# Ep. 239 | Kowshon Ye | Combat Camera Marine

An episode of [Former Action Guys Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1475060182), 25 Feb 2026, 1 h 10 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70272608/marine_combat_camera_kowshon_ye.mp3

Kowshon Ye is a Combat Camera Marine who worked as a videographer and photographer for Marine Corps Installations Pacific in Okinawa before assignment to 1st Marine Division. He supported B Company 1st Battalion 5th Marines and 7th Marine Regiment during two separate deployments to Afghanistan. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/formeractionguys https://www.jcramergrpahics.com https://www.ANGLICOshop.com Kowshon's site https://kowshonye.com/welcome 00:00:00 Intro | Combat Footage 00:02:09 Joining the Marines | Okinawa 00:12:03 Defense Information School 00:18:36 1st Battalion 5th Marines 00:25:37 First Patrol in Sangin 00:28:44 Patrol Loadout 00:31:44 Role in the Patrol 00:39:04 The Battlefield Gets Active 00:52:27 Warrant Officer Program 00:57:43 Photography Setup 00:59:41 Military Social Media

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: So, Koshawn, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast today.
[0:02] Speaker 1: I got to start off. I don't know if you
[0:04] Speaker 1: watched this morning, but the US beat Canada and hockey
[0:06] Speaker 1: and it was an amazing game.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah, I saw that the women uh one goal
[0:12] Speaker 2: as well.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the both the women and the men,
[0:15] Speaker 1: and this is the first time since nineteen eighty since
[0:17] Speaker 1: the men have won the gold and it was in
[0:20] Speaker 1: overtime and it was a pretty it was a pretty
[0:22] Speaker 1: epic game. If you haven't seen, it's worth going back
[0:23] Speaker 1: and watching, I think. But I'm still pumped up from
[0:26] Speaker 1: that nice. So, but I do appreciate you coming on
[0:30] Speaker 1: the show. I saw your page or what's crazy is
[0:34] Speaker 1: I'm going to overlay some video that you've created a
[0:37] Speaker 1: lot of some of the video that you created while
[0:39] Speaker 1: you were with one five is all over social media.
[0:42] Speaker 1: There's so many like pages that use that video. I
[0:44] Speaker 1: don't know you yeah, you probably don't even know.
[0:46] Speaker 3: There's many.
[0:47] Speaker 1: There's so many military pages that have used the video
[0:49] Speaker 1: that you you created when you were one five. And
[0:52] Speaker 1: I was on dvid's the other day and I was
[0:56] Speaker 1: just looking for some footage and that video came across
[0:59] Speaker 1: and I was like why or one of the videos
[1:00] Speaker 1: that you created came across and I was like, who
[1:02] Speaker 1: created this? And I looked it up and I looked
[1:04] Speaker 1: up your Instagram page and saw that you're a photographer
[1:06] Speaker 1: as well, and I was like, oh man, this guy's
[1:08] Speaker 1: got all you know, I do photography. I love it,
[1:10] Speaker 1: Like I gotta have you on the show talk about it,
[1:13] Speaker 1: so I really appreciate it.
[1:14] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's very surprising that people are still using it.
[1:18] Speaker 3: You know.
[1:18] Speaker 1: It's like it's I mean, to me, it's no different
[1:21] Speaker 1: than I mean that footage is going to be eternal.
[1:24] Speaker 1: You know, it's like the World War two footage is
[1:26] Speaker 1: still getting shared all the time. Vietnam footage, they get
[1:28] Speaker 1: shared all the time.
[1:29] Speaker 3: You know.
[1:30] Speaker 1: It's like you documented the war and for a lot
[1:34] Speaker 1: of people, you know, for the guys that were there,
[1:36] Speaker 1: for a lot of them, that's probably the only like
[1:39] Speaker 1: real evidence besides their own like you know, story that
[1:45] Speaker 1: they were there, right, you know, if you got them
[1:46] Speaker 1: on video, like that's the only probably video of them
[1:48] Speaker 1: doing their job like that overseas.
[1:51] Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually, have you seen the Marines documentary on Netflix?
[1:56] Speaker 3: Not yet? I have not.
[1:58] Speaker 2: Well, they pull some Davis and they have a couple
[2:00] Speaker 2: of my shops in it.
[2:02] Speaker 3: Okay, nice, surprised to see it there too.
[2:04] Speaker 1: When you're so, when you're well, I don't want to
[2:06] Speaker 1: get ahead of myself. Let's talk about why why did.
[2:09] Speaker 3: You join the Marines?
[2:10] Speaker 1: And did you choose to go into combat camera or
[2:12] Speaker 1: what would you call it at the time.
[2:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was called combat camera and yeah, so you know,
[2:19] Speaker 2: I enlisted back in a way, you know, at the time,
[2:23] Speaker 2: you know, I just wanted a better life for myself.
[2:25] Speaker 2: I didn't think I was going to go to college,
[2:27] Speaker 2: and obviously the war was going on, so I was
[2:30] Speaker 2: interested in that and I was like, maybe, you know,
[2:32] Speaker 2: I want to be a part of that. So then
[2:34] Speaker 2: my older brother enlisted in the Marine Corps and I
[2:36] Speaker 2: was like, that sounds cool. Let me let me do that.
[2:39] Speaker 2: So then when I was my time to on the list,
[2:41] Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about the military that much, especially
[2:44] Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about the Marine Corps. And you know,
[2:46] Speaker 2: you're talking to recruiter, they get to know you and
[2:48] Speaker 2: all that nonsense, and they're like, oh, what do you
[2:50] Speaker 2: like doing? And photography was one of the things I mentioned, Like,
[2:52] Speaker 2: we got this thing called combat camera. So I was like,
[2:55] Speaker 2: oh cool, let me do that, let me look that
[2:58] Speaker 2: up and everything. And when I did, I did all
[3:00] Speaker 2: my research and stuff like, yeah, I definitely want to
[3:02] Speaker 2: do that, you know.
[3:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an epic job. I mean that's when I
[3:06] Speaker 1: actually went to enlist. That was would have been the
[3:09] Speaker 1: only non combat arms job that I would have accepted,
[3:12] Speaker 1: you know, because it's considered non combat arms.
[3:14] Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, it's non comment.
[3:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, and because I always thought what an interesting job
[3:20] Speaker 1: that is that you are in the fight, but you're
[3:23] Speaker 1: like documenting the fight, you know, and and again that
[3:26] Speaker 1: that footage lives on forever and we have all these
[3:30] Speaker 1: resources where you can go back and look at all
[3:31] Speaker 1: this old historic war footage from naval battles to you know,
[3:35] Speaker 1: guys on the ground fighting and stuff, and the work
[3:38] Speaker 1: that you create is just part of that now. And
[3:39] Speaker 1: it's I think that's really an awesome thing for you
[3:42] Speaker 1: to do. So prior to the military, you know, you
[3:46] Speaker 1: said you were into photography. Did you do any kind
[3:49] Speaker 1: of videography or anything like that or were you just photography?
[3:51] Speaker 2: No, just photo shot photos at my high school, just
[3:56] Speaker 2: on my own, just was into it. It was more
[3:58] Speaker 2: of a hobby. I never thought of it as a
[4:01] Speaker 2: career until I spoke to a recruiter.
[4:04] Speaker 3: What did your older brother do in the Marines.
[4:06] Speaker 2: Uh, he started out like an infantry contract, but then
[4:10] Speaker 2: got hurt at sy then went motor te he's been
[4:16] Speaker 2: out since.
[4:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, bummer man. I was motor Tea my first three years.
[4:20] Speaker 3: I was open contract and that.
[4:23] Speaker 1: Such a bummer for especially because he wanted infantry. To
[4:25] Speaker 1: go from infantry on motor tea, that's crushing.
[4:29] Speaker 2: Yeah. And then I remember when I was enlisting and
[4:31] Speaker 2: my mom wouldn't let me, so my my recruiters called
[4:34] Speaker 2: my brother, and then my brother called me and he's like,
[4:37] Speaker 2: don't do it, this sucks, sure, whatever.
[4:41] Speaker 3: And You're like, whatever, I'll find out that's what it sucks. Yeah.
[4:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, in some ways for sure, you know, being out,
[4:49] Speaker 1: it's I was just talking to my buddy Michael last
[4:52] Speaker 1: night about it, and there's definitely a lot of stuff
[4:54] Speaker 1: that you miss about the military once.
[4:56] Speaker 3: You get out. The it's his.
[4:58] Speaker 1: Corny as it sounds like, the brotherhood and stuff is
[5:01] Speaker 1: really there, and you really notice the lack of it
[5:04] Speaker 1: when you leave the military because now you're in the
[5:06] Speaker 1: civilian world where no one. Everyone's on their own program.
[5:09] Speaker 1: You know, you work with some people, but the job's
[5:12] Speaker 1: not really as serious as you know you probably have
[5:14] Speaker 1: while you're in the military. And the difference in the
[5:16] Speaker 1: military is that you you work out, you eat, you live,
[5:20] Speaker 1: you know, you sleep, everything with the same people and
[5:22] Speaker 1: it's really such a tight unit. And then you get
[5:24] Speaker 1: out and that's gone, and you know, it's it's hard
[5:28] Speaker 1: to underest or under state how important that brotherhood is
[5:33] Speaker 1: and like how big it how much it affects.
[5:34] Speaker 3: People, you know, yeah, yeah, So.
[5:38] Speaker 1: You know when you were coming in combat I mean
[5:41] Speaker 1: again combat camera, what a cool job? What did you
[5:44] Speaker 1: what did you think of it before you joined? And
[5:47] Speaker 1: then how what was it like the reality?
[5:49] Speaker 2: Like, so before I joined, you know kind of like
[5:54] Speaker 2: uh like full metal jacket, you know, like Joker and
[5:58] Speaker 2: and was it raptorman? I was like, Okay, that's what
[6:01] Speaker 2: I'm gonna be doing. And then coming in not much.
[6:07] Speaker 3: I guess.
[6:07] Speaker 2: The reality is that not every unit is an infantry unit,
[6:11] Speaker 2: so you can go anywhere from like installations, MLG, the
[6:16] Speaker 2: mall or or you know whatever. So that's like the
[6:21] Speaker 2: reality that people don't don't see of the Marine Corps
[6:24] Speaker 2: there's more to it, Like the infantry is a small part,
[6:26] Speaker 2: but it's a big part.
[6:27] Speaker 3: But it's a.
[6:28] Speaker 2: Fraction of the whole Marine Corps. So but for the
[6:31] Speaker 2: most part, I don't want to fairly accurate. I guess
[6:34] Speaker 2: it's like, you know, times of change, things are a
[6:36] Speaker 2: little bit different, but you're just you're you're really just
[6:39] Speaker 2: being assigned to a unit and you cover that unit.
[6:41] Speaker 2: That's it.
[6:43] Speaker 1: It's a really interesting job too, because you're just you're
[6:45] Speaker 1: there as an observer. You know, you're not being asked
[6:47] Speaker 1: to participate in whatever it is that they're doing. You're
[6:50] Speaker 1: just there at a document and just kind of be
[6:53] Speaker 1: that guy hanging in the corner right.
[6:56] Speaker 3: Well it.
[6:59] Speaker 2: I think that's like the the misconception is like you,
[7:04] Speaker 2: I guess the hope would be as you can be
[7:05] Speaker 2: an observer and you can just watch things unfold and
[7:09] Speaker 2: bear witness. But the reality is that you're her marine too,
[7:11] Speaker 2: you're a rifle. Then you're gonna be digging holes too,
[7:14] Speaker 2: You're gonna be holding security whatever they're doing. You're doing,
[7:18] Speaker 2: but like you got that extra tax of like I
[7:20] Speaker 2: need to take pictures too.
