# Ranger Regiment Platoon Sergeant in Syria and Afghanistan | Les Sandusky (throwback episode)

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 5 Nov 2025, 4 h 13 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/68416818/les_sandusky_throwback_ep.mp3

original air date 12/14/22 Former Ranger Les Sandusky joins the show for a candid, four-hour deep dive into combat, leadership, and life after the Regiment. From firefights in Syria and Iraq to rebuilding purpose after injury and RFS, Les opens up about resilience, loss, and redemption. A raw, unfiltered conversation on what it means to serve — and to find yourself again once the mission ends. Subscribe to our Patreon & get ad free listening ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse 00:00 – Early Ranger Life 23:40 – Combat in Syria & Iraq 1:05:00 – Mortar Tactics Explained 1:32:30 – Inside Ranger Culture 2:03:10 – The DUI & RFS Fallout 2:45:00 – Injury & Isolation 3:16:00 – Big Red One Transition 3:25:00 – Rebuilding a Platoon 3:34:00 – Live Q&A Segment 3:43:00 – Transition Out 3:54:00 – Restoring Rank & Honor 3:55:30 – Contracting & Closure Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: The Team House with your hopes. Jack Murphy and David Park.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Hey, folks, welcome to episode one and eighty of The
[0:15] Speaker 2: Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park and
[0:17] Speaker 2: our guest on the show tonight is Les Sandusky. Less
[0:21] Speaker 2: served as a Mortar Platoon sergeant and Third Ranger Battalion.
[0:25] Speaker 2: Spent some time in First Ranger Battalion, had a lot
[0:28] Speaker 2: of deployments to Afghanistan and Syria. You know, like I
[0:31] Speaker 2: was saying the other day, I'm really glad to have
[0:34] Speaker 2: you on the show because, like Dave and I each
[0:36] Speaker 2: represent like the Rangers of yesteryear.
[0:40] Speaker 1: Like Dave was in the Ranger Battalion in the nineties.
[0:43] Speaker 1: I came in.
[0:43] Speaker 2: I got there two thousand and three. But then there's
[0:48] Speaker 2: this whole other generation of dudes that came after us,
[0:50] Speaker 2: And if you don't hear them talk, I mean, there's
[0:54] Speaker 2: no books really out there about what you guys did yet,
[0:57] Speaker 2: and I think there's some incredible stories about what that
[1:00] Speaker 2: what that whole era of like let's say twenty ten
[1:02] Speaker 2: to twenty twenty two, what those guys have been up to.
[1:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, And not only that, but I mean it's
[1:09] Speaker 3: Ranger regiment has changed so much since, especially since I
[1:13] Speaker 3: was there. Yeah, you know, we were just coming out
[1:16] Speaker 3: of the you know, the premiere light infantry of the
[1:18] Speaker 3: world and moving into you know the cqb jsack support
[1:24] Speaker 3: element type of thing.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to say, within like my first three years,
[1:28] Speaker 1: we changed our kit and our helmet three times in
[1:30] Speaker 1: our uniform three times.
[1:32] Speaker 3: That's funny because when I was there, probably hadn't been
[1:35] Speaker 3: changed for since Vietnam.
[1:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, yeah, yeah, it's it's hard to
[1:40] Speaker 2: explain that to like people on the outside, that like
[1:43] Speaker 2: massive cultural shift that the unit went through. But let's
[1:47] Speaker 2: talk about you, let's talk about your origin story less
[1:50] Speaker 2: kind of like, yeah, what was your upbringing like and
[1:52] Speaker 2: what was it that kind of set you on the
[1:54] Speaker 2: path towards the army and towards the Ranger Regiment.
[1:57] Speaker 1: Okay, so I grew up into come Washington like obviously
[2:01] Speaker 1: got the Rainier shirt. At the time they were the
[2:04] Speaker 1: Tacoma Tigers. But so when I was growing up in Tacoma,
[2:08] Speaker 1: I was born on Fort Lewis at Madigan, I was
[2:11] Speaker 1: on Army brat. My mom was in the military. She
[2:14] Speaker 1: was working at I Corps and Personnel and my dad
[2:16] Speaker 1: worked patient admin at Madigan, So that's where I was born, Uh,
[2:22] Speaker 1: basically where both my parents worked. And I kind of
[2:24] Speaker 1: grew up around the army. I grew up kind of
[2:28] Speaker 1: watching Rambo films, putting on and you know, watching Predator,
[2:34] Speaker 1: watching all those films that everyone, you know, we quote
[2:36] Speaker 1: when we get to the army. Yeah, and so I
[2:40] Speaker 1: was kind of like dead set and being the army
[2:42] Speaker 1: because I grew up around the army, and uh, I
[2:45] Speaker 1: would tell my parents all the time, I'm going in
[2:47] Speaker 1: the Army. Almost every year, I was an army guy.
[2:51] Speaker 4: For Halloween.
[2:52] Speaker 1: I would play in the woods all day with my friends,
[2:58] Speaker 1: dressed up and fatigue, do bottle rocket wars, all types
[3:03] Speaker 1: of play an army all day. Right, So that's kind
[3:08] Speaker 1: of how it was for a while. And then I
[3:12] Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of details in there with
[3:15] Speaker 1: the dynamics and how my family was, Like you know,
[3:18] Speaker 1: military family. I think it's kind of common. Military families
[3:21] Speaker 1: don't last to kind of divorce and stuff like that.
[3:23] Speaker 1: It's kind of a common theme. So in that sense
[3:25] Speaker 1: of what happened in a lot of back and forth
[3:27] Speaker 1: between both parents, spending majority of my time in the
[3:32] Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. I even moved across country all the way
[3:36] Speaker 1: to Florida before and then back up to the Pacific Northwest,
[3:40] Speaker 1: and the whole time, I'm just like kind of dead
[3:42] Speaker 1: set and join the army. That's kind of what I
[3:44] Speaker 1: want to do. I don't even know exactly what I
[3:46] Speaker 1: want to do. I do remember being out near Solo
[3:51] Speaker 1: Point and seeing guys jump into the water at Solo Point,
[3:55] Speaker 1: or being out there on American Lake and seeing guys
[3:58] Speaker 1: jump out of the back of forty evans into the
[4:01] Speaker 1: water and seeing them, you know, green face paint and
[4:05] Speaker 1: stuff with just like haircut I didn't like on top
[4:11] Speaker 1: of their head, call it high and tight, you know,
[4:13] Speaker 1: and be like, man, I want to be those guys,
[4:15] Speaker 1: you know, we just we also used to have a
[4:18] Speaker 1: I guess, like I don't remember what it was called
[4:20] Speaker 1: Armed Forces Day on the base where you could like
[4:22] Speaker 1: mess around in the tanks and mess around. Then the
[4:25] Speaker 1: night vision goggles, which like back then was like this
[4:28] Speaker 1: huge freaking thing, and like everything looked like like Atari
[4:33] Speaker 1: on the computer screens or something that they're messing with,
[4:36] Speaker 1: and you're like, well, I tang. So all that stuff
[4:39] Speaker 1: was always like very fascinating to me. I just never
[4:41] Speaker 1: really knew exactly what I wanted to do. And I
[4:43] Speaker 1: was like, I want to join, I want to join,
[4:44] Speaker 1: want to join, And then nine to eleven happened. I
[4:48] Speaker 1: was a freshman in high school, and uh, you know,
[4:53] Speaker 1: so I couldn't jump right into the army right there.
[4:55] Speaker 1: But both my parents already even though they were separating,
[4:58] Speaker 1: it's like esp light vocals off, like you're not doing it,
[5:02] Speaker 1: You're not going, don't do it whatever. You gotta go
[5:04] Speaker 1: to college, you gotta do this and that, and so
[5:09] Speaker 1: I give it the old college try, you know. And
[5:13] Speaker 1: I I was doing well in college, was making the
[5:16] Speaker 1: deal list and stuff over there in Washington State, and
[5:20] Speaker 1: or not Washington State, up there in Seattle, so U
[5:26] Speaker 1: dub so I'd be there doing school and everything and
[5:30] Speaker 1: doing pretty well. And then I wasn't really liking it.
[5:35] Speaker 1: I felt like when I was there, I didn't feel
[5:39] Speaker 1: like I was being educated. I felt like I was
[5:40] Speaker 1: being indoctrinated because when I was looking at the screens,
[5:43] Speaker 1: it was like like a lot of handholding, like, hey,
[5:47] Speaker 1: do a project, but when you did the project, it
[5:48] Speaker 1: had to be exactly like there was no very passive yeah.
[5:52] Speaker 1: I was like in my head, I was like, do college.
[5:55] Speaker 1: I'm like, man, free thinking, there's no free thinking. I'm like,
[5:58] Speaker 1: so why don't I go in the arm? You know,
[6:00] Speaker 1: like I what am I doing here? But I kept
[6:03] Speaker 1: at it. And then one day and this is like
[6:06] Speaker 1: the interesting story everyone wants to hear, right, But so
[6:10] Speaker 1: one day I have some friends that are having a
[6:14] Speaker 1: birthday party. We all work for the same company. So
[6:17] Speaker 1: you know, I'm you know, basically a poor kid going
[6:20] Speaker 1: to a college. Can't afford bury myself in debt. I'm
[6:23] Speaker 1: already like thirty thousand dollars in debt by this point.
[6:27] Speaker 1: And anyway, all these all these guys that work with UH,
[6:35] Speaker 1: male and female, they have birthdays around the same time,
[6:38] Speaker 1: which is in February. And I'm like, you know, like
[6:43] Speaker 1: so they say we're gonna have like a birthday party.
[6:45] Speaker 1: Everybody birthday party, same time, you know, And there's some
[6:48] Speaker 1: people that are like, it's my birthday week, you know,
[6:51] Speaker 1: and they're having a birthday every day up until that
[6:53] Speaker 1: point and all that ridiculous stuff. So anyways, like I'm like,
[6:58] Speaker 1: I guess like one of the last guys to show
[7:00] Speaker 1: up at this thing. And when I get there's some
[7:04] Speaker 1: dunes outside like graffeeding the door, and they're doing some writing,
[7:08] Speaker 1: some slurs and stuff on there, some inappropriate stuff with
[7:12] Speaker 1: a paint marker, and I step in, like, you know,
[7:17] Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell them not to do that thing because
[7:20] Speaker 1: it's very bad to do that kind of thing, and
[7:25] Speaker 1: kind of like an altercation of getting an argument there.
[7:27] Speaker 1: And there's a guy behind me that he didn't see
[7:31] Speaker 1: and next to you know, man, all I don't even
[7:34] Speaker 1: feel it. I hear glass shatter and it just goes
[7:38] Speaker 1: past my head and somebody had broken a forty ounce
[7:40] Speaker 1: bottle in the back of my head. I get to
[7:43] Speaker 1: that minute how I found out it was forty ounces.
[7:46] Speaker 1: But so I merely turn around, like you fucking kidding me,
[7:51] Speaker 1: take this guy to the ground, start grounding pound immediately.
[7:55] Speaker 1: I was a pretty good wrestler, like in high school,
[7:59] Speaker 1: a lot of titles in the state of Washington, and
[8:02] Speaker 1: so there's no problem getting this guy to the ground
[8:04] Speaker 1: and just starting to beat his facing off the concrete.
[8:07] Speaker 1: And there was a guy on my back and he
[8:12] Speaker 1: was like pummeling me. But I was like, man, this
[8:14] Speaker 1: guy hits like so soft and pillows like whatever. Subdue
[8:18] Speaker 1: this guy and then get this guy off your back.
[8:20] Speaker 1: So this guy was pretty much quitting on the ground
[8:23] Speaker 1: like he was no longer a threat to me. And
[8:26] Speaker 1: uh so I stood up and I turned. I stood
[8:29] Speaker 1: in based and turned and faced the guy who was
[8:32] Speaker 1: striking me. And at that point he was coming down
[8:35] Speaker 1: with another strike, and I noticed that he wasn't striking me,
[8:38] Speaker 1: he was stabbing me the entire time. Oh shit, And
[8:42] Speaker 1: so I put my arm up and the knife went
[8:45] Speaker 1: into my arm and it got stuck inside my arm here,
[8:48] Speaker 1: and I kind of grabbed him, tripped them, swept him,
[8:50] Speaker 1: got on top of him, and I stabbed him a
[8:54] Speaker 1: bunch of times in his stomach. And then somebody I
[8:59] Speaker 1: was with was being attacked by another person of the group.
[9:03] Speaker 1: I jumped, I tackled that guy. And as I was
[9:08] Speaker 1: tackling him and crawling up up him to drive the
[9:11] Speaker 1: knife that I now took from his friend into him,
[9:14] Speaker 1: another guy came up and tried to kick me, like
[9:16] Speaker 1: doing like a running soccer kick on me. And when
[9:18] Speaker 1: he tried to run up and kick me, I had
[9:21] Speaker 1: blocked it partially and it was like a big like
[9:25] Speaker 1: like a big sneaker that was like loosely on his foot,
[9:28] Speaker 1: so he like totally absorbed the blow. Like everything was
[9:31] Speaker 1: just like you know, and my knife went into his
[9:35] Speaker 1: calf and I know, I felt it slide up his calf,
[9:38] Speaker 1: so I poured through it. And then I got back
[9:41] Speaker 1: up and I saw these guys getting away. Nex see,
[9:44] Speaker 1: you know, there's this big dude in front of me,
[9:46] Speaker 1: and I'm like, crap, man, like I feel gassed. Like
[9:49] Speaker 1: I stood up and I was like wow, like you
[9:52] Speaker 1: know when you stand up too fast, and I was like,
[9:54] Speaker 1: dang man, like I'm fading. I was like, but if
[9:57] Speaker 1: you fade and you go to the ground, this is like,
[9:59] Speaker 1: you know, YouTube was fairly new back then, and everything
[10:02] Speaker 1: on YouTube was people getting curb stomped. And I was
[10:05] Speaker 1: like that's not gonna be me. I knocked my teeth out,
[10:07] Speaker 1: you know. So I was like, kill me, motherfucker kill me.
[10:11] Speaker 1: I'm not dead yet, fucking kill me, like I was
[10:14] Speaker 1: with everything, like please be scary enough to get the
[10:17] Speaker 1: fuck away from me. And then he's like, all right,
[10:20] Speaker 1: screw this, like this guy's not dying, like I'm out,
[10:23] Speaker 1: and so him and his buddy took off and I'm like, dude,
[10:26] Speaker 1: I can't run. I can't chase these guys down. Nobody's
[10:28] Speaker 1: gonna know who these guys are. So some dude was
[10:31] Speaker 1: in the guy I look over, and the dude was
[10:36] Speaker 1: this guy that I stabbed. He was getting buddy carried
[10:38] Speaker 1: by his friend and got loaded up in his car.
[10:40] Speaker 1: And when he got put in his car, they started
[10:42] Speaker 1: that car up and then it's like a like a
[10:45] Speaker 1: station wagon of some kind, might have been a Volvo wagon.
[10:47] Speaker 1: I don't remember. This happened a long time ago, but uh,
[10:50] Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's like a Volvo wagon. And man,
[10:53] Speaker 1: they smashed on the gas the intern steering wheel the
[10:56] Speaker 1: Parlo park. Bam, it hit the car in front of it,
[10:59] Speaker 1: and car alarm went off and the party opened. I
[11:04] Speaker 1: saw outside, Oh shit, and my boy comes out there,
[11:08] Speaker 1: sprints up to the car and just smashes that window,
[11:12] Speaker 1: single hit. And my boy was not a fighter. And
[11:14] Speaker 1: my boy like this friend of mine, he was always
[11:17] Speaker 1: the guy like he's one of my best friends. But
[11:19] Speaker 1: it's like he's one of those guys, and it's like, oh,
[11:21] Speaker 1: let's can fight, so I could start shit, and I
[11:24] Speaker 1: was like, dang, man, he's always getting in trouble. But
[11:25] Speaker 1: now finally I'm in trouble and he's helping me like everything,
[11:29] Speaker 1: like you know, like you like you know, all those
[11:31] Speaker 1: favors you owe me are coming out. Yeah, right, So
[11:34] Speaker 1: he smashed the window and then like yeah, these guys
[11:37] Speaker 1: backed up, they smashing the car behind him. Carl IM's
[11:39] Speaker 1: going off and like all these people in these buildings
[11:44] Speaker 1: high rises looking down calling the police all this is happening.
[11:48] Speaker 1: These guys jet off and hit the corner, and as
[11:51] Speaker 1: soon as they hit like that corner, the cops come
[11:54] Speaker 1: around this corner and I'm like, dang, just missed them,
[11:57] Speaker 1: Like go go after the guys, you know, And they
[12:00] Speaker 1: come out weapons drawn because I'm holding a knife. And
[12:03] Speaker 1: I looked down at that point because now I have
[12:05] Speaker 1: the time to focus like really on myself and assess
[12:09] Speaker 1: my damage. And I looked down and then I have
[12:12] Speaker 1: blood my whole shirt, which was I think like my
[12:15] Speaker 1: shirt was like an Apricot color or something. It was
[12:18] Speaker 1: now blood red all the way down into my jeans,
[12:21] Speaker 1: like completely soaked, and my shirt was like stuck to
[12:24] Speaker 1: my body, like glued to my body. And I was
[12:27] Speaker 1: like remember being like like trying to breathe, and then
[12:30] Speaker 1: like feeling like nastiness like come out of my neck
[12:33] Speaker 1: because I got a stab right here in my neck
[12:35] Speaker 1: because we're one of the stab wounds went. And then
[12:37] Speaker 1: I remember like opening my arm up and just seeing
[12:40] Speaker 1: like this web of like blood and then seeing this
[12:43] Speaker 1: like frothy stuff come through there, and I'm like oh.
[12:49] Speaker 1: And then like my friend who's like helping me, he's
[12:51] Speaker 1: like hey, man, like you know, and I was like
[12:53] Speaker 1: I remember like he says it, because I don't remember.
[12:55] Speaker 1: He says, like, dude, you were just sitting there like
[12:57] Speaker 1: I told him, not the fuck with me?
[12:59] Speaker 2: I told.
[13:01] Speaker 4: Crazy, did you have attention the rocks?
[13:03] Speaker 1: That's what turns out to it happened. So the police realized, Okay,
[13:08] Speaker 1: this guy's probably not threat I you know, when they're
[13:11] Speaker 1: saying drop your weapon, like I'm probably doing something wrong,
[13:13] Speaker 1: where like the police were fully right to probably shoot
[13:16] Speaker 1: me at that point because I hands up. But you
[13:18] Speaker 1: know when I put my hands up like that, I
[13:20] Speaker 1: saw that and I was like, oh, hell no, I'm dying,
[13:22] Speaker 1: like I'm already dead. So I pulled out my phone
[13:25] Speaker 1: and called my dad. Yeah, and he said, Dad, like
[13:28] Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. I fucked up, man.
[13:30] Speaker 1: I fucked with the wrong people and in case I die,
[13:33] Speaker 1: like you know, I love you man and all this,
[13:35] Speaker 1: and so like my dad's like freaking out. Like by
[13:39] Speaker 1: the time the police officer gets to me, he's starting
[13:44] Speaker 1: to ask me questions like hey, buddy, sit on the
[13:46] Speaker 1: curb suiting the curve, buddy, like what's going on? And
[13:48] Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, dude, I'm fading. I'm
[13:50] Speaker 1: now incoherent, and I don't I hear what he's saying.
[13:53] Speaker 1: I understand what he's saying, but I can't answer him.
[13:56] Speaker 1: So all I could mustard to say to him was like,
[13:59] Speaker 1: this is my dad answer. He'll answer any questions about
[14:02] Speaker 1: my identity or whatever. You know. Yeah, paramedic comes over.
[14:06] Speaker 1: Paramedic comes over, says, uh, hey, honey, hey honey, like,
[14:10] Speaker 1: is there anything you're allergic to? Go ahead and laid back.
[14:13] Speaker 1: Is there anything you're allergic to? And as I'm laying back,
[14:15] Speaker 1: I say, yeah, morphine because I'm allergic to morphine. And
[14:21] Speaker 1: I know that because that's another story made for another day.
[14:24] Speaker 1: But I have nine toes. I had my foot looked
[14:26] Speaker 1: like a freaking Hamburger meet when I was like six
[14:29] Speaker 1: years old because my mom ran over my foot with
[14:30] Speaker 1: a tractor. I think when my dad was in the
[14:33] Speaker 1: Goal War. So anyways, back to this story. As chaotic
[14:39] Speaker 1: as my life is, she says you allergic to anything,
[14:43] Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, morphine. She's like, he's in pain,
[14:48] Speaker 1: he needs morphine. And I don't know if she gave
[14:51] Speaker 1: me morphine or what, but it's something. I felt something
[14:55] Speaker 1: go through my veins at that point and I was
[14:57] Speaker 1: like no. And it was so embarrassing.
[15:02] Speaker 3: Man.
[15:02] Speaker 1: They like they cut my clothes off. I'm naked, My
[15:05] Speaker 1: Janitos are out on the street, my coworkers are there.
[15:08] Speaker 3: You know.
[15:09] Speaker 1: I'm like, dang it, man, this is so bad. And
[15:12] Speaker 1: it's February and Washington Stay. So I'm not really showing.
[15:16] Speaker 1: I'm not showing. That's a story. That's a story. So
[15:23] Speaker 1: they put me in the ambulance and you know, the
[15:25] Speaker 1: lady starts going through like her av pool sequence. Man,
[15:29] Speaker 1: and she's like hey, you know, like talk to me,
[15:31] Speaker 1: and I'm like I can't say anything. And then she like, hey,
[15:33] Speaker 1: follow my finger. I'm like, all, I bet easy to
[15:36] Speaker 1: follow the finger thing. I crush this every time puts
[15:40] Speaker 1: the finger in front of my face and I'm like
[15:42] Speaker 1: let's go throw that thing right or left. I'm gonna
[15:44] Speaker 1: follow it with my eyes and centers. It went here,
[15:47] Speaker 1: lights out. I couldn't see nothing. I could still hear her,
[15:50] Speaker 1: but I couldn't see anything. So then she's like, oh,
[15:53] Speaker 1: oh uh, you know, can you squeeze my hand, you know?
[15:59] Speaker 1: And I felt like I was deadlifting, like seven hundred pounds.
[16:02] Speaker 1: Try I squeeze everything was like, and she was like,
[16:06] Speaker 1: oh no, Like so can you wiggle your toes? And
[16:09] Speaker 1: this goes to the nine toe thing right in my head.
[16:11] Speaker 1: I'm like, please, like if I had one more toe,
[16:14] Speaker 1: more higher probability of whiggling these things, you know. I'm
[16:17] Speaker 1: sitting there like like wiggling, and they weren't wiggling. And
[16:22] Speaker 1: then I heard the lady go like, this is so sad.
[16:25] Speaker 1: He's so young. I don't know if he's going to
[16:28] Speaker 1: make something because I don't know what they were. But
[16:34] Speaker 1: the other lady it was two ladies. This is like,
[16:37] Speaker 1: you know, this isn't one of those story. They got
[16:40] Speaker 1: two ladies and in the back of never well, there
[16:47] Speaker 1: were two females, uh working on me, and you know,
[16:52] Speaker 1: one one was of of no hope. It almost sounded
[16:55] Speaker 1: like one was like, we're not that far from the hospital,
[16:59] Speaker 1: like we can and you know, we can get them there.
[17:01] Speaker 1: And now the whole time, I'm just like, oh, if
[17:05] Speaker 1: you know, I want to say something, it wasn't. And
[17:08] Speaker 1: then later when I was in the military and I
[17:10] Speaker 1: first learned about you know, r far or anything that
[17:16] Speaker 1: attention you with our accidents, like coming up at this
[17:19] Speaker 1: moment was like the jugular distension sorted happening. My heart
[17:22] Speaker 1: started stopping h and I didn't know that at the time.
[17:25] Speaker 1: I didn't know what the sensation was. I felt like
[17:27] Speaker 1: a steamroller was crushing my chest and I remember as
[17:30] Speaker 1: it was crushing, I was like, I'm going to die,
[17:32] Speaker 1: and I said, I said. I remember being like, well,
[17:35] Speaker 1: I was in this like abyss, you know, like I said,
[17:39] Speaker 1: like in my mind, I said, God, if you're real,
[17:41] Speaker 1: don't let me die like this because I was thinking,
[17:45] Speaker 1: like I was like, dang, man, I'm I'm gonna die
[17:49] Speaker 1: doing retail, you know what I mean. It's like I'm
[17:54] Speaker 1: folding T shirts, man, Like what am I doing working
[17:56] Speaker 1: with these people? Like somehow I get stabbed for some
[18:00] Speaker 1: crap and anyways, next thing you know, I'm in the
[18:04] Speaker 1: hospital and they're using the defibrillator, and I wake up
[18:10] Speaker 1: and I'm in so much there's I'm combative because now
[18:14] Speaker 1: I'm like I'm still in the fight, right, you know, fighting.
[18:17] Speaker 1: So I get up and I'm like, oh, like throwing
[18:19] Speaker 1: people off me, like incredible hold. They're like restraining me.
[18:22] Speaker 1: And I have a tube down my throat. I have
[18:25] Speaker 1: a camera in my stomach where it's looking around for
[18:28] Speaker 1: additional stab wounds. I have two chest tubes in the
[18:31] Speaker 1: side of this along my left line right here, and
[18:34] Speaker 1: I have a tube of my freaking piss hole. And
[18:36] Speaker 1: I'm just like like and then next thing, you know,
[18:38] Speaker 1: it's like they did something where it's like put them out.
[18:43] Speaker 1: You know, we brought them back, but put them back,
[18:45] Speaker 1: you know, this was a mistake, send them back to
[18:48] Speaker 1: the other side. So then anyway, then I had it like,
[18:51] Speaker 1: you know, more peaceful, like awakening again later the next
[18:54] Speaker 1: day in the hospital and I have like a detected
[18:57] Speaker 1: their police officer, a doctor and all this, and then
[19:02] Speaker 1: I remember the the the detective telling me something like hey, man,
[19:09] Speaker 1: like it's a miracle that he pulled through. Like a
[19:13] Speaker 1: lot of people they they don't survive this kind of attack,
[19:17] Speaker 1: and like it's it's good that you know you're you're
[19:22] Speaker 1: with us, and we have a lot of officers that
[19:24] Speaker 1: goat or something like this and they're just done, you
[19:27] Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it was kind of cool,
[19:29] Speaker 1: like to hear that from a guy in uniform that's
[19:33] Speaker 1: like wow, Like I just woke up and like where
[19:35] Speaker 1: am I? What am I doing? Am I in trouble?
[19:37] Speaker 1: Like what's going on? And then he later informed me that,
[19:40] Speaker 1: like I guess, the guy I was in a fight
[19:43] Speaker 1: with was taken to some studio apartment that he owned
[19:47] Speaker 1: and his friends just ditched him in the baptub and
[19:49] Speaker 1: he didn't make it. And so I was like, man,
[19:53] Speaker 1: I'm probably in trouble, you know. And luckily, you know
[19:58] Speaker 1: the amount of witnesses that would we're like absolutely not.
[20:01] Speaker 1: This guy was completely like in self defense. And anyways,
[20:06] Speaker 1: I uh cause I found out it was like a
[20:13] Speaker 1: forty ounce because the guy's like, hey, you know you
[20:16] Speaker 1: had a forty ounce. You got hit over the back
[20:18] Speaker 1: of the head of the forty ounce bottle. You got
[20:19] Speaker 1: stabbed about eight times and year long. You got stabbed
[20:22] Speaker 1: in your back, yet stabbed in your arms. Tell me
[20:23] Speaker 1: where all the stab wings are I was like, dang man,
[20:26] Speaker 1: I don't even remember getting stabbed that much. It happened
[20:29] Speaker 1: so fast. And and then he was like, and you
[20:34] Speaker 1: know the way that we found out, it's like a
[20:35] Speaker 1: forty ounce bottle, because like, how did you know it
[20:37] Speaker 1: was a forty ounce? You know, it wasn't matter, you know,
[20:41] Speaker 1: because I had a sharper glass sticking out of the
[20:42] Speaker 1: back of my head with the label still stuck to it,
[20:45] Speaker 1: forty ounce label. So I had like this huge, like
[20:48] Speaker 1: you know, like a feather stick out glass. I was
[20:51] Speaker 1: fighting these guys.
[20:52] Speaker 4: So they did some real homes work there, I guess.
[20:58] Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, indubitedly, elementary, all those words. Yeah.
[21:05] Speaker 1: So at that point I was like, look me in
[21:10] Speaker 1: and I and I and I see some reasons why
[21:12] Speaker 1: my parents wouldn't come to the hospital or visit me
[21:14] Speaker 1: there necessarily. I see some reasons why my family hasn't.
[21:18] Speaker 1: I have like an a strange brother who has certain issues,
[21:23] Speaker 1: and I understand why he went to go there. So
[21:26] Speaker 1: I don't really hold it against these folks. But at
[21:28] Speaker 1: the time, I was like, nobody's in this hospital. All
[21:35] Speaker 1: these people tell me go to college, all these people
[21:38] Speaker 1: you have to do this you have to do that.
[21:41] Speaker 1: Where are they Where's the money for college, Where's the
[21:45] Speaker 1: money for food, Where's the money for rent, Where's the
[21:47] Speaker 1: money for notebooks, pencils, papers, you know, the laptop something.
[21:54] Speaker 1: You know, it's not that like I expect that from people,
[21:57] Speaker 1: but if people are going to try to maybe control
[22:00] Speaker 1: your life or push you in that direction, you know,
[22:03] Speaker 1: when you're passion all your life was like I'm going
[22:05] Speaker 1: to join the military. This is like when I sat
[22:07] Speaker 1: in the bar very high I joined the military, I
[22:09] Speaker 1: don't think, but it is a very rewarding experience you
[22:15] Speaker 1: can take part in to be a member of the
[22:17] Speaker 1: armed forces, and it opens up a lot of doors
[22:19] Speaker 1: on the other side, and then you can go to
[22:21] Speaker 1: college pretty much for free, you know, and get an education.
[22:27] Speaker 1: And so from that experience, it's about it really taught
[22:34] Speaker 1: me about trajectory, like maybe I was on the wrong trajectory.
[22:39] Speaker 1: So it also taught me like not everything. It almost
[22:44] Speaker 1: taught me like nothing that happens is bad, Like you
[22:48] Speaker 1: can think, this is a bad thing happened, this isn't
[22:50] Speaker 1: advantageous to me for maybe that time period or something.
[22:53] Speaker 1: But in the long run, everything works out, you know,
[22:58] Speaker 1: no matter what at the end of the game the
[22:59] Speaker 1: king upon going the same box.
[23:03] Speaker 2: I mean, when you realize that you could check out
[23:04] Speaker 2: at any moment, even at a very young age, kind
[23:07] Speaker 2: of like your priorities.
[23:09] Speaker 1: Change, right, Yeah, exactly. And I was like, well, I
[23:11] Speaker 1: got to do what I want to do. And people
[23:13] Speaker 1: we're worried about you can die. You can die over there.
[23:16] Speaker 1: You can like I could die over here. But if
[23:18] Speaker 1: I die over there, maybe it means something, right.
[23:21] Speaker 4: At least you're doing what you loved, what you wanted.
[23:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, So I already, like going into the military, was
[23:28] Speaker 1: thinking like, man, this is I've already kind of accepted death.
[23:37] Speaker 1: I've accepted to not form an attachment with life that
[23:44] Speaker 1: don't be so attached to you're in fear of death
[23:47] Speaker 1: to where you're not going to live the life you want.
[23:52] Speaker 1: And the good thing about going through that experience is
[23:55] Speaker 1: like whether you go through basic and go through everything,
[23:58] Speaker 1: and it's like it feels like hell because it's just
[24:01] Speaker 1: in different experience. Whatever you're going through the military, you're like,
[24:04] Speaker 1: I did that, Like why can't I do this? Why
[24:07] Speaker 1: can't I walk twelve miles? Like why can't I do that?
[24:11] Speaker 1: I did that? That seems like harder.
[24:14] Speaker 2: So around two thousand and nine, twenty ten, Yeah, you
[24:18] Speaker 2: get a shipload of waivers presumably for your gimp toe
[24:22] Speaker 2: yeah and eight stab wounds yeah and every other thing.
[24:26] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[24:26] Speaker 2: They enjoined the army.
[24:27] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I had relatively high abs the bad score.
[24:34] Speaker 1: You know, they're throwing everything at me, and I was like, well,
[24:38] Speaker 1: I want to go Special Forces. Grew up on JBLM.
[24:42] Speaker 1: We had first group there. A lot of my friends
[24:44] Speaker 1: dads we were Special Forces guys, and a lot of
[24:47] Speaker 1: guys like in and around the wrestling community were like
[24:51] Speaker 1: ex Rangers, and a lot of the parents of the
[24:53] Speaker 1: wrestlers I was wrestling with were Rangers at the time.
[24:56] Speaker 1: Kids in my school Rangers. We had two seventy five
[24:59] Speaker 1: and we have first group up there. You have a
[25:01] Speaker 1: bunch of guys. I was like, yeah, I want to
[25:02] Speaker 1: go Special Operations. But honestly, in that time in my life,
[25:06] Speaker 1: I was like, Special Forces seems easier, and like I
[25:10] Speaker 1: don't want that haircut. I don't want that Ranger haircut
[25:14] Speaker 1: eye and tire. I didn't want it. I was I'd
[25:16] Speaker 1: never comb my hair growing up. I hated it. I
[25:19] Speaker 1: was like, I want to like I kind of look
[25:21] Speaker 1: like a bag of shit, kind of like I do
[25:22] Speaker 1: right now, but like very Seattle vibes, shark wrestling, lumberjacks
[25:30] Speaker 1: over there where I'm from, or Tacoma more like it.
[25:34] Speaker 1: Uh So, yeah, I went, yeah, I want to be
[25:38] Speaker 1: special Forces, this, that and the other. And they're kind
[25:41] Speaker 1: of like, nothing's caught really in the bulks yet. About
[25:45] Speaker 1: I go to maps go and all that, I go
[25:47] Speaker 1: down to thirty eight. I went to MEPs in Tampa
[25:50] Speaker 1: is eventually where.
[25:51] Speaker 4: I made it to really all the way from Tacoma.
[25:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, because my mom was living down in kassim Me,
[25:57] Speaker 1: so I went and like stayed with her and uh
[26:02] Speaker 1: and I stayed with her while I was going through
[26:04] Speaker 1: the process. I'm trying to get in the military. So
[26:06] Speaker 1: I went through MEPs in Tampa and from Tampa went
[26:12] Speaker 1: to Fort Benning, Georgia. And I was like, okay, we'll
[26:16] Speaker 1: do like this eighteen X ray thing, cause this is
[26:19] Speaker 1: like a new thing and I was over twenty one
[26:21] Speaker 1: years old whatever. So I I get there and they're
[26:26] Speaker 1: kind of like, hey, you know, you have nine toes
[26:28] Speaker 1: and you have this thing, and like this isn't this
[26:31] Speaker 1: is like enough to get in the military, but like
[26:33] Speaker 1: you can't even airborne and they so we can like
[26:36] Speaker 1: send you back home. I was like, no, no, no,
[26:38] Speaker 1: like let me wait, like what's going on here? Like,
[26:41] Speaker 1: let me just do my basic training and I'll just
[26:43] Speaker 1: be infantry because like you're eleven X anyway when you start.
[26:47] Speaker 1: So I'm an eleven X ray there at osit Fort Benning, Georgia.
[26:52] Speaker 1: I go through, I go through the basic training and
[26:57] Speaker 1: all that stuff. I remember, like, how so some some
[27:00] Speaker 1: guys like there's a question that kind of irked me
[27:03] Speaker 1: from lying guys like why did you pick Levin Charlie.
[27:06] Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, you know I didn't pick this right right? Yeah?
[27:10] Speaker 4: Yeah eleven X Yeah.
[27:12] Speaker 3: I think all eleven Charlie's are eleven X rays who
[27:16] Speaker 3: don't get that Bravo.
[27:17] Speaker 1: Yeah. So I got a touch on this because it was,
[27:19] Speaker 1: like I thought it was hilarious. I loved trolls. I
[27:23] Speaker 1: loved people in leadership that control you and like totally
[27:27] Speaker 1: psychologically mess with you and uh as part of like
[27:31] Speaker 1: the smoking that you're gonna get. So all day we
[27:34] Speaker 1: went through this like very boring, like you know, thirty
[27:39] Speaker 1: of the GC, we're boring, but we went through this monotonous,
[27:41] Speaker 1: very boring, very hard to understand, no clear instruction of
[27:47] Speaker 1: what is going on order that we're getting in and
[27:51] Speaker 1: we're doing a snake line, so you know, a snake
[27:53] Speaker 1: line going up and down like a snake, and they're
[27:57] Speaker 1: just calling out names and doesn't make sense because we're
[27:59] Speaker 1: trying to figure it out, like they putting this on
[28:01] Speaker 1: order by this and by nobody can really figure it out.
[28:04] Speaker 1: But uh, we in the snake line, and they're all right, guys,
[28:07] Speaker 1: start moving that line to the buses, start moving the
[28:11] Speaker 1: line of the buses, and then like the busses get
[28:12] Speaker 1: all loaded up and the buses start driving away. All right,
[28:15] Speaker 1: there's gonna be another thing of buses. And then the
[28:19] Speaker 1: drill Sarns pop out of the woodwork and they go, hey, man,
[28:24] Speaker 1: welcome to the army. There's not another line of buses.
[28:29] Speaker 1: I know that's what you're thinking. There's not. But the
[28:31] Speaker 1: guys on the bus all eleven Bravos. You guys are
[28:37] Speaker 1: eleving Charlie's. The rivalry starts now follow the bus. So
[28:43] Speaker 1: we were walking behind the Bravos like already like oh,
[28:47] Speaker 1: and then the whole way there, these guys are like
[28:49] Speaker 1: you're gonna hate your life. You're gonna be a mortar man.
[28:53] Speaker 1: It's gonna suck. You're never gonna like it, You're never
[28:56] Speaker 1: gonna do anything cool. Like everything right away was just
[28:59] Speaker 1: like I'm like laughing, and I got this like uh,
[29:03] Speaker 1: like later we call them seabags with like duffle back
[29:05] Speaker 1: and rage edge, call them the seabag or whatever, the
[29:07] Speaker 1: new seabag. So we have this thing and I'm like,
[29:11] Speaker 1: I got one in front, one back. You know, it's
[29:13] Speaker 1: all this guy's like uniforms. At this point. We haven't
[29:15] Speaker 1: done like the CIF with all like the stupid helmets
[29:18] Speaker 1: and stuff. But we're following by and people are being
[29:22] Speaker 1: dramatic and like, I live a chaotic life. I think
[29:26] Speaker 1: like I've walked far, I lived in the mountains, I
[29:28] Speaker 1: lived by the sea, I've you know, been exposed to
[29:30] Speaker 1: a lot growing up. And like I'm seeing these guys
[29:36] Speaker 1: like behaving like they're in a Hollywood film.
[29:40] Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like the first.
[29:42] Speaker 1: Like like, oh, this is Point the Hawk right now.
[29:45] Speaker 1: Oh we have Point the Hawk right now. Because guys
[29:47] Speaker 1: were literally like falling on the ground. Another guy goes, brother,
[29:52] Speaker 1: I have you and the other guy's like no, leave me,
[29:57] Speaker 1: and I'm laughing because I find it so cringe. I
[30:01] Speaker 1: find it like disgusting and appalling. I'm just like I'm like,
[30:05] Speaker 1: get off my boot, you know, and I'm like stepping
[30:07] Speaker 1: over him, like hay, I'm like laughing and crying while
[30:11] Speaker 1: I'm stepping over these bodies and I'm like moving through
[30:14] Speaker 1: the whole thing, like, dude, this is hilarious. All we're
[30:17] Speaker 1: doing is walking and it's not like we have to
[30:19] Speaker 1: chase the bus. We're not even going the same place
[30:21] Speaker 1: the bus is just just walk. I bet we're just
[30:24] Speaker 1: gonna like turn after like eight hundred feet and it
[30:26] Speaker 1: was like less than a mile that we walked, but
[30:29] Speaker 1: without me. Yeah, you know, Like, tell my wife I
[30:34] Speaker 1: love it. She probably doesn't anymore. Yeah, So what was
[30:39] Speaker 1: happening when your family was right over there?
[30:40] Speaker 2: Unless I'm gonna ask you about RASP? I do got
[30:43] Speaker 2: to give a quick shout out here to the sponsor
[30:45] Speaker 2: for this show.
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[32:30] Speaker 3: I just I just want to say that the eleven Bravos,
[32:34] Speaker 3: which are riflemen, they're the what when you when you hear.
[32:37] Speaker 4: Infantry, that's what you think of. And the eleven Charlies,
[32:40] Speaker 4: which are mortarman.
[32:41] Speaker 3: So the eleven Bravos being on the bus and the
[32:44] Speaker 3: eleven Charlie is walking, it's kind of like a metaphor
[32:48] Speaker 3: for for like the overall army experience when it comes
[32:51] Speaker 3: to eleven Bravos in eleven Charlie's.
[32:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is. It is like pretty interesting. And
[32:57] Speaker 1: then like some reason like I didn't really fully understand
[33:00] Speaker 1: RASP I really fully understand, like because some of the
[33:03] Speaker 1: drill starns, Like because so through basic training getting to
[33:06] Speaker 1: rask and you're about to ask about it. I didn't
[33:09] Speaker 1: have rip or RASP or nothing like that in my
[33:13] Speaker 1: contract anymore. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go to
[33:16] Speaker 1: the Big Army. And I started like, well, you know,
[33:18] Speaker 1: there's some lineage in the Big Army I can think about.
[33:20] Speaker 1: There's some cool stuff, some guys do some cool things.
[33:22] Speaker 1: Maybe eventually I'll weasel my way in over there. But
[33:26] Speaker 1: the whole time in basic, I was like, maybe if
[33:28] Speaker 1: I just you know, kick ass here and take initiative.
[33:31] Speaker 1: So I would literally be in the in the bay
[33:33] Speaker 1: and grab like the level one book and be like, hey, guys,
[33:36] Speaker 1: I know it sucks reading these books all day, but
[33:39] Speaker 1: you know I've been reading them and I understand how
[33:41] Speaker 1: to do certain things. Mind me, I can do the
[33:43] Speaker 1: class right now, and I'll be like, this is your
[33:45] Speaker 1: M seven bandalier or complete with eighteen alf of one
[33:48] Speaker 1: clay more mine M five seven fiing advice on four
[33:51] Speaker 1: zero test advice. I I go through the whole thing,
[33:54] Speaker 1: and then I know, like the drill stre It's like,
[33:55] Speaker 1: wait a minute, what the fuck is going in that
[33:57] Speaker 1: kill zone? What? And then like over time they made
[34:01] Speaker 1: me like the PG which doesn't really mean anything, but
[34:04] Speaker 1: it kind of it could mean something if the right
[34:06] Speaker 1: people are there, that you're leading correctly as like you know,
[34:09] Speaker 1: and the pg's basically a leader of that basic training
[34:13] Speaker 1: platoon from like the candidate position. I guess you would
[34:17] Speaker 1: call it right. So they like immediately made me that guy,
[34:22] Speaker 1: and I was crushing PT and I was I was like,
[34:26] Speaker 1: frequently fast at running.
