Special Operations, Cobert SB and I the team House with your hopes, Jack
Burphy and David Park. Hey, everyone, welcome to our episode Christmas episode
I hope it's going to be episode two fifty one. I'm Jack here with
Dave. Our guest on tonight's show is Melissa Nahatta. She is an Army
Psyops veteran, served in psychological operations and deployed as the first female Psychological Operations
team leader to a combat zone and we're really excited to have her on the
show tonight. So Melissa, thank you for coming on and doing this well.
Thanks Dave and Jack. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely, And
so I'll start with the same question that we ask you know, all of
our guests, So a little bit about your origin story, if you could
tell us a little bit about your upbringing and how that kind of took you
towards military service. Yeah. Sure. So I was born in Alpaso,
Texas, the Desert. I was raised halfway there, and I graduated out
of Tucson, Arizona and got accepted to NMSU. So that's where I did
my schooling app for around three and a half. Few years there I did
a RTC and jer rotc throughout my time, so I was always bound to
be in the military. I knew from the beginning that was what I was
gonna do. I just couldn't pick what branch between Marines and Army. I
ended up choosing the Army because I went to a marine devil pup small camp
that they sent bad kids too. But I asked my dad, in fact,
that bagged my bad dad to pay for me to go to it with
another friend, and we were the few ones that volunteered to go, and
the rest of the bad kids that go and you get for three weeks,
you get usually crapped by your marine people. It was great. I loved
it. I've always enjoyed that type of stuff. Anything physical and intense I
like. But I did talk to the female drill sergeants there drill instructures,
and they said that there was no place for the female really to go aside
from supply quartermaster. And that's not what I was looking for. So I
went ahead and chose the Army, and in two thousand and two, after
a year after the Towers, I joined the active duty. I mean,
I joined the reserves out of NMSU and I'll pass with Texas. I joined
the reserves there. I had a GT score of one to eighteen. But
I was given four options. I guess, I don't know, maybe become
a female and maybe because I was going to reserve, but I was given
to be a laundry in bath, a Fueler eighty eight mike, and a
sewing parachute person. And I was like, I can't sew, I can't
cook, I can't to cook. I couldn't do none of that. So
I said, which the ones could get me the dirtiest and you know,
most in the ground, and they said fueler. So I went with Fueler
with a GT score of one eighteen and a three hundred PET score and then
I did around three and a half years there. The war kickoff in Iraq,
and I was still going to NMSU and I was still in the RGC
program. Was never going to commission. I knew I was always meant to
be a knuckle dragger and enlisted. But I had fun with them for three
years. And my master's sergeant was on behind me when I said I was
going to go active duty and stay and listed. But you know, three
the workicked off, my reserve unit activated and We're going to go to Iraq,
and I was like, man, I'm going to die from this reserved
people because there was some crazy shit going on with these reservists or something else.
And we ended up not making out their Turkey closed their borders, so
we stayed. We stayed at the home front, and all our ship made
it out there and we didn't, so we lost all our equipment and tough
boxes and vehicles and tankers. But No. Five, I went active duty.
I went. I requested Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in O
six I went to Iraq as a fueler, which is not the best thing
in Iraq yet do. But when I came back, I knew I wanted
to get a quartermaster. And I went to the siop Q course, the
qualification course in eight and made it through and continue through there see your school
Griffin jump Master. And then in twenty ten and eleven I went to Afghanistan
with an o DA And then twenty eleven and twelve I went again for another
rotation. Can you When I came back, I wanted a third rotation,
but women weren't out there at the time, so and I almost got blown
up a couple of times and they thought I was in a body bag for
a bit, so the command got I think scared, and when I came
back, theyasically threw me to the battalion or the S three, and I
wasn't ready to stop. I wasn't ready to take a knee. I was
desperate to go back out the last rotation and we ended on a kind of
bad note. We lost somebody that we didn't get a venged for, and
I just felt like going back out. I felt I wasn't done so and
the unit wasn't willing to send me. Sig Up was giving me a hard
time. I've always been fighting back and forth with SYOP, so I chose
to lead them, and I got accepted to go assess for Special Missions Unit,
and I went over there, assessed for forty five days, came back
and was accepted and started OTC in twenty thirteen. But it's a long story.
But in between there I am in twenty fifteen nine. They're praying it.
I was married for ten years already, and I chose to come back
to SIOP and thought I'd go over to the female side and the CAG side
go try out with them. But I just was naive and had my baby
and chose to just finish off my time in SIOP and just about it.
So and I ended up just retiring. Can you we've never had a fueller
on and you know, we don't talk a lot often with people who have
been on the more support side of things. Can you tell us what the
training was like and what your role was as a fueler. So back when
I went into thousand two, we were still not full blown to basic and
a T. It wasn't full blown into wars, so people were doing c
QB and basic training and you're still doing baying at course and all that that
old stuff. I don't even remember what. I have bad memory. I
don't remember most of a I T. I was in Virginia. It was
maybe a six months or so. I don't know how. But they all
say when you get your unit, you're gonna learn. So when I got
six to the active duty, because the reserve you don't learn nothing. I
just I just took advantage of my reserve time and had fun at the RCC
and went to everybone school in mount warfare school while I was on the reserves
plane, you know, the one weekend a month, two weekend, two
weeks a year. But when I went into active duty, and within a
month after going after duty and going to Fort Bragg, I deployed with them,
and that's where I learned my job how to refuel Bradley's. I did
aviation and refueling, So I refueled kay was should know books constas surpus and
then I got to refuel some tanks as well. Back in two thousand and
six and seven, that was when the fuelers and your eighty eight mins are
really getting hit hard with casualties from being on the roads. And we were
supposed to be on the road hauling, which meant I would be, you
know, pulling a five ton or a hymet with a JPA big ass barm
on my butt. But I guess the the the the planets the line just
right, and we got pulled off that mission. The unit that we ended
up replacing got kicked out of country because they were siphoning gas and some big
old like the whole man went down and it was a big mess. It
was this immediate, and so we got pulled off our mission and got shoved
into that one, and I guess it saved quite a bit of us.
So I got the the comfort side of Iraq. I didn't get to get
on the roads often, we didn't drive. I just refueled aviation and did
the adag missions. So quarter master is necessary, quartermasters everywhere, right,
you lose a war without quarter master. But it wasn't for me. Let's
just say that wasn't my That's not what I intended. I intend to actually
go to aighty second when I when I went active duty, and they sent
me to at the one four And I don't know if you've been on four
Bragg, but it's on the other side of the train tracks, the railroad,
and let me say it is definitely on the wrong side of tracks.
It was a stock and I, you know, I deployed with them and
I was like, no, one, time's enough, I'm I gotta get
out of here. So I just didn't fit down. So how did how
did sy ops com up come up on your radar? How did you find
out about it and think it would be a good fit for you? Well,
nobody knows what the hell sip is, right, I thought out about
it when I went to them work course the PLBC back in the day.
