WEBVTT

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Hey guys, it's Jack. I
just wanted to talk to you today about

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a way that you can help support
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add free. That's the big bonus for

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that. I mean, we also
do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers,

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but this is the biggest and best
way that you can support the Teamhouse

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go and check us out at patreon
dot com. Slash the Teamhouse, Special

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Operations, cobert Os SB and I
the Team House with your Hopes, Jack

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Murphy and David Park two seventy nine
of the Team House. I'm day Park

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with Jack Murphy d back there making
the magic happen. Tonight, we would

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like to welcome Dan McClinton, Warren
Austin Mclinton served in the Army as a

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helicopter pilot flew Hughey's and Hunters and
Al Salvador during the not really covered actions

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right but kind of co insurgency,
insurgency down there, and then Apaches and

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Operation Iraqi Freedom. Welcome. Thank
you for joining us tonight, Dan,

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we really appreciate it. Thanks for
having me. Do you want to do

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the Patreon thing real quick? Yeah, guys, I just want to tell

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you upfront about our Patreon. If
you're not subscribed already, there's a link

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down the description and you will get
access to all of these episodes. Add

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free and support the channel and help
us continue to do what we do here

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and pay the bills. We really
appreciate that. Uh. It starts at

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just five dollars a month, So
if you check out the link in the

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description, uh, we'd really appreciate
it. So Dan, you know you.

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Uh. I would also want to
mention that you made the documentary The

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Longest Month about your time in oif
uh and not just your time, but

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you know, the time that you
were there and what what you guys experienced,

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and then also wrote the book Crazy
Horse. And you are the recipient

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of seven air medals. Is that
correct? Yeah? So what we like

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to do is start out the show
with asking you your origin story, how

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how did you grow up to be
this this superhero? What was your childhood,

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like and what what led you into
the military. Well, I was

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born in Waco, Texas. My
dad was a letter carrier, uh and

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my mom was a homemaker, and
I had a pretty normal childhood, you

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know, little League kee wee football
at sort of thing. My dad was

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a World War Two vet, and
I think a lot of his experience influenced

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me throughout my life still is because
like anytime when I was a kid,

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anytime a World War Two movie came
home, my dad was watching it.

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I remember sitting there watching to Helen
back with him, and I actually talk

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about that in the documentary because that
whole experience came back to me later on,

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you know, in two thousand and
seven, because at the end,

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if you recall, at the end
of the Hell and Back Audie Murphy,

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he's getting the Medal of Honor.
And I remember sitting there and after watching

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the whole movie, BE turned to
my dad and I go, you know,

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that's that's pretty great, dad,
you know, And He's like,

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for every one of Audie Murphy,
there's ten people that you'll never hear about.

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And like when I was a kid, I didn't understand that, and

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in a way I thought my dad
was kind of like full of it,

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you know, because I couldn't understand
why the Army wouldn't give you know,

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somebody who deserved a medal of medal. And it only took about thirty years

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for me to see, you know, the actual to come to full understanding

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when I saw it with my own
eyes, you know, down range,

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but just growing up, you know, back then, you know, because

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we didn't have video games, were
out in this yard and the street out

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there playing army and stuff. I
had my you know, uns, and

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we're out there throwing mud clods at
each other and stuff like that. Because

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I lived, because Waco is in
close proximity of Fordhood, I was exposed

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at an early age because they would
at that time, they would bring to

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the to the fare and rodeo every
year. They'd bring tanks and helicopters,

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and sorry, I've got pictures of
me from a very young age, like

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sitting on top of a M sixty
tank or sitting in the cockpit of a

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of a Cobra. And as time
went on, I to be honest,

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I wanted to fly F sixteen's in
the Air Force. And when I got

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into college, I was in Air
Force ro OTC. I was actually in

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Civil Air Patrol prior to that,
so I was like doing everything I could

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to go to flight school in the
Air Force, except when I got into

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college actually study. I tended to
like the social aspects of college more than

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actually going to college. And at
that time, you weren't going to get

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a pilot slot if you didn't have
really good grades and weren't like towards the

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top of the class. And the
Actually the Air Force ROTC, the officer

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in charge, actually took me aside
and said, out, you know,

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what do you want to what do
you want out of this? And I

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said I want to fly? And
he actually and I'd heard of it before,

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but he actually told me about the
warrant officer program in the Army,

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and at that time I didn't really
give it much heed. I actually ended

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up getting an associate's degree in drafting
and design, got a job up in

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the Dallas Fort Worth area as a
draftsman, and I think after after about

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a year year of nine to five
and sitting behind a drafting board, I

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said like, I don't want to
do this all my whole life. So

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I went down the Army recruiter and
at least. I was smart enough at

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that time to know that's the only
time that I wield any power in the

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Army. And I went down there
and told a recruiter if they couldn't give

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me in flight school, I wouldn't
join in the army because I knew that

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you could go in there and like
it's called street deceit or high school to

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flight school. I went down there
and said, look, I want to

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go to flight school as a one
officer candidate. And after I made them

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aware of how bad I wanted to
do that, you know that I wasn't

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going to go be a crew chief
first, or you know something that was

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easier for them. Yeah, we
actually did the paperwork. It took about

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a year, and in eighty six
raised my right hands. I went to

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four Seal for basic and then turned
around went to four Rutger did Warren Officer

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Candidate school, and then October eighty
seven I graduated flight school as a UH

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one pilot. I don't think that's
something that even that I was aware of,

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that you could go straight in to
the warrant program. Yeah, it

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seems like I mean, is that
like a a typical pathway to being a

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warrant officer at the time. I
would say when I went through, about

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half the class was off the street
and half the class was prior service or

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from another service. To be honest, I think that's a really that was

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a good mix. And for a
while there during the Global War on Terror,

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the Army was doing towards prior service
people. And what happens you do

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that is is somebody comes in and
goes to flight school with say they had

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seven years. In the amount of
time they can spend as a pilot,

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well, it's the same as if
you came off the street, but the

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amount of time that they're likely to
spend right goes down, you know,

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because after twenty years of doing anything
in the army, people are usually I'm

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I'm pretty much done with this.
Yeah, So they kind of set them

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ourselves up. I think for right
now they've got an experience problem, you

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know, like all the people with
experience are getting out, and I think

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that's a direct result of them assessing
too many people that had too much time

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already in the service. What was
it like going to warrant school, Because

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warrenant is like the kind of the
sweet spot in the military where right where

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you're you're an officer, but you're
but you're still you're like the boss,

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like you're kind of King Kong or
the enlisted, but you're still an officer,

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right, It's like this sweet Well, there were times that they called

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us specialists with a club card,
because you know, technically a warrant officer

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is supposed to be a technical expert
in his fields. So as a pilot,

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you're supposed to be the guy that
knows everything about the aircraft and how

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do you employ it and all that
stuff. I used to say, you

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know, we're officers when they want
us to be officers, like when they

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want us to post staff duty,
or you know, you need somebody to

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do a collateral investigation or stuff like
that. Warran Officer candidate school has changed

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from when I was in it,
And I'm not going to be the guy

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that says it was harder when I
went through, But honestly it was different.

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Let's let's put it that way.
Because when I went through, it

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was more physical. They would punish
you through physical pt and they would intentionally

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overload you with tasks to see how
you could task manage, and you always

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had to kept your area inspection ready
and it took me a really long time

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to understand why that was happening.
But the whole purpose behind it is to

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develop attention to detail, which is
you might imagine is important if you're a

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pilot when you pre flight the aircraft
and stuff like that. But it was

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the bane of our existence. You
know that they would come in and aye,

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your you know, your uniforms aren't
spaced correctly in your locker, So

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now you're out marching punishment tours on
the street when you should be studying and

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all this other stuff. It took
me almost till I retired to actually appreciate

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what they were trying to do.
And they since changed it there they don't

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do all that stuff anymore. And
I obviously I haven't been in since twenty

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eleven, so I couldn't tell you
the efficacy of what they're doing now.

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It's better or worse, but it
is what it is. So when when

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you went because when you go to
the Warran Officer Candidate school, that's not

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just pilots or helicopter pilots, but
it's any It might be am I warrants,

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it might be anybody in the Warren
Field. Correct. Yeah, So

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that first six weeks. It's it's
anybody that's going to be a warrant officer.

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I want to say, not in
my class, but the class after

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mine. They had like bandmasters and
you know, there was an f Stef

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dude. You know, I remember
hearing stories about you know, there were

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a couple of guys going through to
be S warrants and obviously the physical punishment

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wasn't didn't matter to them as much
as guys like coming right out of basic

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training or something or right off the
street. And so there there was like

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people button heads because they would intentionally
like do things to piss off the tack

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officer because they didn't care if they
had to push ups or flutter kicks or

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all that kind of stuff. And
so it started pissing off the other folks

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like the CID warrants or you know, the so any You're right, anybody,

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anybody who could be a warrant officer
would go through that school. So

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it wasn't just guys that were guys
and gals that were trying to go to

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flight school. Yeah, say,
when you were done with that, the

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next step for you was was it
flight school or how does the warrant off

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the warrant pilot progress. Well,
yeah, technically the next step is flight

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school itself, which at that time
you had to go through as a Warren

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Officer candidate. You would be appointed
a Warran officer the day before you got

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your wings, and the whole point
but behind that was to make you aware

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that you were an officer before you
were an aviator. But in mine and

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a bunch of other people's particular cases, because the Army was so good at

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personnel management, we were on hold
for four months before I started flight school.

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Wow, so I had the pleasure
of picking up trash and painting stuff

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all around Fort Rucker. A bunch
of signed up to go to Arissoult School

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just so we would have something to
do other than pickup trash and paint things.

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But that was there was Actually there
was a guy that was an ex

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or a former Navy seal that was
in our little group there that was on

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hold, and it actually made him
so upset having to do all that stuff

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that he resigned out of that program
and went over to Special Forces because he

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didn't want to have to put up
with that. To go to flight school,

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I mean, I had to remind
myself all the time that you know,

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the goal is to go to flight
school, that this is all.

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Just got to do this just to
get there. It wasn't any fun,

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but there could be worse. I
mean I was getting paid. So then

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you start flight school and how long
is that? If you go straight through

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without any interruptions. I started in
January of seven and we finished in October

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of seven. Okay, so about
ten months and we went straight through.

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I didn't get set back or anything. So it's kind of changed a little

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bit since then because now when you
go through flight school, they give you

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like your aircraft are gonna fly in
combat, So you do all the basic

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stuff and then they send you to
the Apache course or the Blackhawk course or

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the Schnook course before you get your
wings back. Then you went through either

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through UH one's or oh fifty eights, and at the end you got your

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wings and then you went on to
whatever your next aircraft was gonna be,

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or if you were going to go
to the field just to fly fifty eights

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or fly Hughey's left and went out
to your unit. Then yeah, and

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then how did they determine what platform
you were going to fly, class rank

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and what was available at that time. So when my class finished up,

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I think there was one Apache and
two Blackhawks or something, and I just

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I wasn't high enough. That's how
I ended up being a dewie guy.

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Yeah, and so wh you know, looking back on it, that was

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the best thing that ever happened to
me, because I it's it's a not

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very complicated aircraft and you learn how
to do everything by hand with no help.

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And I ended up going to a
VIP unit. So time, being

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on time and being where you're supposed
to be flying people to where they're exactly

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supposed to be is very important.
So I learned how to be very person

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ice and be on time and all
that stuff, which it's important no matter

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where you go, but obviously it's
more important when you're flying the CG to

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show up, you know, when
you're supposed to be there and that kind

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of stuff. Yeah, and then
how did you end up in Latin America?

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So that was just a PCs move
like any other assignment in the Army.

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Actually, I was at Forthead when
Desert Shields started and all these units

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were deploying, and because I was
in the flight company that did VIP stuff

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00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:45.799
for Fordhood and I was technically the
co pilot for the core commander. I

206
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:48.759
was tied to him and he wasn't
going anywhere, so I was going to

207
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be afforded until whenever. Yeah,
So I called up DA because at that

208
00:18:56.359 --> 00:19:03.200
time i'd been at Forhead for about
three years. And I learned this later,

209
00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:07.200
but if you call up DA,
you know if you're not on their

210
00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:08.440
list, as soon as you call
them, you are on their list.

211
00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:14.079
So they needed some pilots down in
Central America. I was a pilot in

212
00:19:14.119 --> 00:19:23.920
command night vision goggle qualified. So
BANG got orders and desert storms started.

213
00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:30.200
And actually I was on a plane
going because our brigade, our parent brigade

214
00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:37.240
for Honduras, was in Panama.
So I went on a plane to Panama,

215
00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:40.240
got in process there, they put
me on a C one thirty flew

216
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:47.880
up to Honduras and that was in
I want to say, February ninety one,

217
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:55.039
so like right when desert storms going
on. Yeah, And so at

218
00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:57.240
this point, I mean, if
you could give us kind of the lay

219
00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:03.000
of the land, because if I'm
not a stake in uh In Nicaragua,

220
00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:07.440
Daniel Orteco was voted out. By
this point, things are starting to change

221
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:21.480
in Central America. Yeah, we
had a well the unit in it was

222
00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:29.119
based at Sodocano Air Base, Honduras, and uh, there wasn't really like

223
00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:33.880
most aviation units are attached to some
ground unit somewhere. Uh, this unit

224
00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:41.680
was just there and it belonged to
that brigade in Panama. This is is

225
00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:47.359
it Task Force Bravo. Yeah,
at that time it was Joint Task Force

226
00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:55.960
Bravo. Gown the Air Force airport
airport there. We would just do missions

227
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:00.960
that were tasked to us, like
we'd fly by like a VET team around

228
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:07.680
the Honduras to give shots to animals. Half our half of my company was

229
00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:12.559
in El Salvador at any particular time, and their job over there was to

230
00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:19.000
support us Mill Group El Salvador,
which was basically the advisors that were advising

231
00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:27.759
the El Salvador and military in their
their fight against the the Soviet back guerrillas.

232
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:33.359
So what we would do over there
is get missions from the MAL group

233
00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:41.519
to fly people to places. And
one of the regular missions we would do

234
00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:47.519
is fly the comms guy around to
update the fills for their secure radios.

235
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:55.720
But we would get missions probably three
or four days out of the week and

236
00:21:55.759 --> 00:22:00.319
the rest of the time, We've
just spended our little house chilling. I

237
00:22:00.359 --> 00:22:06.440
mean, to be honest, up
until oif, that was probably the most

238
00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:11.920
rewarding job I've had in the Army
flying because we're doing real world stuff.

239
00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:18.799
Yeah there. I mean, it
took the government a long time to recognize

240
00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:25.799
the guys who were down there,
like mixing it up in terms of awards,

241
00:22:25.839 --> 00:22:30.680
purple hearts everything, because since it
wasn't a designated combat zone, there

242
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:34.240
was just like a lot of our
country was unaware of what was going on.

243
00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:41.720
Would how like did the big army
know, like what you were doing

244
00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:51.240
down there? I'm not sure.
Yeah, I mean I was getting combat

245
00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:56.720
pay, I mean, or im
in a danger pay. Okay, Actually,

246
00:22:56.759 --> 00:23:02.960
I think it was a five years
after the fact that I saw something

247
00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.880
in the Army Times. There's something
where we were actually finally authorized to wear

248
00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:15.480
a combat patch for that. We
never put ourselves in for any awards because

249
00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:23.359
we knew they well I don't know
that they would have been approved or nobody

250
00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:27.480
even really talked about it. We
just went about our jobs and did them,

251
00:23:27.480 --> 00:23:33.680
but nobody was ever submitted for you
know, normally, if you fly

252
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:37.279
on a combat zone, you're gonna
get an air medal at the end of

253
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:41.960
your tour, because that's just how
they recognize that you flew missions in a

254
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:48.680
combat zone. And that wasn't even
nobody got those And I know that the

255
00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:53.640
guys on the ground, I never
saw anybody getting anything for what they for

256
00:23:53.759 --> 00:23:59.480
what they did. And I know
they were coming under fire, I don't

257
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.079
know how often. And I know
that they were because we were flying around

258
00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:08.640
with loaded door guns and our aircraft
had special modifications. After the bat tank

259
00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:12.720
commander that was down there, he
got shot down and killed murdered because he

260
00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:19.559
survived to shoot down and then the
gorillas actually murdered him, so they modified

261
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:25.720
our aircraft, put extra armor in
the aircraft. We had countermeasures installed that

262
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:30.240
weren't on normal UH onees, so
we could fly out of the range of

263
00:24:30.279 --> 00:24:40.279
small arms. So there were people
that understood what was going on down there.

