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Speaker 2: Special Operations Cobert ask me and I the Team House
Speaker 2: with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park Episode two
Speaker 2: and ninety nine. I'm Dave Park.
Speaker 3: Jack is out right now we welcome our special guest,
Speaker 3: your Iyah Pot. Thanks for being here right, came all
Speaker 3: the way up to see us.
Speaker 2: Deeply appreciate it.
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Speaker 3: all right, thank you so much for being here. We
Speaker 3: really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: No, no, thank you.
Speaker 3: So you know, we like to start this story off
Speaker 3: with your story, your origin story.
Speaker 2: How did you grow up and what led you into
Speaker 2: the military. Oh, so that's a that's going way back.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 4: I was born in a small town in Jasper called Jasper, Indiana.
Speaker 4: It's right next to French Lick, Indiana. If anybody knows
Speaker 4: Larry Bird. Okay, so Larry Birds from French Lick. Jasper's
Speaker 4: a little small town right beside of that. Grew up
Speaker 4: in a trailer next to my grandmother's house until that
Speaker 4: burned down. My my mom and dad ended up splitting up,
Speaker 4: and my mom moved to Florida and I went to
Speaker 4: beauty school where she met my current father and they
Speaker 4: got married. And then my dad joined the army shortly after,
Speaker 4: I think around in nineteen eighty two, and so so
Speaker 4: he joined, had some had some had some other siblings,
Speaker 4: so I got some brothers. Went to high school in
Speaker 4: Fort Knox, So I kind of grew up around the military.
Speaker 4: It's a long way to say I grew up around
Speaker 4: the military. That's really all I knew. So my father
Speaker 4: was in, his father was in, and so I really
Speaker 4: didn't know anything else. I grew up in the DoD
Speaker 4: school system, so a lot of folks may not know
Speaker 4: what that is, but the government actually has high schools
Speaker 4: non military installations. And so I went to Fort Knox
Speaker 4: High School and then we moved to Hawaii. My scene
Speaker 4: your years. So my dad was a drill startant on
Speaker 4: Fort Knox. Then he became a warrant officer and then
Speaker 4: went to the twenty fifth Infantry Division in Hawaii, and
Speaker 4: I graduated high school and then after high school, I
Speaker 4: wanted to do something, so I enlisted in the army.
Speaker 4: So that's the reader's digest version of how I went
Speaker 4: from just basically a kid growing up around the military,
Speaker 4: and then that was the thing that seemed like it
Speaker 4: was the right thing to do, or the things that
Speaker 4: everybody was doing.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure that your dad had Oh maybe he didn't,
Speaker 3: But did he have like like strong opinions about what
Speaker 3: you should do in the army, like what the best
Speaker 3: jobs would.
Speaker 2: Be or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Not really actually, probably like most I'll say, well, I
Speaker 4: don't want to generalize, but I'll speak for myself because
Speaker 4: I got three sons who have all served. They didn't
Speaker 4: want me to go in the military. The actually wanted
Speaker 4: me to go to school, and I didn't want to
Speaker 4: go to school. I wanted to get out of the house,
Speaker 4: you know. I think my general it was all about
Speaker 4: not staying at home. It was about getting out of
Speaker 4: the house as soon as possible, and the military was
Speaker 4: the way to go. I my dad actually swore me in,
Speaker 4: so that was pretty cool. He was a warn officer.
Speaker 4: He actually swore me in. He Uh. They had just
Speaker 4: moved to Germany and from Oklahoma, as he was finishing
Speaker 4: warn officer school and I had to fly to Germany.
Speaker 4: I did my the MEPs process in Oklahoma, flew to Germany.
Speaker 4: He swore me in and I enlisted to be a
Speaker 4: I think at the time it was called the ninety
Speaker 4: one Bravo. It wasn't a healthcare specialist. I think it was.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a combat medic. I think it was like
Speaker 4: a medical specialist. That's where it was. It was a
Speaker 4: medical specialist. I think everything was called a specialist at
Speaker 4: the time, so it was a medical specialist. So a
Speaker 4: field medic. And I think he actually wanted to be
Speaker 4: a field medic but ended up being a field artillery men.
Speaker 4: So they didn't have any issues with it. And and
Speaker 4: I had selected at the time used to be able
Speaker 4: to pick station A Choice, and I had just got
Speaker 4: to Hawaii and finished high school and Hawaii was pretty cool.
Speaker 4: So I signed up for Station A Choice. That's the
Speaker 4: option I picked, and I went back to Hawaii.
Speaker 2: So what year was this that you en listened? So
Speaker 2: I enlisted in ninety six, ninety six?
Speaker 3: And what was it about being a medic or medicine
Speaker 3: that it appealed to you?
Speaker 4: I wish I had a good story. It was it
Speaker 4: was the best choice of what was offered, right, you know,
Speaker 4: you got used to when you go to MEPs, they
Speaker 4: give you that print out and there was like four
Speaker 4: or five jobs on it and like you know, patroleum
Speaker 4: supplies specialists, like a lot of things that really didn't
Speaker 4: really sound great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 4: It sounded pretty good and it allowed me to get
Speaker 4: station of choice. So I picked that, and I'm actually
Speaker 4: glad I did. I fell in love with, you know, medicine,
Speaker 4: and I'm doing that still to this day.
Speaker 3: So so you go out to be a medic at
Speaker 3: a twenty fifth ID, No.
Speaker 4: So I initially started out at Tripler, Okay, So yeah,
Speaker 4: I got double lucky, right, I got Hawaii and then
Speaker 4: ended up in a hospital. And for anybody who served
Speaker 4: pre Gwatt, not everybody was excited about going to a
Speaker 4: field unit. Yeah, like because you were going to do
Speaker 4: field stuff and going to the field was not a
Speaker 4: cool place to be. Maybe it is now, but back
Speaker 4: then it kind of wasn't.
Speaker 2: So I.
Speaker 4: Went to a hospital, ended up being a er medic
Speaker 4: and got to learn a lot, had some great mentors
Speaker 4: there who I'd later go back and serve.
Speaker 2: With so I did that.
Speaker 4: But I did get a chance to go to twenty
Speaker 4: fifth like halfway through my tour there because it's an
Speaker 4: overseas tour, So I volunteered for an exchange program and
Speaker 4: then went to become a light infantry medic. So I
Speaker 4: switched units, went up to the twenty fifth, did twenty
Speaker 4: fifth things, go to Ariosoult School there and and I've
Speaker 4: got to be a field medic and get to learn
Speaker 4: what digging in a fighting position is. And digging a
Speaker 4: straddle trench in the red clay dirt with an e
Speaker 4: tool wasn't really cool, but I imagine experience.
Speaker 2: I imagine that pre Gyt.
Speaker 3: I worked at Balboa for a very short period of
Speaker 3: time in the ear there, and I think that you know,
Speaker 3: pre Gyt, it was. It was a pretty cool place
Speaker 3: for a medic because you've got to do a lot
Speaker 3: of things that you know that somebody that's somebody that
Speaker 3: was like an EMT B and probably in any EMTP
Speaker 3: in some cases wouldn't get an opportunity if you had
Speaker 3: doctors that were really into teaching, you know, they'd teach
Speaker 3: you how to throw shooters, they teach you like tons
Speaker 3: of stuff.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent I can distinctly remember. So when I transitioned,
Speaker 4: I exactly that. I had a doc who taught us
Speaker 4: like things like, uh, you know, shoulder reductions, when you
Speaker 4: put a shoulder out, that'll come into play doing uh yeah,
Speaker 4: just doing like in gtubes. You know, I got do CPR.
Speaker 4: You know, I got to do CPR and people who
Speaker 4: were in cardiac arrest, I got to sew people up,
Speaker 4: got to learn how to shoot your So you're you're
Speaker 4: exactly right. When I transitioned up to the twenty fifth,
Speaker 4: we had a guy they're doing like squad X of
Speaker 4: ols and you know, out in the field out at
Speaker 4: East Range, and one of the guys had threw his
Speaker 4: shoulders out, and like I got to be the I
Speaker 4: got to be the hero. So I like I learned
Speaker 4: sheet maneuvers on how to like kind of strap them
Speaker 4: down and reduce the shoulder and you know, put it
Speaker 4: back in place. And the guy got to ride all
Speaker 4: the way back from East Range with his shoulder end
Speaker 4: socket versus out, which would have been painful as hell,
Speaker 4: bump right into a bumpy humbee all the way back.
Speaker 4: I'd been a long ride. And so so yeah, I
Speaker 4: learned a lot of I got to cut my teeth
Speaker 4: there in the er, and and I kind of attribute
Speaker 4: a lot of that initial learning and just the passion
Speaker 4: for being like a good medic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 3: I would also say that there's probably no experience like
Speaker 3: a military er on pay day Fridays.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, especially in Hawaii and Marines, so you got
Speaker 4: marine based Connie. So I actually uh, I actually used
Speaker 4: to do the uh. I volunteered in the er to
Speaker 4: do the the midnight. It was a swing shift, so
Speaker 4: I got to have I think it was like Sunday,
Speaker 4: Mondays and tuesdays off, So I worked I think seven
Speaker 4: at night till seven in the morning on those days.
Speaker 4: So it was all the action.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Like and then Hawaii has a pretty large homeless population,
Speaker 4: and so you get to kind of I don't want.
Speaker 2: To put this in the it's not a negative at all.
Speaker 4: You actually get to work and take care a lot
Speaker 4: of homeless vets, and so I actually appreciated talking to them.
Speaker 4: It's kind of sad, you know, you'd get these routine
Speaker 4: homeless vets in and you kind of get to know
Speaker 4: them right at one instance, it's frustrating because you're like, oh, mister,
Speaker 4: such and such as here again, you know, but then
Speaker 4: on the other instance, you're like, how did this guy
Speaker 4: I can always remember, I mean to this day, it's
Speaker 4: like amazing, I can remember this, you know almost you know,
Speaker 4: twenty five years ago. But it's like, how did this
Speaker 4: guy who was at four to five in the navy
Speaker 4: is now homeless downtown like he and it? You know,
Speaker 4: I always wondered that, like where in life? Where what?
Speaker 4: And in their life that this is now where they're at, right,
Speaker 4: And so you know, it's just give them haircuts, give
Speaker 4: them bass. You know, wasn't too proud to do thatangnous
Speaker 4: diabete giving their banana bags, right because most of them
Speaker 4: were you know, they were alcoholics. So you'd kind of
Speaker 4: give them a banana bag and get them rehydrated in
Speaker 4: do the best you could with them for a couple
Speaker 4: hours you had with them.
Speaker 2: And and you.
Speaker 4: Know, hindsight, they were probably doing it just to that
Speaker 4: social dynamic. It's like it was probably good for them.
Speaker 4: But they did that even though it was frustrating for us,
Speaker 4: it was probably good for them. And it's probably good
Speaker 4: for us that we did that for them. And we
Speaker 4: got to see, you know that what potential life can
Speaker 4: be like you know, so for sure.
Speaker 3: So so you do your hospital time, you do a swap,
Speaker 3: you go to the infantry, and what was that like
Speaker 3: for you during a peacetime military.
Speaker 2: So it was it was exactly that.
Speaker 4: It was a lot. There's some things were fun, right,
Speaker 4: like road marches and things like that, just just pre
Speaker 4: I don't know if a lot of folks nowadays, you know,
Speaker 4: can relate to a garrison military, you know. I just
Speaker 4: you know, talking with d about that a little bit earlier,
Speaker 4: just like a garrison military wasn't necessarily a fun thing
Speaker 4: to experience if you were looking for excitement. I think
Speaker 4: that's a little bit of where we're at a little
Speaker 4: bit with some of our forces today. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: was just going to the field very routine. As a medic.
Speaker 4: You're in an infantry unit, you're laying out all your
Speaker 4: medical chest and you're inventoring, and you're usually doing that
Speaker 4: at the end of the day because you're sitting around
Speaker 4: in the barracks people playing video games, waiting for the
Speaker 4: platoon starting to tell you what are you going to
Speaker 4: do today? Right right? And then they wait after the
Speaker 4: first start information to come in and say we need
Speaker 4: this done right and and I don't I don't know
Speaker 4: if people still go through that today, but it was frustrating,
Speaker 4: and shit, you got all these guys sitting around the
Speaker 4: AD station like, all right, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 4: Hopefully to start and tell us what we're gonna do
Speaker 4: pretty soon and that's usually like it was just task right,
Speaker 4: you just taking care of stuff, vehicle maintenance like motorpool Monday. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And what was what was like T Triple C like
Speaker 3: at that point in time, And what kind of training
Speaker 3: were you guys getting from like your doctors at the
Speaker 3: clinic and.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 4: It was non existent, right, Yeah, so back then it
Speaker 4: was oh man, what was the I think it was
Speaker 4: like at.
Speaker 2: LS ALS ATLS protocols.
Speaker 4: So two large ivs combat life favorite thing that was
Speaker 4: the combat It was like two leaders of fluids and
Speaker 4: some pseudo fed motrin, some ace wraps, all hospital grade
Speaker 4: equipment packed in a little trifold bag. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: there wasn't you did get mentorship. Actually, the pas at
Speaker 4: that time were still embedded in the AID station. It's
Speaker 4: no longer like that now. The Army medical system has changed.
Speaker 4: It I think this throughout the services, they've actually changed
Speaker 4: that dynamic, like aid station medicine isn't a thing anymore.
Speaker 4: I think they're trying to go back to it. I'm
Speaker 4: a little bit dated. They may have gone back to it.
Speaker 4: So your PA actually mentored your medics, but the practices
Speaker 4: of what was learned from the lessons, and I think
Speaker 4: Mogadishu and some of those times haven't they weren't doctrinihilized,
Speaker 4: so those committees hadn't came together, so you were still
Speaker 4: learning just old fluid resuscitation protocols. It was still field dressing,
Speaker 4: pressure dressing, then a stick tourniquet because there was no
Speaker 4: such thing as a cat tourniquet. Then it was a
Speaker 4: dow rod, a gatorade bottle top and cravat was your
Speaker 4: tourniquet that you made and kept in your aid bag.
Speaker 4: So but there's still was mentorship. So every I think
Speaker 4: it was like when the PA had to do their
Speaker 4: time at the TMC, you would maybe get selected, you know,
Speaker 4: like uh, I think there's around thirty to forty medics
Speaker 4: that are broken down between Evacuation Treatment squad and then
Speaker 4: your ALIGNE medics, and uh, the PA would pick you
Speaker 4: and bring you over to the clinic and you would
Speaker 4: do sick call the folks who were referred to the
Speaker 4: tmt TMC From sick call. You'd go over there and
Speaker 4: get to see patients and do vitals and do some
Speaker 4: minor procedures to toenail's hemorrhoids. You know, ye, all of
Speaker 4: those type of minor procedures.
Speaker 2: So but your soap notes fre on point right.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Yes, So after after your time in the with the
Speaker 3: twenty fifth, what what was next for you?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: Yes, so my tour was up, getting close to the end.
Speaker 4: It's time to my re enlist.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I had my first three years and so went to
Speaker 4: the retention NCO and there wasn't a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: that was offered, and I wanted to try something else.
Speaker 4: So they had different asis, additional skill identifiers medics could
Speaker 4: get and so a surgical tech. So I actually liked
Speaker 4: doing the minor procedure stuff. So I went and did
Speaker 4: an ASI to be a surgical tech. Ahead next surgical tech.
Speaker 4: Very unsexy job. There's only like at the time, I
Speaker 4: think there was ninety of them in the whole inventory.
Speaker 4: I went to school to do that went back to
Speaker 4: Fort Sam graduated from that and then got stationed at
Speaker 4: Fort Lewis and so was stationed at Fort Lewis as
Speaker 4: a head and neck surgical tech. And that was kind
Speaker 4: of like the beginning, I would say, of my soft exposure.
Speaker 4: So I was working there at the first I was Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I was actually at old Madigan, okay, if not
Speaker 4: the New Madigan. And you know, the Rangers would rotate
Speaker 4: through and the first some of the first group prays
Speaker 4: and one sixtieth medics would rotate through, and so it
Speaker 4: was like, oh, this is you know, this is pretty cool.
Speaker 4: You know these guys are you know, they're doing field
Speaker 4: medical stuff. And you know they would you know, talk
Speaker 4: about it and talk about their job a little bit,
Speaker 4: and it was you kind of just you know, rumor mill.
Speaker 4: You know, Hey, there's cool guys doing cool things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: And and so as a young I think at the time,
Speaker 4: i'd maybe turned you know, I was in my early
Speaker 4: really early twenties, maybe twenty one or something like that.
Speaker 4: And so, so yeah, and the and I wasn't really
Speaker 4: liking that job, to be quite honest, And so I
Speaker 4: didn't stay at Fort Lewis very long and at the time,
Speaker 4: my dad had gotten orders to go to Third I D.
Speaker 4: And so I think I either did an extension or
Speaker 4: a short re enlistment for that school. And so I
Speaker 4: I think I either forty eighty seven or something and
Speaker 4: got to go to Third ID or I got to
Speaker 4: go to Win because I was still a surgical tech.
Speaker 4: And that is actually let me rewind g y nine
Speaker 4: to eleven happened. That's while you were at That's what happened. Okay,
Speaker 4: So nine to eleven happened while I was at Madigan
Speaker 4: and I was actually in PHDLS class. I distinctly remember it.
Speaker 4: Everybody remembers at Paspitty. Yes, So I was at a
Speaker 4: little training education facility and we're all in a room,
Speaker 4: and that's what happened. Had some I think I had
Speaker 4: a couple of rangers in the class, a couple ranger
Speaker 4: medics in the class with me, and we're going through
Speaker 4: our PHDLS because I think those there was like three
Speaker 4: courses you had to maintain to get maintain your six
Speaker 4: ninety one Bravo uh MS qualification. And uh so they
Speaker 4: put on the TV like probably every unit did in
Speaker 4: the army or in the service, you know, or like
Speaker 4: everybody in the world probably you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: The United States had their TV on and uh we
Speaker 4: were watching it live and I was like, wow, I
Speaker 4: remember the Rangers instantly had to go back.
Speaker 2: They left class.
Speaker 4: And we man, you just sparked this memory. I forgot
Speaker 4: about it. We end up doing gate guard detail. They
Speaker 4: put it, what was it, like the threat Con Delta
Speaker 4: or whatever. I think all posts went to like threat
Speaker 4: Con Delta. We got issued, you know, I think it
Speaker 4: was like one magazine with it. May have had been
Speaker 4: you may have got thirty rounds.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: And everybody was on gate guard duty. We're doing gate
Speaker 4: guard duty rotations and so yeah, so that's nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: I want to be part of that. So and I
Speaker 4: think everybody did. And so my dad had just gotten
Speaker 4: orders to third I D.
Speaker 2: Every day I was in.
Speaker 4: It wasn't really a critical MOS, you know, and it
Speaker 4: wasn't it's not even a deployable MS. So they've gotten
Speaker 4: rid of a lot of the non deployable the a SI,
Speaker 4: the a SI non deployable A Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was wondering if that locked you in.
Speaker 4: It did, and so yeah, so that's actually how I
Speaker 4: went to the Special Operations medic program.
Speaker 2: So so I was.
Speaker 4: In this non deployable MOS. I'll just fast forward it
Speaker 4: for the sake of time. I get to third I D.
Speaker 4: My dad. I think he was the Division Targeting officer
Speaker 4: third I D at the time, he was on the
Speaker 4: initial push into Iraq, and I wanted to go. So
Speaker 4: I went to my CSM at the hospital because they
Speaker 4: were pulling people out of the hospital to fill so
Speaker 4: all the you know, soldiers were on profile or something
Speaker 4: and couldn't go in the line units they would won
Speaker 4: for one of them, so they would take medics out
Speaker 4: of the hospital fill the line, and then you know,
Speaker 4: people were were going over.
Speaker 2: So this is around the two thousand and three time frame.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is you know, fast forward a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so yeah, around two thousand Yeah, when yeah, whenever they pushed,
Speaker 4: he was actually there a little bit earlier. I think
Speaker 4: he was doing something in Kuwait or something, and then
Speaker 4: they they maybe they knew they were already going to
Speaker 4: push them over. And so I went to my CSM
Speaker 4: and I was like, hey, I want to deploy, and
Speaker 4: he was like, no, go back to your clinic, right,
Speaker 4: and so you know, I was like, well, this this sucks,
Speaker 4: and so I mean it was it was crazy. I
Speaker 4: can I can remember like a full rotation of medics
Speaker 4: got pulled out of the hospital had came back, and
Speaker 4: you know they're telling their stories of war, right, this
Speaker 4: is like this is the fret. You know. I grew
Speaker 4: up and I joined the garrison military, or at least
Speaker 4: for the most part, some folks were still doing things.
Speaker 4: But for the for the large part, people weren't really
Speaker 4: doing much.
Speaker 2: So I called no what.
Speaker 4: I put a one sixtieth packet in and at the time,
Speaker 4: I was, I think a pretty good soldier. I promoted
Speaker 4: really fast. I made E five in Hawaii in two years.
Speaker 4: I had already went to the board and won like
Speaker 4: Soldier of the Year stuff like that, into our n
Speaker 4: CEO of the year, and so I made E six
Speaker 4: really fast. So I got promoted really fast, and so
Speaker 4: I put a one sixtieth packet in and I remember
Speaker 4: they had a you know, they had some pretty season
Speaker 4: medics because they were just getting back from the initial
Speaker 4: stuff in Afghanistan, and they were like, you're an E six,
Speaker 4: my E fours. Well, I'll never forget the phone call.
Speaker 4: And because they actually gave me the courtesy of a
Speaker 4: phone call, and they're like, you got a great packet
Speaker 4: and you know you high pt and all that stuff,
Speaker 4: but my ri e fours will run circles around you.
Speaker 4: We need people who grow up in the unit. And
Speaker 4: so so I called branch up and I was like, hey,
Speaker 4: I need to do whatever I need to do so
Speaker 4: I can like deploy and be a part of this.
Speaker 4: And they're like, well, we got this new thing. Have
Speaker 4: you heard of civil Affairs? And at the time, of course,
Speaker 4: I'd never heard of civil affairs and so I was like, okay.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 4: And they're like, well, you'll have to go to Special
Speaker 4: Operations medic course to do it. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: that that sounds awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was kind of wanting to do that anyways, and
Speaker 4: so so they're like, okay, well we'll put you on
Speaker 4: orders and and send you to SOCCAM and I was like,
Speaker 4: I was like perfect. And so because I had won
Speaker 4: like n CEO of the Year, I got I like
Speaker 4: what I asked to go to Airborne School because they
Speaker 4: were like, you know, you're kind of representing the command
Speaker 4: and they give you like, hey, what what can what
Speaker 4: do you want to do?
Speaker 2: Some fun this little tree. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that so I, you know, got to go to
Speaker 4: I had been to airborne school and like the basic
Speaker 4: like cool guy badge stuff for like the conventional military,
Speaker 4: and so so I went to soccerm So I went
Speaker 4: to soccam as an E six and then you know,
Speaker 4: I did a full you know, the full back then
Speaker 4: it was still a six month course. Right now I
Speaker 4: believe it's nine unless it's changed. And then additionally, if
Speaker 4: you went through the Civil Airs program, was another three
Speaker 4: months of like their qualification course. And so made that
Speaker 4: through no issues, you know, because like like you said,
Speaker 4: you know, my time as an E R medic, I
Speaker 4: was a I felt it was a pretty good medic
Speaker 4: and I didn't really you know, didn't have a lot
Speaker 4: of like issues, and and made it, made it through
Speaker 4: the program.
Speaker 2: And then I got to the unit at Bragg.
Speaker 4: So at the time it was only one battalion. It
Speaker 4: was the ninety sixth Civil Fairs Battalion.
Speaker 2: It had all been guard up unto that point, right, no.
Speaker 4: So, yes and no, so ninety five percent of the
Speaker 4: force was was I believe reserve.
Speaker 2: Okay, I believe reserve.
Speaker 4: There was one active battalion there were ninety six. It
Speaker 4: was on brag It was right by the GB clubs,
Speaker 4: right in the right behind there there's one building and
Speaker 4: there was what was there Alpha through Foxtrot Company, and
Speaker 4: every company had an uh a geographic area of responsibility.
Speaker 4: So when I got there, I got Echo Company. So
Speaker 4: Echo Company was kind of unique. Echo Company was the
Speaker 4: SMU support company, so they were the ones who supported
Speaker 4: Jasock taskings and the rangers. And so when I in process,
Speaker 4: you know, everybody meets the CSM at the time, and
Speaker 4: so I went up and uh we you know, we
Speaker 4: like everybody. And so that was two thousand and four.
Speaker 4: We thought we were going to miss the war, right,
Speaker 4: everybody thought they were going to miss the war. And
Speaker 4: so the CSM was like, hey, I have a spot,
Speaker 4: I need a medic and Echo Company and so me
Speaker 4: and my good good friend of mine, but you guys
Speaker 4: got a deploy like in four days, can you be ready?
Speaker 4: And we're like.
Speaker 2: Absolutely we men, you get my affairs in order and done. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, so that was that was that was
Speaker 4: pretty interesting. So so that now I've told you my backround, right, so.
Speaker 3: So real good because you go through the SOCCAM and
Speaker 3: for people who might not know that's the trauma portion.
Speaker 3: For special operations, I think even SF, that's their trauma portion.
Speaker 3: They go off and do the rest of their veterinarian
Speaker 3: and hospital and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But for civil affairs, you guys have a mission.
Speaker 3: It's very similar I think to the SF right so
Speaker 3: to the SF mission because you guys do need to
Speaker 3: know how to test water and and do things more,
Speaker 3: you know, outside of trauma. So was there additional medical
Speaker 3: training for you guys for like that portion of it
Speaker 3: being like a medical support on top of the trauma stuff.
Speaker 4: Yes, so what Yeah, so I would say that we complement, right,
Speaker 4: So we are you know, kind of like this a
Speaker 4: support element that brings a capability to uh to A
Speaker 4: to an ODA. And so the training we go back
Speaker 4: through their dental block. Okay, So we went through their
Speaker 4: dental block, their veterinary block, and then we had our
Speaker 4: own that was our own blocks that were field sand heavy.
Speaker 4: So it's all about you had to go through food inspection.
Speaker 4: You go learn how to like kill an animal and
Speaker 4: prep it and then inspect food and then a lot
Speaker 4: of field sand and then water purification.
Speaker 2: So it's yeah, it's taught at the time.
Speaker 4: It was actually taught by a Sierra sixty eighth Sierra,
Speaker 4: which is a prevented med specialist, and so it was
Speaker 4: it was all once you did those blocks, we're learning
Speaker 4: how to work with animals and basically pulling people's teeth
Speaker 4: and things like that. The dental blocks, then you got
Speaker 4: the field sand blocks and so yeah, so those are
Speaker 4: some of the things that you can kind of complement
Speaker 4: and help a team out with, right, A lot of
Speaker 4: the rapport building.
Speaker 3: Right, So for people who might not be aware of it,
Speaker 3: can you tell us what civil affairs is, why, why
Speaker 3: it's under so calm or you know, what's their mission?
Speaker 2: Oh boy, so caveat.
Speaker 4: If I'm doing a disservice, just know it's my recollection
Speaker 4: of it. So what we did is, I would say
Speaker 4: what we best did because my first mission was actually
Speaker 4: a regional mission with an ODA, so I was attached
Speaker 4: to a seventh Group, I believe with seventh groups first
Speaker 4: rotation into Afghanistan, I believe, And so what we do
Speaker 4: is kind of maintain freedom of maneuver and expand the
Speaker 4: maneuver area through At that point, it was I think
Speaker 4: a lot of like counterinsurgency stuff, right, it's like the
Speaker 4: civil affairs folks work with like, so let's just like
Speaker 4: counterin certaincy, right, you got your your your pro people
Speaker 4: ten percent, your hardliners other ten percent, and then I guess,
Speaker 4: to make this simple eighty percent in the middle, right,
Speaker 4: So what our job was to kind of work with
Speaker 4: the ODA to kind of gain rapport with that eighty
Speaker 4: percent in the middle and push those towards the pro side.
Speaker 4: And so really that's what you do. And there's a
Speaker 4: lot of so things you bring to the table, humanitarian assistants, medcaps, vets, caps,
Speaker 4: just partner you know, it's like nation building stuff, kind
Speaker 4: of the other regional aspect of it.
Speaker 2: But really you're just they're small teams. People may not
Speaker 2: know that. So they're a cat a team.
Speaker 4: Is what I was on is a for man team
Speaker 4: that used to have It's not like this anymore. That's
Speaker 4: it's a important is distinction. I guess my generation of
Speaker 4: being on a civil affairs team. So you had a medic,
Speaker 4: an engineer, a weapons guy who was eleven bravo, and
Speaker 4: then you had an officer and so time my tenure
Speaker 4: there is when basically SF needed all the SF guys
Speaker 4: back because that battalion was all SF guys and they
Speaker 4: were pushing them back out to the team. So they
Speaker 4: were usually your older kind of long in the two guys,
Speaker 4: very experienced guys, or just maybe they were hurt or something,
Speaker 4: so they would they would end up in the Civil
Speaker 4: Affairs battalion, so they need to go back. So they
Speaker 4: basically took a bunch of rangers from Ranger Battalion. So
Speaker 4: Echo Company had a lot of rangers from Ranger Battalion
Speaker 4: where they were typically your team startant and then you
Speaker 4: had a lot of eighty second engineers and then medics
Speaker 4: that they were generating medics through the course because I
Speaker 4: think we were, like I think I was in the
Speaker 4: second class or third class of medics that are being
Speaker 4: recruited to basically push the deltas back out to the teams.
Speaker 2: There's very few Deltas left in the.
Speaker 4: Battalion, and then we were backfilling them. So I don't
Speaker 4: know if I got to the answer your question. It's
Speaker 4: a roundabout way they're.
Speaker 3: So what I'm taking away from it is that Civil
Speaker 3: affairs is, you know, we talk about special forces being
Speaker 3: hearts in mind, civil affairs is really kind of the
Speaker 3: backbone of that.
Speaker 2: Hearts and mind.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of the civilian engagement and in
Speaker 3: the counterinsurgency strategy, it's the idea to win over the
Speaker 3: population and help create that sort of area denial, not
Speaker 3: necessarily through force, but through through goodwill building exactly.
Speaker 2: And so I think where we come in.
Speaker 4: And I can remember at the time they were talking
Speaker 4: about the phases of opera military operations, so going from
Speaker 4: phase three combat operations to phase four, which is I
Speaker 4: think support and stability. So that's kind of that transition
Speaker 4: from combat operations to support and stability. It's kind of
Speaker 4: the nation rebuilding, establishing government, governments and things like that.
Speaker 4: So you're exactly right. So that's kind of honestly, we
Speaker 4: thought that's what we were phasing. We were going into
Speaker 4: phase I can remember that as people because I don't
Speaker 4: think you get a combat patch, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: a shoulder sleeve insignia if you're in phase four of operations.
Speaker 4: I think you have to be in phase three. Interesting,
Speaker 4: and I can remember because I get worried about that.
Speaker 2: That was like, that was a thing. I believe, I understand,
Speaker 2: I understand why.
Speaker 4: And it's it's it's it's funny because I can remember
Speaker 4: the seventh I can remember, so we were attached to UH.
Speaker 4: I think it was seven two three. I could be wrong,
Speaker 4: but a lot of those guys so they were getting there.
Speaker 4: You know, those guys were their army guys. There were
Speaker 4: all boy scouts at the end the day, right, collecting
Speaker 4: like badges and and flair, and they were worried about it.
Speaker 4: And like I can remember, like the guys who didn't
Speaker 4: get a CIB yet, they were like, like, we need
Speaker 4: to like get into something.
Speaker 2: Right, we right, get somebody shoot at us? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's just drive down this road and see what happens.
Speaker 2: It's like moving the contest. Yeah, let's let's recombin.
Speaker 4: High so so yeah, And if you remember Afghanistan at
Speaker 4: that time, you know, like you know, I did a
Speaker 4: lot of time. Well I guess a lot of time
Speaker 4: is relative, but I did I think five tours four
Speaker 4: or five tours there at that time in two thousand
Speaker 4: and four. It's a highlux pickup truck, two dudes and
Speaker 4: four Afghans and you're driving for three hours. You know,
Speaker 4: that's unheard of, I think later on, but it was
Speaker 4: relatively a I would call it permissive to semi permissive environment,
Speaker 4: and so a lot of people they've never seen you before,
Speaker 4: and you know you're there. So as a civil affairs guys,
Speaker 4: you've got goodies to hang out. Coats, backpacks, engineer kids,
Speaker 4: school supplies, soccer.
Speaker 2: Balls, yeah, you know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: You know it is. And you're going out with the
Speaker 4: ODA too because they're you know, they're trying to maintain
Speaker 4: their maneuver. Well, yeah, yeah, there's a.
Speaker 3: There's a no I get it though, but yea, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean it's one of those things where if you
Speaker 3: don't use it, you lose it, right, If you're not
Speaker 3: getting out there and actually controlling and showing presence, then encroachment,
Speaker 3: encroachment happens, and and things.
Speaker 4: Like that and if and like again, like back in
Speaker 4: that we were still handing out the green matches with
Speaker 4: the picture of Osama bin Laden on it, like asking
Speaker 4: everybody if they knew hre Islama had been Laden was
Speaker 4: like probably everybody else, right, right, And so it's you know,
Speaker 4: it's that period of time where they're like, no, we
Speaker 4: don't know who that dude is, but can we have
Speaker 4: some jackets?
Speaker 2: So I have to ask you this because it's kind
Speaker 2: of funny to me.
Speaker 3: And you know, like you say, a lot of civil
Speaker 3: fairs used to be made up of long in the tooth,
Speaker 3: you know, SF guys who had a lot of experience,
Speaker 3: you know, working with indigenous cultures, doing foreign internal defense,
Speaker 3: things like that, and then they need those guys back, understandable,
Speaker 3: and so they backfilled them with rangers in eighty second
Speaker 3: who probably aren't known for their civilian engagement, you know, strategies.
Speaker 2: How did that all work out? So I think it.
Speaker 4: I think because we didn't have a lot of seasoned fighters,
Speaker 4: like to our people were seasoned combat veterans. Maybe that's
Speaker 4: a better way to say it's seasoned veterans. It was
Speaker 4: all new to all of us. And I actually didn't
Speaker 4: go to the qualification course till between my first and
Speaker 4: second deployment, so I didn't get school trained. I'd been
Speaker 4: through the mos portion of it, but then you had
Speaker 4: to go through like the Swich portion of it, the
Speaker 4: schoolhouse portion, And so I think you understood that you
Speaker 4: were trying to like make these people your friend at
Speaker 4: the end of the day, and so some of it comes,
Speaker 4: I would say, a bit naturally, you know, and at
Speaker 4: that time period, they weren't really aggressive towards us.
