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I the Team House with your Hopes, Jack Murphy and David Bark Murfey here
with Dave Park. Our guest on today's show is Jay Dorlias. He served
in third Special Forces Group before that was Conventional Engineer, served as a Special
Forces Engineer and then a team sergeant in Third Group with deployments to Afghanistan Iraq.
Jay also runs a YouTube channel called The Green Beret Chronicles. Go take
a look at that. And Jay, thanks for coming in studio, man
of course, Man, of course, I appreciate you guys having me.
All right, So I'm looking forward to this. Yeah, so are one
of the few Green Burray podcasts out there, you know what I mean.
So I'm really happy to be in here. And you're originally from Brooklyn,
right, Yeah, So I was originally born in Haiti, but when I
was ten, we moved here, right, So I grew up Crown Heights
area, moved out of there, went towards Brownsville, spent some time down
there, and then KNARSI prior to joining the military in two thousand and three.
So, so what what inspired you to join the military. As you
know, there's not too many people from you know, where we're from in
New York where either where either of us are from that end up joining the
military. So for me, so I was one out of eight kids,
right, so you know, growing up in New York, city. Man,
Like, there wasn't a lot of opportunities. I was a horrible student,
and for me it was a way out right. I can sit here
and say, hey, I was patriotic. I wanted to go do you
know my part for you know God in country. But for me it was
just hey, like, mom and dad has seven other kids to worry about.
I'm of age, I'm becoming my own man, I need to go
find something else to do. And after high school, like, high school
was easy, but college was a different beast, right, So I got
good grades in high school. My guidance counselor was like, hey, you're
really smart, why don't you go to college? So I was like fine,
I went to City College in Harlem and then, dude, that was
horrible. Teachers didn't really the teachers don't care in college, right, They
get up there, they give you their lecture and you either listen or you
don't. They getting paid out of the way I was supposed to. High
school, my teachers were getting after me. They were like, hey,
get your homework done, turn it in, I'm gonna call your mom.
I'm gonna do this. College he was like, hey, man, you
want to come here and slept, sure, go ahead, like I don't
care. And that's what I did. Like I show up to English one
on one and I just fell asleep and the professor would wake me up just
in time to leave. So horrible grades. But I was small enough to
realize at a very early age, like, hey, college isn't gonna work.
So instead of doing what most kids nowadays do and just change majors and
just keep uh forcing it down and death throat to try to make it work,
I just left. I was like, you know what, college isn't
gonna work. I need to do something else. And my first option was
NYPD. Like I wanted to be a New York City cop. And reason
why chose public service was because hey, we're we're from Haiti. This country's
taking us in, uh my family, and I was like, how can
I repay this debt? Right? Like? How can I give back to
this country for what it's done for my family? So I wanted to be
a New York City cop. So I went in there. I spoke with
the recruiter. He was like, hey, in order to be a New
York City cop, you have to either have two years of college or military
experience. Uh. College wasn't gonna work. So I was like, you
know what, fine, I'll do military. So that's what drove me to
joining the military. So I went in there, spoke with the recruiter,
and I'm like, hey, man, like I wanna join. I took
the ASVAP and then uh ended up watching one of those high speed videos that
they show every single one of us. Mine was an engineer blowing stuff up
right slow crawling landmines and then building the bridges and blowing them up. And
I was like, yep, I want to be a combat engineer, and
I signed my contract. Man in two thousand and three, I shipped off
to basic training now in Fort land Wood, Missouri. So yeah, and
so how did you take the military life from Brooklyn to Fort leonard Wood and
going through all of your training and become a combat engineer? Man, it
was rough, man, because you know, like you guys know, being
from the city, you weren't like a badger hounor right. Like, there
was five of us that joined out of New York and we were all in
the same basic training class. So we rolled in there like yo, we're
from Brooklyn, Like we're tough, you know, like we we were like
our own little gang within basic training, and so I had a rough time
breaking out of that because drill song would get in my face. And you
know, I had this one drill song specifically, like I till this day,
he's he's all right now because he ended up. He was the post
on major for fort Hood not too long ago, and every time I see
him, I just have PTSD, Like when he spoke, he got right
up in your face and he purposely spit and I'm like, oh my god,
I'm like, dude, don't you know, Like he would do it
on purpose and I'm like, don't spit in my face, but he would
do it. And I'm like, ah, God, if I ever see
this dude, I wn'na beat his ass. And I've seen him a couple
of times, but I didn't get a chance to because he was E seven
at the time. I was still at E three, and I'm like,
I'm gonna get you. And then once I got to SF and I'm this
big badass. Now he's in for like he's in charge of fort Hood.
I'm like, I'm not gonna go mess with that dude. But it took
a while, but eventually, like I started to wrap my head around why
they were doing what they were doing. They were breaking us down so they
can build us back up. They were showing us the right way to be
a soldier, how to follow orders, how to do all these basic soldier
tasks that we didn't want to come forward to. And eventually I got in
line and the rest was history. Man, what what is training for combat
engineer? Like? Like, do you remember how long the training is and
what the different topics are? Yes? So it was one station unique training
at Fulnwood, Missouri. Basic training was nine weeks and then the remainder eight
weeks. We went over land minds, so identifying them and properly disposing of
them. We learned how to build the bailey bridge, which is a big
metal bridge that we can that we haul around and throw up whenever folks need
to cross rivers and such, and then we learned basic demolitions and and and
a I T and that was that was basically it. Yeah, I didn't
get to do any of the cool stuff that I saw in that video,
especially once I got to my unit. It was a completely different mission than
what I thought I was gonna be doing. So when you arrive at what
was your first unit, and I mean, this is getting pretty hot into
the war at this point. I mean, I'm so Iraq kicked off.
So March two thousand and three I left for basic training. June July two
thousand and three, I think is when the Second War kicked off, when
Iraq kicked off, right, And I remember this vividly because we would be
like in our bays because it was open bay. I'm sure it's the same
when you guys went through, but we would be in the bays just you
know, doing you know, activities like folding socks or whatever, and a
drill songe would come in and they would be like, hey, we just
got the call. Everybody, pack up your shit. You guys are going
to Iraq. And dude, they would have a slow down entire locker who
would go outside and they would have buses there as if you were gonna load
on right right, And I'm talking about guys off fucking crying like we had,
you know, other privates, Like I figured out it was just a
ploy, but guys were like crying and just fucking wan't having it. They
were like, Oh, I need to call my mom, I need to
do this, Like are we really going and then they have us go back
inside, and but it's weird because they would do it multiple times they got
the same reaction, you guys. Yeah. So finished in July two thousand
and three, and then I got to my first duty station, Fort Riley,
Kansas, Big Red one in August of two thousand and three after coming
back to New York for hometown recruiting. And then as soon as I got
there, man, I got to my unit, I checked in and then
my squad leader he was like, hey, don't unpack your bags. I'm
like, oh, motherfucker, I've heard this before. You're doing the same,
you know. My recruiter like, what's going on right? I mean
my drills long like, so I thought he was running the same ploy.
So I was like, I was like, why not. He was like,
oh, we're going to Iraq in September. I was like, yeah,
whatever, you've been hanging out with song first class day over a recruiting
over at a drillsone command. So I went upstairs unpacked all my stuff.
And then a month later I was in Kuwait waiting to go into Iraq.
So got thrown into the fire there pretty quick. And then what was your
how is it set up for combat engineers. Were you at you were so
you were with bigger ED one? Yeah, so were you attached basically Q
and infantry? Were you So the entire brigade got deployed. Okay, all
right, so first brigade, first Infantry Division deployed. Within that you had
one sixteen infantry, one three four arm or first Engineer Battalion. But when
we got there, everybody had that different mission that support each other. The
infantry guys would go out and conduct patrols and raids. One through four armor
they were out there just shooting their biggest tanks. And then our mission was
to clear the route. Because this is two thousand and three. Like I
was there for OEF one. Oh, I caught the telling of OEF one.
I stayed for OEF two, and then I left during the beginning of
OEF three. So we were Our main mission was to clear routes for supply
to actually come into the country because i D was still at its infancy,
but they were still putting out shells on the side of the road and I
mean it was amateur hour but doing it. So our mission was clearing the
routes so the supplying line could flow into Iraq. So how would you guys
interact with EOD because that's their job, but you guys had a big part
of that. Yeah, yeah, So what we would do we would go
when I said this and this is amateur hour, Like we had the one
to one threes tracks, like they're like APC for combat engineers, right,
that's what we deployed with because there was no RGI thirty one's there was none
of that high speed up warmercy off right, So we deployed with our vehicles
that we had at Fort Riley, Kansas, and we put sandbags at the
bottom of it as if that was gonna stop an ID blast. Right,
So we conducted rock Clarence on those, and then we conducted them dismounted like
we were like I remember walking up and then I saw a bag there and
I kicked it and I was like, oh, he'd like that's how we
were conducting rock clarence. So what we would do, we'd go out,
we would find them, and then we would sit on it for hours waiting
for EOD to come out. It was it was painful. Like we would
go out early in the morning, like nine o'clock in the morning, find
an ID and then two pm EOD would come rolling up and it did take
care of it. So we actually because of that, the Engineer School of
Fort Lennon Wood they created a program called EOCA Eyoka which allowed us has come
by engineers to identify and also disposed of IDs, but that didn't come online
until two thousand and seven time frames. Yeah, I mean it makes sense
because you know, EOD, like they do a lot of stuff outside of
IDs. You don't need that depth of training for everything AOD does. But
dismantling or handling an ID doesn't seem No, it's not. It's not.