264
00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:48.119
I don't think it was widely known. Yeah, so do you have

265
00:24:48.160 --> 00:24:55.079
any like I don't know how how
heated it was for you guys. Obviously

266
00:24:55.160 --> 00:25:00.200
it was dangerous for you, But
were you guys going into hot LSS or

267
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:07.119
PCs at all and things like that. I mean, we assumed that we

268
00:25:07.119 --> 00:25:11.559
were being shot at obviously if you
don't see the muzzle flash, because we

269
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:17.480
did all our ops in the daylight, so if you don't see the muzzle

270
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:22.440
flash or they aren't hitting the aircraft, you don't really know one way or

271
00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:26.160
another. I mean I made I
made every approach into every LZ with the

272
00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:30.680
assumption that I was going to get
shot at. And we wore chicken plates

273
00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:37.960
and you know, put the armor
plates forward on the seats, and we

274
00:25:37.079 --> 00:25:41.319
always assumed that we were going to
be shot at. But on my aircraft

275
00:25:41.400 --> 00:25:48.039
was never hit. I never saw
so, you know, Vietnam hot LZ.

276
00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:53.240
No, we weren't doing that kind
of thing. We had a standby

277
00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:59.000
mission in case like the advisors needed
to be pulled out of like some location,

278
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:02.400
like we were pared to do that
and never had to do it right.

279
00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:07.720
And what was that like for you? You know, you had been

280
00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:15.079
flying vps which or VIPs which you
mentioned. You know, you need to

281
00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:19.759
be on time and things like that, but you probably landed in on on

282
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:23.240
like nice a jealousy's when you were
picking them up, when you're dropping them

283
00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:26.400
off and now you're in this jungle
environment. Was there a learning curve for

284
00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:36.319
you guys? Well, I wouldn't
you'd think there would be. But you

285
00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:42.599
know, this is where I go
back to my flight school experience in the

286
00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:47.519
way flight school was structured back then, and I think we were trained to

287
00:26:48.440 --> 00:26:56.160
a standard where it didn't require a
different mindset and and I think, you

288
00:26:56.160 --> 00:27:03.079
know, when you got in country, they just didn't even though I was

289
00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:04.920
a pilot in command and I was
signed off to be a pilot in command,

290
00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:07.720
I flew with somebody that had been
there for a while, like for

291
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:14.559
a little bit, just to see
how things were were done. So it

292
00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:18.799
wasn't like here you go go,
you know, have at it right,

293
00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:25.880
So there was there were people helping
you along in case you didn't understand the

294
00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:33.759
seriousness of the situation. Yeah,
So how long were you in Central America?

295
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:38.680
So I ended up being down there
because I ended up extending a month

296
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:45.440
because I asked to go to the
maintenance Test Pilot course when when I returned

297
00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:49.799
to the States, so to line
up those class dates, I ended up

298
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:53.279
staying with a unit for thirteen months. It was supposed to be a twelve

299
00:27:53.359 --> 00:28:00.720
month assignment, but I was down
there for thirteen and we we stay structured

300
00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:07.400
the changeouts with Del Salvador where it
was like in the middle of the month,

301
00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:11.400
because you to get your combat pay, you only had to be there

302
00:28:11.400 --> 00:28:18.920
I think ten days. So we
structured the change out where everybody could pretty

303
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:26.440
much get combat paid for the whole
year. So I think my little last

304
00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:33.720
time over there was like probably fifteen
twenty days before I PCs okay, and

305
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:38.880
then you said that after that you
went to a test pilot. Well,

306
00:28:38.920 --> 00:28:44.839
the army, it's kind of fancy
sounding, but it's called the maintenance maintenance

307
00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:48.000
has pilot, which means like when
they do maintenance on the aircraft, you're

308
00:28:48.039 --> 00:28:56.240
the perperson that gets in there and
make sure everything was done correctly. So

309
00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:00.960
you take the aircraft up and you
do certain maneuvers to make sure it still

310
00:29:02.079 --> 00:29:06.839
works the way it's supposed to do. So I ended up being a maintenance

311
00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:12.119
platoon leader back at forth because they
didn't have a lieutenant to be the maintenance

312
00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:15.319
platoon leader, so I ended up
being the maintenance patoon leader for a while.

313
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:23.640
I flew Hughies till about ninety six. I got passed over for CW

314
00:29:23.799 --> 00:29:30.559
three because well they could never tell
me why. It was during the Clinton

315
00:29:32.119 --> 00:29:37.640
draw down, and so I took
the money and got out and I ended

316
00:29:37.720 --> 00:29:41.720
up actually coming back in ninety eight
because the Army figured out that they let

317
00:29:41.720 --> 00:29:47.559
too many people go, so I
came back. And the part of the

318
00:29:47.559 --> 00:29:49.119
deal when I came back is I
had to be in a Pache pilot,

319
00:29:49.319 --> 00:29:53.160
so which, to be honest,
when I first went to flight school,

320
00:29:53.200 --> 00:30:03.000
I wanted to fly cobras, so
I wasn't you want to be a yeah?

321
00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:07.599
Yeah, So then what was that
like for you transitioning from a Hueye

322
00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:15.839
to the Apache. Well, just
just flying it is not It's not that

323
00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:21.039
hard because on the outside I had
a flying job, so I've been flying.

324
00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:26.920
So flying a helicopter they actually make
an Apache, I'm not gonna say

325
00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:32.359
it's easy to Any helicopter is kind
of difficult to fly, but it's it's

326
00:30:32.440 --> 00:30:37.400
easier to fly because you've got all
this stuff that you're trying to do.

327
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:42.240
But that being said, they have
this I don't know if you've ever heard

328
00:30:42.279 --> 00:30:48.640
of a thing called the bag Oh
is that when they black out the canopy?

329
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:55.440
Yeah, so when you're going through
Apache train and if you've ever watched

330
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:59.200
that movie, and I'm forbidden by
law from saying the name of it.

331
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:07.559
With Nicholas cage. You have to
learn how to use the monocle that goes

332
00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:11.559
over your right eye. So to
do that, they seal up the back

333
00:31:11.599 --> 00:31:15.640
seat of the aircraft where you can't
you can't see out. The only way

334
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:22.480
you can see is through that monocle. So I'm left eye dominant, and

335
00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:26.799
that monocle the only way to look
through it is your right eye. So

336
00:31:26.839 --> 00:31:33.920
that that was probably the hardest thing
I've ever done flying wise in my life.

337
00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:40.000
When I got out of that,
there were days I'd get out of

338
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.400
that and it was February went up
through that, went through that transition,

339
00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:48.599
and even February in Alabama is sometimes
kind of cool. I'd get out of

340
00:31:48.599 --> 00:31:53.359
that aircraft just soaking that with sweat
because I was working my butt off.

341
00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:59.319
That's That's the hardest thing I've ever
had to do flying. Dude, How

342
00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:05.680
do you how do you adjust to
being left eye dominant? And then you

343
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:07.960
know, because in shooting, it's
very hard for somebody to make that transition

344
00:32:08.039 --> 00:32:14.400
from left eye dominance to you know, a cross eye dominance to uh right.

345
00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:19.920
If they're left eye dominant and right
hand that's an issue. Like I'm

346
00:32:19.960 --> 00:32:27.559
left handed, but I learned how
to close my left eye a lot.

347
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:32.880
Yeah, yeah, that's really I
mean, once you get out of the

348
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:38.960
bag, when you're flying at night, you're using a combination of unaided and

349
00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:45.240
the system, and if you really
if I really had to look through the

350
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:49.079
system. I mean, as time
went on, I kind of learned how

351
00:32:49.079 --> 00:32:52.799
to use it better. But when
I was first learning, now I had

352
00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:59.559
to close my right or my left
eye a lot. It was difficult,

353
00:32:59.799 --> 00:33:02.880
and that probably led to why I
said, that's probably the hardest thing I've

354
00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:09.400
ever had to do flying, because
you know, my mind just didn't want

355
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:14.839
to see what was coming through that
radical. It was seeing everything that my

356
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:23.359
left eye was seeing. Yeah.
Yeah, interesting. So So what year

357
00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:29.759
were you fully qualified in the APACHE
on the APACHE and what was your first

358
00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:36.400
unit? So that was nineteen ninety
eight and the first unit was afforded was

359
00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:45.200
first Battalion, fourth Aviation Info ID, and I was flying a models and

360
00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:52.960
flew with them for a couple of
years and ended up being the Brigade Tactical

361
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:59.640
Operations Officer, which is a warrant
officer that's does a lot of mission planning

362
00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:06.880
and looks into threat threat avoidance,
that sort of thing. So that was

363
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:10.320
my field of expertise for the entire
time that I flew. He Age sixty

364
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:19.280
four was. Back then it was
called tap tack OPS. So I was

365
00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:25.440
in four I D until just after
nine to eleven, and four ID didn't

366
00:34:25.480 --> 00:34:34.199
deploy immediately after nine to eleven,
so a new unit. Back then,

367
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:39.000
all A sixty four D units that
are being stood up went through Forehead.

368
00:34:40.559 --> 00:34:45.159
So there was a new unit,
the third Squadron, six Calve, and

369
00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:51.079
they needed attack OPS officers, so
I got orders for them and went through

370
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:55.719
the train up at three six Cave
and went to the longbow course at for

371
00:34:55.960 --> 00:35:02.440
Rooker, and that was like two
thousand and two. And what specifically is

372
00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:08.039
the longbow So it's the uh if
you've ever seen that picture of an Apache

373
00:35:08.039 --> 00:35:12.239
with the thing that looks like a
wheel of cheese on top of the road

374
00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:19.440
system, that's the longbow radar.
So the Age sixty four D has a

375
00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:25.639
glass cockpit, it's more advanced avionics
than the A model. The A model

376
00:35:25.719 --> 00:35:32.800
is kind of steam gauges and it's
just a major improvement of the aircraft.

377
00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:37.599
And it was planned from the moment
they brought the original Age sixty four online.

378
00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:42.599
They knew that they wanted to improve
it and to be honest, like

379
00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:50.599
all these aircraft are designed to fight
the tanks of the Warsaw Pact. It's

380
00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:55.119
an anti armor system. Everything on
it is designed to kill tanks. Now

381
00:35:55.159 --> 00:36:00.639
what we did ended up doing with
it. It's perfectly capable of taking out

382
00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:08.719
you know, trucks, cars,
people, so you know, but everything

383
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:14.440
on it is geared towards that fight. So you know, there was some

384
00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:20.760
when nine to eleven happened, there
was actually some you know rethinking of how

385
00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:25.639
we did business. But I ended
up going over to Korea with three six

386
00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:31.800
calves for ten months. And the
reason it was ten months and not twelve

387
00:36:31.880 --> 00:36:36.719
when they fielded a new unit over
there, if they waited, if they

388
00:36:36.719 --> 00:36:44.119
everybody left at twelve. Everybody leaved
at the same time. So people who

389
00:36:44.119 --> 00:36:49.280
got to the unit first only spent
ten months in Korea, and there's some

390
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:52.840
people that spent twelve, and then
there's some people that spent fourteen. So

391
00:36:52.920 --> 00:36:57.079
I spent ten. Came back to
Fort. It was a sign of first

392
00:36:57.119 --> 00:37:00.760
Calve who was in Iraq at the
time. So I spent like a month

393
00:37:00.800 --> 00:37:07.599
at ford Hood getting all my desert
gear and you know, going to the

394
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:12.159
classes that you got to go to
before you deploy and getting shots and stuff.

395
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:16.119
Yeah, and then I met the
unit over in Iraq and that was

396
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:23.079
May of four, Okay, so
about just over a year after the initial

397
00:37:23.119 --> 00:37:28.320
push than the initial invasion. Did
you were you concerned at all that,

398
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:31.559
you know, you get into apaches
nine to eleven, happens, you transfer

399
00:37:31.639 --> 00:37:37.119
to a new unit, they're they're
like in the pipe to go to Korea.

400
00:37:37.519 --> 00:37:40.800
Were you worried at all that here
you are an attack helicopter and you're

401
00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:47.480
going to miss the war? No, because I remember the day after nine

402
00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:53.559
eleven sitting at the gate like waiting
to get on post, and it took

403
00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:59.039
me like two hours to get through
the gate. I'm sure you had similar

404
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:05.000
experience if you. I mean at
port Hood there was an M one tank

405
00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:07.280
sitting at the gate with a guy
sitting behind a fifty cal like pointing down

406
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:14.639
the road. But anyway, so
I remember sitting in that line waiting to

407
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:17.719
get on post thinking I couldn't think
of a way that this was going to

408
00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:25.400
end, because I was trying to
think through like how what's the in state

409
00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:30.519
going to be? You know,
because everybody's all fired up to go kill

410
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:32.239
the bad guys, And I said, okay, I'm I'm on board for

411
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:38.559
that, but what's the end state, Like, how do you get to

412
00:38:38.679 --> 00:38:44.760
say that we're done? Because you
know, even back then, I was

413
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:46.280
like, there's no way you could
kill enough of them where they would just

414
00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:52.159
say, Okay, we're not we're
through, We're not gonna we're not gonna

415
00:38:52.199 --> 00:38:58.639
go after the Infidel anymore, because
it was so you know, it's it

416
00:38:59.239 --> 00:39:06.000
was there. Their motivation wasn't something
that you could just so easily break.

417
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:12.400
Yeah, yeah, so I don't. I'm not saying that I'm smarter than

418
00:39:12.440 --> 00:39:16.000
the average bearer, but I distinctly
remember sitting sitting in that line saying,

419
00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:20.440
I don't know how this is going
to end. So I didn't. I

420
00:39:20.519 --> 00:39:29.599
didn't think that I was gonna miss
anything. That being said, you know,

421
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:34.639
the first time you get shot at
is kind of an eye opening experience.

422
00:39:34.679 --> 00:39:37.920
I mean, the first time you
realize that you're being shot at.

423
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:42.719
And when I got over there,
and kind of going back to what I

424
00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:47.599
was saying about flying Hughie's I assume
that I was shot at a lot during

425
00:39:47.599 --> 00:39:52.039
the day then we were flying around
the daylight that I was fortunate, like

426
00:39:52.199 --> 00:39:58.199
the three times I went over there, my aircraft was only actually hit like

427
00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:02.760
twice, but I know for certain, you know, I was shot at

428
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:09.199
a lot, but actually hit it
was only twice. But during the day,

429
00:40:10.440 --> 00:40:15.119
like the first time over there,
I never saw anybody like shooting at

430
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:17.360
us or anything. But at night
the first time I saw somebody shooting at

431
00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:22.400
me, and I was wearing a
night vision goggles so I could see.