Speaker 3: So you can still get on the Chicken Street or
Speaker 3: whatever and buy buy rugs or buy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: So it was just I think, a different time, and
Speaker 4: so I think that at least I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 4: It didn't seem to be an issue. It didn't seem
Speaker 4: it didn't seem to be an issue. And I never
Speaker 4: I didn't think, you know, SATs, because we had like
Speaker 4: my team sergeant was a I think he was a
Speaker 4: first battalion ranger and he had already deployed with the
Speaker 4: with the battalions to Afghanistan, and I didn't expe aperience
Speaker 4: guys who were just overly aggressive wanting to like not
Speaker 4: do their task right and try to like get it on. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And so you know, it just seemed to I guess,
Speaker 4: you know, we're discovery learning. It's like learning a new job.
Speaker 3: It's kind of fun when you're doing that though, because
Speaker 3: you also like there's not an overbearance of leadership at
Speaker 3: that point in time.
Speaker 2: You're kind of creating your own missions. You know that
Speaker 2: nobody is sitting there with their thumb on you. So really,
Speaker 2: whatever you guys come up with, like that's your Yeah
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 4: And and you know, like I've had con op parties
Speaker 4: and I remember the pain of conops and getting improved.
Speaker 4: But you're exactly right. Then it was just like, hey,
Speaker 4: where are we going to go tomorrow?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Okay, And we would go somewhere almost every day. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and just drive, you know, go to the next place,
Speaker 4: go to the next place. So yeah, it was really
Speaker 4: just like where what we seen of value being nested
Speaker 4: with their plans and their objectives, the oda's plans, and
Speaker 4: just trying to support them the best we could.
Speaker 2: And to to to kind of just really develop the area,
Speaker 2: because I think that's the other component.
Speaker 3: So at this point in time, since this is all
Speaker 3: fairly new, uh and not just you know, like the
Speaker 3: civil affairs. Civil affairs had been there, but did the
Speaker 3: did the ODA know how to best implement you guys
Speaker 3: or were you both learning together?
Speaker 4: I think we were learning together to be to be
Speaker 4: quite honest, I think that we was a little bit
Speaker 4: more natural from us than the SYOP guys. So they
Speaker 4: had a SIOP team attached as well, so they kind
Speaker 4: of had the full package. So you had I think
Speaker 4: they had their an intel team attached to them. They
Speaker 4: had a syop team and they had a civil affairs team,
Speaker 4: and we were all at Camp tice So and De
Speaker 4: ra Wu you know, down by Kandaheart and so I
Speaker 4: think with them they didn't really know how to implement them.
Speaker 4: You know, they were handing out their flyers and things
Speaker 4: like that at the time leaflet drops, right, yea. But
Speaker 4: for us it was a little bit more natural. I
Speaker 4: was a medic. There was only one medic they had
Speaker 4: split up. I think half of that oda went up
Speaker 4: to Cobra, and so I instantly gravitated. So I was
Speaker 4: a fairly senior and both great and experience as a
Speaker 4: medic at least, you know, because again the e R
Speaker 4: time helped me so instantly had a great senior eighteen
Speaker 4: delta who took me under his wing. And we did
Speaker 4: we just did a lot of you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of tailgate medicine, right, and then we ran campsit call
Speaker 4: right where folks can bring people in from all over
Speaker 4: and you get to see I mean, you get to
Speaker 4: see everything. So that trip I probably next to Iraq
Speaker 4: and next to the Surge. I practiced the most medicine.
Speaker 4: I'm I mean, we you know, we did a whole
Speaker 4: blood front transfusion. You know, one of the cooks from
Speaker 4: the cook we you know, Eldon carted him and we
Speaker 4: had an Afghan come in with from a a garden
Speaker 4: tool fight. So he had took a pick axe to
Speaker 4: the chest and so he needed he needed blood. We there,
Speaker 4: we weren't getting flights for him. That was the things
Speaker 4: they didn't end at that period of time. They didn't
Speaker 4: eve act these guys. You had to set so gunshots
Speaker 4: I got to do, you know, full repairs and put
Speaker 4: in drains, just things that are unheard of. I mean
Speaker 4: you're talking like surgeon physician level stuff. So you know,
Speaker 4: just a lot of mentorship. Burns, right, you remember all
Speaker 4: the burn the burn kids. We ran a burn clinic,
Speaker 4: so we got to learn about.
Speaker 2: You know, uh, ketamine use.
Speaker 4: That was the big thing. That's one of the biggest things.
Speaker 4: He had wrote some papers. Just a phenomenal eighteen delta
Speaker 4: who just really made the best of the time and
Speaker 4: experience and honing his skills and then taking me under
Speaker 4: my wing and or under his wing, and just we
Speaker 4: ran a great clinic there and uh just really we
Speaker 4: got to see a lot of things and experience a
Speaker 4: lot of things. I did my first field amputation.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's amazing. Yeah, I wanted to do another one.
Speaker 4: I probably it's probably good thing I didn't because the
Speaker 4: I remember the ODA commander. So this guy came in.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I think he got bit by a
Speaker 4: dog or something, but you could tell his leg was
Speaker 4: septic and I needed to go and I wanted to
Speaker 4: take his leg off, and the Odia Carener was like
Speaker 4: here right, I know, he's like if he dies here,
Speaker 4: that's a problem for me. So no, so we ended
Speaker 4: up didn't do that. But I another time a kid
Speaker 4: got his hand cut and a cotton a fan belt
Speaker 4: working on engine. It like so it's like a partial
Speaker 4: so I can no it had taken. It had taken
Speaker 4: like it was just a mess. It was a mangled mess.
Speaker 4: It kind of ripped everything away, So there's nothing you
Speaker 4: could do but basically complete it and just work through
Speaker 4: the joint space and then just kind of undermine the
Speaker 4: tissue and pull it, wrap it around and then kind
Speaker 4: of close it. And then I called up the the
Speaker 4: B team, you know where the the PA and doc were,
Speaker 4: and basically put him, you know, told him, taught him
Speaker 4: how to do wet to drys and put him uh broadbrand.
Speaker 4: You know, I think I forget what we gave him,
Speaker 4: like shots of rosephn or something, and and so just
Speaker 4: really got to do some some really some really great things,
Speaker 4: and then I.
Speaker 2: Got to learn some lessons.
Speaker 4: I remember this one time, this old lady came in
Speaker 4: with her ear in her hand and a dog had
Speaker 4: bitten her ear off, and so me, the great like
Speaker 4: suture person, I thought I could sew that back on,
Speaker 4: and so I get like it was beautiful too, like
Speaker 4: I had approximated all the edges perfectly and lined everything
Speaker 4: up like so did. And then the you know, the
Speaker 4: Jeremy came in and he's like, hey, man.
Speaker 2: What are you doing. I'm like, I'm sewing these ladies
Speaker 2: ear on it.
Speaker 4: He's like what And I had like the ear canal
Speaker 4: like I had, like, you know, both exteriorly and interior.
Speaker 4: He's like, dude, there's no blood supply to that.
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 4: And so I was like, oh.
Speaker 2: Okay. He's like, okay, do this.
Speaker 4: He's like take that back off and just take what
Speaker 4: left the skin and just close it up the best
Speaker 4: you can and then let me take a look at
Speaker 4: it when you're done. So I did that. But you know,
Speaker 4: so I got to like make some mistakes, I guess
Speaker 4: you could say so.
Speaker 2: Because of like the cartilage and what not, like there's
Speaker 2: no way to hear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not at my skill right, and then not the
Speaker 4: post care right.
Speaker 2: So that's the other thing that's like a clastic surgeon
Speaker 2: level type of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's it's way beyond something I should do.
Speaker 4: But you know, that's all, that's all they had. And
Speaker 4: and even the guy whose hand he didn't he did. Man,
Speaker 4: he came back like he was supposed to come in
Speaker 4: daily for dressing changes is what we told him. We
Speaker 4: taught him how to do it like if he needed to,
Speaker 4: and he was supposed to come back and he did,
Speaker 4: and he came back infected and I think we had
Speaker 4: to put him on some more antibiotics too.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was just a great That trip.
Speaker 4: Was just a great, a great rate, a great trip
Speaker 4: that I honed my skills as being a field like
Speaker 4: a forward medic and getting to like do some extra stuff.
Speaker 3: Do you have any any funny stories from like the
Speaker 3: Tailgate Medicine, because I feel like when you would the
Speaker 3: like the village, like I don't know the right terminology.
Speaker 3: I don't remember anymore, but basically they had sort of
Speaker 3: witch doctors in a way, but it wasn't witch doctor,
Speaker 3: but but like some of their home remedies were were
Speaker 3: pretty bizarre.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean kind of the a lot of STDs
Speaker 4: treating oddly enough. Yeah, you know, you'd eventually tease it out.
Speaker 4: It's like it's burning when ipe, and so you know,
Speaker 4: then it's like you already had the pill packs like
Speaker 4: made up for him. Okay, here, here's your pill pack.
Speaker 4: And then I remember my team leader he was like
Speaker 4: taking a liking to it, and like we were running
Speaker 4: out of vitamins, so everybody wanted I think it was
Speaker 4: like vita Mina's I think that. I don't know if
Speaker 4: that translates to what it was, but they would ask
Speaker 4: for vita, they wanted vitamins, and so we would run
Speaker 4: out of vitamins because like we would just give them out.
Speaker 4: There's I mean, these were hundreds of people come in.
Speaker 4: They would be a line, like in the morning, there
Speaker 4: was a line ready to see us. And some of
Speaker 4: it was people just want something and understandably, and so
Speaker 4: my team leader wanted to get involved. So we like
Speaker 4: would make skittle bags for the people who wanted vitamins
Speaker 4: because we didn't have any, and we wanted to give
Speaker 4: them something. You know, you didn't want to just turn
Speaker 4: themway and to get away, you know, don't you don't
Speaker 4: have any nothing for you. So but yeah, I tell
Speaker 4: you one of the the funniest story that I have
Speaker 4: that's kind of connected to tailgate medicine. It's like you're
Speaker 4: going out to these villages and so I always kept
Speaker 4: a cargo pocket full of candy to give to the kids.
Speaker 2: And we were getting ready.
Speaker 4: To load up, and so I had reached in my
Speaker 4: cargo pocket and there's all these kids, like they're just
Speaker 4: all doing them.
Speaker 2: You do things with them.
Speaker 4: You'd be like, listen to the port you did, you know,
Speaker 4: put your hand, hands up, put your hands down, like
Speaker 4: practicing the language and stuff. And so I got I
Speaker 4: reached in the pocket. They've seen what was in my hand.
Speaker 4: So there's all these kids there, and some of these
Speaker 4: kids are holding kids babies.
Speaker 2: Right, because that was the other weird thing.
Speaker 4: You see like five year olds carrying a baby like
Speaker 4: that's not normal. So I throw the candy up in
Speaker 4: the air, right, So what happens They d they start
Speaker 4: dropping babies.
Speaker 2: There's all these babies falling in the rocks.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh man, what did I just do.
Speaker 3: You're a horrible human being.
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4: No. Yeah, so oh man, So that yeah, that was
Speaker 4: that was Yeah, that was pretty funny. Well it was.
Speaker 4: It was not funny, but it was like it was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: people were laughing, Yeah, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 3: It was on the babies like yeah they were yeah
Speaker 3: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So how long was that first deployment for you?
Speaker 4: So the first trip, I want to say it was
Speaker 4: an eighth I think it was an eight or nine
Speaker 4: month trip where the regional rotations. But I came in
Speaker 4: I think a month late. They needed to fill out
Speaker 4: the rest of the teams and we had graduated. That's
Speaker 4: why they needed medics in that company because they were
Speaker 4: already on over there. And so I think the first
Speaker 4: one was I think I ended up doing six or
Speaker 4: seven months.
Speaker 3: Okay, and so you come back and then you go
Speaker 3: through the Civil Affairs qualification course or the yeah.
Speaker 4: So then I yeah, so it came back, went to
Speaker 4: the qualification course and I think I went through seer.
Speaker 4: I think my team startant was like hey you need
Speaker 4: to go through SYR. So I went through c r C.
Speaker 3: And what was what was the civil affairs portion of
Speaker 3: that LIE because you'd already been through the medical portion,
Speaker 3: So what was this like Hearts and Minds Peace.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of for the I forget what
Speaker 4: they're called. It's a different mission set. So it's like
Speaker 4: it's more of the stuff. It's more of like the
Speaker 4: higher level where you're so like an embassy team. Okay,
Speaker 4: so later I did some an embassy team trip. So
Speaker 4: it's much more working with government governance and things like that,
Speaker 4: learning what a what a Bravo team does? You know
Speaker 4: what a cat be does and things like that or man,
Speaker 4: I forgot, I forget what the name of the teams
Speaker 4: are called. But essentially it's working directly with the embassy
Speaker 4: and learning how to engage with a functioning infrastructure. So
Speaker 4: if they have governance involved, here's how you integrate, here's
Speaker 4: the capability you provide. And so it was it was
Speaker 4: much more at the street i'd say sateg operational level,
Speaker 4: not really at the tactical level.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Interesting, So you know if that ever changed it all
Speaker 3: where they made it that where they created more of
Speaker 3: a tactical or at least added.
Speaker 2: Like the tactical curriculum to that. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: that's kind of it would be.
Speaker 4: I don't know where it's at today, to be quite honest.
Speaker 4: So it became it's a MOS. So that's we'll get
Speaker 4: to that portal story. But basically I had to leave
Speaker 4: civil affairs because they were becoming their owen own MOS,
Speaker 4: and you had a choice convert to a civil affairs
Speaker 4: MOS or leave that organization.
Speaker 3: And so would that would that have been like an
Speaker 3: eighteen delta in a way that it would have been
Speaker 3: a civil affairs MOS with like a medical.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they you're exactly right.
Speaker 4: So essentially, just like it's an ASI, so it's a
Speaker 4: it's a thirty I believe it was a thirty eight.
Speaker 2: Bravo Civil Affairs sergeant.
Speaker 4: I think they were called and then you got I
Speaker 4: think I was a whiskey too, So we're whiskey ones
Speaker 4: or we were which is a sock them a special
Speaker 4: Operations combat medic and then the active component because they
Speaker 4: created other battalions, they were growing it because of the
Speaker 4: need of in Iraq and Afghanistan, they created their own
Speaker 4: MOS and then they I think the only thing specialized
Speaker 4: on the team. So that was the difference, is they
Speaker 4: still needed a medic, and the medic became a whiskey
Speaker 4: two and got to go to SOCCAM, and then the
Speaker 4: other ones were kind of generalists. And so I think
Speaker 4: that's what was the worry though. It's like, Okay, you
Speaker 4: had these guys who had hard skills, right, you had
Speaker 4: these combat engineers or Levin Bravos who you know, Victor
Speaker 4: identifiers and things like that. But now you got a
Speaker 4: mechanic or a whatever s one. You know, you have
Speaker 4: a human resources person going through this program. I have
Speaker 4: to believe they would for just the sake of being
Speaker 4: competent in an asset, they would have had to have
Speaker 4: figured out some program to get them tactical training.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I do, there's but there's obviously, you know, there's no.
Speaker 2: There's there's.
Speaker 4: I don't know how they could replace the most institutional
Speaker 4: knowledge and the operational experience of eleven Bravo right right,
Speaker 4: You know, when you have an E seven with fifteen
Speaker 4: years as a guy and ranger of battalion, or even
Speaker 4: the eighty second for that matter, there's just basic principles
Speaker 4: of security that they know and when you're talking about
Speaker 4: small unit tactics, right, And I think that's where it
Speaker 4: got a little bit dangerous, and so they had to
Speaker 4: they've had to have have mitigated that liability.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, it makes sense too, because you know, even though
Speaker 3: civil affairs isn't like a DA four, if you're out
Speaker 3: in the back country somewhere doing something in a semi
Speaker 3: permissive environment, at any point in time, that format element
Speaker 3: for a personal element may you know, may need to
Speaker 3: react to contact you know, or may need to and
Speaker 3: be good at it, good enough to you know, to
Speaker 3: at least if even with they're if they're with an
Speaker 3: a team, to not so slow the team down or
Speaker 3: you know, take care of their own.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think again, like so I transitioned before that started.
Speaker 4: But I think that probably you know, you asked me
Speaker 4: earlier about did they know how to utilize you. I
Speaker 4: think it was maybe easier for them because there's some
Speaker 4: credibility that comes with the background of Okay, I have
Speaker 4: the average time and service of you know, ten say
Speaker 4: eight to ten years or twelve years of being you
Speaker 4: know in battalion, right, being at least a SOCCAM program
Speaker 4: or at least a eighty second engineer, right, so they
Speaker 4: have their those skills, some hard skills if you will,
Speaker 4: right into like okay, now, well what did you do
Speaker 4: for that when you just graduated the course? Right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: So I think it may have been easier than for
Speaker 4: us to kind of to integrate with them.
Speaker 2: It makes sense.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you have a guy show up and
Speaker 3: he's wearing the Civil Affairs or you know, the you
Speaker 3: know so compacts or whatever, but he's got a scroll
Speaker 3: as a combat passion, it's like, okay, like or even
Speaker 3: with the eighty second, you know, if he's got a
Speaker 3: you know, a combat action badge with an eighty second, like,
Speaker 3: you look at them a little bit differently than just
Speaker 3: somebody who may have only come up through that to
Speaker 3: that pipeline.
Speaker 4: It and it's again not to take anything away from
Speaker 4: it with the and I'm sure there's you know, they've
Speaker 4: worked through that. I would have to believe that they
Speaker 4: would have to figure that out to mitigate the experience
Speaker 4: they lost from taking people because you got again and initially,
Speaker 4: like you said, started with people long in the tooth. Yeah,
Speaker 4: eighteen series guys and some of those guys like that
Speaker 4: were on our teams. You know, they I mean some
Speaker 4: of these guys they were I know, they were well
Speaker 4: over twenty years. They had twenty years of service as
Speaker 4: a eighteen whatever Charlie or whatever. And so now I
Speaker 4: got a ten year in service whatever. The engineer MOS
Speaker 4: used to be twelve Bravo or whatever VO. So okay,
Speaker 4: but the guy knows engineering, he knows demo and SIS stuff. Okay.
Speaker 4: Now I have someone who's went through used to be
Speaker 4: a whatever, right and went through a five week or whatever.
Speaker 4: The MOS. I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's a year,
Speaker 4: whatever it is. So I think that.
Speaker 2: It may have degraded.
Speaker 4: But it was the requirement you have to row, right,
Speaker 4: the army had to grow to be able to meet
Speaker 4: the demands and the requirements of two theaters of operations
Speaker 4: and the support requirements, because like we thought we were
Speaker 4: transitioning out of those places when you think in two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight, nine, ten, I mean they were they
Speaker 4: were talking about pulling out of those places in those
Speaker 4: that those time frames, and so you know, there was
Speaker 4: a lot of you know, in the surge, right, the
Speaker 4: surge happened in Iraq, and so it really kind of
Speaker 4: bloomed up the requirement. But but yeah, so I'm sure
Speaker 4: they figured that out.
Speaker 3: So so you do your first trip, you go and
Speaker 3: you do the civil Fiars training and now another trip
Speaker 3: to Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: Yep, so I did so. Yeah, so I did the
Speaker 4: first trip on a regional. Then that was my second trip.
Speaker 4: I was attacked. I think it was two seven five
Speaker 4: initially and then three seven five, and so we were
Speaker 4: they used to be directly attached to the ranger regimen,
Speaker 4: but then it kind of they peeled them away, like
Speaker 4: the early days of the were some of the first
Speaker 4: teams that were in they were I think directly attached.
Speaker 4: We were still attached, but now it was more you know,
Speaker 4: it's take on versus I forget like it.
Speaker 3: So, were there two separate chains of command then if
Speaker 3: you guys weren't directly attached.
Speaker 4: No, So that's the weird thing about seeing being a
Speaker 4: civil affairs guys and kind of the identity of you. Right,
Speaker 4: they're like you live always being attached to somebody else, right,
Speaker 4: So you're not with your company, especially on those on
Speaker 4: the tactical teams that were doing the the SMU support.
Speaker 4: Your your your four man team is directly attaching to
Speaker 4: whatever the rangers to see or whatever wherever Jaysock wants
Speaker 4: to put you. And so you are no, you're, you're.
Speaker 4: They have a tactical control of you. So you know
Speaker 4: the difference between take on and opcon. They can move
Speaker 4: you and do whatever they want to you, they just
Speaker 4: can't assign you somewhere else.
Speaker 3: I see, I see. So so how was that then?
Speaker 3: Had the Rangers already been working with civil fairs? Did
Speaker 3: they did they know how to best utilize you guys?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: They yeah, And I'll describe what that was like. So
Speaker 4: working with them, you're pretty much or I'll say my experience,
Speaker 4: My experience was not a lot of stuff on target.
Speaker 4: You did every all of the cleanup.
Speaker 2: You're.
Speaker 4: My job was to go in and make things right.
Speaker 4: So that was it's actually pretty It was actually pretty
Speaker 4: dangerous at times, to be quite honest, because they had
Speaker 4: just hit a compound whatever, how many other people died,
Speaker 4: tore everything up, broke and everything. So my job was
Speaker 4: to go in with two other guys, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: maybe another humbye, so two trucks that we knew that
Speaker 4: was a good target, and then try to make it right.
Speaker 4: And you basically had a backpack pull of money out
Speaker 4: for the door sert money, doing slash payments. So that's
Speaker 4: what I spent my second tour doing is doing what's
Speaker 4: called damage mitigation, and so you're basically and then t
Speaker 4: SC work. So that's the other component. It's you know,
Speaker 4: leave behinds trieting lead behind. So you basically either are
Speaker 4: getting that stuff and say, hey, you know, I understand that,
Speaker 4: you know an operation happened. If you could, you know,
Speaker 4: you basically get with the village elder. And what was
Speaker 4: weird about maybe it's other places in the world. Afghanistan
Speaker 4: money can make a death right. That was always really
Speaker 4: odd to me. And it was fifteen hundred bucks, the
Speaker 4: equivalent of fifteen hundred ducks was the authorized payment. And
Speaker 4: I know I did damage mitigations for some very large targets.
Speaker 4: One of the biggest ones was I think mandated by
Speaker 4: like I think ISAF at the time, because I think
Speaker 4: ISAF had moved in by the time two thousand and five,
Speaker 4: I believe they had taken over I think Kandahar, and
Speaker 4: so it was like fifty four deaths. So it's like
Speaker 4: basically a tough box full of money. You're taking a
Speaker 4: tough box full of cash out there and giving it
Speaker 4: to this guy, and sometimes they won't take cash because
Speaker 4: they know that somebody's going to come and take that cash.
Speaker 2: So then we're doing.
Speaker 4: Animals. You basically buy livestock and you give them to
Speaker 4: them and so so. And that was the case of
Speaker 4: my second deployment, and on the second one, the the
Speaker 4: medic who needed to.
Speaker 2: No I returned back.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so I finished that. When out, it was
Speaker 4: mainly working for the regiment, mainly doing damage mitigation, you know,
Speaker 4: doing Slasha payments and working with TSC folks. I think
Speaker 4: the diatocer, I forget what it's called. There's this own little.
Speaker 2: Section yeah, in the compound.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so that's a whole other, really cool thing
Speaker 4: is probably not appropriate.
Speaker 3: Talking, you know, it's it's interesting that you bring up
Speaker 3: sort of the damage mitigation and how like there is
Speaker 3: an assigned value to life out there and and it's
Speaker 3: a little bit different. I think if you know, if
Speaker 3: people were to hit a target and an innocent people
Speaker 3: were killed, which which I don't I don't know that
Speaker 3: I really saw that. I'm trying to think, but but
Speaker 3: if it's a legit target, like there, people understand it's
Speaker 3: a legit target, and there's there's a way to to
Speaker 3: I don't want to say pacify the village.
Speaker 2: There's a way to like say, make it right.
Speaker 3: I remember we went on target one time and it
Speaker 3: was a legitimate target, but there was a very old
Speaker 3: guy on the target and while we were you know,
Speaker 3: doing the questioning and the bit and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: he had a heart attack and you know, ar medic
Speaker 3: tried to resuscitate him, couldn't resuscitate him and called it
Speaker 3: and somebody came up with money and they're like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're really sorry about this, and the family was like,
Speaker 3: he wasn't taken as medication, he's been having pain.
Speaker 2: Like it was just.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so on that I think it was that trip.
Speaker 4: So so a lot of it was from air, from casts,
Speaker 4: so it was kids like these, I mean babies, So
Speaker 4: they have a full list. So it's everything from kids people.
Speaker 4: You know, you're not just talking about not just direct
Speaker 4: any time close air support came in or or a
Speaker 4: jade m guy drop right, whatever I see. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: those would be because the Red International Red Cross gets
Speaker 4: involved and so some of the big ones you had
Speaker 4: an International Red Cross rep you had, I mean, it
Speaker 4: was these are big deals to make to clean this
Speaker 4: mess up. I did have one of those incidents. So
Speaker 4: they for some reason had they guy was shot. So
Speaker 4: I'll just tell you the story and then i'll tell
Speaker 4: you what we discovered. Guy was shot for some reason.
Speaker 4: They took him on the bird. Maybe they were working
Speaker 4: on him, and he was end up dying and he
Speaker 4: was in a refrigeration unit on Kandahar. All right, so
Speaker 4: we got a mission and our job was fly down
Speaker 4: to Candahar, get this body, figure out somebody who can
Speaker 4: drive this body with you, go coordinate with some unit.
Speaker 4: Like it's not like this is set up for you
Speaker 4: to arrange all this and get this body back out
Speaker 4: to the village.
Speaker 3: Within three days, right, No, twenty four hours. Twenty four hours, Okay,
Speaker 3: then the culture.
Speaker 4: Has to be buried within twenty four hours. So one
Speaker 4: we were trying to figure it out. So I'm like, hey,
Speaker 4: I want to see this body, and we.
Speaker 2: End up being.
Speaker 4: It was like it could be a military age male,
Speaker 4: but you could tell it was, you know, just by
Speaker 4: pubic cair and things like that. You can be like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this kid's maybe twelve to thirteen years old, you know,
Speaker 4: and they're smaller folks.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Anyways, so it's like, okay, we need we need to
Speaker 4: figure this out. So we coordinated the logistics and found
Speaker 4: a unit to drive us out there. And I think
Speaker 4: it was ended up being like the uh, the Princess's infantry.
Speaker 4: For it was like the Canadian had owned the space
Speaker 4: where we needed to go. So it was like we
Speaker 4: coordinated get this body out there. And and it's kind
Speaker 4: of a sad story.
Speaker 2: The kid.
Speaker 4: The kid, it was actually mentally i think retarded, you know,
Speaker 4: and he was running at the guy and they had
Speaker 4: told him stop, you know, put your hands up and stop,
Speaker 4: and with all the chaos going on, he just kept
Speaker 4: running at him and they shot him. And you know,
Speaker 4: so we, you know, through translators, stopped to talk to
Speaker 4: the village elder and his family and explained to him,
Speaker 4: you know what happened. You know, they perceived him as
Speaker 4: a threat, and we want to make this right. You know,
Speaker 4: what can we do to help your family? And so
Speaker 4: you ended up paying them out and and and it's
Speaker 4: again that's the weird thing. It's like there's there's no
Speaker 4: there's no vegeance afterwards, it is done, like we have
Speaker 4: now made it right. And that that was what's really odd.
Speaker 4: Because as a father, you know, it's like, it'd be
Speaker 4: really hard to make that right with me. But for
Speaker 4: some reason, culturally it was we had done due diligence
Speaker 4: to mitigate the situation and make it right. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's one of those the dirty sides of war that happened.
Speaker 3: I feel that a lot of that had to do
Speaker 3: with Poshtune Wally, you know, with you know the fact
Speaker 3: that you know a lot of these tribes and a
Speaker 3: lot of these families they were like the hat Fields
Speaker 3: and the Kois, and there had to be a way
Speaker 3: to stop the cycle of violence between them, and so
Speaker 3: the blood price was it was a really it was
Speaker 3: very real thing for them in order to you know,
Speaker 3: to to knock that off.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's just it's it's it's a very
Speaker 2: interesting part of that culture. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So how was that for you on that trip
Speaker 3: that you weren't really practicing medicine as much? Obviously was
Speaker 3: it was very strenuous and probably interesting job.
Speaker 2: But were you missing the medicine at all?
Speaker 4: I think most medics downrange gravitate in their downtime two
Speaker 4: because you know, you need to help out right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So especially the smaller base the smaller the base you're on,
Speaker 4: you there's an unsaid expectation that that's where you are.
Speaker 4: You're there, You introduce yourself, you tell them, and you
Speaker 4: kind of keep your skills up and you help them
Speaker 4: out so.
Speaker 3: You can go into like their clinic and do or
Speaker 3: whatever and absolutely do whatever you could do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anything from just routine sick call to an I
Speaker 4: D happens and so you're kind of called and then
Speaker 4: you're kind of updated on their alert. Mosters, you introduce yourself, yea,
Speaker 4: they know who you are, so when something happens, and yeah,
Speaker 4: but yeah, for the most part, because let me try
Speaker 4: to think. I think at that time we were with the Rangers.
Speaker 4: We were on in cowst on the little compound right
Speaker 4: there on Cowst in the in the tents before they
Speaker 4: got the Alaskans, so I think they transitioned to the Alaskans,
Speaker 4: but before it was like GP mediums the green tents,
Speaker 4: and then they got the nice Alaskans with the air conditioners.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that that.
Speaker 4: That trip was there, and so I want to say
Speaker 4: that we weren't doing anything because no, because they had
Speaker 4: a Charlie med that's right. So Cows had a Charlie
Speaker 4: MED which is essentially a it's like a I guess, yeah,
Speaker 4: if you will. Yeah, so they have as much capability,
Speaker 4: so you go over there and introduce your to self.
Speaker 4: But for the most part they have enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is that like a field surgical team Yeah, FST or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a it's like a BAT plus yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because they have X ray capability, they have everything.
Speaker 3: Okay, So how long was that trip?
Speaker 4: So those were short rotations so that we were on
Speaker 4: the same rotational cycle as the battalion, So I believe
Speaker 4: they were I want to say ninety to one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty days I believe at the timeframe, so it
Speaker 4: was three to four month rotations. So I did a
Speaker 4: couple of those throughout the two thousand and five I
Speaker 4: did two to three rotations, and then I was there.
Speaker 4: I think I went back for just a really short
Speaker 4: period of time and then had to go back again
Speaker 4: because again civil affairs were still pretty small and we
Speaker 4: had basically four teams that's all Jaysak had to support
Speaker 4: all of their missions in Iraq and that's it for
Speaker 4: c ATMs, So we were always on a cycle. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so I think we had to go in early
Speaker 4: and it was four red wings. Okay, so it had
Speaker 4: just happened, and I think they were needing.
Speaker 2: To fast rope back in. So this is.
Speaker 4: They had already happened, and I think they were it's
Speaker 4: at the time period where they I think they were
Speaker 4: doing a lot of the remains recovery stuff. And long
Speaker 4: story short, our tasking was to do a lot of
Speaker 4: the money stuff with the guy who was basically protecting
Speaker 4: I guess Marcus and.
Speaker 2: The team leader.
Speaker 4: He was older as guy and he just wasn't fit
Speaker 4: and just couldn't.
Speaker 2: It was just it was it was a brutal environment. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so they had spun us up to come
Speaker 4: in early. So we came in early. We didn't end
Speaker 4: up going to the site, but we just had finished
Speaker 4: up the backside support to buy all the animals. I
Speaker 4: think that was the end. We end up giving a
Speaker 4: bunch of like animals. If I remember didn't want my recollection.
Speaker 4: I don't know what really happened. My recollection is we
Speaker 4: bought animals and had them had them delivered.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So what was.
Speaker 3: If you guys didn't go in like you would spun
Speaker 3: up early to go support that you didn't actually go in.
Speaker 2: What was the rest of that trip like for you?
Speaker 2: So the rest of that rip at that time.
Speaker 4: We got spun up for that, but we were no
Speaker 4: longer attached to the regiment. Now we were attached with
Speaker 4: the seals, but they put us in the J three
Speaker 4: IO okay, And so that's the information operation. So you're
Speaker 4: part of the three shop working doing more of the
Speaker 4: with the t S folks. And so.
Speaker 2: We we would we did the same thing.
Speaker 4: But this time for the Salt Force. At that time
Speaker 4: it was the guys from the beach rotating in and out,
Speaker 4: and so we did the same type of payments damage
Speaker 4: mitigation for them. And so, so were you out of
Speaker 4: Cobble at that point in time? Now we were at
Speaker 4: we were at so we were at the compound on Bogram.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry said Cobble, but yeah Bogram,
Speaker 3: Yeah okay. So so then how because how would you
Speaker 3: guys work the payments out of Bogram Because that task
Speaker 3: force went everywhere in country, So there are a lot
Speaker 3: of places you guys aren't going to drive to. Ring flights, okay,
Speaker 3: ring flights. Yeah, it's it's kind of like you hitched
Speaker 3: a ride on anything. It was like reflecting back on it,
Speaker 3: it was like we had to figure it out.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like it was arranged for us. So so
Speaker 4: if if we needed to go and it was in
Speaker 4: the oda's battle space, then we would go over to
Speaker 4: Camp Vans, go to see Jasota, tell them we need
Speaker 4: to get over here. Then we would catch a flight
Speaker 4: to Candahart and Candahar get on a ring flight, or
Speaker 4: if there was a convoy going out. You're just it's
Speaker 4: it's like you're a hitchhiker with an objective to do.
Speaker 4: So it's it's really kind of crazy.
Speaker 3: That is well, so for those of you, you guys
Speaker 3: can probably get it through context. But ring flights were
Speaker 3: basically just the patterned you know, flights from base to
Speaker 3: base a lot of times supplies or personnel pick up
Speaker 3: and drop off, but they were scheduled flights. It would
Speaker 3: be like it'd be like hopping on a rail line
Speaker 3: and trying to get to one city and then hitchhiking
Speaker 3: to another city to get to where you need to
Speaker 3: go to.
Speaker 4: It is, and sometimes they would already have another tasking
Speaker 4: for you, like hey, this just happened over here. We
Speaker 4: need you guys to hurry up and get back and
Speaker 4: we're like, okay, we got to find.
Speaker 2: A round, like we have no assets to do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it wasn't like we had vehicles, right, like
Speaker 4: we're just a team and a tenth and it's like
Speaker 4: you're on a page or which was like okay, this
Speaker 4: just happened, we need you to go do this or yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's it was, yeah, it was kind of fine
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: Also in a way though it seems kind of fun.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like it's like being a hobo on
Speaker 3: a train, right, it's like the open air.