And at that point, like they were so spread out, like it's not
like they were sitting back a base camp hanging out. They were on other
calls, right because there was IDs being you know, spread out everywhere within
the AO, and we had like two or three EOD teams, so they
were running out to a bunch of different calls and by the time they got
to us, they had already been on like fifteen or twenty other missions,
you know. So yeah, but yeah, man, that was the early
part of my stayover at the first I D and what I mean, there's
a second part. Yeah, dude. So there's because I ended up doing
too deployment with first Infantry Divisions, so two thousand and three, two thousand
for I did twelve months, and of course doing that stayment, it was
like the wild Wild West. We lost just from that deployment along we lost
like eleven dudes IDs. The company commander got blown up, the first soniant
got blown up, the supply guy, the mechanic. So we lost eleven
dudes to that. And of course, you know, as I'm PFC at
that point, and I'm out there, you know, picking up body parts
and putting in a fucking bag. So I was like Jesus fucking Christ,
like there's got to be something else, right, So I got back and
I just spiral out of control, like I was just a menace to society
from Brooklyn. I went back to my hood just causing havoc everywhere. Man.
But it wasn't just me, It was all the other lower enlisted guys
that because you figure out I'm nineteen, man, I shouldn't be, you
know, like on the side of the riverbed picking up you know, body
parts of my squad mates, right, you're gutting off all that steam.
Yeah, yeah, And we didn't know how to cope with it. Our
way of coping with it was going down to Aggieville and beating up on the
football players, right, like, that's what we did. So I got
back. We started partying, drinking every weekend. We're getting in fights,
getting thrown in jail. And I remember this because I had a squad leader
and his entire like he came. He was an an outsider, like he
Pcus from a third ACR out of Fort Carson, and he showed up and
we were just running amok, like nobody could tell us nothing, Like leadership
was just fed up. They were like, we don't know what to do.
These dudes. Just put him at headquarters. And this squad leader,
he he came in. He was like, Hey, I want all these
guys in my squad. And his plan was to build enough paperwork to pretty
much chapter. He was like I'm He's like, I'm, you know,
God's great gift to the army. I'm cleaning house. We're getting rid of
all these dudes. So he comes in and he pretty much started doing paperwork.
Like we kept mess enough. He kept doing paperwork, and his plan
was to chap the me out. I didn't find this out until like four
years like ago, right, because he and I are best friends now.
But in the midst of this, we had a platoon sergeant that also came
in and he saw potential. He was like, hey, like, you
wan't here for the deployment. You don't know what these guys went through,
Like they went through some traumatic shit. So instead of trying to give them
the boot, let's find a way to help them, because if you kick
him out now, all they're gonna do is all the stuff they're doing right
now, they're just gonna go do it civilian, and now we're gonna happen
we broke them. Yeah, the least you can do is fix exactly.
So that was his mindset. So they started to just find ways to help
us. Man. They got us into the site, we started talking,
We started unpackaging a bunch of stuff, and I slowly started to get my
shit together, got married realized that I do like this Army stuff. It's
pretty easy. I show up, I work out, they tell me what
to do, they tell me how to do it, they tell me what
to wear. Like I have everything that I need. I needed structure and
the Army gave me that and I started to flourish, got promoted Mayey six
within four years, and then we deployed again in two thousand and seven,
this time to create Iraq. More the same conducting rock Clarence, but this
time it's a little bit more advanced. We have the the RG thirty threes,
we have the buffalo's, we have the robots. So that deployment wasn't
as bad as the first one, but I was still losing buddies left and
right, Like guys were still getting blown up, this time with the covert
bombs, this time with the EFPs. It's like as soon as we found
a way to defeat one tactic, they came up with another one, right,
So it was that constant chess match. And this deployment was fifteen months
because stop loss kicked in around that time. Wow. Yeah, So after
that, man, I had, you know, like I went through the
deployment and I had enough, and I was like, there's gotta be something
else out there, you know, And that's when I started looking at Ranger
Bad. And then that's when I discovered that SEF so real quick, because
you were a combat engineer, we you know, we have to bring this
up. SF TAB ranger tab, sapper tab. Yeah, I think it
should be the other way around. It should be SF tab, supper tag,
ranger tab. Okay, yeah, so tell us about tell us for
people who don't know, tell us what a sapper is and you know,
and you know what the school is like, yeah and everything. So the
sapper tab didn't become an actual It's always been a tab, but it wasn't
authorized to be worn until like two thousand and five. Right, so,
uh, supper tab is what rangers tab is for infantry guys. Right,
Doing Soper School, you learn a bunch of twelve Bravo combat engineer tasks.
Right, so demo is a big one, right, clearing mind fields,
watercraft operations, and then we also have patrolling. Right. Another way to
describe it is, Hey, Saper School is the last two weeks of the
age and Charlie FTX, that's exactly what it is. You're going on demo
related missions, only this time after the ambush. You know, your your
pl tells you, hey, grab all this stuff and bring it to the
top of the hood. Right now, once it gets to the top of
the hood, now, as a sapper, I'm actually blowing that stuff up
I'm doing all the demolition, I'm doing the time fuse, and I'm actually
blowing it up because in real life that's what we would do. We wouldn't
just leave it there for the enemy to take. Somebody has to blow it
up, right, so we actually blow that stuff up. But yeah,
that's exactly what it is. Man. It's a specialized school for twelve bravos,
right that they teach leadership there along with all the demolitions. So hopefully
that made sense. Yeah, and you made sure to wear that sapper tab
everywhere you went. I did next because it was one of those things like
growing up as a combat engineer, all my leaders had sapar tabs just like
a guy. Yeah, just just like a guy going up in the infantry.
His leaders had ranger tabs. Right. So when I wore down my
hallway back and group guys would look, they were like, man, what
is I never I've never seen that before, right, touching it as like
a foreigner. I'm like, no, man, it's a sabotag uh.
And then once I got to group and eventually the eighteen Charlie course, I
told everybody was like, hey, as a as a you know, eighteen
Charlie, you need to go to saparate school because there's a lot of similarities
with the eighteen Charlie course and uh the Engineer School down of Fort Lynnwood because
a lot of the tasks that we conduct an ancient Charlie course comes from the
Engineer School. That's the big Army component of it. Like UXO we get
from like my ux O instructors. When I was an instructor in eighteen Charlie
course, I would have to send them to IOCA. That course that I
was talking about that allows us to blow id's, I would have to send
him there so they can get certified to teach you XO in the schoolhouse.
Right, So there's a lot of tie in to the Engineer School back.
So what year did you go to SFAs and then the Q course? So
two thousand and eight, after that last diployment IRAQ. Again, I was
fed up with losing buddies left and right. And I think the real reason
why I went towards SF was like being in big army and doing that mission,
like we were being reactive, like it was like groundhog Day. We
go out, we get blown up, and then we go through a battle
drill like there was no pursuing, there was no hunting. We're sitting ducks.
It was annoying. So I'm like, man, how do we like
who's taking the fight to the enemy? Like, how do I get after
it? Like? How do I get these guys that are killing my buddies
left and right? So I did some research. Raingerbat came up and then
that squad leader, that same squad leader that was trying to get rid of
me, he went to selection right, and he didn't make it. I
was like, this is a way to better than him, right, So
I was like, he didn't make it, and he squared away, right,
He's trying to fire me. So I was like, I'm gonna go
to selection right. So I went in two thousand and eight to answer your
question, and I got picked up and then I started claring fort Riley and
then I PCs and started the Q course early two thousand and nine. Awesome.
What was your relationship with him? I know you said you guys are
really good friends. Now what was your relationship with him? Like when you
came back from that sef as having been successful? Like we joked around it,
like I would tell him, hey, man, like what happened.
You know, He's like, I don't know. I made it all way
to the end. I didn't get selected. I was like, yeah,
that's because they won't looking for your strict military you know, dress right,
dress standards. You know. But by that point he and I had like
a better relationship, right because he saw in me what that platoon saw on
initially saw, right, because I became a squad leader with him, so
he had first squad, I had second squad, right, So we were
pairs at that point. Yeah, whenever I went that's awesome. And then
the eighteen Charlie course, I mean, do you have any stories or anything
you want to tell about that? And go and what was it like going
through as a combat engineer. Yeah, so going in as a combat engineer
because at that point I didn't have a sabatas, Like, I didn't go
to SAPER school until I got to like like my first team. Okay,
okay, that's when I went. So going there as a twelve bravo.
Yeah, I understood some of the tasks, but not as deep as we
went into it in the Agent Charlie course, right, it was big army.
