Jocko Podcast 242 w/ Justin LeHew: Do Whatever It Takes to Establish a Winning Mentality

2020-08-17T19:33:53Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles @historyflight 0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:24 - Marine Gunnery Sgt. Justin LeHew 3:52:53 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 4:09:13 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO STORE Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com/collections/men Jocko Fuel: https://originmaine.com/origin-labs/ Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Origin Gis: https://originmaine.com/bjj-mma-fit/ 4:30:49 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

and then it was it was large scale now it's going to be desert because after 1991 then Somalia happens right there so there's more of a middle eastern focus that's now shifting into this whole training paradigm that's there mixed in with these humanitarian missions like Haiti and everything else that's happening so you've got forces all over the place and the funny thing is I really truly do hope that in places in the government and in higher places in uniform above and beyond where you and I ever achieved to be at you really do hope that that mentality did not sip in and they started to promulgate it down to do that because that would just tell you that the people that were relying on to know the most about the business of doing warfare don't know as much that we actually believe that they do because if everything in the context from 1775 all the way up to present day of America is a blueprint for what is going to happen in the next 20 to 25 years and it is un-disputable and a training environment to actually think that we are not going to be fighting another large scale or at this time period while in between that time period are going to go in fight and four and five other shitty little engagements around the thing the Somalia as the Haiti's bigger and eight is going to happen and those are going to be compartmentalized not everybody gets to go to that party and then you got to keep your motivation up you got to train the troops and say that that's that units mission this time ours will be common ours will do that if you are going to make a career of a lengthy career in the US military you are going to go to war and there are other services that are going to go parts and pieces maybe before you but you trained them differently to say that you know these kind of things in the past only actually and boldened the culture when you do that to somebody to fight them even harder imagine somebody coming in and mutilating your mother or doing something after that and you believe that that's going to suppress you and amount of hatred to not want to go and do whatever you can to do that so all those little steps along the way of a of a 162 guys of a rifle company you know you watch a band of brothers and then you're sitting here going man in 2004 I wouldn't part of the five of those parish unit infantry by a de Bestem American in America so we're seeing since that time frame in this city once that piece deal I don't know what else to call it cease fire deal was brokered what was arrested at the point of like it was now just going through the city and doing reparations payments through the city and we would set up things on a Monday that was probably even more dangerous than combat because they you'd bring them to the same place same day same time they would line up you'd be driving through the city and you'd do talking knocks on there are you claiming any damage that the Americans did on your house or did you lose this on and combat did you do something like this then that's where you find out how they fabricate multiple desertificates and they're trying to get money from the Americans and it was just it was a lot of that it was then a lot of going back into the town to then again say that you know we don't want to fight meaning if you will give you a fight if you want it but let's kind of get back to doing what it was we were here to stabilize this and help you out I think that's a pretty good deal one less infantry battalion than the rest and they cover the most ground it's out there in a Pacific from northern China all the way to Darwin and best one of the best fighting regiments it's story they're the China marines they're not they're not they're operations in China fourth marines at the China marines but third marines has quite a legacy um and a legacy that goes back to rawfiel paraulta legacy of these battions going in out of Afghanistan my rock because when larger battions got longer to all ratios when you had one less battalion in a regiment that usually has four that's in there plus what they have and you have three systematically they have to deploy more it goes out so now you're kind of in charge of a regiment that's got one of the highest deployment tempos and also like the highest divorce rate in the entire United States Marine Corps because they live in paradise but they're never there you know the families are on that island but their loved ones are out training and to do all you're training and why you have to leave Hawaii to do it so on your dwell time like you had said before dwell in dwell dwell for some places in the backyard as well and other places when you can't train in your backyard you have to fly to California fly to the big island fly to do different things like that all your dwell time then turns into training time then that's how long was that tour that was about two and a half years and what is that what is that bring you after that they brought me up to a two star command at training and education command for the US Marine Corps out of Quantico Virginia and that's where eventually we figured finished out of up there and that was was that 30 years that was a 30 years at what point did you start getting involved in history flight about 2019 time frame um we got a package in the Marine Corps for an honorary Marine was a guy in the Mark Nilla and we'd started reading through this package and the general officer that I worked for was the guy that originally did the nomination when he was in charge of the Second Marine Division and he was now the Ticom commanding general this comes in and general done for is going to make this man an honorary Marine he wants us to do the ceremony so we go over the National Museum of the Marine Corps Mark Nilla in his family comes up we host them for a couple of days yet I saw the video today though good job good down with that one also e f overwatch if you need leaders in your organization we have experienced battle tested leaders e f overwatch dot com if you're in the military go there we can link you up with companies if you're company you need that leadership go to e f overwatch dot com fill out the appropriate information for yourself for charities like I said history flight dot com if you want to support the recovery of these heroes around the world also they have at history flight on instagram so check that out and then of course we got momily marklies mom and her organization america's mighty warriors dot org she does all kinds of things to help service members whether that's medical treatments that they couldn't get through military channels whether it's things that they need while they're over on deployment whether it's gold star families that need some some kind of support after they've lost their loved one she does all kinds of things like this so go to america's mighty warriors dot org if you want to get involved or if you want to donate and if for some unknown reason you just feel like you need to hear more of my disproportionately dallying discourse or you feel like you need more of echoes confiscated conceptualizations then you can find us on the inner webs on twitter instagram and on facebook echo is at echo trowels and i am at jocca willink and thanks once again to Justin LaHue for coming on for sharing the lessons with us we thank you for your service and we absolutely wish you godspeed in your mission today to continue to bring home our fallen country men and a solemn thanks to all that have fought for our freedom but did not return and of course thanks to all the service men and women who are out there today holding the line training to hold the line taking risk to hold the line to protect our freedom thanks to all of you and to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all the first responders thank you for holding the line and protecting us here on the home front and to everyone else out there you can learn a lot i learn a lot from a man like sergeant major Justin LaHue try try to eat his advice his advice to do whatever it takes to initiate savage action and aggression to establish a winning mentality and to do things not for yourself but for your country there is something bigger than you so go out there and get after it then until next time this is echo and jockel out but it helps augment we have a burn rate I go at 10,000 dollars a day to try to locate these that's this one one day for two teams to exist to try to find these american eras on TARWA and that is just operations on TARWA if you expand that out to do one crash sites in Europe looking for boys in the casserine pass for anything else on that that just greatly increases the costs rates that are up there and time equipment security of US remains like we have in this COVID time period on TARWA and just going out and and raising what you can to do what you said you know how can you put a dollar value on hey it's one of those things you look around and you're just like we made a promise to people years ago I can't imagine what it was like to get a telegraph the western union telling you on Christmas Eve that your son's not coming home which many of our veterans from TARW whether a family's got that on December 23rd they just happened to show up at the house to do that merry Christmas or or the Sullivan brothers or something like this it isn't here and that's a bad telegram to get but the telegrams that really break my heart is roughly the telegrams that you can see in the national archives from like 1949 and those are the telegrams that were sent to families that said not only is your son been killed and he's not coming home or no longer looking for them I can only imagine being a mother sitting there reading four years later after writing letter after letter after letter to hap Arnold or to whoever would listen can you give me some whereabouts of my boy can I have some fun where are they at shove Vaseline up in whom he's noses put everything else the corpsman start doing that and then we talk of these dead bodies into these things put the machine gunners and people on the roof to pin the snipers down and run those net Iraqi bodies across the street and put them in a house when I put them in a house so this is another thing that I don't really like to tolerate about all these people that they try to paint US troops is they're just barbarians that are put them in a house pull them in the house and actually when they put them down inside the house I said face their heads towards Maka they were fighters they you know people call them shit heads or they were hopped up they were in search or whatever I have a little bit of a respect of another human being I may not believe in what you're doing but he picked up a rifle he did whatever he was going to do for whatever that guy believed in and was trying to kill me and on the field about or we just got one up on him that was here so put them inside of there turn them cover them with this pile of rocks that was there because the wild dogs start to go through there and then over the next 24 hours that's all you heard all night was the wild dogs beating their head to get into that building to start tearing at the bodies then the next morning these same landscourt rules that you're seeing that made you start that in the first place you're seeing them just go like would you look at that and you see a dog rolled down the street like with a foot hanging out of its mouth like it's and I just wanted to kind of just just go through real quick here because when I read them each one of them you know as I sat there silently read my email I just kind of said they're nodding my heads and yep number one whatever it takes number two savage action and aggression in combat and in life number three in total combat and warfare you will get punched in the face number four no excuses don't have a victim mentality number five never leave a fallen comrade behind both in and out of the military number six moral and ethical leadership both in and out of combat number seven take total responsibility number eight always in the fight and never out of it number nine do what it takes to build the best team number ten except blame and shoulder burdens number eleven set your ego aside for the good of the collective number twelve establish and reinforce a winning mentality on and off the battlefield number thirteen be part of the solution not part of the problem number fourteen leadership is about people and getting the best from them and from yourself number fifteen be a man or woman of character number sixteen live an honorable and valourous life and number seventeen not for self but for country some things don't really even need further discussion and that's what I liked about that list as I read through it like I said I just nodded my head um unbelievable guidance from your life from your thirty years in the military from your heroic actions and not just your own heroic actions but for all the heroes that you saw around you and you know to me that's what this is about you know you set in this example you put in these words and you continuing to live a life of service to go out there and bring home these heroes I'll leave it to you for any other closing thoughts you might have right now so it's kind of knowing your marines in the rough time how it benefits the skills that you can have I know you can drive get in there he calls off and we get in there and drop the casual I get called over because I call my gun or he's sorry it's on the fab that's left back with my weapons puttone and said go over to this other unit tell all my need the machine gunners tell them they're going to need to put people up in those things to do this and we're taking on machine gunners and we're going back in a city with these guys I knew I'd be there by now all that machine guns came out loaded up we're all rolling in a city before we rolled out I took him out went back in the city jackel had to make another run that was back out and somehow a lieutenant colonel was up with the mu headquarters and come in and he had said if that SOB gets back on here again I want to see before it goes out love him to death lieutenant colonel johnson I walked up in there still covered going from head to toe and he was carrying like an MP5 on his back and he grabbed me got real close and so I go out as many times as we can the archaeologists go out about six week rotations they come back for about four weeks they go back out it's in there and systematically we were hoping within five years to process that entire eye went to the fullest it's not possible because they're still roughly approximately 400 and has been identified jacco the whole organization has recovered over 337 sets of missing American remains up front 130 plus have been positively identified the other moons are in the possession of the DNA labs and that so these are going to be more success stories each week each month of all the moons that are already in there and then on top of that you have operations and Europe you have operations and the Philippines you've got the US government in Vietnam you've got everybody out there doing what they can and then we as a private organization augment the skills that the US government out there 78,000 people probably a lot or naval casualties as you know you probably get roughly 28,000 that are able to be accessed that are here and if you're talking about a recovery rate of the government it about 200 of those a year on their own they're going to be doing this hundreds of years and they're never going to be able to catch that and these things whether it's forestry, whether it's city development, whether it's anything else you have the the loss is going to happen each year to where possibly some of these areas that you could have recovered a previous year are not accessible a year or two from now so you're always racing in its time and especially with the World War II generation you're really racing against the wrong time meaning we have young right when named Wendell Perkins that as a TAR was survivor and a veteran so yes so make the most of it you know kind of kind of that old thing make the most of it everyone's in a while you know like you'll get injured like something that'll take you out like for you know like a month like a month or more recovery time or whatever so that for that month you can't really do certain things if not like a lot of things and then when you finally heal up and are able to do it you have that like appreciation for just everyday stuff and that happens everybody's going to the big one 1820s were fighting insurrection with Indians you're fighting a different kind of warfare it's that insurgent small warfare again it's clear and then all of a sudden some way pops in and starts going we're going to Mexico everybody's going to Mexico City then you compartmentalize that then you get 1861 to 65 the whole show goes to town following that 60s and 70s then you hit the Spanish American war that comes in just after the Spanish American war war war one kicks off banana wars happen after that we start learning how to develop an amphibious doctrine throughout the Pacific guys like Pete Ellis are out there saying that the Japanese are going to strike into Pacific we have people in jungle training like Chesteepuller and all those learning these jungle skills in Nicaragua in Haiti and all these small little wars at that time period and a lot of guys are then asking you are we authorized to return fire to do this because that was probably the biggest thing that happened in Nazarea was that epic scope and scale of it you would think that people were itch in the pool the trigger it was quite the opposite they were really running the rules of engagement and saying until I get some real positive idea or something like this I'm not just going to sling a 50 count into this building until I have a reason to do that and it was a really short time until we are given a reason to do all of that and more whether it's 40 millimeter of our native launchers 50 cows laying 60 millimeter mortars on direct fire down avenues of approach it was every range you had ever been on all packed into one that was there and it was that way for a solid straight eight hours and nothing let up there wasn't a breather there wasn't anything it was in here the supply chains aren't going to come up to you because they know what's going on up there so at the times this is all happening the tanks are a pretty big signature all the sudden tanks run out of gas really quick when they're burning through that noise tanks start pulling out the bottle position because you can't get the fuel in to refuel the tanks are in the city tanks are now going to leave the city you and I just talked about the past hours I go my generation was very easy to go into a fight knowing that I was not going to be buried in some foreign dirt nation that was somewhere else in the world because the person on your left and right was going to make sure that wasn't going to happen just like when we went out there in the middle of burning amtrak and that street it was not an option to leave those Marines to have their bodies drug through streets or to have anything else like that not on my watch and to find out the gravity of this is overall these years that did happen in places and the iteration of the United States going out and having this honorable mission to go do that it's like I want to be a part of that how can I fit into the paradigm of doing this and that was about 2018 kicked off at that time period and then just offered up Mark Hale doing assessment of the organization and I just found out this passionate story of how many people what they were giving up to go and do this so if you want to go down in your stomach is when you see those bad boys start rolling the opposite way and you're left with thin skin vehicles because our amtrax on that deployment cycle we didn't have enough time when we got the deployment order jacco to get the bolt on armor to put on the outside of vehicles so our vehicles at the thickest point was two inches of aluminum we didn't have the applique we didn't have the enhanced armor it was in there and then the humvies still just had cloth doors and they had that that ghetto armor as we called it in 2004 and five and armor plates and all that were the product of what we learned back then to do that and as they're going the tanks go that way and now the fight is in a 360 and we're about an hour and a half into that don't know what's going on if the other northern bridge don't know what's going on on the outskirts of town where our third maneuver unit was supposed to be on the outskirts of town and that had the commander in the third maneuver unit on the outskirts of Nazarelia they kind of tried to do an end around with these command vehicles and they got into this Iraqi cesspool bog that was so you got up there you said February 18th got up there in February we offload in February and Kuwait and then we made the march up into the northern portion of Kuwait to stage where we're gonna go through the breech lanes into Iraq and then going in going into this how did the attitude compare to what you experience in the first Gulf War of of of your fellow Marines the attitude was absolutely there was no problem getting any Marines to do anything with the problem keeping them from doing something because they still had the twin towers burning in their head used to have people in your platoon that were in New York when that actually happened and it joined the Marines a couple of years later so they were kids that were 70 that was the catalyst to make them Marines and you have that fight of you did this and that that was the energy that was going in as we you know some of us who were here the first time knew that we were gonna be back there again because people had always chastised or whatever or armchair quarterback George Bush's decision on should he have just pushed the troops up into buying dad and knocked out Sonom and saying in 1991 and the mission was get him out of Kuwait put him back in the wrong house We were already in position and rolling and refueling we kicked off on about March 19th and started to track up because you're talking hundreds of miles that was in there and again fixing things along the way whatever you have to do because the thing was push push push push push push you can't stop you can't do this which really bonds to that old thing we were talking about like the USS Indianapolis you know it was maintain radio silence keep pushing keep pushing don't give away positions don't do whatever you have to do right get to the end of the result and but we started top and often refueling about the 21st it was kind of the invasion load for the fuel we've already loaded with ammunition you already loaded with everything the 22nd rolls into there and you instantly know the call is the 23rd is going to go into the city and then that's when you've already rehearsed at your position to take a certain bridge here's your mission and here's the time and date stamp that you have to be accomplished by whether it is set in office zero four in the morning to get to a bridge by zero late so that you have somebody that is here so did you but Talian get tasked to take nausea but you couldn't if you were a colored one there I couldn't do that so it's one of those things where you find a way and it might not be this year might be some year that was the way said absolutely sergeant made your game me a call he said show up down here in the pool deck about three fifteen in the morning bring your PT shorts bring your things down here getting a pool do some things run a PFT that was over here do a little bit of an interview brought some people down in and it's a tail end of the thing he said I'd just like to be a first sergeant here recon battalion tonight I'd absolutely love that job and he goes okay consider it done go back up I've already called your sergeant major up there before you even said yes you're coming back here went up to first battalion fourth Marine same thing back my stuff went down there and spent from the year of 2005 to 2010 as the first sergeant for company eight mostly absolutely but five times now went to Europe last year so last year in March we recovered a lost row called the missing road D of cemetery 33 that on tarawah is called the main marine cemetery now tarawah is only about 800 meters wide by about a click an half long it's not a very thing on island a base you know down there on every ounce of that is habitated now earth's huts there's everything else built on top of these and years ago the the cemeteries the marries did the best thing they could to bear in record the things and then they had to then go to the next time when to fight load up an anx ship to fight the thing like that turns it over airfield expansion starts going and then the cemeteries and that start moving around that island and then roughly in 1946 America has this big thing in the American grave registration unit and they're sent around the world to try to recover as many lost people in 1946 they can and they get this mandate they visit tarawah they get some bones and they bring it back they do that you did you feel like the Marine Corps the US military was in a state of basically you know what are really not going to have to fight another war I mean the whole world just saw what we did to these guys over here I know I had leadership that would straight up tell us that you know listen the days of you guys are never going to do a direct action mission it's just not going to happen and then on top of that we had technology and then you kind of find out for people that's on the podcast that are well you know what I've never been in the military or listen you find out it wasn't the military and a lot of times it taught these things it was here you find out when you when you look around at the goodness of your whole life and if you look at the context of your life line rather than the best years of your life was these years or these years if you look at their all building blocks on the entire time line of your life you find out that that teacher that wasn't in the military that taught you this is what you learned here that coach that was hard on you here that taught you here the mother that you thought was making dinner was actually married to a soldier for 26 years so even though that soldier's not here I might have picked up some of the leadership things from your old man so you might want to listen because maybe it looks like me doing it we don't need it this is what we do for the living so go to echelon front dot com and we'll look it up e f on line we're doing a lot of virtual stuff right now one of the things that we're doing virtual we we did we did online training before we're doing even more now I am live on that thing all the time if you want to talk to me if you want to come and ask me a question go to e f on line attend one of the online training live seminars we're talking one two three times a week I'm on there the rest of the team is on there you want to have you want to you got to talk to me let me know come and get it that's what we're doing e f on line dot com also have the master which is a live gig September 16th and 17th in Phoenix Arizona Dallas Texas December 3rd and 4th go to extremownership dot com if you want to come they've all sold out so you're going to sell out to we haven't even released the video but we still had the capabilities that nobody was for seeing the bus saw that was going to happen when when we crossed over those bridges that morning on the 23rd U.S. debriefing your your portunes like out in the field or you in the assembly area how is the word getting transmitted to the troops you're already doing the pre briefs that are out there in the days leading up to that once we got everything else is kind of on the move one time I've got six different radio nets that are going on inside of my helmet little box down here that I can switch between battalion tack one tack to fires anything else while you're still maintaining your communications for your inner comms for your vehicles you're still maintaining tactical control of your own people in relation to the battle that was on there and once the things are rolling there was no time to just stop and say we need to get everybody back together and talk about what we're about to do tomorrow and you know what I loved it I loved the messaging that it had that was on there because the messaging the politically incorrect messaging that should have came on then at the United States Navy we will completely destroy your way of life it's the same one to this and then things like listing the battle things of saying this is just one we have quite a few more of these and then more importantly is once again you don't pick it up out the machines you make it about the person and when people start seeing recruiting losers that actually have the resilience and the fighting thing I've seen America's army come out they're actually really good ones they got some door kicking things I mean they're actually targeting like we want infantry maple I also knew she needed to get over that hill for what we needed if we were going to have that and I also knew how much of a pride thing when you thought you'd never be able to achieve that because of all those excuses they were packing up for your own self you need to get over this hill and she got over there and she stayed with me for the rest of the time in the marine corps we would slap hands as I would come out of combat and she would go back into combat and the hardest job that I had was about 2007 when I had to stay back for seven months and play Mr. Mom to a 13-year-old daughter going through those daughter kind of things of boy you were a Tom boy about five months ago and we like to do this and now you got makeup now you have this at mom's not here to deal with this but I'm not telling you I go that other people were like that that you saw in training areas or you didn't see putting in the hours and the reps and the sets that it actually took to lay the maps and talk the history and and kind of really ingrained that mindset into somebody it was overall the Marines had the mindset subunit levels that were on there it always goes back to whatever the commander whatever the ownership is going to make it focus a training at that time period because you can have the higher authority the basic we're going to go in and we're going to do this mission but the people that you train each sleep breathe with that put that into you is normally not the chief and naval operations or the common on the Marine Corps it is your lieutenant colonel it is your captain and you know that thought that's like dang all that was going on at that like that's what you know because you say the dates and you're like I remember what I was doing 2003 I remember that what I was doing and you kind of flashed to man that's what he was doing at that time and you kind of make that little comparison and then we went about one of them started pointing about a hundred yards away interpreter comes up what's he saying he said we're missing a body is over there I'm like how does he know these are there probably because he was with him when that guy was killed walk behind another rock power hundred meters away dead and surge my end right over there because he was probably spotting or something with them these kids were 17 18 that was on that popped up in the ambulance pulled him off down the street you know international incident circumvented by kind of not desecrating or not doing what you're you know a lot of people may not even blame you got it animosity you're amped up you're doing this but I also looked up in out the cargo hatches in my plutones sergeant had the weapon station turned all the way to the back with the now's a net depressed end of the back of the neural and the other E7 that was in this hatch was leaning and riding the vehicle backwards with a baretta and was in Overwatch of me down there in other words they probably wasn't so scared to me because they were probably scared those crazy guys will fire into the back of your and kill even if the risk of killing one the run so we didn't have any problem pornal going into that training at mindset that we're going into their backyard this time with the greatest marines that we could put forward on the field of battle at that time and all the other cohesive forces going into there there there was not a mindset other than let's just get the show started did you think look I know and I'm you know you're out there walking these mountains and I'm thinking of myself that guy we're always going to have to have that guy we're always going to have to have that guy if anybody ever thinks that you don't need that soldier or marine that's going to mount up and go to wherever they get sent and take that mission and risk their lives and kill the enemy if you ever think that we don't need that guy and it just gave me great reassurance because he's out of the Marine Corps but he's out there and there's that's something we need to make sure that we always have and I think it's part of our instinct I think it's part of being an American but if we ever decide that maybe we need to dispel that attitude from our society we're heading down the wrong road in my opinion because the world the world's a nice place when you live in America but America's not the world and there's evil out there and there has to be people that have the attitude that when the call comes they'll go and they'll go and handle that problem. and it's one of those things it's just a great little ship from a great city that was out there I mean the USS Portland's that held that name before that these are ships that were in doies battle line and everything before and naming of these ships and these cities and when you were talking about do you think that people sometimes lost their way on what they were doing you know like the naming of naval ships and you look around the world and you see the publisher you see the invincible and you see different things that are out there one that built pride in your own ship that was here more importantly is when the anime kind of sees a floatella coming at them and they see the names of these ships that are actually coming that leads to a mindset of the people that are on that ship in a country behind that ship so when we're we're one we're sending the rules of Elts out are we're naming these cities and right down to these little LSTs that we're called barber counties and harland counties and these were produced to represent these Americans who were the fabric of our nation who are there and you know what to an extent you have to weigh where you need to put those forces now to where you need to put those forces somewhere in the future and at the same time maybe a fire down here on one of our LHAs and a few other things you just got taken offline when we've been running those ships ragged for about the past 20 years to in and out of dry docks and everything else puts us probably in one of the most vulnerable times again prior to 1941 we've been fighting for 20 years we've been recycling that equipment we've been throwing people into the breach 7 8 9 and 10 times we have sons and daughters that are now fighting the same war that their fathers and mothers went in the resilience of the American people is strong but it's going to be tested it's going to be tested very soon I was up in Montana a few weeks ago it's a shit dump it was a and an armored vehicle it looks like it's sand on top first one launches into there sinks all the way down it can't get out and one Abrams goes in after it it's gone command vehicles go in it's going and you're talking about now we're thermite engine compartments and everything because we're going to have to leave these vehicles inside of these cities this is the blueprint that wasn't supposed to happen or this is what how many hours into it are you right now this is two this is two end to that are you have you already taken casualties at this point at that point none in mining media area and then right after that is when I was faced in opposite direction fire an turret in kind of a rearward thing to keep the Iraqis back from this avenue of approach and we saw an ambulance coming into a high rate of speed up the thing and we were off the closest Somalia so we saw that happen so you maybe you'd get the feeling that maybe there would be some sort of what we what we used to call the big mission you know we get some one mission in fact a lot of our training was you know our full mission profiles oftentimes were around like hey this is a mission this is a mission there's the situation if you're going to do this mission you know when we worked with the Marine Corps it was always like and then we've been fighting never since in the major wars and also the small ones I believe our small war period started again roughly about the 2008 time period because if you actually look at that clock and I just now every 20 to 25 years this nation all has to mount up and go fight somebody everybody on a bigger scale to do that all the ways since 1775 and then in the next one of your period we have to reposition we have to rebuild and we have to spite these small little compressed areas around the things and prepare for the next one because history tells us the next one is eventually going to happen and if that's going to be an invasion of in-shan of which what you were saying is there a certain skill sense let's take the amphibious warriors that we have out there today you know they've been being told now that they'll never be another scale of D-day they'll never be another scale of this and I didn't go with a Lance Cooper to do selection assessment I didn't go through the things that those guys had to do I was a first-sorten it was happy to be in the infantry but that master gunnery sergeant I told you about in that recon platoon that was just sitting out on a bob doing nothing along with my machine gunners and that's how I found them went out of that city when we were running casualties and 14 miles away was the element of the mue headquarters out of a place called fob duke I rolled into post one all the way to the CP and when we set the casualties over to get treated at the main BDS I was there I always taught the Marines if you ever take a vehicle back to the rear you do not bring it back to the front empty ammunition food water whatever you have so the same guy that filmed the thing called Chris it was in there washes the blood out the vehicles he does the things he goes over the KBR representatives which were actually really great there was no 801 12 apples or anything else guy would unlock an entire ISO container and go you take what you want first and then just sign off the whole ISO container or whatever whatever they had to do but it wasn't you can't have this not fresh fruit or whatever you can do get it back in their trolls up I go over in the main CP and I get called up there because somebody finds out I just brought casualties back into your we're going to go back into the city and when we made that 14 thing with a shot out windscreen Chris who is not a home V driver or a license to on be driver

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Pondcast number 242 with echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening, echo. Good evening.
[00:00:10] The president of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to gunnery Sergeant Justin D. Lehu United States Marine Corps.
[00:00:21] For extraordinary heroism as amphibious assault, platoon sergeant company A, first battalion, second Marines, task force, tarua.
[00:00:34] First Marine Expeditionary Force in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 23 and 24 March 2003.
[00:00:42] As regimental combat team to attack north towards Amnazarea Iraqi, lead elements of the battalion came under heavy enemy fire.
[00:00:57] When the beleaguered United States Army 507th maintenance company Convoy was spotted in the distance, gunnery sergeant Lehu and his crew were dispatched to rescue the soldiers.
[00:01:09] Under constant enemy fire, he led the rescue team to the soldiers.
[00:01:17] With total disregard for his own welfare, he assisted the evacuation effort of four soldiers to whom were critically wounded.
[00:01:25] While still receiving enemy fire, he climbed back into his vehicle and immediately began suppressing enemy infantry.
[00:01:32] During the subsequent company attack on the eastern bridge over the Fratees River, gunnery sergeant Lehu continuously exposed himself to winering enemy fire during the three hour urban firefight.
[00:01:48] His courageous battlefield presence inspired his Marines to fight a determined foe and allow him to position his platoons heavy machine guns to repelled numerous waves of attackers.
[00:01:59] In the midst of the battle and amphibious assault vehicle was destroyed, killing or wounding all its occupants gunnery sergeant Lehu immediately moved to recover the nine Marines.
[00:02:12] He again exposed himself to a barrage of fire as he worked for nearly an hour recovering casualties from the wreckage.
[00:02:20] By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire and utmost devotion to duty gunnery sergeant Lehu reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.
[00:02:50] And that is a citation about one episode in one Marine's life.
[00:03:05] And it doesn't explain everything in that Marine's life nor does it explain everything about the Marine Corps.
[00:03:12] But it does give us a glimpse into what Marines do and what our American servicemen are capable of but it's only a glimpse.
[00:03:33] And you know these citations throughout the military when you go to different military bases and I've been to many many military bases around the country and around the world these citations of heroic awards.
[00:03:54] They're posted in various places around the base on the walls and the classrooms on the quarterdecks and throughout my career starting as a young young kid.
[00:04:08] I would stop and I would read through these these citations and I would always wish to myself.
[00:04:23] I would always wish that I could meet these men and I could talk to them and I could learn from them and I could see what they were what they were really like.
[00:04:33] And with that in mind it is an absolute honor today to have that opportunity as Sergeant Major retired Justin Lehu is joining us to share the experiences that he had and the lessons that he learned in his service and in his life.
[00:04:59] Justin.
[00:05:02] I'm honored to have you here. Thanks for coming out. It's honored to be here with you today.
[00:05:18] I know we were talking a little bit about this, you know, the opportunity some of the people that have come on this podcast is just unbelievable to capture their lessons, you know, from guys that were on Tarlar, Ewo Jima and just incredible and it's it's an honor for me to sit here and and be able to capture some of these lessons for people not just not just soldiers not just Marines but just people.
[00:05:48] So that we can learn.
[00:05:51] Let's um, let's start at the beginning. Let's start it where you came from. So you were born in Columbus Grove, Ohio is that right?
[00:06:01] I'm a scroval, Ohio, a small little farm community, about 2,000 people. I don't think it's been up or down of 100 over the past 100 years this up there. It kind of was like any Norman Rockwell painting that you would ever say it was a great place to grow up when I was younger it was a place you didn't lock your doors. It was a place where parents told you to be in by the time the straight lights came on. It truly was like the fabric of America.
[00:06:29] You grew up playing little league baseball, pony league baseball. You grew up knowing every kid in the two schools that were in town because it was kind of like a little northern Ireland. It was either Protestants and Catholics wasn't anything else. It was kind of those two choices and for grades one through eight. There was the Catholic school that was on the other side of the railroad tracks and then there was the public school and then you knew by sports and by your neighbors.
[00:06:59] You knew everybody and it didn't matter if it was K through 12. You knew the kindergarteners because you were to school with their brothers and sisters. It was a really tight, very hard working community.
[00:07:11] Now is that where your dad and mom were from originally?
[00:07:14] Dad was from a place called Front Row over Virginia right at the northern end of the entrance to the Skyline Drive. It was right there and then my mother was from Columbus, Gerobo, Ohio. My dad was in the army drafted in the army and was on June 6, 1944 part of the 29th Infantry as I believe one of the older PFCs at the age of 28 coming out of the front.
[00:07:41] He definitely was. He came out of the front end of that LCP at that fire of the German 352 and overlooking the Blossom, Omaha Beach and then made a live all the way to St. Low and all the way to the end of the war.
[00:07:57] When he got back, he took a job in Baltimore, Maryland at the Chrysler Corporation and my mom's brother happened to be working there. He started going back to Columbus, Gerobo, Ohio on some little excursions.
[00:08:13] There was quite a difference between mom and dad. There was about 15 years difference. Dad was a farmer and this was a farm community. He would come back and then he would help work the snarrow family, whether it was small farms, whether it was help Mr. Snarrow or anybody else, drive his busing firm. He would do all that and when he'd be out there to tell one of the thing, my mom was about five or whatever when they first met.
[00:08:39] He used to bring lemonade out to the guys working in the field and he was just joking with her one day and he said, when you go up, I'm going to marry you.
[00:08:47] Then he went on to not do that. He went in the infantry drafted and he came back and while he was working in Chrysler in 1947, he took a lunch break.
[00:08:58] He was walking down town Baltimore and he was not fulfilled at that job. He said, I saw a snappy guy in an army looking uniform but he had different patches that I never seen.
[00:09:10] He put this sign in the street and said, come inside and talk to me about the brand new United States Air Force.
[00:09:16] My father went inside and he talked with the recruiter and the recruiter asked him, so was there anything during the war that you never really got to do?
[00:09:28] He said, I always wanted to go to Japan. We thought we were all going to be going to Japan after that and I just wanted to see Japan.
[00:09:34] And the recruiter said, well, if you sign with the Air Force today, I promise you, I think we can send you to Japan.
[00:09:42] We've all kind of heard these stories. There's a point where I promise that I think we can send you to Japan.
[00:09:50] Absolutely. He never went back to work for Chrysler two weeks later. He was sitting in Yokohama Harbor in the United States Air Force.
[00:09:56] And then he was in there all the way through the first slot in 1964 as basically a 50 year old advisor in the Vietnam. He came home and he said, I've got five kids.