Speaker 4: It's like it's fun until it's not fun, right, and
Speaker 4: I'll tell you when it's not fun. So we got
Speaker 4: with the Royal Princess Infantry.
Speaker 2: So well it was it was down.
Speaker 4: It was down in kandaharto summer. Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 4: it wasn't in Candahart. It was some I don't know
Speaker 4: what they're called. It was it was smaller than.
Speaker 2: A cop Okay.
Speaker 4: Well, it's like basically like you're out there and just
Speaker 4: these little tents, well they're not little tents. I can't
Speaker 4: even just describe them. But we we end up getting
Speaker 4: stuck there for a week. So it's you know, just
Speaker 4: living out of a small rock. But it was like
Speaker 4: we were it was hot as ship and they kept
Speaker 4: us outside and so we were like laying on these
Speaker 4: hot rocks on cars board. I got pictures of it.
Speaker 4: It's crazy. So to get patting, we like broke down
Speaker 4: some mr boxes. So it was just we're just sleeping there,
Speaker 4: just trying to find anything to get us back to
Speaker 4: Kandaharsh so we could get on a sea when thirty to.
Speaker 2: Get back up to Bogrum.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, there were some times that were just
Speaker 4: like it was like being a hobo. You're there, like
Speaker 4: who are you guys, and what are you here for?
Speaker 4: And we're like, well, we we just finished, you know,
Speaker 4: taking care of a tasking. But now we got to
Speaker 4: get back. So you guys got anything going back? And
Speaker 4: it'd be like, yeah, we got you know, we have
Speaker 4: some you know, some strike you know, whatever vehicle we
Speaker 4: gotta cut, you know, we got to police, you know,
Speaker 4: some MP's going back. So you just hey, can we
Speaker 4: hit you a ride? And we're like, let me see
Speaker 4: if we got room in the back of the vehicle,
Speaker 4: and uh yeah, it's it's it was pretty well. But yeah,
Speaker 4: until you've experienced the polar opposite, which like full command
Speaker 4: and control of which I you know, like being embedded
Speaker 4: in the eighty second during the surge much different. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it was kind of fun, but then again, at times
Speaker 4: it was kind of shitty because you're like, we don't
Speaker 4: have any support here, like we're just trying to figure
Speaker 4: it out. But I guess that's the I mean, that's
Speaker 4: that's the job. That's what So that's what the teams did.
Speaker 4: So it is I think they get a lot of
Speaker 4: a flak right for being a civil affairs team, but
Speaker 4: in the reality, it's like you are kind of just
Speaker 4: like three or four people kind of hanging it out there,
Speaker 4: hitching rides all over a country and war just trying
Speaker 4: to do these odd jobs.
Speaker 2: So so.
Speaker 3: Anything, if anything interesting happened, I mean, if that you
Speaker 3: want to cover on that trip, feel free.
Speaker 2: If not, we can fast forward.
Speaker 4: Not a whole lot. I did get to discover a
Speaker 4: so so we had a payment for the seals.
Speaker 2: So it was out in Frau.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know where fra It's like
Speaker 4: right by the Iranium border.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe. So there was a.
Speaker 4: An ODA there and I won't say what group they're
Speaker 4: from and so we showed up and so I'll describe
Speaker 4: them though, because it's funny and maybe you can relate
Speaker 4: to it, and maybe some folks can relate to it.
Speaker 4: So they had a hit, right they ended up. I
Speaker 4: think it was one of those stories where like the
Speaker 4: daughter picked it was like some prominent person and I
Speaker 4: think the Agriculture department or something just a government official
Speaker 4: will just leave it at that, end up hitting the house.
Speaker 4: Daughter picks up a weapon, shoot the daughter, and so
Speaker 4: we need to fly out to kind of make this right.
Speaker 2: So we fly out in.
Speaker 4: Our linkup is with the with the ODA out there,
Speaker 4: and so we you know, do the trip, you know,
Speaker 4: mister Toad's wild ride from Bogram to Candahar can get
Speaker 4: to the Ring flights and we end up in space
Speaker 4: camp way out here in the middle of nowhere. And
Speaker 4: we get there and like these.
Speaker 2: It's like mad Max. These there's like an oh, they've native.
Speaker 4: So these dudes had made and welded choppers. So they
Speaker 4: took these like hundred I don't know, the hundred cc
Speaker 4: like I don't not even like hondas. They're like piece
Speaker 4: of crap motorcycles, and so they got them all raked out,
Speaker 4: and they're these dudes in like little shorts, no shirt,
Speaker 4: yoked out of their mind on these like choppers riding around.
Speaker 4: We're like, why in the fuck is going on here?
Speaker 4: And they're pissed. They're like, you just caused us a
Speaker 4: catastrophic loss of rapport. That's gonna take us whatever. They're pissed, right,
Speaker 4: But at the same time, we're like look at like
Speaker 4: we're like looking at half of these guys and we're like,
Speaker 4: what the fuck are you guys doing out here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Colonel Kurtz back there, like yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean the sweetest gym, Like the sweetest gym with like
Speaker 4: a guy like making your proteins.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget.
Speaker 4: Like we go into the gym and it's like it's exquisite, right,
Speaker 4: It's not your like jail house gym with like cinder
Speaker 4: blocks like your typical one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like really nice and.
Speaker 4: Like there's like an afghan in there, like making like
Speaker 4: protein smoothies for everybody. And I'm like, guys riding these
Speaker 4: like sons of anarchies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah.
Speaker 3: That that that must have been challenging though, for them
Speaker 3: and for other Battle Space owners especially conventional.
Speaker 2: That you know, sometimes Task Force or or other units,
Speaker 2: you know, any DA units would.
Speaker 3: Make a mess, and and generally that mess was deserved, right.
Speaker 3: Maybe occasionally it wasn't, but generally it was it was deserved.
Speaker 3: And if they start receiving fire and they start calling
Speaker 3: in casts, you know, things happen.
Speaker 2: But for the battle space owner who doesn't have really
Speaker 2: have any.
Speaker 3: Control over that, and who who doesn't who does see
Speaker 3: it as a catastrophic loss of rapport when maybe they
Speaker 3: didn't really actually have rapport. They just the problems weren't
Speaker 3: right there in their face or whatever. But but they
Speaker 3: did have to go in and clean that up a
Speaker 3: lot of times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're exactly right. And I'll on that same
Speaker 4: trip a different place back back to Cowst. I believe
Speaker 4: that eighty second owned it at the time. And so
Speaker 4: another part of our job was detainee release. So you know,
Speaker 4: you had the TSCF, I think it's called bray Screen
Speaker 4: Facility Holding facility, whatever it is TSF. Our job was
Speaker 4: to go release these guys. Now, some of these guys
Speaker 4: were still on people's list, and they didn't know that
Speaker 4: these guys were already there, right, So they were either
Speaker 4: bringing releasing them back to go recruit and to do
Speaker 4: tasks right, and so I'll never forget like they had
Speaker 4: just did something, they had done an op in this area.
Speaker 4: We had gotten given a bunch of pictures and told
Speaker 4: we're told what to brief this commander. So you're going
Speaker 4: in I think it's a I think it was a
Speaker 4: BCT commander. So you know, you brief in this commander
Speaker 4: here I am. I think that's you know, E seven
Speaker 4: going in there briefing and six.
Speaker 2: A toll.
Speaker 4: Bullshit story with pictures and everything to go with it.
Speaker 4: And here's what just happened in your space, and here's
Speaker 4: what's going on. And so so that was kind of
Speaker 4: I think sometimes we're the left hand didn't talk to
Speaker 4: the right. Maybe it's to buy design and intentional, and
Speaker 4: I think it was. And I think there's certain things
Speaker 4: that people need to know and they don't need to know.
Speaker 4: And apparently that that battlespace owner did not need to
Speaker 4: know that we were going to you know, not only
Speaker 4: did we make a mess, but now we just release somebody.
Speaker 4: And I at times I had issue with this, but
Speaker 4: there's nothing you can do about it. When you think
Speaker 4: about conventional soldiers out there, you know, as someone who
Speaker 4: later became a senior leader. There's people who are going
Speaker 4: to going out there, risking their lives because they have
Speaker 4: a target deck and they're young troops who are executing
Speaker 4: missions to find a guy that they don't realize, well,
Speaker 4: that guy's already been found and he's back out there,
Speaker 4: and he's back out there for a different reason. But
Speaker 4: these guys could be going out there just doing their
Speaker 4: job and hit an ID right and you know, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure they did, and I'm sure people did lose
Speaker 4: their lives. But so you know, those are some of
Speaker 4: the other dynamics of that job that were a little
Speaker 4: bit different, you know, if you will.
Speaker 3: But it's you know, yeah, I mean would it would
Speaker 3: Would it be because they they thought that they'd flipped
Speaker 3: the guy, or because they he wasn't even though he
Speaker 3: may have been an ID facilitator, he was they had
Speaker 3: his like, they had his number, and they were waiting
Speaker 3: for him to unwittingly lead them to a fatter target.
Speaker 4: I think that's what one hundred percent was all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was for the most part. It's just hey, they'd
Speaker 4: already got him, and you do this task force.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, you get to go free.
Speaker 4: It's almost like cops, right, Yeah, it's like, Okay, we
Speaker 4: got you on a small yeah, we'll we'll we'll flip you.
Speaker 4: You go catch us a bigger fish. Yeah, and we'll
Speaker 4: make this good.
Speaker 2: But generally, I don't know, I have mixed feelings.
Speaker 3: About that because I especially for the idea, those guys
Speaker 3: were so difficult.
Speaker 2: To to prosecute.
Speaker 3: They were not as targets but as criminals because they
Speaker 3: generally weren't going to pick.
Speaker 2: Up weapons during fights.
Speaker 3: They they knew that there probably wasn't you know, a
Speaker 3: lot on them, and and you know, units would roll
Speaker 3: those guys up two and three times, put them into
Speaker 3: the you know, the American system, the Afghanian system, or
Speaker 3: the Iraqi system, and then those guys would be back
Speaker 3: out on.
Speaker 2: The street and no time, flat back doing business.
Speaker 3: And they're not the ones out there digging the holes
Speaker 3: and put the IDs in. That's some farmer who's getting
Speaker 3: paid you know, twenty bucks, fifty bucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a very challenging environment for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So how long roughly was that deployment them?
Speaker 4: So I think at that time those were those were
Speaker 4: I want to say one twenties. Okay, I think those
Speaker 4: were just four months.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you guys weren't on their rotation because they
Speaker 3: are on like you know, red, green, yellow cycle, whatever
Speaker 3: cycles are on, they're on.
Speaker 2: And but you guys are small, you know, you guys
Speaker 2: have to match.
Speaker 4: Every Sometimes we would sometimes we win. Sometimes. I think
Speaker 4: once we switched from directly supporting direct attachment to the
Speaker 4: to like the the units that made up the task
Speaker 4: force to direct these being a task Force asset, then
Speaker 4: it was much more fluid. You just you know, you
Speaker 4: had a two day rip. Yeah, and then you know,
Speaker 4: you just everybody goes up, meets in bogram, do a
Speaker 4: high five, they go, you stay and you instantly or
Speaker 4: are back on. So I believe we were on one
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty days cycles at the time. Okay, but yeah,
Speaker 4: it was interesting. You know. The other interesting dynamic of
Speaker 4: that is being being in the in the io cell.
Speaker 4: You also got to see because I believe at the time,
Speaker 4: you know, so red Wing happened. And I'll I remember
Speaker 4: this one time we got pulled into the into the
Speaker 4: the talk and it was basically that we were writing
Speaker 4: the narrative about another craft getting shot down and it
Speaker 4: was it was like, Okay, well it had gotten shot down,
Speaker 4: but we're like at the time, I think there was like, well,
Speaker 4: we're not going to give them credit. We don't want
Speaker 4: them to get credit for shooting one down. So it
Speaker 4: had mechanical filure. And that was my first really experience
Speaker 4: with Siah those two things with the there's another narrative,
Speaker 4: and the narrative can evolve based upon the needs of
Speaker 4: the bigger picture or organization or objectives and not really
Speaker 4: based upon ground truth. And I think a lot of
Speaker 4: people get upset with that, and you hear a lot
Speaker 4: of stories where it's like, well, why didn't they tell
Speaker 4: the truth? Or they expect people like myself or like
Speaker 4: yourself who were there. It's on the onus becomes on
Speaker 4: you to correct the narrative. And you see this all
Speaker 4: the time, and that's tough, right because it's like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, we're we're service member following orders and we're
Speaker 4: doing what I told them. We didn't come up with
Speaker 4: the narrative. For some reason, it was needed to be
Speaker 4: that way. I don't know why.
Speaker 3: And I think another part of that too is is
Speaker 3: I don't think that I'm not saying always, but I
Speaker 3: don't think generally it's it's with the impetus to mislead Americans.
Speaker 3: It's that there is a full blown propaganda war going
Speaker 3: on with the Taliban, and you know, they're out there
Speaker 3: saying we're using human shields. They're out there, you know,
Speaker 3: saying these things, and you can't give them these victories
Speaker 3: of shooting down a here an aircraft.
Speaker 4: And vice versa. I think when some of our folks
Speaker 4: something happens, So I think you're you're spot on it.
Speaker 4: And I experienced that we talked about a little bit early.
Speaker 4: I experienced that myself in a later deployment. So I
Speaker 4: agree with you that it's it seems nefarious and ill
Speaker 4: intentioned and ill will behind it. The reality is there's
Speaker 4: a strategic that we're not playing checkers here, We're playing chess,
Speaker 4: and so it's a bigger narrative that ties into you know,
Speaker 4: a soldier's death. I was told one time, a soldier's
Speaker 4: death is a tactical loss. You a civilian, innocent civilian
Speaker 4: death can be a strategic loss, and so sometimes they
Speaker 4: need to adjust the narrative to gained gain or achieve
Speaker 4: the objective or or or or perception of what's going.
Speaker 3: On now, It's I'm in Afghanistan by probably maybe two
Speaker 3: thousand seven or eight, I'm not sure. Like they were
Speaker 3: very good at and I'm not saying there were no
Speaker 3: civilian casualties in Afghanistan, because there were, but they were
Speaker 3: very good at saying that teams had gone out and
Speaker 3: just killed all these kids and everybody on target. And
Speaker 3: I'm talking about casts, I'm talking about bullets to the
Speaker 3: head execution style, and and international across they would shut
Speaker 3: the battle space down. They they had the power to
Speaker 3: go to our government and whomever else to basically shut
Speaker 3: the battle space down while they conducted an investigation.
Speaker 2: And you know, and that was so in Candahar.
Speaker 3: You might take all this ground and push you know,
Speaker 3: the Taliban out, you know, but then the Taliban say, hey,
Speaker 3: execution on this target, and battle space would get shut down.
Speaker 3: International across go out do their investigation, and the Taliban
Speaker 3: would all move back in.
Speaker 2: You know. So there was very much.
Speaker 3: A propaganda war going on at all times. Being in
Speaker 3: uh in the J three io, were you ever privy
Speaker 3: to any sort of theoretical good idea of fairy stuff
Speaker 3: that just having been out there on the ground, you
Speaker 3: knew was not gonna fly.
Speaker 4: Not that I can not that I can think of.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of like, uh, interesting technical things that
Speaker 4: they employ. Again that and I'm sure you're probably aware
Speaker 4: and some of those you question those like you're gonna
Speaker 4: do what and put that and where and they're not
Speaker 4: going to find that, you know, like but but yeah,
Speaker 4: so I mean other than things like that, no, none
Speaker 4: that No, I always really it about. I always just
Speaker 4: question from the optic of luckily like that incident that
Speaker 4: that that forty seven when when that one got shot
Speaker 4: at no one died on it. But that's what you
Speaker 4: always that's what people seem to gravitate towards is where
Speaker 4: kind of the conspiracy theory kind of jumps in is.
Speaker 4: And I think that's the that's the danger of it,
Speaker 4: right because when people don't have clarity and there's like
Speaker 4: ambiguity exists, they come up with their own narrative and
Speaker 4: sometimes their own narrative is much worse than reality, right right,
Speaker 4: But intentionally they don't get clarity. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 4: think that's you know, that's a it's a it's a
Speaker 4: double edged sword, it is.
Speaker 3: And to be fair, the military has you know, whether
Speaker 3: it's a sexual assault under a command or like, the
Speaker 3: military does have this history of covering up its mistakes,
Speaker 3: so it's very hard sometimes to tell when it's a
Speaker 3: cover up and when it's when it is like legit sort.
Speaker 2: Of IO operations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So how long were you on this
Speaker 3: rotation of these unit of this task force?
Speaker 4: So I did a few of Afghanistan and then the
Speaker 4: next and then the surge happened, So I did that
Speaker 4: pretty much consistently. And then two thousand and seven is
Speaker 4: when every got is when the mass flow of troops
Speaker 4: went to Baghdad for the surge, and so I think
Speaker 4: that was spring, okay, spring of seven.
Speaker 2: And did you say that you were with the eighty
Speaker 2: second at that point?
Speaker 4: So at that time we all got pulled off of
Speaker 4: our regional mission. I guess it was a higher precedence,
Speaker 4: and so we let me think about this. We had
Speaker 4: additionally the civil affairs had additionally split, so they didn't
Speaker 4: get a bunch of new people, but they basically cut
Speaker 4: the battalions in half, and so the ninety six became
Speaker 4: the ninety sixth and ninety seventh, and then the ninety
Speaker 4: sixth and ninety seventh became the ninety six, seventh and
Speaker 4: ninety eighth, and so I had moved to the ninety seventh.
Speaker 4: We had become the same building. We just like you're
Speaker 4: now the ninety seventh. So so I was no longer
Speaker 4: part of that group. I think that tasking then became
Speaker 4: where it used to be a company centric four teams
Speaker 4: that did it. I think they ended up rotating and
Speaker 4: around the battalion, and so the surge happened, we all
Speaker 4: got pulled in and I can remember like every team
Speaker 4: from every company was.
Speaker 2: Going to Iraq.
Speaker 4: So for the most part, there was a couple guys
Speaker 4: on regional trips in Africa, but for the most part,
Speaker 4: and maybe some down in South America, but for the
Speaker 4: most part, folks were going to Iraq to be part
Speaker 4: of the surge.
Speaker 3: And how how was that for you after you know,
Speaker 3: working with Task Force, working Rangers, Seal Team six and
Speaker 3: now you're going to the eighty second.
Speaker 4: That was horrible And it was horrible because I think,
Speaker 4: well one that time in Iraq was horrible. I think
Speaker 4: it was horrible for a lot of people. It was
Speaker 4: it was the heights of the casualties. If I think
Speaker 4: that again, like I don't know exact numbers, but I
Speaker 4: think we were about tracking about one hundred deaths service
Speaker 4: members a month at the time period of the height.
Speaker 4: And so I was assigned to Solder City. So I
Speaker 4: Solder City and I lived at the police station there.
Speaker 4: So we were embedded with the police at these little
Speaker 4: Joint security DJSS district Joint Security station I believe they
Speaker 4: were called.
Speaker 2: And I heard Solder City. Was that nice that time
Speaker 2: of year?
Speaker 4: Yes? No, that was not a Yeah, that was a
Speaker 4: dangerous place.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so interestingly I loved my dad was also in
Speaker 4: theater at the same time. Was he still with three
Speaker 4: Idea or where was he was still at Third I
Speaker 4: D at the time? No, I think he was. I
Speaker 4: could be wrong. He was either with Third ID or
Speaker 4: with First I D because one of the one of
Speaker 4: the units I think it was Third ID. But so
Speaker 4: he was at I don't know what main base he
Speaker 4: was at, but I was. We were working. Our headquarters
Speaker 4: element was in Taji and then we lived at the
Speaker 4: police station and that was all casualties. Again, so that
Speaker 4: was being a medic every day, all day, and that
Speaker 4: was a lot of my frustration with I think some
Speaker 4: of the leadership of eighty second is they would rotate through.
Speaker 4: So they would come through and rotate do the command
Speaker 4: visits to the outstation, and and you know, everybody's like,
Speaker 4: it's one thing in training to live like shit, right,
Speaker 4: It's a whole other thing to live like shit when
Speaker 4: you're in the shit. Yeah, And so you know, like
Speaker 4: things like running water just you know, tullets overflowing with
Speaker 4: shit that importa potties that were full of mortar holes.
Speaker 4: You don't know if you're gonna die sweating on a portagehn,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And so you know, like
Speaker 4: so that was and then there was you know, everybody's
Speaker 4: eating the can. There was like this weird canned food
Speaker 4: they had that you like, poked it and it. So
Speaker 4: you were eating like shit. You weren't eating quality. You
Speaker 4: were eating but not quality fit. And then the freedom maneuver,
Speaker 4: I think was two streets. You could patrol two streets
Speaker 4: and you were almost one hundred percent gonna get alice
Speaker 4: hit one ID. And at the time they had released
Speaker 4: because of the again like the strategic loss of civilians,
Speaker 4: the the there was a rule that no vehicle could
Speaker 4: drive faster than five miles an hour. So you think
Speaker 4: about this. Yeah, you know, city structure lobbing grenades into
Speaker 4: your vehicles. So we put like welded tops on all
Speaker 4: the humbies and then at that point they you had
Speaker 4: the big rhino mount for I guess it was like
Speaker 4: a glow plug or some kind of plug inside of it.
Speaker 4: I think, I don't know. You may know you try
Speaker 4: about like the drop arm.
Speaker 2: So you had a.
Speaker 4: Jammer for the remote detonade, and then you had the
Speaker 4: drop arm thing that I forget what it did, but
Speaker 4: but essentially like you had this weird like hodgepodge of
Speaker 4: vehicle with welded glass oliver. So people were like welding
Speaker 4: and up armboring their own stuff because at the time,
Speaker 4: I mean it was horrific, like deep buried mines where
Speaker 4: they would flip flip Bradley fighting vehicles. I mean it
Speaker 4: was you know, there's there's some lot of bad stories
Speaker 4: and so from that time of just like you know,
Speaker 4: they those vehicles would flip over and you'd watch soldiers
Speaker 4: burned to death, like you would see them trying to
Speaker 4: get their arms out of hatches and it'd be engulfed
Speaker 4: in flames, and you know those really it messed me
Speaker 4: up personally, and a lot of medics just never like
Speaker 4: probably people, I shouldn't just put that to medics, but
Speaker 4: I know some of our medics they didn't. They didn't
Speaker 4: do well after that. And we had some that that
Speaker 4: that during the surge took its toll on folks. I
Speaker 4: certainly took its toll on me and I and I
Speaker 4: think I changed as a person after that trip. We
Speaker 4: can talk about that stuff a little later, but and
Speaker 4: so yeah, so that was my job was to be
Speaker 4: a medic. The medic who was with the with that unit,
Speaker 4: his platoon Sardant got shot in the head putting up
Speaker 4: they were doing their hes goes, putting their hescoes up
Speaker 4: in the beginning. So the medic became the platoon sarden.
Speaker 4: And so we had a little four detachment. He was
Speaker 4: believe it or not, E five. And so I was like,
Speaker 4: and so my team, we were all these sevens. I
Speaker 4: was like, hey, man, just do your job. If there's
Speaker 4: anything medical, just I'll take care of it. Don't worry
Speaker 4: about it. So we set up a little hasty you know,
Speaker 4: one litter in an ad in a ceiling container at
Speaker 4: this little little police station, and that's where we lived.
Speaker 4: For seven months, and it was injuries every day, and
Speaker 4: it's really what kind of honed me into, like you know,
Speaker 4: some of the device stuff that I'm doing today, it's
Speaker 4: just some of these injuries from the EFPs. That was
Speaker 4: when the FPS got started, and EFPs would go and
Speaker 4: take people's legs off. They would, I mean, they would
Speaker 4: just go right through guys torsos. I'll never forget. I
Speaker 4: had one go through basically. I don't know how this
Speaker 4: ended up happening, but a piece of it went through
Speaker 4: under his plate, under his skin but not through his thoraxe,
Speaker 4: but basically a big hole in one shoulder and a
Speaker 4: big hole out the other. And just I can remember
Speaker 4: trying to put pressure. At the time, they had quick
Speaker 4: clot sponges. Yeah, yeah, there were these. Man. I had
Speaker 4: these sponges and I kept them like in all of
Speaker 4: I must have stuffed those sponges in somebody every day.
Speaker 4: So all my pockets because you're just walking around and
Speaker 4: you're on his little police station. So it's not like
Speaker 4: you're wearing full kid all the time. You know, sometimes
Speaker 4: you're just wearing your uniform, maybe your vest. But my
Speaker 4: pockets were never not full because this police station also
Speaker 4: had a radio tower. So you're in a flat land
Speaker 4: with a radio tower in a city that you can
Speaker 4: see this tower from anywhere in the city. So now
Speaker 4: you have an asthmth Now what do you need distance?
Speaker 4: So it was like just I mean, you probably remember
Speaker 4: that time. It was just mortar city all day, so
Speaker 4: you really you're not fighting, you're just taking casualties and
Speaker 4: getting blown up. So it's really a psychological It's probably
Speaker 4: what they're experiencing. I could guess with some of the
Speaker 4: drone stuff. Now that's what I that's what I equated
Speaker 4: to in my mind. I'm like, that sucked, and you're
Speaker 4: in constant fear because you're not gonna know when you die,
Speaker 4: You're just gonna blow up or maybe get mangled, and
Speaker 4: you know, it's just like this stuff's coming in and.
Speaker 3: So it's very it's very frustrating to hear this because
Speaker 3: you know they also did this in Afghanistan where they
Speaker 3: would put a small number of soldiers out at some
Speaker 3: cop in the middle of nowhere with no support and
Speaker 3: basically allow you know, the Taliban to just come in
Speaker 3: and you know, they'd put them in low ground, they
Speaker 3: wouldn't give them a SoLIT tact position, you know, and
Speaker 3: and they would just allow the Taliban to kick the
Speaker 3: shit out of these guys day after day after day.
Speaker 3: And in my I would love to know who decided
Speaker 3: that US soldiers needed to be at this police station.
Speaker 3: What was the point of putting them there, you know,
Speaker 3: because there's no area of denial going on, right, you're
Speaker 3: not you're not you're not creating a court on you're
Speaker 3: not all. They're just sticking these guys in a meat
Speaker 3: grinder with no ability to defend themselves, and then putting
Speaker 3: additional restrictions on them like the five mile an hour.
Speaker 2: Speed you know, speed limit.
Speaker 3: Like these these are people, honestly that need to be
Speaker 3: called the carpet and answer for their sins.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's funny you mentioned that. So it was
Speaker 4: if you remember where we were again, not that it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter the politic aspect of it, but I think
Speaker 4: the nation wanted us out, and so we had specifically
Speaker 4: an embedded reporter with my four man team and I
Speaker 4: so in Solder City. So why we were doing this
Speaker 4: so in this like two streets in Jamira, I think
Speaker 4: it was called that we could drive to. We were
Speaker 4: doing these small projects so we were putting in lights,
Speaker 4: so like I think they were like solar lights or
Speaker 4: something like that, because I forget what it was lights.
Speaker 4: You're doing your basic like hand out stuff and schools
Speaker 4: like trying to like refurbish and rehab these schools.
Speaker 2: So that was our job.
Speaker 4: Like so it was in I don't want to get
Speaker 4: off the story, but I think, and here's one of
Speaker 4: my frustrating parts about being a Civil Affair soldiers. Success
Speaker 4: was measured on how much money in projects you spent
Speaker 4: now your effect and so you think about you know,
Speaker 4: and that's one of the things that you know, like
Speaker 4: the IO side of it, effects based operations. But if
Speaker 4: you read every award, it was like established so many
Speaker 4: of this and spent X amount of dollars, and so
Speaker 4: it was like you did these I don't want to
Speaker 4: say frivolous projects and risk people's lives to essentially like
Speaker 4: do some sort of rebuilding that I don't really think
Speaker 4: it rebuilt anything, and so it you know, yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: It was really frustrating, but that's essentially what we did
Speaker 4: was a lot of that. It's just driving around, get
Speaker 4: blown up, take fire, treat people. I think half the
Speaker 4: people in that small element. You know, they all ended
Speaker 4: up with purple hearts. They were just it was just
Speaker 4: like you were going to catch something, right, the likelihood
Speaker 4: of a piece of frag not flying at you and
Speaker 4: getting it was just everything was just riddled. I still
Speaker 4: got a whole lot of pictures. It's just everything was riddled.
Speaker 4: Every build, every everything was just holds everywhere. And so
Speaker 4: so yeah, that was the surgeon. That was a pretty
Speaker 4: unpleasant time. So yeah, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
Speaker 3: Yes, Sutter City, and you know, and Mada like he was,
Speaker 3: he was a piece of work, you know, because he
Speaker 3: would get his jashm Nahdi.
Speaker 2: You know, they had.
Speaker 3: Openly hostile you know, openly aggressive US elements would go
Speaker 3: in and just start kicking ass, you know, doing hits,
Speaker 3: you know whatever.
Speaker 2: And then at the point in time.
Speaker 3: That we you know that that the US would gain
Speaker 3: some ground in there, you know, he would pull out
Speaker 3: the I'm a cleric, I'm a holy man.
Speaker 2: Let's you know, let's work.
Speaker 3: There like and and and this would be the story
Speaker 3: that would play is you know he's a holy man,
Speaker 3: he's you know, he's a mulla and and and so
Speaker 3: US forces would have to stop directing hits on jayshau
Speaker 3: Mahdi while they rebuilt, regrouped, re armed, and then they
Speaker 3: would go at it again.
Speaker 2: And we played this game with him forever.
Speaker 3: And and to throw to throw an ounce an ounce
Speaker 3: of US money into a solder city, it is, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think more importantly it's the blood that
Speaker 4: was yeah put there because you know, like every soft
Speaker 4: is sexy, right, Yeah, but really that's where I gained.
Speaker 4: I learned important lesson there that no one's service is
Speaker 4: greater than anybody else. Absolutely, And when you look at
Speaker 4: these kids, I can these kids at that point in
Speaker 4: time we're doing, some of them were getting extended to
Speaker 4: eighteen months. Yeah, so I was blessed to experience that
Speaker 4: only for seven or eight months, yeah, eighteen months to
Speaker 4: deal with that, and the casualties that they were taking
Speaker 4: were half of their squads were no longer alive at
Speaker 4: you know, twenty years old, eighteen years old, nineteen years old.
Speaker 2: You know, that's that's the travesty of it, I think,
Speaker 2: And you know we've talked about that on this show
Speaker 2: before too.
Speaker 3: People love the soft mission, people love the direct action.
Speaker 3: The direction action is great for commanders, it briefs, well,
Speaker 3: how many bodies did you stack? Look, we're winning the war,
Speaker 3: you know, we just killed twenty insurgents. But both in
Speaker 3: Iraq and in Afghanistan, you know, these conventional guys they
Speaker 3: don't get any credit at all for what they went through.
Speaker 2: And they the software was very gucci. It was. It
Speaker 2: was dangerous. I'm not I'm not taking anything away from it.
Speaker 2: It was dangerous.
Speaker 3: They you know, they had the lion's share of kills
Speaker 3: and whatnot, but they also got to plant. They had
Speaker 3: the assets, they had, you know, the resources. They weren't
Speaker 3: out there doing you know, recon by you know enemy fire.
Speaker 2: But both in.
Speaker 3: Afghanistan and Rock, these conventional forces were stuck out there,
Speaker 3: some of them mixing it up every single day.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: They weren't flying back, you know, to Bogram, they weren't
Speaker 3: you know, going back to Glalabad you know, to play Halo,
Speaker 3: to unwind and prepping for the next stop. They were
Speaker 3: in it every single day, and for long periods of time,
Speaker 3: like you say, like twelve to eighteen months, and they get.
Speaker 2: No credit at all.
Speaker 3: Everybody is so focused on soft because that's what they
Speaker 3: make movies about. That's you know, and yeah, these these
Speaker 3: these kids, these guys, these these women, they deserve a
Speaker 3: hell of a lot more credit than I get.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they do. Hopefully, hopefully I'll remember at the end. Well,
Speaker 4: once I got really senior, I spoke up at a
Speaker 4: conference that well, no tell us so so yeah, so
Speaker 4: I'll fast forward really quick and then we'll go back.
Speaker 4: So it was the right towards the end of my career.
Speaker 4: You know, I was a brigade CSM, but previous a
Speaker 4: lot of soft experience, you know, once I had, you know,
Speaker 4: at twenty three years in service, and as much as
Speaker 4: I a physician, stood up from one of the elements
Speaker 4: within Jaysack and basically it was about prolonged field care,
Speaker 4: and he basically was saying how prolonged field care was
Speaker 4: a soft problem and conventional piece bull needed not worry
Speaker 4: about it. And so I stood up because of the
Speaker 4: time I had already worked to work with some prolonged
Speaker 4: field care stuff for the conventional Army. It was a
Speaker 4: tasking given to me based on my background and some
Speaker 4: stuff that was going on with Korea and Fight Tonight
Speaker 4: where we thought we were going to fight in Korea,
Speaker 4: and I was in that area. And so I stood
Speaker 4: up and I said, so, what you're telling me, sir,
Speaker 4: is that so I have two sons that are serving,
Speaker 4: one in an SMU and one son and four two
Speaker 4: five and airborne infantry in Alaska. So the training that
Speaker 4: their medics get and their life their survivability statistics should
Speaker 4: be directly relational to their unit of assignment and not
Speaker 4: their injury pattern. So we should invest only in soft
Speaker 4: training and teaching and preparedness for prolonged care. And so
Speaker 4: it really just it struck a chord with me, and
Speaker 4: I wanted to just rake him over the coals and
Speaker 4: and I and I think it even actually made them rethink.
