Speaker 1: Hey, guys, I want to tell you tonight about my
Speaker 1: new novel, The Most Dangerous Man, coming out June ninth.
Speaker 1: I think, like a lot of you, I read in
Speaker 1: high school the short story The Greatest Game, which is
Speaker 1: almost a century old at this point, but it's the
Speaker 1: classic premise of man hunting man for sport. This book
Speaker 1: is based off of that a little bit, but also
Speaker 1: on stories that I have heard over the years about
Speaker 1: Safari guides that have actually taken hunting parties, wealthy people
Speaker 1: hunting poachers in West Africa. That idea kind of cooked
Speaker 1: off in my mind when I was asked to write
Speaker 1: a novel and get back into writing fiction again. And
Speaker 1: this book is about a ranger with the Ranger Reconnaissance
Speaker 1: Company who's on a mission in West Africa and gets
Speaker 1: kidnapped and hunted for sport by a group of wealthy
Speaker 1: tech billionaires. I had a lot of fun writ in
Speaker 1: this book, and I think you'll have a good time
Speaker 1: reading it. It's quick, fast and furious, fast paced action
Speaker 1: action novel, and I hope you all check it out.
Speaker 1: It's up there. You can find it wherever books are sold,
Speaker 1: the hard copy, the hardback, the soft cover, and also
Speaker 1: the kindle ebook edition. We'll have some links down in
Speaker 1: the description for you. The book comes out June ninth,
Speaker 1: and I hope you all let me know what you
Speaker 1: think of it. Hey, folks, welcome to the Team house.
Speaker 1: I'm Jack Murphy here with tonight's guest Stephanie Rottolo. She
Speaker 1: is currently an Officer Civil Affairs Officer in the Reserves.
Speaker 1: Previously served in civil affairs across West Africa and also
Speaker 1: worked with the Cultural Support Team, the female teams that
Speaker 1: augmented special operations abroad, in her case in Afghanistan, working
Speaker 1: with rangers and victual forces. So, Stephanie, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: We're really happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3: It was really good to catch up with you at soft.
Speaker 2: Week as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean that's what soft Week is good for.
Speaker 1: It's all these people do you only get to see
Speaker 1: like once a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. It's a nice mini readion.
Speaker 1: But this year, man, that event, it has gotten so big,
Speaker 1: even just from a couple of years ago, it feels
Speaker 1: like it's tripled in size.
Speaker 3: I think they said it was like one third more
Speaker 3: people this year than last year. It was it was
Speaker 3: visible like you could feel it. There was like no
Speaker 3: room to move, but it was still a very good
Speaker 3: time and.
Speaker 1: They had more security than like at the White House.
Speaker 1: It was ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is crazy too because two of the guys
Speaker 3: that were working for Tampa PEED, one was a guy
Speaker 3: I was a lieutenant with and one was a guy
Speaker 3: I was in CAA with working for Tampa PEED. So like,
Speaker 3: the military is such a small world, but it makes
Speaker 3: it even smaller.
Speaker 1: That Tampa community down there is very small too.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's uh, let's get into you and your background, Stephanie.
Speaker 1: Let's start off a little bit with your origin story
Speaker 1: if you can tell us, you know, where you grew up,
Speaker 1: how you grew up, and sort of like what was
Speaker 1: that path that took you towards the military.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So I grew up in Brookville, Maryland. It's like
Speaker 3: forty minutes outside of DC Montgomery County. Had a great childhood.
Speaker 3: My parents were both public servants, so my mom is
Speaker 3: actually still running ears to this day. And then my
Speaker 3: dad was in federal law enforce. In my whole life.
Speaker 3: One of four, so kind of a big family, had
Speaker 3: a great time, spent a lot of time outdoors, spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time reading. And then despite my my
Speaker 3: interest in reading, I was a really really bad high
Speaker 3: school student. I just had like it was just like
Speaker 3: the black Sheep wild card kid. Despite my parents' best efforts.
Speaker 3: They tried really hard, so that was nothing they did wrong.
Speaker 3: It was just I just had had the bug in me.
Speaker 3: So I was getting in a lot of trouble, doing
Speaker 3: really poorly in school. Somehow, by the grace of whatever deity,
Speaker 3: managed to graduate high school, went to community college, and
Speaker 3: was continuing to just like be crazy. But at least
Speaker 3: I figured out how to get good grades because now
Speaker 3: I was paying for it, so just being like absolutely wild.
Speaker 3: My dad was doing a couple trips overseas. They were
Speaker 3: still still looking for some of like the key nine
Speaker 3: to eleven bad guys, and so my dad was out
Speaker 3: and about and.
Speaker 2: Again my mom was running an.
Speaker 3: Er, really busy, had three other kids that she needed
Speaker 3: to take care of, and so she was just like
Speaker 3: done with my can I curse on here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, cool?
Speaker 2: She was just done with my shit, quite frankly.
Speaker 3: And I kept going out getting in trouble, like I'm
Speaker 3: just doing bad stuff, you know, rushing up against like
Speaker 3: legal trouble like things that probably would have impacted my
Speaker 3: trajectory for a while. And I came home one night
Speaker 3: after she had explicitly told me you cannot go out,
Speaker 3: and my dad was on one of his hunting trips
Speaker 3: as we called them, and I was like, whatever, I'm
Speaker 3: you know, I think it was eighteen, Yeah, I was eighteen.
Speaker 3: I'm eighteen nineteen. I'm like whatever, I'm an adult. I'll
Speaker 3: do what I want, even though I still live in
Speaker 3: my parents' house. So I went out and God left
Speaker 3: my mom. She was also a legal nurse consultant, so
Speaker 3: she would go to depositions and testify and so she
Speaker 3: had a lot of stuff going on. And I came
Speaker 3: home stumbled in and I'm drunk a little bit high,
Speaker 3: and she's sitting there working at the kitchen table. And
Speaker 3: my mom is from the South Bronx and she has
Speaker 3: this really thick accent and she says, where were you?
Speaker 3: And I'm like I was out and she just stares
Speaker 3: at me, and I'm like, okay, cool, I'm going to
Speaker 3: get away with this one. So I start walking up
Speaker 3: the stairs and it was like it's like three staircases
Speaker 3: and their wood and I'm starting to make it to
Speaker 3: my childhood bedroom, which again I'm like an adult living
Speaker 3: at my parents' house acting like this, and I hear
Speaker 3: the creeks coming up the stairs and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: this isn't good. So I'm in my room and she
Speaker 3: comes in again and again like where were you? What
Speaker 3: are you doing? Like who do you think you are?
Speaker 3: And I'm like whatever, Like you can't tell me what
Speaker 3: to do. I have a job, I'm an adult and
Speaker 3: no shit. She picks this giant wooden mirror off of
Speaker 3: my wall, my childhood mirror. It still exists to this
Speaker 3: day somehow, and smashes this thing over my head, probably
Speaker 3: as hard as she could, and I'm like down, I'm down,
Speaker 3: I'm out.
Speaker 2: She has one in one strike. It's like lights out
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: I wake up in my baby brother who would later
Speaker 3: become a marine. I don't know if this trauma did
Speaker 3: something ime what happened, but he's like grabbed her and
Speaker 3: like getting her out of the room, and I'm like
Speaker 3: coming to and trying to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 3: That was kind of when like the light bulb went
Speaker 3: off of like, man, I'm really making this difficult for
Speaker 3: my parents who are working so hard to give me
Speaker 3: everything and you know, make sure I do the right thing,
Speaker 3: and they tried really hard to send me up for success,
Speaker 3: and I'm kind of being like a giant loser. And
Speaker 3: I'm dating this guy that's like junior enlisted in the army,
Speaker 3: and like he has a car and a house and
Speaker 3: he's going to college and him and his friends are
Speaker 3: like doing whatever they want halfway across the country, away
Speaker 3: from their parents and being adults, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: so maybe I should do that. So right after that,
Speaker 3: I went to the Army recruiter and I was like,
Speaker 3: what can you do for me? And uh, that's that's
Speaker 3: when I enlisted. I finished my associates and shipped out,
Speaker 3: and yeah, the rest is history.
Speaker 1: What did your what did your parents think about that decision?
Speaker 3: You know, I think they were well, I know they
Speaker 3: were like horrified and scared, and my mom didn't want
Speaker 3: to talk to me for a while, But I think
Speaker 3: that's probably natural, as like a parent is just to
Speaker 3: be scared. I think it turned to pride pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: And my dad always laughs that like the easiest time
Speaker 3: now looking back in my military career for.
Speaker 2: Him was when I was at basic but he like
Speaker 2: didn't think that.
Speaker 3: At the time.
