Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about
a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already to support
the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that
start at just five dollars a month, and when you sign up, you
get access to all of our episodes add free. That's the big bonus for
that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers,
but this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Teamhouse
channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that, So
go and check us out at patreon dot com. Slash the Teamhouse, Special
Operations, cobert Os SB and I the Team House with your Hopes, Jack
Murphy and David Park two seventy nine of the Team House. I'm day Park
with Jack Murphy d back there making the magic happen. Tonight, we would
like to welcome Dan McClinton, Warren Austin Mclinton served in the Army as a
helicopter pilot flew Hughey's and Hunters and Al Salvador during the not really covered actions
right but kind of co insurgency, insurgency down there, and then Apaches and
Operation Iraqi Freedom. Welcome. Thank you for joining us tonight, Dan,
we really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Do you want to do
the Patreon thing real quick? Yeah, guys, I just want to tell
you upfront about our Patreon. If you're not subscribed already, there's a link
down the description and you will get access to all of these episodes. Add
free and support the channel and help us continue to do what we do here
and pay the bills. We really appreciate that. Uh. It starts at
just five dollars a month, So if you check out the link in the
description, uh, we'd really appreciate it. So Dan, you know you.
Uh. I would also want to mention that you made the documentary The
Longest Month about your time in oif uh and not just your time, but
you know, the time that you were there and what what you guys experienced,
and then also wrote the book Crazy Horse. And you are the recipient
of seven air medals. Is that correct? Yeah? So what we like
to do is start out the show with asking you your origin story, how
how did you grow up to be this this superhero? What was your childhood,
like and what what led you into the military. Well, I was
born in Waco, Texas. My dad was a letter carrier, uh and
my mom was a homemaker, and I had a pretty normal childhood, you
know, little League kee wee football at sort of thing. My dad was
a World War Two vet, and I think a lot of his experience influenced
me throughout my life still is because like anytime when I was a kid,
anytime a World War Two movie came home, my dad was watching it.
I remember sitting there watching to Helen back with him, and I actually talk
about that in the documentary because that whole experience came back to me later on,
you know, in two thousand and seven, because at the end,
if you recall, at the end of the Hell and Back Audie Murphy,
he's getting the Medal of Honor. And I remember sitting there and after watching
the whole movie, BE turned to my dad and I go, you know,
that's that's pretty great, dad, you know, And He's like,
for every one of Audie Murphy, there's ten people that you'll never hear about.
And like when I was a kid, I didn't understand that, and
in a way I thought my dad was kind of like full of it,
you know, because I couldn't understand why the Army wouldn't give you know,
somebody who deserved a medal of medal. And it only took about thirty years
for me to see, you know, the actual to come to full understanding
when I saw it with my own eyes, you know, down range,
but just growing up, you know, back then, you know, because
we didn't have video games, were out in this yard and the street out
there playing army and stuff. I had my you know, uns, and
we're out there throwing mud clods at each other and stuff like that. Because
I lived, because Waco is in close proximity of Fordhood, I was exposed
at an early age because they would at that time, they would bring to
the to the fare and rodeo every year. They'd bring tanks and helicopters,
and sorry, I've got pictures of me from a very young age, like
sitting on top of a M sixty tank or sitting in the cockpit of a
of a Cobra. And as time went on, I to be honest,
I wanted to fly F sixteen's in the Air Force. And when I got
into college, I was in Air Force ro OTC. I was actually in
Civil Air Patrol prior to that, so I was like doing everything I could
to go to flight school in the Air Force, except when I got into
college actually study. I tended to like the social aspects of college more than
actually going to college. And at that time, you weren't going to get
a pilot slot if you didn't have really good grades and weren't like towards the
top of the class. And the Actually the Air Force ROTC, the officer
in charge, actually took me aside and said, out, you know,
what do you want to what do you want out of this? And I
said I want to fly? And he actually and I'd heard of it before,
but he actually told me about the warrant officer program in the Army,
and at that time I didn't really give it much heed. I actually ended
up getting an associate's degree in drafting and design, got a job up in
the Dallas Fort Worth area as a draftsman, and I think after after about
a year year of nine to five and sitting behind a drafting board, I
said like, I don't want to do this all my whole life. So
I went down the Army recruiter and at least. I was smart enough at
that time to know that's the only time that I wield any power in the
Army. And I went down there and told a recruiter if they couldn't give
me in flight school, I wouldn't join in the army because I knew that
you could go in there and like it's called street deceit or high school to
flight school. I went down there and said, look, I want to
go to flight school as a one officer candidate. And after I made them
aware of how bad I wanted to do that, you know that I wasn't
going to go be a crew chief first, or you know something that was
easier for them. Yeah, we actually did the paperwork. It took about
a year, and in eighty six raised my right hands. I went to
four Seal for basic and then turned around went to four Rutger did Warren Officer
Candidate school, and then October eighty seven I graduated flight school as a UH
one pilot. I don't think that's something that even that I was aware of,
that you could go straight in to the warrant program. Yeah, it
seems like I mean, is that like a a typical pathway to being a
warrant officer at the time. I would say when I went through, about
half the class was off the street and half the class was prior service or
from another service. To be honest, I think that's a really that was
a good mix. And for a while there during the Global War on Terror,
the Army was doing towards prior service people. And what happens you do
that is is somebody comes in and goes to flight school with say they had
seven years. In the amount of time they can spend as a pilot,
well, it's the same as if you came off the street, but the
amount of time that they're likely to spend right goes down, you know,
because after twenty years of doing anything in the army, people are usually I'm
I'm pretty much done with this. Yeah, So they kind of set them
ourselves up. I think for right now they've got an experience problem, you
know, like all the people with experience are getting out, and I think
that's a direct result of them assessing too many people that had too much time
already in the service. What was it like going to warrant school, Because
warrenant is like the kind of the sweet spot in the military where right where
you're you're an officer, but you're but you're still you're like the boss,
like you're kind of King Kong or the enlisted, but you're still an officer,
right, It's like this sweet Well, there were times that they called
us specialists with a club card, because you know, technically a warrant officer
is supposed to be a technical expert in his fields. So as a pilot,
you're supposed to be the guy that knows everything about the aircraft and how
do you employ it and all that stuff. I used to say, you
know, we're officers when they want us to be officers, like when they
want us to post staff duty, or you know, you need somebody to
do a collateral investigation or stuff like that. Warran Officer candidate school has changed
from when I was in it, And I'm not going to be the guy
that says it was harder when I went through, But honestly it was different.
Let's let's put it that way. Because when I went through, it
was more physical. They would punish you through physical pt and they would intentionally
overload you with tasks to see how you could task manage, and you always
had to kept your area inspection ready and it took me a really long time
to understand why that was happening. But the whole purpose behind it is to
develop attention to detail, which is you might imagine is important if you're a
pilot when you pre flight the aircraft and stuff like that. But it was
the bane of our existence. You know that they would come in and aye,
your you know, your uniforms aren't spaced correctly in your locker, So
now you're out marching punishment tours on the street when you should be studying and
all this other stuff. It took me almost till I retired to actually appreciate
what they were trying to do. And they since changed it there they don't
do all that stuff anymore. And I obviously I haven't been in since twenty
eleven, so I couldn't tell you the efficacy of what they're doing now.
It's better or worse, but it is what it is. So when when
you went because when you go to the Warran Officer Candidate school, that's not
just pilots or helicopter pilots, but it's any It might be am I warrants,
it might be anybody in the Warren Field. Correct. Yeah, So
that first six weeks. It's it's anybody that's going to be a warrant officer.
I want to say, not in my class, but the class after
mine. They had like bandmasters and you know, there was an f Stef
dude. You know, I remember hearing stories about you know, there were
a couple of guys going through to be S warrants and obviously the physical punishment
wasn't didn't matter to them as much as guys like coming right out of basic
training or something or right off the street. And so there there was like
people button heads because they would intentionally like do things to piss off the tack
officer because they didn't care if they had to push ups or flutter kicks or
all that kind of stuff. And so it started pissing off the other folks
like the CID warrants or you know, the so any You're right, anybody,
anybody who could be a warrant officer would go through that school. So
it wasn't just guys that were guys and gals that were trying to go to
flight school. Yeah, say, when you were done with that, the
next step for you was was it flight school or how does the warrant off
the warrant pilot progress. Well, yeah, technically the next step is flight
school itself, which at that time you had to go through as a Warren
Officer candidate. You would be appointed a Warran officer the day before you got
your wings, and the whole point but behind that was to make you aware
that you were an officer before you were an aviator. But in mine and
a bunch of other people's particular cases, because the Army was so good at
personnel management, we were on hold for four months before I started flight school.
Wow, so I had the pleasure of picking up trash and painting stuff
all around Fort Rucker. A bunch of signed up to go to Arissoult School
just so we would have something to do other than pickup trash and paint things.
But that was there was Actually there was a guy that was an ex
or a former Navy seal that was in our little group there that was on
hold, and it actually made him so upset having to do all that stuff
that he resigned out of that program and went over to Special Forces because he
didn't want to have to put up with that. To go to flight school,
I mean, I had to remind myself all the time that you know,
the goal is to go to flight school, that this is all.