[00:10:09] I'm over the age of 50 and I got these other responsibilities and this might be a younger person's war. Then came in.
[00:10:17] How much debriefs, how much, how much, how much did you talk to you about D-Day?
[00:10:23] Nothing. Not at all. My father passed when he was 13 when I was 13. Unfortunately.
[00:10:28] So it was right about the time when probably your life is getting really questionable about where you want to formulate your life.
[00:10:35] Going through high school and probably that time when you got an injured dad there that was on that. And he passed away. That was 13. My mom raised me.
[00:10:44] In the house, I have two older brothers, two older sisters, both of those sisters, a past away already that were there.
[00:10:52] And between us boys, there was nine years apart. Between a spread. So dad was pretty busy over a long period after he came home from a survivor, the Normandy invasion.
[00:11:04] And that's exactly where he kind of. When I was 13, he said, look, I'm going to give you one thing.
[00:11:12] He said, I'm responsible to you to your 18. It was a nice. And there's no mistake, Jack, my dad loved all of us.
[00:11:19] So this wasn't this tough love or a reeling. He said, look, I'm responsible to you to your 18.
[00:11:25] And he said, then you're going to be responsible to make a life for yourself after that.
[00:11:30] And you have some choices they're going to present it. He never pushed the military. He never diswated me from the military to do that.
[00:11:38] Maybe those questions were to came when I was 14, 15 and 16. That was our other.
[00:11:43] I really wish he would have been around when I was, you know, a 22 year old sergeant after Desert Stormer sitting on sea walls and Ocanawa, one learned how to lead troops and how to do different things.
[00:11:53] And you're sitting here with your father that retired as a master sergeant, two three wars and came out and survived the Normandy invasion.
[00:12:01] I think the guy probably knew a little bit about survival and leadership and able to do that.
[00:12:06] And you kind of just looked around and said, you know, now mom's not here. Dad's not here. He was right.
[00:12:12] He said, you're responsible to make your choices. You're responsible men.
[00:12:16] And he felt it was his job up until that time period to make sure that when he spent me out when I was 18, that I could handle what it was at the world was going to throw in me at 18.
[00:12:27] At what point? So you played baseball in high school.
[00:12:31] You're you your dad dies when you're 13. So you're going through the high school years with no dad or are you playing sports?
[00:12:38] Good student, paying attention in school, rebellious. What was your, what was your childhood?
[00:12:42] I'm playing sports. I'm an absolute abysmal student that was all near my wife lapsed up me all the time because in the basement of the house is two to three thousand books.
[00:12:51] And I can't ever remember reading really a book the entire time until I went into the US Marine Corps.
[00:12:57] I only read books because a teacher said it was on the curriculum, but I had also found that the difference was I understood the difference between teachers.
[00:13:08] And I also understood the difference between reward and punishment.
[00:13:14] And reward and punishment was if you don't make the grade for here, you will not be able to play the sport that you love over here.
[00:13:21] If you don't want, if you want to wear your hair like you're whatever.
[00:13:24] Now, you're going to cut this, you're going to be a gentleman. You're going to get a nice close for these events or not because if you want something you have to do this in order to get that,
[00:13:34] just going to let you sloth your life. And I really did a playing baseball.
[00:13:38] So my teachers would start hanging that over my head. And they would say, you know, if you don't make the grade on this next test or whatever,
[00:13:45] I'm going to have to go tell the coach and the coach is going to.
[00:13:48] And I really look back and I love the moral and ethical upbringing in that high school that basically, I can't answer if that was the way for everybody,
[00:13:57] I got to go. But it was for me and it was getting snatched up by somebody to say you better start to own a line or else I'm not going to put you on that field.
[00:14:06] And if I don't put you on that field, this is what it's going to cost us.
[00:14:11] And that was the reward and the punishment the reward was you can continue to do what you love.
[00:14:16] And the punishment was not that we're going to take away something from you personally of what you love.
[00:14:22] And I'll show you how much your absence is going to hurt us that is over here. And that was displayed to me in that small little town before I ever set foot on the elephant prints in the Marine Corps.
[00:14:33] And I believe set a phenomenal foundation from Military Service.
[00:14:37] Did you, did you have any chance of playing like college baseball?
[00:14:41] Absolutely not.
[00:14:43] I would tell you, jack off like five foot six and like a hundred pounds it was on here. I remember having us outcome by one time because we're in BFE and Northwest Ohio.
[00:14:55] You know, those were city kids. Those were people got got scouts in Cleveland. Those were people in Cincinnati, Dayton, child.
[00:15:03] You know, these larger division schools.
[00:15:06] If we had a really good kid that was playing in that area in the whole county, that kid was probably going to be good enough to get a scholarship to a lower level school to play somewhere.
[00:15:17] But we didn't come from a long line of people that were playing with the Domejios and everybody else.
[00:15:23] And I can stick with you remember one time the guy say and hey, that leaky kid, playing it like a second baseman, that kid's got a million dollar glove, but he's got a 25 dollar bat.
[00:15:35] And when you, when you size up your options, if that's saying, this is what's going to take to continue to invest in this in order to do this.
[00:15:45] And I had a property coaching. I wouldn't say that we really took individuals and kind of took them over there to groom them for that.
[00:15:54] Basically, what that high school did was kind of groom you to at least get out in the world and be a success.
[00:15:59] It wasn't production facility to spit out professional athletes.
[00:16:04] So did you start looking at college or did you know that you wanted to go in the military?
[00:16:10] I knew I wanted to go in the military.
[00:16:13] Maybe it was because no one of my brothers and sisters went.
[00:16:18] My dad didn't talk about it. I kind of looked up to my dad as being just what a man is.
[00:16:25] I mean, he provides for his family. He works hard every day. He doesn't just lay around in the rack each morning.
[00:16:30] He gets up even in retirement. He disappears. And then he comes home with the dinner bill.
[00:16:35] Five o'clock and we talk about what happened in life and that repeatedly was there.
[00:16:40] I don't remember arguments with the parents in the house. I don't remember anything.
[00:16:44] I do remember each Sunday. He would disappear for about two hours.
[00:16:49] And I found out later, my dad would go to the VFW every Sunday for two hours.
[00:16:56] And now having been through a lot of the things that I have been through.
[00:17:02] When you're talking about psychoanalyzing, you're talking about therapy,
[00:17:07] you're talking about medications, you're talking about PTSD, you're talking about things like this.
[00:17:11] You're talking about a generation of guys where every single Abouage mail went to war.
[00:17:18] They either had to tread water for four days when the USS Indianapolis can sank to stay away to save their brothers.
[00:17:27] And we're at the anniversary of that right now.
[00:17:29] They were either guys that assaulted the beaches that he would jaman watch their entire high school class as wiped out in a single invasion wave.
[00:17:37] To do that. But somehow these were also the men who came home and built America to what it is today.
[00:17:44] And the VA wasn't what it was. I can't remember 17 or 18 bottles of pills lined up.
[00:17:52] Ever at the house. I can't remember seeing the man ever take a single thing.
[00:17:57] But I think I know why I went to the VFW for two hours on a Sunday.
[00:18:02] Because when he walked through that door, he was with people who lived the life that he had lived,
[00:18:09] that no amount of explanation to anybody who didn't live that life was going to ever understand.
[00:18:15] No amount of therapy talking to somebody.
[00:18:18] I think the therapy truly was. He sat next to a tank crumon.
[00:18:23] He sat next to a marine. He sat next to a sailor.
[00:18:27] These were also farmers, business owners and everybody else that was there.
[00:18:31] Making a life for me to play ball, making a good living for that.
[00:18:35] And I think they sat there. They had some drinks. They talked about good times.
[00:18:39] They talked about bad times. They looked each other in the eye every week and then said,
[00:18:44] I hope to see you next week.
[00:18:46] And then they walked down that door back to their families and did the same work ethic until they died.
[00:18:52] That went out of there.
[00:18:53] And it was truly an amazing work ethic that I got to watch, at least for 13 years,
[00:18:59] of this habit in routine of a man that still 50 plus years old.
[00:19:04] Sitting in a rocking chair, but he burst out of a rocking chair every now and then.
[00:19:08] And be like, how many pushups can you do?
[00:19:11] And like, where did that come from, Dad?
[00:19:14] He's like, well, let's knock him out.
[00:19:17] And I barely had ever seen him lift weights do anything else.
[00:19:21] All of a sudden, this guy in a white T shirt and some jeans.
[00:19:24] It still stinks of the back shed.
[00:19:26] Something kicked off in his head.
[00:19:29] And he said, sorry, down there. And he said, you know what?
[00:19:31] You've been sitting down there for about two hours in front of that TV with your hands on your face and everything else
[00:19:36] because there's only one TV in the house.
[00:19:38] I'm the closest to the TV because I have to turn the channel.
[00:19:42] It's only got 11 of them up there.
[00:19:44] You were the remote control.
[00:19:45] I was the remote control.
[00:19:47] And whatever he would see or that, it was amazing because he would just drop down.
[00:19:52] And he'd say, you know what?
[00:19:53] While you're down there or anything else, let me show you some other things you could probably be doing rather just later.
[00:19:59] And it wasn't any of these epiphanies of telling me to read Gulliver's travels or any of this other stuff.
[00:20:06] It was just these little snippets along there that really for a third and one year career served me well at the times that I didn't understand them.
[00:20:14] They were made aware to me at the times that I needed them.
[00:20:19] Yeah, I think when I look back in my life and I see some little lesson and I do a lot of parsing the lessons that I learned.
[00:20:27] And at the time it was like, I barely, I wouldn't have been able to tell you an hour after I learned some lesson that I just learned a really important lesson.
[00:20:36] But when I look back 25 years or 30 years or 35 years and I go, oh yeah, I remember when that happened and that left a mark.
[00:20:43] And I didn't realize it at the time, but I used that and applied it again and over and over again for the rest of my life.
[00:20:49] At what point did you hear about the United States Marine Corps?
[00:20:55] I just 17, I want to go on the military, need a parent signature, my mom is there.
[00:21:01] I have now grown up to be probably one of the most loyal, airmen who could have ever served in the Air Force because that's what I wanted to do.
[00:21:11] So I signed up for the US Air Force and I took a ride down to Columbus, Ohio about two hours away.
[00:21:18] Some of the first times I've ever been to a big city like that and especially on your own.
[00:21:23] And I went in and did the swearing in with the Air Force and they pulled me back out and then they brought us back in because there was like two swearing in and we went through the medical check at the maps and everything else.
[00:21:35] And I'm like, I'm on my way.
[00:21:37] And room opens up, Jago, a major, I'll never forget it because I can still see on that Air Force uniform, I can still see the gold oak leaves, even before I knew what a major was.
[00:21:50] He asked for everybody's attention and he said, is there a Lou Hey, Lee Hall loop and I was like, this is the biggest, this is the shortest name that gets f-t up the boats of like anything, right?
[00:22:06] And I said, I figure he's talking about me pick my end up, he said, I need to talk to you outside and he took me into a room that was smaller than this.
[00:22:15] And it was kind of like, I don't know what's about to happen in this room, but it's just me and him.
[00:22:20] I can still see a swap bucket sticking in the corner, this was not a professional office.
[00:22:25] And he just said, I'm really sorry I pulled you out of there, he goes, we made some mistake on your paperwork.
[00:22:33] And I said, well, what does that? And he goes, we put the different number on your medical paperwork and we should have put another number.
[00:22:41] And he said, something about ones and twos, and I said, I don't understand what does that mean he goes, well, it means that we tested you and put it that you were caught that you had a color vision.
[00:22:52] And he goes, unfortunately, you're colorblind.
[00:22:55] And I said, what does that mean? Nobody's ever told me that.
[00:22:59] And he goes, well, what that means, for the Air Force is of the 400 and two jobs that were available to you in the United States Air Force.
[00:23:05] There's now one way or two available. And it's not the one that you wanted to do. And I said, what are those jobs? Can I ask? I really still want to be an Air Force.
[00:23:13] And I'll never forget this. I was going to be what was known as an aircraft armament system specialist because I figured that Air Force don't have infantry.
[00:23:23] So let me load the planes, let me do whatever we have to do to crew these planes to get them in there.
[00:23:28] And he came back and he said, first one is Air Frame Specialist.
[00:23:32] I said, what is that? And he goes, well, basically, they give you a rubber mallet. And anytime the aircraft comes back, and it's got dancing.
[00:23:38] And you just kind of go out there and beat the dancer out of the aircraft. He didn't sell the job.
[00:23:43] Because these guys make bank on the outside. He probably could have sold me on a career with a rubber mallet that said, you're going to make a lot of money on the outside.
[00:23:53] Didn't sell it. And then the second one was, I will never forget. He said, pharmacist.
[00:23:58] And I was looking, and I said, aren't those pills all different colors? I might kill somebody to do that.
[00:24:06] And he said, then I'm sorry we can't unless you're near for me.
[00:24:10] My mother was the biggest fanatic of the Air Force ever was. That was here.
[00:24:16] I'm sitting in Columbus, go to the wild. I can't tell my mom.
[00:24:19] I mean, this comes back to you're talking about moral and ethical courage and everything else.
[00:24:24] Man and all this and you're sitting here like, hey, tell me my mom, this is just a happen.
[00:24:29] So I wandered around Columbus Ohio at night in the city I've never known.
[00:24:34] I disappeared from the maps. They kind of put an APB out on a missing potential recruit that was out there.
[00:24:42] And then my mom calls and the Air Force is kind of like, well, we can't find him.
[00:24:46] For sorry, we lost you.
[00:24:48] And she said, you better get it's down there and start looking. And I kind of went out and started actually not getting you talking to bumps on benches that night kind of like proud you get airman.
[00:24:59] Did you try to get in the Air Force too? And he told you, no.
[00:25:02] And it was so dangerous.
[00:25:05] It's just this farm kid wandering around.
[00:25:07] And you know, I could have killed in any moment.
[00:25:10] Finally I walk back over the maps.
[00:25:13] I go all hell breaks loose. They get me back in and they tell me, sit your sit your butt right there and go go anywhere.
[00:25:20] And I'm kind of in this row of chairs with nothing.
[00:25:23] And I'm sitting there feeling sorry for myself.
[00:25:26] I'm thinking my life so I don't know. You asked me before about where you thinking about college.
[00:25:32] Did you do this?
[00:25:33] I didn't even take the SATs and the ACTs because I'm kind of a person that I'm going to put my time towards the things that you can do.
[00:25:42] I'm not going to waste my time on something that I don't believe that I'm driving towards the path to do.
[00:25:46] And the teachers, because I wasn't a good student, really wasn't pushing me to go take those SATs and ACTs.
[00:25:52] I think they were pushing me to start bailing hay on the outside of town for the next 25 years.
[00:25:58] Something to do that.
[00:26:00] And as I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself, one of the last times I've ever done that in my life,
[00:26:06] the I saw a person standing in front of me with blue trousers and a red stripe running down.
[00:26:13] And he said exactly this. He goes, what the hell is your problem?
[00:26:19] And I remember saying some bullshit came out of my mouth about something.
[00:26:24] And he goes, I don't know where you come from, but that's not how you talk to a person.
[00:26:29] You'll get on your feet, son, when you talk to me.
[00:26:32] I'd never know where you talked to me like that years. I wasn't around long enough from my dad to tell me to do that.
[00:26:38] So I stood up, Jago.
[00:26:40] And then I was staring straight at his name, saying, can't we start and speak hard?
[00:26:44] I didn't even know what a gun he was at that time and he looked at me and he goes, you look like somebody just killed your favorite dog.
[00:26:50] What happened?
[00:26:51] And I told him.
[00:26:52] And he said, look, I'm, you're attached to the air force.
[00:26:55] I'm not even supposed to be talking to you right now or that.
[00:26:58] But do you mind if I give your number to the Marine Retriever that was up near the house?
[00:27:04] He saw an avenue of a approach. Absolutely.
[00:27:07] I got back up home. Monday shows up.
[00:27:12] My mom answers the door.
[00:27:14] There's a snappy Marine standing there, a big smile on his face.
[00:27:18] Staffs are in Craig Cochran.
[00:27:20] Good morning, man.
[00:27:21] Can I talk to you about being in your son about the Marine Corps?
[00:27:24] My mom said you're too late.
[00:27:26] My son already joined the air force because I'm still a cow.
[00:27:28] I can't tell her.
[00:27:30] And Jack, I'm sitting right now.
[00:27:31] I was watching this app.
[00:27:33] Boom, my mom just goes back to the work.
[00:27:35] Doing that.
[00:27:36] Same time.
[00:27:37] Tuesday.
[00:27:38] Persistence pays off.
[00:27:40] Tuesday, he came back to the same house.
[00:27:42] Man, can I talk to you?
[00:27:44] Uh, my great opportunity for your son or everything else on the Marine Corps.
[00:27:48] And she goes, I already told you.
[00:27:50] He joined the air force.
[00:27:52] Good bye.
[00:27:57] Wednesday.
[00:27:59] Same time.
[00:28:01] Now mom's probably kind of figuring out something's up.
[00:28:05] Open the door.
[00:28:06] I go and I never heard my mom cuss anything else like that.
[00:28:10] And this little five foot four lady said,
[00:28:14] That's the damn problem with you, charheads.
[00:28:17] You don't listen.
[00:28:19] I already told you.
[00:28:21] I just slammed the door.
[00:28:23] Thursday was a day change in my life.
[00:28:26] He didn't walk away from the door.
[00:28:28] And my mom turned to be and said, what the hell did you do?
[00:28:31] And I said, you better let him in the house.
[00:28:34] Saturday table just like this.
[00:28:36] Three and a half hours.
[00:28:37] I'm 17.
[00:28:38] Jack, I still need the lady signature.
[00:28:40] We get there.
[00:28:43] And we didn't have to do benefit tags.
[00:28:47] We didn't have to do anything.
[00:28:49] This is an avenue.
[00:28:51] I want to be in the military.
[00:28:53] This door shut.
[00:28:54] This door is now opened.
[00:28:56] This is what I'm going to do.
[00:28:58] And my mom had said, do you know how the Marines live?
[00:29:02] Her brothers were Marines and were a war too.
[00:29:05] Everybody, all their brothers were in the war.
[00:29:08] And she said, in the air force, she showed me this really cushy life.
[00:29:12] You can have the greatest base housing.
[00:29:14] The best BX is to pass everything else.
[00:29:16] You know, I want for my little boy.
[00:29:18] And I want to none of that.
[00:29:20] And that's not what I wanted in the military.
[00:29:22] I want to dodge ships.
[00:29:24] I wanted, I wanted the grooming.
[00:29:27] I wanted whatever the military gave my father.
[00:29:30] Because I looked at that as the key to this was a huge part of a life that I never knew about him.
[00:29:36] So I'm going to go and seek out that answer on what that gave.
[00:29:40] Came in, signed it.
[00:29:42] She's got tears in her eyes.
[00:29:44] She says this really what you want.
[00:29:47] I said, yes, what I want.
[00:29:49] She signed it.
[00:29:50] And he said, when he graduated, he's all yours.
[00:29:52] And she looked right in me.
[00:29:53] And she goes, you're going to get everything you harassed for more.
[00:29:57] And she goes, all I can say for you is you're very hard enough.
[00:30:01] Yep.
[00:30:02] After that, my mom became like before there was UFC and everything else.
[00:30:07] My mom turned into a different person magically in front of me.
[00:30:10] This woman who cooked for all of us and made the beds and did all this other stuff in a very feminine nature.
[00:30:16] Now, took on the role of a father that I didn't have.
[00:30:20] And she now started exposing me to the stories that she was with growing up with your father.
[00:30:28] Going through Vietnam, going through Korea, going through this.
[00:30:32] You're going to be an NCO.
[00:30:34] Watching my mother tell me how to be an NCO.
[00:30:37] This is what's going to be required of you in the first year, second year, the third year.
[00:30:41] And then the day she put me there.
[00:30:43] She says, it's going to be hard.
[00:30:46] But if you quit, don't you ever come back to this house.
[00:30:49] She just don't quit.
[00:30:52] That was it.
[00:30:53] Put me on the bus, sent me down.
[00:30:55] A few weeks later, I think was 11 at the time, Jago.
[00:30:58] She became the best flag waving, US Marine Corps mom that you ever looked as they all do when they see their baby in the uniform and to that.
[00:31:07] And she would hold the rallies for the entire town to help the desert storm troops and pack all the balls.
[00:31:12] And you just kind of saw this part of your mom that you never saw growing up that opened that up to the leader she really was to.
[00:31:22] And then you found out in life.
[00:31:25] You thought you were putting all your chips in this one leadership basket when in all reality.
[00:31:31] You were putting your chips in an unbalanced bet because the real person who was really balancing that out.
[00:31:40] It was a team effort.
[00:31:42] And that town, my family, everybody else taught me before I knew what that was that in life you have to learn to work.
[00:31:50] Is a team you have to learn to be a good teammate to somebody.
[00:31:55] And it doesn't matter if that's in the military.
[00:31:58] It doesn't matter if that's been when that day on the outside of town is.
[00:32:02] People want to work for people that they want to show up every day and it's a pleasure to be around.
[00:32:06] And then when I have a productive person and they want to have a good teammate.
[00:32:11] That was the foundation and that's how I ended up in the Marines.
[00:32:15] It's kind of that everybody.
[00:32:18] There's millions of people in uniform, but it's a weird, every American story is not this clear line that goes straight to the recruiter to battle to the metal of honor to something like this.
[00:32:30] It takes this really weird nexus.
[00:32:33] And I think that's really the greatness of America.
[00:32:36] That's what makes us the strongest fighting force in the world.
[00:32:39] That nexus.
[00:32:40] How much of a shock to your system was boot camp?
[00:32:44] First week like anybody else, you really evaluate in a decision that you just made.
[00:32:51] And you're sitting here and it's kind of laughing.
[00:32:56] Today it's not a laughable woman to be in a COVID environment or anything else.
[00:33:00] You would kind of wish that a drone instructor had a mask on or something when they're getting in your face and you're doing whatever.
[00:33:07] But the best thing was it was the routine that I saw my dad and it was also the expectation was laid up front by the drone structures that came out and gave you through that drone instructor,
[00:33:21] if you do this, this is what you will get. And if you want to do that, we demand this from you to be part of this team.
[00:33:32] I could sit on the corridor deck at first day. I knew I was in the right place.
[00:33:36] And I knew that in a really weird way everything happens for a reason.
[00:33:40] You are where you're supposed to be in life at certain points in your life that may not make sense to you at all,
[00:33:47] but it's not up to you to make sense. If you believe in the bigger collective and higher power that moves the chess pieces or the chess pieces,
[00:33:55] I think there's somebody else that looks at everybody's life and somebody on the outside is looking seven moves,
[00:34:01] where you can't look on where you eventually at the 20 years, the 30 years, the 40 years, the influential 50 year mark.
[00:34:08] If we put you through these trials, here's what we're going to demand back for that.
[00:34:13] And I could feel that day one. I felt this is professional. I'm in the right place.
[00:34:18] And every single day you got better is something. And every single day you were told that you were the worst at being something.
[00:34:29] And you need to get better tomorrow at doing this.
[00:34:32] And they didn't do it in a touchy, feeling away, which then I found out, you know, in life right up front, you don't have to,
[00:34:40] you don't have to love people to get them to do this. You know, don't be in love with them. You can love those troops. You can do that,
[00:34:47] but this harsh training and the systematic approach that is produced a product for the American people that spits out this professional fighting man and woman on the other hand,
[00:34:57] just get on the conveyor belt. And if you stay on the conveyor belt, work, it's like Steve Austin.
[00:35:04] We're going to make it bigger, faster, stronger, you're 114 pounds. You get eat three plates a child today. And as a matter of fact, see Jocco's child over there, you get his child too,
[00:35:16] or you get his child because they will pack 60 pounds on you by peanut butter and jelly and bread or whatever.
[00:35:24] At the same time, they'll shave 80 pounds off of that guy in 11 to 13 weeks to where they get this product that is malable.
[00:35:33] Once it gets to the field, and their job wasn't to make a combat ready, marine. It was to make a united states marine.
[00:35:39] Then they put John that conveyor belt to the next generation. And those guys are the warriors at either the school of infantry,
[00:35:46] or on the Amphib Cruman School, or whatever they're going to do to train you to be your specific job.
[00:35:52] And then I loved the fact that the wounds would break it out and not try to do all this like,
[00:35:59] let's not teach everybody everything in a need hour class today. Let's focus on this razor sharp thing.
[00:36:05] And then we're going to practice that this week. Then once you've somewhat got to a level,
[00:36:10] nowhere near the level of mastery that we believe you can shoulder something else,
[00:36:14] let's now add this to the plate the next week.
[00:36:17] And then before you know that, you got three stripes up cross rifles, and they give you a squatimer range and say,
[00:36:23] now what we just did to you, we want you, this is the payback. We gave you this, we now demand this from you.
[00:36:30] You now take that and make them into the little Steve Austin. It's very, very beautiful.
[00:36:36] Did you know what your job was going to be when you went, when you enlisted?
[00:36:39] I knew I had an opportunity to be in four jobs, and it was tanks. It was Amtracks.
[00:36:48] It was Field Artillery, or it was a combat engineer, it was called a combat BC option at four jobs into that.
[00:36:55] And then by about the 17th day of boot camp, you take this other classification test,
[00:37:00] and then they kind of take those skill sets.
[00:37:03] And then they according to whatever is there, and I just happened to be a really great swimmer.
[00:37:08] It was in the pool, and I didn't know that that was going to get me anything else.
[00:37:12] But when the decisions all laid out, they said, look, when you, it sounds like a fish in the swim tank.
[00:37:17] We're going to put in my amphibious tanks that are over there.
[00:37:20] And it was just like full metal jacket to tell you, land the batoon is still there.
[00:37:25] Nowadays, a majority of them all know what they're going to do.
[00:37:28] It was still on the quarter deck with the proverbial gunnery, starting a heartman having you stand up and say,
[00:37:37] Sir, yes, sir, I'm going to tell you, and this is going to be your job.
[00:37:41] And he said, amphibious tractor crew and something like that, he said, Amtracks.
[00:37:46] Oh, and there.
[00:37:47] I said, I said, I said, I said, I sat down and went to an ex-kids inventory, whatever I'm sitting here like I got screwed.
[00:37:54] You're going to the grunts, it's what I'm going to do.
[00:37:57] I said, I'm going to be at some depot, load and trains man for the next four years,
[00:38:02] because I thought that's what an amtrak was.
[00:38:05] It was a train.
[00:38:07] I never knew that it was an amphibious tank.
[00:38:11] I didn't even think that was an option.
[00:38:14] And then when the drum instructors showed me the photograph and everything else like that, you are, well, you're supposed to be.
[00:38:22] So then you go to what amphibious track school was right here at Camp Delmore, California.
[00:38:28] Yep, absolutely.
[00:38:30] And unfortunately, you know, a shot out to all of our brothers and net that are going through some hard times today,
[00:38:36] because one of those same amphibian tractors were lost last night in the training evolution.
[00:38:41] And so, somewhere out here off the Pacific coast, and right now we still have at last record about six marines that are still missing.
[00:38:48] They're in that, and that's the danger of the business of the everyday business of doing that kind of work.
[00:38:57] And prayers go out to their families.
[00:39:00] I remember what everyone of those is like.
[00:39:03] I mean, tonight the absence of a news void or anything else for the past 24 hours,
[00:39:09] when you don't know if your kid was one of the ones, but you do know they're in that unit.
[00:39:14] And the unit's blocked out in the rent river city, and nobody can say anything,
[00:39:18] and you just want to hear confirmation of this.
[00:39:20] And then these people on Forteway are going to sit right in front of the news media.
[00:39:24] And they're going to start feeding off of whatever bits and pieces that they can do.
[00:39:29] But tragic, but as you and I discussed before, Jaco, it's the cost of doing business to maintain a ready state in the United States military.
[00:39:40] And that was the job that I was given.
[00:39:43] Yesterday, I got to go up here to camp, I was back in the area to actually go and reopen a museum that I had a hand in creating in 1996.
[00:39:56] That was called the Landing Vehicle Tract Museum for World War II in Korea.
[00:40:01] So it's the predecessors of those guys out there on the 15th view right now.
[00:40:07] And we opened a beautiful museum that had LBT ones and twos that were at Tarawa and Sipan,
[00:40:15] and all the way through Korea with LBT3C and being a young sergeant,
[00:40:21] I was one of the one that was people that drove those last generation working vehicles into that quans at heart,
[00:40:27] where they still sit today and parked them.
[00:40:30] And yesterday was an absolutely adjuice occasion for that same community that hours later.
[00:40:37] I was now sitting here on that debit tragedy.
[00:40:39] I've been doing that so the wave of emotions going back from one side to another,
[00:40:44] and I've been having this to sadness, back to happiness. It was like that every day that you climbed in those vehicles.
[00:40:52] Yeah, one of the things about working in the water and this is something I used to tell guys,
[00:40:57] is every time you do work in the water, it's a real-world mission because you make a mistake out there.
[00:41:02] The ocean has no mercy and it's a dangerous, dangerous environment.
[00:41:07] And I was always, you know, you talk about UN and up in kind of the perfect place. I always felt like that.
[00:41:14] Every damn day I felt like I was in the perfect job.
[00:41:17] And one of the things that would make me think that was, you know, we, I did two arguments out here on the West Coast.
[00:41:24] We worked hand in hand with the Marines all the time, but, you know, we'd be launching our Zodiacs or our ribs off the side of the boat.
[00:41:31] And, you know, they would be launching A-A-Vs. And, you know, look, you look at it.
[00:41:37] It's kind of like looking at a bumblebee fly, right? You look at that thing you go, that thing's not going to fly.
[00:41:43] That's right. How is that going to work? And then you see it and you go, wow, that's awesome.
[00:41:47] But, you know, how tall is an A-A-V? 10 feet tall, 14 feet, 14 feet tall.
[00:41:52] And then you see him in the water and there's a few feet sticking out, but the rest of it is underneath.
[00:41:57] And, you know, you just can't help but think that every time you look at him, you know, you think, wow, man, I hope that's going to go.
[00:42:05] All right, especially when there would be rough seas. And those things, which, so every time you do water work, it's a real world up.
[00:42:14] And, and what was crazy about yesterday, you know, it's summer time here in Southern California. It's beautiful.
[00:42:20] The beaches are beautiful. And, and I woke up this morning saw the news and I just thought to myself, you know, it's a second feeling that you get.
[00:42:27] Because we're all here and it's like I said, it's a sunny beautiful day in Southern California.
[00:42:32] It's, you know, going to be a horrible day for the Marine Corps.
[00:42:37] But like you said, that's what everyone in that job does to maintain readiness.
[00:42:45] There's a risk to maintain readiness. And, of course, the risk to maintain readiness is miniscule, compared to the risk to not maintain readiness and not be ready to defend the country.
[00:43:01] What year was this? So, you, did you enlist in 1988?
[00:43:05] So, 88, 89, I was over there at Track School. And then, and then at what point? So, now we start brewing up for, for desert storm. Where were you when we started brewing? Where were you when, when Saddam invaded Kuwait?
[00:43:21] I was actually in South America. I was at Camp, as you know, Carolina. And I was down there doing some, some unitas deployment.
[00:43:31] It was in South America. So, August 2nd kicks off. And, and we're somewhere on the other side of the streets on the Jellon.
[00:43:38] Going around, thing, and one of the first naval ships to be poured back in Argentina.
[00:43:44] So, you know, excitement is happening. Everybody wants to do that. And then you kind of get the battle order.
[00:43:51] And then you realize you're not part of the battle order.
[00:43:55] Everybody else is starting to go towards South West Asia. You're still going to finish what you're doing because that's the mission that you're required to do.
[00:44:05] Right. And, and that was another great learning lesson at that age of, you are a warrior supposed to be.
[00:44:12] At that is, your drive discipline desire motivation was everything. You want to be there. That's why you did this.
[00:44:19] That's why you did that. But as you just said about maintaining a balanced force and a state of readiness, you can't rob from one theater to do to another theater on an impulse that has not presented itself to do that.
[00:44:31] And, of course, when you're down in the Well Deck or you're in the birthing areas down below and you're only any three or any four.
[00:44:38] The news is what people tell you the news is that day.
[00:44:42] And the news for you is get your weapon and get on post for the next six hours and do your job. And then let people start talking up here about what's going to happen and you'd watch that formulate.
[00:44:54] The best thing was roughly we pulled back in in just prior to Christmas that year.
[00:45:02] And when I got back to New York, Carolina, this ramp we called this field of amphibian vehicles.
[00:45:11] That are usually about 250 of them sitting out there was none sitting there because they're already on ships and to the war.
[00:45:20] So now the depression creeps in the year the rear party. Congratulations.
[00:45:26] And we came in. We parked them, dinner after ops, the battalion commander at the time met us when we came in off of the ship.
[00:45:37] And he had brought us into the hanger, dropped all of our gear and he said, here's what's going on.
[00:45:46] And that's what I really respected. He gave you the time to mission the place he gave you exactly.
[00:45:51] Don't worry about what you're hearing in the news. Listen to me. And I'm going to, this is real.
[00:45:57] And he said, I want you guys to go home. Maybe you just came off the six month deployment.
[00:46:02] I want you guys to take Christmas. And he said this.
[00:46:06] On January 3rd, I'm going to be standing back in this hanger if you want to go to combat you be here.