Speaker 1: What about what year was this, twenty twelve? Okay, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's understandable that they're scared seeing the headlines
Speaker 1: for the last you know, previous ten years.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Uh And you came in the army as a mortician.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so mortuary affairs ninety two. Mic, it's under quartermaster.
Speaker 3: And I was going, you know, when you go through
Speaker 3: like the list of available jobs with the recruiter and they're.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, that's a good one. This is a good one.
Speaker 3: The recruiter is like, I'm like, wait, what is that
Speaker 3: mortuary or something, and like he's like, yeah, you don't
Speaker 3: want that. That's weird. And like I was a weird kid,
Speaker 3: like super like macabre and just like dark and like
Speaker 3: reading and yeah, yeah, just you know, and like going
Speaker 3: to warp Tour and think, you know, I was like
Speaker 3: so cool and piercing my ears in the bathroom. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, that's like edgy. And so I'm like,
Speaker 3: all right, well this guy thinks it's weird, Like my
Speaker 3: interests are peaud and so yeah, I enlisted as a
Speaker 3: ninety two mortuary affairs. My first unit was at Dover
Speaker 3: in Delaware and super eye opening. Uh really learned a lot.
Speaker 3: I think set the stage for my career to come,
Speaker 3: like starting a career out with seeing the horrible final
Speaker 3: result of the failures of policy decisions and strategy decisions
Speaker 3: and the whole gamut. Like I did not realize the
Speaker 3: weight of that at nineteenth. I knew at nineteen years old,
Speaker 3: like I knew this was a very serious, like sacred
Speaker 3: role and it needed to be taken seriously and I
Speaker 3: needed to be a profess and really make sure I
Speaker 3: knew what I was doing and I knew how to
Speaker 3: do it correctly because of the seriousness. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it only really came to me later, like how
Speaker 3: much that probably set the stage for how I view
Speaker 3: military service. And also are our leaders that deal in
Speaker 3: the blood of America's sons and daughters?
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell people a little bit about
Speaker 1: what mortuary affairs does? Because it is an important job.
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys receive the dead essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you're spot on.
Speaker 3: It's the processing and care of our fallen. So when
Speaker 3: I enlisted, there was only nine hundred across the active
Speaker 3: and reserve for.
Speaker 2: I think all of the branches, so like Army, Air Force, everybody.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty small. I don't know what the numbers
Speaker 3: look like now, but yeah, exactly as you said, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's from recovery to interment, so there's a lot involved
Speaker 3: in that. I mean, every death is pretty much treated
Speaker 3: like a homicide in terms of how the military process goes.
Speaker 3: So you do the full autopsy. There is like the
Speaker 3: chief medical examiner at Dover is in charge of everything,
Speaker 3: so you're not just like going in and doing your
Speaker 3: own thing as a private and like the folks at Dover.
Speaker 3: If you haven't had a chance to go to Dover
Speaker 3: at least like just kind of check it out and
Speaker 3: speak to some of the people there. I mean that
Speaker 3: is you want to talk about professionalism in the Department
Speaker 3: of War, like that is the cream of the crop.
Speaker 3: Those people really take it seriously, wake up every day
Speaker 3: like doing the worst thing and being there for people
Speaker 3: on their absolute worst day, and they do it well
Speaker 3: and they do it professionally. So yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 3: basically just the whole process. So it just depended on
Speaker 3: what part you were going to be assigned to.
Speaker 2: For our like clinical rotation things, I guess is what
Speaker 2: you would call them so you could get hands on.
Speaker 3: Because again, it can be very jarring to handle remains,
Speaker 3: like if you haven't done that or haven't been exposed
Speaker 3: to that. So it's kind of a they do like
Speaker 3: an exposure cycle. But we went and supported the Richmond
Speaker 3: Morgues in Virginia because it was like going through their
Speaker 3: Murder Capital of.
Speaker 2: The World phase for a minute there, so they were
Speaker 2: super overwhelmed. So we went there.
Speaker 3: Got some of that hands on training and then also
Speaker 3: like that diversity in cases because unfortunately, like what's coming
Speaker 3: through Dover or what was coming through Dover was was
Speaker 3: pretty much the same over and over again. It was
Speaker 3: you know IDs, that type of thing, or like severe
Speaker 3: head injuries as a result of an ID, or honestly,
Speaker 3: motorcycle crashes like that convinced me that like nobody should
Speaker 3: ride motorcycles because the amount of young men coming through
Speaker 3: on those tables that were perfectly healthy and had entire
Speaker 3: crews ahead of them and were only in that facility
Speaker 3: because of a motorcycle crash and largely not because of
Speaker 3: something they had done, but something that a driver near
Speaker 3: them had done, was like, okay, cool, I'm like a
Speaker 3: risky edgy kid, But like motorcycles.
Speaker 2: Ain't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean those are going to be fighting words
Speaker 1: with some people.
Speaker 3: I said what I said at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I get what you're saying though, And I
Speaker 1: mean I think motorcycles are like the bane of the
Speaker 1: Army's existence in some ways, because I mean this it's
Speaker 1: constantly an issue about the reflectives and the safety gear
Speaker 1: they want you to wear and being registered and trained
Speaker 1: for that reason because a lot of service members do
Speaker 1: wipe out and either hurt themselves or get themselves killed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was eye opening in that regard. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean overall, the experience, like I said, very formative
Speaker 3: for me. I'm very thankful. Again, it's kind of dark,
Speaker 3: but I'm very thankful that that was my entry into
Speaker 3: the army because I think it it gave me the
Speaker 3: perspective to take all of my decisions later on very
Speaker 3: seriously that like this isn't hall of duty, Like these
Speaker 3: are real lives and I have handled the consequences of it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I was really glad that I made that choice.
Speaker 1: And about what time was it that you thought about
Speaker 1: becoming an officer?
Speaker 3: Pretty much when I was in like going to basic training,
Speaker 3: so my dad again, while he was terrified and eventually proud,
Speaker 3: he was like, if you're going to do this.
Speaker 2: You have to promise me at some point you'll become
Speaker 2: an officer.
Speaker 3: So I got into like an ROTC program, came back,
Speaker 3: weren't into the reserve status, and then was able to
Speaker 3: go to school and just finished two years because I
Speaker 3: already had an associates and George Mason. I applied to
Speaker 3: like so many colleges. Again, terrible high school student. But
Speaker 3: I only figured it out when I went to community college,
Speaker 3: and I did really well, probably because I was paying
Speaker 3: for it and nobody was like there to hold my hand.
Speaker 3: And so I was just applying to schools that I
Speaker 3: knew had good programs and that had money for RTC
Speaker 3: programs and more importantly, had slots that wouldn't delay commissioning.
Speaker 3: And George Mason is is a pretty big RTC battalion.
Speaker 3: I had to imagine it still is they had a spot,
Speaker 3: it would delay me by like a like a half
Speaker 3: a semester or so, but I was still going to commission,
Speaker 3: so I really didn't care. So yeah, I think like
Speaker 3: when I was going to basic training, once the reality
Speaker 3: of like going to basic training, started hitting, and I
Speaker 3: wasn't like the cool edgy villa of the ball anymore.
Speaker 3: And I had to wear my giant Coke bottled glasses.
Speaker 2: And you know, slick my hair back.
Speaker 3: I think I realized pretty quickly, like maybe I should
Speaker 3: listen to my father more. So. Yeah, that's when I
Speaker 3: made that decision. So I wasn't enlisted for for very long,
Speaker 3: but it was it was enough to at least kind
Speaker 3: of get some experience, kind of see what it's like,
Speaker 3: at least on the entry level.
Speaker 1: And you commissioned as an MP.
Speaker 3: I did I commissioned as an MP?
Speaker 1: Was that your choice or was it the branch given
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 3: It was, which I.
Speaker 2: Know is like I don't know. I kind of laugh
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Now because everybody was like, go am I, go am I,
Speaker 3: and my dad was like, go am I.
Speaker 2: And I did not listen to my dad in that scenario.
Speaker 2: I went MP.
Speaker 3: But I will tell you I loved being an MP.
Speaker 3: I think the thing that kind of swayed me was
Speaker 3: I really appreciated the like wartime peacetime crisis mission of
Speaker 3: like pretty much, no matter what, if we're dealing with
Speaker 3: you stateside, it's like you're having a really bad day.
Speaker 3: So I think, again, that's that like trend of like
Speaker 3: if this is somebody's worst day, or this is a
Speaker 3: dark day for mankind, maybe I want to have my
Speaker 3: hands on it. And I thought being an MP was
Speaker 3: a way to kind of like be helpful in crisis,
Speaker 3: be you know, some kind of like support or guiding
Speaker 3: system when there's chaos going on. And I loved it.