[34:28] Speaker 4: What you're lighter? You only had nine toes?
[34:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's actually yeah. So I was I was
[34:35] Speaker 1: like really good at running. And then by the end
[34:36] Speaker 1: of it, they were like, hey, man, we have orders
[34:39] Speaker 1: for you to go third ACR, which was in Fort
[34:42] Speaker 1: Hood at the time, and I know, you know, and
[34:44] Speaker 1: I was like, okay, yeah, Roger Jill sorry, and he
[34:46] Speaker 1: was like, I'm not sending your third ACR. Man. Like
[34:51] Speaker 1: He's like, when you came in first day, I noticed
[34:53] Speaker 1: you were freaking laughing and smiling when we were smoking
[34:56] Speaker 1: the dog shit out. You guys, you need to go
[34:59] Speaker 1: to Range Ridge right there. He was like, you can
[35:01] Speaker 1: go to the Ranger Regiment. And then he was like,
[35:03] Speaker 1: so we're gonna send you to Ranger School and I'm like, okay,
[35:05] Speaker 1: Ranger School, all right, yeah, And I'm like, like everybody
[35:09] Speaker 1: was like saying Ranger School, and clearly they know that
[35:11] Speaker 1: they were sending me to RIP somethinking. I'm like, well,
[35:14] Speaker 1: and I started asking, like do I go to a
[35:15] Speaker 1: unit first and they might show me how to get
[35:17] Speaker 1: through ranger school because like I somewhat knew that there
[35:20] Speaker 1: was a difference growing up on JBOL. Right, I'm like,
[35:23] Speaker 1: why am I going to ranger school? Right, It's gonna
[35:25] Speaker 1: be hard. So I was gonna go to the Range
[35:27] Speaker 1: of Battalions And so I went to Airborne and then
[35:30] Speaker 1: I went to RASP and that's where I got to
[35:32] Speaker 1: the RASP.
[35:33] Speaker 2: All right, So the RASP story, what happened, what went awry?
[35:37] Speaker 1: Okay? So RASP was kind of hilarious. Uh, that was
[35:43] Speaker 1: pretty funny because like we were one of the first
[35:45] Speaker 1: RASS class and they had this like uh because my
[35:48] Speaker 1: paperwork did say RIP, and they came in and they
[35:52] Speaker 1: smoked us during the brief rip for RIP, and then
[35:56] Speaker 1: they came in like with like a fake dossier, like
[36:00] Speaker 1: resident just said, you know it's now called RASP. Oh no,
[36:06] Speaker 1: we gotta give him a different brief Causs, you gotta
[36:08] Speaker 1: get smoked some more, you know what I mean. And
[36:10] Speaker 1: so we we started it over go through RASP. So
[36:15] Speaker 1: phase there's RASP was different because they were like, ha ha,
[36:19] Speaker 1: you thought it was gonna be like three weeks, You're
[36:20] Speaker 1: gonna be here for eight and we're just like, oh no,
[36:23] Speaker 1: because everybody's like mentally prepared, like we're gonna knock out three.
[36:27] Speaker 1: And then it's like boom. We go through this and
[36:28] Speaker 1: it's an eight week course. So it's like, man, we're
[36:31] Speaker 1: gonna here for two months and this is gonna be
[36:32] Speaker 1: here for a month minus. So anyway, we go through
[36:35] Speaker 1: like the first uh half of RASP. Almost I finished
[36:42] Speaker 1: Coal Range and then the n c U. I see, hey,
[36:46] Speaker 1: man fall out over here at the end of cool Range,
[36:49] Speaker 1: and I was like, what's up. He's like, I can't
[36:52] Speaker 1: let you go on to the next uh whatever, the
[36:56] Speaker 1: next thing. Yeah, And I was like why is that?
[36:58] Speaker 1: And he's like, well, you have some outstanding debt for
[37:04] Speaker 1: I guess a hospital bill And I was like what
[37:07] Speaker 1: And it was me getting stabbed. So I had a
[37:10] Speaker 1: hospital bill for that thirty six thousand dollars that I
[37:13] Speaker 1: had to like pay off or make right. And so
[37:16] Speaker 1: I contacted the hospital and I said, you know, like, hey,
[37:20] Speaker 1: we're gonna give you some time, but you're gonna we're
[37:22] Speaker 1: gonna have to recycle you. We won't let you move on.
[37:26] Speaker 2: It's correct me if I'm wrong. But under the Soldiers
[37:28] Speaker 2: and Sailors Relief Act, can you not have debt forgiven
[37:32] Speaker 2: that you occurred before you joined the military.
[37:35] Speaker 1: I don't know the rules on that, to be honest,
[37:38] Speaker 1: and I actually kind of looked into that, but it
[37:41] Speaker 1: didn't necessarily really apply to me because when I was
[37:46] Speaker 1: under the impression that I was under crime victim compensation
[37:49] Speaker 1: in the state of watching right, right, which would pay
[37:51] Speaker 1: off your medical debt if you are a victim of violent.
[37:55] Speaker 2: Crime, there's a butt coming.
[37:56] Speaker 1: I take yeah, And it was pretty hilarious because I'll
[37:59] Speaker 1: tell you what cost me a full you know week
[38:02] Speaker 1: at cold range, which both of you understand, like what
[38:06] Speaker 1: that can be like. And so I went at the
[38:09] Speaker 1: end of cool range, you know, they sent me back
[38:11] Speaker 1: and contact this hospital say hey, I thought we were square,
[38:15] Speaker 1: and they said, oh, you know what we are. But
[38:19] Speaker 1: somebody didn't close out the note, so they reported you collections.
[38:23] Speaker 1: Why didn't they close up the note? It's like, usually
[38:25] Speaker 1: we keep the note open so we can get your
[38:30] Speaker 1: survey back and added into the file. So we have
[38:33] Speaker 1: your survey. And I was like, you're gonna make me
[38:37] Speaker 1: do people are gonna make me do RASP again because
[38:39] Speaker 1: they didn't fill out a survey, you know. So yeah,
[38:43] Speaker 1: back to day one off of that.
[38:45] Speaker 6: Wow.
[38:46] Speaker 1: Yeah. So then I went through RASP again, went through
[38:51] Speaker 1: cold range again, went through phase two, got all the
[38:54] Speaker 1: way to like the end of phase two, and it
[39:00] Speaker 1: was like at the end it gave you your brain.
[39:03] Speaker 1: They said, shave this thing. You know, here's your scroll,
[39:07] Speaker 1: keep it in your pocket, don't put it on yet,
[39:09] Speaker 1: and then you know, for the graduation all that. You know,
[39:11] Speaker 1: your folks, if somebody comes out puts it on, you
[39:14] Speaker 1: put on your berea, et cetera. And they said, also,
[39:17] Speaker 1: we're gonna give your cell phones back. And this is
[39:19] Speaker 1: back in the day where you had cell phones. Uh,
[39:23] Speaker 1: but at the beginning of the course, you would take
[39:25] Speaker 1: your cell phone, put tape on the back, write your
[39:27] Speaker 1: name on the bag, put it in the laundry bag.
[39:29] Speaker 1: They would take it and you wouldn't see it again
[39:31] Speaker 1: till the end or until you got dropped. So they
[39:34] Speaker 1: say you could take your cell phones into the barracks
[39:36] Speaker 1: and you could charge your phones in the barracks, but
[39:37] Speaker 1: do not be on your phones in the barracks. It's like, okay,
[39:41] Speaker 1: like Roger that we can charge our phones. Well, I
[39:44] Speaker 1: was up there, people shaving the braids. Some people were
[39:45] Speaker 1: playing music on their phones and stuff like that, which
[39:47] Speaker 1: I thought was like, hey, that's still like transferring data,
[39:50] Speaker 1: you kind of. But then as I'm charging my phone,
[39:54] Speaker 1: my phone is blown up, man, Like it's going crazy.
[39:57] Speaker 1: Like nobody else's phones are blown up. People aren't stop
[39:59] Speaker 1: talking people because they're like, oh, I don't he's he
[40:03] Speaker 1: went into the abyss. He's like you know, they were
[40:06] Speaker 1: giving up on him. You know, nobody's calling everybody else.
[40:10] Speaker 1: So I grabbed my phone and I start heading down
[40:14] Speaker 1: the stairs because I know I got to be outside
[40:16] Speaker 1: to make a phone call now. And as I'm like
[40:19] Speaker 1: pushing on that door, and I looked at my phone
[40:23] Speaker 1: and it was like this rass cabaret pops out like
[40:26] Speaker 1: a referee throwing a penalty flap you And I was like, dang, dude,
[40:32] Speaker 1: like I did. It's like he did not break the
[40:35] Speaker 1: plane with the cell phone, like you know. So he's
[40:38] Speaker 1: like snatch my phone from me, and I was like dang, man,
[40:42] Speaker 1: Like all right, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. It was on
[40:44] Speaker 1: my phone. Yeah, I'm wrong, like you know, private mode.
[40:47] Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, Roach, I'm wrong. I looked at my phone.
[40:49] Speaker 1: I was in the barracks. So they he pulls me
[40:52] Speaker 1: in the office. He goes, guess what I saw on
[40:54] Speaker 1: his phone. I'm already a recycle. So now this guy's
[40:57] Speaker 1: like probably gunning to get rid of me, you know
[40:59] Speaker 1: what I mean, because I'm not a straight through guy.
[41:02] Speaker 1: He's calling the NCU. I see of rash too and
[41:05] Speaker 1: says like, yeah, you gotta get down here. He was
[41:08] Speaker 1: on his phone. He paints his picture like I was
[41:10] Speaker 1: on my phone, right, you know. And I'm like, oh, no,
[41:13] Speaker 1: I'm a bad I'm a bad boy. Like I'm sitting
[41:16] Speaker 1: there like I'm a bad boy. No, you know. And
[41:18] Speaker 1: then so I don't hear nothing from the rest of
[41:21] Speaker 1: the day, but I have that anxiety all day, like, oh, man,
[41:24] Speaker 1: I just had my bereat man. And the funny thing was, man,
[41:27] Speaker 1: I had a two seven five scroll and I was
[41:29] Speaker 1: going back home and I was like, I fuck this up.
[41:33] Speaker 1: I was going home. We go to the formation, like
[41:36] Speaker 1: the close out formation, because RASP would always have a
[41:40] Speaker 1: earliest hell formation at like sometimes three or four in
[41:43] Speaker 1: the morning, and another one at like twenty two hundred
[41:48] Speaker 1: and uh like recall formation. Everyone outside put out what's
[41:52] Speaker 1: gonna happen? Wrow. So about twenty two hundred, we're all
[41:54] Speaker 1: standing tall, rash too, guys, and then he man, he
[41:59] Speaker 1: he berated me in front of everybody, and you know,
[42:01] Speaker 1: I sucked it up, and I just accepted that, Yeah,
[42:04] Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I was on my phone, et cetera. He's like,
[42:06] Speaker 1: why would you mess it up? Blah blah blah blah blah.
[42:09] Speaker 1: He's like, I should drop you right here now, I
[42:11] Speaker 1: should make this big speech, he goes, but I'm gonna
[42:15] Speaker 1: give you a chance. And I was like, dude, this
[42:19] Speaker 1: is gonna be impossible to swear. And he's like, I
[42:25] Speaker 1: want you by a first call tomorrow morning to present
[42:30] Speaker 1: to me the blue Book written five times. Shit, the
[42:36] Speaker 1: entire blue Book written five times. And I was like,
[42:40] Speaker 1: he's like, nobody can help him, nobody, and if you do,
[42:45] Speaker 1: I'll drop you, like puts it out and everyone's just like,
[42:49] Speaker 1: I'm really sorry. Man, looks like you're fucked, you know.
[42:52] Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, I guess I am. But I
[42:54] Speaker 1: go up there and I try. I go up in
[42:57] Speaker 1: my own like little room and I keep the light
[42:58] Speaker 1: on everyone sleeping in like these other rooms in the barracks.
[43:01] Speaker 1: And I'm up there and I had blisters on my
[43:03] Speaker 1: freaking fingers from writing this thing over and over, and
[43:06] Speaker 1: I'm like, I was literally like, dude, could I skip
[43:08] Speaker 1: like one line and skip one word and then he
[43:10] Speaker 1: won't know. I'm like, no, dude, he'll know. Like I
[43:12] Speaker 1: had these conversations with myself like integrity, dude, you're already
[43:15] Speaker 1: integ reviolation. Do it all the way through. So I did,
[43:19] Speaker 1: and I got to three and a half copies of
[43:22] Speaker 1: the wholl Book and one night by I think it
[43:26] Speaker 1: was like zero four thirty or something, zero four zero
[43:29] Speaker 1: four thirty. Next morning and he comes up and he goes, hey,
[43:33] Speaker 1: let me see what you got. And he looks SEMs
[43:36] Speaker 1: like going through you know what I think. I think
[43:42] Speaker 1: you started knocking this out for thirty minutes and said
[43:47] Speaker 1: this is good enough. He'll believe me. And then you
[43:50] Speaker 1: racked out and I was like, the sergeant, that's completely false.
[43:55] Speaker 1: I wrote that all night. He's like, let me tell
[43:57] Speaker 1: you something. When I was on the line, I was
[44:01] Speaker 1: covered in camouflage, and they made me write ten ranger creeds.
[44:06] Speaker 1: In my head, I'm like, creed right right, the creed
[44:11] Speaker 1: is in the blue book, eighteen standing orders is in
[44:14] Speaker 1: the blue books. My friend, I had to write five
[44:16] Speaker 1: of the orders, five of the creed, and that's before
[44:19] Speaker 1: I get to the all the AR six seventy dash
[44:21] Speaker 1: one stuff. Like I knew the standard to the letter
[44:24] Speaker 1: by the time I was done with one of those things,
[44:28] Speaker 1: and I'm just sitting there like, oh no. But I
[44:30] Speaker 1: was like, you know, maintain military bearing, and I was like, okay,
[44:33] Speaker 1: Roger sergeant, Roger sergeant. Roger sergeant is Roger sergeant. I
[44:36] Speaker 1: was like, because maybe this is just a psychological test
[44:38] Speaker 1: to see if it's like, hey, I'm gonna say ridiculous
[44:40] Speaker 1: shit to this guy, and if he gives me any attitude,
[44:43] Speaker 1: that's the boot. So I was like, my whole thing
[44:45] Speaker 1: was like air on the side of safety. Do whatever
[44:47] Speaker 1: you can to not piss this guy off and just
[44:49] Speaker 1: sit through it and try to make it to the
[44:50] Speaker 1: next level. So anyway he goes, I'll tell you what,
[44:55] Speaker 1: one more chance, we have the combatives thing like the
[45:00] Speaker 1: tournament later, and if you do well, maybe I'll think
[45:06] Speaker 1: about making you a ranger. And I was like, oh,
[45:09] Speaker 1: combatives is like my bread and butter. I wasn't the
[45:11] Speaker 1: best at shooting. I wasn't the best at lifting weights
[45:14] Speaker 1: at the time, because like I wasn't like an Olympic
[45:17] Speaker 1: lifter or nothing. I was like the combatives. Oh, I've
[45:21] Speaker 1: tussled with these guys in the hallways and they don't
[45:23] Speaker 1: stand a chance. I'm gonna do this. And dude, I
[45:25] Speaker 1: cleaned house. I cleaned house at that Combatist tournament. And
[45:28] Speaker 1: the funny thing is I didn't sleep and there was
[45:30] Speaker 1: a lot on the line. Oh yeah, and you know,
[45:33] Speaker 1: maybe some guys there were like, if I lose, he'll
[45:36] Speaker 1: look good. Maybe. I don't know, nobody ever told me
[45:39] Speaker 1: they did. You know, maybe they will now He's like, yeah,
[45:41] Speaker 1: you didn't really beat me. That's that's a good idea.
[45:43] Speaker 1: That's what I did. But you know, I cleaned house.
[45:46] Speaker 1: And and actually the title fight like it was me
[45:48] Speaker 1: versus the other guy, who was actually a pretty good fight,
[45:52] Speaker 1: and uh, I won. And then I was like, dude, like,
[45:57] Speaker 1: how are you gonna send me the needs of the
[45:59] Speaker 1: army and know that there's a guy that you know
[46:01] Speaker 1: kicked all your rangers asses. How can you do that?
[46:04] Speaker 1: There's no way, he goes thought about it. I was like, well, okay,
[46:08] Speaker 1: like I'm in maybe you know, And he's like, no,
[46:11] Speaker 1: I'm sending you to the board Jesus Christ. So it
[46:15] Speaker 1: sends me the board. You know, they can talk to me.
[46:19] Speaker 1: And I sit there on the board, I go through
[46:20] Speaker 1: answering all these questions like what does in butter mean
[46:23] Speaker 1: and all this like stuff that most Joe's across the
[46:26] Speaker 1: Army don't know. You know. It's like a like a
[46:30] Speaker 1: knowledge board first, then it turns into an integrity board.
[46:34] Speaker 1: So first they hit you with a bunch of ranger knowledge,
[46:36] Speaker 1: ranger history and all this stuff. Then they hit you
[46:39] Speaker 1: with like integrity board stuff. And one of the questions
[46:42] Speaker 1: they asked I it made like the hair stand on
[46:46] Speaker 1: the back of my neck because it insinuated something happened.
[46:50] Speaker 1: Because the guy, the major was sitting in front of me.
[46:53] Speaker 1: He goes, what's more important training or family? And I said, well, sir,
[47:01] Speaker 1: if I choose family, that's selfish because everybody here has
[47:04] Speaker 1: a family. But if I train really hard, I may
[47:09] Speaker 1: increase the probability and mitigate the risk. You know, I
[47:13] Speaker 1: may increase the probability of these guys returning to their
[47:15] Speaker 1: homes to see their family, and mitigate the risk of
[47:19] Speaker 1: them not returning all in one piece to meet their family.
[47:22] Speaker 1: So I would say training is more important, sir. As
[47:24] Speaker 1: a private I felt that was the safest answer to
[47:26] Speaker 1: give this guy. He was okay, he's like, so based
[47:31] Speaker 1: on that, I'm gonna recommend a day one research because
[47:38] Speaker 1: would you like to know why your phone was, you know,
[47:43] Speaker 1: blowing up, you know, like why you were receiving so
[47:45] Speaker 1: many notifications? I was like, yes, sir, I would like
[47:48] Speaker 1: to know. He's like, your dad's in the hospital.
[47:51] Speaker 2: He had a heart attack, Jesus Christ.
[47:54] Speaker 1: And they're trying to get a hold of you. And
[47:58] Speaker 1: right there, I'm like, yes, sir, you know. And I
[48:03] Speaker 1: was like, dude, like that's pretty fucked up, you know that.
[48:08] Speaker 1: Like I was like, you knew that, and you played
[48:09] Speaker 1: this fucking game with yeah, you know. So I was like,
[48:15] Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna get angry. I'm like, I'm
[48:18] Speaker 1: gonna ride through this. And so I he said, okay,
[48:26] Speaker 1: I'll give you like a few days to go home
[48:27] Speaker 1: check on your dad. So my dad survives an art attack.
[48:30] Speaker 1: But this is when like the truth comes out of
[48:32] Speaker 1: by my dad, which is stuff he was hiding because
[48:34] Speaker 1: even when I got stabbed, I went and hung out
[48:36] Speaker 1: with my dad. I got out of the hospital on
[48:37] Speaker 1: my twenty first birthday. They said, hey, uh, we're gonna
[48:40] Speaker 1: let you. We're gonna get good news and bad news.
[48:42] Speaker 1: I'm letting you out of the hospital. It's your birthday,
[48:44] Speaker 1: but we also know it's your birthday and you just
[48:46] Speaker 1: turned twenty one. You can't drink, so that's what they
[48:49] Speaker 1: told me, like no booze. And I remember like being
[48:51] Speaker 1: with my dad and I have like eight holes in
[48:53] Speaker 1: my lung and bandages in my neck and my lung
[48:57] Speaker 1: and walking with my dad. This is before the army,
[48:59] Speaker 1: back to the you know, Quentin Tarantino, This go back
[49:02] Speaker 1: in time a little bit, right, And I was walking
[49:04] Speaker 1: with my dad to my apartment in Seattle that I
[49:06] Speaker 1: was living at and him struggling more than I was
[49:11] Speaker 1: to walk from the restaurant to my house and be
[49:14] Speaker 1: like some h So that's why, like when that phone
[49:19] Speaker 1: was going, I was like something might be happening, you know.
[49:22] Speaker 1: That's why when he said family or I was like
[49:25] Speaker 1: something might be happening, you know. So I was like
[49:29] Speaker 1: the part of me is like, man, this is like
[49:30] Speaker 1: the only real accomplishment that I'm going to be able
[49:33] Speaker 1: to do. That, like nobody in my family's ever done.
[49:36] Speaker 1: They've been in the military. They always saw those guys
[49:38] Speaker 1: on the other side of the face, always wondered. But
[49:41] Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the guy on the other side of
[49:43] Speaker 1: the fence. I'm not gonna screw this up over an
[49:44] Speaker 1: emotional thing. I need to get to the objective this is.
[49:48] Speaker 1: This is not a subjective thing. This is not happening
[49:51] Speaker 1: to me. This is just something that's happening. I need
[49:52] Speaker 1: to look at this objectively. And so I did, and
[49:56] Speaker 1: I went home. He survives that I go back day
[49:59] Speaker 1: one and go through the whole course and uh, finish,
[50:06] Speaker 1: finish the course. At this point, they kind of have
[50:09] Speaker 1: like a a rasp holed over. So before you go
[50:12] Speaker 1: to your unit, you're gonna maybe chill a little bit.
[50:16] Speaker 1: I got to organize some certain things that had to
[50:18] Speaker 1: do with my credit report to not only so I
[50:21] Speaker 1: rectified the thing with the the hospital, but I had
[50:25] Speaker 1: to go through and rectify my clearance and everything too.
[50:29] Speaker 1: So they gave me time now to do all that,
[50:32] Speaker 1: and what was really great about going through that. Last
[50:35] Speaker 1: time I went through RASP is I think that all
[50:38] Speaker 1: the CATRE members there were like pulling for me by
[50:41] Speaker 1: that point because they were like that was wrong, and
[50:44] Speaker 1: they were like some of the things are like, hey man,
[50:47] Speaker 1: you're already a ranger, Like you don't got to do
[50:49] Speaker 1: that thing. You know, like we're good because they started
[50:52] Speaker 1: doing RASS and RASP was like pretty cool. We started
[50:54] Speaker 1: doing breaching and all that, and like they were letting
[50:57] Speaker 1: me stand in front of people and explain the mathematical
[51:00] Speaker 1: equation to how to build a charge. And I was
[51:02] Speaker 1: a private and at the time, I didn't think anything
[51:05] Speaker 1: of it. I just kept my shit from every cycle
[51:07] Speaker 1: that I went through Phase two and kept studying and
[51:09] Speaker 1: studying stuff because there's what I have to know when
[51:11] Speaker 1: I get to my platoon. You know, it's a mortar platoon.
[51:13] Speaker 1: I probably have to know this, you know what I mean,
[51:15] Speaker 1: I have to know this, And so like, yeah, I
[51:18] Speaker 1: get through that. And I remember the third time I
[51:20] Speaker 1: went through was the Future Mortar Platoon starting three seven
[51:25] Speaker 1: five was in the class with me because they had
[51:29] Speaker 1: like a combination of RASP to RASP one you would
[51:32] Speaker 1: do like a culminating event, and I think I won
[51:35] Speaker 1: him over because I did the silliest thing to win,
[51:41] Speaker 1: or like rass one rass too competition they kind of had,
[51:45] Speaker 1: and this is the first time we did this event.
[51:47] Speaker 1: Like every cycle they would change the events on this
[51:49] Speaker 1: like raspal one rass two thing. So one of the
[51:52] Speaker 1: things was like there was always a at the time.
[51:56] Speaker 1: Every cycle had a jump, like you both jumped onto
[51:59] Speaker 1: fry DZ with Rastu the rasp one guys, and you
[52:03] Speaker 1: kind of like link up with your ras to compadres
[52:06] Speaker 1: like ones An nco, ones an officer and you both
[52:09] Speaker 1: might go do some land nab or something. But there's
[52:11] Speaker 1: always a ten mile ruck involved. So we go do
[52:14] Speaker 1: this ten mile ruck and there's like little brain teasers
[52:16] Speaker 1: along the way every time, and this is a new
[52:18] Speaker 1: brain teaser. There's a brain teaser on decker Strip where
[52:22] Speaker 1: you had to take like tough boxes and they said
[52:27] Speaker 1: the only thing you can walk on top of is
[52:30] Speaker 1: the tough box and your equipment, and you have to
[52:35] Speaker 1: cross decker Strip by only walking on the tough boxes
[52:38] Speaker 1: and the equipment. So I see all the other guys
[52:40] Speaker 1: because we're like one of the last guys to assemble
[52:42] Speaker 1: and get the decker strip and I see all the
[52:45] Speaker 1: other guys like, all right, thing, stand on it, hand
[52:48] Speaker 1: it to me. But I'm like assessing what everyone's doing.
[52:50] Speaker 1: Then our guys come up with a plan, like all right,
[52:52] Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? How are we gonna, you know,
[52:55] Speaker 1: negotiate this obstacle? I said, can I you know, private?
[52:59] Speaker 1: And there's an officer there and an NCO and I
[53:02] Speaker 1: was like can. I asked the cadremember a question. Yeah.
[53:06] Speaker 1: I was like, does everything in your rock counter as equipment?
[53:12] Speaker 1: And they're like yes, And I was like, so anything
[53:15] Speaker 1: on my packing list, as long as I'm standing on
[53:17] Speaker 1: an item on my packing lis counts as equipment. He's
[53:20] Speaker 1: like yes. And I look over and I was like,
[53:22] Speaker 1: can I make a suggestion? And then the NCO was like,
[53:27] Speaker 1: oh yeah, go ahead. And I was like, let's put
[53:30] Speaker 1: our socks over our boots and run across the field.
[53:33] Speaker 1: And we did that. We picked up the top boxes
[53:34] Speaker 1: and we ran and all the other groups they were
[53:37] Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, you can't do it. And
[53:39] Speaker 1: it's like, hey, says the packing The cadret was like, yep,
[53:42] Speaker 1: you can. So we got the edge. We got past everyone,
[53:46] Speaker 1: you know. And then so anyway, that guy, I didn't
[53:51] Speaker 1: know who that guy was. I was like, who's this
[53:54] Speaker 1: Like Jacked Gene Wilder looking dude, he looks like Willy Wonka.
[53:58] Speaker 1: But Jack ended up becoming the mortar platoon sergeant. And
[54:02] Speaker 1: then I didn't go to five. He's like, no, dream
[54:04] Speaker 1: that guy had the three seven five you're talking about Edwards. No, no,
[54:08] Speaker 1: it always doesn't look like this. Uh, this is a
[54:11] Speaker 1: another guy, former one semi five guy that took the platoon.
[54:14] Speaker 2: It because I think I think I think he was
[54:17] Speaker 2: he did some time at uh As Rep.
[54:19] Speaker 1: RESP. Yeah, he was like Rip Catri, I guess, with
[54:22] Speaker 1: a bunch of like guys that later became my peers,
[54:24] Speaker 1: but like they weren't really my peers, but like they
[54:27] Speaker 1: became my peers. They became before me. But I almost
[54:30] Speaker 1: blended in because of fast tracked, so.
[54:33] Speaker 3: For for people who might not, you know, be aware
[54:37] Speaker 3: of these terms. So RIP was the Ranger and document
[54:40] Speaker 3: In Indoctrination Program. RASP used to be the Ranger Assessment
[54:44] Speaker 3: Selection Program, but RASP back in the day was only
[54:48] Speaker 3: for imports, and that was in CEOs who were in austers. Okay,
[54:54] Speaker 3: who Ramrod, who were in conventional units and they were coming.
[55:00] Speaker 4: They were they were considered imports.
[55:02] Speaker 3: They were coming to the range of battalion from outside units,
[55:04] Speaker 3: which isn't highly smiled upon often right for us, at least.
[55:09] Speaker 4: For me, RIP was a three week It was just
[55:12] Speaker 4: it was just a grind. It was just a ballbuster.
[55:15] Speaker 4: But we didn't do any breaching. We didn't do anything
[55:17] Speaker 4: like that.
[55:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't do anything like that.
[55:20] Speaker 4: So can you tell us like what RASP became when
[55:23] Speaker 4: you were there?
[55:24] Speaker 2: So while I was.
[55:25] Speaker 1: There, it was pretty interesting. I remember, uh oh man,
[55:28] Speaker 1: and that just hit a memory. We had actually a
[55:31] Speaker 1: catergory remember die while I was in RASP.
[55:33] Speaker 4: Holy shit.
[55:34] Speaker 1: Yeah. So Pedro Leserto was a black belt in Brazilian
[55:37] Speaker 1: jiu jitsu. He was the combatives teacher and we were
[55:40] Speaker 1: out on Peden Field and man, I had to mandous
[55:43] Speaker 1: respect for this guy, especially as a grappler myself growing
[55:46] Speaker 1: up doing that. And then we were doing PTE out
[55:48] Speaker 1: there and he pretty much went down and looked like
[55:51] Speaker 1: he was having a like a seizure and we had
[55:53] Speaker 1: to flag some people down when we got him to
[55:55] Speaker 1: the hospital where he later passed away. And then members
[55:58] Speaker 1: of the class had to go and recite the creed
[56:00] Speaker 1: at a ceremony for him. Yeah, how old was he?
[56:05] Speaker 1: Like thirty? I don't even know, but yeah, he's a
[56:08] Speaker 1: very very young guy. And it was like weird because
[56:12] Speaker 1: it's very strange for us in the class because you
[56:16] Speaker 1: have these terminators like these yeah, these guys that are
[56:20] Speaker 1: like they don't bleed. And then this guy goes down
[56:25] Speaker 1: and then his you know, ranger buddy who's also leading
[56:29] Speaker 1: PET with him automatically is an emotional response to this,
[56:35] Speaker 1: like he's hysterical that his ranger buddy is obviously not
[56:42] Speaker 1: in good condition, and he pushes towards that, and and
[56:48] Speaker 1: you could tell they had history, Like these guys didn't
[56:50] Speaker 1: just meet and masks. These guys. These guys are probably
[56:52] Speaker 1: saw gunners in the same squad right at some point,
[56:54] Speaker 1: you know. And it was like, oh man, that's that's
[56:58] Speaker 1: really strange, Like that's like reality hit, you know, like
[57:03] Speaker 1: this is real, Like what we're doing is real, and
[57:07] Speaker 1: so you know not to you know, turn it down
[57:11] Speaker 1: a little bit. But RASP, like there's a lot I
[57:13] Speaker 1: guy said, I went to rip RASP right other rap
[57:16] Speaker 1: soft and especially like when I went through RASP, I
[57:18] Speaker 1: was like these guys are the same guys who did
[57:20] Speaker 1: rep the cadret were like already doing rip. It's not
[57:24] Speaker 1: like they go, oh, they switch it off, make it easy,
[57:26] Speaker 1: you know. They were like still like hey, putting hands
[57:28] Speaker 1: on you a little bit, throwing you around a little bit,
[57:32] Speaker 1: get your hands on the blacktop type stuff, you know
[57:34] Speaker 1: what I mean. Like that stuff was still going on.
[57:37] Speaker 1: And but that's like phase one mostly and then like
[57:41] Speaker 1: phase two because I know, like phase one, I think
[57:44] Speaker 1: like the first day we had like over ten heat
[57:48] Speaker 1: cats and in the winter time, so dudes were like
[57:52] Speaker 1: going down. And then we go to phase two. Phase two,
[57:58] Speaker 1: I believe we did a lot of mobility training, which
[58:02] Speaker 1: a lot of guys like, oh, there's boards driving around
[58:05] Speaker 1: the home beat. But it's like it turns out to
[58:07] Speaker 1: be really helpful because you get into the recovery techniques stuff,
[58:09] Speaker 1: you really delve into it. You kind of go all right,
[58:12] Speaker 1: this is this is really cool, Like I can actually
[58:14] Speaker 1: learn some different techniques and stuff, and I actually do
[58:17] Speaker 1: it almost as a hobby. A lot of people nowadays
[58:19] Speaker 1: like the overlanding and they almost get stuck on purposes. Man,
[58:22] Speaker 1: I got the you know, I got the kinetic rope out,
[58:25] Speaker 1: you know, Like so it's like pretty cool that you
[58:27] Speaker 1: get to do that, a little bit of mobility, heavy marksmanship,
[58:32] Speaker 1: and there's a story about the freaking marksmanship stick. I
[58:38] Speaker 1: never shot again before the Army, you know, and so
[58:42] Speaker 1: I was very like, do not indy, Do not Indy,
[58:45] Speaker 1: do not indy. I've never even to this day, I'm
[58:47] Speaker 1: not exactly like comfortable, like with the guy, I would
[58:50] Speaker 1: be comfortable, look comfortable, yeah, but in the back of
[58:52] Speaker 1: my mind, it's like, do not Indy. Do not Indy,
[58:54] Speaker 1: Do not Indy. Like the whole time is just burning
[58:56] Speaker 1: a hole in me. If I concealed carry anything is
[58:58] Speaker 1: burning a.
[58:58] Speaker 2: Hole in me.
[58:59] Speaker 1: Like I'm just gonna end. And is it loaded? Is
[59:02] Speaker 1: it not loaded? I don't know. I probably loaded it.
[59:04] Speaker 1: Somebody probably snuck in and loaded one, you know, Like
[59:07] Speaker 1: that's that's the anxiety, you know, like don't get kicked out.
[59:10] Speaker 1: But I remember like the Catreak guy, the Martian ship instructor,
[59:17] Speaker 1: he was like, hey, man, like you seen real nervous
[59:20] Speaker 1: around that gun. You don't need to be nervous around
[59:22] Speaker 1: that gun. That gun'm gonna hurt you unless you do
[59:23] Speaker 1: something stupid, Like hey, think about like some girlfriend that
[59:27] Speaker 1: you had before. She had really nice nipples. Let's talk
[59:29] Speaker 1: about her nipples. And then I was at pary rest like,
[59:32] Speaker 1: oh no, like this guy and I remember he shot
[59:35] Speaker 1: at the ground like in front of me, like between
[59:37] Speaker 1: my legs when I was at pary rest, and I
[59:42] Speaker 1: was like, dude, He's like, are you scared of the
[59:44] Speaker 1: gun now? And I was like, Sergeant, I'm a little
[59:46] Speaker 1: worried when you have it. Yeah, Like we were in
[59:49] Speaker 1: like face too, and it was kind of okay to
[59:51] Speaker 1: like send a little back at the guy. These guys
[59:54] Speaker 1: were more laid back and face to you, and I
[59:56] Speaker 1: was like, yeah, now with you there a little bit,
[59:58] Speaker 1: you know. But I was kind of all said time,
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: like thinking like, yeah, this is like ranger stuff. You
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: got shooting at the ground. But you know, it turns
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: out that's not that's not the righty.
[1:00:06] Speaker 4: It's not exactly I can't that was the training.
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: No. Yeah, I was surprised that he did it, but
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: but I also thought about my nine toes when he
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: did it. I'm like, I could probably lose another one
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: even it out hit the right, hit the right, yeah,
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: but uh yeah, So we did marksmanship, We did combative stuff,
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: we did mobility, and we did breaching. Breaching covered like
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: not everything. You weren't going to be master breacher, but
[1:00:32] Speaker 1: you can mad like maybe low level breacher. That's why
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: I think they stopped sending guys to the low low
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: level breach of course, because everybody went through RASS did
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: some sort of breaching that was like above low level breachers.
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: Like you were you doing E C. T. Charge, flack, linear,
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: all this stuff. You were doing mechanical breaches, manuel breaches,
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: thermal breaches, ballistic breaches. You're out there with the shotgun,
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: which I was like, the shotgun is what gets like.
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: It was like behind a d u y, this shotgun
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: will all refess you because nds like they would talk
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: about ending the shot I was like, after the duhy,
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: this is the second most reason why guys get our
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: face eight seventy and yeah, and like you know that thing.
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: So when I was like having that, I was like,
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: this thing's burn a hole in me. Hopefully I don't
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: get selected like to breach with this. But so that's
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: essentially I know I was probably all over the place,
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: but essentially marksmanship, heavy mobility, heavy combatis wasn't super heavy,
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: but it was there and then they had uh what
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: was the other breaching.
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: So it sounds like because you know, I got there
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: during a peacetime military so the idea was you get selected,
[1:01:45] Speaker 3: you know, and then you go and you get hazed
[1:01:47] Speaker 3: for a year while you're while you're.
[1:01:49] Speaker 4: Being trained to be a ranger.
[1:01:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, but it sounds like because there were active wars
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: going on, the wars going on, that they wanted you
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: guys trained before you got there at least to have
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: a solid time day.
[1:02:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, you almost touched anything that you're gonna touch on
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: the line. You touched it there. And and and the
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: cool dynamic about the ranger regiment is like there's a
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: cook right there learning how to build explosive charge next
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: to you, you know what I mean. Like there's a
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: parachute rigger right there learning to build charges next to you.
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: And obviously we think there's bias, like hey man, this
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: guy's just gonna skate through. He can almost mess this
[1:02:24] Speaker 1: up and still go through. That was always like that
[1:02:27] Speaker 1: thing like they need the soft skilled, right, push and
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: push and push them the paralegal come on right, you know,
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: Like but that's just like a part of that like
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: military occupation of specialty prejudice that you have.
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, so you do end up graduating from RAMS. Yeah, finally, Yeah,
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: tell us about showing up at your platoon.
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: You're your multi platoon three seven five mortar platoon three five.
[1:02:52] Speaker 3: That's correct, because you had orders to some five ye,
[1:02:56] Speaker 3: and then they decided to punish you and send you
[1:02:58] Speaker 3: to yeah.
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And then it's like I thought it was
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: a punishment, and then later I was like, this is awesome,
[1:03:04] Speaker 1: this is great because so the funny thing is like
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: all I had to do was walk across the street.
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: I didn't have to be like, oh where am I?
[1:03:11] Speaker 1: Oh too, But then I found it weird because then
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: you had an improcessed post and I'm like, I've been
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: on this post for almost a year. Why am I
[1:03:17] Speaker 1: in processing? They're like, let me tell you about Fort Benning,
[1:03:21] Speaker 1: but I already know about for Betty. Please be quiet,
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: end of the class, hold all questions. At the end,
[1:03:26] Speaker 1: I'm like, I have no questions, Please let me out
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: of here, kind of just you know, colect me out
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: of here. I'll take a test on Fort Benning and
[1:03:31] Speaker 1: pushed me on like now still had to sit through
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: the same stuff. Everyone was brand new to Fort Benny.
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: So I get to three seven five, and it was
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: very strange because my first interaction with the first the
[1:03:47] Speaker 1: first person you meet in your company is the first sergeant,
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: and we had a very like cartoon character kind of
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: first sergeant, as many people did, and they're like, hey,
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: first startrants in there. Knock on the door and wait
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: for him to say enter. And I was like, okay,
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: Roger sergeant. To whoever the headquarters petween certant was at
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: the time, I said, okay, Roger stant and then knock
[1:04:10] Speaker 1: on the door. I enter from this like grumbling voice
[1:04:14] Speaker 1: on the other side. I step in, close the door
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: behind me, go pray rest a million shock and said
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: don't don't show shock, just like you know, a thousand
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: yards stare. Don't look at him, and don't look at
[1:04:26] Speaker 1: the man, a full grown man on his hands and
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: knees next to the first sarn like and by the
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: first art is petting him with a dog. And this
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: guy was like an fo and he looked like a weasel.
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: He was disgusting, and I was like, how's that guy? Arranger?
[1:04:37] Speaker 1: And it was very weird, and I was like, if
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: I fucked this up, am I gonna have to beat
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: the dog, you know. So he's like, hey, Standard Tech,
[1:04:48] Speaker 1: what's your pet? How do you run? How fast do
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: you run? And I was like, well, usually I'm a
[1:04:52] Speaker 1: sub thirty sep thirty minute five mile and he's like,
[1:04:55] Speaker 1: I can run faster than that. And I'm like, man,
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: my first art had a big old gut too, and
[1:04:59] Speaker 1: he's you know. I was like, I don't know first,
[1:05:02] Speaker 1: but okay, Roger first, Arron, I'll get better at running.
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: And I remember he's like, hey, what's your favorite stands
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: of the creat All right, say it? I say the Creedy.
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: He's like that's my favorite too. He's like then he says, uh,
[1:05:15] Speaker 1: so Sandusky got one last question for you. I'm like,
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: oh man, what's it gonna be? And he's like what
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: is best in life? And I was like is this
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: guy for real? And I was like, dude, send it.
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: I was like, to cross your head. I mean to
[1:05:28] Speaker 1: see them doing before you and here the lamentations of
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: their women. First sergeant and he was like god. And
[1:05:37] Speaker 1: I got out of there and I was like, dude,
[1:05:38] Speaker 1: what was that? What was happening? And then they're like, hey,
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: we'll take you to your section. Yeah, And so I did.
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: I go I go to my section leader. They take
[1:05:47] Speaker 1: me to my section leader and uh, you know, kind
[1:05:50] Speaker 1: of introduced to him. And I remember like my first
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: week there was e I B and the cool thing
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: about RASP is you do all the E I B
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: tasks and raps as you go through. So it's like, dude,
[1:06:00] Speaker 1: I did rast three times. Yeah, right on set. So
[1:06:04] Speaker 1: we went through the EIB and I that first week
[1:06:07] Speaker 1: there and I got the EP. It didn't really fully
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: integrate with the platoon yet. And then I think towards
[1:06:12] Speaker 1: the end of the Expert Infantry Badge, once I earned
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: my Expert Infantry Bag, I basically entered the platoon with
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: the EIB, which was pretty good. And then and then
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: on that Rock March, I was like I have to
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: I have to win first place. And I got like
[1:06:26] Speaker 1: second place out of the battalion on the EIB Rock
[1:06:29] Speaker 1: March for the twelve mile ar because I was like,
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: I want to make a good impression on my platoon.
[1:06:34] Speaker 1: So then I finally integrate with my platoon and being
[1:06:36] Speaker 1: like oh yeah, I saw you. You you got second place?
[1:06:40] Speaker 1: Like you freaking like I was like being mocked for
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: almost like being like an overachiever or something like that.