But I don't know what's can't remember it's called now the Warrior something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but PLDC back then, you know,
and there was a slapper there hit. I kind of tucked them a little
bit, but they stuffed themselves. And when I came back, I knew
I need to leave the unit. I couldn't stay there. I requested go
to airsol Sear School. They were just you know, I was just too
motivated to be in that unit, and I started rubbing people wrong because I
just, you know, I could have just go at their op tempo with
very slow and lazy op tempo. And so I just started looking around.
And I remember I had heard about SLAP and there was a buddy of mine
she said her husband was civil fairs, and I started looking to civil fairs
and I said, okay, well, yeah, you know, building schools
and build wells and all that. But I didn't know what SLAP was,
so I and I didn't realize that SLAP was so closed off to females at
the time then. So I went for them and I said in the packet,
they accepted me, and I went to go. At the time,
we still didn't have the at thest eleven day Now Assessment selection for SAP it
was. I was a precursor to it, so it was like a genesis
program three years of building before the assessment course for them. But I went
through that and went through the course and then they got accepted and finished it
off. And that's what I realized, maybe I should have gone see it
in the beginning. Uh So, for for viewers out there who don't understand
what psyops is, what psychological operations are in the army, could you could
you give like a little description of like what that career field is, Like
yeah, it's it's kind of hard to give a real quick descriptions, like
when someone tells, like what would you do? As I said, like
ship, what don't I do? Depends on your your your series right eighteen
you can you can give. But the biggest sure, yeah, the biggest
thing is just we influence and change human behavior on specific target target audiences that
we've picked to better the support of the United States. And and how you
do it is where it becomes how you do it, when you do it,
and who you do it too is where it becomes tricky. But we
just influence and change behavior, just like I think the other females said when
they do it to us, it's propaganda. When we do it to we
don't have to Americans, not a lout. But when we do to adversaries
or are partner forces, it's sy o. And when civilities do it's marketing
or media. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And a
lot of people, unfortunately kind of think that psyops are just like pamphlet droppers,
that you guys take cardboard boxes full of pamphlets and dump them out of
the back of a helicopter. But I mean there's a lot more to it
because some yeah, well you know, there's a lot of our own cybers.
I think that's all what it is, that it's just leaflets. And
we had a real big boot awakening when we start working a lot more in
Afghans and when you realize you can't just drop leafs. That's over ninety percent
of the population is illiterate. They're just gonna then when you wipe their ass
with it, right, because they don't wipe their aus like that. So
it was pointless to go at that medium. You had to find a different
way. So we had adjusted to it because a lot of your older guys
from the first call for that that's what they did. They dropped a lot
of leaflets and it was real successful in the first call for you had.
You know, I can't remember how four hundred some people surrendered in Iraq because
they dropped them. They did a psychological action we call it sayak in one
one village and then on the next village after the leafs were dropped, the
knew that we were about to bomb because the previous village did, so they
all, you know, dropped their weapons down and came out. So it's
it's it was useful there, but it wasn't the same in Afghanistan, so
they had a just fire there. And so what was your first position when
you got to psyops? I mean it was this, uh what what is
it on Braga? Is it the fourth Psyop Battalion or fourth Psyop Group?
It changes every time. I don't know a pick a day, pick a
name. So originally when I first got there in nine, it was the
for Psychologic fourth POGST Psychological Operation Group, and then they created another one it
was fourth and eighth because then it split the battalions amongst them, uh insileed
ninth Battalion as of still now is the was the only tactical battalion. The
whole batton was tactical, and all your other battalions lined up with the region.
First Battalion lined up with seventh Group. Uh, seventh Battalion was with
third Group with the Africaan and whatnot. But it along the way it changed
the Kneesock, which was just a big old gaggle fuck, and then it
went back. And I don't know, I've been out for five years,
and I keep up with a couple of my my buddies there and I hear
that they're actually falling under first s FC now, so there's a lot of
growning right now. Yes. Uh so what was your like, your first
duty position when you got to the unit when you arrived there. So when
I first got to it, I got it's the assigned to ninth Battalion,
and then I got pushed down to to a line company, trolley company.
And when most females, and I guess, because they do a board and
they go through your old timers go through and distribute the people coming in,
and I guess I was an orthograd for the stop course and I had a
couple of them distinguishing stuff and PT and my language, and I'm brown,
you know, so I fit in So I was I might have looked okay
on paper. So they sent me to Trolley Company, a line company,
but females don't usually go to the line companies, and as they do,
they go to the PDD, the product development detachment. So the way that
one company is set up is there's three detachments, the usually twelve matches,
kind of like an OHD eight uh, and then there is a support on
a product development and they're the ones that usually back in the big basis big
buck fobs, and that's where you put your females. Well, I basually
went to a Charlie company. Uh yeah, trying to do the detachment.
Sorry, might have a child bust in. ID to the first detachment,
and since we were on a mission at that time, every they rotate a
mission. I don't know if they do that in SF too, but they
rotate a mission that keeps us here on home and if there's a natural disaster
Katrina happens again, that whole company will go and support that. At the
time when I got to Trolley Company, that's where we were at. So
I guess they saw it fit for me to be it was okay for me
to be in a detachment even though women weren't allowed there. Then Haiti happened,
and instantly they pushed me out of there into the training room because they
didn't want me to pull in with it because I was a female. But
at the time, I had, you know, more qualifications than half our
stoppers, and I had been you know, eagerly going to all these schools
and Seer school and I can outruck quite a bit of people and you know,
the jump Master Griffin Group and all that stuff. And so the minute
we came back from Haiti, I fought to get back on the detachment.
Then when we deployed to Afghanistan the first time with Charlie Something in twenty ten,
I was in the detachment, but I was considered the detachment headquarter.
So that's the way I snuck on was with the officer. Because we have
a detachment, then you have your like you guys have your alpha and your
your warrant. Where we have an alpha and have a team, a team
daddy, an officer, a captain, and a East seven usually should be
on there. And I was, you know, the the helping hand in
there. I snuck on as part of the headquarters. And then when a
team went down and wash, the team leader was need to be removed because
of stuff going on. I ended up filling that backspot and I got on
a team, and that's the way I went so so at the time,
they were reticent to put women on the tactical syops teams that are sort of
like out there working side by side special forces odios. Yes, okay,
yeah, And even though the MOS is not considered a combat MOS, therefore
there is nothing on paper. And that was my biggest file of tim show
me on paper that says I can't be on a detachment. Show me on
paper, I can't be on a team. If I can't cut the mustard,
then I'm good. But if I can out do half these guys,
why can't I be on a team. You know, we had all the
things from well, what about when you're on your cycle? It's like,
look, this is the two thousands, now two thousand and eight, I
said, I literally take depos so I don't even cycle. Second. Of
all, half the rest of the world lives in a place that doesn't have
water. Do you think they die from having their cycle out there? I
said, we saw gas and some people were baking some funkiness up in there.