Speaker 3: I had a great time. Got to do my platoon
Speaker 3: leater rotation. We went to Germany. We did a rotation
Speaker 3: through Germany, and got to work with the Polits Eye,
Speaker 3: which is like I'm sure you've been there, but the
Speaker 3: policing like wild, had so much fun with them, learned
Speaker 3: a lot, got to see some some crazy stuff because
Speaker 3: as we know, soldiers make really poor choices when they
Speaker 3: get overseas, and so got to work with like a
Speaker 3: lot of different agencies.
Speaker 1: You were doing, you were doing sort of like shore patrol.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess, so, yeah, it was yeah. And
Speaker 3: then also it was joint patrolling with the Pullet's Eye.
Speaker 3: So they had had a lot of the refugees from
Speaker 3: the Middle East had come in at that time, and
Speaker 3: they were having some pockets of areas where things were
Speaker 3: not going great, there was like a lot ofmmunity pushed back,
Speaker 3: and then of course US service members wanted to get
Speaker 3: in the mix of all of that, or it just
Speaker 3: so happened that the neighborhood was next to like the
Speaker 3: hottest club.
Speaker 2: So kind of getting to see how.
Speaker 3: A European entity, especially the Germans like handled that was
Speaker 3: pretty eye opening and then a great opportunity to work.
Speaker 2: With the Air Force.
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Speaker 1: Bye. What were some of the crazy things that happened
Speaker 1: while you were over there doing that job in Germany?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I did get subpoena for Ondnesday. These guys riggers.
Speaker 2: We all know.
Speaker 3: One of the craziest mls is in all of the Army,
Speaker 3: which is insane, because that makes no sense. If you're
Speaker 3: in charge of like making my parachute, I want you
Speaker 3: to like not use drugs. Poor choices. But they like
Speaker 3: beat this guy within an inch of his life, a
Speaker 3: cab driver in Germany. And then they tried to run
Speaker 3: and they ran into the barracks hammerre drunk.
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody was just three sheets the wind.
Speaker 3: But they were so drunk that they couldn't figure out
Speaker 3: like they should take their club clothes off and stuff.
Speaker 3: And I had just gotten off I worked a midnight
Speaker 3: shift for one of my soldiers. Like I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'll work it. You go like recover, you know, because
Speaker 3: that's what like leaders eat less and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So I was like, I'm gonna be cool and like
Speaker 3: take the shift. And so I did the shift, and
Speaker 3: I'm like exhausted, and I come back and you know,
Speaker 3: I'd already turned in like my service weapon, and I
Speaker 3: just have my little like duty phone, and I was
Speaker 3: staying in the barracks, which is like MP's are not
Speaker 3: supposed to be co located in the barracks. But their solution,
Speaker 3: so they put like my soldiers on one side, and
Speaker 3: then they had the riggers on the other side. And
Speaker 3: then their solution for the MP officer to not live
Speaker 3: with her soldiers was to put me in the rigor
Speaker 3: side of the barracks. So I like, I'm like getting
Speaker 3: ready for bed, and you know, have my big sweatshirt
Speaker 3: on and my glasses again still super thick. I have
Speaker 3: my retainer in uh, and I start hearing like a
Speaker 3: commotion down the hallways.
Speaker 2: Like you know how barracks hallways are.
Speaker 1: It's rocket yes, yeah, so you.
Speaker 2: Can hear everything. And so I'm like, oh, that doesn't
Speaker 2: sound good.
Speaker 3: And I hear like the I hear like radio chatter
Speaker 3: and I'm like oof, like really not good. And I
Speaker 3: hear somebody yelling like stop stop, like stop military police,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh gosh, and like instead of taking
Speaker 3: like five seconds and I don't know, like putting pants on,
Speaker 3: taking my retainer out like any of these other things,
Speaker 3: I just like grab my little baton and my duty
Speaker 3: phone and I like ran out of my out of
Speaker 3: my barracks room.
Speaker 2: Like an idiot.
Speaker 3: Again, I had the sweatshirt was like down to my knees,
Speaker 3: so I'm like kin made as well have been wearing
Speaker 3: like a dress.
Speaker 2: But it was like very clear that this was like
Speaker 2: bedtime attire.
Speaker 3: And so I like out and I see one guy
Speaker 3: like whip past me and the other guy is the
Speaker 3: other MP is like crashing this guy into the wall,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, where's your partner, where's your partner? And
Speaker 3: he's like he's coming, he's coming. And so I'm like
Speaker 3: I start yelling like hey, we're down here, We're down here,
Speaker 3: because again I have nothing to assist in this scenario,
Speaker 3: like I'm I'm dead weight at this point. I'm just
Speaker 3: in the way. The next guy comes up and they
Speaker 3: start tackling with him, and I hear like you know
Speaker 3: that metallic click on, like the part of.
Speaker 2: On like a holster, like the old ones.
Speaker 3: I start hearing that, and this guy is so drunk
Speaker 3: he's like reaching for the MP's weapon, like genuinely trying
Speaker 3: to like and I hear OCOC. Nobody wants to hear
Speaker 3: in a tiny hallway in the middle of the night,
Speaker 3: and so they just start blasting this guy and so
Speaker 3: he's like he's in this hallway, shoved up against the door.
Speaker 3: They're just blasting OC, not their weapons OC. And there
Speaker 3: had been like a group of guys that had come
Speaker 3: through the hallway, and so I like grab them and
Speaker 3: I'm like moving on down the hallway and I'm like
Speaker 3: the military police with my retainer lisp, going like get
Speaker 3: against the wall. And they're like, who the who is this?
Speaker 3: Oh so very embarrassing for me, but I thought I
Speaker 3: was taking charge. And then the guy the door in
Speaker 3: front of where they're spraying this guy, he opens the door.
Speaker 3: That guy now inadvertently gets sprayed. And if you've ever
Speaker 3: been OC sprayed, which I have plenty of times, I
Speaker 3: would rather be tased over and over again for twenty
Speaker 3: four hours straight, like it is crippling to me, and
Speaker 3: so he starts screaming. Everybody starts screaming, and then I'm like, guys, like,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go put pants on.
Speaker 2: What can I do to help? And they're like to
Speaker 2: have any water?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, sure do So I go in my room,
Speaker 3: put my pants on, start pouring water on this guy.
Speaker 3: They start escorting down the hallway, and that's when we
Speaker 3: realize right in front of the stairwell there's like now
Speaker 3: a gaggle of all of this guy's drunk buddies who
Speaker 3: are like, oh, there's two MP's, some chick in a
Speaker 3: sweatshirt with sandals on, and there's like six of us.
Speaker 3: So they're like, we're going to fight you. Like they
Speaker 3: start screaming, They're gonna like fight the pigs and all
Speaker 3: this stuff, and so just like gets out of hand.
Speaker 3: At that point, I had started calling like the duty
Speaker 3: sergeant and being like this is where we are, this
Speaker 3: is the barracks, like we need people to get up here,
Speaker 3: Like I don't have anything to assist with. I have
Speaker 3: no handcuffs, I have nothing. So that guy comes up
Speaker 3: the stairwell and thankfully he's a big guy, and so
Speaker 3: they like are all scatter, like you know, bugs. So
Speaker 3: we get outside and I'm trying to get into contact
Speaker 3: with the unit's first sergeant and commander, and turns out
Speaker 3: like the commander left the country but didn't leave like
Speaker 3: assumption to command orders. So there's just like terrified lieutenant
Speaker 3: that doesn't know what he's supposed to do, and his
Speaker 3: first sergeant is telling him that he needs to get
Speaker 3: up in the middle of the night and drive out there.
Speaker 3: And so we end up waiting for a while and finally,
Speaker 3: like the first stargeant shows up and is like, okay,
Speaker 3: everybody out of the barracks. So they just clear the barracks,
Speaker 3: like if you were in this section of barracks, you
Speaker 3: were coming outside in the middle of the night and
Speaker 3: you were lining up, and so we all line up,
Speaker 3: or they all line up rather, and we were like
Speaker 3: walking along.
Speaker 2: And they're like, well, ma'am, since you weren't on duty, we.
Speaker 3: Need you to help like validate who was there, who
Speaker 3: was part of the like fighting the cops gang, and
Speaker 3: like who you saw in the hallway.
Speaker 2: So I'm like okay.
Speaker 3: So I'm like walking around the thing and I'm like
Speaker 3: not you not this guy. This guy definitely not this
Speaker 3: guy and I point to one and I'm like this
Speaker 3: guy for sure, and he's like, man, fuck you bitch,
Speaker 3: and my soldiers is just like and so then it
Speaker 3: just turned to like a scuffle all over again, and
Speaker 3: it was just like it was just like a crazy night.