Speaker 4: Maybe not the group, and maybe I, you know, I
Speaker 4: didn't have a bigger play in that, but but it
Speaker 4: definitely it definitely made me reflect upon because I was
Speaker 4: back now working for the conventional military, of the importance
Speaker 4: of Hey, those are the dudes staying out there for
Speaker 4: eighteen months. They don't they get the least training, they're
Speaker 4: least equipped, and they have the least assets. But but
Speaker 4: but now you are. But now you don't want to
Speaker 4: focus on them and dedicate some training to you to
Speaker 4: say it's it's it's too sexy of training for them
Speaker 4: to get it. I'm like, and and so they don't
Speaker 4: need to know how to ensure survivability of those forces
Speaker 4: should they encounter you know, prolonged field care and so
Speaker 4: but yeah, so yeah, yeah, so it's a huge soapbox
Speaker 4: for me. It's like, hey, you know, invest in all
Speaker 4: these guys because that's that's our charge, take care of
Speaker 4: American sons and daughters. And so as a leader, you
Speaker 4: need to ensure that that that's your responsibility as a commander,
Speaker 4: like the man training equipping of your soldiers. So but yeah,
Speaker 4: so rewind back to the surge. So surge is done,
Speaker 4: and so you know, the majority of us, you know,
Speaker 4: made it back. And and at the time, that's when
Speaker 4: I've essentially got an invitation to do something else. And
Speaker 4: I was seeking things to do because that's the time
Speaker 4: that I had mentioned that Civil Affairs was converting. It
Speaker 4: was no longer going to be an organization where people
Speaker 4: could just go to regardless of their or because of
Speaker 4: they had an MOS that fit the team dying, which
Speaker 4: is basically kind of modeled kind of like the ODA,
Speaker 4: like I said, the Engineer, Weapons, medic team leader. Now
Speaker 4: you had to be a MOS and they they basically
Speaker 4: gave us all the opportunity change your a MOS.
Speaker 2: Or find another job.
Speaker 4: And so at the time, I actually enjoyed the tactical
Speaker 4: medical stuff and I wanted to go to the unit
Speaker 4: at BRAG That's that's where I wanted to go. But
Speaker 4: they had periods of time where their senior I think
Speaker 4: the senior medical folks there they either wanted eighteen series
Speaker 4: guys and they wouldn't take the SOCCAM guys. And so
Speaker 4: it really was who's in charge of the med the
Speaker 4: med troop or squadron or whatever it is. And so
Speaker 4: at the time they were like, hey, we're not taking
Speaker 4: you know, we're only taking eighteens and so okay. And
Speaker 4: so a friend of mine had went to another organization
Speaker 4: a special access program i'll just call it that in
Speaker 4: the in the National Capital region, just keep it kind
Speaker 4: of area generic, and had said, hey, man, I've talked
Speaker 4: to them about you. You know, I think that you've
Speaker 4: got the experience and you would you would do well
Speaker 4: here and would you like to apply and and so,
Speaker 4: and I was seeking things out and I said, yeah.
Speaker 2: Had you had you been aware of that program?
Speaker 4: I known about the people because there was onesies and
Speaker 4: twosies that worked with the task force, but you didn't
Speaker 4: know kind of what these weird animals were, right, you know,
Speaker 4: they're kind of like these strange birds. Right, they're like,
Speaker 4: what's that strange bird? Oh, it's something really cool and
Speaker 4: so uh but no, I mean honestly, like because of
Speaker 4: my by that time, I developed a strong sense of
Speaker 4: passion for medic to being a medic and that and
Speaker 4: it's that was actually a really important thing about that
Speaker 4: organization is they didn't want people who wanted to be
Speaker 4: something else. If you're going there to be a medic,
Speaker 4: that's what you're going to be, and you're going to
Speaker 4: be the best medic and so so so basically you
Speaker 4: either you get asked to go there or someone knows
Speaker 4: and recommend you. That's the process. And so funny story
Speaker 4: is I actually filled out another packet and I thought
Speaker 4: that I was getting packets in and you don't really
Speaker 4: know where these packets are going because I'll tell the
Speaker 4: dirty secret. The dirty secret is there's a lot of
Speaker 4: places you can go. It isn't just one place. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot of places up in the National Capital Region.
Speaker 2: So I had.
Speaker 4: Fully applied and been like hired. And then I talked
Speaker 4: to my buddy who was at the place that I
Speaker 4: wanted to go, and he's like, because I think I
Speaker 4: had applied to I'd filled out the packets for both,
Speaker 4: but again, the names on the packets, they're just like names,
Speaker 4: they don't really correlate. And he's like, dude, you didn't
Speaker 4: go through the So I called the other guy because
Speaker 4: you get a point of contact and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't want the job. I'm actually trying to go
Speaker 4: somewhere else. And he's like, okay, I understand. And then
Speaker 4: so long story short is I So I filled out
Speaker 4: the packet I got offered to do it, go up
Speaker 4: and interview, and I went through my interview process. And
Speaker 4: I'll talk a little bit about that later. Because my
Speaker 4: CSM at the time, which I did know, was also
Speaker 4: a former unit member, but he would he never told
Speaker 4: me that, and he's like, I need you to do
Speaker 4: one more deployment before you go. So I had went basically,
Speaker 4: I'd got you know, if you get the job or not.
Speaker 4: But I told him, hey, I committed to another deployment
Speaker 4: and so so after that I had to do one
Speaker 4: more deployment, and that was to I had now switched
Speaker 4: companies to the ninety or the ninety seventh had split
Speaker 4: and also became the ninety sixth, and seventh had split
Speaker 4: and become the ninety eight. Ninety eighth was Latin America.
Speaker 4: So then I got a tasking to go down and
Speaker 4: do the be part of finding the hostages in Colombia,
Speaker 4: so ramping all up and going through language immersion, and
Speaker 4: so got back from Iraq, immediately started language immersion after
Speaker 4: I had went through you know, my screening process, and
Speaker 4: then headed off to Columbia.
Speaker 3: And what was that uh, what was the was the
Speaker 3: search still ongoing at that point in time?
Speaker 4: It was so we actually got them back. I was
Speaker 4: actually at the location the day before.
Speaker 2: Wow. Uh yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so when we first got there, So we
Speaker 4: got there. I think they got them back in June
Speaker 4: or July of eight if I remember right. And so
Speaker 4: Operation Jock if I think it's called pronounce you Jock JQ,
Speaker 4: whatever it is, I don't recall. So essentially, yeah, that
Speaker 4: was our job was attached to Embassy Mission seventh Group,
Speaker 4: So it was working with seventh Group at the time
Speaker 4: out of the embassy there and so we were flying
Speaker 4: around with it, so operational willing spirit, and so it
Speaker 4: was about going and finding the were these hostages this
Speaker 4: plane that had crashed in the middle of the jungle
Speaker 4: five years earlier, So these guys have been hostages now
Speaker 4: for five years, getting moved all over you know, triple
Speaker 4: canopy jungle, and so I can go right into it
Speaker 4: or yeah yeah, so yeah, So you know, I finished
Speaker 4: language emerging immersion, you know, just came off Iraq and uh, honestly,
Speaker 4: you know, like I said, a Rack kind of changed
Speaker 4: me I think as a as a person, and so
Speaker 4: you know, you know, I struggled a little bit on
Speaker 4: this on this deployment, but you know, I just that's
Speaker 4: when I first started like angry outbursts and things like that.
Speaker 4: Just somebody, if you you know, you're, you're, you used
Speaker 4: to have an escalation of.
Speaker 2: One to ten.
Speaker 4: Now it's just like yeah, it's just ten, yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: And so so yeah, we get there and without focusing
Speaker 4: too much on that, we instantly start going out and
Speaker 4: basically you're doing these civil affairs type activities. So it
Speaker 4: is a more of a the traditional I guess I
Speaker 4: think doctrinal mission of going out and working with their
Speaker 4: government and supporting them and then using resources, you know,
Speaker 4: the monies that are afforded to go out and do
Speaker 4: larger scale medcaps, not like essentially like tailgatements in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: These are where we actually bring in ten host nation
Speaker 4: doctors and dentists. Wow, load these airplanes up with these
Speaker 4: huge suites of medical equipment and you fly out to
Speaker 4: these remote places, you know, all over the jungle, and
Speaker 4: you set up and you start seeing people, and you know,
Speaker 4: and then other folks can kind of come in and
Speaker 4: ask questions and do what they do right. So it's
Speaker 4: kind of a I don't know if you want to
Speaker 4: say cover for status action kind of thing. Is you know,
Speaker 4: you're just you're facilitating Maybe that's a better way and
Speaker 4: your facility taking people to do there and I mean
Speaker 4: done right.
Speaker 3: I feel like medcaps and PRTs and well the PRTs,
Speaker 3: but that medcaps are are are almost always if they're
Speaker 3: done right, Like, there's always an element of that intelligence
Speaker 3: gathering piece to the medcap right that there should there's
Speaker 3: always somebody there, and especially on the female side, because
Speaker 3: a lot of times, like a lot of times, the
Speaker 3: women will talk about the things that are pissing them off,
Speaker 3: and things that are pissing them off are generally the
Speaker 3: things that guys don't want to talk about.
Speaker 4: Yeah or yeah, well you know that was a huge
Speaker 4: You're exactly right, and that's probably more so in Afghanistan
Speaker 4: than even Iraq. Afghanistan, I've never talked to a woman, Yeah, never, Yeah, Iraq, yes,
Speaker 4: because they have like the ones that don't kind of
Speaker 4: wear the full burka type a lot of traditional they
Speaker 4: haven't much more Western Western exactly, they're kind of more westernized.
Speaker 4: It's more socially acceptable for them to kind of associate
Speaker 4: with with males, and so could work with females there
Speaker 4: and then in Latin America was no real deal. But yeah,
Speaker 4: one hundred percent, I can the utility in Afghanistan. I
Speaker 4: didn't get to experience those the I think the female
Speaker 4: engagement teams whatever they're called. But and then we didn't
Speaker 4: get females in Cea. My very last trip, we had
Speaker 4: our I think once some of our first females.
Speaker 3: And is that because it was still considered special ops
Speaker 3: and so.
Speaker 2: I think it was the mos Is, So if you
Speaker 2: looked at it, no female medics that went through.
Speaker 4: I actually had the first female medic in my SOCCAM class.
Speaker 4: She was Air Force first female go through SoC them.
Speaker 4: I think that's a whole nother crazy story.
Speaker 2: That's that was.
Speaker 4: Integration gone awry. That's a funny story. So I should
Speaker 4: tell that, but we're too far past it. But at
Speaker 4: any rate, so yeah, so uh, we're kind of lost
Speaker 4: my track.
Speaker 3: So you're in Latin America. You're doing the medcaps, large medcaps.
Speaker 4: Yes, so the big, big large medcaps. And so we're
Speaker 4: really just asking questions, like any fark around, has anybody
Speaker 4: heard rumor of them moving? Because that's what they would do.
Speaker 4: They would move these They moved these guys for five
Speaker 4: years everywhere, and so.
Speaker 2: We I think it.
Speaker 4: I think it was San Jose A Guavier, the Guavier
Speaker 4: River area. We were there. Now we didn't know the
Speaker 4: OP was gonna happen, but we were there the day
Speaker 4: before setting it up and doing planning to do it.
Speaker 4: And so we met with the local like government. We
Speaker 4: told them, here's what we'd like to do. We would
Speaker 4: like to do do health screenings because a lot of
Speaker 4: the stuff that we were doing because like, well why
Speaker 4: do you want to do that? Well, you know, you
Speaker 4: didn't just come out and say that a lot of
Speaker 4: it was because of the the State Department stuff that
Speaker 4: they were doing with the spraying right for the I
Speaker 4: guess the eradication of the crops and or the.
Speaker 2: Mosquitoes and pies. Oh oh, the drug counter drug drug stuff.
Speaker 4: It's all counter drug through the con I believe it's
Speaker 4: called is their organization.
Speaker 2: Uh, through their counter narcotical folks.
Speaker 4: So so that's a whole nother different mission that we
Speaker 4: also did. Once we got the hostages back, we continue
Speaker 4: doing that. So yeah, so we were there planning it
Speaker 4: to set it up and you say, hey, we want
Speaker 4: to do this, we want to see you know, we
Speaker 4: you know, see the folks, make sure everything's okay, and
Speaker 4: planning it, and then I think our team leader got
Speaker 4: a call. It's like, hey, you guys need to get
Speaker 4: out of there now, you need to leave. We're like,
Speaker 4: we're we're in the middle according this no, and they're like, no,
Speaker 4: you don't understand, you need to go. So we're like, okay,
Speaker 4: all right, So we you know, we packed up. We
Speaker 4: uh we told them we had finished everything because at
Speaker 4: that time we didn't have to hitch a ride. We
Speaker 4: basically would go to the counter and narcotics police. They
Speaker 4: would get one of their there what are they am?
Speaker 4: I seventeen their their helicopters and fly you out. So
Speaker 4: they facilitated our travel and we said, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: we're finished, we need to go back, and they took
Speaker 4: us back back to Bogotah to the to the embassy.
Speaker 4: And then the next day, it was either the day
Speaker 4: or the day after then that operation took place. And
Speaker 4: I believe that was one of the like the most successful.
Speaker 4: Like you know, No shots fired got a lot of
Speaker 4: controversy over them usings imposing as a Red Cross elements
Speaker 4: that kind of violated I think some international law. But nonetheless,
Speaker 4: no shots fired. They got the folks back, they were
Speaker 4: able to be repatriated.
Speaker 2: And then did you did you did you meet them?
Speaker 2: Did you greet them at all?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: They flew back, They facilitated their.
Speaker 4: Their their movement was pretty much facilitated and kind of escorted.
Speaker 4: And there wasn't a reason, like they didn't need to and.
Speaker 2: And yeah I didn't like you screened them when they
Speaker 2: came out?
Speaker 4: No, no, nothing, nope, uh, no real direct contact. The
Speaker 4: I think Cleveland was the the South, the SOX South
Speaker 4: commander at the time he flew in, briefed everybody and
Speaker 4: thanked everybody, you know, because this is they've been looking
Speaker 4: for these guys for years, and so it was a
Speaker 4: big deal. I think I still got the Fanville Observer
Speaker 4: paper from that and and.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so that was the bit.
Speaker 4: But that was actually the very beginning or towards the
Speaker 4: I think two months into our rotation. And so after that,
Speaker 4: you know that didn't get to see them. They they
Speaker 4: got they went back and we continued on mainly working
Speaker 4: with the State Department stuff and just kind of just
Speaker 4: you know, we would go out sit these things up
Speaker 4: and they would have a State Department rep who would
Speaker 4: kind of screen these folks and make sure the stuff
Speaker 4: they're spraying all over this stuff isn't like causing cancer,
Speaker 4: causing birth defects. I think it was really birth defects honestly,
Speaker 4: that they were not causing health ailments with with the population.
Speaker 3: Right right with from the saying, you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: interesting because as I think about it, like ill, when
Speaker 3: I think about medcaps, I've always thought about intelligence gathering,
Speaker 3: but it's possible and maybe maybe you know this and
Speaker 3: maybe it wasn't even a thing, but I imagine, you know,
Speaker 3: with the FARC moving around as much as they did.
Speaker 3: Medcaps are also they're also potentially part of a shaping operation,
Speaker 3: right that if you throw a medcap into a region,
Speaker 3: then the fark is going to move away from that region.
Speaker 3: So you can almost in a way, if you have
Speaker 3: a general area, you can almost channel them or at
Speaker 3: least you know, influence their movement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think you can. And what's interesting
Speaker 4: you bring that up because we're not the only people
Speaker 4: who go and build wells. Like in beginning of Afghans,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of well building, right because people needed
Speaker 4: water and you would find I want to say, I
Speaker 4: want to say, like Talibland built wells too. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: they would do their own kind of like humanitarian system.
Speaker 4: Like there was some weird stuff where you would be like, well,
Speaker 4: who build this one? And they're like, oh, so, I
Speaker 4: think just like we reconize a kind of these centers
Speaker 4: of gravity for being pro they did the same thing
Speaker 4: and they kind of rewarded. So it's kind of like
Speaker 4: the stick or the carry, right, Well, if you're friends
Speaker 4: with us, then we'll take care of If you're not friends,
Speaker 4: then we're going to come in shwack people. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: maybe maybe we do the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'd like to think we don't.
Speaker 4: You know, well, I guess I mean that shwack the
Speaker 4: people in each way right, right, if you're doing if
Speaker 4: you're putting place, No, I think you're right too. And
Speaker 4: I think they see that, and I think that's what
Speaker 4: gives us the upper hand, is that we don't do that.
Speaker 4: I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 2: I mean the upper hand in terms of.
Speaker 3: The upper hand in terms of them not being hostile
Speaker 3: towards us. But there is there is a brutal efficiency
Speaker 3: with sort of the mafia.
Speaker 2: Style. It's play nice or will come in.
Speaker 4: It's fear, and you can exactly it's you know, it's
Speaker 4: it's influencing through just direct yeah, fears. So yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't think that we you know.
Speaker 3: I in my experience, you know, which isn't every experience.
Speaker 3: My experience, we've never we haven't played.
Speaker 4: With There may have been some folks who do that,
Speaker 4: but it's not because they're well, I wouldn't think directed,
Speaker 4: and it's certainly not at large scale and it's certainly
Speaker 4: not within your I would say, majority of your soft elements,
Speaker 4: and definitely not your conventional military. It kind of goes
Speaker 4: against doctrine, you know a lot of just doctrine and policy.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, you know, you might get some rogue,
Speaker 3: you know, commander out there who has a you know,
Speaker 3: a small element has influenced over that might pull that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not within our roes, it's not within our TTPs,
Speaker 3: it's not.
Speaker 2: Within our our doctrine to do something like that.
Speaker 4: And I think that's actually important to know and think about.
Speaker 4: The military is an it's an organization, it's an entity.
Speaker 4: It has a value system attached to it, but it's
Speaker 4: not a person, right, And so there may be people
Speaker 4: doing those sites, but it may not reflect the policies
Speaker 4: and regulatories and common procedures of the larger entity and
Speaker 4: or how it expects its people to behave right. Right,
Speaker 4: So there's bad apples in everybody, and.
Speaker 3: And bad apples and people who go off the rails.
Speaker 2: Look, if you have some like young lieutenant with a.
Speaker 3: Platoon maybe a platoon plus out in some cop right,
Speaker 3: and they keep on getting hit or they keep on
Speaker 3: hitting IDs, And if he's there for eighteen months, at
Speaker 3: some point after he puts his.
Speaker 2: Third, fourth, fifth, due. Guy on a bird at some point.
Speaker 3: Does a switch flip for him and he goes into
Speaker 3: like the local village and he says, hey, look, my
Speaker 3: guys get hit again. I'm there's going to be hell
Speaker 3: to pay. Yeah, Like, I don't know who's doing it.
Speaker 2: You guys know who's doing it. My guys get like,
Speaker 2: that's not the way, That's not the way to do business.
Speaker 2: But I can see.
Speaker 3: An empathize with somebody who who goes who goes there?
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 4: I've actually thought a lot about this, but I think
Speaker 4: it's short sighted, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Not I don't disagree.
Speaker 4: And the reason I say that is so because I
Speaker 4: think about this a lot, like because I think about
Speaker 4: what we asked, like why was there blue on green
Speaker 4: or whatever? I was like, well, I can tell you
Speaker 4: if you came to the States and you were in
Speaker 4: my neighborhood and you were doing questionable things and I
Speaker 4: didn't like, you might have that problem for me too, right,
Speaker 4: and so, and then if you think about, you know, later,
Speaker 4: some of the stuff where you're you're overseeing indigenous forces
Speaker 4: and especially in their areas where they came from, the
Speaker 4: their neighbors, friends, brothers. Now, you don't always know what
Speaker 4: your neighbors are doing. So that's the problem I have.
Speaker 4: It's like, I live in a neighborhood right right, there
Speaker 4: are seventy five hounses. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 4: what the hell half the people are doing in their houses.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they're doing criminal acts. I don't
Speaker 4: know if they're who they're talking to. I don't know
Speaker 4: what they're doing. Now, maybe there's the rumor mill in
Speaker 4: some places, but I was like, for a large part,
Speaker 4: people can be doing bad stuff in a close proximity
Speaker 4: to you and you truly not know anything about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, No, I agree, Like your next door neighbor
Speaker 4: could be a child molest a rapist and beating his wife,
Speaker 4: and if you not know anything about it, you may
Speaker 4: have subtle signs like hey, something's weird with this family.
Speaker 4: But so from that aspect of it, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 4: I can see where the natural instinct would be till
Speaker 4: one hundred percent do that.
Speaker 2: But I think if you wouldn't think.
Speaker 4: It through and actually like, okay, is it plausible and
Speaker 4: logical that they may not know anything about this? And
Speaker 4: if you go with just the stick and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to beat you or kill people until you
Speaker 4: tell me, and they don't. What are you going to get?
Speaker 4: You're going to get bad information? And I think that's
Speaker 4: why maybe some of those approaches are not the best approaches.
Speaker 3: I don't disagree with you, you know, And like I
Speaker 3: wouldn't condone, you know, like I said, a young lieutenant
Speaker 3: or captain doing that, I can just imagine their level
Speaker 3: of frustration and there their sense, you know, the inability
Speaker 3: to do anything, the sense of powerlessness, and the desire
Speaker 3: to do something to protect their people, even if that's
Speaker 3: something is toxic and not not well thought out.
Speaker 4: And you know, but you know again, and I guess
Speaker 4: I'm also open minded enough to also think that you
Speaker 4: can manage things in your area by being a good steward.
Speaker 4: And actually, hey, hey, we're going to talk about this,
Speaker 4: and who's ever's doing this needs to get out of
Speaker 4: here because you're putting my family at risk because you're
Speaker 4: doing these things. Right, So I think, you know, I
Speaker 4: can see both sides. I guess I can see them
Speaker 4: resorting to that because they feel like they're tied, they
Speaker 4: don't know what else to do as a leader, They
Speaker 4: feel a responsibility to show that they're doing due diligence
Speaker 4: to the people who are getting affected. And so I
Speaker 4: could see where they would they would feel like, I
Speaker 4: have no other choice but to go in with the
Speaker 4: stick because people are continue getting injured. I need to
Speaker 4: I need to stop this. I can't control this, right,
Speaker 4: And so it's a helplessness I.
Speaker 2: Think so too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yes, and that's what I mean that it's
Speaker 3: like it's a breaking point, I think.
Speaker 2: And I don't think this happened a lot. I didn't.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard of it happened a lot.
Speaker 3: But I can imagine the frustration at some of those
Speaker 3: smaller cops with not having assets, not having support, you know,
Speaker 3: not having you know, not being.
Speaker 2: Able to go out.
Speaker 3: Into the village and conduct you know, a med cap
Speaker 3: or you know, a build a well because it's just
Speaker 3: you and your line guys, you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, anyway, I sorry, I did railed that. But
Speaker 2: so the operation of success do you stay down there
Speaker 2: for a while longer?
Speaker 4: So yeah, we stayed till the end of the tour.
Speaker 4: So once I completed, I hurried up, came back. I had,
Speaker 4: you know, I just basically, I I think I had
Speaker 4: to hurry and sell my house. I had to get
Speaker 4: it ready to sell because I'd been on brag now
Speaker 4: for a good number of years. No, I rented it.
Speaker 4: I had to rehabit to rent and then hurry up
Speaker 4: and just pack up and move and then move to
Speaker 4: the DC area and so so yeah, so then that
Speaker 4: that's that's my time is done for now. At Fort Bragg,
Speaker 4: I ended up going back. But so now I I left,
Speaker 4: and then you know, I ended up up there, and
Speaker 4: then I I kind of got what a lot of
Speaker 4: people get. You know, you really don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 4: And DC's a a big place that hold the national
Speaker 4: capital region, I should say, and and so you know,
Speaker 4: like most people, I'm like, hey man, We're like, you know,
Speaker 4: I have a point of contact, and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 4: where should I live?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where it starts out.
Speaker 4: And they're like, hey, you should probably you know, look
Speaker 4: at this area.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So I got given up a geographic area that I
Speaker 4: needed to kind of find a residence too, because if
Speaker 4: you're in the DC area, and if you've ever lived there,
Speaker 4: fifteen miles can take you.
Speaker 2: I was just you know, I was talking to you
Speaker 2: about that. I was like, I was like.
Speaker 4: After I got out of the service, I got offered
Speaker 4: to go back because I wanted to work and do
Speaker 4: policy right. Policy for the under Secretary of Health Affairs
Speaker 4: is what I wanted to do because I had learned
Speaker 4: that I could shape things through policy. And I've been
Speaker 4: taught and mentored by actually somebody who was the unit
Speaker 4: the med start major and and so so. But anyways,
Speaker 4: if you ever been up there, like it's critical where
Speaker 4: you picked to live, because your life can be hell
Speaker 4: for however long you're there. And so luckily I picked
Speaker 4: a good place because I'm living on the Beltway. You know,
Speaker 4: for those that live around there, it's probably like this,
Speaker 4: Like you know, it's like four miles will take you
Speaker 4: an hour to go four miles.
Speaker 3: I honestly think the traffic in that area is much
Speaker 3: worse than traffic in New York. Traffic here can it
Speaker 3: can get messy, but I feel like there it's always messy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, traffic there could be brutal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you don't, like if I needed to go
Speaker 4: to our headquarters, which was much more central, if you
Speaker 4: did not leave that building by three thirty and you
Speaker 4: had to go over the bridge, and you know in Alexandria.
Speaker 4: Then you weren't getting home till seven o'clock at night.
Speaker 4: So it was it was And I was like, man,
Speaker 4: some days three hours each way in traffic. It's like
Speaker 4: six hours of my life every day is in traffic.
Speaker 4: Which yeah, so so yeah. So so I get there
Speaker 4: and like most people, I you know, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: what do you do day one? Like, what's day one?
Speaker 4: That's what most people want to know. What's what's day one?
Speaker 4: Look like? Well? Day one looks like meet me in
Speaker 4: a parking lot, meet me at you know, the the
Speaker 4: KFC over here, and then you get you get you
Speaker 4: get escorted, you know, get through the into the building,
Speaker 4: and then uh, you know, it's it's it's a whole
Speaker 4: different environment, you know. And it's like, you know, if
Speaker 4: you folks who worked around skiffs before, you get very
Speaker 4: used to just like leaving your phones. Well, if you're
Speaker 4: in a typical soft element, you know, your electronics and
Speaker 4: your watches aren't a big deal. But you know, it's like, hey,
Speaker 4: if you have anything electronics, you know. So that was
Speaker 4: all new to me. Yeah, you know, I I dealt
Speaker 4: with it, you know, going into certain place with working
Speaker 4: for Jay sock overseas and things like that, but never
Speaker 4: for my everyday work and so you know, so that
Speaker 4: was kind of new and and so yeah, so you know,
Speaker 4: I get there and uh, surprisingly the organization I was
Speaker 4: a part of, I was ended up being on the
Speaker 4: on the manning role. So there there's a lot of
Speaker 4: medics who've been in there over time. So I was
Speaker 4: a medic. So that's that's one important distinction. So I
Speaker 4: was if if if, yeah, that's what I was. I was.
Speaker 4: I was hired to be a direct support medic.
Speaker 3: So so just to break down the difference or when
Speaker 3: you when you're saying this that it would be like
Speaker 3: it'd like be sort of like being a range of
Speaker 3: battalion that you have your line cartoons who are who
Speaker 3: are the main effort or not necessarily the main effort,
Speaker 3: but but they're the technical experts in in what they do,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 2: You're there as direct support to those.
Speaker 4: One hundred Yes, so that's one hundred percent right. So
Speaker 4: so yeah, so let let me all rewind a bit
Speaker 4: and then we'll pick back up. So, going through the
Speaker 4: the the screening process, they make it very clear that
Speaker 4: that's what you want to do, right, and they ask
Speaker 4: you that, and you know, and and I kind of asked, like.
Speaker 2: Well, what else can I do? Well?
Speaker 4: No, no, I didn't. I didn't ask that because I
Speaker 4: didn't I had no desire. And that's an important thing.
Speaker 4: And actually later on I was part of building their
Speaker 4: enhanced selection program for medics.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: I ran the very first one as the kind of
Speaker 4: enhanced screening. Sorry major, And but yeah, you you do
Speaker 4: not want folks who want to do something else. If
Speaker 4: you want to do something else, you need to go
Speaker 4: do that, right. What you're here to do is to
Speaker 4: be DS medic. And then we had two kinds of medics.
Speaker 4: We had clinical medics and direct support medics. And so
Speaker 4: to a direct support medic we pulled from all services
Speaker 4: and from except yeah, all services that actually have medics.
Speaker 4: Marines don't have medics. And and essentially a soft background.
Speaker 4: You had to have soft brack and you had to
Speaker 4: have certain combat qualifications. That's what I ask. You know,
Speaker 4: it's like you know why, you know, how did I
Speaker 4: make how did I make it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: How did I get this par And they're like I'll
Speaker 4: never forget. They're like, you're right, and nobody's here by
Speaker 4: a mistake and so that was that was it was
Speaker 4: pretty fulfilling just to hear that. And then you know,
Speaker 4: the next thing, you know, because it was I had
Speaker 4: already went through the I guess the screening portion, and
Speaker 4: I won't talk about that because it's it's important to
Speaker 4: keep that that component protected. Yeah, And and so they're like,
Speaker 4: we're looking for folks who will reach for the brass
Speaker 4: ring knowing they could be styrofoam and hoping they could
Speaker 4: be brass. And so I was like, Okay, that's a
Speaker 4: lot to think about. But essentially, it's like it's willing
Speaker 4: to try something unknown and that we can't talk to
Speaker 4: you about and we're not going to And so that's
Speaker 4: why it's really important to keep that just not for
Speaker 4: people to know. And I think it's important for people
Speaker 4: to know things that are out there and to challenge
Speaker 4: yourself because I think that where we are in today
Speaker 4: and I don't know how folks feel, but it's just
Speaker 4: how I feel. You know. I have two young sons
Speaker 4: who are in the military. All three of my sons served,
Speaker 4: all paratroopers. Proud of that, and I think that we
Speaker 4: have a culture that's and it's throughout time we pay
Speaker 4: homage to the court jesters and not the gladiators, and
Speaker 4: folks need to have an appreciation for the folks who
Speaker 4: keep our nation safe, and folks and young service members
Speaker 4: and people and civilians who have ambition and want to
Speaker 4: challenge themselves. They need to know there's other things out there.
Speaker 4: And even soft is the best way I can describe
Speaker 4: it as soft, as like a multi story building and
Speaker 4: there's floors, and even the organization that I was part
Speaker 4: of has floors where there's people who work at the
Speaker 4: first floor and they kind of do first floor things,
Speaker 4: and then there's people on the twentieth floor, and the
Speaker 4: people on the twenty fourth floor do things that people
Speaker 4: on the first floor don't even know about, right, And
Speaker 4: then there's buildings across the street that they do other
Speaker 4: things at, and so there are a lot of things.
Speaker 4: If you have ambitions to do things, I think it's
Speaker 4: important to know that there's things out there, and those
Speaker 4: are the people that you should really respect and admire.
Speaker 4: And I have the utmost respect and appreciation for being
Speaker 4: able to be a part of that organization because it's
Speaker 4: extremely special. And I didn't really going back full circle
Speaker 4: to where we are is when I signed in. I
Speaker 4: didn't realize how special of a place I was at,
Speaker 4: and I certainly didn't feel worthy of being there. And
Speaker 4: I had signed in, so going to my background, right,
Speaker 4: I'd done some things right, and I experienced combat and
Speaker 4: loss and was working with you know, Tier one elements
Speaker 4: essentially overseas, and you know, and I'm signing in with
Speaker 4: you know, another guy. So I'm medic number five and
Speaker 4: he's six, or vice versa. So there's there's only seven
Speaker 4: of us for this whole place, and we have other
Speaker 4: medical people, but direct sport medics and and he so
Speaker 4: I was a sixty whiskey whiskey one, a SOCCA medic,
Speaker 4: and he was in eighteen Delta who was also an
Speaker 4: eighteen Bravo and who had also been a sodic and
Speaker 4: a sephardic and all this instructor stuff, and you know,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I was like, man, I gotta
Speaker 4: step my game up, you know, and and so you know,
Speaker 4: I really had an appreciation. And it was really like
Speaker 4: it's like you be, you know, a small fish back
Speaker 4: in a big pond. I felt like where I was
Speaker 4: before I became a big fish, and you know, I
Speaker 4: knew what I needed to do, and I was very
Speaker 4: I felt I was extremely good medic and very competent medic.
Speaker 4: And I don't say that with an ego. I worked
Speaker 4: hard to be one of the best medics and I
Speaker 4: think the inventory, you know, and and so now I
Speaker 4: I think, I think I made it to the major
Speaker 4: leagues and I got to step my game up on
Speaker 4: a small fish again and uh so so yeah, So
Speaker 4: it was just I was surrounded by very impressive people.
Speaker 4: And I'll and that's just with respect to the medical section.
Speaker 4: You know, people who were extremely accomplished, and you just
Speaker 4: kind of get humbled instantly. Again You're like, okay, this
Speaker 4: is this is next level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because I want to focus real quick
Speaker 3: on what you say. You know, we've talked about soft
Speaker 3: getting a line share of the glory, but also when
Speaker 3: we talk about soft, we are talking about shooters getting
Speaker 3: a line share of the glory. Uh but there are
Speaker 3: shiit hot mechanics that make that mission possible, right, Like
Speaker 3: people who aren't just content to go out to the
Speaker 3: motor pool and do the do the service, Like there
Speaker 3: are people who continually learn who can make magic. There
Speaker 3: there are there are there are cooks who care about
Speaker 3: their jobs there are you know, like, no matter where
Speaker 3: you are, you don't have to be sort of the
Speaker 3: tip of the spear to be the tip of the
Speaker 3: spear of of your field. And one of the things
Speaker 3: I always appreciate about the military was just the vast
Speaker 3: number of opportunities if you want to go get it,
Speaker 3: you know, if you ask around, if you put in
Speaker 3: those forty one eighty seven's, you know, for every school
Speaker 3: you can think of, and you know, like the opportunities
Speaker 3: are there a lot of times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I think you touched on an interesting point.
Speaker 4: So later on my career when I went back to BRAG,
Speaker 4: you know, as a senior leader on the base, you
Speaker 4: kind of get hosted and kind of toured around and
Speaker 4: you know, and I got invited over to the organization
Speaker 4: at BRAG and they gave me a tour. And so
Speaker 4: it was it was at lunch time and probably a
Speaker 4: lot of people know this, right, there's the places where
Speaker 4: the shooters sit at and the place where the other
Speaker 4: people sit at. It's kind of like high school. It
Speaker 4: was really odd, but it was essentially like, oh, we
Speaker 4: sit over here, and I was like, that's that's okay,
Speaker 4: that's different, you know, and but and I noticed that
Speaker 4: even working with the guys in the Navy at the beach,
Speaker 4: it's very much us and them's when it comes to
Speaker 4: the support folks. I can say, although there's a very
Speaker 4: clear distinction in line of who's the guy and who's
Speaker 4: not the guy, the the acceptance and the respect mutual
Speaker 4: respect for what people do was beyond something I've ever
Speaker 4: experienced before. And you definitely when you're in soft and
Speaker 4: especially a CE guy, you kind of know you're a
Speaker 4: sea again, right, You kind of know, and your ranger
Speaker 4: probably working with I'm guessing with Delta, you kind of
Speaker 4: know you're arranging right, there's no mistake and so and
Speaker 4: there's gonna be times where they draw that line, I'm
Speaker 4: guessing when you're in supporting them. And so there it
Speaker 4: was very much different you were. You were much I
Speaker 4: think it was because of just the necessity to support
Speaker 4: things they did and keep them going, because those guys
Speaker 4: it's different, they don't And and I'll try to keep
Speaker 4: this focused on just how I sure supported folks from
Speaker 4: a medical perspective and kind of leave it at that,
Speaker 4: because I think it's still pretty cool to be to
Speaker 4: be quite, to be quite honest and and so. But yeah,
Speaker 4: so those guys they a lot of times it's not
Speaker 4: like you're going and coming back. There's some folks that
Speaker 4: do that, they come and go, but there's some folks
Speaker 4: who go and they just go and they're gone, and
Speaker 4: everything's got to keep going for them because folks, you know,
Speaker 4: they have families and they have everything on the backside.