[7:21] Speaker 3: Mm hm.
[7:22] Speaker 1: So you started in oakanaw at correct Yeah, so in Okanaw,
[7:27] Speaker 1: a lot of it seems like a lot of what
[7:28] Speaker 1: people are doing there is those humanitarian missions and stuff
[7:31] Speaker 1: like that. That's what's getting documented a lot. Were you
[7:34] Speaker 1: directly involved with anything like that.
[7:38] Speaker 2: I can't remember what happened, you know, it's sad to
[7:41] Speaker 2: say about in the Philippines, there's always a lot of
[7:43] Speaker 2: typhoons and then they need a lot of help. So
[7:46] Speaker 2: I think one year it coincided with an exercise we did,
[7:50] Speaker 2: so I just happened to be there during this exercise
[7:52] Speaker 2: while doing some humanitarian stuff. And then you do like
[7:56] Speaker 2: little humanitarian things in most major exercises, like what do
[8:00] Speaker 2: they call them, Like like it's like a health end
[8:04] Speaker 2: cap end cap, like you do engineering projects and like
[8:07] Speaker 2: run like mobile clinics and stuff like that. So I'll
[8:09] Speaker 2: cover things like that.
[8:11] Speaker 1: What was that like going out and seeing I mean,
[8:14] Speaker 1: because these clinics are obviously being held in places that
[8:17] Speaker 1: you know, obviously need that kind of help coming from
[8:19] Speaker 1: the US to see something like that, what was that
[8:21] Speaker 1: like for you?
[8:23] Speaker 2: A big culture shock, you know, going to the Philippines
[8:27] Speaker 2: and Thailand, Like you know, I never think I'd see
[8:32] Speaker 2: that that kind of poverty, like in person, you know,
[8:36] Speaker 2: so it is very different, you know, a different level
[8:38] Speaker 2: of poverty and just seeing it's interesting, like they can
[8:43] Speaker 2: live off, you know, a far simpler life than most
[8:47] Speaker 2: Americans can. And to us it's like, you know, rock bottom,
[8:51] Speaker 2: but to them, it's for some of them, it's like
[8:53] Speaker 2: standard living.
[8:56] Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of our rock bottoms would be
[8:59] Speaker 1: not even just standard living, like above average living for
[9:02] Speaker 1: a lot.
[9:02] Speaker 3: Of those people. You know.
[9:03] Speaker 2: Yea.
[9:04] Speaker 1: It's something I've tried to carry over and really like
[9:08] Speaker 1: speak about when I talk to people, is you know,
[9:11] Speaker 1: how grateful we should be for just all the things
[9:14] Speaker 1: that we have, Like we really most people just don't
[9:17] Speaker 1: understand how bad it actually could be. And one of
[9:21] Speaker 1: the I guess silver linings of seeing that kind of
[9:25] Speaker 1: you know, poverty is that you get a better appreciation
[9:29] Speaker 1: for what you have when you come home and and
[9:32] Speaker 1: you know what's available to you. And that's a you
[9:35] Speaker 1: know something. I it's frustrating when I hear people complain
[9:38] Speaker 1: so much, and I'm like, dude, most of our like
[9:40] Speaker 1: most of our stresses here are self induced. You know,
[9:43] Speaker 1: it's all self induced stuff that we can change, but
[9:46] Speaker 1: we just don't. We just you know, but Yeah, stuff
[9:49] Speaker 1: like that. Man, it's it really changes the mindset, you know. Yeah,
[9:54] Speaker 1: when you know I never made it to Okinawa, I
[9:58] Speaker 1: really wish I would have made it out there. What what
[10:01] Speaker 1: did you like the most about being on the rock?
[10:06] Speaker 2: You're in a foreign country. I don't know, especially for
[10:08] Speaker 2: someone like me who had never been on an airplane
[10:10] Speaker 2: until I joined the Marine Corps, like that's my first
[10:12] Speaker 2: studio station. Yeah, so it was just great being in
[10:15] Speaker 2: a in a different country. And then Japan is just amazing,
[10:19] Speaker 2: Like it's a beautiful country. People are great, great food,
[10:25] Speaker 2: and and I would say, out of out of all
[10:27] Speaker 2: the countries I've been to, Japan is probably the most different.
[10:32] Speaker 2: Like it just felt different, things looked different, you know,
[10:36] Speaker 2: the cars are tiny. It was just the most different
[10:39] Speaker 2: from America.
[10:41] Speaker 3: So did you make it to mainland at all or
[10:44] Speaker 3: did you stay on.
[10:44] Speaker 2: Open Yeah, well my first time, not really, but I
[10:48] Speaker 2: actually just came from Okinaw so I just PCs here
[10:51] Speaker 2: to Penalty like a few months ago. So this last
[10:55] Speaker 2: dime I did in Oknawa was like six years, so
[10:57] Speaker 2: I did a lot of traveling while I was there.
[10:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, six years, that's great. I didn't even know
[11:02] Speaker 1: they would let you stay that long.
[11:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, well you do three years and then you just
[11:06] Speaker 2: do another another tour there, so that's six You just
[11:08] Speaker 2: roll right back here. Yeah, you just stay on island,
[11:11] Speaker 2: go to another unit. Yeah.
[11:13] Speaker 3: Man, that's crazy. I didn't even I didn't even know
[11:15] Speaker 3: that was a thing. That's pretty wild.
[11:17] Speaker 2: There are people there that that stay there for years,
[11:20] Speaker 2: Like I know, I know a guy that's probably he
[11:23] Speaker 2: did one year outside of Okinawa and then another year
[11:26] Speaker 2: on mainland. But yeah, like twelve years he's been on ok.
[11:29] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[11:30] Speaker 1: Man, what an What a great place to be as
[11:33] Speaker 1: a photographer as well, because there's so much like history, culture,
[11:38] Speaker 1: you know, so much to document and just enjoy.
[11:41] Speaker 2: Yeah. For for me, it was mainly the like we
[11:44] Speaker 2: were busy, Like even even back in like O eight
[11:47] Speaker 2: oh nine, like three meth was still very busy with
[11:51] Speaker 2: like a different training exercise throughout the region, Like from
[11:57] Speaker 2: from like Indonesia all the way to Korea. You're just
[11:59] Speaker 2: there just doing training.
[12:01] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[12:02] Speaker 1: I kind of jumped ahead a little bit. I do
[12:04] Speaker 1: want to ask you about the schoolhouse and how your
[12:09] Speaker 1: MOS has broken up, and I know it's changed recently.
[12:11] Speaker 1: It started changing right before I got out of the Marines.
[12:13] Speaker 1: I got out twenty eighteen and it started changing right
[12:16] Speaker 1: around that timeframe. Can you tell us about the schoolhouse,
[12:19] Speaker 1: what the training looks like, what the students, you know,
[12:22] Speaker 1: they're getting their hands on, and then what's kind of
[12:24] Speaker 1: expected of them when they get to their unit.
[12:27] Speaker 2: Yeah. So the school I went to is a defense
[12:30] Speaker 2: information school in Fort me And Maryland and for the
[12:34] Speaker 2: Marine Corps back then, it was two Auck fields like
[12:39] Speaker 2: public affairs. In combat camera, I was in combat camera
[12:42] Speaker 2: and within combat camera you have three MOS's graphic designers,
[12:47] Speaker 2: combat photographers, and videographers, which that's.
[12:50] Speaker 3: What I was.
[12:51] Speaker 2: And in the school, you would it was this learning
[12:55] Speaker 2: video production.
[12:56] Speaker 3: For me.
[12:57] Speaker 2: I spent four months on learning how to you cameras, editing, shooting,
[13:02] Speaker 2: and you do like quick projects, you know, teaching you
[13:05] Speaker 2: foundational stuff like sequencing and editing, and then you eventually
[13:09] Speaker 2: work up to like a short dock. I think we
[13:11] Speaker 2: did our doc in Gettysburg. We did it about the
[13:15] Speaker 2: monuments in Gettysburg, and you know, we interviewed staff there
[13:17] Speaker 2: and stuff and made a short documentary about that.
[13:21] Speaker 3: Do you go back and watch that ever? Have you
[13:22] Speaker 3: ever gone back and watch it? So?
[13:24] Speaker 2: I haven't. I don't know if I have that. So
[13:26] Speaker 2: a lot of the you know, I'm a big advocate,
[13:29] Speaker 2: like especially on marines, like photographers and geographers, like just
[13:32] Speaker 2: hold on to your stuff. But in the school, I
[13:35] Speaker 2: didn't have that much foresight, so I didn't keep any
[13:37] Speaker 2: of that, And then maybe some of the stuff in
[13:39] Speaker 2: Okanawa I didn't keep either.
[13:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[13:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely have to hold on and occasionally look
[13:44] Speaker 1: back because it really shows you how far you've come
[13:47] Speaker 1: and your abilities to either create a raw image or
[13:51] Speaker 1: your abilities to edit an image or video or whatever. Yeah, definitely,
[13:57] Speaker 1: I have all the photos saved on a hard drive
[14:00] Speaker 1: that I've taken. It's you know, tens of thousands at
[14:02] Speaker 1: this point. When you were you know when you you
[14:06] Speaker 1: said that they split up into those three jobs?
[14:08] Speaker 3: Do you get to choose that? How is that? How
[14:10] Speaker 3: does that work?
[14:12] Speaker 2: Uh? So not really. I know when when I enlisted it,
[14:17] Speaker 2: I think it was at the time it was like
[14:18] Speaker 2: media option, and under media option, I think it was
[14:22] Speaker 2: like PA and comcapt and I just luckily was selected
[14:26] Speaker 2: for for video and yeah, I just got to the
[14:30] Speaker 2: schoolhouse and they're like at school, you know, there's a
[14:33] Speaker 2: there's a class picking up and I just gotten got
[14:36] Speaker 2: in class.
[14:36] Speaker 3: That's it. Yeah, how how focused are you on just that? Though?
[14:41] Speaker 1: Like when you get to your actual unit, is that
[14:43] Speaker 1: all you're doing is video or is the realization like, hey,
[14:45] Speaker 1: you're gonna pick up.
[14:46] Speaker 3: The camera as well, you're gonna shoot photos also.
[14:48] Speaker 2: So uh, nowadays it's a little bit different. But back then,
[14:53] Speaker 2: because of technology, my focus was just video, especially in
[14:58] Speaker 2: Okinawa because at the time it was called the Consolidated
[15:02] Speaker 2: COMBAIC camera. So it doesn't matter what unit you were with.
[15:05] Speaker 2: You fell under MCI pack or Mickey pack and it's
[15:10] Speaker 2: such a large shop and you just focused on your
[15:13] Speaker 2: mo mos. Like if you're a videographer, that's all you
[15:15] Speaker 2: did was video. And then when I say by technology,
[15:17] Speaker 2: it's like like nowadays, any most still cameras shoot phenomenal video,
[15:22] Speaker 2: but back then that wasn't the case. So when I
[15:24] Speaker 2: was shooting video, you know, we were shooting on tapes.
[15:27] Speaker 2: I think the Mark two had just came out, like
[15:30] Speaker 2: I think it came out in O eight or something,
[15:32] Speaker 2: so DSLR video was relatively new, so it was a
[15:36] Speaker 2: very unique skill set. And then graphics, you know, just
[15:41] Speaker 2: being a graphic designer, but you do there is some
[15:46] Speaker 2: kind of like cross training because you know there is
[15:49] Speaker 2: a need, so you try to learn the other moss
[15:51] Speaker 2: and stuff.
[15:52] Speaker 3: That's crazy.