Just got to do this just to get there. It wasn't any fun,
but there could be worse. I mean I was getting paid. So then
you start flight school and how long is that? If you go straight through
without any interruptions. I started in January of seven and we finished in October
of seven. Okay, so about ten months and we went straight through.
I didn't get set back or anything. So it's kind of changed a little
bit since then because now when you go through flight school, they give you
like your aircraft are gonna fly in combat, So you do all the basic
stuff and then they send you to the Apache course or the Blackhawk course or
the Schnook course before you get your wings back. Then you went through either
through UH one's or oh fifty eights, and at the end you got your
wings and then you went on to whatever your next aircraft was gonna be,
or if you were going to go to the field just to fly fifty eights
or fly Hughey's left and went out to your unit. Then yeah, and
then how did they determine what platform you were going to fly, class rank
and what was available at that time. So when my class finished up,
I think there was one Apache and two Blackhawks or something, and I just
I wasn't high enough. That's how I ended up being a dewie guy.
Yeah, and so wh you know, looking back on it, that was
the best thing that ever happened to me, because I it's it's a not
very complicated aircraft and you learn how to do everything by hand with no help.
And I ended up going to a VIP unit. So time, being
on time and being where you're supposed to be flying people to where they're exactly
supposed to be is very important. So I learned how to be very person
ice and be on time and all that stuff, which it's important no matter
where you go, but obviously it's more important when you're flying the CG to
show up, you know, when you're supposed to be there and that kind
of stuff. Yeah, and then how did you end up in Latin America?
So that was just a PCs move like any other assignment in the Army.
Actually, I was at Forthead when Desert Shields started and all these units
were deploying, and because I was in the flight company that did VIP stuff
for Fordhood and I was technically the co pilot for the core commander. I
was tied to him and he wasn't going anywhere, so I was going to
be afforded until whenever. Yeah, So I called up DA because at that
time i'd been at Forhead for about three years. And I learned this later,
but if you call up DA, you know if you're not on their
list, as soon as you call them, you are on their list.
So they needed some pilots down in Central America. I was a pilot in
command night vision goggle qualified. So BANG got orders and desert storms started.
And actually I was on a plane going because our brigade, our parent brigade
for Honduras, was in Panama. So I went on a plane to Panama,
got in process there, they put me on a C one thirty flew
up to Honduras and that was in I want to say, February ninety one,
so like right when desert storms going on. Yeah, And so at
this point, I mean, if you could give us kind of the lay
of the land, because if I'm not a stake in uh In Nicaragua,
Daniel Orteco was voted out. By this point, things are starting to change
in Central America. Yeah, we had a well the unit in it was
based at Sodocano Air Base, Honduras, and uh, there wasn't really like
most aviation units are attached to some ground unit somewhere. Uh, this unit
was just there and it belonged to that brigade in Panama. This is is
it Task Force Bravo. Yeah, at that time it was Joint Task Force
Bravo. Gown the Air Force airport airport there. We would just do missions
that were tasked to us, like we'd fly by like a VET team around
the Honduras to give shots to animals. Half our half of my company was
in El Salvador at any particular time, and their job over there was to
support us Mill Group El Salvador, which was basically the advisors that were advising
the El Salvador and military in their their fight against the the Soviet back guerrillas.
So what we would do over there is get missions from the MAL group
to fly people to places. And one of the regular missions we would do
is fly the comms guy around to update the fills for their secure radios.
But we would get missions probably three or four days out of the week and
the rest of the time, We've just spended our little house chilling. I
mean, to be honest, up until oif, that was probably the most
rewarding job I've had in the Army flying because we're doing real world stuff.
Yeah there. I mean, it took the government a long time to recognize
the guys who were down there, like mixing it up in terms of awards,
purple hearts everything, because since it wasn't a designated combat zone, there
was just like a lot of our country was unaware of what was going on.
Would how like did the big army know, like what you were doing
down there? I'm not sure. Yeah, I mean I was getting combat
pay, I mean, or im in a danger pay. Okay, Actually,
I think it was a five years after the fact that I saw something
in the Army Times. There's something where we were actually finally authorized to wear
a combat patch for that. We never put ourselves in for any awards because
we knew they well I don't know that they would have been approved or nobody
even really talked about it. We just went about our jobs and did them,
but nobody was ever submitted for you know, normally, if you fly
on a combat zone, you're gonna get an air medal at the end of
your tour, because that's just how they recognize that you flew missions in a
combat zone. And that wasn't even nobody got those And I know that the
guys on the ground, I never saw anybody getting anything for what they for
what they did. And I know they were coming under fire, I don't
know how often. And I know that they were because we were flying around
with loaded door guns and our aircraft had special modifications. After the bat tank
commander that was down there, he got shot down and killed murdered because he
survived to shoot down and then the gorillas actually murdered him, so they modified
our aircraft, put extra armor in the aircraft. We had countermeasures installed that
weren't on normal UH onees, so we could fly out of the range of
small arms. So there were people that understood what was going on down there.
I don't think it was widely known. Yeah, so do you have
any like I don't know how how heated it was for you guys. Obviously
it was dangerous for you, But were you guys going into hot LSS or
PCs at all and things like that. I mean, we assumed that we
were being shot at obviously if you don't see the muzzle flash, because we
did all our ops in the daylight, so if you don't see the muzzle
flash or they aren't hitting the aircraft, you don't really know one way or
another. I mean I made I made every approach into every LZ with the
assumption that I was going to get shot at. And we wore chicken plates
and you know, put the armor plates forward on the seats, and we
always assumed that we were going to be shot at. But on my aircraft
was never hit. I never saw so, you know, Vietnam hot LZ.
No, we weren't doing that kind of thing. We had a standby
mission in case like the advisors needed to be pulled out of like some location,
like we were pared to do that and never had to do it right.
And what was that like for you? You know, you had been
flying vps which or VIPs which you mentioned. You know, you need to
be on time and things like that, but you probably landed in on on
like nice a jealousy's when you were picking them up, when you're dropping them
off and now you're in this jungle environment. Was there a learning curve for
you guys? Well, I wouldn't you'd think there would be. But you
know, this is where I go back to my flight school experience in the
way flight school was structured back then, and I think we were trained to
a standard where it didn't require a different mindset and and I think, you
know, when you got in country, they just didn't even though I was
a pilot in command and I was signed off to be a pilot in command,
I flew with somebody that had been there for a while, like for
a little bit, just to see how things were were done. So it
wasn't like here you go go, you know, have at it right,
So there was there were people helping you along in case you didn't understand the
seriousness of the situation. Yeah, So how long were you in Central America?
So I ended up being down there because I ended up extending a month
because I asked to go to the maintenance Test Pilot course when when I returned
to the States, so to line up those class dates, I ended up
staying with a unit for thirteen months. It was supposed to be a twelve
month assignment, but I was down there for thirteen and we we stay structured
the changeouts with Del Salvador where it was like in the middle of the month,
because you to get your combat pay, you only had to be there
I think ten days. So we structured the change out where everybody could pretty
much get combat paid for the whole year. So I think my little last
time over there was like probably fifteen twenty days before I PCs okay, and
then you said that after that you went to a test pilot. Well,
the army, it's kind of fancy sounding, but it's called the maintenance maintenance
has pilot, which means like when they do maintenance on the aircraft, you're
the perperson that gets in there and make sure everything was done correctly. So
you take the aircraft up and you do certain maneuvers to make sure it still
works the way it's supposed to do. So I ended up being a maintenance
platoon leader back at forth because they didn't have a lieutenant to be the maintenance
platoon leader, so I ended up being the maintenance patoon leader for a while.
I flew Hughies till about ninety six. I got passed over for CW
three because well they could never tell me why. It was during the Clinton
draw down, and so I took the money and got out and I ended
up actually coming back in ninety eight because the Army figured out that they let
too many people go, so I came back. And the part of the
deal when I came back is I had to be in a Pache pilot,
so which, to be honest, when I first went to flight school,
I wanted to fly cobras, so I wasn't you want to be a yeah?
Yeah, So then what was that like for you transitioning from a Hueye
to the Apache. Well, just just flying it is not It's not that
hard because on the outside I had a flying job, so I've been flying.
So flying a helicopter they actually make an Apache, I'm not gonna say
it's easy to Any helicopter is kind of difficult to fly, but it's it's
easier to fly because you've got all this stuff that you're trying to do.
But that being said, they have this I don't know if you've ever heard
of a thing called the bag Oh is that when they black out the canopy?
Yeah, so when you're going through Apache train and if you've ever watched
that movie, and I'm forbidden by law from saying the name of it.
With Nicholas cage. You have to learn how to use the monocle that goes
over your right eye. So to do that, they seal up the back
seat of the aircraft where you can't you can't see out. The only way
you can see is through that monocle. So I'm left eye dominant, and
that monocle the only way to look through it is your right eye. So
that that was probably the hardest thing I've ever done flying wise in my life.