[1:06:46] Speaker 1: I was like, dang it, man, like this is not
[1:06:49] Speaker 1: very good start. And they I remember, they told me
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: to like hey, like we don't need you today. Uh
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: go home and meet us downtown at the tap at
[1:06:59] Speaker 1: seven pm. We're doing go away party for the outgoing
[1:07:02] Speaker 1: platoon sergeant because the other platoon serry they did ask
[1:07:05] Speaker 1: me he's coming, and so I'm like all right, and
[1:07:09] Speaker 1: I went downtown and I think everybody in the platoon
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: punched me while I was there. They said make sure
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: you punch that guy. He's a new guy. I got
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: punched by everybody while I was there. They buy me
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: a drink and I was like all right, and then
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: like they'd be like buy me a drink because I
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: killed someone, you haven't. And then the section leader will
[1:07:27] Speaker 1: be like, oh no, he's killed someone. They're like wait
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: what and then uh because they were like they brought
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: me in the cage. Like I think the day after
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: that part, there was like a mas cow downtown. I
[1:07:39] Speaker 1: didn't drink at all because I was like, dude, I
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. Don't drink, just you know,
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: maintain homeostasis and get out of this.
[1:07:46] Speaker 4: You know.
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: And there was a mascow and I was the guy
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: like loading people in vans and being like all right,
[1:07:50] Speaker 1: let me just help people out and then anyway, I
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: get to get to work whatever the next day or
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: sometime that week, and they try to pull that again.
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: Like everybody. It was like taken into a prison cell,
[1:08:01] Speaker 1: but like a prison cell is like you go in
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: to a prison cells, like what are you in for?
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: I'm in for robbery? Man, I did this. I did that,
[1:08:09] Speaker 1: And then like the guy in the back corners, like,
[1:08:11] Speaker 1: what's what's up with that guy? That he killed someone?
[1:08:13] Speaker 1: You know. It's like when I got to my platoon
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: in the cage, like everybody in this cage just killed someone,
[1:08:19] Speaker 1: and you're just like all right, got it, you know,
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: like that's where you were in that aspect. You were like, oh,
[1:08:27] Speaker 1: that's real, that's not even a joke. Everybody in this
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: cage just killed somebody, whether with the direct fire indirect
[1:08:35] Speaker 1: fire weapon systems, whether it was with the fifty cal
[1:08:38] Speaker 1: and RWs, whether it was with any type of tool
[1:08:42] Speaker 1: that the regiment gives you to take one's life. Uh.
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: And I was like all right, you know, And I
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: was kind of in that mode like man like the
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: way that I went about my life is like I
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: didn't feel like it was for anything. I wasn't proud
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: like people like even when I got stabbed people, you
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: won that fight, man, that's badass what I win. I
[1:09:03] Speaker 1: didn't wake up that day. I was like, I don't
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: want to win the lottery. I want to take someone's life, right,
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: but you don't win nothing, you know. So I was
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: kind of like, all right, well, like I have more
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: respect for these guys because they weren't just like caught
[1:09:15] Speaker 1: up in some stupid thing. There's like a purpose behind
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: kind of like what they're doing in a way, you know. So, yeah,
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff going on there. I
[1:09:26] Speaker 1: started like getting really introduced to the culture there, kind
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: of already kind of had a feel for it, like
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: the mortars are gonna be crazy, and you know the
[1:09:33] Speaker 1: mortars are gonna be crazy because you just sense basic training,
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: it's already ingrained in you. You already know how the
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: culture outside the army influences the culture inside your organization,
[1:09:45] Speaker 1: and then your organization within the organization. And you're just
[1:09:48] Speaker 1: this niche crew. There's no other mortar platoon. There might
[1:09:51] Speaker 1: be like a you know, like nine to twelve line
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: platoons like rifle platoons, you know, but there's only one
[1:09:59] Speaker 1: more a platoon per battalion. And yeah, so I was there,
[1:10:05] Speaker 1: and I remember, like I don't know, talking about the barracks.
[1:10:08] Speaker 1: I remember I told you about the barracks. Yeah, so
[1:10:12] Speaker 1: it's like the barracks. Was like, Oh, that's the Sea
[1:10:16] Speaker 1: Cole Bericks, that's the a Cole Barracks. And then you
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: point out these barracks. It's got like a halo of
[1:10:20] Speaker 1: bats and lightning and the dragon raw like soaring around here.
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: Like what's that. It's like Dutch the mortar barracks do not,
[1:10:29] Speaker 1: you know, it's like anything the light touches simple. You
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: never go there. It's the elephant graveyard.
[1:10:34] Speaker 7: You know.
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: And so I was like, you know, I went, I
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: was in those barracks, and I remember all types of
[1:10:42] Speaker 1: crazy stuff Shenanigan's happening in the barracks, and it wasn't
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: like just like little funny games and stuff. I remember
[1:10:47] Speaker 1: there was this guy who was a partner to a
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: very famous sniper wrote a lot of books named Nicholas Irving.
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: This guy is a partner to like Nick Irving. He's
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: in the books. I think it's P and H. So
[1:11:01] Speaker 1: there's a guy, Old Sergeant P. He's there, AKA P Murder,
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: he's there, and I guess the story what I heard
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: was that he had attempted buds before the army or
[1:11:14] Speaker 1: something and like washed out or something. He was definitely
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: an older guy than anybody else that we saw this
[1:11:19] Speaker 1: like the silver Fox type guy. Yeah, yeah, maybe even older,
[1:11:28] Speaker 1: but he he he was in the barracks and I
[1:11:31] Speaker 1: remember somebody apparently was walking around with like a broom
[1:11:35] Speaker 1: handle or something was smashing all the lights in the
[1:11:38] Speaker 1: barracks like it was like a mortar guy, you know,
[1:11:44] Speaker 1: And Old Sergeant P comes out and he's like, what's
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: going on? You know, I I thought this was the
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: Ranger Regiment. Man, what's happening? What is this dude? Are
[1:11:58] Speaker 1: smashing lights? Just goes shut up, bitch, just smashing lights?
[1:12:04] Speaker 1: Like wow, Like that is like the level of like
[1:12:07] Speaker 1: zero fox given no morale. Like clearly this guy, I mean,
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: this is this is a guy who's like involved in
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: like an ausprey crash, broke his back and like had
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: safe lives in there and lost like one of his friends.
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: And you know, there's like at surface level, you're like
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: that's a psychopathe like why is that? Why does that
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: guy belong there? Whatever? It's like, man, you kind of
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: look at like something and I learned that. I'm like, man,
[1:12:28] Speaker 1: that guy And he even told me, like, man, I
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: was screaming in that I heard screaming in a osprey
[1:12:35] Speaker 1: and I didn't realize it was me screaming, like while
[1:12:37] Speaker 1: it was rolling and ship and he had to pull
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: people out of there. But there's like there's that level
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: of like, wow, man, these are incredible people on my
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: platoon that done incredible things, and you know they're not
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: really getting the recognition they should because he was in an
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: osprey crash in uh Rooster seventy three or in Afghanistan
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: and he pulled a bunch of folks out of there
[1:13:02] Speaker 1: and he got soldiers medal.
[1:13:04] Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and of course, but but whoever was back
[1:13:10] Speaker 3: at the jock commanding.
[1:13:13] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you know. Yeah. That's like sometimes like I
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: see guys like on certain podcasts and stuff, and they're
[1:13:20] Speaker 1: like reading off the thing of all these awards and
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, amount awards that people are just like,
[1:13:26] Speaker 1: oh yeah, let's put him for Award eleven. Charlie throw
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: it away, yeah, you know, and just feeling that like, dang, man,
[1:13:33] Speaker 1: I could have that rap sheet. But then it was like,
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: hey man, the awards don't matter, Like they don't matter
[1:13:38] Speaker 1: what they always say them from everyone else, you know,
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: But I didn't really I've seen a lot of people
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: like no matter, like the mos get kind of yeah
[1:13:48] Speaker 1: bypassed on awards what I noticed, But what were you
[1:13:52] Speaker 1: gonna say?
[1:13:52] Speaker 2: Well, before we move into some of the combat stuff
[1:13:56] Speaker 2: and depointed stuff, I would like to take a couple
[1:13:59] Speaker 2: of minutes to hear you out. You know, what is
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: a mortar section for the people out there? What is
[1:14:04] Speaker 2: a Ranger regiment mortar section? Okay, the Navy Seals have a.
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: Mortar section, a mortar section, I think not. Yeah, well
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: we're their mortar section essentially. So where the Navy seal
[1:14:16] Speaker 1: motor section, where the delta forest mortar section, where everybody's
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: mortar section tell people about. So the responsibility of a
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: Ranger mortar platoon essentially is you are the all weather
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: jsck asset, the only all weather j sock asset. And
[1:14:32] Speaker 1: we used to make a joke about it. It was like,
[1:14:33] Speaker 1: what if we're stood down due to weather? You know,
[1:14:37] Speaker 1: we can't get the bird, we can't get the striker
[1:14:39] Speaker 1: whatever whatever it is lift package that we're trying to
[1:14:41] Speaker 1: roll out with. And so essentially there's so many ways
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: to skin this cat on what is. And the thing
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: is about my mortar platoon at three cent five is
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: like when I showed up there, I saw some really
[1:14:57] Speaker 1: hard men that were combat but really didn't have an identity.
[1:15:02] Speaker 1: They didn't really know exactly what their purpose was. And
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: our morti platoon had been there at Headitha Dam, but
[1:15:10] Speaker 1: you know, all Headitha Dam is like BCO three seven
[1:15:13] Speaker 1: five Aditha Dam. It's like, what about those enablers man
[1:15:16] Speaker 1: that we're dropping one twenties on like and one canoe
[1:15:19] Speaker 1: as it says in the BDA, you know, like it's funny,
[1:15:23] Speaker 1: but it's like did that generation go, wait, what's happening?
[1:15:27] Speaker 1: Where are these guys? What are they doing?
[1:15:28] Speaker 3: Now?
[1:15:28] Speaker 1: They just forgot about those guys and now you have
[1:15:30] Speaker 1: these guys that are like, dude, what do we do?
[1:15:32] Speaker 1: We're like treated like, well, you nothing, you don't have anything,
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: no lineage. But I'm I'm sitting there looking at the
[1:15:38] Speaker 1: history and I'm thinking like, okay, so at face value,
[1:15:42] Speaker 1: a mortar platoon is at the top. You're gonna have
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: your mortar pl which is usually some sort of a
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: lieutenant captain. Then you have your platoon sergeant, which is
[1:15:54] Speaker 1: a master sergeant position within the ranger regimen. The mortar
[1:15:57] Speaker 1: platoon sergeant is a master sergeant position. So it's supposed
[1:16:00] Speaker 1: to be a zulu in charge of a mortar platoon.
[1:16:04] Speaker 1: Most of the time you're gonna have a seven there
[1:16:06] Speaker 1: because they're not finding zulus around or no where are
[1:16:08] Speaker 1: they finding zulus that want to be mortar platoons. Hell no,
[1:16:12] Speaker 1: you're not saying. I've been on the line, man, I
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: want to take the company, and if I'm not gonna
[1:16:18] Speaker 1: get a company, I'm gonna go long walk. I'm gonna
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: go do something else. You know, they don't want to
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: come to mortar platoon. And so under him you have
[1:16:25] Speaker 1: two section leaders. And I believe that first range of
[1:16:28] Speaker 1: battalion and second range and third range of battalion all
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: day differently, like even our call science are like a
[1:16:34] Speaker 1: little different. We were so decentralized and organized as far
[1:16:38] Speaker 1: as like platoon, we never came together holistically. We were
[1:16:41] Speaker 1: we were too attached for so long to the identity
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: of our battalion, even though our battalion almost didn't seemingly
[1:16:48] Speaker 1: didn't care about our own identity and passing on our identity.
[1:16:52] Speaker 1: I mean one time we had a chem officer as
[1:16:53] Speaker 1: our pl and it was like a smack.
[1:16:56] Speaker 2: In the face, just like the sticking people.
[1:16:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
[1:17:00] Speaker 7: You know.
[1:17:02] Speaker 1: So the way that we ran it for a while
[1:17:04] Speaker 1: was like, you know, we had a first section and
[1:17:07] Speaker 1: second section in FDC section, and the way that that
[1:17:13] Speaker 1: ran was kind of like, you know, hey, first section,
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: you roll through. You know, we're like working in shifts, like, hey,
[1:17:19] Speaker 1: you do this exercise, you do this exercise. Put what
[1:17:23] Speaker 1: really put a constraint on you is like the line
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: would be looking at you like, man, you're really dragging
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: an asso here, and it's like they don't realize that
[1:17:31] Speaker 1: mortar guy just got off supporting Battalion Ops. Now he's
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: coming down to support Delta Company. Now he's gonna go
[1:17:38] Speaker 1: from Delta Company and go support Alpha Company. And we're like,
[1:17:41] Speaker 1: so we stretch ourselves thin with this makeup that we're
[1:17:44] Speaker 1: doing that. Like now you're like and each time you're
[1:17:47] Speaker 1: carrying like maybe ten rounds maybe plus you're cannon because
[1:17:50] Speaker 1: you don't have a you don't have an A B
[1:17:53] Speaker 1: with you, So you have a cannon and ten rounds
[1:17:55] Speaker 1: on your back, right, Each one of those sixty rounds
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: weighs three and a half pounds, you know what I mean. So,
[1:18:00] Speaker 1: and then all your other gear on top of it.
[1:18:02] Speaker 2: So can you I just want to make sure we
[1:18:04] Speaker 2: break it down a little barney level for people out
[1:18:06] Speaker 2: there who really have no idea about the sixties. Yeah, yeah, ones,
[1:18:10] Speaker 2: the one twenties. That's right, what the fire direction center
[1:18:13] Speaker 2: like if you just explained to people, yeah it is.
[1:18:15] Speaker 1: So that was kind of actually an interesting dynamic that
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: kind of fed into my well roundedness. So I would
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: say the mortar platoons are jack of all trade, almost
[1:18:26] Speaker 1: mastering none. So we had a one twenty millimeter mortar,
[1:18:31] Speaker 1: which it's in the name the projectiles one hundred and
[1:18:34] Speaker 1: twenty millimeters around a seventy meters blast radius, and it's
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: about a thirty pound projectile. It could be fired up
[1:18:43] Speaker 1: to seven point two kilometers out of the American one
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: milimeter system. And you know the components of the system
[1:18:52] Speaker 1: are like the base plate's like one hundred and thirty
[1:18:54] Speaker 1: six pounds. The canon itself is one hundred and ten.
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: You know, like all the components are heavy. You know,
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: you busting that thing out, You're like, it's gonna be
[1:19:02] Speaker 1: a bad day. Getting to work sucks, Leaving work sucks.
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: Working is awesome, Yeah, you know what I mean. And
[1:19:11] Speaker 1: then you have the eighty one, which is a lot
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: more mobile, a lot more lightweight, you know, a total
[1:19:15] Speaker 1: of like ninety three pounds altogether. And you know, then
[1:19:20] Speaker 1: you have your AMMO and all that other stuff which
[1:19:23] Speaker 1: actually adds the weight, and you know, you're only firing
[1:19:27] Speaker 1: like a little over five and a half k with
[1:19:29] Speaker 1: that one, but it's a little bit more mobile. It's
[1:19:31] Speaker 1: kind of like the happy medium. A lot of guys
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: they favorite the eighty one. And then you have the
[1:19:35] Speaker 1: sixties sixty millimeters, and those are more like for close
[1:19:41] Speaker 1: in fight. You're attached that platoon, you're attached to the company,
[1:19:44] Speaker 1: your direct line of sight fighting with the sixty and so.
[1:19:50] Speaker 1: Because usually each I know, we had like four to
[1:19:55] Speaker 1: one to twenty cannons, but we usually ran during up
[1:19:59] Speaker 1: like like before Syria for a while, that whole generation,
[1:20:03] Speaker 1: like my earlier part of my career, we usually only
[1:20:05] Speaker 1: ran like two to one twenties at a time. Sometimes
[1:20:07] Speaker 1: we ran four, but usually only two at a time
[1:20:09] Speaker 1: because you're still understaff, Like, you can't staff four of
[1:20:12] Speaker 1: them because nobody wants to be rangers. Nobody wants to
[1:20:16] Speaker 1: be eleven Charlies, right, and nobody wants to be eleven
[1:20:18] Speaker 1: Charlie rangers, right, So, and quality of life is bad,
[1:20:22] Speaker 1: so people leave like yeah, very quickly, very doggy dog.
[1:20:26] Speaker 1: So you know you would shift. Okay, today we're doing
[1:20:31] Speaker 1: one twenties. Today we're doing eighty one. All right, a right,
[1:20:33] Speaker 1: we're gonna do sixties. Hey, these guys need you over
[1:20:35] Speaker 1: there pick up the sixties. And you had to be
[1:20:37] Speaker 1: expected to be an expert in every one of those systems,
[1:20:39] Speaker 1: and you also had to be able to integrate with
[1:20:42] Speaker 1: the line support by fire because you usually work in
[1:20:44] Speaker 1: very close proximity with the support by fire, to pick
[1:20:47] Speaker 1: up that two forty, to pick up that gustaff, to
[1:20:48] Speaker 1: be able to engage enemy forces while you're usually on
[1:20:52] Speaker 1: isolation or support by fire, and do it to almost
[1:20:57] Speaker 1: like the same level that the line guys that or
[1:20:59] Speaker 1: those eight eyes are executing all of those procedures. That's
[1:21:04] Speaker 1: kind of like the way that we went about it.
[1:21:06] Speaker 1: So it was very decentralized and disorganized to begin with.
[1:21:10] Speaker 2: So I mean mortars like a one to twenty you
[1:21:12] Speaker 2: can use for base defense, yeah, I know, for in
[1:21:15] Speaker 2: the defense.
[1:21:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, a sixty.
[1:21:17] Speaker 2: I mean it's small enough that you know, guys woul
[1:21:19] Speaker 2: carried on a sling wing it off their shoulder and
[1:21:22] Speaker 2: put rounds down the tube like within like what fifty
[1:21:24] Speaker 2: meters if need.
[1:21:25] Speaker 1: Be right, Yeah, within seventy meters. Yeah, yeah, within seventy meters.
[1:21:30] Speaker 1: You could put it within fifty meters. It's like you know,
[1:21:31] Speaker 1: army distance and all that. It could just punch a
[1:21:33] Speaker 1: hole through somebody and it's pretty good, like you know,
[1:21:36] Speaker 1: like it's still a good effect. It's an interesting Bill,
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: and I the science guy insperiment that you could try.
[1:21:41] Speaker 1: I mean we definitely did. We used to fire mortars
[1:21:44] Speaker 1: off of our thighs with the sixties, and you know,
[1:21:48] Speaker 1: we try to go beyond the max effective range and
[1:21:52] Speaker 1: shoot things beyond max effective range, and it was it
[1:21:55] Speaker 1: was kind of cool. It was almost like that Master
[1:21:57] Speaker 1: Breacher type stuff where you get to shoot things with
[1:21:59] Speaker 1: a mortar and then analyze the effects of that mortar
[1:22:01] Speaker 1: system and be like this is good and this not
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: just out of the book, Like the guy in the
[1:22:05] Speaker 1: book that's m Coe said, this would be a good idea.
[1:22:08] Speaker 1: So if you don't know till you're there.
[1:22:09] Speaker 4: Right now, does the sixty have a base plate?
[1:22:13] Speaker 1: Yes?
[1:22:13] Speaker 4: It does.
[1:22:14] Speaker 1: Yes, they have two different kinds of base plate.
[1:22:16] Speaker 4: You can fire without the base plate.
[1:22:17] Speaker 1: No, well you could, it just wouldn't be a good idea,
[1:22:20] Speaker 1: be a bad day.
[1:22:20] Speaker 4: And how much is like the sixty base plate?
[1:22:24] Speaker 1: Uh? So you have? Man, it's been so long, I
[1:22:26] Speaker 1: don't remember what the base plate is, but I remember
[1:22:30] Speaker 1: there was like there's one that's like three point six pounds,
[1:22:33] Speaker 1: and then there is another one because they changed it.
[1:22:36] Speaker 1: They changed that base plate like three times. Because you
[1:22:39] Speaker 1: have your auxiliary base plate, and then you have your
[1:22:41] Speaker 1: conventional base plate. Your auxiliary base plate goes with the sixty.
[1:22:44] Speaker 1: Win its in handheld mode, okay, and then you have
[1:22:46] Speaker 1: conventional mode. Handheld mode means that you are trigger firing,
[1:22:50] Speaker 1: because the sixty millimeter mortar, the M two two four
[1:22:54] Speaker 1: to Alpha one that the United States military uses, is
[1:22:58] Speaker 1: fired and two different positions, either drop fired or trigger fired,
[1:23:03] Speaker 1: both muzzle loaded. And so when you're in handheld you
[1:23:08] Speaker 1: usually use a scale that's on the back of the
[1:23:10] Speaker 1: sixty that's uh has a tritium illumination and it has
[1:23:15] Speaker 1: one side that has a zero at the top, which
[1:23:17] Speaker 1: stands for charge zero, and another side is charge one
[1:23:19] Speaker 1: at the top. And you down the scale, it tells
[1:23:23] Speaker 1: you the range, and then a little floating ball, a
[1:23:25] Speaker 1: little floating ball yep, and you move it and then
[1:23:28] Speaker 1: you kind of line it up and then that's to
[1:23:30] Speaker 1: the range that you desire, and you make sure the
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: cannon is on target and you hit things and the
[1:23:35] Speaker 1: and this is something I used to mess with a
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: sniper platoon about because obviously being a sniper and stuff,
[1:23:41] Speaker 1: I'd be like, hey, you sniper guys, you always talk
[1:23:43] Speaker 1: about any new nightfour skupe or something like that. I'm like,
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: my guys are engaging targets at twelve hundred meters with
[1:23:49] Speaker 1: their thumb. You know, it's kind of funny, right, Like real.
[1:23:56] Speaker 4: Quick, you said, a lot of guys prefer the eighty
[1:23:58] Speaker 4: Like what is eighty one?
[1:23:59] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[1:23:59] Speaker 4: What what is the eighty one? Way? Like the base
[1:24:02] Speaker 4: plate in.
[1:24:02] Speaker 1: The tube, So I remember the bass plate weigh like
[1:24:04] Speaker 1: thirty five pounds. I don't remember what like the the
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: next generation because we went to M two five to
[1:24:10] Speaker 1: two Alpha one. It used to just be M five
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: to two, but it went They did like a whole
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: weight reduction on it, and I don't really remember how
[1:24:20] Speaker 1: much it weighs. I remember used to telling guys after
[1:24:21] Speaker 1: a while ago, it don't matter what ways, the battalion's
[1:24:24] Speaker 1: still going to tell you to carry.
[1:24:25] Speaker 3: It that And that's why I asked, because I think
[1:24:28] Speaker 3: one of the things that mornermen do not I think
[1:24:32] Speaker 3: from the line guys, like they get the appreciation when
[1:24:34] Speaker 3: when the line guys see him humping that stuff, you
[1:24:36] Speaker 3: don't realize you're carrying everything that every line guy is
[1:24:40] Speaker 3: carrying in addition to a base plate, a tube, the rounds.
[1:24:45] Speaker 3: Like I remember doing fast rope operations where you never
[1:24:48] Speaker 3: wanted to be You never wanted to go before the
[1:24:51] Speaker 3: mortar guys.
[1:24:51] Speaker 4: Yeah, because those guys were screaming down the.
[1:24:54] Speaker 1: Lions and that was kind of the cool thing about
[1:24:56] Speaker 1: being a mortar too. It's like you're like, we're the
[1:24:58] Speaker 1: first boots on the ground. Yeah. Yeah, So you know,
[1:25:02] Speaker 1: anytime you do an airfield seizure, it's like, who's gonna
[1:25:04] Speaker 1: be first boots on the ground. I'm the heavy dude,
[1:25:06] Speaker 1: I'm jumping out the door first. I'm getting on the
[1:25:08] Speaker 1: ground first. As I got older, I was like, what
[1:25:12] Speaker 1: is the direction of flight? Where is my MFP? I
[1:25:15] Speaker 1: want to put myself in the stack, So I ran
[1:25:17] Speaker 1: closer to the MFP, you know. I started that kind
[1:25:20] Speaker 1: of like, hey man, screw the scatter pattern. I want
[1:25:22] Speaker 1: to get next to where I need to go, you know,
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: instead of because if you're heavy, if your weight down,
[1:25:27] Speaker 1: you got to jump first, so you don't, you know,
[1:25:29] Speaker 1: come burning into somebody else.
[1:25:32] Speaker 2: So tell us about hitting the ground in Afghanistan in
[1:25:34] Speaker 2: twenty ten.
[1:25:35] Speaker 1: Okay, so twenty ten. This is like towards the end.
[1:25:38] Speaker 1: I think it was like December or something like that.
[1:25:42] Speaker 1: I end up in this area called Kalott, and it
[1:25:44] Speaker 1: was very interesting because right away you kind of knew
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: what you were up against when you're in Klatte, because
[1:25:54] Speaker 1: you looked out from your fop and we were in
[1:25:56] Speaker 1: a tiny fop at a like ride of forty seven
[1:25:59] Speaker 1: to get there, very small, and you look out from
[1:26:03] Speaker 1: your little fob and you see Alexander the Great's castle
[1:26:06] Speaker 1: there and you're like, dude, this has been going on.
[1:26:10] Speaker 1: It was almost like like a morale, kind of like
[1:26:14] Speaker 1: your morale kind of went away a little bit, like, dude,
[1:26:16] Speaker 1: like this doesn't look good. That guy trying it. He's
[1:26:19] Speaker 1: in a book. I'm not in a book. He's lots
[1:26:22] Speaker 1: of books and he's great. Apparently, it's like he's the
[1:26:25] Speaker 1: one Alexander that was pretty great, you know, so like
[1:26:29] Speaker 1: you see that and I remember, like I go in
[1:26:31] Speaker 1: there and I'm man, I'm out, and uh, it's insane
[1:26:35] Speaker 1: because the company I was attached to, it was like
[1:26:38] Speaker 1: right away you kind of you're like it a once
[1:26:41] Speaker 1: felt like you're in the locker room of like some
[1:26:43] Speaker 1: Hall of Fame team. When you're overseas, you're like, whoa,
[1:26:47] Speaker 1: the first sergeant was in Mogadishu. That's the son of
[1:26:53] Speaker 1: a metal on a recipient that was killed in mogadish Dude, sorry,
[1:27:00] Speaker 1: Majors came in he was in Panama. Like what? Because
[1:27:04] Speaker 1: I remember the star major gave his speech and I
[1:27:06] Speaker 1: think at the time, I was like twenty four by
[1:27:09] Speaker 1: this time, my first appointment. He was like, I've been
[1:27:12] Speaker 1: a ranger for twenty four years, and I was like, oh,
[1:27:17] Speaker 1: that guy, he's been a ranger as long as I've
[1:27:19] Speaker 1: been alive. And I mean you can probably tell from
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: that voice who I'm talking about. But yeah, I was.
[1:27:28] Speaker 1: I was like, dang man, this guy has been around
[1:27:31] Speaker 1: for a while and he looks like he's been around.
[1:27:34] Speaker 1: Yeah a little bout Yeah, oh I know you're talking
[1:27:37] Speaker 1: to this Yeah. And so he's a good guy. Yeah,
[1:27:43] Speaker 1: and that you know, that guy ran into me in
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: Korea one time. Yeah. He was in charge of the
[1:27:49] Speaker 1: ninth Army out there and we were doing some training.
[1:27:52] Speaker 2: We're talking about Stargar major merit.
[1:27:54] Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, And I was in civilian clothes in
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: the PX or something getting some more stuff to grab
[1:28:01] Speaker 1: to go back up to the warrior base we're training
[1:28:05] Speaker 1: at and uh, somebody hits me on the back, like
[1:28:09] Speaker 1: smacks me in the back and I turn around and
[1:28:13] Speaker 1: they're sorry, Major Mary with his hand out, he's like,
[1:28:15] Speaker 1: how are you doing, Ranger, And I was like, oh, yeah,
[1:28:19] Speaker 1: RUSS a million civilians to go to pray rest. And
[1:28:23] Speaker 1: all these people like regular army dude, conventional and career
[1:28:27] Speaker 1: looked at me like are your prey rest for you know?
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: And I'm like, dude, I don't care if this guy
[1:28:31] Speaker 1: tells me not to go to prayers pray rest. And
[1:28:33] Speaker 1: the Manchurian candidate and this guy's around, you know what I.
[1:28:36] Speaker 2: Mean, You know, like as soon as you know, I
[1:28:42] Speaker 2: remember sharking his air once on a on an airfield seizure.
[1:28:46] Speaker 2: I came down below him and he burned in right
[1:28:48] Speaker 2: behind me here, and I went, I didn't know who
[1:28:53] Speaker 2: it was. I thought it might have been my my
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: buddy in at and I ran over and.
[1:28:57] Speaker 1: I was like, oh, dude, are you okay? This guy
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: rolls over.
[1:29:04] Speaker 2: He was the op sergic major at three seven five
[1:29:07] Speaker 2: at the time. Yeah, he broke all the pens in
[1:29:09] Speaker 2: his pockets.
[1:29:11] Speaker 1: Everything was destroyed.
[1:29:12] Speaker 2: I felt so fucking bad about it. But I stayed
[1:29:16] Speaker 2: with him and helped him up and and like we
[1:29:18] Speaker 2: ran to the assembly area together.
[1:29:20] Speaker 1: But I felt, oh my god.
[1:29:22] Speaker 2: The next day, we're doing the next iteration, and I'm
[1:29:24] Speaker 2: there all kidded up and everything with you know, one
[1:29:27] Speaker 2: hundred and fifty pounds of shit way in there waiting
[1:29:30] Speaker 2: for the plane to take off, and merits there on
[1:29:31] Speaker 2: the ramp pointing to me and laughing with the other
[1:29:33] Speaker 2: guys like that over there.
[1:29:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, the ring Ladero he was. He was nice about it.
[1:29:40] Speaker 2: He was like, he's like Robert Jumper has the right away.
[1:29:43] Speaker 1: Yes, it is what it is. But yeah, good dude.
[1:29:46] Speaker 1: Yeah no. He he hit me on the back and
[1:29:48] Speaker 1: he's like, how are you doing? And I was like, hey,
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: sorry major, You're like, how'd you know? And he was
[1:29:53] Speaker 1: like he's like that don't recognize his own Awesome. It's
[1:29:59] Speaker 1: like Albus anytime that guy was around somehow, like he's
[1:30:03] Speaker 1: like and you know, he's a thing of legend, like.
[1:30:04] Speaker 2: You guys, he was as he loved that. He'll be
[1:30:07] Speaker 2: a sawgun or on you're on a fire team.
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's still whispers in the cages of of him,
[1:30:14] Speaker 1: probably to this day. You know, I haven't been interacting
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: with you know, the organization a couple of years, but
[1:30:20] Speaker 1: you know that's uh, that's pretty incredible. Yeah, but that
[1:30:23] Speaker 1: was the guy that was the whole thing. Man, like
[1:30:25] Speaker 1: these interesting people to me, I'm like, dude, I am
[1:30:27] Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame locker room. There's like these
[1:30:29] Speaker 1: incredible people like, oh, man, that guy was in r
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: D when they jumped into uh, when they jumped in
[1:30:35] Speaker 1: like you know, I guess like before Rhino or whatever. Yeah,
[1:30:37] Speaker 1: it's like that guy was was the guy like wow,
[1:30:40] Speaker 1: like I don't I don't like you know, And then anytime.
[1:30:43] Speaker 1: My guys would be like, you don't belong here, you
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: don't belong like, yeah, right, so I don't belong here,
[1:30:46] Speaker 1: So you don't want to be here. I'm like, no,
[1:30:47] Speaker 1: I'm looking around and you're telling me I don't belong here. Yeah,
[1:30:50] Speaker 1: I don't belong here. I want to belong here. How
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: do I belong here? Teach me how to belong here?
[1:30:55] Speaker 1: Because man, I got the dog shit smoked every single
[1:30:58] Speaker 1: day and it was not on isolated instant from mortars
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: Like I might be up here and people watching it
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: home be like, oh you know you awo is me guy?
[1:31:05] Speaker 1: Like you know? I'm like no, I'm just talking about
[1:31:08] Speaker 1: the event as it was objective, not subject. But why
[1:31:11] Speaker 1: is this happening to me? It's happened to every mortar
[1:31:13] Speaker 1: guy there, and it probably happened a lot worse. So
[1:31:15] Speaker 1: they say the guys before me, you know, and I
[1:31:18] Speaker 1: respect that they say that wasn't there for those generations.
[1:31:22] Speaker 1: But you know, I saw something ugly in the past,
[1:31:25] Speaker 1: like a very brutal way of breaking in soldiers. And
[1:31:29] Speaker 1: I can see a lot of like young guys in
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: the early twenties just dead in their eyes, like they
[1:31:35] Speaker 1: almost had no will to live, They didn't care, and
[1:31:38] Speaker 1: it almost made them the most dangerous person on the
[1:31:40] Speaker 1: battlefield because you're like, that guy is gonna send it
[1:31:44] Speaker 1: on any enemy or not enemy opposing force. I would say,
[1:31:48] Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because it's like it's so
[1:31:51] Speaker 1: complex or so complex. I started getting away from calling
[1:31:54] Speaker 1: people the enemy and the opposing force because sometimes they're
[1:31:57] Speaker 1: the opposing force and sometimes they're like, oh, you're doing
[1:32:00] Speaker 1: a joint operation with this force that was like this
[1:32:03] Speaker 1: group of people that was somewhat questionable the other day, right,
[1:32:06] Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like some unknown I think.
[1:32:08] Speaker 1: But yeah, back to Afghanistan.
[1:32:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, so first deployment yep, up on this mountaintop that
[1:32:17] Speaker 2: you had to take a forty seven to, which I
[1:32:22] Speaker 2: don't know, I'm not first apployment to Afghanistan. Yeah you're
[1:32:25] Speaker 2: telling me it was a small fob.
[1:32:27] Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah, we had a
[1:32:30] Speaker 1: It wasn't really like a mountaintop per se. It was
[1:32:32] Speaker 1: like like we could see Alexander the greats Castle from there.
[1:32:38] Speaker 1: We took it very tiny. It was like there's you
[1:32:40] Speaker 1: can see some urban areas around we land there. Very small.
[1:32:44] Speaker 1: I want to say man, this thing was like if
[1:32:47] Speaker 1: you ran around it in a circle less than a mile,
[1:32:49] Speaker 1: probably like a like a third of a mile if
[1:32:51] Speaker 1: you ran a lap around it. When lap around it,
[1:32:53] Speaker 1: I don't really remember exactly, it was tiny. So yeah,
[1:32:56] Speaker 1: we get there and it was a blackout flob and
[1:32:59] Speaker 1: I've heard about black op fobs and I was like, man,
[1:33:01] Speaker 1: my first deployment, I want blackout fob. Oh No, Like
[1:33:05] Speaker 1: all these guys are at CALF and they're at Bath
[1:33:08] Speaker 1: and you know, like they are all these places like
[1:33:10] Speaker 1: I want to be. But I was kind of glad
[1:33:11] Speaker 1: I wasn't in those like near the flagpole. You grew
[1:33:14] Speaker 1: up in three seventy five. You're at the flagpoles. When
[1:33:15] Speaker 1: you're deployed. It's like your vacation time. You know, you're
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: away from everything. So yeah, yeah, we deployed there to
[1:33:23] Speaker 1: this area. It was like kind of winter time. It snowed,
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: got smoked a lot, went out on target, not as
[1:33:34] Speaker 1: much as I would have liked because I was new.
[1:33:38] Speaker 1: We were kind of had this section with us. The
[1:33:40] Speaker 1: second section is who I was a part of UH
[1:33:44] Speaker 1: near a line platoon and we kind of conducted operations
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: with the line platoon and We also conducted operations supporting
[1:33:54] Speaker 1: the line platoon because I remember one day we had
[1:33:57] Speaker 1: we pushed out like a high lux, which I was like,
[1:34:00] Speaker 1: this is cool. My friends aren't like in a high
[1:34:01] Speaker 1: Lucks when you push out a Highlucks with a one twenty,
[1:34:04] Speaker 1: and we're gonna go support these guys as they moved
[1:34:07] Speaker 1: through and AO and I was like, wow, we're actually
[1:34:10] Speaker 1: going to he's the one twenty. After like these guys
[1:34:12] Speaker 1: in basically like you will never use the mortar, you know,
[1:34:15] Speaker 1: you'll just be starting. You're just stuck on a fob
[1:34:17] Speaker 1: and all this, like you know, stuff that maybe they
[1:34:20] Speaker 1: were exposed to. Yeah, and we rolled out on a
[1:34:23] Speaker 1: little Highlucks and then I remember like the section leader
[1:34:27] Speaker 1: being like, hang it, and I was the ab and
[1:34:29] Speaker 1: I had a one twenty round in there, and he's
[1:34:32] Speaker 1: like he just sits there, and I see my section
[1:34:35] Speaker 1: leader just go and I'm like dude, and he's like, now,
[1:34:42] Speaker 1: I just keep it there and how much is that?
[1:34:45] Speaker 4: How much is that round?
[1:34:45] Speaker 1: Way? Thirty pounds? But thirty pounds up here, it's like
[1:34:49] Speaker 1: this awkward thing and if you drop it right going,
[1:34:52] Speaker 1: it's going and it's cold, right and you're not allowed
[1:34:55] Speaker 1: to wear gloves as a mortar, Like it's like written
[1:34:57] Speaker 1: in there, like you don't wear gloves because you drop it. Yeah,
[1:35:00] Speaker 1: if you drop the mortar round, your glove can get
[1:35:04] Speaker 1: caught inside the cannon. And then when that happens, like
[1:35:08] Speaker 1: you know, something could ignite, It could go down if
[1:35:11] Speaker 1: your gloves are stuck, like you can you can rip
[1:35:14] Speaker 1: your hands off, your fingers off, anything. Like the list
[1:35:17] Speaker 1: goes on, explore the studio space. I don't want to
[1:35:20] Speaker 1: find out, you know, like you know cool, but I
[1:35:22] Speaker 1: don't really want to fight off I lose my finger.
[1:35:23] Speaker 1: So you had me sitting there for a while and
[1:35:25] Speaker 1: then we pulled it out and we didn't fire it,
[1:35:28] Speaker 1: and I was kind of like bumbed, like dang it, man,
[1:35:30] Speaker 1: And then they're like, all right, pack up the AMMO
[1:35:31] Speaker 1: and they're like, man, I was the new guy, and
[1:35:35] Speaker 1: I think I was so cherry that even the next
[1:35:38] Speaker 1: private was like maybe had two or three deployments on me,
[1:35:43] Speaker 1: and it is my first. Yeah, so it was like
[1:35:46] Speaker 1: and a lot of mortar guys just did go to
[1:35:48] Speaker 1: arrange your school during that day. They're like, why am
[1:35:50] Speaker 1: I gonna go range?
[1:35:51] Speaker 2: Even more bitter?
[1:35:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I'm just gonna go kill dudes. Yeah,
[1:35:56] Speaker 1: like why miss the deployment, you know, because mortar guys
[1:35:58] Speaker 1: were on VP sometimes with a saw or to forty
[1:36:01] Speaker 1: like they didn't care about the mortar, Like I don't
[1:36:03] Speaker 1: I need to get away from this and go do
[1:36:05] Speaker 1: that and then I can be I'll carry an extra
[1:36:08] Speaker 1: you know, mark forty eight on target. You know, I'll
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: do what. I'll carry a lot or do anything. And
[1:36:13] Speaker 1: that's kind of the way our guys were. A lot
[1:36:15] Speaker 1: of guys would reclassed and become an FO, go do
[1:36:17] Speaker 1: something else, or become a leven Bravo, and so yeah,
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: that's just kind of how it was, Like I remember
[1:36:25] Speaker 1: my first appointment and then yeah, our our strike force
[1:36:29] Speaker 1: actually ended up killing a lot of people, a lot
[1:36:34] Speaker 1: of opposing forces and people that obviously stood against the
[1:36:39] Speaker 1: interest of US foreign policy, and so they were removed
[1:36:45] Speaker 1: from the from being alive, I guess. And yeah, so
[1:36:50] Speaker 1: that was a very fairly successful strike force, I think,
[1:36:53] Speaker 1: and it was pretty cool to be around that strike force. Yeah,
[1:36:57] Speaker 1: we were or are it was a ranger platoon. We
[1:37:03] Speaker 1: did have Afghan Partnership Unit with it was called Afghan
[1:37:07] Speaker 1: Partnership Unit at the time, we did have them co
[1:37:09] Speaker 1: located with this, along with some other like glowing entities
[1:37:14] Speaker 1: that would partner with us on target that seemed like
[1:37:17] Speaker 1: they had nothing to do with the d D. So yeah,
[1:37:22] Speaker 1: we would go on to these objectives and it was
[1:37:25] Speaker 1: interesting because I got to see a lot of guys
[1:37:27] Speaker 1: who had like and you could really pick their brains
[1:37:30] Speaker 1: without picking their brains, like this is the place to be.
[1:37:34] Speaker 1: You knew is the place to be, but you know
[1:37:35] Speaker 1: it's like it's probably my duty to tough this out
[1:37:38] Speaker 1: and try to make this better. It could be better
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: than this. We we need like this mortar platoon where
[1:37:44] Speaker 1: fate has led me to, needs to be at the
[1:37:47] Speaker 1: level of prestige and lineage that I see in this
[1:37:55] Speaker 1: line company that I see in these guys that I
[1:37:57] Speaker 1: see like we we need to be like the enemy
[1:38:03] Speaker 1: needs to or anybody who opposes us needs to be
[1:38:06] Speaker 1: in fear that you know that there is this element
[1:38:11] Speaker 1: out as such as us. What was objective aris so
[1:38:16] Speaker 1: objective aries was something I wasn't directly a part of,
[1:38:23] Speaker 1: but a lot of people, because I had gone through
[1:38:26] Speaker 1: RASS three times, they were a lot of people that
[1:38:30] Speaker 1: knew were affected. One guy in particular that I went through.
[1:38:36] Speaker 1: Ras was killed and for you know, members of the
[1:38:44] Speaker 1: strike force were killed, and many people were wounded, very
[1:38:49] Speaker 1: seriously wounded where they either lost you know, some appendage or.
[1:38:56] Speaker 2: Was this the masscal event? Yeah, okay, I remember when
[1:38:59] Speaker 2: this happened.
[1:39:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was like a very like hard hitting thing.
[1:39:06] Speaker 1: There's a lot of lessons to be learned from that.
[1:39:08] Speaker 1: I did see a lot of guys across the battalion
[1:39:13] Speaker 1: trajectory change. I've seen a lot of guys after that,
[1:39:18] Speaker 1: you know, Hang it up, Yeah, I'm getting out of here.
[1:39:21] Speaker 4: Man.
[1:39:22] Speaker 2: You want to describe briefly, like what happened on target.
[1:39:25] Speaker 1: I don't really fully know or understand everything that happened
[1:39:28] Speaker 1: on Target as I understood, and I don't know exactly
[1:39:32] Speaker 1: how everything started. I just know that there was a
[1:39:36] Speaker 1: lot of IED's there. There was a call out maybe
[1:39:41] Speaker 1: being conducted. I know that somebody squirted, uh maybe HBI.