[15:53] Speaker 1: You were working with tape in eight I didn't. I mean,
[15:56] Speaker 1: that doesn't even seem that long ago.
[15:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, Like people don't realize, like mini DV tape was
[16:02] Speaker 2: the standard, uh not that long ago. Like solid state
[16:05] Speaker 2: recording for video is was actually kind of a big hurdle,
[16:09] Speaker 2: like you know, with bit rates and stuff like that,
[16:11] Speaker 2: so it wasn't very common.
[16:14] Speaker 1: It must be such a difference in editing now compared
[16:19] Speaker 1: to back in.
[16:20] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the abilities.
[16:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you were shooting tape, like people don't
[16:24] Speaker 2: realize this, like you you had to. It was called
[16:26] Speaker 2: digitizing or capturing the tape. So to see if you
[16:29] Speaker 2: shot an hour of footage, you could you don't just
[16:31] Speaker 2: drag and drop your file onto your computer. You got
[16:33] Speaker 2: to capture it, so it literally played the entire tape.
[16:36] Speaker 2: So for you to move an hour of footage onto
[16:38] Speaker 2: your computer, you had to wait an hour.
[16:40] Speaker 1: That's dude, that what we can do now is so crazy.
[16:44] Speaker 1: I've been dabbling with photoshop since like ninety nine, you know,
[16:49] Speaker 1: so it's just wild to see some of the stuff.
[16:52] Speaker 1: I use Adobe products mainly, and it's just wild to
[16:56] Speaker 1: see some of the stuff that you can do now.
[16:57] Speaker 1: It's like stuff that would take hours before, it's just
[17:00] Speaker 1: minutes or not even you know, to take care of now.
[17:03] Speaker 1: It's really a cheat. It's really a cheat code. Were
[17:08] Speaker 1: you you know when you got to so you started
[17:10] Speaker 1: with the wing right, and then did you want to
[17:13] Speaker 1: did you have any desires to go to like an
[17:15] Speaker 1: infantry company or a battalion or something like that, or
[17:18] Speaker 1: did you just not care?
[17:19] Speaker 3: You're like, I'm just happy to be here.
[17:22] Speaker 2: Yeah. So when I after like leaving the schoolhouse and
[17:26] Speaker 2: then you're getting your orders and whatever, I didn't I
[17:29] Speaker 2: still didn't know much about the Marine Corps. Like I didn't.
[17:33] Speaker 2: I still didn't know like what what was what? I
[17:36] Speaker 2: just got okay randomly and then that's where I started
[17:43] Speaker 2: to learn. And I know when I remember when I
[17:45] Speaker 2: got stationed there, there was a team that was with
[17:48] Speaker 2: I think it was three men in Afghanistan and I
[17:52] Speaker 2: was like, dude, yeah, we want to go do that,
[17:53] Speaker 2: but we just had to wait our turn. But yeah,
[17:57] Speaker 2: there was still that drive, like you know, there's a
[18:00] Speaker 2: going on and I'm over here in Okinawa like in
[18:02] Speaker 2: the Philippines having a good old time, you know. So
[18:04] Speaker 2: it's kind of like waiting to you know, to get
[18:07] Speaker 2: orders and whatever.
[18:08] Speaker 3: It's very frustrating to be in the military and like
[18:13] Speaker 3: waiting to do.
[18:14] Speaker 1: Your first apployment if you want to go. I mean
[18:16] Speaker 1: that was my experience as well. I was like, come on, man, like,
[18:18] Speaker 1: am I going to miss the war?
[18:20] Speaker 3: You know?
[18:21] Speaker 1: That was yeah, yeah, I was like, dang, I would
[18:24] Speaker 1: hate to have done all.
[18:25] Speaker 3: Of this and then missed the war.
[18:27] Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
[18:28] Speaker 1: But yeah, every you know, I guess you finally get
[18:31] Speaker 1: your get what you asked for. So leaving there, let's
[18:33] Speaker 1: talk about you went to a first Marine Division, correct.
[18:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know I had orders to your orders
[18:40] Speaker 2: of Okinawa, and then by like a year and some
[18:43] Speaker 2: change in a few of us got orders kurtailed. So
[18:47] Speaker 2: I left that eighteen months I think. I think around
[18:51] Speaker 2: this time it was like the end of near the
[18:53] Speaker 2: end of twenty ten. I think that's when they were
[18:55] Speaker 2: doing a big push back into Afghanistan, so I think
[18:57] Speaker 2: they were trying to plus up a lot of the
[18:59] Speaker 2: OP four. Uh. So then I just got lucky. I
[19:02] Speaker 2: got orders to first Marine Division and then I remember
[19:06] Speaker 2: checking in. Uh, they were trying to put a team
[19:10] Speaker 2: together because another battalion was about to go out. And
[19:12] Speaker 2: the way they the way they we did things back
[19:14] Speaker 2: then was we would send teams down to the battalion level,
[19:18] Speaker 2: So like at the battalion you would have a team
[19:20] Speaker 2: between like four marines to like six, depending how many
[19:23] Speaker 2: people were in the shop, and then the regiments will
[19:26] Speaker 2: get like maybe three or four marines, and then the
[19:28] Speaker 2: vision forward would have like I don't I don't remember,
[19:31] Speaker 2: like ten marines, including like the O C and all
[19:33] Speaker 2: that stuff. But I remember when I got to first
[19:38] Speaker 2: Marine Division, they're putting a team together. I was like,
[19:41] Speaker 2: all right, let me, let me get on this deployment.
[19:45] Speaker 2: And then another videographer checked in. He was like slightly
[19:48] Speaker 2: senior to me, and I remember the stats are. I
[19:50] Speaker 2: was like, all right, you're gonna you're gonna get on
[19:52] Speaker 2: the next one. This guy's senior to you. We want
[19:53] Speaker 2: to make sure that he can deploy. And I was like, damn,
[19:56] Speaker 2: that fucking sucks. Fuck me right, yeah, But that actually
[20:00] Speaker 2: that was I think I'm like really lucky in that
[20:02] Speaker 2: sense because the one to five team that had already
[20:05] Speaker 2: composite their videographer popped on a piss test and they
[20:09] Speaker 2: kicked them off, So, yeah, we need a videographer. You
[20:12] Speaker 2: leave in March.
[20:13] Speaker 3: I was like, all right, cool, I'm going got them.
[20:16] Speaker 1: Yeah that's so stupid.
[20:19] Speaker 3: I never yeah, I never got that. I'm like, why
[20:22] Speaker 3: are you risking?
[20:22] Speaker 1: This is such a stupid place to like, I think
[20:24] Speaker 1: I think a lot of the guys are so young
[20:26] Speaker 1: they don't realize the implications of the you know, of
[20:29] Speaker 1: being on a piss test. But I guess it worked
[20:31] Speaker 1: out for you, you know, yeah for sure. What was
[20:34] Speaker 1: I like checking in and showing up like here we go,
[20:36] Speaker 1: you know, now I'm getting actual combat photographer experience.
[20:40] Speaker 2: Uh yeah, it was. It was all pretty fast. I
[20:43] Speaker 2: just went what do you call it? I just checked
[20:46] Speaker 2: in and met with my team. They had really been
[20:48] Speaker 2: with an Italian for like a couple months at that time.
[20:50] Speaker 2: We were actually getting ready to go to it X,
[20:52] Speaker 2: so we left. So I think I checked in like
[20:56] Speaker 2: at December sometime, and I did leave for the holidays,
[21:00] Speaker 2: came back in January and straight into it X. We
[21:02] Speaker 2: were in twenty nine Palms for a month, and uh,
[21:05] Speaker 2: for me, that was extremely valuable because that's when I
[21:07] Speaker 2: got to learn the company that I was gonna spend
[21:09] Speaker 2: essentially the entire deployment with. I was with Bravo Company.
[21:13] Speaker 2: Uh and yeah, I got to know all the Marines,
[21:16] Speaker 2: got to meet all the platoons and see how how
[21:18] Speaker 2: it worked in an infantry battalion, and you know, kind
[21:24] Speaker 2: of kind of learned got through those growing pains in
[21:27] Speaker 2: training versus actually in country.
[21:29] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[21:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, So after after it X, I think, uh, they
[21:36] Speaker 2: were trying to figure out they needed one of us
[21:38] Speaker 2: to go add on and then I just I was like, sure,
[21:41] Speaker 2: I'll go. You know, I got nothing better to do.
[21:44] Speaker 3: Send me to the war man.
[21:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. And then uh yeah I got in country. Uh
[21:51] Speaker 2: So with one to five we were we were in Sangin.
[21:54] Speaker 2: We were replacing three five. So I don't know if
[21:59] Speaker 2: you know, but like, uh, at that point, three five
[22:03] Speaker 2: really got beat up on that deployment. And I remember
[22:08] Speaker 2: my team leader just talking to us, and he had
[22:11] Speaker 2: talked to the previous comcam team leader and then just
[22:14] Speaker 2: you know, just seeing all the news reporting and stories
[22:16] Speaker 2: about what was going on three five, and I was
[22:19] Speaker 2: just like, oh, this is gonna be pretty serious. So
[22:23] Speaker 2: that was like I guess that was like the biggest weight.
[22:25] Speaker 2: I was like, oh fuck, I could die.
[22:28] Speaker 3: Is that for real? Now?
[22:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, but not really thinking about it, like I'll be honest,
[22:33] Speaker 2: like I'm not a brave person. I just like I
[22:35] Speaker 2: just followed directions really well, I guess.
[22:37] Speaker 1: Like so, I mean, it's like when you're in the military,
[22:40] Speaker 1: you know, you're like, well, I can't say no.
[22:42] Speaker 3: Well, like even if I don't want to do this,
[22:44] Speaker 3: I have to go do it. So but yeah, exactly.
[22:47] Speaker 1: I So I did an advisor team deployment in twenty
[22:49] Speaker 1: thirteen to sing in and I remember when they told
[22:51] Speaker 1: us that we were going to sing and I was like,
[22:53] Speaker 1: oh shit, like this is gonna be this is going
[22:55] Speaker 1: to be crazy. You know, like this could be wild
[22:57] Speaker 1: because everyone knows or not everybody, I guess, but a
[23:00] Speaker 1: lot of people, especially if you're in during that time.
[23:02] Speaker 1: You know a lot of people knew that singing was
[23:05] Speaker 1: like not the best place to be at. But yeah, man,
[23:09] Speaker 1: so getting there and that's just one of those things
[23:12] Speaker 1: you got to put behind you, you know. That fear
[23:15] Speaker 1: is like if someone asked me about that, they're like,
[23:17] Speaker 1: what do you what emotions do you go through before
[23:20] Speaker 1: you go on a mission or an operation? Or whatever,
[23:22] Speaker 1: and I'm like, honestly, you try to not really think
[23:24] Speaker 1: about it like everyone does think about it, like, man,
[23:27] Speaker 1: I could get blown up this time, or I could
[23:29] Speaker 1: you know whatever, But you don't sit there and dwell
[23:31] Speaker 1: on it.
[23:32] Speaker 3: You know.
[23:32] Speaker 1: It's like now you feel and a lot of times
[23:34] Speaker 1: you have so many tasks that you have to take
[23:36] Speaker 1: care of that you really don't have time to think
[23:37] Speaker 1: about it, you know.
[23:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, pretty much like I think just looking back,
[23:45] Speaker 2: the best thing I can say is like, I'm just
[23:46] Speaker 2: following the person in front of me, like I'll patrols.
[23:49] Speaker 2: The only formations we would do was ranger files, so
[23:52] Speaker 2: you know, luckily I'm not a sweeper appoint man, So
[23:55] Speaker 2: I'm just following the person in front of me. Yeah.
[23:58] Speaker 3: Well, part of singing where you guys in.