Speaker 3: I was like, this cannot be real. At least I
Speaker 3: put my pants on at some point during this. So
Speaker 3: all that happens fast forward. A couple of the guys
Speaker 3: that got arrested during that ended up getting arrested like
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks later. Like I don't know why
Speaker 3: they were out or what happened. I wasn't part of
Speaker 3: of that level of the investigation. But they're like in
Speaker 3: this barracks and somebody like pulls out a pistol and
Speaker 3: like pistol whip somebody's girlfriend. Which you're in Germany on
Speaker 3: a military Like where did you get like a free
Speaker 3: range pistol to like just hit people with? So I
Speaker 3: was honestly impressed, Like it was terrible, but I'm like
Speaker 3: this guy like knows people, we should probably talk to him.
Speaker 3: And so they end up going to like real prison
Speaker 3: and there was this little holding area.
Speaker 2: I want to say it was called Simbach. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you remember.
Speaker 3: It was like this weird bass that like felt and
Speaker 3: looked like it was abandoned outside of Kaiserschwaten. And I'm
Speaker 3: doing like prison checks one night and guess who's in there,
Speaker 3: those those two knuckleheads. So I think that was probably
Speaker 3: the craziest in terms of like US mill you know,
Speaker 3: I'm watching like the pollets, I get after it when
Speaker 3: people are not behaving is like fat.
Speaker 1: People do they do?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Like people love to scream police brutality
Speaker 3: in the US and like I won't get into that,
Speaker 3: but I'll tell you what the polets I can be
Speaker 3: doing whatever they want to do. And people do not
Speaker 3: pull out their phones. People do not intervene, people.
Speaker 2: Mine their business. And it was very interesting.
Speaker 1: Ah those Germans, oh man.
Speaker 2: And if they want blood, they're taking blood.
Speaker 3: That was like the craziest thing to be like none
Speaker 3: of this refusing, Like we're just gonna pin.
Speaker 2: You down and get it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, uh, you know, things like that happen
Speaker 1: sometimes when MP's decide to go onto the Ranger Battalion
Speaker 1: compound and they end up getting bowled up by a
Speaker 1: bunch of privates and I may or may not have
Speaker 1: a photograph of a bunch of Ranger Battalion kids wearing
Speaker 1: Hawaiian T shirts sitting and laying on top of an
Speaker 1: MP car in the Ranger of Battalion compound.
Speaker 3: You know what everybody's got to like, Bully the MP's
Speaker 3: a little bit again. I had so much fun. I
Speaker 3: was so lucky to have like the best platoon sergeant
Speaker 3: in the world. I think that's like, I know, it's
Speaker 3: not really underrated. That's what they always tell you as
Speaker 3: like a new officer, But seriously, to have like a
Speaker 3: quality sergeant, just like an icon that's willing to train
Speaker 3: you and work with you and like keep you on
Speaker 3: the straight and narrow man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a great guy. We still talk today like
Speaker 2: ten out of ten. Very lucky for him.
Speaker 1: So you're having this big adventure in Germany. Uh when
Speaker 1: did it come or when did the you first hear
Speaker 1: about the cultural support teams?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I got like a oh I had subscribed
Speaker 3: to Do you remember S one Net?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I think it went away.
Speaker 3: There was this thing called S one net and it
Speaker 3: was like all of the mill purs that came out.
Speaker 3: You could enroll and they would just send the mill
Speaker 3: Purrs to your email and like they were very yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was in Germany and I was running like.
Speaker 3: Half marathon to a marathon like every weekend with this
Speaker 3: first sergeant who was an ultra marathon or so we
Speaker 3: were like really getting after it.
Speaker 2: I was getting in great shape.
Speaker 3: It was a really big runner and I got this
Speaker 3: like mill per that was like, hey, this thing's coming up,
Speaker 3: and I was like, man, I want to get in
Speaker 3: on that, but I got to get back from Germany.
Speaker 2: I got to figure out when I can go to
Speaker 2: the selection and do all that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I literally just found out about it from
Speaker 3: having base level milpers forwarded to me, like very very lucky.
Speaker 3: The timing was right because I had heard about it previously,
Speaker 3: like remember when Ashley's Wore the book came out.
Speaker 2: There was also some of the cadre in my.
Speaker 3: RTC program had kind of talked about it like when
Speaker 3: I was, you know, going through that, and they were like,
Speaker 3: you know, this might be something you would be interested
Speaker 3: in later in life. And it had just kind of
Speaker 3: it ebbed and flowed about when they were doing selections
Speaker 3: and if they were making new teams. And so when
Speaker 3: I saw that Milper. I was like, this is not
Speaker 3: a thing that I can wait on, Like if I'm
Speaker 3: doing it, it's happening now. And so I just started
Speaker 3: training really hard and thankfully my battalion command at that
Speaker 3: time was like super supportive and he was like, all
Speaker 3: steam ahead, we will not get in your way, Like
Speaker 3: as long as you finish your platoon leater time, Like
Speaker 3: good to go for us.
Speaker 1: So what was did you have to go to Fort
Speaker 1: Bragg and go to the selection course and all that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so I got that had to go. We
Speaker 3: did CA selection, went through that, and then once you
Speaker 3: did the CA selection, if you got selected for C
Speaker 3: A selection, then you would continue into this little board
Speaker 3: with Ranger Regiment and then there would be another selection
Speaker 3: on top of that that then you would go through
Speaker 3: the next couple months of training. So it was like
Speaker 3: really great when I got C I had no idea
Speaker 3: what CA was like. They asked you, you know, like
Speaker 3: why do you want to be C A? And I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what you guys are. It sounds cool.
Speaker 3: I'm having a lot of fun at the selection, Like
Speaker 3: your workouts are great. Everybody sounds really interesting. I don't
Speaker 3: know what you are I'm just here to try and
Speaker 3: be a CST. But thankfully did make it through that
Speaker 3: and got asked to continue to keep trying for CST selection.
Speaker 1: What was it like going to CSD selection?
Speaker 3: It was so hard, Like I said, it was a
Speaker 3: really big runner. So, like lifting weights wasn't really a
Speaker 3: thing to me. I mean, I had played ice hockey
Speaker 3: in high school and then I did one season of
Speaker 3: women's semi pro football in DC and I kind of
Speaker 3: like learned a little bit about lifting weights, but I
Speaker 3: was like running all the way and then showing up
Speaker 3: to CST selection and like all of these women are
Speaker 3: absolute muscle savages and they can run and they're smart,
Speaker 3: and so CST selection was awesome. It was very intimidating.
Speaker 3: It was very stressful by design. But even if I
Speaker 3: hadn't made CST selection, like just the quality of training
Speaker 3: even within the selection itself, Like to go with you know,
Speaker 3: rangers to the range every day and shoot for hours
Speaker 3: on end and have to train with them and learn how.
Speaker 2: They do what they do, Like you're not going to
Speaker 2: get that anywhere else in the army.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, particularly at that time being a
Speaker 1: woman in the army, those kinds of opportunities weren't really there.
Speaker 2: It was so good.
Speaker 3: And like the medical training again, ranger medics like best
Speaker 3: in class, right, so to be able to train and
Speaker 3: learn all that stuff, and then like the tactical questioning and.
Speaker 2: Like the combative slash.
Speaker 3: You found yourself in a bad situation, now fight your
Speaker 3: way out of it. Like great training, regardless of if
Speaker 3: I made it or not. And again the women, like
Speaker 3: women that are going through that selection, like that's top tier,
Speaker 3: Like those are quality, cool, smart capable people. So just
Speaker 3: the friends that you make through the process too, was
Speaker 3: very thankful for that.
Speaker 1: What was sort of your impression of what the CST
Speaker 1: program was as you're going through the training, I didn't
Speaker 1: really know.
Speaker 3: Like it was very funny to me because in one
Speaker 3: of the like boards, they ask you like what.
Speaker 2: Do you think that we do?
Speaker 3: And I was like, what do you mean we and
Speaker 3: they and they were like us and it's all these
Speaker 3: rangers and I'm like, get terrorists probably, and they're like,
Speaker 3: we shoot people in the face, motherfucker. And I was
Speaker 3: like okay. They're like can you shoot people in the face?
Speaker 3: And I'm like yes, So, like I didn't really know,
Speaker 3: so I thought you know, like I had again like
Speaker 3: Ashley's War and stuff like that, and just trying to
Speaker 3: piece together bits of like news articles that came out
Speaker 3: around that. I understood it as like getting information off
Speaker 3: women and children in the battlefield because it was fifty
Speaker 3: percent of the population that couldn't be accessed, and ultimately
Speaker 3: that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. It sounds like from what you're saying
Speaker 1: that the Ranger Regiment was like very intimately involved in
Speaker 1: this whole program.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think way more than I expected. Like we
Speaker 3: did all of our selection was at Fort Benning in
Speaker 3: like the little Rafts compound area. We had to take
Speaker 3: the rPAT and.