[1:39:48] Speaker 1: I say squirted, I mean took off from the objective
[1:39:51] Speaker 1: kind of trying to flee coalition forces. But it was
[1:39:53] Speaker 1: like a pre planned route, right as he might have
[1:39:55] Speaker 1: had some indicator on the ground showing him the safe
[1:40:00] Speaker 1: passing across the ied belt and what you call the
[1:40:06] Speaker 1: interdiction team try to interdict the assailant and started producing
[1:40:14] Speaker 1: casualties from that. And also so I guess somebody on
[1:40:18] Speaker 1: call out, I guess it might have been a female
[1:40:21] Speaker 1: holding an explosive device initiated that explosive device somewhere outside
[1:40:26] Speaker 1: of the breach, injuring people, and then QRF was called.
[1:40:31] Speaker 1: Members of the q RF were also injured. Many, many
[1:40:35] Speaker 1: people were injured on that objective, and it was it
[1:40:40] Speaker 1: hit really close to home. And I remember we had
[1:40:42] Speaker 1: a ceremony when we got back for the Rangers that
[1:40:45] Speaker 1: we lost, and I remember seeing some friends of mine
[1:40:47] Speaker 1: in the front front row, missing their eye, missing the legs,
[1:40:51] Speaker 1: and like I broke down crying, you know, like and
[1:40:57] Speaker 1: I know I have like nothing to like be sorry for,
[1:40:59] Speaker 1: but I remember we're telling me I'm sorry.
[1:41:03] Speaker 2: Putting putting their names up on the rock out there
[1:41:06] Speaker 2: in the field and the parents' eye stuff.
[1:41:09] Speaker 1: So like, but you know that's something that every guy
[1:41:16] Speaker 1: you kind of make peace with that when when you step,
[1:41:20] Speaker 1: every time you set foot in the direction of the objective,
[1:41:26] Speaker 1: you've you've already signed like that contract of your life.
[1:41:33] Speaker 1: And that is something that even if I'm like, Oh,
[1:41:36] Speaker 1: that guy's a douche bad. I don't want to talk
[1:41:38] Speaker 1: to him again. If I see him at the bar,
[1:41:40] Speaker 1: I might be like, all right, man, like, you know,
[1:41:43] Speaker 1: because you you have that common bond, all right like,
[1:41:46] Speaker 1: and even if that guy maybe screwed you over, you know,
[1:41:50] Speaker 1: you might be like, all right, man, like, I at
[1:41:53] Speaker 1: least know that maybe you know, you signed that you know, contract,
[1:41:58] Speaker 1: that non verbal contract to get on the bird, like
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: you're gonna, you're gonna. And that's and that's something I
[1:42:03] Speaker 1: used to ask my guys because of that, Because of
[1:42:06] Speaker 1: that event, I used to ask my guys and they
[1:42:08] Speaker 1: come in. I was like, hey, say the creed you know,
[1:42:12] Speaker 1: and uh uh, you know, fully understanding their hair my
[1:42:17] Speaker 1: chosen profession. I was like, what does that mean to you?
[1:42:19] Speaker 1: So I could die? Sergeant? I go, No, that's not
[1:42:22] Speaker 1: what that means. That's like probably like if something does
[1:42:26] Speaker 1: happen to you, it's probably like a very easy thing
[1:42:29] Speaker 1: that could happen to you. I was like, but you
[1:42:31] Speaker 1: could be maimed and disfigured and live the rest of
[1:42:34] Speaker 1: your life disabled, and you don't know if anybody around
[1:42:39] Speaker 1: here cares about you. You don't know that because there's
[1:42:42] Speaker 1: so many people they leave the army and like you're like, oh, hey,
[1:42:47] Speaker 1: like you know, he left the army. It's like he's
[1:42:50] Speaker 1: dead to us now. And then sometimes those guys are
[1:42:53] Speaker 1: just isolated. They do kill themselves. And I've known plenty
[1:42:55] Speaker 1: of people to do that, and I've known plenty of
[1:42:58] Speaker 1: people that you know, you're just thinking like, oh, happily
[1:43:03] Speaker 1: ever after, because you're so excited to leave, and then
[1:43:06] Speaker 1: you know, maybe he leaves, he gets out from under
[1:43:08] Speaker 1: the army and he's like, there's some things I miss
[1:43:10] Speaker 1: about it. And sometimes you see guys come back, guys
[1:43:13] Speaker 1: come back through wrath. Whoa, you're the army again, Like
[1:43:15] Speaker 1: what you know? Now you're like an E six and
[1:43:18] Speaker 1: he's still like an E four or something and you're like, wow,
[1:43:21] Speaker 1: out of that. Okayme back here. Yeah, I'm trying to leave.
[1:43:25] Speaker 1: You called me first. Yeah, things are getting bad. Yeah that, like.
[1:43:30] Speaker 4: Life working at Chili's just wasn't what I thought it was.
[1:43:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, you know yeah, and it's not just that.
[1:43:36] Speaker 3: I mean, even even for people who find like successful
[1:43:39] Speaker 3: careers afterwards, it doesn't offer the same stuff that that
[1:43:44] Speaker 3: that camaraderie.
[1:43:46] Speaker 4: And that mission. It just Yeah, there's nothing that compares
[1:43:51] Speaker 4: to it on the out side.
[1:43:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably sitting you're like, man, I miss my friends,
[1:43:55] Speaker 1: yeah to an extent. Yeah, you know, yeah, and I
[1:43:57] Speaker 1: mean me personally. I mean I only got out of
[1:43:59] Speaker 1: the Army and Jane, so I'm still going through it
[1:44:02] Speaker 1: and still like, you know, going through the whole transition
[1:44:05] Speaker 1: process and figuring out everything I want to do, you
[1:44:07] Speaker 1: know what I mean. And you know, and the cool
[1:44:09] Speaker 1: thing is like I'm still somehow loosely in contact with
[1:44:12] Speaker 1: these guys.
[1:44:13] Speaker 4: Yeah, and I.
[1:44:14] Speaker 1: Made somewhat of impression where guys were still in call
[1:44:18] Speaker 1: me for advice, guys like I'm not even in the Army.
[1:44:20] Speaker 1: I'm like, am I the shadow governor of this mortar platoon?
[1:44:23] Speaker 1: What's happening?
[1:44:24] Speaker 3: Right?
[1:44:25] Speaker 1: Get it together? You know what I mean. But because
[1:44:28] Speaker 1: of that, you know, that's a good segue because I
[1:44:34] Speaker 1: kind of started this thing with a couple buddies in
[1:44:37] Speaker 1: the morning platoon where we kind of started calling like
[1:44:40] Speaker 1: what we were doing, task Force Vermin. Uh So task
[1:44:45] Speaker 1: Force Vermin was kind of like I remember this one
[1:44:47] Speaker 1: guy got like a Banksy tattoo where it's like the
[1:44:50] Speaker 1: mortar rats like, yeah, man, we're the vermin I go,
[1:44:54] Speaker 1: you know what, Like I was in the street art
[1:44:57] Speaker 1: and stuff, so I was like, nah, because he bit
[1:44:59] Speaker 1: on this like famous art. Yeah, I was like, dude,
[1:45:01] Speaker 1: we can't use that as the lobo. I was like,
[1:45:02] Speaker 1: screw it. Everyone's already doing it, and I just go
[1:45:05] Speaker 1: with it. So we got like this Banksey street art
[1:45:08] Speaker 1: mortar rats thing inside of an orange diamond, and we're
[1:45:10] Speaker 1: just like, hey, you know, let's just be this this
[1:45:14] Speaker 1: this centralized mortar company where you got guys at one,
[1:45:17] Speaker 1: five and two, seven, five and three five. Let's stop
[1:45:19] Speaker 1: competing and all the bs like, let's just share uh
[1:45:24] Speaker 1: a rs with each other and be like, hey man,
[1:45:26] Speaker 1: we're the only guys like us, right, Let's let's bring
[1:45:30] Speaker 1: it in and be like, hey, what are you having
[1:45:32] Speaker 1: problems with? What do you having successes with? And that
[1:45:35] Speaker 1: kind of became a thing. And then once we really
[1:45:37] Speaker 1: started kind of that thing, I think there's a lot
[1:45:41] Speaker 1: of like a lot of good crosstalk and people coming
[1:45:45] Speaker 1: into their own off of that. But that's I mean,
[1:45:48] Speaker 1: that's a little bit later on that really hit and
[1:45:51] Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. We got to prove that in Syria.
[1:45:54] Speaker 2: What was it like then as you know, time progresses,
[1:45:56] Speaker 2: like you're getting exposed to the Special Opps Task Force,
[1:45:59] Speaker 2: all these like OGA partners, all these things that you're
[1:46:02] Speaker 2: learning being exposed to. You deployed it several more times
[1:46:06] Speaker 2: to Afghanistan. Yeah, what were these deployments, Like what was
[1:46:09] Speaker 2: your impression of the war as the year's ground on.
[1:46:15] Speaker 1: I mean, I remember my first deployment being like the
[1:46:20] Speaker 1: strike force was being very kinetic, and I remember my
[1:46:22] Speaker 1: second deployment being like we didn't do anything. I think
[1:46:26] Speaker 1: somebody like rifle budded, somebody in the head really hired
[1:46:29] Speaker 1: and that's it. And then like my third deployment, I
[1:46:33] Speaker 1: was a team leader because I went to ranger school
[1:46:35] Speaker 1: and I got to I do have a ranger school story.
[1:46:38] Speaker 1: We can get back to that, but I was I
[1:46:41] Speaker 1: was a team leader in my third deployment. And yeah,
[1:46:47] Speaker 1: we went out all the time, and you know, you
[1:46:51] Speaker 1: might have been out in country for like ninety days
[1:46:56] Speaker 1: or more. He did like over one hundred missions and
[1:46:59] Speaker 1: that was pretty crazy. We got to do a lot
[1:47:01] Speaker 1: of stuff that was like really really interesting too, Like
[1:47:06] Speaker 1: we had some Taliban facilitator that was also running the
[1:47:12] Speaker 1: Ana checkpoint, and we knew that if we would have
[1:47:16] Speaker 1: rolled in with helicopters. He would have known they're here
[1:47:19] Speaker 1: for me. So we just got inside a marine convoy
[1:47:24] Speaker 1: and rolled out and balled them up under the guys
[1:47:26] Speaker 1: that we were marine school and so like you know,
[1:47:29] Speaker 1: we had I remember, like I think the guy who
[1:47:31] Speaker 1: actually made contact actually blasted the dude in the face
[1:47:34] Speaker 1: like an overhand right. It was like this big behemoth
[1:47:38] Speaker 1: of a medic that we had. The big dudes ran
[1:47:40] Speaker 1: up there and it was like bob crack. That dude
[1:47:43] Speaker 1: took him put him in the bird. And also on
[1:47:47] Speaker 1: that deployment, I got got in a fight with DT
[1:47:53] Speaker 1: D who was a part of a near peer intelligence agency.
[1:48:00] Speaker 1: He just had like some guy switch out on mid rotator.
[1:48:02] Speaker 1: So I had sent one guy home because he was
[1:48:04] Speaker 1: having a baby, and so I got a new assistant
[1:48:08] Speaker 1: gunner who had just graduated ranger school and offence to
[1:48:14] Speaker 1: the Navy seals out there. This kid probably should have
[1:48:16] Speaker 1: been a seal. He was like turtle surfer bro like
[1:48:19] Speaker 1: oh yeah rogers, yeah yeah yeah. And uh I told him,
[1:48:29] Speaker 1: I go, hey, man, so what I've been doing every
[1:48:32] Speaker 1: time we load on his birth due Now they're not
[1:48:35] Speaker 1: the Afghan partnership unit. They're THETAOS. I was like, yeah, yeah.
[1:48:40] Speaker 1: I was like, so the KKA have been cutting the
[1:48:42] Speaker 1: flex cuffs to a lot of detainees, and the detainees
[1:48:45] Speaker 1: like complain about the flex cuffs. I was like, hey, man,
[1:48:48] Speaker 1: so keep an eye on him, because I don't know,
[1:48:50] Speaker 1: I've been telling these line guys that this has been happening,
[1:48:54] Speaker 1: and they've been kind of writing me off, not caring
[1:48:56] Speaker 1: that I'm you know, doing spot checks. And I was like, so, hey,
[1:49:01] Speaker 1: help me keep an eye on him, you know. And
[1:49:03] Speaker 1: so while I'm clipping in, just pay attention. And then like,
[1:49:07] Speaker 1: while you're clipping in, I'll pay attention. And uh so
[1:49:10] Speaker 1: I'm clipping in. Next thing, I know, i have hands
[1:49:13] Speaker 1: around my shoulder straps and I'm thinking like, oh, this
[1:49:18] Speaker 1: is probably like a squad leader or something, or like
[1:49:22] Speaker 1: the one of the crew chief guys. Hey man, move
[1:49:24] Speaker 1: move over, bro, I need to get to you know,
[1:49:26] Speaker 1: because that's usually what happens. I look up is the
[1:49:28] Speaker 1: detainee and he's pulling on my kit like I'm gonna
[1:49:32] Speaker 1: pick you up and pull you off this like bird.
[1:49:35] Speaker 1: Holy shit. So I was like, you just fucked up
[1:49:38] Speaker 1: because I'm a very good wrestler. You know, I'm a grapher.
[1:49:41] Speaker 1: I'm a fighter, uh like majority of my time in
[1:49:45] Speaker 1: the in the army. And so I hit him with
[1:49:49] Speaker 1: the blast. Doubles shoved his hips up against the top
[1:49:51] Speaker 1: of the bird of the forty seven. Forty seven is
[1:49:53] Speaker 1: taking off and now I'm like this, I got mortar
[1:49:55] Speaker 1: gear on me, man, so I'm heavy and my mortar
[1:49:58] Speaker 1: canon is going whoa like this, I'm I'm like, crap man,
[1:50:01] Speaker 1: I'm gonna fall over. So I immediately like power bomb
[1:50:04] Speaker 1: this dude onto the floor, and all the line guys
[1:50:08] Speaker 1: are like what's happening because they don't get it, Like
[1:50:10] Speaker 1: they just think I'm just like crushing this detainee, you know,
[1:50:14] Speaker 1: And I get mad at my partner, you know, because
[1:50:19] Speaker 1: the space case over there, like whoa. I was like,
[1:50:22] Speaker 1: get his legs, he's dumb, motherfucker, and they're like, he
[1:50:25] Speaker 1: grabbed his legs. Because I used to train my guys.
[1:50:27] Speaker 1: I was like, when you go to detain to somebody,
[1:50:30] Speaker 1: one of the best things is if you see a
[1:50:32] Speaker 1: guy fighting with the other guy and we're working upper body,
[1:50:35] Speaker 1: take his legs off the ground. Now you're gonna take
[1:50:37] Speaker 1: off his center of gravity you're taking up, like, don't
[1:50:40] Speaker 1: help me up top, grab the legs. So he actually
[1:50:42] Speaker 1: paid attention to that. I was like, grab his legs,
[1:50:44] Speaker 1: grab his legs. We flipped him over, and I remember
[1:50:47] Speaker 1: I was like dropping elbows on this dude too because
[1:50:49] Speaker 1: he and Another scary thing is like I also knew
[1:50:53] Speaker 1: just by growing up that Iranians or.
[1:50:56] Speaker 2: Sorry, they're very good at wrestling.
[1:51:01] Speaker 1: And uh yeah, people from this country are very good
[1:51:04] Speaker 1: at wrestling, and I respect that. We used to have
[1:51:07] Speaker 1: one come over to wrestling camps from that country. And yeah,
[1:51:14] Speaker 1: so when he rotated his hips when we're on the ground,
[1:51:17] Speaker 1: I go, this guy knows that. And I was like,
[1:51:20] Speaker 1: finish it, just just get him, you know, And so
[1:51:24] Speaker 1: violence of action until he stopped dropping elbows. Donkey Kong
[1:51:28] Speaker 1: punching the crap at his head, and I was like,
[1:51:32] Speaker 1: fleck cuffs in his ankle. So my guys back there,
[1:51:35] Speaker 1: flex cuffs his ankles together. I get his feet together.
[1:51:39] Speaker 1: I flex cuff his hands to his feet, and then
[1:51:42] Speaker 1: I turn around and I have the bass plate on
[1:51:45] Speaker 1: my back and it's like touching my.
[1:51:47] Speaker 2: Ass like teenage mutant ninja turtle.
[1:51:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have I have a well, not the
[1:51:51] Speaker 1: bass plate like full it's a cannon with the base
[1:51:53] Speaker 1: the auxiliary bass plate the sixties, so something like three
[1:51:56] Speaker 1: point six. But this thing has little spikes on it. Yeah,
[1:51:59] Speaker 1: and it's durable enough to take you know, charge one
[1:52:02] Speaker 1: with it, you know. So it's we flip him over,
[1:52:05] Speaker 1: and uh, well he's already fipped over. I already said that,
[1:52:07] Speaker 1: but uh we flexcuff his hands that are now already
[1:52:11] Speaker 1: flex scuffed together. We take those hands and flex come
[1:52:13] Speaker 1: from the flex cuffs on his feet, essentially hog tie him.
[1:52:17] Speaker 1: Then I sit my butt with the bass plate on
[1:52:20] Speaker 1: the back of his head and I just ride like
[1:52:23] Speaker 1: with holding onto him all the way back to the fob.
[1:52:28] Speaker 1: And the platoons start and it's like, hey, what's going on?
[1:52:30] Speaker 1: And this that and the other. And I said over
[1:52:32] Speaker 1: the radio it's like I'm gonna have to fill out
[1:52:34] Speaker 1: a sworn statement, That's all I said over the radio.
[1:52:38] Speaker 1: And so like I was like grabb him by his
[1:52:40] Speaker 1: feet and we dragged this guy out of the bird
[1:52:42] Speaker 1: and we gave him to the tea haw guys in
[1:52:44] Speaker 1: the van. And then later on they had some you know,
[1:52:48] Speaker 1: the AR and stuff like that, and the AR showed
[1:52:53] Speaker 1: the picture of the guy on target and they show
[1:52:56] Speaker 1: a picture of him at the tee haw and I
[1:52:59] Speaker 1: busted his orbital socket opened, his eyeball was hanging out
[1:53:01] Speaker 1: of his head, and I was like, oh my goodness,
[1:53:05] Speaker 1: I did my sworn statement. Nothing came of it, but
[1:53:08] Speaker 1: it was like a crazy experience because I was like, dude,
[1:53:11] Speaker 1: is this guy trying to like rip a grenade pin
[1:53:14] Speaker 1: off of me? Is he trying to grab my weapon
[1:53:17] Speaker 1: and shoot? And that was my explanation because I was like, look,
[1:53:20] Speaker 1: there was no way to I couldn't like draw a
[1:53:24] Speaker 1: nine mil and put it to his head. It's going
[1:53:26] Speaker 1: to go through him maybe, or just like and miss
[1:53:29] Speaker 1: and hit somebody on the bird. So you have to
[1:53:31] Speaker 1: do it all with your hands and combatives, you know,
[1:53:35] Speaker 1: using martial arts like hand in hand combat to be
[1:53:39] Speaker 1: able to detain and restrain this person. And yeah, I
[1:53:44] Speaker 1: was totally infuraror for my life and I was like,
[1:53:46] Speaker 1: oh man, this bird, I'm just waiting for like a
[1:53:48] Speaker 1: pin to go up. I was waiting for a pin
[1:53:50] Speaker 1: a flash and then the lights go out, right that's wait.
[1:53:53] Speaker 1: And so yeah, that was like probably the big takeaway there,
[1:53:56] Speaker 1: and then like going to the five board was another
[1:53:59] Speaker 1: sweaty situation there, like, you know, my first actual NCO board,
[1:54:05] Speaker 1: but I already had that board and RASP, but I
[1:54:07] Speaker 1: was like, hey man, I went to a sketchy once
[1:54:09] Speaker 1: and whatever. Yeah, and I think that was like my
[1:54:13] Speaker 1: third and then like a few other deployments down the line,
[1:54:16] Speaker 1: it just became Groundhog's Day, like over and over again.
[1:54:19] Speaker 1: I'd go to Afghanistan and I would just look at
[1:54:21] Speaker 1: Afghanistan like, sometimes go back to the same outstation that
[1:54:25] Speaker 1: I was at the year before or that. You know,
[1:54:28] Speaker 1: you deploy every few months sometimes or extend even further
[1:54:31] Speaker 1: than you were before. It wasn't always very consistent, but
[1:54:35] Speaker 1: you go back to the United States and then you
[1:54:37] Speaker 1: go back to almost the same bunk that you're sleeping in,
[1:54:40] Speaker 1: and like, the first day I wake up in that bunk,
[1:54:42] Speaker 1: I'm like, was that all a dream? Yeah? You know,
[1:54:45] Speaker 1: And it's very strange because it's like, was Afghanistan a
[1:54:50] Speaker 1: dream up until that point, because like I wasn't really
[1:54:52] Speaker 1: doing any day operations. All my operations at night, it
[1:54:55] Speaker 1: was just green people fighting green people.
[1:54:58] Speaker 4: Living in a green world.
[1:54:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, well like world. Yeah, it's like stranger things upside down, Yeah,
[1:55:04] Speaker 1: you know, you go ahead and everything's green like something
[1:55:06] Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, So it's like very surreal.
[1:55:09] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:55:10] Speaker 1: And like when you're constantly in this revolving door, yeah,
[1:55:13] Speaker 1: going back and forth the United States.
[1:55:15] Speaker 3: And if you were doing like one hundred ops in
[1:55:18] Speaker 3: ninety days, you were doing back to backs when you
[1:55:21] Speaker 3: were going out, yeah, you know, coming back doing something.
[1:55:25] Speaker 4: I was doing a distract debrief and you're going right back.
[1:55:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, doing a following brief yeah yeah yeah, rest over day,
[1:55:32] Speaker 1: rest overnight, different things. You know. Luckily I didn't have
[1:55:36] Speaker 1: to do too many of those, like movement to contact things,
[1:55:39] Speaker 1: but they were like the regiment at the time, they
[1:55:41] Speaker 1: got really into offsets for no reason. Like I went
[1:55:44] Speaker 1: from like, hey, we're landing on the y were landing
[1:55:45] Speaker 1: on the eggs too, for no reason at all, we
[1:55:49] Speaker 1: bring you the thirty K off set. So you know,
[1:55:54] Speaker 1: it's like it's like the battalion commander came out and
[1:55:57] Speaker 1: was like, prior to the assault force conducting call out,
[1:56:02] Speaker 1: no banger was thrown. That is a five K offset penalty,
[1:56:06] Speaker 1: repeat wheels down, you know, and you're just like, dude,
[1:56:09] Speaker 1: what the heck is? So I would have to do
[1:56:11] Speaker 1: this for.
[1:56:11] Speaker 3: The people might not be familiar with, like the technical jargon, uh,
[1:56:16] Speaker 3: landing on the X when you're flying into an objective.
[1:56:19] Speaker 3: Landing on the X is landing right on the target.
[1:56:22] Speaker 3: When you're doing an offset, it's generally at least wan
[1:56:25] Speaker 3: terrain terrain feature away, which in Afghanistan can be a
[1:56:29] Speaker 3: long fight. And they're doing it, or they say they're
[1:56:32] Speaker 3: doing it to decrease the profile of the assault force.
[1:56:37] Speaker 3: So you're you're landing behind the mountain so they don't
[1:56:39] Speaker 3: hear you, and then.
[1:56:40] Speaker 4: You're walking in. But like you say, it can be
[1:56:43] Speaker 4: a long fuck.
[1:56:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
[1:56:45] Speaker 2: Well, on that note, let's hear about the Nangahar offensive. Okay,
[1:56:50] Speaker 2: I mean we were talking before the show. I wrote
[1:56:52] Speaker 2: about it, you know, I obviously no way less than
[1:56:56] Speaker 2: you or anyone else out there did. I wrote about
[1:56:59] Speaker 2: it at the time, and uh pissed some people off
[1:57:02] Speaker 2: because I kind of called out some of the leadership
[1:57:04] Speaker 2: that planned that thing. Yeah, it sounded like a mess.
[1:57:07] Speaker 1: Uh, that was a very frustrating thing and just going
[1:57:11] Speaker 1: into it just being a mortar. So three some five
[1:57:14] Speaker 1: mortars have already been conducting cross border operations into an
[1:57:20] Speaker 1: area controlled by the Islamic State in a different country
[1:57:23] Speaker 1: by this point. So they were on their way home
[1:57:28] Speaker 1: and they diverted that aircraft to Bogram. Those men will
[1:57:33] Speaker 1: be like, if you're a mortar, get off.
[1:57:35] Speaker 2: Holy shit.
[1:57:36] Speaker 1: So they just finished their rotation. Now they're going to
[1:57:39] Speaker 1: roll into this thing. Now when they get there, they
[1:57:41] Speaker 1: have like all this knowledge and this stuff that they
[1:57:43] Speaker 1: could like add to help, you know, like, hey, this
[1:57:46] Speaker 1: is what I learned over here. That's very successful from
[1:57:49] Speaker 1: a mortar standpoint. And then you had like some leadership
[1:57:52] Speaker 1: there that maybe we're a little cocky or maybe you know,
[1:57:56] Speaker 1: they sleep at night with their West Point certificate or
[1:57:59] Speaker 1: something like that, you know, and they go West White
[1:58:02] Speaker 1: certificate says don't listen to I mean you look at
[1:58:06] Speaker 1: guy like me. I don't look very educated obviously, so
[1:58:09] Speaker 1: like clearly and like you know, like they're playing incompetent
[1:58:12] Speaker 1: you know, but what it is, what it is, yeah, exactly,
[1:58:17] Speaker 1: you know, I don't look like I belong in the
[1:58:20] Speaker 1: country club. You know what I mean are the certain barbecues.
[1:58:24] Speaker 1: But so this guy this, you know, these guys like
[1:58:30] Speaker 1: you know, what about what about this? Can we do?
[1:58:33] Speaker 1: Like no mortar, no go away?
[1:58:36] Speaker 4: Like you know, And so I studied the Civil War
[1:58:39] Speaker 4: in depth.
[1:58:41] Speaker 2: We don't need this, Like, so what was the concept
[1:58:44] Speaker 2: of the operation? What were you guys even attempting to
[1:58:46] Speaker 2: do here?
[1:58:46] Speaker 1: So the concept operation put it very generally, is like
[1:58:50] Speaker 1: kind of like a movement to contact clearance of an
[1:58:52] Speaker 1: area where they have set Like the number that they
[1:58:54] Speaker 1: sent out was like, guess what, man, there's over nine
[1:58:57] Speaker 1: thousand fighters in this valley. You're gonna die, gonna die,
[1:59:00] Speaker 1: Like that was almost like what was being put out
[1:59:03] Speaker 1: like and then like all these like guys were doing
[1:59:06] Speaker 1: ridiculous stuff like shaving high in tights in their head
[1:59:09] Speaker 1: like for Moto and they were they were doing high
[1:59:13] Speaker 1: and this is like a little bit more relaxed standard, right,
[1:59:16] Speaker 1: crew of dudes, and our mortar guys had just come
[1:59:19] Speaker 1: from an area where they were definitely relaxed standard with
[1:59:21] Speaker 1: beards and like you know, wearing mar pads and now
[1:59:24] Speaker 1: you're coming into this like okay, let's get your hair cut,
[1:59:28] Speaker 1: you know. And so like we were kind of like, hey, man,
[1:59:32] Speaker 1: it makes sense to have like, you know, maybe two
[1:59:35] Speaker 1: m raisers and two eighty one so we can like
[1:59:38] Speaker 1: walk the guns and do bounding overwatched and be all cool.
[1:59:41] Speaker 1: And because like our guys at this point were really
[1:59:43] Speaker 1: into this, like not defensive mortars, this gorilla warfare mujia hadeen,
[1:59:51] Speaker 1: like hit and run more. That's like when we were
[1:59:53] Speaker 1: training in thee Yeah, yeah, we want to be at a
[1:59:57] Speaker 1: hide site. Send this, move to the next hide site.
[1:59:59] Speaker 1: They go back to the high site. We were go haha,
[2:00:02] Speaker 1: trick to you. Now we're shooting our old high site.
[2:00:04] Speaker 1: You know, stuff like that, just trolling people in the
[2:00:06] Speaker 1: battlefields kind of where our guys were, we were shaping
[2:00:10] Speaker 1: and then I don't think they had any idea of
[2:00:12] Speaker 1: that at the staff level.
[2:00:14] Speaker 2: Depends on a map, manh yeah, on a map.
[2:00:18] Speaker 1: So they go cool, cool, cool, cool, But how about this,
[2:00:22] Speaker 1: all right, hear me out, hear me out? You walk right?
[2:00:26] Speaker 1: You walk all right? Sound good? No no no, no,
[2:00:29] Speaker 1: I don't get I don't get a vehicle, no no, no, man,
[2:00:31] Speaker 1: you get a walk dude. It's awesome, right all right?
[2:00:33] Speaker 1: Instead of eighty one, we'll triple away and give you
[2:00:36] Speaker 1: one twenty and you gotta carry all your yeah goes
[2:00:40] Speaker 1: further wall for everyone. Everyone said, if it's cool, man, yeah,
[2:00:45] Speaker 1: I hate it when they get and we're gonna want
[2:00:48] Speaker 1: like your MFP to be like over here in this
[2:00:50] Speaker 1: compound or something. Man, They're like all right, and it's
[2:00:53] Speaker 1: like if if Chevy Chase made like a mortar vacation,
[2:00:58] Speaker 1: this is what it would be, you know what I mean.
[2:01:01] Speaker 1: It's it's like the Dirt Ranger Battalion Water Platoon goes
[2:01:06] Speaker 1: to inga what kind of crazy mix up? Will they
[2:01:10] Speaker 1: get involved? You know what I mean? It's just like, man,
[2:01:13] Speaker 1: it's a complete shit show. And I remember, like we
[2:01:16] Speaker 1: get out there and man, we we set up and
[2:01:20] Speaker 1: I'm looking around at this thing and the compound that
[2:01:24] Speaker 1: we took over was riddled with holes from dishka and
[2:01:28] Speaker 1: I go, I wonder where these holes came from. And
[2:01:31] Speaker 1: I looked up all around and we're down in a bowl.
[2:01:34] Speaker 1: We're surrounded by ridgeline and there's dfps all along the
[2:01:38] Speaker 1: ridge line dfps and we're just like this is where
[2:01:43] Speaker 1: we do the customs last stand, you know, And we
[2:01:45] Speaker 1: infilled before any line platoon and we and we were
[2:01:49] Speaker 1: like first ones, didn't last to leave. That's where we were.
[2:01:52] Speaker 1: We were out there flapping in the wind with less
[2:01:54] Speaker 1: than less than twenty guys. Definitely, because I know we
[2:01:57] Speaker 1: had like a small group of ohda guys with a
[2:02:00] Speaker 1: very small and our mortar team was very small, and
[2:02:03] Speaker 1: a lot of our guys, like our senior level was
[2:02:06] Speaker 1: pretty okay, Like our staff sergeants on the ground were
[2:02:09] Speaker 1: pretty experienced. But it was like such a gap that
[2:02:13] Speaker 1: we had our staff sergeants and then hello, private, this
[2:02:16] Speaker 1: is your first deployment. Yeah, And we had some guys
[2:02:18] Speaker 1: that didn't want to be there, like I don't want
[2:02:20] Speaker 1: to kill anyone, sergeant like that type of mentality really,
[2:02:24] Speaker 1: and we're like, you're gonna have to, yeah, if you
[2:02:27] Speaker 1: want to make it out here.
[2:02:28] Speaker 3: And I were in Ranger battalion and they came what
[2:02:31] Speaker 3: why did they go to Ranger battalion?
[2:02:33] Speaker 1: That's a question is that I try to ask, and
[2:02:37] Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense to me.
[2:02:39] Speaker 3: And and I mean obviously the the officers who plan
[2:02:41] Speaker 3: this hot Yeah, you know, because as the Nbian two
[2:02:45] Speaker 3: showed us and many other operations that fighting out of
[2:02:48] Speaker 3: a bowl is very.
[2:02:49] Speaker 1: Work works every time every time. Yeah, it was like,
[2:02:54] Speaker 1: let's kill those guys.
[2:02:56] Speaker 4: I'm really tired of them.
[2:02:57] Speaker 1: Put them over there, you know, so like you feel
[2:02:59] Speaker 1: disres back to you because they're using you as canon.
[2:03:03] Speaker 2: What it feels and.
[2:03:03] Speaker 3: They're not even listening to you, like as as a
[2:03:07] Speaker 3: as a direct support or as a support element, can
[2:03:10] Speaker 3: not accepting the consultation that you know your capabilities. You
[2:03:16] Speaker 3: know you have combat experience, and for these officers who
[2:03:20] Speaker 3: don't understand your capability, do not listen to your input
[2:03:24] Speaker 3: in the implementation of you as an asset.
[2:03:29] Speaker 4: I can see how you felt insulted.
[2:03:31] Speaker 1: I felt insulted because, like, but I also kind of
[2:03:33] Speaker 1: understood because like you could have like a real bonehead sniper, right,
[2:03:38] Speaker 1: and I'm sure you met some that are like, Wow, dude,
[2:03:40] Speaker 1: how's this guy sniper? But like the chain of command,
[2:03:44] Speaker 1: like you'd be like, excuse me, sir, here's an expert plan.
[2:03:47] Speaker 1: He goes, You're a mortar. Get out of here. Sniper goes,
[2:03:51] Speaker 1: I think this will be like they act like every
[2:03:53] Speaker 1: sniper's bubb effect and they go, oh wow, show me
[2:03:57] Speaker 1: that gun again. Yeah, you know it was so how long?
[2:04:00] Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I'm like, well, you know, uh, anyways,
[2:04:04] Speaker 1: Like that's what it seems like, right, Like they give
[2:04:07] Speaker 1: the benefit of doubt on people as if their occupation
[2:04:11] Speaker 1: or whatever their op con task is, is a steroid
[2:04:15] Speaker 1: that suddenly makes them good and then if you are
[2:04:19] Speaker 1: a subject matter expert, if you're like the actual chief
[2:04:21] Speaker 1: of smoke there, and they're like, we don't care, right,
[2:04:24] Speaker 1: you're a gun grape. Yeah, it's it. And you know,
[2:04:26] Speaker 1: part of that I also understood was like maybe this
[2:04:28] Speaker 1: is because of like the generation before me, and I'm
[2:04:31] Speaker 1: just gonna have to break some tackles and get through
[2:04:33] Speaker 1: this and keep doing my job and stay on my
[2:04:35] Speaker 1: lane and do what I need to do to prove
[2:04:38] Speaker 1: them wrong.
[2:04:39] Speaker 2: So how did this open fold? As you know, the
[2:04:42] Speaker 2: rest of the element, you know, hit the ground.
[2:04:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, so one of the companies hit the ground finally
[2:04:47] Speaker 1: while we were there sweating our asses off, I want
[2:04:50] Speaker 1: to say the real feel was like one hundred and
[2:04:51] Speaker 1: thirty six degrees is what we were told by weather.
[2:04:54] Speaker 1: I mean, you squish on your helmet and water would
[2:04:57] Speaker 1: come out of there. We were wearing tanties and shorts
[2:05:00] Speaker 1: at the MFP like, just to screw it, man, We're
[2:05:02] Speaker 1: not going down for heat cat. We'll take a gig
[2:05:05] Speaker 1: for uniform, but not heat cat. And so first, uh,
[2:05:09] Speaker 1: a group of guys go through and they're clearing through
[2:05:13] Speaker 1: and it's like, man, I don't even think they could
[2:05:15] Speaker 1: clear everything. There was so much to do, and you know,
[2:05:18] Speaker 1: the pace is like go forward, go forward, go forward.
[2:05:21] Speaker 1: They're getting paste out, and uh it just there wasn't
[2:05:24] Speaker 1: like established foothold established, flot hold flot flop maintenance, flot
[2:05:31] Speaker 1: clearance established, like there was no bounding overwatch. There was
[2:05:35] Speaker 1: bounding overwatch intermittently of like maybe like a company minus,
[2:05:38] Speaker 1: but that's it. It didn't seem reasonable even from our standpoint.
[2:05:42] Speaker 1: So then like another group of guys, another element from
[2:05:45] Speaker 1: the range of battalion gets on the ground, switches out
[2:05:48] Speaker 1: with the other the previous element. They start clearing through
[2:05:51] Speaker 1: and at some point in the operation they start taking
[2:05:55] Speaker 1: contact and uh, everything's like, from what I understood, is
[2:05:59] Speaker 1: going pretty good. And mind you, there are ranger mortarman
[2:06:04] Speaker 1: also attached to these guys, a lot of them winchestering sixties.
[2:06:09] Speaker 1: One of my team's only fired two rounds, and the
[2:06:11] Speaker 1: discipline and in that heat to be like we're gonna
[2:06:14] Speaker 1: fire two rounds, all right, that's good, We're good, and
[2:06:18] Speaker 1: not winchestering your rounds that ranged that much ranger discipline.
[2:06:21] Speaker 1: I put those guys in for reward, being like, did
[2:06:23] Speaker 1: you brought back ammo a good job because they had
[2:06:26] Speaker 1: to carry guys out of there, you know, guys that
[2:06:28] Speaker 1: were passing out record numbers of people heat KEP.
[2:06:31] Speaker 3: And you're saying that that you would expect a spendex
[2:06:33] Speaker 3: because just.
[2:06:34] Speaker 1: Get rid of just yeah, just dump it out and
[2:06:39] Speaker 1: exactly get out. Yeah yeah, And you know, so they
[2:06:46] Speaker 1: went through. Before that all happened, there was an incident
[2:06:50] Speaker 1: which you know you might have written your paper and
[2:06:54] Speaker 1: they probably you know, snuck out the way because of
[2:06:58] Speaker 1: one key incident which said, well, everything would went well
[2:07:00] Speaker 1: at this, didn't it happened.
[2:07:01] Speaker 2: Oh the heat casualty where they got overrun and they
[2:07:03] Speaker 2: had to leave the equipment behind.
[2:07:05] Speaker 1: No, No, the plan was good. This is like almost
[2:07:09] Speaker 1: like I guess what the narrative the pr The plan
[2:07:11] Speaker 1: was good. What happened was is that an Apache pilot
[2:07:16] Speaker 1: and our Apache gunship had straight support by fire line.
[2:07:21] Speaker 1: Nobody was injured from that, Like there were wounded rangers
[2:07:24] Speaker 1: from enemy contact, but nobody was actually like directly wounded
[2:07:28] Speaker 1: other than what from what I understand, and I'm not
[2:07:30] Speaker 1: a guy who knows exactly every single detail about this stuff,
[2:07:33] Speaker 1: but there was guys who probably experienced some type of
[2:07:36] Speaker 1: traumatic brain injury. From being lit up like gunship. And
[2:07:40] Speaker 1: so once that happened, that guy was in the vicinity
[2:07:45] Speaker 1: apparently where the kit got laid behind, and so that
[2:07:50] Speaker 1: would became the narrative like this is why the operation
[2:07:53] Speaker 1: was successful, and so it was kind of like a
[2:07:56] Speaker 1: pawning off of I guess responsibility. I think there's like
[2:08:01] Speaker 1: a number of things that could have gone wrong even
[2:08:03] Speaker 1: with when when the plan is right. You know, that's
[2:08:07] Speaker 1: a difficult terrain environment to fight it, especially as small
[2:08:13] Speaker 1: as an element you are. You think a company or
[2:08:16] Speaker 1: something or Company minus is like a big group of dudes.
[2:08:19] Speaker 1: It really is not not in a valley that size.
[2:08:21] Speaker 1: When you assess that, you know you have you know, large, Yeah,
[2:08:26] Speaker 1: nine thousand, however many they said, yeah, I was told that,
[2:08:30] Speaker 1: like everyone was like a heat casualty at that point
[2:08:32] Speaker 1: in operation pretty much pretty much there's people on the
[2:08:36] Speaker 1: q R F to them that were actually supposed to
[2:08:39] Speaker 1: backfill them. They weren't even QRF at first. I guess
[2:08:42] Speaker 1: they were heat catting on the bird Jesus. And then
[2:08:46] Speaker 1: so we're out there while these guys are in the
[2:08:50] Speaker 1: valley and they finally like their commander was on that
[2:08:54] Speaker 1: radio sentate defeating, and I can't really blame him, but
[2:08:59] Speaker 1: he was on there going like we just need to
[2:09:00] Speaker 1: get on here. And then the battalion commander going, you
[2:09:04] Speaker 1: have every ass set at you're available, drop it, Drop
[2:09:08] Speaker 1: that building. I guess they were taking fire from some
[2:09:09] Speaker 1: heavily fortified position like a castle or something like that
[2:09:12] Speaker 1: that was very structurally sound. They were hitting it with
[2:09:14] Speaker 1: everything except for one twenties. And while all this gunfire
[2:09:18] Speaker 1: was going on, we started taking indirect fire at the
[2:09:22] Speaker 1: MFP and I heard a boom, like a quick little
[2:09:27] Speaker 1: pop from like I can't remember which valley they were
[2:09:30] Speaker 1: in and we were in, but I know, like let's
[2:09:33] Speaker 1: say West and the East, and this Salt Force was
[2:09:35] Speaker 1: in the East valley and I heard the pop in
[2:09:37] Speaker 1: the West valley and we're like on the corner both
[2:09:39] Speaker 1: valleys here. Pop. I know exactly what that is. And
[2:09:43] Speaker 1: like I started like getting down and I look at
[2:09:47] Speaker 1: the Joes and it's like their first deployment. And I've
[2:09:51] Speaker 1: always explained this to them. I'm like, all that incoming,
[2:09:54] Speaker 1: that's for ranger school. That's a ranger school thing, because
[2:09:58] Speaker 1: if you yell incoming and combat, that's recomby fire. I
[2:10:02] Speaker 1: fire a mortar going. I think the enemy's over here.
[2:10:05] Speaker 1: Then I hear incoming. I know the enemies over there,
[2:10:10] Speaker 1: and I know roughly how many. That sounds like a company.
[2:10:13] Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like a platoon, all right, cool?
[2:10:15] Speaker 1: And that's like using observation, audible observation to detect where
[2:10:22] Speaker 1: your enemy is. So I'm getting down slow, and I
[2:10:28] Speaker 1: look at this kid and I'm like, you might want
[2:10:30] Speaker 1: to get down, and he looks at me with a
[2:10:31] Speaker 1: smile on his face, and I start laughing at him
[2:10:34] Speaker 1: hysterically because I'm laughing at this shitting grin he has,
[2:10:37] Speaker 1: because I'm like, this kid's about to turn in a
[2:10:39] Speaker 1: pink mass I am. And I'm trying to decide which
[2:10:42] Speaker 1: one's more funny. Is it more funny if I explode
[2:10:44] Speaker 1: into pieces and my body parts going on top of him?