[24:01] Speaker 2: So we were for our AO. We were in the
[24:03] Speaker 2: northern part, so the main FOB was Fob Jackson and
[24:08] Speaker 2: then along the Helmet River there was the I think
[24:12] Speaker 2: the highway was called the six eleven, so we were
[24:14] Speaker 2: on the very north. So Bravo Company had the northern
[24:19] Speaker 2: part of the AO. Man, what was the fops?
[24:22] Speaker 1: Was it PB Transformer? And yeah, that was one of
[24:25] Speaker 1: ours and Alcatraz. Alcatraz was a bigger area.
[24:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we didn't take Alcatraz yet. That was I
[24:32] Speaker 2: think Reconscon Battalion had that. Yeah, yeah, ours our furthest
[24:36] Speaker 2: PEB was Transformers.
[24:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, man, such a sketchy area down there
[24:43] Speaker 1: in the green zone.
[24:45] Speaker 3: We didn't really go into the brown zone area.
[24:47] Speaker 1: So for people that don't know what I'm talking about saying,
[24:49] Speaker 1: in if you look at it on a map, you
[24:51] Speaker 1: have six eleven running north the south through Singing and
[24:55] Speaker 1: literally on the west side is green and on the
[24:57] Speaker 1: east side is all desert brown and it's like the
[25:00] Speaker 1: west side or excuse me, Yeah, the west side is
[25:02] Speaker 1: closer to the Helme and river and that's like the
[25:04] Speaker 1: farmland and stuff. But when we got there, they told
[25:07] Speaker 1: us they're like, yeah, the brown zone, we don't really
[25:09] Speaker 1: go in there as much because there's way more IEDs
[25:11] Speaker 1: and there's really no no like tactical reason for us
[25:14] Speaker 1: to be up in there.
[25:16] Speaker 3: That was the Afghans, of course, but.
[25:18] Speaker 2: Yeah for us, I'm just sure to remember, Yeah, we
[25:23] Speaker 2: didn't do much there either. There was like I guess
[25:25] Speaker 2: there was.
[25:26] Speaker 1: No reason, you know, yeah, when you so when you
[25:30] Speaker 1: got there on Advon. Did you go out on any
[25:33] Speaker 1: patrols or anything with the other unit or were you
[25:35] Speaker 1: just there kind of Yeah, what was it like going
[25:38] Speaker 1: on that first patrol?
[25:40] Speaker 2: Oh? Man ah, you know, shocking like this. It was
[25:47] Speaker 2: the first time on a combat patrol and it was
[25:49] Speaker 2: just like, I don't know, you could see it in
[25:54] Speaker 2: in the Marines with three five I think it was
[25:57] Speaker 2: Kilo company. How how tired of it they were, they
[26:02] Speaker 2: were just ready to go home. Yeah, And it was
[26:04] Speaker 2: just a culture shock too, because you know, we talk
[26:07] Speaker 2: about like level of poverty, like that's another level. It's
[26:10] Speaker 2: just like another shocking way of how people live that's
[26:13] Speaker 2: normal to them. But it was just like very interesting
[26:17] Speaker 2: just seeing just that side of the world, you know,
[26:22] Speaker 2: for the first time.
[26:23] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[26:24] Speaker 1: I think Thomas Schuman was the company or he was
[26:27] Speaker 1: one of the platoon leaders for Kilo three five. I
[26:29] Speaker 1: had him on the podcast and he does a He
[26:31] Speaker 1: does a really good job of talking through like some
[26:35] Speaker 1: of the fights, some of the really crazy fights that
[26:37] Speaker 1: they got in while they were there, and honoring some
[26:39] Speaker 1: of the guys if they lost, especially the combat engineers.
[26:42] Speaker 1: You know, they lost a lot of combat engineers that
[26:44] Speaker 1: were doing sweeping and you know, leading these patrols to
[26:47] Speaker 1: clear eeds and stuff like that. Such a crazy job
[26:51] Speaker 1: I would not have wanted.
[26:52] Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I can't imagine.
[26:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, when you were you know, that first patrol, it's
[26:59] Speaker 1: all weird, right because you're like, oh shit, especially if
[27:02] Speaker 1: you're out with guys that have gone out a lot,
[27:05] Speaker 1: there's you can see it in their eyes, like how
[27:06] Speaker 1: professional they are and they're just kind of they know
[27:09] Speaker 1: the danger. And when you see how serious they get
[27:11] Speaker 1: about it, you're like, okay, this is not like you know.
[27:14] Speaker 3: Yeah it's over, this is for real.
[27:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, differently a big shock because you know,
[27:21] Speaker 2: the biggest thing you're always told, especially when we're in
[27:24] Speaker 2: saying it is like follow a person in front of you.
[27:26] Speaker 2: If you step out of line, you could step on
[27:28] Speaker 2: an ID. So it's like, you know, that's on my mind, okay,
[27:32] Speaker 2: like paying attention where people were walking.
[27:34] Speaker 3: And then just like.
[27:37] Speaker 2: You know, trying not to stand out like do anything stupid.
[27:41] Speaker 2: We did like small, so it wasn't like big patrols
[27:44] Speaker 2: or anything. It was just like small security patrols near
[27:46] Speaker 2: the PB, but near the FOP. I think we're patrolling.
[27:49] Speaker 3: Out of man.
[27:50] Speaker 2: I can't remember that fob fob the ink yeah inkreman,
[27:53] Speaker 2: that's what they called it. Oh okay, yeah, I think
[27:56] Speaker 2: they renamed the Shamshier by the time the.
[27:57] Speaker 3: Last or something, Yeah, Shamshire and the Champion. Yeah.
[28:02] Speaker 2: So uh yeah, it was just you know, nerve wrecking
[28:07] Speaker 2: first time, like, you know, like, oh man, I don't
[28:10] Speaker 2: fucking die just because I stepped on the wrong in
[28:12] Speaker 2: the wrong direction or wasn't paying attention or you know,
[28:15] Speaker 2: did something down.
[28:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's tough to be a video guy and
[28:19] Speaker 1: try to stay in line with everybody else because you're
[28:21] Speaker 1: trying to get shots and stuff.
[28:22] Speaker 3: You know.
[28:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's natural inclinations to kind of push off to
[28:26] Speaker 1: the side so you can get the movement.
[28:27] Speaker 2: And yeah, for sure. And then just I think for me,
[28:32] Speaker 2: the first few patrols were just like I'm just gonna
[28:35] Speaker 2: stay in line and I and I did minimal work,
[28:38] Speaker 2: you know, just trying to get my bearing and understand
[28:41] Speaker 2: how everyone worked. So I think that was like the
[28:43] Speaker 2: first few patrols were like that.
[28:45] Speaker 3: Well, when you went out on a patrol, what did
[28:47] Speaker 3: you carry?
[28:49] Speaker 2: So on that to Plumber, I was shooting both photo
[28:51] Speaker 2: and video. Uh so I carried my standard t which
[28:57] Speaker 2: was my rifle. Luckily I had it M four standard
[29:01] Speaker 2: load out I can't remember, like six mags full and
[29:04] Speaker 2: then the mag and the rifle obviously standard PPE so
[29:10] Speaker 2: like literally everything standard that an infantry marine would carry,
[29:13] Speaker 2: plus my camera here and then so if I were
[29:16] Speaker 2: shooting video, I had a few different video cameras on
[29:20] Speaker 2: that deployment, like because like I mentioned that we were
[29:23] Speaker 2: shooting on tape and like tape was a painting the
[29:26] Speaker 2: ass because of the dust. So so luckily the battalion
[29:29] Speaker 2: that left, like their team had a had a like
[29:31] Speaker 2: a hard drive based camp quarder. They're like, hey, use this,
[29:34] Speaker 2: and I was like cool, So I used that for
[29:36] Speaker 2: a few months, and then I got another camp quorder
[29:39] Speaker 2: from from the vision forward. It was like CF card based,
[29:42] Speaker 2: so luckily I didn't have to shoot tape while I
[29:44] Speaker 2: was out there. And then for photo, I was shooting
[29:49] Speaker 2: on a I was shooting on originally on a five
[29:53] Speaker 2: D Mark two, and then I broke that like I
[29:55] Speaker 2: fell on a canal, and then luckily they were able
[29:58] Speaker 2: to give me another camera and I was eating on
[30:00] Speaker 2: the five year original, so that was the mean camera
[30:02] Speaker 2: I shot most of the deployment with those are my
[30:05] Speaker 2: still images. We're at that camera.
[30:07] Speaker 1: One thing I learned from hanging around with Commat camera
[30:10] Speaker 1: guys is how durable these cameras actually are.
[30:13] Speaker 3: You know.
[30:14] Speaker 1: I mean you may have broke one, but it probably
[30:16] Speaker 1: took a lot to break that camera.
[30:19] Speaker 2: Well, it's funny. I think that was like my second
[30:20] Speaker 2: or third patrol.
[30:21] Speaker 3: Like you look at my Welcome to the show, bro.
[30:25] Speaker 2: If you look at my photos, there's a photo it's
[30:30] Speaker 2: early like we're crossing a canal and I'm on like
[30:34] Speaker 2: you know, the far side, and I'm taking pictures of
[30:36] Speaker 2: these marines. And then it's like literally minutes later, I'm
[30:39] Speaker 2: walking through this canal and I not trip, but I'm
[30:42] Speaker 2: trying to get on the other side, and the sand
[30:44] Speaker 2: is really soft, so I sink further than I thought
[30:45] Speaker 2: I was going to. So then my camera got like
[30:47] Speaker 2: completely submerged, so they can't take a beating. But not
[30:52] Speaker 2: like that, she ain't working underwater.
[30:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, not a shitty freaking Afghan canal. Yeah, destroyed for sure.
[31:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, But other than that, if that didn't happen, it
[31:03] Speaker 2: probably would have lasted the entire deployment. But my my
[31:05] Speaker 2: second camera that I had was the five year Originals.
[31:07] Speaker 2: So that thing came out of No. Five and that
[31:09] Speaker 2: thing is was lasting me the entire deployment.
[31:13] Speaker 3: It's a workhorse.
[31:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think pretty much is Canon's pretty much standard
[31:18] Speaker 1: across military, right, is that all you guys?
[31:20] Speaker 3: Shoot? I personally use Icon.
[31:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, So for the Marine Corps Canon other services. I
[31:27] Speaker 2: think we're the only service that has like an actual
[31:30] Speaker 2: program of record and we use Canon. Some other other services,
[31:34] Speaker 2: like I think it maybe a unit dependent, so some
[31:37] Speaker 2: people prefer Nicon, Sony's or whatever. But for the most part,
[31:41] Speaker 2: the Marine Corps on Canon.
[31:43] Speaker 3: Okay, when you when you were going out on patrols,
[31:46] Speaker 3: what did they brief you? Hey, Like, what's your role here?
[31:50] Speaker 3: Like something happens, this is what you have to do?
[31:52] Speaker 3: You know? What was your kind of plan?
[31:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'd always sit on like the the the
[32:00] Speaker 2: op briefs, like right before patrol, and then they would
[32:04] Speaker 2: just brief we got comcam with us, like, you know,
[32:06] Speaker 2: he's gonna be taking pictures. For the most part, if
[32:10] Speaker 2: it was relatively quiet, I could just do that, just
[32:12] Speaker 2: take pictures. But you know, still I was another rifle
[32:17] Speaker 2: part of the squad. So if they needed me to
[32:19] Speaker 2: hold security or whatever, then I would do that. It's
[32:23] Speaker 2: like it's it's all very dependent, Like it's hard to
[32:28] Speaker 2: say like that that this is your only job. It's
[32:31] Speaker 2: it's not like when shit hits the fan, like you
[32:34] Speaker 2: got a rifle too, Like you know, we did see
[32:37] Speaker 2: a less training. You know, I know what's in an
[32:39] Speaker 2: I fact, you know, I know how to put it
[32:40] Speaker 2: on traink in all those things. So I do all
[32:42] Speaker 2: that training too. So it's not just taking pictures. It's
[32:48] Speaker 2: like if things are quiet, it's the primary mission. But
[32:52] Speaker 2: if she hits the fan, then it's a secondary.