432
00:40:22.960 --> 00:40:28.039
You can't see it with the fleer, which is like sometimes if you're the

433
00:40:28.039 --> 00:40:31.960
guy on the controls flying with the
flear sometimes it's better that you don't see

434
00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:37.480
all the rounds that are coming your
way, because ignorance is bliss, you

435
00:40:37.519 --> 00:40:42.800
know. Sometimes. Yeah, but
I remember like looking at it with the

436
00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:45.199
goggles and I could see the muzzle
flashes and I could see the rounds coming,

437
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:51.679
and it was almost like an out
of body experience. It was like

438
00:40:51.719 --> 00:40:54.280
I was watching a movie or something, you know. Sure, I mean

439
00:40:54.360 --> 00:41:00.960
they didn't hit the aircraft, so
it was like kind of a surreal,

440
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:05.480
you know. And it took like
a second to like okay, and back

441
00:41:05.519 --> 00:41:09.679
then the roe like if even if
I saw somebody with a gun during an

442
00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:15.400
oif two you could drop them,
so you know, it was go from

443
00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:21.679
that to in the mode to try
and target where these rounds are coming from.

444
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:24.559
So your first trip, you're talking
about your first trip to Iraq,

445
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.679
which was in four Where did you
end up? What part of the country.

446
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:35.519
I was at Camp Taji, which
is just north of Baghdad, okay,

447
00:41:36.280 --> 00:41:42.920
And so we were responsible for Baghdad. And so were you doing were

448
00:41:42.920 --> 00:41:45.480
you guys primarily doing like base support
operations? Were you supporting units on the

449
00:41:45.480 --> 00:41:52.840
ground? Was was there a typical
role for you? Well, here's here's

450
00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:58.280
how a typical day would work,
like we would show up to the talk

451
00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:04.320
about three hours prior to mission launch. Well, let me step back for

452
00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:07.239
a second. Our battalion had a
policy we were gonna have a team of

453
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:14.280
at least two in the air twenty
four to seven permitting, so each aircraft

454
00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:19.920
each each company's got eight aircraft,
so they had each company had to launch

455
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:25.159
two missions a day at the least. So the flight schedule was published and

456
00:42:25.199 --> 00:42:30.119
you knew, let's say tomorrow I'm
gonna fly, I'm gonna take off at

457
00:42:30.199 --> 00:42:32.719
three. So if I was taking
off at three, I had to be

458
00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:37.480
at the tok at noon and we
go in there and we get a brief

459
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:40.840
from the S three. Okay,
here's your missions for today, man,

460
00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:45.880
hand just stack of papers. You
know you're gonna go support this court on

461
00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:51.920
and search over here at this time, or you're gonna do convoy security for

462
00:42:51.960 --> 00:42:54.199
this unit at this time. There's
here's the three. This is where you're

463
00:42:54.199 --> 00:42:58.880
gonna meet him at. So you
get a briefing when you went in there

464
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:04.840
exactly the missions they expected you to
do and the times you were expected to

465
00:43:04.920 --> 00:43:09.480
do them at. But as soon
as you launch, all bets could be

466
00:43:09.519 --> 00:43:13.639
off, you know, like because
you're monitoring the battalion it the whole time,

467
00:43:15.519 --> 00:43:17.880
and they'd say, hey, there's
the troops in contact this low this

468
00:43:19.039 --> 00:43:25.679
grid contact you know like blue twelve, Blue one two on this free you

469
00:43:25.880 --> 00:43:30.599
go there as fast as you could
go to get there. And because that

470
00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:35.239
was our number, ticks were our
number one priority, and that was followed

471
00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:39.519
by if there was a METAVAC to
give them security. METAVAC was a second

472
00:43:39.559 --> 00:43:45.760
priority, and then the third priority
is whatever you were previously tasked to do.

473
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:51.079
So that's that's how so we did
a little bit of everything that that

474
00:43:51.199 --> 00:43:54.000
rotation. We ended up supporting the
Marines in the Second Battle of Fallujah,

475
00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:02.079
which was a bit of a trip
out there from Tadji. So we'd go

476
00:44:02.119 --> 00:44:07.639
out there, get gas, and
then support whoever we were supposed to support

477
00:44:07.639 --> 00:44:13.320
out there, which was kind of
different. And would would you guys,

478
00:44:13.400 --> 00:44:15.639
would they generally set you guys out
like if you were going that far,

479
00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:20.199
would you go to like someplace like
Alisade or would they set up FARPs for

480
00:44:20.360 --> 00:44:22.760
you out in the middle of the
desert. There was actually a part at

481
00:44:22.800 --> 00:44:32.159
Alisade that we go hit. Okay. The aircraft had its own extra fueld

482
00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:37.119
sell in it, so we get
three hours of flight time, okay,

483
00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:44.039
because it took about thirty minutes to
get out there. And to be honest,

484
00:44:44.039 --> 00:44:47.800
we didn't really and I kind of
mentioned this to you when we were

485
00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:52.400
talking before the show, but a
lot of times we didn't really have to

486
00:44:52.440 --> 00:44:59.360
shoot because if we got pushed to
someplace just the sound of us coming,

487
00:45:00.199 --> 00:45:07.679
guys would disengage because they didn't want
to deal with apaches. I mean there

488
00:45:07.679 --> 00:45:13.639
were people that That's how you knew
somebody was dedicated if they were still there

489
00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:19.519
by the time we showed up.
Yeah, and what were you You talked

490
00:45:19.519 --> 00:45:22.719
a little bit about rules of engagement, but what were your rules of engagement

491
00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:30.719
for that first trip. They kind
of all blend together, but I'm I'm

492
00:45:30.840 --> 00:45:35.119
I'm pretty sure the first trip was
like if you saw somebody that was armed,

493
00:45:36.719 --> 00:45:40.599
Like if I was flying and we're
looking out with the site and I

494
00:45:40.639 --> 00:45:47.320
see somebody off in the distance and
he's got an AK, and that we

495
00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:54.679
could engage, but I would tell
you because everywhere we flew, somebody owned

496
00:45:54.679 --> 00:46:00.599
that ground. So before we engage, he would always talk to the ground

497
00:46:00.679 --> 00:46:06.280
unit because we never you know,
you're never sure unless somebody's shooting at you

498
00:46:06.360 --> 00:46:13.320
that they were bad guys. Right, So let's say I was flying over

499
00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:17.280
first PCTs AO and they would usually
push us down to the battalion that owned

500
00:46:17.280 --> 00:46:22.639
the particular piece of ground that we
were operating in. We would call up

501
00:46:22.639 --> 00:46:25.440
that battan and say, you know, hey, we're out here at this

502
00:46:25.559 --> 00:46:31.400
grid. We just saw two guys
with what appeared to be AK forty seven's

503
00:46:32.599 --> 00:46:37.079
what do you want us to do
about it? And it was basically the

504
00:46:37.119 --> 00:46:43.400
ground guys, if we thought they
met all the criteria, we had a

505
00:46:43.480 --> 00:46:46.679
right to self defense. So if
somebody shot at us, I could shoot

506
00:46:46.679 --> 00:46:50.719
back. I didn't have to call
anybody, right, But if I just

507
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:54.719
saw somebody walking down the road,
we would call them and let them decide

508
00:46:54.800 --> 00:47:00.239
what they wanted to do about that
person. Yeah. People, And two

509
00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:04.880
thousand and four was also we talked
about it a little bit before the show.

510
00:47:05.039 --> 00:47:07.960
Was that the whole death cult thing
kind of popped off? No,

511
00:47:08.079 --> 00:47:14.239
that was actually February two thousand and
seven. Okay, those few years I'm

512
00:47:14.280 --> 00:47:17.840
jumping ahead. So, yeah,
on this first deployment, and you know,

513
00:47:17.960 --> 00:47:23.599
like going up delusion and supporting troops
in combat or contact things like that,

514
00:47:24.400 --> 00:47:28.360
Like you mentioned that a lot of
times people had just kind of did

515
00:47:28.559 --> 00:47:31.920
now whenever you'd show up, But
were there, were you experiencing some pretty

516
00:47:31.960 --> 00:47:37.920
intense engagements or you know, really
like relieving you know, writing in like

517
00:47:37.960 --> 00:47:44.360
the cavalry and relieving troops in contact. To be honest, what we were

518
00:47:44.400 --> 00:47:51.679
doing most of the time out there
was supporting the units that were basically the

519
00:47:51.800 --> 00:47:55.440
Handle, you know, because they
were using and they're trying to push through

520
00:47:55.519 --> 00:48:00.159
Fellujah and push them into the Handle. So we would go over there and

521
00:48:00.559 --> 00:48:06.599
support those guys and basically check in
with the ground unit and say what do

522
00:48:06.639 --> 00:48:12.400
you want us to look at?
And and It's kind of funny because that's

523
00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:16.400
not the way when we check in
with Marines that they're not used to that

524
00:48:16.519 --> 00:48:23.000
because they use they use their cobras
like casts. So they would hold it

525
00:48:23.039 --> 00:48:27.000
a point until you got a target
for them, and then they would come

526
00:48:27.039 --> 00:48:30.760
in or if they had a task
for them, they would task them that

527
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:36.320
way, and we would just show
up over their shoulder. And we actually

528
00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:40.559
had got a email that the colonel
put up in the talk that a Marine

529
00:48:43.280 --> 00:48:45.559
officer said, I would rather have
you guys working for us than my own

530
00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:54.239
cobras, which I'm sure marines out
there would deny, but I'm here to

531
00:48:54.239 --> 00:48:59.800
tell you that it existed. Is
that because you guys were more active,

532
00:49:00.199 --> 00:49:05.239
more proactive in terms of yeah,
yeah, we'd go out there and and

533
00:49:05.360 --> 00:49:09.719
hunt, yeah, you know,
and some guys I didn't. I didn't

534
00:49:09.800 --> 00:49:14.239
particularly, I didn't get into any
engagement. Some of our guys did.

535
00:49:14.719 --> 00:49:21.280
Yeah, but we're out there actually
looking, trying to date around, find

536
00:49:21.480 --> 00:49:27.920
find bad guys. Yeah. So
was that first trip then? Was it?

537
00:49:28.760 --> 00:49:32.159
I don't want to say, uh, you know, mellow, but

538
00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:37.639
was there like you guys didn't necessarily
take a lot of fire, You weren't

539
00:49:37.639 --> 00:49:40.800
engaged in a lot of uh,
in a lot of ticks and things like

540
00:49:40.840 --> 00:49:45.679
that. But is that is that
accurate for the first trip or not?

541
00:49:45.719 --> 00:49:52.320
Really, It would depend on where
you were at. Okay, when we

542
00:49:52.320 --> 00:49:54.960
would support people in and around Solder
City, that was you know, you

543
00:49:54.960 --> 00:50:00.840
were in for a good time,
uh because they were not shy about shooting

544
00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:07.159
and our guys weren't shy shy about
shooting back, and there was something always

545
00:50:07.199 --> 00:50:13.119
going around that place. Yeah.
You you told us before the show about

546
00:50:13.119 --> 00:50:17.280
like one unit's idea of how to
they search for I D S and Solder

547
00:50:17.360 --> 00:50:22.119
City was that on this trip.
Yeah, yeah, they would. We

548
00:50:22.159 --> 00:50:30.760
would get requests to do to shoot
down the down the road to try and

549
00:50:30.880 --> 00:50:37.000
either detonate I D S or intimidate
people or you know, and you know,

550
00:50:37.079 --> 00:50:39.960
as long as there weren't anybody out
there, we didn't really have a

551
00:50:40.159 --> 00:50:46.599
problem doing it. But I don't
know how much good it did. Yeah.

552
00:50:47.760 --> 00:50:52.079
Yeah, So but when you guys
would go into Sodur City, I

553
00:50:52.320 --> 00:50:59.400
imagine that the neighborhoods would essentially come
alive and everybody would let you know that

554
00:50:59.480 --> 00:51:06.039
they were pleased that you were in
the area. Oh yeah, they we

555
00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:13.239
got a request from one of the
units to do what's called show of course,

556
00:51:14.639 --> 00:51:19.320
So basically got down low level and
flew down the street over the top

557
00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:23.960
of the the Abrams, and I
noted that they were all buttoned up,

558
00:51:24.840 --> 00:51:30.440
which you know, an Abrams has
a lot more armor than an Age sixty

559
00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:37.199
four. But anyway, so we're
going down the street and I had mvgs

560
00:51:37.239 --> 00:51:40.320
on and it looked like the Death
Star scene from Star Wars with all the

561
00:51:40.320 --> 00:51:45.079
people shooting at us. And I
don't know how they missed, but my

562
00:51:45.239 --> 00:51:52.960
aircraft didn't get hit. Our wingmen
got hit, and we had an sop

563
00:51:52.360 --> 00:51:58.280
like if if somebody got hit to
you know, take the aircraft and look

564
00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:01.199
it over and make sure you know, because you never you never know,

565
00:52:01.320 --> 00:52:07.760
it might hit something that's going to
come apart on you. So I took

566
00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:10.400
it back to the far At Taji, which is about a five minute flight

567
00:52:10.440 --> 00:52:17.079
from Solder City, and he had
a round through the tail road or drive

568
00:52:17.119 --> 00:52:21.039
shaft. I mean, it wasn't
gonna come apart, but you know,

569
00:52:21.119 --> 00:52:25.320
that's something that you can't fly with. So that was the end of our

570
00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:30.840
night. But I don't know,
somehow miraculously our aircraft then you did it.

571
00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:39.320
Yeah, It was always a what
what weaponry? Because obviously you know

572
00:52:40.159 --> 00:52:45.519
you were you're an anti tank aircraft. But did they change the armament for

573
00:52:45.639 --> 00:52:51.920
you guys when when you started flying
these operations considering that you weren't going after

574
00:52:51.960 --> 00:52:57.159
tanks or was the weapons systems?
Was everything? Kind of, it's good

575
00:52:57.280 --> 00:53:01.599
regardless, Well, the can into
the cannon, you can't can't really change

576
00:53:01.639 --> 00:53:09.000
that. It's a thirty millimeter and
it's got a round that detonates when it

577
00:53:09.039 --> 00:53:15.199
contacts the ground or the target or
whatever and creates a shrapnel for about a

578
00:53:15.239 --> 00:53:22.719
five meter radius. The health fires, they actually upgraded the health fires as

579
00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:29.199
the Global War on Terror went on. They put a blast flat flat I'll

580
00:53:29.199 --> 00:53:36.000
be able to say this, and
the blast fragmentation sleeve on the hellfire because

581
00:53:37.320 --> 00:53:43.679
the warhead, as they were made, is made to penetrate armor. So

582
00:53:43.880 --> 00:53:49.920
when we'd shoot them at a bongo
or a car or whatever, it would

583
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:53.880
just go through and out the other
side. And we actually saw they shot

584
00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:58.599
a car that had a mortar crew
in it and saw a guy get out

585
00:53:58.639 --> 00:54:04.599
and start running after we hit the
car with a health fire. So it

586
00:54:04.719 --> 00:54:07.039
wasn't lost on the people that you
know, take care of these weapons,

587
00:54:07.039 --> 00:54:12.719
so they put a bright blast fragmentation
sleeve. There was all slight health fire

588
00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:15.719
developed that had a thermobaric warhead,
so if he shot it into a building,

589
00:54:15.800 --> 00:54:21.039
into a closed space, it would
use over pressure. Yeah, so

590
00:54:21.079 --> 00:54:25.280
we had those available to us.
We started flying with Flaschette rockets, which

591
00:54:28.599 --> 00:54:37.280
they got a fifteen hundred steel dart
seeing them. I don't think we ever

592
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:40.199
used them in the city much,
but as far as collateral damage is concerned,

593
00:54:40.239 --> 00:54:43.960
like if there were only bad guys
out in the street, that would

594
00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:46.679
probably be the best weapon to use
if you were going to shoot rockets.

