're not using
[1:17:27] Speaker 2: any lives because none of the ranges on the East Coast,
[1:17:29] Speaker 2: not many ranges let you allow, will drop a live
[1:17:32] Speaker 2: ordinance on. So I did my schoolhouse, went through TCP school,
[1:17:36] Speaker 2: became a jaytach, then got immediately attached to an advisor team.
[1:17:39] Speaker 2: And because my advisor team workup was not a traditional
[1:17:42] Speaker 2: work up, there was no jtach training, so I never
[1:17:45] Speaker 2: got to see or anything a live bomb until I
[1:17:48] Speaker 2: got to Afghanistan. I was like, this is kind of
[1:17:51] Speaker 2: fucked up that I was complaining about it the whole time,
[1:17:54] Speaker 2: But you know, to your point.
[1:17:55] Speaker 3: That's crazy wow, man.
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: But you know what I think is cool though, is
[1:18:02] Speaker 1: you know you still found a way to fall in
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: love with the MOS Because now, the way I started
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: looking at it was this, I'm like, all right, man, George,
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: quit your bitching.
[1:18:10] Speaker 3: Like you know, I do that a lot now.
[1:18:12] Speaker 1: I'm really very introspective kind of guy. So whenever I
[1:18:15] Speaker 1: catch myself, you know, with a poor thinking pattern, I
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: snag it. So I was like, dude, get over yourself,
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: humble up.
[1:18:24] Speaker 3: This is rad.
[1:18:25] Speaker 1: You're learning new material, you're exposing yourself to new things,
[1:18:29] Speaker 1: and this is really healthy and good for you, man.
[1:18:31] Speaker 1: And if you embrace this, there's some folks here at
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: Fourth Anglico that are really going to take good care
[1:18:36] Speaker 1: of you.
[1:18:37] Speaker 3: Man.
[1:18:37] Speaker 1: And you found yourself a good group of guys. You
[1:18:40] Speaker 1: found a good team, and I really did. I considered
[1:18:43] Speaker 1: that to be my home unit. So yeah, man, I
[1:18:48] Speaker 1: once I got out of the once I got my
[1:18:50] Speaker 1: eight six to one MS, I immediately went to JFO
[1:18:53] Speaker 1: Joint Fires Observer. Dude, I was the third class like
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: ever oh really?
[1:18:59] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[1:18:59] Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: So I was the third class ever And I think
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: at this time we're talking again eight timeframe.
[1:19:07] Speaker 3: Man, it became a JFO. So then I deployed to Iraq.
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: This will be my third trip to Iraq with Fourth Anglico,
[1:19:16] Speaker 1: but we detached from Fourth Anglico and attached to Second Anglico.
[1:19:21] Speaker 2: So okay, Yeah, that happens a lot with the reserve units.
[1:19:24] Speaker 2: They'll they'll send out either maybe just a firepower control
[1:19:27] Speaker 2: team or maybe sometimes an entire salt and they attached
[1:19:30] Speaker 2: to the active duty unit's mission. You said, I remember,
[1:19:35] Speaker 2: I know the name. I know Major Griffith's story because
[1:19:38] Speaker 2: I was actually I think I got to Afghanistan right
[1:19:40] Speaker 2: after he got killed, or maybe I was getting ready
[1:19:42] Speaker 2: to leave Afghanistan when he got killed. It was one
[1:19:45] Speaker 2: or the other. And then I also know Jason Hartzel.
[1:19:48] Speaker 2: You know Jason.
[1:19:50] Speaker 1: Jason's one of my best friends in the world. And
[1:19:53] Speaker 1: Major Griffith is also Sam Griffith. He was my absolute friend.
[1:19:57] Speaker 1: He was he was my fifth team leader when I
[1:19:58] Speaker 1: went to Iraq with him. We spent a lot lot
[1:20:00] Speaker 1: of time together.
[1:20:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've only heard good things about him, especially from Jason,
[1:20:05] Speaker 2: who I went, of course with him. He and I
[1:20:08] Speaker 2: were Yeah, I've tried to get Jason to come on.
[1:20:10] Speaker 2: If you're watching this.
[1:20:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so give me a call brother.
[1:20:15] Speaker 1: Yeah he's yeah, he's a super stud man Sam Griffith's gig.
[1:20:20] Speaker 1: So his call sign was swack slewable Wide Acquisition Radar.
[1:20:25] Speaker 1: So if you can see my face, I'm going to
[1:20:26] Speaker 1: do it right. So, say there's a dude over here
[1:20:29] Speaker 1: and he tells a funny joke, Sam would go, you know,
[1:20:34] Speaker 1: so he would slew his eyes to the left, but
[1:20:37] Speaker 1: his head would stay to the front and he would
[1:20:38] Speaker 1: just kind of scan the room by moving his eyes around.
[1:20:41] Speaker 1: His head would be stationary. So they gave him the
[1:20:44] Speaker 1: call sign SWACK for slewable wide act.
[1:20:46] Speaker 2: That's funny.
[1:20:48] Speaker 1: But he uh, he was a dork in all the
[1:20:51] Speaker 1: right ways. That guy had a twenty pound brain and
[1:20:55] Speaker 1: he was an expert in becoming an expert. So that's
[1:20:59] Speaker 1: that made my job difficult when it came to you know,
[1:21:02] Speaker 1: teaching tactics and you know, weapons manipulation and stuff like that,
[1:21:05] Speaker 1: because he he was asking me such in depth questions
[1:21:08] Speaker 1: that I really had to dig to satisfy it, you know,
[1:21:11] Speaker 1: and answer him correctly. And he, you know, his exacting
[1:21:14] Speaker 1: standards were the same out of me. Right, Like, when
[1:21:17] Speaker 1: it came time to train me with you know, air
[1:21:19] Speaker 1: delivered fires.
[1:21:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, it has to be, you know what I mean.
[1:21:23] Speaker 2: Correct me if I'm wrong, But it's my understanding that
[1:21:25] Speaker 2: he was actually killed on a patrol that he wasn't
[1:21:27] Speaker 2: supposed to be on, but he volunteered to take it
[1:21:30] Speaker 2: so one of his guys could have a day off.
[1:21:32] Speaker 1: It was heart It was Hertzel. Yeah, Heartzel want he
[1:21:36] Speaker 1: needed he needed it. He Heartzell was getting it every day.
[1:21:41] Speaker 1: I mean every day, you know, and he was he
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: just but you.
[1:21:44] Speaker 3: Know, I.
[1:21:46] Speaker 1: The survivor's guilt thing is is something we all struggle with,
[1:21:51] Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's kind of you know, it's hey, man.
[1:21:57] Speaker 1: The the reality of it is is the way that
[1:22:00] Speaker 1: we can honor sam Is and and folks like them.
[1:22:03] Speaker 1: You know, all of our brethren that we've lost, right,
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: quite a few at this point. And it's just live
[1:22:07] Speaker 1: a rock star life, man, you know.
[1:22:09] Speaker 3: So you know, the guys. To my advice to everybody.
[1:22:12] Speaker 1: On the show who's listening, if you're the type of
[1:22:14] Speaker 1: dude who you know, there's no nothing wrong with wearing
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: a black bracelet. There's a whoop, by the way, but
[1:22:18] Speaker 1: if you have a black bracelet with a name engraved
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: on it. You know, it's a nice token a memorability, of.
[1:22:23] Speaker 3: Course it is.
[1:22:24] Speaker 1: But if you're hanging it on the glass, you know,
[1:22:26] Speaker 1: a whiskey glass, and on the on the day of
[1:22:29] Speaker 1: that person's death, if you're pouring, you know, a whiskey
[1:22:32] Speaker 1: shot in that glass and you're looking at it and
[1:22:34] Speaker 1: you're drinking your whiskey, and you know this happens annually
[1:22:38] Speaker 1: every year, and you cry it out like that's probably
[1:22:40] Speaker 1: not healthy. And I know that Sam is he wouldn't
[1:22:43] Speaker 1: want that, you know, he wouldn't want you mourning him
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: for an extended period of time. He would be like, dude,
[1:22:49] Speaker 1: get up off your ass and go do something with
[1:22:51] Speaker 1: your life that is going to better the society, you know,
[1:22:53] Speaker 1: society or the folks around you. You know, So crying
[1:22:57] Speaker 1: yourself to the bottom of the bottles really not the answer, you.
[1:23:00] Speaker 3: Know what I mean?
[1:23:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's it's yeah, that's not the
[1:23:05] Speaker 2: answer for a lot of people's like problems that they
[1:23:08] Speaker 2: go to it for. You know what I'm saying, Like
[1:23:10] Speaker 2: any kind of thing, like you gotta be positive. You know,
[1:23:13] Speaker 2: it's tough, and I get it where people get it's
[1:23:15] Speaker 2: obviously extremely hard and extremely upsetting. But I'm with you, man,
[1:23:19] Speaker 2: you have to go out and really make it worth it.
[1:23:24] Speaker 2: Really go enjoy yourself really, like like you said, would
[1:23:26] Speaker 2: they want you sitting there crying by yourself, at home,
[1:23:29] Speaker 2: drinking by yourself, or even at a bar by yourself.