Hey, these on land mines, these are how you put them in
the ground. As opposed to Agent Charlie course, it was like, oh,
these are land mines. Here are five safeties that goes with that landmine.
These are five ways that it can kill you. Essentially is what they're
telling me. And this is how to properly dispose of them. So the
eighteen Charlie course was very eye opening. I grew growing up in New York
City, Like I didn't know how to build a house, Like I didn't
know how to lay foundation. I didn't know how to do any of that.
But you get six weeks of it in the Aching Charlie course, right,
special operations, construction, and then the demolition part learning. I've always
been good at math, so it was that part of it was easy.
So learning how to calculate to take down trees, how to you know,
blow up bridges, like all that math that goes into that. So I
thrived there. Then we did UXO, which is essentially, you know,
learning how to do eod's job is exactly what it is because on a team
like Ahing, Charlie has to do that, especially if we don't have any
EUOD attachments. Right, So I learned that and then talking analysis knock that
out, and then the FTX that's where I had a little bit of trouble
because it was cold. Man was still out in the woods where they had
that big tower in the center. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. That
was one of the missions Man, and for whatever reason, I couldn't get
the time fuse to cooperate, right. So we'd go out on our mission
and I was the senior Charlie and we had to take down I think it
was a bridge mission that we had to take down. So we went through
just like we're supposed to, and I had time fuse set up and then
I just couldn't make the time, So I failed my mission right, went
back through it, and that was a defeat for me that I wasn't looking
forward to because we're at this point phase this is phase three, right,
I have language and then I have Robin Sage and I'm done. So I
was worried about failing. So I got in my head and it really fucked
with me, and I didn't know how to calm my mind. Like I
was worried about failing and failing and failing, and the next mission I went
out and I felt it again. Right, So it's like so when you
fail it the second time time fuse, now the uh the Cadre has to
you know, build a time system and make sure that it's not the actual
batge right right, because there you're being graded and what does it have to
be within thirty seconds or six No, it's it's not. I think it's
three seconds? Man, oh is it? Yeah? Yeah, thirty seconds
a long time? Yeah yeah yeah, h thirty yeah yeah yeah yeah,
it's uh plus on minus three seconds okay, okay. So Cadre then goes
out after I fail my second time, and he built a time system off
of that same batch, that the same lot. Yeah. So he goes
out and he builds it, and his fucked up all good. I was
like, yes, yeah, the time fuse itself is bad. Yeah,
so that lot was bad. It's like a slow burning fumes or whatever.
Yeah, and it's because the weather has a way of affecting the time few
systoms, especially the ship we yet man, it's like from like Vietnam man,
right stuff they're playing yeah, out of storage. So he goes through,
he build his, and he is also missfires. So I'm like,
yes, I'm not getting recycled, right because he can't make it work,
Like, how does he expect me to make it work? Right? I'm
a student, you're the expert. You're teaching me this stuff, right.
So because the lot was bad, I ended up, you know, getting
a third mission, and this time we didn't do time fuse. We just
did command debt, I mean, which is pretty self explanatory. So I
ended up you know, getting through the at and trolley course. But for
a moment there, like, I was worried that I was going to get
recycled. And at that point in time, if you get recycled and you
feel like one other thing, then you'll kicked out the Q course right,
never to return. So that all played in my head and I'm learning it
from it now as far as how I should have dealt with it, as
far as hey really like, you know, the information, you pass,
all the exam, you've done all the work, like reassuring myself, you
know what I mean. But at that point in time, like I was
a mess. Man. I was like, man, well, you mentioned
special operations construction, and this is something I don't think we've really gone into
depth on the show, but can you talk a little bit about the eighteen
Charlie, not just like the wartime eighteen Charlie all the unexploded. When we
say UXO, we mean unexploded ordinance and demolition and stuff like that, which
I think people often think about with Charlie's but like building a house, Like,
what is the role of the eighteen Charlie on a team? So the
eighteen Charlie is responsible for because the best way that I explained it, and
it goes for all of our moss is the eighteen Charlie mos is eight separate
jobs packed in one. Right, So you have your big army component,
which is the twelve Bravo, then you have your supply guy, right Like,
So when I was on a team, not only was I responsible for
you know, the ied the demo, I was also responsible for building my
base camp, right, which the eighteen Charlie. Like, that's that's one
of your your functions. You acquire building materials and you build this base camp.
We did vso and that's exactly what I did Village Stability Operations in twenty
ten. I, you know, had my little workforce, I ordered you
know, all the building materials, and then we build a shit ton of
bee huts, right, We laid foundations. Right. I also ran that
base camp as the camp mayor, right, responsible for getting the cook all
the supplies he needed, responsible for getting the dudes whatever they needed. Right,
essentially a glorified supply guy. Right, I did all of that.
And also defense, to bas Well, based defense is the Bravo. But
whatever the Bravo needs, Constantino wire Hes goes like that would fall on my
shoulders to get form. Right, So in a nutshell man, so jack
of all trades when it comes to the Aging Charlie, because all the other
guys, like the aging Bravo has his base defense and all of that,
the echoes comms, the Delta has his linox, right, everybody has the
little part. But I always joke like, if you have a shitty eating
Charlie, you're gonna feel it. Yeah, if you have a shitty Echo,
you might notice something once you're out on a mission. Right, if
your Delta sucks and you get shot, yeah, you're gonna know it then.
But if you don't have an eighteen Charlie, you're gonna feel it right
away because your quality of life is gonna be shipped. You won't be able
to get anything that you need. Your property book will be all messed up,
right, So I always joke Jack of full Trade and probably one of
the I'm not gonna say the most important ms, but definitely one of the
most important ms is that needs to be solid when it comes to the team
room. Yeah. And so you talked about going back to the Q course.
I mean, you get your language, you get go to robinsage and
then did you know you were going to third group? No. So I'm
a French speaker, so when I got to language, I already had like
a you grew up speaking from Yeah. Yeah, so I already had like
a DLPT score. But like throughout that you know, year long process,
Like, I grew pretty tight with the dude, so I didn't want to
jump ahead. Language was six six months at that point. So I was
like, man, I don't want to leave these group of dudes. So
I opted to go back through language so I can stay with the dudes.
But what that did was it it decreased my chance of getting third group,
right. So when I graduated, I had orders to go to tenth group,
right, but I wasn't trying to have that. I was like,
I can't go to tenth group. Europe and I was like, no,
I'm gonna lose my mind, right, So I went to the Batterian CSM
Bob I think it was Bobby Sinko at that point, and I was like,
hey, like, my wife is going to ECU, like I just
moved her out of k State so she could come here, like I can't
move my family again. And he was like, I don't want to tell
you, man, like you gotta orders for Tans Group, And I was
like shit. So I found a classmate that was also an eighteen Charlie and
who also had Fringe, and he had orders the Third Group and he didn't
want to go to Third Group. He wanted to go out to Fort Carson,
so he and I did a one for one, so he ended up
going. I was gonna say that your desires pretty are pretty much countered a
typical so I imagine that it wouldn't have been too hard to find, you
know, somebody just swapping people would have been like lining up, auctioned it
off, auctioned the spot off. Yeah, because at that point, Third
Group had just switched its AO from its area of operations from Africa to just
Afghanistan. Right, they were like yep, that's what the fight is like,
we're going straight there. I didn't know that at the point. I
just didn't want to go to Fort Carson, you know what I mean.
So, but it all worked out. So tell us about like landing on
your first oh da, what that experience was like. And so so I
got done with the Q course and I took about two weeks worth a leave
and when I showed up to a third group, that was the group headquarters
was for deploy So the the group's CSM and the group commander, they were
both with Camp Fans down at a siege of Soda because Third group had the
sie JASODAF at that point. So I showed up. The group headquarters is
empty, you know what I mean. So staff duty takes me to the
back and they were like, hey, nobody's here. I was like,
well, I'm here, Like what do you like? You guys gotta do
something with me, right, so they so I deployed right away. So
within two weeks I was en route to Afghanistan to go to Camp ins and
Lake Uh and make link up with Third Group. So I go over there.
In process, group headquarters got a chance to speak with the time Commander,
Colonel Bulldock, General Bulldock and then the Beatin CSM or Group CSM,
and I told him, hey, I just got out the Q course.
I'm ready to go to whatever team you want me to go to. And
they were like, Nope, you're not going anywhere. We need you here
at the Beatdock. And I'm like, based offence whatever the acroanym is,
I'm like, so you keeping me here at Bagrum as opposed to me going
to Candahar or wherever link up with the dudes. So I ended up staying
at the bath for s for four months. It was horrible, man,
it was horrible. But I was like, hey, since I'm gonna be
here, I'm gonna make the best out of it, right because now I'm
the camp mayor. You know, I became the guy on camp fans.