595
00:54:47.440 --> 00:54:54.920
We still had the point detonating warhead
rockets, and we also carried illumination rockets,

596
00:54:55.079 --> 00:55:00.519
which some of these guys on patrol
at n ain't really because we could

597
00:55:00.719 --> 00:55:08.239
put illumination out there that artillery tubes
couldn't necessarily reach, you know, because

598
00:55:08.280 --> 00:55:12.079
some of these guys that be on
patrol out in the you know, quite

599
00:55:12.119 --> 00:55:16.000
a ways from the five, so
they didn't want to shoot allum rounds that

600
00:55:16.119 --> 00:55:21.639
far, you know, or they
weren't available. Were they standard a loom

601
00:55:21.719 --> 00:55:28.519
or ir allum that was visible?
Okay? And then is the cannon on

602
00:55:28.800 --> 00:55:35.840
an Apache is it forward facing or
does it rotate it? And don't start

603
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:39.639
asking me what the the limits on
it are. But it moves, the

604
00:55:39.920 --> 00:55:45.480
conceater or the back seater can use
the cannon, Okay, so it can.

605
00:55:45.679 --> 00:55:51.079
It can like like if you're in
Solder City and there are people,

606
00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:55.639
there is an angle that the that
the cannon can kind of rotate to right,

607
00:55:57.000 --> 00:55:59.239
Okay. So like what we would
do, like let's say I was

608
00:55:59.239 --> 00:56:07.840
supporting a uh let's say uh Special
Forces team was taken down a house and

609
00:56:07.880 --> 00:56:12.559
we were supporting that. We were
in the stack. We'd go into an

610
00:56:12.639 --> 00:56:15.800
orbit and we're like a little kind
of a miniature AC one thirty because the

611
00:56:15.880 --> 00:56:27.000
gun would point out to the side. Yeah. Yeah, So are are

612
00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:30.559
there any like other major stories from
that from that first deployment that we've missed

613
00:56:30.639 --> 00:56:37.000
or failed to cover? Well,
the something that that happened towards the end

614
00:56:37.039 --> 00:56:43.960
of the tour that uh, it
actually caused me to advocate for some training.

615
00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:49.119
When we got back to the States. We were out on a mission

616
00:56:49.480 --> 00:56:53.920
and I actually witnessed a Royal Air
Force C one thirty gets shot down with

617
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:59.960
a rocket. It was flying low
level, uh, and it was just

618
00:57:00.119 --> 00:57:06.599
west of Taji, and we ended
up my team ended up being the people

619
00:57:06.639 --> 00:57:12.199
that control the whole search and rescue
evolution. So we were out there for

620
00:57:12.239 --> 00:57:16.159
like the next four hours, like
talking people onto the well. Our primary

621
00:57:16.199 --> 00:57:21.039
objective when we got out there was
to keep the locals from rummaging through all

622
00:57:21.119 --> 00:57:24.639
the because they just wanted to get
out there and start picking up stuff,

623
00:57:24.920 --> 00:57:31.000
right, So for like the next
four hours we were out there controlling at

624
00:57:31.119 --> 00:57:39.039
controlling assets, and frankly, that's
not something that army aviators are typically trained

625
00:57:39.400 --> 00:57:47.159
on. One to sixty dudes go
to the FACKA course, but it's not

626
00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:55.960
something that regular army did. So
when we got back to the States,

627
00:57:57.039 --> 00:58:02.280
I actually wrote a decision paper and
we pushed it up through First cav leadership

628
00:58:02.440 --> 00:58:08.119
and got them to pay to send
us sends of pilots to the four air

629
00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:16.000
controller airborne course that was run by
the Marines because I felt just having that

630
00:58:16.119 --> 00:58:22.880
knowledge how to leverage all these assets
that are up above us, having seen

631
00:58:22.920 --> 00:58:28.000
the battlefield and knowing like what's all
flying above us over there, especially in

632
00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:32.199
Iraq, that could only be a
good thing because like a lot of times,

633
00:58:34.239 --> 00:58:37.800
and I know people think the flear
on that on the APACHE is you

634
00:58:37.840 --> 00:58:42.360
know that we can see everything and
everybody, but back then it was the

635
00:58:42.400 --> 00:58:49.679
first generation flear and it sometimes I'm
fairly certain there were people that got away

636
00:58:49.760 --> 00:58:52.679
with got away from us that we
couldn't see with that clear because of the

637
00:58:52.760 --> 00:58:59.599
quality of it. And if we
could leverage some of those assets like ANX

638
00:58:59.719 --> 00:59:06.039
say sixteen with the sniperbod yeah,
that you know, we may be able

639
00:59:06.079 --> 00:59:09.599
to get some of these people that
we weren't able to see before. And

640
00:59:09.719 --> 00:59:15.800
so I'm kind of proud of the
fact that I wrote this decision paper and

641
00:59:15.840 --> 00:59:20.559
I convinced these people to let us
send people to get that training. And

642
00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:25.280
in hindsight it really makes sense too, because you guys are like a slow

643
00:59:25.320 --> 00:59:30.559
moving reconnaissance platform at least a lot
of times the way you guys were using

644
00:59:30.639 --> 00:59:35.239
it, and you're out there ahead
of the troops were looking things out,

645
00:59:35.800 --> 00:59:38.679
and it doesn't do you any good
to like reach back to the JATACH or

646
00:59:38.719 --> 00:59:43.719
reach back to whomever and try to
get them to talk to other platforms who

647
00:59:43.800 --> 00:59:46.760
might be in the stack. Part
of adapting to a counterinsurgency campaign. Yeah,

648
00:59:46.880 --> 00:59:52.960
yeah, And at that time,
the j TEX in first half,

649
00:59:52.519 --> 00:59:58.679
they were at the division headquarters.
They weren't rolling out with with the units.

650
00:59:58.840 --> 01:00:01.960
Yeah. The only people that had
J tax and stuff were special ops.

651
01:00:02.239 --> 01:00:07.400
Yeah, so I saw it as
a way to leverage that assets.

652
01:00:07.440 --> 01:00:12.280
Now, there were once we got
that training done and everything, when it

653
01:00:12.320 --> 01:00:16.519
came down to actually doing it,
there were people within the Air Force that

654
01:00:16.719 --> 01:00:22.679
pushed back against us being able to
actually do it. Yeah. I still

655
01:00:22.880 --> 01:00:29.079
I still think that training was worthwhile, uh, because it gave people knowledge

656
01:00:29.119 --> 01:00:32.280
that they didn't previously have. Yeah, it's kind of weird with the Air

657
01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:37.719
Force because they pushed back against army
having its own J tax too, like

658
01:00:38.119 --> 01:00:44.000
uh, you know, they they
really wanted that pie or the whole pie,

659
01:00:44.559 --> 01:00:47.119
but they couldn't. They couldn't do
everything. I can't fill all the

660
01:00:47.199 --> 01:00:53.760
slot right right, yeah yeah.
Yeah. So so then how was it

661
01:00:53.800 --> 01:00:59.599
for you? How long were you
back after off that first deployment. So

662
01:00:59.639 --> 01:01:06.039
we got back in right after that
first election in Iraq we redeployed. Okay,

663
01:01:07.639 --> 01:01:13.480
so we were back that was two
thousand and five, and we redeployed

664
01:01:13.760 --> 01:01:23.440
in the fall of six. And
how had the situation on the ground changed

665
01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:29.239
in that time. Well, by
the time we got back in six,

666
01:01:29.320 --> 01:01:34.079
the insurgency was really starting to kick
in. Like when we did our left

667
01:01:34.119 --> 01:01:37.559
se right seat with the unit we
were replacing, they'd lost a couple of

668
01:01:37.599 --> 01:01:45.360
aircraft and they were they they had
changed the way they had done business for

669
01:01:45.440 --> 01:01:54.159
survivability reasons because they were taking a
lot of fire. And this goes into

670
01:01:54.679 --> 01:02:02.280
like right after we took over,
like December six, and then the beginning

671
01:02:02.360 --> 01:02:09.320
of two thousand and seven, it's
like the insurgency was making a point of

672
01:02:09.360 --> 01:02:16.039
trying to target coalition aircraft. And
to be honest, it doesn't surprise It

673
01:02:16.039 --> 01:02:23.039
didn't surprise me. I was frankly
shocked that they didn't do it sooner because

674
01:02:23.719 --> 01:02:28.519
and nothing against anybody on the ground
or nothing against anybody in a convoy,

675
01:02:28.599 --> 01:02:32.960
but anytime an aircraft goes down,
that's like a major event. It's on

676
01:02:34.079 --> 01:02:37.960
the news and you could see what
happened in Somalia, you know, we

677
01:02:38.119 --> 01:02:47.079
lost a Blackhawk and everything like turn
turned different. So people who want to

678
01:02:47.119 --> 01:02:52.639
fight us, they know that's how
to get at us. And it surprised

679
01:02:52.679 --> 01:02:58.599
me that it took them that long
to start targeting helicopters And what were the

680
01:02:58.639 --> 01:03:05.159
primary means that they were using.
Were they using like dishcos. Were they

681
01:03:05.239 --> 01:03:08.360
using manpads RPGs, Like, was
there a specific way? I'm sure they

682
01:03:08.679 --> 01:03:12.760
used all of them. What were
there specific threats that you guys were really

683
01:03:12.760 --> 01:03:17.440
concerned about in the particular area that
we were working in and around Baghdad,

684
01:03:17.840 --> 01:03:23.519
mostly around they called it the belts
the back, you know, so around

685
01:03:23.559 --> 01:03:32.519
the outside of Baghdad they would employ
and this was a tactic that the north

686
01:03:32.559 --> 01:03:39.000
of the name is used, so
it's nothing new. Uh. They used

687
01:03:39.079 --> 01:03:45.239
what's called a triangle shaped ambush and
they would mount discas on the back of

688
01:03:45.599 --> 01:03:52.960
the bongo trucks. Disc isn't higher. There were like twenty three millimeters that

689
01:03:52.039 --> 01:03:59.280
they had out there, zpus Yeah, yeah, yeah, But they would

690
01:03:59.320 --> 01:04:04.440
set up these trucks in a in
a triangle shape. And and I'll be

691
01:04:04.480 --> 01:04:16.400
honest with you, we're creatures of
habit. Everybody is human beings like uh,

692
01:04:17.639 --> 01:04:23.760
consistency that that that today is going
to be like yesterday. Yeah.

693
01:04:23.800 --> 01:04:30.159
So and unfortunately, you know,
we didn't recognize this fast enough. Uh.

694
01:04:31.239 --> 01:04:36.559
If you flew, like let's say, from a ballod down to Camp

695
01:04:36.639 --> 01:04:44.440
Taji, you would probably go the
most director out. And if you were

696
01:04:44.480 --> 01:04:47.880
flying from Ballad to Baghdad or the
Baghdad International Airport. They probably went the

697
01:04:47.920 --> 01:04:56.599
same way every time. The the
people we were fighting are not stupid.

698
01:04:56.639 --> 01:05:00.800
We killed off all the stupid ones, so they're watching what's going on.

699
01:05:00.760 --> 01:05:06.679
And when they decided that they're going
to take down a helicopter, they picked

700
01:05:06.760 --> 01:05:13.440
areas to set up ambushes in these
aircraft that would repeat patterns. They'd end

701
01:05:13.519 --> 01:05:18.280
up engaging them. That's how we
lost one of our aircraft because we had

702
01:05:20.599 --> 01:05:25.519
the powers that be. Well,
let me go back real quick, because

703
01:05:25.519 --> 01:05:28.800
every time we went out on a
mission, we would test fire the gun

704
01:05:30.280 --> 01:05:36.079
because at the beginning, we discovered
that if you don't use that gun almost

705
01:05:36.079 --> 01:05:43.159
every time, it's gonna jam or
it's going to fail. So one of

706
01:05:43.199 --> 01:05:46.119
the first things we did when we
went out flying is find an empty place

707
01:05:46.159 --> 01:05:51.760
out in the desert, shoot off
ten rounds just to make sure everything's working

708
01:05:51.760 --> 01:05:57.000
the way it's supposed to do.
So the powers would be because they were

709
01:05:57.000 --> 01:06:00.199
getting feedback from the people on the
ground that we were scaring them. So,

710
01:06:00.519 --> 01:06:05.760
you know, and I understand,
you know, and counterinsurgency war where

711
01:06:08.360 --> 01:06:12.760
you're trying to you know, please
locals. You know, you can't just

712
01:06:12.760 --> 01:06:17.199
go out there and piss them off, so they designated a spot for us

713
01:06:17.239 --> 01:06:24.880
to go out and shoot. So
what started happening is the same time every

714
01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:30.239
day, aircraft were going out to
the same place and shooting. They're actually

715
01:06:30.239 --> 01:06:34.000
a couple of places, but people
fell into this habit of going to the

716
01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:40.280
same place. And I don't know
how many days in a row they went

717
01:06:40.320 --> 01:06:44.840
to the same place. But this
particular day, the second of February,

718
01:06:46.559 --> 01:06:53.760
the trail aircraft in the Tina two
got hit and it was flown by a

719
01:06:53.760 --> 01:07:00.079
guy named Keith Yoakum and his front
seater was named Jason de Frien, and

720
01:07:00.239 --> 01:07:03.199
they were able to keep flying,
but unbeknownst to them, there was a

721
01:07:03.239 --> 01:07:14.960
fire in the rear of the aircraft
where the hydraulics unit is, so they

722
01:07:15.920 --> 01:07:18.440
they knew that these ambushes were going
on, and they decided that they were

723
01:07:18.480 --> 01:07:24.480
gonna go after the guys that initiated
this ambush, because usually what happens is

724
01:07:24.480 --> 01:07:28.840
when they engage a helicopter, they
all jump in the truck and they take

725
01:07:28.880 --> 01:07:38.079
off because they're gonna stick around for
what's coming next. So he decided,

726
01:07:38.360 --> 01:07:42.719
you know, we're gonna go after
these dudes, and they actually went in,

727
01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:47.039
started making a couple of gun runs, and I think after about the

728
01:07:47.079 --> 01:07:55.360
second or the third time, through
leads calling Jason, asking him, Okay,

729
01:07:55.400 --> 01:07:59.920
where you're at? Because when your
lead and you're pulling off the target,

730
01:08:00.039 --> 01:08:04.960
you're looking for your trail and ideally
he's rolling in right behind you to

731
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:10.039
cover your six. So when he
pulls off the target, he doesn't see

732
01:08:10.119 --> 01:08:17.680
Jason, so he's calling or he
doesn't see he doesn't see Keith, and

733
01:08:17.840 --> 01:08:23.279
he's he's asking him, you know, Keith, where you're at. And

734
01:08:23.319 --> 01:08:27.039
then they saw like smoke on the
ground and what had happened is the fire

735
01:08:27.079 --> 01:08:30.640
had eating through like the tailboom tailboom
came off the aircraft and they spun in

736
01:08:31.399 --> 01:08:43.880
and they were killed. But that's
how those those ambushes went down is they

737
01:08:43.920 --> 01:08:53.439
would observe, find some patterns of
people repeating patterns and try and take advantage.