It's like, so it attracts the bears. I was just thinking about
the bears. Bear. Yeah, what's up, guys. This show is
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your order. Thank you. Well yeah, area, yeah, and uh,
I don't know, And I guess it made my king was always it
made slap feel elite by saying no females are allowed there above there, And
I know the mission does come with it. But when you're the redhead step
step child, which slap is, they hate it. But where the red
his stepchild to the step right, they they have to prove. They're always
trying to prove something they're always proving, right and by not having a female
on there and put some of the same levels as your SF was. And
it's funny because they all the command all everybody would always tell me, you
can't be on our team because of all these other excuses you're rag and everything.
And then on top of it, no team is gonna accept you.
No s F team, no Seal team, no Marshal Arts team is gonna
accept you or Marshall didn't exist back then. But and I was like,
well, how about you let me deal with that and if they don't accept
me, and they kicked me out because I don't know if you've ever work
with SLOP, there's a lot of MAILSOP operators that that can't work well with
other teams and Seals and SF. So I said that why don't you let
me see if they do accept me. If they do, then and if
they don't, they kicked me out. You know, the funny thing is
is they accepted me way better than Silent did that. So what was you
You kind of explained that you were kind of cooling your heels and headquarters just
waiting for that opportunity to get over there when you saw it jumped on it.
What was it like when you arrived? I mean where where? What?
Uh? If you could tell us like what fob and I think you
told us what team you were with, like where where you arrived and where
the mission? What the mission was when you got there. Well, so
to begin with, I wasn't I wasn't want you to just in wait.
I was very go get her and I wasn't just gonna sit on the headquarters.
I knew my head that the minute I got on country, I was
gonna find a way out. So once I got there, I started establishing
my my point of context and I started, you know, just just mingling,
just talking to people. There was this this star major that actually the
AOB sar major. I forgot how we came about. We were talking and
we were in a big meeting with everybody, and he was talking about doing
a black syop. The hell it's really rarely done where where where it's not
apparent that it's coming from America exactly. Yeah, yeah there, because most
of the time slap is all truth is quite stop or gray. Soop,
we're not telling you what it is, but we're not telling you somebody else.
And then you have your deception. Your deception campaigns are so rarely happening,
but one was coming up that they were trying to put something together talk
about it was just kind of bogus, but whatever it was, we're gonna
drop some pair of shotes with with dry eyes and to try and make it
look like they believed there was these ghost soldiers going around. We're gonna try
to influence them and get that going and try to get you know, scare
going on there. And they have no current jump masters right now, they're
at the AOB and I was current qualified jump master and and stat a claiming
jump master, and so I actually started taking them the whole mission by myself
and setting it up, and we were working with the riggers and all these
different stuff. And when that SAR Major, the AOBSR Major saw that,
and E five back then I was in E five, was willing to take
on that. And and a female he started seeing potential in other places and
started wanting to take me out with the commandos because we were I was in
Candahart out of Camp Brown as the headquarters, a UH as the headquarters,
and since right there at the commando units there, they started talking about taking
me with them. So once my higher up headquarters heard that, they they
said they they felt tension on the other side that they're gonna lose me one
way or another. They're gonna lose me to the commandos and working that mission,
or they're gonna find a place for me and a team. So when
the opportunity came that a team leader would need to be replaced, command felt
it better to at least shoose me that way instead of lose me to the
to the s F guys and these news. As I have commands, I
have to ask Melissa, did this Ghost Soldiers mission ever happen? It?
Did it? It's so hard to get this deception mission going, but too
many, too many things we're gonna go wrong with it. You know,
who's gonna unbuckle it just you know, days and days of brainstorming and who's
gonna unbuckle the stuff, and who's gonna retrieve the shoots or we wanted to
release these shoots and it just it wasn't worth putting everything into it. But
it got me out there, got me in with the with the people that
needed to mingle with and uh, force my hand on my side because when
we're when we go to kind of like how you guys do your alb is
pretty close and it was in campground right if you were there, and then
you spread out there. But first SIOP one whole company goes into country and
that company headquarters is in Bogram and then all the rest of the teams,
the detachment spread out through the throughout the rest of the place. And then
they they pushed the teams off to the their their supporting units, you know,
to the seals and the O d as. So usually one ODA takes
a two or three man team with them for SIOP and you know, you're
my headquarters is ally in Bogorum, and then the whole sit rep just runs
up. So and SO was getting up and it came down and they got
to find a place for me. I want to ask the like what was
it like when you got down there working with the ODA, Like where did
you go? What was the mission when you got there? So? Three
one, three four when I got down to them, was working via SO
and what had when I got with them, they had just lost two of
their guys in the and because they got there and within three weeks, three
weeks of the being in country, they lost their alpha and their delta in
one blast, and the the team took it really hard. And that's when
that whole replacing of my team leader had to or the SYLE team that had
to be helping because he was bumping heads or rubbing wrong or you know,
not being cognizant of the way the team was feeling and being very giddy.
And hey, guys, when the team is going through the big loss,
they lost their their command and their delta, and you know, back then,
they're they're always hurting, You're always hearing from medics. And they only
had one medic and one officer. So they took the adelta from the ao
B and the the warrant took over as a team. So when I got
to them, they already didn't like the theyy kind of were having a problem
with SYO. They were in a real big rout because they had lost to
their guys, their junior Brav got pretty tore up to It was a slow
start when I got there, and I just I just knew I had with
everything. I just you know, I had to just carry my own weight
and let the uh let their minds make them in their own minds, you
know, whether I'm an asset to the team or am I just a big
you know, burden, and I mean as a tactical syop uh soldier.
What what was your part like, how did you integrate with that ODA and
how did you help them, you know, accomplish their mission. So INSIP
we always say, you know, we're all about influencing and influence the enemy
to do this, or influence the local populace. But the first person,
the first thing you have to influence is a team you're attacking with. You
have to be able to sell yourself to them and be able to get you
know, to work with them. If you can't do that, then you're
not going to get your job done as good. Yes, there's time when
you can just try to just be on your own or run your own missions,
but it's not gonna be as successful your when you have your CAA or
SIP and your sset working together, just when you have the best outcome.
So I went there and I did it real quick. I knew it was
gonna be a little weird because I never saying females there, But I was
just gonna just, I don't know, just be myself and just stick to
my guns and just I went there and gave me a brief, a real
quick, down dirty brief, what I could, what I could bring to
the team, what we can do, and I guess we just went from
there. And I mean, as that relationship started to develop, I mean,
how how did it work? It worked? It worked good because you
know, in Afghanistan it's even more so than Iraq, where the women are
untouchable target audience, everything from medical treatment to you know, doing the clearing
the village. You can't go into the females. You can't go in there.
You know, they'll hid all the females in one room and they say
you can't go in there as females, but you don't know what else is
in there. So I came with that. I came with the the benefit
of being a female and be able to touch that target audience inside version,
as well as being able to go in there and sell myself and tell that
would be a hit. I could search these people. I can search that
part of the building. I'm small, I can fit in goat tunnels.