[2:10:47] Speaker 1: I was like, I hope my freaking genitals fly right
[2:10:50] Speaker 1: in his face and I get blown apart and wipe
[2:10:52] Speaker 1: that shit off his head and it just scars him
[2:10:54] Speaker 1: for life. Like that was like me at that time,
[2:10:56] Speaker 1: like you know, just my angsty like like crusty order
[2:11:00] Speaker 1: n c O in me, And I was like yeah, man,
[2:11:03] Speaker 1: like uh, you know, I was like looking at him
[2:11:05] Speaker 1: like get down.
[2:11:05] Speaker 8: And then so anyways he we hear a mortar fucking
[2:11:12] Speaker 8: around coming in and that kid goes finally he puckers
[2:11:14] Speaker 8: and gets down, jumps.
[2:11:15] Speaker 1: In this hole. We dug some holes around there. Our
[2:11:17] Speaker 1: MFP was disgusting by the way what they decided. There
[2:11:21] Speaker 1: was mounds of shit. There was mounds of ball hair
[2:11:24] Speaker 1: that the Afghans had been shaving off and putting in piles.
[2:11:26] Speaker 1: There's razor blades.
[2:11:27] Speaker 2: And Afkans shaved ball hair and keep it in piles,
[2:11:30] Speaker 2: I guess.
[2:11:30] Speaker 1: So there was ball hair everywhere, piles of shit everywhere.
[2:11:34] Speaker 1: There was bees, so many bees, not the bees, but yeah,
[2:11:39] Speaker 1: so it's a really bad MFP and bees, ball hair
[2:11:43] Speaker 1: and piles of shit. That's like lions, tigers, bears on
[2:11:48] Speaker 1: my but like try to try to put that in
[2:11:51] Speaker 1: a sense to say that three times it's fast. But yeah,
[2:11:53] Speaker 1: it was pretty disgusting because they had like a little
[2:11:56] Speaker 1: shower area there and then then like there was a
[2:11:59] Speaker 1: drain and all the ball here would come out the
[2:12:01] Speaker 1: drain and like pile up. It's disgusting. So that's where
[2:12:05] Speaker 1: our MFP was, and I was like, dang man, like
[2:12:07] Speaker 1: a mortar is just gonna blow all these razor blades everywhere.
[2:12:10] Speaker 1: But so he took some mortar fire and luckily that
[2:12:13] Speaker 1: first round was a dud. Some dirt kind of flew
[2:12:15] Speaker 1: over the compound wall and got on the radio and
[2:12:18] Speaker 1: we're like, hey, we're taking effective mortar fire from the
[2:12:20] Speaker 1: West Valley or whatever, and like the only thing was
[2:12:23] Speaker 1: like dead air, like Roger. So, anyways, Line Company, what's
[2:12:28] Speaker 1: going on with you? You know what I mean? We're like, fuck, dude, So.
[2:12:33] Speaker 4: West Point, let me tell you this story.
[2:12:36] Speaker 1: So while we're out there, then they make a call
[2:12:39] Speaker 1: to to get all the line guys out of there
[2:12:43] Speaker 1: to start bounding out of that valley. And that's when
[2:12:46] Speaker 1: we search and traverse that valley with a bunch of ordinates,
[2:12:51] Speaker 1: like we just dropped everything on there.
[2:12:54] Speaker 3: That's what I was gonna ask, is they said they
[2:12:57] Speaker 3: you said they were taking effective fire from you know,
[2:12:59] Speaker 3: four to find structure and it have been hit with
[2:13:01] Speaker 3: everything but one twenties.
[2:13:03] Speaker 4: Were you guys within range? Were they just not calling
[2:13:05] Speaker 4: you for that?
[2:13:06] Speaker 1: They just weren't calling us. It's like we were just
[2:13:08] Speaker 1: another forgotten thing, Like why'd you put us out here?
[2:13:10] Speaker 1: Why have we been out here for multiple days and
[2:13:13] Speaker 1: all that, and you know, people might get mad about
[2:13:16] Speaker 1: me saying anything like that, but it's like maybe it's
[2:13:18] Speaker 1: a lesson learned that you haven't heard yet, and it's
[2:13:20] Speaker 1: probably pissing you off because you know it to be true,
[2:13:23] Speaker 1: and it's a change that you can make when you
[2:13:25] Speaker 1: reach that position in the planning to actually go to
[2:13:27] Speaker 1: those subject matter experts they handle that weapon system and say, hey,
[2:13:31] Speaker 1: we're thinking about placing you here. Are you okay with that?
[2:13:34] Speaker 1: Or do you have any RFIs regarding this location that
[2:13:38] Speaker 1: we have selected for you? You know what I mean?
[2:13:40] Speaker 1: So Yeah, Anyway, they were getting out of the valley
[2:13:45] Speaker 1: and I had some buddies that told me, like, dude,
[2:13:47] Speaker 1: we would just like look over at shoulders and just
[2:13:49] Speaker 1: see like scorched earth because we were just like dropping
[2:13:54] Speaker 1: rounds on everything, I guess and didn't actually get to
[2:13:58] Speaker 1: see it. But you were covering their movement with yeah,
[2:14:03] Speaker 1: we're covering their egress.
[2:14:04] Speaker 3: Did you guys have fos calling that in or were
[2:14:06] Speaker 3: you just kind of like this, this is the the
[2:14:09] Speaker 3: flo this flot and we're.
[2:14:12] Speaker 1: We were we were using the eyes of an air asset. Okay,
[2:14:17] Speaker 1: we had air asset go over and put it, put
[2:14:20] Speaker 1: us on a grid, and we started prosecuting those targets
[2:14:24] Speaker 1: from there and decided the length with and depth of
[2:14:27] Speaker 1: the target area and just searching traverse to give ample
[2:14:32] Speaker 1: enough fire suppression fire superiority to ensure that our guys
[2:14:38] Speaker 1: could safely and quickly exit the combat air Do you.
[2:14:44] Speaker 3: Know about how many rounds you guys went through with
[2:14:47] Speaker 3: the one twenties at least.
[2:14:49] Speaker 1: For that particular moment, at least one kickerbox, so kickerbox
[2:14:54] Speaker 1: full of one million rounds. I don't remember exactly how many.
[2:14:58] Speaker 1: I up my head. I know we had dropped the
[2:15:01] Speaker 1: speedball and then shot some more, but yeah, we said. Uh.
[2:15:06] Speaker 1: I thought like, hey man, at the time, it was
[2:15:08] Speaker 1: a decent amount of ordinance. But like later on in
[2:15:10] Speaker 1: my career, just the amount of ordinance I ended up
[2:15:13] Speaker 1: firing became made that look like child's play.
[2:15:16] Speaker 2: What was the a R for this mission?
[2:15:18] Speaker 1: Like, I don't know, and I don't even think I got
[2:15:22] Speaker 1: a piece of it. It was almost like so the
[2:15:25] Speaker 1: thing for us is like we were left there and
[2:15:29] Speaker 1: the Beaka and the Probate company got out of there.
[2:15:32] Speaker 1: We were left there, and uh, they were kind of like, oh, hey,
[2:15:35] Speaker 1: weather's rolling in. You guys are gonna have to, like,
[2:15:38] Speaker 1: you know, defend in place. And we're like what and
[2:15:41] Speaker 1: they're like, or you know, pack up the pack up
[2:15:44] Speaker 1: the mortar stuff, whatever you have, and we're like, dude,
[2:15:46] Speaker 1: we don't have a forklift and we're expending all this.
[2:15:48] Speaker 4: And you guys were like a mortar section plus.
[2:15:51] Speaker 1: Like uh, probably less than a real mortar section like
[2:15:54] Speaker 1: we were. It's kind of hard to say because we
[2:15:56] Speaker 1: were not a real mortor section. We were like a hodgepodge.
[2:15:59] Speaker 1: You guys, I think, grab what we have. You're you're
[2:16:01] Speaker 1: coming from this country. You're coming from this country, meet
[2:16:04] Speaker 1: in the middle, get on the objective and and we're
[2:16:07] Speaker 1: gonna tell you what to do. And so we had
[2:16:10] Speaker 1: and then we had like a bunch of junior junior
[2:16:12] Speaker 1: guys that they pulled from the states, right that brand nude,
[2:16:15] Speaker 1: like these guys don't know what they're doing.
[2:16:17] Speaker 4: And the leadership left you there to defend place.
[2:16:20] Speaker 1: That's what they said, right, And then we were kind
[2:16:23] Speaker 1: of like are you in a little bit? Ohda, dudes,
[2:16:26] Speaker 1: are you a little bit? And then we got an
[2:16:29] Speaker 1: aircraft to come in and get us, and they gave
[2:16:32] Speaker 1: us like I think like one to get us on
[2:16:35] Speaker 1: and get out of there. And then what was weird
[2:16:39] Speaker 1: is like it was like I think we were like
[2:16:41] Speaker 1: leaving the vet, like we're leaving the valley, and it
[2:16:43] Speaker 1: was like almost like three am. By the time we
[2:16:44] Speaker 1: got out of there. Everything else's daytime, everyone's here. Now
[2:16:47] Speaker 1: it's like three am. We're finally getting out of there,
[2:16:50] Speaker 1: and as we're it's like three am and we hear
[2:16:52] Speaker 1: this like and we're like, that's not the time that's
[2:16:56] Speaker 1: supposed to happen. And then we saw an illuminate go
[2:17:00] Speaker 1: over where our old where we were earlier, and I'm like, dude,
[2:17:06] Speaker 1: that just has to be on their target list worksheet
[2:17:08] Speaker 1: because they've shot up that compound. They have to. They're like,
[2:17:12] Speaker 1: the only place these US guys can be is in
[2:17:16] Speaker 1: this compound. So they probably go to go back to
[2:17:19] Speaker 1: non likely suspected, and you know, they probably had a
[2:17:22] Speaker 1: guy on that loud speaker calling something in or something.
[2:17:25] Speaker 1: I don't I don't really know, but it was like
[2:17:27] Speaker 1: a thing that everyone's like, can we just forget about that?
[2:17:30] Speaker 1: Can we forget that happened? And then a lot of guys,
[2:17:34] Speaker 1: a lot of guys did end up like I'm going
[2:17:35] Speaker 1: to SFAs and they did, yeah, right after that.
[2:17:38] Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that you say you weren't part of
[2:17:41] Speaker 2: it after action review, and it makes me wonder if
[2:17:44] Speaker 2: whatever happened. Yeah, because the Army has a habit of
[2:17:48] Speaker 2: when operations go really bad, Yeah, they don't do an AAR.
[2:17:52] Speaker 2: No data, no problem, right right. We didn't collect that
[2:17:56] Speaker 2: data that so it didn't happen.
[2:17:57] Speaker 4: The operations classified, we can't have.
[2:17:59] Speaker 2: Any There may be there may be like Platoon internal
[2:18:04] Speaker 2: a rs about the operation that they initiate on their own,
[2:18:07] Speaker 2: But did the unit, did the task force itself AAR
[2:18:10] Speaker 2: the mission?
[2:18:11] Speaker 1: And I would be interested to know the answer to
[2:18:14] Speaker 1: that question. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure that there
[2:18:16] Speaker 1: was something that was like a very small crowd. I
[2:18:19] Speaker 1: think like if they would have had like the whole crowd,
[2:18:23] Speaker 1: there had been like a town hall meeting, welcome ahead,
[2:18:26] Speaker 1: you know, just standing up randomly yell that. You know,
[2:18:31] Speaker 1: can I articulate it very professionally.
[2:18:34] Speaker 2: Some motherfuckers thrown out?
[2:18:36] Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I mean it probably happened in the small meeting,
[2:18:38] Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm sure something happened.
[2:18:41] Speaker 1: I mean, they had to do their own little investigation
[2:18:43] Speaker 1: and everything like that.
[2:18:45] Speaker 2: I mean, well hit the press her state side, I
[2:18:47] Speaker 2: mean not just for me, but also writing about.
[2:18:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was a very interesting time. But
[2:18:56] Speaker 1: it seemed like a shift for the Mortars from there
[2:19:00] Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, this happens.
[2:19:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, you get back home twenty seventeen. What are you
[2:19:07] Speaker 2: hearing about Syria?
[2:19:11] Speaker 1: Well, it was like our guys are our mortar guys
[2:19:14] Speaker 1: over there doing very good work because we have like
[2:19:18] Speaker 1: a lot of good guys in the more opetunity that
[2:19:20] Speaker 1: were just like, you know, like a fork is not
[2:19:25] Speaker 1: just a eating utensil. You know, like it can close
[2:19:28] Speaker 1: a circuit. You can kill somebody with the fork. You know.
[2:19:31] Speaker 1: There's like I can look at that device and turn
[2:19:34] Speaker 1: it into multi use. And that's a good thing about
[2:19:37] Speaker 1: not having an identity for a while. You start having
[2:19:39] Speaker 1: these guys who are just like I'm cracking open every
[2:19:42] Speaker 1: manual and I'm becoming the page master, you know, and
[2:19:44] Speaker 1: learning this stuff. So we're learning back now we just
[2:19:49] Speaker 1: switched out with another battalion. We're getting like some information
[2:19:53] Speaker 1: from them, and we're staying on them and we're starting
[2:19:55] Speaker 1: to go Okay, Now, this time it wasn't like we
[2:19:58] Speaker 1: didn't have a small team of guys jump the chin
[2:20:01] Speaker 1: in command and then go with a prestigious Jayski unit
[2:20:07] Speaker 1: and cross border operations. Now we're starting to conduct a
[2:20:10] Speaker 1: training cycle with Jaysaki unitas based around that ministry and profile.
[2:20:16] Speaker 1: And yeah, so we started doing that, working that in
[2:20:20] Speaker 1: and then getting information from them kind of things that
[2:20:23] Speaker 1: we're face and made it.
[2:20:24] Speaker 2: Sound a little earlier, like almost like these mortar teams
[2:20:26] Speaker 2: were like becoming like the Viacom the way they were operating.
[2:20:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it, it's kind of like that,
[2:20:32] Speaker 1: except for instead of.
[2:20:34] Speaker 2: Like conical hats.
[2:20:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, we we we were just kind of like we're
[2:20:37] Speaker 1: sitting in lawn chairs and shooting and it was it
[2:20:42] Speaker 1: was kind of cool. So and then what we had
[2:20:47] Speaker 1: to train for was like, hey, we're gonna this is
[2:20:49] Speaker 1: kind of like what we're gonna be doing. We'll be
[2:20:51] Speaker 1: operating taking over safe house. Safe house most likely going
[2:20:54] Speaker 1: to be overrunned. This is their most likely course of action,
[2:20:57] Speaker 1: is the most dangerous course of action. Let's train to
[2:20:58] Speaker 1: the most likely. Let's train for the most dangerous. Let's
[2:21:01] Speaker 1: have all of our TTPs in place, all of our
[2:21:02] Speaker 1: continuencies in place, in order to facilitate success based on
[2:21:07] Speaker 1: these courses of action that the enemy may take in
[2:21:10] Speaker 1: this environment, this like heavily non permissive environment. And so
[2:21:15] Speaker 1: certain things that we're doing with getting like extensive training
[2:21:17] Speaker 1: on javelins, we're getting extensive training on other types of
[2:21:20] Speaker 1: weapon systems that would be advantageous to us, things to
[2:21:23] Speaker 1: disabled drones, things to like other weapon systems that we
[2:21:26] Speaker 1: might not have been very familiar with to us. And
[2:21:29] Speaker 1: our partner are like, you know, sister unit that we
[2:21:32] Speaker 1: were working with that there was a higher tier. And
[2:21:36] Speaker 1: it was kind of funny because you know, I was
[2:21:38] Speaker 1: like heavy weapons qualified guy, and the guys from that
[2:21:45] Speaker 1: particular element we're asking me, like, amen, do you know
[2:21:49] Speaker 1: do this? It was like you don't know how to
[2:21:51] Speaker 1: do this? I was like, all right, yeah, this is
[2:21:54] Speaker 1: how you do it, man, And I would like, you know,
[2:21:55] Speaker 1: give a fam on how to run through the procedures
[2:21:59] Speaker 1: to fire a certain webs systems. And it was kind
[2:22:02] Speaker 1: of fun. It was kind of neat to be up there,
[2:22:04] Speaker 1: and it was and it was a good kind of
[2:22:08] Speaker 1: like learning experience. And then you know, then we went forward. Yeah,
[2:22:13] Speaker 1: and so.
[2:22:15] Speaker 3: Going forward with those guys, were they different in the
[2:22:18] Speaker 3: in the sense of they respected your experience and familiar
[2:22:22] Speaker 3: with with with the weapons systems, so you would be
[2:22:25] Speaker 3: actually a part of the mission planning process.
[2:22:27] Speaker 1: Yes. And the crazy thing was is like I'm talking
[2:22:32] Speaker 1: to this guy like I know, I don't know what
[2:22:35] Speaker 1: your rank is, but like you won't tell me your rank,
[2:22:38] Speaker 1: telling me to call your first name, and like so
[2:22:40] Speaker 1: I'm calling your first name and like I'm just like yes,
[2:22:43] Speaker 1: so man, you do this, and you do this and
[2:22:44] Speaker 1: he's like, man, like that's really good. I'm like, well,
[2:22:49] Speaker 1: I've been in this abusive relation right right, right, Like
[2:22:53] Speaker 1: who are you? Right? Who are you? Wait? What's going on?
[2:22:57] Speaker 1: My hair? Back? Yeah? Where's it gonna come? You know,
[2:23:03] Speaker 1: like like this is positive re employ he's listening. Hey, hey, hey, less,
[2:23:08] Speaker 1: what do you think we should do here? Wh you know? Okay, fine? Thanks? Yeah,
[2:23:15] Speaker 1: it's like is there a problem? No, I just no
[2:23:17] Speaker 1: one's ever asking that. I've always wanted to do this,
[2:23:19] Speaker 1: right you know. Yeah. So that's kind of what it was.
[2:23:23] Speaker 1: It was like there would be some type of operation
[2:23:29] Speaker 1: that we were heading to, like hey, this is the
[2:23:30] Speaker 1: objective that we want to go take care of, and
[2:23:34] Speaker 1: they kind of be like, hey, what what do you
[2:23:36] Speaker 1: see what position? Does this position work for you? It
[2:23:38] Speaker 1: was a very mutual, like it wasn't like, hey, you're
[2:23:41] Speaker 1: going to be here. It was like, hey man, does
[2:23:43] Speaker 1: this look good? I don't know. I don't know that thing,
[2:23:46] Speaker 1: does you know? And they're like, okay, yeah, I could
[2:23:48] Speaker 1: do that. And then then I would talk to them about,
[2:23:52] Speaker 1: hey man, like what if you know we wrangled all
[2:23:55] Speaker 1: the cattle and put them in the pan, right, and
[2:23:59] Speaker 1: then in to get more bang for the big bang,
[2:24:03] Speaker 1: like more buck for the big bang. You know, now
[2:24:06] Speaker 1: we can strike it. Like I was like, let's let's
[2:24:09] Speaker 1: fix them. Stop trying to get me to shoot guys
[2:24:11] Speaker 1: in the open, right, I just want to corrral. And
[2:24:13] Speaker 1: then we started developing these certain ways and systems to
[2:24:16] Speaker 1: really increase the effectiveness of our lethality effective increase our
[2:24:23] Speaker 1: lethality and effectiveness yea, because the thing was, it's like
[2:24:28] Speaker 1: what ended up happening is I believe during that run,
[2:24:32] Speaker 1: out of all teams, my team was probably the most
[2:24:34] Speaker 1: successful in conducting those upper and that and that was
[2:24:37] Speaker 1: largely because uh the team that we were involved with.
[2:24:40] Speaker 1: As you guys know, there's personality differences across all the
[2:24:44] Speaker 1: teams in certain Jaysack units, and luckily the team that
[2:24:51] Speaker 1: I was with had a personality very similar to mine.
[2:24:54] Speaker 1: They actually almost the team members called me like the
[2:24:56] Speaker 1: team whisper, the team leader whisper. There's the name of
[2:24:59] Speaker 1: the team leader, and it's like, you're the so and
[2:25:01] Speaker 1: so whisperer because he only listens to you, you know
[2:25:04] Speaker 1: what I mean. It's like this guy was like, uh,
[2:25:07] Speaker 1: I'm kind of known for kind of being a bit
[2:25:09] Speaker 1: of a wild card kind of guy, you know, where
[2:25:11] Speaker 1: I'm kind of like I joke and I can be
[2:25:13] Speaker 1: like kind of playful, but like also switched on, you know.
[2:25:17] Speaker 1: And so I remember one time I was instructed to
[2:25:20] Speaker 1: destroy bridges along with the eu Frate's river. So I
[2:25:24] Speaker 1: demolished several bridges and then the SDF goes, oh, no,
[2:25:30] Speaker 1: we need the bridge to cross, and I was like,
[2:25:33] Speaker 1: all right, we'll get you another bridge. And we like
[2:25:35] Speaker 1: built these like whatever stupid bridges across this river and
[2:25:40] Speaker 1: a certain point or stream. And I was out there
[2:25:43] Speaker 1: and this is before I got pushed to the other
[2:25:45] Speaker 1: team when that guy's like, that guy's on my team,
[2:25:47] Speaker 1: and then we had our good personality thing. I was like,
[2:25:50] Speaker 1: I was like you tell me take out a bridge
[2:25:53] Speaker 1: or take out the bridge. I put a new bridge
[2:25:55] Speaker 1: and forgot about it. Whatever you want, you know, I
[2:25:57] Speaker 1: was just he was like, he's like, dude, you're funny.
[2:25:59] Speaker 1: I want you on my because like I'm in combat
[2:26:01] Speaker 1: doing this type of stuff, just having a good time.
[2:26:04] Speaker 1: Usually the guy, I guess when things were really bad,
[2:26:07] Speaker 1: like I could say things and act in a way
[2:26:10] Speaker 1: to uplift the rest of the guy, whereas this morale
[2:26:13] Speaker 1: would elevate the morale. It's really all about morale, and
[2:26:16] Speaker 1: that's why I take more pride and not like do
[2:26:19] Speaker 1: you know how many people are cute or oh no
[2:26:22] Speaker 1: shit there I was stage miaim run time out there.
[2:26:26] Speaker 1: It's like I don't really care about that. I cared
[2:26:28] Speaker 1: more about like, you know, hey, this is a tough job,
[2:26:32] Speaker 1: and I want this place to be more of an
[2:26:34] Speaker 1: enjoyable place to work, and I want it to be
[2:26:36] Speaker 1: a place where guys could be proud that they work
[2:26:38] Speaker 1: instead of miserable and just dead inside when they leave
[2:26:40] Speaker 1: this place, you know what I mean. Like, and so yeah,
[2:26:45] Speaker 1: it's it's pretty interesting experience there. And then you know
[2:26:49] Speaker 1: you're probably gonna ask me about well.
[2:26:52] Speaker 2: I mean just sort of a big picture the scheme
[2:26:56] Speaker 2: of maneuver over there at the time. Yes, I mean
[2:26:59] Speaker 2: you guys were running and sort of an unconventional warfare
[2:27:01] Speaker 2: campaign if I understand it. Yeah, jsck guys, you guys
[2:27:05] Speaker 2: do an indirect fire and the SDF and this is
[2:27:08] Speaker 2: just part of the overall campaign you guys are pushing
[2:27:10] Speaker 2: isis back towards the river.
[2:27:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, so the SDF dudes like it was pretty cool.
[2:27:16] Speaker 1: Is like anytime I met an SDF element, I would
[2:27:19] Speaker 1: like almost like joke and act like a stereotypical Hollywood
[2:27:24] Speaker 1: American on purpose, and they knew I was doing a
[2:27:27] Speaker 1: bit yeah, and I'd be like throw the line maggots,
[2:27:30] Speaker 1: you know, and they'd be like, and I go, where's
[2:27:32] Speaker 1: your name son? And you know, but I'd be like,
[2:27:36] Speaker 1: you know, I'd be like, na, you mean less navitaa Like.
[2:27:38] Speaker 1: I would then say it to like translate so they
[2:27:40] Speaker 1: know that, like, Okay, this is what I'm actually asking you.
[2:27:42] Speaker 1: And I get the name of all the guys and
[2:27:44] Speaker 1: then I'd be like, you know, they don't like patent
[2:27:47] Speaker 1: motivate them almost in a way to where I would
[2:27:51] Speaker 1: like just kind of jokingly and then I'd go out
[2:27:53] Speaker 1: and then conduct these operations. And a lot of times
[2:27:55] Speaker 1: they'd be like our security, our escort through the AO.
[2:27:58] Speaker 1: They would clear out areas to make sure that there
[2:28:00] Speaker 1: were no minds. Obviously we had our multipurpose knines and
[2:28:04] Speaker 1: our EOD guys. They also facilitated that, but they were
[2:28:07] Speaker 1: a very good partner for us in comparison to I
[2:28:10] Speaker 1: was used to seeing and and it was just funny
[2:28:14] Speaker 1: that after a while of engaging with these guys and
[2:28:17] Speaker 1: kind of you know, interacting them with them on a
[2:28:20] Speaker 1: human level, Like these guys like I would walk up
[2:28:23] Speaker 1: in a group of guys who was like drinking chai
[2:28:25] Speaker 1: they love chai on a flot and I'd walk up
[2:28:29] Speaker 1: and it would like stand up at the position attention
[2:28:31] Speaker 1: and like we're like whoa hey, you know, Like I
[2:28:33] Speaker 1: was like, well, that's kind of cool though, like I
[2:28:35] Speaker 1: haven't even met these guys before, but now they're like
[2:28:37] Speaker 1: standing out a position attention, like you know, now there's
[2:28:39] Speaker 1: like whispers going on, like hey, that's the guy who's
[2:28:42] Speaker 1: like pretty cool, you know. Like so that was like
[2:28:44] Speaker 1: pretty interesting to go through that. And then eventually I
[2:28:47] Speaker 1: would say that so there was this thing.
[2:28:51] Speaker 4: Called like.
[2:28:53] Speaker 1: Syria dot live UAMP dot com where you could track
[2:28:56] Speaker 1: day by day what was happening. And I was using
[2:28:59] Speaker 1: that when I was there. I would go on open
[2:29:01] Speaker 1: source like that and it would almost collect open source
[2:29:04] Speaker 1: for me. And I would look and I would like
[2:29:06] Speaker 1: shoot mortars and I would see like a Twitter post
[2:29:09] Speaker 1: or something from an isis guy right, and it would
[2:29:11] Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, they missed. They were like this
[2:29:14] Speaker 1: far off and I was like, yeah, got you now
[2:29:18] Speaker 1: you know? And then you know or something like that.
[2:29:20] Speaker 1: But like you would see like the map has different colors,
[2:29:23] Speaker 1: like this is the SDF, this is ISIS, this is whatever,
[2:29:26] Speaker 1: and then you would just see us roll tide all
[2:29:30] Speaker 1: the way across and say, it's funny because, like you know,
[2:29:33] Speaker 1: we were out of Fort Benning, so all that roll
[2:29:35] Speaker 1: tide and wardamn eagles like a thing. So we were
[2:29:38] Speaker 1: just saying all this stupid stuff, wardamn eagle, roll tide,
[2:29:42] Speaker 1: like all this stuff the whole way. Uh. Because I'm
[2:29:45] Speaker 1: from the Pacific Northwest and then that stuff really jibe
[2:29:48] Speaker 1: with me. So I thought it was comical.
[2:29:49] Speaker 4: You're looking everywhere.
[2:29:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was listening to I was listening to death.
[2:29:54] Speaker 1: I don't know, I was listening to kirk Coole Bank
[2:29:56] Speaker 1: riding the kayak because it rained so much, shipping a
[2:29:59] Speaker 1: freaking frapp of you know, on my way to work
[2:30:02] Speaker 1: down there as a longshore man and a librarian, you know. Yeah,
[2:30:08] Speaker 1: So like yeah, I mean we push push, push, push push,
[2:30:11] Speaker 1: and then I think like that, this very decisive moment
[2:30:14] Speaker 1: that I was like really proud of, like operationally was
[2:30:17] Speaker 1: when uh tapka air Base and topka.
[2:30:19] Speaker 2: Damn yes, walk us through that.
[2:30:21] Speaker 1: Yeah. So there were there came a night where we
[2:30:25] Speaker 1: were posturing to conduct operations south of the Euphrates, right,
[2:30:31] Speaker 1: you know, we're going into the hornets nest, and it
[2:30:34] Speaker 1: was almost like a we're gonna draw straws man, and
[2:30:36] Speaker 1: who's gonna do this pull off this little operation, you know?
[2:30:39] Speaker 1: And I was like, no, no drawing straws. If it's
[2:30:42] Speaker 1: ridiculous and you're gonna die, I'm gonna do it. Like
[2:30:45] Speaker 1: so I I I always had the mentality of like,
[2:30:48] Speaker 1: if the sergeant major was standing right there and say
[2:30:50] Speaker 1: stack on that door and I'm not the first one
[2:30:52] Speaker 1: through that door, I'm gonna feel real bad for anybody
[2:30:55] Speaker 1: who gets injured inside. So I think we had like
[2:30:59] Speaker 1: multiple we hadmultiple aircraft. Uh, maybe like five aircraft spread
[2:31:06] Speaker 1: across and we had about five lifts and those were Ospreys. Nope,
[2:31:13] Speaker 1: they were forty sevens. There was a report they said Osprey's,
[2:31:17] Speaker 1: but they were definitely forty sevens because you can't fit
[2:31:19] Speaker 1: a high lux on an Osprey.
[2:31:22] Speaker 2: Sorry.
[2:31:22] Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, so we had these. They were gonna
[2:31:28] Speaker 1: tell us like, hey, man, you're gonna take all these
[2:31:31] Speaker 1: SDF dudes and you're gonna load them on the aircraft
[2:31:33] Speaker 1: and then you're gonna go behind uh Topka, very populated
[2:31:37] Speaker 1: city with skyscrapers and like thousands of people living there,
[2:31:41] Speaker 1: and they're armed to the teeth and they're very angry
[2:31:43] Speaker 1: and they're very desperate. And there's a lot of foreign
[2:31:45] Speaker 1: fighters there too, you know. And you're gonna go across
[2:31:48] Speaker 1: this and we're gonna fly you and you know, they
[2:31:50] Speaker 1: might have anti aircraft guns, and we're gonna go over
[2:31:52] Speaker 1: to the frates man, and and uh, you're gonna be
[2:31:57] Speaker 1: inside this high lux that's like ratchet strapped down to it,
[2:32:01] Speaker 1: you know. And let me tell you, like, Okay, I
[2:32:06] Speaker 1: don't even know where to start talking about. Okay, I'll
[2:32:08] Speaker 1: start talking about how the highlux is kind of organized
[2:32:11] Speaker 1: in this aircraft, so you can only have one high
[2:32:14] Speaker 1: lux in there.
[2:32:15] Speaker 2: Per forty seven per forty.
[2:32:17] Speaker 1: Seven as we're flying across, you might be able to
[2:32:19] Speaker 1: fit too. We didn't. We didn't chance it right. So
[2:32:22] Speaker 1: we had one in there and they said, okay, you
[2:32:27] Speaker 1: gotta load all these SDF guys in there with you.
[2:32:30] Speaker 1: Now I had some RFIs, I said, we'll have any
[2:32:32] Speaker 1: of these guys written in aircraft. Have any of these
[2:32:34] Speaker 1: guys been blacked out conditions? I was like, well, I
[2:32:37] Speaker 1: have a problem with them being armed, and they're like,
[2:32:40] Speaker 1: well do you suppose that? I was like, am we
[2:32:43] Speaker 1: either put the guns there first, or put them there
[2:32:46] Speaker 1: first and get the guns over there, because I don't
[2:32:48] Speaker 1: want an ND while I'm inside there, especially with as
[2:32:52] Speaker 1: many people as there are, or we have them like
[2:32:54] Speaker 1: locked up and we break the lock once we get
[2:32:57] Speaker 1: to where we're going. They went with the option of
[2:33:01] Speaker 1: at the end of the day, at the end of
[2:33:03] Speaker 1: the lift, now they'll have weapons, which is like, dang man,
[2:33:06] Speaker 1: we're gonna leave these guys out in the wind. We
[2:33:07] Speaker 1: have to conceal them. So this is a very difficult operation.
[2:33:10] Speaker 1: And to this day when I think about it, I
[2:33:12] Speaker 1: was like I'll wake up. I'll wake up in the
[2:33:14] Speaker 1: morning like not in like sweats, like I'm having like
[2:33:18] Speaker 1: a PTSD like fever dream. I'll wake up like I'll
[2:33:21] Speaker 1: wake up like this, Like, dude, that was such a
[2:33:24] Speaker 1: bad idea. Yeah, it was like what did I do
[2:33:27] Speaker 1: last night? Like to this day randomly I'll be like what.
[2:33:31] Speaker 1: I'm not against it, but like, dude, yeah, what was that?
[2:33:35] Speaker 1: So you know, and I'm not the only guy, but
[2:33:40] Speaker 1: while I'm doing this, I'm by myself essentially. So what
[2:33:45] Speaker 1: my job was was to sit inside the high Lux.
[2:33:48] Speaker 1: The high Lucks would be ratcheted down to the floor
[2:33:50] Speaker 1: of the forty seven, which is this big bus of
[2:33:53] Speaker 1: a helicopter. Some people call it a chinook, but it
[2:33:57] Speaker 1: was a very special chinook. So we would be in there.
[2:34:03] Speaker 1: There would be the SDF guys in the back of
[2:34:05] Speaker 1: the bed and there'd be some SDF guys in the
[2:34:06] Speaker 1: vehicle with me. And now all the high Luxes were
[2:34:11] Speaker 1: manual shift, and that's a very important thing that their
[2:34:15] Speaker 1: manual instead of automatic, and you're in blackout conditions. So
[2:34:23] Speaker 1: one thing was is these are up armored high Luxes too,
[2:34:26] Speaker 1: And when you're on the forty seven, the skin of
[2:34:29] Speaker 1: the aircraft is not enough to open the door. The window,
[2:34:34] Speaker 1: since it's up armored, might only go down an inch
[2:34:36] Speaker 1: or two, and you're not You're probably not gonna kick
[2:34:39] Speaker 1: out that glass. So I'm like, we're going over the Euphrates.
[2:34:43] Speaker 1: If this thing goes down, I'm drowning. I'm dying. If
[2:34:45] Speaker 1: we get shot out of the sky and somehow we survive,
[2:34:48] Speaker 1: I'm at least gonna die inside the Euphrates or lake aside.
[2:34:53] Speaker 1: So I guess it crosses the mind of like one
[2:34:57] Speaker 1: of the crew chiefs like, hey, you might need this.
[2:35:00] Speaker 1: He gives me a bottle of spare air. I'm like,
[2:35:03] Speaker 1: what's this. He's like, that's ten minutes of air in
[2:35:06] Speaker 1: case you go down. I'm like, so suffer for ten
[2:35:09] Speaker 1: more minutes, right, Like you know what I mean? Like
[2:35:12] Speaker 1: in this like, I'm not getting out of this if
[2:35:13] Speaker 1: we go down. Yeah, And so I am. The difficulty
[2:35:20] Speaker 1: is there's a number of difficult points, right because now
[2:35:24] Speaker 1: I'm getting up in the sky and there's a guy
[2:35:27] Speaker 1: next to me trying to flip the lights on the
[2:35:29] Speaker 1: whole time, like, whoa, what's what's happening here? Has no
[2:35:31] Speaker 1: idea we're in the sky. He has no idea where airborne.
[2:35:34] Speaker 1: This is a guy who's never flown in a plane,
[2:35:36] Speaker 1: never flown in a helicopter ever in his life, and
[2:35:38] Speaker 1: doesn't speak the same language I am, and I have
[2:35:40] Speaker 1: to be like the rude American, the brute that's like,
[2:35:42] Speaker 1: get your hands off them, you know, don't touch my radio,
[2:35:46] Speaker 1: you know, Like I'm like, like, dude, like, don't touch that,
[2:35:49] Speaker 1: because you're gonna flick on these lights and we're gonna
[2:35:51] Speaker 1: be you know, compromise, yeah, and shot out of the
[2:35:53] Speaker 1: sky and then all those like revelations they might come true,
[2:35:56] Speaker 1: you know, or anyways that we get to we'll get
[2:36:02] Speaker 1: to the other side. And what people don't understand is
[2:36:04] Speaker 1: like some people don't even know how to drive stick,
[2:36:07] Speaker 1: especially from my generation, you know what I mean. Like
[2:36:11] Speaker 1: I drove stick, but I don't drive stick all the time.
[2:36:14] Speaker 1: So I'm like, yeah, luckily I've been driving manual inside
[2:36:18] Speaker 1: of Syria to this point, so I was like back
[2:36:20] Speaker 1: to being used to driving. But the thing is is
[2:36:23] Speaker 1: like you have these big twin turbine engines on a
[2:36:27] Speaker 1: forty seven, so you can't hear your RPMs and you
[2:36:31] Speaker 1: can't see your RPMs. Because you're blacked out, like completely,
[2:36:35] Speaker 1: and you know, maybe down the line we've had a
[2:36:37] Speaker 1: better solution, but like thinking on the feet, we didn't
[2:36:39] Speaker 1: have a solution to how do we illuminate this dash
[2:36:42] Speaker 1: and get to where we need to be. So you
[2:36:46] Speaker 1: have to turn that car on, and then you can't
[2:36:48] Speaker 1: even tell if it's on, and then you have to like, okay,
[2:36:51] Speaker 1: am I am? I shifting into you know, first gear,
[2:36:53] Speaker 1: second gear? What's that? I got to go off the ramp.
[2:36:55] Speaker 1: I had to look at this guy to tell me, hey,
[2:36:56] Speaker 1: you're clear, Shackle's clear, go go go. You drive all
[2:37:00] Speaker 1: off And now now you're off on your own with
[2:37:02] Speaker 1: a bunch of you know, Kurdish guys in your vehicle
[2:37:06] Speaker 1: and you're driving through Tapka to towards Topka air Base
[2:37:10] Speaker 1: and drive off and park the car, leave it, you know,
[2:37:16] Speaker 1: leave it neutral, car running and just say you're on
[2:37:20] Speaker 1: your own. We'll be back. And the way that I
[2:37:24] Speaker 1: cleared minds was I would just run down my tire
[2:37:26] Speaker 1: tracks back to the bird and so I'm like by
[2:37:29] Speaker 1: myself in a very like crazy environment where there's still
[2:37:34] Speaker 1: a very large ice is flag visible from where I'm
[2:37:37] Speaker 1: running from, like running past like this huge, like did
[2:37:41] Speaker 1: that ices flag was like what you would see it
[2:37:43] Speaker 1: at a football game, Like that's how big.
[2:37:44] Speaker 2: It was, Like the open source Intel has not updated
[2:37:47] Speaker 2: quite yet that you're.
[2:37:48] Speaker 1: There, Yeah, exactly. And we're running back and forth and
[2:37:52] Speaker 1: we do this a few times and then the last
[2:37:54] Speaker 1: time that we do it, I did it with a forklift.
[2:37:57] Speaker 1: So I am filled with a forklift. So this is
[2:37:59] Speaker 1: like what the forklift for to bring the kickers full
[2:38:02] Speaker 1: of AMMO and and weapons to them. So I'm driving
[2:38:05] Speaker 1: a forklift back and forth to the same bird that's
[2:38:08] Speaker 1: just sitting there while there's Jaysak guys on the bird
[2:38:12] Speaker 1: watching me with their rifles like hanging out like like
[2:38:15] Speaker 1: hurry up, you know, and for the good thing is
[2:38:20] Speaker 1: is like and then I left the forklift there. The
[2:38:22] Speaker 1: good thing was I was a very fast runner. So
[2:38:23] Speaker 1: some of the guys are like, dude, you run really
[2:38:25] Speaker 1: fast because the guys I was like hauling aspect of
[2:38:27] Speaker 1: the birl was like and that was probably faster than
[2:38:29] Speaker 1: I ever ran in my life because I was like,
[2:38:31] Speaker 1: just get the hell out of here because I'm all
[2:38:33] Speaker 1: by myself. Really, I brought the weapons to those guys
[2:38:36] Speaker 1: and drop them off. Then we headed back and then
[2:38:39] Speaker 1: so I'm thinking, like we headed back to you know,
[2:38:42] Speaker 1: our staging area and where all our mortar stuff is
[2:38:45] Speaker 1: and everything. And then my team leader that was in,
[2:38:48] Speaker 1: you know, with that jaysock element that he comes over.
[2:38:50] Speaker 1: He's like, least, we're gonna hit it now. And I
[2:38:53] Speaker 1: was like, we're doing the damn now. Like I thought
[2:38:55] Speaker 1: I was gonna be able to take a nap or something.
[2:38:57] Speaker 1: He's like, nope, we're gonna hit it now. So that
[2:39:00] Speaker 1: was like an all night affair. That's like you're tired,
[2:39:02] Speaker 1: you're kind of sleepy by doing it and all that
[2:39:04] Speaker 1: those wind sprints and kit and all that. And then
[2:39:06] Speaker 1: I get back to wherever and we we drive out
[2:39:12] Speaker 1: to the dam so we're simo hitting the airfield and
[2:39:18] Speaker 1: the damn the same and on our way to the dam.
[2:39:22] Speaker 1: Man it was like one of the most epic things
[2:39:24] Speaker 1: I've ever seen, and maybe guys seen it in Iraq
[2:39:27] Speaker 1: like in the start of the Iraq stuff like, but
[2:39:30] Speaker 1: it was all out war. It was like you're seeing
[2:39:34] Speaker 1: bullets flying everywhere all over that city, trying to shoot
[2:39:37] Speaker 1: things out of the sky, trying to shoot across the river,
[2:39:40] Speaker 1: trying to shoot from the dam towards our position. As
[2:39:43] Speaker 1: we're driving in, we're seeing high mars like boom buildings
[2:39:49] Speaker 1: is gosh goush aircrafts boom bombs from and then marine
[2:39:57] Speaker 1: artillery going off. Dude, doo dooge explosions everywhere, gunfire everywhere,
[2:40:04] Speaker 1: vehicles crashing. You're like, dude, this is pure chaos. And
[2:40:11] Speaker 1: we get to like the our MFP area and he's
[2:40:16] Speaker 1: like this dude who was a sergeant major was like,
[2:40:20] Speaker 1: let's it's your show. Go inside that vehicle, talk to
[2:40:23] Speaker 1: the guys in there, telling them what you want, and dude,
[2:40:25] Speaker 1: it was like freaking a Rainbow six video game. I
[2:40:27] Speaker 1: walk in there, there's French dudes in there, there's Brits
[2:40:29] Speaker 1: in there, and there's and then I got my dudes
[2:40:32] Speaker 1: with me, and then there's some Air Force dudes I
[2:40:34] Speaker 1: trained on how to use it mortar. And I said, guys,
[2:40:37] Speaker 1: is the game plan? I said, Okay, let's go. Let's
[2:40:40] Speaker 1: put in effect. We put the game plan in effect
[2:40:44] Speaker 1: and it was very successful. We were dropping rounds on everything.