738
01:08:53.800 --> 01:08:58.720
Yeah. Yeah, And I did
it in an analysis and I said

739
01:08:58.760 --> 01:09:02.039
probably seventy five to eighty percent of
the shootdowns of helicopters over there was pattern

740
01:09:02.079 --> 01:09:11.760
setting, just real quick. For
people who might know when we talk about

741
01:09:11.880 --> 01:09:15.079
the different platforms, when we talk
about Dishka, it's it's it's basically an

742
01:09:15.119 --> 01:09:17.640
equivalent to like a fifty cal it's
about it's a little bit larger, a

743
01:09:17.680 --> 01:09:21.159
little bigger than a fifty caliber round, but it's it's a it's a heavy

744
01:09:21.199 --> 01:09:29.720
machine gun round. That's that's made
for anti material It's made for exactly this

745
01:09:29.880 --> 01:09:33.960
type of stuff. Uh, but
yeah, it's the Russian or Soviet version

746
01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:40.600
we've got you. Uh, your
your camera went all blurry real quick there,

747
01:09:40.720 --> 01:09:44.680
damn. Yeah. Uh you know, can you wave in front of

748
01:09:44.720 --> 01:09:50.880
it? See if that brings it
back to you? Wave at where you

749
01:09:50.920 --> 01:09:59.039
are right in front of you still
no, Yeah, if you wanna,

750
01:09:59.199 --> 01:10:02.000
if you wanna plug and plug back
in real quick, we'll uh sure,

751
01:10:02.199 --> 01:10:06.439
we'll do a quick sorry about yeah, thanks, Yeah, sorry everybody,

752
01:10:06.479 --> 01:10:10.359
But you know it's a new webcam
form and we want to make sure that

753
01:10:10.399 --> 01:10:16.159
everybody can see his beautiful face.
But I don't know about that, Uh,

754
01:10:16.319 --> 01:10:19.760
Jack, you want to do the
patren Yeah, guys, if you

755
01:10:19.760 --> 01:10:24.359
can take a look at our Patreon
the links down the description. Uh,

756
01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:28.680
consider subscribing to the channel for five
dollars a month and you will get access

757
01:10:28.720 --> 01:10:31.760
to all these episodes ad free and
support what we do here. We really

758
01:10:31.800 --> 01:10:35.560
appreciate all of you guys, and
also make sure you check out the documentary

759
01:10:35.760 --> 01:10:41.760
of the Longest Month and the book
Crazy Horse, and it's I believe it's

760
01:10:41.880 --> 01:10:45.479
one word. Crazy Horse is one
word when you're searching for it, links

761
01:10:45.479 --> 01:10:53.039
are down in the description. So
yeah, crazy is our call sign that

762
01:10:53.199 --> 01:10:59.319
second deployment. So the second deployment. Now the insertaincy had kicked off.

763
01:10:59.720 --> 01:11:03.760
But one thing that as certaincies tend
to be very good at is propaganda.

764
01:11:04.560 --> 01:11:11.000
And had your do you recall if
your roes have had changed at that time?

765
01:11:11.560 --> 01:11:16.239
Were they more lax or restrictive?
I think, uh, thinking back

766
01:11:16.279 --> 01:11:19.359
on it, they were changed a
bit. You could, you know,

767
01:11:19.439 --> 01:11:29.079
because especially since we were sons of
Iraq was a thing. And I don't

768
01:11:29.079 --> 01:11:32.560
know if you've guys talked about that
before, but we have a basically engaging

769
01:11:32.680 --> 01:11:39.199
the local militias. So because sons
of Iraq were a thing, you couldn't

770
01:11:39.359 --> 01:11:44.039
just like shoot some guy walking down
the street holding a gun just because he's

771
01:11:44.079 --> 01:11:47.880
got a gun. Uh. And
I think the Iraqi government had approved like

772
01:11:49.079 --> 01:12:00.000
a case forty seven's for like home
and everybody could have one. My understanding,

773
01:12:01.199 --> 01:12:04.039
but you know, it's it's funny
you're talking about you know, the

774
01:12:04.119 --> 01:12:17.319
insurgency, trying to you know,
trying to what's the word I'm looking for,

775
01:12:17.880 --> 01:12:24.319
you know, trying to shape the
battlefield, so to speak. One

776
01:12:24.359 --> 01:12:29.319
of our teams went out and this
is near Solder City, and part of

777
01:12:29.399 --> 01:12:32.680
what we would do every day when
you get a mission was go check out

778
01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:39.119
named areas of interest. So our
S two would say, we think there

779
01:12:39.199 --> 01:12:44.520
might be more teams setting up into
vicinity of this grid, and it was

780
01:12:44.600 --> 01:12:46.840
our job to go out there and
like look at it and you know,

781
01:12:46.920 --> 01:12:51.159
make an assessment of what's going on
or whatever. So they were looking at

782
01:12:51.159 --> 01:13:00.600
one of these NAIs near Solder City
and they saw some kids with guns or

783
01:13:00.600 --> 01:13:06.319
what they thought were guns, and
so they went into an orbit and they

784
01:13:06.319 --> 01:13:10.439
were calling the ground unit and asking, you know, if they had any

785
01:13:10.760 --> 01:13:14.479
militia activity in this area or what
was going on, you know, if

786
01:13:14.520 --> 01:13:17.279
they had any ground patrols in this
area. And they kept looking at these

787
01:13:17.359 --> 01:13:23.560
these kids on with their site,
and it was daylight, and when it's

788
01:13:23.600 --> 01:13:28.720
daylight, you could sell long ways
away and use what's called DAYTVV and it's

789
01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:33.640
it'd sit like six kilometers away.
So they didn't really have any idea that

790
01:13:33.720 --> 01:13:40.239
the aircraft was looking at them and
they go, hey, you know,

791
01:13:40.279 --> 01:13:43.600
so flight lead goes, hey,
let's push in a little closer and like

792
01:13:43.800 --> 01:13:46.760
get see if you can get a
little more detail on what what's going on

793
01:13:46.840 --> 01:13:56.359
here, because they appeared to be
either little people or children. So they

794
01:13:57.479 --> 01:14:00.039
went in a little closer and it
turned out, you know, after they

795
01:14:00.239 --> 01:14:09.399
did some more searching, that it
was children with toy guns. So somebody

796
01:14:10.359 --> 01:14:15.479
obviously gave those kids toy guns,
hoping that we would kill them, because

797
01:14:15.520 --> 01:14:19.720
who gives kids in a war zone? Yeah, by guns? Right,

798
01:14:23.079 --> 01:14:26.720
Yeah, but you know we didn't. We called the ground unit and said,

799
01:14:26.760 --> 01:14:29.960
hey, there's some kids out here, you know, with toy guns,

800
01:14:30.079 --> 01:14:32.840
and so I guess they were going
to and roll the patrol out there

801
01:14:32.880 --> 01:14:35.920
and you know, like either take
them away and say tell the kids not

802
01:14:36.039 --> 01:14:43.479
to do that or or whatever.
But it's obvious they're trying to bait us,

803
01:14:44.479 --> 01:14:48.279
which goes into what you were saying, like, yeah, and honestly,

804
01:14:48.520 --> 01:14:51.479
those kids had probably been given instructions. It's like, hey, when

805
01:14:51.520 --> 01:14:57.279
you see the American forces like play
with them, like pointed at them,

806
01:14:57.479 --> 01:15:01.640
you know, kids not knowing any
better, right, yeah, yeah,

807
01:15:01.760 --> 01:15:06.119
No, the the both in Iraq
and Afghanistan, like the insurgency's got or

808
01:15:06.159 --> 01:15:13.680
the the bad guys got very good
at at the propaganda and setting those those

809
01:15:13.720 --> 01:15:19.159
conditions and situations up right to get
those propaganda wins. There were a lot

810
01:15:19.199 --> 01:15:26.800
of people on the battlefield with cameras, if I recall correctly. Yeah,

811
01:15:28.319 --> 01:15:36.600
yeah, So during this trip,
this was the trip with the suicide or

812
01:15:36.760 --> 01:15:41.159
was that the third trip two thousand
and seven, the death cult death?

813
01:15:42.159 --> 01:15:45.960
Yeah, it is okay. Yeah, So this is one of those bizarre

814
01:15:46.079 --> 01:15:50.079
mysteries of the war that I don't
think anybody has ever solved. Yeah.

815
01:15:50.119 --> 01:15:53.800
I mean it popped up in the
news at the time and then kind of

816
01:15:53.840 --> 01:15:57.640
went away against the background of all
the other craziness. Yeah, that's happening

817
01:15:57.680 --> 01:16:01.720
in Iraq at the time. Yeah, So can you, to your knowledge,

818
01:16:02.079 --> 01:16:08.520
can you give us a background on
what this was. So this was

819
01:16:08.600 --> 01:16:15.840
like twenty eight January two thousand and
seven, and that day I can tell

820
01:16:15.840 --> 01:16:19.800
you from my perspective what was going
on. Sure, So that day we

821
01:16:19.800 --> 01:16:27.520
were working with some ground forces south
of Baghdad and we got a radio call

822
01:16:27.640 --> 01:16:31.720
from our talk saying you need to
go down to on a job because an

823
01:16:31.720 --> 01:16:40.039
aircraft's just been shot down. So
we go end up going down there getting

824
01:16:40.119 --> 01:16:45.279
gas. There's a there was a
farm about halfway down there, so we

825
01:16:45.319 --> 01:16:49.039
stopped in there, got gas,
went down there, checked in on station

826
01:16:49.199 --> 01:16:56.720
with a JTAC and it turns out
it's a special Forces I don't know if

827
01:16:56.760 --> 01:17:00.960
it was a ODA or who,
but they we're working with the Iraqi police

828
01:17:01.079 --> 01:17:05.439
and they got ambushed by this.
I mean, all the way down there,

829
01:17:05.479 --> 01:17:09.520
we're getting updates that. You know, when we first got tasked to

830
01:17:09.560 --> 01:17:15.119
go down there, they're saying,
okay, there's between twenty and thirty insurgents,

831
01:17:15.600 --> 01:17:20.439
like they shot down this aircraft and
they're in a fight with this our

832
01:17:20.479 --> 01:17:27.279
ground forces, so we need you
go down there and support that. Five

833
01:17:27.319 --> 01:17:31.239
minutes goes by, and the next
radio call it's fifty to seventy five,

834
01:17:31.319 --> 01:17:34.359
and the next radio call it's one
hundred to two hundred. You know,

835
01:17:34.600 --> 01:17:41.399
the closer we get, the more
people we're hearing about. And I'm talking

836
01:17:41.439 --> 01:17:43.880
to my front seater and it's like, what the hell is going on?

837
01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:49.119
Like, I don't know, man. And we get down there and we

838
01:17:49.680 --> 01:17:54.560
check in with the jaytach and we
do a battle what's called a battle handover

839
01:17:54.680 --> 01:18:00.720
with the team from our sister battalion
that's leaving and we were out to the

840
01:18:00.760 --> 01:18:05.920
west of where this fight is,
and because we wanted to get the sun

841
01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:11.119
behind us, and we look in
there and as soon as we roll out,

842
01:18:11.159 --> 01:18:19.039
there's this earth and burm that's running
east west and it's oriented towards where

843
01:18:19.039 --> 01:18:24.720
the crashed aircraft is and where the
s F dudes are. And on this

844
01:18:24.800 --> 01:18:33.079
burm are about forty bad guys lined
up just with RPGs, aks, whatever,

845
01:18:34.159 --> 01:18:38.119
and it appears, you know,
they're shooting, so we line up,

846
01:18:38.199 --> 01:18:42.600
you know, and we start wailing
on them. And I didn't see

847
01:18:42.600 --> 01:18:44.840
it at the time, but when
we went back and looked at the gun

848
01:18:44.880 --> 01:18:47.479
taper, there's just like hundreds of
dudes like all in this because there was

849
01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:56.520
a trench line. And later on
after the ar they found like because they

850
01:18:56.880 --> 01:19:04.359
sent the QRF down there in strikers
and when they ended up basically win in

851
01:19:04.399 --> 01:19:11.439
the fight, they found like three
hundred over three hundred dead bodies. These

852
01:19:11.479 --> 01:19:18.479
guys were shooting themselves up with atropine
because when we started engaging, they didn't

853
01:19:18.479 --> 01:19:23.439
even because I was telling my front
seater because like based on my experience,

854
01:19:23.520 --> 01:19:28.840
like every time we had an engagement, they would run. I mean especially

855
01:19:28.880 --> 01:19:32.800
when you fired and it's hitting around
them that they would run and we shot

856
01:19:32.960 --> 01:19:35.880
and the rounds, you know,
probably didn't hit some of them because it

857
01:19:35.960 --> 01:19:40.720
was hitting in the sand. So
when the shrapnel would come out, it's

858
01:19:40.800 --> 01:19:46.760
kind of getting. It's not perform. The rounds don't perform like they would

859
01:19:46.840 --> 01:19:53.000
if it was hitting concrete or something
else or hard ground. So it wasn't

860
01:19:53.000 --> 01:19:56.319
getting. It wasn't hitting the bad
guys, it was hitting around them,

861
01:19:56.399 --> 01:20:00.760
and they just stayed there. I
mean, they ended up shooting plaschettes,

862
01:20:00.800 --> 01:20:09.920
adam and those work. But it
was just bizarre that the amount of we

863
01:20:09.960 --> 01:20:13.920
didn't understand why they were showing such
discipline because they never showed that kind of

864
01:20:13.960 --> 01:20:23.199
discipline before. It turns out that
they're all shacked up on either drugs or

865
01:20:23.479 --> 01:20:27.319
you know, they they got the
spirit in them, I guess, yeah,

866
01:20:29.640 --> 01:20:33.600
yeah. But you know, during
the AAR and everything, it's like

867
01:20:33.640 --> 01:20:42.239
this this group, this suicide cult. They weren't attached to anybody, and

868
01:20:42.319 --> 01:20:47.920
I still don't fully understand what their
motivations were or or you know, what

869
01:20:47.960 --> 01:20:55.079
this compound was or or what.
But you know, ac one thirty win

870
01:20:55.199 --> 01:21:01.439
Winchester shooting at him. That's wild, that's wild if this is the same

871
01:21:01.479 --> 01:21:05.079
event, And I mean, I'd
really have to try to find some of

872
01:21:05.119 --> 01:21:10.119
the Fifth Group guys who were involved. But like I remember hearing stories about

873
01:21:10.199 --> 01:21:15.159
dudes like climbing up on the humviies
and just like wild shit that happened out

874
01:21:15.199 --> 01:21:20.159
there that night. It doesn't surprise
me. I was. I ended up

875
01:21:20.640 --> 01:21:26.439
that mission. I slew ten hours
that day. I spent like about We

876
01:21:26.479 --> 01:21:29.439
went Winchester, went back to the
park, got more AMMO, came back.

877
01:21:30.560 --> 01:21:34.000
I didn't see any crazy stuff like
that, but you know they were

878
01:21:34.039 --> 01:21:40.279
They weren't exactly giving up. I
can tell that. Yeah, like Iraqi

879
01:21:40.319 --> 01:21:50.279
berserkers. It's how generally in a
typical engagement, how long would maybe how

880
01:21:50.279 --> 01:21:54.760
many passes, Like how long would
it take you guys to to go Winchester.