I've been inside of goat pens looking for weapons. And then on top of
that, I I might not be physically fit. Now I'm a little out
of shape, but back then I was I can hold my own. So
I, you know, told them all the different stuff. Like with any
job you don't know you start, you have to find your niche and you
had to find a way to do it. But I just took it day
at a time. How did the psyop piece or or did it I mean
integrate with with the ODA mission on this particular tour well, VSO is a
real big thing for us out because we're living living amongst the same with the
ODA. That's if guys, we're living amongst the populus. You got to
deal with the mulah. You got to be able to know their culture.
You got to be able to uh know how to who to influence, who
are the influencers, how to influence the now, what mechanism to use.
So I brought that to the team. We worked a lot with the mulahs.
We work a lot with the who was really big on female schools.
We didn't have a we had a civil fairs team there near the end,
but the beginning we didn't. So I kind of took on the civil fairs
in my first rotation, the civil affairs position as well as the style and
we did a lot of the medical stuff because the Deltas and all of them.
Once once that team took that hit, they kind of backed off their
offensive and we're more more stagnant. They took the VSO turned into VSP instead,
and I think that's when we had the seals. They pushed the seal
team or tried it team down to that location and to push up to where
they were going to initiate another VSO because that that SF team not died.
Three one four I was with was supposed to push from Cockris VSP up to
UH and make another VSO up and another town called Shit. I can't remember
what it's called now, it's been on so long, but when they were
moving up there, that's where they hit those IDs. And after that they
didn't make that push up there, so they just kind of stayed stagnant there
in that VSP. Well, they brought a seal team, tried a team
down to go run that mission. If anybody's worked with Trident, they're not
meant to do FID missions. They're just not partially aware or capable or maturity
levels so low that it just was a bad mix about to happen. But
they pushed the team down to our VSP. We dealt with seals there at
the ODA, a lot of tag gay personalities about to kill each other until
they pushed out, and so I just I don't know, it was a
slower mission. My first rotation at three one, three four one was more
like a fit should be, not not much offensive. We worked with the
Mullah at times. We worked with the Dorbashan town that was there village so
well that the you know I've got I got to go on with the Mullah's
wives. I would make food with them, I'd hold the babies, and
I'd come out and sit and talk with the Mullah. So I kind of
played both sides, and it really helped out because with the district governor,
I did the same thing. I went and talked with his wives, his
children, and then I'd go and sit with the guys and talk that rauh.
So I got to go both ways. I put on my burka and
I take it off and I was good. So that it sounds like that
VSO mission pretty much went the way it was supposed to go, you know,
thankfully. Yeah, and then return back to the United States at the
end of that rotation and does this do you maintain this position as tactical team
leader? I mean, is that something they keep you in now that you're
there? I know. I came right back and right when I got off
the bus, they said, hey, we're not even gonna give you an
SR saying you're out there. You're not going to get an award for being
out there, said, don't give a fuck, show your ward up your
ass. How did you go out there for an award? I went out
for the experience, so I'm gonna I don't care about no award. In
fact, the ODA her giving multiple awards because I helped deliver three babies out
there with the Delta, and so I didn't care about an award. But
I guess they ended up coming through and giving somebody fought for it or something
like that, and I got an award. But the minute I got back,
they threw me to the training room again. Every time it was the
same thing. They I was up in the training room with the bitch like
the I don't know if I can say that I was up in the training
room doing that admin work, which I am not good at. Well,
you know, all the restrooms stay down there. The next rotation when they
go out to go train with the odas. You know, right before you
go out, you go PMT premission training at Fort Bliss, where it's my
hometown. I fought real hard to try to get on it because I knew
I was gonna get on a team. There was no way I was gonna
do a rotation in the headquarters after having the team, So I was trying
to get a PMT, but they were like, no, you're not gonna
get a pm You're not gonna do premission training. All the teams went out
and did pre mission train with ODAS, and I stayed there and when we
came back, I found a way to get on a team again, and
I went back out without doing premission training. The way it is, you
just got to accept the good with the bad. So you had it was
again, you know, by hooking by crook, making your way to an
ODA. Yeah, it's always been. I've always been fighting with stop and
the whole. You know, it's just because you don't have a swinging dick,
you can't do it. I'm like, hey, half these guys,
some of these I'm saying some of them are real big brainers, but not
as much physical And there's some great ones. There's bad ones, you know,
just like the odias are the same, right, steels are the same
everybody. But I was like, if I can't cut it, then I
got it. But if I'm cutting the bed in some of these guys just
because I have a slit instead of what you know, what's the deal?
And said, well the whole death thing, you know, I was like,
I'd be the same, I'll be twice as much sometimes shit. So
the second deployment, which ODA did you get sent to? What base was
this on? This time? So the second rotation in twenty and eleven and
twelve, I went with three four three four And that's when you guys have
just started the fourth the fourth battalions. So I went out there with them.
A lot of them were younger and it was their first rotation. But
right, you know, I those guys like my brothers from another mother,
and I have some nostalgic. Yeah, I'm super nostalgic about that rotation.
I'm you know, it was a lot rougher rotation. We have a lot
more ticks, a lot more aggressiveness. We had the teams, aren't that
got replaced and put into the to this ODA and he was the teams aren't
that the teams aren't that came in was a very highly decorated third group guy
master An Paul Feisel, and he just took this team to another level and
had a great time with them. And so you said that this this mission
or this this deployment was quite different than your first. Could you tell us
a little bit about like how the mission differed, how the how the enemy
situation differed. So the first the first rotation was a lot slower. We
did a lot of more medcaps. I've took in all of the females and
we gain a lot of information from them. We had delivered babies, We
took care of kids that got brown up. I found a lot of ways
to use Taliban's mistakes to you know, to influence the local populist and anytime
they hurt somebody, they you know, blew a kid up, they blew
up this pool. I either made radio broadcasts at the time. That's one
of the mess we were using because we realized they Afghans couldn't read well and
they weren't caring about the leaflets. So we knew that at the time Taliban
had tooken a music so we decided to bring uh radios in a box with
kymrias I don't know if heard about them, so raved in the box and
you got a you know, ten minute quick course on it how to set
it up. I got electricuted multiple times with the damn antenna's and set up
an antenna and a radio station, radio station and my living hoots and we
ran down you know music. We got music from your your your class one
terps, your locals, and we would broadcast music. And in between it
we broadcast uh, you know, commercials, propaganda, whatever you want to
call it at the time style, we broadcast our messages. I would do
interviews with the locals. I'd interview the the Afghan National Army, the A
and P, your local police, your ALP, and I interviewed and I
had this program going kind of saying, let's get to know your your local
police, so that the people kind of felt, you know, connected,
to make that connection. And most of my time was doing interviews, delivery
and babies, taking care of kids, plugging you know, injuries, taking
pictures and making products from Taliban's mistakes and creating a South Tower and running you
know, hotlines missions because even though they don't have toilet paper or whatever.
They still always have cell phones out there as long as you put up a
south tower and then you can get them connected. And we run the tip
lines and we actually got quite a bit of good hits with the tip lines.