[2:40:48] Speaker 4: There was like.
[2:40:50] Speaker 1: And this is like my joke with the Seals is
[2:40:52] Speaker 1: because there was a river crossing with Zodiac similar to that.
[2:40:55] Speaker 2: Other Yeah, we've talked about it.
[2:40:57] Speaker 1: The there's like two seals or something that come into
[2:41:00] Speaker 1: country just to do this. Fill these zodiacs up and
[2:41:03] Speaker 1: they're like they had all these like SDF special like
[2:41:09] Speaker 1: commandos with them that were crossing the river. And then uh.
[2:41:14] Speaker 1: I remember being on like a radio or something like
[2:41:17] Speaker 1: talking and being like, hey, man, like what's going on,
[2:41:19] Speaker 1: Like you guys stop crossing. They're kind of stop in
[2:41:21] Speaker 1: the middle, and the guys had said something like hey,
[2:41:25] Speaker 1: like the the water levels like really low, like we're
[2:41:29] Speaker 1: having trouble moving the boat. And I was like, can
[2:41:33] Speaker 1: you get out walk? He's like yeah. I was like, yeah,
[2:41:35] Speaker 1: get on walk, Like that's how funny. It was, like
[2:41:39] Speaker 1: the guy was just like a right fight the plan,
[2:41:43] Speaker 1: you know, like you know the plan was get across
[2:41:47] Speaker 1: on a boat. It's like, no, dude, fight the fight,
[2:41:49] Speaker 1: Like if you can walk, just walk across. And so
[2:41:52] Speaker 1: at whatever portion that they were where they did make it,
[2:41:55] Speaker 1: it got shallower, there was still water, but they were
[2:41:57] Speaker 1: able to walk, which sucks too because was very cold water.
[2:42:01] Speaker 1: And those guys got across, and I remember what people
[2:42:04] Speaker 1: don't realize is like the level of like technical proficiency
[2:42:11] Speaker 1: that was undermined about the mortar platoon. Like, I go back,
[2:42:14] Speaker 1: and I'm like, I cannot be that smart again, I
[2:42:16] Speaker 1: cannot be that much of a multitasker, because what I
[2:42:19] Speaker 1: was doing was I had my controls on a drone.
[2:42:21] Speaker 1: I was flying a drone, controlling at least four different guns,
[2:42:26] Speaker 1: giving fire commands to four different locations, tracking four different
[2:42:30] Speaker 1: locations of enemy movements, while also keeping an eye on
[2:42:34] Speaker 1: like this other element that's like crossing the river. I'm like, okay,
[2:42:36] Speaker 1: I need to support them with fire at this time. Hey,
[2:42:39] Speaker 1: you know number three gun, lay on blah blah blah
[2:42:41] Speaker 1: blah blah blah blahlah to two gun eight at my command.
[2:42:44] Speaker 1: Three gun stand by a two gun. All right, Hey,
[2:42:46] Speaker 1: target of opportunity. We have an armored vehicle moving into
[2:42:49] Speaker 1: this intersection. Lay onto this intersection located at you know one, two, three,
[2:42:53] Speaker 1: four five six. Yeah, Roger one to three five says,
[2:42:55] Speaker 1: let me know when gun is laid all right, Okay.
[2:42:57] Speaker 1: That vehicle's moving at forty five miles per an hour
[2:43:00] Speaker 1: from a south to northeast asmith, he's gonna be at
[2:43:03] Speaker 1: that intersection about this time. I have a fifty six
[2:43:05] Speaker 1: second time of flight I need to fire roughly about
[2:43:08] Speaker 1: this time to gunna go hot at zero one or
[2:43:11] Speaker 1: like you know, zero six forty five, and then like boom,
[2:43:14] Speaker 1: he fires, and I slew back my camera over here
[2:43:17] Speaker 1: to the SDF commandos that are moving up the beach
[2:43:20] Speaker 1: trying to go hit some to secure like some causeway thing.
[2:43:26] Speaker 1: I don't really know all the terms of it, but
[2:43:29] Speaker 1: they were gonna secure their objective and I had to
[2:43:31] Speaker 1: make sure they were safe, and like, you know, it
[2:43:33] Speaker 1: was almost the funny thing. It's like we were like
[2:43:36] Speaker 1: the snipers going like hey, man, like I got your six,
[2:43:39] Speaker 1: you know, like in the movies, but instead we're shooting mortars. Yeah,
[2:43:42] Speaker 1: while these guys are bounding through.
[2:43:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, and unlike you know past conflicts, you're watching it
[2:43:47] Speaker 2: in real time on the on the drun feed.
[2:43:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, watching in real time, and I'm seeing rounds impact
[2:43:52] Speaker 1: across the river from where I'm standing. So then like
[2:43:55] Speaker 1: I'm like fire, boom, boom. I'm like, oh, this is
[2:43:57] Speaker 1: gonna be sweet. Does he hit the tank? And dude,
[2:44:00] Speaker 1: there was like one shot that definitely went through whoever
[2:44:03] Speaker 1: the tank commander was and went through his body, and
[2:44:05] Speaker 1: then whatever ammo he had in there went off, so
[2:44:08] Speaker 1: it was like secondaries and a rooster tail went through
[2:44:11] Speaker 1: and then the turret of the tank just popped off,
[2:44:14] Speaker 1: like just went off the side and we were just
[2:44:17] Speaker 1: I was just like I radioed another mortar team as
[2:44:20] Speaker 1: by it. I was like, hey, us holes that one's mind,
[2:44:24] Speaker 1: Like I just said that ship like funking with him
[2:44:26] Speaker 1: on the thing. And they were like, yeah, yeah, you're
[2:44:28] Speaker 1: good man.
[2:44:28] Speaker 4: That's some crazy accurate mortar fire.
[2:44:32] Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was. It was very accurate, very lucky,
[2:44:36] Speaker 1: and that mortar was a newer system that I'm kind
[2:44:41] Speaker 1: of like against the newer systems because I'm like, they
[2:44:43] Speaker 1: put me on the John Henry on that fast and
[2:44:45] Speaker 1: more accurate, more lethal. We had a very specific way
[2:44:48] Speaker 1: delay in the guns to make sure they were more accurate.
[2:44:51] Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I don't need those new fangle sites.
[2:44:54] Speaker 1: I can Kentucky win it again.
[2:44:56] Speaker 2: For people out through don't understand anything about mortar systems.
[2:45:00] Speaker 2: It's an area weapons system that it's not a sniper
[2:45:03] Speaker 2: system that is designed to like almost never do you
[2:45:06] Speaker 2: directly hit the target.
[2:45:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, like steal and steel is a great thing, but
[2:45:10] Speaker 1: if you keyhole something with a mortar, it's like, oh
[2:45:13] Speaker 1: my god, yeah, our guys were getting pretty pretty Johnny
[2:45:17] Speaker 1: Roger on the spot with this system, especially doing it
[2:45:19] Speaker 1: in real time and combat, and like every day we
[2:45:24] Speaker 1: would come back at the end and be like, hey, man,
[2:45:27] Speaker 1: like what is the smallest thing that we can fix
[2:45:30] Speaker 1: in terms of like how we're doing this, Like do
[2:45:32] Speaker 1: we need to put sandbag here? Does a guy need
[2:45:34] Speaker 1: to stand on top of the base plate, Do we
[2:45:35] Speaker 1: need to put sandbags on top of the base plate?
[2:45:37] Speaker 1: Do we need to dig this out? Dig this in?
[2:45:40] Speaker 1: Whatever it is? Like, we were very proactive and like
[2:45:43] Speaker 1: mastering the things. I mean, we even had a vehicle
[2:45:46] Speaker 1: that the regiment had procured for us to carry the
[2:45:50] Speaker 1: mortar system, and we said, this thing is a piece
[2:45:51] Speaker 1: of shit because it doesn't drive fast enough. So we
[2:45:54] Speaker 1: went in there a bunch of us and what we
[2:45:57] Speaker 1: would do is remove the hydraulic lift system and place
[2:45:59] Speaker 1: them on the backs of like pickup trucks and put
[2:46:03] Speaker 1: them on other vehicles trailers and things like that. Other
[2:46:07] Speaker 1: teams out there had like various things that they did,
[2:46:09] Speaker 1: and it was like a really cool like to see
[2:46:11] Speaker 1: like hey, this is what we came up with and
[2:46:14] Speaker 1: this is what we were doing, and just seeing like
[2:46:16] Speaker 1: the success like spread across all them.
[2:46:18] Speaker 2: It's a it's a little view into perhaps the future
[2:46:21] Speaker 2: of war. Yeah, and you're seeing it in Ukraine now,
[2:46:23] Speaker 2: like two guys with anti tank weapons scooting around down
[2:46:27] Speaker 2: an ATV, hopping off, blowing up a tank and rolling out.
[2:46:30] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it was it was like like during
[2:46:33] Speaker 1: that time period when we were out there, it was
[2:46:35] Speaker 1: kind of like, yeah, dude, this is this is like
[2:46:38] Speaker 1: the new thing. And and it was always something I
[2:46:41] Speaker 1: always read in the books, because something I always like
[2:46:43] Speaker 1: read in the book There was always like you go
[2:46:46] Speaker 1: into these manuals and a lot of people don't read
[2:46:48] Speaker 1: the manuals. I'd be like the guys like, I'm gonna
[2:46:50] Speaker 1: read the manual and uh, He'll be like, you know,
[2:46:52] Speaker 1: the mortar is actually used as a reconnaissance element, And
[2:46:57] Speaker 1: I'm like, really, how tell me more. This is how
[2:47:00] Speaker 1: you use the mortar for recont And I was like,
[2:47:04] Speaker 1: now we're looking at RF signature, we're looking at all
[2:47:06] Speaker 1: of this other stuff, and I'm like.
[2:47:08] Speaker 2: Oh, so you pop them and then you see who
[2:47:10] Speaker 2: comes up on commons.
[2:47:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, stuff like that fire and then yeah, recon by
[2:47:15] Speaker 1: fire exactly like we were talking about earlier and then
[2:47:17] Speaker 1: I would be like, hey, there's a high concentration of
[2:47:20] Speaker 1: signature from here, we start soaking that right like that,
[2:47:24] Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it's like very interesting
[2:47:26] Speaker 1: how we would take it into the twenty first century there,
[2:47:30] Speaker 1: I guess.
[2:47:32] Speaker 7: Out of curiosity, like what what was what was the
[2:47:35] Speaker 7: mortar section? What was their trajectory in regards to battalion
[2:47:40] Speaker 7: at that time? Because again, like when I was there
[2:47:44] Speaker 7: during a peace time mortars, you know they were people
[2:47:48] Speaker 7: respected them a lot because even on the old systems,
[2:47:53] Speaker 7: like when they in a tactical situation, when they were
[2:47:55] Speaker 7: supported by fire like they could, they'd get that mortar
[2:47:58] Speaker 7: position and they would be on target like that, right,
[2:48:01] Speaker 7: And maybe it's because it was more sort of light
[2:48:03] Speaker 7: infantry operations at the time, and then in a CQ
[2:48:06] Speaker 7: CQB world orders aren't really like seen as needed. But
[2:48:11] Speaker 7: now you're back into this open train fighting, Like what
[2:48:15] Speaker 7: was your trajectory at battalion And were you guys getting
[2:48:19] Speaker 7: more respect?
[2:48:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, we were getting a lot more respect and a
[2:48:22] Speaker 1: lot more like, hey, so we have this near peer
[2:48:25] Speaker 1: fight thing, like you know anything about this, Like how
[2:48:28] Speaker 1: are we gonna use mortars in a near peper fight?
[2:48:30] Speaker 1: And we started discussing that we already had a strategy
[2:48:32] Speaker 1: for that because I was always training my men. I
[2:48:34] Speaker 1: was like, hey man, the enemy, they may have a
[2:48:39] Speaker 1: capability of some type of aerial reconnaissance and maybe type
[2:48:43] Speaker 1: some type of aerial asset. So we need to figure
[2:48:46] Speaker 1: out a way to disguise our movements from these aerial
[2:48:49] Speaker 1: assets at the MFP, and we we came up with
[2:48:51] Speaker 1: some good strategies to hide from them. Which is funny
[2:48:54] Speaker 1: because you would see some of these strategies pop up
[2:48:57] Speaker 1: on instagrams by like hey be the gray Man or
[2:49:00] Speaker 1: survivalist people, and you're like, dude, like we already had that,
[2:49:03] Speaker 1: like you know, five years ago, and now this is like,
[2:49:06] Speaker 1: hey man, I got an umbrella with some stuff in it.
[2:49:10] Speaker 7: You know.
[2:49:10] Speaker 2: So this, uh, the Tapka dam and airfield. How many
[2:49:15] Speaker 2: rounds do you think you guys.
[2:49:16] Speaker 1: Fired that night? I have absolutely no idea. I know
[2:49:19] Speaker 1: that the we we continued to adjust fire for about
[2:49:23] Speaker 1: thirty six hours. And this is starting like after I
[2:49:26] Speaker 1: already did the air assault as stupid.
[2:49:29] Speaker 4: I hate you saying aerosault a.
[2:49:32] Speaker 1: Screaming chicken half mission. Yeah, we halfed into there. Yeah,
[2:49:37] Speaker 1: so I think the news called it an airborne operation
[2:49:41] Speaker 1: there was.
[2:49:41] Speaker 2: It was uh, it was I know what website it was.
[2:49:47] Speaker 2: They said, they said that you guys jumped in.
[2:49:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was like, all right, well, if you
[2:49:51] Speaker 3: get a mustard stain on an Aerosolt badge.
[2:49:54] Speaker 1: I got a mustle standing on an Aerosolt badge. But
[2:49:56] Speaker 1: because I was eating some Glizzies. But that's it for
[2:50:01] Speaker 1: the for the young generation there these are These are
[2:50:04] Speaker 1: hot dogs. I'm explaining to you Jack Murphy, Jesus Christ.
[2:50:09] Speaker 1: By the way, I'm joking with Jack Murphy the other
[2:50:11] Speaker 1: day that he has like this action hero name Jack Murphy,
[2:50:14] Speaker 1: and now he wears this like nineteen eighties like service
[2:50:18] Speaker 1: uniform sweater in here, like he's Mac Bowling, Little Sean Conrie.
[2:50:23] Speaker 2: It's a Chad Thundercock name.
[2:50:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
[2:50:28] Speaker 2: Well I told you my guy, I know he calls
[2:50:30] Speaker 2: a Mac Bowling novels Chad Thundercock. Yeah yeah yeah, So
[2:50:36] Speaker 2: tell us about the mambage offensive time.
[2:50:40] Speaker 1: I'm not very like up to speed on that, but
[2:50:43] Speaker 1: that was. That was while I was in country and
[2:50:47] Speaker 1: we had we were, like I was saying, we were
[2:50:51] Speaker 1: roll tied down there towards uh, towards euphrates towards top
[2:50:56] Speaker 1: Claying Rock. We were moving pretty fast, steamrolling Isis, and
[2:51:02] Speaker 1: that was largely just because of that SDF. It's not
[2:51:04] Speaker 1: like I was out there like Captain Morgan with my
[2:51:07] Speaker 1: leg up in an M sixteen defeated ISAs you know,
[2:51:11] Speaker 1: I'm only talking about my contribution to the fight and
[2:51:14] Speaker 1: how I'm proud of all the people I serve with
[2:51:15] Speaker 1: that continue to contribute. But during this timeframe, I think
[2:51:23] Speaker 1: that the country of Turkey found it advantageous to start
[2:51:28] Speaker 1: to impose their will on the northern sector that was
[2:51:31] Speaker 1: under the control of the SDF. Now, Turkey has a
[2:51:34] Speaker 1: history with Kurdish forces and militants, so they they had
[2:51:43] Speaker 1: their reasons to conduct operations there, whether we agreed with
[2:51:46] Speaker 1: them those reasons or not, and we obviously did not
[2:51:50] Speaker 1: agree with those reasons, so we had sent a contingent,
[2:51:54] Speaker 1: I guess you could say of strikers with these like
[2:51:58] Speaker 1: badass America American flags on the tops of them, and yeah,
[2:52:04] Speaker 1: like like a bond in the US, They're rolling down
[2:52:10] Speaker 1: to h Man Bees and then you know, I think, honestly,
[2:52:16] Speaker 1: you know, Turkey could have really made an incident there. Oh,
[2:52:20] Speaker 1: it almost happened.
[2:52:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, it almost, it almost happened where you've got Americans
[2:52:24] Speaker 2: fighting Americans, because remember we're on both sides.
[2:52:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. It was a very politically sensitive situation, and
[2:52:36] Speaker 1: luckily something occurred where we we got to a point
[2:52:40] Speaker 1: where we were able to draw the SDP back and
[2:52:44] Speaker 1: you know, let them stay the course. But luckily enough,
[2:52:47] Speaker 1: no crazy violence had occurred in that area in terms
[2:52:51] Speaker 1: of USA on USA, blue on blue, blue on green,
[2:52:55] Speaker 1: green on blue. And that's something to take note of,
[2:52:58] Speaker 1: is that as a very complaint environment that we were
[2:53:01] Speaker 1: fighting in, we had we had points of time where
[2:53:06] Speaker 1: we were actually a couple mortar missions where we were
[2:53:12] Speaker 1: supporting FSA. We had a couple moretor missions we were
[2:53:14] Speaker 1: supporting SDF, well most of them were SDF. Then we
[2:53:18] Speaker 1: had missions where we were fighting and combating the FSA.
[2:53:24] Speaker 1: We had near peer threats, near uh near peer elements
[2:53:29] Speaker 1: within our aos that got lost. We had partner country
[2:53:35] Speaker 1: like soft that would get lost, and that luckily, they
[2:53:39] Speaker 1: were very cordial over the radio while they were getting
[2:53:43] Speaker 1: almost punished by the enemy, like pretty badly. You know,
[2:53:47] Speaker 1: there were so many lines drawn, it was like it's
[2:53:51] Speaker 1: like a Lebanon mosaic almost.
[2:53:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, incredibly complex environment and it's amazing that you guys
[2:53:57] Speaker 2: navigated it as well as you did. Don't envy any.
[2:54:01] Speaker 1: Of the people who had to manage that shit show. Yeah,
[2:54:04] Speaker 1: it's it's like much respect to a lot of people
[2:54:07] Speaker 1: who could, Like I don't even know who does that
[2:54:09] Speaker 1: kind of thing. What was that?
[2:54:11] Speaker 2: I don't know if you were involved in the sort
[2:54:14] Speaker 2: of end game, I guess you could say, but racing
[2:54:16] Speaker 2: towards Rakka and moving along with those Jaysak elements, what
[2:54:21] Speaker 2: was it like as you kind of closed that distance
[2:54:23] Speaker 2: towards that final battle?
[2:54:25] Speaker 1: Uh? I know, the ied threat became enormously a it
[2:54:28] Speaker 1: was ridiculous, and they even had they would have some
[2:54:34] Speaker 1: very creative solutions to problems that we were causing them. So,
[2:54:39] Speaker 1: I know, like they had like a dishka on a
[2:54:42] Speaker 1: hydraulic lift that they could operate from an adjacent room
[2:54:47] Speaker 1: and they could operate it with like a PlayStation controller
[2:54:52] Speaker 1: or something like that. Really yeah, and so they were
[2:54:55] Speaker 1: in a fortified position. Yeah, this hydraulic lift could be
[2:54:59] Speaker 1: able to keep that weapon system up and out a
[2:55:01] Speaker 1: window and.
[2:55:02] Speaker 4: Uh, and then did they have optics on that disco?
[2:55:05] Speaker 1: So they yeah, they had some sort of like camera
[2:55:09] Speaker 1: system or something like that. They would also have a
[2:55:12] Speaker 1: laser initiated AK forty seven that was basically like a
[2:55:17] Speaker 1: drone gun that'd be down an alleyway. You cross, you
[2:55:20] Speaker 1: break the laser, the IR laser, and this gun would
[2:55:25] Speaker 1: just start shooting at you down the alleyway and sight
[2:55:27] Speaker 1: and cclick.
[2:55:28] Speaker 4: Now, could you see that IR laser if you're wearing nods?
[2:55:32] Speaker 4: I don't know.
[2:55:33] Speaker 1: I never saw myself. I never I never encountered them
[2:55:36] Speaker 1: while they were operational. But they had a lot of
[2:55:39] Speaker 1: direct directional fragmentation chargers. They had these crush wire and
[2:55:43] Speaker 1: it would almost be like a fishing net of crush wire.
[2:55:47] Speaker 1: And crush wire is essentially like a plastic tube with
[2:55:50] Speaker 1: two wires, and you step on the plastic tube like
[2:55:53] Speaker 1: you can. The wires so thin it's hard to find
[2:55:55] Speaker 1: it with a metal detector, you know. And they would
[2:55:58] Speaker 1: like put spray adhesive, roll it and sand and now
[2:56:01] Speaker 1: it's almost like ridings perfectly wherever you're walking. And I
[2:56:05] Speaker 1: used to just tell guys like, look, you know you
[2:56:07] Speaker 1: do zero fives and twenty fives. I would say, don't
[2:56:11] Speaker 1: just do five and twenty five zero five and twenty five,
[2:56:13] Speaker 1: look straight down, look out, then look out again. And
[2:56:16] Speaker 1: I said, I don't care if you just took a
[2:56:19] Speaker 1: leak over there five minutes ago somebody crawled in there
[2:56:21] Speaker 1: and put another ied when you weren't looking. Yeah, and
[2:56:24] Speaker 1: it's like it's honestly because you weren't even looking there.
[2:56:27] Speaker 1: And they would have those things. There's like you know,
[2:56:30] Speaker 1: like those Alexa things that like are like a home
[2:56:33] Speaker 1: thing that would like detect like your body temperature and
[2:56:36] Speaker 1: they would like raise the temperature in your home or
[2:56:38] Speaker 1: they would have that like attached to it and improvise
[2:56:41] Speaker 1: explosive advice. Yeah, so you walk in a room, it
[2:56:44] Speaker 1: could tell that there was a human somewhere in the room,
[2:56:46] Speaker 1: and then they would initiate the explosive chain to destroy
[2:56:50] Speaker 1: you with an explosive.
[2:56:52] Speaker 2: The diffusion of technology when when I was in Iraq
[2:56:55] Speaker 2: two thousand and five and then later two thousand and nine,
[2:56:59] Speaker 2: the enemy had basically no access to night vision or thermals. Yeah,
[2:57:03] Speaker 2: and see how much it had changed by what twenty
[2:57:05] Speaker 2: seventeen we're talking.
[2:57:06] Speaker 4: Yeah, Well it's I mean, technology has gotten cheaper. You
[2:57:09] Speaker 4: can get it all off the shelf.
[2:57:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean if you buy you know,
[2:57:13] Speaker 3: a motion sensor, yeah right, send it to uh Amazon,
[2:57:16] Speaker 3: Dot s wire or whatever series and you know what
[2:57:19] Speaker 3: I mean.
[2:57:19] Speaker 4: And and get a ring motion sensor.
[2:57:22] Speaker 1: Wheah.
[2:57:23] Speaker 4: You know it's that you could that completes the loop.
[2:57:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they would have like a dump the
[2:57:29] Speaker 1: hydraulic lift of a dump truck to increase the elevation
[2:57:34] Speaker 1: on a cannon that shot cannonballs. They try to shoot
[2:57:37] Speaker 1: cannonballs at people. They would like have like a bunch
[2:57:41] Speaker 1: of mad Max stuff, like these mad Max vehicles that
[2:57:44] Speaker 1: were weighted down with a bunch of armored They would
[2:57:46] Speaker 1: have like everyone abrams that you would see that I
[2:57:49] Speaker 1: guess maybe they possessed from Fallujah that they stole from
[2:57:52] Speaker 1: the Iraqi military. They would have Russian series armored vehicles.
[2:57:58] Speaker 1: Some of the vehicles would have like like an extra
[2:58:01] Speaker 1: bird cage on it with a bunch of sand bags
[2:58:04] Speaker 1: put place in the bird cage for added armor. And
[2:58:07] Speaker 1: that was like a funny thing. I was always told
[2:58:09] Speaker 1: that a mortar can't destroy like a T eight or
[2:58:11] Speaker 1: something like that, and then I realized that if you
[2:58:13] Speaker 1: smack the ship out of a Russian tank enough, the
[2:58:17] Speaker 1: or one or once or twice. The the armor is
[2:58:20] Speaker 1: pretty strong, but like the brackets are not good enough
[2:58:24] Speaker 1: for how heavy it is the armor is, and then
[2:58:26] Speaker 1: like the armor would just fall off and then you
[2:58:29] Speaker 1: can just smack it again. Like unless you keyhold that thing.
[2:58:32] Speaker 1: It was like pretty much a sure shot. But yeah,
[2:58:35] Speaker 1: there was all kinds of cool. So I got to
[2:58:38] Speaker 1: be use some ingenuity, Like I built a trigger for
[2:58:44] Speaker 1: a S Big nine out of a nine volt battery,
[2:58:47] Speaker 1: and to make it more consistent, I attached the wires
[2:58:50] Speaker 1: that went to the nine bolt battery to a light switch.
[2:58:53] Speaker 1: So now I could like take a little light switch
[2:58:55] Speaker 1: you have in your house to fire a rocket from
[2:59:00] Speaker 1: a recoidless rifle. Yeah, so that was like pretty cool,
[2:59:03] Speaker 1: and yeah, you know I started thinking, like, you know,
[2:59:04] Speaker 1: I could probably put this on the roof, run the wire, Yeah,
[2:59:06] Speaker 1: be in the basement and fire it and they think
[2:59:08] Speaker 1: I'm up there. I started thinking of all types of
[2:59:10] Speaker 1: stuff that I never got to do with it, but
[2:59:13] Speaker 1: you know, I got to shoot many vehicles with it,
[2:59:16] Speaker 1: and it was pretty interesting too to have like this
[2:59:20] Speaker 1: full fledge like Plathora of different ways to go about warfare,
[2:59:25] Speaker 1: And to me it was not necessarily are gonna are
[2:59:28] Speaker 1: Goulda killed the bad guys. It was like, man, there's
[2:59:30] Speaker 1: like a chess game. Yeah, it's like a really good
[2:59:32] Speaker 1: chess game. I was becoming really into the tacticians and
[2:59:37] Speaker 1: the tactical side and the maneuver piece and not just
[2:59:40] Speaker 1: like because I was like, dude, I'm I'm the quarterback.
[2:59:43] Speaker 1: I'm in I'm in the seat right now. I'm I'm
[2:59:46] Speaker 1: running this gun line in real time and destroying a
[2:59:49] Speaker 1: bunch of enemy guys. And I know my comrades that
[2:59:54] Speaker 1: are on other teams are doing the same thing because
[2:59:57] Speaker 1: we trained together, and I you know, trust that they're
[2:59:59] Speaker 1: able to gauge at a level of sufficiency that I am.
[3:00:03] Speaker 1: And you know that's not isolated to third bet. That's
[3:00:08] Speaker 1: you know, sharing information across the Battalion's not withholding information,
[3:00:12] Speaker 1: no competitiveness, looking at it holistically, like we need to
[3:00:15] Speaker 1: come together and get a good plan. And because any
[3:00:18] Speaker 1: one of us can screw this up where they say
[3:00:22] Speaker 1: we don't like those guys, because it doesn't matter what
[3:00:26] Speaker 1: battalion come from. You're just rangers. And if one of
[3:00:29] Speaker 1: our mortar platoons screws it up, you know, it's like, dude,
[3:00:32] Speaker 1: we can't screw it up. We get it. So we
[3:00:33] Speaker 1: held each other accountable less.
[3:00:35] Speaker 2: I mean, you came off of a pretty like epic
[3:00:38] Speaker 2: deployment to Syria. I mean got to do I mean
[3:00:43] Speaker 2: living the dream from everything you're telling me, I mean
[3:00:45] Speaker 2: pretty badass, exactly what every guy hopes they get to do,
[3:00:49] Speaker 2: especially dude in the Ranger Regiment. Came home, got in
[3:00:52] Speaker 2: some trouble. You know, you did eleven years in the army,
[3:00:57] Speaker 2: didn't really leave on the terms you'd like to you know,
[3:01:01] Speaker 2: the term were using in the range of regiment in
[3:01:03] Speaker 2: rfs or vues for standards, So you were open to
[3:01:06] Speaker 2: talking about that that you'd like to talk about that
[3:01:08] Speaker 2: a little bit, okay, And what happened.
[3:01:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, So I had one more deployment to Syria after
[3:01:14] Speaker 1: that one, and then I was just to bring it
[3:01:17] Speaker 1: up to speed to the pointment RFEST. I then I
[3:01:22] Speaker 1: went after my next applotment of Syria, came home. I
[3:01:25] Speaker 1: went through divorce and so that was like definitely not
[3:01:28] Speaker 1: a good vibe. And then I went and we did
[3:01:32] Speaker 1: our m LAT and on the m LAT third Battalion,
[3:01:35] Speaker 1: I jumped out of the bird and uh we went
[3:01:38] Speaker 1: into the trees like our whole chalk went into the
[3:01:40] Speaker 1: trees and I hurt my back. It was a tree landing.
[3:01:44] Speaker 1: I tried to climb down. I ended up falling off
[3:01:46] Speaker 1: the reserve parachute and fell like from a very very
[3:01:49] Speaker 1: high distance, like hit the ground, hit the ground so
[3:01:53] Speaker 1: hard I broke I jumped my radios. I had a
[3:01:57] Speaker 1: one five two, one four eight, and I broke them
[3:02:00] Speaker 1: both on impact. And then I had also my my
[3:02:05] Speaker 1: leg had went backwards and I tore my pcl in
[3:02:09] Speaker 1: that and so, like Charlie might, completed that operation uh
[3:02:17] Speaker 1: training mission, and then I was like, man, like I'm
[3:02:22] Speaker 1: my back hurts. I got this all these bruises all
[3:02:24] Speaker 1: over my back, like I don't know, and I'm like
[3:02:26] Speaker 1: toughing it out. And like while I'm going through that,
[3:02:29] Speaker 1: I get a phone call from the Sergeant major at
[3:02:32] Speaker 1: First Battalion to my personal phone and he says, Hey,
[3:02:37] Speaker 1: we just lost our mortar platoon sergeant, and I need
[3:02:40] Speaker 1: you to come to one seven five, And so I
[3:02:44] Speaker 1: agreed to go there because you couldn't tell him no.
[3:02:46] Speaker 1: But I was also injured, and I was like whatever,
[3:02:50] Speaker 1: I'm just gonna and like going through like the rest
[3:02:55] Speaker 1: of the training cycle and then getting all the way
[3:02:57] Speaker 1: over to one seven five from three seven five with
[3:03:01] Speaker 1: that torn PCL was very hard. So anyway, like while
[3:03:05] Speaker 1: I was there at once in five finally get there,
[3:03:09] Speaker 1: and while I was there for like a short period
[3:03:11] Speaker 1: of time, it might only been there for four or
[3:03:15] Speaker 1: five months. And in twenty nineteen and I, uh, I
[3:03:23] Speaker 1: got pulled over by a police officer. He immediately came
[3:03:27] Speaker 1: up to my car, asked me exit the vehicle, everything
[3:03:30] Speaker 1: like that, immediately put me in cuffs. Everything went through
[3:03:33] Speaker 1: this whole ordeal that like, hey, you have a DUI
[3:03:36] Speaker 1: or d u I less safe because the state of Georgia,
[3:03:38] Speaker 1: if you blow a point oh one, you still get
[3:03:40] Speaker 1: a dy less safe because they deem you like, hey,
[3:03:43] Speaker 1: you didn't turn on your blinker, so you're too drunk
[3:03:46] Speaker 1: even though you're a point oh one, you know, but
[3:03:49] Speaker 1: that wasn't the case with me. The guy kind of
[3:03:51] Speaker 1: sat in an area where he could kind of fabricate things.
[3:03:55] Speaker 1: And so the painful process of all this is like
[3:03:59] Speaker 1: me sitting there going dude, I didn't do anything wrong,
[3:04:02] Speaker 1: and I had to sit in jail for an extended
[3:04:04] Speaker 1: period of time. It might say extended period of time.
[3:04:07] Speaker 1: It was like, well over twelve hours, almost eighteen.
[3:04:10] Speaker 4: Hours, And now what was the promise that he rushed
[3:04:12] Speaker 4: you for? Are do UI less.
[3:04:14] Speaker 1: Say a d UI less safe? So in the state
[3:04:15] Speaker 1: of George like most states, it's like a point oh
[3:04:18] Speaker 1: eight limit for alcohol in Georgia a less safe. And
[3:04:23] Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, you know, but from what I
[3:04:26] Speaker 1: understood it as I went through this process, was like,
[3:04:28] Speaker 1: even if you blew a point oh one and they
[3:04:30] Speaker 1: just said, well, you swerved out of the lane. So
[3:04:33] Speaker 1: even though you're point on one, point oh one is
[3:04:35] Speaker 1: enough to make you not safe to draw?
[3:04:38] Speaker 4: And what was his reason for like pulling you over
[3:04:40] Speaker 4: to begin with?
[3:04:41] Speaker 1: He said that I did not stop at the stop
[3:04:44] Speaker 1: sign before executing a left turn, which wasn't true, especially
[3:04:49] Speaker 1: according to the video footage and every all the other
[3:04:51] Speaker 1: evidence that came to light because there was actual intersection
[3:04:55] Speaker 1: footage as well as well. And anyway, I you know,
[3:05:00] Speaker 1: I got sent and I like, I'm totally cool talking
[3:05:03] Speaker 1: about this because I know there's a story like this
[3:05:07] Speaker 1: across every generation Ranger, probably like two or three. It's
[3:05:10] Speaker 1: like some more more there's like some legit like RFSs
[3:05:14] Speaker 1: that go down and don't get me wrong, like you
[3:05:16] Speaker 1: got rfess and you don't want me in the organization, fine,
[3:05:19] Speaker 1: release me for standard or asked me to leave politely.
[3:05:21] Speaker 1: But there was nothing polite about this, to be honest.
[3:05:23] Speaker 3: So let's let's preface this real quick, that that rfs
[3:05:27] Speaker 3: is released for standards at Ranger Battalion or Ranger Regiment,
[3:05:31] Speaker 3: and there are reasons if a guy has a neglige discharge,
[3:05:34] Speaker 3: there are reasons that people get RFS. But one of
[3:05:37] Speaker 3: the really weird things the regiment has always had because
[3:05:41] Speaker 3: of the no hooligans, no brigands type of clause with
[3:05:44] Speaker 3: the leadership, is that if you are in a drinking
[3:05:47] Speaker 3: related incident, which means that if you've had a drop
[3:05:51] Speaker 3: of alcohol and something happens you get in a fight
[3:05:57] Speaker 3: when it didn't even have to be your fault if
[3:05:58] Speaker 3: it started, if you had to drop of alcohol and
[3:06:01] Speaker 3: you get pulled over or you get fired or whatever else,
[3:06:04] Speaker 3: you won't be released for.
[3:06:05] Speaker 2: Well even then though it doesn't like released for standards
[3:06:08] Speaker 2: unless you're like an E seven or anything.
[3:06:10] Speaker 4: Right, right, it's right, it's for Joe, not for yeah.
[3:06:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, And the except I was the exception of role
[3:06:17] Speaker 1: because I was a E seven and The thing is
[3:06:19] Speaker 1: is like, so I get put in this scenario where
[3:06:22] Speaker 1: I get put in a suitability board. You got Q
[3:06:25] Speaker 1: and P, right, Yeah, I got a permanent gomar for this,
[3:06:29] Speaker 1: And there were and I felt really frustrated because I
[3:06:33] Speaker 1: noticed that there were several other members within my organization
[3:06:36] Speaker 1: that received us roughly around the same time I did,
[3:06:38] Speaker 1: and they actually you know, pled to a lesser charge,
[3:06:41] Speaker 1: went to court and they would get like these like
[3:06:46] Speaker 1: no r f S, r f S, no gomar or FS,
[3:06:50] Speaker 1: no Gomar or RFS locally filed gomar. Me. It was
[3:06:55] Speaker 1: like RFS permanent.
[3:06:57] Speaker 2: Threw the book at you.
[3:06:58] Speaker 1: Now, it might not have been a personal thing. It
[3:07:00] Speaker 1: might have been because this platoon when I arrived there
[3:07:03] Speaker 1: was like in pretty bad shape. They were already investigation
[3:07:07] Speaker 1: for hazing, and half the platoon was liquidated as a
[3:07:10] Speaker 1: part of that investigation.
[3:07:12] Speaker 2: And correct me if I misunderstood. Were you brought in
[3:07:16] Speaker 2: because the previous platoon sergeant was fired or he was killed?
[3:07:21] Speaker 1: Recipient? Oh my god, Okay, yeah, so definitely there's guys
[3:07:25] Speaker 1: that highly revered. This guy I respected. And the crazy
[3:07:29] Speaker 1: thing about this guy, you know, Crystalize, wasn't even more
[3:07:33] Speaker 1: guys the twelve Bravo, and so they come in and
[3:07:36] Speaker 1: like as a non eleven series and gain the respect.
[3:07:40] Speaker 1: Like I never met Crystalize, but it's like, obviously this
[3:07:43] Speaker 1: guy like touched a lot of lives here, very respected.
[3:07:47] Speaker 1: So like me, I'm like, I don't want to let
[3:07:48] Speaker 1: this guy down. So it's like another kick in the
[3:07:50] Speaker 1: teeth for me is being like, man, I really screwed
[3:07:53] Speaker 1: up coming over here because I you know, I failed
[3:07:56] Speaker 1: at what I thought I was gonna do. And so
[3:07:59] Speaker 1: I went through this process and I got my knee surgery.
[3:08:03] Speaker 1: I was like, dude, I have to get the knees.
[3:08:05] Speaker 1: I can't just range you on. I'm just like screwed,
[3:08:08] Speaker 1: Like I'm out of here, Like okay, I can't operate
[3:08:11] Speaker 1: with the rest of the guys. They're kind of excluding me.
[3:08:13] Speaker 1: You're becoming the this diseased thing now in the battalion
[3:08:18] Speaker 1: where now people like are almost pretending not to know you,
[3:08:21] Speaker 1: right and yeah, and what and what sucked was? You know,
[3:08:27] Speaker 1: I'm I'm the RFS guy. I'm the guy who's only
[3:08:30] Speaker 1: been in this battalion for a few months. How many
[3:08:32] Speaker 1: people know me there? You know, once a five three five,
[3:08:36] Speaker 1: they're gonna walk into any room, this one, it's like,
[3:08:38] Speaker 1: you know, they see me coming, It's like shut the
[3:08:40] Speaker 1: shutters because he's the RFS disease guy. And I'm not
[3:08:43] Speaker 1: the exception to the rule. There's a lot of people
[3:08:45] Speaker 1: that have walked that same path. So I'm only explaining
[3:08:48] Speaker 1: what I went through, and I'm not saying woe is me,
[3:08:50] Speaker 1: because in fact, I actually found the at the end
[3:08:54] Speaker 1: of the road of where I was is a very
[3:08:56] Speaker 1: empowering experience of what I ended up going through because
[3:09:01] Speaker 1: I got my knee surgery. They took after my knee surgery,
[3:09:04] Speaker 1: they took away my driving privileges, so I had to
[3:09:07] Speaker 1: park my car off post at a grocery store. Many
[3:09:11] Speaker 1: times I was able to get somebody to give me
[3:09:13] Speaker 1: a lift onto the base, but many times I would
[3:09:18] Speaker 1: have to crutch from the grocery store to the front gate,
[3:09:21] Speaker 1: hand my d card to the guard, put it back
[3:09:24] Speaker 1: in my pocket, and then continued to crutch all the
[3:09:26] Speaker 1: way to our ao. And it was roughly, I don't know,
[3:09:29] Speaker 1: maybe about three miles, so like one mile to the
[3:09:31] Speaker 1: gate from the grocery store, maybe, and then another two
[3:09:33] Speaker 1: miles like give or take. I don't really know.
[3:09:35] Speaker 4: They so the police didn't take your drivers on it,
[3:09:37] Speaker 4: the driving privileges.
[3:09:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, the the US Army took my base driving. I
[3:09:42] Speaker 1: never saw a day in court. The people in like
[3:09:46] Speaker 1: the state court said dude, you don't have a DY
[3:09:48] Speaker 1: and they screwed this up like there was no even
[3:09:50] Speaker 1: probable cause.
[3:09:52] Speaker 2: So what was the army's rationale? What did they tell you?
[3:09:54] Speaker 1: They said, you did not submit to a breathalyzer. And
[3:09:58] Speaker 1: I said, here's why.
[3:09:59] Speaker 2: I didn't explain to me how that's against.
[3:10:02] Speaker 1: Because well, I never got us.
[3:10:04] Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying.
[3:10:05] Speaker 1: They never gave me U cum j action, but they
[3:10:07] Speaker 1: gave me a permanent GOMAR, which is funny because usually
[3:10:09] Speaker 1: you get both. So and when people don't know a
[3:10:14] Speaker 1: permanent a GOMAR is a general officer memorandum of reprimand.
[3:10:18] Speaker 2: It's a career killer.
[3:10:19] Speaker 1: It's a career killer. It goes in your permanent file,
[3:10:22] Speaker 1: a permanent and if you're like an E seven or whatever,
[3:10:24] Speaker 1: it's just like sorry, you're done, you're getting out right.
[3:10:27] Speaker 1: And not only that, there's no due process for writing gomar.
[3:10:31] Speaker 1: You don't get a stand and be like sir, like
[3:10:34] Speaker 1: they it's their choice if they want to read your
[3:10:36] Speaker 1: piece of paper that an aid will give to the general,
[3:10:39] Speaker 1: and the aid is probably not even hinted to them.
[3:10:42] Speaker 1: Just stamp, stamp. It's like, hey, make five of them permanent,
[3:10:45] Speaker 1: make the rest non permanent. You never know what they're choosing.
[3:10:48] Speaker 1: I don't know how the processes. I've never sat on
[3:10:50] Speaker 1: the other side of that desk, but you know, I
[3:10:53] Speaker 1: was frustrated. I was like, dude, this guy's an ale
[3:10:55] Speaker 1: man like, hey, sacrifice, I go back in time. I'm like, man,
[3:10:59] Speaker 1: you know.
[3:11:00] Speaker 4: Like do I name the general.
[3:11:04] Speaker 1: Because we can, Like, well, it's what ends up happening later.
[3:11:08] Speaker 1: It's like interesting, but like I you know, I didn't
[3:11:11] Speaker 1: cover this earlier, Like my dad died later on, and
[3:11:14] Speaker 1: I go, man, I sacrifice that. I could have gone
[3:11:16] Speaker 1: up the two seven five, spent some time in my dad,
[3:11:18] Speaker 1: but like selfish platoon sergeant made me come over to
[3:11:20] Speaker 1: his platoon the three seven five, and like, you know,
[3:11:22] Speaker 1: I recycled because of that, and I still stuck with
[3:11:25] Speaker 1: it and stuck with the Rangers, even though that was
[3:11:27] Speaker 1: a very disrespectful thing, and I think that they did.