881
01:21:57.319 --> 01:22:00.439
That's probably the only time I ever
recalled going when Chester. Yeah,

882
01:22:00.800 --> 01:22:08.880
because we would shoot. I'd say
I'd have two hundred rounds of thirty normally,

883
01:22:10.279 --> 01:22:13.520
so you'd shoot either a ten or
a twenty round burst. Yeah,

884
01:22:13.520 --> 01:22:17.840
and the guns the guns harmonized for
it's pretty accurate, so it would usually

885
01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:27.560
only take at the most three bursts
to take care of whatever we were trying

886
01:22:27.560 --> 01:22:30.039
to take out, right, it
was something bigger than that you would use

887
01:22:30.039 --> 01:22:36.479
that alfire or rockets or whatever.
But you know, normally, if you

888
01:22:36.520 --> 01:22:41.680
were using the gun, it was
no more than probably three bursts to take

889
01:22:41.680 --> 01:22:45.319
care of whatever it was. Yeah, and you guys probably got to buy

890
01:22:45.319 --> 01:22:49.840
context. But if you are not
aware, Winchester is just simply an air

891
01:22:50.119 --> 01:22:58.199
craft going out of a Yeah,
yeah, being go bing, go on

892
01:22:58.279 --> 01:23:02.840
fuel, same thing. Yeah,
and jackpot if you find the guy you're

893
01:23:02.840 --> 01:23:11.479
looking for on target after on your
third or fourth house. I've spent a

894
01:23:11.479 --> 01:23:15.920
few nights like watching guys run from
house to house wanting them to say jackpot

895
01:23:16.199 --> 01:23:24.800
so I can go home. Yeah. Yeah, we're making we're making a

896
01:23:24.880 --> 01:23:30.359
tactical correction here. Okay. Yeah, So on that trip, are there

897
01:23:30.399 --> 01:23:40.439
any other like big moments that you
recaller that stand out? Well, it

898
01:23:40.520 --> 01:23:45.000
was during the surge obviously. Well, I ended up spending fifteen months there

899
01:23:45.079 --> 01:23:50.359
in the in the real nut Cruncher
was when we went over there, we

900
01:23:50.359 --> 01:23:56.880
were only supposed to be there for
twelve So I don't know if you're familiar

901
01:23:56.960 --> 01:24:01.479
with em L because weren't you guys, you weren't usually over there for twelve

902
01:24:01.520 --> 01:24:04.800
months where yeah, no, no, no them, So we had the

903
01:24:04.840 --> 01:24:09.439
Gucci tours that were there. Yeah, conventional guys, if you're there for

904
01:24:09.479 --> 01:24:13.359
twelve months, they would give you
two weeks to leave in the middle or

905
01:24:13.399 --> 01:24:17.680
sometime in the middle. So I
had set my leave up to where when

906
01:24:17.720 --> 01:24:24.399
I came back there would be like
five months left. So I had done

907
01:24:24.439 --> 01:24:28.319
my leave and I was on a
bus at the Lode going to get on

908
01:24:28.399 --> 01:24:31.960
a black OWT to come back to
Taji, and they had AFN on this

909
01:24:32.039 --> 01:24:39.680
bus and it was Runsfeld announcing the
surge and that units would be extended for

910
01:24:39.720 --> 01:24:44.119
fifteen months. So yeah, I
found out about that on the bus coming

911
01:24:44.159 --> 01:24:50.680
back from leave. And I think
everybody in the army was trained, you

912
01:24:50.720 --> 01:24:55.439
know to deal with like changes,
you know, from the time he started

913
01:24:55.479 --> 01:25:00.680
doing PT and they would run past
the endpoint for right, you know,

914
01:25:00.760 --> 01:25:06.079
another half mile and then come back
and stop. But I don't think anything's

915
01:25:06.119 --> 01:25:10.840
going to prepare you for if you're
prepared for twelve months and all of a

916
01:25:10.880 --> 01:25:13.560
sudden, you know, you get
to stay three more months. That was

917
01:25:13.640 --> 01:25:21.279
kind of a that was not you
had to do some real mental gymnastics there

918
01:25:21.319 --> 01:25:27.560
to kind of get your head straight
because as long as fifteen months of my

919
01:25:27.640 --> 01:25:34.159
life, my unit and I've made
a point of saving a lot of historical

920
01:25:34.279 --> 01:25:45.039
documents and information because I I've always
appreciated military history and whatnot, and I

921
01:25:45.079 --> 01:25:47.800
knew if somebody didn't kind of save
some of the stuff that would probably be

922
01:25:47.840 --> 01:25:55.640
lost to the to the ages.
But during that deployment, we did eight

923
01:25:55.720 --> 01:26:02.560
hundred troops in troops in contact wow
wow. And I want to say there

924
01:26:02.600 --> 01:26:09.520
were over three hundred direct fire engagements
during that deployment. There was there was

925
01:26:09.560 --> 01:26:13.920
a period of time there for a
couple of months that if you didn't shoot

926
01:26:13.920 --> 01:26:18.520
something while you were up it was
something it was very unusual that it was

927
01:26:18.560 --> 01:26:30.920
like between I want to say May
and July that if we weren't shooting something,

928
01:26:30.079 --> 01:26:36.000
it was it was an unusual day. Would you say that the uh

929
01:26:38.039 --> 01:26:42.000
that the encounter you just described was
one of the largest engagements you've been in

930
01:26:42.199 --> 01:26:46.319
or were were there others that?
Was there ever anything that where there were

931
01:26:46.520 --> 01:26:49.800
so many stacks or multiple stacks of
so much going on that you were just

932
01:26:49.840 --> 01:26:54.800
like, holy shit. As far
as sheer number of bad guys that's the

933
01:26:54.880 --> 01:27:00.600
largest thing that we were in.
I was involved. There was a Blackhawk

934
01:27:00.680 --> 01:27:10.640
helicopter or black Hawk blackwater helicopter that
went down in January of seven in downtown

935
01:27:10.680 --> 01:27:15.560
Baghdad, and there were so many
aircraft in that stack that some of us

936
01:27:15.640 --> 01:27:18.159
just had to get out of there. I mean, there were so many

937
01:27:18.239 --> 01:27:23.880
people looking. And what was weird
about it is when it crashed, it

938
01:27:24.039 --> 01:27:29.359
slid like into an alleyway and you
couldn't It was until the ground guys got

939
01:27:29.359 --> 01:27:38.560
there that they actually found it.
But that was like everybody trying to help

940
01:27:38.720 --> 01:27:42.640
was almost like a cluster there.
That was. That was a experience.

941
01:27:42.720 --> 01:27:46.840
But yeah, did you ever have
any close calls with because you guys are

942
01:27:46.880 --> 01:27:53.359
obviously on on the on the bottom
part of that stack generally, I imagine,

943
01:27:53.520 --> 01:27:57.319
were there ever any like issues or
close calls with aircraft that were above

944
01:27:57.359 --> 01:28:02.479
you in the stack? Not that, But I had operated, you know,

945
01:28:02.560 --> 01:28:13.000
because we had Baghdad. We had
close calls with little birds. People

946
01:28:13.319 --> 01:28:15.760
like to talk to anybody, They
didn't like to talk to anybody on the

947
01:28:15.840 --> 01:28:20.520
radio. So there were people in
our there were people in our time that

948
01:28:20.600 --> 01:28:25.000
would be rolling in on a target
and had a little bird fly right in

949
01:28:25.000 --> 01:28:31.039
front of them, and I understand, I understand that they had stuff that

950
01:28:31.079 --> 01:28:34.680
they needed to do and they didn't
want to compromise what they had going on.

951
01:28:34.840 --> 01:28:41.880
But like some of those guys don't
know how close they came to catching

952
01:28:42.479 --> 01:28:48.199
some thirty milimeters rounds. Yeah,
So it was always an adventure flying in

953
01:28:48.399 --> 01:28:55.479
downtown Baghdad because there was the cash
was there, so a lot of times

954
01:28:55.520 --> 01:29:00.560
you'd see aircraft from outside of the
AO to come in to drive people off

955
01:29:00.560 --> 01:29:03.239
at the cash, so you had
to kind of keep your at night.

956
01:29:03.359 --> 01:29:09.720
It was more it was it was
more of a concern looking out for other

957
01:29:10.239 --> 01:29:17.039
aircraft than it was worrying about people
shooting at you. Interesting, well,

958
01:29:17.119 --> 01:29:24.359
if your aircraft ever got shot down
at night. Yeah, And I didn't

959
01:29:24.399 --> 01:29:29.439
really worry that much because we would
get out a small arms range at night.

960
01:29:32.079 --> 01:29:34.600
You know, as long as you
stayed below the coordinating altitude, you

961
01:29:34.640 --> 01:29:44.479
didn't have to worry about other people
in the stack. So right, but

962
01:29:44.680 --> 01:29:47.600
like downtown Bagdad, you always had
to keep your eye out for like the

963
01:29:47.680 --> 01:29:58.359
Marines or somebody coming in to the
cash or the green zone when when you

964
01:29:58.399 --> 01:30:01.560
know, other helicopters would have issues
with like little Birds or whomever. Was

965
01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:05.560
it generally because you guys had the
same target set and they weren't talking to

966
01:30:05.560 --> 01:30:10.319
people, or like you guys were
flying support or was it because they were

967
01:30:10.399 --> 01:30:15.840
just they were prosecuting their own targets
and not letting other people know what targets

968
01:30:15.840 --> 01:30:23.199
were happening that night. So anytime
you're familiar with OCFI, no, so

969
01:30:23.640 --> 01:30:27.960
other Combat Forces IRAQ, those were
those units that we can't talk about,

970
01:30:28.239 --> 01:30:33.279
okay, So anytime they were going
to prosecute a target, they would set

971
01:30:33.359 --> 01:30:41.319
up a restricted operating zone a ROSE. So when we walked out the door,

972
01:30:41.359 --> 01:30:45.479
we knew that there was a Special
Forces RAS in certain areas that something

973
01:30:45.640 --> 01:30:51.960
was going to happen that night,
but we didn't know is what aircraft were

974
01:30:53.000 --> 01:30:59.520
supporting them, or where they were
coming from or anything like that. So

975
01:31:00.000 --> 01:31:05.439
we would be out there supporting our
ground units, conventional ground units, and

976
01:31:06.039 --> 01:31:11.399
you know, you'd find a mortar
crew or something. In that particular night,

977
01:31:12.399 --> 01:31:15.560
the guys that had the little bird
flying in front of them, they

978
01:31:15.560 --> 01:31:23.159
were rolling in on a mortar crew. So two little birds, you know,

979
01:31:23.359 --> 01:31:26.359
with boards, so they were mhs, you know, because they had

980
01:31:27.479 --> 01:31:33.600
operators on the outside or going into
the X to speak, and they shoot

981
01:31:33.680 --> 01:31:42.920
right in front of the US.
There was a common frequency that aircraft operating

982
01:31:42.960 --> 01:31:45.520
in the Baghdad airspace were supposed to
use, but these guys wouldn't use it

983
01:31:45.560 --> 01:31:50.920
because they were afraid they would compromise
their operations. Because there were zones that

984
01:31:53.359 --> 01:31:58.199
we could identify. For instance,
Solder City was zoned twenty one, So

985
01:31:58.239 --> 01:32:00.720
if you're going to operate and zone
twenty one, you come up on that

986
01:32:00.079 --> 01:32:05.239
common freak and say crazy yours zero
one zero two zone two to one for

987
01:32:05.319 --> 01:32:12.479
the next three zero. Those guys
didn't like to use that because they were

988
01:32:12.520 --> 01:32:15.600
afraid, you know, because it
was a common freak and if anybody with

989
01:32:15.680 --> 01:32:24.000
a VHF radio could could listen to
it, and I understand their concerns.

990
01:32:25.199 --> 01:32:28.439
I don't know if they didn't see
us, because I know sometimes an APACHE

991
01:32:28.479 --> 01:32:31.239
because we flew completely blacked out and
we had one I R strobe on the

992
01:32:31.279 --> 01:32:36.560
top of the tail, So they
may not even seem our aircraft, especially

993
01:32:36.560 --> 01:32:43.279
if they're concentrating, because they were
a short final going into the right their

994
01:32:43.319 --> 01:32:47.359
target area, and our guys knew
that they were in the vicinity of Araz,

995
01:32:47.560 --> 01:32:53.960
so that's why they probably saw them
before they shot. But it's still

996
01:32:56.439 --> 01:33:00.840
there's you know, got to be
a better way. Yeah. I don't

997
01:33:00.960 --> 01:33:05.920
know that any mid air has ever
happened, and I and to be honest,

998
01:33:05.960 --> 01:33:11.800
I think it's only luck. Yeah, I think there was a missile.

999
01:33:12.279 --> 01:33:15.279
I think there there's a collision.
I could I could be mistaken though.

1000
01:33:16.720 --> 01:33:20.039
Well, I know that two fifty
eighths ran into each other up up

1001
01:33:20.119 --> 01:33:25.239
north and that was they were being
engaged by ground fire that that may have

1002
01:33:25.359 --> 01:33:32.880
been in and I know that they
ran into each other unfortunately, so one

1003
01:33:33.119 --> 01:33:41.680
or both took like evasive action by
the ground fire and just lost situational awareness.

1004
01:33:41.720 --> 01:33:45.199
Correct. Yeah, it's got to
be. It's gotta be tough,

1005
01:33:45.239 --> 01:33:50.479
and especially in places like I rack
in Afghanistan where a lot of times you

1006
01:33:50.520 --> 01:33:56.000
know, the the visible conditions or
the visual you know, it's it's it

1007
01:33:56.000 --> 01:34:00.159
can be not great, you know, when you get sand blowing and everything

1008
01:34:00.239 --> 01:34:04.199
else. Well, that's that's funny
you mentioned that because I distinctly recall being

1009
01:34:05.079 --> 01:34:12.960
we got pushed to a you familiar
with the jaylens m. It's a big,

1010
01:34:13.279 --> 01:34:17.479
big blimp that they would fly over. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

1011
01:34:17.640 --> 01:34:21.000
so it's called the Jay lens and
it's got cameras on it and whatnot,

1012
01:34:21.039 --> 01:34:28.039
and that the jayalens spotted a guy
setting up rockets in the middle of

1013
01:34:28.079 --> 01:34:35.159
a soccer field and we got sent
to that site. And at the same

1014
01:34:35.239 --> 01:34:40.039
time, I was having a talk
in my ear telling me that there's a

1015
01:34:40.159 --> 01:34:46.079
dust storm coming in. So I'm
constantly, you know, as we're closing

1016
01:34:46.119 --> 01:34:48.640
in on this place, I'm constantly
like looking up to the west because the

1017
01:34:48.680 --> 01:34:55.159
weather's coming in from the west,
seeing the lights gradually disappear as the dust

1018
01:34:55.159 --> 01:34:58.640
storm gets closer and closer, going
Okay, we're gonna be able to get

1019
01:34:58.640 --> 01:35:02.880
this done before we because like flying
in a dust cloud, we can do

1020
01:35:02.960 --> 01:35:10.880
it. But that's not that's not
fun at all. And obviously the the

1021
01:35:10.960 --> 01:35:15.640
lower the visibility, you know,
the harder it is to deconflict and all

1022
01:35:15.680 --> 01:35:21.119
that others. Yeah, so yeah, when weather got sketchy, that's that's

1023
01:35:21.159 --> 01:35:27.920
adventure flying there. That's not fun
at all. Yeah, your documentary the

1024
01:35:27.960 --> 01:35:30.319
longest month was that? Was that
for your second trip or was it for

1025
01:35:30.359 --> 01:35:34.119
the third trip? No, it's
for the second Yeah, can be honest,

1026
01:35:34.239 --> 01:35:39.880
nothing nothing really happened on the third
tour. Can you tell us about

1027
01:35:40.039 --> 01:35:46.920
the documentary about what it covers,
Why you did it? Yeah, Well,

1028
01:35:46.960 --> 01:35:51.680
first of all, Uh, there
was there's some events that that took

1029
01:35:51.720 --> 01:35:58.319
place, and one of them I
described to you the the shootdown of Keith

1030
01:35:58.359 --> 01:36:03.199
and Jason. Uh. The other
one we we go into detail about is

1031
01:36:03.239 --> 01:36:08.239
the death cult. And then there's
a couple of more that One of them

1032
01:36:08.279 --> 01:36:18.199
involves gun trucks and the other one
involves a little town card Tarmia where a

1033
01:36:18.319 --> 01:36:25.119
v bid basically tried to take out
the cop and one day up there and

1034
01:36:25.359 --> 01:36:31.319
ended up wounding everybody in the cop
and it uh turned into a last stand

1035
01:36:31.560 --> 01:36:39.199
scenario where they were fighting for their
lives, and our guys went up there

1036
01:36:39.199 --> 01:36:41.399
in the corner of the guys on
the ground. You know, if it

1037
01:36:41.479 --> 01:36:44.920
wasn't for our guys showing up when
they did, they would be dead.