When I got out of that, there were days I'd get out of
that and it was February went up through that, went through that transition,
and even February in Alabama is sometimes kind of cool. I'd get out of
that aircraft just soaking that with sweat because I was working my butt off.
That's That's the hardest thing I've ever had to do flying. Dude, How
do you how do you adjust to being left eye dominant? And then you
know, because in shooting, it's very hard for somebody to make that transition
from left eye dominance to you know, a cross eye dominance to uh right.
If they're left eye dominant and right hand that's an issue. Like I'm
left handed, but I learned how to close my left eye a lot.
Yeah, yeah, that's really I mean, once you get out of the
bag, when you're flying at night, you're using a combination of unaided and
the system, and if you really if I really had to look through the
system. I mean, as time went on, I kind of learned how
to use it better. But when I was first learning, now I had
to close my right or my left eye a lot. It was difficult,
and that probably led to why I said, that's probably the hardest thing I've
ever had to do flying, because you know, my mind just didn't want
to see what was coming through that radical. It was seeing everything that my
left eye was seeing. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. So So what year
were you fully qualified in the APACHE on the APACHE and what was your first
unit? So that was nineteen ninety eight and the first unit was afforded was
first Battalion, fourth Aviation Info ID, and I was flying a models and
flew with them for a couple of years and ended up being the Brigade Tactical
Operations Officer, which is a warrant officer that's does a lot of mission planning
and looks into threat threat avoidance, that sort of thing. So that was
my field of expertise for the entire time that I flew. He Age sixty
four was. Back then it was called tap tack OPS. So I was
in four I D until just after nine to eleven, and four ID didn't
deploy immediately after nine to eleven, so a new unit. Back then,
all A sixty four D units that are being stood up went through Forehead.
So there was a new unit, the third Squadron, six Calve, and
they needed attack OPS officers, so I got orders for them and went through
the train up at three six Cave and went to the longbow course at for
Rooker, and that was like two thousand and two. And what specifically is
the longbow So it's the uh if you've ever seen that picture of an Apache
with the thing that looks like a wheel of cheese on top of the road
system, that's the longbow radar. So the Age sixty four D has a
glass cockpit, it's more advanced avionics than the A model. The A model
is kind of steam gauges and it's just a major improvement of the aircraft.
And it was planned from the moment they brought the original Age sixty four online.
They knew that they wanted to improve it and to be honest, like
all these aircraft are designed to fight the tanks of the Warsaw Pact. It's
an anti armor system. Everything on it is designed to kill tanks. Now
what we did ended up doing with it. It's perfectly capable of taking out
you know, trucks, cars, people, so you know, but everything
on it is geared towards that fight. So you know, there was some
when nine to eleven happened, there was actually some you know rethinking of how
we did business. But I ended up going over to Korea with three six
calves for ten months. And the reason it was ten months and not twelve
when they fielded a new unit over there, if they waited, if they
everybody left at twelve. Everybody leaved at the same time. So people who
got to the unit first only spent ten months in Korea, and there's some
people that spent twelve, and then there's some people that spent fourteen. So
I spent ten. Came back to Fort. It was a sign of first
Calve who was in Iraq at the time. So I spent like a month
at ford Hood getting all my desert gear and you know, going to the
classes that you got to go to before you deploy and getting shots and stuff.
Yeah, and then I met the unit over in Iraq and that was
May of four, Okay, so about just over a year after the initial
push than the initial invasion. Did you were you concerned at all that,
you know, you get into apaches nine to eleven, happens, you transfer
to a new unit, they're they're like in the pipe to go to Korea.
Were you worried at all that here you are an attack helicopter and you're
going to miss the war? No, because I remember the day after nine
eleven sitting at the gate like waiting to get on post, and it took
me like two hours to get through the gate. I'm sure you had similar
experience if you. I mean at port Hood there was an M one tank
sitting at the gate with a guy sitting behind a fifty cal like pointing down
the road. But anyway, so I remember sitting in that line waiting to
get on post thinking I couldn't think of a way that this was going to
end, because I was trying to think through like how what's the in state
going to be? You know, because everybody's all fired up to go kill
the bad guys, And I said, okay, I'm I'm on board for
that, but what's the end state, Like, how do you get to
say that we're done? Because you know, even back then, I was
like, there's no way you could kill enough of them where they would just
say, Okay, we're not we're through, We're not gonna we're not gonna
go after the Infidel anymore, because it was so you know, it's it
was there. Their motivation wasn't something that you could just so easily break.
Yeah, yeah, so I don't. I'm not saying that I'm smarter than
the average bearer, but I distinctly remember sitting sitting in that line saying,
I don't know how this is going to end. So I didn't. I
didn't think that I was gonna miss anything. That being said, you know,
the first time you get shot at is kind of an eye opening experience.
I mean, the first time you realize that you're being shot at.
And when I got over there, and kind of going back to what I
was saying about flying Hughie's I assume that I was shot at a lot during
the day then we were flying around the daylight that I was fortunate, like
the three times I went over there, my aircraft was only actually hit like
twice, but I know for certain, you know, I was shot at
a lot, but actually hit it was only twice. But during the day,
like the first time over there, I never saw anybody like shooting at
us or anything. But at night the first time I saw somebody shooting at
me, and I was wearing a night vision goggles so I could see.
You can't see it with the fleer, which is like sometimes if you're the
guy on the controls flying with the flear sometimes it's better that you don't see
all the rounds that are coming your way, because ignorance is bliss, you
know. Sometimes. Yeah, but I remember like looking at it with the
goggles and I could see the muzzle flashes and I could see the rounds coming,
and it was almost like an out of body experience. It was like
I was watching a movie or something, you know. Sure, I mean
they didn't hit the aircraft, so it was like kind of a surreal,
you know. And it took like a second to like okay, and back
then the roe like if even if I saw somebody with a gun during an
oif two you could drop them, so you know, it was go from
that to in the mode to try and target where these rounds are coming from.
So your first trip, you're talking about your first trip to Iraq,
which was in four Where did you end up? What part of the country.
I was at Camp Taji, which is just north of Baghdad, okay,
And so we were responsible for Baghdad. And so were you doing were
you guys primarily doing like base support operations? Were you supporting units on the
ground? Was was there a typical role for you? Well, here's here's
how a typical day would work, like we would show up to the talk
about three hours prior to mission launch. Well, let me step back for
a second. Our battalion had a policy we were gonna have a team of
at least two in the air twenty four to seven permitting, so each aircraft
each each company's got eight aircraft, so they had each company had to launch
two missions a day at the least. So the flight schedule was published and
you knew, let's say tomorrow I'm gonna fly, I'm gonna take off at
three. So if I was taking off at three, I had to be
at the tok at noon and we go in there and we get a brief
from the S three. Okay, here's your missions for today, man,
hand just stack of papers. You know you're gonna go support this court on
and search over here at this time, or you're gonna do convoy security for
this unit at this time. There's here's the three. This is where you're
gonna meet him at. So you get a briefing when you went in there
exactly the missions they expected you to do and the times you were expected to
do them at. But as soon as you launch, all bets could be
off, you know, like because you're monitoring the battalion it the whole time,
and they'd say, hey, there's the troops in contact this low this
grid contact you know like blue twelve, Blue one two on this free you
go there as fast as you could go to get there. And because that
was our number, ticks were our number one priority, and that was followed
by if there was a METAVAC to give them security. METAVAC was a second
priority, and then the third priority is whatever you were previously tasked to do.
So that's that's how so we did a little bit of everything that that
rotation. We ended up supporting the Marines in the Second Battle of Fallujah,
which was a bit of a trip out there from Tadji. So we'd go
out there, get gas, and then support whoever we were supposed to support
out there, which was kind of different. And would would you guys,
would they generally set you guys out like if you were going that far,
would you go to like someplace like Alisade or would they set up FARPs for
you out in the middle of the desert. There was actually a part at
Alisade that we go hit. Okay. The aircraft had its own extra fueld
sell in it, so we get three hours of flight time, okay,
because it took about thirty minutes to get out there. And to be honest,
we didn't really and I kind of mentioned this to you when we were
talking before the show, but a lot of times we didn't really have to
shoot because if we got pushed to someplace just the sound of us coming,
guys would disengage because they didn't want to deal with apaches. I mean there
were people that That's how you knew somebody was dedicated if they were still there
by the time we showed up. Yeah, and what were you You talked
a little bit about rules of engagement, but what were your rules of engagement
for that first trip. They kind of all blend together, but I'm I'm
I'm pretty sure the first trip was like if you saw somebody that was armed,
Like if I was flying and we're looking out with the site and I
see somebody off in the distance and he's got an AK, and that we
could engage, but I would tell you because everywhere we flew, somebody owned
that ground. So before we engage, he would always talk to the ground
unit because we never you know, you're never sure unless somebody's shooting at you
that they were bad guys. Right, So let's say I was flying over
first PCTs AO and they would usually push us down to the battalion that owned
the particular piece of ground that we were operating in. We would call up
that battan and say, you know, hey, we're out here at this
grid. We just saw two guys with what appeared to be AK forty seven's
what do you want us to do about it? And it was basically the
ground guys, if we thought they met all the criteria, we had a
right to self defense. So if somebody shot at us, I could shoot
back. I didn't have to call anybody, right, But if I just
saw somebody walking down the road, we would call them and let them decide
what they wanted to do about that person. Yeah. People, And two
thousand and four was also we talked about it a little bit before the show.