And in siy Up, it's hard to measure your success. It's almost
unmeasurable, right because everybody influences something, so you can't stay this was influence.
Because what I did, you could try to piece the puzzle together and
be like, well, because of these we call them Moe's measure of effectness.
I think my product helped do this, but in reality, you can't
save black and white, that is because of what you did. But we
did have some really good Mois measure of effectlessness when we had our south tower
blown up multiple times because the locals were calling into many tips and so Taliban
got real pissed off and was going up the tower and they go fix it
and they blow it up and we put guards out there and then they blow
it up again. So it was it was ideal perfect, like the Vita,
like the VSO or FID should happened, we would train. I trained
the locals there. The your O DA trained them the eighteen Bravo trained the
the the police and all that especial the way that one run the next one
was a lot more offensive, more offensive. We were you know, constantly
going out and we're doing uh, you know, raids or caught off level
two's level kind of level zeros. It was a lot different, and it
was good to see both sides. On one side delivered babies on the next
side where you know, uh, delivering different mission. We had a lot
more casualties on the second one too, with all this while I was there.
So if if you're okay, I mean, can you tell us a
little bit about some of those like close calls and firefights that maybe you guys
got into. Yeah, yeah, no problem. So, uh we you
know, IDs are everywhere. We my first one too. The big difference
was we were in vehicles a lot l A t v s, your uh,
your rg's, your antvs. My second one was all on foot because
everything was you couldn't get down the roads, it just blow you up.
So this team started just had us walking all the time, you know,
twelve k's and making movements all around through our when we were just present controls
everywhere on foot, we uh, because you're on foot more often you're likely
to hit an id and not survive it because compared to the vehicles. You
know, it's just the way this on one of them we had already,
it was just a bloody week. Kid. A lot of the Afghan kids
would come to me because I was the the faith in our little veso.
I was brown like then they thought all was Afghany I spoke posh to you.
I was a female. And then I was working in the civil Fairs
mission. We had no civil a fairs team there, so I ran all
the all the humanitarian aid. I would collect all this stuff and I give
out all the beans and rice and socks for the kids. And I had
a school program going on because our thought was Taliban is recruiting these young ten
eleven, twelve year old males because they're ignorant, just like a gang,
just like here in the United States, they recruit the gang members recruit young
kids because they're naive, they're malleable, they their their nai Yeah, they're
just they could take advantage of them. And so we figured if we educate
them young, then we won't have to fight them later. So we started
doing school in the radio school in the box, I would give up.
We went all the way up to bogroom. They created a curriculum and we
give up these educational books and we'd run teaching programs on the radio, and
I'd give out radios that sometimes, yes, they would use for bombs,
but you win some, you lose some. And so the kids would come
to the to the base looking for me, and you know, they would
say, my name is their little Afghan accent. And when they came visiting
that week, they got blown up to the kids that we usually would come
and I went and took We've got pictures of them so we can make products
and use it to help influence them. And then the following mission a couple
of days later, I was supposed to be on that truck with the Afghan
police, but my leadership had come in so I got pulled off of it
and so I could take care of them. And then that truck, you
know, they are very few times actually used the vehicles they blew up.
I had my radio speaker in there that somehow managed to make it through,
but it had body parts on it and chunks. We went back and retrieved
the bodies of the Afghans I had. In fact, I still have a
picture where the two the eighteen Delta and the Charlie were in the back of
this ranger and right before they told him, hey, don't go down that
route, it's got Id's, the Afghan would have listened, so they just
jumped out the back and they went down ten feet more and blew themselves up.
So I have pictures of them in the back when they were leaving,
and I was like, well, let's see that would have been in the
middle of the inside, oh man. But so that the following day we
had another mission and we went back that same route and missed Id's the whole
way. There. We're gonna set up a checkpoint for the Afghan leaves,
and we were up in the top and separating some stuff, and we had
at the time, because everybody was spread so thin, they started touching.
UH. A platoon of infantry guys to to the SFUH teams, I don't
know if you remember, and they had we had a tenth Mountain platune out
there with us. And they're pretty young guys, really, you know,
motivating and UH and good. They were physically fit, and we had took
them out on this mission and took a couple of the eleven Charlies and I
think the eleven Charlies that might have been their second mission ever with us.
And one of the eleven Charlies that I had ridden with, he was a
gun guy. When he got out, he just they were standing up these
has goes and he just stepped on I D and UH turned into a bag
of bones and gave the Another younger kid ended up with a triple MPT,
and me and the Delta worked on them. We ran up there on the
it was on the hill souse. They started realizing we would take the high
ground right, We'd always take the high ground, We'd make our checkpoints up
there, we'd take it. And so they just started really the whole top
of the mountains and the hills with I DS and that's what they did.
And we hit uh the I D and if he had probably one of five
round in it, because they caused a lot of damage. One k I
A I think like three wounded and UH trip on PT and the Delta that
was up there, and I wuld start working with the Delta to help him.
Uh fax the triple MPT and got them out so that was. It
was a really long day because then after that we had a clear We found
seven more I d s. The eleven Charlie found them all. We were
clearing him, and then we had it ride back the same way that we
knew that the Afghan ranger was still there where we had to treat the dead
bodies. And on the way back, I took the gun because there was
no more gun around on our vehicle. He was in a body bag and
we had and then the uh yeah, so it was actually only two of
us in r G, the driver and my FET three and then the TC.
So I took the gun and the the eleven Charlie and the dog handler
were walking and the dog sat on the tripper night the other one it just
didn't go all the way and so we met back to the dog and the
handler with him. It was just a really long, long, long week
and it was it ended up being on October thirteenth, Friday the thirteenth,
So it just was it sounds like a nightmare. Yeah, we had a
couple more, but there's a couple thatsound on out my mind, but those
two that one in December third was the hard ones, And I mean,
how did the rest of the deployment go like after after that? I mean,
do you guys have to I know, it's always difficult to pick up
after you take casualties like that and keep going and driving through the mission.
It's pretty rough. Yeah. The team Stargant was real smart. He had
been on I think thirteen rotations or whatever. He had two silver stars,
and he knew, he understood, he'd been through casualty before, and he
understood that you couldn't let us take a break. So even though we came
back and we you know, had all that stuff and we had people in
our ice cool because we were living out in the middle of nowhere, you
don't have nothing, you don't have no no uh. We had one little
ice cool uh cooling trailer and that's where we put the bodies at. But
he knew instantly to get right back out. So the next day we were
out on missions. You just kept let people sit and think about it.
We just jumped right back into missions. The ones that got Meta backed,
and one of the one of the eleven Bravos that got Meta backed, ended
up real bad. He he tried to commit suicide a couple of times because
he just couldn't cope. I think he didn't get to cope with us.