Everybody knew me, so I was like, oh man, this SF guy
stuff is awesome. So I'm just I'm living too good right as a new
guy. I'm living like way too good to where I started to piss some
people off. Dude, it was I can't make this ship up, man,
Like I was like we were throwing parties, like like we were inviting
like, uh, chicks from like this from like Big Army to come on
the camp vans, and we were like every Thursday, dude, we had
a little bee hut by the Beatoc and we were just partying it up every
Thursday like clockwork. We're having parties in there. And finally somebody, I'm
not gonna say his name, but somebody went to the group's CSM and they
were like, hey, for a new guy, Jay shouldn't be having this
much fun those were here. Is exactly right because I was sitting at one
of those parties and the the S one and c I. He came in
and he was like Jay, like what did you do? I was like,
what do you mean? He was like, Yo, such and such
just went to groups CSM and he told him that you are having too good
of a time. You need to go grunted out like all the other SF
guys and earn your keep to have this much fun. And I'm like,
I showed up. I need to go to a team. I didn't choose
this, but if you're gonna give it to me, I'm not just gonna
suck and be miserable, Like I'm gonna have a good time, right,
come and find out later on that guy was upset because there was a certain
girl that he was pursuing was hanging out with me, And I'm like,
man, this dude is supposed to be like a senior leader, Like I'm
just an E six. This dude is like an E nine, Like why
is he worried about me? But he wanted the girl and he couldn't have
it because I had it, so he had to get he had to remove
me from a picture. Bro Like within two days, I was on a
SEE one thirty like literally en route to fucking sort of South. I was
like, I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye or anything. So
I get to kender Heart and that's where First Battalion was, right, So
First Battalion was down there leading up to that point, like throughout my entire
four months there, I had buddies that I graduated the Q course with.
I was, you know, doing work and sort of south. So I
was talking to him on the regular like, hey, do you guys need
a charlie Like I'm over here. If I get a chance to leave,
like can I come to your team? So I was already politic and in
networking, so whenever I got the boot, I went straight to sort of
South and I was able to get on the team right away. But once
I got there, man, I was like, I wasn't ready for the
new guys, Shenanians because I didn't know anything about it, right. So
I showed up and for the first four months no one called me by my
name. I think they call me Daryl, And I was like, shit,
man, just call me token, like what the fuck? Right?
But you know they called me Darryl. I had a little box that they
made me build to keep all my clothing. But throughout all of this,
like I was still you know, like building the firebase because this was the
the era of I think it was my Crystal his coin. Yeah, you
know village stability operations and stuff, right it was like twenty eleven. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, so this is twenty ten, so doing you know
all that stuff. Like I'm I'm building like the firebase with my a senior
you know, managing the base camp, running the workforce, training the ALP,
managing the NASF. So but as a new guy, man, like
even though all that shit was going on, like I just did my job,
right, you know what I mean, Like I I earned my keeps
you know what I mean, because I knew why they were doing it,
and I'm like, dude, I grew up in New York City, Like,
You're not gonna get under my skin by talking. If you if you
put hands on me, it's different. But eventually, once they realized it
was just talking, it wasn't affecting me, then everything kind of started to
switch and I slowly started to integrate myself into the actual team. Now and
uh, in twenty ten, a lot of the guys had probably had quite
a bit of experience in Afghanistan. What was that like for you coming in
brand not only a brand new Charlie, but also brand new to this combat
environment? Oh no, but you had already been. I'm sorry, so
I thought, yeah, so my So we're in Kandahart in my camp brown
and my team comes to pick me up and my team so it goes,
you know, hey, like I need you to get on the gun trucks
and he starts telling me what I need to do right, And I look
at him. I'm like, they s are like, like I've deployed before,
what I'm doing through He looks at me and we all know, like
that's something you don't do right, especially to your team song. And he
doesn't even know me. He looks at me. He was like, this
ain't that type of war. This isn't ira This is the wild, wild
West, right, And I'm like, oh shit, heint talking for like
two weeks just because of that statement. But to your point, it was
completely different, because, like I mentioned earlier, Iraq, I was,
you know, reactive. Something happens and then we react to it. Now
we're being proactive. We're going out on missions every day, and we're creating
white space. Right. So I was loving it, man, It was
It was exactly what I was looking forward to answer your question. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, sorry for some red in my mind blanked down on now
on your first deployments, but and what like, what was it? How
did the team treat you? Like, knowing that you sort of already had,
you know, this experience as you called Bravo, it didn't matter,
man, Okay, now, it didn't matter at all. I was still
the new guy because and I tell guys this now, whenever they reach out
to me for guidance, I'm like, you, I don't understand. You're
going from a conventional space to a unconventional space. Now, just because you've
deployed before, you know, with big army, your missions were probably different
than what you're gonna do in that stuff, right, all right, So
and it was what I was doing when I was a big army was even
the way we cleared id's were completely different than how I used to do it.
Yeah, it was, Hey, there's an idea over there, like
like where's the robot, you know, like where's and my senior Charlie's like,
robot, what do you talk about? Man? Like just go over
there. I'm like, I'm not going over there. He's like I'm not
going to all the juniors go over there. Right, But it was different
like we you know, walked around look for command wire. You know,
we cut it if we found it. If there was no command wire,
we had the backpack jammers like and if it was something that wasn't saying,
were just marked and bypass. A big army there is no marking bypass,
we have to get rid of it. So even you know, it was
different from that aspect. So everything that we were doing was was completely different,
and it really opened my eyes. I'm like, man, like I
wish I had done it earlier, but I didn't know about it until that
point in my career. When you were with Bigger One, Were you guys
involved in any tics? No, No, it was all I guess you
can call we weren't involved. We were just getting shot at right right like
that. I wouldn't call that involved because I would when I think of involved,
I'm thinking of a two way range, like they shooting, we're shooting
back. It was more, hey, you know, we're conducting Rod Clarence
ID goes off and they shoot at us, and we just stand there like,
oh God, like shoot back, We'll shoot back in it. But
we stayed on the hard ball, like there was no maneuvering, there was
no giving chase, Yeah, come in, was just risk averse at that
point. You know. That's why I like, looking back at it now,
I'm like, man, we never saw a chance, you know what
I mean, because you put an ideal over there, like dudes get blown
up and all we do is shoot back. We can't chase after that because
they won't let us. It was just a yeah, it was just a
buss man. I mean, you said that you want the SF largely for
that reason, looking to take the fight to the enemy. Yeah, I
mean did you find that when you got Yeah. Yeah, So that first
deployment again it was vso so we were kind of like stuck to our little
village there, but just within that we're able to you know, create white
space and take it to the Taliban. But then the consecutive trips I was
able to, like we were a lot more kinetic. We were running commandos
like two rotations in a row, and we had a chance to go all
over the country because the Kandak commandos Yeah, yeah, I had second Kandak
out of Jabad and they were the national response force for Afghanistan, so whenever
something jumped off, they were the first to go. So running those guys,
we had a chance to go all over Afghanistan and just take it to
the enemy. What was that like for you personally? You know, because
everybody has this you know, first sort of combat experience or this first sort
of target prosecution experience. You like you went to SF because you were tired
of being on the receiving end of that. So what was it like for
you personally the first time you like went at it, like prosecuted the target
as it just reacted. Yeah, it was good. Man, because I
felt like I was getting revenge. Yeah, Like I was getting paid back,
you know, for all the dudes that I had lost prior to and
couldn't do anything about. Right, So it was awesome. Man. I
think I got to the point where, like most of us, I enjoyed
it too much, to the point where once I got to that point in
my career, it was hard to turn it off, you know what I
mean. Like I found myself like wanting more and more of it even though
there wasn't any to be had. So I would say that was a byproduct
of you know, that first initial experience. Now I wasn't cutting off ears
and wearing it and you know anything along those lines. But for normal people,
when you take a life, you feel some sort of sadness or whatever.
For me, it was like you had it coming. Who's next,
right, and just you know, over the span of you know, twelve
thirteen years, it just got worse also with a time right to where I
didn't feel any remorse at all. Yeah, you know what I mean.
So that's the I guess the blowbag that could come from, you know,
having that type of you know, hatred that most of us have when we
lose somebody. Yeah, I mean so, uh, from that first trip,
are there any like really like notable stories that stand out to you.
Yeah, So from that first trip doing VSO, the first one that was
like the first time I got shot at, I think is what stood out
the most because it was just a regular patrol and we were, you know,
pushing that a little bit further away from the VSO site at that point
because we had enough white space within the site to be comfortable, but always
like, yeah, we still got a village that we're responsible for, but
it's a little like it's further out, so we had to push out towards
that village. So we did, and we went into the village, did
our key leaders engagement Kelly, and once that was done, we're coming back.
And then we got engaged. And I remember, uh this because like
we're on the other side of the waddie now heading back towards the VSO site,
and we had a element that was still coming out of the waddies and
they started engaging while they were down in there, so we turned around it.
We started shooting back, and of course, like your typical firefight,
like they're not like right up on you, right there there's some standoff,
so we're shooting at you know, muzzle flashes and windows and all that stuff.
But their fires were pretty effective, like they were like we can see
'em. And I remember I was standing there and you know, rounds were
hitting around my feet and I just stopped and I'm like, oh man,
this is what it feels like to get shot at, you know, not
ducking for fire, like not taking cover, none of that stuff. I
was just standing there like, oh, Like I was amazed by it,
you know, cause leading up to this point, all I saw was what's
on television, like, oh you get you get shot at. It's supposed
to sound like this, and I'm like, no, this is nothing like
it at all. It's just dirt coming. It's just kicking up dirt,
right, And I got yelled at by my you know, senior Bravo.