Was that the whole death cult thing kind of popped off? No,
that was actually February two thousand and seven. Okay, those few years I'm
jumping ahead. So, yeah, on this first deployment, and you know,
like going up delusion and supporting troops in combat or contact things like that,
Like you mentioned that a lot of times people had just kind of did
now whenever you'd show up, But were there, were you experiencing some pretty
intense engagements or you know, really like relieving you know, writing in like
the cavalry and relieving troops in contact. To be honest, what we were
doing most of the time out there was supporting the units that were basically the
Handle, you know, because they were using and they're trying to push through
Fellujah and push them into the Handle. So we would go over there and
support those guys and basically check in with the ground unit and say what do
you want us to look at? And and It's kind of funny because that's
not the way when we check in with Marines that they're not used to that
because they use they use their cobras like casts. So they would hold it
a point until you got a target for them, and then they would come
in or if they had a task for them, they would task them that
way, and we would just show up over their shoulder. And we actually
had got a email that the colonel put up in the talk that a Marine
officer said, I would rather have you guys working for us than my own
cobras, which I'm sure marines out there would deny, but I'm here to
tell you that it existed. Is that because you guys were more active,
more proactive in terms of yeah, yeah, we'd go out there and and
hunt, yeah, you know, and some guys I didn't. I didn't
particularly, I didn't get into any engagement. Some of our guys did.
Yeah, but we're out there actually looking, trying to date around, find
find bad guys. Yeah. So was that first trip then? Was it?
I don't want to say, uh, you know, mellow, but
was there like you guys didn't necessarily take a lot of fire, You weren't
engaged in a lot of uh, in a lot of ticks and things like
that. But is that is that accurate for the first trip or not?
Really, It would depend on where you were at. Okay, when we
would support people in and around Solder City, that was you know, you
were in for a good time, uh because they were not shy about shooting
and our guys weren't shy shy about shooting back, and there was something always
going around that place. Yeah. You you told us before the show about
like one unit's idea of how to they search for I D S and Solder
City was that on this trip. Yeah, yeah, they would. We
would get requests to do to shoot down the down the road to try and
either detonate I D S or intimidate people or you know, and you know,
as long as there weren't anybody out there, we didn't really have a
problem doing it. But I don't know how much good it did. Yeah.
Yeah, So but when you guys would go into Sodur City, I
imagine that the neighborhoods would essentially come alive and everybody would let you know that
they were pleased that you were in the area. Oh yeah, they we
got a request from one of the units to do what's called show of course,
So basically got down low level and flew down the street over the top
of the the Abrams, and I noted that they were all buttoned up,
which you know, an Abrams has a lot more armor than an Age sixty
four. But anyway, so we're going down the street and I had mvgs
on and it looked like the Death Star scene from Star Wars with all the
people shooting at us. And I don't know how they missed, but my
aircraft didn't get hit. Our wingmen got hit, and we had an sop
like if if somebody got hit to you know, take the aircraft and look
it over and make sure you know, because you never you never know,
it might hit something that's going to come apart on you. So I took
it back to the far At Taji, which is about a five minute flight
from Solder City, and he had a round through the tail road or drive
shaft. I mean, it wasn't gonna come apart, but you know,
that's something that you can't fly with. So that was the end of our
night. But I don't know, somehow miraculously our aircraft then you did it.
Yeah, It was always a what what weaponry? Because obviously you know
you were you're an anti tank aircraft. But did they change the armament for
you guys when when you started flying these operations considering that you weren't going after
tanks or was the weapons systems? Was everything? Kind of, it's good
regardless, Well, the can into the cannon, you can't can't really change
that. It's a thirty millimeter and it's got a round that detonates when it
contacts the ground or the target or whatever and creates a shrapnel for about a
five meter radius. The health fires, they actually upgraded the health fires as
the Global War on Terror went on. They put a blast flat flat I'll
be able to say this, and the blast fragmentation sleeve on the hellfire because
the warhead, as they were made, is made to penetrate armor. So
when we'd shoot them at a bongo or a car or whatever, it would
just go through and out the other side. And we actually saw they shot
a car that had a mortar crew in it and saw a guy get out
and start running after we hit the car with a health fire. So it
wasn't lost on the people that you know, take care of these weapons,
so they put a bright blast fragmentation sleeve. There was all slight health fire
developed that had a thermobaric warhead, so if he shot it into a building,
into a closed space, it would use over pressure. Yeah, so
we had those available to us. We started flying with Flaschette rockets, which
they got a fifteen hundred steel dart seeing them. I don't think we ever
used them in the city much, but as far as collateral damage is concerned,
like if there were only bad guys out in the street, that would
probably be the best weapon to use if you were going to shoot rockets.
We still had the point detonating warhead rockets, and we also carried illumination rockets,
which some of these guys on patrol at n ain't really because we could
put illumination out there that artillery tubes couldn't necessarily reach, you know, because
some of these guys that be on patrol out in the you know, quite
a ways from the five, so they didn't want to shoot allum rounds that
far, you know, or they weren't available. Were they standard a loom
or ir allum that was visible? Okay? And then is the cannon on
an Apache is it forward facing or does it rotate it? And don't start
asking me what the the limits on it are. But it moves, the
conceater or the back seater can use the cannon, Okay, so it can.
It can like like if you're in Solder City and there are people,
there is an angle that the that the cannon can kind of rotate to right,
Okay. So like what we would do, like let's say I was
supporting a uh let's say uh Special Forces team was taken down a house and
we were supporting that. We were in the stack. We'd go into an
orbit and we're like a little kind of a miniature AC one thirty because the
gun would point out to the side. Yeah. Yeah, So are are
there any like other major stories from that from that first deployment that we've missed
or failed to cover? Well, the something that that happened towards the end
of the tour that uh, it actually caused me to advocate for some training.
When we got back to the States. We were out on a mission
and I actually witnessed a Royal Air Force C one thirty gets shot down with
a rocket. It was flying low level, uh, and it was just
west of Taji, and we ended up my team ended up being the people
that control the whole search and rescue evolution. So we were out there for
like the next four hours, like talking people onto the well. Our primary
objective when we got out there was to keep the locals from rummaging through all
the because they just wanted to get out there and start picking up stuff,
right, So for like the next four hours we were out there controlling at
controlling assets, and frankly, that's not something that army aviators are typically trained
on. One to sixty dudes go to the FACKA course, but it's not
something that regular army did. So when we got back to the States,
I actually wrote a decision paper and we pushed it up through First cav leadership
and got them to pay to send us sends of pilots to the four air
controller airborne course that was run by the Marines because I felt just having that
knowledge how to leverage all these assets that are up above us, having seen
the battlefield and knowing like what's all flying above us over there, especially in
Iraq, that could only be a good thing because like a lot of times,
and I know people think the flear on that on the APACHE is you
know that we can see everything and everybody, but back then it was the
first generation flear and it sometimes I'm fairly certain there were people that got away
with got away from us that we couldn't see with that clear because of the
quality of it. And if we could leverage some of those assets like ANX
say sixteen with the sniperbod yeah, that you know, we may be able
to get some of these people that we weren't able to see before. And
so I'm kind of proud of the fact that I wrote this decision paper and
I convinced these people to let us send people to get that training. And
in hindsight it really makes sense too, because you guys are like a slow
moving reconnaissance platform at least a lot of times the way you guys were using
it, and you're out there ahead of the troops were looking things out,
and it doesn't do you any good to like reach back to the JATACH or
reach back to whomever and try to get them to talk to other platforms who
might be in the stack. Part of adapting to a counterinsurgency campaign. Yeah,
yeah, And at that time, the j TEX in first half,
they were at the division headquarters. They weren't rolling out with with the units.
Yeah. The only people that had J tax and stuff were special ops.
Yeah, so I saw it as a way to leverage that assets.