[3:11:30] Speaker 1: I didn't hold a grudge against them, but now the
[3:11:32] Speaker 1: grudge comes back, Like now I regret that decision because
[3:11:36] Speaker 1: you're doing this to me, and you're like, you don't
[3:11:38] Speaker 1: realize what I sacrifice and you're taking this from me.
[3:11:40] Speaker 1: And part of it was I had this attachment with
[3:11:42] Speaker 1: being a ranger and being like I got the laser,
[3:11:45] Speaker 1: I got the nuts, I got the helmet. It's like, dude,
[3:11:48] Speaker 1: that's not who you are. There's something that you did
[3:11:51] Speaker 1: and it's great, and you can be proud of it
[3:11:52] Speaker 1: and everything, but that's not like it's almost like they
[3:11:55] Speaker 1: killed you. They took your soul from you when you
[3:11:58] Speaker 1: did that, because you put your soul into it, and
[3:12:00] Speaker 1: that's kind of like the bad thing about that is
[3:12:02] Speaker 1: you put everything into it. And so I had to
[3:12:04] Speaker 1: like take this freaking vision quest man. And a part
[3:12:07] Speaker 1: of like what I did to try to like tread
[3:12:10] Speaker 1: water when I was there at one seven five was
[3:12:13] Speaker 1: like I started to kind of get a little bit
[3:12:15] Speaker 1: better with my knee where I could kind of rehabit
[3:12:17] Speaker 1: and stuff while I was there, and I was there
[3:12:21] Speaker 1: almost like another six months after Yeah, after the decision
[3:12:26] Speaker 1: down came down to rfense really yeah, until I got
[3:12:29] Speaker 1: my orders and then acted on those orders. Because another
[3:12:32] Speaker 1: thing they cheat chat if you're getting RFST and you
[3:12:35] Speaker 1: don't want to report, don't report as early as possible,
[3:12:39] Speaker 1: report late, collect all your specially special pay before you
[3:12:43] Speaker 1: go to the next step. Because that's that was my
[3:12:45] Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm gonna get all my special pay.
[3:12:47] Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep getting my demo pay and keeping it.
[3:12:49] Speaker 1: That was like my things. So I'm gonna wait till
[3:12:50] Speaker 1: last minute to report to my next duty station. And
[3:12:53] Speaker 1: also in order to hunt the good stuff, you know.
[3:12:58] Speaker 1: I was like, dude, I am worthless and everybody is.
[3:13:02] Speaker 1: I feel like everyone's against me and everyone's telling me
[3:13:04] Speaker 1: I'm worthless. I'm gonna go where I'm appreciated. So I
[3:13:07] Speaker 1: coached a high school wrestling team in Savannah, and I
[3:13:10] Speaker 1: coached a wrestling program that was from kindergarten on up
[3:13:14] Speaker 1: to twelve to middle schooler. So I basically was doing
[3:13:18] Speaker 1: kindergarten all the way up to seniors in high school.
[3:13:21] Speaker 1: And and I remember like at one of the one
[3:13:25] Speaker 1: of the points, like my team versus the battalion commander's
[3:13:29] Speaker 1: kids team, and my guy just smoked the battalion commander's kid.
[3:13:33] Speaker 9: Yes, you know, you know, but like at the end
[3:13:38] Speaker 9: of the season, you know, like like I mean, there's
[3:13:42] Speaker 9: a lot of good moments there.
[3:13:43] Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'm getting a lot like in
[3:13:45] Speaker 1: this moment where I'm like regretting service to the Ranger
[3:13:48] Speaker 1: regiment because at the time, like I don't regret it anymore,
[3:13:51] Speaker 1: but at the time, like, yeah, I'm very jaded, like well,
[3:13:53] Speaker 1: I'm good this to me, you know, that's my whole
[3:13:56] Speaker 1: identity whatever, And I was I might have said some
[3:13:58] Speaker 1: inappropriate things the guys. I know, my own guys probably
[3:14:00] Speaker 1: thought I was being like a surpuss. And I'm very
[3:14:03] Speaker 1: sorry if I said inappropriate things to people. I'm sure
[3:14:05] Speaker 1: I did. I for the most part, I did handle
[3:14:08] Speaker 1: every situation quite professionally or at least held my tongue.
[3:14:13] Speaker 1: And I would just dive into these like you know,
[3:14:16] Speaker 1: going in after work at like nineteen hundred to wrestling
[3:14:20] Speaker 1: practice and you know, wrestling with these dudes and be like, yeah,
[3:14:23] Speaker 1: I can't bend my knee, but I can show you
[3:14:24] Speaker 1: this thing and like mentor you and get you to
[3:14:27] Speaker 1: where you need to be. And you know, by the
[3:14:31] Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I got a blind kid to
[3:14:33] Speaker 1: win his first tournament. Wow, and his parents were like
[3:14:36] Speaker 1: hugging me and like crying like I can't believe it,
[3:14:39] Speaker 1: you know that this is he's never been able to
[3:14:41] Speaker 1: do this, you know. And like U there was like
[3:14:44] Speaker 1: a little girl and the like on the little kids
[3:14:47] Speaker 1: team that was like, you know, everybody like you know,
[3:14:50] Speaker 1: they ignore me because I'm a girl, but you didn't care.
[3:14:52] Speaker 1: You saw me as a wrestler and you taught me
[3:14:54] Speaker 1: how to wrestle with you know, my body type, my physique,
[3:14:57] Speaker 1: and how to beat people. And she would winning, you know,
[3:15:01] Speaker 1: and you know, I went through this whole thing and
[3:15:03] Speaker 1: by the end of the season, like I remember there
[3:15:07] Speaker 1: being like a couple of guys from the battalion there
[3:15:10] Speaker 1: that have kids that are in the wrestling tournament and
[3:15:12] Speaker 1: it was my last tournament the season. Because these guys
[3:15:15] Speaker 1: knew my you know, other guys on the team, other
[3:15:19] Speaker 1: coaches on the team, they knew and I didn't have
[3:15:21] Speaker 1: any kids. They knew I'm just toll selfless act, you know,
[3:15:26] Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, he's getting r fest. He's got
[3:15:28] Speaker 1: to go over to this other unit. And so like
[3:15:32] Speaker 1: kids that weren't even on my team at the end
[3:15:34] Speaker 1: of the season, like coach less, coach less, coach less,
[3:15:37] Speaker 1: like cheering, you know, and it was like it's pretty
[3:15:40] Speaker 1: cool because like I don't know, I felt like I
[3:15:43] Speaker 1: felt like shit, yeah, and it was like you kids
[3:15:46] Speaker 1: think that like I'm doing you a favor, but like at.
[3:15:50] Speaker 10: The time, I was like, you guys are keeping me,
[3:15:52] Speaker 10: like helping me keep it together, right, you know, And
[3:15:56] Speaker 10: it was it was a pretty intense moment obviously, like
[3:15:58] Speaker 10: I'm showing the motion right now regarding that because it
[3:16:01] Speaker 10: still resonates with me as a very powerful moment.
[3:16:04] Speaker 1: And then yeah, I got I got RFS and it
[3:16:09] Speaker 1: was a long drive. It's like like like driving and
[3:16:14] Speaker 1: just leaving, leaving Savannah, and I'm like, dude, I hope
[3:16:21] Speaker 1: I never have to come back to Savannah again. And
[3:16:24] Speaker 1: it's like I can't even live in Savannah because I'll
[3:16:25] Speaker 1: see that freaking parade. You know. I think there's like
[3:16:29] Speaker 1: one seventy five guys in the parade. Like I'll be mad.
[3:16:32] Speaker 1: You know, that's all since changed, but that's the way
[3:16:35] Speaker 1: I felt at that moment, like, dude, I hope I
[3:16:37] Speaker 1: never had to see this place because it was like
[3:16:38] Speaker 1: I felt betrayed, you know. I felt like they they
[3:16:42] Speaker 1: took a future that was promised.
[3:16:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that you showed up there that you went
[3:16:46] Speaker 3: down there and then because you didn't have the report,
[3:16:50] Speaker 3: because you didn't have the history there, that you had
[3:16:52] Speaker 3: a three someome five, yeah, that you just got thrown
[3:16:55] Speaker 3: under the bus with without consideration.
[3:16:57] Speaker 1: It seems like. Yeah. So I drove all the way
[3:17:01] Speaker 1: to Kansas and it was snowing, and it was crazy
[3:17:06] Speaker 1: because it was like here, I am, like this depressed
[3:17:08] Speaker 1: mess driving through the snow, and I'm driving through the
[3:17:15] Speaker 1: Super Bowl Parade of the Kansas City Chiefs and everyone's
[3:17:18] Speaker 1: like yeah, and I'm like, oh, I hurt my life,
[3:17:22] Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I'm like, should have known.
[3:17:25] Speaker 1: I'm a mortar. This is supposed to happen, you know,
[3:17:28] Speaker 1: Like that's kind of like all these random conversations I
[3:17:31] Speaker 1: was having with myself all the way in processing my unit,
[3:17:35] Speaker 1: and man, I get over to first Infantry Division and
[3:17:42] Speaker 1: I'm going to an armored brigade combat team. I'm going
[3:17:44] Speaker 1: to be in tanks and Bradley's and stuff with them,
[3:17:47] Speaker 1: supporting them with the mortar. And I'm like, this is
[3:17:50] Speaker 1: way out of my wheelhouse. And while I'm improcessing, another
[3:17:54] Speaker 1: buddy of mine that I went through rast with is
[3:17:56] Speaker 1: killed as an attachment to an and uh, I'm like
[3:18:03] Speaker 1: losing it while I'm going through because I'm already depressed
[3:18:06] Speaker 1: from like everything was like change reaction in my life
[3:18:09] Speaker 1: at that point. It's like, oh, look, I have a
[3:18:11] Speaker 1: career ending injury that I try to, you know, muscle through,
[3:18:14] Speaker 1: and by muscling through it, nobody cared about like that
[3:18:18] Speaker 1: willpower that I had to muscle through that. I went
[3:18:20] Speaker 1: through a divorce, I went through getting RFS and like, oh, hey,
[3:18:26] Speaker 1: you know, like you're disposed of and now like another
[3:18:28] Speaker 1: one of my buddies is killed and I'm not a
[3:18:32] Speaker 1: part of any special operations unit. I'm like and then
[3:18:34] Speaker 1: you're almost like feel like, man if I didn't screw
[3:18:36] Speaker 1: that up, and I'm you know, I'm trying to be
[3:18:39] Speaker 1: accountable for myself, Like how can I be accountable for myself?
[3:18:42] Speaker 1: And like the answer keeps rising, Like, dude, there was
[3:18:46] Speaker 1: nothing you could do in that situation, right, there's nothing
[3:18:48] Speaker 1: you do, Like, you didn't drink, you didn't drive, right,
[3:18:51] Speaker 1: someone pulled you over and they placed.
[3:18:54] Speaker 2: Your handcuffs because they're trying to meet a quota.
[3:18:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, and they placed your handcuffs, put you in the
[3:18:58] Speaker 1: back of the car, and then your unit.
[3:18:59] Speaker 4: Fuck you because they're.
[3:19:00] Speaker 1: Just because because there's like, well, he says, the company
[3:19:05] Speaker 1: commander says, this is zero tolerance policy. I was like,
[3:19:08] Speaker 1: there's no zero tolerance policy. And in fact, in the
[3:19:10] Speaker 1: blue book because really like three and a half times
[3:19:13] Speaker 1: it says it says maybe are fess not must, may
[3:19:20] Speaker 1: doesn't say must. The wording is very clear inside of
[3:19:23] Speaker 1: this blue book, and it is up to you. You
[3:19:25] Speaker 1: may are affest me. That's one hundred percent up to you.
[3:19:29] Speaker 1: But I would like you to give me the benefit
[3:19:31] Speaker 1: of down and see how this plays out and allow
[3:19:33] Speaker 1: me to continue as a noncommissioned officer, senior non commission
[3:19:36] Speaker 1: offer in this organization. I think I can make it
[3:19:38] Speaker 1: a better place, you know what I mean. And ultimately
[3:19:43] Speaker 1: that company commander his words, pretty much verbatim, were the
[3:19:47] Speaker 1: decisions of the Court of Georgia had no impact on
[3:19:51] Speaker 1: my human resources decision.
[3:19:55] Speaker 4: Wow and so wow.
[3:19:58] Speaker 2: So after they asked you to be there, yeah, they
[3:20:02] Speaker 2: like they didn't want you there.
[3:20:03] Speaker 1: I felt like it was like, man, I was like,
[3:20:05] Speaker 1: never here now did? I felt like it did make
[3:20:07] Speaker 1: a small impact. While I was there. I did a
[3:20:09] Speaker 1: couple of training events. I did show some guys like
[3:20:12] Speaker 1: some things and you know, a lot of things that
[3:20:14] Speaker 1: you teach, a lot of things that you do, they
[3:20:16] Speaker 1: don't last. They don't like. A new guy comes in,
[3:20:19] Speaker 1: he doesn't like the way you do it. Hey, that's stupid. Whatever,
[3:20:21] Speaker 1: that's fine. But I felt like I was making an impact.
[3:20:24] Speaker 1: And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I felt like
[3:20:26] Speaker 1: I was making some headway there. And I was a
[3:20:28] Speaker 1: very positive leader, understanding the situation that was coming into
[3:20:31] Speaker 1: and understanding that it wasn't the most ideal situation for
[3:20:34] Speaker 1: a platoon sergeant to walk into or senior not commissioned officer.
[3:20:38] Speaker 1: So yeah, I get over there to Kansas, and man,
[3:20:44] Speaker 1: it's like almost immediately after, you know, my buddy dies
[3:20:47] Speaker 1: and COVID nineteen lockdown happens, and that the military response
[3:20:52] Speaker 1: was super difficult to navigate as an NCO, as an
[3:20:58] Speaker 1: NCO that has already gone through, you know, as an
[3:21:02] Speaker 1: NCO who has no idea what an armored brigade combat
[3:21:06] Speaker 1: team is or does, and being like, dude, I don't
[3:21:09] Speaker 1: know what a Bradley is, you know, I don't know
[3:21:11] Speaker 1: what a ten sixty four is, Like I don't know
[3:21:13] Speaker 1: what any of this stuff is, you know, I don't
[3:21:15] Speaker 1: know how your mortars are comprised of. Like I walked
[3:21:17] Speaker 1: into the wrong building and trying to improcess my my squadron,
[3:21:22] Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, I don't even know
[3:21:24] Speaker 1: it was a squadron, Like this is called a squadron, Okay,
[3:21:27] Speaker 1: this is this is the company. No, it's a true
[3:21:30] Speaker 1: you know, it's like stuff like that. I was like, dude,
[3:21:31] Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what any of this means. Really,
[3:21:35] Speaker 1: I wasn't I had a tunnel vision. I was a
[3:21:38] Speaker 1: ranger and that was my future and that's everything I
[3:21:40] Speaker 1: dedicated to. And so then it became like this thing
[3:21:43] Speaker 1: like wow, man, this is actually kind of pretty interesting
[3:21:45] Speaker 1: because now, like I know, when I was in processing
[3:21:48] Speaker 1: that squadron, all senior non commissioned officers have to stand
[3:21:52] Speaker 1: before the squadron commander and have a conversation. I'm standing
[3:21:55] Speaker 1: there pre race. I looked down. I see etched on
[3:21:59] Speaker 1: the and like a plaque kind of thing on the desk.
[3:22:01] Speaker 1: It's like, this is the same desk General pet and
[3:22:05] Speaker 1: sad At when he was at this unit, was on
[3:22:08] Speaker 1: the desk. Man it could be bs, but at the
[3:22:11] Speaker 1: time I believed it. But you go out in the
[3:22:13] Speaker 1: hallway where it says like previous commanders like Roberty Lee
[3:22:15] Speaker 1: was like the first commander of that unit. I was like,
[3:22:18] Speaker 1: all right, there's lineage here. You don't have to think
[3:22:21] Speaker 1: like this is trash, like right, the brainwashing that we
[3:22:24] Speaker 1: get that, like there's like stages to the brainwashing, Like
[3:22:29] Speaker 1: every other unit is trash and insignificant. Every unit should
[3:22:33] Speaker 1: be a ranger unit and do it like us, right,
[3:22:35] Speaker 1: and then like every company is trash. Our company is
[3:22:40] Speaker 1: the best. Every platoon is tring it all the way
[3:22:42] Speaker 1: down to squad and team. Right, That's kind of how
[3:22:44] Speaker 1: it is. And it's like, hey, man, get rid of that.
[3:22:47] Speaker 1: This is where you are now. I'm like, how do
[3:22:48] Speaker 1: I make this kind of cool? And it was kind
[3:22:50] Speaker 1: of funny because like you know, like Fury didn't come
[3:22:53] Speaker 1: out that much like before that, before that incident, you know,
[3:22:57] Speaker 1: this whole event that happened, and I'm like, oh, you know,
[3:23:00] Speaker 1: like there's cool stuff like stories about it. Let me
[3:23:03] Speaker 1: look at what this unit has done over the years.
[3:23:05] Speaker 1: And it kind of delved into that and I was
[3:23:07] Speaker 1: kind of getting into and what sucked is like you
[3:23:12] Speaker 1: didn't really get a train that much because of COVID
[3:23:14] Speaker 1: nineteen and yeah, stuff like hey, the answers were always ridiculous, like, hey,
[3:23:19] Speaker 1: you half half the troop come in and then the
[3:23:21] Speaker 1: other half at home, and then you guys switch, but
[3:23:23] Speaker 1: sanitized before the other guys come because you don't want
[3:23:25] Speaker 1: to give your germs to them. Okay, now we gotta
[3:23:27] Speaker 1: go down eight people. Okay, only three people can do
[3:23:29] Speaker 1: PT at a time, So you need to come into
[3:23:32] Speaker 1: work and and PT one soldier at a time in
[3:23:35] Speaker 1: your platoon and make sure he's doing PT. And then
[3:23:38] Speaker 1: guys go do the go do the PT test. So
[3:23:41] Speaker 1: go do a pizza. Bring one guy at a time
[3:23:42] Speaker 1: to run around the track.
[3:23:44] Speaker 2: But if they were with each soldier, yeah, you're spreading
[3:23:46] Speaker 2: the germs between him and him and then to the
[3:23:48] Speaker 2: next guy and the next guy and.
[3:23:50] Speaker 1: Then yeah, pretty much. And it was ridiculous, Like I
[3:23:53] Speaker 1: didn't realize in like the regular Army, I would go
[3:23:55] Speaker 1: and take like a platoon and I'd be like, Okay,
[3:23:57] Speaker 1: I'm gonna have like some E sixes. I don't have
[3:23:59] Speaker 1: some of my E five. I was like, no, the
[3:24:02] Speaker 1: gap was sergeant first class, mister ranger, badass and sandusky,
[3:24:09] Speaker 1: you know, and that's not what I'm like calling myself
[3:24:11] Speaker 1: was It was like kind of disgusting how some of
[3:24:13] Speaker 1: these guys would like look at you there, like hey, man,
[3:24:15] Speaker 1: like what'd you do for BT? Can you show me
[3:24:17] Speaker 1: how to get through?
[3:24:18] Speaker 2: And I'll tell you what it's like.
[3:24:20] Speaker 1: Yeah. So then like but then you would have like
[3:24:24] Speaker 1: private just graduated basic. Maybe one or two guys that
[3:24:30] Speaker 1: came from a different unit, one guy who had limited
[3:24:34] Speaker 1: well like maybe like an E four who had very
[3:24:36] Speaker 1: limited experience overseas, like like I've deployed before, sergeant, but
[3:24:42] Speaker 1: like I don't really know any of this stuff. And
[3:24:45] Speaker 1: you see, like these guys have gone through generations of
[3:24:50] Speaker 1: dereliction of duty, not by them, not that they and
[3:24:54] Speaker 1: a lot of them. I was like, this is my
[3:24:56] Speaker 1: platoon when in the ranger regimen. These defeated souls are
[3:25:01] Speaker 1: me and my peer group. When I showed up the
[3:25:04] Speaker 1: I showed up through my platoon by myself, but I
[3:25:07] Speaker 1: would see like the peer group that came before me,
[3:25:09] Speaker 1: they almost absorbed me into their pure group. But those
[3:25:12] Speaker 1: guys I would like see like the dead souls in
[3:25:15] Speaker 1: their eyes and be like, dude, you hate the army,
[3:25:18] Speaker 1: but I'm gonna tell you there's better places than this place.
[3:25:21] Speaker 1: You can go to a different unit. You know, you
[3:25:24] Speaker 1: can go up I was like, you can, like where
[3:25:26] Speaker 1: can make this unit real fun and real cool. You
[3:25:29] Speaker 1: can go to another you can go tenth Mountain, you
[3:25:31] Speaker 1: know and not be you know, and maybe ABCT you know,
[3:25:36] Speaker 1: you can go up to fourth You can do all
[3:25:38] Speaker 1: types of stuff. And so you know, I I sat
[3:25:42] Speaker 1: there and I took every moment I could to improve
[3:25:45] Speaker 1: and that was like helping me keep myself together. And
[3:25:50] Speaker 1: so one of the things I did was I was like,
[3:25:53] Speaker 1: I noticed a lot of these epos were like e
[3:25:55] Speaker 1: for mafia guys that were like dodging and so yes schools.
[3:25:59] Speaker 1: So I was like, you might be dodging n c
[3:26:01] Speaker 1: S schools, but I'm gonna make you do the n
[3:26:03] Speaker 1: c O job. You just won't have the n c
[3:26:05] Speaker 1: O pay. Because I was like, here's here's what's gonna happen.
[3:26:10] Speaker 1: You're gonna be like, well, if I'm doing the NCO job,
[3:26:12] Speaker 1: it should be getting paid. It's really not that bad.
[3:26:15] Speaker 1: So maybe I should get my ass to the n
[3:26:16] Speaker 1: CEE school. Maybe I should start bettering myself, improving myself.
[3:26:20] Speaker 1: And I remember like one day when I really initiated,
[3:26:24] Speaker 1: like because at first I was like really laid back.
[3:26:26] Speaker 1: I was still kind of depressed and like like I
[3:26:28] Speaker 1: was defamed and declawed when I got there. There's no
[3:26:31] Speaker 1: fire breather in me. I was like, yeah, you guys
[3:26:33] Speaker 1: are probably right, so all hopeless. Yeah, don't be like me,
[3:26:38] Speaker 1: don't write it out. It's never changes. You think it's
[3:26:41] Speaker 1: getting better, it doesn't just quit go away wall, you know. Yeah,
[3:26:48] Speaker 1: like I was smoking of sugar, yeah yeah, sweet. Yeah.
[3:26:53] Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm like, all right, one day I
[3:26:57] Speaker 1: was sitting there and like, no disrespect of like CAB scouts,
[3:27:01] Speaker 1: but yeah, all disrespect to CAB scouts. So you know,
[3:27:05] Speaker 1: and we're working with a lot of scouts nearby and
[3:27:07] Speaker 1: tankers and.
[3:27:08] Speaker 2: They're basically special forces.
[3:27:09] Speaker 1: From what I hear, they're better than the Rangers. Yeah, yeah,
[3:27:13] Speaker 1: there were the Rangers before the Rangers. Why do you
[3:27:14] Speaker 1: think Abrams Charter you didn't even say it with the
[3:27:20] Speaker 1: straight face. Yeah, Like I remember, like something happened. I
[3:27:25] Speaker 1: was like, I just had a buddy that got killed,
[3:27:28] Speaker 1: and I did like the ptsd nc O freak out
[3:27:31] Speaker 1: on these guys. I was like, all right, guys, we're
[3:27:32] Speaker 1: gonna talk about like some very basic how to set
[3:27:35] Speaker 1: up a litter, how to prepare a litter. We're not
[3:27:37] Speaker 1: gonna go too far into the you know, combat life saver.
[3:27:41] Speaker 1: We're just gonna talk about litters. And I'm sitting there
[3:27:44] Speaker 1: and I remember, like I kept seeing this kid while
[3:27:47] Speaker 1: I was explaining the litter stuff like how to assemble,
[3:27:50] Speaker 1: he kept doing one of these like now, It's like,
[3:27:55] Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me?
[3:27:56] Speaker 4: Man?
[3:27:57] Speaker 1: I was like, you looking at those guys over there,
[3:28:00] Speaker 1: cocking out guys? Is that what you're doing? You're looking
[3:28:02] Speaker 1: at them over there? You should be looking at me.
[3:28:04] Speaker 1: I'm the stunt, you know. And I'm I was like
[3:28:07] Speaker 1: I almost like went off, hold hold on, hold on, hold,
[3:28:12] Speaker 1: and before I like snapped completely, I was like, I
[3:28:16] Speaker 1: want you guys dress right, dress full battle rattle all
[3:28:23] Speaker 1: your combat gear, maintain social distance information in this kill zone.
[3:28:30] Speaker 1: So we were like in the whole troop operating facility.
[3:28:33] Speaker 1: So all the other platoons, like scout platoons, were like
[3:28:36] Speaker 1: watching what's happened. And I was like, I'm trying to
[3:28:39] Speaker 1: hold it together, man, I'm really trying. I was like,
[3:28:44] Speaker 1: when I come back, I I'm gonna come back when
[3:28:48] Speaker 1: I let this demon out, and I'm gonna let it
[3:28:50] Speaker 1: out on all of you. It's like be ready. And
[3:28:53] Speaker 1: then so I left. I put on all my gear
[3:28:59] Speaker 1: because I know they're gonna be in their gear, and
[3:29:01] Speaker 1: then like I came out there like screaming and hollering.
[3:29:05] Speaker 1: I haven't done this in a while, Like I haven't
[3:29:08] Speaker 1: probably done that since I was a corporal. In terms
[3:29:10] Speaker 1: of like going off of people, like stats started in
[3:29:12] Speaker 1: EA seven, I was kind of chill guy. I kind
[3:29:15] Speaker 1: of got into more of that upper reader mindset. But
[3:29:17] Speaker 1: it was like infectious from the guys I was working
[3:29:19] Speaker 1: with at Jason to like learn how they operated. They
[3:29:22] Speaker 1: don't smash everyone with a hammer, you know. So I
[3:29:25] Speaker 1: go in there smashing these guys and I at the
[3:29:29] Speaker 1: same time, I was kind of giving like a motivational
[3:29:33] Speaker 1: speech while also I was like, you guys are supposed
[3:29:37] Speaker 1: to be the infantry. You're the poster boys in the
[3:29:39] Speaker 1: United States Army. I was like George Washington was a
[3:29:43] Speaker 1: member of the infantry, you know. I was like, he
[3:29:46] Speaker 1: ate leather shoes with wooden teeth. You're made it. I
[3:29:50] Speaker 1: was like, you're cut from the same fucking cloth. And
[3:29:52] Speaker 1: I know because you volunteered for this shitty ass job,
[3:29:55] Speaker 1: and they made you more to man. They made you
[3:29:58] Speaker 1: more to man because they look you up and down
[3:30:00] Speaker 1: and say you're harder than them. Fucking the living Bravos.
[3:30:03] Speaker 1: You can probably put up with it. We can abuse you,
[3:30:05] Speaker 1: We'll make you mortarmen. I was like, so stop soaking around,
[3:30:09] Speaker 1: because when you join the United States Army and you
[3:30:11] Speaker 1: went in there and you swore with your right hand,
[3:30:13] Speaker 1: or you asked the recruiter for a job, you didn't
[3:30:16] Speaker 1: say them, can you make me a bitch? Because if
[3:30:18] Speaker 1: you had, you had been a fucking cav scout, you know.
[3:30:22] Speaker 1: And I was like, you're better than them. And then
[3:30:26] Speaker 1: I went from there and then like you know, we
[3:30:28] Speaker 1: went on this very physical kind of event, like we
[3:30:33] Speaker 1: were doing physical stuff, you know what I mean. Like
[3:30:35] Speaker 1: I was, I was hurt still, I was recovering from
[3:30:39] Speaker 1: a knee reconstruction, and I was picking up like the biggest,
[3:30:42] Speaker 1: fattest guy and running up and down with him and
[3:30:44] Speaker 1: be like, you can't do that. My need doesn't work.
[3:30:47] Speaker 1: You can't do that. You have to be able to
[3:30:49] Speaker 1: do that. Like we're just you know, getting in their heads,
[3:30:52] Speaker 1: like I'm the old man and I'm crippled, but I
[3:30:55] Speaker 1: have more heart than any of you, even though like
[3:30:57] Speaker 1: you're the young guys. But I want to say, it's
[3:30:59] Speaker 1: not a fucking steroid. I say, you see the scroll,
[3:31:02] Speaker 1: let me put it on you. Are you strong? It's
[3:31:05] Speaker 1: not a fucking steroid. I earned it. It wasn't given.
[3:31:08] Speaker 1: Nobody put that on me, and I became a magical
[3:31:12] Speaker 1: fucking unicorn. You know, you can be exactly like me.
[3:31:16] Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what unit you were in. It's like
[3:31:19] Speaker 1: it's a fucking mindset. That's how you're selected. So you
[3:31:23] Speaker 1: need to start acting accordingly and stop being a defeated
[3:31:26] Speaker 1: piece of shit what I was telling these guys, and
[3:31:29] Speaker 1: so I got on them. I got into that thing
[3:31:31] Speaker 1: I was talking about, Hey, you don't want to be
[3:31:33] Speaker 1: an NCO. You're gonna get private pay. You're a special
[3:31:36] Speaker 1: like you know, we call specialists and forth privates. You know,
[3:31:39] Speaker 1: they call them specialists, and those kids like, I'm a specialist.
[3:31:42] Speaker 1: So I'm like, you're a fucking private yeah you know
[3:31:44] Speaker 1: what I mean.
[3:31:44] Speaker 4: Like you're an untapped bitch, yeah you know.
[3:31:47] Speaker 1: And so I would be like, you know, this is
[3:31:49] Speaker 1: what you're gonna do. You're gonna do this job. And
[3:31:52] Speaker 1: the cool thing was I was like, I might not
[3:31:55] Speaker 1: be able to sit down and teach these guys Range
[3:31:59] Speaker 1: your school classes every single day, but I could make
[3:32:01] Speaker 1: every single day a Ranger School lesson. So instead of
[3:32:05] Speaker 1: getting Range School classes, I just indoctrinate him with Ranger
[3:32:09] Speaker 1: shit in their life. So what I did was I
[3:32:11] Speaker 1: went down to like home depot and I bought chalkboard paint,
[3:32:15] Speaker 1: and I took all my desks and computers and shit
[3:32:20] Speaker 1: out of my office and I painted, and I made
[3:32:22] Speaker 1: them paint the fucking walls. And I did help a
[3:32:26] Speaker 1: little bit, and by saying help, it's almost laughable. I
[3:32:30] Speaker 1: almost stay and help at all. But I did put
[3:32:32] Speaker 1: some paint on some shit. I say, paint all this.
[3:32:34] Speaker 1: So they painted the whole office wall, the wall three
[3:32:36] Speaker 1: hundred and sixty degrees with chalkboard paint, and I made
[3:32:39] Speaker 1: it like a Ranger School planning bay. And I was like,
[3:32:41] Speaker 1: all right, you, every day you're in charge of the timeline,
[3:32:46] Speaker 1: you will do the timeline. You will learn reverse planning
[3:32:48] Speaker 1: every single day. I want that up there. Every single day.
[3:32:50] Speaker 1: You I want weather and like that up here. You're
[3:32:52] Speaker 1: gonna be the situation paragraph. Blah blah blah. And once
[3:32:55] Speaker 1: I see you guys get ahold of that, we're gonna
[3:32:57] Speaker 1: keep rotating guys, and we're gonna keep, you know, continue
[3:33:02] Speaker 1: to do different paragraphs of this op order, which will
[3:33:05] Speaker 1: be rewritten almost daily on the wall. Now, when you
[3:33:08] Speaker 1: brief your part, if there's no change, all you have
[3:33:10] Speaker 1: to say is no change. But don't try to pull
[3:33:12] Speaker 1: one over and be like, oh no change, hut. You know,
[3:33:15] Speaker 1: like you're gonna do the work. And so I had
[3:33:17] Speaker 1: these guys like not even NCOs, like basically every day
[3:33:22] Speaker 1: was like you're gonna live in Rangers School while you're
[3:33:27] Speaker 1: while I'm in charge, because that's the impact I'm gonna
[3:33:30] Speaker 1: make while I'm here. And I mean I did even
[3:33:33] Speaker 1: other things where I was like, there's gonna be an
[3:33:35] Speaker 1: American flag in my in my office, so you walk
[3:33:40] Speaker 1: in and you you know where you are, you know
[3:33:43] Speaker 1: why you're lacing up your boots every day, and you know,
[3:33:47] Speaker 1: I put some camo netting on like one of the
[3:33:50] Speaker 1: walls to kind of make you know you're getting in
[3:33:52] Speaker 1: like the hey, you know, it's like wow, it's like
[3:33:54] Speaker 1: a little we're in a bunker here, you know kind
[3:33:56] Speaker 1: of And I remember I put like a map over
[3:33:58] Speaker 1: the top of that camp monating, so that Kevindt's background
[3:34:02] Speaker 1: map is on a corkboard and I have different positions.
[3:34:05] Speaker 1: I'm yeah, brief off that map. This is our eight
[3:34:08] Speaker 1: let me orient you. This is going to be our
[3:34:09] Speaker 1: route to the range today. But these are like privates
[3:34:12] Speaker 1: in the regular army that I was.
[3:34:14] Speaker 3: So you're you're basically teaching them like five paragraph OP
[3:34:17] Speaker 3: order planning.
[3:34:18] Speaker 1: Process without telling them, Hey, guys, this is ranger stuff.
[3:34:22] Speaker 1: This is an OP order and going all day. I'm
[3:34:24] Speaker 1: just I'm literally like letting these guys like driven questions
[3:34:27] Speaker 1: for us.
[3:34:29] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[3:34:32] Speaker 6: Uh, let me refresh this real quick and see what
[3:34:39] Speaker 6: went wrong?
[3:34:41] Speaker 1: Whytch something go wrong? Sorry guys, no, no problem, m
[3:34:51] Speaker 1: hm h.
[3:35:00] Speaker 11: So we have a couple questions, Doctor mad respect Thank
[3:35:10] Speaker 11: you very much for the Canadian donation.
[3:35:13] Speaker 4: He said, this should equate to about forty seven since us.
[3:35:17] Speaker 4: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Yeah, Canadian money.
[3:35:21] Speaker 6: It's like monopoly money, right, h DJ sneed thank you
[3:35:24] Speaker 6: very much for the donation.
[3:35:27] Speaker 4: Oh let me see.
[3:35:28] Speaker 3: Here, in a conventional war, how does the roll of
[3:35:32] Speaker 3: the seventy fifth vary from that the eighty second and
[3:35:35] Speaker 3: big and the Big Red One based on where the
[3:35:37] Speaker 3: enemy is engaged.
[3:35:39] Speaker 2: Interesting question.
[3:35:41] Speaker 1: I've never served inside the eighty second, and really I
[3:35:47] Speaker 1: would say that what I've noticed is that Arnobrigae combat
[3:35:50] Speaker 1: teams they were very well trained in the defensive ops because,
[3:35:56] Speaker 1: like so like a defensive op is like you might
[3:35:59] Speaker 1: have a layered defense where you're putting in your mortar
[3:36:05] Speaker 1: teams to kind of intersect and deny enemy ingress into
[3:36:11] Speaker 1: the perimeter or flatline that you're kind of defending. And
[3:36:14] Speaker 1: the way that our Armorbrigade combat team was set up
[3:36:18] Speaker 1: at Big Red One was we would have different mortar
[3:36:25] Speaker 1: sections or platoons at each troop, which we would call
[3:36:28] Speaker 1: it company and ranger regiment. Now, what a ranger really
[3:36:32] Speaker 1: is at the core, in my own words anyway, is
[3:36:36] Speaker 1: a partisan force that performs harassment operations behind enemy lines,
[3:36:41] Speaker 1: whether that's disrupting enemy logistics kind of like taking out
[3:36:47] Speaker 1: enemy morale or even area denial on the enemy. And
[3:36:53] Speaker 1: so that's kind of like you're more the mortars and
[3:36:56] Speaker 1: the Ranger regiment are mostly employed employed in offensive operations
[3:37:01] Speaker 1: where you have to do your training is more focused
[3:37:05] Speaker 1: on doing what we call hip shoots, which are you know,
[3:37:08] Speaker 1: you drop that gun down on the ground, you shoot,
[3:37:10] Speaker 1: you pick the gun back up, and you.
[3:37:12] Speaker 2: Move supporting the assault element.
[3:37:14] Speaker 1: Yes, and yeah, you could be supporting the assault element.
[3:37:18] Speaker 1: You could be doing a special mission with your reconnaissance
[3:37:21] Speaker 1: and sniper observation teams where they're utilizing you in a
[3:37:25] Speaker 1: reconnaissant aspect. Like there's it's like super multifaceted. Also, when
[3:37:30] Speaker 1: you're in a brigade combat team armored brigade combat team,
[3:37:36] Speaker 1: you're primarily dealing with just one twenties, and when you're
[3:37:39] Speaker 1: in the ranger regiment, you have all three organic US
[3:37:43] Speaker 1: mortar systems, and like myself and others, you get exposure
[3:37:47] Speaker 1: to working with foreign mortar systems a lot where maybe
[3:37:51] Speaker 1: if you showed up in the country and you're like
[3:37:53] Speaker 1: a smaller element and didn't have an eighty one or
[3:37:56] Speaker 1: one twenty with you, because you're a sixty team, you're
[3:37:59] Speaker 1: able to have knowledge to plug in with like a
[3:38:02] Speaker 1: eighty two millimeter system or some type of Eastern block
[3:38:08] Speaker 1: variant of a one to twenty millimeter or whatever they have.
[3:38:11] Speaker 3: With the way with the way the systems are becoming
[3:38:14] Speaker 3: where you said the you know they're becoming even though
[3:38:17] Speaker 3: you prefer the old system, but if they're becoming.
[3:38:19] Speaker 4: More and more accurate.
[3:38:20] Speaker 3: You know, one of the sniper missions is anti material,
[3:38:24] Speaker 3: right that they sink in and with their their fifty
[3:38:27] Speaker 3: cows they they destroy you know, uh critical, you know material.
[3:38:33] Speaker 3: Do you ever see that being like, do you ever
[3:38:35] Speaker 3: see mortar having sort of that that surreptitious recon mission
[3:38:40] Speaker 3: that's anti material because the systems become that accurate.
[3:38:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, So there are some missions that we've trained for
[3:38:47] Speaker 1: in the mortars that would allow for a corridor to
[3:38:50] Speaker 1: take out eighty A. So we could either take out
[3:38:53] Speaker 1: or displace eighty A. So maybe the eighty A is
[3:38:58] Speaker 1: heavily armored in a maybe a mortar system wouldn't necessarily
[3:39:01] Speaker 1: damage it, but it could cause injury to the crew.
[3:39:04] Speaker 2: And I don't know if it ever came online, but
[3:39:06] Speaker 2: they were developing. At one point it was like a
[3:39:08] Speaker 2: rocket assisted mortar that you could fire would travel twelve kilometers.
[3:39:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of countries that actually employ I
[3:39:15] Speaker 1: know Yugoslavians have something like that as well. It increases
[3:39:18] Speaker 1: the range of the mortar system out to I think
[3:39:21] Speaker 1: like ninety eight hundred meters specifically for the one twenty,
[3:39:24] Speaker 1: which is crazy because and I think they call it
[3:39:26] Speaker 1: a RAM rocket assistant mortar, right. And the funny thing
[3:39:30] Speaker 1: about that those are things with rocket boosters, I like,
[3:39:36] Speaker 1: whether they're RPG seven's big nines or those type of
[3:39:41] Speaker 1: things with RAMS, they're very dirty, like so they really
[3:39:45] Speaker 1: cause like they cake those systems and like black soot
[3:39:49] Speaker 1: I've noticed about rocket boosters. I've also noticed that a
[3:39:53] Speaker 1: lot of the manufacturing regarding those type of ammunition that
[3:39:56] Speaker 1: type of ammunition. So what it is is like the
[3:39:58] Speaker 1: way that a mortar works, for sample, is at the
[3:40:02] Speaker 1: bottom of the mortar and the fin assembly where you
[3:40:04] Speaker 1: see the fins. The fins are canted in most mortars
[3:40:08] Speaker 1: that are a non rifle of smooth bore mortar has
[3:40:13] Speaker 1: the projectiles have a fin assembly. Those fins are canted
[3:40:16] Speaker 1: to mimic rifling to stabilize the round as it travels
[3:40:18] Speaker 1: through the air. Inside that fin assembly is a primer.
[3:40:21] Speaker 1: That primer, when struck with you know, gravity brings it
[3:40:25] Speaker 1: down the mortar tube. The firing pin at the bottom
[3:40:29] Speaker 1: of the more put at the mortar tube strikes that
[3:40:34] Speaker 1: primer sets off a small explosive. That small explosive can
[3:40:37] Speaker 1: set off these charges that are wrapped around the bottom,
[3:40:41] Speaker 1: and those charges can be anything from some type of
[3:40:43] Speaker 1: magnesium composite, other chemical composites, nitroglycerin, DNT. Just depends on
[3:40:48] Speaker 1: what type of ammunition that you have and what type
[3:40:50] Speaker 1: of propellant, So small charge primer, small charge propellant now,
[3:40:58] Speaker 1: and just the grand scheme of things like just general physics.
[3:41:01] Speaker 1: As pressure increases, volume decreases. Okay, so on most us
[3:41:07] Speaker 1: mortar rounds and mortars in the freaking world, don't that
[3:41:11] Speaker 1: are worth a shit or going to have what's called
[3:41:13] Speaker 1: the orbitrator ring, and we call that the gas ring.
[3:41:15] Speaker 1: So what that does is when the mortar goes down
[3:41:18] Speaker 1: and that small explosion goes off, that gas ring orbitrator
[3:41:22] Speaker 1: ring expands and creates a seal that makes the volume decrease.
[3:41:28] Speaker 1: So then the pressure increases and you start to lose volume,
[3:41:31] Speaker 1: and then as that pressure builds up enough that sends
[3:41:34] Speaker 1: the projectile pretty far. Now, what I noticed with like
[3:41:39] Speaker 1: rocket assisted munitions, and I'm not well versed with the
[3:41:41] Speaker 1: rocket assisting munition, it's like that whole chain of events
[3:41:44] Speaker 1: becomes more unreliable because you're adding another chain to it,
[3:41:48] Speaker 1: and it makes it less accurate. You know what I mean,
[3:41:51] Speaker 1: especially when you're one mill. I'm sure it's like you
[3:41:56] Speaker 1: guys been behind long guns and you know, like one
[3:41:58] Speaker 1: mill out of thousand meters, that's like one meter, you.