[1:23:32] Speaker 2: Maybe if you're gonna go drink and celebrate it, then
[1:23:34] Speaker 2: grab some people and make it like a thing like
[1:23:36] Speaker 2: and make it like a little like get together or
[1:23:38] Speaker 2: party or something, not some somber event. You know what
[1:23:40] Speaker 2: I'm saying, Like, keep it positive, positive mindset. You know,
[1:23:45] Speaker 2: when you start going down that, especially when you're drinking, man,
[1:23:47] Speaker 2: you start thinking negative stuff. And you know, some guys
[1:23:50] Speaker 2: it's just it's too much for them. You gotta gotta
[1:23:54] Speaker 2: stay positive. It's very easy to delve into the negative
[1:23:57] Speaker 2: thoughts and negative mindset and this and this shouldn't have
[1:24:01] Speaker 2: been this way. And you know what, man, especially when
[1:24:03] Speaker 2: we're talking about combat stuff, the enemy had to say.
[1:24:06] Speaker 2: You know, it's not always something that we did wrong.
[1:24:08] Speaker 2: The enemy had to say in this too.
[1:24:10] Speaker 1: You know, yeah, the enemy always gets a vote. But
[1:24:14] Speaker 1: you know, man, it's yeah, it's it's it's tough, but
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: it's truly possible to move through post traumatic stress. You know,
[1:24:21] Speaker 1: the uh, the post traumatic growth side of the house
[1:24:24] Speaker 1: is truly obtainable.
[1:24:25] Speaker 3: You know. It's just there's a book out there.
[1:24:28] Speaker 1: It's called Resilience, Hard Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, right,
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: if you want to check it out. Is my buddy
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: and I Lee Bronco. He's another fourth angl coj Tach,
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: good guy. So we buy this book and we're kind
[1:24:42] Speaker 1: of book club and now right, but what this did.
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: It's like meditations, you know, Marcus Aurelius. It's got a Aristotle,
[1:24:49] Speaker 1: some Plato in there, a lot of ancient Greek. The
[1:24:51] Speaker 1: Greeks were smarter than us. You know, they had a
[1:24:54] Speaker 1: they had a term called you diemonia, which is basically
[1:24:57] Speaker 1: living a flourishing life. And you know, we were really
[1:25:01] Speaker 1: examining what that looks like, and we realized we weren't
[1:25:04] Speaker 1: doing it. So it's like, all right, man, I got
[1:25:07] Speaker 1: to get my thinkeology and check. I have to write
[1:25:10] Speaker 1: my thoughts and order my thinking. And then once I
[1:25:13] Speaker 1: do that, now I have a framework with which in
[1:25:17] Speaker 1: I you know, I can start to process information. So
[1:25:20] Speaker 1: now I can process, you know, the things that I
[1:25:23] Speaker 1: need to move through, and I think people get hung
[1:25:27] Speaker 1: up in one spot and I'm going to shut up
[1:25:30] Speaker 1: after this Newtonian physics. Right, So, like, we're not racketballs, dude.
[1:25:35] Speaker 1: So if I take a racketball, I throw it against
[1:25:37] Speaker 1: the wall and it returns to its original size and shape.
[1:25:40] Speaker 1: That's not what a human is, man. So you hit
[1:25:42] Speaker 1: a wall, you hit something hard, and I still have racketball. Okay,
[1:25:45] Speaker 1: it looks the same. Well, that's not us, man. The
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: obstacle is the way, and when you move through something,
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: you come out the other side with the right lens,
[1:25:54] Speaker 1: with the right perspective. You can be thankful for even
[1:25:57] Speaker 1: the most negative of experiences because you know, there's always
[1:26:00] Speaker 1: opportunity to grow and to learn and to you know,
[1:26:03] Speaker 1: to reshape your thinking about how you perceive stuff.
[1:26:07] Speaker 3: So, these guys who sacrifice their lives for us, it
[1:26:11] Speaker 3: took me a little while to figure this out.
[1:26:13] Speaker 1: But the one way that we can honor them is, yeah,
[1:26:16] Speaker 1: to remember them, continue mission and uh, you know, pick
[1:26:19] Speaker 1: something in life that is honorable, worthy of your time,
[1:26:21] Speaker 1: worth doing and uh and rocket you know.
[1:26:25] Speaker 2: Yeah dude, yeah, no, I'm one hundred percent with you. Man,
[1:26:28] Speaker 2: do something with it, you know, like like on saving
[1:26:30] Speaker 2: private Ryan where he's like earn this, you know, get
[1:26:33] Speaker 2: out there and fucking do something. It doesn't you know.
[1:26:36] Speaker 2: I would much rather hear somebody say that they're like
[1:26:38] Speaker 2: going and volunteering like a veteran cemetery or something like
[1:26:43] Speaker 2: that to honor somebody, you know, to clean it up,
[1:26:45] Speaker 2: or they're VFW, they're helping out something. You know, it's
[1:26:48] Speaker 2: something you know, like it doesn't have to all be
[1:26:50] Speaker 2: getting hammered and being sad. I'm with you there. Let's
[1:26:54] Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit more about Anglicos.
[1:26:57] Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to have enough. We might
[1:26:58] Speaker 2: get into some of your time at MARSOK and stuff,
[1:27:00] Speaker 2: but i'd like to talk about you know, a lot
[1:27:03] Speaker 2: of people again, a lot of people don't know. I
[1:27:05] Speaker 2: guess more of my audience knows you Anglico is obviously
[1:27:07] Speaker 2: because I've talked about it more on here, but a
[1:27:11] Speaker 2: lot of people don't really understand them. Can you give
[1:27:14] Speaker 2: us like your perception when you first got there of
[1:27:16] Speaker 2: what they did and then how that may be I
[1:27:18] Speaker 2: have shaped or maybe some cool training, Like what what
[1:27:21] Speaker 2: did you think about it? And what advice would you
[1:27:24] Speaker 2: give somebody that's maybe active duty now and they're thinking
[1:27:27] Speaker 2: about going to like an Anglico reserve unit.
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: Okay, so the reserve units, it's it's just static line,
[1:27:34] Speaker 1: but you have the advantage of going to jump school, right,
[1:27:36] Speaker 1: But Anglico to me, it makes more sense if you
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: say it backwards. So air naval gunfire liaison company, All right, cool?
[1:27:43] Speaker 1: What does all that mean? Well, it's a company sized
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: element of marines. So it's approximate two hundred and two
[1:27:48] Speaker 1: hundred fifty dudes, right that are liaisons right to other
[1:27:53] Speaker 1: units the customer. We export a capability and there's a
[1:27:57] Speaker 1: little bit of salesmanship there and being a liaison, putting
[1:28:00] Speaker 1: l and Anglico right, not loser in air and naval gunfire.
[1:28:04] Speaker 1: And with that obviously comes communications because you can't coordinate
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: naval gunfire, artillery, mortars or air without good comms. So
[1:28:11] Speaker 1: the gist is company sized element of dudes. You're a liaison,
[1:28:16] Speaker 1: so you're gonna be working with the ground combat element
[1:28:20] Speaker 1: guys and the air combat element guys. So let's put
[1:28:23] Speaker 1: this in an army term, so we make it really simple
[1:28:25] Speaker 1: for everybody who's listening. When the Army needs fix wing support,
[1:28:30] Speaker 1: they're going to have to go to the Air Force.
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: So now you have two agencies butting heads maybe, but
[1:28:36] Speaker 1: the coordination piece is definitelys's cross agency coordination.
[1:28:42] Speaker 3: Right.
[1:28:43] Speaker 1: What's beautiful about the Marine Corps way of war, the
[1:28:46] Speaker 1: way the Marine Corps fights is we bring the total
[1:28:48] Speaker 1: picture to the fight and that's ingrained in us in
[1:28:52] Speaker 1: our hearts from the word go. And what I mean
[1:28:54] Speaker 1: by that is the three dimensional battlefield because we have
[1:28:56] Speaker 1: the Marine Air and Ground Air Ground task So it's
[1:29:01] Speaker 1: a single cohesive task force where you have the air
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: combat element, it's all your air dudes, and we have aircraft.
[1:29:06] Speaker 1: Your ground combat element is the maneuver force, and everything
[1:29:09] Speaker 1: is based off of the ground combat element. Everything else
[1:29:12] Speaker 1: exists to support them. So and then you have a
[1:29:16] Speaker 1: logistics element.
[1:29:17] Speaker 3: Right, justin correct? Yeah, yeah, ye cool.
[1:29:22] Speaker 1: So what that means is in our very DNA is Marines,
[1:29:26] Speaker 1: what we do well is we integrate fires. So everything
[1:29:30] Speaker 1: in our mission planning from the word go is we're
[1:29:33] Speaker 1: incorporating artillery, we're incorporating mortars, we're incorporating air support. And
[1:29:39] Speaker 1: that that blend, that three hundred and sixty degree battlefield,
[1:29:43] Speaker 1: you know, three dimensional battlefield blend is in our very
[1:29:46] Speaker 1: DNA so when you have a customer, So now back
[1:29:49] Speaker 1: to Anglico. Anglico specializes in that, and then they dial
[1:29:53] Speaker 1: down on it, really drill down and teach you the
[1:29:56] Speaker 1: nitty gritty of how that looks. So would you get
[1:29:59] Speaker 1: to do is you get to go to a customer
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: like seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, and you get to go
[1:30:03] Speaker 1: to a customer like eighty second Airborne, hundred and first
[1:30:05] Speaker 1: Navy Seal Teams, Army special Forces, and you show up
[1:30:09] Speaker 1: as a single cohesive unit a firepower control team. So
[1:30:13] Speaker 1: you have a JTACK or a FACT, a joint terminal
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: attack controller or a forward air controller. The FACT is
[1:30:19] Speaker 1: a wing aviator, the J attack is not. The capability
[1:30:22] Speaker 1: is the same, right, So you have a J attack
[1:30:24] Speaker 1: or a FACT. You have two fire specialists and their
[1:30:28] Speaker 1: only job on Earth is to coordinate fires and help
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: the jtack out. And you have two communications specialists who
[1:30:34] Speaker 1: are also cross trained, and we're cross training comms. The
[1:30:38] Speaker 1: whole thing is awesome, but we're bringing the assets from
[1:30:41] Speaker 1: the Marine Corps, from the Marine Air Ground Task Force
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: to aid in whatever mission that they want to do.