Now, there were once we got that training done and everything, when it
came down to actually doing it, there were people within the Air Force that
pushed back against us being able to actually do it. Yeah. I still
I still think that training was worthwhile, uh, because it gave people knowledge
that they didn't previously have. Yeah, it's kind of weird with the Air
Force because they pushed back against army having its own J tax too, like
uh, you know, they they really wanted that pie or the whole pie,
but they couldn't. They couldn't do everything. I can't fill all the
slot right right, yeah yeah. Yeah. So so then how was it
for you? How long were you back after off that first deployment. So
we got back in right after that first election in Iraq we redeployed. Okay,
so we were back that was two thousand and five, and we redeployed
in the fall of six. And how had the situation on the ground changed
in that time. Well, by the time we got back in six,
the insurgency was really starting to kick in. Like when we did our left
se right seat with the unit we were replacing, they'd lost a couple of
aircraft and they were they they had changed the way they had done business for
survivability reasons because they were taking a lot of fire. And this goes into
like right after we took over, like December six, and then the beginning
of two thousand and seven, it's like the insurgency was making a point of
trying to target coalition aircraft. And to be honest, it doesn't surprise It
didn't surprise me. I was frankly shocked that they didn't do it sooner because
and nothing against anybody on the ground or nothing against anybody in a convoy,
but anytime an aircraft goes down, that's like a major event. It's on
the news and you could see what happened in Somalia, you know, we
lost a Blackhawk and everything like turn turned different. So people who want to
fight us, they know that's how to get at us. And it surprised
me that it took them that long to start targeting helicopters And what were the
primary means that they were using. Were they using like dishcos. Were they
using manpads RPGs, Like, was there a specific way? I'm sure they
used all of them. What were there specific threats that you guys were really
concerned about in the particular area that we were working in and around Baghdad,
mostly around they called it the belts the back, you know, so around
the outside of Baghdad they would employ and this was a tactic that the north
of the name is used, so it's nothing new. Uh. They used
what's called a triangle shaped ambush and they would mount discas on the back of
the bongo trucks. Disc isn't higher. There were like twenty three millimeters that
they had out there, zpus Yeah, yeah, yeah, But they would
set up these trucks in a in a triangle shape. And and I'll be
honest with you, we're creatures of habit. Everybody is human beings like uh,
consistency that that that today is going to be like yesterday. Yeah.
So and unfortunately, you know, we didn't recognize this fast enough. Uh.
If you flew, like let's say, from a ballod down to Camp
Taji, you would probably go the most director out. And if you were
flying from Ballad to Baghdad or the Baghdad International Airport. They probably went the
same way every time. The the people we were fighting are not stupid.
We killed off all the stupid ones, so they're watching what's going on.
And when they decided that they're going to take down a helicopter, they picked
areas to set up ambushes in these aircraft that would repeat patterns. They'd end
up engaging them. That's how we lost one of our aircraft because we had
the powers that be. Well, let me go back real quick, because
every time we went out on a mission, we would test fire the gun
because at the beginning, we discovered that if you don't use that gun almost
every time, it's gonna jam or it's going to fail. So one of
the first things we did when we went out flying is find an empty place
out in the desert, shoot off ten rounds just to make sure everything's working
the way it's supposed to do. So the powers would be because they were
getting feedback from the people on the ground that we were scaring them. So,
you know, and I understand, you know, and counterinsurgency war where
you're trying to you know, please locals. You know, you can't just
go out there and piss them off, so they designated a spot for us
to go out and shoot. So what started happening is the same time every
day, aircraft were going out to the same place and shooting. They're actually
a couple of places, but people fell into this habit of going to the
same place. And I don't know how many days in a row they went
to the same place. But this particular day, the second of February,
the trail aircraft in the Tina two got hit and it was flown by a
guy named Keith Yoakum and his front seater was named Jason de Frien, and
they were able to keep flying, but unbeknownst to them, there was a
fire in the rear of the aircraft where the hydraulics unit is, so they
they knew that these ambushes were going on, and they decided that they were
gonna go after the guys that initiated this ambush, because usually what happens is
when they engage a helicopter, they all jump in the truck and they take
off because they're gonna stick around for what's coming next. So he decided,
you know, we're gonna go after these dudes, and they actually went in,
started making a couple of gun runs, and I think after about the
second or the third time, through leads calling Jason, asking him, Okay,
where you're at? Because when your lead and you're pulling off the target,
you're looking for your trail and ideally he's rolling in right behind you to
cover your six. So when he pulls off the target, he doesn't see
Jason, so he's calling or he doesn't see he doesn't see Keith, and
he's he's asking him, you know, Keith, where you're at. And
then they saw like smoke on the ground and what had happened is the fire
had eating through like the tailboom tailboom came off the aircraft and they spun in
and they were killed. But that's how those those ambushes went down is they
would observe, find some patterns of people repeating patterns and try and take advantage.
Yeah. Yeah, And I did it in an analysis and I said
probably seventy five to eighty percent of the shootdowns of helicopters over there was pattern
setting, just real quick. For people who might know when we talk about
the different platforms, when we talk about Dishka, it's it's it's basically an
equivalent to like a fifty cal it's about it's a little bit larger, a
little bigger than a fifty caliber round, but it's it's a it's a heavy
machine gun round. That's that's made for anti material It's made for exactly this
type of stuff. Uh, but yeah, it's the Russian or Soviet version
we've got you. Uh, your your camera went all blurry real quick there,
damn. Yeah. Uh you know, can you wave in front of
it? See if that brings it back to you? Wave at where you
are right in front of you still no, Yeah, if you wanna,
if you wanna plug and plug back in real quick, we'll uh sure,
we'll do a quick sorry about yeah, thanks, Yeah, sorry everybody,
But you know it's a new webcam form and we want to make sure that
everybody can see his beautiful face. But I don't know about that, Uh,
Jack, you want to do the patren Yeah, guys, if you
can take a look at our Patreon the links down the description. Uh,
consider subscribing to the channel for five dollars a month and you will get access
to all these episodes ad free and support what we do here. We really
appreciate all of you guys, and also make sure you check out the documentary
of the Longest Month and the book Crazy Horse, and it's I believe it's
one word. Crazy Horse is one word when you're searching for it, links
are down in the description. So yeah, crazy is our call sign that
second deployment. So the second deployment. Now the insertaincy had kicked off.
But one thing that as certaincies tend to be very good at is propaganda.
And had your do you recall if your roes have had changed at that time?
Were they more lax or restrictive? I think, uh, thinking back
on it, they were changed a bit. You could, you know,
because especially since we were sons of Iraq was a thing. And I don't
know if you've guys talked about that before, but we have a basically engaging
the local militias. So because sons of Iraq were a thing, you couldn't
just like shoot some guy walking down the street holding a gun just because he's
got a gun. Uh. And I think the Iraqi government had approved like
a case forty seven's for like home and everybody could have one. My understanding,
but you know, it's it's funny you're talking about you know, the
insurgency, trying to you know, trying to what's the word I'm looking for,
you know, trying to shape the battlefield, so to speak. One
of our teams went out and this is near Solder City, and part of
what we would do every day when you get a mission was go check out
named areas of interest. So our S two would say, we think there
might be more teams setting up into vicinity of this grid, and it was
our job to go out there and like look at it and you know,
make an assessment of what's going on or whatever. So they were looking at
one of these NAIs near Solder City and they saw some kids with guns or
what they thought were guns, and so they went into an orbit and they
were calling the ground unit and asking, you know, if they had any
militia activity in this area or what was going on, you know, if
they had any ground patrols in this area. And they kept looking at these
these kids on with their site, and it was daylight, and when it's
daylight, you could sell long ways away and use what's called DAYTVV and it's
it'd sit like six kilometers away. So they didn't really have any idea that
the aircraft was looking at them and they go, hey, you know,
so flight lead goes, hey, let's push in a little closer and like
get see if you can get a little more detail on what what's going on
here, because they appeared to be either little people or children. So they
went in a little closer and it turned out, you know, after they
did some more searching, that it was children with toy guns. So somebody
obviously gave those kids toy guns, hoping that we would kill them, because
who gives kids in a war zone? Yeah, by guns? Right,
Yeah, but you know we didn't. We called the ground unit and said,
hey, there's some kids out here, you know, with toy guns,
and so I guess they were going to and roll the patrol out there
and you know, like either take them away and say tell the kids not
to do that or or whatever. But it's obvious they're trying to bait us,
which goes into what you were saying, like, yeah, and honestly,
those kids had probably been given instructions. It's like, hey, when
you see the American forces like play with them, like pointed at them,
you know, kids not knowing any better, right, yeah, yeah,
No, the the both in Iraq and Afghanistan, like the insurgency's got or
the the bad guys got very good at at the propaganda and setting those those
conditions and situations up right to get those propaganda wins. There were a lot
of people on the battlefield with cameras, if I recall correctly. Yeah,
yeah, So during this trip, this was the trip with the suicide or
was that the third trip two thousand and seven, the death cult death?
Yeah, it is okay. Yeah, So this is one of those bizarre
mysteries of the war that I don't think anybody has ever solved. Yeah.
I mean it popped up in the news at the time and then kind of
went away against the background of all the other craziness. Yeah, that's happening
in Iraq at the time. Yeah, So can you, to your knowledge,
can you give us a background on what this was. So this was
like twenty eight January two thousand and seven, and that day I can tell
you from my perspective what was going on. Sure, So that day we
were working with some ground forces south of Baghdad and we got a radio call
from our talk saying you need to go down to on a job because an
aircraft's just been shot down. So we go end up going down there getting
gas. There's a there was a farm about halfway down there, so we
stopped in there, got gas, went down there, checked in on station
with a JTAC and it turns out it's a special Forces I don't know if
it was a ODA or who, but they we're working with the Iraqi police
and they got ambushed by this. I mean, all the way down there,
we're getting updates that. You know, when we first got tasked to
go down there, they're saying, okay, there's between twenty and thirty insurgents,
like they shot down this aircraft and they're in a fight with this our
ground forces, so we need you go down there and support that. Five
minutes goes by, and the next radio call it's fifty to seventy five,
and the next radio call it's one hundred to two hundred. You know,
the closer we get, the more people we're hearing about. And I'm talking
to my front seater and it's like, what the hell is going on?