He didn't get to heal with us there. And they brought him back and
he said in Kandahar and you know, he had fragmentation of his buddy that
had died all in his body too, So it just kind of him real
hard and compared to us, we just get got right back on the horse
and did mission after mission, and it helped us keep going. We didn't
we didn't stay on it. We did a lot of cross cross training,
so that helped that lie I worked with. They teamed out to a lot.
I got to do a lot of hands on stuff. I would teach
them how to do the the messaging. That was a half the time.
They didn't know what I was doing because it's hard to explain style, but
they knew that I I carry my own weight and I'd also help them on
whatever I could. On that side. I wasn't afraid of you know,
Phil sand bags, burn ship or do whatever everybody else had to do to
carry your own weight. So in the end of the day, I mean,
this turned out to be I mean, I'm just thinking back to what
you said earlier that you know, SF ended up accepting you more than Syop
did. And it sounded like you guys came together really well. Yeah they
they didn't see no problem to it once, you know, I lived the
monks them right there. I you know, you ship side by side,
you peece side by side, doesn't matter once you get to that doesn't Bullet
doesn't care what you are. Don't I care of you have a split.
If you don't, it's gonna get you one way another. ID you know,
I make jokes about look they'd be putting my little feet. I was
like, hey, I got the smaller surface space, that's trigger and ID
you got big old King Kong fleet. I was like when we went to
Griffin group, I was only female too, and you know when you're getting
shot out with the paintballs up. I picked the biggest SF guys, big
old muscular SF guys, and me and you, let's be on team.
Because guess what, he's such a big target man. I could just run
aside him and I wouldn't get So you just gotta make fun of with the
stuff that's there and playpaper sits or rocks se he was gonna step on the
next I d and just kind of he said, blackhearted. But yeah,
these guys quite a bit of mom my eye. I see him as a
brother from another mother. They you know, the team sergeant, you know
saw us all of his his uh you know, his his children, I
guess. And they were willing to give me a because it was a Halo
team. Uh both of them were Halo teams, and this team was,
you know, give me a Halo slot because I'd been trying to go through
Halo school. But Slop wasn't never gonna let you do anything because I just
slaps. Mentality was if it's not soop for all of and then you're not
going to it because they have such a big chip on their shoulder from as
SEF stereotypically half the ciber first and side of leadership that anything that sounds like
it might be as SEF related, if it's you know, offensive into that
defense that they're like, you don't need to go to it. You don't
need to go master gunder course, you don't need to go to life tissue
training. And I had a big fight always with the Ciber of leadership explained
to him like, hey, I can't do side but them. I'm fucking
dead, So why don't you let me live first, you know, let
me go to these things that are keep me alive, because we're going on
the same exact missions side by side as you ODA is. So the only
difference is they got training. They get to go to Master Gunner's course,
they get to do life tasue training. My life tissue training was on ground,
which you know, it's not fair to me and it's not fair to
the caagy that I'm working with. Yeah, did you grow up with brothers?
Yes, and my father only had three well, my father had three
girls, but he was in the military, and I've always been a tomboy.
Yeah. I was just curious because it seems as though you fit in
really well with the guys. Also, like you know, you just you
use humor to just make it an everyday situation. And so I was just
curious if you had brothers and you know, yeah, and every people would
ask me that too, with people that hurt that I'd be the only female
in these in these locations, They're like, why aren't you scared the guys?
Why would I be scared of the guys. I said, you can
be in America and you get raped. I mean, I don't want to
say the R word, but you're like be anywhere, and so they can
happen. It doesn't matter. And they're gonna respect you as much as you
put out there as an effort, not put out. But but they're gonna
respect you if if you just carry your own weight, if you become part
of the team, if you're not, you know, don't let nobody cross
the line, and they can respect you like a sister, like a brother,
like a like a soldier. Yeah. And I never ever had an
incident with the with the DODA. The seals are a little something different.
But and and your convention is you know, worse than your your your sophist.
So if I want to be as a female by myself, I prefer
any day to be with a soft element then with the conventional forces. Yeah.
And so you mentioned that was the third deployment was with the seal teams.
No, it was with that first rotation. Oh, I got you
when they cycled in. Oh okay, I would not I try to get
a third deployment, but they, uh SI got scared, I guess,
or that's what I say. They say they didn't want to female casualty out
there because at the time. They hadn't opened any of the combat arms out
there. They didn't most higher ups didn't realize that I was even out there,
and that wasn't the way they should get shot from blasted with. You
know, all of a sudden you have a femaleki even though it shouldn't matter
what it is, but they uh got it important for me to take a
knee and pull me to the battalion. That's when I decided I wasn't ready
to stop, so I went to a Special Missions Unit instead try to find
some fun over there. Could you tell us a little bit about like what
that process was like? Uh, well, first you assassage just like with
the SFAs for you guys, it's just with the Special missione us a little
longer. Think you guys are twenty days, No twenty nine days something like
that, Yeah, something like that. I start up as eleven days.
Well, your SF your your assessment selection for smith is they give you orders
for forty five days and it depends, you know, sometimes it's less and
sometimes it's you know, right around that one. But it was intense.
But I do good at intensity. I do good at that, I do
good at I can rook all day. I've done the Bauton Memorial Death March
multiple times. I've done it with the ruck, so I can do twenty
six plus miles with you know, over forty pounds easy at a shuffle run
rate. So I had experience on that. So I did good. I
feel I did. In fact, that's felt comfortable, you know, and
basic training I always felt comfortable. And then you come out of basic training,
you go to your unit, You're like, what this is not what
I thought it was. I didn't sign up for this. So we the
Special Missions unit too. I they told me that they they'd never taken a
SAP enlisted before in that specific part of this of the Special Missions Unit.
But of course they can't disclose what we're being assessed for which one. So
when I got slotted, I got slotted into the place where they thought that
SIP would fit, and that was in the signal side. And I hate
technology and I was not ready to for SAP. And for my mindset,
I was SIP our best means of getting our product with crosst face to face,
you know, talking to people. And so in my mind that transitioned
over to human not singing, and I fought hard to try transition to that
one, and uh, the process has changed because of the fight that I
made, and they realized that they're interchangeable. But I assessed I got to
accept that. I went at the near the end of ThEC is what I
realized what the job was gonna be. And I don't bought job satisfaction,
not not my pay or permission. And some people are like, hey,
this is it. You get here, you're made it, You're made,
You're gonna make started major, You're gonna be cushed, You're gonna make great
money. And I don't care. If I don't like what I'm doing,
I'm not gonna do it. That's just the way I was raised. So
when I realized it wasn't what I was thinking it was gonna be, I
tried to transition and I had a lot of pushback, but just one thing
led to another end. Yeah, but having another female was there too that
was trying the same thing both of us were. She had already been working
with seals before in Iraq. There's a good coffee. What did that breakdown
her? She ended up going in Syria twenty nineteen. Shannon Kent, Me
and her were adamant that we should switch to the other side. And you've
heard her, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, So what then
I ended up pregnant before her, so she stayed in that route. I
pulled back and then she ended up having her children later. And her story
was as it was, I'm sorry to hear that it happens. So you
were trying to move positions and when you got pregnant, did you at that
point did you decide to leave or what was that progression? Like? Yeah,
I volunteered to go back to my unit because I had talked to the
powers that be and along the route, when I near the end of the
ROTC, I said, hey, I don't think this is one's for me.