1038
01:36:45.600 --> 01:36:55.039
So I wanted to tell these stories
because if we the guys that were there,

1039
01:36:55.439 --> 01:37:03.119
don't tell our stories, nobody's nobody's
gonna ever hear them. And these

1040
01:37:03.119 --> 01:37:05.880
are stories that need to be told. These are stories that need to be

1041
01:37:05.960 --> 01:37:11.279
heard. And I made every effort
to try and include like the people who

1042
01:37:11.279 --> 01:37:16.359
were on the ground too, because
their stories deserve to be told. And

1043
01:37:16.359 --> 01:37:23.000
and if you watch the documentary,
you'll see that everything that we did was

1044
01:37:23.039 --> 01:37:28.840
for the guy on the ground.
I wasn't just flying for my own amusement,

1045
01:37:29.199 --> 01:37:31.239
you know, to go out there
and like find bad guys. I

1046
01:37:31.279 --> 01:37:36.760
mean, that was part of it. But our whole reason for being up

1047
01:37:36.800 --> 01:37:42.079
in the air was to support guys
on the ground. And when we get

1048
01:37:42.239 --> 01:37:44.640
new guys in the unit, I
was one of the senior pilots in the

1049
01:37:44.760 --> 01:37:47.960
unit. When new guys would come
into the unit, we made sure that

1050
01:37:48.039 --> 01:37:53.199
they understood that our reason for being
up there was to support that guy on

1051
01:37:53.239 --> 01:37:59.760
the ground. Yeah. Yeah,
And if you watch it, you'll see

1052
01:38:00.079 --> 01:38:06.720
like these guys put themselves put their
aircraft into position. Aircraft absolutely got riddled

1053
01:38:06.760 --> 01:38:14.239
with bullets, was unfliable when they
brought it back to put themselves between those

1054
01:38:14.239 --> 01:38:17.000
guys on the ground and the guys
that were trying to attack the the cop.

1055
01:38:19.800 --> 01:38:28.079
Uh around What year was that when
you guys went down to support the

1056
01:38:27.840 --> 01:38:32.600
the cop being like Overrunner attacked.
That was two thousand and seven, Okay,

1057
01:38:32.640 --> 01:38:38.239
so February. Yeah, So that
was I mean, because you know,

1058
01:38:38.520 --> 01:38:42.199
it's interesting because like when we talk
about Solder City, we're talking about

1059
01:38:42.239 --> 01:38:45.239
a Shia militia you know, we're
you know, and and the Sha militias

1060
01:38:45.239 --> 01:38:50.600
were out there heavily supported by Iran. And then you had the Sudni groups,

1061
01:38:50.600 --> 01:38:55.800
and you had a Qi you know, al kaieda Iraq out there,

1062
01:38:55.880 --> 01:39:01.000
and and I think the like Al
Tom Tarmillo was very much like Suni and

1063
01:39:01.199 --> 01:39:10.319
AQI, like right, fairly savvy
organizations out there at the time. Yeah,

1064
01:39:10.439 --> 01:39:15.039
we talked to the captain that was
in charge at that of the talk

1065
01:39:15.119 --> 01:39:24.000
at the time, and he goes
into great detail about how the insurgency I

1066
01:39:24.239 --> 01:39:29.760
d's and they knew that whole village
was just full of it. Yeah,

1067
01:39:29.760 --> 01:39:35.439
and all the Iraqi police had quit
because they'd been intimidated out of out of

1068
01:39:35.479 --> 01:39:45.199
their jobs. So we interviewed him
because I wanted to make sure that people

1069
01:39:45.359 --> 01:39:51.159
got a a as full of vie
full of pictures as we could of what

1070
01:39:51.319 --> 01:39:58.960
went down, because it's not just
us flying around with our caveats, you

1071
01:39:59.000 --> 01:40:02.640
know, coming in right, loving
the smell of napalm in the morning with

1072
01:40:02.680 --> 01:40:10.439
your spurs. Yeah. Yeah.
So then uh, you guys wrap up

1073
01:40:10.439 --> 01:40:13.439
that trip, you go back.
How long are how long are you back

1074
01:40:13.439 --> 01:40:16.520
home? After you guys were extended
for that fifteen months. So we got

1075
01:40:16.560 --> 01:40:27.520
back in just after Christmas of seven
and I went back in the spring of

1076
01:40:27.800 --> 01:40:31.199
nine. Okay, And then you
said that that was kind of the slowest

1077
01:40:31.239 --> 01:40:35.199
trip for you guys. Yeah,
we didn't have a single engagement. It

1078
01:40:35.279 --> 01:40:40.800
was Bagdad again. We didn't have
a single engagement that whole year. And

1079
01:40:41.079 --> 01:40:45.119
is that because from your perspective,
was that because things have slowed down?

1080
01:40:46.199 --> 01:40:50.600
Is that because the roes have changed
and troops aren't going out as much,

1081
01:40:50.640 --> 01:40:56.600
because you guys weren't allowed to engage
as much? What was that? Well,

1082
01:40:56.640 --> 01:41:00.000
we actually saw things starting to slow
down at the end of the first

1083
01:41:00.079 --> 01:41:05.319
deployment, second deployment, and our
commander did a good thing because he had

1084
01:41:05.399 --> 01:41:13.800
during the brief premission briefs we would
get from the S two, they would

1085
01:41:13.800 --> 01:41:18.079
tell us all the serious incidents reports
of that day before we went out,

1086
01:41:18.119 --> 01:41:24.960
so we'd have an idea where stuff
was going on in Baghdad. Towards the

1087
01:41:25.039 --> 01:41:29.520
end of that tour, they would
brief what the serious incident reports were a

1088
01:41:29.600 --> 01:41:35.039
year ago versus what they were right
then, And when you put it up

1089
01:41:35.039 --> 01:41:41.279
on the screen side by side,
it was obvious. Yeah, that what

1090
01:41:41.279 --> 01:41:47.159
we were doing was working. So
when we got back in nine, the

1091
01:41:47.720 --> 01:41:50.960
only thing the ground units were doing, We're trying to keep Sunni and Shia

1092
01:41:51.000 --> 01:41:59.720
apart because it was basically hot Iraqi
on Iraqi action. Yeah, I mean

1093
01:41:59.720 --> 01:42:02.640
there were a couple of times where
we could have probably engaged, but they

1094
01:42:02.880 --> 01:42:11.199
had changed and ROE was a constantly
evolving thing and they just changed the way

1095
01:42:11.359 --> 01:42:15.119
that they wanted us to be employed. So yeah, it was. It

1096
01:42:15.399 --> 01:42:20.600
was the uh the the Iraqi Civil
War, but by that point we had

1097
01:42:20.880 --> 01:42:27.520
kind of mitigated the organization we called
AQI that was kind of over at that

1098
01:42:27.560 --> 01:42:32.600
point, right. I ended up
being during that deployment. I ended up

1099
01:42:32.600 --> 01:42:35.760
being the o C. We had
to support. We had a mission to

1100
01:42:35.800 --> 01:42:44.359
support uh O CFI that I mentioned
earlier and just SODA missions, a Joint

1101
01:42:44.479 --> 01:42:48.680
Special Operations Task Force missions. So
they made me the o C. We

1102
01:42:48.760 --> 01:42:55.359
had two teams that were dedicated to
those missions. So every day I'd get

1103
01:42:55.399 --> 01:43:00.479
on the get on the phone,
talk to the ear liaison down there and

1104
01:43:00.800 --> 01:43:06.159
get what was going on. We
would escort them to and from the target,

1105
01:43:06.439 --> 01:43:12.800
getting the stack over the target,
just support them however they needed it

1106
01:43:12.840 --> 01:43:16.279
to be supported. But even doing
that. We didn't have a single engagement.

1107
01:43:17.800 --> 01:43:24.680
Yeah, it's interesting, you know. I mean Iraq was a lot

1108
01:43:24.760 --> 01:43:29.359
different in a lot of ways than
Afghanistan. And you know, one of

1109
01:43:29.399 --> 01:43:33.560
the ways we met was talking about
Solder City and the games that like m

1110
01:43:33.720 --> 01:43:38.640
Tada Solder used to play, where
he would he would push, he would

1111
01:43:38.680 --> 01:43:45.000
push as militia's you know, the
Yasha was, but the Madi, you

1112
01:43:45.000 --> 01:43:47.119
know, the Madi army would you
know, they'd go out and they'd like

1113
01:43:47.560 --> 01:43:54.279
get aggressive, and then units would
go in and start hammering Solder City and

1114
01:43:54.319 --> 01:43:58.520
he'd be like, hold on,
I'm a holy man, I'm a religious

1115
01:43:58.520 --> 01:44:04.439
figure piece. And I'd be like, okay, I I love but but

1116
01:44:04.560 --> 01:44:11.760
he would play that role and he'd
play it well. And then and so

1117
01:44:12.279 --> 01:44:15.359
US forces go okay, well not
US forces, but like the administration or

1118
01:44:15.479 --> 01:44:19.680
is making the decisions be like okay, you're a holy man, we'll back

1119
01:44:19.720 --> 01:44:24.880
off. You'd back off. And
all he was doing was waiting for ja

1120
01:44:24.960 --> 01:44:27.720
shaal Maadi. You're like, yeah, he retreated back to a ran a

1121
01:44:27.720 --> 01:44:30.880
few times. Yeah, yeah,
you know, and it was very like

1122
01:44:30.960 --> 01:44:36.479
Solder City was a very interesting piece
of the Baghdad puzzle. Yeah, there

1123
01:44:36.600 --> 01:44:42.920
was my first deployment. Like I
said, we would support UH first CAB

1124
01:44:43.039 --> 01:44:51.680
units down there, first PCT would
be was rolling towards the Solder Bureau and

1125
01:44:51.720 --> 01:44:58.760
they got told to stop. And
I don't know how many times after that,

1126
01:44:59.000 --> 01:45:02.479
you know, and the intervening years
we were like you should just let

1127
01:45:02.520 --> 01:45:08.960
them go. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I I remember, And you

1128
01:45:09.000 --> 01:45:12.000
know we talked about this too.
And I've talked about these guys on the

1129
01:45:12.000 --> 01:45:15.600
show before, but the Arkansas National
Guard. Man, I love those guys,

1130
01:45:15.680 --> 01:45:19.399
and they they were out there hooking
and jabbing like they they won't win,

1131
01:45:19.560 --> 01:45:24.319
just for a couple of times there
and to the point where, you

1132
01:45:24.359 --> 01:45:27.560
know, I remember one of the
guys like asking me if I haven't extra

1133
01:45:27.760 --> 01:45:30.800
had an extra a cog because this
a cog got shot off his weapon.

1134
01:45:30.439 --> 01:45:33.199
I'm like, yeah, I gotta. I got an a car for your

1135
01:45:33.199 --> 01:45:39.199
brother, had an a cock for
you. But you know, like so

1136
01:45:39.319 --> 01:45:45.560
many units were involved in that fight
over over time. I mean the last

1137
01:45:45.600 --> 01:45:51.680
time I was over there, we
had Combat Engineer units UH in their building

1138
01:45:51.720 --> 01:45:58.920
a wall, you know, to
to keep keep the two sides apart.

1139
01:45:59.479 --> 01:46:05.399
Yeah, they're building a physical you
know, doing tea wall down route Gold

1140
01:46:05.439 --> 01:46:13.319
which runs to the middle of Sodder
City. So that's how I wouldn't say,

1141
01:46:14.039 --> 01:46:17.319
well, it was actually kind of
calm because it used to be a

1142
01:46:17.399 --> 01:46:20.159
no fly through there. I mean, if you were going to fly in

1143
01:46:20.199 --> 01:46:25.760
there, you were shooting something.
But then it became like, okay,

1144
01:46:27.039 --> 01:46:29.920
trying not to go through there.
But if you have to go through there,

1145
01:46:30.359 --> 01:46:34.199
like if you're a metavac and you
gotta that's the most direct way you

1146
01:46:34.239 --> 01:46:40.960
can fly through there. I got
somebody shot a laser at me out of

1147
01:46:41.000 --> 01:46:46.800
there, came in the cockpit,
but that tour, but I actually think

1148
01:46:46.800 --> 01:46:55.960
it was some dumb ass Iraqi army
guy. Yeah, but you know,

1149
01:46:56.079 --> 01:47:00.319
in general, that was we were
just going around making noise. That old

1150
01:47:00.560 --> 01:47:08.279
deployment, that that last deployment,
and that's that's. Anytime I hear people

1151
01:47:08.319 --> 01:47:11.439
talk about how we lost Iraq,
I go, I don't know what you're

1152
01:47:11.439 --> 01:47:15.840
talking about. I mean, it
was pretty much one at that point.

1153
01:47:16.199 --> 01:47:23.000
I can say that, Okay,
the fact that they wouldn't the Iraqis wouldn't

1154
01:47:23.000 --> 01:47:26.960
do a status of forces agreement with
us, it's more on them than us,

1155
01:47:27.279 --> 01:47:31.079
right, Yeah, we we we
really seized defeat from the jaws of

1156
01:47:31.239 --> 01:47:35.000
victory. At iraqis so many ways. Yeah, yeah, I mean we

1157
01:47:35.119 --> 01:47:42.319
I think that our idea is victory
is leaving behind it Jeffersonian democracy, you

1158
01:47:42.359 --> 01:47:45.640
know, some sort of you know, a republis even just a stable country

1159
01:47:45.800 --> 01:47:49.720
would have been acceptable at that point. Yeah, but it's tough in places

1160
01:47:49.720 --> 01:47:53.960
like that because we don't you know, when you look at like Germany and

1161
01:47:54.039 --> 01:47:58.920
Japan where we occupied and we waited
until the government's got built up, like

1162
01:47:58.960 --> 01:48:01.359
we don't have that mental anymore.
Like as soon as we took over a

1163
01:48:01.439 --> 01:48:05.840
rock, we're basically like here you
go. It was kind of like like

1164
01:48:05.920 --> 01:48:10.800
here you go. You guys,
we're gonna hang out, but you guys

1165
01:48:10.840 --> 01:48:14.279
fixed out. That would have been
like an eighty year project, not yeah

1166
01:48:14.640 --> 01:48:18.720
nine years. Yeah. Yeah.
But I mean if you look at if

1167
01:48:18.720 --> 01:48:24.319
you look at Afghanistan in Iraq,
Iraq was probably the more likely to actually

1168
01:48:24.520 --> 01:48:30.640
develop a stable government. Yeah.
Yeah, if we could have like successfully

1169
01:48:30.680 --> 01:48:35.199
managed like Iran, you know,
like local players like those were a lot

1170
01:48:35.239 --> 01:48:41.439
of the challenges we had there that
we I think earlier in the war we

1171
01:48:41.560 --> 01:48:45.279
recognized that and we went after it, and then later we're like, you

1172
01:48:45.319 --> 01:48:49.319
know, politically, we just wanted
out. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1173
01:48:50.159 --> 01:48:54.319
Yeah, the Iranians were knee deep
in what was going on over there,

1174
01:48:54.359 --> 01:48:58.640
and that's I think that's what a
lot of people don't recognize. Yeah when

1175
01:48:58.640 --> 01:49:01.079
you talk about Iraq. Yeah yeah, well you know you hadn't mentioned this,

1176
01:49:01.800 --> 01:49:04.720
you know, about guys walking around
soder City with briefcases and it's like,

1177
01:49:04.800 --> 01:49:09.319
yeah, you know, these aren't
business meetings they're going to like they're

1178
01:49:09.359 --> 01:49:13.319
bringing in, you know, new
weapons to test, you know, e

1179
01:49:13.399 --> 01:49:18.600
fps, you know kind of e
fps came from Iran and you know the

1180
01:49:18.680 --> 01:49:26.239
idea that you know, oh look
we have this laboratory to test new weapons

1181
01:49:26.239 --> 01:49:30.840
systems on American troops, you know, and I think that you know,

1182
01:49:30.880 --> 01:49:34.760
you talked about some of the man
pads, the man portable anti art you

1183
01:49:34.760 --> 01:49:41.279
know systems and things like that that
that they were maybe testing on you guys.