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: So there's a lot of wiggle room with this. So Hey, customer,
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: whatever the hell you need, tell us what you need.
[1:30:56] Speaker 1: We'll set it up for you. We'll bring all we'll
[1:30:58] Speaker 1: bring all the secret sauce, we'll do all the behind
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: the scenes stuff, set up your com networks, but we'll
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: bring the fires whatever that looks like. So what you're
[1:31:07] Speaker 1: doing is you're sitting there with the ground commander, you're
[1:31:09] Speaker 1: sitting there with the squadron commanders, and you're the liaison
[1:31:12] Speaker 1: between the two and you make the solution fit. So
[1:31:15] Speaker 1: ANGLICO is a solutions based unit and it's the only
[1:31:20] Speaker 1: unit in the Marine Corps.
[1:31:20] Speaker 3: That doesn't work with marines.
[1:31:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, is that a good That's what I think. Yeah.
[1:31:26] Speaker 2: I think that's what a lot of people fail to
[1:31:28] Speaker 2: understand is they don't generally support marines. When I was
[1:31:31] Speaker 2: in Marja in twenty eleven with three six, we actually
[1:31:34] Speaker 2: had a firepower control team that would rotate between our
[1:31:37] Speaker 2: company positions to assist. But that was the only time
[1:31:40] Speaker 2: I've ever seen Anglico work with marines. Generally, they are
[1:31:46] Speaker 2: exactly what you said, they're the liaison element. We bring
[1:31:49] Speaker 2: all this Marine Air Ground Task Force, fire support elements
[1:31:52] Speaker 2: and all that stuff that other people could utilize but
[1:31:55] Speaker 2: they don't have the capability to do that. So Anglico
[1:31:58] Speaker 2: comes in with the communications and fire support exit birds
[1:32:00] Speaker 2: to allow the Army, the foreign French, foreign Legion, you know,
[1:32:06] Speaker 2: Royal Marines like whoever you're working with also command it
[1:32:12] Speaker 2: such one four eight battery I have. You know, those
[1:32:15] Speaker 2: guys used to come out to Pendleton twice a year.
[1:32:18] Speaker 2: I think you know, the Japanese would come out.
[1:32:21] Speaker 1: You know, Anglico scalability, so you know, to the point
[1:32:25] Speaker 1: like it's not just the four or five man fIF
[1:32:27] Speaker 1: team right, it's you know, I'm not even gonna get
[1:32:29] Speaker 1: into salts right now, but THEI just is is that
[1:32:31] Speaker 1: I'll give you an example.
[1:32:32] Speaker 3: I had a buddy, Martin Castillo.
[1:32:35] Speaker 1: He was a single man detachment and he worked with
[1:32:38] Speaker 1: the Australian Special Boat Service SBS.
[1:32:41] Speaker 2: Yeah was it.
[1:32:42] Speaker 1: You know, the the opportunities are endless. The way that
[1:32:46] Speaker 1: the package can be tailored is basically to any size
[1:32:49] Speaker 1: and scope A single company of Anglico Marines can it's
[1:32:54] Speaker 1: that's a that's.
[1:32:55] Speaker 3: A big capability.
[1:32:57] Speaker 2: But here's the company is designed to support an Army.
[1:33:00] Speaker 1: Division division element correct, and that's yeah, that's a lot
[1:33:05] Speaker 1: of coordination for an entire division of a you know,
[1:33:07] Speaker 1: grand maneuver forces. So but the cool part about Anglico
[1:33:11] Speaker 1: for me was you get to shed that Marine Corps
[1:33:13] Speaker 1: identity a little bit, but no entire You're still a professional,
[1:33:16] Speaker 1: You're still United States Marine.
[1:33:17] Speaker 3: Right.
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: But you know, if you show up and you're a blockhead,
[1:33:21] Speaker 1: you know, and nobody likes you, and you talk like
[1:33:24] Speaker 1: a weirdo and you.
[1:33:25] Speaker 2: Hoor ruh, right right right, right right, h motard.
[1:33:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, if you're belt fed and like absolutely retarded,
[1:33:31] Speaker 1: nobody wants to talk to you.
[1:33:33] Speaker 3: So you gotta you gotta be.
[1:33:35] Speaker 1: There's something ess and you have to kind of adopt
[1:33:38] Speaker 1: the culture of the unit you're supporting.
[1:33:40] Speaker 2: I don't think I ever did a running cadence while
[1:33:42] Speaker 2: I was at Anglico.
[1:33:43] Speaker 3: No, I hated that.
[1:33:44] Speaker 2: No, I don't know even sure while I was there
[1:33:46] Speaker 2: if we ever did a company run. But I literally
[1:33:48] Speaker 2: showed up to Anglico on a Friday and then checked
[1:33:51] Speaker 2: out on Monday and checked in to the MEW to
[1:33:54] Speaker 2: start my work up with my A. My Anglo team
[1:33:56] Speaker 2: had already checked into the MEW the week prior before me,
[1:33:59] Speaker 2: so I showed up up was like welcome Anglico. You're
[1:34:01] Speaker 2: on deployment head over there, so I didn't really get
[1:34:03] Speaker 2: to do some of the other stuff that everybody else
[1:34:05] Speaker 2: had to do. But man, it's it is a good time.
[1:34:07] Speaker 2: I love Anglico. The Reserve Anglicos are, you know, they're great.
[1:34:11] Speaker 2: They used to come out to both San Clemente Island
[1:34:14] Speaker 2: when I was there, and then also on the east
[1:34:16] Speaker 2: coast up to Le June and stuff like that. And
[1:34:20] Speaker 2: I've worked with both third and Fourth Anglico guys. I've
[1:34:23] Speaker 2: actually worked with some six Anglico guys, but I'm not
[1:34:25] Speaker 2: sure if I worked with them while they were at
[1:34:28] Speaker 2: six Anglico. It might have been before they were with
[1:34:30] Speaker 2: six Anglico. But because that's the newer one, you know's.
[1:34:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, my commanding aunt or my fires basically on the
[1:34:40] Speaker 1: Marsok fire side of the house.
[1:34:43] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:34:43] Speaker 1: My CEO at the time was Major Zila, Lieutenant Colonel z Isla,
[1:34:47] Speaker 1: I think was the first CEO of six Anglico when
[1:34:49] Speaker 1: it stood up.
[1:34:50] Speaker 2: Man, that name sounds so familiar, Zilah names. It's funny
[1:34:55] Speaker 2: because we're in this small community, right, Anglico fire support
[1:34:58] Speaker 2: community the Marine were in general, so it's like some
[1:35:01] Speaker 2: of these names you're throwing out there, I'm like, wait,
[1:35:03] Speaker 2: I think I know that name. You know, it's such
[1:35:05] Speaker 2: a it's quite possible to know them. But when you're
[1:35:10] Speaker 2: talking about Mars sock fires, we can we can get
[1:35:13] Speaker 2: into this for a little bit. What all right? I mean,
[1:35:16] Speaker 2: I guess before we get into that, is there anything
[1:35:17] Speaker 2: else you wanted to talk about for Anglico, any of
[1:35:19] Speaker 2: your deployments or anything.
[1:35:22] Speaker 1: No, not really, it was you know, the the other
[1:35:25] Speaker 1: part of Anglicoe that people don't realize is it's not
[1:35:27] Speaker 1: just dropping bombs. You know that, that's not it. You're
[1:35:30] Speaker 1: You're there to provide solutions. I'm not going to get
[1:35:33] Speaker 1: into the electronic warfare side of the house, or you know,
[1:35:36] Speaker 1: the ability to you know, work with signals intelligence, uh,
[1:35:39] Speaker 1: human source intelligence to start layering that, to develop pictures
[1:35:42] Speaker 1: and developing strike packages.
[1:35:45] Speaker 3: There's a lot of.
[1:35:46] Speaker 1: Things that you can do as a jay attack or
[1:35:50] Speaker 1: a fact you give, you you give your you give
[1:35:54] Speaker 1: your ground commanders. You're giving them options, yeah, for sure.
[1:35:57] Speaker 1: So you know, you're helping to shape the battlefield and
[1:36:00] Speaker 1: cific particular way. So it's not just like let's just
[1:36:04] Speaker 1: go put warheads on everybody's forehead type of thing. It's
[1:36:07] Speaker 1: I mean, that's great, love doing it right, Yeah, but
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: now there's there's.
[1:36:13] Speaker 2: I've heard that the Anglico kind of mission and capabilities
[1:36:16] Speaker 2: has been kind of shifting the last like eight years
[1:36:20] Speaker 2: or so, as you know, different capabilities become available and
[1:36:23] Speaker 2: different technologies become available, you know, and stuff like that.
[1:36:26] Speaker 2: So I've heard that the mission that I remember when
[1:36:29] Speaker 2: I was there is kind of still there, but that's
[1:36:32] Speaker 2: not necessarily the focus as much anymore. So I'm interested
[1:36:36] Speaker 2: to hear from people when, you know, when all that
[1:36:38] Speaker 2: stuff becomes available to the public. But yeah, man, yeah, man.