Speaker 2: Do all of those things.
Speaker 3: That was super fun. That's I learned how to lift
Speaker 3: weights there because I did not have a choice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so we did, you know, all their ranges all like
Speaker 3: the battle drills, like you know that CQB training like
Speaker 3: all of that. So yeah, I mean Rangers were I didn't.
Speaker 3: I guess I should have known that there was other
Speaker 3: units we would go to once we got where we
Speaker 3: were going, But all of our training and everything was
Speaker 3: managed by Ranger Regiment, and I think that was great
Speaker 3: because again, like who's more professional at like mastering the
Speaker 3: basics and showing you.
Speaker 2: How to do it right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's really interesting because I think some of
Speaker 1: the csts we've had on this show before probably came
Speaker 1: into the program a little earlier than you, and they
Speaker 1: went through everything at Bragg as I recall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we bounced between Benning and Brag. Yeah, now
Speaker 3: that I'm thinking it was between Benning and Brag, but
Speaker 3: it was Regiment guys and then Jstack guys. But the
Speaker 3: bulk of like what I would call the actual selection
Speaker 3: and not the train up was Regiment and then Yeah,
Speaker 3: we did a lot of a lot of the ranges
Speaker 3: with the j Stack guys, but again they were guys
Speaker 3: that come from that, so a lot of overlap there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I mean it was half and half between Betting
Speaker 3: and Bragg. Brag was definitely a more fun time.
Speaker 1: A little bit more laid back than the range of Regiment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also you were just kind of like further
Speaker 3: along in the process, and it was easier at that point,
Speaker 3: like just being like sore and tired all the time
Speaker 3: to just be like, okay, cool, I messed that up
Speaker 3: next event. You, Like, there were so many you can
Speaker 3: only psych yourself out so many times during the selection
Speaker 3: that at like some point you're just like, I'm just
Speaker 3: giving it up to whoever is in charge at this point,
Speaker 3: and if I die, I die. So uh yeah, it
Speaker 3: was just I think it was a lot more.
Speaker 1: Fun any other specific training you want to get into
Speaker 1: before you actually graduate from the course.
Speaker 3: We did a lot of like the cultural training because
Speaker 3: me and my partner, I know, some of the other
Speaker 3: csts that you spoke to that program had so many evolutions,
Speaker 3: so I really admire them because, like you know, like
Speaker 3: Jess and Sam, like there was not nearly as much
Speaker 3: structure around what they were going into and how they're
Speaker 3: trained up and selected, So in retrospect and like knowing
Speaker 3: how their selections and train ups went, like very thankful
Speaker 3: that there was more of a structure around ours, and it.
Speaker 2: Was like, you know, actually targeted at what we would
Speaker 2: probably be doing.
Speaker 3: The cultural training was really helpful because me and my
Speaker 3: partner ended up getting the Dual Hat mission, so on
Speaker 3: top of our regular like combat missions to go out
Speaker 3: and you know, get info from women and children on
Speaker 3: the battlefield, we also were training the Afghan Special Operations
Speaker 3: female tactical batons, So the FTP, So I didn't know
Speaker 3: what to expect, Like I had never been anywhere in
Speaker 3: the world really, I mean I've been a europe but like,
Speaker 3: I didn't really know what to expect. So I was
Speaker 3: very glad for like the precursor training on just how
Speaker 3: women treated in Afghanistan. I mean, you can read about it,
Speaker 3: and you can hear about it, and people can tell
Speaker 3: you about it, but you don't get it until you
Speaker 3: see it and you live it and you watch it
Speaker 3: every day and you have to navigate it as you're
Speaker 3: trying to train with them.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 3: Thankful for that because there's a fair amount of trading
Speaker 3: on kind of how to navigate that space as well.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I never really understood what you guys
Speaker 1: do or why it matters for a while, because women
Speaker 1: don't really have any power in that society, so it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what intel are you really gathering off of them? But
Speaker 1: we had a lot of duffy in here. She was
Speaker 1: a counterintelligence NCO and when they go overseas they have
Speaker 1: them do a lot of human and they had her
Speaker 1: doing very similar things to what you did. And when
Speaker 1: she started describing about what a woman's scorned will say,
Speaker 1: oh man, it all kind of clicked and made sense
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I have distinct memories of this
Speaker 3: on one old woman being like I don't basically rough translation,
Speaker 3: I don't give a shit about him.
Speaker 1: Please take him, Yeah, yeah, take them away.
Speaker 2: This is where he keeps his stuff that you guys
Speaker 2: are interested in.
Speaker 3: You see that shack over there, like, be careful because
Speaker 3: it's filled with explosives like please take his lazy ass.
Speaker 3: So very interesting. And then also, I mean the children,
Speaker 3: like children.
Speaker 2: Are one of our techniques.
Speaker 3: My CST partner, who is the most incredible person in
Speaker 3: the entire world, she had dyed her hair blonde, natural
Speaker 3: brunette died over there, and I was like, this is
Speaker 3: so reckless, Like how are you going to keep your
Speaker 3: hair dyet? And like I'm not even bringing razors, dude,
Speaker 3: I'm just like the hairyest person on you know, the compound.
Speaker 2: And she died her hair blonde.
Speaker 3: And that was such a tactical asset for us, let
Speaker 3: me tell you, because we would come upon like these
Speaker 3: like hordes of children, Like my favorite woman was this
Speaker 3: like riverbed where all these kids were getting pushed down
Speaker 3: because the terror we're doing things up further north, and
Speaker 3: they were like flowing through this river bed and we
Speaker 3: start talking to them, like the women are like not
Speaker 3: being helpful. Nobody wants to talk to us. The I
Speaker 3: think we were with seventh group, and seventh group is like, Okay.
Speaker 2: What do you guys want? And we're like cool.
Speaker 3: One rare occasion that we get two csts on one mission,
Speaker 3: which i was more common for the earlier teams, but once,
Speaker 3: like my team was only six women for to support
Speaker 3: the entire country. So you know, they had to decide
Speaker 3: where resources were going and how many seats we were
Speaker 3: taking and things like that, and long story short, they
Speaker 3: pushed them to the side of the riverbed.
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to talk to us. Nobody is giving anything.
Speaker 3: Even though we're pulling like all this money, like suspicious
Speaker 3: levels of money off of people, you know, passports and
Speaker 3: all sorts of things. And I think like the key
Speaker 3: thing that we got out of that little adventure was
Speaker 3: my CST partner like flipping her dyed blonde hair and
Speaker 3: this like probably six year old boy being like mesmerized
Speaker 3: and just ready to tell us exactly where he was
Speaker 3: coming from. Who was up there when they left, why
Speaker 3: they left, and it was all just like the blonde hair.
Speaker 3: So that's not obviously like the mission of the CSTS
Speaker 3: to like manipulate children into telling you things. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's just a it's it's a it's a group of
Speaker 3: they're essentially like flies on the wall, like they see everything,
Speaker 3: they're internalizing everything.
Speaker 2: They know what the routines are.
Speaker 3: A lot of times there are in charge of managing
Speaker 3: the routines right like they just like any woman anywhere,
Speaker 3: they want to keep their kids safe. So when it
Speaker 3: comes down to it, they they will talk. There's just
Speaker 3: ways to to try and get things out of them.
Speaker 3: But you got to come and prepared for that.
Speaker 1: And so you were based out of Kabul, and as
Speaker 1: you said, you had this dual headed mission where you
Speaker 1: were working with the female Platoon part of the KKA,
Speaker 1: but also going out on ops too and doing the
Speaker 1: more traditional I guess CST mission. I guess let's start
Speaker 1: with the with the female platoon. Tell us about them
Speaker 1: and what it was like working with them.
Speaker 3: Man, just incredible badasses like it. You know, I hear
Speaker 3: so much conjecture, especially today about like women's rights are
Speaker 3: being taken away and blah blah blah. I'm like, let
Speaker 3: me tell you about let me tell you about some
Speaker 3: women and women's rights. So you have the female tactical platoons,
Speaker 3: largely Hazara, right, so already a persecuted tribe. We had
Speaker 3: about forty two women. You know, they would answer these
Speaker 3: vague recruitment calls, often become the breadwinner of their family,
Speaker 3: often mothers, wives, daughters, whatever, have to get permission they
Speaker 3: sign up to join this thing. They know they're putting
Speaker 3: themselves at risk, they know they're putting up families at risk,
Speaker 3: and they are all about it.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Like. It was so funny to me too, because it's
Speaker 3: like I was like a first lieutenant when I showed up,
Speaker 3: and my deputy was a second lieutenant and we're like,
Speaker 3: we're here to train you and be in charge. And
Speaker 3: it's like, sure, but the female tactical platoon commander has
Speaker 3: been doing the shit for like fifteen years, so like, actually,
Speaker 3: she should probably be like trading us on some things.