[00:46:12] It almost sounds like something out of Kelly's heroes. When you think about it like, okay, do I have to tell anybody or clear this?
[00:46:20] What no one is kind of like go, go home. Get your plant eggs get out of here.
[00:46:25] And the best thing was after that was also the worst thing.
[00:46:29] When you actually looked at the left and right every day and you had that trust factor, that's well-oiled unit and you live with these people and you do that.
[00:46:38] It's a lot of times when you're driving towards the mission that you don't believe is going to result in combat.
[00:46:45] The cohesion of that unit is missing something a little bit more than when you know that you're going to go in and be responsible to possibly be the person to bring somebody's father or somebody home to do that.
[00:46:57] And it wasn't presented that way to me when I was a PSU or Lance Corp.
[00:47:02] It was kind of just going to go on this float and you'll get a ribbon and people come back.
[00:47:06] You go out and the next year it'll come in.
[00:47:08] Desert Storm made a real. It was on that.
[00:47:11] But what it also made a real was there was only seven of us showed back up in an aircraft hanger on January 3rd.
[00:47:19] My platoon sergeant was one of them.
[00:47:22] And a guy that I respected and retired as a sergeant major, it was out of there. A couple of NCOs, a couple of us troops that were inside of there.
[00:47:32] And that was it.
[00:47:34] And they put us on a truck and the rest of them we went back up to the barracks and they said, yeah, four hours to pack your stuff and you use your gear, you're missing.
[00:47:42] You'll take it down to there and you just kind of saw a different thing.
[00:47:48] Or people's EOS up and you do you do you at you have I mean you're how many people are in your battalion you have orders EOS as you have everything going on at that time.
[00:47:59] But you also have the difference of somebody being presented with the thing of you're going to war.
[00:48:05] You're not going to the vacation that's over here now.
[00:48:09] You're going to war and that is what I've always told people.
[00:48:14] That's the first punch in your face in life.
[00:48:20] And you have to do something.
[00:48:22] And you're going to go left. You're going to go right.
[00:48:24] A lot of people don't want to continue to get punched in the face so they learn the skills to prevent that from happening.
[00:48:30] Some people have to continue to repeatedly get punched in the face when they do this.
[00:48:36] But some people react differently after that happens.
[00:48:40] And I still say, no, I don't know if that makes you a bad person or whatever because I don't know what's going on in your life.
[00:48:45] But there was a lot more of a stand in here a couple of weeks ago when it happened.
[00:48:49] And now there's a lot less of us there standing here.
[00:48:51] Should I do in that and true to his work?
[00:48:55] We packed up, got on the thing, we were on a plane and we were some of the last people to land right before Desert Storm kicked off at the end of January.
[00:49:05] So did you deploy as what kind of you come back with?
[00:49:08] You come back with placement.
[00:49:10] I deployed as a combat replay.
[00:49:12] You're not even basically right now deploying knowing what you're going to do your job.
[00:49:17] You're going to be a combat replacement because you don't know if the war at the time you get there.
[00:49:22] So are you going to be kicking off?
[00:49:23] So were they taking volunteers to become that replacements?
[00:49:26] Is that what that was?
[00:49:27] You didn't have a choice.
[00:49:28] If you volunteered and you were sent to South Las Vegas, you are needs of the Marine Corps once you got on deck.
[00:49:35] It just worked out for me very well that there was still a shortage of people in my job career field to do that.
[00:49:43] So I got put in an attempt, briefed.
[00:49:46] We all got separated and then we got sent to South Las Vegas to report to these units.
[00:49:52] And this is just a couple of weeks before the invasion is going to kick off.
[00:49:58] The unit that I got put into Jaco was I was one of only two active duty Marines,
[00:50:04] dropped into an all reserve unit.
[00:50:06] Wow.
[00:50:07] And that was an eye opener.
[00:50:09] They're wearing the same uniforms.
[00:50:12] Sometimes they believe in a different thing.
[00:50:16] And it's not again, it's not bad.
[00:50:19] It's just the way it was.
[00:50:21] And the reality was two weeks,
[00:50:25] Lash this whole thing up, stay in the desert, train whatever you have to do.
[00:50:29] And then you're going to be in charge of blowing these breach lanes that are going to be
[00:50:33] going to be going in for the assault forces to go up into the Coady invasion.
[00:50:39] And I can remember being taken into a tent, kind of for a brief.
[00:50:43] And it really wasn't a brief.
[00:50:45] The chaplain kind of came in and you know the prayers start happening.
[00:50:48] This is a night basically before you're going to go across a briefslames.
[00:50:52] And they sent it that time.
[00:50:54] They said everybody it's standing in this tent.
[00:50:56] We're not going to bullshit you.
[00:50:57] We're expecting 82% casualties tomorrow when we went through that.
[00:51:01] And I don't know if there was a fear in what they had said.
[00:51:06] Or there was a fear in you guys have already done the big blue arrows and red arrows and wargaming or whatever to come up with that thing.
[00:51:17] That's not just an arbitrary number that you all came up with.
[00:51:21] And I'm, you know, to shut the ragman stand in here, go in, get in the middle of the desert.
[00:51:27] And then that was it.
[00:51:28] You got sent out to your unit.
[00:51:31] Best of luck.
[00:51:32] I hope to see you on the other side of the breach and bone.
[00:51:35] And then the hundred hour war goes.
[00:51:38] Just so everyone knows normally we try to do a little bit better when we're planning missions to think that we're going to have an 82% casualties rate.
[00:51:50] And I was going to say that earlier, you know, so I got in the Navy in 1990.
[00:51:54] And so as all the stuff was brewing up the thing that will always stick in my mind. And until I was, you know, going through boot camp and whatnot.
[00:52:04] They were saying there's going to be 40,000 casualties in the first, I think it was for it.
[00:52:08] I would never watch and see it. And and here's the, you know, whatever whatever talking head was on there, whatever, you know, retired army or retired Marine Corps.
[00:52:15] Colonel, I don't remember.
[00:52:17] And they were going back and forth with these numbers and what they were predicting because of chemical warfare and the resistance that they were going to be.
[00:52:23] The resistance that they were going to meet, they were expecting 40,000 casualties in the first 24 to 48 hours, which is, I guess, right in line with 82% and I was of course thinking, well, I'm going to get, you know, in my freaking whatever 18 year old idiot mind, I'm thinking, okay, maybe I won't miss this because they're going to need.
[00:52:47] I don't think I knew the term replacement, but I was like they're going to need more guys. They're going to need me. They're going to need me and I'm ready to rock and roll.
[00:52:55] Because that's what you think like when you're, when you're young and stupid.
[00:52:59] And then not so, so then what did it look like? What happened on the push?
[00:53:02] Well, when you kind of quantify that in your head that was there at large open expanses of just wide open desert that is on there.
[00:53:11] The number was more of a reality to me because I kind of knew the history of what my career field had since it was enveloped in 1942 and when it was delivering the infantry onto the objective, there was no ship to shore movement here.
[00:53:30] So you're just in the objective from A to B and the objectives are supposed to be crossing the flaming tank ditches that Saddam Hussein had rolled all these things in because I believe at the time they were talking, this is the fourth largest army in the world.
[00:53:46] Battle hardened army that just fought for 10 years with Iran.
[00:53:50] So it was absolutely, absolutely. It was there. And then you're kind of sitting here and going, okay, you get through the breach lanes, you sit there and I will remember one of the most powerful things outside of 2003.
[00:54:05] I'm seeing a US strike force across the deserts in New Iraq. One of the most powerful things I've ever seen in my life was sitting on the opposite side of the breach lanes with hatches.
[00:54:16] What we call combat lock. So it only gives you enough to see out of it, but enough to save you from fragmentation or anything else that's coming in.
[00:54:23] And have a night vision that is of quality of 1991. So it looks like a big fish ball and everything in the driver seat.
[00:54:32] But hearing the waves of B-52s come over to pound the target, made my heart pump more than anything in my life. To that point, because you heard the rumble before. And this was what you had heard.
[00:54:47] In World War II, they sent 1,000 plane raids into Germany with B-17s B-24s. Things that I've been blessed to go out and find these crews. Now that it went on IPs and didn't come home for all those years.
[00:55:03] These B-52s went tip to wing tip. And then you see what an arc light rate can do. And then you just hear the bombs hit. And the whole sky turns to fire. And that's where you're going.
[00:55:21] And if it's kind of like, you know what? That's where I want to go. And that's where everybody is loaded up here and wants to go. And that was always the greatness of, you know, whether it's the seal teams, whether it's the tank team, whether it's the infantry rifle squad or anything else.
[00:55:38] And the woman that I grew up and tried to left and right on were the people who always wanted to run to the sound of the guns. And there's something different about this people. And it doesn't make them different in a weird way. It makes them very different in the fact that you really are.
[00:55:57] You're really proud that you knew people like that in your life. You're really proud that those were the people who were there at that time period. That said, you know, put the right hand in the air and said send me, I'll go.
[00:56:08] And then you looked five or six guys down going, I never thought you'd even be here.
[00:56:15] Like I can remember like you can't even tie your own shoes or to do something. Then the best thing is when the bullet start flying, you find out that's the weekend kid that's dragging his buddies 100 meters across a thing that was here.
[00:56:27] And you see people just step up and being presented as a young man at 21 at that time period to see that much awesomeness to see this is what your country can when it puts its mind to it.
[00:56:42] This is what your country can do. And even in your head, you're like, no, this is what my country can do when they're still on the leash.
[00:56:52] I can only imagine what this country can do when they're not on the leash because you know, we don't train and we don't do with things.
[00:57:01] You know, in our schools and that it fights a Chinese weba of total war and a gangas con war and a United States still does train its individuals to positive identification of a target.
[00:57:15] You're just not going to go in to do this to a village without this. Now whether that happens or not, that's part of the individuals that make that choice after they get there.
[00:57:24] But it isn't the way that they were trained that they went up to that. And I was lucky to be part of the units that were really fluid when they went in there to do that.
[00:57:33] And within those first 48 hours, we kind of knew what was going to happen because we would be driving as we're driving north.
[00:57:42] All we just kept seeing is lines of Iraqis on each side of the road. They had already dropped their weapons.
[00:57:49] There wasn't large fire fights. They had the tank fights out near Kofgee with with Lear 82nd airborne had little action that was going up there.
[00:57:59] But for the most part, the hundred hour war of the Blitz Creek war was basically overwhelming the enemy on the Horn of a dilemma where they cannot react to what's being thrown at them.
[00:58:10] And then they just get so scared. They just throw their stuff. And I think the predominantly they threw their stuff because they were in somebody else's country.
[00:58:18] And then they were in a big mindset change when you train your troops for the 2003 invasion.
[00:58:25] And I don't believe a lot of leaders at the time learned from the lessons in 1991.
[00:58:32] I believe in the ground war operations. A lot of people that were still around, that were in higher levels to plan those mission things.
[00:58:39] We thought that they were still going to fight when the Iraqis see this awesome power coming down. They're just going to drop their weapons. They're going to do what they did in 1991.
[00:58:50] There is a reason that I'm very proud of the inflicting the most demonic casualties on the enemy and bringing the most demonic people home and doing that.
[00:59:02] The simple fact is on a 30 day built ride in 2003. Those boys didn't land the rack. They moved ammunition from the front of the ship to the back of the ship.
[00:59:10] We would move up things and put machine guns off of the af fan tails. We would kick buckets. You would train until people were just exhausted.
[00:59:18] And when they laid in the racket, 209, 05, you're up, your PT and you're doing is get the box and gloss.
[00:59:27] You're going to get punched in the face in the well deck before we get over here. And it's not going to be Lance Corporal against Lance Corporal. No. It's going to be plus or minus 10 pounds that we're inside of here. You're going to do this.
[00:59:39] But also, this is bone the ring. This isn't that white collar leadership thing. The base of we sense the troops out to be each other up by the hangout in the cheese mess. No.
[00:59:50] Staffs are going to lieutenant. We're all on the ring, too. And we're all on the ring going your next. Come on in. You got 30 seconds.
[00:59:59] Blow the thing. Where it out? Where's the next one coming from? And you would watch people go their amtrakers.
[01:00:07] They're never seen that. These guys are training like combatants. Like they are expecting close quarter battle. They are expecting this. Because the end result, Jaka, was it's pretty easy to throw your hands up when you've invaded somebody else's country and just say, oops, my bad, I'm out of here man.
[01:00:23] Leave me alone. We're going into their backyard. They got nowhere to run.
[01:00:29] I don't think they're going to be so apt to throw their weapons down or anything else. Nor would somebody in Nebraska or high or anything else on an abdating thing. So the mindset was different.
[01:00:41] Some ways had to be harsher.
[01:00:45] So the hundred hour war, I mean, what did how did that wrap up for you wrapped up with rolling up into Kuwait wars over who wants to go home? I don't.
[01:00:59] We're looking for people to stay on a working party afterwards. Why?
[01:01:03] Extra combat pay extra everything for a young person. I'm not married. I would just rip off the case of the M.O. recarton because you didn't have to run the letter. Didn't have to have mail. You just sign on anything there. Just say, mom, I'll kind of be home when I get home.
[01:01:19] And I stayed in the next six months. It was in there. And I went down to the port of Al Jubeil and back loaded all the American equipment on the black bottom shipping. And then also all the Iraq war trophies that came out, which was BMP, ZSUs, anything else, agricultural inspections when you're younger are away a life.
[01:01:39] So you're out there cleaning that stuff to get all that grid off before it goes on that American ship to get back. But the best thing was how you were treated in the autonomy that you got being an NCO was there wasn't anybody there any day telling you what to do.
[01:01:55] It was you knew your job. Here's your mission. Each morning you get up. You got to move this equipment from here to here, which was 19, 20 miles down to a thing sometimes. You learned how to drive tanks, LAVs, you learned it because you were cross train to move all this equipment, which gave you a different skill set.
[01:02:13] And then at the meantime, they put you over a place called Camp 15. It had this gigantic swimming pool. You got a room to yourself and you're living high on the hog at that. And then every couple of weeks they had contracted a ship down south that was a cruise ship for the American troops to do R&R on for like three days at a pop. And you can drink, covert, you had to check your uniform before you went on the ship.
[01:02:42] No one was allowed to use ranks, nothing. And there's like 2,000 people on the ship pierside in my reign. That's like here's your three days R&R. Like it's China Beach with no beach, no nothing.
[01:02:54] You got going anywhere, but these were exposed to you. It was kind of like making more money, more autonomy, learning, multitude of skills. I think I like this until somebody knocked on the door one day and said, times up, but you got to go home. And we went back.
[01:03:11] And then at the tail end of that, you kind of get put back into this post war thing that I had not seen. And I'd heard stories of it from Vietnam of times up.
[01:03:23] There wasn't a transition for these guys. There wasn't hardly anything. It was going to like we brought on well over 250,000 marines at a time when we only had a god 120,000 before that war and then plus the reserves and all this.
[01:03:40] And I just watched guys volunteered. Now that they're back there, it's Monday. You're out of the marines on Friday.
[01:03:48] The admin center, go to here, go to everything else. And you know as well as I do, you know, a lot of them wanted that just getting me out of here.
[01:03:55] And there were other people that were kind of asking, can I stay and do this to you need a thing. And the answer to that when we usually demobilize from war is no, thank you for your service.
[01:04:05] And I needed to transition back out in the civilian society. So we watched our numbers completely get depleted. And then you watched the wear and tear on all those vehicles when they came back home. So you go into this post war rebuilding period.
[01:04:20] And you figure Somalia is right around the corner.
[01:04:23] Then you knew, I what point did you just realize you were going to be doing 20 or 30 years in the Marine Corps?
[01:04:31] When I went to the first professional course at the Marine Corps ever sent me to. And when I got back from the war, things in peace time are different.
[01:04:42] And you know what I'm going to about in 2007 time frame when we're fighting and I've got to stand, I rack up at any marine base.
[01:04:52] And you can probably attest to this in the teams.
[01:04:57] You were coming or going. And you see your buddies passing through bases. And one of you was coming from the other one is going.
[01:05:04] And there is no one to two dwell. It's 7 in 5 out 7 in whatever the rotations were at. And that was the rate that was going. It's nowhere near that now.
[01:05:16] Well, it was definitely nowhere near that in 1992, 93, 94. It was now kind of, okay, I've been to South America.
[01:05:26] Okay, now I came in to do all of this. Swim and I do. And I'm going to get out.
[01:05:32] I've kind of, I want to go be a hard helmet diver. I want to go do some things like that.
[01:05:37] And my leadership came to me, you know, I said, you got four months left in the Marines. We don't know what to do with you.
[01:05:45] And you talked about that before, but you know, whether it's fleet assistance programs or something that these short-term billets are out there.
[01:05:51] This guy came in and he goes, I'm going to send you this professional NCO school. And like it's a waste of time. I'm getting out to tell him when he's like, just go over there for 30 days.
[01:06:03] Do me a favor. In other words, he's got to build a team that he's going to have. And he can't trust that he can't rely on you.
[01:06:12] Somebody else has to learn your job now, just because you're not going to be here. Okay, so I'm confident you can do your job, but I can't count on you in four months.
[01:06:20] Now get out of here and let the corporal now learn how to do your job. And it was pretty cool. And I went over there and I saw something like I'd never seen.
[01:06:31] What in a bunch of grease monkeys? It wasn't a bunch of hours work in 17 and 18 hours. It wasn't anything. It was in uniforms.
[01:06:40] And it was learning all these other professional things. Nobody was really teaching you on the jump seat of amphibious tractor.
[01:06:48] Because you just had to work to do the job done. So I got rolled up being the bad student I was.
[01:06:54] Okay, I got rolled up within the first week and it's kind of like, bro, come in here. What's your problem?
[01:07:00] And I know you've got a short time and everything else, but you're here. So that means you'll give 100% while you're here.
[01:07:08] Thank you very much, Gani. Got that. And then he took the time. It's the one I'll never forget. He took the time.
[01:07:15] Other people would not take.
[01:07:19] When I told you I was a bad student in high school, I could have been a better student in high school.
[01:07:24] And I'm not blaming the teachers. The ownership is me on that. I could have applied myself better. I could have done this.
[01:07:31] But I will tell you there were courses that I applied myself in more because the teacher actually cared.
[01:07:37] And they actually didn't just ring the bell and say, we'll see you tomorrow. And if you had problems, it would be like, can I, can I hold you after class and I'll let the next teacher know you're going to be a little late.
[01:07:47] Hey, you're having some problems doing this or that and they would take this time. Even if it was just a small period of time.
[01:07:54] It was time they didn't have.
[01:07:57] And I learned how to appreciate the biggest thing that you can do to somebody if you disrespect them in life as to take away their time.
[01:08:03] Because it's something they can never get back. That's it. And I knew she didn't have the time to do this, but she took the time.
[01:08:13] I became a better student in that class. I didn't become a great student, but I did what I had to do to continue to make mission.
[01:08:20] That was all there. Congratulations.
[01:08:23] I applied the same thing even after what the Marines taught me. I applied that side. I regressed.
[01:08:29] I didn't have the time to do this. I didn't have the time to do this. I didn't have the time to do this.
[01:08:34] Because I wasn't being challenged. And when I went to that school, people started challenged.
[01:08:39] You may, the status quo was not good enough. You're better than this. Why are you doing it? Why are you getting out?
[01:08:46] What are you going to do when you get out? People didn't even ask that that were in your own unit.
[01:08:52] It was like you made your choice. So, right ahead.
[01:08:55] What we're going to do? And then you find out, you know, not all units are the same.
[01:09:00] And then you also find out when you have goals and things that you want to do, don't let what the perception is of that.
[01:09:07] Adjust the goals and the accomplishments that you want to do in your life because people are different.
[01:09:14] And you won't put on and the other put on have the basic same things.
[01:09:18] It's the leaders and the people in them that make it different. And that is exactly what I saw in this course.
[01:09:24] So, I didn't study. I just became a straight Marine.
[01:09:30] And I would turn in my thing and they'd be like, you want to know you're great?
[01:09:34] Yeah, you got 102. How do you even get an extra 2 points?
[01:09:39] It's because you did this and this and went above and beyond for that.
[01:09:43] It was the first time somebody said, you'd make a really good instructor.
[01:09:48] He said, you have caring, compassionate, concerned for another human being, very young age to do that.
[01:09:54] What you think? And they made me reach into this box.
[01:09:56] They said, I want you to pull out what, firstly, you're grabbing that box.
[01:10:00] Pulled out was a coat hanger.
[01:10:03] And then the instructor stared at me and he goes, now I want you to teach me about that coat hanger for five minutes.
[01:10:10] And he said this, he goes, what did I say?
[01:10:13] I want you to teach me about the coat hanger for five minutes.
[01:10:15] He said, did I say five minutes and five seconds?
[01:10:18] Did I say four minutes and 30 seconds?
[01:10:20] He said, you have a 15 second window to fall inside that thing. Now go.
[01:10:24] And I taught him how to jimmy locks. I taught him how to hang clothes.
[01:10:28] I taught him how to everything else.
[01:10:30] And when I was done and put the coat hanger on there was four minutes and 49 seconds.
[01:10:35] There was no clocks or no watchers in the room.
[01:10:38] It was understanding what the parameters were.
[01:10:41] It was understanding they gave you a task, a condition and a standard.
[01:10:46] And then you went to that and said, I think there's going to be a repercussion if I don't come in with it five minutes to do this.
[01:10:52] 105 points handed over.
[01:10:55] And by the time it was there, all the instructors pulled me back in that room and said, why are you getting out?
[01:11:01] This is what you could be.
[01:11:03] I walked away from that school and re-enlisted in the Marine Corps and then stayed for the next almost 30 years.
[01:11:08] Because people invested in you.
[01:11:13] So then what was your next job after you?
[01:11:16] That school was in seat like an NCO school, like an NCO leadership school.
[01:11:21] It was an NCO leadership school.
[01:11:22] And then I became an Amtrak instructor right out here my first time in Southern California.
[01:11:27] But one of the best two years of my life.
[01:11:30] I'm in Southern California.
[01:11:32] I'm not at Camp Liger and North Carolina.
[01:11:35] And I'm in Camp Delmar on Camp Pendleton, which is right in the boat base and on the beach with everything.
[01:11:43] So if there's a place to be in Camp Pendleton, that's the place to be.
[01:11:47] And this was before the gigantic first marine expeditionary unit moved in there years later and that.
[01:11:53] So this is just a small, it was like being over on the Naval Amt for base at that time here.
[01:11:59] Okay.
[01:12:00] I don't even know if you go to the exchange over on North Island.
[01:12:04] Those flyboys and I could stay over here.
[01:12:06] We got our own little piece on the Amt Fib base to do that.
[01:12:09] That's what Delmar was.
[01:12:10] And that's where I learned to be a lead above my pay grade.
[01:12:15] Learn to learn to job above you.
[01:12:18] Know the jobs below you, but always know the job of the person that's above you.
[01:12:22] It was on that.
[01:12:23] And that was the first time that I was truly required to really give back the skills that I thought the Marine Corps.
[01:12:29] And that was for a two year period up there.
[01:12:32] The other one was the next billet.
[01:12:33] I wanted to be a drone instructor.
[01:12:35] And I remember my drone instructor when he gave me that.
[01:12:38] And I am track thing.
[01:12:39] He said, there's going to be two of you come back to be drone instructors.
[01:12:43] And I can remember I wasn't one of them.
[01:12:46] Me and he wasn't looking at me when he said that.
[01:12:49] But in my head, I knew I was going to be one of them.
[01:12:54] And did whatever I could do to do that.
[01:12:57] So now I'm in Southern California.
[01:13:00] I'm kind of liking it.
[01:13:01] And MCRD San Diego is right down here near the Naval Training Center.
[01:13:06] I want to go be a drone instructor.
[01:13:08] So I came down here from 96 to almost 2000.
[01:13:12] I got to push about eight cycles of recruits through here on 62 day training cycles.
[01:13:18] With small breaks in between.
[01:13:20] As a drone instructor, a senior drone instructor.
[01:13:22] And then became an academic instructor teaching history.
[01:13:25] For the US Marine Corps over there.
[01:13:27] And you are where you are.
[01:13:29] I went down to dental one day just on a routine check and saw this moment in dental.
[01:13:37] It was just like, man, I need to.
[01:13:40] I got teeth problems.
[01:13:41] My teeth wasn't hurting or nothing.
[01:13:43] And as a drone instructor, I go, you can probably understand.
[01:13:46] You don't have any time.
[01:13:48] I mean, it's it's 19 and 20 hour days.
[01:13:51] 62 straight days.
[01:13:56] Somebody's got to be with those recruits in entire time to do that.
[01:13:59] Son up, son down.
[01:14:01] Then you got to be on deck even staying there throughout the night.
[01:14:03] When they're there and it's a really restricted environment.
[01:14:06] I look for every opportunity I could do to take a few recruits down to dental.
[01:14:10] To do that.
[01:14:12] And quite frankly, you know, 22 later that was my wife.
[01:14:16] And she was working down there.
[01:14:19] She started aglow the computer for about 10 minutes and your coach,
[01:14:24] commenters.
[01:14:26] So this is just a confusion that nobody was going into.
[01:14:31] And so that was straight and that was just just a decision.
[01:14:33] And that was just a test from the I.
[01:14:35] I
[01:14:22] So this was exactly the we PLN 504 years.
[01:14:36] We were shooting here and we did.
[01:14:37] One day at a time and a Black Traffic Center got patients sitting in the control meeting.
[01:14:39] He'd edited Einstein's on email and booted an assignment.
[01:14:42] Last week the VA attended software service all of a sudden.
[01:14:43] As they talked to him but one day he couldn't notice any of his dignity
[01:14:44] And they said that we were interacting with those students.
[01:14:46] in an avi or naval services unless you become a corpsman, I'm probably never going to see
[01:14:52] you because you'll be on the blue side navy for the most time. And my wife was seven years older
[01:14:59] than I was at the time and that school's going to hurt and it was right up at Hills at Camp Pendleton
[01:15:07] and she threw her hands up and volunteered to become a fleet marine force corpsman. Went up there
[01:15:13] through the pack honor she got a FMF device. I did her study and all that stuff that was in there.
[01:15:21] I also poured the blood out of her socks and her boots on the hikes and helped pack her frames so
[01:15:27] they didn't shift around on her back and do some things up there and I revved the instructors given
[01:15:31] me a call saying, they need to make this next hike. Someone were having a harder time. It was on here
[01:15:38] and I got to go up there and didn't tell her to last participant on the hike. I showed up off the
[01:15:42] drill field. Campy up didn't know I was there so I could watch the trail at here. There was going
[01:15:49] to go up the hill to do this because selfishly I knew I could go I also knew from my own family not
[01:15:54] only would she be a phenomenal corpsman for the navy and the marines. I also knew she needed to get over
[01:15:59] that hill for what we needed if we were going to have that and I also knew how much of a pride thing
[01:16:08] when you thought you'd never be able to achieve that because of all those excuses they were packing
[01:16:12] up for your own self you need to get over this hill and she got over there and she stayed with me
[01:16:20] for the rest of the time in the marine corps we would slap hands as I would come out of combat and she
[01:16:25] would go back into combat and the hardest job that I had was about 2007 when I had to stay back
[01:16:31] for seven months and play Mr. Mom to a 13-year-old daughter going through those daughter kind of
[01:16:37] things of boy you were a Tom boy about five months ago and we like to do this and now you got
[01:16:43] makeup now you have this at mom's not here to deal with this so it was an interesting time.
[01:16:49] Yeah that's that is an interesting it was quite a leadership challenge.
[01:16:56] And you had to do drill instructor and then you did that until 2000 and then we went back out
[01:17:02] to campus you know a Carolina for a tour. I kind of always liked to rotate coasts that were there
[01:17:09] and also rotate overseas kind of get a more well-rounded thing because we kind of grew up in
[01:17:14] communities of where people said they were either on an east coast tour they were west coasters
[01:17:19] so they did this and I had the rare opportunity to kind of circumnavigate the globe on do all those
[01:17:26] so that took us all the way up to the invasion in 2003.
[01:17:30] Where were you on September 11th? On September 11th I was I was at Camp Lijoon
[01:17:38] and we were doing a non-commissioned officer of the quarterboard that morning and we were outside
[01:17:46] and somebody in ran outside and just said you never can't believe this some jackass just kind of
[01:17:52] flew a plane in the world trades center like and everybody thought it was like a sess now or something
[01:17:56] that was here it was true it was no news every just kind of went about their way and that's kind of
[01:18:02] weird and then the world changes things later when these kids run out of the company office and we're
[01:18:08] all out of the parking lots going that was no sess and a second plane has just hit the other
[01:18:14] tower that was in there and instantly everybody there was no one questioning if you remember
[01:18:22] jack there was no one it was the light that just came on in the darkness when the second plane hit
[01:18:28] is we're under attack in the United States so for the next week you don't know where that's coming
[01:18:33] from so it can't imagine what we were in charge of security and start to get ammunition and
[01:18:41] machine guns out of buildings that normally you're not drawing ammunition and machine guns and
[01:18:45] you're getting war stock and and then you're putting machine guns on top to barracks roofs
[01:18:50] looking for air cover you're stringing concertino over every road possible to prevent what would
[01:18:57] then be known as v-bids coming in because you don't know where they're coming from you just kind
[01:19:02] of stayed there at work for five days trying to figure out everything that was going on and
[01:19:07] everybody kind of glued to the one TV that's in the company office or wherever it's at trying to get
[01:19:11] the news that they can get. So you were you said you were working basic security were you in a
[01:19:17] battalion or you I was in an operational battalion and basically at the drop of a hat we had to figure
[01:19:24] out the MPs can't just secure everything and now it's get to the armory get the heavy weapons
[01:19:29] get this okay what what's the ammunition at do we need grenades do we need all this and you're
[01:19:34] trying to go through this whole thing and get the nods up it is attack could come at night and
[01:19:39] you're basically writing the book because there's no book that's written.