[1:36:42] Speaker 2: So I'm talking about brother, how'd you move from there
[1:36:44] Speaker 2: to MARSK Then let's talk about that.
[1:36:47] Speaker 1: I got out again, so I did the point.
[1:36:50] Speaker 3: I know.
[1:36:51] Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm going back to college. So
[1:36:53] Speaker 1: I did the same thing. I went back to Florida
[1:36:55] Speaker 1: Atlantic University. I moved in with my buddy from Anglico,
[1:36:58] Speaker 1: so we were both sergeants at the time. But again,
[1:37:01] Speaker 1: another another condo in Boca just kind of chilling and
[1:37:04] Speaker 1: there's this like party lake. It's kind of cool. We
[1:37:06] Speaker 1: had a buddy with a nice boat. So, you know,
[1:37:09] Speaker 1: after my fourth deployment. I just I just got back
[1:37:13] Speaker 1: from Afghanistan.
[1:37:14] Speaker 3: I did.
[1:37:15] Speaker 1: I did a pump with Echo two to one where
[1:37:17] Speaker 1: I became the company j attack for them. Anyway, point
[1:37:21] Speaker 1: is now I got three chores Iraq, one to Afghanistan,
[1:37:24] Speaker 1: and I come home. I'm I'm done, brother, I'm out.
[1:37:27] Speaker 1: That's the way I'm thinking. So now I'm in the
[1:37:29] Speaker 1: Inactive Ready Reserves or the i r R. What that
[1:37:33] Speaker 1: is is you are a civilian, but you're still on
[1:37:36] Speaker 1: the books in case right kind of. That's the best
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: way I can describe it to civilian listeners. So here,
[1:37:43] Speaker 1: I am on the books in case right.
[1:37:45] Speaker 3: But no, I'm on a boat.
[1:37:47] Speaker 1: And I'm in Lake Boca and I'm having some drinks
[1:37:49] Speaker 1: with my buddies and I am getting a sun tan
[1:37:52] Speaker 1: and I'm enjoying life.
[1:37:53] Speaker 3: Man, and my phone ranks.
[1:37:55] Speaker 1: So I pick up the phone and it's my buddy,
[1:37:57] Speaker 1: Brodie Ziggler, and he calls me up, and you know,
[1:38:02] Speaker 1: he's like, hey, George, He's like, what's going on?
[1:38:04] Speaker 3: Man? He goes, what are you doing? So I told
[1:38:06] Speaker 3: him everything I just told you. He's like, are you fat?
[1:38:10] Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I'm not fat.
[1:38:12] Speaker 1: You know, like like why. He's like good, and he's like,
[1:38:14] Speaker 1: you know, how'd you like to come up to MARSK.
[1:38:16] Speaker 1: We need combat experience SHA attacks. We're digging and you
[1:38:20] Speaker 1: know we it's a kind of a by name thing,
[1:38:22] Speaker 1: like we know dudes, and you know, your background is unique.
[1:38:25] Speaker 1: You've got the grunt side of the house. He kind
[1:38:27] Speaker 1: of did some other stuff, but you're also a combat
[1:38:30] Speaker 1: experience SHA attack and we'd love to have you come
[1:38:32] Speaker 1: on up and you know, give this a shot.
[1:38:35] Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm mind blown. I don't know what to think, right.
[1:38:38] Speaker 1: So he's like, well, we'll send you buy name orders
[1:38:40] Speaker 1: and we'll we'll FedEx that to you. We'll have it
[1:38:42] Speaker 1: to you in thirty days. You'll have to withdraw from
[1:38:45] Speaker 1: all your classes at FAU. You'll have to pack your
[1:38:47] Speaker 1: shit and put it in a pod and you know,
[1:38:49] Speaker 1: hop in your vic and make movement up to Campbell
[1:38:52] Speaker 1: June and we'll see a stone bait.
[1:38:53] Speaker 3: Dude knows this.
[1:38:55] Speaker 2: And these are active you're are you? Are you still
[1:38:57] Speaker 2: a reservist being activated for this? Are you going on
[1:39:01] Speaker 2: active duty?
[1:39:02] Speaker 1: So it was my understanding that I was the first
[1:39:06] Speaker 1: reserve like dude to be plucked, you know, to come
[1:39:11] Speaker 1: to work for MARSOK as a jay attack. Now subsequent
[1:39:14] Speaker 1: friends of mine very in very short order, we're doing
[1:39:17] Speaker 1: the same thing.
[1:39:18] Speaker 3: But uh, MARSOK.
[1:39:20] Speaker 1: You know, as an active duty unit, they don't really
[1:39:22] Speaker 1: know how to write orders. So this was basically PCs orders.
[1:39:28] Speaker 1: I forgot the actual name of them, but they were
[1:39:30] Speaker 1: active duty orders that I got. You know, when you
[1:39:33] Speaker 1: activate a reservist, orders are supposed to be written in
[1:39:36] Speaker 1: a particular way, you know, for a period of service
[1:39:39] Speaker 1: up to three years. Yeah, right, cool, But there was
[1:39:44] Speaker 1: no like expiration date on this. But the whole point
[1:39:47] Speaker 1: of me to come here was to go through to
[1:39:51] Speaker 1: reduce here school, which sucked, but it was it was fine.
[1:39:56] Speaker 1: I actually went to another cool seer course. It's pretty
[1:39:59] Speaker 1: fun then to do marsoft fires, which I did at
[1:40:03] Speaker 1: top Gun at Naval Fighter Weapons School in Fallon right
[1:40:05] Speaker 1: with actual top gun students. That was pretty neat. So
[1:40:08] Speaker 1: that was kind of my culminating event. And then that,
[1:40:12] Speaker 1: you know, and then Special Operations Training Course or STC.
[1:40:16] Speaker 1: They and by day I mean the powers that be
[1:40:19] Speaker 1: at MARSAC headquarters. They take a look at your reserve
[1:40:22] Speaker 1: qualification somewhere, your r QS. It's basically your reserve resume. Yeah,
[1:40:27] Speaker 1: and look at all the schools and all the training
[1:40:29] Speaker 1: that you've attended, and I already met the capability or
[1:40:32] Speaker 1: I already met the requirements for STC. So it's STC,
[1:40:36] Speaker 1: SYR and Marsoft Fires. Those three schools award you the
[1:40:40] Speaker 1: MOS of eighty seventy one socks b where Special Operations
[1:40:44] Speaker 1: Capability Specialist, Bravo Firepower Control. So that's where you are now,
[1:40:49] Speaker 1: Hominis Dominus. You are a Marsk jatac.
[1:40:53] Speaker 2: So yeah, Rhino sign off on you, right, and that
[1:40:55] Speaker 2: he was yeah, yeah, what a stud legends that's a
[1:41:00] Speaker 2: story in his Anglico legend and Marsk legend.
[1:41:04] Speaker 3: Yeah. Man, Yeah, he's a good dude. Man, he's a
[1:41:08] Speaker 3: good dude.
[1:41:10] Speaker 2: I've heard I've never I've never got an evaluation from him,
[1:41:12] Speaker 2: but I was like, I've always heard that he does
[1:41:15] Speaker 2: not fuck around on the evaluations.
[1:41:17] Speaker 3: No, and he hates a ten pilots, I mean.
[1:41:20] Speaker 2: Don't we all like we love but sometimes as Marsk
[1:41:24] Speaker 2: or I mean as Marine j tax like it's kind
[1:41:26] Speaker 2: of frustrating to work with a ten sometimes. Yeah, and
[1:41:29] Speaker 2: well and also the fratricide, like he has a really
[1:41:31] Speaker 2: great fratricide class. This maybe even before you probably didn't
[1:41:36] Speaker 2: receive I don't know if you received this or not
[1:41:37] Speaker 2: this before you get in there. When the when the
[1:41:40] Speaker 2: marine the Marstock j atack called on the A ten
[1:41:42] Speaker 2: on themselves. Yeah, did you get that course with him
[1:41:45] Speaker 2: or did that happen yet?
[1:41:47] Speaker 3: Uh?
[1:41:47] Speaker 1: No, that Marstalk j attack was one of my better friends.
[1:41:50] Speaker 1: He took me under his wing. You know, we're we're
[1:41:53] Speaker 1: talking about old old Ryan.
[1:41:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been on the show.
[1:41:56] Speaker 3: He's a wonderful man.
[1:41:59] Speaker 1: I don't have enough positive things to say about him.
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: But when I showed up there, he was the first.
[1:42:02] Speaker 3: Guy that I that I met.
[1:42:05] Speaker 1: And you want to talk about a humble kind, you know,
[1:42:08] Speaker 1: but seriously lethal and effective.
[1:42:11] Speaker 3: Dude.
[1:42:11] Speaker 1: He took me in Or's wing, started really getting me
[1:42:14] Speaker 1: dialed and showing me the ropes and yeah, he helped
[1:42:17] Speaker 1: quite a bit. The other thing is he helped reactivate
[1:42:20] Speaker 1: my TSSCI and then you know, I got a couple
[1:42:22] Speaker 1: read ends and that was neat. So he was a
[1:42:25] Speaker 1: huge advocate for me when I first got there.