Speaker 3: But it was just like the ultimate exchanging of TTPs.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, you know, we had
Speaker 3: just come off of all of these ranges with Range
Speaker 3: Regiment and the JSAC guys, and so we're like shit
Speaker 3: hot at that.
Speaker 2: So we're like, all right, let's get you.
Speaker 3: Out on the range and like teach you this or
Speaker 3: at least like brush up on these skills and make
Speaker 3: you really good at this so nobody can.
Speaker 2: Say that you can't shoot.
Speaker 3: The physical fitness thing, like training was a big thing,
Speaker 3: like teaching them how to lift weights, teaching them how
Speaker 3: to do what they need to do physically, especially when
Speaker 3: they're so tiny, and you know, oftentimes they were like
Speaker 3: didn't have access to enough food or water, so.
Speaker 2: Trying to navigate around that also just navigating.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Katahas were much better about treating those
Speaker 3: women like valued humans. And I don't know how much
Speaker 3: of that was because we were watching or what and like,
Speaker 3: you know, me and my partner were the third gender,
Speaker 3: like we're not women and we're not men in their eyes, right,
Speaker 3: And so those guys were much better with them than I.
Speaker 3: Then I think that probably the rest of the military
Speaker 3: forces would have been. But again it was still you
Speaker 3: were like dealing with that aspect of it of like
Speaker 3: we are going to leave at some point, the US
Speaker 3: military is going to leave. The intent here is not
Speaker 3: for us to do every mission together. If we are
Speaker 3: going on a mission, it's because we are doing it together,
Speaker 3: so that you were prepared to take this from us
Speaker 3: when we inevitably depart, Like us withdrawing should not be
Speaker 3: a surprise to anybody. It is impending. We need to
Speaker 3: go out and do this thing. But it was really cool,
Speaker 3: like sending them out not partnered with US, Like being
Speaker 3: able to send the FTPS out is like just the
Speaker 3: FTP is going on this partner led mission, you know,
Speaker 3: no US CST was like that was really cool to see,
Speaker 3: is like they're integrated and also that the US is
Speaker 3: truly putting partner force missions they are leading them to,
Speaker 3: including their using their enablers, their version of the CST.
Speaker 3: So that was very encouraging to see. Yeah, just incredible
Speaker 3: women that I mean, they're English great, we did a
Speaker 3: lot of English classes, we did medical stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: sensitive sight exploitation, just kind brave souls. Like we we
Speaker 3: thought we were like so bad ass being these women
Speaker 3: that are like yeah, we're going into combat units, like
Speaker 3: we're putting special operations and then you're like, okay, but
Speaker 3: this is like way cooler because these are like forty
Speaker 3: two women out of this entire country doing that thing,
Speaker 3: but they're doing it from Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: As women, right, right, Uh. I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, if there was a difference between how you
Speaker 1: saw the female soldiers approach specifically the Afghan female soldiers
Speaker 1: approached the job, and what the differences were between how
Speaker 1: the men approached it, be they American or Afghan, you know,
Speaker 1: was there a different way that they went about things.
Speaker 3: I think the Afghan women on like FTP side, were
Speaker 3: like very aggressive and very confident.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: Because these are their countrymen, right, and so like they
Speaker 3: know what these women are going through there, it was
Speaker 3: easier for them to pick up on like subtle differences
Speaker 3: in like body language and translation. Like when I was
Speaker 3: going into a dark compound, I had a translator with me, right,
Speaker 3: Like I had my basic commands that I had memorized
Speaker 3: and things like that, but like I still.
Speaker 2: Needed a translator to know what is going on.
Speaker 3: They didn't need that, so they were able to be
Speaker 3: like a bit more direct and aggressive. I think I
Speaker 3: think they just like genuinely really had to give a
Speaker 3: shit to be there, Like there is not the hero
Speaker 3: worship that like we are we are given in the
Speaker 3: US military of like, you know, bless our troops and
Speaker 3: support our troops. And if you're in the military, like
Speaker 3: you know, for a day everybody wants to call you
Speaker 3: a hero. They don't get the luxury of that like
Speaker 3: at all, even slightly. So there's no like valor in that,
Speaker 3: particularly for the women. Right. So I think just that
Speaker 3: that commitment and how seriously they have to take it
Speaker 3: and how committed they have to be to the survival
Speaker 3: of their country to even be in that position, was
Speaker 3: like that should like make you stop and think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask, like, did you get
Speaker 1: to learn any of the like individual backgrounds of these women,
Speaker 1: because I mean that must have been a very interesting
Speaker 1: life path that took them to get to that place.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if they faced being ostracized by their families.
Speaker 1: They had to basically elope so to speak, to join
Speaker 1: the military.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of them were for more progressive families.
Speaker 3: I mean at some point, you know, they had to
Speaker 3: either get permission or tell their families that they were
Speaker 3: doing this. And then again they were largely like making money,
Speaker 3: having to travel like to and from so like let's
Speaker 3: say they like went home on leave or something like
Speaker 3: that you know, they have to like stash their uniforms
Speaker 3: and all their military documentation somewhere because they couldn't be
Speaker 3: stopped on a bus traveling with that. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I got I got to know them just great
Speaker 3: people like just I remain in all of them, very smart,
Speaker 3: like educated, if not formally like informally and seeking it
Speaker 3: out every day. You know, we all say like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to learn another language, or I'm going to
Speaker 3: pick up a skill, or I'm going to like I'm
Speaker 3: always like I'm going to get into woodworking, and like
Speaker 3: I can't even like commit to buying the initial kit
Speaker 3: on Amazon, right, But these are not those type of people.
Speaker 3: Like they they were like I'm going to learn English,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm going to learn how to shoot, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: get really physically fit, and then they just get it
Speaker 3: because that's what they wanted to do. Yeah. Just just
Speaker 3: an interesting like spread of people, especially between like ages
Speaker 3: and where they were coming from. But yes, largely Huzzara,
Speaker 3: So that was that was a common trend there.
Speaker 1: What kind of operations did they do.
Speaker 3: In terms of like when they were on target, Yeah,
Speaker 3: same thing as a CST.
Speaker 1: So real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if we were going into a compound in
Speaker 3: the middle of the night and in and out they
Speaker 3: were there. If it was going to be a multi
Speaker 3: day type of thing, they were doing the same exact thing.
Speaker 2: So everything we were doing, they were doing.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then at the same time, I mean, how did
Speaker 1: it work. Were you getting pulled off of that mission,
Speaker 1: off of that detail I guess to go out on
Speaker 1: actual combat operations with the American side of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So, like I said, I had a partner, so her
Speaker 3: and I would pretty much rotate out, and then when
Speaker 3: we would do like the rare combine thing, we would
Speaker 3: basically have to go brief the ranger commander and be like,
Speaker 3: this is what the training plan looks like for the week,
Speaker 3: this is who's handling it, this is what the ftps
Speaker 3: are doing. And then another a CST from the previous
Speaker 3: rotation had stayed back to kind of fill this like
Speaker 3: weird civilian billet, and so we would work with her
Speaker 3: to at least like make sure that the training plan
Speaker 3: was staying on track.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean you would just have to leave
Speaker 2: that was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was only six of us, so there was
Speaker 3: only so much you know, moving people around, and then
Speaker 3: you know, my teammates and other places were busy as hell, like,
Speaker 3: so you know they got to take a knee, like
Speaker 3: you're gonna be the one that goes. And also the
Speaker 3: other thing is like if you were a CST at
Speaker 3: that point fighting for a spot on a plane, and
Speaker 3: like you understand the value of the mission, maybe you
Speaker 3: don't have the krusty team sergeant that understands the value
Speaker 3: of the mission. And it's like some new team commander
Speaker 3: who's making the decisi know what the manifest is going
Speaker 3: to look like, you do not miss out on an
Speaker 3: opportunity to be able to go support and show the
Speaker 3: value of the CST mission because CST will not be
Speaker 3: included for that team's missions again. So like you better
Speaker 3: seize that opportunity and you better try really hard and
Speaker 3: do really well to make sure you basically don't like
Speaker 3: solely the name, but also so that you were actually
Speaker 3: value added and you're doing what American taxpayers are paying
Speaker 3: for you to go do on their behalf.
Speaker 1: What was it like going out on missions with the
Speaker 1: Ranger Regiment?
Speaker 2: Most of mine were with the ODAS.
Speaker 3: Thankfully h Ranger Regiment was like fast and furious, crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the ODA stuff though, Uh those were that was super fun.
Speaker 3: I'm very partial to Odias. I just think I got
Speaker 3: along with them a little bit better. I'm sorry, I know, hope,
Speaker 3: I'm not hurting any feelings, but you know, I just
Speaker 3: loved like the energy of like a bunch of these
Speaker 3: guys that you're like not.
