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And if you're going to give us ant secret ifew why don't you just send
us an email and we'll talk about Special Operations Cobert ask me and the Team
House with your hopes. Jack Murphy and David Bark. Hey, everyone,
welcome to episode two hundred and fifty three of The Team House. I'm Jack
Murphy here with David Park and our guest on tonight's show is Travis Sandford.
Travis served in the Air Force as a SOUTE Special Operations weather technician and we're
really happy to have him on the show. We've been wanting to have one
of you guys on the show for quite a while, so I'm really glad
that this could happen. Welcome, Thank you, Travis. Yeah, yeah,
I know somebody should call like animal Control because I think you guys might
have caught a unicorn. Sounds like trying to get a saute guy on any
kind of show like this and talk about what we do. It's hard to
do sometimes. Oh, We're glad to finally make it happen here. So
Travis, I'll start off asking the question I asked most of our guests about
your origin story. If you can tell us a little bit about how you
grew up and how that took you towards the Air Force. Yeah, so
I grew up in Central Missouri, Jeffson City. You know, I wish
I could say I grew up in you know, played sports and wanted to
join the military and knew that was the path was going to take. But
I think for a lot of guys that was not the case. You know.
So I played baseball basketball all through high school with the dream of going
on and playing in college. I actually went to college for a year here
in Kansas City, where I live now, as a fresh seventeen eighteen year
old kid away from home for the first time, really kind of just lost
my mind. I think I was more interested in girls who was in my
class and what I was doing on Friday night than what I was supposed to
be concentrated on in the classroom itself. So I think I got a one
point eight my freshman year first semester, which led to academic probation for the
second semester, And as second semester didn't work out that way either, I
ended up actually getting I went to junior college even I lived in an apartment
off campus, and I remember as by April we got a notice on our
door about having like a Party's right, we just kept having parties over and
over again. This apartment complex kind of gave us a warning, and so
we didn't have a party for a few months. And we're like, we
thought, you know, as young kids, like, well, they probably
forgot about it by now. We could probably have at least one more party,
like in the springtime. So we had this party and it was a
tiny apartment and it was probably shoulder to shoulder, and the next morning we
just got a thing in our door, like you have two weeks to get
out, and I was like, oh shit, Like so didn't want to
like tell my dad I got evicted and have that discussion. So kind of
lived down in my car for a little bit, kind of couch surfed in
the semester, and I remember my dad had come up and saw inside my
my suv and saw all my stuff and he was like, what's going on.
I was like, Dad, I've been got couch surfing since April,
and he was like, what the fuck are you doing? Like come home?
Like. So, I ended up moving back to jeff City and got
a job on a landscaping crew. You know, shout out Sam Gaines,
uh hard working man, but you know he kind of put me to work
and that was some tough work. And I think at that time I was
like, you know what, like I got to do something else in my
life. I can't be you know, building brick walls and mowing weedy and
every day. So I was like, well, I'm going to join the
military. And at the time, like I didn't want to do anything tough,
like I'd been doing manual labor, and I was like, I want
to do the easiest, most pushed job, get me some a C.
So I was like, I want to do an Air Force right, like
that's what people say. Uh. So I walked into through his office and
he was you know, did the ASVAB and scored fairly well on that,
and so what do you want to do? I was like, I don't
care, man, I just want I want a job I can set in
the air conditioning, like, you know, straight up, like I don't
want to do anything crazy outside. Uh. And So I got a job
as like a just a normal Air Force weatherman. So I for the first
few years of my career I predicted in for casted weather out in Davis monthan
from Wyoming down to l Paso. And that's really where, you know,
my journey kind of began. Like I was kind of like a fish out
of water there. You know what. After a few years, I I
was pretty athletic, pretty strong, and we had a commander come in.
His name was Colonel Don Shannon, and he was a prior sautee officer and
so he'd just taken over command and you know, we'd done pt and he
kind of pulled me, you know, aside and was like, you know,
do you like what you're doing, like you enjoy being here, you
know. And I was like sure, yeah, yes, sir, Like
I didn't quite know what to say, and he's like, I'm gonna be
honest, like I think you could do something else, like there's you ever
heard of like saoti And I'm like no, like not really. This is
like kind of like pre like Internet, you know, two thousand, Like
we had Internet like two thousand and five, six seven around that range where
I wasn't googling things every day like you do now, right, So he
kind of just gave me like a quick breakdown, was like here's what you
gotta do, like you know, obviously got to learn how to swim,
talking about the asstock test and how to prepare for it, and didn't know
how to swim. I mean I grew up swimming lakes like I could survive,
but I wasn't like a great swimmer. So I started training and I
remember we had an officer from the Naval Academy and she swam and I was
like listen, like I need to learn to swim to take this test,
this asstock testing. You know how far you gotta swim? And I was
like sixteen hundred meters, you know, and she's like, okay to me
to the pool. I literally could not swim two laps, but I would
just like have my head above the water. I gas out and uh so
we started from the basics, you know. So I had my head in
the water, blowing bubbles like you learned as a little kid, and learned
to swim. And then went and took the asstop which is like a little
like free cursor kind of tests if you qualify, and that was at Scott
Air Force Base, and ended up qualifying and from there you kind of get
orders and you know, you start your journey along the sautee path. So
you know, that's kind of how I got started. You know, how
it ended up was nothing what I thought it was going to be when I
first joined in two thousand and five. Spoken up, I just want to
clarify for people who might not be falling along SAUTI a special Operations weather technician,
right, and so you went, you went from being a weatherman in
the Air Force. Can you tell us what that training pipeline is, like,
I mean, do they give you a crystal ball so you can prognisticate
or how does that work? So week one, they give you like a
giant rock and they tell you to go outside and set it on the ground,
and like when the rock gets wet, you can tell them that it's
like rain and things like that. No, but yeah, so from the
weather perspective, it's a very atmospheric physics heavy, you know. So that
was probably the toughest you know challenge of mental course. You know, through
it was like having to understand air masses and physics and you know how you
when you look at weather, it's like a three D thing, you know,
so you have to be able to kind of visualize that. And so
it ended up being you know, right about a year worth of training just
in like the classroom to understand whether I was down in Bloxi, Mississippi during
Hurricane Katrina, and so that kind of derailed training a little bit. I
was right in the middle of it when Katrina hit, and so we sheltered
in place there and kind of had a few months deway. But that was,
you know, probably the most you know mentally challenging part was just getting
through that that weather school. Did anybody at the school, uh for Sea
Katrina? Oh? Yeah, for sure. That was when when it was
coming like we have to do like these handmade charts where you're kind of like
going through and figuring out like pressure gradients and things like that, and uh,
they were kind of everybody was pretty dialed in to know it was what
was happening when they made the call to kind of shelter in place, when
all these other bases were evacuating around Just like that was kind of like I'm
glad that I was just too dumb and stupid to understand what was happening,
because like here we are, like on the coast, just setting in a
building and hurricane train is going on outside and the base is flooding, and
you're just like I'm just here chilling watching the DVD player, right, remember
the old DVD players that the portables. You know, I'm just like no
idea what's going on outside? And so how long is the the like the
weather technician, the standard weather technician course, Yeah, so the standard one,
like we just come in as a conventional weatherm and it's probably eleven months.
If you're not having those interruptions, that's wild, you know. So
it's it's fairly long. You know, it's not not a quick turnaround there,
especially if like you get washed back, you know, which could derailly
U six weeks if you each wash back and then is that is the qualification
that you guys get out of that? Is it similar to like what a
civilian meteorologist would be if when you see them like on the if they are
I don't know if they're mediaologist or just talking heads. But is it the
same type of thing or is it more intense? It's the same type of
understanding, I would say, like you know, most of them you see
on TV, they have a four year degree, you know, like so
they might understand a little more of the science part behind it. But you
know, weather is about patterns. Like once you understand the physics of stuff,
then you start to understand the patterns. You know, Like so whenever
I was forecasting from Wyoming down to El Paso, each location, so Fort
Carson, like all those different bases, you understand where the mountains are and
you understand like historically, if we get wins from this direction, it's going
to cause afternoons understorms because you get upslope, you know, you know things
like that. So understanding just the pattern, you know, makes forecasting a
little bit easier, which you know that kind of helps you you're on a
fob for six months, you can kind of understand those patterns a little bit
better as well. So there's a lot of pattern recognition that goes with like
knowing what the local what's happening locally correct? Yeah, yeah, and then
you know, a tough part about that job too, is getting the general
public to understand the differences between watches, warnings things like that. Like it's
just a lot of misconception, right, and so if like you put out
a weather watch, I'm not saying that it's going to happen. I'm saying
that we have like basically all the ingredients to happen, you know, especially
when we were talking about severe weather like but severe weather like tornadoes, things
like that, Like one minor detail is missing, it's not going to happen,
you know. And so sometimes like that minor detail is unforeecastable, you
know, like it's just there's nothing out there to predict it. So that's
why you get the watches in warning. So the warning is like, hey,
it's it's imminent, it's going to happen. Firstus a watch is you
know, hey, could just saying like we got everything's favorable, but I'm
not saying it's going to happen. Just to connect the dots for John Q
Public, I know this is kind of an obvious question for you, but
why is it so important to have weathermen in the Air Force? Like what
is the task? Why are you doing this? Yeah? I mean thinking
where I started there at Davis mothing like you're protect protecting all those assets on
the ground. You know, you think of every base that you're forecasting for
has ground assets, has personnel assets, you know. You know, probably
one of the most impactful things while I was in David Mothin just being a
typical weather person, was around the fourth July for Cannon Air Force Base.