[1:42:27] Speaker 2: When you got there, and you know, you're stepping into
[1:42:29] Speaker 2: this Marstock. So for anyone that thinks that you're kind
[1:42:32] Speaker 2: of path there sounds kind of weird. We have to
[1:42:34] Speaker 2: remember that this was early on, and early on, not
[1:42:38] Speaker 2: only were they looking for operators, which is why they
[1:42:40] Speaker 2: pulled all the recon guys, but they needed fire support
[1:42:43] Speaker 2: guys that could go in and be j tax and
[1:42:45] Speaker 2: do fire support planning and that kind of stuff. And
[1:42:47] Speaker 2: they needed people with experience. So it wasn't uncommon for
[1:42:50] Speaker 2: someone to get by name requested. You didn't necessarily have
[1:42:53] Speaker 2: to go try out because again, like we mentioned earlier,
[1:42:57] Speaker 2: the fire support community already is small. It's you know,
[1:43:00] Speaker 2: the Marine Corps small. The fire sport community is extremely small,
[1:43:03] Speaker 2: and then the j TACH community is even smaller. Like
[1:43:06] Speaker 2: if it's like if I don't know you, I for
[1:43:08] Speaker 2: sure know somebody that knows you, and I can reach
[1:43:10] Speaker 2: out to someone and be like, is this dude legit
[1:43:11] Speaker 2: or not? You know what I'm saying, right, So for
[1:43:14] Speaker 2: those that may think that your path there is kind
[1:43:16] Speaker 2: of strange, that's why.
[1:43:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a need. And but I mean you
[1:43:21] Speaker 1: still get screened. I mean you still have to go
[1:43:23] Speaker 1: through a screening process.
[1:43:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, and Rhino is you know, yeah, let's you go
[1:43:28] Speaker 2: out unless you could do.
[1:43:28] Speaker 1: It you took the words out of my mouth.
[1:43:32] Speaker 3: Pow.
[1:43:33] Speaker 2: He's a legend. Man, he's still a legend. I still get.
[1:43:36] Speaker 2: I did like a after he passed away, I did. Uh.
[1:43:39] Speaker 2: They asked me to do a T shirt for him,
[1:43:41] Speaker 2: one of a T shirts some of.
[1:43:42] Speaker 3: The guys that, oh man, I wanted one of those.
[1:43:44] Speaker 3: They're super rad.
[1:43:46] Speaker 2: Yeah I did. I'll send you a hold on Okay,
[1:43:49] Speaker 2: we'll talk about it after. But yeah, that's that's great though, man,
[1:43:51] Speaker 2: that you made it over there. What was like, you know,
[1:43:54] Speaker 2: you coming in off the reserves as an enabler, as
[1:43:58] Speaker 2: an enabler, You're already coming in as like an outsider
[1:44:01] Speaker 2: to a team, sure, but now you're coming in from
[1:44:03] Speaker 2: the reserves, and you know, they know that. What was
[1:44:05] Speaker 2: the vibe when you first showed up was like, oh
[1:44:07] Speaker 2: this fucking guy, here we go, you know? Or did
[1:44:09] Speaker 2: they were?
[1:44:09] Speaker 1: You pretty welcomed a little bit of both, right, So
[1:44:13] Speaker 1: you know, I didn't I didn't advertise the fact that
[1:44:15] Speaker 1: I just got pulled out of the reserves number one,
[1:44:16] Speaker 1: number two. You know, I was like, anywhere you go,
[1:44:20] Speaker 1: where you're new, as much as you're being assessed, I
[1:44:23] Speaker 1: try to assess back, right, because you know, you don't
[1:44:27] Speaker 1: just just because you're a dude and just because you
[1:44:29] Speaker 1: know you're blessed off. And I mean, you lay down
[1:44:31] Speaker 1: with dogs, you're gonna get fleas. So you gotta you
[1:44:33] Speaker 1: kind of gotta be choosy about who you align yourself with.
[1:44:36] Speaker 1: But everybody was pretty pretty professional. I mean there was
[1:44:39] Speaker 1: there was no.
[1:44:42] Speaker 3: I it was.
[1:44:43] Speaker 1: It was a bit of a new world. But I'll
[1:44:45] Speaker 1: tell you what, man, I got lucky and I got
[1:44:47] Speaker 1: chopped off to Cali. Somewhere in between there we did
[1:44:51] Speaker 1: a bunch of work ups, you know, went to Raven
[1:44:53] Speaker 1: MRX Raven Mission Mission Readiness Exercise and stuff. But here
[1:44:56] Speaker 1: I am, I'm on a team. And you know, so
[1:44:59] Speaker 1: back then was first SOB now it his first Marine
[1:45:01] Speaker 1: Raider Battalion, Charlie Company, Team three.
[1:45:06] Speaker 3: The gist is, yeah, sorry about that.
[1:45:10] Speaker 2: So I thought that was my phone.
[1:45:11] Speaker 1: I was like, no, yeah, I was looking at it.
[1:45:15] Speaker 1: If you're at that time, if you were going to
[1:45:17] Speaker 1: be in Marsak, Calie, Pendleton was the place to be,
[1:45:21] Speaker 1: man like.
[1:45:22] Speaker 3: I was stoked to be there.
[1:45:23] Speaker 1: Definitely wanted to be a West Coast guy because again
[1:45:26] Speaker 1: with sex two to one, I've already been to Cali
[1:45:28] Speaker 1: a bunch of times. It was kind of my place.
[1:45:31] Speaker 1: So yeah, I check into, check into my team. And
[1:45:33] Speaker 1: this is a really funny story about so event. You know,
[1:45:36] Speaker 1: eight one three three, we had a green on blue.
[1:45:38] Speaker 1: I'll get to that in a minute. But Matthew Manuki
[1:45:40] Speaker 1: and Ryan Jeskey sky Mote, I'm praying for your brothers.
[1:45:45] Speaker 1: You know, I'm praying for you, love you every day.
[1:45:47] Speaker 1: But Ryan Jeskey was the team chief, right, So Ryan
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: Jesky was in Generation Kill. You know my Forest Blue.
[1:45:54] Speaker 1: Rudy Reyes kind of like the old school recon community dudes.
[1:45:57] Speaker 1: He's he's about his old school as a gifts man.
[1:46:00] Speaker 1: And these dudes were first Recombattalion through First Force, and
[1:46:03] Speaker 1: you know they this was a tight knit team. And
[1:46:05] Speaker 1: all these dudes have been together for a very long
[1:46:07] Speaker 1: time and they've deployed together. So if you're gonna try
[1:46:10] Speaker 1: to crack your way into a team overnight, that's not
[1:46:12] Speaker 1: gonna happen with the guys that I was with. So
[1:46:15] Speaker 1: I remember this, this is I'm gonna make fun of myself.
[1:46:18] Speaker 1: So I show up to interview and you know, it's
[1:46:21] Speaker 1: just a welcoming on board interview, but It's like, hey,
[1:46:23] Speaker 1: you're gonna be the primary JA attach for this team.
[1:46:25] Speaker 3: Like what skills do you bring to the table? And
[1:46:29] Speaker 3: I'm like, let me think about this. M Well, you know, hey, Gunny,
[1:46:36] Speaker 3: you know I did this unique training, this unique training.
[1:46:39] Speaker 3: He's like, hey, do me a favor. Shut the fuck up.
[1:46:43] Speaker 1: He goes, nobody gives a shit about your military stuff, dude.
[1:46:46] Speaker 1: He goes, take a look around. Everyone does military stuff, brother.
[1:46:50] Speaker 3: He goes. What I'm asking is you got out you
[1:46:52] Speaker 3: came from.
[1:46:52] Speaker 1: The reserves, right. I'm like, yeah, I sure did, Gunny.
[1:46:55] Speaker 1: He's like, well, are you in like an ASE certified
[1:46:58] Speaker 1: mechanic or something.
[1:46:59] Speaker 3: I'm like, uh no, you know. He goes, do you
[1:47:02] Speaker 3: know anything about electrical work? And I'm like no. He goes,
[1:47:05] Speaker 3: you know, can you you know fix?
[1:47:07] Speaker 2: You know?
[1:47:07] Speaker 1: Do you know anything about HVAC systems or you know,
[1:47:09] Speaker 1: air conditioners, or like, do you have any skills like
[1:47:13] Speaker 1: a automotive repair or like what did you do in
[1:47:15] Speaker 1: the civilian.
[1:47:16] Speaker 3: World, you know?
[1:47:17] Speaker 1: And I was like, I was a contractor. He goes, oh, great,
[1:47:20] Speaker 1: another dirty fucking contractor.
[1:47:22] Speaker 3: Right. He's like, Okay, what man skills do you have?
[1:47:27] Speaker 1: And A's point blank this is what he's asking me.
[1:47:29] Speaker 1: And he's not being a dick. I mean, he kind
[1:47:30] Speaker 1: of is, but it's it's it's funny, but it's not,
[1:47:33] Speaker 1: you know. And I'm like, I surf.
[1:47:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, you think about your own self, You're like, damn,
[1:47:41] Speaker 2: what skills I was thinking about?
[1:47:43] Speaker 3: I was thinking about Keanu Reeves and point break is like,
[1:47:45] Speaker 3: I caught my first tube today, sir. You know, so
[1:47:49] Speaker 3: I didn't know what the hell to say, and I
[1:47:51] Speaker 3: now now I get what he meant, right, So yeah,
[1:47:55] Speaker 3: so ever since then, man, yeah, I do. I do
[1:47:59] Speaker 3: a lot of funny things. I you know, it was
[1:48:01] Speaker 3: a pipe fitter apprentice for a little while, and we'll
[1:48:03] Speaker 3: get into that later.
[1:48:04] Speaker 2: But just trying all these different that's what I mean.
[1:48:06] Speaker 2: But that's kind of what we were talking about earlier.