Speaker 4: And so you it's the thing that I seen, like
Speaker 4: my experience with the military, and again just keeping it
Speaker 4: from the healthcare centric, your families aren't getting seen at
Speaker 4: the age station, right, right, it's not normal. There are
Speaker 4: some other elements that actually do extend a little bit
Speaker 4: more for the family, but that's one of the components.
Speaker 4: Like the family's very taken care of. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: the positive light is there's folks doing this, and I
Speaker 4: think that they know that their families are being taken
Speaker 4: care of, and we would do anything to take and
Speaker 4: it's very concierge based medicine. It's like, hey, if I
Speaker 4: need to, you know, at the you know, six o'clock
Speaker 4: at night, run over and drop some medicine or pills
Speaker 4: off to somebody's house. That's not abnormal. And you got
Speaker 4: to think this is like, you know, you're a medic
Speaker 4: and normally, like in a in a normal we'll just say,
Speaker 4: in a conventional unit, you're kind of your times practicing
Speaker 4: medicine ends at like E five, E six, you know,
Speaker 4: you're e seventy eight still like doing sick hall and
Speaker 4: passing out pills and taking care of people's families and
Speaker 4: making sure they're taken care of and so so there's
Speaker 4: that dynamic of the job where it's it's making sure
Speaker 4: that they just have every their health stuff and order,
Speaker 4: and then there's everything that you may not think of
Speaker 4: that you need to do to make sure that they
Speaker 4: will be taken care of medically if something would happen,
Speaker 4: and so that gets pretty pretty that's pretty interesting. So
Speaker 4: it was the first you know, with the well, let
Speaker 4: me let me pause on that and kind of go
Speaker 4: back to where we were. So so I get there.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I I derailed things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's okay, it's it's a it's a I
Speaker 4: definitely want to touch on it. But so going back
Speaker 4: to what I got to, so I get there, and
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just learning, I'm taking on all the
Speaker 4: information you know, I'm getting, you know, just in processing,
Speaker 4: and then I'm going to where I'm going to work
Speaker 4: out because not everybody works at the same place, and
Speaker 4: so I'm, you know, getting told where where I'm going
Speaker 4: to work. I already kind of know because it's where
Speaker 4: I'm going to live, so I know the area. But
Speaker 4: then I kind of get my headquarters stuff done and
Speaker 4: then go out to to where I'm going to work
Speaker 4: and we find out that we were We traditionally did
Speaker 4: not participate in a this tasking, which is if you've
Speaker 4: ever been a part of JAYSK or the organization or
Speaker 4: any one of the units in there, like we touched
Speaker 4: on before you know the place exists, you don't know
Speaker 4: what they do. Like I feel comfortable, I've talked to
Speaker 4: enough people with and without telling you anything, because people like,
Speaker 4: where do you what did you do? That's the first thing.
Speaker 4: It's off, like the butt sniffing, Well, I worked up
Speaker 4: in the DC area. They either know where they don't know,
Speaker 4: and if they know, it's they think they know everything,
Speaker 4: but they probably don't. The reality is that's okay, And
Speaker 4: and if they don't know it all, then it's too
Speaker 4: much to you just leave it alone, just like, well,
Speaker 4: there's something else up there and that's where I work.
Speaker 4: You just kind of leave it at that. So we
Speaker 4: didn't play in these taskings. And so we were getting
Speaker 4: the taskings to do the mega stuff. And I think
Speaker 4: you've had folks talk about that before. So the medic
Speaker 4: whoo who had kind of brought me in and recruited me,
Speaker 4: he had just came and now we were going on
Speaker 4: a second rotation. They needed somebody to backfill him on
Speaker 4: a rotation, so I had or he was just getting
Speaker 4: ready to go on his.
Speaker 2: And I needed to get spun up.
Speaker 4: So I had to do all my you know, I
Speaker 4: got improcessed, and then I have to do all my
Speaker 4: basically training to get me full mission qualified because to
Speaker 4: be a direct support medic, so I had to do
Speaker 4: a paramedic transition because at the time, I don't know
Speaker 4: if they get paramedics certification out of SOCCAM.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: If they lost it for a while, they schoolhouse lost it.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they lost it, you know.
Speaker 2: Or if they see the value in it or whatever.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason they.
Speaker 4: Did, they weren't paramedics and that was the requirement. If
Speaker 4: you're a medic, you need to be a paramedic. Okay,
Speaker 4: so I had to go do a paramedic. So it's
Speaker 4: a one month crash course where you basically learn all
Speaker 4: the information about the medicines and all the stuff you
Speaker 4: don't deal with in military medicine, cardiactor and just intocrine
Speaker 4: system disorders, and geriatric medicine, pediatric medicine, basically everything beyond
Speaker 4: trauma medicine right military medics, no trauma, and then operations
Speaker 4: because you got to know where to park the ambulance,
Speaker 4: how far it needs to be back just all this
Speaker 4: weird stuff. That have a paramedic exam, So you go
Speaker 4: through a crash course and do that. Then you have
Speaker 4: to do your shooting courses, and you have to go
Speaker 4: through driving training where you go and do all that.
Speaker 4: So you're shooting and driving, and then paramedic and then
Speaker 4: just some basic just I guess in doc training. So
Speaker 4: I completed all that to backfill and get him. In
Speaker 4: the meantime, I learned about another program that they were
Speaker 4: doing for medics, but because of how I looked, I
Speaker 4: wasn't a good fit for that program, so I didn't
Speaker 4: get to do that. And then the weird thing is
Speaker 4: there's people who kind of didn't want to do the
Speaker 4: tactical stuff anymore. So they went and kind of gravitated
Speaker 4: toward that, and I was still okay doing you know,
Speaker 4: running and gunning, if you will type stuff, or of
Speaker 4: your wearing uniform type stuff, you know, in a combat zone.
Speaker 4: And so I was was once I finished all that,
Speaker 4: signed up and that was my next deployment. So roughly,
Speaker 4: I want to say it was probably less than a
Speaker 4: year coming back from Columbia. Then I was back in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: And you were in a rock shortly before, so you've been.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so and the thing is like, you know,
Speaker 4: like I had mentioned just what what of her number
Speaker 4: it was. I think by the time I got there,
Speaker 4: I'd done five or six seven trips throughout the world
Speaker 4: and it had caught up with me. But the excitement
Speaker 4: of something new, you kind of suppress all that, right
Speaker 4: because you want to You're eager, you we're all in right,
Speaker 4: Like that's the thing is, like you got something going,
Speaker 4: I want to be on. You're like fighting for to
Speaker 4: go out the door. It's like no, no, no, I
Speaker 4: want to do that. Let me and so you know,
Speaker 4: send me, right, That's what everybody says. So so the uh,
Speaker 4: so you know, I get fully ramped up, get funny
Speaker 4: story about the organization and the medical folks. We didn't
Speaker 4: have a history of actually having medics forward in places
Speaker 4: and and or doing those kind of things. So the
Speaker 4: gear kind of sucked. You would think you would have
Speaker 4: all the best ships, right right. Oh No, Like I
Speaker 4: went to the headquarters to get my so I get
Speaker 4: my drawl and you get like all the The cool
Speaker 4: thing about is you get all the like the ARII stuff,
Speaker 4: Like it's like an ari I vomited on you. You
Speaker 4: get like money and you get to go buy all
Speaker 4: this stuff, and you like, you got all this stuff
Speaker 4: you really don't eat, like these super cold weather sleeping
Speaker 4: bags and seven hundred dollars boots, and you know, it's
Speaker 4: it's just like stuff you're a kid in a candy
Speaker 4: store and like, you know, so you take advantage of that.
Speaker 2: And so but what I didn't have was like.
Speaker 4: Just the uh the weapons system, like the optics were
Speaker 4: just kind of kind of antiquated older stuff, and just
Speaker 4: the body armor. It was just like older play carrier stuff.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like newer stuff. So so yeah, that was
Speaker 4: the first odd thing about the organization. Gave me all
Speaker 4: this shit, but once I got into to damn Nick,
Speaker 4: they gave me a full issue. So it's they took
Speaker 4: care of me this so but they did that for everybody,
Speaker 4: so all the augments came together. So this was this
Speaker 4: was September of two thousand and nine. So get down
Speaker 4: there to do my in processing and you kind of
Speaker 4: just do an in doc and you get some legal
Speaker 4: briefs and then you go and meet your folks at
Speaker 4: the squadron and then you meet your team team leader
Speaker 4: and then you go through their version of the army
Speaker 4: calls at CIF, but it's like a unit level. They
Speaker 4: could get your unit issue, you go to supply and
Speaker 4: get all your your stuff and then next thing you know,
Speaker 4: on a plane. So went from like civil affairs to
Speaker 4: on a plane with Sealed Team six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I mean you you had already been exposed
Speaker 3: to the task.
Speaker 2: You've already been tasked to them. It's just that now
Speaker 2: you're in a much.
Speaker 4: More direct I think that is the key difference, right,
Speaker 4: because it's like you're it's kind of like being attached
Speaker 4: to an ODA, right, Like you're an attached but you're
Speaker 4: not really doing their stuff. You're doing your stuff working
Speaker 4: with them. So I think a lot of people get
Speaker 4: caught up in this stretching it. You know, it's like
Speaker 4: stretching what you've done, and it's like, look, at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, I did my job right. That's
Speaker 4: was my job to do, and I did my job right,
Speaker 4: and I worked with those guys. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 4: I was one of those guys. And it doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that I had their training, nor does it mean I knew,
Speaker 4: you know, like everything or did everything they did right.
Speaker 4: There was times we touched and did things together, and
Speaker 4: there's you know, jointly operations, but then there's for a
Speaker 4: large part they're doing their things and we're doing our things,
Speaker 4: and they're synergistic in the fact that in the mission planning,
Speaker 4: in the higher pitcher they work together. But that that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean you have some civil affairs guy in the
Speaker 4: stack with you. That's not how it is, or at least
Speaker 4: that wasn't my experience. And so while I had done
Speaker 4: stuff with those guys, it was much more after the fact.
Speaker 4: But now it's like, Okay, your job is to be
Speaker 4: a direct part of the team. You're I mean, you're
Speaker 4: a shooter first, right, everybody says that, you know, you're
Speaker 4: you're a shooter first, soldier first, right, and so so yeah,
Speaker 4: So that's the interesting fact about coming from that organization
Speaker 4: is people really don't question you. That was the one
Speaker 4: thing that I noticed. It's like almost like a credibility thing. Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, I'd like to think it was because me,
Speaker 4: but I think it's just like they don't ask and
Speaker 4: you don't say anything, and they're like, okay, well, all right,
Speaker 4: you know, this is what we're going to do, and
Speaker 4: you're you're part of the team. And I know that
Speaker 4: wasn't the same for everybody else. And so on my rotation,
Speaker 4: you know, there was a guy from I think from
Speaker 4: jay Sock, Maine, and then they had like one of
Speaker 4: their medics, and then they had they had some medics
Speaker 4: from the a medic because there wasn't a lot, you know,
Speaker 4: I think there was only I don't know how many
Speaker 4: teams there they'd fit on both hands, how many teams
Speaker 4: outstations there were. But from the one sixtieth and so
Speaker 4: I knew because he had told me. We had talked
Speaker 4: before and we kind of keep you know, we talk
Speaker 4: back and forth on the you know, on the computer
Speaker 4: chat and he's like, yeah, you know, they're giving me problems.
Speaker 4: They're they don't they're not going to let me go
Speaker 4: out with them, you know.
Speaker 2: It's one younger younger Yeah, and I don't you know.
Speaker 4: And not to say that happened to all of them,
Speaker 4: and it's not to say that they all didn't, but
Speaker 4: it was just at that point of time with that
Speaker 4: and guy and so. But for some reason, and I
Speaker 4: thought I attributed to it's like, Okay, we don't you know,
Speaker 4: know kind of what you do. But if you say that,
Speaker 4: you know you're direct support medic here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's kind of kind of kind of weird
Speaker 2: out of curiosity.
Speaker 3: How come the Omegas or the Seals needed attached medics
Speaker 3: when they have their.
Speaker 4: Own cormant Ah, they didn't at the time. So that's
Speaker 4: actually a good point. So all these units were growing
Speaker 4: at the time. So again, like I told you, I
Speaker 4: was medic I think I think five right, And that
Speaker 4: means like on the manning they're authorized five right, because
Speaker 4: they're they're manning documents and at the time they were
Speaker 4: using pjs. So the Assault Force I think was all
Speaker 4: using pgs at the time. It was actually one of
Speaker 4: our guys who later went to them who built their
Speaker 4: med section and I think he got he was from
Speaker 4: I think Marsk and he took a bunch of Marsac
Speaker 4: Corman's and built their med section before they had medics.
Speaker 4: But they were clinic medics. And I could be wrong
Speaker 4: in this, but that was my experience signing in because
Speaker 4: they had medics. I remember they had a female, a
Speaker 4: male and the ones that I worked with, but they
Speaker 4: worked at like so they were they worked at the
Speaker 4: Jaybad clinic. They deployed Ford, but they worked at the clinic.
Speaker 4: That was interesting.
Speaker 3: I will have to ask somebody from ye from them,
Speaker 3: because I mean Corman could go through buds and then
Speaker 3: and that well that was the problem.
Speaker 4: That was what I was told. If you were going
Speaker 4: there to assess, it was kind of like beneath you.
Speaker 4: So it's much different than what I've heard of. Again,
Speaker 4: like so, I've never been part of either of those
Speaker 4: two organizations. H but what I had heard, it's much
Speaker 4: more socially acceptable for an eighteen Delta to go be
Speaker 4: a direct support medic for Delta, then a seal Corman
Speaker 4: to go be a Corman there.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Oh, I get it.
Speaker 4: I so, if they're going to assess, they're going to
Speaker 4: be a so.
Speaker 3: So, same way with a condultas if they assessed, if
Speaker 3: they go through selection, then they're then they're not really
Speaker 3: I'm sure then their primary role is a shooter, yet
Speaker 3: they're so so, they're not necessarily part of the the medic.
Speaker 4: They go through two different tracks.
Speaker 2: I get it, I get it. That makes sense. Okay,
Speaker 2: So our organization was just no different.
Speaker 3: So they so so they hadn't set up any corman
Speaker 3: that that screened, any seal corman that screened. They were
Speaker 3: a shooter first, so they wanted some sort of direct support.
Speaker 2: They weren't. They weren't going to do.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't. What was told to me is they won't
Speaker 4: even come screen to be a medic.
Speaker 2: Right then they screened to be a shooter.
Speaker 4: Exactly, which is much different because a lot of delta's
Speaker 4: really enjoy I guess, and there's not to say that
Speaker 4: there's some that don't. Right, But like my TL was
Speaker 4: a prior corman who was then a shooter. So he was,
Speaker 4: but he was a shooter, right, he knew, he knew
Speaker 4: how to be a medic. He was a little bit aided,
Speaker 4: but he knew how to be a medic, but so
Speaker 4: Bragg had a fully functional med section and could support themselves.
Speaker 4: They relied on augments, which is why that makes sense, Okay,
Speaker 4: otherwise there would be no reason to task right to
Speaker 4: fill their medic bullets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I I don't know why in my mind,
Speaker 3: Like if an eighteen delta doesn't screen for direct support
Speaker 3: but does actually does the long walk, they're not even
Speaker 3: though they still have that medical knowledge, their first and
Speaker 3: primary mission is as a shooter, right, So same same
Speaker 3: with damn Neck.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think they've all offered them positions. So
Speaker 4: I've been told, like if you go to the brag
Speaker 4: based organization and you don't make it, there's a pretty
Speaker 4: good chance if you want a job and you are
Speaker 4: in eighteen delta that you can be a direct support.
Speaker 2: Makes sense.
Speaker 4: Their organization, I think, is the same, but no one
Speaker 4: is willing to take it. They want to go and
Speaker 4: I guess screen again, our organization we have the opportunity
Speaker 4: to because a lot of those guys are medical from
Speaker 4: whatever services they are. But we've at least in my
Speaker 4: tenure there for six years, you knew that that wasn't
Speaker 4: their passion. They wanted to do that, and so that
Speaker 4: they would screen. A lot of them would screen, and
Speaker 4: then you would just figure out that they they were
Speaker 4: better off to go back and track and go be
Speaker 4: a team sergeant or go be whatever they're going to do,
Speaker 4: because you know what I mean, like all of the
Speaker 4: medical people went up there with every intention and you
Speaker 4: have There's something that I used to say, it's you
Speaker 4: have to be comfortable being the man standing next to
Speaker 4: the man, right, and you got to know your role
Speaker 4: and be comfortable in that role, right. And some people
Speaker 4: aren't comfortable in that role. And it's always like, well,
Speaker 4: it's the easy foot in the door. I'm going to
Speaker 4: go screen to be medical, and then once I figure
Speaker 4: it all out, they'll get you know, then I'm going
Speaker 4: to go and you can pretty much all those folks
Speaker 4: are weeded out because they'll usually tell you yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and it's part of the process. It's figuring that out.
Speaker 3: And they don't want to put that investment in somebody
Speaker 3: if they're just then they want to go to you know,
Speaker 3: be the guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that's that's that's I think a key difference
Speaker 4: between the three organizations and so so yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 4: getting so so back on track. So we all get there,
Speaker 4: we get assigned our teams, and so I ended up
Speaker 4: back in you know, back back going back to Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: ended up going back to a Sadabad. I'd been there
Speaker 4: before doing my round robins of payments to folks, and
Speaker 4: so I'd already experienced. I kind of knew the landscape
Speaker 4: and so, but never really knew that that bait, that
Speaker 4: concrete building, what that was. You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: a very different struggle. There's like one building that's like
Speaker 4: one of these things are not like the other, and
Speaker 4: so and so getting to work there on the compound
Speaker 4: there and so I get there and right away I
Speaker 4: can say that was instantly like integrated well. And and
Speaker 4: a lot of guys do and integrate well. And I
Speaker 4: think we can talk a little bit about that. There's
Speaker 4: some there's there's some history with that organization and just
Speaker 4: outsiders either are you talking about the organization or the
Speaker 4: organization are parting? Okay, So so yeah, so being over
Speaker 4: there and then outsiders coming in and either something happened.
Speaker 4: I mean, you just look at the media. I don't
Speaker 4: need to talk about the scenarios. But and so I
Speaker 4: didn't experience that. I had a great team leader, phenomenal guy.
Speaker 4: At the time. I was now an E seven. I
Speaker 4: actually got selected for E eight on the trip. He
Speaker 4: was a E six, which is really weird. That's the
Speaker 4: things the Navy because even though I was like an
Speaker 4: E seven selected for EA, I was kind of like
Speaker 4: the equivalent of a Navy E four because I wasn't
Speaker 4: a chief, right, Like that's some weird shit, Like I
Speaker 4: don't know what it is with these little chief boxes
Speaker 4: and ship, Like, I don't know. I got a brother's
Speaker 4: and navy. So my brother is a nuke in the
Speaker 4: Navy and an officer. He was enlisted and became an officer.
Speaker 4: But for some reason, there's like I don't know what
Speaker 4: it is with the Navy and the chief thing.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's it's second tier royalty, right, because the
Speaker 3: officers are royalty. They have their own mess deck on
Speaker 3: on the ship, and then there's also the chiefs mess
Speaker 3: on the ship and then all the all the uh
Speaker 3: you know, Uh.
Speaker 4: So it's institution. It's institutional elitism. Yes, yes, so it's
Speaker 4: it's breeding it. Yes, yes, that's interesting. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 4: what you try to weed out, but they I mean
Speaker 4: they wear different uniforms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: Then then yeah, I guess you get a stripe on
Speaker 4: your leg when you're.
Speaker 2: In the army. So yeah, I mean that going for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's you know it all it all
Speaker 3: goes back to, you know, a ship being its own
Speaker 3: kingdom with the you know, the the captain of the
Speaker 3: ship being the king or queen. And then then you
Speaker 3: have your officers and offscer country and everybody like jumping
Speaker 3: to the side when the officers are walking down the hallway.
Speaker 3: And and like I said, there are different there are
Speaker 3: different levels of chow halls. The ascer's chow hall which
Speaker 3: is very nice. There was the chief chow hall, which
Speaker 3: is nice, you know, just not a little bit nicer
Speaker 3: or a little less nice. And then you have the
Speaker 3: enlisted and we're down there eating you know, well, I
Speaker 3: mean great food pants it in an adobo and you
Speaker 3: know and everything.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so here was another thing that I think
Speaker 4: that helped me out as far as integration. There was
Speaker 4: this medication at the time called what was it called,
Speaker 4: I think it was it was Factor seven A I think.
Speaker 4: So it's basically medication that helped with clotting if you know,
Speaker 4: if you were shot. It was extremely expensive. I think
Speaker 4: it was like eighteen hundred dollars a while, and hardly
Speaker 4: anybody was carrying it, especially not point of injury folks.
Speaker 4: And so, and I forgot a lot of the components
Speaker 4: of it. But essentially, like when I was learning about
Speaker 4: a guy who went back through met refresher, so part
Speaker 4: of being a you know, a Sochomo or eighteen delta
Speaker 4: or seal, a PJ whatever, you have to do your
Speaker 4: meta refreshers every two years. I had heard people talking
Speaker 4: about it, and I was like, hey, I want to
Speaker 4: be carrying that because if something happens to these guys,
Speaker 4: I want to be able to do it. So I
Speaker 4: told our docs, and so part of the cool thing
Speaker 4: about that place is the docs are like, Okay, well,
Speaker 4: if you want to have it, then you need to
Speaker 4: educate us on it, and then we'll write the protocol.
Speaker 4: But we want to make sure that you know how
Speaker 4: to use it safe and effectively and and that you're
Speaker 4: not going to hurt somebody. And so I basically had
Speaker 4: to do all this research and then essentially the docs
Speaker 4: wrote a protocol and I was able to have it
Speaker 4: and and carry it on every mission. And I told
Speaker 4: it and like I said, my my team leader was
Speaker 4: a corman, so he had kind of told the guys
Speaker 4: and he's like, hey man, this guy actually like got
Speaker 4: us this like latest ship that's out there, and he's
Speaker 4: one of the only medics carrying it.
Speaker 2: And so they had thought that was pretty.
Speaker 4: Pretty forward thinking and they appreciated that, and so I
Speaker 4: helped that. I think that helped me with my integration.
Speaker 4: Like I said, like I like it's as an augment,
Speaker 4: like like even like the room assignments, right, Like.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like the chowel, right.
Speaker 4: But my room was right next to their rooms, all
Speaker 4: in order, so some of the guys, like some of
Speaker 4: the opguments were down the hall the other rooms. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so you know I had gotten the one of
Speaker 4: the prime real estate and ice rooms and stuff. So
Speaker 4: you know, just all these little subtleties that they're like
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you that's the weird thing of my career. It's,
Speaker 4: like I said, like I described, like I was a
Speaker 4: medic for all these different people, like going and integrating
Speaker 4: with the Rangers, and then this ODA and then this
Speaker 4: io cell and then this and now I'm here and
Speaker 4: so you you kind of got to learn how to
Speaker 4: build rapport.
Speaker 2: With your civil affairs paying off, right.
Speaker 4: And so it's like, hey guys, like here's you know,
Speaker 4: and help people. It's it's always like and the other
Speaker 4: thing is build and do like help out right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's you know, just do things without being asked. It's
Speaker 4: a huge like it's a it's actually a skill. I
Speaker 4: actually look for people character trait, you know, just the
Speaker 4: ability to to just see something you need done and
Speaker 4: do it and then don't have to wait to be
Speaker 4: asked and so so yeah, so I you know, instantly
Speaker 4: hit the ground and and so things ramped up pretty
Speaker 4: quick there. We had done. You know, the our team leader,
Speaker 4: I think was being observed. There was a senior chief there,
Speaker 4: but he kind of just set back and kind of
Speaker 4: just I think he was mentoring him, and but he
Speaker 4: was kind of he actually assessed us. So he was
Speaker 4: actually assessing us. He would take us on hikes. If
Speaker 4: you've ever been to Abad, he would take us as
Speaker 4: a thing called bull run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I remember I totally forgot about bull run.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so and for time and oh man, I'll tell
Speaker 4: you so I already told you my gear was shit,
Speaker 4: but I got some good gear.
Speaker 2: But what I didn't know is.
Speaker 4: At least these seals, I don't want to say that
Speaker 4: every all of them did it. They actually their ideal
Speaker 4: of a basic load and the armies traditional or the
Speaker 4: SF of what you carry for ammunition and weaponry is
Speaker 4: a little bit different. So like so for me, like
Speaker 4: anywhere I go, i'm you know, you train, train like
Speaker 4: you fight, right, So, and I was trained a basic
Speaker 4: load of six magazines and one in the gun, and
Speaker 4: then you have a side arm and you have magazines,
Speaker 4: and then you have obviously your water, your radius or
Speaker 4: an extra bat you know, extra battery, your nods and
Speaker 4: and then me I carried at the time, I kind
Speaker 4: of divorced my AID bag a long time ago and
Speaker 4: created a march belt essentially a battle belt system that
Speaker 4: everything was configured on my kit or in this so
Speaker 4: I didn't have to carry an AID bag. And what
Speaker 4: I learned is I was way too heavy because you know,
Speaker 4: I'm carrying an IN four. These guys are carrying in
Speaker 4: P seven, right. You know I've had I've got seven magazines,
Speaker 4: they've got three and one in the gun. They don't
Speaker 4: carry side arms. They're like, and so I had to learn.
Speaker 4: It's like and I you know, luckily enough they were
Speaker 4: willing to teach me and edue ga me. They're like, hey,
Speaker 4: it's too slow, don't transition move Let somebody else shoot them.
Speaker 4: Just all these little TTPs that they were picking up
Speaker 4: and learning because I think a lot of the tactics
Speaker 4: were changing at that time frame, because they were losing
Speaker 4: a lot of guys I think in Iraq due to
Speaker 4: kind of like the old room clearing TPP. And so
Speaker 4: they were instantly sharing that with me. They were like, hey,
Speaker 4: this is how we're gonna This is how you need
Speaker 4: to learn how to clear a room. Now you don't
Speaker 4: do this, you know his this is not hostage.
Speaker 2: There's no hostage in the room, right.
Speaker 4: And so and for me, like that was new to me.
Speaker 4: Like I had no formal CQB training. I had some
Speaker 4: just unit level stuff from having rangers and stuff teach
Speaker 4: me that were my team sergeant. But as far as
Speaker 4: a formal like a classroom, you know, you would go
Speaker 4: to this course and complete this course like a sephardikers
Speaker 4: you know, any of those kind of courses. I didn't
Speaker 4: have any of that. So essentially it was like the
Speaker 4: kind of they gave me that training and sure I
Speaker 4: knew what I was doing, and so that was you know,
Speaker 4: again like they didn't have to do that, right, and
Speaker 4: there's probably some that wouldn't do that. They would just
Speaker 4: be like, Okay, well, if you don't know what the
Speaker 4: fuck you're doing, then you probably shouldn't be here. And so,
Speaker 4: you know, I truly appreciate that aspect of that, and
Speaker 4: you know, I still communicate with a lot of those
Speaker 4: guys to this day. But so, you know, fast forward,
Speaker 4: they make sure good to go and we start getting operations,
Speaker 4: so you know, we start having you know, targets that
Speaker 4: are actionable, and I think we did some small stuff
Speaker 4: here and there, but then the main stuff started happening
Speaker 4: around December of two thousand and nine. And there's a
Speaker 4: lot of interesting events that happened in December two and nine,
Speaker 4: at least for me.
Speaker 2: And so the first one was.
Speaker 4: Had we had a pretty good target. Happened right before Christmas.
Speaker 4: I think it was like on the twenty fourth, so
Speaker 4: it's like right, you know, Chris, So I don't know
Speaker 4: if it was the twenty third because obviously operating period
Speaker 4: of Darkness or if it was twenty third I think
Speaker 4: it was. We end up hitting it on Christmas, but
Speaker 4: pretty big target. And and so as the me, so
Speaker 4: like my role, like the medics job is not to
Speaker 4: get shot right right. It's kind of like the team leader.
Speaker 4: And I have to explain this to people sometimes. Like
Speaker 4: the medics, I always wondered that, and I always question
Speaker 4: that about the range, Like I was never in range
Speaker 4: of battalion, but I hear these stories of the medics
Speaker 4: in the stack, and like I was been the number
Speaker 4: one in two and I'm like, why, Yeah, what was.
Speaker 2: Their plan if they if they went down, if you
Speaker 2: got hit. Yeah, So my.
Speaker 4: Job was to essentially be an interior blocking position. So
Speaker 4: basically they clear a compound right outside that door. And
Speaker 4: so that's what happened on that house, you know. Really,
Speaker 4: so this is we are in Kunar Providence. Those mountains
Speaker 4: are very relentless, like so you know, I don't know
Speaker 4: how long the office was to walk in there and
Speaker 4: carry those fucking ladders and everything and all the stuff
Speaker 4: that you know about. And and we have obviously our
Speaker 4: folks from the agency with us, and then our team
Speaker 4: of of Afghans that are that are that do these
Speaker 4: type of operations, and so so we get straight set
Speaker 4: up on the the compound. There's like a little low
Speaker 4: wall in front of it. It's kind of like this
Speaker 4: compound structure that's going right up. It's like we walked
Speaker 4: in through the water, like through the through the river,
Speaker 4: and then there's houses and then there's like a huge
Speaker 4: like cliff and it'll come into play later because there's
Speaker 4: these fighters that come in after. But essentially we set
Speaker 4: up on this compound and as soon as we get
Speaker 4: up on this wall, the on the terrace, it's like
Speaker 4: a three story or maybe a two story structure, maybe
Speaker 4: it's just two stories, we start seeing heads pop up.
Speaker 4: And as soon as those heads pop up, that's obviously
Speaker 4: when shots start getting fired.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 4: As soon as that happens, my job is already know
Speaker 4: where I'm supposed to be. You know, we have our
Speaker 4: building or our grid reference system, and I know I'm
Speaker 4: supposed to go to building the ten series building and
Speaker 4: sit right here. And so as soon as I get
Speaker 4: in position, I see two guys walking and so I
Speaker 4: end up shooting both of those guys and they finish.
Speaker 4: You know, this stuff, these compounds get cleared in like
Speaker 4: it's like it's like minutes.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 4: This is not like you're staying there all day. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean you've done this work, so you know, it's
Speaker 4: like super fast. And so it was my first experience though,
Speaker 4: so for me it's like it's it's burned in me.
Speaker 2: It's a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's it's like a lot of things you
Speaker 4: remember your first right. So, and so come to find out,
Speaker 4: like you know, everything's done. You know, they've kind of
Speaker 4: got all the kids kind of crawled up and you
Speaker 4: know they're kind of keeping them them calm, and you know,
Speaker 4: people are crying. It's all the typical stuff that happened.
Speaker 4: Women are crying and screaming and kids are upset, and
Speaker 4: so you're kind of like putting them in different rooms and.
Speaker 2: They go over and in.
Speaker 4: The one of the guys that I shot in up
Speaker 4: being the targets. You know, it's like it's pretty cool
Speaker 4: for me. You know, it's like, oh man, I just
Speaker 4: I just got one of the guys on the target list.
Speaker 2: So so.
Speaker 4: Actually know what that's right right before we right after
Speaker 4: that those two guys, we started taking guys. That's where
Speaker 4: the cliff comes into place. They started kind of maneuvering
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of people. So there's a lot of
Speaker 4: cast that was called in, so that all the cast
Speaker 4: is is kind of coming in on.
Speaker 2: This this j tax calling in the hilltop.
Speaker 4: I think some of the guys find a bunch of
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's like fertilizer, what it is
Speaker 4: like bomb making material. So he's one of the one
Speaker 4: of the guys that is kind of rigging all that
Speaker 4: up to kind of a bit bit later as we're
Speaker 4: kind of moving off the objective. But so then they're
Speaker 4: corralling the kids, they're doing I guess all the you know,
Speaker 4: taking all the s SC photos, and that's when we
Speaker 4: kind of figured out, oh, this guy's him, and so
Speaker 4: I'm like bumped up and but so it's kind of
Speaker 4: a I guess a great target, the guy that you're
Speaker 4: actually going for, you actually got him. No one else.
Speaker 4: People who are actually maneuvering, they're kind of eliminated. We
Speaker 4: find like and I still have some of this stuff,
Speaker 4: some of these like the they're these black like embroideryed
Speaker 4: head I have one like hanging in my office and
Speaker 4: and Soldier's I D cards, So we actually find like
Speaker 4: soldiers ID cards, US Soldier's I D cards and some
Speaker 4: US uh you know in four magazines Green Tip route,
Speaker 4: you know, so we actually find stuff where these guys
Speaker 4: actually they were involved with with hurting US soldiers and
Speaker 4: so great mission.
Speaker 2: Great target.
Speaker 4: We kind of walk out, you know, the long walk out,
Speaker 4: and we get back and so we're doing you know
Speaker 4: all that, the the additional ssee stuff and then just
Speaker 4: kind of nothing big and then it's Christmas, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, and so so we kind of have like
Speaker 4: a down day and then the next day another target popped.
Speaker 4: So you know, you're kind of they're triggered by something,
Speaker 4: you know, something either human ors again is obviously triggering
Speaker 4: these things to pop. And so the next day we
Speaker 4: get another one pop. So it's really it was kind
Speaker 4: of odd because you got to think about it's like,
Speaker 4: so sitting there since I think we get in there
Speaker 4: mid October, but now in December we're actually getting some
Speaker 4: good targets. So there's a lot of like waiting. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're just kind of waiting for something to go. You're
Speaker 4: building conn up. That's that's where I learned about connap parties.