[32:55] Speaker 3: Oh okay.
[32:56] Speaker 1: That's so that was kind of like are you kind
[32:58] Speaker 1: of torn between I need to be you know, shooting photos,
[33:01] Speaker 1: but I also are making video or whatever, but I
[33:03] Speaker 1: also should probably do this other thing as well.
[33:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, so this it's like it's always an interesting like
[33:10] Speaker 2: case study, like what do you do as a comic
[33:14] Speaker 2: camera marine? Like what's your obligation? And like I can't
[33:19] Speaker 2: tell you what the right answer is. I could just
[33:21] Speaker 2: tell you what I did. And if you look at
[33:24] Speaker 2: my photos, I have a photo I think I sent
[33:27] Speaker 2: you an email. It's the one of certain Matelsky being
[33:30] Speaker 2: like carried and so what happened that day. In that moment,
[33:36] Speaker 2: that squad was going out and like not even three
[33:40] Speaker 2: hundred meters outside the PD, they hit an ID and
[33:43] Speaker 2: then I think three or four guys were wounded. One
[33:48] Speaker 2: marine was killed, but in that moment, they were bringing
[33:51] Speaker 2: him back to like a CCP and he was being treated,
[33:55] Speaker 2: and I just remember picking up my camera and I
[33:58] Speaker 2: took that photo. I think I took two or three,
[34:01] Speaker 2: and I remember him like yelling at me. You know,
[34:04] Speaker 2: I think he was very upset, like, you know, put
[34:06] Speaker 2: that fucking camera down, and I did. And then the
[34:10] Speaker 2: rest of that time I was I was scared to
[34:13] Speaker 2: pick up my camera because like you know, you know,
[34:16] Speaker 2: people are getting blown up, like someone needs to hold security,
[34:19] Speaker 2: and that's all I was doing, is holding security. And
[34:22] Speaker 2: I say that it's like wolves a riting to you.
[34:24] Speaker 2: Should I kept taking pictures? You know, I don't know,
[34:28] Speaker 2: but I know that that photo lasted longer than me
[34:30] Speaker 2: holding security, Like like I don't know if me holding
[34:33] Speaker 2: security was as important as me documenting. So I can't
[34:39] Speaker 2: tell you what was right or wrong. Just every situation
[34:41] Speaker 2: is different, you know.
[34:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's such a tough spot to be
[34:44] Speaker 1: in because obviously, you know, you're talking life and death,
[34:48] Speaker 1: like real life and death situations that you're documenting, and
[34:52] Speaker 1: especially having someone that's messed up yell at you, it
[34:56] Speaker 1: feels voyeuristic right to just be there taking photos like
[35:01] Speaker 1: you're you know, it.
[35:02] Speaker 3: Just I understand what you're saying.
[35:06] Speaker 1: I get that, even like even walk around town taking photos.
[35:09] Speaker 1: You know, it's like, if you see something tragic happen,
[35:11] Speaker 1: like you should probably take a photo of it, but
[35:13] Speaker 1: at the same time, it like doesn't feel right to
[35:15] Speaker 1: do it, you know, yeah, because it just has to
[35:19] Speaker 1: be I don't know, it is a weird place to
[35:21] Speaker 1: be in. And hey, you know, it's on the individual,
[35:25] Speaker 1: and that individual moment is probably where the right answer
[35:28] Speaker 1: will come into play because there's so many very you know,
[35:31] Speaker 1: variables that could happen. But it's you're right, had you
[35:35] Speaker 1: just had you not shot any photos, you know, had
[35:38] Speaker 1: you just not done that, you know, think of that
[35:40] Speaker 1: moment or that history that is now never being documented
[35:44] Speaker 1: and never will never be seen in the future. And
[35:46] Speaker 1: that can be said by about so many images and
[35:49] Speaker 1: videos of tragic things that have happened but are extremely
[35:52] Speaker 1: important for us to know about.
[35:54] Speaker 2: You know, I'll also say after you know, he went
[35:58] Speaker 2: home after that, but when I got home, I saw
[36:01] Speaker 2: him and he thanked me for taking that photo.
[36:04] Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, at the.
[36:06] Speaker 2: Moment, obviously people aren't happy about it. But maybe afterwards
[36:10] Speaker 2: you can look back.
[36:10] Speaker 1: You know, yeah, did your video die? So while we
[36:17] Speaker 1: were talking about the kind of ethics, I guess behind photography.
[36:21] Speaker 3: How much did they talk about that in school?
[36:25] Speaker 2: Ah, thinking back, not really unless you asked, Yeah, I don't.
[36:33] Speaker 2: I don't really think we talked about it.
[36:35] Speaker 3: Have you ever talked about it with your marines?
[36:38] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, all the time. Like it's uh, I'll bring
[36:44] Speaker 2: up that photo, I'll tell that story and it's like
[36:47] Speaker 2: what I tell him? It's like I don't have an
[36:48] Speaker 2: answer for you. You know, like if you come back
[36:52] Speaker 2: on mission and then you show me your photos and
[36:54] Speaker 2: you're like, I only took you know, two photos because
[36:57] Speaker 2: this happened. It's like I'm not gonna say you failed.
[36:59] Speaker 2: You know, it's like shit happens, man, Like, yeah, it's
[37:02] Speaker 2: like life or death. I can't I can't say that
[37:04] Speaker 2: you did the wrong thing or not. You know, as
[37:07] Speaker 2: long as everyone's alive, I hope everyone's all right.
[37:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Yeah, definitely.
[37:12] Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's definitely hard.
[37:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a different world because it's you know, the
[37:22] Speaker 1: extremes of your job. You know, that day you're doing
[37:26] Speaker 1: you're taking a photo after an ID goes off and
[37:28] Speaker 1: stuff like that. Probably a year before that you were
[37:32] Speaker 1: probably doing something like videoing retirement ceremonies or something, you know,
[37:35] Speaker 1: and it's such a like it's such a wild like
[37:38] Speaker 1: change in jobs. And that's kind of like what you
[37:40] Speaker 1: guys are doing a lot of when there's no war
[37:42] Speaker 1: going on, right, there's a lot of like videoing like
[37:44] Speaker 1: events and stuff where it's pretty mundane.
[37:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, anywhere between, like you know, the change of commands
[37:52] Speaker 2: to a lot of training exercise. I think it's mainly that,
[37:56] Speaker 2: especially after the division. Like I have a few marines
[38:00] Speaker 2: that just got back from from a like an IX
[38:03] Speaker 2: like twenty nine pomps exercise. Yeah, so it's a lot
[38:07] Speaker 2: of that.
[38:07] Speaker 1: You know when you were when you were in Afghanistan
[38:10] Speaker 1: and you got that photo, was that the first I
[38:12] Speaker 1: ed that you had seen go off?
[38:15] Speaker 2: No man? At that point in our deployment, like that's
[38:24] Speaker 2: when things were getting like really active and kinetic, So
[38:30] Speaker 2: that had probably been the maybe third or fourth.
[38:35] Speaker 3: All victim initiated or.
[38:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think for the most part, Yeah, yeah, I
[38:42] Speaker 2: think for the most part they were all like that.
[38:43] Speaker 2: I don't think there were any remote that I could remember.
[38:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, we had when when we were I think it
[38:48] Speaker 1: was insane and it might have been Marsia we they were.
[38:51] Speaker 1: They had these like poll string IDs that they would use,
[38:53] Speaker 1: you know, and they would have like a string that
[38:55] Speaker 1: was like two hundred yards long and they'd be standing
[38:57] Speaker 1: over by a mud wall and set it off that
[38:58] Speaker 1: way or something. It's the things that they come up
[39:01] Speaker 1: with pretty wild. When you say that, when it started
[39:05] Speaker 1: to get active, can you kind of describe that, like,
[39:07] Speaker 1: what do you mean how what was the enemy like,
[39:10] Speaker 1: what did you experience, you know, when when you would
[39:13] Speaker 1: get into contact.
[39:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was very jarring, I think when we
[39:21] Speaker 2: got there, because we just we were placing a battalion
[39:25] Speaker 2: that they got like, you know, they got messed up.
[39:29] Speaker 2: You know, they lost a lot of marines, a lot wounded.
[39:32] Speaker 2: And when we got there, we thought it'd be you
[39:36] Speaker 2: know a lot of id's, a lot of firefights and
[39:38] Speaker 2: all that. But it was initially very quiet, Like I
[39:41] Speaker 2: think we got there like mid to late March. So
[39:44] Speaker 2: for the most part, it was very quiet, and I
[39:46] Speaker 2: remember like a lot of us would always joke around
[39:48] Speaker 2: like we're still in twenty nine palms, you know, this
[39:50] Speaker 2: is just a joke because we weren't encountering as many IDs.
[39:54] Speaker 2: We weren't. I don't think we were getting any engagements.
[39:57] Speaker 2: I think the only people that were getting in firefights
[39:59] Speaker 2: were like we could hear Ricon like calling for fire
[40:02] Speaker 2: just north of us, and like, we can't go any
[40:04] Speaker 2: further than this imaginary line that's Ricon. You know, they're
[40:07] Speaker 2: having fun that over there. So it wasn't until I
[40:12] Speaker 2: think it was like May, like we we were just
[40:15] Speaker 2: on a regular patrol, and then out of nowhere, URPB
[40:19] Speaker 2: got attacked, like they shot an RPG at our PV
[40:24] Speaker 2: and yeah, and then and then I think from then
[40:27] Speaker 2: it was like a switch, like everything it was game on,
[40:30] Speaker 2: Like it was you know, between firefights and and then
[40:35] Speaker 2: some ID activity. But after that point it was it
[40:39] Speaker 2: felt like it was NonStop.
[40:41] Speaker 1: Was it mostly like ambush style firefights where they just
[40:44] Speaker 1: take a few pot shots and then pull back through
[40:46] Speaker 1: the tree lines or were they standing and fighting at
[40:48] Speaker 1: some points?
[40:50] Speaker 2: No, it was like like you said, ambush, like you know,
[40:55] Speaker 2: the would do like the little murder whole thing, you know,
[40:57] Speaker 2: poke a hole through a mud wall and and shoot
[41:00] Speaker 2: through that. Like I would say, ninety percent of the
[41:03] Speaker 2: time we never saw them. It was very rare that
[41:06] Speaker 2: we saw them who would take some fire and then
[41:09] Speaker 2: you know, shoot back trying to find them, that kind
[41:11] Speaker 2: of thing. But from what I remember, like, I don't
[41:15] Speaker 2: think we could clearly say, oh, yeah, we saw them,
[41:17] Speaker 2: but we killed them.
[41:18] Speaker 3: Yeah. That's frustrating, that's so frustrating.
[41:21] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[41:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, they used to take shots. In saying.
[41:23] Speaker 1: The thing that they would do is use like two
[41:26] Speaker 1: terrain features, right, They would shoot from a tree line
[41:30] Speaker 1: through a tree line at like a patrol moving so
[41:32] Speaker 1: that you couldn't really see. You'd think they'd be in
[41:34] Speaker 1: this front tree line, but they're actually one farther, and
[41:38] Speaker 1: it was just yeah, those kind of tactics, you know,
[41:40] Speaker 1: and they'd take a couple bursts or whatever and then
[41:42] Speaker 1: try to move out and then lucky, you know, if
[41:45] Speaker 1: you're lucky and you got eyes in the area or whatever,
[41:47] Speaker 1: then maybe you'll find them. But a lot of times
[41:49] Speaker 1: they take a few shots and then kind of slip away.