[1:48:08] Speaker 2: How it's okay when it's not a bad thing when
[1:48:12] Speaker 2: support people like join seal operations because they're bringing in
[1:48:16] Speaker 2: these extra skills that normally they wouldn't have, you know,
[1:48:20] Speaker 2: and they don't have to train somebody your train you're
[1:48:22] Speaker 2: the guy, you know. When I first got this is
[1:48:24] Speaker 2: nothing like that. But when I first I was a
[1:48:26] Speaker 2: mechanic when I first came in because I came in
[1:48:28] Speaker 2: open contract and I lap moved from a thirty five
[1:48:32] Speaker 2: twenty one to zero eight six'. One and WHEN i
[1:48:34] Speaker 2: first got to Tenth, marines we went out on like
[1:48:36] Speaker 2: a field op and our hum be broke down AND
[1:48:39] Speaker 2: i got underneath AND i was, like it's, this this
[1:48:40] Speaker 2: is what's wrong with it real, quick and they're, like oh,
[1:48:42] Speaker 2: shit and they're, like, yeah oh, yeah you used to
[1:48:44] Speaker 2: be a. Mechanic AND i was, like, yeah, dude so
[1:48:45] Speaker 2: Like i'm here to, help you, Know like that's so.
[1:48:48] Speaker 2: Cool it's one of those, skills you. Know and that's
[1:48:50] Speaker 2: SO i totally get what he's like getting, At, like
[1:48:53] Speaker 2: we got, it, dude you can, shoot but can you
[1:48:55] Speaker 2: build a ball when we need to build a fucking
[1:48:57] Speaker 2: camp out in the middle.
[1:48:58] Speaker 3: Of that's exactly what he.
[1:48:59] Speaker 1: Meant, yeah The, yeah those skills are. Invaluable they're absolutely,
[1:49:04] Speaker 1: invaluable you. Know and he's, like can you speak a?
[1:49:07] Speaker 1: Language so, anyway you, KNOW i think the WHEN i
[1:49:12] Speaker 1: started to, uh when we finally, Deployed i'll get into
[1:49:14] Speaker 1: that in a, minute BUT i started to really do my,
[1:49:17] Speaker 1: job you, know WHEN i was able to h start
[1:49:20] Speaker 1: tracking significant activities and start putting pin pricks and the you,
[1:49:24] Speaker 1: know my my maps and tracking trends and actually developing
[1:49:28] Speaker 1: the battle space and taking a look at WHAT i
[1:49:30] Speaker 1: got going. On, uh THEN i knew what to target
[1:49:32] Speaker 1: WITH isr AND i actually started to be able to
[1:49:36] Speaker 1: prosecute some good targets and they're, like all, right this
[1:49:39] Speaker 1: guy switched the fuck. On but it took a, lot you,
[1:49:42] Speaker 1: know for people to realize that you're competent and.
[1:49:44] Speaker 2: Capable, YEAH i, mean when you're an outsider coming into
[1:49:47] Speaker 2: a team that's been, together even for just a little,
[1:49:49] Speaker 2: while and in training, together you're the. Outsider you got
[1:49:52] Speaker 2: to prove. Yourself still they already know within the team
[1:49:54] Speaker 2: who can do. What now you're an, unknown you're an unknown,
[1:49:57] Speaker 2: entity and you have to come in and show that
[1:49:59] Speaker 2: you're an, asset you. Know AND i think that's WHY
[1:50:03] Speaker 2: i really enjoyed being a, jaytach and that's WHY i
[1:50:06] Speaker 2: really enjoyed being on like smaller teams and doing stuff like,
[1:50:08] Speaker 2: that because it's LIKE i always wanted to feel LIKE
[1:50:13] Speaker 2: i was, contributing you, KNOW i. Didn't you never want
[1:50:16] Speaker 2: to be the weak, link AND i always like striving to,
[1:50:18] Speaker 2: like you, KNOW i don't, know you get you have
[1:50:20] Speaker 2: to have that mentality right to like go into those
[1:50:22] Speaker 2: kind of jobs and those kind of skills where you're
[1:50:24] Speaker 2: just you, know because that THAT i don't want to
[1:50:27] Speaker 2: be the weak link mentality OR i don't want to
[1:50:29] Speaker 2: like be whatever that causes you to train more on
[1:50:34] Speaker 2: your own or learn more on your. Own you, know
[1:50:37] Speaker 2: WHEN i got selected to go to The advisor team
[1:50:40] Speaker 2: to deploy to sing and this is my first deployment
[1:50:43] Speaker 2: as a, jaytack And i'm not going with an air,
[1:50:45] Speaker 2: shop you, Know i'm not going with a battalion WHERE
[1:50:48] Speaker 2: i got an air officer AND i got five other
[1:50:50] Speaker 2: jay tacks and a couple other facts and stuff that
[1:50:52] Speaker 2: are with me and we can all lean on each.
[1:50:54] Speaker 2: Other it was, me you, Know i'm like the only.
[1:50:56] Speaker 2: Guy AND i remember one Time Mike corman was, like,
[1:50:59] Speaker 2: man you really your job? Huh AND i was, like
[1:51:01] Speaker 2: what do you. Mean he's, like you're always reading your.
[1:51:02] Speaker 2: Pubs he's, like you're always reading the. Books AND i was, like,
[1:51:04] Speaker 2: dude BECAUSE i don't want to fuck. Up you, know
[1:51:06] Speaker 2: like when we get, there like there's no more, training
[1:51:09] Speaker 2: this is for real, Now.
[1:51:10] Speaker 1: Yeah you got to stand in the, books, man and
[1:51:12] Speaker 1: there's so much knowledge, that and it's super perishable. Stuff
[1:51:15] Speaker 1: if you, don't you, know if you're not an artisan
[1:51:17] Speaker 1: of your, craft the you, KNOW i, mean Now i'm a.
[1:51:21] Speaker 1: Paramedic you, KNOW i really fell in on the the
[1:51:24] Speaker 1: live tissue stuff with the pig lab so that THAT
[1:51:26] Speaker 1: i dug on THE si D C Special Operations Independent Duty.
[1:51:30] Speaker 1: Corman these guys are ALMOST pa level.
[1:51:32] Speaker 3: Dudes but, YEAH i.
[1:51:35] Speaker 1: Mean there's certain people THAT i met In marsk that
[1:51:38] Speaker 1: had skill sets to where now now That i'm forty
[1:51:42] Speaker 1: two years old And i'm an, ADULT i work on my.
[1:51:44] Speaker 1: Truck you, KNOW i learned. Paramedicine i'm a practitioner of.
[1:51:48] Speaker 1: It i've been doing it for six and a half.
[1:51:49] Speaker 1: Years you, know freaking cave. DIVER i learned how to build.
[1:51:53] Speaker 1: Shit you, Know i've got laser, Levels i've GOT t.
[1:51:56] Speaker 3: Squares you know the.
[1:51:57] Speaker 2: People acquired us for skills over your.
[1:51:59] Speaker 1: Time, WELL i think The gunny had a little bit
[1:52:02] Speaker 1: of a mark on me, there. Man so, uh you
[1:52:04] Speaker 1: know the way THAT i can honor, him you, know
[1:52:07] Speaker 1: now that he's past Is i'm going to go learn
[1:52:11] Speaker 1: the man.
[1:52:11] Speaker 3: Skills.
[1:52:11] Speaker 1: Brother you, KNOW i know you're not with us. Anymore
[1:52:13] Speaker 1: but now you're. Listening, Hey, Gunny, HEY i became a
[1:52:17] Speaker 1: gunny to you brother where but, YO i love you,
[1:52:19] Speaker 1: men and your words hit home AND i got me
[1:52:21] Speaker 1: some man.
[1:52:21] Speaker 3: Skills there you, go and Now i'm a. Fireman so,
[1:52:27] Speaker 3: YEAH i think everyone.
[1:52:28] Speaker 2: Should strive to be a somewhat of a renaissance. Man
[1:52:32] Speaker 2: if you don't know what that, means look it. Up
[1:52:33] Speaker 2: that just means you know a little bit about a,
[1:52:35] Speaker 2: lot you know What i'm, Saying, like you should always
[1:52:38] Speaker 2: strive to learn some, small, little just little. Stuff you.
[1:52:40] Speaker 2: Know it's there's nothing. WRONG i always. Said i've always
[1:52:43] Speaker 2: said being interested is. Interesting you know What i'm, Saying,
[1:52:47] Speaker 2: like if you're interested in things, that to me is extremely.
[1:52:49] Speaker 2: Interesting i'm glad to see other people that are just
[1:52:51] Speaker 2: interested in. Everything you.
[1:52:54] Speaker 1: Know, yeah SO i would, say you know that one
[1:52:57] Speaker 1: of the bigger THINGS i noticed AT marsawk and ONCE
[1:53:00] Speaker 1: i got to this team is, again now you know
[1:53:02] Speaker 1: what MAKES marsok. Unique everyone's, like, well, well you know
[1:53:05] Speaker 1: Got Navy seals or Special. Forces it's it's the, enablers,
[1:53:07] Speaker 1: Right so you're going through the same work. Up you're
[1:53:10] Speaker 1: supposed to have the same capabilities as you, know as
[1:53:13] Speaker 1: far as shooting as far as. Tactics but that's ingrained
[1:53:16] Speaker 1: into you through your battalion level, training your company level,
[1:53:20] Speaker 1: training and your team level. Training so now you have
[1:53:23] Speaker 1: these dudes that are specialists that are organic to the.
[1:53:26] Speaker 1: Team you have two j tax, right you have signals intelligence,
[1:53:29] Speaker 1: capability you have human source intelligence, capability SEE i human guys.