They were having a Fourth of July like celebration event, but that earlier that
morning, you know, everything was shaping up to have a Haley event there
later on in the afternoon in the evening, and so I kind of put
out a watch. The watch turned into a warning kind of late afternoon,
and that base commander like I was, you know, an E three.
The base commander from Cannon like called my desk and was like what are you
doing? Like it's funny here, like you're putting out a hill warning,
like I don't have to cancel, you know, the event I'll have to
put up, put away the S six teams, I have to do all
this stuff, you know, and it's like you kind of like either got
to stand by your your forecast or kind of crumble, you know. So
that point, like I kind of stood by it, and sure enough,
thankfully it hailed that night, and like I was smart for at least one
day. Yeah, And unfortunately it seems like in that type of job you
can go from zero to hero or here real quick and no time flat,
right, yeah, yep, yep, So better be sure about it,
yeah, you know, and if you're wrong, you better have a good
sense of humor because you're gonna hear about it. Yeah yeah. So,
uh, you go to this at SoC sort of pre preparatory school pretesting and
take us a little bit through the saute training and that pipeline and how that
how that differs from being a conventional weathermen. Yeah. Yeah, So the
pipeline that I went through versus where it is now is a complete one eighty
And so I was kind of like this new generation of SAUTI to where they
had these seats in these schools but it wasn't like a you know, a
very clear path from dot to dot. It was we have seats, We'll
send you these seats whenever they're open. But it wasn't very fluid. And
so I showed up to Herbert Field and I actually before I even went to
any courses or anything, there was a training mission up here at Fort Leonard
Wood where the one sixtieth was passing training and they needed people just a fast
rope onto a building so they could just do some elevators over and over.
And they're like, well, we got this new guy, a couple of
new guys here. They don't really have any experience, but like we can
send them up and they can be bodies. And like I've never fashion opened
my life. And so I show up here. I go to the Fort
Campbell. They got me connected with an instruct or at Air Assault for like
two hours and we go on the tower and just imagine, like he's Air
Assault. You know, grunts are just kind of like having to be able
to go down the tower tower at all for a few weeks, and like
fresh Air Force guy shows up. I go straight to the top. He
gives me like a quick five minute Okay, this will be going to do
you feel comfortable, Let's roll and I just started going down the tower and
that night, my first time fast roping out of a live helicopter was at
night with the one sixtieth on top of a roof somewhere near Fort lennar Wood,
Missouri. You know. And it's like just doing stuff like that where
it's like you just had to adapt, you know. So went to that
school, went to a couple of shooting schools right off the bat, before
I even did any kind of conventional training. So I went to Rifles Only,
which is down in South Texas. Like that was my first shooting school.
I went to went to an Avalanche Astatsment school and Jack then whole got
avalanche certified, and then I went to the STTS with some special tech training
swater and so that ended up being about six to nine months where you're small
unit tactics, heavy weapons insertions, you know, and full mission profiles.
So once you graduate there, you graduate your five level and you're pretty much
deployable, you know. So you know, look back, it's a lot
of training, but also not a lot of time, you know. So
it was one of those things like it takes. They had to be really
selective on who they picked, on who they can put in those situations,
because it's not like you're getting this two year training pipeline like they do now.
Like now it's you're in a pipeline for two years, right, You're
going to school school, You're as trained as you can be. Whereas you
know, my first deployment, I show up and like I'm questioning, like
I don't know if I like, if I'm qualified to be here, you
know, like there's things that I hadn't even experienced yet, you know.
So that was kind of what was unique about that time that I went through.
It was like they were just starting to set up the pipeline, they
were just starting to implement things. But I was like probably a year or
two early, so, and so I was kind of like a guinea pig
almost. What had SOO W T? Because you said an officer spoke to
you or somebody who had been there and spoke to you about it. What
had it been prior to this? What was the vision for what are what
is a weather guy doing in the Special Operations community other than telling little birds
that they can they can't go up? Right? Like, Yeah, and
then how how was it changing as you were there, because I think you
know, you're talking about a pipeline sort of like similar to what CCT or
pj's have, but they didn't have that set up for you guys, but
they envisioned you in a role that you hadn't been in before. Correct,
right, correct? Correct? Yeah, So you know, pre nine to
eleven SAUTI was a lot of you know, kind of one sixtieth support.
You know that you went with where the one sixtieth went. You were,
you know, that dedicated asset. And then nine eleven happens, and you
know, I'm not positive what picked off having the SAUTE on the ground at
each individual FOB, but at some point it did, probably in that six
seven timeframe where now we're starting to be on the fob who are starting to
you know, you know, run with teams unilaterally. You know, you
start having sauteas get assigned to those CESAR missions, you know, any kind
of mission on the ground. Now we're putting that scenario. And so I
think that when that happened, they realize, Okay, now we need to
figure out a pipeline, Like we can't just be put these guys in here
to have these piece milled training plans. We need a structured training plan and
saute. We didn't become our own career field probably around until like two thousand
and nine, Like we were a shred out of the conventional weather. So
they put like a j designator on our job code or MWS and and you
have that jay just signifying you're a jumper, you know. And so once
we got the designating career field, then the pipeline could stand up, and
then they can kind of break away from you know, traditional weather. Right
and why what is the benefit or what was the vision of having a sutia
guy off the fob right it running, you know, whether with the QRF
or with on target. Why do they want that? I think it came
to fruition, moving away from just your weather, you know, peace,
you know, because you don't need to have a weather guy on a mission
if we're talking just traditional weather like you see on TV. You know,
where weather comes into play. You know where South Tea came into play was
a lot of like environmentally connissense, you know, so you know mission planning
things, you know, so I remember, you know, one mission,
you know planning we were going to do a river crossing, you know,
and we're just looking at imagery, and so you go to riverine courses.
We understand like natural depth points in a river based off how it's meandering,
you know, so you can kind of help the teams be like, hey,
like I know this is advantageous and you want to cross here, but
like I don't know if I would, if we've never been there before,
Like this wouldn't be my first choice. And here's why, you know,
because I know I'm going to get natural pulling, you know, around this
this bend here, and you know, maybe we look, you know,
somewhere else. So I think they were trying to bring that environmental piece into
it to help them a mission planning side and kind of prevent you know,
having to cancel a mission you know on the zero hour, having to push
if you can just get in the forefront of things and get there you know
sooner, h makes me planning easier. So in a way, you guys
are expanding to like the old pathfinder role of like the density of soil on
an airfield or the old the old UDT is what is the beach like?
But you're like this is like mid mission stuff what's this river crossing going to
be like? Or what are these areas like? So it's all environmental factors
now that you're trying to figure out. Yeah, yeah, and I think
now you know now that they're they're changed to the queer field is called special
reconnaissance now, so it's no longer called special operations weather, so it's not
special word connaissance. So you know they're they're going to Arslick, They're going
to these different schools that are more aligned with what they were trying to do
back then, you know, And so I think they're going to go that
route, you know, throwing up a ua V and doing summer constance in
the u a V. Like. So you know, we were Raven certified,
like we were constantly just looking for different things that tie to our name
to say, this is a capability we can provide, right, you know,
whether it was the Raven, whether it was driving schools, like any
anything you could do just be an asset to a mission beyond just traditional weather.
Right, And so, so how are you feeling about all of this?
Going from initially the that just wants to sit in the ac Now they're
getting you like jocked up to go out on missions, right special ops guys.
Yeah, yeah. I mean once I made the decision to do it,
it was kind of like I was all in, you know. And
then once you go through training for a while, then it's like you have
that young man's mindset where like I don't get in a firefight, like it
was a failure. Now I'm older, it's like that probably wasn't a mindset
that we have, right, you know. So I was amp. So
I remember I graduated like I wanted to go to cob Like I get aside,
I want to go to Cobra, I want to go to Anaconda,
like I wanted to go to the hottest spots, you know. So I
remember I was supposed to go to Chapman in twenty ten, and so I
think was it decemberish nine is when they had the car bomb right around right
around the area, yep, And so they changed it. So I was
going to Chapman until that happened and they changed I remember I was driving home
to Florida from Missouri and I got a call the Hey, we're changing up
your location. We're going to send you to you know, Balam of God,
Bob Todd, and I'm like I never I heard of this place,
Like what the damn it? Like I'm gonna go there and like it's gonna
suck, and like ended up being, you know, an awesome deployment,
you know, so happy that I actually got switched together. What was when
when you're first showing up to these teams and you're the weather guy, which
again is sort of a relatively new thing that people are getting thrown. How
did people respond to you? What was the reaction? Uh? Yeah,
I mean, as you could probably imagine, it was a tough, tough
sell at first, you know, just to kind of paint the picture,
you know, for people to try to understand. When I showed up in
twenty ten to Fob Todd, I was with a Marine Special Operations team,
a team that had been training together for at least a year, and all
of a sudden, an Air Force guy one. Like that's tough in itself,
Like you're you're an Air Force guy. Like a lot of you know,
O DAS Seal teams, MARSK teams, like they're not even stinking the
Air Force has ground guys. You show up and so you have that hurdle
to get over. I'm like, okay, you're an air force guy,
like you know what, you probably just work the computer or like what are
you what are you going to do here? And then you tell them like
you're a weather guy too, and like there's just questions galore like kind of
like this, like well I don't get it, like what are you going
to do for me? Whenever we're you know, on a direct action,
Like what's what's the point of having you there? You know? And so
you're kind of having to explain that. I mean, you know, sometimes
like I was saying, like I was there in Afghanistan in the summer,
there's not really a reason for me to be there. And that's where we
got to think outside the box, like how else can I help you?