[01:19:43] Did you feel like after you got back from the first goal for that maybe after you know another
[01:19:50] six months goes by maybe another year go by did you did you feel like the Marine Corps the
[01:19:56] US military was in a state of basically you know what are really not going to have to fight another
[01:20:04] war I mean the whole world just saw what we did to these guys over here I know I had leadership
[01:20:10] that would straight up tell us that you know listen the days of you guys are never going to do
[01:20:16] a direct action mission it's just not going to happen and then on top of that we had technology so it was
[01:20:20] why would we send you guys to do a direct action mission when we can put a T-lam and a 10-digit grid
[01:20:25] why would we have you guys to go do a special reconnaissance when we can fly a drone over we have
[01:20:29] satellite imagery that can tell us the same thing so you know I will tell you I never I never bought
[01:20:36] into that you know I always thought and hoped that you know I would I would be called upon to
[01:20:42] do what I was trained to do but it certainly was hard you know and we were off the closest Somalia
[01:20:50] so we saw that happen so you maybe you'd get the feeling that maybe there would be some sort of
[01:20:57] what we what we used to call the big mission you know we get some one mission in fact a lot of
[01:21:02] our training was you know our full mission profiles oftentimes were around like hey this is
[01:21:10] a mission this is a mission there's the situation if you're going to do this mission you know
[01:21:15] when we worked with the Marine Corps it was always like hey you know this could be a big
[01:21:18] and very it's going to last a long time but as far as just the mentality of the seal teams
[01:21:23] was very much hey we're probably going to you know you're going to do one mission if you're lucky
[01:21:27] if you're lucky you're going to do one mission whether it's a special reconnaissance of one thing
[01:21:33] or some kind of a direct action on a ship or a hostage situation and that was kind of it
[01:21:40] did you feel like that that attitude was around in the Marine Corps or was there just is there
[01:21:47] enough kind of institutional knowledge in the Marine Corps that people said yeah hey you know what it's
[01:21:52] peaceful right now but it's a cycle and it'll it'll be back again no because a lot of the people
[01:21:57] that are involved in that cycle gets out and whether there are a leadership level to influence that
[01:22:03] your staff and CEOs and your younger junior officers that were involved in a major conflict in 1991
[01:22:10] there's a large probability that over 60% of those guys 10 years later are not going to be wearing
[01:22:15] the uniform to be able to train that mentality into another mindset but what I actually did see
[01:22:21] was the military was very conflicted at that time because you still had the wall may have been coming
[01:22:32] down in Europe and everything else but we had aggregate forces all over the world and all the
[01:22:37] sudden you started seeing mission sets diminished that we used to be there used to be the jungle
[01:22:43] schools and then you'd have the jungle experts that went to learn how to do that well the focus
[01:22:47] wasn't so much on that then you'd have the mountain warriors that went into the mountains like the
[01:22:52] 10th mountain and everybody else but the 10th mountain that's their job but we have other smaller
[01:22:58] forces all throughout the military that go to Bridgeport or they go to Fort McCoy or they go to
[01:23:03] A-Dak or they do those and you watched those start to collapse of where we wasn't we wasn't going
[01:23:10] to Norway the way we were doing we wasn't doing these mission sets that we were doing and then it was
[01:23:16] it was large scale now it's going to be desert because after 1991 then Somalia happens right there
[01:23:24] so there's more of a middle eastern focus that's now shifting into this whole training paradigm
[01:23:29] that's there mixed in with these humanitarian missions like Haiti and everything else that's happening
[01:23:37] so you've got forces all over the place and the funny thing is I really truly do hope that in places
[01:23:45] in the government and in higher places in uniform above and beyond where you and I ever achieved
[01:23:52] to be at you really do hope that that mentality did not sip in and they started to
[01:23:59] promulgate it down to do that because that would just tell you that the people that were relying
[01:24:05] on to know the most about the business of doing warfare don't know as much that we actually believe
[01:24:11] that they do because if everything in the context from 1775 all the way up to present day of
[01:24:19] America is a blueprint for what is going to happen in the next 20 to 25 years and it is un-disputable
[01:24:27] and a training environment to actually think that we are not going to be fighting another large
[01:24:33] scale or at this time period while in between that time period are going to go in fight and
[01:24:40] four and five other shitty little engagements around the thing the Somalia as the Haiti's
[01:24:45] bigger and eight is going to happen and those are going to be compartmentalized not everybody gets
[01:24:49] to go to that party and then you got to keep your motivation up you got to train the troops and say
[01:24:54] that that's that units mission this time ours will be common ours will do that if you are going
[01:24:59] to make a career of a lengthy career in the US military you are going to go to war and there are
[01:25:06] other services that are going to go parts and pieces maybe before you but you've got everything
[01:25:14] from 1775 to 1783 and then there's your big one and then all of a sudden roughly about the
[01:25:22] years of 181805 with the barbary pirates and all that we have compartmentalized little things about
[01:25:28] there then all of a sudden war of 1812 and that happens everybody's going to the big one
[01:25:34] 1820s were fighting insurrection with Indians you're fighting a different kind of warfare it's that
[01:25:41] insurgent small warfare again it's clear and then all of a sudden some way pops in and starts
[01:25:46] going we're going to Mexico everybody's going to Mexico City then you compartmentalize that
[01:25:53] then you get 1861 to 65 the whole show goes to town following that 60s and 70s then you hit the
[01:26:00] Spanish American war that comes in just after the Spanish American war war war one kicks off
[01:26:07] banana wars happen after that we start learning how to develop an amphibious doctrine
[01:26:11] throughout the Pacific guys like Pete Ellis are out there saying that the Japanese are going to
[01:26:16] strike into Pacific we have people in jungle training like Chesteepuller and all those learning these
[01:26:22] jungle skills in Nicaragua in Haiti and all these small little wars at that time period and then
[01:26:29] we come out the small wars period 1941 1945 for the Indian State's is in the big one
[01:26:36] everybody goes home again put the uniforms up rupture duck goes on the sleeves let's go start
[01:26:42] work in the Chrysler holy shit the Pusan perimeter and we're down about a hundred thousand
[01:26:47] truth because we let everybody go home get them all back out there 51 to 53 then you're starting
[01:26:53] back into the Dominican Republic and these small little things 58 and then Vietnam hits and runs
[01:27:00] all the way from the early years of 61 all the way to 75 bad mindset comes out of there people are
[01:27:07] tired a lot of the NCO core leaves the trainers leave that's on there and then we rebuild this
[01:27:14] force of small wars in the 80s again crannata Lebanon they root bombing happens the first terrorist
[01:27:22] action targeting the United States military in centuries happens at that because it was an act of war
[01:27:29] by the Japanese on December 7 but that wasn't an act of war that was a truck bomb going into a
[01:27:34] marine barracks that killed 243 people when they were sleeping it was in there kind of round about
[01:27:40] way gets to what you were talking about I go it's when you start letting things down rules of
[01:27:45] engagement are different you can't fire until fire to pawn you're in a police action you're not in
[01:27:51] a designated war and then you get through Noriaga you roll right into the desert storm there's your
[01:27:58] big one again you roll right into the small east the small wars and then we've been fighting
[01:28:03] never since in the major wars and also the small ones I believe our small war period started again
[01:28:11] roughly about the 2008 time period because if you actually look at that clock and I just now
[01:28:16] every 20 to 25 years this nation all has to mount up and go fight somebody everybody on a bigger
[01:28:26] scale to do that all the ways since 1775 and then in the next one of your period we have to
[01:28:34] reposition we have to rebuild and we have to spite these small little compressed areas around the
[01:28:40] things and prepare for the next one because history tells us the next one is eventually going to
[01:28:46] happen and if that's going to be an invasion of in-shan of which what you were saying is there
[01:28:53] a certain skill sense let's take the amphibious warriors that we have out there today you know they've been
[01:29:01] being told now that they'll never be another scale of D-day they'll never be another scale of this
[01:29:06] and you know what to an extent you have to weigh where you need to put those forces now
[01:29:13] to where you need to put those forces somewhere in the future and at the same time maybe a fire down here
[01:29:19] on one of our LHAs and a few other things you just got taken offline when we've been running those
[01:29:24] ships ragged for about the past 20 years to in and out of dry docks and everything else puts us
[01:29:29] probably in one of the most vulnerable times again prior to 1941 we've been fighting for 20 years
[01:29:36] we've been recycling that equipment we've been throwing people into the breach 7 8 9 and 10 times
[01:29:43] we have sons and daughters that are now fighting the same war that their fathers and mothers went in
[01:29:51] the resilience of the American people is strong but it's going to be tested it's going to be tested very soon
[01:29:57] I was up in Montana a few weeks ago and I was doing a archer issue bunch of people from all over
[01:30:07] the country and you're out in little small groups and I'm seeing a bunch of military guys and
[01:30:12] they're saying what's up and I could do this once bought and I see this guy coming over to Hale
[01:30:18] and he's I don't know maybe he's 28 30 years old something like that got long hair beard
[01:30:25] scrappy looking guy and he sees me as eyes light up and you know he's got the big smile on his face and
[01:30:34] comes over and he says he says hey sir awesome to see you simplify kill
[01:30:45] and you know so we talked a little bit he's in the Marine Corps all my yards and I'm you know
[01:30:50] you're out there walking these mountains and I'm thinking of myself that guy
[01:31:00] we're always going to have to have that guy we're always going to have to have that guy if anybody
[01:31:06] ever thinks that you don't need that soldier or marine that's going to mount up
[01:31:18] and go to wherever they get sent and take that mission and risk their lives
[01:31:29] and kill the enemy if you ever think that we don't need that guy and it just gave me great
[01:31:35] reassurance because he's out of the Marine Corps but he's out there and there's
[01:31:44] that's something we need to make sure that we always have and I think it's part of our
[01:31:50] instinct I think it's part of being an American but if we ever decide that maybe we need to
[01:32:00] dispel that attitude from our society we're heading down the wrong road in my opinion
[01:32:08] because the world the world's a nice place when you live in America but America's not the
[01:32:16] world and there's evil out there and there has to be people that have the attitude that
[01:32:23] when the call comes they'll go and they'll go and handle that problem. You know too really good
[01:32:29] you'd said with that you said when earlier when you were getting at people were developing
[01:32:34] and utilizing modern-day technology as the basis of not having to send a man or a woman into a
[01:32:41] fight whether we're going to put AI and aircraft or they're going to do that I'm a armed believer
[01:32:46] I go that all of that is a battle enhancer that is not what you build the platform on the man
[01:32:54] and the woman is the platform that you invest in and you build you build the resiliency into them
[01:33:00] you build the determination the strength the warrior spirit the fight you put that into them
[01:33:05] and it doesn't matter if it's 20 years old I think it's even better when they hear that fire
[01:33:10] coming out of somebody that's 50 and 51 and everything else and you talked to some guy that came
[01:33:16] across the beaches of Tarra with its 94 and they're a crisp quaren concise and as a day and they're
[01:33:21] basically looking at you going don't screw this up on your watch man we held the line on our
[01:33:26] watch and I believe generationally we all have a responsibility to do that make no mistake
[01:33:34] war will never become so advanced to where you can hold a piece of ground without putting a
[01:33:41] person on that ground to hold that piece of ground in that battle space you can cover it by fire
[01:33:47] you can cover avenues you can cover large swathas that are out there but if you want to go down
[01:33:52] and actually get at the business of what war is related to you are going to have to put a
[01:33:58] man or a woman in a battle space to control that from the ground this is exactly why we use
[01:34:05] forward air controllers that are out there you don't fire missions onto something that you don't
[01:34:10] lace a target you don't have that in we don't drop dumb bombs from peace out it tames anymore
[01:34:15] and just because people believe that we have laser guided munitions and all this other stuff
[01:34:20] or as the naval threat is becoming the a2d2 standoff distance and they don't want to fight
[01:34:25] in the lotorals because they don't believe we have to drop marines into the lotorals that much
[01:34:30] anymore to swim those infantry men ashore that is on that and then the nation might start making
[01:34:36] ships that don't have well decks and a many more and it takes that capability off of the
[01:34:40] table to do that because you and I talked before ospreys hellowing elements a lot of these platforms
[01:34:47] that's the solution that's here you know what the battle ship was the solution to the
[01:34:52] unique the aircraft carrier was the solution to the battleship the toys are not what makes the fight
[01:35:01] in the fight comes from the heart and it comes from how you grow the next generation to utilize
[01:35:08] the enhancements that you're going to give them and you give them the best enhancements that
[01:35:12] you possibly can to do that but you do not put in enhancement on the battlefield that can
[01:35:17] not be employed by somebody tactically that doesn't have the resilience and the knowledge to control
[01:35:23] that rules of engagement I will never forget I went to a combat resiliency conference before
[01:35:30] I was getting out of the marine core and I had to get up and I had to talk and we had everybody
[01:35:36] from the army they Air Force and everybody the one that I was very most interested in it wasn't
[01:35:42] the combat resiliency from us as marines because you're in the six foot fight with somebody
[01:35:47] or the teams that are going to go in and they're going to throw dogs and they're going to hit
[01:35:52] on target they're looking at watches we got this much time on the ground we have to get abnc
[01:35:57] tertiary targets primaries we got everything here and you're making those calculated things
[01:36:01] now the average person we don't that carries the rest of the military there are supply troops
[01:36:08] and everybody else it does that but when I heard an Air Force lieutenant Colonel say one of the
[01:36:14] biggest problems they're having right now is the current resiliency of the mental fullness of
[01:36:19] their drone pilots I kind of sent up a receipt and they explained it as it's one thing to be standing
[01:36:29] in Afghanistan I rock and you're having to six foot fighting you're doing that and there is that
[01:36:34] risk that is involved into that right then you go you do your mission you do your direct action
[01:36:39] you come back you debrief you do your equipment you do that you get cocked and reset because you're
[01:36:44] still in the zone because I'm in Iraq and I'm in Afghanistan and she said we kind of wasn't
[01:36:51] prepared and I know we're more prepared and I believe they're totally prepared now because this
[01:36:56] was years ago at the impancy of when we're going to have enlisted drone pilots we're going
[01:37:01] to start flying drones out of these cans out of places in the United States to where these people
[01:37:07] show up to work in the morning get a debrief on a thing do a battle handover and then fly
[01:37:13] on some missions and predators and that that at the end of the day somebody puts a board
[01:37:19] up like they didn't Vietnam and go well we had five today walks out there and then you get back
[01:37:24] in your car your wife causja and says can you pick up Burger King on the way home yeah and then
[01:37:31] tomorrow morning at eight in the morning you're going to go back and that box again and it's not
[01:37:35] a game those are lives on the other side of that and that is the evolution of warfare that I believe
[01:37:42] that you have to prepare the person for when you put that on to shoulder that responsibility
[01:37:48] and not take away that because of the technological enhancements you and I are talking about
[01:37:52] it scares the world doesn't matter when they hear that there is a seal team that just hit something
[01:37:59] the teams usually go on by the time the news is there and they find out that that
[01:38:03] incursion just happened in a place in the world that nobody was looking it strikes the hair
[01:38:09] on the back of somebody's neck okay America still watch and they have this capability
[01:38:12] they're out there whether it's a delta whether it's anybody it's on that but may
[01:38:17] know mistake the world knows America's really serious when a young Lance corporal or a pfc
[01:38:24] in the army with a bayonet on the end of the rifle wades a shore and stands on a piece of sand
[01:38:30] and then they have a battalion that's coming behind them that makes more than people's
[01:38:34] hair on the back of their next stand up it says it we ain't going to get rid of these guys
[01:38:39] anytime soon and if we don't behave I hate to see what else they're going to throw inside of here
[01:38:44] so you are spot on and then go of saying that it is always going to be the person and I mean that's
[01:38:52] right back to that mindset of Teddy Roosevelt the man in the arena today it's the man in
[01:38:56] woman in the arena because their lives are out there on the line to do that whether it's blue
[01:39:01] lives whether it's military lives or anybody else but to have that mindset we can never lose the
[01:39:08] mindset of fielding people who want to be in the arena how long did it take for you to get
[01:39:20] your for your battalion to know that you guys were going to spin up and and head over and 2003
[01:39:29] we were on leave we got called I was putting a unit that we only had a few months to train
[01:39:34] up until that time period so we kept in the field last together we kind of went on leave and we
[01:39:39] got called off a leave and said that everybody else from most parts going to fly over but we
[01:39:44] need you to take your tracks and get on the ships and you're going to ride the ships over that was
[01:39:49] here and we rode the last trips of the USS port one it was pretty awesome I wanted I always
[01:39:56] loved the smaller ships than the bigger ships I mean they ride differently and that that's a little
[01:40:00] bit weird but the camaraderie with the navy crew that you have on a smaller ship especially when
[01:40:07] you're driving amphibious tanks and everything else is the first people other than the ships captain
[01:40:12] the exo and the CMC and that that you check in on there is you always check in with the mess chief
[01:40:18] make sure that guy's got his dust square away right you check in with the bill and he's
[01:40:22] showing more the rat the third people is all the damage control people and everything else on the
[01:40:27] ship that has the machinery that can help you fix the equipment it's in that well tech whether they're
[01:40:32] brazers whether they have welding capabilities because some of the best people I've ever seen in my
[01:40:38] life they can turn a piece of sheet metal into something is a sailor in the US navy and that it's
[01:40:44] their home and they got nowhere else to go so they do the most resilient things to patch things to
[01:40:49] well things to do what they have to do and there's a lot of times I have to go inside of there
[01:40:54] and go you don't know me for China all of but I don't have a weld around here right now and that
[01:40:59] can you come down here and braze a three inch thing that's on this armored vehicle
[01:41:04] yeah and it's pretty cool you throw them a coin you throw them a K bar something for some great work
[01:41:09] because it's a people business you build assets and comronery that way you don't build an
[01:41:15] adversarial nature by being the Marines issue up on the ship and they put everybody on water hours
[01:41:20] because the Marines take showers at a five minutes long or anything else you just kind of you know
[01:41:26] who's house you're in and you build that report because they're going to water too and they have a
[01:41:31] mission and you're really and their mission isn't just to drop you off they tie into a bigger
[01:41:36] mission they're kind of hoping in that comronery that they see you come back and to be looking at
[01:41:42] your naval brothers to go when you get push shore go we'll be here we'll be here when you get back
[01:41:48] we don't know what we're going to be doing we'll be here the Portland wasn't there
[01:41:54] because that thing was part of the decommissioning just to get us into the thing of the fleet
[01:41:58] was that an LPD yeah yeah a small little a sweet pea it was called you know and it's kind of
[01:42:05] sitting about 17,000 feet below the waves and it's one of those things it's just a great little
[01:42:10] ship from a great city that was out there I mean the USS Portland's that held that name before that
[01:42:16] these are ships that were in doies battle line and everything before and naming of these ships and these
[01:42:22] cities and when you were talking about do you think that people sometimes lost their way on what they were
[01:42:27] doing you know like the naming of naval ships and you look around the world and you see the
[01:42:34] publisher you see the invincible and you see different things that are out there one that
[01:42:39] built pride in your own ship that was here more importantly is when the anime kind of sees a
[01:42:45] floatella coming at them and they see the names of these ships that are actually coming that
[01:42:49] leads to a mindset of the people that are on that ship in a country behind that ship so when we're
[01:42:54] we're one we're sending the rules of Elts out are we're naming these cities and right
[01:43:00] down to these little LSTs that we're called barber counties and harland counties and these were
[01:43:05] produced to represent these Americans who were the fabric of our nation who are there and then you
[01:43:13] just kind of see how that name can get over here where is this at and how are we naming these
[01:43:20] things that are on here rather than you know my wife and I chuckle jacco that's on here and
[01:43:26] and I try to reduce my amount of cussing over the years it's not so grand fatherly when you're
[01:43:31] out there but on the screen in the TV I grew up with the recruiting of the U.S. Navy
[01:43:40] right seeing the posters of stripped of the money sandlers throwing depth charges sand joined the
[01:43:48] U.S. Navy showing this brown water navy boats going in there and doing business on the
[01:43:53] anime tiger stripe cambys you've name it that was doing this and then here for a while
[01:43:58] you know we've got it's not a job it's an adventure we have this we have this and all the
[01:44:04] sudden you start the troops start talking it's kind of like what is our identity right now
[01:44:10] and my the Pepsi generation am I the join the Navy see the world generation am I that you know
[01:44:15] the Marines are the Semperfidelis we didn't promise you a damn rose garden type generation
[01:44:19] and we don't jockey with our message like a lot to do that but the best thing that I have seen
[01:44:26] the Navy years is I heard a rumble in my house because I'm hard of hearing so the volumes up
[01:44:33] I heard a rumble and I saw an aircraft carrier come from the right sand side of the screen
[01:44:38] with a full battle line up across the top of that and it crueged across that thing in the
[01:44:43] house was like rumble I yelled in my wife like baby you get down here you're your your commercial
[01:44:50] is on right she runs down she's laughing at me jaco and here comes this thing you see the white
[01:44:55] caps coming and it's rumble and you know the commercial it's here and then at the same it's
[01:45:00] hand-end of that it's like the United States Navy a global force for good and I just looked at her
[01:45:07] and I said we wouldn't be married for 22 years if I got us all freaking choked up to like like do some
[01:45:14] stuff tonight and then it's kind of like okay baby you ready we're working it this and then this
[01:45:20] is how we're going to drop the ending on this thing I said probably wouldn't be your husband
[01:45:24] for the past 22 years and you know what I loved it I loved the messaging that it had that was
[01:45:30] on there because the messaging the politically incorrect messaging that should have came on
[01:45:36] then at the United States Navy we will completely destroy your way of life it's the same one to this
[01:45:43] and then things like listing the battle things of saying this is just one we have quite a few more
[01:45:48] of these and then more importantly is once again you don't pick it up out the machines you make
[01:45:53] it about the person and when people start seeing recruiting losers that actually have the resilience
[01:45:59] and the fighting thing I've seen America's army come out they're actually really good ones they
[01:46:04] got some door kicking things I mean they're actually targeting like we want infantry maple
[01:46:09] I've seen that for a lot of years to do that and it's awesome you still see naval special
[01:46:14] warfare commercials out there are targeting a generation of the next generation that has to go
[01:46:20] forward and do these things I'm not sold on the fact I go that we should be selling a lot of
[01:46:29] skills that are on there you know that's a recruiters job let's get them in the recruiters let's
[01:46:35] kind of pump them up let's get them to that but I also know that I had one I'm saying Justin we
[01:46:40] don't want to scare anybody that's on there because we've got to get people to come to the door
[01:46:45] and I said the right ones will come to the door the other ones you'll do a little bit more work
[01:46:53] for but you'll find them in those high schools and you're doing another thing but
[01:46:56] if you're getting scared by a commercial I don't think I want you here yeah it ain't it's
[01:47:01] or it rattled that's exactly right I don't want you here so how early for the invasion did you
[01:47:10] guys get to the staging point we landed and we moved about a 30 day movement up into our TAAs
[01:47:19] are tactical assembly areas that are on there so we landed in Kuwait to move a good way
[01:47:25] land we didn't low boy we didn't do a lot of those you're driving up into a lot of these positions
[01:47:29] uh to do a couple of weeks of training it was there but we only learned the mission that we were
[01:47:34] gonna have to take those bridges down we didn't know until we actually got up physically to the
[01:47:40] tactical assembly areas what month did you guys set sail to have in January and then we landed in
[01:47:46] the end of February so we were on the ground and started making our movement on February 18th and
[01:47:52] 19th up into the northern portion of Kuwait just below the border so both these wars for you
[01:47:58] you showed up very short didn't have to sit around in the desert like everybody else for nine
[01:48:02] months or eleven months here the man I was down the track I was down the track I was down the
[01:48:06] rodman and the thing when somebody's you know you're eating the cheese burger saying you
[01:48:10] need to get your sweats off they're about to walk on to the thing yeah well we're about to play
[01:48:14] a world championship hey can you come on over here right now absolutely dang so you got up there you
[01:48:19] said February 18th got up there in February we offload in February and Kuwait and then we made the
[01:48:26] march up into the northern portion of Kuwait to stage where we're gonna go through the breech
[01:48:31] lanes into Iraq and then going in going into this how did the attitude compare to what you
[01:48:38] experience in the first Gulf War of of of your fellow Marines the attitude was absolutely
[01:48:44] there was no problem getting any Marines to do anything with the problem keeping them from doing
[01:48:48] something because they still had the twin towers burning in their head used to have people in your
[01:48:54] platoon that were in New York when that actually happened and it joined the Marines a couple of years
[01:49:01] later so they were kids that were 70 that was the catalyst to make them Marines and you have that
[01:49:07] fight of you did this and that that was the energy that was going in as we you know some of us
[01:49:14] who were here the first time knew that we were gonna be back there again because people had always
[01:49:20] chastised or whatever or armchair quarterback George Bush's decision on should he have just pushed
[01:49:26] the troops up into buying dad and knocked out Sonom and saying in 1991 and the mission was
[01:49:32] get him out of Kuwait put him back in the wrong house and then he pulled back we kind of I kind of
[01:49:37] knew when I was running enemy prisoners a war in the back of those amtrax in 1991
[01:49:42] a lot of those kids didn't want to be there but the older warriors did and their lieutenant
[01:49:47] kernels and their senior NCOs they had been through the Iran war and everything else the look
[01:49:54] that they had on their face was trust me man this is not over these kids that are in here
[01:50:00] don't have the fight and didn't grow up with that my generation still around and I still remember
[01:50:06] a lieutenant kernel sitting in the back and I remember how dumb I was because I had a knife like
[01:50:15] on the top shoulder of my flat jacket so I could get to it but I was sitting on a cam in it
[01:50:20] against engine panels like I watched everybody in the crew compartment but I remember my weapon
[01:50:26] at the time was like in a condition one weapon with it on fire wouldn't even meant it would have
[01:50:33] been condition one on safe but you're in close quarter and you have a long rifle in here and
[01:50:39] that's the ignorance that you have as a kid you feel you're protected I have this they don't want
[01:50:44] to find anymore but I also looked up in out the cargo hatches in my plutones sergeant had the
[01:50:51] weapon station turned all the way to the back with the now's a net depressed end of the back of
[01:50:55] the neural and the other E7 that was in this hatch was leaning and riding the vehicle backwards
[01:51:02] with a baretta and was in Overwatch of me down there in other words they probably wasn't so scared
[01:51:09] to me because they were probably scared those crazy guys will fire into the back of your and kill
[01:51:15] even if the risk of killing one the run so we didn't have any problem pornal going into that
[01:51:20] training at mindset that we're going into their backyard this time with the greatest marines that we
[01:51:27] could put forward on the field of battle at that time and all the other cohesive forces going
[01:51:32] into there there there was not a mindset other than let's just get the show started did you think
[01:51:38] look I know you're you said that you thought hey we're going into there we're going into their
[01:51:43] territory now this is actually where they live we're probably going to see more resistance
[01:51:49] was that widespread or did a lot of people think hey man we you know we're probably looking
[01:51:54] two weeks at the most I know I was worried about that which is a weird thing to say but I was thinking
[01:51:59] because I was not over there and I was thinking I'm gonna miss this it's gonna be over in a few
[01:52:03] weeks or at least it could be what what did you see we talked about that in training earlier
[01:52:10] at different units trained to a different mentality that was here I couldn't wait to speak to the
[01:52:15] one we trained to we trained to be there to basically prevent and where I could from ever being able
[01:52:22] to do this again to somebody else at that and it wasn't going to be a 1991 it was not going to
[01:52:28] be they're just going to throw up their hands and they're going to walk away to do that but I'm not
[01:52:32] telling you I go that other people were like that that you saw in training areas or you didn't see
[01:52:38] putting in the hours and the reps and the sets that it actually took to lay the maps and talk the
[01:52:45] history and and kind of really ingrained that mindset into somebody it was overall the Marines
[01:52:52] had the mindset subunit levels that were on there it always goes back to whatever the commander
[01:52:59] whatever the ownership is going to make it focus a training at that time period because you can
[01:53:03] have the higher authority the basic we're going to go in and we're going to do this mission
[01:53:08] but the people that you train each sleep breathe with that put that into you is normally not the
[01:53:14] chief and naval operations or the common on the Marine Corps it is your lieutenant colonel it is your
[01:53:20] captain it's your lieutenant your gun resort and your chief petty officer or it's your guy on
[01:53:25] your left and the right so I couldn't have a more cohesive unit that went in for the short amount
[01:53:31] of time that we did because I all do believe that they didn't believe this was going to be a
[01:53:35] two-in-a-q man and we're out of here I think they actually were very fearful when they kind of
[01:53:41] knew the major thing is to now take this guy out and we're going to do it in such a manner and
[01:53:48] such a speed that was out here that we're sitting there with these vehicles they're left over from
[01:53:53] the end of Vietnam when they were brand new going we're going to push him across the desert
[01:53:58] sometimes at night sometimes when they'll maps sometimes broken down and they have to leave that
[01:54:03] one back with a crew to fix it and then they have to travel 80 miles to catch up with the rest of the
[01:54:08] crew and they're out of radio rains so at night you're just kind of looking at the tracks that
[01:54:13] you can follow to try to catch up and then you call in these radio things to get within that
[01:54:18] radio range and you don't even know if you're driving through a bazillion mind-feel or anything else
[01:54:23] that is out there that's focus. When the invasion kicked off what were you guys doing immediately
[01:54:34] were you guys rolling up what was that March 20th? We were already in position and
[01:54:40] rolling and refueling we kicked off on about March 19th and started to track up because you're talking
[01:54:47] hundreds of miles that was in there and again fixing things along the way whatever you have to do
[01:54:52] because the thing was push push push push push push you can't stop you can't do this
[01:54:58] which really bonds to that old thing we were talking about like the USS Indianapolis
[01:55:02] you know it was maintain radio silence keep pushing keep pushing don't give away positions don't do
[01:55:07] whatever you have to do right get to the end of the result and but we started top and often
[01:55:13] refueling about the 21st it was kind of the invasion load for the fuel we've already loaded with
[01:55:19] ammunition you already loaded with everything the 22nd rolls into there and you instantly know the call
[01:55:26] is the 23rd is going to go into the city and then that's when you've already rehearsed at your position
[01:55:32] to take a certain bridge here's your mission and here's the time and date stamp that you have to
[01:55:38] be accomplished by whether it is set in office zero four in the morning to get to a bridge by zero
[01:55:44] late so that you have somebody that is here so did you but Talian get tasked to take
[01:55:50] nausea yeah the entire task force it was called ironically task force tarl and task force tarl
[01:55:56] was first beti in second marines and that was completely away in its own task force and that task
[01:56:02] force was to secure the bridges of Nazareia so that the entire first marine division and the army
[01:56:08] and everybody else could pass through that city all the way up the route and make a straight
[01:56:13] shot up the banged in so that's why they needed those bridges what was the intel telling you about
[01:56:18] the resistance you're going to face the resistance was about 500,000 people inside of a city so it
[01:56:24] was a large major city it's a time frame it was bracketed by the Uprates and the Saddam Canal
[01:56:31] that was on that and at the time there was small units and it was a headquarters of the Iraqi
[01:56:39] Fedahine that was down there so we kind of knew more of your fanatical fighters were going to be
[01:56:43] inside of that area the 51st mechanized division was down there and we still knew that Iraq
[01:56:49] still had a willing a means to fight so you still had these capabilities that they could probably
[01:56:54] put it good hard on you but we still had the capabilities that nobody was for seeing
[01:57:00] the bus saw that was going to happen when when we crossed over those bridges that morning on the 23rd
[01:57:07] U.S. debriefing your your portunes like out in the field or you in the assembly area how
[01:57:15] is the word getting transmitted to the troops you're already doing the pre briefs that are out there
[01:57:20] in the days leading up to that once we got everything else is kind of on the move one time I've got
[01:57:26] six different radio nets that are going on inside of my helmet little box down here that I can switch
[01:57:32] between battalion tack one tack to fires anything else while you're still maintaining your
[01:57:38] communications for your inner comms for your vehicles you're still maintaining tactical control
[01:57:43] of your own people in relation to the battle that was on there and once the things are rolling
[01:57:49] there was no time to just stop and say we need to get everybody back together and talk about
[01:57:54] what we're about to do tomorrow so you so you you already had the whole thing pre-art had the pre brief
[01:57:58] that was there and then you go across the bridges what was the first indication that
[01:58:05] oh it's on I the first indication it was on was even before we got that bridges
[01:58:10] because all of a sudden that morning we found out and started hearing calls that there was an
[01:58:16] army unit that had made its way into Nazarena and they had went up across one of the bridges that we
[01:58:22] were supposed to on the southern bridge made it across the northern bridge all the way what's now
[01:58:27] known as ambush alley US 507 maintenance was there and just managed to take a wrong turn
[01:58:33] Captain Troy King got the unit on the northern side they kind of figured out we're off the path
[01:58:40] up where we're at and figured at the time the best was to cut the shortest distance again
[01:58:46] to try to get back to where the convoy they had turned that they made that wrong turn