1184
01:49:42.680 --> 01:49:46.199
Yeah, there were you know,
I don't want to say as a

1185
01:49:46.279 --> 01:49:51.359
rumor more than anything else, because
you take a lot of stuff you hear,

1186
01:49:51.880 --> 01:49:57.600
even from the S two with a
grain of salt. You go out

1187
01:49:57.600 --> 01:50:00.520
there and you get shot out out
of Solder City, and you know,

1188
01:50:00.600 --> 01:50:08.880
it doesn't it's not a stretch to
say it's probably somebody from because I don't

1189
01:50:08.960 --> 01:50:14.960
know too many people in Solder City
that have the knowledge to employ a manpad

1190
01:50:15.399 --> 01:50:19.840
right right, or have a man
pad right right? Yeah, like you

1191
01:50:19.880 --> 01:50:24.640
can you understand where their aks come
from, like they all have them,

1192
01:50:24.800 --> 01:50:28.720
maybe even where they wind up with
their RPKs or their dishkas or whatever else.

1193
01:50:29.239 --> 01:50:34.680
But a manpad is like a whole
other level. Yeah yeah, yeah,

1194
01:50:35.239 --> 01:50:42.600
So so then how much longer did
you What did you do after your

1195
01:50:42.680 --> 01:50:51.800
last deployment? So we got back
in twenty ten because I'd done three deployments

1196
01:50:53.159 --> 01:50:56.760
essentially back to back. Because you
know, we come back and you're training

1197
01:50:56.840 --> 01:51:00.800
up to deploy again, I go, I need a break. So I

1198
01:51:00.840 --> 01:51:09.520
asked U d A if I could
go to the schoolhouse to teach uh tacops,

1199
01:51:09.800 --> 01:51:14.680
which is what I've been doing.
And I had orders. And then

1200
01:51:15.239 --> 01:51:19.000
I was a CW four at the
time, and I'd been passed over for

1201
01:51:19.199 --> 01:51:24.840
W five and W five is kind
of like, I don't know, like

1202
01:51:24.960 --> 01:51:30.239
sergeant major, you know, there's
everybody's not going to get that. And

1203
01:51:30.439 --> 01:51:34.279
I'm not the kind of person that
they typically picked to be c W five

1204
01:51:34.359 --> 01:51:40.840
because to be honest, I'm too
honest. I would I would tell commanders

1205
01:51:40.960 --> 01:51:45.439
things that they didn't probably want to
hear her that I thought they needed to

1206
01:51:45.479 --> 01:51:53.600
hear. And I understand it.
I'm not bitter about it, but I

1207
01:51:53.640 --> 01:51:59.520
have was on orders. The Army
changed their policy about UH. At that

1208
01:51:59.640 --> 01:52:03.239
time, w fours could stay for
thirty if they wanted. But then the

1209
01:52:03.319 --> 01:52:09.399
Army changed their policy to where you
had to be boarded to if you've been

1210
01:52:09.439 --> 01:52:15.920
passed over twice, you had to
go before board to be retained. So

1211
01:52:15.920 --> 01:52:19.920
I'm starting, I'm almost starting to
outprocess to go to for a Rutger and

1212
01:52:20.000 --> 01:52:24.920
I get a call from DA saying, you know, the policy's changed.

1213
01:52:25.000 --> 01:52:30.920
I got to cancel your orders.
So my unit was already on orders to

1214
01:52:30.000 --> 01:52:35.880
go to Afghanistan, and I said, well, the whole purpose of me

1215
01:52:36.000 --> 01:52:41.199
going to for Rutger is I didn't
feel like I could deploy again. Well,

1216
01:52:41.199 --> 01:52:45.560
I can't PCSU because you have to
go before a retention board, and

1217
01:52:45.560 --> 01:52:49.239
the retention boards not till the fall. And I said, well, if

1218
01:52:49.239 --> 01:52:55.800
I stand for the retention board,
I'm going to Afghanistan because the unit was

1219
01:52:55.840 --> 01:53:01.239
supposed to deploy in like June.
And he goes, well, I can't

1220
01:53:01.279 --> 01:53:03.920
do anything about that, and I
said, well, I'm going to drop

1221
01:53:03.920 --> 01:53:09.239
my papers then, and he goes, what do you mean. I go,

1222
01:53:09.359 --> 01:53:14.279
I'm retiring. And so as soon
as I got off the phone with

1223
01:53:14.359 --> 01:53:19.439
him, I went to my boss
I've worked for the S three and basically

1224
01:53:19.520 --> 01:53:24.119
vented to him for a while about
how I was getting out of the army

1225
01:53:24.119 --> 01:53:32.199
because I'm tired of them trying to
screw me. And so October twenty eleven,

1226
01:53:32.239 --> 01:53:41.319
I retired. It's interesting because you
know, you mentioned getting out when

1227
01:53:41.760 --> 01:53:45.680
Clinton went through the whole downsizing thing, and the big thing with Clinton was

1228
01:53:45.800 --> 01:53:49.359
up or out right, like you
either promote or you get out, which

1229
01:53:49.479 --> 01:53:55.640
I think is a horrible It's a
horrible thing for the military for you know,

1230
01:53:56.039 --> 01:53:58.680
if you get somebody who's good at
their job, let him stay in

1231
01:53:58.720 --> 01:54:03.760
that job if they don't want to
promote. But but warrants were always weren't

1232
01:54:03.760 --> 01:54:10.800
They always kind of protected because warrants
were the technical experts that could extend that

1233
01:54:10.960 --> 01:54:16.920
could have that like thirty year career. How did that I'm gonna I'm gonna

1234
01:54:16.960 --> 01:54:21.840
use a phrase that the guys that
work down on the motor pool, the

1235
01:54:21.920 --> 01:54:27.279
warrants in the motor pool and the
other warrants probably aren't gonna like but pilot's

1236
01:54:27.279 --> 01:54:33.159
call these guys walking warrants, and
those guys generally don't have that up and

1237
01:54:33.199 --> 01:54:40.000
out problem because they were NCOs before
they became warrant officers. Okay, so

1238
01:54:40.079 --> 01:54:43.600
by the time they get to the
point where you got to worry about up

1239
01:54:43.640 --> 01:54:46.760
and out, you can retire if
you want to, Okay. So,

1240
01:54:47.520 --> 01:54:53.720
but aviators, especially somebody like me
who came off the street, I had

1241
01:54:53.760 --> 01:54:59.760
ten years in I got passed over
for W three and at that time,

1242
01:54:59.800 --> 01:55:04.079
the administration decided, okay, we're
going to downsize, right, so I

1243
01:55:04.159 --> 01:55:10.840
could roll the dice and stay for
a second look, or and they were

1244
01:55:10.880 --> 01:55:16.439
offering I want to say, forty
thousand bucks for anybody who would get out.

1245
01:55:18.119 --> 01:55:21.039
But if I'd stayed for the second
look, I wouldn't get that money,

1246
01:55:21.199 --> 01:55:27.199
right, right, So I just
said I went up. I called

1247
01:55:27.239 --> 01:55:29.600
THEA because I wanted to stand in
the army, and I said, can

1248
01:55:29.640 --> 01:55:31.000
you tell me why I got passed
over? Again? I fix it.

1249
01:55:32.640 --> 01:55:36.000
And when they said we can't tell
you why you got passed over, I

1250
01:55:36.000 --> 01:55:40.720
said, okay, I'm taking the
money because if you can't tell me what

1251
01:55:40.760 --> 01:55:45.960
to fix, right, I said, okay, I'll take the money.

1252
01:55:45.039 --> 01:55:47.359
And then you know, about a
year and a half later, they said,

1253
01:55:47.359 --> 01:55:49.560
ooh, we let too many people
go. Who wants to come back?

1254
01:55:50.760 --> 01:55:54.600
And considering I didn't want to get
out in the first place, that

1255
01:55:54.680 --> 01:55:59.720
was an easy decision. And I
felt like I had had ten years in

1256
01:55:59.840 --> 01:56:04.159
and I didn't want to just like
throw that investment away. Sure, Sure,

1257
01:56:04.800 --> 01:56:08.279
did they make you pay the money
back? Or did? Was that?

1258
01:56:08.359 --> 01:56:10.760
Like? No, that's a good
thing I didn't have. I didn't

1259
01:56:10.760 --> 01:56:15.199
have to pay that back. And
when I came back and got and when

1260
01:56:15.199 --> 01:56:19.840
I got qualified as an Apache pilot, they were given a patche pilot bonus.

1261
01:56:20.399 --> 01:56:25.680
So I actually, money wise,
I made out. Aggravation wise,

1262
01:56:25.720 --> 01:56:30.199
I wouldn't say so. Uh.
As a matter of fact, when I

1263
01:56:30.239 --> 01:56:35.840
came back, I had if anything, I would say, before I got

1264
01:56:35.880 --> 01:56:41.600
passed over, I was kind of
naive about the army and that you know,

1265
01:56:42.800 --> 01:56:45.600
they'll take care of you. You
know, we're all a you know,

1266
01:56:45.920 --> 01:56:48.520
we're all on the same team.
Blah blah blah. You know you're

1267
01:56:48.520 --> 01:56:55.000
on the you're a teammate until you're
not right. You know, we need

1268
01:56:55.000 --> 01:56:58.960
to get rid of right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're you're a

1269
01:56:59.079 --> 01:57:04.279
trader if you like, want to
leave the Army, but you're you're a

1270
01:57:04.600 --> 01:57:10.800
uh, you're an encumbrance if the
Army needs to downsize. Yeah, I

1271
01:57:10.840 --> 01:57:13.000
mean, it's just one of those
things that I mean, you can't really

1272
01:57:13.039 --> 01:57:16.359
take it personally. Once you say
you're done, they're like they're washing their

1273
01:57:16.359 --> 01:57:19.640
hands and they're moving on to the
next thing. And none of us are

1274
01:57:19.680 --> 01:57:24.159
so important to the army. Yeah, they're not gonna be able to move

1275
01:57:24.199 --> 01:57:28.479
on without us. Yeah. Well, I had a baseball coach in high

1276
01:57:28.479 --> 01:57:32.279
school once that said, and I
thought it because we had a problem with

1277
01:57:32.279 --> 01:57:39.560
a prima donna on the team,
and he would say, if you think

1278
01:57:39.600 --> 01:57:42.520
you're so important, you can't be
replaced. And once you stick your hand

1279
01:57:42.520 --> 01:57:44.880
in a bucket of water, and
if you pull your hand out and the

1280
01:57:44.920 --> 01:57:49.520
hole is still there, then you're
relable. Otherwise we can find somebody to

1281
01:57:49.560 --> 01:57:57.119
take your place. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I understand the Army's point

1282
01:57:57.119 --> 01:58:00.720
of view. It's just you know, yeah, yeah, it's it's kind

1283
01:58:00.720 --> 01:58:06.159
of aggravating. Yeah. So we've
talked about your book Crazy Horse. Everybody

1284
01:58:06.159 --> 01:58:11.560
please check that out, and we
would have read your book. It's just

1285
01:58:11.600 --> 01:58:15.600
this was a very last minute fill
in and we deeply apologize for not having

1286
01:58:15.640 --> 01:58:20.640
read it the longest month. Where
can people find the documentary? Is it?

1287
01:58:20.720 --> 01:58:24.800
Is it streaming anywhere that you know
of? Yeah, it's streaming on

1288
01:58:24.880 --> 01:58:30.399
Amazon Prime for free, okay.
And it's also available on YouTube. I

1289
01:58:30.479 --> 01:58:34.359
think it's stash Films. Has it
on there? Okay? Great? So

1290
01:58:34.600 --> 01:58:40.279
if you just get on YouTube and
do a search for the longest month,

1291
01:58:42.119 --> 01:58:45.399
our longest month, stash films,
it comes up. And I also want

1292
01:58:45.399 --> 01:58:53.840
to call attention to your website dangerpig
dot com and that is d n g

1293
01:58:54.359 --> 01:59:01.920
r pig dot com. There's no
a in danger dnng urpig dot com.

1294
01:59:02.119 --> 01:59:09.239
And that was your call signed down
in Ol Salvador for the birds and then

1295
01:59:09.760 --> 01:59:15.279
websites a bunch of aviators slagged.
So if you want to stickers, patches,

1296
01:59:15.439 --> 01:59:17.479
that kind of stuff, yeah,
yeah, we checked it out.

1297
01:59:17.520 --> 01:59:21.640
You have some cool stuff. Will
be We'll grab a couple of patches and

1298
01:59:21.680 --> 01:59:29.279
stickers to add to our patch wall. So, but Dan, is there

1299
01:59:29.279 --> 01:59:34.319
anything that we missed or anything we
left out? No, I think we're

1300
01:59:35.680 --> 01:59:40.840
I appreciate your time. No,
we appreciate your time. We appreciate you

1301
01:59:40.880 --> 01:59:46.560
Like rogering up, We we had
a a scheduling error and and needed you

1302
01:59:46.600 --> 01:59:50.119
know, we had talked and I
told you it wouldn't be for like three

1303
01:59:50.159 --> 01:59:54.920
months, and and suddenly this,
this opportunity came up. So we're glad

1304
01:59:54.920 --> 01:59:57.199
that you could be here. We're
glad your webcam came in on time.

1305
01:59:58.319 --> 02:00:00.880
Yeah. Well, you know,
as you can see, there's a reason

1306
02:00:00.880 --> 02:00:04.560
why I don't use the web camelt
I was actually going to disagree with you

1307
02:00:04.600 --> 02:00:08.600
on that point. Whatever webcam you
got, let me know, because you

1308
02:00:08.680 --> 02:00:13.000
look like it looks good. I
spent thousands on cameras trying to make me

1309
02:00:13.039 --> 02:00:15.479
look better and none of them,
none of them seem to work. So

1310
02:00:15.720 --> 02:00:20.039
uh but thank you so much for
your time. We deeply, deeply appreciate

1311
02:00:20.079 --> 02:00:27.479
it. No, thank you appreciate
And also to all our veterans out there,

1312
02:00:27.720 --> 02:00:35.039
we wish you a great Memorial Day. You know you're not supposed to

1313
02:00:35.039 --> 02:00:41.239
wish him a great Memorial Day.
Well, I know it's it should be

1314
02:00:41.279 --> 02:00:44.079
a great Memorial Day, though,
it should be a time of fun,

1315
02:00:44.279 --> 02:00:47.399
remembrance and you know, and healing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

1316
02:00:47.560 --> 02:00:51.520
I would tell you the guys,
the guys that I know that God are

1317
02:00:51.880 --> 02:00:57.600
k I a They would want us
to have a good time. Yeah.

1318
02:00:57.960 --> 02:01:01.119
That's why I tell people, go
have a barbecue with your family. Yeah,

1319
02:01:01.159 --> 02:01:06.600
because that's what they would want.
Yeah sure, yeah, yeah,

1320
02:01:06.840 --> 02:01:11.279
for sure. Like I know that
having a great Memorial Day, think about

1321
02:01:11.279 --> 02:01:14.399
the people that we've known and lost, and people who we didn't know and

1322
02:01:14.800 --> 02:01:20.880
we've lost. It seems contraindicated.
But I think that none of them would

1323
02:01:20.920 --> 02:01:26.239
want you sitting at an Applebee's crying
into your beer a Memorial Day, believe

1324
02:01:26.279 --> 02:01:30.920
man. Yeah. Yeah, So
so anyway, I hope you do have

1325
02:01:30.039 --> 02:01:34.199
a great Memorial Day. Remember friends, remember the fallen, but spend time

1326
02:01:34.239 --> 02:01:41.960
with loved ones and and do buddy
checks. Please do buddy checks. Anyway,

1327
02:01:42.920 --> 02:01:46.039
next week, next Friday, Robert
Young, Pelton conflict journalist, author

1328
02:01:46.279 --> 02:01:51.279
of the World's Most Dangerous Places,
amongst other works, will be here then.

1329
02:01:51.880 --> 02:01:57.960
So that's it. Yeah, thank
you, Dan, We really appreciate

1330
02:01:58.000 --> 02:02:00.960
it. Thanks man, Thank you
all, Thank you all reading