You know? I think that's what made good saute operators versus bad ones was
you had the ones that were like this is my box and I'm want to
stay inside of it. And then you had the ones like, know what,
like my direct asset, you know, when I'm bringing the team,
Like it's not valuable right now? What else can I do to make myself
valuable? You know? And they go out and they seek that. And
the ones that did that, I think had great great deployments. Ones that
didn't could have rough deployments to where you know, they kind of get looked
at as like, hey, you're just a paperweight to set some of the
talk. So what were some of those like holes that you were able to
fill? I mean you up on the fifty cal. What kind of stuff
did they have you doing? Yeah, So that's the great thing about the
Air Force training was they understood that aspect. Like so when you think of
how how the teams set up everyone, let's let's talk about oda. You
have your Bravo, your echo, whoever, your delta. They're good at
that one specific thing. But we all know, like you don't go to
the delta to say, hey, can you load some crypto into the radio
and help me do this? Like it's very like, hey, this is
my lane. This what I'm good at, that's your job kind of thing.
And so the Air Force understood that and like you know what, like
we're going to set these guys up to where anytime they show up, they
can help heavy weapons, they can help you know, a Bravo, Like
we understand radios, you know. So you know I carried the one seventeen,
I had the one fifty two. I could do sat coom and get
sat com up pretty quick, you know, and a lot of times our
radio equipment was you know, a little better than some of the army stuff
that they were running, better than the MARSK guys stuff they had, and
so was able to be you know, pretty capable you know comms guy and
my own right. And so once I showed I could do that, you
know, So the kind of the key to it is you show up and
you kind of assess the situation, like you know, it's kind of like
you figure out who the alphas are, who the decision makers are, who
are the people that are going to have influence, you know, like your
team leaders, your team sergeant, and he's saying, okay, now,
how can I get around them to show them something that they're not expecting,
right, you know. And so that's what I did, Like I kind
of assess that, Okay, you have your you look at every team,
there's always one or two, maybe three or four people that they're they're the
physical guys. They're always in the gym, they're lifting. They just want
lift weights on the appoyments, get jacked, right. So I was like,
okay, well I just went through this pipeline like in pretty good shape.
I'm gonna go work out with them so I can prove that I'm not
just the Air Force to do like I'm fit, like I can lift,
I'm strong, but check that box. Then you see the guy that calms
guy, he was out every day just Tom checks all the time. And
so I just took that upon myself like hey, like go ask questions like
you know who's gonna who's who's your backup? Like you know who's who's second,
and understand what he does, like hey, what what's your problems?
And he's like we have every four we mentioned like I'm the only one that
can load crypto, and I was like, oh man, I got to
kick thirteen. I could load some crypto for you, Like let me jump
on that, like I'll load these these twelve radios for you, no problem,
just like go chill out, and so like you do that. So
like once you impacted all these decision makers, then comes down to the mission
plan, Well where were we going to put the Air Force guy? And
it became a point where it's like I want to like, yeah, I
want him on my element, you know, because they knew that I could
do so many other things, you know, outside of just my mission set.
Now I know that like JATAK is, I mean, it's a very
specific skill set. Those guys are highly trained. But as you as an
Air Force guy dealing with weather and air coming on to these teams, would
they expect you to bring that capability? And is that something that the Air
Force worked in eventually? Yeah, I didn't really get those questions, you
know, a lot as far as you know, bringing air assets, you
know, because everyone all those teams, they had their own j Tech okay
a signed to them, so okay, second deployment they would have an Air
Force controller assigned to the team already, so you know, that was kind
of nice. But in the first deployment of the Marines, they had their
own j Tech, their own air you know, and so they didn't expect
that. One thing that did they come with the expectations when I show up
is maybe getting different mission set, you know. And so my second deployment,
especially like they knew, like when I showed up, like it was
probably for a level two. But then they also want to use me.
Since I'm there, I could get off base sometimes a little easier than what
they could, you know, so if they had restrictions on what they could
do. I remember my second deployment in twenty eleven, the team was having
trouble like really operating, like they were there just to train you know,
commandos or just train you know, the local A and A, and they
wanted to go do something, and I was like, well, like there's
a pretty diverse lotty system. You know, A couple of clicks away,
like we could throw a can up together, I could say, I need
to go assess this lotty system. We could put something in place to kind
of get off base, you know, and so we kind of do some
little stuff like that so that you know, anytime you can do that too
and help them out, you know, that buys you some rapport as well.
Sure, I think it's I think it's important to tell people who are
civilians who have never been out there. I think there's nothing more frustrating when
you're when you're overseas, uh in a combat zone, to be, for
whatever reason, to be stuck on your base a mission, and everybody wants
in the fight. And if you have a mission, or if you have
leadership that is less inclined to let you leave the base, Like you say,
just hav any excuse to go out to get out the fire, maybe
do a little recon by fire. I don't know, right, you know
a reason maybe you know, walk into an a CRP, right, Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, that that's a huge asset. I want to ask
you about your first mission, but first I just want to real quick tell
people out there about our patreon. For folks out there who are interested in
maybe getting these episodes add free, you can subscribe to our Patreon. It's
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But yeah, so please track it out. The link is down the description.
So, Travis, could you tell us a little bit about your first
mission out with more SoC on that first deployment? Yeah, yeah, so
about March of twenty ten, so I'd only been there for maybe roughly a
week. We ended up just going to do like almost a little CRP.
You know. It was supposed to just be one of those little you know,
leave at about two three in the morning, park the the Humbies,
just a couple of clicks away from our objective and we're just going to walk
in, just do a CRP that morning and kind of come back, but
quickly kind of turned you know, a different route here pretty quickly. So
we end up clearing a couple compounds down this valley. And then as we're
moving up the valley, myself, the team leader sniper in some an a
went up on top of a hill to provide overwatch while the team is going
to bound to the next set of compounds. And so this is probably you
know, just before before twilight, you know, the morning Nautical was was
about to feed in and so we're up there and right around that time,
we started taking fire from the compound we're trying to clear. And so as
we're taking fire one one, this is the first time I've been shot at,
uh so, first mission, first deployment, started getting shot at for
the first time. And that distinct crack you here when like rounds are close,
like I remember that, Like it just makes a very distinct crack noise
as it's going over you that you know, we kind of talk about when
I joined the Air Force where I was like, I just want to send
the AC. That was probably moment where I was like, bro, you
just want to set in the fucking AC. How did you find yourself here?
I could have been we right now, I could have been weed.
Yeah, so kind of had that you know, you probably just wasn't more
than just a second or two. But yeah, I remember I had the
saw. So I start firing back at this compound. Well, our sniper
was a little too far over death laid of the hill and so he had
kind of had his head down. We're taking direct fire in the round that
hit the hill and then kind of bounced up into his helmet and he took
an impact to the head. And so I remember the team leader was,
you know, kind of yelling like you know, we have it, you
know, from the shots down. I look over like there's still just you
know, taking shots at it, and he just laying there, lifeless,
and I was like, I remember just having like a second moment of like,
well, I don't know what the fucking suipps to do, you know,
So you know they tell you to shoot back, you know, like
anytime you take casually shoot back, you know, that's option number one.
But too I was like, you know what, like I've got to go
do something. And so I remember I left my little you know hole that
I had dug, you know, my fighting position, and kind of ran
over and grabbed him by the ankles and it kind of pulled him back behind
death laid. So we got enrolled over myself and the team leader had come
over and tried to assess it. I remember had some sheers, so I
took my shears and kind of cut off his kit. So I knew we
were up on top of the hill around carrying like I needed make him lighter.
So I cut his kit off and called over to A and A,
so they took his torso and then I grabbed his feet and we started going
down to the bottom of the hill to meet up with the medic. And
so as we're going down to the bottom of the hill, you know like
over time, you kind of you know, the memory is a little foggy,
but like it was a decent side phill, you know. So going
down, my legs are pretty you know, burnt up and you know grip.
You know, my forearms are pretty smoked, and I remember having like
a thought of like I just need to like take a break for a second,
or I'm going to like fall over and collapse, and kind of had
that mental voice in your head that was like you suck it, like this
is about something bigger than yourself. You'll be fine, you know, kind
of moments. And so we got it down there, and I just remember,
like sheered chaos kind of happening, and when something like that happens,
you you start making decisions that aren't normal, you know, and it's not
like natural. And I remember I'm holding the wound on top of the head,
and like that's what the medics she said, Hey, just hold this
galls here. He made a little doughnut and he's like just hold this.