[01:58:51] so the greatest thing was when we first started hearing that we've got army vehicles on fire
[01:58:56] sitting in front here blood weapons laying all over the place and we are the north we're the
[01:59:02] spearhead the entire nobody's supposed to be in front of us so to hear over the radio what do you
[01:59:08] mean there's an army unit are they engaged or they not engage it's here no the first vehicle
[01:59:13] start calling which are the tanks back and they're rolling past these burning vehicles and
[01:59:18] there are fuel trucks and their convoy trucks it's not a combat convoy that was on there
[01:59:24] and they're pushing and they're just relaying those positions that are back here so now
[01:59:29] the generals, kernels everybody else is getting these fragmented stuff back here they're all trying
[01:59:36] to figure out what's going on and I get a call to go up and start figuring out what's going on up there
[01:59:43] take another vehicle I grabbed another vehicle and started pushing as far as we could and at first
[01:59:49] I heard it's about a mile and a half somewhere up the road where the tanks had said they may have
[01:59:56] seen some soldiers on the side of the road we passed the burning vehicles that were there
[02:00:02] all shot the pieces and then we just kind of kept driving up the road and saw nothing
[02:00:09] and then I got up to the forward line where the M1 Abrams tanks and eighth tank battalion
[02:00:15] and major bill people's was in charge of that and I drove the M track down into the side
[02:00:20] set the driver over near the tank that tanks main guns are engaging T62s in the field everything
[02:00:28] this is getting real main gun over pressure blasting you can't get a hold of them their mission
[02:00:35] fix that's here got on the ground, climbed up the side of the tank got on the back of the gunner
[02:00:40] staying and grabbed the gunner's helmet off the top which I believe kind of startled him a little
[02:00:47] bit because they are actively engaging troops that are in the field and started to ask him
[02:00:52] I mean he he looked and was like well do you come from I said did you see some soldiers
[02:00:58] are up there and he said a little bit past the burning trucks and not far behind from where we're at
[02:01:05] in between that area we saw some soldiers that may be a few hundred yards often areas and
[02:01:11] then thank you very much my feet did not hit the deck he looked enough to see me start to climb
[02:01:19] down the side of that tank to jump off and that's about this high that was here to get back to
[02:01:24] the vehicle and when he saw me jump off the tank that main gun fired and was like the best roller
[02:01:31] coaster ride I've ever had in my life because the over pressure it's just like it arched your back
[02:01:36] and I got back up I'm laughing he's laughing that's up the thumbs up run back to the thing tell
[02:01:42] the drivers there's somewhere in here now we're in Indian country without here they're engaged in that
[02:01:48] way we've now got artillery positions there I'm getting set up to start firing into the city
[02:01:54] and start doing the prep your start to see helicopters start to come into the into the air
[02:01:59] and then we couldn't see any soldiers so we started we even the vehicles jacco back and forth
[02:02:05] like you drive down some country road trying to find something in the ditch it was here with two
[02:02:11] vehicles and eventually when I driver yelled and he said I see somebody over in the field and I looked
[02:02:17] over there and it was a soldier waving her hands up and it was a chief warm officer that was in there
[02:02:22] we pulled the vehicles over and saw to there and I tell people to this day okay because they've
[02:02:28] caught a tremendous amount of heat for being the unit that was had people captured and
[02:02:34] wandered into this or whatever else I get credit a lot for being the individuals that went out there
[02:02:41] and saved the individuals and triage and this here for for that maintenance unit that was on the
[02:02:48] ground when we got there and and put troops on the deck they did the best job that they could
[02:02:55] possibly have done with trying to treat their own casualties one individual specialist we're
[02:03:02] about four gunshot wounds a big boy I think if it was me he wouldn't I wouldn't have lived
[02:03:06] that the shots were his were at were arms upper arms legs and and I just remember him having this
[02:03:13] calms and thing and when I stopped it we just looked up he said I never thought I'd be so happy to see
[02:03:19] him or any of my life and we said we're gonna take care of you and we started ripping t-shirts
[02:03:25] manages corpsmen were there they had made like a little 360 degree perimeter specialist Miller was
[02:03:33] awarded the silver star out of that unit for defending those commanders that were here out of that
[02:03:37] maintenance unit so this whole kind of stick that they get that they didn't fight they didn't do this they
[02:03:42] were just a maintenance unit that wandered in they're turning kicked in they did the initial things
[02:03:48] that were out there sent the other group over to the other little wagon wheel that they had
[02:03:53] another individual set up into there and I can just remember looking at grubbing thinking the
[02:03:58] calmest here's this guy he's just boy he's on point thank you for showing up saving he's not how
[02:04:05] one he's not screaming and then we have one of the other ones it's missing part of the back of his
[02:04:10] foot that's over there we get them in we get back down south tanks are still engaging and push a
[02:04:16] north we get enough time to just kick them out of the vehicles jaco at the first like ambulance
[02:04:23] I could find because at this time no there's no aid stations set up there's nothing so you get
[02:04:28] them back there drop them because I got a I got a convoy to get back up here and instantly we
[02:04:34] drop them right there fell back into the battle line and started moving in on those bridges
[02:04:39] in an azurea and the first bridge we hit was a rail bridge and the first thing that I heard
[02:04:45] net was that there was a van coming and there was an RPG gunner hanging out to sign the van
[02:04:51] and we saw the first shot and yelled sanger sanger which was the cue to the armor vehicles
[02:05:00] to start driving it radically to try to evade a rocket attack um now go when they did that I knew
[02:05:07] everything was gonna be okay I did because instant willingness in that confusion and they're hearing
[02:05:13] all this chaos going on their helmet and their listening still for the key words and the reaction
[02:05:18] to everything they're not going where's that coming from right they just start doing what they're
[02:05:23] trained to do that short amount of time move across that rail head nothing sitting move over the
[02:05:29] southern bridge and it was eerily quiet moving over the southern bridge of the uffredi's river
[02:05:36] was eerily like nothing was going on it's I don't know if you tuned it out in the city but it was
[02:05:43] like there was no firing going on it was eerily quiet moving into there and then I was sitting
[02:05:49] on top in the center of that bridge and the forward part now I'm the last vehicle so there's
[02:05:56] about 13 other AVs they're staggered in front of me and about eight seconds into that feeling the
[02:06:02] entire world exploded rockets mortars coordinated RPK machine gun fire on corners of the bridges
[02:06:11] and everything here I'm yelling over the thing to the first section later it's the first vehicle
[02:06:17] at the bottom you need to push and get us off of this bridge it's down here we get down and off
[02:06:22] the other side of that bridge and those vehicles start moving into these harrying bone battle positions
[02:06:28] and now they need to drop their infantry because we are on our objective we still have other units
[02:06:34] that have to pass through this objective to get to their objective that are up there and using
[02:06:39] situational awareness in the moon field I still to this day can't remember seeing another armored
[02:06:46] column roll feet away through there because you're so focused on what you're doing in that area
[02:06:53] and now they're calling out RPG gunners they're calling out mortarmen on the top you're seeing
[02:06:58] the RPGs flip and hit in the road some of them are duds some of them aren't duds and then
[02:07:05] you'd have to disembark the infantry the infantry gets out there and this is like something
[02:07:11] that was I I could only imagine this is what custer felt like when you're got a 360 degree
[02:07:17] and it's coming from everywhere and you can't figure out what the main part of this whether it's
[02:07:23] artillery that's coming in on you whether it's forward observers there were people watching the
[02:07:28] battle and I go that we're just sitting up there drinking tea with their family on these varandas
[02:07:32] that are just watching and you're sitting here going is that a spotter is that somebody I mean the
[02:07:38] guy looks like he's 70 but I don't know right now and a lot of guys are then asking you
[02:07:45] are we authorized to return fire to do this because that was probably the biggest thing that happened
[02:07:50] in Nazarea was that epic scope and scale of it you would think that people were itch in the
[02:07:56] pool the trigger it was quite the opposite they were really running the rules of engagement and saying
[02:08:02] until I get some real positive idea or something like this I'm not just going to sling a 50 count
[02:08:06] into this building until I have a reason to do that and it was a really short time until we
[02:08:13] are given a reason to do all of that and more whether it's 40 millimeter of our native launchers
[02:08:17] 50 cows laying 60 millimeter mortars on direct fire down avenues of approach it was
[02:08:24] every range you had ever been on all packed into one that was there and it was that way
[02:08:32] for a solid straight eight hours and nothing let up there wasn't a breather there wasn't anything
[02:08:38] it was in here the supply chains aren't going to come up to you because they know what's going
[02:08:44] on up there so at the times this is all happening the tanks are a pretty big signature all
[02:08:51] the sudden tanks run out of gas really quick when they're burning through that noise tanks start
[02:08:56] pulling out the bottle position because you can't get the fuel in to refuel the tanks are in the
[02:09:00] city tanks are now going to leave the city so if you want to go down in your stomach
[02:09:06] is when you see those bad boys start rolling the opposite way and you're left with thin skin
[02:09:11] vehicles because our amtrax on that deployment cycle we didn't have enough time when we got
[02:09:18] the deployment order jacco to get the bolt on armor to put on the outside of vehicles so our
[02:09:23] vehicles at the thickest point was two inches of aluminum we didn't have the applique we didn't have
[02:09:30] the enhanced armor it was in there and then the humvies still just had cloth doors and they had
[02:09:36] that that ghetto armor as we called it in 2004 and five and armor plates and all that were the
[02:09:42] product of what we learned back then to do that and as they're going the tanks go that way and now
[02:09:50] the fight is in a 360 and we're about an hour and a half into that don't know what's going on
[02:09:59] if the other northern bridge don't know what's going on on the outskirts of town where our third
[02:10:03] maneuver unit was supposed to be on the outskirts of town and that had the commander in the third
[02:10:09] maneuver unit on the outskirts of Nazarelia they kind of tried to do an end around with these command
[02:10:14] vehicles and they got into this Iraqi cesspool bog that was no no it's a shit dump it was a
[02:10:23] and an armored vehicle it looks like it's sand on top first one launches into there sinks all the
[02:10:29] way down it can't get out and one Abrams goes in after it it's gone command vehicles go in it's
[02:10:34] going and you're talking about now we're thermite engine compartments and everything because we're
[02:10:39] going to have to leave these vehicles inside of these cities this is the blueprint that wasn't supposed to
[02:10:44] happen or this is what how many hours into it are you right now this is two this is two
[02:10:52] end to that are you have you already taken casualties at this point at that point none in
[02:10:58] mining media area and then right after that is when I was faced in opposite direction fire an
[02:11:07] turret in kind of a rearward thing to keep the Iraqis back from this avenue of approach and we saw
[02:11:17] an ambulance coming into a high rate of speed up the thing and I can remember what the sea was on the
[02:11:22] side and all this and myself and another vehicle alpha 311 was sitting on each side of the
[02:11:28] spread and this thing just kept coming kept coming close into distance 200 meters and I kept
[02:11:35] telling them just calling out call it out we did you're usually not supposed to do a burst
[02:11:40] of warning fire to do that but this is the first stages of I'm bad and this is kind of an ambulance
[02:11:48] it's also with the same time kind of a v-bit it's coming this way because some of us did remember
[02:11:52] Bay Route a few things that were like that when we were younger um so it gets about 75 meters
[02:12:00] game on and we lit into that thing and that vehicle cleaned off and stopped and pounded into a wall
[02:12:06] the whole camp lit red that was on that and Susan smacked in that wall that back hatch opened up
[02:12:13] and six black clad Iraqi fed ahead fully armed with the teeth fighters came out of that back
[02:12:18] and that vehicle and started running across the street and there you know now it's
[02:12:24] I got another gonna use ambulance it's now they're gonna do this now you're really into this and
[02:12:29] it's all in that two hour window right and then you're talking about rules and engagement rules
[02:12:34] not am engagement you're an 18 year old kid that's out here is gunnery sardin do I am I authorize a
[02:12:40] shoot something like that or am I gonna be charged with some kind of um it's after here
[02:12:44] hey man this is what we have to do with this time to keep the family alive um and when they
[02:12:52] dropped out with weapons it was just like that every avenue will approach you would see a mass
[02:12:58] you would look up on verandas you would see people come out and fire rockets down the road
[02:13:05] to try to skip them into tanks and then you'd see them disappear and then a few seconds later
[02:13:10] you'd see somebody come out on a top-brand again kind of put their head around about 20 seconds later
[02:13:15] that person will cut now that person's a spotter for the person it's undery and you just got to
[02:13:20] watch the marines calculate all that at the rapid rate and start to deduce this is what's happening
[02:13:28] can I do this can I not do this here's what I'm gonna do and then my driver yells
[02:13:34] hey bonnes look at these dumbass going the wrong way and it was kind of this little
[02:13:42] Georgian kid 19 years old loved him a death pfc sasser he's looking right at the road
[02:13:48] and what he saw was an amtrak going the opposite direction and the first thing I can remember
[02:13:55] think in jacca was don't let that be one-a-mind because I didn't tell any end to go that way to do that
[02:14:01] and then when the clarity happens you look and the RPG gunner at the top materializes 50 feet above
[02:14:12] that amtrak he fires a rocket down into the top of that amtrak and then it blows the back
[02:14:19] into the amtrak open and then you see and a raki rpg gunner walk right out in the middle of the street
[02:14:25] take a knee and fire the second rocket right into the street true compartment which is a completely
[02:14:30] coordinated effort of attack these aren't just a bunch of insurgents that are there and then you see
[02:14:37] that blue open next thing you see is a US Marine fallout on fire and I could tell it was one of
[02:14:42] ours he still had his communications cord and helmet attached in the back of that and it's all surreal
[02:14:48] at that time you don't have sights and sounds you don't have it it just kind of
[02:14:52] shhhhhshhhhhshhhh and you're in this vacuum watching all this happen and the vehicle comes to a
[02:14:59] rolling stop on its own power because you can see smoke coming out every hatch it's on fire
[02:15:05] and then you can see troops laying in the answers and I can just remember the infantry is engaged
[02:15:12] but I can just remember that nobody's kind of running near that thing right now so I yelled in the back
[02:15:18] to my doc, grab your unit one kit and come with me.
[02:15:23] And Alex the last guest from Poet Thoreco.
[02:15:28] Great little kid.
[02:15:29] First time in combat, he grabs his stuff,
[02:15:32] he runs out the back, I got no helmet,
[02:15:34] I got it because you're throwing everything off, right?
[02:15:37] And we get out there, we run to the vehicle.
[02:15:40] And the first thing I see is have to like of a Marine,
[02:15:43] laying down the vehicle.
[02:15:45] And I remember picking it up,
[02:15:46] there's nothing else to do, and you're like,
[02:15:48] doc lay this off to the side,
[02:15:50] because maybe there's people here alive,
[02:15:52] you know, in your own way, you're trying to think,
[02:15:54] maybe this can be reattached or doing that.
[02:15:56] And I still remember the picture I had
[02:15:58] of him standing there holding this leg,
[02:16:01] and he put it in the leg combat,
[02:16:02] trauma of a Marine, and this look on his face like,
[02:16:06] oh my God, what's going on?
[02:16:09] And then we went into the back of the vehicle.
[02:16:11] The back of the vehicle,
[02:16:12] Jogga was completely collapsed in, and this a 2016 vehicle.
[02:16:17] So the top of these cargo hatches,
[02:16:19] they need a few Marines on a good date to open them up,
[02:16:22] and these are imploded into the back of the vehicle.
[02:16:26] And then yet, the remember inside of the vehicle,
[02:16:29] you have no shortage of about 1,000 Mark 19 grenades,
[02:16:34] you have boxes of hand grenades, the infantry,
[02:16:37] you couldn't sit in the back of a US combat vehicle,
[02:16:40] going into combat in 2003, and actually put your feet
[02:16:44] on the actual deck of a vehicle,
[02:16:47] because there was a sub deck,
[02:16:48] and the upper deck was all the ammunition
[02:16:51] that was laid across there.
[02:16:53] So not only are these infantrymen on a regular day,
[02:16:57] packed in like you and I talked about before,
[02:16:59] now their knees are to their chest,
[02:17:02] they're sitting on top of a powder keg,
[02:17:04] and it should just nothing but cordite and pitch black.
[02:17:09] And you can't see and you start feeling,
[02:17:11] and I just start walking through Jaguar from Marine to Marine,
[02:17:18] and I would see a Marine and I'd move up
[02:17:21] and try to feel, check for a pulse, whatever,
[02:17:24] because they're just all mixed in together.
[02:17:26] These cargo hatches had also imploded
[02:17:29] and bent them all when they all shape positions,
[02:17:31] when they collapsed on their backs.
[02:17:33] So even if you have the average Marine,
[02:17:35] let's just say a buck 80 that is out there.
[02:17:39] You had another 60 pounds of kit on top of that kit,
[02:17:42] and all of his weapons and everything else,
[02:17:46] it's a mess.
[02:17:47] And as we're moving through there,
[02:17:49] I'm gonna look back and tell one doc,
[02:17:52] he's triaging people,
[02:17:54] and I could look back and doc was feeling for a pulse,
[02:17:56] and I would tell doc, forget it,
[02:17:59] go to the next one he's dead,
[02:18:01] because doc couldn't see the side of his head
[02:18:04] it was missing that I could see.
[02:18:05] He could only see the other side when he came through.
[02:18:09] And now I figure Jaguar everybody's dead.
[02:18:12] There's not a single living person that's inside.
[02:18:14] Here they could have survived this.
[02:18:17] Then you just start hearing all the stuff
[02:18:21] ricocheting off the outside of the vehicle.
[02:18:24] You still see the rocket trails that are flying behind
[02:18:27] because now this is a large target right in the middle
[02:18:30] of the magnet.
[02:18:31] To magnet.
[02:18:32] And they're aiming everything they can for it.
[02:18:35] And I just figured first of all,
[02:18:38] we need to get as much weapons as we can.
[02:18:40] We need to zero the radio's out.
[02:18:41] We need to get the crypto out of here.
[02:18:43] We need to do that and start it to go up,
[02:18:46] because I figured I was asking for a thermite grenade,
[02:18:50] because if I couldn't get the radio's out or whatever,
[02:18:52] you can drop a thermite and burn them.
[02:18:54] And this is what we're gonna do
[02:18:55] because we may have to leave this here.
[02:18:59] Which is one of the saddest things,
[02:19:00] you don't leave a dead moon to come right behind,
[02:19:02] but in the middle of the fight,
[02:19:04] you have to do what you do to survive.
[02:19:06] And also, get the materials you have to do
[02:19:08] to carry the fight to the enemy.
[02:19:11] And you cannot quit,
[02:19:13] because even if your tired cold wet and hungry,
[02:19:16] somebody else is more tired cold wet and hungry.
[02:19:18] Anything else you, you're talking 136 degrees
[02:19:22] or anything else.
[02:19:23] We're already in the fight where Marines have already sucked
[02:19:26] through all their canteen to water
[02:19:27] or their camel backs to do that.
[02:19:29] The water's hot already, as you know,
[02:19:31] it's not chilled water in their in it.
[02:19:36] And I stepped into the middle of that
[02:19:39] and dropped down on my right knee,
[02:19:41] trying to get through, and I heard a man gas for air.
[02:19:47] It was who I was stepping on that was here.
[02:19:49] And it turned out to be a corporal
[02:19:51] by the name of Matthew Jessica.
[02:19:53] And that was a vehicle, and a Marine,
[02:19:56] it was in a completely different unit.
[02:19:59] They were charged with taking the northern bridge
[02:20:01] or we had this southern bridge.
[02:20:03] So now in your head, how did they get here?
[02:20:06] How are they back down here to do this?
[02:20:09] And you find out what had happened
[02:20:12] at the northern bridge, when they got along that northern bridge,
[02:20:15] they were hit with Iraqi artillery fire.
[02:20:18] They were hit without.
[02:20:19] And then they were also the unit
[02:20:20] that were hit by the eight-end streets
[02:20:23] that were up there and had all this madness going on at one time.
[02:20:27] These vehicles that were now seeing coming back in,
[02:20:30] they were the vehicles that were loaded with casualties
[02:20:32] trying to get back south of the city
[02:20:35] to do what we had done with the 507.
[02:20:37] And then the Iraqis were picking them off
[02:20:40] just like they did the 507 when they came back into the city.
[02:20:44] Deep reef the A10, friendly fire situation that unfold
[02:20:49] that is from what you, from what you know about it.
[02:20:51] Well, when it was actually happened in Jaguar,
[02:20:54] it was southern bridge.
[02:20:55] So it's pretty distinctive when you can hear an A10.
[02:20:58] Come over and it makes a pretty distinctive sound,
[02:21:02] as well when those can't enter.
[02:21:03] Actually we go in all of a sudden, you know there in the area.
[02:21:06] Now the northern bridge in that where it's happening
[02:21:08] is probably about another, when I have two miles up ambush alley.
[02:21:12] And what we can assess is there were actually survivors
[02:21:18] in that track that I was in that were also crew members
[02:21:21] that were in the front.
[02:21:22] So I was able to garner after we coherently
[02:21:26] were able to get some people to talk.
[02:21:28] Wasn't the casualty I pull out of the back
[02:21:30] and it really wasn't the two guys that were inside.
[02:21:33] That was there.
[02:21:34] Another Amtrak had called out and said a second vehicle
[02:21:39] was here and they're trying to get us to come help them
[02:21:42] up at the northern bridge.
[02:21:45] And he was saying what was happening at the northern bridge.
[02:21:49] And the open source that you can find,
[02:21:53] they redacted after action, it's online that was here,
[02:21:57] was basically what had been happening was when they got
[02:22:01] forward to the northern bridge and they were hit
[02:22:03] with this multiple things that are calling air strikes
[02:22:05] that were coming in.
[02:22:06] The forward air controller was the fact
[02:22:11] that was supposed to actually be having eyes on the target.
[02:22:14] And the fact did not have eyes on the target.
[02:22:18] It was at that position and he was co-located in the
[02:22:22] with the command element that was back in the city.
[02:22:26] And when the ATANs are coming in,
[02:22:30] the ATANs are getting grids that there are no USB
[02:22:34] equals forward of a certain position.
[02:22:36] Kind of like when we got to call for the army,
[02:22:39] what do you mean the army's up there to do that.
[02:22:41] And then they're getting confusing calls
[02:22:44] of vehicles are coming back in to the city,
[02:22:47] which I am assuming at that, if I'm a pilot or anything else,
[02:22:50] and I'm seeing armor vehicles coming back into a city,
[02:22:53] it may be enemy reinforcements, it may be something like that.
[02:22:56] But at one period, whatever it was,
[02:22:59] Jack, or they were given the clearance to fire.
[02:23:02] Fire on the vehicles that were north of that city.
[02:23:05] And when they came in, call signs were,
[02:23:08] were jirate that is on there and they came in.
[02:23:11] I made their first run and their first strafing run.
[02:23:14] They made a couple of those.
[02:23:16] And then they flew back off up to the level in the stack
[02:23:20] to start coming back around and to do that again.
[02:23:23] And they made multiple runs on those vehicles.
[02:23:26] They were up there.
[02:23:27] So the vehicles that you can see online,
[02:23:30] the vehicles that you could see there,
[02:23:31] the ones that look like they're completely gutted
[02:23:33] and split open like a can opener,
[02:23:35] that shows all the aluminum melted,
[02:23:38] the outside of the things, that was from Iraqi small arms fire,
[02:23:43] or anything else it was like that.
[02:23:44] That was the Marines that were in the mass confusion
[02:23:48] at the northern portion of the bridge,
[02:23:50] holding their battle position was trying to figure out
[02:23:54] where this enemy fire is coming from,
[02:23:56] calling in the air to out what that enemy fire.
[02:24:00] And then that enemy fire in the middle of the fracture
[02:24:02] sign incident happens to frag Marines
[02:24:06] that are in that mass confusion.
[02:24:11] You know what was later because they fired
[02:24:13] the plate of uranium rounds.
[02:24:14] And when you see the aftermath of all these nickels
[02:24:17] and the plate of uranium rounds,
[02:24:19] they leave a nice little melted,
[02:24:21] looks like the Terminator.
[02:24:23] Like when the Terminator shot and they had,
[02:24:25] you see the bullet hole go through Arnold Schwarzenegger's head
[02:24:28] and then you see the metal go back,
[02:24:29] it just kind of peels out, it's like that.
[02:24:31] And you can see these cavernous things
[02:24:33] that are inside of there to do that.
[02:24:35] But at the same time that you're down at the south,
[02:24:38] you don't know Jack or that's going on.
[02:24:41] You only find out with the luxury of history now,
[02:24:45] but you also knew by the time it was about five or six
[02:24:49] to clock when you were able to get up to that northern bridge,
[02:24:53] you instantly were getting the feedback
[02:24:55] from the troops on the ground on what happened here
[02:24:58] and seeing their homes are gone.
[02:25:03] Some of them are their gearists
[02:25:04] and one of those vehicles that are there,
[02:25:06] they only have the ammunition that's on their back.
[02:25:08] They don't know,
[02:25:09] either can survive.
[02:25:10] They got each other to top there
[02:25:11] and there are no battle position
[02:25:13] and they're defending and holding their perimeter.
[02:25:16] And then back in the city,
[02:25:19] we are now still trying to figure out
[02:25:22] what is going on with these vehicles.
[02:25:26] We find this individual and we get him in the vehicle
[02:25:29] and we have him taken back over to the back end of an Amtron.
[02:25:33] And when I say this individual marine,
[02:25:35] this individual marine was the largest marine
[02:25:38] that was in that company.
[02:25:39] He was 240 plus pounds.
[02:25:42] He was about six foot five
[02:25:44] and overall with all of his gear weight well
[02:25:46] over 300 some pounds.
[02:25:49] And you know, it's a time pushing a buck 60.
[02:25:53] Doc is pushing even less than that
[02:25:55] and we're in the back trying to dislodge
[02:25:58] a 300 plus pound individual.
[02:26:00] Let's end the back of this with all this equipment mixed in.
[02:26:03] And I can see when he's bent in the all-shaped position,
[02:26:05] I go, his head is split in the base of his neck all the way
[02:26:09] to the top where you can see his entire cranium.
[02:26:12] Do we set?
[02:26:15] So what I did was we offer some more marines.
[02:26:19] We kind of made a daisy chain.
[02:26:20] I held on to him as much we could.
[02:26:23] The company first sergeant came in, got some more marines
[02:26:25] doc held on to me.
[02:26:27] We started cutting as much equipment as we could
[02:26:29] and started daisy chain and this big boy out of the back
[02:26:33] of that because you had to make a decision
[02:26:35] at the time, if I leave him or he's dead,
[02:26:39] if I move him, he's dead.
[02:26:41] In my head, that's what I'm thinking
[02:26:43] because I see the trauma that he has on him.
[02:26:47] And I know the type of injuries in these places
[02:26:50] we're talking about spinal injuries, we're talking about head
[02:26:52] injuries.
[02:26:53] And you don't have the means with the rockets
[02:26:55] and everything else to stabilize spine boards and all this.
[02:26:59] So you had to make a decision.
[02:27:00] And I'm making him out.
[02:27:03] And the decision was made at that time.
[02:27:05] I'd much rather if it was made,
[02:27:06] somebody yank my ass out of here to work
[02:27:08] and get back to some medical treatment.
[02:27:10] And doc and I and the Marine ran him across the intersection
[02:27:14] on her fire, placed him into a back of another vehicle
[02:27:18] or doc started to treat his head injury.
[02:27:21] And then I had ran back out in the street
[02:27:24] to tell him there's more.
[02:27:26] So I went back to the vehicle again.
[02:27:29] Still I have to do the weapons.
[02:27:30] Still I have to do everything else to inside of vehicle.
[02:27:33] And then I also hear that somebody had moved some casualties
[02:27:36] to a house right across the street.
[02:27:38] And some marine machine gunners were going
[02:27:40] and they kept pointing.
[02:27:41] I think they're down that way.
[02:27:42] And I went into this house, Jago.
[02:27:44] I don't have a weapon on me.
[02:27:47] That's here.
[02:27:49] I do have a nine mill that's on that.
[02:27:51] But the long guns and iron aback.
[02:27:53] And I come into this house.
[02:27:55] And what I see in this house is I looked at a left
[02:27:58] in the side of the room.
[02:27:59] And I see three individuals.
[02:28:02] And one of them gets up and he's gray from head to toe.
[02:28:05] And he has a communication cell when I was at.
[02:28:07] And he is burnt with a little bit of a layer.
[02:28:10] The back of his leg is partially missing.
[02:28:12] Something like things there.
[02:28:13] He's got some burns and some trauma.
[02:28:16] And this kid was named Corporal Vaskas.
[02:28:19] And Corporal Vaskas I knew was a crew chief in that other unit
[02:28:22] at that northern bridge.
[02:28:23] And I looked over against the wall and the other two
[02:28:27] crewmen that made it out of those hatches
[02:28:29] were leaning against the wall.
[02:28:31] And they had their uniforms on.
[02:28:33] They remember everybody's in mop conditions.
[02:28:36] So you're fighting in full mop floor.
[02:28:38] This isn't like going to gas chamber just
[02:28:40] to go to training one day and then you strip out all your gear.
[02:28:43] You're in mop for days.
[02:28:45] And you're fighting in that charcoal suit on top of all this
[02:28:47] stuff in that 130 degree with no water anymore
[02:28:52] for these hours.
[02:28:53] And they're sitting against that wall.
[02:28:57] And I can still remember seeing the blood out of the eyes,
[02:29:02] the ears.
[02:29:03] You could tell they were concussed.
[02:29:05] And they were sitting there.
[02:29:06] And Corporal Vaskas comes up.
[02:29:08] And I just told Vaskas, I'm going to get you out of here.
[02:29:15] And he said, I don't want to go anywhere,
[02:29:16] cutting.
[02:29:18] He said, I can still fight.
[02:29:21] Now you're sitting here, having to wounded,
[02:29:23] protect the wounded, right, and anything else.
[02:29:27] Went outside the door, picked up an ooms and hung
[02:29:29] there were on the ground.
[02:29:30] That we're here.
[02:29:32] Came back in, racked around, and put
[02:29:33] a corp of Askas after I patched up his wounds.
[02:29:36] I put him in the doorway.
[02:29:38] And there are still Iraqi voices in the back of the house.
[02:29:42] I figured there's probably five or six rooms in the house.
[02:29:44] They're in the back.
[02:29:45] But the marines are right in the street on the outside of the room.
[02:29:49] And you have access to the back end of the house
[02:29:52] if I put you in this access on his doorway.
[02:29:55] I'm going to go get some help.
[02:29:57] Racked around, per his arms, and said,
[02:30:01] I'm going to come to the right.
[02:30:02] Don't shoot anybody coming from this direction.
[02:30:05] Somebody coming from the left side.
[02:30:07] This is an unsecured facility.
[02:30:08] You know what you have to do, marine.
[02:30:10] And he said, Roger that.
[02:30:12] Went back out, grabbed some more marines,
[02:30:14] some more weapons.
[02:30:16] Come back in, got those three.
[02:30:18] Move them to the vehicle as well.
[02:30:21] Now you're sitting here, having to make the decision.
[02:30:23] Yeah, go, you got to get back on the radio
[02:30:26] to at least let your commander
[02:30:28] and that assess the situation.
[02:30:30] And Captain Mike Brooks was a phenomenal infantry company
[02:30:33] commander on the ground with the boys.
[02:30:36] And he's watching this all happen.
[02:30:39] So he knows we have casualties.
[02:30:41] He knows that we have very serious ones.
[02:30:43] He also knows that we have an M tracking and going anywhere.
[02:30:46] This got US equipment and all this stuff in here.
[02:30:49] And he also knows something is going on
[02:30:51] with the northern bridge that allowed all this to happen down here.
[02:30:55] And this is what you're talking about, you know,
[02:30:58] is that commander, right?
[02:31:01] You're also been told, you will hold that bridge.
[02:31:06] And you're the guy on the ground hearing all this happen now.
[02:31:09] I've got to get people out of here.
[02:31:12] I've got to find a way to get reinforcements up to here.
[02:31:15] I've got to find a way to help to survive.
[02:31:18] You know, when a fire find nobody cares
[02:31:19] to be the president of the United States is they care about
[02:31:22] who's on their left and their right.
[02:31:24] They care about, you know, the promises they made to people
[02:31:26] and we'll bring your son home.
[02:31:28] We're going to do that as a commander.
[02:31:29] But they also know I got a mission.
[02:31:32] My mission is a smaller part of a bigger picture.
[02:31:35] It's here.
[02:31:37] I needed phenomenal.
[02:31:38] And we assess the casualties.
[02:31:41] And we knew him well.
[02:31:43] We can't have any vehicles leaving this position.
[02:31:45] And who in the hell is going to fly helicopter in here?
[02:31:50] It is an intersection where it's in black-walked down when you watch it.
[02:31:53] And just at that time, I relayed the casualties.
[02:31:58] And I heard it come over the net.
[02:31:59] We got an inbound bird.
[02:32:00] It's going to come.
[02:32:01] Let's see H46 is going to come in at the top.
[02:32:04] Kind of looked up in the air.
[02:32:06] We need to get the casualty away from here to provide a more safer
[02:32:11] landing zone for that helicopter, which is about 150 to 100 meters.
[02:32:15] Down a road.
[02:32:18] We start loading up the casualties.
[02:32:20] Just go.
[02:32:21] The other Marines that are there, some other Marines, and we start running them.
[02:32:25] Another 150 meters in an opposite direction to a clearing where we believe we can get
[02:32:30] helicopter in.
[02:32:32] And then we're going to mark that clearing.
[02:32:35] And one of the problems was in the rapid pace of the movement of all this.
[02:32:39] One of the things that we never really did, Ers, was like an aerial signal plan for
[02:32:44] a meta-vax, you know, nine lines, you know everything else.
[02:32:47] But what color smoke, or are you going to throw it?
[02:32:49] What are you going to do?
[02:32:50] Green smoke to the grunts means different than green smoke to helicopter pilot.
[02:32:54] It's on there.
[02:32:57] That's what happens.
[02:32:58] All of Sir runs up and he says, do we have any color smoke grenades?
[02:33:02] We don't.
[02:33:03] So we have like these pyrotechnics.
[02:33:06] Give the pyrotext us.
[02:33:07] He fires a pyrotechnic.
[02:33:08] It bounces off the thing.
[02:33:10] And it kind of just disappears and doesn't do anything.
[02:33:13] And it's one of those things where we're now, I'll go all laughing.
[02:33:16] Even in the middle of this chaos is like, come on man, that's what we had to do.
[02:33:24] And he's sitting there with this rocket looking at me and he goes, and I just started laughing.
[02:33:29] And he started yelling around and someone got a purple grenade.
[02:33:37] Purple smoke.
[02:33:38] He pops this thing.
[02:33:39] He sees the helicopter start to come in.
[02:33:43] The most beautiful things I've ever seen.
[02:33:45] That thing fliers, it comes in and it's in a slide about 75 meters above our head.
[02:33:51] And he sees that smoke pop.
[02:33:53] And the incident when he stops his slide.
[02:33:55] And then he sees smoke pop back in the middle of the intersection where we just took
[02:34:00] the casualty's from and sees green smoke over there.
[02:34:05] And he slides back into that intersection and puts that helicopter down right next to the
[02:34:08] burning electric.
[02:34:10] And it's thing.
[02:34:11] And drops the ramp.
[02:34:13] Now it's on the ground.
[02:34:15] Crew chief kind of walks out when we start making a run toward that because I had found
[02:34:19] out that the purple smoke met don't land here.
[02:34:22] This is a dangerous thing.
[02:34:24] And he saw that pop.
[02:34:25] And he said the green was over there.
[02:34:27] Right?
[02:34:28] The grunts didn't throw that green to mark that land.
[02:34:30] He said they were throwing it to shift fires and do what they had to do.
[02:34:33] And he slid that and put that right down.
[02:34:36] And he's just wearing gunners and walks out the back like John Wayne.
[02:34:40] I'll never remember.
[02:34:41] I mean like you could really tell he's got to know what's going on.
[02:34:45] But he doesn't really know what's going on.
[02:34:47] And he's kind of standing on the ramp, surveying the kingdom that's here.
[02:34:52] And we're all running to the back.
[02:34:54] Casualty's a rim.
[02:34:55] And this is fitted with litter kits in the back of it.
[02:34:58] So it's called in for it.
[02:35:00] And I'm pretty sure it wasn't when it was above there.
[02:35:02] They were doing that.
[02:35:03] Those are Aaron that we have Marines that we have to get them out.
[02:35:07] So they're up there in the air and they're doing that.
[02:35:10] That thing flares down.
[02:35:12] And the first Marines that we get on top of there, blessed the gunneries, aren't
[02:35:17] hard.
[02:35:18] He kept yelling.
[02:35:19] I need you to put them on the top, right?
[02:35:21] Because he needs to fill his bird his way.
[02:35:25] And I'm sitting here like we've been in the streets.
[02:35:28] We've got no juice.
[02:35:29] We've got nothing man.
[02:35:31] We don't realize how dangerous it is.
[02:35:34] And I said, brother, there are PGs here.
[02:35:38] You need to take these Marines and get in.
[02:35:40] He said, are PGs?