[41:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much.
[41:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, was it more I mean, what would you say,
[41:59] Speaker 1: was the threat at that point more IED or more
[42:03] Speaker 1: getting into firefights?
[42:06] Speaker 2: I would say getting more into firefights.
[42:08] Speaker 3: Really, yeah, that at least what I.
[42:11] Speaker 2: Remember what it felt like, it was more firefights. We
[42:15] Speaker 2: had like big mass has events or incidences, multiple IDs
[42:24] Speaker 2: like that one that I photo that I shot photos of,
[42:27] Speaker 2: but I think we only had like a handful of those,
[42:31] Speaker 2: and I just felt like I felt like it was
[42:33] Speaker 2: more we were in gun fights.
[42:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you had to choose,
[42:38] Speaker 1: that's probably the way to go, right. You don't want
[42:40] Speaker 1: to like IED's are so frustrating because it's like, you know,
[42:44] Speaker 1: there's only so much you can do, you know, and
[42:46] Speaker 1: if you're just having an unlucky day. We had a
[42:48] Speaker 1: guy when I was with three six who had been
[42:51] Speaker 1: blown up multiple times, so many times that they told
[42:54] Speaker 1: him he couldn't go out anymore because he was like
[42:56] Speaker 1: the the commanders, like ps. He the security team. He
[43:02] Speaker 1: was the lead. He was in the lead vehicle for that.
[43:04] Speaker 1: And then the last time he got blown up a
[43:08] Speaker 1: couple of times in that and then the last time
[43:10] Speaker 1: they were on foot and he jumped over a canal
[43:12] Speaker 1: when he jumped over. He jumped onto a pressure plate
[43:15] Speaker 1: and they had a Yeah, they had a but at
[43:17] Speaker 1: low order dead it. It just caught on fire and
[43:20] Speaker 1: they were like, all right, dude, he hit too many,
[43:23] Speaker 1: Like it's time for you to stay inside.
[43:24] Speaker 3: The camp now. But man, I'm so glad I never
[43:29] Speaker 3: fucking stepped on one of those things. You know.
[43:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's such a It is a very uh
[43:36] Speaker 1: I mean, it's an effective weapon, and we spend so
[43:39] Speaker 1: much money to trying to defeat a very cheap weapon
[43:43] Speaker 1: for them to produce in large quantities, you know. Yeah,
[43:49] Speaker 1: is there when you think back to that deployment, is
[43:51] Speaker 1: there any you know, single moment that really stands out
[43:54] Speaker 1: more than others?
[44:00] Speaker 2: I guess maybe that that moment when I took that photo. Yeah,
[44:06] Speaker 2: I think that probably stands out the most. And maybe
[44:08] Speaker 2: it stands out the most is because I, you know,
[44:11] Speaker 2: I captured it and I recorded it, and I can't
[44:13] Speaker 2: always see it and remember it, so honestly, really, I
[44:21] Speaker 2: guess maybe it's an advantage maybe being a photographer videographer,
[44:25] Speaker 2: like I don't have to remember much. I just I
[44:28] Speaker 2: recorded them, so yeah, you know, I can look back
[44:30] Speaker 2: and see the you know, you remember those those those
[44:35] Speaker 2: events through the photos.
[44:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's such a great thing for everyone else too,
[44:40] Speaker 1: because if I'm on that deployment and I've gone back
[44:42] Speaker 1: and looked at some of the images and stuff that
[44:45] Speaker 1: the commat camera guy who came out to our advisor
[44:47] Speaker 1: team took, you know, I still go back and look
[44:49] Speaker 1: at those every once in a while and it's just like,
[44:52] Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad he was there. You know, we
[44:54] Speaker 1: only got to work with him for like a week
[44:55] Speaker 1: or something, but it was really cool. Like when he
[44:58] Speaker 1: was there and he got the like video our guys
[45:00] Speaker 1: shooting mortars or us out on a mission or you know,
[45:03] Speaker 1: firefights happening, it was different than for like you guys,
[45:07] Speaker 1: because you guys are at the battalion, you're part of
[45:11] Speaker 1: the battalion, You're part of the team. Whereas the guys
[45:15] Speaker 1: that came out to support us because we were an
[45:16] Speaker 1: advisor team, they got sitting down for meth So they'd
[45:19] Speaker 1: been living over in Leatherneck or whatever and flew into
[45:23] Speaker 1: Sanging for a week and did ops with us and
[45:26] Speaker 1: then went back to Leatherneck. And I was like, dude,
[45:28] Speaker 1: this has got to be a serious mind fuck for
[45:29] Speaker 1: you guys, you know, going from that to this and
[45:32] Speaker 1: then going back up, you know.
[45:34] Speaker 2: It's yeah, I would guess, yeah, I did something similar
[45:39] Speaker 2: on my second deployment because I was at the regiment
[45:41] Speaker 2: level and then RCT seven took over the division, so
[45:46] Speaker 2: I was mainly living on Leatherneck and then pushing out
[45:49] Speaker 2: doing ops from time to time. But I guess the
[45:52] Speaker 2: advantage I had is I had the experience being at
[45:54] Speaker 2: a retial level in previous point.
[45:55] Speaker 1: What was it like going on a second deployment and
[45:58] Speaker 1: living in Leatherneck and compared to that first deployment to
[46:02] Speaker 1: saying in this probably felt like a dream, like you know,
[46:05] Speaker 1: let's go to green Bean coffee, let's go over to
[46:06] Speaker 1: the PX you know.
[46:09] Speaker 2: Ah yeah, but nine and day like it also made
[46:11] Speaker 2: me realize like the level the quality of life, how
[46:14] Speaker 2: it like drastically drops because like if you look at Jackson,
[46:19] Speaker 2: like that's one of our main fops that we had
[46:20] Speaker 2: out there, and the next step above that was like
[46:23] Speaker 2: leather Neck, and like the big difference it was like shit, man,
[46:27] Speaker 2: we lived that crap, like just at that battalion level,
[46:31] Speaker 2: you know, and even worse at the platoon level. Things
[46:33] Speaker 2: just got shittier. So the second deployment, you know, it
[46:38] Speaker 2: was nice, like I slept on a real bed, like
[46:41] Speaker 2: we had our own little office and definitely a lot better.
[46:46] Speaker 2: And I guess like it kind of warrants it because
[46:50] Speaker 2: we were out there for ten months, yeah versus seven,
[46:52] Speaker 2: so yeah, but it was it was kind of like,
[46:56] Speaker 2: it's just astonishing how different the lifestyle was. Like, I
[47:00] Speaker 2: you're looking back, it's like, damn man, I was on
[47:02] Speaker 2: you know, I was in PBE Transformers and some other
[47:05] Speaker 2: fucks were on leather Deck having a good old time.
[47:07] Speaker 2: It's like, damn, doy, this sucks.
[47:08] Speaker 3: I remember when when you were there, did you ever
[47:11] Speaker 3: leave Sanging or were you in Sang in the whole
[47:13] Speaker 3: deployment and then you know, you never went back to
[47:15] Speaker 3: Leatherneck or anything until you were going home.
[47:19] Speaker 2: I think we went to Leatherneck one time for for
[47:23] Speaker 2: a like a helo insert. We started in Jackson, and
[47:27] Speaker 2: I don't know why they flew us to leather Deck
[47:30] Speaker 2: momentarily and then we just did our.
[47:33] Speaker 3: Our Oh so you didn't like to get to go
[47:34] Speaker 3: get choo and all that stuff, right?
[47:36] Speaker 2: Oh no, no, No, we were on and sang in
[47:39] Speaker 2: the entire time. It was between like like all the
[47:41] Speaker 2: northern pbs, like north of inc so like PB fires transformers,
[47:46] Speaker 2: and I think, man, man, what was it new when
[47:49] Speaker 2: we built? I can't remember, but yeah, I was just
[47:52] Speaker 2: pretty much in that AO like the entire time.
[47:54] Speaker 1: When I was with three six In twenty eleven, I
[47:57] Speaker 1: was in Marja and I think I'd been there for
[48:00] Speaker 1: about probably four months at that point, maybe four or five,
[48:03] Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, you got to go to Leatherneck
[48:05] Speaker 1: for this fire's conference that they're having. All the battalion
[48:09] Speaker 1: fires chiefs have to go. And I remember flying in
[48:12] Speaker 1: there and then like going to chow and stuff and
[48:15] Speaker 1: just being like this is this is wild yea. And
[48:19] Speaker 1: one of my like craziest memories is I remember walking
[48:23] Speaker 1: across like a parking lot or something at Leathernck and
[48:26] Speaker 1: I could smell the females like two hundred yards away
[48:32] Speaker 1: because their shampoo was blowing and I could smell it
[48:35] Speaker 1: in the wind because I hadn't smelled anything like that
[48:37] Speaker 1: in like four or five months.
[48:38] Speaker 3: Because we didn't have running water, you know, we were brushing.
[48:41] Speaker 1: Our teeth with water bottles and stuff, and it was
[48:43] Speaker 1: so crazy to like these weird it was just so
[48:47] Speaker 1: weird to be in that kind of environment after coming
[48:49] Speaker 1: from Marja, but after being there for like probably thirty
[48:52] Speaker 1: six hours, maybe even twenty four hours, I was like, dude,
[48:54] Speaker 1: I just want to go back, Like I'm tired of
[48:57] Speaker 1: being here.
[48:57] Speaker 3: You know.
[48:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is jarring, and it doesn't I don't know,
[49:02] Speaker 2: maybe for us, it just didn't feel right. It's like
[49:04] Speaker 2: you feel guilty, like, oh man, I got it really
[49:06] Speaker 2: good here.
[49:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[49:08] Speaker 1: I when so, I was a mechanic and I remember
[49:11] Speaker 1: being on base in Iraq and we had these we
[49:14] Speaker 1: lived in the can we call them cans and some
[49:16] Speaker 1: people call them choose and I remember guys bitching about
[49:20] Speaker 1: the Internet not working or something like that, and I'm like, bro,
[49:23] Speaker 1: there's dudes out there living in fucking huts like on patrols,
[49:26] Speaker 1: and you're bitching about your Internet.
[49:27] Speaker 3: You gotta like reassess your priorities. Dude.
[49:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to complain about something, I guess.
[49:33] Speaker 3: Yeah. Was it weird?
[49:35] Speaker 1: I mean, you know, moving up to that regimental level,
[49:37] Speaker 1: how did the job change for you? Were you just
[49:39] Speaker 1: managing people at this point or were you I mean
[49:42] Speaker 1: you went out a few times obviously, but yeah.
[49:45] Speaker 2: No, So it was an interesting time in the war.
[49:48] Speaker 2: It was like the the Marine Corps drawing down, so
[49:53] Speaker 2: it went from like a division forward to just the regiment.
[49:56] Speaker 2: You know, it used to be the division forward and
[49:58] Speaker 2: two regiments. It was just r CT seven supervising or
[50:03] Speaker 2: or over like all the battalions that were out there.
[50:07] Speaker 2: In a way, it was kind of supervisory because we
[50:09] Speaker 2: would we would manage the other teams that were out
[50:12] Speaker 2: there if they had a team. So I know, some
[50:15] Speaker 2: battalions had their own people out there and like they
[50:18] Speaker 2: would feed their content to us where we would review
[50:20] Speaker 2: it and get it released and publish it. But for
[50:25] Speaker 2: the most part, we were just coveringing the gaps. Like
[50:29] Speaker 2: if if a unit didn't have a commcam team, then
[50:32] Speaker 2: then we would go and support them.