And he gave me another guy that the task of like I need you to
squeeze an air every five seconds, but he was so distraught he couldn't,
like he wouldn't squeeze the bag. And so I remember the medic being like,
dude, like what the fuck, Like squeeze the bag. And so
I remember just being like you know what, like I got it, Like
I can do this, And so I kind of pushed the other guy off
because he was obviously just kind of like, you know, out of it,
Like you've seen his teammate in that that situation. So did that.
So we're calling in a metavac. Medavac comes to land and you know,
helicopters can't land, you know, anywhere outside of just open field, right,
and so they're like, hey, we're gonna have to throw him on
a stretcher. But met somebody to go transfer them out there. And I
was like, you know, fuck it, like I'm here, like I'll
do it. And so I remember I grabbed a couple two A and as
I took the tors so this time they took the feet and we kind of
ran the uh the litter across the field get the turnover. I gave the
h the airborne medic the vitals and they kind of took off and kind of
ran back. Grabbed my my M four, uh because the the saul was
still at the top of the hill. I remember I put my M four,
you know, in a vehicle that had driven up because I had the
mark nineteen on it, you know, so they were providing SUPRESSI fire.
So I just got in and grabbed my M four and kind of jumped into
the compound and got back into the fight, and uh so we probably fought
a couple more hours, you know, to the point where it just kind
of like nothing drastic happened and just kind of died down. It was kind
of one of those firefights where it's just we fought and they decided they didn't
want to fight more. You know, probably took a couple of casualties,
and I was like, this is enough for us, and so I ended
up walking out. And I remember like walking out, we get you back
to the fob, sitting down, and like guys are kind of walking by
and like your good job, Like good job man, Like you know that
impressed this with what you did. And I had no idea like the impact
of the weight of the situation, you know. And I just remember like
we didn't have a shower. We had a water blower and a water bladder
and a water hose, right, and it was like over top of a
wooden palette with like a tarp around it, Like that was our shower.
So I remember going out there and I had blood all over me and my
gloves were just buddy. I remember just standing there like trying to rinse off,
and you know, and then I had that adrenaline dump right after a
firefight and it's like just exhausted. So I like racked out, and probably
about three or four hours later, I get woken up, you know by
the watch guy and said, hey, we've got a phone call, you
know, and obviously like the Air Force, like they're tracking the mission,
you know, so they knew I was in a tick. They knew,
you know, I was on the ground and everything, and so I answered
the phone and it it's uh, my captain and he was kind of like,
dude, like what's going on? Like how come you send me her
after action? And I'm like, I'm I'm too tired of this. I
don't I just want to go to sleep, and he's like, all right,
would shoot me over an after action report? And so like I remember
like looking at the team lead who was writing up his ar there in the
talk, and I'm like, hey, like can I just like copy your
ears over and send it? Like I just want to go rack out.
So I copied it over. He had kind of written about what had happened
on top of the hill and had rang up and like kind of grabbed him
and stuff, and so I send it go back to sleep when the phone
rings again and was like, holy shit, dude, like hold on a
second, like let's let's take a pause here, like can you give me
some details like what happened, you know from your own words? And like
I'm like, fuck, did these guys just want let me sleep? I
was kind of getting irritated, you know, And turns out like they're just
trying to get information because like you know, or post deployment stuff, you
know, And so I kind of went through that. I was so young
my first mission, my first deployment, Like I had no idea, like
what do you that stuff meant? You know, whenever you're providing those ars,
like you know, and so a couple of weeks ago by, and
like obviously they kind of do their due diligence and provide more and more details
and they start to have, you know, witnesses and you know, accounts
getting you know, pulled in and stuff like that. But but yeah,
that was my first exposure to you know, the deployment was was that that
situation now then? So that didn't come that didn't One of the reasons they're
investigating all that too, is because you actually had people that you were working
with a team and an officer who is trying to do right by you,
correct. Yeah, yeah, like they were trying to figure out the details
to like understand like what did I do? Was their witnesses to see it,
like you know and all that, and so you know, I know,
the medic had written up a citation kind of thing, and the team
leader and you know kind of went through all their due diligence was there.
So uh yeah, But me being young, you look at that, You're
like, well, I don't understand, like what the big deal is.
Like if I was laying there on the ground, right, I would expect
every one of these other dudes to come up and grab right, And so
it wasn't I wouldn't think anything like that, right, And so what was
the result of those ars and the interviews and the citation stuff. Yeah,
so post deployment for that mission specifically, I was awarded a Bronze Star with
Valor h for that one. So uh but yeah, one of those things
that I just did what I thought you were trained to do, right,
Like that's part about being on team, Like that's that brotherhood, you know,
Like it didn't didn't even cross my mind what I was doing you know,
honestly, like you don't understand training, Like when you're going through training,
like you do stuff like that, but you don't understand the impact of
it. And then till you're put in a situation you're like, oh,
that makes sense, Like now I understand. Sometimes the Cadre weren't just being
dicks. Thing like at the end of the training day, you're exhausted,
saying, oh, you know, Dave shot, you got to carry Dave
out to x Phil. You know, like, yeah, they might've been
being dicks, but also like that's there for a purpose, like right,
sometimes you got to do things when you're just exhausted and you just have to
turn your brain off and perform, and so all that stuff just kind of
made sense. So in a moment it kind of felt like that. It
felt like I was just with my team in training and they just said,
you know what, like you have a casualty like move act on it.
So I want to ask you because you said, this is your first firefight,
and at first your initial thoughts was wow, like people are shooting,
I'm hearing these sonic cracks going nearby, and then you know, you do
this heroic thing and then you're the in this prolonged firefight. At what point,
because this is an interesting question about I think soldiers, airman, marines,
but about human the human capacity for adapting. At what point during this
firefight did it go from being your first firefight to just like this is just
what it is. Like we're in this. I'm no longer astounded, I'm
no longer flabbergacid, I'm no longer surprised. This is just normal. When
I left the the little foxhole that I had dug, you know, so
when I made the decision to act, like from then on and some that
point on through any other firefighter had been in, that moment was always just
that. It's like you started seeking the violence to where like during a firefight,
like you didn't have that moment of you know, oh shit or anything
like that. It was you start seeking, you know, and the closer
calls like that wasn't even my closest call, you know, but it's like
those things like when those things happened, like you didn't dwell on it,
Like I probably think about those times more now when I've been out of it
for you know, nineish years than I did whenever I was in it.
You know, I look back on it now and it's like, holy crap,
dude, Like right, you're fortunate, like just a fortunate guy that
it got lucky sometimes, are you saying that it seems more surreal in retrospect
than than it did when you were actually in the moment. One hundred percent,
Yeah, one hundred percent. Like you know times where you know,
around would hit a mud wall right by your head and you don't think about
the moment, like hey, six inches, like I take that on the
nose, but this time it was just a bunch of mud hit me on
the side of the face. You know, things like that where it's like
you kind of shake it off and laugh about it, you know. I
think that was kind of key for some of these guys mentally, was some
of those close calls. You just literally look at it as humorous, you
know, like kind of like you you laugh and kind of smile through the
darkness, you know, And I think that helps guys kind of up with
that when you're down range, like not thinking what could happen, you know,
because I think when you start doing that now you're going to start moving
slower, You're going to start syconizing you can't have that mindset and you want
to You went back to that area with the KANDACT commandos and third Group,
right, yeah, yeah, So I got to mention when I went there,
I was at first, man, this is going to be a deployment.
There's no action, We're not going to do anything. Well, the
summer of twenty ten, Baltimber gob was a pretty hot spot for you know,
ticks and firefights and so we'd have you know commandos coming up, you
know, with with different odas doing missions. So I remember it was right
around my birthdays, right around June. Dad come up and they were going
to run a mission you know, out to where we were at. And
we were the QRS, so we weren't even the primary force on this.
So you know, we were kind of just taking a break, hanging out
on the fob and running QRF and you know, you always have your benefic
bird. You got the the Red Cross bird, which you can't put an
armed force on, but then you got your escort bird, and so we're
like, hey, we can put people on the escort bird. And so
that was gonna be our play was We're gonna throw six guys on the x
coort bird. If they need a QRF to get there first and then we
can just kind of backfill from there. And so I ended up being on
chop one for any QRF. And so they run the mission and they had
a guy standing behind a four wheeler like for cover, which thinking about like
I don't understand what he was trying to do, but took around on the
shin and so had that one had another guy get shot in the shoulder,
and so it got to the point where they called for a QRF and so
we spin up and you know, we kind of talk about those moments of
you know, the pucker moments to supply one of the pucker moments for me
to where you know, it's just kind of like poetic. It was like
kind of written, I'm going back to this place after a few months to
where it was my first firefight. And I get on this helicopter this first
chalk and we're going as you're getting on, like don't be by the door,
like, don't be the guy by the door, right, And so
I remember get on, I'm setting by the door. I'm like, okay,
wait, the pilot just said it's going to be a right door exit,
and so I'm like Okay, well I'm left door, so I'm cool.