[02:35:42] Are you shit?
[02:35:43] Just put them down.
[02:35:44] We'll take care of them.
[02:35:46] And we started running.
[02:35:47] And like I said, bless this heart.
[02:35:49] Now it's not the top rack.
[02:35:51] Now it's less getting into war.
[02:35:52] We're at he has situational awareness.
[02:35:55] And one of the most heartbreaking and proud things I've ever seen in my life though is when
[02:36:00] he took ownership of that and made a decision because he knew lives mattered.
[02:36:06] He's relaying it to the pilot that is up there.
[02:36:10] Without a gunner's bill, that, when we saw it, Jessica was the last Marine we laid on
[02:36:17] the ramp, the biggest one.
[02:36:20] The one with the cranium, I'm trying to say everything else.
[02:36:23] That helicopter, he said, drop him.
[02:36:26] I got him.
[02:36:28] This soon as I got off the back of the helicopter, the helicopter lifted off.
[02:36:32] And the last thing I had saw when I looked up was Jessica's legs hanging out the back
[02:36:38] of the helicopter with blood grip on one of his boots.
[02:36:41] And that, no one was holding him in the helicopter with his own life that may have been
[02:36:46] pulled out the back of that helicopter or something because he said, I got him.
[02:36:51] And when somebody says, I got him and that's another man, another Marine and a conversation,
[02:36:56] you got him.
[02:36:57] That go back to the business you need to do.
[02:36:59] And then somehow, at that time period, we find a second, talk over to get against the wall,
[02:37:06] myself, HN Velasquez, the corpsman, and another Marine that was here.
[02:37:12] And thank God somebody through us, a canteen, had about a half of full of water between
[02:37:18] all three of us because I could feel tunnel vision happening when I sat down at that wall
[02:37:23] in the lights going out. And I could only imagine across the battle line that was everybody.
[02:37:29] But that was happening too.
[02:37:31] And we're still another hour and a half or whatever from that position still being maintained.
[02:37:40] Captain Brooks ran over to me at the time.
[02:37:44] And he said, look, I've got communications with the unit that's coming in behind us.
[02:37:50] They're right on the other side of the bridge. They've reported they're at the bridge.
[02:37:54] So this is going to be a battle hand over.
[02:37:56] He said, I need you to make sure that everybody gets a ride.
[02:38:00] He goes, we're going to push up to the northern bridge.
[02:38:03] And we're going to help those Marines.
[02:38:05] Roger that.
[02:38:07] Everybody gets a ride.
[02:38:08] That means it's Kelly's heroes.
[02:38:10] Lay on top of the cargo hatches.
[02:38:12] Safety is the wind's.
[02:38:13] It doesn't matter.
[02:38:14] You hold on to the side.
[02:38:15] You're getting out of here.
[02:38:16] But you got to make sure you have everybody.
[02:38:20] As we're doing this, the tanks show up.
[02:38:24] And when the tanks came back, you could just see the Marines like Santa Claus just showed
[02:38:29] up on Christmas Eve.
[02:38:31] And they started pulling into positions.
[02:38:34] They're starting to take fire, the perimeter, run over to a tank, jump on the tank again.
[02:38:40] And there was a second story window.
[02:38:41] I can remember it.
[02:38:42] I had red windows in it.
[02:38:43] And we were taking a lot of fire from there.
[02:38:46] And just went over the back of the tank.
[02:38:47] On the tank phone and said, second level windows, red windows, take the top of that building
[02:38:53] off.
[02:38:54] Would you, my pleasure.
[02:38:56] Oh, wow.
[02:38:57] One round through that, no more red windows, no more fire from that area.
[02:39:02] And then that's when it kind of started to die down, because you could see the Iraqis
[02:39:08] probably think and reinforcements of the right over the bridge that are coming.
[02:39:13] Now the tanks are here.
[02:39:15] Now everybody gets a ride, including on those tanks.
[02:39:18] Now we just heard or saw what happened on ambush alley of those vehicles coming through there.
[02:39:24] We just saw the rockets coming off the tops and the rooftops, the buildings.
[02:39:28] Jacob, we're now going to make a run from I1.5 up that to get to that northern bridge
[02:39:33] and go through that gauntlet.
[02:39:34] So once we got a thumbs up that everybody, every swing in American was there.
[02:39:40] It was on that.
[02:39:42] Just gave the order.
[02:39:44] Thanks, stay in the front, because they can swivel the turrets to left on the right side.
[02:39:48] And AV, only has a turret on the starboard side so you can't shoot over the driver's station.
[02:39:53] So trim the AVs and the turrets to the right.
[02:39:56] AVs are going to cover the right hand side of these buildings with their mark 19 grenade launchers
[02:40:00] and their 50 cows.
[02:40:02] And then the tanks are going to swivel and cover left hand side.
[02:40:06] And we were just going to go 45 miles an hour, bump that thing and just lay led the entire
[02:40:11] way.
[02:40:12] But no more arcade G3s come off the buildings, something that I mean, it almost reminds
[02:40:19] you like what you'd see in style and grab.
[02:40:20] And I thought Molotov cocktails are coming next.
[02:40:23] This is what's going to come off into these hatches to do that.
[02:40:27] And we just took levels off of those.
[02:40:30] Kept those all down, got up to the northern bridge.
[02:40:34] And then we got the northern bridge, assessed that.
[02:40:37] Bolster did defense on that northern bridge.
[02:40:38] We now held the southern bridge.
[02:40:40] We now held the northern bridge.
[02:40:42] We reassessed everything for about a day that was up there.
[02:40:45] And then we figured we got to push on out to the western intersection because there's two
[02:40:49] bridges that are on that side over there and start basically having control of all the bridges
[02:40:54] on that city.
[02:40:55] And then within the next 48 hours, that's when the entire first marine division was stacked
[02:40:59] up on that southern bridge.
[02:41:01] And the greatest thing is standing on those bridges.
[02:41:05] Watch and look like the bridge are a magnet.
[02:41:08] The American Army just come through with vehicle after vehicle on the way to Baghdad.
[02:41:14] And feeling at the time with success of we did, but you know, hold until relieved.
[02:41:21] That's that age old American.
[02:41:23] That's that that's general McCallough telling people not that's that's your generation
[02:41:28] of doing that.
[02:41:30] And saying, you know, so I get a little testy.
[02:41:33] And I go when people try to claim that this generation is, you know, the millennials and
[02:41:38] they will never hold up to their forefathers.
[02:41:40] And they will, yeah, every generation has jackasses.
[02:41:43] They're out there.
[02:41:44] They do.
[02:41:45] Every generation have the ones matter too.
[02:41:47] That no one to chips are down.
[02:41:50] They really rise up and they rise up the occasion.
[02:41:53] And we are lucky to be associated with a lot of people like that all the way through those
[02:41:58] battles.
[02:41:59] And that battle kicked off when you started to come in.
[02:42:02] And then, you know, unfortunately, we're still putting people in our line 10 and that today.
[02:42:07] Still holding to that truth.
[02:42:11] The overall, I was, I think the numbers are you, you guys lost seven of your tracks.
[02:42:20] Is that right in Nazarena?
[02:42:25] 18 18 Marines killed.
[02:42:27] Eventually it was only teen.
[02:42:29] That was on there.
[02:42:30] I put them all.
[02:42:31] We have everything that's on here.
[02:42:33] I've carried that for over almost 29 years.
[02:42:36] That was given to me as a young troop.
[02:42:37] It was a map case left over from Vietnam.
[02:42:41] It was on that.
[02:42:42] And those are all the guys from Tasswurst, Tarle.
[02:42:48] That were on that day.
[02:42:49] The rank that my wife pulled off when I got home off my collar that I was wearing in the
[02:42:53] street that day, which started black.
[02:42:56] And it has no black left on it.
[02:42:58] It was here.
[02:43:00] That was the rank.
[02:43:01] She pulled off my collar when I survived the cemetery fight in the Jaff in 2004.
[02:43:06] First, the time in fourth Marines.
[02:43:08] And then that was the rank when I got home.
[02:43:10] She pulled off my collar when I brought first recombatine out of the Yazidi mountain
[02:43:15] range and that up at the South Central Mountain range.
[02:43:18] That's the Marines from 2003.
[02:43:20] That is Jessica Lynch's column of the soldiers that are memorialized on there that had given
[02:43:29] their lives that day.
[02:43:31] And then on the backside of there was the Marines from BLT-14 in the cemetery fight in 2004.
[02:43:44] What was the, once you guys got relieved, what was the next thing that you guys did?
[02:43:50] We had to pull out of that position and we went up to Al-Qut that was, we were basically
[02:43:55] going to stay out near Al-Mora in that sector that was over here.
[02:44:01] And we went up to Al-Qut to reinforce.
[02:44:03] That was how Al-Qut.
[02:44:05] We pushed all the way out to the border in Al-Mora.
[02:44:08] We did a counter offensive against the 51st mechanized division that was actually mounting
[02:44:14] a counter offensive.
[02:44:16] But when we were actually in the city and we were still running, Jago, about the 26th that
[02:44:22] was in there.
[02:44:24] The supply trains have still not come through.
[02:44:26] This is three days.
[02:44:28] So the Marines that were missing their gear, what we had ours do is, if you have two, you
[02:44:36] only need one, therefore give one to your brother.
[02:44:39] Throw it out behind the vehicle in Pontius.
[02:44:43] Canteen's backpacks, whatever you can do to give the guys who just lost their gear and
[02:44:47] all those things, something to live with.
[02:44:51] Then we're down to less than an eighth of a tank of fuel on each of these vehicles that are
[02:44:57] overlooking the sedan canow back into the city and we're preparing for what we hear is
[02:45:01] a 2,000 man counter offensive that is going to come by boats and by armored vehicles that's
[02:45:06] coming out of the center of the city.
[02:45:08] And in order to maintain the radios and AV, you have to have the AV run to charge the radio
[02:45:13] systems that are on there.
[02:45:15] We're down to about an eighth of a tank.
[02:45:18] So you'd shut your vehicle off for a while, you don't want to charge it up, run it for about
[02:45:22] 10 minutes to keep the radio filled so it doesn't drop the fills and the radios.
[02:45:26] And you shut them back down to conserve mass.
[02:45:30] You're down to, there's no MREs.
[02:45:32] There is nothing.
[02:45:34] You aren't drinking the water in the vehicles and this is what I love about armored
[02:45:39] crew and that people just don't know.
[02:45:41] Jagger was, it's horse gun and man.
[02:45:46] You always take care of your ride first.
[02:45:49] You take care of your weapons first.
[02:45:50] You take care of yourself last.
[02:45:52] That doesn't matter if you're a ground pounder, you're a team need to matter.
[02:45:55] It's the same thing just a different concept, applied a different way.
[02:45:59] You don't drink the horse as a water because the horse needs the water to still survive.
[02:46:06] So the water is the vehicles that are overheating and all of this.
[02:46:11] You can't drink the vehicle water out of the 5 gallon water cans because you've got to
[02:46:14] cool the radios down to keep the vehicles going.
[02:46:18] So you kind of start sharing what looks like, I don't know, like shaving cream like a shaving
[02:46:26] cream lid full of water just to get a little bit of water and continue to do that.
[02:46:32] Split down one MRE between seven individuals start hacking that thing apart to whatever
[02:46:37] to stretch that out and then you're sitting in there on watch and you're not on 50% and
[02:46:42] you're not a it's 100% because this is the counter offensive.
[02:46:48] We heard their common and the most glorious thing happened is one they didn't come.
[02:46:53] The reason they didn't come is because the Marine artillery and repute 900 rounds I believe
[02:46:59] into that city that night in this parking garage area where they were supposedly massing
[02:47:04] and did just a battery for a fact that was in that they completely crushed that counter
[02:47:09] offensive in the middle of that city.
[02:47:12] It would have been a hell of a fight.
[02:47:14] If 2000 of them started swimming into that battle position after the Marines had been
[02:47:19] about three days down on food water, you're still on ammunition.
[02:47:24] You only have the ammo that still left, you brought across with you the first time.
[02:47:30] So I learned tricks of the trade along the way, Jack, that helped people like that.
[02:47:35] That's why history is important.
[02:47:40] You said looking at citations on buildings and learning about saying I want to meet that
[02:47:44] person.
[02:47:45] I don't know why I want to meet that person but something tells me I want to meet that
[02:47:48] person.
[02:47:49] I grew up with stories of Hill 488 and in Howard's Hill and Jimmy Howard in 1966 takes
[02:47:57] a Marine recon Patrol of 19 above the case on operating base and inserts for three days
[02:48:04] and within hours Howard is completely wounded.
[02:48:09] He has to crawl from position to position because he can't use his legs with a radio to
[02:48:14] continue to repel and envy a regiment that is heading towards that fire base and he stays
[02:48:20] on top of that hill for days and as a running low on ammunition, Jimmy Howard tells his
[02:48:27] boys throw rocks at the enemy.
[02:48:31] One, you're like, that's the mindset.
[02:48:34] That's the killer instinct, the mindset we were talking about.
[02:48:37] You know what, it's also the resilience because he told him when they're like, throw rocks
[02:48:42] or you crazy.
[02:48:43] He said the enemy at night will think it's a hand grenade and they would jump out of the
[02:48:46] way and you can kill them with a single shot, rat to conserve your ammunition.
[02:48:52] Genius.
[02:48:53] And he said they were making single shot kills all along the perimeter, every night holding
[02:48:58] that perimeter.
[02:49:00] And then when the 27th Marines came in three days later, Howard refused to be met a
[02:49:06] fact off of that hill.
[02:49:07] They were calling danger close within 50 meters on that hill, everything.
[02:49:12] And they repulsed that entire illusion.
[02:49:15] 18 reconmarades, hell, and pushed them back.
[02:49:21] Howard only said he would get on the helicopter when the last one of his Marines was found.
[02:49:26] And they found him dead in Deaths struggle with two NBA soldiers who were trying to drag
[02:49:31] him off the top of that hill.
[02:49:33] And the infantry Marines refused to leave until they got all on Howard's boys and they
[02:49:37] put him on the helicopter with Howard.
[02:49:41] One Medal of Honor, four Navy crosses, 13 silver stars and everybody on that hill was
[02:49:47] multiply wounded to do that and held their mission.
[02:49:52] Food, water, rations all depleted.
[02:49:56] I knew things like that.
[02:49:58] And I grew up on things like that.
[02:49:59] And I had an knowledge of, on my time and on my generation, on my watch.
[02:50:05] Their generation could do that.
[02:50:06] This generation can hold that line to do that too.
[02:50:09] And in those times when those individual young kids are scared and they do that, to show
[02:50:14] them the resilience of people who wore their uniform or held their positions before.
[02:50:19] And then to say, you have a legacy.
[02:50:22] This is what Americans do.
[02:50:24] And you'll do that for that.
[02:50:26] It gives you amplified fighting power.
[02:50:28] It's almost like on a video game when you see your life for a start to increasing.
[02:50:33] Now you know you don't have food, you don't have water.
[02:50:35] Well, let's not start thinking about the things we don't have.
[02:50:39] And let's start focusing on the positive things we do have.
[02:50:42] And then that just, the food, the water, and that goes down this way.
[02:50:45] But you're pride discipline and everything else starts counter-wading that.
[02:50:49] To where you still feel like regardless, come on man.
[02:50:54] It doesn't matter.
[02:50:55] Whatever you got, bring it.
[02:50:56] At what point did you guys leave Nazaree?
[02:51:07] It was, for good, we actually came back down that way.
[02:51:11] But for good, not long after the teams came in and was able to secure Jessica Lynch out
[02:51:20] of the hospital, which was roughly, I think, March 30, the first time frame is when we
[02:51:26] had done and accomplished all of that, everything out at the other bridges as well.
[02:51:31] And then started to have to pull out of there on the way to, on the way to Alkut.
[02:51:36] How much longer did your disappointment last for you guys?
[02:51:40] Not long.
[02:51:41] We were in country until about the middle of May that was on there.
[02:51:44] And it was kind of like, first in this time it wasn't last out.
[02:51:48] It was kind of like first in and you guys got chewed up and held your line.
[02:51:53] So let's get you on back down south.
[02:51:56] We had to, the vehicles were show shot up.
[02:51:59] Jacob, we couldn't swim them back aboard the ship.
[02:52:01] So we had to load all the vehicles and to black bottom civilian shipping and drive them in.
[02:52:07] So we made a trip all the way back on the USS Sipan.
[02:52:12] I believe it was.
[02:52:14] I may be wrong about that way.
[02:52:15] It was an LHA, but we didn't have our equipment.
[02:52:18] We didn't have our machinery.
[02:52:19] So the rigorous training regime that we had on the way over on ship was not so rigorous
[02:52:25] on the way back.
[02:52:26] You know, a lot of car playing, a lot of a warb riding, a lot of things that you could
[02:52:31] be able to do that you did.
[02:52:34] So and then we went back through Rota and we came back in and offloaded all that equipment.
[02:52:39] We were kind of back home by the middle of May.
[02:52:41] It was on it, not middle of May, but June, June timeframe.
[02:52:47] What was the, you know, adjusting, you're coming back, losing so many guys, what was the,
[02:52:55] how did you handle that with the families when you guys got home?
[02:52:59] What did that, what did that look like?
[02:53:01] Well, I'll tell you the, you've seen we were soldiers once and young.
[02:53:05] It was here and when Hal Moore's wife asked a deliverer telegrams and she takes ownership
[02:53:11] saying, you know, give those to me and I'll walk around and I'll do that.
[02:53:16] casually a sense in 2003 and not became what it is now.
[02:53:21] It wasn't, you know, a chap on doing this kind of the way that Kiko calls her made now.
[02:53:26] My wife didn't hear from me because I had a rule in the platoon.
[02:53:32] You know, I go to the leadership where the last ones to get the eridium phone to call anybody,
[02:53:36] every single person gets to call first.
[02:53:39] Once the last person is called, bring me the eridium phone call.
[02:53:42] They hand her around on March 17th, we were pulling out and about one in the morning,
[02:53:48] that night, my son has heard and knocks on the edge, says the need to come out here,
[02:53:52] kind of, and stepped outside the entire platoon was standing there and he says they want you
[02:53:57] to make your phone call, they've all managed to make their phone call home.
[02:54:01] So I dialed the phone and I talked to myself on the answer machine.
[02:54:04] At the house, as my wife wouldn't home, they were at Walmart or something like that.
[02:54:09] She said that they ran into the house, right?
[02:54:11] As I was cutting off and the thing, and then she did not hear from me until April 23.
[02:54:18] The first time.
[02:54:19] And I had went through a battle position about 60 miles south of Warnazari.
[02:54:24] It was that we heard that there were AVs, another AV unit, and they had parts.
[02:54:28] Because they could do, and I needed hydraulic parts and a lot of other things.
[02:54:32] Went down there and when I got in the compound, one of my best friends was in charge of that unit.
[02:54:37] And it had like a Mars phone and everything else that was here and I'm like, oh my god.
[02:54:42] And there was 150 people in line.
[02:54:44] It was out there was no internet.
[02:54:46] There's nothing, what we have now, right?
[02:54:48] And he just got me out of the thing.
[02:54:51] He just looked and he said, I'm so glad to hear.
[02:54:53] I heard about what you're doing up there, because you look like shit man.
[02:54:55] I said, well, I'm nice to see you too.
[02:54:58] I love those kind of conversations.
[02:55:01] And then he just grabbed me and he said, you're not standing in here.
[02:55:04] Go to the front line, call your wife.
[02:55:07] Right up the front, not a single one.
[02:55:10] There's 150 people said, why is that?
[02:55:11] I mean, I was still cinched from head to toe.
[02:55:13] They could see the difference.
[02:55:14] It was here walked in, called her and I got to talk to her and say I was kind of okay.
[02:55:19] But Jacob, my wife and daughter found out where I was at.
[02:55:25] Just like people did in the I drank family in 1965.
[02:55:29] Jacksonville, North Carolina, they did not know we were at.
[02:55:33] We were a mission secret and a river city, the whole entire time.
[02:55:37] We took our vehicles and put them on the ship.
[02:55:40] And before we did that, we did the combat lane markings on the sides of the vehicles.
[02:55:44] Then we knew that.
[02:55:45] And then we kind of had a family day where the families could come down to say goodbye.
[02:55:49] My daughter would always come down, play around the vehicles.
[02:55:52] They're sitting at home on March 23rd and they see the news come on.
[02:55:58] And it shows burning amtrax in Nazaria.
[02:56:02] And the ticker across the bottom says United States Marines taking heavy casualties in Nazaria.
[02:56:07] And the vehicles that they saw my daughter yield for mom to come into the house.
[02:56:15] And she said I know where dad's at.
[02:56:17] And she goes, hers are dance vehicle markings.
[02:56:20] They're on the side of that.
[02:56:21] On that news, flipping was there.
[02:56:25] And then I asked her, I said, what was it like?
[02:56:28] After that, they're not knowing the rest of the night she goes.
[02:56:31] Nobody answered the phone for weeks.
[02:56:33] Nobody went outside their house.
[02:56:34] You didn't want to have anybody come to your house.
[02:56:37] You didn't want to know.
[02:56:38] She said because you would hear that seven or eight houses down the road so and so it was husband.
[02:56:43] It was just notified that they're not coming home.
[02:56:45] And then over in the next thousand areas someone says it was not going to come home.
[02:56:50] And then they don't know if you're coming home.
[02:56:53] This is a whole month later.
[02:56:54] And they know every single day.
[02:56:56] You know, it's like America watching the Vietnam War, it didn't or every night.
[02:57:01] I know my sons in there, I know one of those men's in there.
[02:57:05] And I know am I going to see them again.
[02:57:07] And then you don't hear from them on a month later.
[02:57:09] I can't imagine.
[02:57:11] So the hardest thing I've ever had to do in life.
[02:57:14] I go never compares to the men who anguish of somebody sitting there not knowing whether or not
[02:57:20] the person that they love is going to come back home or not.
[02:57:23] Which I believe at a very huge arriving force,
[02:57:26] juggling to my second career on what I did when I hung that uniform up.
[02:57:34] And then you guys get home.
[02:57:36] Are you now did you just roll right into another workup?
[02:57:40] Again, what I did is we start patching everything up and rest in refit.
[02:57:46] I get orders.
[02:57:47] I get promoted.
[02:57:48] It's out of that.
[02:57:49] Now I become a first sergeant in the Marines.
[02:57:52] And I was sent out to the West Coast.
[02:57:54] And I was waiting around on an amtrak unit for a while when I got the call.
[02:57:59] And they said congratulations.
[02:58:00] You're now a first sergeant in the difference in the Marine Corps in the first sergeant.
[02:58:03] And that now opens up the opportunities for you to go anywhere.
[02:58:07] It's a leadership role.
[02:58:08] So now you can go to the infantry.
[02:58:09] You can go there when you go anywhere else.
[02:58:11] And I want to stay in ground combat.
[02:58:14] In entire time.
[02:58:15] So I requested to go to the infantry.
[02:58:17] And I said there was a battalion working up for deployment right now.
[02:58:21] First battalion for the Marines.
[02:58:22] There are about 20 miles north of where this is at.
[02:58:25] And before my sergeant major could tell me whether or not I had orders.
[02:58:30] I kind of wargamed it and said I recall that sergeant major to see if you had a slot.
[02:58:34] And they have a slot open.
[02:58:35] Can I pack my stuff?
[02:58:37] Made a few phone calls.
[02:58:38] Pack my stuff.
[02:58:38] Went up with First Battalion, Fourth Marines.
[02:58:40] And then started kind of the infantry career that then blossomed into a reconnaissance career.
[02:58:46] A much older age out of that.
[02:58:48] And I kind of got that perverse wish.
[02:58:51] You know, other than being a drone instructor.
[02:58:54] And other than spending a couple years in school.
[02:58:57] Being in my own amtrak instructor that was on there.
[02:59:00] I spent an entire 30 million year in US Marine Corps in Ground Combat.
[02:59:04] From private all the way up to sergeant major.
[02:59:07] I would not have changed a single day of that.
[02:59:10] Doesn't matter if you crawl out of bed backwards.
[02:59:12] Doesn't matter if you have to have your wife.
[02:59:14] Help put your boots on.
[02:59:15] Certain days.
[02:59:16] Because a certain pain.
[02:59:18] I've never changed any of that pain in days.
[02:59:20] To change any of that career path along that line.
[02:59:23] So that's how I ended up back in California.
[02:59:26] Pack them up, brought them back out there.
[02:59:28] Went with the first Battalion, Fourth Marines.
[02:59:34] And we were supposed to do a regular float.
[02:59:36] It was out there.
[02:59:37] And our mue got set right into a take-up out of the space.
[02:59:41] And that was a six month float that turned into, I think, 14 months.
[02:59:46] You guys were, you guys were just kept getting extended.
[02:59:48] So we started on ship.
[02:59:50] And we were just supposed to do a normal West.
[02:59:54] Yeah, like just a normal, like we're seeing out here right now with the 15th mue, the 11th to 13th.
[02:59:59] Mm-hmm.
[02:59:59] Then you do one month out of there.
[03:00:01] You're going straight into Iraq.
[03:00:03] You're going straight into the Ambar province.
[03:00:06] You guys are going in to take an asiaf in this battle space from the US Army.
[03:00:10] And I remember the first of the four Alpha Company, first of the 14th,
[03:00:14] 2015, that's where you'd be tropical lightning.
[03:00:16] Mm-hmm.
[03:00:18] Was in there in that battle space.
[03:00:19] And they had moved down.
[03:00:20] They were up around to crit and they kept moving them down and that.
[03:00:22] And they moved them in there.
[03:00:24] And we moved in to take the battle space.
[03:00:27] And once you hold battle space, you don't hold, you don't leave until it's secure.
[03:00:31] And that six month deployment turned into 11 months, 12 months, 13 months.
[03:00:37] So in my, I was on deployment 2003, 2004,
[03:00:46] probably the last mission that we did.
[03:00:49] The last significant mission that we did was we went down to
[03:00:56] Najoff.
[03:00:57] And we captured
[03:01:01] Saadur's top lieutenant.
[03:01:03] And that really caused some, well, it's, it sent things out of control.
[03:01:09] And we, you know, we were execute in the mission, you know, it was one of,
[03:01:12] we'd been looking at Saadur the whole time.
[03:01:15] There was, there was a lot of hesitation to go and get Saadur worrying about what would happen.
[03:01:20] And so I think it wasn't attitude of, hey, you know, we're, we don't know if maybe it's the best
[03:01:25] called a Go Get Saadur.
[03:01:27] Let's see what happens if we grab one of his boys and
[03:01:30] get it up, that's what we did.
[03:01:33] That was in early April.
[03:01:36] We went and did it.
[03:01:38] Mayhem broke out and, you know, Saadur city, you turned into total chaos,
[03:01:44] Najoff erupted and, and like a, you know, I feel awful.
[03:01:50] Look, we went home, you know, so that was it for, for that deployment for me.
[03:01:54] And this is ends up and there's just, you know, the way things connect, it ends up for you,
[03:01:59] you're in Najoff and, and you guys end up going through that city and some, you know, some, some
[03:02:07] tough fighting.
[03:02:09] Yeah, actually, uh, when you go in the city and you're doing, you're working with the ING,
[03:02:15] 405, 404th, the Iraq National Garden, you're sent there to train them up and you're doing that.
[03:02:21] And then you're actually figuring out every day that we give you a bunch of weapons tomorrow
[03:02:25] when we do the weapons count, where's all your weapons at?
[03:02:28] Doesn't take a genius to figure out right now while you're training a battalion that has an
[03:02:33] attrition rate or a desertion rate, the following day after they're trained and then you continue
[03:02:38] to do that is the point of, of like, lunacy.
[03:02:41] I think it's the definition of doing that.
[03:02:43] So then you don't start doing that.
[03:02:45] You start building them as much as you can in these resilient things.
[03:02:49] You back up the police stations more importantly, when we took over the battle space
[03:02:53] from the army, it wasn't that the army didn't have the fire to keep them.
[03:02:57] But the two at the rules of engagement for them were when we would do the left seat right seat
[03:03:03] rides, they would tell you exactly where everybody's at?
[03:03:06] There's where side or house you say, you don't want to go by here.
[03:03:09] Here's Kufa. This is a little flare up.
[03:03:11] If you want to know where they're hiding, they're in the cemetery over there.
[03:03:14] And then you look on the maps on the wall and those are called exclusion zones.
[03:03:18] You are not allowed to go inside of those.
[03:03:20] Those are holy cities.
[03:03:21] Those are holy things like this.
[03:03:23] And I can remember Colonel John Mayer, who was just sitting there at the table one day and he's like,
[03:03:31] well, I'm doing it. Don't take a genius to figure out where they're at.
[03:03:35] He's the guy named, we're all the reds at.
[03:03:38] And then the army left.
[03:03:41] And when they left, we developed kind of a battle plan to
[03:03:45] encroach upon those areas with tactical probes to make sure to draw them out
[03:03:52] because the police stations and other plays that we were reinforcing were real close to this
[03:03:56] around there. Real close to Kufa, real close to Saunders areas.
[03:04:00] One, you're putting them in check on the chess board to do that while you're still maneuvering your elements.
[03:04:05] And then August 5th was a typical day.
[03:04:09] We were up late that night, the night before and August 5th they start doing a run on an Iraqi police station.
[03:04:18] That's right across the street from Revolutionary Square.
[03:04:21] And my people happen to be in the city, in these platoons, in these reinforce police stations.
[03:04:29] And then before you knew it, the call came over.
[03:04:31] Again, blackhawk down. We've got a UH1 that's crashed in Revolutionary Square.
[03:04:37] Now we need to move in to do the crash site. And it's just, you're sitting there going.
[03:04:42] You're watching the dominoes fall again.
[03:04:45] Now they're over running a police station. They're taking more aggressive actions.
[03:04:49] And then finally, the most blessed thing outside of just sitting there getting mortar
[03:04:53] for no reason whatsoever going put. It's just going to be somewhere the same.
[03:04:59] Get on the phone and the commander and everybody else is.
[03:05:03] The UH's loosened zone now is the mosque.
[03:05:08] It's in the center of that. Prepare the forces we're moving in to the cemetery.
[03:05:12] And we're going to prosecute these things.
[03:05:15] Jockel again, it's 1600 in the afternoon.
[03:05:19] Temperature on the ground's 130.
[03:05:21] You're away from the vibe, 14 miles with all whatever you have.
[03:05:25] And now you just got an order. The order is we want you to push 1,400 meters through that cemetery
[03:05:32] by tomorrow morning because I have a rifle company of 162 Marines that are here.
[03:05:38] And I don't have any machine guns because they're out at the fob on fob security
[03:05:43] because nobody thought that this battle was going to kick off. So they're up on post one, post two,
[03:05:49] post three, the recon platoon's not being used. They're just over in their tents that are here.
[03:05:54] And we're in a city. And we start pushing in on August 5th.
[03:05:59] Within a matter of 100 yards of monsolyems, grips, no roads.
[03:06:07] Anything else like this? And the road, the only road was in one that was at your back
[03:06:11] that you just crossed to get in there. So that's your supply line.
[03:06:14] You lose this or you lose something.
[03:06:17] And all of a sudden you start getting people getting shot from behind
[03:06:22] that are moving through this because 1,400 meters, you can't move that fast.
[03:06:27] Matt Morsey, great hunter looked at me.
[03:06:31] What do you think of this? We pushed as far as we could that night and then through the center of this
[03:06:37] gigantic cemetery is this thing called a diagonal road. And back in the NewDies or 90s, Saddam who
[03:06:44] sane thought it'd be cool to take a bulldozer and plow through some of these graves of people
[03:06:50] he didn't care for too much and make this road through there as a big FU to them I'm in charge.
[03:06:58] We got our backs to that road and made a tactic to a decision.
[03:07:02] This is where we're going to hold the line tonight because now I can bring tanks into that road.
[03:07:07] Now we just let 50 yards onto the field. We don't need this one. And now we can actually start
[03:07:12] bringing the more reinforcements and load them up onto here. So we're sitting on that diagonal road
[03:07:18] in these grips all night. Fighting this operations from you couldn't know where you were at,
[03:07:28] you're getting mordered, they're dropping on with 82s, they're walking them on top and then you're
[03:07:33] just kind of sitting there and then you're going in and out and throwing fry grenades down into
[03:07:38] the grips at your pass on them. And then at times kind of like a tunnel rat in the nomb, you're
[03:07:43] also following this stuff because those catacomes started connecting under that cemetery.
[03:07:47] With these individuals. So you're stripping off things, you're stripping off armor,
[03:07:53] small guys, knee, you're rocking up pistol, you're doing around, you're launching a grenade,
[03:07:58] you're following that. You know, you got people coming up, two to the chest, whatever you have to do.
[03:08:04] And then you're leapfrogging all the way through the cemetery to get to that and hold that line.
[03:08:10] And then that night we really didn't know what the situation was.
[03:08:13] And we ended Jason Platoon, get mordered, drop right on their CP.
[03:08:19] So I ran down through the cemetery, Lieutenant Lewis, a few other ones blinded,
[03:08:25] the tawn there, there was some other ones that were killed in the blast.
[03:08:29] And this is at night and then all of a sudden we're trying to figure out, I wonder where we're at.
[03:08:36] So somebody came up with a great idea which I believe was the four deer controller.
[03:08:40] We're going to get a pilot to buzz the cemetery. They will never lay off of a target like that.