Speaker 2: Sure if in shape or what.
Speaker 3: And then they'd be like running up of down mountains
Speaker 3: like billy goats and stuff. But it was really fun.
Speaker 3: I really liked the multi day ones. I liked the
Speaker 3: complexity of it. I liked watching how those plans came together.
Speaker 3: I liked watching how the odias like tag team problems,
Speaker 3: you know, contributing into that decision cycle where I could
Speaker 3: working with the eighteen Foxes to have a good understanding
Speaker 3: of what we were going into and likely where I
Speaker 3: was going to be most useful and preparing myself to
Speaker 3: be able to pivot, you know, kind of getting like
Speaker 3: swapped out between oda's depending on who was in like
Speaker 3: what hot zone kind of thing. Especially for those multi day,
Speaker 3: multi odier missions, that was a lot of fun because
Speaker 3: you got to like kind of see how different teams
Speaker 3: run and like what the book is, so you had
Speaker 3: like your surfer bro teams, and then like your edgy teams,
Speaker 3: which are always really funny to me, and then like
Speaker 3: you're like jock dude bro teams. And so it was
Speaker 3: a lot of fun, and I got to work with
Speaker 3: a lot of like absolute legends in the community and
Speaker 3: see how they do what they do. It felt like
Speaker 3: it felt like almost reading like a war hero book,
Speaker 3: like like reading like Loan Survivors. Sometimes you're like, there's
Speaker 3: no ways, I mean some of that stuff not true, right,
Speaker 3: we know that now, but like you're like in the
Speaker 3: presence of these guys that like, this is what they do,
Speaker 3: this is what they have done for the last twenty years,
Speaker 3: and this is what they will do until they are
Speaker 3: forced to stop doing it. And I found that the
Speaker 3: older ones. That was the other reason why I really
Speaker 3: matched with the ODEA as well, is like it was
Speaker 3: just an older group of people, so the maturity was
Speaker 3: there to understand how to use us effectively, and there
Speaker 3: was less of the ego involved in like, oh man,
Speaker 3: there's a girl in our treehouse, right, Like it was
Speaker 3: kind of just like they'd seen it before. They didn't care,
Speaker 3: they knew the utility. They looked at us as a resource,
Speaker 3: and so they were going to use this as an
Speaker 3: essentially like a weapon system for them, right in, essentially
Speaker 3: an intel platform that they could weaponize. And so I
Speaker 3: really very much so appreciated working with the odas and
Speaker 3: particularly like the Foxes and then the Zoo's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's what a good ODA does, is
Speaker 1: they see what assets they have available and bring them
Speaker 1: in and make them part of the team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were great about that.
Speaker 1: Any particularly dicey operations that stand out in your mind.
Speaker 3: There was one really horrible one where we kind of
Speaker 3: got stuck in a compound and we were folks were
Speaker 3: on their way to come help us out, and we
Speaker 3: did lose service members that day. That's a tough one.
Speaker 3: And it's like very weird because I still like I
Speaker 3: was there, but I have this weird like and nothing
Speaker 3: bad happened to me, Like I didn't get blown up
Speaker 3: or anything, but I have these like ins and outs
Speaker 3: of trying to piece together what's going on. That one
Speaker 3: was really terrible, but I can't really like speak to
Speaker 3: exactly the flow of that and what happened. Besides, it
Speaker 3: was terrible and we were outside of the Golden Hour
Speaker 3: ring and so it was just a lot of conflating
Speaker 3: factors that just culminated in something very tragic. I think.
Speaker 3: I can tell you like one of my favorite ones.
Speaker 2: We were cruising alongside this like little like ridge over.
Speaker 3: This valley, and I mean we are like we've been
Speaker 3: out for like a couple of days at this point,
Speaker 3: I think, and we started like taking pop shots and
Speaker 3: from the other side of the river. And then somebody
Speaker 3: noticed that there was like one of those tunnels like
Speaker 3: coming out of the river, and so these guys were
Speaker 3: just like popping out taking pop shots, and so we
Speaker 3: ended up just setting up on the valley basically like
Speaker 3: on the edge of the ridge, and like they would
Speaker 3: pop out like whack a mole and like shoot it us,
Speaker 3: and like everybody would just shoot back and one would drop,
Speaker 3: and then another one would come out and it would
Speaker 3: be like and then they would drop, and it was
Speaker 3: like very like what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: So finally they were just like calling out like these
Speaker 3: people are just gonna keep jumping out of here, like
Speaker 3: let's just push down. Clearly they have some kind of
Speaker 3: like nest set up there. Let's just push down and
Speaker 3: just drop firepower because this like Heidi hole like nonsense.
Speaker 3: But it just struck me as like just so cavalier
Speaker 3: like like because that was like the first the first
Speaker 3: like no shit, I'm within like what I believe to
Speaker 3: be like viable shooting distance right of like I could
Speaker 3: feasibly shoot this weapon and hit somebody. And so it
Speaker 3: was like, oh shit, this is like this is like real,
Speaker 3: this is.
Speaker 2: Not a range.
Speaker 3: There's actually people shooting at us, Like this is this
Speaker 3: is serious. But it was a very good opportunity to
Speaker 3: see that ODA, like how they operate, how they communicate.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like watching like a conductor of
Speaker 3: an orchestra, right like just all the hand signals and
Speaker 3: everything they were doing. I mean it was really it
Speaker 3: was cool and it made me. It made me more scared,
Speaker 3: but it made me more committed to like making sure
Speaker 3: I actually integrated with the teams and I understood the
Speaker 3: tactics that were expected of me so I did not
Speaker 3: become a liability.
Speaker 1: And what were the differences when you supported jaysock operations
Speaker 1: between between the and the j sock side.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't really like know half the time
Speaker 2: who we're with.
Speaker 3: I think that's the big difference is like when you
Speaker 3: would go with the it would be like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is Chit and Brad and blah blah, and you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 3: great to see you again, you know. And but then
Speaker 3: when there was like other guys, like they would just
Speaker 3: kind of show up and you never really knew who
Speaker 3: they were or what they were notturally doing there, but
Speaker 3: they would be part of like all the briefs and
Speaker 3: the walkthroughs, and then you'd like march out and get
Speaker 3: on the birds, and like they'd be there and they'd
Speaker 3: just be like super chill hanging out. I kept calling
Speaker 3: this one guy Dan because the guys in one of
Speaker 3: the odas kept calling him Delta Dan, and so like
Speaker 3: I just thought that was his name because you never
Speaker 3: introduced himself. And then so like we get done with
Speaker 3: this like nighttime mission thing we're doing, and it's like
Speaker 3: snowy as hell. I'm like up to my like hips
Speaker 3: and snow and you know, hauling all my shit back,
Speaker 3: and we're like getting ready to get on the birds,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, like, I hope you had a good mission, Dan,
Speaker 3: and he's like, my name's not Dan. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: how the fuck would I know? Because you never introduced
Speaker 3: yourself he's.
Speaker 2: Like they just keep calling me Delta Dan, and.
Speaker 3: So it was a lot like that was like they
Speaker 3: were just kind of like these like ghosts that would
Speaker 3: just like show up to things, do their thing in
Speaker 3: some part of the compound, and then like disappear into
Speaker 3: the night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was like very very funny.
Speaker 3: I never really knew what they were doing there outside
Speaker 3: of what I heard like in the briefing, but I
Speaker 3: just didn't know who they were or they would show
Speaker 3: up like right before we would go somewhere, right, So
Speaker 3: there wasn't like a whole lot of time to and
Speaker 3: realistically no need for me to be like briefing them
Speaker 3: on anything. As long as I was doing my job
Speaker 3: what I was supposed to be doing. With the intelligence
Speaker 3: that I was supposed to be focused on, I would
Speaker 3: be feeding into that cycle anyways, So there's no reason
Speaker 3: for us to be like buddy buddy. But I do
Speaker 3: wish I had been like a bit like just like
Speaker 3: more confident in order to be.
Speaker 2: Like no, seriously, what's your name and where like where
Speaker 2: are you coming from?
Speaker 3: But I was just like it's just really starstruck almost
Speaker 3: and also just like really intimidated, like you know, it
Speaker 3: was a twenty five year old woman dropped into this
Speaker 3: this thing that I like really wanted to do and
Speaker 3: have been thinking about for years, and then went through
Speaker 3: the selection and you're like, yeah, I did it, but
Speaker 3: the selection is just like get into the super Bowl,
Speaker 3: like you still have to perform, and the super Bowl
Speaker 3: guess what is month long? So I was just very like,
Speaker 3: I think a little starstruck now. I you know, I
Speaker 3: certainly would go up and be like, no, like, if
Speaker 3: your name's not Dan.