Well then they switch it up like hey, I lz, we're actually
going to go out to the left door. And so I'm just in my
head like thinking this is like too perfect, like you know, I can't
can't go out like this. And the door opens up, and I remember
telling the buddy next to me his name was Lucas, and I'm like,
dude, like when we get off, like we just need to bolt like
fifty meters and get down just to get away from this bird. And so
we get off and like we just be line taking knee get down on the
prone and like I look up and like we'd be lying in the wrong direction,
like we had gotten off the bird, and like we found ourselves like
twenty five meters from the rest of the team. So we ended up.
We linked up, and so the Marine's what I loved about him. They
said, screw casts, like they were like the most pushed the fight dudes,
like maybe this team. But we got there and we met up with
the team sergeant with Teamy the ODA, and they kind of gave us the
lay of the land where they're getting fire from, and so we just said,
you know, what like, we're just gonna find them and we're just
gonna like rush them. And so I remember that our element leader was like,
here, what we're gonna do. We're gonna like kind of come down
this valley and just rush through this valley and get on the compound as quick
as possible. And so I'm like all right, And so like the ODEA
they were just gonna lay cover fire for us. And so I remember running
across this field, you know, and trying to get to this compound,
and like rounds are going off around our feet and like we're kind of just
bounding a little bit. And so we're bounding and I'm in the prone position
and I look over in the element leader he's like on a knee with like
rounds going off, and I just remember like thinking, like, dude,
this guy just like doesn't give a shit, like, you know, and
so we kind of just you know, bumb rushes compound and clear it,
you know, and there's only like about two you two guys in it,
and so we kind of clear the compound and you know, from there it
was over, you know, the firefight was over, and you know,
the the oda X field and then we we X filled after that, so
I ended up you know, kind of funny that I got an Accommendation medal
for valor for that one, which is weird to get a V device on
a calm medal. But uh yeah, so that was getting off the helicopter
was definitely a little pucker moment. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I didn't
even know that there were VY devices on comm on common ribbons until recently.
I had never heard of that, but it's it's been a thing for a
long time. Yeah, yeah, so I got that, but uh yeah,
I mean, gosh, that was such a good, good deployment,
got into so many, you know, good firefights. You that familiar with
Yuri Miller. Have you heard of Ury Miller? No? I have not
Ury Miller. No. So he was a controller. He's got a silver
Star, a combat and or silver stars. So he was with I believe
a team out of Port Lewis and they came and we did like a big
level two and that was a gigantic firefight and getting a silver star Light day.
But that one, we're in phil and I remember being on an m
RAP before I got off, and so I was with an element that was
going to watch a couple bridges there in Balambar Valve that like the Taliban would
always try to flank from. And so we were kind of up on a
hill and so I got off this m rap with the Element. Immediately after
getting off the m rap hit an ID and so instantly back at Boggering or
wherever, like the Air Force talk was like it's going out that, you
know, my vehicle was hit with an IED, right, And so my
buddies in country, like they're kind of talking on the chat channel. I,
Hey, you're heard from SD, Like you're heard from SD, Like
I think he's still out there, you know, kind of thing going on.
But we'd get on and so we're kind of we get into a little
tick. You know. I remember they were shooting from us from a mosque,
which yeah, like all these rules we talk about that range they strike
targets, yeah, and so we start taking fire. So we get into
this little compound and we're kind of just monitoring me the A and A with
us. A and a's monitoring their little two A radio. Well, all
of a sudden, like the A and A just start packing their stuff up,
and we're like kind of it's just myself three Marstot guys and an army
guy that was with us. They start packing this stuff up, and I
remember we go over like hey, what's going on and they're like, hey,
we just we heard the Taliban sending like fifty people, you know,
fifty fighters to our location, like we're not going to stay here, and
we're like you have to stay here, like you don't have a choice,
and they're like, no, we're leaving. And we were with a walking
distance to the five So that's how close you know, green space, white
space, you know, we were. And so they climbed out of a
hole in the back of the compound and walked back to the fob and left
us. And so like we're there, like we can't just leave, like
we're you know, protecting the you know, flank side of the other you
know, clearing you know, unit. And so we all just picked a
corner in this compound and we're just like, you know what, like if
they're coming, like they're coming, that's just the way it's going to be,
you know. So you kind of have a kind of moment to where
it's like, hey, like this this is the way it's going to end,
Like this is what we're going to do and this is our plan,
and you know, we kind of talked what we're going to do if that
time came. But that's where like my radio comes, you know, kind
of background came into play. It was like, you know what, like
I can get sat Com up, and so I got on Sat one oh
two, made a call back to bog Room just to let them know the
situation, asked them to relay to the j Tack because we were out of
line of sight. I couldn't reach him by line of sight. I was
like, relay to the j tack the situation like, we don't have any
A and A, it's just us. Can you put a sensor on us,
you know and kind of let us know how we can prepare. And
so we kind of worked out columns that way, and so we talk about,
you know, how can you impact a mission outside of weather. Having
that Tom's background helped us, you know, to survive that situation. What
was this the same mission where you walked in on the Taliban lookout towers or
was that different? Yeah, so this is a completely different one. You
know, So that that whole deployment was just filled with stuff. So yeah,
that mission there there was a couple of lookout towers that we're gonna walk
to at night, and so we left the fob, walked down. You
know, we had our security element, so I was part of like the
the direct action for us. So we kind of walked in and we just
kind of set up along this wall and just it was kind of like a
hard to three minutes of just heavy fire and then that was it, and
then we'd walk back, you know, and it kind of got them.
You know, I think we killed like two guys on that mission, but
it turned into they started shooting at each other, and you know, so
you're just sitting there under mvgs like kind of watching them panic and shooting at
each other and try to figure out where it was coming from. So we
walked back through the fob that night. And what was funny is the next
day, the Taliban has their own associated press, right, and so we
are kind of picking up some of these these news articles. Apparently that night
I must have got a combat jump in because the Taliban was saying that like
we had jumped down behind enemy lines, we had you know, had a
coordinated attack on the tower and all this stuff. But we actually just walked
there but the whole point of that mission was to just create some you know,
fear amongst them, which is where now like they didn't want to keep
guys there, Like you know that the watchmen were refusing to stay there in
the watch tower overnight because they were afraid it was going to happen to them.
You you talked about a couple of times where you thought where you thought
in a way that the end is nigh right, And we can talk about
when you're in an exposed firefight and that you're just operating on you know,
on reflex, but when you're in a lead vehicle driving down a road that
you think is like full of IDs, when you're in a helicopter that you
think is under fire and you're coming out that door, when you're sitting there
in a compound, you know, with a handful of guys and you think
fifty A and A are coming in your position, Like those are the times
it's sort of like reminds me of sort of like the imagery of D Day
when guys are coming off the landing craft knowing that these German positions are focused
on them. How is that different? How is that anticipation of violence and
the anticipation of harm to you different than the actual act of being in a
firefight, where you feel like you may or may not have you may have
a little bit more control over this situation. Yeah, yeah, I think
once you're actually in it and you have control. Like that's where like that
we talk about training, you talk about some of the most I don't say
impactful, but like the highest level training you can get, Like the amount
of money that the military puts into us to to trains those situations. It's
money spent, you know well because like it just you drop it in training
mode, I think is when you're not active, Like that's where the mind
starts to kind of race and kind of take off. You know. So
when you combat that, you know some self talk. You know, I'm
not sure if you're big on self talk where it's just like kind of those
moments where like you're waiting and it's like you have to remind yourself who you
are, you know, where you've been, what you've done. You know.
So I did a lot of that. You know. Sometimes you gota
pump yourself up. I remember like telling myself like uh, sometimes like going
into it, like the remember the movie jar Head to where like Jamie Fox
was like, you know, kind of recite as I walked through the valley
shower, does I feel no evil because I'm the badest motherfucker on the bass
field, on the battlefield. Just stuff like that they kind of get your
like you have to have that kind of mindset, you know, going into
it. So it's like kind of like that prep you know, kind of
talk, you know, whether you're you know, prepping just to push off.
You know. I think that's kind of like the most tense moments when
you're sitting there and like you're supposed to be getting three hours of sleep,
but one you know where you're going, you know, going into nervestan.
I was like that, right, you know, just knowing the history of
nervestan and how you know, traditionally it produces some pretty heavy, intense firefights.
You know, I should have been sleeping, but I was more or
less just sitting there going over scenarios in my head. You know, if
this happens, I do this, if this happened, Like just constantly playing
in my mind what could potentially happen, and those moments that are right at
the edge, like I said, like being in the left opening door,
you know, it were coming off a tail ramp by a helicopter when you're
expecting him an enemy fire. Did you find yourself engaging with self talk?
Did you find yourself just like shutting down, just like like just shutting down
completely and just engaging in the mission? Yeah, just quiet, Like the
brain just kind of goes into like a silent mode, you know, and
like that's why, you know, sometimes it's hard to remember, you know,
some of these small minute details because you're in that you've kind of just
gone blank to what's natural, right, you know, an ability to kind
of turn that on and turn that off. And you know, you kind
of talk about veterans and you know that mental aspect of you know what veterans
go through. I think sometimes it's coping with that. You know, the
guys that come off team for so long that they're so used to going to
that to that zone they do that in the civilian world or this this life
where they don't have to, and kind of get yourself into some some sticky
situations and trouble and it kind of that's down the bad road. Yeah.