He's like, hey, idiot, get me on cover, you know what
I mean. But I almost got shot in the leg that day. So
that would be, you know, the most memorable thing that came out of
that deployment, because all the other ones were like pretty similar. Right,
we would there's some standoff, they shoot at us, we shoot at them.
If it lasted a certain amount of time. We called for airs right,
right, And that's how it was until I got to like the more
kinetic stuff. Yeah yeah, so yeah, good times. Yeah, so
let's jump into that. Working with the Kandak commandos. Yeah, you guys,
I imagine had like ch forty seven support, get you guys where you
needed to go. Yeah, So that one was so twenty twelve we went.
So that first one was thirteen months for me because I had my time
of the BEATOC and then I did ten months with the team, go back,
went through all that crazy admint stuff, and then we deployed in twenty
twelve. This time we're running commandos out of Jbad and that was we had
at that point, we had ten dudes on the team because you never have
a full le SF team just because yeah, it is what it is.
And then we were running a Kandak that had three companies and then each companies
had about one hundred and fifty dudes, right, three platoon of fifty plus
dudes, right, And we would do twenty four on forty eight off right,
So we would go out for twenty four hours, we would cleare village
and then we were strong point a building wait for the sun to come up,
because that's when they typically fight us and we would fight and then would
x fill the next day. So we did that because how we routed,
how we rotated was so be a kandak on green cycle, W one on
amber, and the W one on red, just like we have ours,
right, so which everyone was on green cycle, we did missions with them,
and then whenever we were back we would train the other ones. We
would go check out their training. So that forty eight off typical wasn't really
off because we were still go train the other guys. But that one was
good man, because one we had a chance to you know, be in
helicopters everywhere we went, and we had all the air support whenever we went
out right, which made it that much more better. My father in law
would say, right, so yeah, we had a ball. One of
the probably one of the best missions that I did during that rotation was we
got a chance to go back to kack kating, right, so in two
thousand and April of twenty twelve, and for those that don't know about cock
kating, that was where that entire five got over ran, right and nurse
stand they had at the bottom of the bowl, and yeah, they got
over several guys got medal of honors out of that trip. But after that
incident, the US pulled, uh, the coalition pulled everybody out of that
area. Right, there was no US presence at all the only thing that
was left was the militia that was, you know, guarding that area or
that lived in that area. So in twenty twelve, the militia was getting
was getting ready to get over ran. And then the district the District center
was next. So we since we were a national asset, we got spun
up to go down to Camp Dash Nurse Stand and actually go take take,
take take, go take the fight to those dudents. So we spun up
for sevens with all sorts of air assets because again since we're a national asset.
The president at the Cause I literally called down to see just Soda Fingers
was like, hey, I need commandos in there like now. So we
spun up, went down in there commandos and it was dude, it's forty
eight hours of just duking it out with those dudes. It was ridiculous.
And I mean that's I've never been to Nerves Stand, but I've been told
by many people. That's like the most challenging terrain can possibly imagine. Oh
man, there was one one HLZ that we had to use that was usable.
The other one was on camdat was on Kadi. Huh. Right,
So we either land at that one HLZ that everyone in the area knew was
serviceable, or the pilots they wanted to put us down to cop Kat and
then we would have to fight uphill to get to opposition. We're literally going
through the Taliban. As we were trying to get to the high ground.
It was like, no, we're not doing that, man, put us
on the serviceable HLZ and just have air, just have them prepped the area.
Yeah, and then once we're on the ground, then we could maneuver
and get where we need to go. Right, was that service fall was
at at a higher elevation? Oh yeah, it was literally because the way
he set up, you know, all the collots and all that stuff.
So we had upper camdash and then you had lower camdash. All the bad
dudes were at lower camdsh you know what I mean. So they ended up
putting us up here. We linked up with the militia and then we do
one hundred and fifty commandos. We just let him loose. Man. And
I remember this because we linked up with the commander of the militia and they
told us straight up. He was like, hey, all the women and
children are gone. Yeah, everybody that's down there, they're all Taliban.
And my captain he actually was with the one seventy third a couple of years
prior to and he used to be in that same area. Wow. Yeah,
So it worked out because he still knew some of the militia dudes,
and he looked at him and he's like, Okay, that's all we need
to know, bro. Like that night, like we we got into our
positions and then we just waited and it's like clockwork, man daybreaks, because
they did knew we were there like daybreaks, and it was just man,
it was on. Like they they they put up. They put up a
pretty good fight because the way they were set up, like inside those mud
huts, they cut out like firing holes. So and then they backed off
all them to where we didn't see the muzzleflash. So the sun comes up
and we're taking like effective fire, like I'm talking about like you can hear
the rounds going by your head. But we didn't know where it was coming
from because they were like inside the buildings, but they had it set up
to where the rounds were still like a loophole. Yeah, so we're like
Jesus man, like, what is going on? Like we don't like we
hear it, like it's coming in, but we don't see who we're shooting
at. And finally we're just like, you know, fuck it, like
gun runs right, Like, so we just called in casts man and it
was like, hey, all of this, we're taking fire from right here
and it's effective, Like get the freaking apaches down here and just fucking like
level all this stuff, right, and that's what they So as soon as
the Apache started doing that, they started to run right And at that point
you got commandos with the two forties up top, like we got our freaking
gustaves and it was just like open season man. Forty eight hours later,
like sixty eight e kia, Wow, that was the first two days.
How are you guys getting I mean I assumed that over forty eight hours you
have to get some combat resupply house. Yeah. So prior to leaving as
the Age and Charlie, I had bundles speed bundles planned, right, so
we had airy supply schedule, and then we also had like we also went
in heavy since we had the CH forty sevens. We loaded that thing down
and when we came off the helicopters, we just threw everything off and we
left on the HLZ right. So throughout the entire days we had like the
locals were on upper Camp Desh with us, and they had donkeys. So
my team, my team song had them doing runs back and forth grabbing supply
off the HLZ and bringing it down to us up upper cam Desh. So
food, water, more amo and all that's. And we had commandos man
one hundred and fifty commandos, Like we we gave each of them like a
thing of gustav round to carry because you know, had those two rounds in
each. We just handed into them be like hey carry this, carry that
carry right, So we had like our own little freaking resupply going. And
on top of that, we had those bundles that and we ended up using
them later on because we ended up staying out there for seven days fighting those
dudes. Yeah, imagine that many rounds, like shooting that that many good
shot I was really ranked some thoughs oh yeah, oh yeah, because I
fired three and you know the max is two. I fired three, and
then of course you're not keeping count right and the heat of the moment,
we're just sending them. So my Bravo had to pull me off of it
and then he got on it and then we just kind of swapped out like
that. But yeah, it was wild, man, because we can we're
shooting from upper cam Besh into lower km Besh right, and then you can
see them like going through like their kasvak plan, right, so as dudes
get injured, like there there was a bridge down the road, because Pakistan
is like I would say, about ten minutes also down the road, so
they have like a pickup com they load up there wounded and then they haul
but you know, and then they'll go do whatever, and then they'll throughout
the entire days they just repeat that same process. But it was nice,
man, because after everything was done, we had a chance to go down
to cop Kading and actually walk those same grounds and he was like, man,
they left a bunch of shit behind, like what the fuck? Like
connex is full of stuff. You can tell, like the Talabana been living
in there, just pillaging all that crazy stuff down there. So, yeah,
that was a pretty good experience going back there actually fighting off the same
guys that probably had a lot to do with top kating. Yeah. Yeah,
so that was actually pretty cool. That's wild man, Yeah, good
time, all of these Like there's so many stories about Afghanistan that like unless
you talk to the guy who was there, Like, I don't think did
this ever come out in the papers or anything? Probably not. Yeah.
So there was like a short snipbit on it about you know, Oda's going
back into that area and doing work and killing like seventy two plus dudes.
And then there's a book out called The Outposts by the guy from CNN,
Jake Tapper. There's a verbiage on there about you know, us being the
first Americans to go back there since cating fail. But again, to your
point, there's a lot of history that isn't being talked about. Yeah.
Yeah, I think we do ourselves a disservice and until this day, similar
to you guys, like I'm trying to do podcasts, I'm trying to get
our community out to talk more, right, because it's like I get it.
There's a difference between being a quiet professional or like I got it,
man, but that's just when the realm of podcasting and social media, it's
not going to go away, right. We can be like the dinosaurs and
kind of fade away, right, because if we don't tell the youth who
we are and what we do. Even due till this day, man Like,
I still get questions from some of these younger guys that reach out to
me through Instagram and YouTube, what's a Green Beret? Man Like, what
do you guys do? Are you guys like Navy seals? I'm like,
no, man Like, we're a completely different entity. Yeah, these are
the missions that we conduct, right, Yeah, uncommissioned warfare, and not
a lot of people can do that. I'm having to explain to them what
it is when other units have done a really good job at selling themselves,
right, and that's something that we don't really do a lot of. And
there's a substantial difference, you know, because you talk about the quiet professional
there's a substantial difference between beating your chest and and relaying like personal history.