Then the command said, well to do that, you'll have to reassess,
and I was like, I don't care. In fact, I did
well in assessment selection. It's the same one. It's just they felt that
they had a half separate ones. You know, Delta has to have theirs,
and then different unit, different entities within that unit wanted to have their
separate ones. They have come to the the thought that it's the same thing,
and now they actually assessed together. But back then to go from one
to the other it was like sign up and c A. They just minds
bigger than you. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's wild to me that
you were assessing for a position. They couldn't tell you what that position like
broadly speaking, like human or signals, right, Like that seems like something
you should kind of know going into it. Yeah, I know, you
don't. You just trust the process, right, They say, trust the
process, and you trust it, and then halfway down there they just most
people that did ended up getting assessed with that when they just this far,
I'll just accept it. There was just a few of us, me and
this other female that were outspoken about it and saying like it just makes no
sense. I'm not a signator. I've never touched this. They did mention
like, hey, this is not going to be year round, and I
didn't understand what they meant. So I went to the course and I realized
it and I, yeah, I realized I'd probably end up suff starting a
nine mil if I kept in that position because I didn't like that type of
job. I wanted to be on the ground. I needed to be on
the ground. I needed to go back to Afghanistan, and I wanted to
go back with the humids, so I thought took transition. They accepted it.
I talked to everybody and they said, yeah, that makes sense.
I don't know why you were in that route. Why did you pick it.
I was like, I didn't pick it. You know, no one
tells you. So they said, going to go reassess again, and I
was prepping the reassessed, but I didn't. Me and my husband were married
ten years already and I just had gone off the depot, and within like
two weeks I ended up pregnant, and I couldn't believe that I could have
been. In fact, I was too much pregnant, joking out of airplane
still because I didn't realize that I was just getting lazy. I kept working
harder and harder, prepping for assess to assess, and then all of a
sudden, I popped hot for the wrong thing that would be the time that
taking me have the baby. And I thought my mind, I'd come back
and assessed for something I didn't know. I'd go assess for the female CAG
side because I know they started theirs and they had they had sent me a
lot of letters, but I decided to try this one that I didn't know.
Try try out orange, and I thought i'd come back to brag,
I'd have the baby cut, sling, load and assess. But I didn't
realize that mommy was gonna take over. So yeah, baby, and mommy
took over, and I just couldn't. I couldn't go again. I couldn't
couldn't hear my baby. I mean, it's a it's a great story,
and I mean it's understandable, of course. I mean, you're a full
time soldier and a mother. One of those jobs is a full time job
doing both of them at the same time. I don't know how it's even
possible, but some women do do it. And every role is different.
I mean, you have males that are fathers, but in the early childhood,
the child most like most time, they go to the mother first,
so they're not the same roles. Different, no different than I understand that
I'm not a man in Special Operations. I was a female and I had
to come at it as a female. So I had to sell myself what
I have bringing to the team. You know, I'm small, I can
hide places, I can crawl in tunnels. I can you know, the
big old SF guys kept making it through the damn afghan small doors and here
I am making through all the dang doors and the goat huts and everywhere you
can think of. So and then I use the female portion to influence some
actors at times. You know, when we beat in firefights, we go
to the local, to the next village and let them know, hey,
I take off my head and I show them a female. I play the
whole females like, hey, they just hit us, and then all of
a sudden they run from us. And then we start telling the alders that
these fighters are running from a female when she's coming to bring the humanitarian EIGG
because I set up to drop some humanitarian aid from the sky and it makes
them look really bad. And instantly you know, the word good to them
because they're all connected, they all know each other. So then they let
know that this females making fun of them because they're running from a female.
They can't even find a female in the US forces. And man, they
hit us hard again because you can't ever pin them down. They just keep
running, you know, So we're trying to find a way to piss them
off, poke the hornet horn sniffs and make them stand fight, and they
did it work. So after the birth of your child, and is this
about the time that you start thinking about retirement? I mean, how how
does it uh, how does it roll after this? No, at the
time, I wasn't thinking retirement because I was a career. I thought when
I first joined that I was going to be into the day they kicked me
out. And you know, thirty years in, I loved it and I
just was not even never thought that, you know, your hormones were gonna
switch like that. So I still came right back on it. I was,
you know, started rocking and running real quick. And it was just
I was conflicted all the time. I take off to work and then my
husband was trying to be a stay at home dad. But it's a whole
different thing. You know, men short circuit when they hear babies crying.
That's why it's deer school. They have the baby crying. Right. I
was the only see you go intier school. And it didn't bother me one
bit. I slept right through it. But the men when they came out,
they were like, like, I couldn't take it. I was gonna
kill myself as the baby crying, right, It's just something different. So
it was. I started thinking about it back then, but I knew that
in file I can go to a regional side, the cush side. I
went to a regional battalions there, tactical and just like what you guys do
instead of your combat deployments, you do adjay set or you go out.
How different is your draw from one to the other. You know you can
bring your family. I mean, you can't bring your family, but they
can't stop your family from going to Ecuador or something. So that's what we
intended to do. I was gonna take an El Salvador mission. My family
was gonna follow me. But one thing led to another. I was gonna
get accepted to one of my three four three four friends, the eleven Charlie
had gotten over to the Black Daggers, and I liked the skydive and I
love jumping, and I was a jump master, and he was recruiting me
to go over there. I sub in my packet. I got accepted over
there, and I was gonna go represent Sigh up in Black Daggers. And
that was the method of me staying, being able to stay here in States
and stay with my family and take them with me traveling. And they were
all for it, but and my command was for it. But once the
higher group command heard about it, you know, they sigh up is the
worst our own worst enemy, and they saw to it that that was going
to happen. They blocked me from doing it. They used to sock first
sergeant, start major. They all got involved in it, and it just
sigh up once they make up their mind. They said I said so.
Because I said so, it's dick measuring contests again. And there was no
way I was going to win that one. And they just sent me to
the schoolhouse instead. And they after all the fighting I did, I used
always fight everywhere, they opened up a position for sign up there, but
another buddy of mine ended up taking it, but I lost that opportunity.
I got a sour taste after that in this schoolhouse and decide to leave.