[1:53:33] Speaker 1: Counterintelligence you have j, or you have eod, tex, right
[1:53:38] Speaker 1: you have a canine. Handler but all of these guys.
[1:53:41] Speaker 1: Aren't you don't have to go to an outside agency
[1:53:43] Speaker 1: to source these support elements or these enablers to enable your.
[1:53:46] Speaker 3: Mission they're organic to the team and the scalability OF
[1:53:50] Speaker 3: marsk as well to be able to work like more you, know,
[1:53:53] Speaker 3: arranger battalion all the way down to elements of the
[1:53:56] Speaker 3: team breaking off and doing you know. Ops that's what
[1:54:00] Speaker 3: Makes Mark and there's a lot more to it than,
[1:54:02] Speaker 3: that but that's the essence of what MAKES marsok. Unique
[1:54:07] Speaker 3: SO i dug on. That but these guys man were
[1:54:10] Speaker 3: experts at becoming. Experts that's that's WHERE i really figured.
[1:54:16] Speaker 3: OUT i, mean, yeah they will.
[1:54:17] Speaker 1: Read, study, self, study, self motivate and if there's something
[1:54:22] Speaker 1: that they're, deficient and they will educate themselves to the
[1:54:24] Speaker 1: point of becoming an sm in.
[1:54:25] Speaker 2: It what were what would you? SAY i, mean you
[1:54:29] Speaker 2: came From anglico TO, marsox so what would you say
[1:54:31] Speaker 2: To what were the big differences between how fire support
[1:54:35] Speaker 2: is run with An anglico team than when you were
[1:54:37] Speaker 2: with Like marsock.
[1:54:38] Speaker 1: Fires the biggest difference right off the rip IS i,
[1:54:42] Speaker 1: had you, KNOW i owned a lot my clearance authority
[1:54:46] Speaker 1: LIKE agm one fourteen hell fires. Mine you, know just
[1:54:51] Speaker 1: just absolutely where to you, know if you're working if
[1:54:56] Speaker 1: you're a jatach For anglico and you're working in somebody's battle,
[1:54:59] Speaker 1: space it says something you would have to get prior approval,
[1:55:02] Speaker 1: for or you would have to get approval for when
[1:55:03] Speaker 1: we had prior approval to use all that.
[1:55:05] Speaker 3: Stuff that was.
[1:55:08] Speaker 1: Huge the other one is you're controlling, OOH i was
[1:55:12] Speaker 1: almost going to go down a nerd. ROUTE i was
[1:55:13] Speaker 1: going to talk about the THREE p fifty dash like different,
[1:55:16] Speaker 1: publications your job as a jaytach In marsok is different
[1:55:23] Speaker 1: than an infantry battalion or infantry. Company is an infantry, Company,
[1:55:28] Speaker 1: yes you're you're a little bit more offensive, postured let's,
[1:55:31] Speaker 1: say and you are literally shaping the battle space by
[1:55:35] Speaker 1: Deleting taliban from The earth and you, know. Destroying, YEAH
[1:55:39] Speaker 1: i mean you're you're, finding you're finding bad, guys you're tracking,
[1:55:42] Speaker 1: them and you're killing. Them right, again it's back to
[1:55:46] Speaker 1: the option. Side WITH marsk you're working in conjunction with
[1:55:49] Speaker 1: your signals INTELLIGENCE. Cat you're working in. Conjunction it's all
[1:55:53] Speaker 1: about intelligence driven. Operations so when you start layering that,
[1:55:59] Speaker 1: together there's a lot of options that we. Have so
[1:56:02] Speaker 1: we can either choose to continue to track tag look
[1:56:05] Speaker 1: at we can we can build a targeting package on this.
[1:56:09] Speaker 1: Dude and a lot of the times we were we
[1:56:12] Speaker 1: were Schwacking Joint Priority Engagement lists OR jpl level, targets
[1:56:15] Speaker 1: which was pretty. Cool we had a lot more freedom
[1:56:21] Speaker 1: and the commanders trusted you a lot, more, so you,
[1:56:24] Speaker 1: know to where it seemed like the kill chain was
[1:56:26] Speaker 1: a little bit shorter In, marsoka if that makes. Sense
[1:56:29] Speaker 1: and by the kill, CHAIN i mean there's not so
[1:56:31] Speaker 1: many people who have to approve an error strike before
[1:56:34] Speaker 1: you need to conduct. It we're still operating under the
[1:56:37] Speaker 1: same rules of. Engagement but you, know it's a big
[1:56:42] Speaker 1: thing to be able to own rockets and guns and
[1:56:44] Speaker 1: missiles off of rotary.
[1:56:46] Speaker 2: Wing, YEAH i mean the ground force commander had a team.
[1:56:48] Speaker 2: Level the ground force commander has the authority to approve the.
[1:56:52] Speaker 2: Missions but when YOU'RE, sa a ground force commander with
[1:56:55] Speaker 2: AN msot is way different than a ground force commander
[1:56:58] Speaker 2: with the. Battalion the battalian ground force commander is going
[1:57:01] Speaker 2: to be THE, CEO xo OR, opso and standing right
[1:57:05] Speaker 2: behind him is going to be THE, jag and standing
[1:57:07] Speaker 2: right next to him is going to be the j
[1:57:09] Speaker 2: tech and air. Officer and then next to him is
[1:57:12] Speaker 2: the fire's. Chief and all those people together are going
[1:57:14] Speaker 2: to come up with this whole thing and get it,
[1:57:17] Speaker 2: going whereas you're the.
[1:57:19] Speaker 3: Guy so put it to you another.
[1:57:21] Speaker 1: Way The Captain Matthew, minuchin, right he was a HUGE
[1:57:25] Speaker 1: i worked out with. Him he was very, kind very
[1:57:28] Speaker 1: rad and you, KNOW i gravitated toward, him AND i
[1:57:31] Speaker 1: was always picking his brain for him to kind of
[1:57:33] Speaker 1: groom and mentor. Me and you, know he was just
[1:57:36] Speaker 1: AS i, mean he's a former grunt, like he's just
[1:57:38] Speaker 1: as aggressive as the next. Guy so if it comes
[1:57:40] Speaker 1: down to, you you, know being, tallied then maybe we'll delete,
[1:57:44] Speaker 1: you you, know, Sure but maybe.
[1:57:46] Speaker 3: Not maybe let's take a.
[1:57:47] Speaker 1: Look, maybe let's maybe let's track you a little, bit
[1:57:50] Speaker 1: see where you, go develop your pattern of, life develop
[1:57:52] Speaker 1: the Atmospheric see how you, know now you have a
[1:57:55] Speaker 1: selector on, you you have something to, sensor receives a.
[1:57:58] Speaker 1: Signal let's track. That give it to the singing. Dudes
[1:58:00] Speaker 1: let them develop this thing a little, more and we'll
[1:58:03] Speaker 1: kind of see what the bigger picture looks like before we,
[1:58:05] Speaker 1: start you, know upsetting the herd by dropping five hundred
[1:58:09] Speaker 1: pound ja dams in their, backyard which is still an.
[1:58:12] Speaker 3: Option you, KNOW i got to call.
[1:58:14] Speaker 1: Him eighty one air strikes that, deployment AND i was well.
[1:58:18] Speaker 1: OVER i MEAN i was keeping, tallies of COURSE i.
[1:58:21] Speaker 1: Was but the you, know the the little The taliban,
[1:58:25] Speaker 1: comms they'd always their icon.
[1:58:26] Speaker 3: Chatter they'll be, like, oh, yeah you know they killed
[1:58:28] Speaker 3: killed four of, us and be like and this was up, Four,
[1:58:32] Speaker 3: yeah this was.
[1:58:33] Speaker 2: Yeah for those that don't, know that's like northern that's
[1:58:35] Speaker 2: like north of Of singing of the like singing proper.
[1:58:39] Speaker 2: Area it's between what is, that but it's north of
[1:58:42] Speaker 2: what they call, that.
[1:58:44] Speaker 1: Uh, yeah so it's it's southeast southeast of The Kajoki dam,
[1:58:48] Speaker 1: right which WAS.
[1:58:50] Speaker 3: I saw that fall by the way with IS.
[1:58:52] Speaker 1: R the Kijockey dan fell to The taliban was freaking.
[1:58:54] Speaker 1: Weird but, yeah so you Got sanging right. There then
[1:59:00] Speaker 1: you Got Poose, Village Stability, Post poose oft esp and.
[1:59:03] Speaker 3: Then The Kichoki. Dam but All Helman River. Valley, yeah
[1:59:08] Speaker 3: just all, farmland no, MOUNTAINS i, mean just.
[1:59:12] Speaker 2: A nice little road trip on six. Eleven there are
[1:59:14] Speaker 2: some hills up there By, poose THOUGH i didn't notice
[1:59:16] Speaker 2: those Off it kind of gets a little yeah out
[1:59:18] Speaker 2: there in the. Instance, yeah but, man, hey you, know
[1:59:22] Speaker 2: we're at about two. HOURS i think we go ahead
[1:59:24] Speaker 2: and wrapped this. UP i do want to have you on,
[1:59:26] Speaker 2: again AND i think we can get into more details
[1:59:30] Speaker 2: about some of the. Deployments AND i have a million
[1:59:33] Speaker 2: questions That i've been like coming up with and not,
[1:59:34] Speaker 2: saying kind of want to cut you off this whole.
[1:59:36] Speaker 2: Time SO i definitely think we should do another. One
[1:59:38] Speaker 2: AND i think this so far has been really great
[1:59:40] Speaker 2: AND i really appreciate you coming. On i'd like to
[1:59:42] Speaker 2: give you an opportunity to promote your business if you,
[1:59:45] Speaker 2: want or anything you'd.