And while you're relaying personal history, you're relaying history itself right as you tell
me the story. I mean, it sounds so much like the mic Force
mission in Vietnam or Hatchet for mac V Sagad you know, going in heavy
yeah, direct action, but working with indigenous personnel. It's really cool.
Yeah yeah. And there's a lot more of these type of stories out there,
right, we just don't know about them, right, right, dude,
Like we have metal Fual winners, we have dudes that's done incredible things,
right, And sometimes it breaks my heart knowing that, hey, that
story is gonna die with that do or some of these history it's just gonna
go away. You know. The folks that are gonna you know, backfill
us are gonna have to relive some of the same pitfall right when it could
easily be mitigated by them getting on YouTube and watching a podcast and saying,
oh wow, Jami dismstake or Jack, like, let's not do that again,
right, Like that's what it's all about, is better in the next
generation. Well, how many like Vietnam lessons for Vietnam did we have to
relearn? You know, you know, like the heritage isn't is not continued,
it's not kept on unfortunately. So after that one, you went back
and did another deployment with Kandak. Yeah. So this one was with second
kandyc out of Jbad. The trip after that, twenty fourteen, we did
third Kandak out of Gordaz. We did a rotation with them, and that
was a really kinetic operation too, Like that one itself was you know,
like twenty fifteen, like we're done in Iraq right, like where this was
the era where we close everything down right, and then we went back in
and opened everything up right. So that one out of Gordaz was more area
focused, so we didn't have the entire country at that point. We just
had our little slice of the pie. And that one was just more of
the same, just connectic. But the only different there was hey, like
they already told us that we're leaving, like after this, like this is
the last hurrah, We're closing, Like we were going out and conducting ops
and then we were retrofitting a base camp at the same time. So that
one was a different beast because I don't know how the Tyler Bann found out
that we were supposed to leave. So it was sporadic here and there because
we would go out, you know, have an awesome mission, get into
some firefight, and then we'll go out the next day and it'd be dead
because at that point they're just waiting us out, like, hey, you
guys are leaving in a couple of months, then we can have all this
shit, right. But that one, I remember, I got one takeaway
from that, and that was a lot of people call it your happy to
be a live day or whatever, you know what I mean. So I
remember when I got shot at, and I also remember when I almost died,
you know what I mean. And this one in particular, we had
hit this village. It wasn't even our op. It was a first group
team that that needed support because since we had commandos, if other teams want
us to come in and help them, since we had like one hundred and
fifty dudes, like we can easily go in and support them. So they
requested us to go in. So we went in there and we cleared this
entire village, and I remember we got them with the clearing operation with strong
point and then we just kind of hung out. But the day prior to
there was no move like, there was no intel saying that there was bad
dudes there. We didn't have any issues while we were clearing through the village.
So we're like, oh, this is another dead spot, like whatever,
man, like we're just gonna hang out. So I told my we
we had the American flag, we had the Texas flag under that. Just
one of my buddies was sun tanning. Like it was like, okay,
this is what we're doing, right, So I was on uh one of
the rooftops with my buddy and we were just talking and at that point,
we every time we go out, we always rolled in heavy, like that's
something that we've always done. So my bravos were genius in that way that
they brought it. They brought out the the uh the grenade launcher Mark nineteen
right, so yeah, so we had the Mark nineteen. We also had
the Mark fourteen, the handheld one. Oh no, no, no,
this is like the Mark nineteen. Got your vehicle the vehicle, right,
yeah, Because we have the commandos, we're like yo, Like wherever we
went, we always rolled heavy, worst case scenario, right, So we
had the Mark nineteen's, we had the mini gun. We had all that
stuff and every time were strong point because we would always roll with the razors.
Also, every time were strong point, we took am off the vehicles,
the razors and then we put them on top of the buildings and we
build fortified fighting positions, right, we had all the command We always had
all the commandos fill sand bags, and like we set it up as if
we're expecting the fight. So we had it set up, you know,
identical to how we've done it like hundreds of time, and but this time
it set up manning it and hanging out, like we're just hanging out because
we're not expecting to fight. So we're up there talking and then like I
remember it vividly, like he and I were talking face to face and I
heard the rounds going between him and I. That's how closed they were,
and it was like and then I watched it hit. There was a first
group dude with us. He had a scar heavy. The rounds hit his
scar and ricoshetted into his bicycle. Oh yeah, so he got hit.
And then I just jumped off because like I didn't have my kid on,
I didn't have my gun on like anything. I was just up there just
playing around, right, So I dove off the roof and my buddy did
the same. And then that entire morning was just us going back and forth
with them called Gee's the Mark nineteen. I was like, oh shit.
The first group dude like his bicycles all like trah, his score heavy was
all messed up, and I was like, man, I credited to my
lucky hat. That's why I wear this all the time. I'm like,
oh man, this this hat has saved my life more time than I can
remember. But yeah, so that was the because just an inch over and
my whole jawline would have been gun not my entire like head, you know
what I mean. Like, that's how close I came to not even having
a freaking face. Yeah, So, how how easy was it for you
guys? It's being kandack. How easy was it for you guys to get
air on station? And pretty easy? Yeah, pretty easy? Pretty easy
because running commandos, man, you you get everything that you asked for.
So we had two j tax, two comeback controllers that were attached and everything
we want on were level ones, right, So that's just the level of
the conduct for the audience if you guys don't know what we're talking about.
So with the level ones, we had the ability to you know, gunships,
apaches, like we had all of that, but they weren't they were
there for infill and nex fil right and then on like doing the actual engagement,
we would still have to call and ask for it, but also a
ton of stuff on station during an operation just they cover infill the next field
because we both know, like that's the most injurious time. But during the
day, since it's a twenty four hour up, they push off and go
support wherever. But if we did get into a firefight and we call for
support, they normally show up because we were still priority. Yeah know what
I mean. So so yeah, and so as time goes on, I
mean, you're doing these deployments, and when was it about that you took
a team sergeant position. So twenty fourteen into twenty fifteen, we get back
from that rotation, and at that point I'm like, man, this we
just closed down a base camp like this, there's normal fight to be had.
So I went, I go to Swick, and I go to the
eighteen Charlie Committee. I was an UXO instructor, then I was the op
sergeant over there, and then I became the committee chief, and then I
got promoted out of Swick and then went back to third Group and took over
my team in twenty nineteen. Twenty nineteen awesome, yeah, and then from
there probably the best job in the regiment, you know what I mean,
Because at that point, man, like, I'm you know, I had,
like I had a really young group of dudes, right, but my
most senior guys had two years in Wow, So it was all eighteen x
rays. Yeah too much, yea, to where I had to go outside
and recruit some senior guys just to help mentor those dudes. Yeah, but
it was awesome, man, because now I had a chance to you know,
coach, teach and mentor and develop all those guys until this day,
man like, I'll hit them up and be like, hey, man,
I'm going to New York call a team House podcast. Give me two coins,
right, And they give me two coins, right. So some of
the best dudes that I've ever worked with. It's cool. Yeah, it's
pretty. So what was it like being a team sergeant? I mean,
aside from what you described, I mean, like operationally at that time,
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, Yeah, so twenty nineteen. I always joked
that I had my hardest deployment in twenty nineteen because when you're in Iraq,
I mean, when you're in Iraq Afghanistan, like you know, you're left
and right limits like you know, Hey, I'm gonna wake up. I'm
gonna do this. I'm inside the wire. I go out to the wire.
It's game on, right, and I mean shooting at me. I'm
shooting back twenty nineteen. I took my team at Jordan for seven months,
all right, and I like, so you're sending me to Jordan, permissive
area of operation. Guys can go drink, Guys can go party, Guys
can essentially hang themselves if they wanted to, right just through all the yeah,
not literally yea, yeah, yeah, but they're giving a lot of
rope, yeah tons away to get in trouble. But I've always been that
leader to where like I'm a demand, not necessarily demand, but I treat
my guys in a matter as if they were my own kids, right Like
I invest in them, I took care of them to where when it's time
for them to do the same for me, they'll do that. Right.
So when we hit Jordan and we're you know, working with Jordaanian special Forces,
guys, like we trained them from seven to to about one o'clock and
then guys off right spread to the fall wings to go do whatever they wanted
to do. But at no point in time did any of my guys ever
get in trouble because I had, you know, instill that discipline and they
gave a shit about me, and they knew, hey, if I go
drinking and I get myself in trouble, then Jay's gonna get fired, and
then who knows who we're gonna get in here? He's gonna funk sit up
right. So I say it was the hardest deployment because for me, it
was hard because it's like, man, I have no control over my dudes,
right. I'm not gonna you know, restrict them to you know,
casodic or the base that we were at. I want to let him go
do all that stuff right like, and I want to trust that they're gonna
do the right thing. But at night I was still like, it's two
o'clock in the such and such is still missing, like what's going on?