Yeah. Why why in the hell would SSYOP not want a accomplished female soldier
representing them because the black daggers for folks out there listening. I mean,
that's like part of the public public relations, the outward facing soft recruitment that
these people go and parachute into football stadiums and stuff like that. I don't
understand why they wouldn't want someone like you out there representing the force. I
didn't understand it there. That's why I find it so hard. If I'm
a person that common sense. If I if there's a real, real reason,
you tell me, like, well we need here, you need to
deploy on this one, and I would have accepted it. But there would
it was just because I said, so, we need you in the battalion
instead to go be uh you know, the jump or NFC or some some
silly shit. You know, when you can put anybody there like, well,
you're a John Master, you need to be the heir. I was
like, no, you don't. You know, I've always been let me
make my own road, and I end up putting hands the people when they
tell me I can't make my own road. So I but it has with
quite a bit of people there, and I just saw it pass a way
of taking the soul out of you. Sometimes. Yeah, we shoot our
own young, we eat our own young, and you know, and it's
all because we have chips on our shoulders for MESSEF or something. I don't
know what it is, but I haven't figured it out. Uh. And
so that was about the point that you started getting thinking about retirement. Yeah,
I was. I was already over one hundred jumps. My body was
starting to wear out. The kids got broken, started breaking me. I
ended up pregnant my second child. And then because I had been gone over
to the schoolhouse and I was being the SLC instructor and kind of taking it
easy there. And I had been a jump master instructor for used to start
course running through and then then the sig up jump master course. And I
decided when I ended up pregnant that yeah, I was pretty much done.
And I had tore my shoulder and my back was tore up, and you
know, lease into the basics. And they had asked if I was looking
into that I was willing to take a medical retirement, and I said,
sure, why not. I was going to go in and just be a
stay at home mom with my kids. And that's the route I took.
So I just got medically retired instead. And what year was that? In
twenty nineteen? Okay, so in twenty eighteen, seventeen eighteen, I was
at the schoolhouse. So not that not all that well ago, I mean,
tell us, what has life been like post army? What have you
been up to. How you been adjusting to uh this new lifestyle live and
life. It's easier to just because I moved all the way out here in
the middle of nowhere. But stay at home mom is no joke, I
tell you. You know, your school is nothing compared to motherhood on sleep
deprivation and just lack of patience, you know, uh se your school and
being strong, how me be a mom to a very big five year old
boy who is sixty plus pounds that want to be carried everywhere. So it's
a big adjustment. But I have a lot of nostalgia some days, you
know, I just think how different it would have been if I would have
assessed them gone to another place, or if I would have just been able
to take another rotation down to Afghanistan. And I know the sf the SFAs
opened up female to females in two thousand and fifteen, somewhere around somewhere around
there. Yeah, you know, I was, I was thinking. I
was thinking about it during this conversation. Melissa. It sounds like you were
like a very highly motivated, competent soldier that was all about being a soldier
and doing this job. But you maybe hit it like timing wise, you
hit it a little bit wrong because of you know, that law not being
repealed, the federal law that then now permits women into combat positions. And
it's really unfortunate that you went through. There's like a four selection that we
all go through, but then there's also this weird informal selection that you also
had to go through that that's really unfortunate. I think, yeah, yeah,
and a lot of when that opened up, a lot of the team
guys from uh well, from three four through four, but there was a
lot of eighteen sieries that go through the smeth as well, and you go
side by side with them in the assessment selection, and you know that we
always talked about how different the assessment selection was from SFAs compared to the Special
Missions Unit. You know, just the you know, the difference between them
motivating you and in the Special Missions Unit, it's either you want to be
there, you don't, You just suck it up, or you don't and
no one's gonna tell you anything else. It's just a matter of your brain
pushing you past it. And these guys that would go through that's when I
first realized me and this other female that we weren't in the right place when
we assessed with these other guys, and then they got put into the one
part of the unit and we got put into this other part. And even
when we were sitting there this classroom, when they're first uh going through TC
and they first split you up, they tell you where you're going to and
they read your letter that you're going to fit in. And we're looking at
these guys that we'd gone through and someone we you know, deployed with someone
they were on a team and I had worked a mission with them from three
one three one or something. And then they're like, what are you going
over there? What's ask down for? And I was like, what are
you going over there? And we started realizing that we were getting split it
and these guys were like, shit, you went through all that assessment selection
and everything. You should you know, you should be in the same route
over here. And when we were fighting in this other female that ended up
dying, her husband was actually end up kent. Her husband was in the
other course. And we had worked with all those guys and they're from like,
you guys, you guys should have if it would have opened up the
SFAs a lot earlier for the females, we would have just left dispute and
gone assessed over there, because he's like, that's what you guys fit in
for both of us, and we just you know, bad timing wrong two
years too late, and she ended up running her out and I went mine.
Wow. I mean, thank you so much for sharing your story with
us, Melissa. I really enjoyed hearing it. Yeah, sorry if I
speak fast. No, it was, it was. It was a lot
of fun, well mostly it was. It was really fun hearing hearing about
your experiences. I mean there's some some rough patches, you know, terrible
things that you know you experience out there in combat. But I appreciate you
sharing that with us as well. And before before we get going tonight,
I mean, is there anything else, any final thoughts or anything else you
want to share, anything that that I didn't ask, that you wish?
I had, no nothing she didn't share. But I always want to say
you always anybody. Nobody knows style. Nobody is in the army, let
alone outside of the army. So like they say, oh you were a
psychologist, you were a but it's hard to explain it for you guys.
How do you explain when you say, well you were an SSEF, everybody
just needs to ramble, right, then you go try to explain to them,
what do you do is eighteen Delta I think eighteen NECO or whatever you
were. And it's hard to explain it because every mission can dictate every you
know, what may you can be doing fit the next thing can be,
you know, uh, something completely different Jason in another country. How do
you explain yours? Yeah, I mean that's why I think the recruitment videos
always show, you know, the direct action mission, because people can understand
kicking in a door and shooting people explaining by with and through and you know,
we use surrogates to influence and this and that. Like, yeah,
people, you've already lost the public a lot of times when you start to
talk about it. It's honestly, I mean, same as recruiting. It's
honestly why vilicious stability operations you know, weren't used as much as they should
have been and why they were cut off because it doesn't brief as well as
stocking bodies. Yeah, even though you think it works, it doesn't breach
right, You're right, yeah, you know, if there's not a metric
for it. How can we show Yeah, is it even real? Right?
Well again, Melissa, thank you? Soo what are you doing?
Is it real? It's not measurable to see it? At least I built
ten wells. I built one school. You guys can say, I trained
as a levembra, I trained this, I'm a teacher. I did this,
I did this many missions. I captured this high value target. SIP
is not quite the same, so it's really hard to explain. So what
do you do? Yeah, well this is this has been terrific, Melissa,
and thank you for taking some time out, you know while you got
the kiddos around to speak with us for a little bit tonight. And uh,
we're we're happy that the that the Internet service held up, you know,
since you're out in the middle of enjoying your own little piece of paradise.
Yeah, yeah, the boondocks. Yeah, it's kind of resembles Afghast
and actually it's mountainous. It's no nowhere. I don't burn my own ship.
But whatever, Well, all right, so for the folks out there,
thank you for joining us. And this is Christmas, right, so
Merry Christmas, Happy kwansa, happy Honkah. I think Honica is over by
the time they see this, but happy holidays everyone, and we'll see you
guys. The next episode will be our New Year's wrap up. Yere we
wrap up. Sounds fun cool, Thank you so much. Listen