Speaker 4: So before I had never done this stuff. This was
Speaker 4: like we had a for every one of these there
Speaker 4: was a fully done Connat package already done. So so
Speaker 4: the the next right after Christmas, another one popped. So
Speaker 4: we initially go into planning and getting everything going and
Speaker 4: coordinating and figuring out it's again, we're going to do
Speaker 4: like an off set drive in and then do an
Speaker 4: off set and walk in. And I have the same response,
Speaker 4: same task. You know, nothing changed, right. My job is
Speaker 4: to kind of I think it was me in the
Speaker 4: turp for some re I think the urp was always
Speaker 4: positioned with me in the beginning. They would pull through
Speaker 4: and if they need him, they would tell me, and
Speaker 4: then I would send them to what building system or
Speaker 4: you know, what compound and what building in the structure
Speaker 4: and and so same same type scenario, a little bit
Speaker 4: different layout. They start funneling through and then same thing.
Speaker 4: Two guys like, but this one it's like really close.
Speaker 4: It's like it's probably like it was an elevated like
Speaker 4: it was almost like a wooden structure versus your typical
Speaker 4: mud wall, and it it's.
Speaker 2: Crazy as to sound like a like a rear porch deck.
Speaker 4: Okay, but I just remember I could only see half
Speaker 4: of them, and so same type thing. So two guys
Speaker 4: kind of they're going through, you can hear them going through,
Speaker 4: and then two guys go out and same scenario. You know,
Speaker 4: it's like I can't see what they're doing there, but
Speaker 4: they kind of they were out. The door popped down
Speaker 4: and then you know, eliminate the potential threat and I.
Speaker 2: Don't know what they're what's below.
Speaker 4: And so finish go through the whole compound and they
Speaker 4: finished clearing the compound. We don't find the target. There's
Speaker 4: you know, it's like most targets, right, you have people
Speaker 4: squirting off in different directions, maneuvering to different realms. It's
Speaker 4: an important word. I learned to never say the word squirter.
Speaker 4: There a square, they're maneuvering to a position of advantage.
Speaker 4: And so potentially that's the guy made it. So we
Speaker 4: you know, everything's done and we start heading back the
Speaker 4: next morning, like it's chaotic and so I don't know
Speaker 4: how the message came in, but essentially it was the
Speaker 4: story that you kind of started saying. It was like, hey,
Speaker 4: we just had something. I think it was probably like
Speaker 4: the elder for the area or something like, hey, people
Speaker 4: came in and and and murdered you know, ten people
Speaker 4: or twelve people last night, and so instantly everything gets
Speaker 4: shut down. We're a full shut down and we're on
Speaker 4: full shutdown. And as soon as that happened, all of
Speaker 4: the all of our counterparts from the agency side disappear,
Speaker 4: like they all got on helicopters and left and rolled
Speaker 4: out and and so it's it's you know, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm an augment. I'm like, okay, this is not good.
Speaker 4: Oh rewind one on Christmas because you send your the
Speaker 4: sit reps up before you know, the after action of
Speaker 4: the mission. The unit commander called me, so I'm a
Speaker 4: new guide to the unit. So actual unit commander calls
Speaker 4: me on the phone and was like, hey, you're right.
Speaker 4: You know, I got word of you know, first name.
Speaker 4: You know, it's kind of still with when you're dealing
Speaker 4: with the command, even though everybody in softas first name,
Speaker 4: you know, when you're dealing with the commander, he's like,
Speaker 4: I heard about you know everything, because I got briefed,
Speaker 4: and you know, just want to say you're doing a
Speaker 4: good job. And so it was it was really really
Speaker 4: kind of yeah, just cool. You know, it's like the Unich.
Speaker 2: You had got the jackpot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it was it was really cool and so
Speaker 4: had had that. Then two days later this happens. So
Speaker 4: now there's this It starts getting thrown around like hey,
Speaker 4: there's we need to investigate this.
Speaker 2: And it was because now did they say there were
Speaker 2: kids murdered? Also?
Speaker 4: They did, So that was the thing that they were
Speaker 4: actually handcuffed, are Zif tied zif tied up and executed.
Speaker 4: It's actually executed, is the way it said. And and
Speaker 4: that's not what happened, right, and so.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is not good.
Speaker 4: That same timeframe though, up in I think it was
Speaker 4: Maza Schory mez the again because you have the outstation
Speaker 4: teams doing this mission, and then you still have the
Speaker 4: assault force doing their thing, right, so the so the strikeforce,
Speaker 4: so they're doing their thing, so they needed to ramp up,
Speaker 4: I guess, so they pulled all of their two because
Speaker 4: I think I don't know how they break it down,
Speaker 4: but I think like one of the troops essentially divides
Speaker 4: people up and they run these like Omega outstations I think,
Speaker 4: and then they can consolidate if need to. And so
Speaker 4: that's what they did. Say they pulled each of these
Speaker 4: two basically organic to their organization. Guys, they got on
Speaker 4: a flight and they headed up to all link up
Speaker 4: to to hit a target and and so they're I'm there.
Speaker 4: So it's it's like you had the you know, the
Speaker 4: the chief of base, but I didn't really. It's so
Speaker 4: you know, I know, you should say hi in the
Speaker 4: little dining facility, but you're really not having conversations with
Speaker 4: them the you know, the the medics, you do, like
Speaker 4: the some of the the contractors that are working and
Speaker 4: and so, and I didn't know what to do. So
Speaker 4: then it got came down that they were sending out
Speaker 4: an officer and ended up being a general officer because
Speaker 4: they're thinking war crimes happened, and so you know, I
Speaker 4: I'm kind of, you know, kind of freaking out a
Speaker 4: little bit it. And so I call back and I
Speaker 4: think I was talking to the troopstar major and I
Speaker 4: was like, hey, man, like this is going on, what
Speaker 4: do you do? And he's just like, you do what
Speaker 4: you were told to do. And then I'll just leave
Speaker 4: it at that because I didn't really know like how
Speaker 4: to respond to a lot of things because again I'm
Speaker 4: I'm a medic. I'm not one of the other guys,
Speaker 4: so they have specific training for how to deal with
Speaker 4: situations and and and I didn't get those blocks of
Speaker 4: instruction and so so yeah, so uh, an officer flies
Speaker 4: out and I'm sitting there and he's taking my statement,
Speaker 4: and you know, I'm like, I'm like, oh man, this
Speaker 4: is this is not good.
Speaker 2: And uh he ended up the only people were left.
Speaker 4: It was like me and their intel because they had
Speaker 4: a you know, they have their their they bring their
Speaker 4: equivalent of the into as to essentially they're the team
Speaker 4: has it there their organic intel guys. So it's me
Speaker 4: and him and maybe somebody else.
Speaker 2: But were you the only one on target? Or were
Speaker 2: they on target? Also?
Speaker 4: No, he was not. And I believe I I don't
Speaker 4: know who they all they question, but I know of
Speaker 4: like the main core element because these teams are only
Speaker 4: so it's a medic two organic team guys from them,
Speaker 4: and then you have these other white side, the white side.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 4: They were gone and so they and I think one
Speaker 4: of those guys was rotating out because he did. And
Speaker 4: it's actually and so what was I'll say his name
Speaker 4: because he's he was on extortion.
Speaker 2: But j T.
Speaker 4: So j T was our augment he was our j tech,
Speaker 4: so he was our augment and he had made it
Speaker 4: I think through their green team. So they were flying
Speaker 4: a new augment in he was going back, I think,
Speaker 4: to do I guess the I don't know whatever what
Speaker 4: he had to do. And so and the other guy
Speaker 4: either he didn't go on that mission for some reason.
Speaker 4: But essentially, I think I was like one of the
Speaker 4: main guys who basically had to go through the scrutiny
Speaker 4: of this, and it was something new to me.
Speaker 2: I had never experienced it for and so you know, I.
Speaker 4: Went through that investigation, but it wasn't really investigation because
Speaker 4: like now have being like you know, in a command
Speaker 4: team of a military organization, I know what a fifteen
Speaker 4: six is, yeah, and all these so this is not
Speaker 4: It was more of collecting a witness statement.
Speaker 3: They knew that you guys had not handcuffeds it tied
Speaker 3: a bunch of kids and execute him, but they still
Speaker 3: had to go through the motion of Yeah, so.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you that I didn't know that at the time,
Speaker 4: and nobody basically gave me that peace of mind, right,
Speaker 4: And so it really kind of messed me up for
Speaker 4: a long time because I really started to question myself
Speaker 4: like did I did I need to shoot? Like your
Speaker 4: mind just so I already like have you know PTSD
Speaker 4: from everything else? And now so now I'm like, did
Speaker 4: it Did I just kill people that I didn't need
Speaker 4: to kill?
Speaker 2: Like what I know?
Speaker 4: I did everything I was supposed to do, and I
Speaker 4: started to question every action and so and so I
Speaker 4: didn't really know how to process that. So so, but
Speaker 4: to your point, basically it kind of like just went away.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like there was even any follow up. It
Speaker 4: just kind of this guy came out to your point,
Speaker 4: I think he was directed to do an inquiry or investigation.
Speaker 2: Yeah whatever. Yeah, they have to.
Speaker 4: Report to their government because their government was saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you're going out to do this. So it was like,
Speaker 4: I don't want to call it a check the box
Speaker 4: or whatever, but it's kind of what a hindsight, you know,
Speaker 4: looking at it, it was like, well, maybe that they
Speaker 4: were doing what they needed to do to fulfill their
Speaker 4: obligation to look into it.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that there were never any questionable killings
Speaker 3: of military age males on targets throughout theater throughout Afghanistan, but.
Speaker 2: You're talking about like two thousand and nine twenty ten.
Speaker 3: Right, people who had been in and out of theater
Speaker 3: by that time were used to the idea of you know,
Speaker 3: these killer teams killing kids, you know, like executing kids,
Speaker 3: of using human shields, of all this stuff that.
Speaker 2: Was not going on. They knew it wasn't going on,
Speaker 2: and but you still have to you can't just you
Speaker 2: can't just at the highest level, go that didn't happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so so yeah, so that's the twenty six, twenty seventh,
Speaker 4: twenty eighth. We get to twenty nine December and if
Speaker 4: anybody knows about I think it was twenty nine or
Speaker 4: thirty December of two thousand and Yeah, we uh, instantly,
Speaker 4: I think Chief of Base got a call that a
Speaker 4: I think at Chapman they had just had a suicide. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and instantly. I didn't really know what was going on
Speaker 4: at the time, and to be quite honest, I still
Speaker 4: really don't know a whole lot about it today. But
Speaker 4: people were not okay with the procedures that were allowed
Speaker 4: to not be followed, and it was instantly being talked about.
Speaker 4: And I remember that, and I know that those folks,
Speaker 4: you know, they they made the ultimate sacrifice, right, decision,
Speaker 4: wrong decision. So I'm certainly not going to question their
Speaker 4: decision or shed bad light on them. But it was
Speaker 4: being talked about that the person in charge did not
Speaker 4: make the right decision and had told the other people
Speaker 4: to not follow the normal procedure in the sake of
Speaker 4: they were trying to build rapport with this person and
Speaker 4: to not do it and ultimately, you know, cost people
Speaker 4: their lives. And I remember the medic, So that medic,
Speaker 4: that the one sixtieth medic that I mentioned, he was
Speaker 4: actually there and that was his station, and he had
Speaker 4: told me the stories of you know, just trying to
Speaker 4: stop the bleeding and put a hold pressure. Man. I again,
Speaker 4: I don't like telling other people's war stories. People need
Speaker 4: to tell their own stories. I can always tell mine.
Speaker 4: But I remember him telling me, and you know, you
Speaker 4: remember certain things people say. But it could, like I said,
Speaker 4: it could be wrong of him trying to control the
Speaker 4: bleeding just out of someone's neck and not being able
Speaker 4: to do it, and they ultimately died. And again, like
Speaker 4: some of these things have led into me, same the
Speaker 4: things I've worked on and deal with today, just to
Speaker 4: simplify things and find solutions to deal with medical problems.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, so that was that was pretty interesting timeframe.
Speaker 4: So things after that, between that incident and our incidents,
Speaker 4: things not a lot went on after that because I
Speaker 4: think everything was pretty much shut down and so so
Speaker 4: that happened. I didn't hear anything else about that, and
Speaker 4: then I think I was in country for another two
Speaker 4: to three months. So that's a lot of time doing.
Speaker 4: I call it a camp improvement. You know, it's just
Speaker 4: like you're proven your worksplace and uh, you know, we
Speaker 4: did a lot of again, like I continued the report process.
Speaker 4: I remember these guys like they were still processing a
Speaker 4: lot of their losses at the time, and I can
Speaker 4: distinctly remember they had all these you know when you
Speaker 4: have like like a memorial, you'll have like the guy's face,
Speaker 4: and they were pinned up all around the base and
Speaker 4: it was all of their squadron guys, these little like
Speaker 4: stories about them and their life and you know basically
Speaker 4: said you know, basically their awards and decorations and the
Speaker 4: units they'd been in.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 4: I we had gotten this big printer in It was
Speaker 4: like this cool big printer.
Speaker 2: There was like this long and it did like photo quality.
Speaker 4: It was probably supposed to be used for masters and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: but I made posters for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I basically I took all of those those things
Speaker 4: from around. They were just like little random just snippets
Speaker 4: of old paper of these things that these guys saved.
Speaker 4: And I had made a big poster and put their
Speaker 4: image in their name and rank under it, and then
Speaker 4: I and in the middle of it was a an
Speaker 4: American flag with with their skull and bones, you know,
Speaker 4: the squadron I was with and and so and and
Speaker 4: framed it and hunged it up and put it right
Speaker 4: above the ones you walked out of the door. So
Speaker 4: and those guys really appreciated that, and uh and so yeah,
Speaker 4: and so you know, you you talk, you think about
Speaker 4: like all you know, I I watched these guys' stories,
Speaker 4: you know, and I still talk to some of them.
Speaker 4: Those guys were unpacking a lot, and you know, you
Speaker 4: you talk about like alcohol, right, So alcohols in soft
Speaker 4: overseas and it's probably inconventional forces to write you know,
Speaker 4: general order number one right right. That was the one
Speaker 4: difference about the Omega trips, Like the agency has bars.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they're supposed to or not, but
Speaker 4: I know General Macrystal actually walk through when I was
Speaker 4: there and actually went and seen their bars and was like,
Speaker 4: you know, peeking their head in there.
Speaker 2: And it's a full bar.
Speaker 4: It's not like hidden, it's not like in somebody's room
Speaker 4: behind something or in a mouth washed bottle.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a bar.
Speaker 4: And uh well, I guess the only ground glamorizer for
Speaker 4: people have a it's it's a shelf with alcohol.
Speaker 2: Right the open, and it's not like a bar.
Speaker 4: And so these guys, though I think some of them were,
Speaker 4: they're coping mechanism like most people's co be mechanism as alcohol,
Speaker 4: and there's some there's some functional alcoholics, highly functional alcoholics
Speaker 4: that were just and you I, as a medical person,
Speaker 4: could start to see that. And I didn't say anything
Speaker 4: about it. I didn't question it. I never seen any
Speaker 4: bad conduct, you know, I never seen it impair their judgment,
Speaker 4: their ability, but it was certainly worth noting that these
Speaker 4: guys are, like I looked at it, not through the
Speaker 4: lens of these guys are doing something wrong. These guys
Speaker 4: have something that's troubling them and they're dealing with it
Speaker 4: the best way that they can, as well as maintaining
Speaker 4: a heard of operational tempo, and so you know, I thought,
Speaker 4: like dealing with my own stuff seeing that, I was thinking, like,
Speaker 4: you know what, psychology is going to be a big
Speaker 4: issue and the coming years, this is becoming to be
Speaker 4: a long war, and you're seeing it pop up everywhere.
Speaker 4: Kind of the stuff you said, people experiencing mass loss,
Speaker 4: how do they cope with it? Taking out their anger vengeance?
Speaker 4: And I know it was talked about like those guys
Speaker 4: definitely avenge some of their teammates, and they would tell
Speaker 4: you the stories of it. And again it's not those
Speaker 4: aren't my stories to tell, but they certainly did do
Speaker 4: business and take care of business, and some people scrutinize
Speaker 4: them for that, and and maybe rightfully, so maybe not rightfully.
Speaker 4: So it's not me for me to judge or to
Speaker 4: pass judgment, but it's certainly something that they you know,
Speaker 4: they got to they'll carry that, you know. I think
Speaker 4: just like Vietnam veterans and other veterans from different wars,
Speaker 4: they're gonna have to to deal with deal with that stuff.
Speaker 4: And and and I think that's why we have the
Speaker 4: veterans suicide rates that we have. And uh, you know,
Speaker 4: hopefully we'll get to talk a little bit about it.
Speaker 4: I mean, I I got to experience it towards the
Speaker 4: end of my career, and and so I'm happy to
Speaker 4: share that just before awareness because I think it's important
Speaker 4: for people to not it. It's it's ok it's okay
Speaker 4: to judge it. It's not okay to judge. You can
Speaker 4: have judgment. But you you've never you know, it's the thing,
Speaker 4: you've never walked in their shoes. You weren't there, you
Speaker 4: don't know, So why you hindsight's always twenty twenty. It's
Speaker 4: it's you just don't know what the people are dealing with, right,
Speaker 4: and people were in perfect beings. I believe, you know,
Speaker 4: we're flawed. We make mistakes, you know. I'm a spiritual person,
Speaker 4: you know, and that's actually helped me. I think it's
Speaker 4: helped other people in the community. But to each their
Speaker 4: own and so but yeah, that's uh, that was that trip.
Speaker 4: That was that was a lot to unpact there, but
Speaker 4: that was that was a little bit a little bit
Speaker 4: of taste of that environment. So I got to experience
Speaker 4: a lot of different things thus far. And so now
Speaker 4: I get to you know, I get back to the
Speaker 4: unit and you know, sharing these things with with the
Speaker 4: folks there, and then we actually sustain that rotate that
Speaker 4: site for a good bit of time. And I can
Speaker 4: say everybody did not have the same experience I had.
Speaker 2: In terms of like integration.
Speaker 4: Yeah, certain guys dealt with integration. I can tell you.
Speaker 4: There's one guy who got he had a bad something
Speaker 4: happened where they had a personality conflict with his team
Speaker 4: and he was not from our organization but from another one,
Speaker 4: and he ended up getting beaten pretty good to the
Speaker 4: point where that he had to I think they put
Speaker 4: him in ic U. And you know, I've never heard
Speaker 4: that story public. It's well known in the medical community
Speaker 4: at JAYS, but it's not one of those stories that's
Speaker 4: floating out there. But that's one of the earlier stories
Speaker 4: of just some conflict. You know, why that happened, I
Speaker 4: don't know, but it definitely happened. And even one of
Speaker 4: our augments, we sent a guy and he didn't mesh well,
Speaker 4: and you know, he kind of got isolated and oh man,
Speaker 4: his phone linees cut and his computer lines cut for communication,
Speaker 4: and we thought we were going to have to get
Speaker 4: him out of there, just because we were worried about
Speaker 4: something happening to him, and luckily nothing did. He just
Speaker 4: kind of sat for a.
Speaker 3: While, and were these two incidents were they Were they
Speaker 3: solely with the Devreu guy or the damn Net guys,
Speaker 3: or were they also with like the Red guys.
Speaker 4: No, I'd never after that experience, I didn't work with
Speaker 4: the Rangers again, so I actually didn't even know they
Speaker 4: did those rotations, to be quite honest with you, until
Speaker 4: until recently. It was specifically with those guys. And again,
Speaker 4: like I had such a positive experience, I hate to
Speaker 4: even like I don't even know, I feel bad. It's
Speaker 4: like I almost feel like, well, why did you bring
Speaker 4: it up? Then? But it's for him. It's you know,
Speaker 4: it shouldn't.
Speaker 2: Have happened, right, so if you got put in the
Speaker 2: ICU on, it shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 4: And but it did happen. And I don't know why
Speaker 4: I wasn't there. But it's but it's but it's one
Speaker 4: of those kind of known thing. It's kind of one
Speaker 4: of those like it's just an ugly mark. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's a stain. It's a stain that doesn't need
Speaker 4: to be there. Yeah, it's like there's there's different ways
Speaker 4: to manage that. But again going back to the psychological aspect,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't know what happened that certainly
Speaker 4: wasn't justified nor should be tolerated, but I don't know
Speaker 4: the dynamics. So so yeah, so I get back from
Speaker 4: that and then it's you know, just going back and
Speaker 4: doing the normal stuff. Well it's not normal. Let me
Speaker 4: let me, let me just I guess, try to provide
Speaker 4: some a little bit of insight. What if I think
Speaker 4: what folks want to know is like, well, what do
Speaker 4: you do? And it's so what you do is you
Speaker 4: do a lot of high risk training, support and support
Speaker 4: people becoming part of that organization. And so really that's
Speaker 4: your role is to That's where I was going to
Speaker 4: a little while ago. Your job is just sure that
Speaker 4: every dynamic of the medical aspect of their job is
Speaker 4: taken care of, to include initial training support, their selection process,
Speaker 4: training support, their routine, team support, their equipping of their gear,
Speaker 4: packing their stuff, putting them through enhanced training. So that
Speaker 4: led me, you know, again, what shaped me into what
Speaker 4: I'm doing today. You know, we had medical training program
Speaker 4: that was skills for providers and I'll steer medical situations.
Speaker 4: But essentially what it was is it's like you're training folks,
Speaker 4: regardless of how they got there, how to take care
Speaker 4: of themselves. Right. So it's like, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: be there to patch you up or your buddy up,
Speaker 4: and a lot of times you're you and you're it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So here's your stuff, and here's all the training you
Speaker 4: need to use that stuff, and then make sure that
Speaker 4: stuff is good and you have the best stuff. And
Speaker 4: then again like medications and you know, it's almost like
Speaker 4: the pre equip equipping. But then there's making sure that
Speaker 4: you give them stuff that doesn't highlight that right. So
Speaker 4: there's that component I was gonna.
Speaker 2: Ask you about that. Is there being being how some
Speaker 2: of these units work, uh in and how they conduct
Speaker 2: their missions? Is there is there an improvised medicine aspect
Speaker 2: to it?
Speaker 3: Like, look, you if you you can't walk around in
Speaker 3: this environment with medical gear, so this is how you would.
Speaker 2: Use super glue? Uh, this is how.
Speaker 4: You know, it's kind of the wilderness of medicine approach. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so there there is, And I'll tell you that's one
Speaker 4: of my frustrations with man. Things you shouldn't say in
Speaker 4: a public form. My frustrations with like the Kazi component,
Speaker 4: the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care, and it's when
Speaker 4: when I they went very much and I think even
Speaker 4: a lot of the schoolhouses. So when I went through
Speaker 4: the schoolhouse, you you made all your medical kit. Right,
Speaker 4: there was no such thing. I think chess seals were
Speaker 4: just getting created. But you had like a cut trapper
Speaker 4: keeper with a petroleum gauze and tape and it was
Speaker 4: pre stuck to a board and that was your chest sealing.
Speaker 4: And you're turning kit we already described, so you need
Speaker 4: to go out of that. And so it's sticks and rags, right,
Speaker 4: it's a lot of You have a lot of rags
Speaker 4: and sticks and gauzes, and you know how to employ
Speaker 4: them different ways because you understand principles of medicine. You
Speaker 4: understand here's what I'm trying to mitigate now, and this
Speaker 4: is a good thing. We actually have deliberate devices. So
Speaker 4: when we went heavy to deliberate devices and these things
Speaker 4: like the committees on tactical Medicine, because principle based medicine
Speaker 4: for people who don't have a lot of training, they
Speaker 4: can mess it up. So they want you to use
Speaker 4: deliberate devices, so they kind of shun you actually even
Speaker 4: doctrinally a lot of If you read like Basic Soldier's
Speaker 4: Manual for Common Task, it talks about deces. That's a problem.
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you why that's a problem. When you
Speaker 4: have a recall on a device and you wrote in
Speaker 4: doctrine how to this is the device you use and
Speaker 4: how you use it. What happens if that device changes?
Speaker 4: Because every device now that I'm in the medical device
Speaker 4: industries has a different instruction for use and everything. Even
Speaker 4: though they're similar, there's different nuances. And so I kind
Speaker 4: of in that committee was like, hey, because I end
Speaker 4: up ultimately later on in my career sitting on some
Speaker 4: of these boards when and like, I don't think it's
Speaker 4: a good idea, we go one hundred percent. I think
Speaker 4: there's some things that should be agnostic, Like what if
Speaker 4: something new comes out? Now you've got to rewrite all
Speaker 4: your manuals. You literally wrote this device into every manual.
Speaker 4: Now that's great for a medical device company because that
Speaker 4: means money, and that's what it's kind of evolved to
Speaker 4: big business. Your job is to get your device into doctrine.
Speaker 4: Once it's in doctrine, you might as well just yeah,
Speaker 4: tie your mansion now exactly because you're going to do
Speaker 4: millions of dollars of business and that's the industry and
Speaker 4: so you know, and I'm even in that space now,
Speaker 4: that's where I work now, but I still knowing where
Speaker 4: I you know, being where I've been and knowing what
Speaker 4: I know, I know, like, hey, we can't deviate too
Speaker 4: far from principles and teaching people how to improvise, because then,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like training prepares you for the known
Speaker 4: and education the unknown. Meaning I can if I teach
Speaker 4: you how to take the top off this bottle, then
Speaker 4: you falling step one, two and three and you do
Speaker 4: one two three, But when this has a screw on it,
Speaker 4: you're like, well, in the step manuel it says pull
Speaker 4: it out, but this is a screw. Now that may
Speaker 4: seem I'm oversimplifying it, but the point is like, if
Speaker 4: we ever get into large scale combat operations, you better
Speaker 4: believe the supply system will be depleted and you will
Speaker 4: need to improvise. And so if we totally take out
Speaker 4: how to teach people how to land nab with the compass,
Speaker 4: and you totally get reliant on technology, and lose your
Speaker 4: principles and your basic fundamentals. I think that you can
Speaker 4: set yourself up for failure, so you know, I you know,
Speaker 4: So that's one of the things that we did is
Speaker 4: we did teach a lot of principle based stuff. But
Speaker 4: at that time devices were kind of new to the space,
Speaker 4: so a lot of like just your common you know,
Speaker 4: your cat tourniquets and things like that. At that time,
Speaker 4: they had already been employed, so people were carrying that stuff,
Speaker 4: but that's not how we were trained. But now in
Speaker 4: the schoolhouses it's all deliberate device and I think there's
Speaker 4: goods and bads with that, and so my I would
Speaker 4: hope that in soft they would still be principle based.
Speaker 4: I can tell you when you get to the basic
Speaker 4: medic and Gorman level, right, use this device and use
Speaker 4: it you're supposed to use it, and it's like, well
Speaker 4: there's maybe there's maybe there's better ways to do that,
Speaker 4: and you know, sometimes things take a while to catch up.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, so we there's a lot of instructions.
Speaker 4: So that's a lot of the you know, the training support.
Speaker 4: Where it gets kind of interesting is forward support, and
Speaker 4: it's not forward support like you would think. It's putting
Speaker 4: in systems and processes in place to ensure that you're
Speaker 4: taken care of. And without crossing the line, I'll just
Speaker 4: try to paint a picture. Okay, say that you are
Speaker 4: maybe you're Hispanic, and maybe you're a little bit relaxed
Speaker 4: grooming and you're working by yourself in a big country.
Speaker 4: Like we'll just say you're working in Africa. Right, So
Speaker 4: you have these countries and they're pretty big, they're like,
Speaker 4: you know, like America fits in there three times, and
Speaker 4: people don't really understand that. Well, I think they do now,
Speaker 4: but they used it, didn't do It's a whole nother
Speaker 4: story that's that ties directly into this. And you're driving
Speaker 4: and we'll just say you get in a car accident
Speaker 4: and everything on your person would never link you back
Speaker 4: to anything that says you're a service member and okay,
Speaker 4: I need to do this right or maybe you know,
Speaker 4: like your wallet gets taken or something like that, you know,
Speaker 4: because that's a lot of time that stuff happens in
Speaker 4: these places. So it's putting systems in place that that
Speaker 4: will make sure that they get taken care of because
Speaker 4: we're not going to be there to do it. And
Speaker 4: there might not be anybody else and people may not
Speaker 4: know where they're at. So that takes a lot of magic,
Speaker 4: and it's not really magic. It's a lot of planning,
Speaker 4: a lot of validating. And so my next couple of
Speaker 4: trips for that organization is that's what I did. I
Speaker 4: traveled a lot around Africa, East Africa, and I validated
Speaker 4: things and and I learned that's from one of our
Speaker 4: one of our physicians. So I did it, and I
Speaker 4: got to do it by myself at times, and that's
Speaker 4: a whole different experience to traveling by yourself without a
Speaker 4: weapon in a country like in soft You're like, of course,
Speaker 4: soft people do that all the time.
Speaker 2: It's like that's what we do. And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you really do.
Speaker 4: But yeah, okay, yeah, I'll go with you a little
Speaker 4: bit down this, but I'm less like So for me,
Speaker 4: it was certainly new and it's a little bit scary,
Speaker 4: you know, just navigating around by yourself. And so I
Speaker 4: got a cool story though well it's it wasn't cool
Speaker 4: at the time, but it's kind of interesting now. So
Speaker 4: so me and the dock, he was kind of showing
Speaker 4: me the ropes on how to like I had known
Speaker 4: about med plans and I had learned in Colombia out
Speaker 4: validating and you know, just doing a lot the other
Speaker 4: part of you know, doing hospital assessments and figuring out
Speaker 4: capability and making sure that gets back to use of
Speaker 4: sock validating. That's a big part of the component of CAA.
Speaker 4: So I had learned how to do basically medical infrastructure
Speaker 4: assessment and create documents and write plans, but I didn't
Speaker 4: know how to do it into the nitnoid detail of
Speaker 4: what they need. It becomes very specific. And when you
Speaker 4: look about a place where the underdeveloped medical infrastructure, like
Speaker 4: a lot of places in Africa or you know, someplace
Speaker 4: in the Middle East, you got to really assess their
Speaker 4: capability because like that's some of the things I learned.
Speaker 4: So like the first so what we would do and
Speaker 4: on this trip, So the first thing we did was
Speaker 4: we go to to Hoa and we pull mad plans,
Speaker 4: and then we pull stuff from USAC and then we
Speaker 4: just we walk the dog literally boots on the ground
Speaker 4: walking the dog and everything. And so this trip we're
Speaker 4: doing it up by Manda Bay, so we're up close
Speaker 4: to Somalia, so you know, being by yourself, no gun
Speaker 4: up there is maybe you know, a.
Speaker 2: Little sketched, right, it's a little sketch.
Speaker 4: So so I think the is called Lindy Lindy. So
Speaker 4: there's a Manda Bay and then there's another You had
Speaker 4: to basically we had to get in somebody's speedboat and
Speaker 4: it's just a taxi driver. It's just some dude like
Speaker 4: pay this dude money and getting the speed on a
Speaker 4: lost this way. So we get over there and so
Speaker 4: basically that's what we're doing. We're walking the dog and
Speaker 4: so there it was supposed to be a clinic there,
Speaker 4: so okay, if somebody we need to then there this
Speaker 4: clinics that we're valid in this clinic. We get off
Speaker 4: the boat and like a couple, we're walking up the road.
Speaker 4: You know, we we you know, are asking you know,
Speaker 4: basic directions. And the other important thing is you're like
Speaker 4: your dress right like and so so I had kind
Speaker 4: of learned down in South America, like to don't dress
Speaker 4: like your typical ari I like all the ship I
Speaker 4: got from Aria.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the first thing I learned was like soccer
Speaker 4: jerseys are pretty universal, Like you wear like some kind
Speaker 4: of short capri pants and maybe some sandily shoes with
Speaker 4: a soccer jersey and like not like a backpack, but
Speaker 4: like a you know, like a little messy like straw bag,
Speaker 4: you know. So so yeah, so that so so we're
Speaker 4: so we're like these two like European tourists and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of guys walking around.
Speaker 2: And you got underneath.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah. And and so like a couple of minutes
Speaker 4: up the road, we start noticing we're getting followed, and
Speaker 4: we're like, okay, oh ship, So we you know, we
Speaker 4: just keep doing we're doing we kind of you know,
Speaker 4: we're just like we don't have a pre designated plan,
Speaker 4: like this is our plan, and and we're out there, right,
Speaker 4: and so we end up stopping in the clinic. I
Speaker 4: think we stopped in a little like hodgepodge pharmacy, not
Speaker 4: like the pharmacy like you would think. It looks like
Speaker 4: it kind of reminds me of exactly like here. It's
Speaker 4: like these little storefronts that you're like you make cheeseburgers in,
Speaker 4: Like I never thought that you'd make cheers in this
Speaker 4: gas station, Like but it's not a gas station. It's
Speaker 4: like a I don't know, blow somebody's house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the same kind of thing.
Speaker 4: It's like this, uh like these.
Speaker 2: Little bodegas yea yeah, and so like little pharmacy.
Speaker 4: So as soon as we get out, the dude comes.
Speaker 4: These two dudes come up to us, are like, we
Speaker 4: know who you are and we're gonna kill you tonight
Speaker 4: and just keep on walking.
Speaker 2: And so some of our folks had set us up.
Speaker 4: In this in this like it was like a resort.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to describe it too much. I'll
Speaker 4: describe it a little bit. I won't say what the
Speaker 4: name it is a name just in case people are
Speaker 4: still using it. But essentially it was an open air
Speaker 4: you ever seen, Like it looks like the coolest vacation
Speaker 4: in the world. Like it's like the sandals on the water.
Speaker 4: You see these little open air there's just curtains like
Speaker 4: blowing in the wind on the water. So we were
Speaker 4: on the coast and there's these little huts like on
Speaker 4: the water, open air and that's where we're staying at
Speaker 4: and it's shut down. It's not tourist season. We're the
Speaker 4: only people. There was one watchman in us. Yeah, like
Speaker 4: what and so we're like, oh shit. So we just
Speaker 4: keep going about it and we're like I think we
Speaker 4: radioed back and kind of said, hey, like we may
Speaker 4: have some problems. And so we get back to where
Speaker 4: we're staying at and you know, we're we're doing our job, right,
Speaker 4: and so we tell the watchman, hey, you know this,
Speaker 4: people were bothering us in town today. You know, can
Speaker 4: you be on the lookout. And so we had each
Speaker 4: gotten our own little like you know, again the vacation pervicglow.
Speaker 4: We didn't stay in that. Yeah, so we like the
Speaker 4: whole night like we're scared, right, We're like, we don't
Speaker 4: know what the fuck is gonna like, who's gonna come. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So we're like it was like this they had a
Speaker 4: central like facility on this this little resort area, and
Speaker 4: so we like climbed. We ended up staying upstairs and
Speaker 4: we were like we're just gonna stay up all night, man.