Right? So that kept me up at night because I'm like, I don't
want to be that guy that's like, hey, man, where you're at
this two o'clock like you're supposed to be. I'm like, nope, these
these are grown men. Like go like, if I can't trust you here,
then how am I gonna trust you in combat. Yeah, I should
be able to give you your your you know your left and right limits.
Hey, you guys can go out and do whatever, but you know,
don't fight with the locals or don't drink, don't drive drunk. Like I
should be able to give you simple guidance, and you follow them in a
permissive country, Ye'll be okay. If you can't do that, then you
don't belong on this team. And it worked out perfectly, man like we
did seven months down there working with the Jordanians, and then we came back
and no incident at all. Out of curiosity, why why did third group
go to Jordan because Fifth Group couldn't hold their own But no, So at
this point Fifth Group was heavy in Syria. They were doing a lot of
work in Syria and O would dwell time as far as had. The pillow
was getting out of whack for Fifth Group, right, so Soulcum sord Fit
forced to step in and uh rotate in Syria and also Jordan and also Lebanon
to give them a break. And we did just that. We had a
team in Lebanon, My team was in Jordan. We had guys at Tower
twenty two ATG Kabani and all those other places. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, it was just to give them like a quick break so
they can get back on a cycle. Because a lot of folks like when
they you know hear you know SF guys, they don't realize that we're a
line based on language. And so five group had like they've been in the
Middle East for so long and you know, your first groupers are probably doing
sit in Thailand, and yeah, they don't rotate over there as much,
right, so these guys are stuck like going back to back to back.
Yeah, and it's up to the leadership of un Silicon and say, hey,
man, like let's rotate some of these guys. And so these guys
don't get burned out. So they did that. We went in. I
was like, man, Jordan is awesome, you know what I mean.
So it was a good trip over. That's cool. And so how did
you came back home? And then how did you sort of like wind down
your career in the army. So I got back and I was supposed to
do a third year as a team sergeant. And at this point, like
I finally got my captain to get a shit together, like we're just gelling
as a team, right, and we go to Sefaiwic. We go to
Sphaiwic and like team is closed, Like I'm happy, I'm having a good
old time. And of course that's when the universe has a way of humbling
you, right, Like that's when adversity kicks in. So we're at Safaiwic
and I'm just having one of those days like I'm on the range like my
team, because all we did in Jordan was like we trained the heck out
of it, so we were like probably the best shooting team in the company.
Right. We go to Sefhawic, like I had like five guys in
the top ten stress shoot, right, So we're just crushing it. And
I remember that day like we're doing breaching procedures right, So we had our
guns loaded, but we weren't doing anything with them, right. So I
get a couple of phone calls, so I step away. The guys go
to the bay and they clear their stuff because it's time to leave. I
clear my loan gun, but I completely forgot to clear my pistol, so
my pistol was still lie. So I go into bay and I have an
ND inside the bay, right, So that took place, and I'm like,
god, man, so that was defeating for me because I'm the team.
Sorry, right right, there's nobody around, It's just me and my
team, and I'm fucking defeated, Like I am just pissed, right,
So I go outside. I'm like, God, what the fuck just happened.
Of course, we look around, we find a hole, make sure
nobody's hurt. But I go outside and my guys come out there like,
hey, ye Jay, like nobody heard anything, like nobody saw anything,
like like we can call this good and be done right, But of course
we know, like that's not how that works, right, especially when I
as the stair the bird. I told my guys when doing counseling, Hey,
this happens. This is the consequence right now. I can't now turn
back and say, hey, it's me. I mean what I do what
I say exactly exactly. So I had three months left, so I called
my company song major. I was like, hey, man, like this
just happened. My Fox is gonna be in charge of the team in the
meantime, like I'm I'm just gonna go to switch because at that point I
had already lined up a first song job at Swick, right, so I
was like, hey, if it's cool with you, like, I can't
stay on the team and have double standards going on. That's pretty hardcore that
you, yeah, fired yourself from the team because you didn't meet your own
standards. That's that's hardcore. Man. I didn't like it, you know
what I mean. I didn't like it. My guys didn't like it.
But at the end of the day, though, like I couldn't honestly like
not I wasn't gonna kill myself, but I couldn't look at my guys way
right because at then, like in the back of their minds, even though
they didn't have a problem with it, it would still be like, oh,
like he had an incident and he's still well at least in the back
of It gets harder to instill discipline at that point once like you've you've sort
of laid down a law and the standards and then you know and then you
know they're human error yeah and yeah, yeah, so it sucks. So
I, you know, told my my saw major, Hey, this is
what my plan is. Fox took the team, finished it off, and
I went to Swick, right. But when I got to Swick, since
I had already like laid out the job and I had to ensure yours and
I was honest with them. Then it wasn't a big deal. Because I
went to the CSM. I was like, hey, like, I had
to leave three months early. This is what happened. Like do with that
information. Whatever you see fit right, and that's why. And he was
like, hey, man, like, I've known dudes over at the unit
that blew their leg off, or I've known guys that's done X, Y
and Z. So the fact that I was open and owned it went a
long way, which is why I try to tell these kids nowadays. Shit
happens to all of us, right, we all have bad days. But
what you do about it, that's what really matters, right, like holding
yourself accountable. I didn't have to fire myself. I could have let my
team covered for me, but at the end of the day, that wasn't
the right thing to do, and I knew like that would fuck with me
and in case in point, the following the following month, another sister team
had a similar incident, and the warrant tried covering it right, and then
battalion finds out, and then group finds out, and it's like a whole
fucking shit show. It's the cover up that becomes the problem, right,
yeah, exactly. So I'm like I'm sitting back like whow, I'm glad
I did what I did, you know what I mean? But yeah,
so I go to SWICH. But at that point, you know, I'm
behind the desk as a first aunt. I'm like, man, this is
fucking horrible, dude. It was not. I was like, god Lee.
So I'm sitting there fucking working on TPT reports and telling guys what to
do. I'm like, Jesus Christ, man, I need to do something
else, right, So I jump on GOV and I'm like hey, like,
yeah, I go through that process, I fill out a packet,
they send me all the paperwork, and then then I had to sit back
and just kind of think about it. Man. I'm like, man,
like, this is like I'm nineteen years in Like, like what am I
doing? You know what I mean? Because I was chasing that high that
and I was being selfish because I had two kids, Like I have a
six year old and a three year old. So I'm like, man,
like, I spent you know, nineteen years doing this, doing what you
wanted to do. Yeah, now I have I finally have a chance to
make a decisions that's gonna be my own, and I'm choosing to keep going
down this path and ignoring what matters. Yeah, you know what I mean.
So so yeah, then I was like, you know what, I'm
done. And I felt comfortable saying that because we didn't have anything going on.
Yeah right, Iraq was dying down, Afghanistan is dying down. Syria
wasn't a thing anymore. So I'm like I could comfortable, like I comfortably
say hey, I've had enough, like let me go focus on you know,
like my family, right, And that's what I did. Man,
it's it's it's it's still sucked. I got out and I was like fuck,
man, like this is worse than being the first argeant. So I
had to find something to fill that board. Yeah, find something to do.
And that's when I got on YouTube, and I was like, I'd
like, like, the most fun I've had, aside from you know,
being non range, was when I would had my team and I would help
those guys problems solve. I would give advice and watch it play out,
right, So like I like to mentor so I started YouTube. Man,
Now it's like, how do I help the younger generation of SF guys get
to where we were, Like, how do we how do I help them
become successful? Like avoid all the pitfalls that we went through, Like you
don't have to go through through three divorces, right, you don't have to
do that. You can if you want to, but you don't have to.
And this is how that can play out, right when you're back home
instead of you know, spending eight hours in the team room drinking beer,
go home, right, Like you don't have to go to jail for you
know, selling fucking fuel or whatever. Like, these are the things that
I've seen like play out. You can do it different. This is what
it should look like, just coaching and mentoring the next generation. Your your
channel is the Green Beret Chronicles, And is that sort of like the theme
overall that it takes that you're trying to impart some of this information to a
younger generation. Yeah, like all the because you mentioned Vietnam earlier, could
you imagine what it would look like for us doing the globe War of terrorism
if we had Vietnam era Green Berets shearing their stories and what they went through,
Mike Force and all that stuff. Could you imagine, like some of
the mistakes we made in Afghanistan, we probably would not have made it right.
So it's like now we're at that road to where like you have three
separate war better like we have Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan. Yea, like
three separate countries that we were involved in, and so many lessons learned that
we can share with this next generation. We're no longer in it. That
information is just gonna die with us if we don't do anything about it.
So why not share it with the next generation so they can learn from it
right and make better decisions. So, you know, I want to hear
you, you know, sell the channel to our viewers out there. What
are like You're like, if you had to pick like your top two or
three favorite videos that you've done that you'd like people to go check out on
there? All right, So the first one's gonna be man, right,
So I have one on there that talks about what you should do as a
new guy when you first show up to a group, because we all know
everybody shows up. Hey, sorry, Major, I want to go on
a Halo team. Don't do that, right, don't watch that video.
It'll be very insightful. For you, and that's the Greenberry Chronicles dot Com.