[03:08:46] So when that pilot comes through, they're firing red tracers. Yeah, there's weapons.
[03:08:53] When that, when I came down about 200 meters, blazing, whatever 100 knots that was on that,
[03:08:58] it looked like something out of Star Wars coming up there. Red tracers were everywhere
[03:09:03] back front front and it was kind of like that comment that Chester Puller made and it's not
[03:09:08] like, well good, we know we know we're that, you know they have us surrounded and now we can fight
[03:09:13] in any direction. You kind of know where you're at. And then we were in that position on the fifth,
[03:09:18] sixth, the seventh, fight and do that position. The next day I lost lands corporate wells from a
[03:09:23] sniper through the right through his collar that was on there. So I believe it was a dragon off
[03:09:31] from what I could see because the collar is a way made for fragmentation as you know, not to stop
[03:09:36] a direct round that was coming through. But we had to carry that out and get him out of the cemetery.
[03:09:43] Then we get pulled back out, rest in refit, this kind of fight continued to happen. The probing
[03:09:48] continued to happen, the night time patrols back down into the cemetery. Now other reinforcements
[03:09:54] from other units from D Winniea and all that are all collapsing onto what is kind of now the
[03:10:00] pre-fallusia, because the same one started to move up north in November to take care of that.
[03:10:07] And this goes on and then that leads us to our very weird connection that you just mentioned
[03:10:12] solder before, of being on August 10th and getting a mission with an army, Delta unit to go in,
[03:10:20] to take solder's house in one area and then the solder school was in another section.
[03:10:27] And Mass Arnuch and forced went into the school and the hopped up in surgeons were at the second row
[03:10:34] of the school and they started growing Egyptian grenades down a ladder wells at the troops coming up.
[03:10:39] And fragged the troops that were coming in. We get to call that we now have wounded marines inside
[03:10:46] of the solder school into this middle. And we pull into position, a platoon sergeant, a Todd Boydston,
[03:10:52] one of the best infantry staff sergeants I've ever seen, is standing there on this intersection
[03:10:58] of this corner and there's this long axis of this wall and this building is inside of here.
[03:11:04] So there's another access to the tier and these marines are bleeding out inside of here.
[03:11:09] It just was hit with the Egyptian grenades rolling down the ladder well.
[03:11:14] Rolled in, got the assessment of what that situation was and we didn't know,
[03:11:19] you know, you don't know what you're going to see on the inside. It's about 100 meters away down there.
[03:11:24] And so I just told Todd, it's the time, okay, here's what we're going to do.
[03:11:28] I'm going to put the machine gunners on the corners of this direction. The roads about maybe
[03:11:34] eight feet wide from wall to wall. We know where they're at. It's down there.
[03:11:40] I'm going to run down the axis and hugged the wall on this side because what kept them from doing
[03:11:46] that jacket was in the building. Overlooking that road was a sniper that kept the marines from being
[03:11:51] able to evacuate the wounded out of the house. Another coordinated effort to trap them inside the
[03:11:56] lower aspects. So kind of on my mark, I'm going to run hug the wall this year and I'm going to
[03:12:04] get in and hopefully the guys going to shoot and miss the machine gunners are going to see
[03:12:09] where that came from and they're going to kill that sniper or fix that position in the building.
[03:12:14] Long enough to keep his head down to get in, triage, assess and then tell him on the video on
[03:12:21] your R. We're going to throw a hang grenade because our hang grenades sound differently than
[03:12:26] theirs do. Big large swamp. We're going to throw a hang grenade when you hear the hang grenade
[03:12:32] go off. Todd, have the machine gunners shift to the left wall and continue to still lay
[03:12:37] lead into that building. We are going to bring the casualties hugging the right wall about eight
[03:12:42] feet away from them, of where they're at and get these guys out of the building. I'm going to
[03:12:47] run that action on Humpen probably from flash to bang within a 12 minute period in and out of
[03:12:55] not pre coordination before first sergeants are supposed to be door breaches or something that
[03:13:00] actually does that but at the time you just kind of think, I'm really kind of the most expendable
[03:13:05] person here. You have a job, you have a job, you have a job, you're doing your job. I just rolled
[03:13:11] up into here. I bring your food, water, child, ammunition, everything else and primarily the job
[03:13:16] is to get them boys out of life. So you just want to do work like a champ. One of the one of
[03:13:23] the things picked it up and showed me a few years ago, I had no idea that the company clerk
[03:13:27] had filmed the entire thing from the hood of the army that was on that and blogger that was out
[03:13:33] there named Funker. I'm going to put that up and posted that that was online a few years ago
[03:13:39] and it's time of the year again. It's kind of one of those things. It's really hard to
[03:13:44] it's kind of hard to watch but you're happy that everybody we didn't lose anybody on that.
[03:13:48] The Marines didn't on that when the army did. The army special forces take loss or master
[03:13:53] sergeant when they went in and they took it meaning going in that and came out.
[03:13:58] Yeah, that's actually posted on YouTube that whole scenario. You said he filmed everything.
[03:14:03] He filmed almost everything because at one point he must be getting some stray rounds because
[03:14:07] he drops the camera and takes cover for a second before he gets back up to get the rest of it.
[03:14:12] Yeah, he's a funicat. He's a really good every Marine arrive a moment, every Marine arrive a
[03:14:18] moment. I mean, he was an infantryman. There was a cup on the clerk but by God,
[03:14:23] when the round hit over his head or whatever, I've had a good look at that one time and had a good
[03:14:28] laugh like you did of the camera drops for a while and he's to pick it back up and stabilize that.
[03:14:33] You know, you also told me a little bit about when you guys were clearing some of those underground
[03:14:40] spots and you had, I think you said it was a Lance Corporal rolling into one of these situations and
[03:14:46] does up in a hand-to-hand combat with an insurgent. What happened there? This is on August 25th.
[03:14:55] We're now preparing for the assault on an around the Amaman Lee shrine.
[03:15:01] There's an NFA, a 400 meters, it's around the shrine but we're now going to push with
[03:15:07] infantry and Am tracks and make this big push and kind of drive them into the shrine and
[03:15:12] contain them. That was in there. And then every night, bringing the spooky kunship to circle that
[03:15:18] and contain them even more. That was from it. It was beautiful. So on August 25th, that roughly
[03:15:24] about 2230 at night, we inserted a couple of infantry companies. In 1st of 5th, 4th,
[03:15:33] Marines, Charlie was mine, Alpha and Bravo were the other two. Bravo wasn't on the initial insert,
[03:15:39] but Alpha was off to our left. And we go to the top and we are tasked with inserting the infantry
[03:15:47] into this place. It's like a three-story hotel and it looks like something you would have seen in
[03:15:53] Bay Route blasted in everything else in there. So it's the critical position that holds an intersection
[03:16:00] that allows us observation down these long accesses to get access to the Amaman Lee shrine.
[03:16:08] 2230, my second Paton, enters the first layer of the building. PFC Ryan Colin Ward
[03:16:14] is one of the first men in the stack. He goes in the long half and he sees an opening on the right
[03:16:20] hand side when he goes in and now he's under night vision. He's fully loaded out and he looks to the
[03:16:27] right and he sees even in night vision and an insurgent coming out of the basement of the hotel
[03:16:33] with an RPG on his shoulder walking up the stairs. Colin Ward was an grenade that's fracked
[03:16:40] already getting ready to prep and throw that was here. That instantaneous thing kicks over.
[03:16:46] So it's a way so he was going into the room and he was ready to hook a grenade.
[03:16:50] But he wasn't ready to do it that way. He was so he had to grenade in his hand.
[03:16:55] Pin already pulled and he's ready to go because they're going to frag the room. That's around the
[03:16:59] thing. Somehow, in the audience, he gets that off in a way. Has a situational awareness to still
[03:17:06] bring it in the direction they're supposed to go and he rolls right.
[03:17:12] Starts down that stairs makes it about three steps. Slings his rifle behind him, jumps off the
[03:17:18] top step. Tackles the insurgent with the RPG rolls down another flight of steps into that basement
[03:17:25] and then all you could hear is that insurgent screaming. When Colin Ward was taking a bayonet
[03:17:32] to him in moral combat in a dark basement, why he's got MBGs on his head. 19 years old.
[03:17:39] Kills the insurgent brings the RPG back upstairs and then goes on to continue to clear the building
[03:17:47] with the rest of the squad. We were in the building from the 25th to the 28th. By the time that the
[03:17:52] recon platoon that came in after us a very good friend of mine retired master gun resort and Brian
[03:17:58] Yarlum brought this platoon in. They came in and then went down and cleared the rest of the basement.
[03:18:04] Not only was that one dead in search and down there, there was another insurgent that wasn't there
[03:18:09] with Colin Ward because he was cowering behind a ladder well watching his buddy get killed by a
[03:18:15] US Marine and then he got taken out by the recon platoon that came in on the backside.
[03:18:20] Surgeically did that because Colin Ward's platoon is now going up the ladder well to chase the
[03:18:26] other insurgents up to the third level and they're pinning them up there or squad automatic weapons
[03:18:32] and everything else did their job and they cleared that entire soil element and it's the same time
[03:18:38] you're on the radio right outside. I go in your hearing we just took a casual. You're hearing we
[03:18:44] just lost Colin Ward because he just went that way right and you hear the screaming and that's
[03:18:49] going on here and then you're hearing another Marine just fell down the elevator shaft.
[03:18:54] It was here and it's an old burned-out elevator shaft that still got rebars sticking out of it
[03:19:00] and Lance Colt-Polwashmirm was stuck down there on that rebore. He's on nods as well. I mean
[03:19:07] you're looking down a dark elevator shaft got I thought within two seconds I just lost
[03:19:11] the first two Marines it just went into the building. Both of them survived and we're out of there.
[03:19:16] We got him washman out of the elevator shaft. Column Ward went on to do some more great things
[03:19:22] in the fight all the way through to 28th and then roughly about to 28th is when Alsaad
[03:19:27] came in and broke her to Procadup Supposedly Peace Deal that called for the ceasefire and then that
[03:19:34] day was surreal because then we had just in a matter of two hours we had to then watch everybody
[03:19:45] take their rocky rockets and donkey carts and move them across the street and you can't shoot
[03:19:51] anybody here's what this is. So you set up these roadblocks and these things and you're just watching
[03:19:56] a move they're weaponry from one side of the city to the other and you still know this is something
[03:20:01] these going to have to do something about this but then we had people who were actually
[03:20:11] detainees and they showed up with news media and in a regular rocky tone that you would always
[03:20:17] here when you had some women to the mix and they start screaming and pointing and everything else
[03:20:22] the news media starts saying you know there's the murderers there's the people who
[03:20:27] desecrated our bodies and who are you talking about so you come over and what I didn't tell you before
[03:20:34] jogger was the dead bodies that were in the building never left the building because for the next
[03:20:40] couple of days Marines couldn't get out the building because of the snipers to keep them in the building
[03:20:46] so it was very dangerous as exposure head or anything else to do that and we'd maneuver through these
[03:20:51] channels out there and it was making the Marine sick these bodies are just decomposing two of
[03:21:00] one of the basement a couple of upstairs all that it was here and it got to the point where I
[03:21:04] walked past a battlefield position one day and saw a Marine with a green skivisher around his face
[03:21:09] wet and it had probably 500 flies on his face on that thing from those bodies and I had called
[03:21:17] over to again Colonel John Mayer back at the problem and had requested like 20 gallons of gasoline
[03:21:25] and he asked me where you could do it to gasoline and how a burner can't part of it well and
[03:21:30] thank God he goes to whatever you do man don't burn up right because he probably had more of a
[03:21:37] top level view or maybe what that would have looked like if it was here I don't know but I still
[03:21:43] have the problem you're not going to give the problem still exists what do we need to do grab blankets
[03:21:53] shove Vaseline up in whom he's noses put everything else the corpsman start doing that and then we
[03:21:58] talk of these dead bodies into these things put the machine gunners and people on the roof
[03:22:02] to pin the snipers down and run those net Iraqi bodies across the street and put them in a house
[03:22:08] when I put them in a house so this is another thing that I don't really like to tolerate about
[03:22:14] all these people that they try to paint US troops is they're just barbarians that are
[03:22:19] put them in a house pull them in the house and actually when they put them down inside the house
[03:22:24] I said face their heads towards Maka they were fighters they you know people call them shit
[03:22:32] heads or they were hopped up they were in search or whatever I have a little bit of a respect
[03:22:36] of another human being I may not believe in what you're doing but he picked up a rifle he did
[03:22:42] whatever he was going to do for whatever that guy believed in and was trying to kill me and on the
[03:22:47] field about or we just got one up on him that was here so put them inside of there turn them
[03:22:53] cover them with this pile of rocks that was there because the wild dogs start to go through there
[03:23:00] and then over the next 24 hours that's all you heard all night was the wild dogs beating their head
[03:23:05] to get into that building to start tearing at the bodies then the next morning these same
[03:23:10] landscourt rules that you're seeing that made you start that in the first place you're seeing
[03:23:14] them just go like would you look at that and you see a dog rolled down the street like with a foot
[03:23:19] hanging out of its mouth like it's nobody's business right and then this news media is here
[03:23:27] and all of a sudden these dogs have torn at those bodies now the story is the marines mutilated
[03:23:34] the bodies they allowed the dogs to desecrate them bad bad bad bad rolled up and told them
[03:23:40] through the interpreter you look at the way their heads are facing those individuals are dropped
[03:23:46] there out of respect at their own lives these individuals took them across and put them in the
[03:23:51] chattering stop you know it just stopped they instantly knew and then we went about one of them
[03:23:58] started pointing about a hundred yards away interpreter comes up what's he saying he said we're
[03:24:04] missing a body is over there I'm like how does he know these are there probably because he was
[03:24:11] with him when that guy was killed walk behind another rock power hundred meters away
[03:24:15] dead and surge my end right over there because he was probably spotting or something with them
[03:24:19] these kids were 17 18 that was on that popped up in the ambulance pulled him off down the street
[03:24:25] you know international incident circumvented by kind of not desecrating or not doing what you're
[03:24:32] you know a lot of people may not even blame you got it animosity you're amped up you're doing this
[03:24:38] but you trained them differently to say that you know these kind of things in the past
[03:24:45] only actually and boldened the culture when you do that to somebody to fight them even harder
[03:24:51] imagine somebody coming in and mutilating your mother or doing something after that and you believe
[03:24:55] that that's going to suppress you and amount of hatred to not want to go and do whatever you can
[03:25:00] to do that so all those little steps along the way of a of a 162 guys of a rifle company
[03:25:07] you know you watch a band of brothers and then you're sitting here going man in 2004
[03:25:13] I wouldn't part of the five of those parish unit infantry by a de Bestem American
[03:25:17] in America so we're seeing since that time frame in this city
[03:25:20] once that piece deal I don't know what else to call it cease fire deal was brokered
[03:25:31] what was arrested at the point of like it was now just going through the city and doing reparations
[03:25:37] payments through the city and we would set up things on a Monday that was probably even more dangerous
[03:25:43] than combat because they you'd bring them to the same place same day same time they would line up
[03:25:52] you'd be driving through the city and you'd do talking knocks on there
[03:25:56] are you claiming any damage that the Americans did on your house or did you lose this on
[03:26:01] and combat did you do something like this then that's where you find out how they fabricate
[03:26:06] multiple desertificates and they're trying to get money from the Americans and
[03:26:10] it was just it was a lot of that it was then a lot of going back into the town
[03:26:16] to then again say that you know we don't want to fight
[03:26:20] meaning if you will give you a fight if you want it but let's kind of get back to
[03:26:26] doing what it was we were here to stabilize this and help you out and then this is the beginning
[03:26:32] you know of what turned out to be that led into you in remodding and the
[03:26:38] assuming you know and everything else I mean this is the impancy of the next two years
[03:26:43] like you would said jago I'll call it a peace day or whatever because more casualties in
[03:26:49] sustained combat in major level happen and immediately after that in the next two years
[03:26:55] all throughout that region and it didn't stabilize it it was there and still not stable today
[03:27:02] you get home from that deployment and what's next this when your recon career starts this is
[03:27:10] this is when I like to say that I got to serve in a reconnaissance unit being a marine
[03:27:17] and a reconnaissance unit was one of the proudest Marines not being a recon marine
[03:27:22] because just because you're in somebody's unit doesn't mean that you're the person that's the
[03:27:28] cats but that's inside of that and I didn't go with a Lance Cooper to do selection assessment I
[03:27:34] didn't go through the things that those guys had to do I was a first-sorten it was happy to be in
[03:27:38] the infantry but that master gunnery sergeant I told you about in that recon platoon that was just
[03:27:44] sitting out on a bob doing nothing along with my machine gunners and that's how I found them
[03:27:51] went out of that city when we were running casualties and 14 miles away was the element
[03:27:58] of the mue headquarters out of a place called fob duke I rolled into post one all the way to the CP
[03:28:06] and when we set the casualties over to get treated at the main BDS I was there I always taught
[03:28:15] the Marines if you ever take a vehicle back to the rear you do not bring it back to the front empty
[03:28:20] ammunition food water whatever you have so the same guy that filmed the thing called Chris it was in there
[03:28:29] washes the blood out the vehicles he does the things he goes over the KBR representatives which
[03:28:33] were actually really great there was no 801 12 apples or anything else guy would unlock an entire
[03:28:41] ISO container and go you take what you want first and then just sign off the whole ISO container or
[03:28:46] whatever whatever they had to do but it wasn't you can't have this not fresh fruit or whatever you can
[03:28:51] do get it back in their trolls up I go over in the main CP and I get called up there because somebody
[03:28:58] finds out I just brought casualties back into your we're going to go back into the city and when we
[03:29:04] made that 14 thing with a shot out windscreen Chris who is not a home V driver or a license to
[03:29:11] on be driver right I told him get in the vehicle and get ready to drive and I had four flat tires
[03:29:18] on run flats and he spun that vehicle around on that diagonal road so I could load landscopable
[03:29:24] Brooks with the sucking chest wound on August 6 ended the back of that vehicle by past the
[03:29:30] four were casually collection point because his kids got a sucking chest wounds I laid on Brooks
[03:29:35] in the back of the vehicle and told Chris to drive that vehicle like he stole it because he used
[03:29:41] to be this kid I had one these little souped up Subaru and he got to Los Angeles on his free time
[03:29:46] and maybe do some street racing in the face so it's kind of knowing your marines in the rough time
[03:29:52] how it benefits the skills that you can have I know you can drive get in there he calls off and we
[03:29:59] get in there and drop the casual I get called over because I call my gun or he's sorry it's on
[03:30:04] the fab that's left back with my weapons puttone and said go over to this other unit tell
[03:30:10] all my need the machine gunners tell them they're going to need to put people up in those
[03:30:14] things to do this and we're taking on machine gunners and we're going back in a city with these
[03:30:19] guys I knew I'd be there by now all that machine guns came out loaded up we're all rolling
[03:30:26] in a city before we rolled out I took him out went back in the city jackel had to make another
[03:30:32] run that was back out and somehow a lieutenant colonel was up with the mu headquarters and come
[03:30:39] in and he had said if that SOB gets back on here again I want to see before it goes out
[03:30:46] love him to death lieutenant colonel johnson I walked up in there still covered going from head to toe
[03:30:54] and he was carrying like an MP5 on his back and he grabbed me got real close and he was like
[03:31:01] personally you you get so over here and we're at like 40 50 people in a CP and he goes open you
[03:31:09] reduce the the strength of this fighting position is out here took those machine guns that was
[03:31:16] off here to do that and I was I was just standing out and like I need machine guns that are done
[03:31:22] these are my boys they're on here I coordinated with this other unit to do that they're going to
[03:31:27] watch these posts they've been standing guard before for over here to do that right and he just
[03:31:32] kind of looked at me kind of shook his head he's an infantryman it was like
[03:31:39] I think and then just can you have really big hug and set best of luck when you roll out of
[03:31:45] your down ass city man you do what you gotta do we'll take this carry out and then a yellow
[03:31:50] topping once if you ever do that again I will make sure that you're not going to be in the marines
[03:31:56] very long because he did the right he in the end the right thing is done in that chaotic situation
[03:32:04] that is there that's laid out before you you don't have hours you don't have things it's reactionary
[03:32:10] you're saving your losing lives to do that pretty beautiful thing and then how how to that lead to
[03:32:19] you get an attached to the recon unit the guy that I remember to do I got the guy I remember me
[03:32:25] getting him out of the tent and saying I need a provisional rifle put on to beef us up down there
[03:32:31] and the recon officer and the gunnery sergeant came up and said we'll do that job just get us
[03:32:39] into fight we roll them out made the request recon mounts up they end up being a provisional rifle
[03:32:45] put on and a recon put on attached to us I'm their first sergeant we get done with that entire
[03:32:50] thing that was there jaco I get back up or done with the deployment I get a phone call from first
[03:32:56] recon battalion you ever thought about coming to recon see here like yeah because that's what I wanted
[03:33:04] to do when I came in but they also told me when I was a Lance Corp. because after you get in even
[03:33:10] if you're an amtrak you can try out you do that but you couldn't if you were a colored one
[03:33:14] there I couldn't do that so it's one of those things where you find a way and it might not be
[03:33:20] this year might be some year that was the way said absolutely sergeant made your game me a call
[03:33:26] he said show up down here in the pool deck about three fifteen in the morning bring your PT shorts
[03:33:31] bring your things down here getting a pool do some things run a PFT that was over here do a
[03:33:36] little bit of an interview brought some people down in and it's a tail end of the thing he said
[03:33:40] I'd just like to be a first sergeant here recon battalion tonight I'd absolutely love that job
[03:33:45] and he goes okay consider it done go back up I've already called your sergeant major up there
[03:33:50] before you even said yes you're coming back here went up to first battalion fourth Marine
[03:33:54] same thing back my stuff went down there and spent from the year of 2005 to 2010
[03:34:02] as the first sergeant for company eight mostly that was there restarted up a company of
[03:34:09] Delta Company that was a Vietnam existence this is when the force recon platoons that were
[03:34:14] meth assets were then put back down into battions so they start showing up to tier
[03:34:18] rebuilding a pretty good force then about two thousand seven I got asked to stay on to be the
[03:34:24] sergeant major that unit and was the sergeant major from 07 to 10 up in the center armout
[03:34:31] and range operating out of Alessad it was there control on the rat lines coming up with the
[03:34:37] ZD's had some really good mission sets that were out of there about the eight nine time frame
[03:34:44] and then what it what did you do when you were done with that once I was done with that one I went back to be
[03:34:49] the sergeant major for about a year at the Amtrak Schoolhouse that I grew up in as a kid it was there
[03:34:56] and then got to call asking me to pick a job because I wasn't going to leave you there
[03:35:03] and they presented me with a couple options and they asked me one of one and I said I want to be
[03:35:06] a regimental infantry sergeant major and they said good to go pack your stuff you're going to go
[03:35:11] to Hawaii to be the third marine regiment I'm like you can be kidding me I have a fifth marine's yeah
[03:35:17] this other because at the time this regiment didn't have this really good and people didn't know
[03:35:22] this history but I had asked for it because go in my head that regiment with aviation assets
[03:35:32] engineering assets Amtrak assets most infantry regiments don't have those organic to the
[03:35:36] round thing then you have the twenty you have the yeah the air wing that's out there a K-B-A as
[03:35:44] well that your lift capacity that's all that you own canny away bay is the marine regiment
[03:35:50] along that I figured and now we're doing this repivit to the Pacific and we're posturing on
[03:35:57] keeping the Chinese at bay we're negotiating to open up Australia's more training areas I'm like
[03:36:03] oh my god you are well you're supposed to be how do you like to be in charge of like the
[03:36:09] biggest strike force in the middle of the Pacific it's out here I think that's a pretty good deal
[03:36:14] one less infantry battalion than the rest and they cover the most ground it's out there in a
[03:36:19] Pacific from northern China all the way to Darwin and best one of the best fighting regiments
[03:36:25] it's story they're the China marines they're not they're not they're operations in China
[03:36:31] fourth marines at the China marines but third marines has quite a legacy um and a legacy that
[03:36:38] goes back to rawfiel paraulta legacy of these battions going in out of Afghanistan my rock
[03:36:45] because when larger battions got longer to all ratios when you had one less battalion in a regiment
[03:36:53] that usually has four that's in there plus what they have and you have three systematically they
[03:36:58] have to deploy more it goes out so now you're kind of in charge of a regiment that's got
[03:37:04] one of the highest deployment tempos and also like the highest divorce rate in the entire
[03:37:08] United States Marine Corps because they live in paradise but they're never there you know the families
[03:37:14] are on that island but their loved ones are out training and to do all you're training and why
[03:37:18] you have to leave Hawaii to do it so on your dwell time like you had said before dwell in dwell
[03:37:25] dwell for some places in the backyard as well and other places when you can't train in your backyard
[03:37:31] you have to fly to California fly to the big island fly to do different things like that all
[03:37:37] your dwell time then turns into training time then that's how long was that tour that was about two
[03:37:45] and a half years and what is that what is that bring you after that they brought me up to a two
[03:37:50] star command at training and education command for the US Marine Corps out of Quantico Virginia and that's
[03:37:56] where eventually we figured finished out of up there and that was was that 30 years that was a 30 years
[03:38:05] at what point did you start getting involved in history flight about 2019 time frame
[03:38:15] um we got a package in the Marine Corps for an honorary Marine was a guy in the Mark Nilla
[03:38:24] and we'd started reading through this package and the general officer that I worked for
[03:38:29] was the guy that originally did the nomination when he was in charge of the Second Marine Division
[03:38:34] and he was now the Ticom commanding general this comes in and general done for is going to make
[03:38:41] this man an honorary Marine he wants us to do the ceremony so we go over the National Museum of the Marine
[03:38:46] Corps Mark Nilla in his family comes up we host them for a couple of days and then we do the honorary
[03:38:53] Marine ceremony and at that time the Marine Corps had given bestowed that honor to less than a hundred
[03:38:59] people in the mornings it was a pretty big deal I didn't know when he did and I started reading this
[03:39:05] dossier and it was an individual who was a pilot still a pilot for UPS and he used to
[03:39:16] run this aircraft when it flew B-24s or a B-25 a couple A-86 Texans some other things like
[03:39:24] air shows around the nation with some other pilots and they started lifting these veterans and
[03:39:30] here in these veterans stories and his father was an amelitary and it goes on and on and he starts
[03:39:37] funding some of these search and recovery type things with some of the money that they're getting from
[03:39:41] that and then the housing industry kind of crushes the airplane ride industry and things like
[03:39:47] this one people can't pay their mortgages they don't want to spend money to fly on a aircraft to do that
[03:39:54] and so he kind of recocks and he starts doing some research and finds in his research
[03:39:59] comes across a thing that says that in the Pacific Island campaign in Tarlah the Marines had
[03:40:05] had 541 people roughly killed and they were left on the island that were out there and a majority
[03:40:12] of them were never recovered and then as he starts researching more more he finds out this happened
[03:40:17] in other places and he can't believe what he's saying so he starts kind of making inquiries the
[03:40:24] research and he starts doing this and all the way through 910 1112 he starts making trips out to
[03:40:30] Tarlah on his own funding in his own time and he goes out there and in the early years it was as
[03:40:37] easy as people displaying macabre bones on their front porch at Tarlah one saying you know we told
[03:40:46] we told people 25 years ago that these people were here they just never came in Goddham and then
[03:40:51] she would say like but they're mine now because they've been here and you could tell that they were
[03:40:57] Caucasian but the bones everything else it was on there and he starts taking those first two
[03:41:02] turn them over for identification you start doing that and you start doing the investigating getting
[03:41:07] more more and more by the time that I had went up with Mark Noah at that thing he had repatriated
[03:41:15] and located I believe at the time at least about 70 marines that were lost and sailors also had recovered
[03:41:25] a bomber crew that in 1944 had taken off from the runway in Tarlah and kind of made it just over
[03:41:33] the lagoon and crashed into lagoon and then it also done some work in Europe on some bomber
[03:41:39] p47 sites a few other things and I found it really fascinating because this is something all the way
[03:41:45] back since I was teaching history in the Marine Corps and I told you before about you know what my
[03:41:50] wife had saw in 2003 in this feeling of this family you kind of you know you're done with this
[03:41:56] mission but you know you have a calling to do another mission and the door was kind of clear to me
[03:42:02] and I even wrote on my transition paperwork in the Marine Corps my wife lasts everybody else
[03:42:07] and I don't know what I want to do I'm going to do this and it said flying be part of the
[03:42:13] search and recovery afterwards to try to locate missing men and bring them back home their families
[03:42:18] didn't know how you're going to do that didn't know what you're going to do and then I picked up
[03:42:22] the phone after I transitioned to the Marine Corps and just gave Mark a call and we had an ice
[03:42:28] conversation brought out five minutes he is there you had the Marine Corps came up said absolutely
[03:42:32] he said you'd like to come down like to talk to you came down to Key West for a little bit of
[03:42:38] meeting came back and we started this operation I've been doing for about two years and to great
[03:42:45] relationship a great group of individuals that are military civilians scientists world-renowned
[03:42:54] archaeologists EOD experts military medics you name it as the repertoire to do that
[03:43:00] they're just passionate Americans that are going and researching over 78,000 missing cases
[03:43:07] that are still left out there trying to get at some closure to fulfill America's promise of
[03:43:15] we don't leave our dead wounded when we know where we're at we're going to go and get you
[03:43:19] we may not be able to get you at the time to fight that's actually happening but dead or alive
[03:43:24] you're coming home it's a promise will made it fighting everything you and I just talked about
[03:43:28] the past hours I go my generation was very easy to go into a fight knowing that I was not going
[03:43:35] to be buried in some foreign dirt nation that was somewhere else in the world because the person
[03:43:40] on your left and right was going to make sure that wasn't going to happen just like when we went
[03:43:44] out there in the middle of burning amtrak and that street it was not an option to leave those
[03:43:48] Marines to have their bodies drug through streets or to have anything else like that not on my watch
[03:43:53] and to find out the gravity of this is overall these years that did happen in places and the
[03:44:02] iteration of the United States going out and having this honorable mission to go do that
[03:44:07] it's like I want to be a part of that how can I fit into the paradigm of doing this
[03:44:12] and that was about 2018 kicked off at that time period and then just offered up Mark Hale doing
[03:44:19] assessment of the organization and I just found out this passionate story of how many people what
[03:44:26] they were giving up to go and do this and I said I'll give you an organizational assessment and he
[03:44:32] kind of said put what's that kind of cost me said nothing give me 30 days I'm going to fly it all
[03:44:38] the finding positions I'm going to get to know the people that's here everything I'll come back
[03:44:42] and I kind of give you a little here's what's working here's what's not working here's a
[03:44:46] perspective that's not so close to the boat you do this came back and he turned around and he said
[03:44:50] when I delivered that and he said yes I paid somebody almost 50,000 hours to do that one time
[03:44:57] and you know what they told me at the end of the assessment so what's that Mark he said
[03:45:01] if Mark know ever wants to stop doing this then this mission will be over and he goes I paid
[03:45:07] somebody a little money to do that came back giving a breakdown organizational structure
[03:45:13] how to how to count things into situation reports that where people can do that because you're
[03:45:19] coming from the government so you're actually writing reports that other people that's in another
[03:45:24] organization can actually see and they kind of understand and you're not so far off the course
[03:45:29] and then it was just utterly amazing I went to a funeral and when I went to a funeral the first
[03:45:36] funeral was for funeral by an anime named Texard Carlson and he just happened to be the alpha
[03:45:42] company Patoonson for first Paty and second Marines a landing force from second assault amphibian
[03:45:51] baty and it was second amphibian tractor baty and which was my job on the 23rd of March of 2003
[03:45:59] and that was the first individual it was identified when I was here so it was an amtraker
[03:46:04] they got to attend the amtraker of a guy who did his job on November 20th and lost his life on
[03:46:11] 1943 leading the first assault wave in the first LVT's that were ever used in offensive combat
[03:46:17] and then to be able to be a guy in 2003 that was part of task force tarawah that was named
[03:46:26] after those guys my wife I put her on the US as tarawah to go to war and she just looked
[03:46:34] and even before I met Mark Noah my license plate on my car as early as 2010 I got said tarawah
[03:46:41] across the back of the plate before I ever knew that this was what I was going to get into after I
[03:46:47] hung up this thing it's just amazing it I don't think it's ham and stance how that happens
[03:46:57] certainly not have you got have you have you gone to tarawah yet?