[50:35] Speaker 1: When what was there, like a favorite kind of unit
[50:38] Speaker 1: that you like to support or favorite kind of like
[50:40] Speaker 1: operation you like going on or do you just like
[50:43] Speaker 1: doing your job in general?
[50:45] Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, just doing my job in general. Like my
[50:51] Speaker 2: favorite unit was like one to five, Like I always
[50:54] Speaker 2: remember that, like, you know, it was my first apployment.
[50:56] Speaker 2: But the most memorable for me just the Marines that
[51:02] Speaker 2: we were that I was there with and you know,
[51:05] Speaker 2: the images that I created while I was with them.
[51:09] Speaker 2: But yeah, like I don't want to say it's like
[51:12] Speaker 2: kind of all the same, but in a way like
[51:16] Speaker 2: it is the same. I'm just trying to tell their story,
[51:19] Speaker 2: trying to take the best photos I can. So it's
[51:22] Speaker 2: it really is regardless. It doesn't matter what they're doing,
[51:25] Speaker 2: Like it's it's I'm just trying to try to do
[51:28] Speaker 2: my job the best. So, yeah, they could be doing anything.
[51:31] Speaker 2: They can be digging holes all day and I could
[51:32] Speaker 2: take pictures of that all day to try to take
[51:34] Speaker 2: the best photos.
[51:35] Speaker 1: It's a unique job too, because you get to see
[51:37] Speaker 1: so many different aspects of the Marine Corps. You know,
[51:40] Speaker 1: most people are solely focused on their job, maybe a
[51:42] Speaker 1: couple adjacent jobs, and you know, the missions that they do,
[51:46] Speaker 1: and being a combat camera person opens up the opportunity
[51:49] Speaker 1: to do everything from flying in the back of all
[51:52] Speaker 1: kinds of different aircraft to being on foot patrols to
[51:55] Speaker 1: you know, just every there's just so much in between.
[51:59] Speaker 1: And I remember our guys going out with like some
[52:01] Speaker 1: of the recon guys and doing some of the stuff
[52:03] Speaker 1: with them and documenting that. I'm like, man, you guys
[52:06] Speaker 1: get to sample a little bit of everything, you know.
[52:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I always tell people this is the
[52:11] Speaker 2: best job because you could see all the Marine Corps
[52:14] Speaker 2: and one career. Like for me, you know, I've been
[52:18] Speaker 2: stationed with the wing station with the division at an
[52:20] Speaker 2: installation training command, so I get to see a little
[52:23] Speaker 2: bit of everything.
[52:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, now I'm gonna jump forward. I guess a little
[52:27] Speaker 1: bit because I saw, you know, in the what you
[52:29] Speaker 1: had sent me that you moved into the warrant officer program.
[52:32] Speaker 3: And I think it'd be interesting.
[52:34] Speaker 1: For people that are out there to maybe have a
[52:37] Speaker 1: better understanding of what that entails, and.
[52:39] Speaker 3: You know, maybe some advice on anyone that might be
[52:42] Speaker 3: interested in that.
[52:44] Speaker 2: Yeah. So for for us, like in the combat camera fields,
[52:50] Speaker 2: So I should preface or I should mention that, like,
[52:55] Speaker 2: our community is a little bit different now. So back
[52:58] Speaker 2: then when I mentioned that used to be a public
[52:59] Speaker 2: affair is in combat camera. In twenty seventeen, the two
[53:04] Speaker 2: communities merged and we created a new AUK field called
[53:07] Speaker 2: Communication Strategies and Operations. The Junior and listed are essentially
[53:12] Speaker 2: doing the same job. We still have graphic designers, photographers,
[53:15] Speaker 2: and videographers. It's just now we're kind of like tucked
[53:18] Speaker 2: into the public affairs realm, and the idea was to
[53:23] Speaker 2: reduce redundancy. It's like I remember all my first deployment,
[53:27] Speaker 2: we had a PA guy assigned to our battalion too,
[53:30] Speaker 2: so it was like we're kind of doing the same thing.
[53:32] Speaker 2: So I think the Marine Corps was like, let's just
[53:34] Speaker 2: emergen these ms is because you know, get rid of
[53:37] Speaker 2: that redundancy. So, you know, going into the warrant officer
[53:43] Speaker 2: thing where it became a little bit different is back
[53:47] Speaker 2: then our chief four nicer, the comcam officer would be
[53:51] Speaker 2: the OIC. Now as a Chief four officer, I'm just
[53:54] Speaker 2: I'm the visual information officer. I'm just a SMEE in
[53:56] Speaker 2: the field, so you know, I'll work under the director,
[53:59] Speaker 2: so not a necessarily in charge, but advising on like training,
[54:02] Speaker 2: employment and equipment. So to get more nitty grating into
[54:07] Speaker 2: like the warran afscer program, I think if you have
[54:13] Speaker 2: a passion for your community, I would highly encourage it
[54:17] Speaker 2: because you're now a restricted officer and you're the you
[54:20] Speaker 2: should be the expert in your community. And it's a
[54:25] Speaker 2: good like I guess progression in your career. You know
[54:30] Speaker 2: you're doing something different and that's also a quality of life,
[54:33] Speaker 2: you know, being a chief one officer. Obviously the pays better,
[54:36] Speaker 2: the job's a little bit different, and also I guess,
[54:41] Speaker 2: I don't want to say more authority, but like if
[54:44] Speaker 2: you get selected to be a chief of ansicor you
[54:45] Speaker 2: shouldn't know what the hell you're talking about.
[54:46] Speaker 1: Yah, So you're literally yeah, you're literally the subject matter expert.
[54:50] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[54:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, like I applied in twenty nineteen or
[54:56] Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and then I got selected in nineteen. I've
[55:00] Speaker 2: been a chief officer since. The job for me has
[55:04] Speaker 2: you know, kind of I don't want to say it sucks,
[55:07] Speaker 2: but like it's pretty much almost the same. Like it's
[55:10] Speaker 2: the same in every duty station. Like my job is
[55:12] Speaker 2: to advise on employment, equipment and training. You know. So
[55:18] Speaker 2: it's I guess because I love it so much.
[55:21] Speaker 3: You know.
[55:22] Speaker 2: It makes it easy because they get to train different marines,
[55:25] Speaker 2: get to work with different marines, and watch all sorts
[55:28] Speaker 2: of different content and hopefully I'm helping and improving that.
[55:32] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[55:32] Speaker 1: I mean, your your thumbprint is on all media coming out,
[55:37] Speaker 1: you know, because you're training the people that are creating
[55:39] Speaker 1: the media and stuff. So you're indirectly involved in that
[55:43] Speaker 1: and you know it. It is really important work. And
[55:46] Speaker 1: I do like that you said, you know, as a
[55:48] Speaker 1: subject matter expert. If you really enjoy that, then the
[55:50] Speaker 1: warrant officer program is a good program. I recommended that
[55:54] Speaker 1: for a lot of people. I'm like, dude, if you're
[55:55] Speaker 1: going to stay in for twenty you know you mentioned
[55:58] Speaker 1: the quality of life, Dude, if I would much rather
[56:01] Speaker 1: be on the officer deck. If I'm on ship, then
[56:03] Speaker 1: you know, down in the ES six and below birthing
[56:06] Speaker 1: or whatever, there's definitely a standard of living that goes
[56:10] Speaker 1: up there. I looked at it, so I don't know
[56:13] Speaker 1: if it's the same now. But in my old MOS,
[56:15] Speaker 1: I was an O eight six to one, And if
[56:18] Speaker 1: you became a warrant officer as a in that field,
[56:22] Speaker 1: then you become essentially a targeting officer and you work
[56:25] Speaker 1: with like the FDC and you survey and that kind
[56:27] Speaker 1: of stuff, and I that didn't interest me. You're more
[56:31] Speaker 1: focused on artillery stuff, which not really necessarily what you're
[56:35] Speaker 1: always doing as a ford observer because you're you're like
[56:37] Speaker 1: in between working with artillery and infantry all the time.
[56:40] Speaker 3: So it would have been way different for me.
[56:43] Speaker 1: Whereas you you know, you said, it's almost like the
[56:45] Speaker 1: same job, you know, it's just now a little bit
[56:47] Speaker 1: more responsibility and things. It would have been vastly different
[56:50] Speaker 1: for me, but for most people, I think it does
[56:53] Speaker 1: make sense. If you're going to stay in, you know,
[56:55] Speaker 1: and you have all the prerequisites done, then to give
[56:58] Speaker 1: it a shot.
[57:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it. I don't regret it at all. Sometimes
[57:06] Speaker 2: I do wish that I could. I can, you know,
[57:09] Speaker 2: still shoot, Like, I don't think I've done taking a
[57:12] Speaker 2: photo for work since I don't know, twenty eighteen or something.
[57:15] Speaker 2: Wow really actually no, yeah, who bick. I think the
[57:18] Speaker 2: last time I took photos it wasn't really for work,
[57:20] Speaker 2: Like you know, at school at TDS, you know, they
[57:22] Speaker 2: want to do their little cruise books. So I was
[57:24] Speaker 2: taking photos for my class and that was probably like
[57:27] Speaker 2: the last time. But it's not my role to take photos.
[57:30] Speaker 2: It's not my role to do those things.
[57:32] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that would be frustrating though. If you see
[57:35] Speaker 1: something like a cool event, you're like, oh, I could
[57:38] Speaker 1: get some sweet images here, like this would be epic,
[57:41] Speaker 1: you know if only ihead my camera.
[57:43] Speaker 3: So now you just now you just do it for fun, huh? Mainly, yeah,
[57:47] Speaker 3: for the most part. Yeah, what do you shoot on
[57:49] Speaker 3: on your civilian camera?
[57:53] Speaker 2: You use whatever I could find? Oh yeah, yeah, like
[57:58] Speaker 2: just life really like I just got.
[58:03] Speaker 3: I like.
[58:05] Speaker 2: Type two six two and I'm just like playing around
[58:08] Speaker 2: with it, testing it and just shooting my life. There's
[58:12] Speaker 2: really nothing. Maybe I could try to find a side
[58:16] Speaker 2: house though, but I'm too lazy to do that.
[58:18] Speaker 1: So dude, the only money in photography is if you
[58:20] Speaker 1: want to do weddings, and yeah, and that's cool, but
[58:25] Speaker 1: and I've had people ask me if I wanted to
[58:26] Speaker 1: do a wedding and I'm like, I just don't want
[58:28] Speaker 1: to do that, you know. I mean, and it's good money,
[58:30] Speaker 1: it can be really good money, but in the photography world,
[58:33] Speaker 1: it's so hard to get any kind of recognition or
[58:36] Speaker 1: any money unless you're a wedding photographer, you know, And
[58:39] Speaker 1: it's just you'd probably be great because you knew video
[58:42] Speaker 1: as well. So you know, I've never really done video
[58:44] Speaker 1: work videography stuff, so it'd be tough for me in
[58:46] Speaker 1: that respect, but you could probably roll into making big
[58:50] Speaker 1: bucks doing doing weddings and stuff.
[58:55] Speaker 3: You know.
[58:55] Speaker 1: I like to shoot with the fifty five to two
[58:57] Speaker 1: hundred is what I carry mostly just for like general
[59:00] Speaker 1: carrying around.
[59:01] Speaker 3: What do you like.
[59:03] Speaker 2: Twenty four to seventy Okay, like my go to like
[59:07] Speaker 2: on my main camera, but my main cameras at R
[59:09] Speaker 2: five pretty much never leaves the body.