Right. Another one I had is women in Special Forces. Right,
that's a sensitive one for some folks. Right on there, I shed my
thoughts, uh, and they go so spicy. It's very spicy as it
goes along, something like this. Don't put them in there. They're gonna
destroy my team room, right because we're men and we want to put our
stuff and stuff. So that's the second one. And then the third one
that I have on there that's getting a lot of traction, believe it or
not, is Minorities in Special Forces right, and on there, I just
elaborate on exposure. Yeah, because growing up in this very town, like
even you know, going from GfK and you know, driving to Lower Manhattan,
all I saw was you know, basketball courts and all of that.
And I'm like, man, like I did. I went and I linked
up with a buddy of mine that's currently recruiting. I couln't even find the
recruiting office. It was like tucked in like behind a wall somewhere. And
I'm like, dude, Like, exposure would have went a long way when
I was growing up if I knew, like green berays existed. If I
knew Navy seals worth thing, if I knew about come back controllers more sock
like, I probably would have. There is a perception out there, you
know that. I mean, I want to hear your opinion, but I
think mostly it's wrong that there's a perception on some that Special Operations as a
whole is like a white boys club. No, no, not at all,
man, especially over third group, and I'm sure fifth Group, seventh
Group, No, not at all. But again that's the exposure that that's
the exposure because like once we find it, just I found it. Yeah,
it was five years within my career, but once I found it,
I couldn't get out of my head, right, So I went and I
tried out. And that could be said with any race, right, Seven
group is full of Hispanics. Fifth group has the majority of black dudes.
Third group is you know, dude, I was on a team with three
black dudes, right, My team, my team when I was a team
song, I had three Hispanics Doe in there. So it's definitely a melting
pot of ms. Right, And when you think of the missions that we
do, it's it's it's beneficial. But again it comes down to exposure,
and now that social media is throwing to become a thing, it makes exposure
a lot easier. Do you think there's also because I wasn't it Jason When
we had him on the show, he was on a college campus and talked
to a a CIA recruiter who was also who I think the recruiter was also
black, And Jay said, well, they don't want somebody like me,
and the recruiters like, don't self select? Yeah, Like yeah, they're
like, they'll tell you if they want you, but don't self select based
on some false promise you have. Do you think that's also an issue with
Yeah? I think it is, man, because a lot of folks see
it, and they don't see themselves, right, because we're not out here
like that, right, And the folks that are they don't look like them,
so they're automatically and oh, man, I don't belong out here.
Oh I shouldn't be out here, right. Well, that's not the case
at all. If you self select, regardless of how good you are,
you're not gonna make it right. Show up and let them tell you whether
or not you're good enough, right, right? But yeah, I just
wanted to break that mold by coming on there and saying, hey, check
it out, man, that's not the case at all. We're not there
because the exposure just isn't there. Right, No fault of the regiment's on
fault, like, no fault of the regiment, Like, the exposure is
just not there. Right. I didn't find out about it until I was
five years in. Right. And the other services they do a really good
job at recruiting, Like the Navy, they go to the NFL combines and
they recruit out of there, right, they're in the colleges. I don't
know why the Army doesn't. But exposure, man, that's what it comes
down to. And now with social media, like I try to do as
much as I can to expose everybody that, hey, SF is for you,
Like, if you don't like math and you don't like all this other
stuff, and if you want to go towards the military and do this type
of work, it's okay, right, Yeah, we're not all supposed to
be normal. It's all right to want to go jump out of planes and
you know, shoot dudes in the face. But it's okay, yeah,
it's all right to you know, to not fit the norm you mentioned like
mentoring the younger generation, but you also sort of you know, you touched
on both when you came back as a twelve bravo having seen this stuff.
And then also you know your misery as a first sergeant in a civilian and
we see things like with as SEF groups now get in trouble, the guys
who were like who were at that one hundred mile an hour limit and now
it's not there and finding it difficult ways or finding it difficult to to fix
that, yeah, right, and to deal with that. What do you
think aside from the younger generation, what do you think of like your generation
of guys, how are they managing? What services and help do they need?
And what personally do you think, like what helped you like manage that?
So two things right, So idle hands like we just had a big
incident over a third group. I read your article that was awesome the boys.
Yeah, so yeah, we just had that big incident and it's idle
hands man like guys came in to go kicking doors and do work and now
it's no longer a thing. And guys just don't know how to you know,
conform to anything else. They don't know how to get back on the
right Asthmith right, So they're gonna find ways to entertain themselves. And what
I would say to the leaders, and I say this all the time on
my channel, is you got to keep those guys engaged. You gotta give
them something to do, because if you don't, they're gonna find things to
do and then you're not gonna like it. So get creative as a teams
are and as a team leader, get creative. Make sure that training calendars
is full, like no white space. If guys don't have that time available,
they're not gonna get in trouble. But you gotta keep them busy.
And for the guys that are getting out, like, you gotta find that
purpose, right, you gotta, cause you're going from you know, doing
something that was incredibly like rewarding and now you're you know, just at home
and you're just babysitting kids. You know, like you don't have anything else
going on. You are you went from one hundred miles an hour to just
complete stop, right, So what is that next purpose? Like what is
your entire mission of life? And a lot of guys don't don't have that
second identity, They don't like they think they're just a Green Beret and that's
it, right, Right, So they come out and they're like, I
used to be Tom the Green Beret, and now I'm just Tom. It's
like, dude, it's like you can do other things. The green Beret
is not who you were. It was just a section of your It was
just something that you did. It was just a job. Right. You're
still a father, a son, you know, a pastor like whatever.
Like look towards those other equalities and start tapping into that, right, Like,
find ways to give purpose to your life, because if you don't,
then like dudes are killing themselves over this shit, man, because they don't
have another identity outside of the job that they used to do. What has
that been for you? Like what shape has your life taken after retiring from
the military. I mean it sounds like being a dad big part of your
life. Yeah. So since I've been out, man, like enjoying my
my kids more, you know what I mean, just watching them, you
know, wake up and coaching t ball, taking them to jiu jitsu.
And then my purpose have been you know, like I said, through the
YouTube channel, I've been able to find my purpose and my voice, you
know, what I mean, on top of you know, becoming a better
dad and realizing the holy shit, if I had gunned this other rode,
I was gonna miss all this stuff. Like there's a lot of people that
we probably know that you know, they're they're at a point now where their
kids don't even want anything to do with them, Like they call that kids,
and the kids are not picking up, you know what I mean,
They don't even want you to be a dad. Like I wouldn't want to
put that on anybody, you know, dealing with my kids now, you
know what I mean. But that's what it's gonna get to if if guys
don't find ways to kind of horn in into like their secondary life. It's
a small chapter and what you're meant to do. You just have to find
what that next purpose is. And we do a lot like we sell ourselves
short a lot as SEF guys, like not realizing what we're worth and beyond
me a good fucking job, and you think that, yeah, this is
all you're meant to do. But then you come out here in the civilian
sector and this, dude, there's so much stuff that we learn as SF
guys that is valuable out here right like this, there's a ton of shit.
And the more I get out and I talk to people and I,
you know, network, I see it. I'm like, dude, you
used to be in soft Like look at what you like. There's a lot
more out there. Yeah, guys just sell themselves short. Yeah. I
mean, it's like a really important message, I think, because you're absolutely
right that there's so many guys are like I'm just a big dumb ranger.
I can't do anything. It's like no, man, no, you can
go do anything. And you know, those guys can go out and they
can get a business degree or they can do something that I could never do.
Yeah, and so yeah, I mean, especially I feel like a
lot of the younger guys get down on themselves like that, and it's really
important to like make sure they know that, like you can have an entire
second life and career, like if you can do like special operations, whether
it's Rangers, seal marsc SF, like, there's nothing that you can't do.
And that's that's the mindset that I've adapted. It's like, dude,
I go to other countries and I tupple governments if I need to. So
you're telling me like creating an LLC and starting a business in the United States
is different. No fucking way, I'll crush this. And that's the mindset
that I've just taken on. It's like, dude, I go overseas and
I do the impossible. You're telling me I can't start a YouTube channel and
grow that bitch. No, right right, And that's the way guys need
to think. It's like, there's nothing that you if you can do what
the top one percent of the one percent you know is doing, just like
we've we've done, There's there's nothing you can't do, you know what I
mean? And that's how guys need to approach it. And so where can
people find you if they want to find you on YouTube or they want to
find your other endeavors out there? Where can they go find Jay sure Man
So Instagram, greenberg Chronicles and then YouTube, Greenberry Chronicles and the website greenberay
Chronicles dot com. We offer mentorship. We also offer rough programs and also
training programs also in there, and we'll have links to all those down the
description for you guys. And also I'll take two seconds to plug the teamhouse
Patreon. If you guys get on there for five dollars a month. You
get all these episodes add free, and you keep the channel running. We
really appreciate all of you, guys, Jay Dave, final thoughts. Anything
I failed to cover here, No, man, everything was perfect. And
again, man, I appreciate you guys giving me the opportunity to come on
and pasure anytime. Yeah, you're welcome in anytime you want. My wife
would kill me, but yeah, man, I appreciate it. Guys.
Awesome all right, so we will see you guys next time.