Like, I don't know, man. And we get down there and we
check in with the jaytach and we do a battle what's called a battle handover
with the team from our sister battalion that's leaving and we were out to the
west of where this fight is, and because we wanted to get the sun
behind us, and we look in there and as soon as we roll out,
there's this earth and burm that's running east west and it's oriented towards where
the crashed aircraft is and where the s F dudes are. And on this
burm are about forty bad guys lined up just with RPGs, aks, whatever,
and it appears, you know, they're shooting, so we line up,
you know, and we start wailing on them. And I didn't see
it at the time, but when we went back and looked at the gun
taper, there's just like hundreds of dudes like all in this because there was
a trench line. And later on after the ar they found like because they
sent the QRF down there in strikers and when they ended up basically win in
the fight, they found like three hundred over three hundred dead bodies. These
guys were shooting themselves up with atropine because when we started engaging, they didn't
even because I was telling my front seater because like based on my experience,
like every time we had an engagement, they would run. I mean especially
when you fired and it's hitting around them that they would run and we shot
and the rounds, you know, probably didn't hit some of them because it
was hitting in the sand. So when the shrapnel would come out, it's
kind of getting. It's not perform. The rounds don't perform like they would
if it was hitting concrete or something else or hard ground. So it wasn't
getting. It wasn't hitting the bad guys, it was hitting around them,
and they just stayed there. I mean, they ended up shooting plaschettes,
adam and those work. But it was just bizarre that the amount of we
didn't understand why they were showing such discipline because they never showed that kind of
discipline before. It turns out that they're all shacked up on either drugs or
you know, they they got the spirit in them, I guess, yeah,
yeah. But you know, during the AAR and everything, it's like
this this group, this suicide cult. They weren't attached to anybody, and
I still don't fully understand what their motivations were or or you know, what
this compound was or or what. But you know, ac one thirty win
Winchester shooting at him. That's wild, that's wild if this is the same
event, And I mean, I'd really have to try to find some of
the Fifth Group guys who were involved. But like I remember hearing stories about
dudes like climbing up on the humviies and just like wild shit that happened out
there that night. It doesn't surprise me. I was. I ended up
that mission. I slew ten hours that day. I spent like about We
went Winchester, went back to the park, got more AMMO, came back.
I didn't see any crazy stuff like that, but you know they were
They weren't exactly giving up. I can tell that. Yeah, like Iraqi
berserkers. It's how generally in a typical engagement, how long would maybe how
many passes, Like how long would it take you guys to to go Winchester.
That's probably the only time I ever recalled going when Chester. Yeah,
because we would shoot. I'd say I'd have two hundred rounds of thirty normally,
so you'd shoot either a ten or a twenty round burst. Yeah,
and the guns the guns harmonized for it's pretty accurate, so it would usually
only take at the most three bursts to take care of whatever we were trying
to take out, right, it was something bigger than that you would use
that alfire or rockets or whatever. But you know, normally, if you
were using the gun, it was no more than probably three bursts to take
care of whatever it was. Yeah, and you guys probably got to buy
context. But if you are not aware, Winchester is just simply an air
craft going out of a Yeah, yeah, being go bing, go on
fuel, same thing. Yeah, and jackpot if you find the guy you're
looking for on target after on your third or fourth house. I've spent a
few nights like watching guys run from house to house wanting them to say jackpot
so I can go home. Yeah. Yeah, we're making we're making a
tactical correction here. Okay. Yeah, So on that trip, are there
any other like big moments that you recaller that stand out? Well, it
was during the surge obviously. Well, I ended up spending fifteen months there
in the in the real nut Cruncher was when we went over there, we
were only supposed to be there for twelve So I don't know if you're familiar
with em L because weren't you guys, you weren't usually over there for twelve
months where yeah, no, no, no them, So we had the
Gucci tours that were there. Yeah, conventional guys, if you're there for
twelve months, they would give you two weeks to leave in the middle or
sometime in the middle. So I had set my leave up to where when
I came back there would be like five months left. So I had done
my leave and I was on a bus at the Lode going to get on
a black OWT to come back to Taji, and they had AFN on this
bus and it was Runsfeld announcing the surge and that units would be extended for
fifteen months. So yeah, I found out about that on the bus coming
back from leave. And I think everybody in the army was trained, you
know to deal with like changes, you know, from the time he started
doing PT and they would run past the endpoint for right, you know,
another half mile and then come back and stop. But I don't think anything's
going to prepare you for if you're prepared for twelve months and all of a
sudden, you know, you get to stay three more months. That was
kind of a that was not you had to do some real mental gymnastics there
to kind of get your head straight because as long as fifteen months of my
life, my unit and I've made a point of saving a lot of historical
documents and information because I I've always appreciated military history and whatnot, and I
knew if somebody didn't kind of save some of the stuff that would probably be
lost to the to the ages. But during that deployment, we did eight
hundred troops in troops in contact wow wow. And I want to say there
were over three hundred direct fire engagements during that deployment. There was there was
a period of time there for a couple of months that if you didn't shoot
something while you were up it was something it was very unusual that it was
like between I want to say May and July that if we weren't shooting something,
it was it was an unusual day. Would you say that the uh
that the encounter you just described was one of the largest engagements you've been in
or were were there others that? Was there ever anything that where there were
so many stacks or multiple stacks of so much going on that you were just
like, holy shit. As far as sheer number of bad guys that's the
largest thing that we were in. I was involved. There was a Blackhawk
helicopter or black Hawk blackwater helicopter that went down in January of seven in downtown
Baghdad, and there were so many aircraft in that stack that some of us
just had to get out of there. I mean, there were so many
people looking. And what was weird about it is when it crashed, it
slid like into an alleyway and you couldn't It was until the ground guys got
there that they actually found it. But that was like everybody trying to help
was almost like a cluster there. That was. That was a experience.
But yeah, did you ever have any close calls with because you guys are
obviously on on the on the bottom part of that stack generally, I imagine,
were there ever any like issues or close calls with aircraft that were above
you in the stack? Not that, But I had operated, you know,
because we had Baghdad. We had close calls with little birds. People
like to talk to anybody, They didn't like to talk to anybody on the
radio. So there were people in our there were people in our time that
would be rolling in on a target and had a little bird fly right in
front of them, and I understand, I understand that they had stuff that
they needed to do and they didn't want to compromise what they had going on.
But like some of those guys don't know how close they came to catching
some thirty milimeters rounds. Yeah, So it was always an adventure flying in
downtown Baghdad because there was the cash was there, so a lot of times
you'd see aircraft from outside of the AO to come in to drive people off
at the cash, so you had to kind of keep your at night.
It was more it was it was more of a concern looking out for other
aircraft than it was worrying about people shooting at you. Interesting, well,
if your aircraft ever got shot down at night. Yeah, And I didn't
really worry that much because we would get out a small arms range at night.
You know, as long as you stayed below the coordinating altitude, you
didn't have to worry about other people in the stack. So right, but
like downtown Bagdad, you always had to keep your eye out for like the
Marines or somebody coming in to the cash or the green zone when when you
know, other helicopters would have issues with like little Birds or whomever. Was
it generally because you guys had the same target set and they weren't talking to
people, or like you guys were flying support or was it because they were
just they were prosecuting their own targets and not letting other people know what targets
were happening that night. So anytime you're familiar with OCFI, no, so
other Combat Forces IRAQ, those were those units that we can't talk about,
okay, So anytime they were going to prosecute a target, they would set
up a restricted operating zone a ROSE. So when we walked out the door,
we knew that there was a Special Forces RAS in certain areas that something
was going to happen that night, but we didn't know is what aircraft were
supporting them, or where they were coming from or anything like that. So
we would be out there supporting our ground units, conventional ground units, and
you know, you'd find a mortar crew or something. In that particular night,
the guys that had the little bird flying in front of them, they
were rolling in on a mortar crew. So two little birds, you know,
with boards, so they were mhs, you know, because they had
operators on the outside or going into the X to speak, and they shoot
right in front of the US. There was a common frequency that aircraft operating
in the Baghdad airspace were supposed to use, but these guys wouldn't use it
because they were afraid they would compromise their operations. Because there were zones that
we could identify. For instance, Solder City was zoned twenty one, So
if you're going to operate and zone twenty one, you come up on that
common freak and say crazy yours zero one zero two zone two to one for
the next three zero. Those guys didn't like to use that because they were
afraid, you know, because it was a common freak and if anybody with
a VHF radio could could listen to it, and I understand their concerns.
I don't know if they didn't see us, because I know sometimes an APACHE
because we flew completely blacked out and we had one I R strobe on the
top of the tail, So they may not even seem our aircraft, especially
if they're concentrating, because they were a short final going into the right their
target area, and our guys knew that they were in the vicinity of Araz,
so that's why they probably saw them before they shot. But it's still
there's you know, got to be a better way. Yeah. I don't
know that any mid air has ever happened, and I and to be honest,
I think it's only luck. Yeah, I think there was a missile.