[59:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that's kind of that's kind of how
[59:16] Speaker 1: that fifty five to two hundred is for me. I
[59:18] Speaker 1: use a Like I said, I shoot with a Nikon
[59:20] Speaker 1: and sometimes like if I'm downtown or I'm really looking
[59:25] Speaker 1: at details, I'll I have a thirty five millimeter prime
[59:28] Speaker 1: and then I have a I think it's like a
[59:31] Speaker 1: ten to eighteen or something like that, like ultra wide
[59:34] Speaker 1: angle that I like using for doing some like architecture
[59:38] Speaker 1: photography and stuff.
[59:40] Speaker 3: But you know, for.
[59:42] Speaker 1: Social media, it feels like in the last like five years,
[59:45] Speaker 1: the military has taken it way more seriously than they
[59:48] Speaker 1: did before.
[59:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, so social media is a big part of our community,
[59:54] Speaker 2: part of our job. It's like social media is an
[59:58] Speaker 2: easy tool for in engaging with the public. So that's
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: part of one of the main functions that CONSTRACT or
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: Communications Strategy and operations public affairs. That's one of our
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: main functions is engaging with the public, and it's part
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: of that information to inform you know, people, and it's
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: an easy tool to use. Everyone has it and that's
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: where people get there a lot of their information from.
[1:00:23] Speaker 2: So the Marine Corps puts a big emphasis on it.
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: So so we have our you know, what we want
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: to say is out there.
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you got to get your messaging.
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: Now is it who controls like who hits the final
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: like post button? You know, it's not some lance corporalized
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: to whom I assume it gets looked at.
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: Before it gets posted.
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, so at the headquarters level. So I guess as
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: in a way, it's unfortunate that like you could have
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: a social media but they've tightened up regulation. But back
[1:00:53] Speaker 2: then almost like the wild West, like probably just a
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: few years ago as the Wild West, like you could
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: be a battalion and you can have your own social
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: media paige and whatever. Yeah. So now with with new policies,
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: like it has to be like at the six level
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: with a with a constract officer to have a social
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: media page. Yeah. So typically depending on the unit, like
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: most units will have one. Its just so they'll be
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: at like a the division level MLG, wing and higher
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: and the lance corporals are making those posts they're writing them.
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: They're the ones who are taking the content choosing, but
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: by the direction of the director or like an engagements officer,
[1:01:32] Speaker 2: they'll review the content and then they're like, yeah, this
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: is good. Like everyone has their own system, but they'll
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: put it on a schedule, like you have these a
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: wrong appreved. You can post these things, but for the
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: most part it is like a lands corporal of doing
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: all those things, but with the guidance of of like
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: you know, senior.
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: Staff and whatt Yeah.
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought I felt like it seemed like recently,
[1:01:51] Speaker 1: like you said, the battalions don't post their own anymore,
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: and I thought i'd seen kind of like a.
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: Pullback on that.
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: I really, you know, like I said, with in the
[1:02:00] Speaker 1: last five years, I was really looking at like, man,
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: the military has got to get a hang on social
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: media because that's a battlefield on its own, you know,
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: and if you're not posting information as quickly as possible
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: and your enemy is getting the word out, their version
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: of the story out before you, then it's harder to
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: counter that when you're not. You know, it's just such
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: a crazy environment and it's it's nice to see that
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: they're taking it seriously and I remember, Oh.
[1:02:31] Speaker 3: What's his name? I feel like such a dick. I'm
[1:02:33] Speaker 3: trying to remember his name.
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: Some of the uh, some of the senior staff. It
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: was the lieutenant Lieutenant General Belling, not Bellinger. Dang it,
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: I'm I'm Bellin. Lieutenant General Bellen really took an interest
[1:02:47] Speaker 1: into it. And when he was in charge of fourth
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: Marine fourth Marine Division, I believe, or maybe a Marine Corpserves.
[1:02:53] Speaker 1: Actually no, he was in charge of Marine Corpserves. Yeah,
[1:02:55] Speaker 1: it was Committity General of Marine Corpserves. He came on
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: the podcast and we were talking about it, and he
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: actually fought found my podcast through social media, and his
[1:03:02] Speaker 1: team was like taking you know, some of the first
[1:03:04] Speaker 1: real steps that I saw of trying to improve social media,
[1:03:09] Speaker 1: not as like a propaganda tool, but just understanding that
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it is a battlefield in the
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: information space, and that you have to like, you have
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: to be putting something out there because if you're not
[1:03:21] Speaker 1: putting any statement out there, then you're allowing someone else
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: to dictate the narrative, and you know, obviously you don't
[1:03:26] Speaker 1: want that.
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, it is an interesting thing. It's like a fight
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: that we deal with in our community. It's like who's
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: allowed to do this? You know, it's like authorities and
[1:03:41] Speaker 2: it gets a little confusing, but you're right, like, as
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: long as we're saying something, you know, we're trying to
[1:03:46] Speaker 2: dictate that narrative. You know, that's that's a good thing,
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: because that's like the next fight will be that information fight.
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: And I think that's where our community has become more
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: relevant and more important these days. Like I remember back
[1:03:59] Speaker 2: then as a young green, like as a combat camera guy,
[1:04:02] Speaker 2: like they don't really care about us. Now it's like, oh,
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: you know, we need to put this information out there.
[1:04:08] Speaker 2: We need to show that we are doing X, Y
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: and Z and you know that.
[1:04:11] Speaker 3: Kind of thing, and it's good.
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: I mean, I think the American taxpayer deserves to know
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: where their money's going, and I think the more that
[1:04:18] Speaker 1: that comes out, the better. There's so many pages like
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: Goon's up and heavily suppressed that are focused on these
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: moss like artillery and infantry, where the next generation of
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: Marines can know so much about an MOS and specific
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: units before they even join, whereas you and I, you know,
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: like you said you joined, you had really no idea
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: what was going on. All my information came from like
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: reading books, you know, Marine Sniper and the occasional Discovery
[1:04:43] Speaker 1: Channel documentary that would come out. And now people have
[1:04:47] Speaker 1: so much more information to make an informed decision when
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: they decide to join what they want to do, and
[1:04:52] Speaker 1: you know kind of what the expectation is once.
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: They get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah for sure.
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: How often how often is landscorp will trying to make
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: like a spicy post and it's got to get shut down.
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: It's like it's a little too edty brow.
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: For the most part, it's a like it kind of
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: sounds bad. It's like a chore, Like it just depends
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: on the unit, like like we got to make these
[1:05:18] Speaker 2: posts and it's not easy, Like it depends on your
[1:05:21] Speaker 2: frequency too. It's like if you're at headquarters Marine Corps
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: is far easier because you have all the Marine Corps
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: content to choose, But if you're at like a unit
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: like I don't know, I don't know, say the wing,
[1:05:33] Speaker 2: Like your focus is only wing, so it's like what
[1:05:35] Speaker 2: did we shoot this week? Or like how do we
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: stay relevant or like you know, not posting something too old.
[1:05:40] Speaker 2: So it's kind of hard. So no one's like some
[1:05:43] Speaker 2: people love it, you know, doing social media and engagements.
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: But some people it's like a chore. It's like, dude,
[1:05:48] Speaker 2: we got to make this post, Like what the fuck
[1:05:50] Speaker 2: do I write?
[1:05:50] Speaker 1: People don't realize how big of a job social media
[1:05:53] Speaker 1: actually is, Like when you're running So I do digital
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: marketing consulting now and I'll speak with companies and we'll
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: talk about social media, and they quickly realize that they
[1:06:03] Speaker 1: need to have someone that's like kind of their dedicated
[1:06:06] Speaker 1: job because there is so much into It's it's really
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: easy to create the first four or five post, you know,
[1:06:11] Speaker 1: when you haven't really been doing anything. But then after
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: you started making a bunch, you start running into those
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: problems of like, oh, what kind of what's the content
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: this week? You know what I gotta and it's like fuck,
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: it does become kind of a stressor.
[1:06:22] Speaker 3: Around you know.
[1:06:23] Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the one thing that really gets me
[1:06:28] Speaker 2: is with the advent of social media, especially Instagram, the
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: popularization of like editing photos a certain way, Like that's
[1:06:37] Speaker 2: what gets me, Like marines will will try to throw
[1:06:40] Speaker 2: on like an Instagram filter on their photos. And for
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: our job, like it's really we have a journalistic approach
[1:06:48] Speaker 2: to these and there is policy dictating that we don't
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: just we need to create an accurate visual record, not
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: just a stylized image. It's you know, so that's really
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: the biggest thing where you like Maray's publishing on Davis
[1:07:02] Speaker 2: like photos are overly stylized and it's it's kind of frustrating.
[1:07:04] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: I remember the eleventh U Comcam team. Yeah, when I
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: was on the leventh view deployment twice, Scott McAdams was
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: I think the staff into I see for now. There
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: was a gunny what's his name? Damn, I can't remember
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: the gunny's name. He was a really good video guy too.
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: He was really good about getting his Marines training outside
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: the normal training. Since we're close to LA, he got
[1:07:27] Speaker 1: on some like training with Hollywood editors and stuff like that,
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: and I was like, man, he was always all about it.
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: I can't I can't remember his name though, but I
[1:07:34] Speaker 1: do remember because I did take some photos for him
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: one time because I was out on a training thing
[1:07:39] Speaker 1: and I would I didn't really have anything to.
[1:07:40] Speaker 3: Do, so I was like, oh, shoot photos.
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: And they did make it very clear like when you
[1:07:45] Speaker 1: go to like edit the photo, you can't really you
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: really have to just edit like contrast a little bit,
[1:07:50] Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of brightness. You can't go through
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: and like make these crazy changes, you know. So for
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: people that may think that that does happen, it doesn't
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: like they're not really photoshopping anything because the risk is
[1:08:01] Speaker 1: now I don't believe anything you're creating.
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then the issue is that social media,
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: like those stylized photos you know, are more popular on
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: social media, So since we're trying to compete in that
[1:08:14] Speaker 2: information space, they think that's the trick. But at the
[1:08:17] Speaker 2: same time, it's like, no, like we work for this institution,
[1:08:21] Speaker 2: can't do whatever you want.
[1:08:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. How has is AI affecting you guys
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: at all in your job? Specifically?
[1:08:28] Speaker 1: Are you using AI to create stuff or is that
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: just kind of wild west?
[1:08:34] Speaker 2: Not yet, like there have been like mari admin's and
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: policy about AI. And then I don't know if you saw,
[1:08:41] Speaker 2: like recently the Department of War pushing out like its
[1:08:44] Speaker 2: initiative to use AI. But as far as like creating content,
[1:08:51] Speaker 2: I known so far in my experience, I haven't seen
[1:08:53] Speaker 2: brains trying to use AI to produce content.
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, man, Well, I think that was really it.
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: Is there anything before we wrap this up that you
[1:09:01] Speaker 1: want to promote or put out there?
[1:09:06] Speaker 2: Uh?
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: Really, what's your website? Tell people your website?
[1:09:10] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well you can find like my photos on
[1:09:14] Speaker 2: my website kuchung dot com or kuchung yeah, my full
[1:09:17] Speaker 2: name kote W s A j O n y e
[1:09:18] Speaker 2: dot com and then search the same thing for my Instagram.
[1:09:22] Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I'll have the link for your website
[1:09:24] Speaker 1: into the show description so people can go check that out.
[1:09:27] Speaker 1: Make sure to check out my my page Former Action
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: Guys and Former Action News on Instagram. My website's jacamographics
[1:09:33] Speaker 1: dot com. Support the show by going over there and
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: pick it up a T shirt and Uh, that's it, man,
[1:09:37] Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on to day.
[1:09:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thanks for having me

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