Speaker 4: And the next morning, like we're getting back on this
Speaker 4: boat and we're out of here. And and so like
Speaker 4: I don't know what time it is in the middle
Speaker 4: of the night, but I end up I he probably
Speaker 4: was dozed off to but it was like it was
Speaker 4: probably like it was still pitch black though, So that's
Speaker 4: the important thing. It was pitch black and the next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, I hear noises and so I like, I
Speaker 4: kind of like get up, but I but I couldn't see.
Speaker 4: And the next thing, you know, I see these red
Speaker 4: eyes and I fucking jump up and I'm like, I
Speaker 4: like jumped up and lunched, and then he jumped up
Speaker 4: and lunched, and then I forget. I think I think
Speaker 4: he like had a like a headlamp or something and
Speaker 4: like turned it on and it was a it was
Speaker 4: a bush baby.
Speaker 2: Do you know what a bush baby is? Yeah, A
Speaker 2: little like kind of marsupial or yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So like in this little area, we had opened like
Speaker 4: some little cookies.
Speaker 2: Like it was like sitting on the table.
Speaker 4: I think it was trying to get these cookies or something.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, So I there's no like great action
Speaker 4: story like where we like tackle them on the beach
Speaker 4: and they drowned them underwater and slit their throats. But
Speaker 4: it was just like, you know, it was just like
Speaker 4: being in an environment where it's like I don't have
Speaker 4: anything to really protect myself, right and in the way
Speaker 4: you're traveling, you're not bringing that stuff.
Speaker 2: You're not.
Speaker 3: And you're not going out and getting it on the economy,
Speaker 3: like you can't have.
Speaker 4: Anything that it's it's not what we're there to do,
Speaker 4: and it's not how we're supposed to be with the
Speaker 4: intent of what we're doing. So so it's just a
Speaker 4: it's a little bit different. And so that was, you know,
Speaker 4: and I experienced that twice once and I think Tanzania
Speaker 4: that up there in Kenya and then and then uh
Speaker 4: got I got uh got robbed in Kenya. That was interesting.
Speaker 4: Well it's car it was like I think it was
Speaker 4: a car jacking, but it was this uh. I guess
Speaker 4: there's these TTPs for thieves and I certainly didn't know it.
Speaker 4: And we had a dry right like at that we
Speaker 4: had like hired a vehicle driver. So we're like driving
Speaker 4: downtown at the UH and Kenya and you know, the
Speaker 4: street it's just swamped and so you're like you can't
Speaker 4: go anywhere and you can't really get out. And we
Speaker 4: had been kind of told like if something happens, it
Speaker 4: wasn't don't fight back, but don't chase people down and
Speaker 4: beat them. They're like, don't do that, you'll get fucked up,
Speaker 4: like they'll mob you. So they kind of police themselves,
Speaker 4: like certain of them if they see it doing it,
Speaker 4: they'll actually not like it. And so so we're like,
Speaker 4: we're like stuck in traffic, and this guy comes and
Speaker 4: he hits the rear view mirror and then so what
Speaker 4: does the driver do?
Speaker 2: Gets No, he rolls, so.
Speaker 4: Rolls down the window. As soon as he rolls down
Speaker 4: the window, another guy walking this way stuck his hand
Speaker 4: in and hit the unlocked button. And as soon as
Speaker 4: that button hit we had one person in every door.
Speaker 4: It was like this door, this door, this door, and
Speaker 4: then the rear gate of the They're like, what are
Speaker 4: they like the Toyota Surfs or whatever kind of vehicles,
Speaker 4: and so there's like five people instantly in the car
Speaker 4: on you, and uh, I think they just they just
Speaker 4: wanted to rob us. But luckily the only thing they
Speaker 4: took was my med bag. So we were like, we
Speaker 4: didn't want him to take all of our computers. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it so we're like, you know, just like sticking our
Speaker 4: hands grabbing everything, and so it happened pretty quick. But uh,
Speaker 4: but that was two exciting things from um from this Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know if other people have it.
Speaker 4: But but going back to like doing these assessments and
Speaker 4: then going a little bit later into my career, like
Speaker 4: we had written a lot of these we had validated
Speaker 4: a lot of these med plans, and I remember communicating
Speaker 4: back to headquarters. It was either to our headquarters and
Speaker 4: I think they community for us, like I think that
Speaker 4: we don't have enough MED support and HOA like and
Speaker 4: they're like, no, we're fine. And so I can distinctly
Speaker 4: remember there being like a continent map of Africa and
Speaker 4: it's showing all these little dots in HOA and it
Speaker 4: was like, what are you talking about? You don't have
Speaker 4: enough MED support in HOA on the ground. And I
Speaker 4: was like, there's like you see look at look at it.
Speaker 4: And I was like, and I distinctly remember like overlaying
Speaker 4: and sending it back and I overlaid a map of
Speaker 4: the United States to scale, and I'm like, Okay, you
Speaker 4: have an eighteen delta in Florida, you have one in Maine,
Speaker 4: you have one in Arizona, and you have one like
Speaker 4: and you have no great tail assets, right, it's your plan?
Speaker 4: Is I sauce and contract air? Like you know you
Speaker 4: have what are you talking about? You have? And so
Speaker 4: there's been some incidents and and uh, you know some
Speaker 4: of the stuff that I think that we had learned.
Speaker 4: We had had a service member in a Kenya and
Speaker 4: he wasn't part of SOFT, but essentially it was like,
Speaker 4: how guy's access healthcare? So he was, you know, just
Speaker 4: a Kenyon who had joined the army and had had
Speaker 4: went back on vacation. And what a lot of people
Speaker 4: don't realize is I think service members and I don't
Speaker 4: know if SOFT people think like this, but but people
Speaker 4: think like, especially if you're not doing anything swoopy, that
Speaker 4: your ID card is your magic access to healthcare. That
Speaker 4: doesn't play in other place in the world. It's fee
Speaker 4: for service, which means you produce. It doesn't matter that
Speaker 4: you're bleeding out right there. There's people bleeding out everywhere.
Speaker 4: You're going to die there unless you swipe a credit
Speaker 4: card or you have insurance to take care of you.
Speaker 4: And you have to make sure that it's accepted locally
Speaker 4: at that place that you're at. So a lot of
Speaker 4: us was figuring that out.
Speaker 2: So we had a service member I think he was
Speaker 2: he was shot, it was shot or.
Speaker 4: Stabbed something domestically, and essentially he went to the first
Speaker 4: place denied him care in Kenya, went to the second
Speaker 4: place to night care and died at the third place.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, because he thought like his ID card
Speaker 4: was going to take care of him. It had worked
Speaker 4: for him everywhere else. Yeah, and so and so and
Speaker 4: we had actually had you know, unit members who were
Speaker 4: you know, hurt overseas and assaulted, all the above, and
Speaker 4: just making sure that they haven't something to take care
Speaker 4: of them, that that if that happened and they couldn't
Speaker 4: speak for themselves, that they had a mechanism to take
Speaker 4: care of ye and so. And that's a that's a
Speaker 4: it's it's not a sexy thing, but it's hugely important.
Speaker 4: So you know, so leave that kind of kind of there.
Speaker 3: But it's just fascinating because it's a fascinating part of
Speaker 3: you know, of these of these units or.
Speaker 2: Whatever the people. I don't think people really I've never
Speaker 2: thought about it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not something I've ever thought about, you know,
Speaker 3: the importance of that type of support when there is
Speaker 3: no support, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that's yeah, there's a So it's so I
Speaker 4: ended up doing doing a couple of trips doing that,
Speaker 4: just validating some things. And then the next big thing
Speaker 4: that I can probably talk about that I did be
Speaker 4: just because it was it was attached back to conventional
Speaker 4: soft was the invisible children stuff, the coney stuff. So
Speaker 4: it was over there, and I think in two thousand
Speaker 4: that was one of the last things I did before
Speaker 4: I left in twenty twelve or thirteen, so and.
Speaker 2: It so that was.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of figure out the train of
Speaker 4: thought to describe so people weren't familiar with it. Essentially,
Speaker 4: it's it's this guy like he kind of just took
Speaker 4: people kidnapped and brainwashed them into the into the jungle.
Speaker 2: Turned them into like child soldiers, child.
Speaker 4: Soldiers and so and they mutilated these kids and people,
Speaker 4: cutting their body parts off and and so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we got it.
Speaker 4: I got attached to go for that, and so went
Speaker 4: over and that was one of my first chances working
Speaker 4: directly overseas with the organization and or at least some
Speaker 4: folks with the organization. And that was interesting. So it
Speaker 4: kind of speaks to what I would like to speak
Speaker 4: to some of them, like these guys, like they're so unassuming,
Speaker 4: like you would think, like like I don't look like
Speaker 4: most of them, and especially ones that are really like
Speaker 4: doing stuff that no one will ever know about and
Speaker 4: probably don't need to know, although I wish people would know.
Speaker 2: That's the best way I can say it. I wish they.
Speaker 4: I wish our average citizen knew the stakes and the
Speaker 4: price that these guys. This is their life. They've given
Speaker 4: it up for something that no one will ever know about.
Speaker 4: And and when you really think that in perspective, that's
Speaker 4: that's pretty huge commitment. Right. You're not going to read
Speaker 4: about their awards, and you're not going to know their
Speaker 4: exploits and stuff. So yeah, and so, but they don't
Speaker 4: look like you would have to like some of them.
Speaker 4: You'd be like you're a special operator, Like, prove it
Speaker 4: to me, show me some paperwork. There's no fucking way.
Speaker 4: But these guys are so intelligent and fit, and they
Speaker 4: just don't they just don't. They just they just had
Speaker 4: the look that makes them perfect for that job. And
Speaker 4: so on this one, we had this one guy, and
Speaker 4: this guy had this knack for teaching himself languages and
Speaker 4: on this thing because of where they were trying to
Speaker 4: decipher this like codebook. This was the whole thing. It
Speaker 4: was like this guy, that's how they couldn't find him.
Speaker 4: He a tone of I think it's called or something
Speaker 4: essentially it would be like turn to page four and
Speaker 4: he would give his his subordinate leaders instructions through this book.
Speaker 4: And everybody had the decipher manual, and so you know,
Speaker 4: we're trying to break this down, decipher this code. And
Speaker 4: so so we got these brilliant guys the whole inventory
Speaker 4: of DoD. They were looking for somebody because nobody spoke
Speaker 4: this language. That was the other problem. And we had
Speaker 4: this guy who can, like you can learn languages. It
Speaker 4: was fucking crazy, like so I can, you know, like
Speaker 4: we're driving around with him and he's he instantly starts
Speaker 4: talking to everybody and he started learning word learning where
Speaker 4: we're to use them learning word learning what use it?
Speaker 4: And before you know it, he's using full sentences and
Speaker 4: full paragraphs, and you're just like, they're like Google, that's
Speaker 4: what we called him. They're like they're GT Scores, they're
Speaker 4: you know, they're they're apt. It's so high that some
Speaker 4: of them are socially awkward. They're just so intelligent. But
Speaker 4: they're just like these anomalies of service members. And so anyways,
Speaker 4: the inventory they look and so they they finally found
Speaker 4: one guy like he was like a navy on a
Speaker 4: Navy boat who happened to be from East Africa, and
Speaker 4: he was like, I don't know, like a store clerk
Speaker 4: or something. You know, I think the Navy as store
Speaker 4: clerks that work on the boat, and so they flew
Speaker 4: them in. So that was it was like the coolest thing.
Speaker 4: I'm like, man, this is like the reach of this place,
Speaker 4: Like to just reach out to another service and say
Speaker 4: we're taking him because we have a need for me,
Speaker 4: and you don't really get to know what the need
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 3: It must have been so cool for that guy too, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so so yeah, so this you know, they're
Speaker 4: doing their thing and this guy's learning this stuff. Uh
Speaker 4: it went on. They they didn't you know, no really
Speaker 4: exciting had another you know, people following a story on
Speaker 4: that one, but it's not too exciting. But but yeah,
Speaker 4: so that was my last trip. And on that trip,
Speaker 4: I found out that I had made E nine and
Speaker 4: so so in that organization, there was only authorizations for
Speaker 4: one medical E nine and so there was actually three
Speaker 4: of us, which is who all made E nine on
Speaker 4: the same list, and uh, one of us got the
Speaker 4: job and it wasn't me. So so that was my time.
Speaker 2: You had to find a new home.
Speaker 4: I had to find a new well. I didn't have
Speaker 4: fun a new I had to go to the academy.
Speaker 4: So I had to go to the Sergeants Major Academy.
Speaker 4: And that's it. That's it. So that's a fun story.
Speaker 4: So and so yeah, so like I, you know, I
Speaker 4: outprocessed the unit and uh, you know, people, I don't
Speaker 4: know if people ever talk about being like read off.
Speaker 4: You know people here talk about read on. I've went
Speaker 4: through a lot of organizations and have gotten read onto
Speaker 4: a lot of things, but very rarely do I ever
Speaker 4: get read off.
Speaker 2: I think that park is like left out often. I
Speaker 2: think that's just like a pencil whip.
Speaker 4: So the unit does not do that. You get a
Speaker 4: formal readoff and you that's when you signed your non
Speaker 4: DISCLOSURELF oh your LifeWay. Yeah, and I've learned those are
Speaker 4: like for service members even after retirement, there's like you know,
Speaker 4: you c MJ, like you still can be held to
Speaker 4: that stuff. So there's you know, That's why I'm like
Speaker 4: a very careful about crossing anyone. So so yeah, so
Speaker 4: now so now you got this guy right, So now
Speaker 4: imagine a guy who went into SAFT as an e
Speaker 4: six now and living his life and civilian clothes from
Speaker 4: six not you know now showing up at the United
Speaker 4: States Army Sergeant Major Academy, I was a piece of work.
Speaker 2: Like, well, fortunately there were a bunch of sergeants majors
Speaker 2: around to let you know.
Speaker 4: No, what you have so is the nation's most qualified
Speaker 4: first sergeants. Everyone five hundred of them in your class.
Speaker 4: So there's five hundred e eights going through this course.
Speaker 4: And and here's the weird thing.
Speaker 2: So, like.
Speaker 4: A service member has to track career track, and so
Speaker 4: since I'm not soft as my core mos now, I
Speaker 4: go back to being medical like hospital medical, like you know.
Speaker 4: And so when you're in those places, like all your
Speaker 4: stuff is classified essentially, and the first thing they want
Speaker 4: you to do when you go to these places are like.
Speaker 2: Write your biography.
Speaker 4: But here's what the organization, the unit doesn't tell you
Speaker 4: how to it reintegrate. There's no course, right, you just
Speaker 4: outprocess and that's it. And I think that's why a
Speaker 4: lot of guys from I'll say these places, because there's
Speaker 4: a lot of places out there. They don't know how
Speaker 4: to integrate, and no one teaches you how to integrate,
Speaker 4: like I got more instruction on how to retire from
Speaker 4: the army than how to RESI assimilate into the army. Right,
Speaker 4: there was zero. It was signed this piece of paper
Speaker 4: and then that's it.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 4: Next thing you know, you're figuring out how to put
Speaker 4: a uniform on and you show up day one and
Speaker 4: you don't know you're gonna get picked to be like
Speaker 4: make formation or something. Right, like soft isn't good at DNC, Like,
Speaker 4: let's be honest, right, maybe the Rangers are good at
Speaker 4: They're probably the best, right, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know. I mean, I don't know what they'll say
Speaker 2: their leadership. Yeah, I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I don't know that we ever did DNC, like I
Speaker 3: don't I don't know that I've done DNC since or
Speaker 3: that I had done DNC since since basic.
Speaker 4: Okay, so when you have five hundred of the armies
Speaker 4: and what's a joint service school. So there's Navy and
Speaker 4: there's there's a fewer of them, and there's a couple.
Speaker 4: We had like three s F guys in my class.
Speaker 4: Every the best first sergeant and they want to tell
Speaker 4: everybody how they're the best for it. And then you
Speaker 4: got me there. Now granted, now you have to career track.
Speaker 4: I'd never been a platoon sergeant, right, right, I'd never
Speaker 4: been a first sergeant. And now I went from like
Speaker 4: hopping around like just being deployed basically for eleven years
Speaker 4: of my life. That's what I know. I know how
Speaker 4: to deploy. And I'm a fucking good medic, like I
Speaker 4: will run circles around and I feel confidently saying that
Speaker 4: like to the world. And so but what I don't
Speaker 4: know how to do is like basic DNC because I
Speaker 4: haven't done it for right since you you know, you
Speaker 4: go back to your track like ac and be you know,
Speaker 4: basically your MOS schools or your your leadership development schools
Speaker 4: for your pay grade.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I was. I was a bit of
Speaker 2: a mess.
Speaker 4: And so my classmates had a lot of fun. So yeah,
Speaker 4: so I did the I did, so you do the
Speaker 4: academy that's a year long at Fort Bliss. And and
Speaker 4: because I did, you know, I did well in my career.
Speaker 4: I was a first time command select.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And so there were servi sers like I think fifty
Speaker 4: medical people in my class. So it's all the medical onmosts,
Speaker 4: not just medics. And and so there's I think there
Speaker 4: was like ten of us who got selected to go
Speaker 4: straight into a command position, and so I did. That's
Speaker 4: even so now you got this dude who can barely
Speaker 4: make formations, like never process soldiers for useeum. That's what
Speaker 4: leadership does, right, It's like take care of soldiers, deal
Speaker 4: with the disciplineary issues and their health and welfare and
Speaker 4: you know that kind of stuff. And so so my
Speaker 4: first assignment though was Alaska.
Speaker 2: So it's like.
Speaker 4: And I didn't know. I was like, well, this will
Speaker 4: be a life experience. So Fairbanks, Alaska. So that was
Speaker 4: my first experience outside of soft and like after running
Speaker 4: for a good period of time and ended up there, and.
Speaker 2: How was that for you?
Speaker 4: I tell you it was. I didn't think it was
Speaker 4: gonna be good because I was in charge of MEDAC Alaska,
Speaker 4: which is essentially all what METAC means is medical activity.
Speaker 4: So all of army medical activities in the state of Alaska.
Speaker 4: That's a lot. The state of Alaska is big. I
Speaker 4: don't know if people know that. And so what I did, though,
Speaker 4: is I focused my time on helping soldiers and and
Speaker 4: doing what I knew best, which was training, which is
Speaker 4: not a CSM's job. I was doing like first art
Speaker 4: and shit. So now I was learning how to be
Speaker 4: a first sergeant, right, maybe a patuone starter and so
Speaker 4: I think I have said a lot of them, but
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it. So I would create programs and and
Speaker 4: when I got to Alaska, though, Korea was starting to
Speaker 4: spark up, and so my the the the nominative cmis.
Speaker 4: So the general officer had known a little bit about me,
Speaker 4: and so he was like, hey, things in careers are
Speaker 4: getting pretty heated, and we don't know if we're going
Speaker 4: to fight on the pena. Can you create a medical
Speaker 4: program because we think that we may have to hold casualties.
Speaker 2: So back to now, we're at.
Speaker 4: Prolonged fielding right right, and this is two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 4: sixteen is So I went into the position in summer
Speaker 4: of fifteen because the academy graduates every summer. So I
Speaker 4: went in so maybe i'd finished like my pre command
Speaker 4: courses at Levenworth. You got to go learn how to
Speaker 4: be a you know, it's really just a lot of
Speaker 4: it's they're preposition you for prepping you for a command.
Speaker 4: And so he reached out and asked me, can you
Speaker 4: create a course? And so you know, we think this
Speaker 4: thing is and based upon what you've done, you're probably
Speaker 4: the most capable to help us do this. And so
Speaker 4: so I created a program called Delayed Evacuation Casualty Management
Speaker 4: out in a little hospital in the middle of Alaska Fairbanks,
Speaker 4: like central cold Cold Alaska, like negative fifty Alaska. And
Speaker 4: so I pulled together some folks and some stuff that
Speaker 4: I learned over the year, and then some stuff that
Speaker 4: SOFT was working on, because it's kind of the beginning
Speaker 4: of prolonged field care. They were putting together I think
Speaker 4: some committees or organizations and took some principles that they'd
Speaker 4: already developed.
Speaker 2: I didn't develop it.
Speaker 4: And then basically what I tried to do was fill
Speaker 4: the gap, the knowledge gap of the principles of what
Speaker 4: they put together with the knowledge base of the conventional
Speaker 4: medic and try to meld them together. But there's knowledge
Speaker 4: gaps because when you talk about the skill set of
Speaker 4: soft medic or in eighteen delta and then someone you
Speaker 4: know who goes through medic school of three or four
Speaker 4: were months, it's they're vast. And so we put down
Speaker 4: a we put together a really good program and got
Speaker 4: it accredited and and it actually became an army wide
Speaker 4: program for a while. I think it's still taught a
Speaker 4: lot of places today. And so I was up there
Speaker 4: for a couple of years and I got to just
Speaker 4: really just I enjoyed my time. And a lot of
Speaker 4: people say, you're battalion time for folks that don't know
Speaker 4: that's an organization. At least in medical it's about a
Speaker 4: thousand you're supervising roughly about a thousand people. It's a
Speaker 4: little bit larger when you get to your maneuver folks,
Speaker 4: but for medical.
Speaker 2: That's about the density.
Speaker 4: And so really just created programs for him and sent
Speaker 4: them to a lot of cool schools. So the cool
Speaker 4: thing about going to the Academy is you got you know,
Speaker 4: every stard major everywhere. So the network is tremendous. And
Speaker 4: so like if I had a young older that was
Speaker 4: just like doing great things, I could call up, you know,
Speaker 4: the guy from Airborne School and say, hey, I want
Speaker 4: to get this guy a slot. Can you get him
Speaker 4: in and be like, yeah, okay, I can work him in,
Speaker 4: or hey, I want to send somebody here. Hey, And
Speaker 4: so I really just took advantage of just like creating
Speaker 4: educational opportunities and training opportunities and and you know, you
Speaker 4: really can't talk about you or at least I still
Speaker 4: really can't talk a lot about that period of my life.
Speaker 4: But I can let people know that there's some really
Speaker 4: exciting things that the military can offer, and there's some
Speaker 4: people doing things that that are that are tremendous and
Speaker 4: you know, and you can do those things too if
Speaker 4: you seek those opportunities out. And so, you know, just
Speaker 4: having conversations like that, you know a lot of service
Speaker 4: members who were going to get out kind of turned
Speaker 4: them around, and or just people who wanted to go
Speaker 4: to be a soft medic. A good friend of mine
Speaker 4: was the senior stard major at use of SOCC So
Speaker 4: it's like getting a getting a kid to get to
Speaker 4: sock them was you know, just helping him do a
Speaker 4: packet and give him a recommendation. So so I did
Speaker 4: that for that tour and just did a whole lot
Speaker 4: of that actually, and it's what I needed to do.
Speaker 4: You know, the hospital didn't need me to run it.
Speaker 4: It had plenty of six's and doctors and it was
Speaker 4: really just for me. You know, it's a they got
Speaker 4: that saying take care of people and then they'll take
Speaker 4: care of the organization, so I don't have to take
Speaker 4: care of the organization. I to take care of the
Speaker 4: people with the organization. So I did that, and then
Speaker 4: oddly enough, I got a call to go back and
Speaker 4: be the the medical or offered the position to from
Speaker 4: the unit CSM to go be the the medical side
Speaker 4: start major. Now there's a downside of this story. That's
Speaker 4: what I wanted to do that. I wanted nothing more
Speaker 4: than to do that. But the next Command Select list
Speaker 4: came out and I'd been selected again. And so then
Speaker 4: I was selected for a brigade. And when you're on
Speaker 4: what's on the command select list, only the start major
Speaker 4: of the army can take you off it.
Speaker 2: Oh really okay?
Speaker 3: And and the position at the unit did not qualify
Speaker 3: it was it was it below a command position.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's if you you would almost be going
Speaker 4: back and they'll look you do that sometimes, Yeah, like
Speaker 4: if you're getting out. I was still at the time,
Speaker 4: staying in and and I don't know how much time
Speaker 4: we have, but I.
Speaker 2: Mean we we are we we are deep in it.
Speaker 3: Uh we're at four hours and thirty minutes right now.
Speaker 2: Holy yeah.
Speaker 3: But but but I want this is your story I
Speaker 3: want you to tell it.
Speaker 2: No, it's a long story. So I'll try to. I'll
Speaker 2: try to. Yeah, d are you all right? All right?
Speaker 2: Our audience is holding tight, okay.
Speaker 4: So and so so here's what. So I got offered
Speaker 4: the position. That's what I wanted to do. But I
Speaker 4: made the command select list. And when you when you
Speaker 4: when you're going in the command process, you get to
Speaker 4: select your preferences. And I had actually got not only
Speaker 4: make the command selectlist, but got the number one job
Speaker 4: that I wanted. So I got my pick. And I
Speaker 4: had started my career in Hawaii and I wanted to
Speaker 4: end it there. So I got selected to go and
Speaker 4: take Tripler to be the CSM there.
Speaker 2: That's what I wanted.
Speaker 4: Because I was like, like I was saying, and I'll
Speaker 4: and I'll get into it. You know, my in Alaska,
Speaker 4: my PTSD kind of started to act up, and you know,
Speaker 4: I had had some I had had a a about
Speaker 4: of where I was, you know, suicidal, and I had
Speaker 4: went and talked to a health care provider there and
Speaker 4: they had got me back health and I some help
Speaker 4: and I started some medications and actually when got the
Speaker 4: Stella ganglion block four fifth or six times. I had
Speaker 4: already had it multiple times before, and uh, and I'll
Speaker 4: get to that pretty quick. So because I think it's
Speaker 4: an important aspect, but essentially got offered that job, couldn't
Speaker 4: get it because I couldn't get off the Command Select
Speaker 4: list and then the Medcom commit So the Medical Command
Speaker 4: so CSM called me and he's like, hey, you're right,
Speaker 4: I just want to let you know that the I
Speaker 4: don't know if the list had been released yet or
Speaker 4: it was getting released, but he's like, hey, I've heard
Speaker 4: about all the great things you're doing in Alaska in
Speaker 4: this program you created. I'm gonna pull you from why
Speaker 4: you got what you wanted, but I need you to
Speaker 4: go to Fort Bragg and do everything you're doing to
Speaker 4: their times ten. And I'm like, what do you say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yeah, Roger, that.
Speaker 4: That's what you said. Like, no problem, story maker, you know.
Speaker 4: And so they switched my order. So not only did
Speaker 4: I not get to go back to the unit, I
Speaker 4: was switched and went to Fort Bragg and so I
Speaker 4: went to Walmac Army Medical Center and that's where I
Speaker 4: ended my career.
Speaker 2: But my.
Speaker 4: And so I you know, without going in the programs
Speaker 4: are really not important. But I created a couple more
Speaker 4: programs or just invigorated some that were going in and
Speaker 4: had a lot of success with just getting conventional army
Speaker 4: medics paramedic qualified and critical care paramedic qualified and then
Speaker 4: the prolonged field care stuff making sure that they had
Speaker 4: access to that.
Speaker 2: But really my health, mental health.
Speaker 4: Started deteriorating, and so I had had my first stelic
Speaker 4: ganglium block. So, again getting to the professionals of the
Speaker 4: units without mentioning his name, he had introduced it into
Speaker 4: SOFT for you know, a sympathetic chain block to essentially
Speaker 4: alleviate the autonomic nervous system dysfunction of PTSD. Yeah, the
Speaker 4: hypervigilants to kind of turn the swe light switch off,
Speaker 4: and hopefully I did that justice.
Speaker 2: So, so we're talking about sticking a needle with isokine, So.
Speaker 4: Sticking a leader I think it's rapivocane. It's in the family.
Speaker 4: It's a long acting lytocane into your neck to essentially
Speaker 4: blocking that tone for about I think it's like four
Speaker 4: to six hours, which is enough time to reset your system.
Speaker 2: And so our.
Speaker 4: Physicians at the unit brought that into SOFT and then
Speaker 4: they went around and trained and that's one of the dynamite.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I got to do. I
Speaker 4: got to fly to the other units and these operators
Speaker 4: who had twenty plus rotations overseas, you know, help them
Speaker 4: with their provide them symptomatic relief and and so we
Speaker 4: So I had gotten that in Alaska at this time,
Speaker 4: it wasn't working for me. I had never did medications,
Speaker 4: so I got switched on medications. And once I got
Speaker 4: to Womack, and I was there for a while doing things,
Speaker 4: and then you know, I'm kind of speeding this along.
Speaker 4: But essentially the shots weren't working, and the medications weren't working,
Speaker 4: and I was feeling like dead to the world. And
Speaker 4: so it's where Army medicine almost killed me. I say
Speaker 4: that lightly but with all seriousness. The provider switched my
Speaker 4: medications and sent me TD why. And so they abruptly
Speaker 4: stopped me off one medication, started me on another, and
Speaker 4: then sent me TD why. And then, oh my god,
Speaker 4: I went off the rails. And at the same time,
Speaker 4: my son, but all three of my sons were active
Speaker 4: duty at that No, my youngest was not yet he
Speaker 4: is now. My middle son was not doing well. He
Speaker 4: was active duty at for Bragg and and so just
Speaker 4: the hurricane of events had caught up to me, and
Speaker 4: essentially long story short, self admitted myself to in patience.
Speaker 4: Why no, no, So I had gotten back. Luckily I
Speaker 4: had gotten back, and I immediately went to work and
Speaker 4: I went up to we to the executive medicine place
Speaker 4: it there, and I was like, hey, you know, I
Speaker 4: think I'm gonna hurt myself. So they immediately, you know,
Speaker 4: I got I got treated well with dignitium respect and
Speaker 4: but spent a week in impatient and uh and then
Speaker 4: three months and outpatient, got flown to San Antonio and
Speaker 4: and yeah, then.
Speaker 3: So you took a step that most I want to
Speaker 3: say most active duty soldiers will not take.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 3: You recognize what was going on, and you took steps
Speaker 3: to address it right, which which I think not only
Speaker 3: will not a lot of veterans do that, but a
Speaker 3: lot of but especially a lot of actors, because they're
Speaker 3: concerned about how it's going to affect their career if
Speaker 3: they're soft, like, is it going to make them ineligible?
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, I know that you're going through
Speaker 3: like a lot at this time, but you are also
Speaker 3: seeking help.
Speaker 2: What what was it?
Speaker 3: What advice would you give soldiers, especially when they're active
Speaker 3: duty and veterans.
Speaker 2: But what advice would you give them? That took a lot,
Speaker 2: That took a lot of strength.
Speaker 4: It did. The advice that I can get them give
Speaker 4: them is is people are are feeling the same way
Speaker 4: you're feeling, and the first step is the hardest one,
Speaker 4: and it gets easier after that. At least my experience,
Speaker 4: it got easier after that. So yeah, but it was
Speaker 4: it wasn't It's not to say that was easy and
Speaker 4: or professionally embarrassing, and so that's you know, I struggle
Speaker 4: with that a lot. You know, that's not the way
Speaker 4: I wanted to end my career. I had a pretty
Speaker 4: good career and i'd actually been made the select list
Speaker 4: for a second brigade or two. Essentially I'd probably be
Speaker 4: at the general officer level. I know I would. That's
Speaker 4: I was fast tracking that way, and folks kind of
Speaker 4: had plans for me, and I'd probably upset those plans,
Speaker 4: and so I it's just to have courage. It's personal courage,
Speaker 4: really is what it is. And it's it's taking care
Speaker 4: of yourself and taking for yourself because after the military,
Speaker 4: that's it, man. Yeah, like you're what you have. The
Speaker 4: VA system is what it is. Start it while you're in.
Speaker 4: I would say, it's much harder. Once you're out, it's
Speaker 4: so much harder. And and so I went through the
Speaker 4: med board process, and so you know, I was I
Speaker 4: joke about it. But you know a lot of people say,
Speaker 4: the older guy, it's the body's broke, broke, but the
Speaker 4: mind is strong, and I was the opposite.
Speaker 2: The body is strong.
Speaker 4: I could keep up with any of those guys, and
Speaker 4: I probably still could to this day. But the mind
Speaker 4: was destroyed. And so I, you know, and I really
Speaker 4: embrace and this is going to probably rub some people
Speaker 4: the wrong way. I embrace the D of PTSD. And
Speaker 4: a lot of people tried to erase the D. And
Speaker 4: I'll tell you the disorder is what it was, dysfunction, disability, disarray.
Speaker 4: Everything was messed up and so it was a disorder.
Speaker 4: It was one hundred percent things weren't right. And so
Speaker 4: you know, I you know it. While post traumatic stress
Speaker 4: is a normal response to a traumatic event, it can
Speaker 4: certainly leave you in disorder. And it is it I
Speaker 4: And maybe I'm looking at it through the long wrong lens.
Speaker 4: And maybe a clinician would think about it a little
Speaker 4: bit different, but so to me, it's like acknowledging that
Speaker 4: things aren't orderly. That's what I think is important, and
Speaker 4: that's what I think that the Stella Ganglian Bloc provided
Speaker 4: was a reset long enough to figure out what orderly
Speaker 4: felt like, felt like felt like because you kind of
Speaker 4: feel the way to the world. But as it is,
Speaker 4: I would say, because you have to do the work
Speaker 4: because all of that stuff, right, and I experienced a
Speaker 4: little bit of combat, if you will, right, there's I'm
Speaker 4: certainly no war hero, and I certainly wasn't in any
Speaker 4: famous battle, but my rucksack got filled, and probably some
Speaker 4: of those guys got much larger rucksacks. And you have
Speaker 4: to process that stuff, and you certainly have to do
Speaker 4: the work to deal with it and unpack it, because
Speaker 4: you can only compartmentalize for so wrong. And I think, like, man,
Speaker 4: I don't know if you do experience this, but there's
Speaker 4: so much of my deployment time I forget whole, Like
Speaker 4: I don't even remember hold the points. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 4: how I remember a whole deployment. I've completely double wrapped that,
Speaker 4: you know, that package sealed it twice yeah, and compartmentalized it,
Speaker 4: and it's buried so deep that like even thinking about
Speaker 4: coming on here, I had to like go back and
Speaker 4: try to open those packaged bags and say what did
Speaker 4: I do on that trip? Like what's what's what? What's
Speaker 4: something I can share? And so you know, that's if
Speaker 4: you don't unpack it, eventually it's gonna that maybe that
Speaker 4: packaging is gonna wear off or rub a hole, and
Speaker 4: it's gonna rear its head, and so you need to
Speaker 4: process it. So I think that gives you some symptomatic
Speaker 4: relief and provide you the opportunity to take a deliberate
Speaker 4: or to take a deliberate action, to actually take the
Speaker 4: time to deal with it. And so you know, I'm
Speaker 4: a much better place. You know, I didn't really talk
Speaker 4: about the DC times. You know, working in that unit,
Speaker 4: I traveled an hour every day and everybody has their movie.