I think there there's a collision. I could I could be mistaken though.
Well, I know that two fifty eighths ran into each other up up
north and that was they were being engaged by ground fire that that may have
been in and I know that they ran into each other unfortunately, so one
or both took like evasive action by the ground fire and just lost situational awareness.
Correct. Yeah, it's got to be. It's gotta be tough,
and especially in places like I rack in Afghanistan where a lot of times you
know, the the visible conditions or the visual you know, it's it's it
can be not great, you know, when you get sand blowing and everything
else. Well, that's that's funny you mentioned that because I distinctly recall being
we got pushed to a you familiar with the jaylens m. It's a big,
big blimp that they would fly over. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
so it's called the Jay lens and it's got cameras on it and whatnot,
and that the jayalens spotted a guy setting up rockets in the middle of
a soccer field and we got sent to that site. And at the same
time, I was having a talk in my ear telling me that there's a
dust storm coming in. So I'm constantly, you know, as we're closing
in on this place, I'm constantly like looking up to the west because the
weather's coming in from the west, seeing the lights gradually disappear as the dust
storm gets closer and closer, going Okay, we're gonna be able to get
this done before we because like flying in a dust cloud, we can do
it. But that's not that's not fun at all. And obviously the the
lower the visibility, you know, the harder it is to deconflict and all
that others. Yeah, so yeah, when weather got sketchy, that's that's
adventure flying there. That's not fun at all. Yeah, your documentary the
longest month was that? Was that for your second trip or was it for
the third trip? No, it's for the second Yeah, can be honest,
nothing nothing really happened on the third tour. Can you tell us about
the documentary about what it covers, Why you did it? Yeah, Well,
first of all, Uh, there was there's some events that that took
place, and one of them I described to you the the shootdown of Keith
and Jason. Uh. The other one we we go into detail about is
the death cult. And then there's a couple of more that One of them
involves gun trucks and the other one involves a little town card Tarmia where a
v bid basically tried to take out the cop and one day up there and
ended up wounding everybody in the cop and it uh turned into a last stand
scenario where they were fighting for their lives, and our guys went up there
in the corner of the guys on the ground. You know, if it
wasn't for our guys showing up when they did, they would be dead.
So I wanted to tell these stories because if we the guys that were there,
don't tell our stories, nobody's nobody's gonna ever hear them. And these
are stories that need to be told. These are stories that need to be
heard. And I made every effort to try and include like the people who
were on the ground too, because their stories deserve to be told. And
and if you watch the documentary, you'll see that everything that we did was
for the guy on the ground. I wasn't just flying for my own amusement,
you know, to go out there and like find bad guys. I
mean, that was part of it. But our whole reason for being up
in the air was to support guys on the ground. And when we get
new guys in the unit, I was one of the senior pilots in the
unit. When new guys would come into the unit, we made sure that
they understood that our reason for being up there was to support that guy on
the ground. Yeah. Yeah, And if you watch it, you'll see
like these guys put themselves put their aircraft into position. Aircraft absolutely got riddled
with bullets, was unfliable when they brought it back to put themselves between those
guys on the ground and the guys that were trying to attack the the cop.
Uh around What year was that when you guys went down to support the
the cop being like Overrunner attacked. That was two thousand and seven, Okay,
so February. Yeah, So that was I mean, because you know,
it's interesting because like when we talk about Solder City, we're talking about
a Shia militia you know, we're you know, and and the Sha militias
were out there heavily supported by Iran. And then you had the Sudni groups,
and you had a Qi you know, al kaieda Iraq out there,
and and I think the like Al Tom Tarmillo was very much like Suni and
AQI, like right, fairly savvy organizations out there at the time. Yeah,
we talked to the captain that was in charge at that of the talk
at the time, and he goes into great detail about how the insurgency I
d's and they knew that whole village was just full of it. Yeah,
and all the Iraqi police had quit because they'd been intimidated out of out of
their jobs. So we interviewed him because I wanted to make sure that people
got a a as full of vie full of pictures as we could of what
went down, because it's not just us flying around with our caveats, you
know, coming in right, loving the smell of napalm in the morning with
your spurs. Yeah. Yeah. So then uh, you guys wrap up
that trip, you go back. How long are how long are you back
home? After you guys were extended for that fifteen months. So we got
back in just after Christmas of seven and I went back in the spring of
nine. Okay, And then you said that that was kind of the slowest
trip for you guys. Yeah, we didn't have a single engagement. It
was Bagdad again. We didn't have a single engagement that whole year. And
is that because from your perspective, was that because things have slowed down?
Is that because the roes have changed and troops aren't going out as much,
because you guys weren't allowed to engage as much? What was that? Well,
we actually saw things starting to slow down at the end of the first
deployment, second deployment, and our commander did a good thing because he had
during the brief premission briefs we would get from the S two, they would
tell us all the serious incidents reports of that day before we went out,
so we'd have an idea where stuff was going on in Baghdad. Towards the
end of that tour, they would brief what the serious incident reports were a
year ago versus what they were right then, And when you put it up
on the screen side by side, it was obvious. Yeah, that what
we were doing was working. So when we got back in nine, the
only thing the ground units were doing, We're trying to keep Sunni and Shia
apart because it was basically hot Iraqi on Iraqi action. Yeah, I mean
there were a couple of times where we could have probably engaged, but they
had changed and ROE was a constantly evolving thing and they just changed the way
that they wanted us to be employed. So yeah, it was. It
was the uh the the Iraqi Civil War, but by that point we had
kind of mitigated the organization we called AQI that was kind of over at that
point, right. I ended up being during that deployment. I ended up
being the o C. We had to support. We had a mission to
support uh O CFI that I mentioned earlier and just SODA missions, a Joint
Special Operations Task Force missions. So they made me the o C. We
had two teams that were dedicated to those missions. So every day I'd get
on the get on the phone, talk to the ear liaison down there and
get what was going on. We would escort them to and from the target,
getting the stack over the target, just support them however they needed it
to be supported. But even doing that. We didn't have a single engagement.
Yeah, it's interesting, you know. I mean Iraq was a lot
different in a lot of ways than Afghanistan. And you know, one of
the ways we met was talking about Solder City and the games that like m
Tada Solder used to play, where he would he would push, he would
push as militia's you know, the Yasha was, but the Madi, you
know, the Madi army would you know, they'd go out and they'd like
get aggressive, and then units would go in and start hammering Solder City and
he'd be like, hold on, I'm a holy man, I'm a religious
figure piece. And I'd be like, okay, I I love but but
he would play that role and he'd play it well. And then and so
US forces go okay, well not US forces, but like the administration or
is making the decisions be like okay, you're a holy man, we'll back
off. You'd back off. And all he was doing was waiting for ja
shaal Maadi. You're like, yeah, he retreated back to a ran a
few times. Yeah, yeah, you know, and it was very like
Solder City was a very interesting piece of the Baghdad puzzle. Yeah, there
was my first deployment. Like I said, we would support UH first CAB
units down there, first PCT would be was rolling towards the Solder Bureau and
they got told to stop. And I don't know how many times after that,
you know, and the intervening years we were like you should just let
them go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I I remember, And you
know we talked about this too. And I've talked about these guys on the
show before, but the Arkansas National Guard. Man, I love those guys,
and they they were out there hooking and jabbing like they they won't win,
just for a couple of times there and to the point where, you
know, I remember one of the guys like asking me if I haven't extra
had an extra a cog because this a cog got shot off his weapon.
I'm like, yeah, I gotta. I got an a car for your
brother, had an a cock for you. But you know, like so
many units were involved in that fight over over time. I mean the last
time I was over there, we had Combat Engineer units UH in their building
a wall, you know, to to keep keep the two sides apart.
Yeah, they're building a physical you know, doing tea wall down route Gold
which runs to the middle of Sodder City. So that's how I wouldn't say,
well, it was actually kind of calm because it used to be a
no fly through there. I mean, if you were going to fly in
there, you were shooting something. But then it became like, okay,
trying not to go through there. But if you have to go through there,
like if you're a metavac and you gotta that's the most direct way you
can fly through there. I got somebody shot a laser at me out of
there, came in the cockpit, but that tour, but I actually think
it was some dumb ass Iraqi army guy. Yeah, but you know,
in general, that was we were just going around making noise. That old
deployment, that that last deployment, and that's that's. Anytime I hear people
talk about how we lost Iraq, I go, I don't know what you're
talking about. I mean, it was pretty much one at that point.