[1:59:46] Speaker 3: Like, yeah, Sure so you, KNOW i just So Forest.
[1:59:52] Speaker 1: Blue, right this is not my, business BUT i wanted
[1:59:54] Speaker 1: to give a quick shout out to the. Organization it's you,
[1:59:59] Speaker 1: know boy see better boy and belonging and.
[2:00:02] Speaker 3: Betterment.
[2:00:02] Speaker 1: Right so IT'S Uh Special operations veterans that have their
[2:00:05] Speaker 1: scuba bubble or their dive. BUBBLE i do, not but you,
[2:00:08] Speaker 1: Know i'm also a technical, diver cave, diver you, know
[2:00:11] Speaker 1: trimex divers and stuff like. That the the folks In
[2:00:15] Speaker 1: Forced blue brought me In and what we do is
[2:00:19] Speaker 1: we do ocean conservation missions to help scientific research. Divers uh,
[2:00:25] Speaker 1: well anything from THREE d ship rep, map shipwreck, mapping
[2:00:28] Speaker 1: to water certification testing to core. Sampling we work a
[2:00:32] Speaker 1: lot With, Noah we work a lot WITH uh Frost
[2:00:37] Speaker 1: science and you know core reef restoration, projects right because
[2:00:42] Speaker 1: our our reefs are dying and our oceans are super.
[2:00:44] Speaker 1: Important but the big thing THAT i do there, is
[2:00:47] Speaker 1: AND i really enjoy, this is The Ocean Conservation. School
[2:00:51] Speaker 1: the children OF UH soft operators whose parents work you,
[2:00:55] Speaker 1: know their fathers were killed in. Combat you, know we
[2:01:00] Speaker 1: get to, it bring them in and get them scuba
[2:01:02] Speaker 1: certified and put them to work as, conservationists which is
[2:01:05] Speaker 1: kind of cool as Far. As Now Forced blue is
[2:01:08] Speaker 1: just a wonderful. ORGANIZATION i highly recommend you guys check
[2:01:11] Speaker 1: it out if you're not familiar with.
[2:01:12] Speaker 3: It zero point, two you.
[2:01:15] Speaker 1: Know so moving from dive master to instructor to instructor,
[2:01:18] Speaker 1: Trainer i'm now a course director FOR nowie The National
[2:01:21] Speaker 1: association Of Underwater instructors So Army Special Forces Dive.
[2:01:26] Speaker 3: SCHOOL nowI.
[2:01:27] Speaker 1: Right you know NASA's Neutral Buoyancy laboratory In, Houston. TEXAS nowI.
[2:01:33] Speaker 1: So now he is all about quality of, education and
[2:01:37] Speaker 1: they allow their instructors the academic freedom to teach their
[2:01:40] Speaker 1: courses in any reasonable manner they see, fit you, know
[2:01:44] Speaker 1: so long as the standards are being. Met so we
[2:01:47] Speaker 1: have a lot of latitude because we're actually professional educators
[2:01:50] Speaker 1: as as opposed to being a course. Facilitator i'll pick
[2:01:54] Speaker 1: On patty for a. Minute The Professional association Of Diving
[2:01:56] Speaker 1: instructors we call, them put another dollar in or not.
[2:01:59] Speaker 3: Weed about just.
[2:02:00] Speaker 1: Me but point, is we don't do, quick cheap and easy,
[2:02:03] Speaker 1: courses and neither DO. I so my Business Dive logics
[2:02:07] Speaker 1: l g I X Scuba training And support down here
[2:02:11] Speaker 1: In South. Florida i'm an now the course Director i've
[2:02:13] Speaker 1: been doing this for a long time, now But i've
[2:02:17] Speaker 1: had the real privilege of training under guys that have
[2:02:19] Speaker 1: done this for thirty five years plus and how to
[2:02:21] Speaker 1: teach and, professionally you, know make you a.
[2:02:24] Speaker 3: Diver Dave, Oakes Terrence. TYSELE i got a lot of good.
[2:02:30] Speaker 1: Mentors so WHAT i do IS i take my students
[2:02:34] Speaker 1: AND i teach them the, physics the, physiology the decompression.
[2:02:37] Speaker 3: THEORY i teach them the, math the. FORMULAS i have
[2:02:40] Speaker 3: them do their own.
[2:02:40] Speaker 1: CALCULATIONS i don't rely on the e, learning, right we
[2:02:44] Speaker 1: do have classroom and then we get in the pool
[2:02:46] Speaker 1: and you ain't getting out of that pool until you're
[2:02:48] Speaker 1: ready for the open.
[2:02:49] Speaker 3: Ocean but it's.
[2:02:50] Speaker 1: Fun we're edutainers as. Well we're not here to this
[2:02:53] Speaker 1: isn't you, know not trying to.
[2:02:54] Speaker 3: Make you a. Seal.
[2:02:55] Speaker 1: Brother, yeah you, know we're just. Dude we're gonna go
[2:02:58] Speaker 1: see some cool shit and have a great time doing.
[2:02:59] Speaker 1: It and we had the third largest barrier reef in
[2:03:01] Speaker 1: the world right here off of soft floor and it's fricking. Beautiful,
[2:03:05] Speaker 1: so you, know high end, courses you, know extremely good robust,
[2:03:10] Speaker 1: education and people like to do things they're good At
[2:03:13] Speaker 1: so that's kind of my.
[2:03:14] Speaker 3: Thing.
[2:03:14] Speaker 1: Man you, know if you want, quick cheap and, easy
[2:03:18] Speaker 1: go to a dive. Shop i'm Not i'm not your.
[2:03:20] Speaker 1: Guy you pay for what you. Get and you, know
[2:03:24] Speaker 1: if you're interested in actually learning how to become a,
[2:03:25] Speaker 1: diver you want to do this for? Real, Now i'm your,
[2:03:28] Speaker 1: Guy so give me a call BECAUSE i throw my
[2:03:32] Speaker 1: heart and soul into into these, courses because you can
[2:03:35] Speaker 1: really change somebody's life with a little bit of aqua,
[2:03:37] Speaker 1: therapy my.
[2:03:37] Speaker 2: Guy, yeah for. Sure And i'll throw the link to
[2:03:40] Speaker 2: your website and the show descriptions that people can check it.
[2:03:42] Speaker 2: Out AND i think you know something like that where
[2:03:44] Speaker 2: that's really, again it's a life and death kind of, Thing,
[2:03:46] Speaker 2: like wouldn't you want the best kind of? Instruction you,
[2:03:49] Speaker 2: KNOW i don't want the wavetime if you will kind of.
[2:03:53] Speaker 1: Man, yeah we're putting you on a life support system
[2:03:57] Speaker 1: and bringing you to an environment you're not designed to be,
[2:03:59] Speaker 1: in and, uh you, Know i'm gonna teach you how
[2:04:01] Speaker 1: to do it.
[2:04:01] Speaker 3: Right so oh, yeah, MAN i think it's.
[2:04:04] Speaker 1: Fun and justin you've got an invite. Brother this Room
[2:04:07] Speaker 1: i'm in right. Now over, here there's a big. Nice
[2:04:09] Speaker 1: uh you Know, California King, BED i got a beautiful.
[2:04:13] Speaker 1: Home why don't you come on down To.
[2:04:16] Speaker 2: FLORIDA i might have, to, MAN i was just TELLING
[2:04:18] Speaker 2: i literally was, like, man this guy just invited me
[2:04:20] Speaker 2: to come. DIVE i was, LIKE i might do. That
[2:04:21] Speaker 2: that's Something i've always wanted to.
[2:04:23] Speaker 1: DO i would love nothing more than to have you. Over,
[2:04:25] Speaker 1: Man i'd have to do.
[2:04:26] Speaker 3: That.
[2:04:26] Speaker 2: Dude that sounds.
[2:04:27] Speaker 3: Kind of Rock it's rockstar level. Stuff you'll.
[2:04:30] Speaker 2: Dig hell, yeah, Dude, Yeah i'll check. Out So i'll
[2:04:34] Speaker 2: put the link to your website in the show. Description
[2:04:36] Speaker 2: everybody check that. Out make sure to check out my
[2:04:38] Speaker 2: website jacrimographics dot. Com if you're An anglico, guy check
[2:04:40] Speaker 2: out check out anglicoshop dot.
[2:04:42] Speaker 3: Com.
[2:04:42] Speaker 2: Uh my instagram is Former Action, News Former action, guys
[2:04:46] Speaker 2: all of those check those. Out My Former Action news
[2:04:48] Speaker 2: page has been blowing. UP i really appreciate the. Support
[2:04:50] Speaker 2: i'm it's. Crazy i'm getting millions and millions of views
[2:04:53] Speaker 2: every month, now which is absolutely insane because it started
[2:04:56] Speaker 2: out as like a military meme, page and and here
[2:05:00] Speaker 2: we are Where i'm, LIKE i feel Like i'm a
[2:05:01] Speaker 2: professional news page and you got to take it more
[2:05:03] Speaker 2: seriously now so appreciate the support from, everybody And, George,
[2:05:07] Speaker 2: man it was really great having you on AND i
[2:05:08] Speaker 2: really look forward to talk to you. Again.
[2:05:10] Speaker 3: Man, HEY i hope a lot of you guys had
[2:05:12] Speaker 3: some laughs at my expense self deprecating humor sign a. Genius, Man,
[2:05:16] Speaker 3: man
[2:05:16] Speaker 2: It's always good

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.