Speaker 4: I'll call it my movie that plays in my head,
Speaker 4: and my movie was strong at that period of time
Speaker 4: in an hour and rush hour traffic. For your movie
Speaker 4: to play over and over and over again every day
Speaker 4: for years, that's what beat me up. And so when
Speaker 4: I left, I went again back to an educational thing
Speaker 4: so new and exciting suppress then you routine sets in
Speaker 4: and you know, call them what you want, your demons
Speaker 4: or whatever rear their head. But essentially then you know
Speaker 4: you've got to suppress it. And I think so people
Speaker 4: suppress it through you know, adventurous activities or there's a
Speaker 4: lot of things people do, but you got to deal
Speaker 4: with it.
Speaker 3: And then because you know, we're talking about post my stress,
Speaker 3: but then you throw in TBI or you throw in
Speaker 3: operator syndrome like it is medicine. Like do they even
Speaker 3: know at this point where one start, one ends and
Speaker 3: the other begins.
Speaker 4: I don't think so, because I think only again, like
Speaker 4: to me, some of my stuff I think was moral injury, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's what mine was. I think people weren't using
Speaker 4: that word for a long time.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I put it first on this show like two years ago.
Speaker 4: And so that's what I think, because I couldn't relate,
Speaker 4: like and when I went through the extensive outpatient program.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of things that you do that you're like, no, no,
Speaker 4: I initiated the action. I wasn't in reaction mode. I
Speaker 4: initiated the action. And so for me, this is right
Speaker 4: and wrong. Yes, this isn't so everybody's trauma is different everybody,
Speaker 4: no one's trauma is any special or than anybody else's, right, right,
Speaker 4: And that's I learned that there.
Speaker 2: It's like, hey man, I can't just.
Speaker 4: Because you don't have the coolest of cool guys store
Speaker 4: to go with your baggage doesn't mean I should say
Speaker 4: that it doesn't affect you a certain way. But but yeah,
Speaker 4: so I think there's that. So there's moral injury, there's
Speaker 4: the PTSD stuff, there's the traumatic Bain injury. So I
Speaker 4: don't know if they've got any of that figured out,
Speaker 4: and I can certainly tell you from all of the
Speaker 4: the shelling and just you know, when one twenties.
Speaker 2: Comes shock, I'm holy, it's a very real thing, right.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And there's also the idea that there are some you know,
Speaker 3: there are some events for some people that are the
Speaker 3: in truth, the like the inciting incident, and then for
Speaker 3: other people it's just like years of being on the
Speaker 3: edge and there's not like one thing.
Speaker 2: That pops out, it's just all of it get together.
Speaker 4: And then like the identity so pro separation, that's the divolent.
Speaker 4: So that's the encouragement I would say, so the advice
Speaker 4: deal with things before you lose your tribe, because I
Speaker 4: think when people lose their tribe, then they've lost their identity,
Speaker 4: they lost their connection, and they go into isolation. So
Speaker 4: two unit medics have now committed suicide, one recently, and
Speaker 4: so it was that's a tough toll. They both to
Speaker 4: one was one of my direct reports. They both hung themselves.
Speaker 3: And you're talking about two out of a tiny, yes popular,
Speaker 3: two out of like.
Speaker 4: Less than ten people. And a third A guy called
Speaker 4: me recently and I talked to him before this show.
Speaker 4: He called me with a gun in his hand, crying,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know what to do. And I had
Speaker 4: been there and he called me and he I, so
Speaker 4: I'll tell his story, and he told me it's okay
Speaker 4: if I tell his story. He he shot a little
Speaker 4: kid and he didn't mean to and he's been dealing
Speaker 4: with that baggage and he's probably on here right now,
Speaker 4: and I hope it doesn't tear him up. And uh,
Speaker 4: and I think about him a lot. And and so
Speaker 4: he called me and I was worried he was gonna,
Speaker 4: you know, blow his head off with me there, and
Speaker 4: I am like messaging his daughter through LinkedIn, and I'm
Speaker 4: calling unit past unit doctors saying, hey, such and such,
Speaker 4: I think this is it and I don't know what
Speaker 4: to do. I'm not close enough where I can help them,
Speaker 4: and so I'm just trying to talk him through it.
Speaker 4: And luckily he did it and he's you know, but
Speaker 4: you know, you got to check on people. People say that,
Speaker 4: but do they really do it? You know what I mean? People,
Speaker 4: it's kind of cliche, I think a little bit. But
Speaker 4: and so you got to keep your keep your network
Speaker 4: close and check on those guys, because that's what it happens,
Speaker 4: is exactly like you describe. People get out, they think
Speaker 4: it's over with, and then they actually are forced to
Speaker 4: deal with it. But now they're dealing with it alone.
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you when I was going, when I
Speaker 4: first got help, the doctor sent me to go and
Speaker 4: Walter read and she I'll never forget. So she had
Speaker 4: a painting on the wall and it was behind me,
Speaker 4: and it was a painting of a flowery past with
Speaker 4: a house and she said, she said, all of you
Speaker 4: guys are basically like garbage men. She was like, the
Speaker 4: world needs you, but you stink and people don't want
Speaker 4: to sit next to you in church, so all of
Speaker 4: you guys want to live there. And she pointed, and
Speaker 4: I was like, it was kind of messed up, but
Speaker 4: I knew what she was saying. Yeah, it was like
Speaker 4: they want to be alone. And so the last medic
Speaker 4: and they've actually had more unit members commit suicide. He
Speaker 4: lived in the middle of nowhere with his family, and
Speaker 4: you know, his family found him and I hope they're not,
Speaker 4: you know, listening to me retell it, but I just
Speaker 4: it's so vivid and tragic. You know, his daughter found
Speaker 4: him hanging in a tree in the middle of their backyard.
Speaker 2: Like that's a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so, and I can tell you that's my
Speaker 4: appreciation for the unit. And and hopefully I didn't discredit
Speaker 4: or do anything out of turn or overspeak, but every
Speaker 4: almost every medical member of my time span stopped everything
Speaker 4: they were doing and all flew and went to his funeral.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if everybody would do that in
Speaker 4: every organization you hear about people passing away. But and so,
Speaker 4: you know, I have the utmost respect for the organization,
Speaker 4: how they take care of their people. Hopefully, you know,
Speaker 4: people appreciate what I did there. And you know what
Speaker 4: I provided and again, you know, hopefully didn't do anything
Speaker 4: to divulge anything or upset anybody, but you know, I
Speaker 4: just really respect them and uh what they do and
Speaker 4: how they dedicate themselves to something that no one would
Speaker 4: know about. And then this is the ugly side of it,
Speaker 4: and that's what's important to know. And I know there's
Speaker 4: people who have came out and they've kind of been
Speaker 4: in these similar places, but you know, like they've lost
Speaker 4: their tribe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and I think one of the challenges of
Speaker 3: people in organizations like that is when you're sitting in
Speaker 3: front of a doctor or a therapist, you know, a psychologist, whatever.
Speaker 2: Like what can you tell them? You know what? What
Speaker 2: you know? What are you know?
Speaker 3: What are you allowed to talk about? Are are they cleared?
Speaker 2: And I know that.
Speaker 4: The organization ones obviously are. But here's the thing. So
Speaker 4: when I went to the in depth, I specifically did
Speaker 4: not want a military person. I said, give me a civilian.
Speaker 4: I don't want a military person who's medical thinking they
Speaker 4: know what I've been through because they've experienced their version
Speaker 4: of combat. Everybody experiences their own deployment. When I say
Speaker 4: the word deployment, you have your vision in your head
Speaker 4: of your experience when I say to my I have
Speaker 4: my own and so does everyone else who's experienced it.
Speaker 4: So I didn't want someone to think they known, like
Speaker 4: I know what you're dealing with. So I wanted someone
Speaker 4: specifically he didn't have. They only could just kind of
Speaker 4: relate to me on a human level. And that's the
Speaker 4: information that I was giving them. And so but as
Speaker 4: far as what you, I think you're still supposed to
Speaker 4: stay with with with the stuff that you're supposed to Now,
Speaker 4: for me, I wasn't the guy, right, I was the
Speaker 4: guy who just made sure the guy was taking care
Speaker 4: of R And so my stuff was usually working with
Speaker 4: other people and I can talk about that stuff.
Speaker 3: And right, while we're on it on the topic, I
Speaker 3: just want to bring up an app.
Speaker 2: And we've had them on the show.
Speaker 3: But the app is is sound off and and it
Speaker 3: was made for people with clearances, both active and veterans.
Speaker 3: It's a completely anonymous app. It was created by William
Speaker 3: Nagley and uh, you know, a former agency guy and
Speaker 3: his brother in law was a former team guy and
Speaker 3: you know, went into like a horrible spiral and ended
Speaker 3: up ending his life and one of the things. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people with clearances and a lot
Speaker 3: of people who have been, you know, in these organizations,
Speaker 3: whether it's you know, you don't want to you're worried
Speaker 3: about losing your clearance, you're worried about losing your community,
Speaker 3: you're worried about red flag loss, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: When you sign onto this app, there.
Speaker 3: Are all these different organizations and what they do is
Speaker 3: they get money from different you know, different charities, different
Speaker 3: foundations associated with these organizations, and you can put in
Speaker 3: whatever organ if you've been in three of those organizations,
Speaker 3: and it's all services, it's intelligence agencies, it's whatever, and
Speaker 3: they will they will use money from that bucket. You know,
Speaker 3: whatever you've put in, they'll use money from that bucket.
Speaker 3: And you can hook up with a therapist, again anonymous,
Speaker 3: and it's paid for. So for anybody out there, they're
Speaker 3: trying to they're trying to roll this out to conventional units.
Speaker 2: And again it's not just about soft.
Speaker 3: It it's just that that's those are the those are
Speaker 3: the easily filled buckets as they try to scale the app.
Speaker 3: But if you're a person who is going through stuff,
Speaker 3: you don't have to go through it alone. Please, don't
Speaker 3: go through it alone. You know, war as hell, and
Speaker 3: and everybody cares their own thing. And it doesn't even
Speaker 3: have to be from war, you know. I mean, shit happens.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean it's it's it's tragic. It's tragic
Speaker 3: that we're losing people. It's tragic we continue losing people.
Speaker 3: And like you say, man, everybody has their own story.
Speaker 2: And and there's not like postematic stress is not it's
Speaker 2: not a competition. You don't.
Speaker 3: You can't look at somebody say well I didn't go
Speaker 3: through that, so what right do I have?
Speaker 2: Do you know?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I can tell you it's that procedure has
Speaker 4: been used for people with you know, it's not just combat,
Speaker 4: you know, sexual assaults and other things. So yet trauma
Speaker 4: comes in many forms and favors.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And again it's like it's not who who's it's not
Speaker 4: it's not my job.
Speaker 2: To qualify it and quantify it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's hey, if you know, if you're experience and
Speaker 4: it's causing disorder to me, that's why I embrace the
Speaker 4: disorder portion. It's like, if it's making you causing dysfunction,
Speaker 4: disorder unit to not function, how you know you should
Speaker 4: be functioned and again having intrusive thoughts and thinking about
Speaker 4: self harm or harming others or anything like that, and then.
Speaker 2: That's not right, right, And so yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: You know, and I think one of the challenges is,
Speaker 3: you know, we we go through these events, it's like
Speaker 3: your buddy that you were talking to, he went through
Speaker 3: this horrific event, and it's really you know, it's really
Speaker 3: like refining purpose, right, Making these events that we went
Speaker 3: through means something in our current life, you know, and
Speaker 3: and like instead of it bringing us down, creating jet
Speaker 3: fuel from it, saying you.
Speaker 2: Know, not not to make up for it, not to.
Speaker 3: You know, our buddies that we've lost, not to make
Speaker 3: up for their loss, but you know, to to say,
Speaker 3: I'm going to make something from this point forward, you know,
Speaker 3: to honor to honor this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I can say a lot of the you know,
Speaker 4: the the one of the main doctor that I worked
Speaker 4: with at my time there, he had this saying, you know,
Speaker 4: he brought a lot of things he brought you know,
Speaker 4: like stem cell therapies and different therapies to the organization
Speaker 4: like way before people were doing it, like stuff that
Speaker 4: professional athletes could get. But he would he would say that,
Speaker 4: you know, people should be able to you know, his
Speaker 4: job was about returning him to duty or being able
Speaker 4: to retire with dignity and respect and be able to
Speaker 4: function being a fully functioned member of society again. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so it's like you can't really turn the you know,
Speaker 4: people transition and turn the chapter and have the next
Speaker 4: chapter in life if you're dealing with the bagage of
Speaker 4: the last chapter, it's it's like, how are you gonna
Speaker 4: how are you going to get into a new organization?
Speaker 4: You know, how are you going to put your best
Speaker 4: foot forward? You know? And so and then your family aspect,
Speaker 4: I guess that's the huge point. You know, a great
Speaker 4: bit of gratitude for my wife, you know, most military spouses.
Speaker 4: I fortunately have been married now for I think twenty
Speaker 4: seven years, my whole career.
Speaker 2: She's a trooper. Yeah, she's a trooper.
Speaker 4: And that's the other thing, all of that stuff. Your
Speaker 4: wife she doesn't know any of these stories. You know.
Speaker 4: It's like in most maybe some folks share them and
Speaker 4: maybe some don't. I'm not the sharing type, and so
Speaker 4: you know, you know, I appreciate everything you've done and
Speaker 4: putting up with it because it's tough, but you know,
Speaker 4: so like and I think that destroys a lot of
Speaker 4: marriages too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, relationships, you know, just a story especially as as
Speaker 4: I mean, I you.
Speaker 3: Know, I think that as guys start to isolate, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we've become more taciturn. I mean, even if
Speaker 3: we already were, but I think the isolation, the the
Speaker 3: the compartment was, right, it all sets in and then
Speaker 3: you just you become like this.
Speaker 2: This there's like a wall between you that your partner
Speaker 2: can't understand. Yeah, and I think it's good that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: That just it's relationships, right, it's your friends, family members,
Speaker 4: your mom could be your mom, your dad, your relationship
Speaker 4: with your kids. And I know it's affected all the
Speaker 4: above for me. And so it's you know, just a
Speaker 4: it's a self reflection thing, you know. And I'm certainly
Speaker 4: not perfect today, you know what I mean, you got
Speaker 4: to work out it every day and so but I
Speaker 4: think it's being cognizant of and self aware.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh yeah, why am I being this way? Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean anybody out there, whoever you are,
Speaker 3: whatever pain you're in, we love you, you matter, hang with us. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So for you you know you went through this, you
Speaker 3: had already had five.
Speaker 2: Sgbs at that point in time. You get chaptered out
Speaker 2: or not chaptered. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: You go through your medical chapter, you go through your
Speaker 3: medical how.
Speaker 2: How like how are you now? And what was your process?
Speaker 2: And what is your process?
Speaker 4: So it's an outlet, so like I think most veterans.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's a great transition. So i'm you know
Speaker 4: I opened, uh, I said, Well, when I left the service,
Speaker 4: I started with industry. So I started right back doing
Speaker 4: what I know when it was how to be a
Speaker 4: medic and and you know, working in medical device and
Speaker 4: I had invented a device on active duty and and
Speaker 4: took it through the patenting process and then and so
Speaker 4: that is everybody. It's like having a hobby, right, It's
Speaker 4: like it's having an outlet, a positive outlet, because there's
Speaker 4: there's constructive and destructive outlets. So for me, just just
Speaker 4: putting everything into the next thing, right, And so that's
Speaker 4: what I did. So I am still working with a
Speaker 4: lot of the PTSD stuff. I think things like most
Speaker 4: things get better with time, I think at least for me.
Speaker 4: Then I can't speak for everybody. And my outlet is
Speaker 4: I still have. It's that tribal connection. So being that
Speaker 4: I was working with industry and going to military bases
Speaker 4: and helping soldiers and talking to them, so I had
Speaker 4: that connection piece. So and so really I just put
Speaker 4: all the passion into medicine. And so that's really what
Speaker 4: I'm doing now. So now I opened a business six
Speaker 4: eight Medical Solutions, and so really what I'm doing is
Speaker 4: just trying to innovate in the pre hospital space and
Speaker 4: figuring out solutions to problems. Because what I learned is
Speaker 4: you may have to take care of yourself, and that's
Speaker 4: what I learned from some of these organizations. You can't
Speaker 4: always rely on somebody else to take care of you.
Speaker 4: You need more intuitive pieces of devices and equipment that
Speaker 4: solve problems either. You know, you can't just rest on
Speaker 4: what worked.
Speaker 2: You can always make things better.
Speaker 4: There's no perfect device, you know, that's I'm a fun
Speaker 4: you know, there's probably no perfect weapons system. Rather each
Speaker 4: other things and you can always make them better. So
Speaker 4: that's what I'm doing now. So so I've I've really
Speaker 4: a lot of my patient experiences or and combat deaths
Speaker 4: are attributed to heemorrhagic you know, blood loss. So dying
Speaker 4: from bleeding to death, and so specifically, there's been a
Speaker 4: lot of innovation in the tourniquet space, right in hemistatics,
Speaker 4: so things that you put in people's body to help
Speaker 4: their body clot, but there hasn't been a lot. There's
Speaker 4: still some gaps there. So really that's where I've focused
Speaker 4: my effort is targeted pressure devices around Well, now you
Speaker 4: can put on a tourniquet, but if you don't take
Speaker 4: it off, you may lose the leg. And that was
Speaker 4: good enough in the last war, a lot of people
Speaker 4: stayed alive because we integrated tourniquets. But my thought process
Speaker 4: is maybe the next war, maybe we can save some
Speaker 4: limbs and lives by learning how to convert tourniquets and
Speaker 4: doing some of the stuff that we didn't have to
Speaker 4: do in gy I don't know of a lot of
Speaker 4: cases where they actually converted tourniquets down at least at
Speaker 4: point of injury, pre hospital tactical field care, and so
Speaker 4: converting tourniquets and then holding targeted pressure for bleeds that
Speaker 4: aren't amenable to tourniquets, so things higher in the inguinal area,
Speaker 4: accel area, and so I've i you know, patented in
Speaker 4: a system of a targeted pressure device to actually where
Speaker 4: you know, kind of simplifies that you can actually just
Speaker 4: instead of holding with your hands, I call them hands
Speaker 4: freeing devices where you can actually use a device to
Speaker 4: put pressure right where you want it through non circumferential means.
Speaker 4: So tourniquets work basically they constrict everything right and cut
Speaker 4: off all blood flow right targeted pressure you put pressure
Speaker 4: right where you want it and you shut off that vessel.
Speaker 4: And so it doesn't always have to be like a
Speaker 4: main artery. It can just be just an arterial or
Speaker 4: venal down the track. And so that's what we're seeing
Speaker 4: in Ukraine right now. A lot of because their evacuation
Speaker 4: times are like six hours. There's a lot of those
Speaker 4: soldiers because one they're not trained well, they barely know
Speaker 4: to use tourniquets. But when they do, sometimes they're they're
Speaker 4: applied to wounds that they didn't even need a tourniquet,
Speaker 4: but now they have these really high double amputees.
Speaker 2: And so what I believe.
Speaker 4: Is we got to evolve, like we got to keep
Speaker 4: getting better. We can't just say well, now we got tourniquits,
Speaker 4: we're good.
Speaker 3: So I know that you know, like during the gare
Speaker 3: there was a lot of development in tourniicuts, but generally
Speaker 3: it was just new methods of tightening this same band,
Speaker 3: right that people are coming up with different types of
Speaker 3: fasteners and tighteners and things like that. But what you've
Speaker 3: invented is something novel in the tourniquet space.
Speaker 2: Yeah can you can you? Yeah? So so all show it.
Speaker 4: So this is essentially, you know, I called it a
Speaker 4: P three D. It's a pope point pressure device, so
Speaker 4: you know, I named it myself a little but wanted
Speaker 4: a little bit of a legacy. And so essentially what
Speaker 4: it works is targeted pressure. What I kind of figured
Speaker 4: out is through like junctional and other devices, it's all
Speaker 4: about having a height offset, which meaning you triangulate pressure
Speaker 4: to pull things downward, and then having a pressure head.
Speaker 4: And so a normal tourniquet basically takes everything and squeezes
Speaker 4: it inward and basically just squishes everything. Where this, because
Speaker 4: of it has a height a height offset, it basically
Speaker 4: leaves gaps in the in the in the in the
Speaker 4: basically the strapping mechanism.
Speaker 2: So essentially.
Speaker 4: You have rooms to allow for collateral flow and more
Speaker 4: importantly venus return because what happens is is when you
Speaker 4: shut off the arterial system, so the high pressure system
Speaker 4: of an art in a low pressure system of a
Speaker 4: vein turn, it gets shut off both systems, right, they're
Speaker 4: working from it. They keep they just shut everything off,
Speaker 4: and nothing goes this way, nothing goes that way. When
Speaker 4: you put like bandages onto tight what'll happen is you'll
Speaker 4: shut off the venus system, so the return system, but
Speaker 4: you won't shut off the arterio system. So blood goes
Speaker 4: that way, and then what you get is called venus engorgement.
Speaker 4: And it it's painful. And so this is the way
Speaker 4: that I equated to somebody. I'm like, have you ever
Speaker 4: cut your finger in a garage razor blade? Whatever? Okay,
Speaker 4: you ever like quickly just grabbed some tape and wrapped
Speaker 4: it around there and then it stopped the bleeding, right,
Speaker 4: But then it started throbbing and hurting, like hell, well
Speaker 4: you had venus engorgement. And so essentially what did you do.
Speaker 4: You loosened it up.
Speaker 2: And what happened start bleeding.
Speaker 4: It started bleeding again because it needed pressure like this,
Speaker 4: but the pain went away. So that's what you loosen it.
Speaker 4: And I can give you a hundred analogies. It's like
Speaker 4: it's like going to get in your blood draw You
Speaker 4: ever had them wrap the thing around too tight and
Speaker 4: your arm turns purple, But and then it starts hurting,
Speaker 4: so you unwrap it and then the pain goes away,
Speaker 4: the purple goes away, but then you start bleeding again.
Speaker 4: So really it's the principles around it. So basically what
Speaker 4: I did is I've I've made a set of like
Speaker 4: heads depending on where you need to put pressure, and
Speaker 4: you can go in wounds over the hemistatics, so it'll
Speaker 4: kind of sit in a cut so actually inside and
Speaker 4: then this riser you can route any tournique, so I'll route,
Speaker 4: so everybody carries a different one, right, So it's kind
Speaker 4: of I call it. It's it's agnostic. Whatever turniche you use,
Speaker 4: or if you have a bandage, you just set it
Speaker 4: on top and you can use it to create a
Speaker 4: non pressure bandage that make it pressurized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but really it's about.
Speaker 4: Yeah you can if.
Speaker 2: You guys can see that.
Speaker 3: So it applies the pressure wherever you need it, but
Speaker 3: just at the point that you need it.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, and then the height gives it the leverage.
Speaker 4: So here I got one. So it's so I also
Speaker 4: kind of did it in a bandage. I'll just show you
Speaker 4: so here it is, and these these little channels just
Speaker 4: allow you to creatively redirect it. But normally a bandage
Speaker 4: you would just wrap around and to stop the bleeding,
Speaker 4: you just keep wrapping really tight like this, and you
Speaker 4: would create a tourniquet like a frect with a bandage.
Speaker 4: So if you if you just have the height offset,
Speaker 4: what it does is it isolates pressure downward this way.
Speaker 4: You feel that just right on the point, yeah, right
Speaker 4: where you want it, and i don't have to wrap
Speaker 4: as tight and I'm relying on isolated pressure versus circumferential pressure, right,
Speaker 4: and so really that's the key. And these channels what
Speaker 4: they do is I'll go backwards a bit, say that
Speaker 4: you just want a lot of pressure. Well, then if
Speaker 4: you want that mechanical advantage, then I can just route
Speaker 4: through these channels to make it tight when I want it.
Speaker 4: So if I want it tight, I can make it tight.
Speaker 4: But if I don't want to, I can And so
Speaker 4: really what these are tools are for is tourniquet conversion.
Speaker 4: So right now it's all improvised, so there's not a
Speaker 4: there's not. There's some things starting to come out, and
Speaker 4: you know, I plot all innovation. I'm like, hey man,
Speaker 4: it's all about healthy comp make the best thing out there. Servicemen,
Speaker 4: I want my son sons who are still active. Do
Speaker 4: you have the access to the best equipment? So I
Speaker 4: think we need to innovate, and so right now that's
Speaker 4: what we're launching. This probably this winner. We're in manufacturing now,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna get things to market. But it's really just
Speaker 4: about like advancing pre hospital medicine. So that's my focus,
Speaker 4: and that's how I kind of stay stay focused and
Speaker 4: stay driven and trying to give back.
Speaker 2: And so it's like it's a smart tourniquet.
Speaker 3: I mean it's you know, if you think of the
Speaker 3: old method, it's a dumb tourniquet.
Speaker 2: It's just like, yeah, and this is smart. Now. I
Speaker 2: know you've patent it, have you what's like.
Speaker 3: The the proof of concept or the testing procedure for
Speaker 3: something like this.
Speaker 4: So for me, what I've done with it is I've
Speaker 4: put it through a lot of cadaveric testing. So I
Speaker 4: when I first left the military, I worked for a big,
Speaker 4: large medical device company and they specialized and perfused cadavers,
Speaker 4: and I actually wrote a training program for them for
Speaker 4: that and help them take that technology to the market,
Speaker 4: and we actually train a lot of service members sos
Speaker 4: that actually have flow, so could average that have heart beats, heartbeats.
Speaker 4: It's not a heartbeat though, So what it is is
Speaker 4: essentially a piston pump system that pumps beef blood or
Speaker 4: fake blood into a cadaver at normal physiological pressures, so
Speaker 4: that you can essentially know when it's tight enough. Now,
Speaker 4: cadaverage they don't have muscle tone, and there's some a
Speaker 4: little bit of difference, but for the most part, what
Speaker 4: you can really do is check, you know, you can
Speaker 4: you can figure out the efficacy of the device. What
Speaker 4: a lot of people don't know is this space where
Speaker 4: these medical devices fall. See, these aren't cancer drugs. You
Speaker 4: can sell the device that you've never proven to work right, right,
Speaker 4: it happens all the time, and so you know, you
Speaker 4: normally just engineer test them. You basically put them on
Speaker 4: pressure sensors and figure out different pressures and break tensil strengths.
Speaker 4: But I've taken a step further and actually put it
Speaker 4: through a profusion model, and that's kind of I would
Speaker 4: say the gold standard next to just actual human use.
Speaker 4: But a lot of times you're not going to get
Speaker 4: that with these kind of devices. There's just you get
Speaker 4: that retrospectively, and that's like we So if you think
Speaker 4: like so, I'll give a little bit of shout outs
Speaker 4: to the I Usually you know, you don't want to
Speaker 4: mention product names and but but like so like the
Speaker 4: cat tournique, right, I carried one, saved a lot of lives.
Speaker 4: It was made in it was bench tested. It wasn't
Speaker 4: like it had uses before it is I remember it.
Speaker 4: But they brought it into my soccam class. You could
Speaker 4: buy it and use it when it first got made.
Speaker 4: You know, it was vented at the unit on Brag.
Speaker 4: It's a kind of crazy story behind it. But essentially,
Speaker 4: you know, they kind of figure it's you know, there's
Speaker 4: a there's a gap analysis and there's you know, they
Speaker 4: kind of figure out there's a need, we need something
Speaker 4: for this, and they do some rapid prototyping or some
Speaker 4: prototype and engineering testing. But it's a lot of engineering
Speaker 4: validation and not a lot of actual use. You get
Speaker 4: the use.
Speaker 2: After the fact.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so, but you can do a lot of
Speaker 4: just testing on your own through like Doppler testing, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to say real quick
Speaker 2: that the company that's.
Speaker 3: Doing the profusive cadavers, if you guys start the next
Speaker 3: zombie apocalypse, I will be pissed.
Speaker 2: And what's the name of your company again?
Speaker 4: Six eight Medical six.
Speaker 2: Eight Medical Solutions? Do we have a link to that?
Speaker 2: It's in the link, is in the is in the description.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so yeah, these are so they're not up
Speaker 4: on the website yet because we're we're in manufacturing. They're
Speaker 4: they're up there in concept, but we we plan to
Speaker 4: have the stuff for sale here come December January. We're
Speaker 4: in the like I said, setting up all the manufacturing.
Speaker 4: The pressure bar may be made right there in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: So that's amazing.
Speaker 3: So anybody who has a medical kit in your car,
Speaker 3: which should be everybody your ed YOU'R D E d
Speaker 3: C kit, check out six eight Medical Solutions and in
Speaker 3: a few months pick up your what is it called in.
Speaker 4: The pope point pressure device, It's a it's a tongue twister,
Speaker 4: right uh yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so.
Speaker 3: We have gone really long. I am most of that
Speaker 3: is because of my rambling. Is there anything that we've
Speaker 3: left out. Is there anything that you want to cover that?
Speaker 4: There's so much you couldn't cover. That's why there's books
Speaker 4: on the wall. And maybe yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 4: don't know if I have a desire to do that,
Speaker 4: but but no, I think I think that hopefully I
Speaker 4: I did the folks I wanted to talk about justice
Speaker 4: as far as just acknowledging their contribution to keeping this
Speaker 4: nation safe. And I appreciate the opportunity I had to
Speaker 4: serve and still doing, and I appreciate those that continue
Speaker 4: to serve. And I think those are the folks that,
Speaker 4: you know, we should be kind of honoring and and
Speaker 4: and so thank you for your time and thanks for
Speaker 4: having me.
Speaker 3: Thank you for your time, and everybody out there, I
Speaker 3: mean we saw have most of you watching, So thank
Speaker 3: you guys. You you are the heroes tonight, real troopers.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it. No, but we deeply appreciate you
Speaker 2: coming up.
Speaker 3: We I mean I deeply appreciate you know, you sharing
Speaker 3: not only your life and your career, but also you know,
Speaker 3: like the postraumatic stress stuff like it's it's very vulnerable,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's you know, you're talking to you
Speaker 3: know several thousand people, and.
Speaker 2: I think that the more people are able to talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: The more we're able to normalize it, the easier it
Speaker 3: is for people who.
Speaker 2: Need help to to get the help. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Let me get to our questions real quick. I don't
Speaker 2: do do we have anything on? No? All right, Joe.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna we're gonna probably breeze through these questions, guys.
Speaker 3: I mean, we deeply appreciate you guys contributing. How similar
Speaker 3: were the assaulters at your old unit compared to like
Speaker 3: the other Tier one units?
Speaker 2: Uh? And what was your experience like with those units?
Speaker 3: I think we talked about that a lot, and and
Speaker 3: I think that we could also say that probably that
Speaker 3: the focus of.
Speaker 2: Your unit wasn't really on assault. Joe, Joe's thank you again.
Speaker 2: Could you talk.
Speaker 3: About the culture and caliber of person that makes an
Speaker 3: SUMU where you were at? Was it pretty brutal? Meritrak meritocracy?
Speaker 3: Sorry to work there? I mean, people just basically recognize
Speaker 3: for like for their performance, without like a lot of
Speaker 3: politics and stuff.
Speaker 4: I think that folks, you know, so the senior leader
Speaker 4: in me says that folks probably weren't recognized enough because
Speaker 4: there's such a high there's a such a high standard
Speaker 4: that kind of the things that are normally recognized in
Speaker 4: your traditional organization are kind of like basic expectations, right,
Speaker 4: So I say that folks are recognized, but probably not
Speaker 4: at the same rates as others in other organizations.
Speaker 2: But it's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, you know, it's maybe the public recognition
Speaker 4: is what's not there. And I think that's rightfully so,
Speaker 4: because it's hard to talk about it where you're not
Speaker 4: supposed to talk. It's like, yeah, how do you recognize it?
Speaker 3: Uh, Joe's thank you very much. In the civil affairs
Speaker 3: work you did. What would happen if you were not
Speaker 3: able to make amends? Would the Afghan village just become
Speaker 3: pro Taliban?
Speaker 4: We definitely had some places where we could not make
Speaker 4: it right, Yeah, and so those yeah, I definitely experienced
Speaker 4: that once or twice. You just try to get out
Speaker 4: there there without making it worse. And look, you know
Speaker 4: we're not John Rambo. So like you're not going to
Speaker 4: start a firefight with three guys against a village, right,
Speaker 4: So yeah, you just you just yeah, leave it. And
Speaker 4: so I guess the answer is the likelihood most likely,
Speaker 4: I guess they are not happy with the US forces, and.
Speaker 3: A lot of times it's not just about making it
Speaker 3: so they're not pro talban like it is done from
Speaker 3: a place where it's the right thing to do a
Speaker 3: lot of.
Speaker 2: Times one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and if that was misunderstood when you're doing
Speaker 4: those payments, so those are like wrongful death mitigation. It's
Speaker 4: not because you killed a bad guy and now you're
Speaker 4: going to pay their family money. That's not the case. Okay,
Speaker 4: It's that someone was injured, hurt, killed. Most of the
Speaker 4: time it's killed and it's collateral damage. That is kind
Speaker 4: of making right, if you will, making an attempt to
Speaker 4: acknowledge onus without like fully saying like we messed up.
Speaker 2: Rs.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Thank you, CSM and Dave. Of
Speaker 3: course I had friends at Womack and Triple Nickel. Great
Speaker 3: talk showman. Thanks man, really appreciate it. Chris Pez, thank.
Speaker 2: You very much. Shout out to your Ayah brother.
Speaker 3: Normally I don't catch the team house, but I didn't
Speaker 3: want to miss your podcast.
Speaker 2: M Corbin, thank you very much. Be sure to hit
Speaker 2: that like button.
Speaker 3: Yeah ready, Please if you're still with us, which most
Speaker 3: of you are, please hit the like button. Really appreciate it,
Speaker 3: and hit the subscribe button too if you haven't already. Budoka,
Speaker 3: thank you very much. Thank you guys for what you do.
Speaker 3: Thank you for supporting us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: That is our show. This is two ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Our three hundred show is going to be four hours
Speaker 3: of NonStop dungeons and dragons. That's October third. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: we're going to go off the rails. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: Thursday show. We're going off the rails, getting getting.
Speaker 2: Our dragon slang on. But thank you, my friend.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it, and thank you everybody, thanks for
Speaker 3: hanging with us tonight.
Speaker 2: It was a it's a marathon show. And if and
Speaker 2: you see what happens when Jack's not here. This is
Speaker 2: this is me. This is my fault. But all right, anybody,
Speaker 2: thank you very much. M