I can say that, Okay, the fact that they wouldn't the Iraqis wouldn't
do a status of forces agreement with us, it's more on them than us,
right, Yeah, we we we really seized defeat from the jaws of
victory. At iraqis so many ways. Yeah, yeah, I mean we
I think that our idea is victory is leaving behind it Jeffersonian democracy, you
know, some sort of you know, a republis even just a stable country
would have been acceptable at that point. Yeah, but it's tough in places
like that because we don't you know, when you look at like Germany and
Japan where we occupied and we waited until the government's got built up, like
we don't have that mental anymore. Like as soon as we took over a
rock, we're basically like here you go. It was kind of like like
here you go. You guys, we're gonna hang out, but you guys
fixed out. That would have been like an eighty year project, not yeah
nine years. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean if you look at if
you look at Afghanistan in Iraq, Iraq was probably the more likely to actually
develop a stable government. Yeah. Yeah, if we could have like successfully
managed like Iran, you know, like local players like those were a lot
of the challenges we had there that we I think earlier in the war we
recognized that and we went after it, and then later we're like, you
know, politically, we just wanted out. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Yeah, the Iranians were knee deep in what was going on over there,
and that's I think that's what a lot of people don't recognize. Yeah when
you talk about Iraq. Yeah yeah, well you know you hadn't mentioned this,
you know, about guys walking around soder City with briefcases and it's like,
yeah, you know, these aren't business meetings they're going to like they're
bringing in, you know, new weapons to test, you know, e
fps, you know kind of e fps came from Iran and you know the
idea that you know, oh look we have this laboratory to test new weapons
systems on American troops, you know, and I think that you know,
you talked about some of the man pads, the man portable anti art you
know systems and things like that that that they were maybe testing on you guys.
Yeah, there were you know, I don't want to say as a
rumor more than anything else, because you take a lot of stuff you hear,
even from the S two with a grain of salt. You go out
there and you get shot out out of Solder City, and you know,
it doesn't it's not a stretch to say it's probably somebody from because I don't
know too many people in Solder City that have the knowledge to employ a manpad
right right, or have a man pad right right? Yeah, like you
can you understand where their aks come from, like they all have them,
maybe even where they wind up with their RPKs or their dishkas or whatever else.
But a manpad is like a whole other level. Yeah yeah, yeah,
So so then how much longer did you What did you do after your
last deployment? So we got back in twenty ten because I'd done three deployments
essentially back to back. Because you know, we come back and you're training
up to deploy again, I go, I need a break. So I
asked U d A if I could go to the schoolhouse to teach uh tacops,
which is what I've been doing. And I had orders. And then
I was a CW four at the time, and I'd been passed over for
W five and W five is kind of like, I don't know, like
sergeant major, you know, there's everybody's not going to get that. And
I'm not the kind of person that they typically picked to be c W five
because to be honest, I'm too honest. I would I would tell commanders
things that they didn't probably want to hear her that I thought they needed to
hear. And I understand it. I'm not bitter about it, but I
have was on orders. The Army changed their policy about UH. At that
time, w fours could stay for thirty if they wanted. But then the
Army changed their policy to where you had to be boarded to if you've been
passed over twice, you had to go before board to be retained. So
I'm starting, I'm almost starting to outprocess to go to for a Rutger and
I get a call from DA saying, you know, the policy's changed.
I got to cancel your orders. So my unit was already on orders to
go to Afghanistan, and I said, well, the whole purpose of me
going to for Rutger is I didn't feel like I could deploy again. Well,
I can't PCSU because you have to go before a retention board, and
the retention boards not till the fall. And I said, well, if
I stand for the retention board, I'm going to Afghanistan because the unit was
supposed to deploy in like June. And he goes, well, I can't
do anything about that, and I said, well, I'm going to drop
my papers then, and he goes, what do you mean. I go,
I'm retiring. And so as soon as I got off the phone with
him, I went to my boss I've worked for the S three and basically
vented to him for a while about how I was getting out of the army
because I'm tired of them trying to screw me. And so October twenty eleven,
I retired. It's interesting because you know, you mentioned getting out when
Clinton went through the whole downsizing thing, and the big thing with Clinton was
up or out right, like you either promote or you get out, which
I think is a horrible It's a horrible thing for the military for you know,
if you get somebody who's good at their job, let him stay in
that job if they don't want to promote. But but warrants were always weren't
They always kind of protected because warrants were the technical experts that could extend that
could have that like thirty year career. How did that I'm gonna I'm gonna
use a phrase that the guys that work down on the motor pool, the
warrants in the motor pool and the other warrants probably aren't gonna like but pilot's
call these guys walking warrants, and those guys generally don't have that up and
out problem because they were NCOs before they became warrant officers. Okay, so
by the time they get to the point where you got to worry about up
and out, you can retire if you want to, Okay. So,
but aviators, especially somebody like me who came off the street, I had
ten years in I got passed over for W three and at that time,
the administration decided, okay, we're going to downsize, right, so I
could roll the dice and stay for a second look, or and they were
offering I want to say, forty thousand bucks for anybody who would get out.
But if I'd stayed for the second look, I wouldn't get that money,
right, right, So I just said I went up. I called
THEA because I wanted to stand in the army, and I said, can
you tell me why I got passed over? Again? I fix it.
And when they said we can't tell you why you got passed over, I
said, okay, I'm taking the money because if you can't tell me what
to fix, right, I said, okay, I'll take the money.
And then you know, about a year and a half later, they said,
ooh, we let too many people go. Who wants to come back?
And considering I didn't want to get out in the first place, that
was an easy decision. And I felt like I had had ten years in
and I didn't want to just like throw that investment away. Sure, Sure,
did they make you pay the money back? Or did? Was that?
Like? No, that's a good thing I didn't have. I didn't
have to pay that back. And when I came back and got and when
I got qualified as an Apache pilot, they were given a patche pilot bonus.
So I actually, money wise, I made out. Aggravation wise,
I wouldn't say so. Uh. As a matter of fact, when I
came back, I had if anything, I would say, before I got
passed over, I was kind of naive about the army and that you know,
they'll take care of you. You know, we're all a you know,
we're all on the same team. Blah blah blah. You know you're
on the you're a teammate until you're not right. You know, we need
to get rid of right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're you're a
trader if you like, want to leave the Army, but you're you're a
uh, you're an encumbrance if the Army needs to downsize. Yeah, I
mean, it's just one of those things that I mean, you can't really
take it personally. Once you say you're done, they're like they're washing their
hands and they're moving on to the next thing. And none of us are
so important to the army. Yeah, they're not gonna be able to move
on without us. Yeah. Well, I had a baseball coach in high
school once that said, and I thought it because we had a problem with
a prima donna on the team, and he would say, if you think
you're so important, you can't be replaced. And once you stick your hand
in a bucket of water, and if you pull your hand out and the
hole is still there, then you're relable. Otherwise we can find somebody to
take your place. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I understand the Army's point
of view. It's just you know, yeah, yeah, it's it's kind
of aggravating. Yeah. So we've talked about your book Crazy Horse. Everybody
please check that out, and we would have read your book. It's just
this was a very last minute fill in and we deeply apologize for not having
read it the longest month. Where can people find the documentary? Is it?
Is it streaming anywhere that you know of? Yeah, it's streaming on
Amazon Prime for free, okay. And it's also available on YouTube. I
think it's stash Films. Has it on there? Okay? Great? So
if you just get on YouTube and do a search for the longest month,
our longest month, stash films, it comes up. And I also want
to call attention to your website dangerpig dot com and that is d n g
r pig dot com. There's no a in danger dnng urpig dot com.
And that was your call signed down in Ol Salvador for the birds and then
websites a bunch of aviators slagged. So if you want to stickers, patches,
that kind of stuff, yeah, yeah, we checked it out.
You have some cool stuff. Will be We'll grab a couple of patches and
stickers to add to our patch wall. So, but Dan, is there
anything that we missed or anything we left out? No, I think we're
I appreciate your time. No, we appreciate your time. We appreciate you
Like rogering up, We we had a a scheduling error and and needed you
know, we had talked and I told you it wouldn't be for like three
months, and and suddenly this, this opportunity came up. So we're glad
that you could be here. We're glad your webcam came in on time.
Yeah. Well, you know, as you can see, there's a reason
why I don't use the web camelt I was actually going to disagree with you
on that point. Whatever webcam you got, let me know, because you
look like it looks good. I spent thousands on cameras trying to make me
look better and none of them, none of them seem to work. So
uh but thank you so much for your time. We deeply, deeply appreciate
it. No, thank you appreciate And also to all our veterans out there,
we wish you a great Memorial Day. You know you're not supposed to
wish him a great Memorial Day. Well, I know it's it should be
a great Memorial Day, though, it should be a time of fun,
remembrance and you know, and healing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would tell you the guys, the guys that I know that God are
k I a They would want us to have a good time. Yeah.
That's why I tell people, go have a barbecue with your family. Yeah,
because that's what they would want. Yeah sure, yeah, yeah,
for sure. Like I know that having a great Memorial Day, think about
the people that we've known and lost, and people who we didn't know and
we've lost. It seems contraindicated. But I think that none of them would
want you sitting at an Applebee's crying into your beer a Memorial Day, believe
man. Yeah. Yeah, So so anyway, I hope you do have
a great Memorial Day. Remember friends, remember the fallen, but spend time
with loved ones and and do buddy checks. Please do buddy checks. Anyway,
next week, next Friday, Robert Young, Pelton conflict journalist, author
of the World's Most Dangerous Places, amongst other works, will be here then.
So that's it. Yeah, thank you, Dan, We really appreciate
it. Thanks man, Thank you all, Thank you all reading