It's interesting because you know, we've talked a lot on the show about you
know, being in that moment when you're the aggressor or when you're being aggressed
upon. But there's a totally different mindset, like I said, like when
we look at the veterans in World War Two coming off those landing vehicles,
they weren't gonna shoot anybody from the landing vehicle, right like they were.
They were just there to survive getting off the landing vehicle. And you mentioned
it talk about the helicopter, like you have no control whether you get off
that helicopter or not is up to whether some dage, you know, some
taliban has a PK trained on that door as you're getting off. And those
are moments that I think, I feel like are a lot harder for veterans
to deal with in hindsight than the moments when you've got your gun up and
you have a chance to actually fight. Now. Yeah, yeah, for
sure. Like I said, those those you start thinking of those poetic ending
moments, you know, before you kind of go into that blank stare.
You know. I don't know if you guys, did you guys see a
lot of guys yawning too. Yeah, Like I think that was the koping
mechanism. Yeah, sleeping sleeping before the mission or trying to. Yeah,
and and and the yawning. I think whyn't really really distress, but too
it's I think it's also like indicative indicative of them disassociating from the RAM from
the actual effects. It's like I'm bored, Like they've convinced themselves. We
convinced ourselves that it's no big deal, nothing, right, yeah, right,
right, yeah, yeah. Can can we talk about your your second
deployment to Afghanistan and how that differed from the first one. Yeah, So
the first one, I kind of live with the team the entire time,
So the second one was vastly different. So I was, you know,
based out of Bogram, you know there, and so what I did was
I only really supported like level two missions, you know. So as you
know, the six months kind of went on, we had missions throughout the
country. They'd look and say, okay, we have these assets, let's
go place them for these certain missions. And so that was a difficult deployment
in the sense that I didn't have that time to build the poor with a
team, you know. So you know I talk about going to neurostand.
I remember I was about to go home, like I was about to rotate
out, and I was within, you know, a couple of weeks of
leaving, you know, and like, hey, we're going to send you
the nerves stand for a few weeks and I show up and I remember the
ODA just kind of being like why you're here, Like what are you going
to do? And you have to go through the It was like every few
weeks, I was having to explain myself the story over and over again,
versus like when you're living with them, you know, a team, you
do it once in your end. I was having to do it every single
mission. So that was the frustrating part, was like you didn't feel like
you really belonged to a team on that one. You know, you were
just trying to You're just like a hiring guy that shows up and then you
leave after things you know, finished, and you're not there to clean up
being that mess kind of thing, you know, and that that kind of
sucked, you know, And so while you're there trying to just build rapport
as much you can, create some contacts, you know, and try to
stay in touch with guys, you know, after you leave in case maybe
something yes second mission or something, you go out there, you know and
so you try to stay in contact with them and bring gifts, you know,
So I always i'd always bring tobacco, uh from Bogram, you know,
try to try to bring you some things like hey, I'm thinking about
you guys, and I know I got it good. I'm sleeping in Bogram,
you know some days. So we'd try to just kind of buy my
way in at some points, which which can be really effective, like showing
up with a bunch of school or like will go a long way. Yeah,
yeah, And so those those those missions too, as you show up
and you know they have their their level too, but you're there a few
weeks and so they start thinking, well, how else can we employ you?
And we talked a little bit earlier, but as I kind of asked
to jump in this rubber duck and fully across the river. And so I
had like a little a sonar sensor that could give me depth recordings across the
river. And so the goal was to pull me across, I take recordings.
Well, essentially I can then build an underwater profile of subsurface. So
if I know that, now I understand, you know, if I'm going
to build a bridge where I can put some supports and things like that.
So hey, like, can you do this for me, CAU if I
can build a bridge that allows us to extend the green zone and kind of
bring some more people in and build some rapport with the locals. And I'm
like, Okay, well, what's on the other side of the river now,
And they're like, yeah, we don't know what's on right now,
you know, And I'm like, God, like this this is a good
idea. Like I'm not sure if it's a good idea, you know,
And it's like sure, man, you'll be fine, Like you'll be fine,
you know. And you know, you're kind of doing like these kind
of weird out of the box type type scenarios there just to all right,
man, we'll we'll run it and kind of see what happens. So,
but that one not near as impactful when it comes to take like firefights and
takes and stuff. You know. We got in one in neurostand one other
small one, you know, take some pot shots, but it wasn't fight
as intense as that first one. Could you tell us about the operation where
you in place the environmental sensor for avalanches? Yeah? Yeah, And so
we kind of bring this all kind of full circle where we talked earlier about
style tees bringing in that environmental peace, and so you know, in between
missions there at Bogram, you know where you're thinking, how else can we
be impactful will the conventional Army was running resupply routes through the Salang Pass to
go up and resupply some of the fobs to the north there. Well,
in the wintertime, the Slang Pass has the most avalanches of anywhere else in
the world, Like it's just a heavy avalanche zone, and so most of
us were avalanche certifies. So we start thinking like, well, if I
can understand the temperatures and the gradients of the snowpack, I should be able
to at least give a fairly accurate estimate of that snowpack could slide or not.
And so I remember we contacted a company out of Texas to build like
this forty five foot tower that had these sensors on it that as it snowed
up temperatures, I'm getting ground readings and things like that. So they get
it shipped over and I'm pretty positive that like this is probably some dudes in
the garage like welding this thing together, like you know, and we get
it. We put together, and so we throw it on a trailer and
just drive it up, you know, into the mountains, and it's kind
of crazy, like here we are like just putting this tower up, and
then we connect it via GPS and then take it back to Bogram and then
we give the conventional weather you know HQ there and say hey, like log
in here and now you guys can actually get readings here and then you can
use us once the snowpack comes, will kind of help you understand what you're
looking at, you know. And so that was kind of a weird mission,
crazy mission, you know, and the fact that we're putting this tower
up and it's like it almost like looks like Ewajima, but it's a bunch
of weather guys putting up an avalanche sensor. You know, it's really kind
of walking it up. So did it did it work? Yeah? Yeah,
so it worked, and you know it it was cool too because it
gave me a chance to kind of I take the turp and kind of went
into a couple of different like little entities there up in the mountains too.
Because the Afghans they had their own weathermen, like they have you know,
their trained weatherman. They have people up there that are doing observations and stuff,
and so it allowed me to kind of walk in there with the turp
and like kind of figure out some of that historical type data, you know
that's helping the conventional guys. So I kind of took that back and it
say, hey, here's some notes they gave me about how they're they're forecasting
up in the mountains. You know, if you ever, you know,
have any conventional guys going to drive up to there out of curiousity because you
mentioned that you were part of this sort of this nascent or baby Special Operations
whether program right before there was a pipeline, before they really knew what their
value added was going to be your first apployment. You get a bronze star
with Valor, then you go back home. How how do you see during
this time? How do you see the SOWT training change, their mission profile
change? Did they come to you about stuff about what do we need to
do to bring value added? How does all that working out on the back
end? Yeah, when I got back, I mean it was it was
constant as far as like commanders wanted to talk to you, you know,
squadron commanders from the sts wanted to talk to you. You know. That
was not that I had a problem with it, Like I didn't mind sharing
the story and like my after action, but it was like almost like exhausting
sometimes because you became the person there was like anytime there was like talk about
medical stuff. Since I was involved in a heavy situation that involved medical training,
Hey, what's sure? You know, what do you think about going
to this medical school? Like what do you think about doing this for this
next rotation? And you know, you start getting asked these things and you're
like, I mean, I'm just a staff sergeant here, like I you
know, I give you an opinion, but I'm not saying I got the
right answers. But they use that a lot, so they you know,
sou Key's. We went to a lot of good medical training, especially out
in Vegas. You know, I feel like I'm shouting out of these schools
like I might not expect to check back. But Joint Tactical Medicine, which
is out in Vegas, was an awesome course one because not from the medical
side, but also like they'd hire you know, some some op for to
come in. They owned a mountain with some steel on it, so they
had a downed hel so you could run a full mission profile out of there,
and like, I learned so much when it comes to trauma just from
that school. You know, it's like we're not pj's by by no means,
right, you know, battlefield trauma like I was, I was fairly
good. But so at what point are they trying to basically turn you guys
into a many PG, many C C T like many like there are they
trying to make you jacks of all trades? Do do they lose mission focus
or do they Are they trying to find a spot for you? Yeah,
I think that's where they're at now. Actually, you know, I think
you know now they're I think that's as SoC in general, you know,
like Afghanistan is don't happen anymore. Like so now J tech missions aren't the
same, Like everybody's kind of looking for what's the next thing going to be?
And so I think that's why they shifted to this reconstance piece, because
not only is it physical you know constants, it's you know, cyber reconnaissance,
you know, so they're getting trainings when it comes to cyber stuff and
you know the stuff that I'd never had any exposure to you know, so
I think everybody's trying to find that that next niche of what we're going to
own, you know, on on the battlefield here and where we currently are
in the in the current situation. I think that's a smart move, Like
they're they're looking for the new the new battlefield and trying to you know,
become experts in a field that's going to be you know relevant. There are
there any more weather technicians, I mean, are they do the guys still
go to the meteorological school and nope, Nope, they don't even go to
the school anymore. They'll go to like an observer school, Like they'll become
like observer certified, but it's not as an intense like you're not you know,
that's not your primary focus anymore, you know, Like, so you
have the capability, but that's that's not your primary Well, one more deployment
story. You talked about Neuristan a time where there was a low ceiling that
might have limited air coverage, and I was wondering if you could talk a
little bit about that because I think that lends a little bit more insight into
into this career field. Yeah, so, you know, for that mission.