[3:42:00] Speaker 7: Know what I mean.
[3:42:01] Speaker 1: And then you you talking about nine grand with a
[3:42:05] Speaker 1: thirty pound freaking bowling ball, right, that's going over thirteen
[3:42:09] Speaker 1: thousand feet into the sky, right, and so it's gonna
[3:42:13] Speaker 1: go thirteen thousand feet up into the clouds travel freaking
[3:42:16] Speaker 1: nine grand down, you know what I mean. So you know,
[3:42:21] Speaker 1: there are some very good engineers out there, and I
[3:42:24] Speaker 1: would never say, hey, stop what you're doing, don't go
[3:42:26] Speaker 1: that rude. I think it's a very valuable asset to have.
[3:42:29] Speaker 1: So yeah, more power to them. But just I just
[3:42:32] Speaker 1: know that it's difficult thing to design.
[3:42:36] Speaker 6: Is there talk or imagining imagination of like smart mortar realms?
[3:42:43] Speaker 1: Uh? There kind of is already. There's like so some
[3:42:47] Speaker 1: of the more there's already like these systems that are
[3:42:51] Speaker 1: the cannon itself has some type of GPS guidance that
[3:42:55] Speaker 1: as cysts the gunner. Some of these systems are automatic
[3:42:58] Speaker 1: where the gunner doesn't have to do anything. You just
[3:43:02] Speaker 1: type it in the computer and the gun aims at
[3:43:04] Speaker 1: where it's supposed to aim, and you just it's pretty
[3:43:07] Speaker 1: much dummy proof for the most part. And then you
[3:43:10] Speaker 1: have ammunition that also can be guided. But the ammunition,
[3:43:15] Speaker 1: what I remember is it's like it's like you do
[3:43:19] Speaker 1: all the work, and then the ammunition is like, hey,
[3:43:20] Speaker 1: we did the word. Because it's like as long as
[3:43:22] Speaker 1: you're within you know, ten mills, right, you know you'll
[3:43:25] Speaker 1: hit it. It'll work as long as you're than ten mills, Like,
[3:43:28] Speaker 1: as long as.
[3:43:29] Speaker 3: You get that round within ten meters of the target,
[3:43:31] Speaker 3: you're gonna kill it.
[3:43:33] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[3:43:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's.
[3:43:35] Speaker 2: Kind of like any other questions for us.
[3:43:37] Speaker 4: We have one last one, Baker Hitch, thank you very much.
[3:43:42] Speaker 4: Do you think you have any.
[3:43:43] Speaker 6: Inherent advantages over your near pure enemies like VDV or
[3:43:47] Speaker 6: p LA marine mortar units and one percent not a
[3:43:50] Speaker 6: North Korean's spy.
[3:43:53] Speaker 1: Do I have any advantages over them? Well, I'm not
[3:43:56] Speaker 1: in the military, so I think that's it. I'm not
[3:44:01] Speaker 1: fighting in any of those militaries. It looks like it sucks. Yeah,
[3:44:05] Speaker 1: doesn't look like a good time.
[3:44:06] Speaker 2: So let's you had this experience trying to like flip
[3:44:10] Speaker 2: this platoon around the conventional military was it like getting
[3:44:14] Speaker 2: out of the military. Tell us a little bit about
[3:44:16] Speaker 2: transitioning into the civilian world, which I mean, it's only
[3:44:18] Speaker 2: pretty recent for you.
[3:44:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, So I just, you know, kind of made a
[3:44:24] Speaker 1: decision while I was like, hey, you know what, I'm
[3:44:28] Speaker 1: trying to flip this platoon around, and I was like,
[3:44:31] Speaker 1: you know what, I might be getting kicked out of
[3:44:34] Speaker 1: the army because I'm getting qumped. I'm getting kicked out
[3:44:36] Speaker 1: of here. So I decide, Hey, I need to focus
[3:44:39] Speaker 1: on myself and my recovery. And so I went through
[3:44:43] Speaker 1: the proper channels to get myself into the SRU, which
[3:44:45] Speaker 1: is formally known as the WTU. So it used to
[3:44:47] Speaker 1: be a Warrior Transition Unit and they changed it to
[3:44:50] Speaker 1: the Soldier Recovery Unit. And I really I would advocate
[3:44:53] Speaker 1: for more rangers and special operators to use that avenue
[3:44:58] Speaker 1: to exit the military, because you shouldn't. Eighteen months to
[3:45:02] Speaker 1: get out of the military and start your transition plan
[3:45:05] Speaker 1: is generally for guys who it's just for the whole military.
[3:45:11] Speaker 1: And it's like, if you're a guy who did like
[3:45:12] Speaker 1: ten years in special operations, there's probably a lot of
[3:45:15] Speaker 1: stuff that's not gonna come to light until like a
[3:45:17] Speaker 1: year after. Yeah, you're like, whoa, that hurts. So when
[3:45:20] Speaker 1: I went to the SRU, the cool thing was it's
[3:45:22] Speaker 1: like as stupid as it sounds, like, maybe I has
[3:45:25] Speaker 1: an explain it to other people. Like my I'm like,
[3:45:29] Speaker 1: I'm an E seven ranger guy, you know, decked out
[3:45:34] Speaker 1: in the pins and patches or whatever. I never felt
[3:45:37] Speaker 1: that way. I didn't get too egotistical, but that's literally
[3:45:39] Speaker 1: how people see you. You're like a unicorn out there,
[3:45:41] Speaker 1: especially when you're in this type of unit. Right, A
[3:45:44] Speaker 1: lot of the people in those units are like I'm
[3:45:47] Speaker 1: fresh out of AI T and I went right into
[3:45:49] Speaker 1: this are you? And I was like what you know?
[3:45:52] Speaker 1: And so anyway, I was there and like it was
[3:45:55] Speaker 1: kind of cool. Like you do. They kind of like
[3:45:58] Speaker 1: force you to like hey man, you just gotta go
[3:46:00] Speaker 1: to like three events in the week, and it's not
[3:46:02] Speaker 1: that hard. Some of the people complain, but it's like,
[3:46:04] Speaker 1: you know, just go play wheelchair basketball, Go go shoot
[3:46:08] Speaker 1: the air rifle, do an air rifle, shoot, go you
[3:46:11] Speaker 1: know all these like go do like a gardening class,
[3:46:14] Speaker 1: like these are all things. There's like, you know what
[3:46:17] Speaker 1: I used to do with this YouTube PTSD. You got
[3:46:21] Speaker 1: like y'all don't know, like I could dig a hole, like,
[3:46:24] Speaker 1: you know, like while I was making jokes while I
[3:46:26] Speaker 1: was in there trying to make because there's some depressed
[3:46:27] Speaker 1: kids in there. You know, COVID was happening, and you
[3:46:30] Speaker 1: know it's they signed up for the military and.
[3:46:33] Speaker 2: Helicopters over Saigon ship.
[3:46:36] Speaker 1: And so, uh yeah, I worked with I worked there
[3:46:38] Speaker 1: and it was kind of cool. They kind of set
[3:46:41] Speaker 1: me with the VA and they put me on the
[3:46:42] Speaker 1: right appointments. They send me like behavior, your health, they
[3:46:45] Speaker 1: send me like caseworker. And then from there I was
[3:46:48] Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, like what else can I
[3:46:50] Speaker 1: do as I'm getting out, and they put me on
[3:46:52] Speaker 1: this thing where I could ride horses. And then I
[3:46:55] Speaker 1: started working at this ranch while I was like working
[3:46:58] Speaker 1: in the d D. I was getting paid, but I
[3:46:59] Speaker 1: was out there riding horses and learning how to take
[3:47:03] Speaker 1: care of horses and just kind of using that therapy
[3:47:06] Speaker 1: with the horses because I was like, I was an
[3:47:08] Speaker 1: angry soul man and I was just like whatever, man
[3:47:13] Speaker 1: let me just like and it was cool that I
[3:47:15] Speaker 1: was disgruntled and I was angry at the military. I
[3:47:17] Speaker 1: was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna take you off whatever
[3:47:19] Speaker 1: you got, and uh, it actually advocated for me. I
[3:47:24] Speaker 1: was like, dude, I do have these injuries, and you know,
[3:47:28] Speaker 1: like I had a torn shoulder that I had not
[3:47:31] Speaker 1: gotten surgery or looked at it, and they're like, yeah,
[3:47:33] Speaker 1: that thing is completely torn, Like how's it hanging on
[3:47:35] Speaker 1: your arm? And they did a surgery on my shoulder,
[3:47:38] Speaker 1: did a couple more surgeries on my knees, surgery on
[3:47:41] Speaker 1: my face. They corrected my broken face because actually I
[3:47:44] Speaker 1: was like, dude, I keep throwing up randomly and they're like, yeah,
[3:47:47] Speaker 1: because your orbital sockets broken flaw side and you can't
[3:47:51] Speaker 1: see past over here. And then they like fixed everything
[3:47:54] Speaker 1: and then like now I can see good. And I
[3:47:56] Speaker 1: stopped throwing up, and I stopped having vertigo, and I
[3:47:59] Speaker 1: started sleeping better, and uh, there were things I didn't
[3:48:02] Speaker 1: really notice, you know, And and part of that is
[3:48:06] Speaker 1: because I didn't really have family. I didn't really have
[3:48:08] Speaker 1: like that support unit, because I went solo to Kansas
[3:48:13] Speaker 1: and that was COVID and it was just like you know,
[3:48:16] Speaker 1: like I was. It was like Leon the professional. You're
[3:48:20] Speaker 1: just sleeping alone and your think, like all I do
[3:48:23] Speaker 1: is go to Army, finish Army, go back to sleeping chair.
[3:48:26] Speaker 2: You know, brooding man.
[3:48:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like what it was. It was very
[3:48:31] Speaker 1: very depressing looking from the outside, I'm sure. And there
[3:48:33] Speaker 1: was a lot of guys that try to tell me
[3:48:34] Speaker 1: stuff like reach out. Oh dude, so whole and you
[3:48:38] Speaker 1: know what they told me, And that was like a
[3:48:39] Speaker 1: big joke to the whole reach out crap that people
[3:48:42] Speaker 1: would say. And I know that their heart was in
[3:48:44] Speaker 1: the right place, but like when you have one hundred
[3:48:46] Speaker 1: people a day telling you that ship when you're like
[3:48:48] Speaker 1: your life is in flames, and you're like, dude, you
[3:48:51] Speaker 1: think I'm not reaching out. I think I'm not trying.
[3:48:53] Speaker 1: You know, I've been astro sized, I've been banished to
[3:48:56] Speaker 1: the wastelands.
[3:48:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, Like there's so many of those. I mean's open
[3:49:00] Speaker 2: door policy is like open door and I'll see you
[3:49:03] Speaker 2: in ninety days maybe.
[3:49:04] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[3:49:04] Speaker 2: You know a lot of it causes I know a
[3:49:07] Speaker 2: lot of anger with the enlist of ranks. A lot
[3:49:11] Speaker 2: of these like colonels and generals who get out and
[3:49:14] Speaker 2: they turn themselves into the poster boys for PTSD. Yeah,
[3:49:17] Speaker 2: and they go on the news and they're like, we
[3:49:18] Speaker 2: need to get our boys help and everything. Well, hold on,
[3:49:21] Speaker 2: you were my commander, you couldn't give off fuck about
[3:49:24] Speaker 2: any of these guys. Yeah, you know, if somebody came
[3:49:26] Speaker 2: to you said they needed help, you fuck them.
[3:49:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[3:49:29] Speaker 4: I just want to. I just want to put out
[3:49:30] Speaker 4: there because they're probably not watching this show.
[3:49:32] Speaker 3: But if the if the officer that told you that
[3:49:35] Speaker 3: they didn't care about the.
[3:49:38] Speaker 4: Court for their hr decision, I really hope you have
[3:49:41] Speaker 4: bad dreams. I really hope you don't sleep while at night, Like, yeah,
[3:49:44] Speaker 4: it's just a.
[3:49:45] Speaker 1: Really shitty, dirty thing to do. So the thing was
[3:49:49] Speaker 1: a lot of people I've done something like an impossible task.
[3:49:53] Speaker 1: I did an impossible task in the military, and it's
[3:49:55] Speaker 1: because I was angry and I advocate. I used that
[3:49:58] Speaker 1: inner anger in a positive light, and I know ever
[3:50:00] Speaker 1: turned to substance abuse or anything. I never did anything
[3:50:03] Speaker 1: that would that would seem make them seem right and
[3:50:06] Speaker 1: anything I said unfounded right, And I felt like that's
[3:50:09] Speaker 1: what they were trying to do, even though they might
[3:50:11] Speaker 1: have just forgot about me. And the way I went
[3:50:14] Speaker 1: about it was, you know, I I did the impossible,
[3:50:21] Speaker 1: which was I reversed the permanent gomar. They reinstated my
[3:50:25] Speaker 1: rank to eat seven, and the Chief of Staff wrote
[3:50:28] Speaker 1: to that general and said, all of your allegations against
[3:50:34] Speaker 1: Sergeant first class Sandusky were untrue and unjust and I
[3:50:42] Speaker 1: and all of like punishable action is hereby reverse effective
[3:50:48] Speaker 1: immediately with back pay. Wow. Yeah, so they had to
[3:50:51] Speaker 1: like backpay me all the way to twenty nineteen. What
[3:50:54] Speaker 1: was that repudiation process?
[3:50:56] Speaker 4: Did you have to fight or I had to fight it.
[3:50:59] Speaker 1: I had to fight it, and I had an advocate
[3:51:00] Speaker 1: because I was too depressed. Like if I was like
[3:51:04] Speaker 1: it was like if he was like, hey, Les, can
[3:51:07] Speaker 1: you type up something? I was like, can I just
[3:51:10] Speaker 1: give you the notes? Because I keep trying to type
[3:51:12] Speaker 1: this and every other word is motherfucker And I can't
[3:51:17] Speaker 1: like type this without being calm because at that time
[3:51:22] Speaker 1: they made me a killer. They made me a warm
[3:51:24] Speaker 1: I mean I killed somebody before the army or whatever.
[3:51:26] Speaker 1: But like I was like, you know, that was the
[3:51:29] Speaker 1: tool that I was, Like, I was the conduit for
[3:51:33] Speaker 1: foreign policy when diplomacy failed. You know, they said, hey,
[3:51:37] Speaker 1: this is our solution to that problem. And this means,
[3:51:40] Speaker 1: you know, we need an armed force to maybe change
[3:51:43] Speaker 1: the hearts and minds of those individuals that are not
[3:51:46] Speaker 1: in compliance with US foreign privacy. And I'm sitting there
[3:51:50] Speaker 1: like if you're a direct representative of the President of
[3:51:53] Speaker 1: the United States as a general in this sitting army,
[3:51:56] Speaker 1: and you can't see what I am right and what
[3:51:58] Speaker 1: I've done for this country. And to not even take
[3:52:01] Speaker 1: a look at my paperwork, like it's a complete slap
[3:52:05] Speaker 1: in the face. So I fought it, and it did
[3:52:07] Speaker 1: cost me twenty five thousand dollars while paying my lawyer
[3:52:11] Speaker 1: over and over again to draft every paper, and for
[3:52:13] Speaker 1: the Human Resources command to kick me back and kick
[3:52:16] Speaker 1: me back and say, no, we're still gonna kick you out. No,
[3:52:18] Speaker 1: we're still gonna kick you out. Now, it's not like
[3:52:20] Speaker 1: they were kicking me out. It was like it's worse
[3:52:22] Speaker 1: than getting kicked out. Almost at the time.
[3:52:24] Speaker 2: They're putting you into the corner where you have to quit.
[3:52:27] Speaker 1: They're saying you're fired. But a year from now you
[3:52:32] Speaker 1: still have to do all this stuff. And then the
[3:52:34] Speaker 1: thing that sucks is you have like the market kine,
[3:52:38] Speaker 1: you know, where everyone in your unit is like, make
[3:52:41] Speaker 1: him do this, staff, dude, make him do and if
[3:52:44] Speaker 1: he pipes up, we can just ride it to the
[3:52:47] Speaker 1: little board tell them he's not being good boy. And
[3:52:51] Speaker 1: now everybody's just dangling out of there. It's like, oh,
[3:52:54] Speaker 1: you're not so hot now, ranger, you know what I mean.
[3:52:56] Speaker 1: So that's like stuff I'm like shielding my men from
[3:53:00] Speaker 1: in my new platoon, you know. And then I was like, dude,
[3:53:02] Speaker 1: I can't fight this battle. I'm going to probably end
[3:53:05] Speaker 1: up offering myself. So I'm gonna go to the s
[3:53:07] Speaker 1: r U, not not for my peace of mind and
[3:53:11] Speaker 1: for because I see that's where it's gonna go. And
[3:53:14] Speaker 1: that's the only way I'm gonna seek help. And I've
[3:53:17] Speaker 1: had and it really was a ranger buddy that called
[3:53:20] Speaker 1: one time. I was like, dude, I was like crying
[3:53:22] Speaker 1: on the phone to another grown ass man. He used
[3:53:24] Speaker 1: to like, you know, smell the dog shad at me,
[3:53:26] Speaker 1: you know, and he ended up in the Sniperple team too,
[3:53:29] Speaker 1: but he's he used telling me like, dude, dude, it's
[3:53:32] Speaker 1: all right, Like I can call somebody and make sure
[3:53:34] Speaker 1: you can get into that SRU because my unit wasn't
[3:53:37] Speaker 1: gonna try and let me go. And I I got
[3:53:41] Speaker 1: into it, and you know, I have him to thank
[3:53:43] Speaker 1: for that. And it was you know, you were with
[3:53:46] Speaker 1: these guys. I was like, maybe this is my purpose too.
[3:53:48] Speaker 1: It's like be a leader among these people who are
[3:53:52] Speaker 1: you know, there's some people in the SRU like gaming
[3:53:55] Speaker 1: the system, and I'm maybe I can be something like, hey,
[3:53:58] Speaker 1: you don't have to game this system. You can do
[3:54:01] Speaker 1: the right thing, you know. And yeah. So I finished
[3:54:05] Speaker 1: up there and man, it was like I had one
[3:54:13] Speaker 1: of the happiest days of my life when I saw
[3:54:15] Speaker 1: that leg He's like, hey, dude, they reversed it. My
[3:54:17] Speaker 1: lawyer said that over the phone, and he sent me
[3:54:19] Speaker 1: like the letter from that chief of staff that said,
[3:54:22] Speaker 1: like just seeing untrue and unjust from such like every
[3:54:26] Speaker 1: renowned Like I wrote, I wrote to the Office of
[3:54:28] Speaker 1: the President, which the president was Donald Trump at the
[3:54:31] Speaker 1: same time. Luckily, my military lawyer was a guy who
[3:54:36] Speaker 1: was related to the religious advisor to Donald Trump, and
[3:54:40] Speaker 1: he was like, we can we can go nuclear on
[3:54:42] Speaker 1: this if you want. I was like, no, I don't
[3:54:44] Speaker 1: want to. I want to just you know, I want
[3:54:47] Speaker 1: to get my reputation back. They're destroying everything I worked for.
[3:54:51] Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get kicked out of here without my benefits,
[3:54:55] Speaker 1: without ABC X y Z. And that was like my
[3:54:58] Speaker 1: biggest fears, like going out with this, you know, and
[3:55:00] Speaker 1: then what ended up happening through all that, It's like
[3:55:04] Speaker 1: they medically retired me because they actually went through all
[3:55:08] Speaker 1: my injuries and it was enough to want a retirement. Yeah,
[3:55:13] Speaker 1: And it was just nice to be like, all right, man,
[3:55:16] Speaker 1: I restored my honor. Yeah. I don't care about the money.
[3:55:20] Speaker 1: And a lot of people are like, you won, man,
[3:55:21] Speaker 1: you won, And at first I was bitter. I was like,
[3:55:24] Speaker 1: you think I won. I just gave me back what
[3:55:26] Speaker 1: I deserved, you know what I mean. But then I'm like,
[3:55:29] Speaker 1: you know that they're right. I did win. In the
[3:55:31] Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, I won. So what when did yo?
[3:55:36] Speaker 2: What year did you end up getting out of the military?
[3:55:38] Speaker 2: Getting boarded out.
[3:55:39] Speaker 1: Earlier this year? January January thirteen, twenty twenty.
[3:55:44] Speaker 2: What has post service life been like for you so far?
[3:55:46] Speaker 1: I immediately walked out of that onto a contract and I
[3:55:49] Speaker 1: went right back to Syria. So as soon as I
[3:55:52] Speaker 1: got out, I went back to Syria, and I was
[3:55:56] Speaker 1: in Syria and Iraq and freaking in Iraq we had
[3:56:00] Speaker 1: the fat one missiles from Iran come in while we
[3:56:03] Speaker 1: were there, and uh, then I was in Syria, and
[3:56:07] Speaker 1: we had a couple green on Green events, a couple
[3:56:11] Speaker 1: of blue on blue events, uh insider threat events that
[3:56:18] Speaker 1: weren't widely published, and then yeah, and then a couple
[3:56:23] Speaker 1: of events with kind of insurgent isis elements that were
[3:56:28] Speaker 1: there and that wasn't even my job, Like I had
[3:56:32] Speaker 1: nothing to do with shooting bad guys or opposing for.
[3:56:36] Speaker 2: Your what should I say, uh force.
[3:56:40] Speaker 1: Pro yeah, uh yeah yeah, And I would be like
[3:56:47] Speaker 1: and you know, we got like and it was really
[3:56:50] Speaker 1: cool experience because I even as like a civilian, I
[3:56:53] Speaker 1: got to walk around the streets of Iraq with no
[3:56:56] Speaker 1: gun and like go to a cop shop or something
[3:57:01] Speaker 1: and like nobody is like and it's like wha. Like
[3:57:06] Speaker 1: this used to be like a place where like we'd
[3:57:08] Speaker 1: be like what's on that corner? And I'm in the
[3:57:10] Speaker 1: middle of the night walking around like whatever and getting
[3:57:14] Speaker 1: some buffalo wings and stuff at the place and doing
[3:57:18] Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff and doing touristy stuff, going see
[3:57:22] Speaker 1: in the citadel there, going over there to uh, going
[3:57:24] Speaker 1: around in Syria and hang out in different places. And
[3:57:27] Speaker 1: I was riding around on French birds and I was
[3:57:29] Speaker 1: riding around on British birds and I was like, these
[3:57:32] Speaker 1: guys are so cool, Like the guys are you want
[3:57:34] Speaker 1: to manifest? I'm like no. I was like, all right,
[3:57:36] Speaker 1: what's your name? Just like scribbling me in really hard,
[3:57:38] Speaker 1: and I was like I'm like, what, like you know,
[3:57:41] Speaker 1: here's your Yeah right? What uh? I mean?
[3:57:45] Speaker 2: So do you like it? I mean do you see
[3:57:46] Speaker 2: yourself standing contracting? What do you what do you see
[3:57:49] Speaker 2: is like your future now that?
[3:57:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, I do enjoy contracting. I think like contracting is
[3:57:56] Speaker 1: another bit of like a vision questing. It's like it's
[3:57:58] Speaker 1: like me, I'm doing the forest gump, like off, I'll
[3:58:00] Speaker 1: go home now, but like like what I'm doing is
[3:58:04] Speaker 1: like I was kind of like, yeah, I'll take that
[3:58:07] Speaker 1: contract because I want to go back, Like I wanted
[3:58:12] Speaker 1: to go back to Syria and Iraq and stuff to
[3:58:14] Speaker 1: be like you guys can stop me from going to
[3:58:18] Speaker 1: the front. And I saw guys from my battalion there
[3:58:23] Speaker 1: one siven live in Syria and Iraq, and I was like, yeah,
[3:58:30] Speaker 1: I'm here, like I'm back, you know, like messing with him.
[3:58:34] Speaker 1: But I was like, yeah, you know, I can get
[3:58:38] Speaker 1: out here for I want. And then from there it
[3:58:40] Speaker 1: was like all right, maybe I need to try something else,
[3:58:43] Speaker 1: because like I've been doing this rodeo these same areas,
[3:58:48] Speaker 1: and so I'm like, man, let's let's go cool places.
[3:58:50] Speaker 1: Let's go places that history. So like another place I
[3:58:52] Speaker 1: went was Rwanda. It's Rwanda, because I was like, man,
[3:58:55] Speaker 1: that's Rwanda genocide that happened when I was alive. Five
[3:58:58] Speaker 1: hundred to six hundred thousand peop murdered in a three
[3:59:01] Speaker 1: month period. Let's go check that out. Let's see all
[3:59:03] Speaker 1: they're doing. So I went over there and I worked
[3:59:05] Speaker 1: with the RDF for about six weeks and I learned
[3:59:08] Speaker 1: a little bit of their language, ate the same food
[3:59:10] Speaker 1: as they did. I would like hang out with the
[3:59:13] Speaker 1: troops all day and just get really embedded with these guys.
[3:59:17] Speaker 1: And then these guys who were there during the genocide
[3:59:20] Speaker 1: would tell me stories. And these are guys who are
[3:59:22] Speaker 1: on both sides in the genocide. And there were guys
[3:59:27] Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, I came down across the border
[3:59:30] Speaker 1: from Uganda and I didn't even live here, and I
[3:59:32] Speaker 1: did it. And I was like, man, and you hear
[3:59:35] Speaker 1: some real stuff. Like a guy was like I was
[3:59:37] Speaker 1: hiding in the water over there, and there used to
[3:59:40] Speaker 1: be a bunch of hippopotamus in there, and I was
[3:59:43] Speaker 1: I and you know, hippos are very dangerous to kill
[3:59:45] Speaker 1: a lot of people. I was hiding in the water
[3:59:47] Speaker 1: close to the hippos while the genociders like hacked his
[3:59:51] Speaker 1: family to pieces. Wow, and he watched from the water
[3:59:53] Speaker 1: and it would be like like this, like barely out
[3:59:56] Speaker 1: of the water, like I'm with the hippos. I'd rather
[3:59:59] Speaker 1: had the hippos kill me than those guys. And these
[4:00:02] Speaker 1: are guys that were to me, and these guys are like,
[4:00:04] Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I thought what I went through was yeah,
[4:00:07] Speaker 1: hard in my life. And I would see somebody's guys like, dude,
[4:00:09] Speaker 1: you were like eight years old hiding near the hippos,
[4:00:12] Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And and all these people
[4:00:14] Speaker 1: are getting murdered and it's and it's you have to
[4:00:18] Speaker 1: hate a person to kill five hundred thousand people. Because
[4:00:21] Speaker 1: they didn't just line they face the wall and shoot right.
[4:00:24] Speaker 1: They got hacked up with machetes. That is hard laboring,
[4:00:27] Speaker 1: Like you're out there, You're gonna get tired swinging a
[4:00:29] Speaker 1: machete that much all day, especially in a manner that's
[4:00:31] Speaker 1: gonna kill that many people. And so that was another
[4:00:34] Speaker 1: like decent thing to like wow, and then look at
[4:00:37] Speaker 1: this guy. He still gives. He's all the money he
[4:00:40] Speaker 1: makes and she isn't much. He gives to an orphanage.
[4:00:42] Speaker 1: He started an orphanage, and uh, you know he's like
[4:00:46] Speaker 1: this religious guy. He's like, you know, he's taking what
[4:00:49] Speaker 1: he knows that helped him through a tough time, which
[4:00:52] Speaker 1: to him was religion. And he's like at this orphanage
[4:00:55] Speaker 1: like taking care of kids, and whatever money that he
[4:00:58] Speaker 1: would make, he give it to towards these kids. And
[4:01:01] Speaker 1: I'm like, dang, man, you have like nothing and you're
[4:01:04] Speaker 1: giving everything. I was like literally selfless people like all
[4:01:08] Speaker 1: over the world, and it's really like so that's kind
[4:01:11] Speaker 1: of where I'm at. I'm like, man, I can what
[4:01:14] Speaker 1: what's okay? Apart from the money because contracts they can
[4:01:19] Speaker 1: pay decent price, you know, what else is happening there
[4:01:24] Speaker 1: that I can you know, look at and be like, hey,
[4:01:26] Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. I went there and not only did
[4:01:28] Speaker 1: I do my job, but I got this extra. Like
[4:01:30] Speaker 1: I went on on Safari, I went into it. They
[4:01:33] Speaker 1: had this like big ceremony where like it's like a
[4:01:37] Speaker 1: gorilla naming ceremony, which was a national event. And you know,
[4:01:42] Speaker 1: I went and checked that out and you get to
[4:01:44] Speaker 1: see like the gorillas in the wild and how they
[4:01:47] Speaker 1: react and you're like, well, this thing is scary. You
[4:01:49] Speaker 1: could kill me and it's right here. But yeah, so yeah,
[4:01:54] Speaker 1: contracting is pretty interesting. O my own house now to
[4:01:59] Speaker 1: play home coming to big Boy, you know, and it's
[4:02:02] Speaker 1: so like working on my backyard. It's a lot like
[4:02:05] Speaker 1: put down, put down the weapon, pick up the plow
[4:02:08] Speaker 1: type stuff going, and you know, doing a lot of
[4:02:13] Speaker 1: free dive. I find free diving very therapeutic because that's
[4:02:16] Speaker 1: something I learned in dive schools, like all breadth holds
[4:02:20] Speaker 1: and going down, and it really is like a good
[4:02:22] Speaker 1: anger management stress relief thing because if you panic, if
[4:02:25] Speaker 1: you do all these things, like you're gonna you're gonna
[4:02:30] Speaker 1: hurt yourself. So you have to be really in control
[4:02:32] Speaker 1: of your emotions while you're doing those real real quickly.
[4:02:36] Speaker 2: Pick up on that thread like eleven, Charlie don't usually
[4:02:39] Speaker 2: go to dive school.
[4:02:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was the funny thing because like at
[4:02:42] Speaker 1: the time, the Mortar Platoon was in HHC, so all
[4:02:45] Speaker 1: these guys were there were like, what company you said
[4:02:47] Speaker 1: you were an r RC, right, I'm like no, I'm
[4:02:50] Speaker 1: a mortar guy.
[4:02:52] Speaker 3: You know.
[4:02:52] Speaker 1: And they were like, what the fuck is this guy
[4:02:55] Speaker 1: doing here? You know? And I was a wild guy.
[4:02:57] Speaker 1: I remember we were doing jock up. I was like
[4:02:59] Speaker 1: the craziest over a guy. The sergeant major of SUO
[4:03:04] Speaker 1: was a two seven five guy, and he was like, y'all,
[4:03:10] Speaker 1: y'all need to get on the motivation. This guy's on
[4:03:13] Speaker 1: because everybody would see your school in it.
[4:03:16] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, past resistance, yeah yeah.
[4:03:18] Speaker 1: And I was just like zero, you know, like I
[4:03:23] Speaker 1: was doing it like Ranger, and I was like so incompetent.
[4:03:26] Speaker 1: A lot of those guys had the edge on me.
[4:03:27] Speaker 1: They had better I think like my pre diive that
[4:03:31] Speaker 1: I went through was that fourth RTV, So the physical
[4:03:33] Speaker 1: aspect was very good, but was not very good was
[4:03:35] Speaker 1: the academic prep. So a lot of these guys had
[4:03:39] Speaker 1: good academic prep prior to going there, and I think
[4:03:42] Speaker 1: like the academics, I was like blade running through that
[4:03:44] Speaker 1: whole course, and then I was just like, hey, Ranger here,
[4:03:50] Speaker 1: what was that big word you said? And then like
[4:03:53] Speaker 1: you know, they would have Ranger cadre in the school
[4:03:56] Speaker 1: that would like laugh along and be like yeah, okay,
[4:03:58] Speaker 1: like We're like we're playing the joe like we're the
[4:04:00] Speaker 1: dumb guys. Guys are the smart guys kind of thing,
[4:04:03] Speaker 1: you know, like we're you know, it was like a
[4:04:05] Speaker 1: playful thing, but I looked at it as an arer
[4:04:09] Speaker 1: management course, and uh when I finished up there and
[4:04:14] Speaker 1: moved on, it's like I never touched any scuba tanks
[4:04:17] Speaker 1: ever again, Yeah you know what I mean. And uh,
[4:04:20] Speaker 1: but I stuck with free diving. I was like, I
[4:04:23] Speaker 1: don't like that's what I actually liked. I was like
[4:04:26] Speaker 1: I was getting tortured and like groundproofed, and then I
[4:04:28] Speaker 1: would be like when are we gonna put on tanks?
[4:04:31] Speaker 1: And I was like, dude, like the real fun is
[4:04:35] Speaker 1: the torture. Yeah. Like I like to swim down into
[4:04:38] Speaker 1: the cave and like pull my like this stuff that
[4:04:40] Speaker 1: I do. I mean, people, if they go to my Instagram,
[4:04:42] Speaker 1: I have some videos of me with like a helmet
[4:04:44] Speaker 1: on with some lights on it, and I'm like crawling
[4:04:47] Speaker 1: through little caves inside some Florida springs and stuff, going
[4:04:52] Speaker 1: through tight spaces, holding my breath. But for me, it's
[4:04:55] Speaker 1: like just mastering myself while I'm down there and like flowing.
[4:04:59] Speaker 1: It's like, hey, don't burn too much oxygen. Yeah, calm,
[4:05:02] Speaker 1: it's so cool, and like none of my joints hurt
[4:05:04] Speaker 1: while I'm down here, and I can do this for hours.
[4:05:06] Speaker 1: I'm going up and down, up and down, and I
[4:05:08] Speaker 1: just feel like like you're almost floating. With the water
[4:05:12] Speaker 1: so clear, you'll have over three hundred feet of visibility.
[4:05:14] Speaker 1: It's just like, wow, it's so beautiful, it's so calm,
[4:05:17] Speaker 1: it's so relaxing down here. But also it can kill me.
[4:05:19] Speaker 1: I can die, yeah, But you try to let those
[4:05:21] Speaker 1: intrusive thoughts go and see yourself through the objective because
[4:05:26] Speaker 1: anything you know that you produce from within doesn't come
[4:05:30] Speaker 1: from within. Like you you're, there's an outside thing. And
[4:05:35] Speaker 1: if I'm I'm in man Verse nature right now now,
[4:05:38] Speaker 1: if I have man Verse nature over here and I
[4:05:41] Speaker 1: also make Manverse man over here, that's two fights. I
[4:05:44] Speaker 1: now split myself in half, right, so I don't really
[4:05:47] Speaker 1: have my full self even a one to one odd
[4:05:49] Speaker 1: and I'm gonna lose both. So I need to know, hey, man,
[4:05:52] Speaker 1: and this is like one way I talked to something.
[4:05:54] Speaker 1: I'm on my side. I'm on my own side right now,
[4:05:57] Speaker 1: so I just need to agree with myself that I'm
[4:05:59] Speaker 1: gonna go and I'm gonna complete this, and I'm going
[4:06:01] Speaker 1: to get through this obstacle and I'm not going to
[4:06:06] Speaker 1: freak out about it. I'm gonna come out to the
[4:06:07] Speaker 1: other side and then oh man, it feels good to
[4:06:10] Speaker 1: be like I've controlled my emotions.
[4:06:12] Speaker 3: And as you start panicking, not only are you're burning
[4:06:15] Speaker 3: oxygen faster, but you might make a move, or you
[4:06:19] Speaker 3: might do something that that screws.
[4:06:22] Speaker 1: You, yeah, yeah, or somebody else, like if you're with
[4:06:25] Speaker 1: your buddy, because now your buddy has to come and
[4:06:27] Speaker 1: get you and he doesn't want to do that. Now
[4:06:29] Speaker 1: you have to negotiate a problem.
[4:06:31] Speaker 2: Less Thank you so much for coming on the show
[4:06:33] Speaker 2: and doing this.
[4:06:34] Speaker 1: Man.
[4:06:34] Speaker 2: We've we've gone for four hours taking up your time here, man,
[4:06:39] Speaker 2: but it's been awesome. Yeah, it's been a marathon run.
[4:06:43] Speaker 2: But I mean this was all like a ton of
[4:06:45] Speaker 2: information and a ton of your experiences and a lot
[4:06:48] Speaker 2: of unique experiences too. Really appreciate you sharing all these
[4:06:52] Speaker 2: insights with us.
[4:06:54] Speaker 1: Thank you appreciate it. Thank you for having me. It's
[4:06:56] Speaker 1: like it's good to be uh with my kind from
[4:07:00] Speaker 1: a different generation and be able to speak with you
[4:07:03] Speaker 1: and maybe connect with some people out there that might
[4:07:06] Speaker 1: have gone through some of the same absolutely, yeah, and
[4:07:08] Speaker 1: maybe it resonates with them. Maybe something I say can
[4:07:10] Speaker 1: resonate with them. So I really appreciate it, and I
[4:07:12] Speaker 1: really appreciate everyone tuning in, supporting the podcast, and uh,
[4:07:15] Speaker 1: you know, I hope it all works out.
[4:07:17] Speaker 3: It was.
[4:07:17] Speaker 2: It was great, man. I mean, thank you. You came
[4:07:19] Speaker 2: out here, came to the Christmas party the other day,
[4:07:22] Speaker 2: and you had me laughing my ass off telling and
[4:07:24] Speaker 2: telling some of these Barracks stories about the Joe's But
[4:07:29] Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, all your combat experience and uh interactions
[4:07:34] Speaker 2: and going through this terrible experience on your way out
[4:07:37] Speaker 2: of all.
[4:07:38] Speaker 3: Me and honestly, even though you know you feel that
[4:07:42] Speaker 3: you may have acted out ways like you handled it
[4:07:45] Speaker 3: better than I would.
[4:07:46] Speaker 4: Yeah, I ever would have.
[4:07:50] Speaker 3: And and and not just from a professional viewpoint from
[4:07:55] Speaker 3: but from it's very easy to burn in, you know.
[4:08:00] Speaker 3: And that's not just like when when with an RFS.
[4:08:04] Speaker 3: I mean that's that's just when you leave the life
[4:08:06] Speaker 3: in general. Right, it's very easy to burn in. And
[4:08:10] Speaker 3: I think a lot of us burn in to a degree.
[4:08:15] Speaker 3: And you know something, you know, something helps us somewhere.
[4:08:21] Speaker 1: Along the way.
[4:08:23] Speaker 4: But for you to have such a.
[4:08:29] Speaker 6: Really a situation with these people that that that you know,
[4:08:37] Speaker 6: that almost like take away everything that you've accomplished and
[4:08:41] Speaker 6: still be able to go on to a unit and
[4:08:44] Speaker 6: still take care of the troops underneath you and still
[4:08:48] Speaker 6: Roger up, still ranger up.
[4:08:50] Speaker 12: You know, that's a hell of a lot more of
[4:08:52] Speaker 12: being a ranger. You know, the idea of taking that
[4:08:55] Speaker 12: out to uh, you know, the idea of a ranger
[4:08:58] Speaker 12: is learning it and taking it out out to the
[4:09:00] Speaker 12: to the conventional army.
[4:09:02] Speaker 3: That's a that's being a hell of a lot more
[4:09:04] Speaker 3: arranger than some asshole sitting behind at the desk, you know,
[4:09:09] Speaker 3: looking at all of your combat experience, everything you contributed,
[4:09:13] Speaker 3: and then not even giving you the benefit of doubt. Yeah,
[4:09:17] Speaker 3: that dud should have his tab, his scroll, he should
[4:09:19] Speaker 3: take it all, have it all taken away.
[4:09:21] Speaker 2: Well, when you see a lot of these disciplinary issues,
[4:09:25] Speaker 2: a lot of the post service issues that guys have
[4:09:28] Speaker 2: psychological issues, I think a lot of the things that
[4:09:31] Speaker 2: you've talked about today, So that's the I mean, they
[4:09:33] Speaker 2: speak to that. Yeah, you know, why why do we
[4:09:36] Speaker 2: release guys on a three day weekend and we have
[4:09:39] Speaker 2: like ten DUIs in the unit.
[4:09:41] Speaker 1: Why could that be?
[4:09:42] Speaker 2: Does it have something to do with how we treat
[4:09:44] Speaker 2: these soldiers?
[4:09:46] Speaker 1: Is that possible?
[4:09:47] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[4:09:48] Speaker 1: That is that within the realm of possibility.
[4:09:51] Speaker 3: And the simple fact is is like I don't agree
[4:09:53] Speaker 3: with the RFS, you know, with a lot of the stuff,
[4:09:56] Speaker 3: but for you to get RFS and not even having
[4:09:59] Speaker 3: to drinking, to have to for them not to even
[4:10:02] Speaker 3: wait for a court like, that's the kind of bullshit
[4:10:05] Speaker 3: in regiment that that tears me up because I've seen
[4:10:09] Speaker 3: it happen other guys. You're supposed I've seen I've seen
[4:10:11] Speaker 3: other guys who are out, Yeah they're having a beer,
[4:10:13] Speaker 3: but they're minding their own fucking business.
[4:10:15] Speaker 1: Yea.
[4:10:16] Speaker 2: And and you know you're supposed to drive your car
[4:10:19] Speaker 2: into the Chattahoochie to.
[4:10:20] Speaker 1: Get you know, before that happened, you know, you know,
[4:10:23] Speaker 1: the way I looked at it was it happened the
[4:10:28] Speaker 1: way it did because it's the only way it could
[4:10:30] Speaker 1: have happened. The only way I would have left that
[4:10:32] Speaker 1: organization is kicking and screaming. And that's what happened.
[4:10:37] Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what I mean.
[4:10:38] Speaker 1: And at first I regretted what I gave, and then
[4:10:41] Speaker 1: I was like and I'm proud of what I gave. Right,
[4:10:44] Speaker 1: it didn't really turn out too bad, because that's probably
[4:10:49] Speaker 1: the only way I would have left. Like what I've
[4:10:50] Speaker 1: been like sitting there until like I'm sorry major maybe
[4:10:55] Speaker 1: and then like which is difficult to pull off, and
[4:10:58] Speaker 1: then what I'm gonna look at a computer and like
[4:11:00] Speaker 1: these guys are red, make them green on the tracker.
[4:11:04] Speaker 2: You wouldn't have enjoyed that. Yeah, yeah, Well, thank you
[4:11:08] Speaker 2: so much for sharing your experiences and story with us.
[4:11:11] Speaker 2: I hope to see you again, man. I hope next
[4:11:13] Speaker 2: time you come through the city. I hope we'll see
[4:11:15] Speaker 2: you next December. And here are about some more shenanigains.
[4:11:19] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah, we deeply appreciate it. We
[4:11:23] Speaker 1: appreciate you, man, And yeah, I appreciate you guys, and
[4:11:27] Speaker 1: I appreciate the community and everybody. He's tuning in right man. Yeah,
[4:11:33] Speaker 1: shout out task for as Berman and we.
[4:11:36] Speaker 2: Will see all you guys on Friday with Jeff Stein,
[4:11:39] Speaker 2: editor of spy Talk. And he was an army case
[4:11:43] Speaker 2: officer in the Vietnam War. So we'll see you guys then.
[4:11:47] Speaker 2: Until then, take care of everyone.

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