[03:47:00] absolutely but five times now went to Europe last year so last year in March we recovered a lost
[03:47:12] row called the missing road D of cemetery 33 that on tarawah is called the main marine cemetery
[03:47:19] now tarawah is only about 800 meters wide by about a click an half long it's not a very thing on
[03:47:25] island a base you know down there on every ounce of that is habitated now earth's huts there's
[03:47:33] everything else built on top of these and years ago the the cemeteries the marries did the best thing
[03:47:40] they could to bear in record the things and then they had to then go to the next time when to fight
[03:47:46] load up an anx ship to fight the thing like that turns it over airfield expansion starts going
[03:47:53] and then the cemeteries and that start moving around that island and then roughly in 1946
[03:47:58] America has this big thing in the American grave registration unit and they're sent around the
[03:48:03] world to try to recover as many lost people in 1946 they can and they get this mandate
[03:48:09] they visit tarawah they get some bones and they bring it back they do that but there's there
[03:48:15] was still 541 people they couldn't find it was out there and that's airfield expansion now it's
[03:48:21] encroachment of the islanders coming back and they're built on top so you can see this mess just
[03:48:27] magnifies itself and after some years of looking for this row in January of the past year not this
[03:48:36] past year but in 19 we had a weather storm go through and blew down a building in an area that we
[03:48:43] were looking to remove the building from and when it did it opened up an excavation opportunity
[03:48:49] it didn't exist prior to do that and that is where we had located road D and road D eventually
[03:48:57] turned into 33 in 90 states marines by the time of the end of that bulldozer row was recovered
[03:49:03] that we're missing PFC Athens as I told you today even in the tragic times it's happened
[03:49:10] out in the Pacific and that the bright point it was here is I got a text from my people right
[03:49:15] before I walked in to talk to you and one more marine out of that trend so I was just identified
[03:49:20] and published by the DOD today from a defense POWMIA accounting agency so that's another
[03:49:27] promise fulfilled to an American family that we don't leave our dead wounded buffoon we'll go
[03:49:33] and we'll do what it takes to do this and so I go out as many times as we can the archaeologists
[03:49:39] go out about six week rotations they come back for about four weeks they go back out it's in there
[03:49:44] and systematically we were hoping within five years to process that entire eye went to the
[03:49:49] fullest it's not possible because they're still roughly approximately 400 and has been identified
[03:49:57] jacco the whole organization has recovered over 337 sets of missing American remains
[03:50:06] up front 130 plus have been positively identified the other moons are in the possession
[03:50:14] of the DNA labs and that so these are going to be more success stories each week each month
[03:50:20] of all the moons that are already in there and then on top of that you have operations and
[03:50:27] Europe you have operations and the Philippines you've got the US government in Vietnam you've got
[03:50:32] everybody out there doing what they can and then we as a private organization augment the skills
[03:50:38] that the US government out there 78,000 people probably a lot or naval casualties as you know
[03:50:46] you probably get roughly 28,000 that are able to be accessed that are here and if you're talking
[03:50:53] about a recovery rate of the government it about 200 of those a year on their own
[03:51:00] they're going to be doing this hundreds of years and they're never going to be able to catch that
[03:51:06] and these things whether it's forestry, whether it's city development, whether it's anything else
[03:51:12] you have the the loss is going to happen each year to where possibly some of these areas that you
[03:51:18] could have recovered a previous year are not accessible a year or two from now so you're always
[03:51:24] racing in its time and especially with the World War II generation you're really racing against
[03:51:29] the wrong time meaning we have young right when named Wendell Perkins that as a
[03:51:38] TAR was survivor and a veteran and we had the great privilege a couple of months ago and it was
[03:51:43] covered here on Memorial Day nationally of locating Wendell's two best friends at Wendell
[03:51:50] had to leave on that island and he survived and Wendell is living a happy and successful life up here
[03:51:57] D.L. McCovey's like everybody else is there about this? I Wendell right now was in here in California
[03:52:06] up in New York for New York and we're going to be able to hopefully do some life feeds for each
[03:52:14] of the services that are coming up as covered restrictions lift so that Wendell can digitally
[03:52:18] attend the funeral for both of his best friends. Well that's awesome and obviously if
[03:52:24] this COVID lifts we get a chance we'll fly up to where Wendell's going to fly up to. I love to
[03:52:29] talk to Wendell. I know you and I were talking about Dean Ladden and how awesome that was to
[03:52:34] sit there and talk to him and I guess he didn't quite make it to TARWA because Dean Ladden got
[03:52:40] gut shot on the way in but yeah I mean obviously we'll do whatever we can to have the opportunity to
[03:52:49] talk to him and anybody else you know because these are these are the you know you're you're
[03:52:57] out there trying to capture the or trying to recover the physical but we can capture the stories you
[03:53:03] know absolutely that would be awesome now is this this is a charitable organization
[03:53:09] there's lots of charities absolutely this is a 501c3 that just happens to have a contract
[03:53:14] a partnership limited for TARWA with the government that is there but we prosecute other cases
[03:53:21] around the world accepting and donations we accept different cases from people to do the research
[03:53:27] for those against what the knowledge is that's out there help these families along and then we
[03:53:33] actually look and take the historical documentation laid against kind of a cold case good as out there
[03:53:39] take the time take the resources that you have and in certain cases we will actually take on missions
[03:53:46] of family members or something that are you know kind of they would like to donate and they
[03:53:51] want to make sure that only is going towards you know the berm a hump or they went over to certain
[03:53:57] things are like that but it helps augment we have a burn rate I go at 10,000 dollars a day
[03:54:03] to try to locate these that's this one one day for two teams to exist to try to find these american
[03:54:09] eras on TARWA and that is just operations on TARWA if you expand that out to do one
[03:54:19] crash sites in Europe looking for boys in the casserine pass for anything else on that
[03:54:26] that just greatly increases the costs rates that are up there and time equipment
[03:54:33] security of US remains like we have in this COVID time period on TARWA and just
[03:54:38] going out and and raising what you can to do what you said you know how can you put a dollar
[03:54:47] value on hey it's one of those things you look around and you're just like we made a promise
[03:54:51] to people years ago I can't imagine what it was like to get a telegraph the western union
[03:55:00] telling you on Christmas Eve that your son's not coming home which many of our veterans from TARW
[03:55:05] whether a family's got that on December 23rd they just happened to show up at the house to do
[03:55:10] that merry Christmas or or the Sullivan brothers or something like this it isn't here
[03:55:18] and that's a bad telegram to get but the telegrams that really break my heart is roughly the
[03:55:24] telegrams that you can see in the national archives from like 1949 and those are the telegrams
[03:55:30] that were sent to families that said not only is your son been killed and he's not coming home
[03:55:36] or no longer looking for them I can only imagine being a mother sitting there reading four years later
[03:55:44] after writing letter after letter after letter to hap Arnold or to whoever would listen can you
[03:55:50] give me some whereabouts of my boy can I have some fun where are they at and we have we have
[03:55:56] these telegrams you know that go to these service leaders like hap Arnold and they're very nice
[03:56:02] and it says thank you very much the life insurance was received and thank you for the
[03:56:07] pleasentries and all this but the bottom line is where's my boy you have an answer that and then
[03:56:14] these families went for decades never getting an answer on where their boy was at so to be able to
[03:56:22] be a US Marine to go back to the island of Taro to stand over top of a unit and watch the excavation
[03:56:29] and the detailed thing of the systematic processing of 120 centimeters down roughly about the
[03:56:40] water line and then you see the skeletal remains start to come through and you see the boots on
[03:56:45] the individual that are still from the good year rubber company that are all there that they're still
[03:56:50] there and then you see the gun belt that's still there this says that that was a BA-R gunner he was a rifleman
[03:56:57] and to hear my young archaeologist that are out there when you're saying I wonder if
[03:57:02] I was 27 or he's 29 or whatever they're telling you by looking and reading these bones this
[03:57:08] kid was 18 years old the sutures on his head are not closed enough here's how you look at this
[03:57:13] it's here and you sit there and you watch them and they're like you've never been in the military
[03:57:18] what are you doing out here on the island of Taro and you found in all these travels you've got
[03:57:25] military civilian PhDs, hunters, Republicans, Democrats, Blacks, White's Puerto Ricans,
[03:57:34] it's this organization that you win today's day in age with all this polarity
[03:57:39] can come together like this to perform this mission to fill the void of 76 years and provide
[03:57:46] closure and bring that back to reinforce that promise the dead are alive we're gonna find you
[03:57:51] and we're gonna come back and have a collective unit like that those were units like I see
[03:57:57] to pride in your eyes when you talk about the team and you see that feel and we're like about
[03:58:02] the same thing on this side they ain't wearing a uniform donation but to service that they
[03:58:07] chose to perform for the nation in a crappy fourth world infested little I wonder in the middle
[03:58:14] it doesn't look like to eat eatier or feed you or anything else like that
[03:58:19] like god matinee or what are supposed to be
[03:58:25] man it's just a awesome awesome I know I know we've been sitting here for for quite a while
[03:58:33] I want to wrap up but but before we wrap up I just want to go through real quick you sent
[03:58:38] like some bullet points to me just of kind of some reflections of some principles that
[03:58:46] that guided you you know and and and still guide you and I just wanted to kind of just
[03:58:52] just go through real quick here because when I read them each one of them you know
[03:58:58] as I sat there silently read my email I just kind of said they're nodding my heads and yep
[03:59:03] number one whatever it takes number two savage action and aggression in combat and in life
[03:59:17] number three in total combat and warfare you will get punched in the face
[03:59:24] number four no excuses don't have a victim mentality number five never leave a fallen
[03:59:37] comrade behind both in and out of the military number six moral and ethical leadership
[03:59:46] both in and out of combat number seven take total responsibility number eight always in the fight
[03:59:59] and never out of it number nine do what it takes to build the best team number ten except blame
[04:00:11] and shoulder burdens number eleven set your ego aside for the good of the collective
[04:00:23] number twelve establish and reinforce a winning mentality on and off the battlefield
[04:00:29] number thirteen be part of the solution not part of the problem number fourteen leadership is
[04:00:41] about people and getting the best from them and from yourself number fifteen be a man or woman
[04:00:53] of character number sixteen live an honorable and valourous life and number seventeen
[04:01:07] not for self but for country
[04:01:12] some things don't really even need further discussion and that's what I liked about that
[04:01:26] list as I read through it like I said I just nodded my head um unbelievable guidance from your
[04:01:34] life from your thirty years in the military from your heroic actions and not just your own heroic
[04:01:40] actions but for all the heroes that you saw around you and you know to me that's what this is about
[04:01:57] you know you set in this example you put in these words and you continuing to live a life of
[04:02:02] service to go out there and bring home these heroes I'll leave it to you for any other closing
[04:02:11] thoughts you might have right now I think these it's been an honor and privilege really a
[04:02:18] professional pleasure to spend this time today with with you and echo discussing what isn't
[04:02:27] what may be common to some people just isn't common to everybody that is out there and
[04:02:34] your podcasts and the impact that those podcasts do have the amount of people from all
[04:02:41] different walks of life that kind of tune in to this platform and this voice that is out there
[04:02:47] in this time right now especially in the trying time that we have now it's these reinforcing
[04:02:53] principles that we're talking you know you and I and echo and now we didn't make these up
[04:03:01] you know I didn't wake up and have some 17 part epiphany of doing that it's you know
[04:03:08] it's really rare to have a you know a unique thought these days because when you actually
[04:03:15] we then reach back into the context of history you normally find somewhere along the line what you're
[04:03:22] actually saying has been either done or displayed or you can actually find a mentor or somebody
[04:03:30] out there that that leads and acts the same way that you're talking and then you kind of find out
[04:03:36] for people that's on the podcast that are well you know what I've never been in the military or
[04:03:42] listen you find out it wasn't the military and a lot of times it taught these things it was
[04:03:47] here you find out when you when you look around at the goodness of your whole life and if you look at
[04:03:53] the context of your life line rather than the best years of your life was these years or these
[04:04:00] years if you look at their all building blocks on the entire time line of your life you find out
[04:04:06] that that teacher that wasn't in the military that taught you this is what you learned here that
[04:04:11] coach that was hard on you here that taught you here the mother that you thought was making dinner
[04:04:18] was actually married to a soldier for 26 years so even though that soldier's not here I might have picked
[04:04:24] up some of the leadership things from your old man so you might want to listen because maybe it
[04:04:30] looks like me doing it but maybe I heard it from somewhere else and you feel that responsibility
[04:04:36] from generations and I've watched that and I've listened to that through these podcasts
[04:04:42] from whether it's from kids and children there is always something here because it really
[04:04:48] reinforces what we have been discussing about today and it doesn't have to be
[04:04:54] this traumatic
[04:04:56] fallerous or a grievous incident that's in your life that defines
[04:05:02] that's who your life is now you performed in those incidences because of the conglomeration
[04:05:09] of who you were in the Constitution that made it up at that period and it allows you to overcome
[04:05:16] those incidences just like overcoming COVID just like overcoming a car crash just like overcoming
[04:05:22] anything else in life I believe this provides resiliency and tools for people they may not identify
[04:05:29] with podcast number 176 they may not identify not even identify ever with a whole podcast
[04:05:37] but there's something that somebody can take out of each little one of those in a
[04:05:41] appliance of their own life I believe in the context of overall it builds a better person
[04:05:46] so I thank you for the opportunity to be able to come here and do that and it is it was my pleasure
[04:05:53] to be here I have my pleasure for every single day to wear the uniform and the cloth of our
[04:05:58] nation we're pleasure to be able to just have a conversation amongst two warriors today
[04:06:06] I'm probably a little more aged or whatever that is on that but it really is and these are healthy
[04:06:14] I go and you're providing a platform for people to do that and also tell the story
[04:06:21] the story of these American nature it's stated but lost for generations the average person
[04:06:27] does not know that story jacco the average person on the street out there still has no idea
[04:06:34] that we have 28,000 missing people we have 78,000 we can probably get about 28,000 but they also
[04:06:41] sometimes come up to me go and I really appreciate what it is you do but I didn't serve in the
[04:06:46] military and it doesn't affect me or that but within like a five minute conversation of anybody
[04:06:51] that tells you they didn't serve or they didn't have a connection to the military you can take
[04:06:57] almost anybody in this country whether you're an immigrant or a national or anything and within a
[04:07:01] five minute conversation you can expose to them that somewhere in their family line somebody had
[04:07:09] to fight they had the same blood inside of there whether it's a restaurant and little Italy right here
[04:07:15] whether it's coming over on the boat it doesn't matter they had to fight to get to that and then a lot
[04:07:21] of times they just didn't know it but a lot of those people had to do it in the uniform too and
[04:07:26] then all of a sudden the light comes on and then you find out they're like oh yeah I did have
[04:07:31] an uncle that was in Vietnam now she's think about it and then the connecting file gets there and
[04:07:38] when the connecting file was there pride discipline desire motivation it transcends that uniform
[04:07:44] and you get that passion and then it's never about the money never about the money it is a
[04:07:50] boutful filling dot promise the same promise that we make those men and women today in that
[04:07:56] uniform swear to each other that allows people like you and I they don't wear the uniform in the
[04:08:02] cloth and they're nation anymore it allows me to sit back at night and say that if they still
[04:08:11] follow the code they still build the same way and put them on the conveyor belt to do that they're
[04:08:17] going to spit out the best American fighting man and woman the world is still ever seen and don't
[04:08:22] anybody ever forget that it's not just guys jumping out of planes in 1944 or coming out of landing
[04:08:28] crap those news out there today are the most lethal things that you can put on the very
[04:08:33] battle field say a night state somebody wants to test the borders or somebody wants to
[04:08:38] poke us or try to do that you keep poking the bear it's on there you keep poking the bear
[04:08:44] just watch the eagle fly over take a dump on your head and when the eagle does that boom we bring
[04:08:50] a lot of things behind that as well um don't know what else more to say jacca that has been already
[04:08:57] said it said thank you it's been my pleasure today well you know thank you for coming on
[04:09:03] more important obviously thanks for your service thanks for what you did for the country for the
[04:09:08] Marine Corps and and like I said thank you thank you for continuing to serve by working to bring
[04:09:16] these heroes home and truly living up to the words semper fiddellis thanks Justin thank you
[04:09:26] and with that Justin the Hugh has left the building awesome honor to be able to talk to him
[04:09:39] and another reminder that we all have more work to do more work to do to continue to be better
[04:09:49] stay on the path echo Charles what he got for us just stay on the path well we're gonna
[04:10:04] so to know that we're on the path that's a big one why before that before I go into that
[04:10:11] it's hearing like his story actually a lot of these stories or whatever but this was for some reason
[04:10:16] maybe because it was like so long and it made me like contemplate the whole time where it's like a
[04:10:20] reminder for us who didn't go to work you know who's not in the military necessarily and we just kind of
[04:10:26] you know we're cruising here and you know that thought that's like dang all that was going on
[04:10:32] at that like that's what you know because you say the dates and you're like I remember what I was doing
[04:10:36] 2003 I remember that what I was doing and you kind of flashed to man that's what he was doing at that time
[04:10:45] and you kind of make that little comparison and it's man it's like a it's a big eye open
[04:10:49] especially when you drill down to it not hey that's what he was doing in August or in March but
[04:10:57] when you say oh on that day at that moment in time he was going into a
[04:11:07] blown out AAV trying to recover bodies under fire like that's what he was doing at that moment
[04:11:12] so yeah it's definitely something definitely when you get even more specific where that yeah and
[04:11:18] it's the broad one is the same way you think oh oh in 2003 what was echoed trouble was I
[04:11:25] doing in 2003 and I was here I was hoping I would get to go over you know and he's in the battle
[04:11:30] in Nazareia you know it's so and you know you need to take that one step further and it's like
[04:11:36] right now there's people out holding the line and there's people prepping to do an
[04:11:42] operation there's people doing operations and you know it's not just military operations either
[04:11:46] but there's you know there's someone that just found out that you know they their kid has cancer
[04:11:52] like there's all these things are happening right now and you know the big thing and we talked
[04:11:57] about it briefly is that an AV just apparently was lost all the coast of California here and I was
[04:12:04] very similar fought pattern you know this morning for me I've seen that on the news and I mean
[04:12:10] I've been out there right next to these AVs doing work with them I know that the weather is good
[04:12:15] it's a sunny day it's a beautiful day this is Southern California and a month to all that
[04:12:23] you know it's a nightmare for for those Marines that unit and their families and it's just
[04:12:30] yeah really makes you think about where you where you are and what you're doing and are you on the
[04:12:38] right path you know fully so yes so make the most of it you know kind of kind of that old thing
[04:12:49] make the most of it everyone's in a while you know like you'll get injured like something that'll take
[04:12:54] you out like for you know like a month like a month or more recovery time or whatever so that for
[04:13:00] that month you can't really do certain things if not like a lot of things and then when you finally
[04:13:07] heal up and are able to do it you have that like appreciation for just everyday stuff it's like
[04:13:13] that's kind of like thinking about these things I found like kind of just rejuvenates that appreciation
[04:13:19] yeah yeah no doubt about it no doubt about it you know also I don't think I mentioned this during
[04:13:27] the podcast but for if you want to support the recovery of these fallen heroes go to history flight
[04:13:36] dot com and then they also have an Instagram page which is at history flight so you want to support
[04:13:44] some of these awesome efforts that are going on well that's how you do it so yes stay on the path
[04:13:51] for ourselves and the people around us because that's who it affects fully you know we want to keep
[04:13:57] ourselves in shape and keep ourselves capable doing that we're working out we're trying to stay healthy
[04:14:05] it's not a hundred percent thing I dig it you know 80 20 90 10 kind of situation I dealing in my opinion
[04:14:11] but anyway on the way you will need supplementation so jockel fuel what is jockel fuel so
[04:14:18] I when I said jockel fuel one time I remember saying it and thinking oh I jockel fuels like
[04:14:24] seems like an individual product the way I said it so let me clarify jockel fuel is a collection
[04:14:29] of supplementation elements so this part we already know super cruel oil your cruel oil with some
[04:14:38] antioxidants in there joint warfare for your joint so you join to take a beating you know varying
[04:14:43] levels of beatings when you when you're working out you're doing different workouts you do too all that
[04:14:48] stuff so this is why this is important super cruel oil joint warfare and also we have vitamin D
[04:14:56] free immune system big big deal also cold or free immune system still a big deal so yes these are
[04:15:06] all part of jockel fuel including in or as should I say additionally milk protein in the form of
[04:15:11] of a dessert meaning it's the best tasting protein mix you'll ever have I think that's proven double
[04:15:21] blind my feet I'm on a little peanut butter little peanut butter chocolate kick right now
[04:15:26] yeah because I had to that is a good taste I mean it is a good taste you add extra peanut butter
[04:15:34] why don't I just as is I do sometimes why don't be laying a little bit more peanut buttery
[04:15:40] nonetheless I dig it 100% and that's what that is also discipline the supplement discipline powder
[04:15:47] mix is this for your brain and your body by the way powder mix uh cans RTD cans
[04:15:55] and discipline go pills new flavor out straight up out sour apples sniper and it's important
[04:16:08] note that this is JP Dinelle's signature right because he's a sniper yeah what's your what's your
[04:16:16] assessment of the flavor good not as sour as I anticipated but it could have been one of those
[04:16:22] deals where I'm like I opened it up I'm like whew I'm getting ready for the sourness you know
[04:16:26] so maybe over yeah over expectations we're off yeah but but delicious Pete Pete just said to me
[04:16:34] it just went into first place in his book don't kidding because and he said the reason why he said
[04:16:39] it's sweet yeah he said he said he said he get that little that he's got that little he's got a sweet
[04:16:45] tooth you know that kids choking down bockle vase you know that does make sense and it is good though
[04:16:57] in that way it's just not as tangier sour as I thought yeah so but it does have some sweetness to it
[04:17:04] if you got that sweet tooth what if you got that Pete Roberts sweet tooth I like yeah it's freaking
[04:17:10] legit right now jockelpombers in the lead I think continually for me but Pete Roberts just
[04:17:18] pushed it but my my kids are mostly dax average that could just be in support of Dakota just
[04:17:26] but now it has the sweetness as well the dax average one I don't know I taste that
[04:17:33] yeah it's from either sweetness to but it's not it's not it's not as sweet as sour apple
[04:17:38] sniper is it I can dig it I had it's been a few weeks and I've been pounding the
[04:17:44] traffic thunder and the jut the pachoccal pomer one so much I'm gonna have to go revisit it
[04:17:50] to evaluate accurately what I think nonetheless they're all good and hey we're gonna have
[04:17:57] differences of opinion I like I prefer not maybe not strongly but I prefer a little bit of the
[04:18:03] tanginess in this kind drink yeah I prefer that personal preference yeah well if you want to get
[04:18:11] any of these supplements then you can go to originmain.com you can go to the vitamin shop
[04:18:19] and you can pick this stuff up and it does actually support the podcast and it sports the podcast
[04:18:26] and you know what else it sports you know what else it sports sports America sports America's
[04:18:31] we're out there not only making supplements also making things for you too
[04:18:37] where where on your body so you may need to wear something during juttsu right while we're
[04:18:46] grappling we're not going we're not going Greek like the Greek naked wrestlers you see the
[04:18:52] pictures back these these statues back in the day we're not doing that we're not doing that no we're
[04:18:57] in clothing so we're wearing rash guards we're wearing that key t-shirts jeans boots all of it
[04:19:08] not just made in America but formulated from the ground up every thread every rivet
[04:19:17] it's all American hundred percent building a little self reliance back into our country
[04:19:25] we're going to have to rely on on other countries what's not a good thing so go to originmain.com
[04:19:35] if you want any of those products and yeah you know it's they're American made they're also the best
[04:19:40] the best things that you can put on your body yeah feel like you're you know not not to say
[04:19:46] you're active and actively neglecting this but probably look good it seems saying thick good they look
[04:19:53] good I know you're not walking around saying oh how's the fit on my gene I ask you in your
[04:19:57] wife hey do these jeans make you know my hips look nice or whatever I'm assuming these looks good
[04:20:08] or what have you you know I'm assuming I do that so so I will attest to that that yes these are
[04:20:17] functional of course made in America of course but they look good too hey look good feel good
[04:20:26] feel good look good let's go all that some of us are over here thinking we look good cool I let you
[04:20:31] hold that on lock all I'll be over here getting after it anyway originmain.com yes also speaking
[04:20:37] of clothing jocco has a store so this clothing if you want to represent discipline equals freedom
[04:20:43] the attitude of good for when things go bad there's some good that comes out of it it's true
[04:20:51] you're the one who told me that true anyway you want to represent these things go to joccostore.com
[04:20:56] check out the shirts there's teachers on their hoodies hats uh I've got some new board shorts
[04:21:03] are they up yet you can have to check joccostore.com there's a new t-shirt that you're wearing
[04:21:10] just for some reason you're wearing it before I'm wearing it even though it's a stretch for you
[04:21:14] to wear that shirt how do you like that bias on action what is that bias to the shirt for actually
[04:21:20] I can you know wearing kind of the ultimate t-shirt the hardcore recondos t-shirt yeah you know
[04:21:27] it's good it's always like yeah I was like yeah man that's a good that's good that's a good idea for sure
[04:21:32] for sure and then when it came out I put it on I was like oh back to that looking good thing
[04:21:37] I feel that I look good in it oh I thought you're gonna say it made you feel like oh you know I
[04:21:42] got in the game but instead you just sort of looking at yourself in the mirror yeah cool like I said
[04:21:48] so I that's your dog so does this look does this shirt look that on me I'm not gonna know
[04:21:52] your shirt you're not sure it's cool that's all you're getting out of me carry on hey I'll take it
[04:21:58] anyway joccostore.com if you if you like something get something good spot uh subscribe to this podcast
[04:22:04] there's a bunch of different ways you can subscribe to it do it and then leave a review this is
[04:22:09] according to aqua trust the cool thing is if you leave a review what I actually read the reviews and
[04:22:13] there's a lot of them but they're awesome so that's cool appreciate it and don't forget that we have
[04:22:19] some other podcasts as well we've got the un-ravelling the jocco un-ravelling podcast actually is the
[04:22:26] full title because in order to make it mine well I just put my name on it and then no one can
[04:22:33] say like you took my name no I didn't take your name your name isn't jocco is it so jocco unraveling
[04:22:39] right now we're releasing on this feed soon it'll be on a separate feed we got the grounded
[04:22:43] podcast we got the warrior kid podcast we got warrior kid soap from irish oaks ranch dot com
[04:22:48] where you can get soap so that you can for the love of god you can stay clean
[04:22:56] uh YouTube you want to tell them about YouTube just I know you're quite going into that
[04:23:04] well we're all into that from time to time so yes you want to watch the video version or have
[04:23:11] the video version playing playing in the office in the gym in the house whatever connected to
[04:23:17] surround sound boom you're right in the middle of a conversation physically visually all that stuff
[04:23:21] anyway we have a youtube channel that's the point we also have excerpts on there so you know you can
[04:23:26] share them with your friends and it's more likely your friend is going to watch a two minute up to you
[04:23:34] know you know varying levels of length videos then maybe a four hour pod yes from time to time okay
[04:23:42] we're sponsoring some people don't have the where we're thaw or the time well at the
[04:23:47] location at that moment you know like you you send me a link right you're like hey check this out
[04:23:51] for a you need to check that out yeah and then look I'm concerned at the gas station right now so
[04:23:57] maybe you know maybe I'll check that for a while watch a two minute video just pumping gas you're
[04:24:00] done with the video it's over technically you can take the information whether maybe apply it
[04:24:04] exactly right you won't have the depth of knowledge though no you can apply it quickly but if you
[04:24:09] want to reinforce it that's why when you are we're cutting your lawn you listen the whole thing
[04:24:14] well you watch all the thing while you're doing dishes shouldn't take you two and a half hours
[04:24:18] three and a half hours to do dishes but maybe over a week you're watching it you know it takes you 20 minutes
[04:24:24] consolidate some time for me also that you get there yeah technically but like I said though if
[04:24:31] if at any given moment you get sent to three hour video versus a two minute video it's more
[04:24:36] likely they can have the time to watch a two minute video so it increases the likelihood of someone
[04:24:40] actually watching it that's the benefit of an excerpt whatever that excerpt may be so that's why these
[04:24:47] excerpts exist see what I'm saying fair enough I'm just saying if you if you in this is why you
[04:24:53] should share an excerpt if it if it resonates resonates with you or someone you know that or might
[04:25:00] resonate with someone you know this is why you share it because if you okay there's an excerpt
[04:25:04] about I forget the title but it's about how you feel versus how you behave right I think it was
[04:25:10] something about hangry or something like that remember that one it's oldy but good yeah on the last
[04:25:16] so it's basically if you're frustrated on the inside of whatever you don't have to act frustrated
[04:25:21] you know how you feel and how you behave should you should separate those things you should behave as
[04:25:25] good as you can anyway so a lot of people that's a good value-boe information what if you share
[04:25:28] that with three people around you and they shared that with two people around them they shared that
[04:25:32] with four people around them and see everyone around you is behaving correctly whether they're
[04:25:37] frustrated or not from actually having a massive impact in the entire world that's what you're saying at
[04:25:42] the end of the day yes so that's the benefit and this goes for any concept so there's a lot of excerpts
[04:25:46] out there's one saying so I'm saying check them out on that youtube channel you know if you got
[04:25:50] this you got a moment do it it's good also psychological warfare this is an album with jocco
[04:25:56] tracks on it many tracks for many different scenarios and those scenarios are moments of weakness that
[04:26:04] you might incur is that a good word is that the correct word incur I'm an incur it's an okay
[04:26:10] usage okay boom there you go incur if you get like a C okay good pass incur a moment of weakness you
[04:26:17] want to invoke jocco to help you not yell at you or nothing like this help you just listen to
[04:26:22] one of those tracks the appropriate track for that particular weakness moment boom he'll help you
[04:26:28] right across the bridge super easy to 100% effective rate by the way I'm not going also if you want
[04:26:35] to have a visual kind of reminder the visual help go to flipsidecampus dot com to code a
[04:26:42] Meyer American made graphic art there I said it yeah did kind of seem like you're not absolutely avoid it
[04:26:56] weird I don't know I have a weird relationship with the word art yeah I could see it yeah but it is
[04:27:01] art and art to stick to yeah well anyways if you want some cool graphic art go to flipsidecampus dot com
[04:27:11] if you want a book if you want a book I got a bunch of books once called the code
[04:27:19] once called leadership strategy and tactics field manual once called way the warrior kid one two
[04:27:24] and three mickey in the dragons discipline who's freedom field manual and extreme ownership
[04:27:31] and the dichotomy of leadership a bunch of books talking about leadership reinforcing the ideas
[04:27:36] that I talk about here if you're an adult teaching those ideas to a young kid get after some of
[04:27:42] those also have a leadership consultancy called echelon front where we saw problems to leadership
[04:27:49] go to echelon front dot com for these guys if you want me to come and speak at your company
[04:27:54] or you want me to do a virtual meeting or you want someone on the echelon front team that you've
[04:28:00] heard on this podcast to get on a call with all your people and talk to them don't go to
[04:28:06] a speakers bureau don't do that go to echelon front dot com just the other the the speakers
[04:28:16] bureau's just a middleman we don't need it this is what we do for the living so go to echelon front
[04:28:22] dot com and we'll look it up e f on line we're doing a lot of virtual stuff right now one of the
[04:28:30] things that we're doing virtual we we did we did online training before we're doing even more
[04:28:34] now I am live on that thing all the time if you want to talk to me if you want to come and ask me a
[04:28:39] question go to e f on line attend one of the online training live seminars we're talking one two three
[04:28:46] times a week I'm on there the rest of the team is on there you want to have you want to you got to
[04:28:52] talk to me let me know come and get it that's what we're doing e f on line dot com also have the
[04:28:57] master which is a live gig September 16th and 17th in Phoenix Arizona Dallas Texas December 3rd
[04:29:05] and 4th go to extremownership dot com if you want to come they've all sold out so
[04:29:10] you're going to sell out to we haven't even released the video yet I saw the video today though good job good
[04:29:16] down with that one also e f overwatch if you need leaders in your organization we have
[04:29:25] experienced battle tested leaders e f overwatch dot com if you're in the military go there we
[04:29:32] can link you up with companies if you're company you need that leadership go to e f overwatch dot com
[04:29:37] fill out the appropriate information for yourself for charities like I said history flight dot com
[04:29:46] if you want to support the recovery of these heroes around the world also they have at
[04:29:54] history flight on instagram so check that out and then of course we got momily marklies mom
[04:30:00] and her organization america's mighty warriors dot org she does all kinds of things
[04:30:07] to help service members whether that's medical treatments that they couldn't get through
[04:30:11] military channels whether it's things that they need while they're over on deployment whether
[04:30:16] it's gold star families that need some some kind of support after they've lost their loved one
[04:30:20] she does all kinds of things like this so go to america's mighty warriors dot org if you want to
[04:30:26] get involved or if you want to donate and if for some unknown reason you just feel like you
[04:30:37] need to hear more of my disproportionately dallying discourse or you feel like you need more of
[04:30:46] echoes confiscated conceptualizations then you can find us on the inner webs on twitter instagram
[04:31:00] and on facebook echo is at echo trowels and i am at jocca willink and thanks once again to Justin LaHue
[04:31:09] for coming on for sharing the lessons with us we thank you for your service and we
[04:31:15] absolutely wish you godspeed in your mission today to continue to bring home our fallen country men
[04:31:23] and a solemn thanks to all that have fought for our freedom but did not return and of course thanks
[04:31:33] to all the service men and women who are out there today holding the line training to hold the line
[04:31:40] taking risk to hold the line to protect our freedom thanks to all of you and to the police and
[04:31:47] law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers
[04:31:52] and border patrol and secret service and all the first responders thank you for holding the line
[04:31:59] and protecting us here on the home front and to everyone else out there
[04:32:06] you can learn a lot i learn a lot from a man like sergeant major Justin LaHue try
[04:32:17] try to eat his advice his advice to do whatever it takes to initiate savage action and aggression
[04:32:26] to establish a winning mentality and to do things not for yourself but for your country there is
[04:32:39] something bigger than you so go out there and get after it then until next time
[04:32:49] this is echo and jockel out