You know, we kind of talked about sometimes you hit it and sometimes
you don't. You know, it's a zero to hero, and so we'd
kind of you know, infilled in a stand and we'd been on target for
you know, six ish hours or so, and we had cast. So
we had a one thirty overhead and we were in an active tick and some
ceilings rolled in to where the one thirty. You know, some of the
other assets were starting to want to push off because they just couldn't see anything,
and so we had to kind of make a call of one, we
want to keep them on station a little bit longer to see if the ceilings
pass. And two houses going to affect our expill, you know, because
we were down in a valley. The valley was going to fill up with
fog potentially, and so I had to kind of make a call there on
the ground. So we you know, that was probably one of the few
times where I got to just do traditional weather kind of forecasting, you know.
So it's like I'm understanding, you know, where the predominant wind flows
from. I'm understanding, is am I getting upflow up draft where this is
going to stay? Or am I getting this across the mountain, it's going
to create some downdraft where it's going to dissipate or push off. And so
I made the call like, hey, like we're good. We're probably got
about a thirty minute window here before we start to clear out again. You
know, it's kind of made that call. So I'm communicating that to the
combat controller and the jay talk on the ground, who's communicating to the air
asset, and so kind of made that decision, and you know, it
kind of worked out in my favor. I looked smart, you know there
in the moment, and you know, thankful for that. And you know,
I just had to carry that heavy rock that that wasn't wet that night
because it wasn't raining in my and my website and what was the uh next
assignment for you after that deployment. Yeah, so I got back there in
twenty eleven, going into twenty twelve, I got assigned to go being an
instructor at the STTS, so go back to the five level school. So
when I got there, obviously had these two really recent deployments, you know,
with a lot of relevancy when it comes to the school with the whole
mission profile. You know peace, so you know, got assigned to the
back portion of training. You know, so like the school set up to
where we got pre dive, they got you know, uh one, two
and three, and so I was like O r T, which is like
basically operational readiness training. So like you've you've gone through all like the basic
stuff, like you understand how to do stuff. Now let's go put it
all together. So you have like a mock fob, we're running full mission
profiles, like we're understanding like small unit tactics like how to take down a
compound, and you're going through CQB stuff. And so that was the focus
for my last you know, probably three years was you know, teaching that.
And you know, when you're doing that one, you're just rehearsing all
this stuff, you know, but you're also learning more and more. You
know, You're you're getting different perspectives come in. You know, you work
with combat controllers and pjs and like you're you're understanding everybody's you know, value
on the X and understanding different perspectives. So even though I might have done
it a certain way with you know, the Marsac team or or whatever,
like they do it differently with the ODA and so, you know, operation
wise, like I felt like I got better, but I got to a
point there towards the end to where I looked at like my career and I
started having to think about career moves from there. And so after about eleven
years, I realized, like, you know what, all the fun stuff
I was probably done, you know, like there was a new crop behind
me that we're going to get the good you know spots at fobs, Like
I was going to be more of that admin eye roll, and I just
didn't know if I wanted to do that. You know. It's kind of
to a point where it's like I feel like I'd gotten if you asked,
like guys, like what do you want on your career, Like as far
as like action wise, like I feel like I've filled that bucket. You
know, Like there's some guys that go to their whole career just wanting to
get into you know, one firefighter, do one certain thing. And it's
like I got to do that, and I didn't think it was going to
have a chance to do any more of it, you know, so it's
just kind of time to go. My son was about to be born and
we start talking about those those moments where you're sitting there thinking to yourself,
like it was harder and harder to turn on that that blank stare. You
know. I remember doing a free fall and kind of climbing the altitude and
started thinking about what happened, like parachute doesn't open, Like what's you know,
got a son at home now, you know, and started having those
kind of thoughts and like when that happened was like I just I was done,
Like I was ready to go, ready to move on with life.
You know this this chapter is over, And what was that transition process?
Like? And where did you kind of land after after the Air Force?
Yeah, so it kind of serendipitous the way it happened. Like I didn't
have a plant, Like I was going to go to school, max out
my gi bill, finished my undergrad and just kind of figure it out.
Two weeks before I left, I got called into an instructor's office. He
was a GS employee, he's a prior PJ, and the Air Force was
get ready to contract the Special Operations develop on a program. You know,
they were going to bring guys that had just separated on and then train recruits.
They're getting ready to go to assessment selections, like your primary purpose is
to one help them get in shape, but two just help them mentally,
like understand the weight of what they're trying to do, you know, and
kind of talk to them through that process, like how to survive certain situations
mentally. And so they called me and obvious say, hey, there's a
contract out for this. I don't know what company is going to win it,
but they're going to be looking for guys to kind of fill these thlots,
you know. And I have a contact at one company if you want
me to put in a word, you know, and it paid fairly well.
And and I'll say that sounds like a pretty easy job, Like I
could do that, like give a couple of past tests and run some development
sessions. And so what I did was I jumped on LinkedIn. I contacted
that content. But I also found out the other three companies that were in
the running, and I contacted all three and basically like position myself with a
very smart yeah, so whoever won, Like I had a job, you
know, so this contract in the company a one. They called me up
a couple of days later, like, hey, we got the job in
Kansas City if you want. And I was like, sure, I'll be
up there like in a week ready to start, and uh kind of that's
the way it worked. And so I did that for seven years and finish
my undergrad while I was doing it. I got my MBA also while I
was doing it, So it was a perfect for me, like to raise
a young family, finish school professionally, and kind of got to a point
where say, okay, like now it's time to like now grow professionally,
Like I need to go beyond this contracting gig. And that's why I reached
out and my buddy Zach, who you know, is an account executive,
and you know, I wanted to understand business just finish my NBA. So
I was like, I want to get into business, and what better way
to understand business than to understand how to generate revenue, you know, And
so I kind of contact him and he was, you know, I was
kind of unsure if like that's the route I wanted to go, and he
was like, dude, like sale, and what I do is so much
what we did in the military. So he was a combat controller and he's
like, imagine like you show up on a FOB and you have to build
report instantly and show value. He's like, that's selling. He's like,
you have, you know, a solution to a problem. You help them
solve problems, you know. And he's like, and then you build report.
What you're doing it you already notice. Yeah, And so I just
had to think of it. It just a little different way, and you
know, kind of broke in as an account executive, like never was an
SDR, never was BDR, and you know, kind of figured it out,
you know, and kind of put the things I knew from the military,
the things I had learned throughout my life, and kind of put it
into action. And you know, that's the one thing I will say about
military is, you know, one there's so many things that you learned,
but you just there's not names for them in the military, right, It's
just become second nature, right, And so you learn this stuff and you
just realize that's not common. And then too, like the military does a
great job of like making you believe you're only worth a certain dollar amount,
right, Right, So you're you're at E seven, you could be the
best EAT seven there is on the planet. You're going to get paid as
all the other E sevens right, you know, and so you believe you're
only worth a certain amount, you know, and so like making this transition
and like changing your compensation. It's like eye opening because you're like, wow,
like you do have the skills to do this, like transitioning military members
like you know, hopefully you know, if somebody was listening to this transitioning
and want to just talk transition, like I'm always open to do that,
you know, helping them navigate that, like how to look at it,
how to navigate the market, you know, how to break in, like
I broke into where I'm at, like I said, with no SD like
no experience, like I never sold a thing in my life, you know,
and I broke in as an account executive and selling you know, software,
and it's not very common, you know, but I think you go
to it with a certain approach. And you know, Zach was you know,
good to me and giving me a good playbook and helping me. And
hopefully I'm able to help a few other people kind of do that, you
know, guys that are are looking to do something. And it's interesting because
obviously when you're in the military, like building rapport, uh, you know,
so you can do your job. It's not a metric, right,
it's not something that goes on your review, on your like n list of
review, your evaluation, whatever you're you know, but I know that,
like Jack mentions when he was leaving the military as a former ranger and SF
like the career council said, you'll make a good security and it's a lot
of yeah, And it's a lot of these intangibles that that you build in
this community and in the military in general, but particularly in this community.
Like you sat there and sold your position. You built value, right,
you show up as as a weatherman, as a weather technician, and people
are like, well, like the operators and you, but you find the
places where you can add value and you focus on that, and you know,
it's it's a very interesting idea in the uh. You know, in
the work in the realm of veteran transition, the veterans don't have any appreciation
at all a lot of times for what skills they actually developed that you can't
code onto a resume or onto a you know that the career counselor is going
to be able to point out for you just the coping, you know,
like this, your ability to adapt to situations and like control the controllable,
Like how many times, like you're in the military, like that's just what
you do, Like right, all the times you think of like the things
you didn't control, we're that's just the way it is, Like you can
move on about your life. That's not like people aren't like that, right,
you know, And it's something that's sometimes it's hard to teach, and
so I think having that level mindset, having that you know, what we're
doing doesn't have that much weight, right, Like I've done stuff with a
lot of weight, Like my life's on the line, Like I'm setting in
this office right now, this is where I work from home, and it's
like this, yeah it's important, like I want to do well, but
nobody's life is in danger right now, you know. And having that ability
to just remain calmer, it's like other people that kind of freak out and
like the moment gets bigger than it needs to be, you know. So
I think that's an asset like these you know, military members and veterans need
to remember that, you know. It's like some of that stuff like you
can't teach, Yeah, you got it. How how do you manage that
in the civilian world, and that when you say that, you know the
consequences aren't the same, right, But then you're dealing with civilians who you
know, the hair is on fire because they feel like these consequences are the
same. How do you manage that without telling them to like shut the fuck
up. You don't know what you're talking about, Like nothing here is real,
because to them it is. How do you balance that with your previous
experience and knowing that breathe through this and and everything will be okay because nobody's
gonna die regards what happens in this environment. Yeah, yeah, obviously not
going to tell them, you know what you're truly thinking, probably in your
right. But I think it's that unwavering tone, you know, tonality in
your voice, Like sometimes that's all it takes. Is like they're talking up
here at a high level, and it's like it just they just need an
unwavering tone of like let's take a breath, like we're okay. Reassurance,
you know, sometimes helps a lot, you know, to helps them kind
of reset, you know. And that's an area where I think I'm thankful
to where I was at where it's sprout social as I get to kind of
help you know, some individuals like that that you know, start to worry
about performance, start to worry about things like that, they're just sometimes out
of the control and us to help help them reset, you know. So
it's like I'm almost I'm going back to those weather days where I'm finding the
value outside of my day to day job. Like, yeah, my day
to day is to sell a product, but you know, the other things
that I bring to a team, you know, is to share that experience
and kind of help reps calm and chill out. But yeah, uh,
never getting too high and never get too low, you know kind of thing,
and I think you bring that and it's just contagious. Yeah, Travis
Man, this has been like an awesome interview, and I really appreciate you
coming on the show tonight or any like final thoughts or anything anything of that
I failed to cover or anything I failed to ask that you'd really like to
hit up before we go. No, No, I really appreciate it.
You know, if I could leave it, you know, any part of
words, I think it's just around that transition for veterans, like you know,
just want to advocate for that, like if there's you know, ever,
anything I can do where people want to reach out to me just to
talk about it, transitioning, anything I do to help them, you know,
always going to be a veteran advocate for that and you know, try
to help them any way I can. Just try to give back to the
community, you know. Again, want to also shout out some of the
teams I was on, you know, that Marsoff team. You know,
I don't have any products, but Michael Golobleski, you know, wrote two
books about that, you know, so if you want to check those out,
support Michael. Uh. Those books are called Level Zero Heroes and a
Dagger two too, so it's a two book collection, you know, So
shout out him, you know. But uh, you know, just all
all the guys that were there, and you know, men and women,
you know kind of understand those those everyday trials and tribulations should go through.
You know, everybody's had their ups and downs, and you know, want
to let everybody know like you're not alone, you know, like kind of
fight some of this epidemic of veteran suicide things like that, like check on
your battle buddy, things like that. So I just want to you know,
really highlight that and just leave it at that, like, let's let's
all put our arms around each other, like rolling this together. Any websites,
social media or anything you want to plug before we roll out? Yeah,
So, you know, if you're looking to join the Air Force,
uh, specifically to go into ass SoC you know, be a combat controller,
pair of rescue and TACPE special reconnaissance. Great podcast out there called ones
Ready, you know, so shout out to Trent Siegmiller Fires Out Getting Ready
to Retire. You know, he's running that podcast where they do a great
job describing to candidates how they can prepare for the pipeline, what the pipeline's
like. You know. So if you're in that position where you're just thinking
about doing that, I at least suggest you you pop over there to Ones
Ready and give them So that's that's Ones Ready on YouTube and the podcast platforms
yep. And then what's his name again, Trent sig Miller. Okay,
great, And I want to give a quick shout out myself to uh Costa
Carabeo Cigars, my preferred cigars that I'm often spoken on this program. UH
dot com it's where you can go to get them. Awesome company. Travis,
thank you so much for joining us tonight. Yeah. I appreciate it,
and you know, I had a good time. Next time I have
to, you know, get a good little sip like you guys are having,
and maybe we can do it live and in person. Come down here,
man, You're welcome anytime we have a cigar and a drink with us.
Yeah. Absolutely, more than more than welcome. Yeah, what what's
up? Second? Wait, is this patron or Okay, all right,
we got a viewer question. Scott g asks do you, uh, do
you utilize statistics, hourly data or machine learning at all to pretict the weather?
Yeah? Uh, you know, definitely those traditional forecasters are going to
be using you know a lot of data and analytics. You know, they'll
they'll do that you know, simulated forecast, but also rely a lot on
a a skew. Uh, you know, the weather balloons. I don't
know if you guys ever seen like the old joke of like the weather guy
with the red balloon, right, try to get that that rising atmospheric you
know, so a lot of different things that used the forecast. But yeah,
traditional guys definitely would use you know, data analytics, a lot of
AI things like that, all right, we got one more. Okay,
so I think we have one more. We have one more. What's that?
We have one more question? We have one more question. Any thoughts
on the concept of generating value through presence? Wow? Okay, that's deep.
Yeah right, uh, talk about a heavy one. I think when
you create the value, you present like you think about this concept. I
think how we kind of ended the show here, we talked about that unwavering
kind of tonality. I think you look at leadership. You look at all
the great leaders, like none of them ever got too high, and they
never got too low, you know, they always remained the same. Whether
it's like you know, I think of like all the battlefield leaders are I
was around, you know when when I'm in the midst of like that the
most intense firefight, you didn't see pain, like the eyes and like the
tonality and their voice never changed. And so I think when you think about
presence, that's how I would envision you know, that question, like how
you can create presence? Just you know, and and yeah, I'm kind
of going off on a tangent there, but oh, you're right now,
right, we've talked, Yeah, we we've we've talked about this both with
officers, uh, and also we've talked about j tax and CCTs and how
no matter how uh dire the situation was, how when they're talking on the
radio, you would never know that they weren't sitting in a park on a
Sunday afternoon, that that that maintaining that presence. We absolutely understand what you're
saying. Yeah, yeah, can you believe that You listen to some of
those recordings and it's it's surreal because yeah, you would you described it perfectly
like they could just be sitting in a park chilling pet and their dog.
Yeah, like they're in the most intense firefight, uh that you can imagine.
Yeah, And and it does a lot one you know it. And
it's the same with an officer or senior enlisted. My panic is contained when
they're maintaining that, Like it's it's sort of a medic, right, whether
somebody's calm or somebody's panicked, it influences everybody around them. And to have
that level to bring it down, to be able to maintain that sort of
cadence and and the I guess security and sincerity people glom onto that. Yeah,
like you know, kind of going down the same you know path.
Here we talk about culture, you know, we talk about how things are
contagious, like how that's contagious. I think another thing is like the trust.
You know, we talk about the veteran community, like what you bring,
you know. I think that the basis of a good culture, you
know, the baseline is trust. And I look back of what was your
ar room book, like after action room, like after a mission, right
the door shuts. There wasn't rank at all, Like you're free to call
out what you want to call out. Sometimes you take harsh criticism, sometimes
you take praise, but you never left the room being like Dave, I
can't believe Dave said that about me, right right? It was an open
forum, and I think that's missing sometimes. And a lot of like non
military cultures, is like everybody's too scared to say what they feel, right,
And you get a lot of water cooler talk right right, You're in
a meeting and you know you don't like what you hear, but instead of
saying anything, you're going to wait and go to the water cooler and you're
gonna chat with yours and saying why would have? Yeah? And I think
if we were less afraid of hurting feelings and getting our feelings hurt, we'd
probably produce a lot more high performing cultures outside of the military. I think
that's extremely true. I mean yeah, yeah, So, uh, this
Friday, we're gonna have Lewis Rudeah on the show. C I a case
officer who is I believe chief of ops in Iraq. And uh, Travis,
thank you so much for joining us tonight. Yeah, thanks for Friday
with us. We deeply appreciate it. Yeah, Monday, Yeah, ship
Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Yeah, we're always thanks thanks for spending your
Wednesday with us. I'm I'm fucked up. Yeah no, really, thank
you, Travis. Thank you for sharing your insights into this, uh,
this career field that is often misunderstood and not really covered in these types of
podcasts. These vet bro podcasts don't necessarily talk about the support guys, and
I think that's to our detriment. So well, not even support, like
your your your direct action in your own way. Yeah yeah, he did
become that absolutely enabler two, you know, to like what's to what's happening?
I mean, like you're not support when you're pulling somebody off off a
hill because they've been shot, you know, right, yeah, I appreciate
it, fellos, And you know, it was a pleasure and honored to
be here. And you know, anytime you want to chat to see me
up right, Well, we'll talk to you next time. Let us know
if you're coming through the city. Would be happy to have you here.
Absolutely, cheers fell us, all right, take care man, thanks all ready.