Speaker 2: Then what is your name, dude?
Speaker 3: Because at no point did you introduce yourself, nor do
Speaker 3: I know where you're coming from.
Speaker 2: But you know, twenty five, you don't really have the
Speaker 2: confidence for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oh I know those guys they like look
Speaker 1: over both shoulders, then whisper.
Speaker 3: Up with the or you'd be like on the birds
Speaker 3: with them and they'd be like wearing some like with
Speaker 3: gray Man outfit and you're like, do you realize you're
Speaker 3: a gray Man outfit? Like draws even more attention because
Speaker 3: you look like such a nondescript weirdo. It was. It
Speaker 3: was like one of those things where you'd see them
Speaker 3: all over, you'd be traveling with them, like because because
Speaker 3: I was in couple, and I had to support you know,
Speaker 3: Odier's wherever, you know, other units everywhere, Like Green Air
Speaker 3: would come out and kind of just pick me up
Speaker 3: from my compound and then we'd kind of do like
Speaker 3: the rotation and whoever else was going wherever, and so
Speaker 3: like guys would get on and off and again same thing.
Speaker 3: It's like they're in the little gray Man outfits, just
Speaker 3: like staring at the wall and you're like, you can
Speaker 3: sit on this helicopter for like fifteen minutes and that's
Speaker 3: say anything, that's fine, but it's a little awkward at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 1: I And then what was it like rotating home after couple.
Speaker 3: They come back to the States. Yeah, you know, this
Speaker 3: is like one of the big things that I think
Speaker 3: is underappreciated when you have units that are or programs
Speaker 3: that are unique and different. There was no so okay,
Speaker 3: so you come back with a regular unit, right, and
Speaker 3: there's the reintegration and they do the little march out
Speaker 3: in the field and see your families and then you
Speaker 3: have to go clean weapons and you do the whole thing.
Speaker 3: There was none of that. It was literally like.
Speaker 2: Get on the plane and go home.
Speaker 3: And so because all the all six of us had
Speaker 3: come from every duty station imaginable. We were kind of
Speaker 3: just kicked off to the four winds and it was
Speaker 3: like okay, that like it's over now, and that was
Speaker 3: really really hard. So thankfully some of the girls. The
Speaker 3: program manager at the time was like, hey, if you
Speaker 3: guys want to like take leave and be together, like
Speaker 3: we will work something out and you guys can do
Speaker 3: that because technically I still have like command authority over you.
Speaker 3: And so she gave us the opportunity to take a
Speaker 3: good chunk of leave and we all made a point.
Speaker 2: To be together.
Speaker 3: For those of us that could. I was living in
Speaker 3: uh Savannah at the time, and so two of the
Speaker 3: csts came out and stayed with me, and it was
Speaker 3: just like, yeah, we just needed that like that wine
Speaker 3: down time. It was very hard coming back to the
Speaker 3: conventional army, especially to an MP unit. Again, love the MPs,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of like the machismo and like
Speaker 3: the chest bumping, and I was like, I've just spent
Speaker 3: so much time around this, but people that are like
Speaker 3: entitled to bump their chest and like scream about how
Speaker 3: they're big, strong men, So like I'm not going to
Speaker 3: take it from these state side MPs right now.
Speaker 2: So that was a little bit hard.
Speaker 3: I like went kind of rogue and like, I'm like
Speaker 3: a super rule follower in the Army, but I like
Speaker 3: came home and like put these crazy red streaks in
Speaker 3: my hair and I was like, I'm going to get
Speaker 3: like another really.
Speaker 2: Big stupid tattoo.
Speaker 3: And like pierced my ear and so I just kind
Speaker 3: of went like a little bit rogue. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: would say it was it was hard because there wasn't
Speaker 3: that structured integration program like back and then when you
Speaker 3: go back to your unit, nobody knows where the hell
Speaker 3: you've been for a year, right, So like everybody I
Speaker 3: had known at that unit for the most part, had
Speaker 3: PCSD or was about to PCs. So I came back
Speaker 3: to like a unit that did not know who I was,
Speaker 3: did not know where I just came from, and like
Speaker 3: certainly didn't appreciate that like these things that I had
Speaker 3: just done or these these emotions that I probably needed
Speaker 3: to process on the back end. So that was tough,
Speaker 3: but I was so I'm always I'm grateful to be
Speaker 3: an American, every single day of my life, So grateful
Speaker 3: to be an American. Getting off that plane and driving
Speaker 3: from we landed in Baltimore, driving down to Georgia and
Speaker 3: just that long stretch of highway just in my old
Speaker 3: beat up truck that my dad, you know, brought to
Speaker 3: the airport parking lot for me, and I got a
Speaker 3: very serious speeding ticket, but I didn't care. Just to
Speaker 3: drink like cold diet coke and speed on American highways.
Speaker 3: I mean, what a lovely what a lovely.
Speaker 1: Feeling McDonald's and Starbucks as far as I can see.
Speaker 3: Man. Yeah, I just loved it, and that it didn't
Speaker 3: sound like trash all the time, and that I felt
Speaker 3: I didn't have like the grit of stand in my teeth. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. It was a little bit hard. And then
Speaker 3: that's ultimately why I was like, I can't stay conventional Army.
Speaker 3: I need to find a way to keep doing something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanted to because you mentioned this this issue
Speaker 1: that with a unit cohesion that the CSTS have. I mean,
Speaker 1: was that the way it was designed to work, that
Speaker 1: it's like a one year detail that you go and
Speaker 1: do and then you're just back to your old job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I failed to mention.
Speaker 3: I did get to some of us to get to
Speaker 3: like come back, slash, stay on and do like these
Speaker 3: little like almost tidy things to help with future selections
Speaker 3: for additional teams. So that was helpful, like because you
Speaker 3: kind of all got to come back together and do
Speaker 3: the CST thing again and then and then bring new
Speaker 3: candidates in and teach them like the tips and tricks
Speaker 3: that you had learned. But yeah, it was never It's
Speaker 3: not designed to be like a standing unit. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a thing that you come in and you
Speaker 3: do it, and you usually go home, especially when you
Speaker 3: think about it, like from the officer side. I mean
Speaker 3: I kept getting warned about what it would do to
Speaker 3: my career progression that I was like going off of
Speaker 3: the script, off the timeline script, and I don't really
Speaker 3: like who I don't care about that, Like sure, I'm
Speaker 3: never going to be like a four start John't who
Speaker 3: gives a shit if I like did something cool one year.
Speaker 3: But yes, it was never designed to be a standing unit.
Speaker 3: Which is interesting though because now I hear these things
Speaker 3: of like, well, we don't need CST because we have
Speaker 3: women in SF and we have women rangers and I'm
Speaker 3: like a female ODA engineer, medic whatever her job is
Speaker 3: to be an engineer, medic whatever. Her job is not
Speaker 3: to deal with women and children on the battlefield. It's
Speaker 3: a totally different role. It's not simply the presence and
Speaker 3: the ownership. Can I save vagina on this.
Speaker 1: Podcast vagina is cleared?
Speaker 3: Okay? It is not simply the owner being the owner
Speaker 3: of a vagina that makes you just do that role.
Speaker 3: There is, there's training, it's a specific role, it's a
Speaker 3: specific techniques, tactics, things that you're doing. It's not simply
Speaker 3: just being a woman in the room.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, I think it's very unfortunate that it's not something
Speaker 3: that's a standing program or that it can't readily be
Speaker 3: pulled off the shelf and dusted off and be ready
Speaker 3: to be operationalized again. I will say later teams like
Speaker 3: we have like skill identifiers that indicate that we did it,
Speaker 3: but the earlier teams.
Speaker 2: Don't have that benefit.
Speaker 3: Which is also why a lot of them are fighting,
Speaker 3: you know, every single day to try and get their
Speaker 3: VA benefits to be to help them with the medical
Speaker 3: problems that they're they're facing as a result of their
Speaker 3: of their service is because they didn't. They weren't given
Speaker 3: that designated They were basically just told like go home.
Speaker 3: So I'm thankful that some of us have that designator
Speaker 3: at least because it gives us a little bit more
Speaker 3: to push back on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, the last part of Afghanistan I got
Speaker 1: to get out of you, of course, is your dog
Speaker 1: smuggling ring.
Speaker 3: It was not a ring. First of all.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a conspiracy to me, if.
Speaker 2: My lawyer is listening.
Speaker 3: No. Yeah, met this puppy the mountain right there. Uh
Speaker 3: you know how cute those dang mountain dogs are over there.
Speaker 1: I would not describe them as cute, they're cute. And
Speaker 1: we had one kid get bit in the ass and
Speaker 1: he had to get a series of rabies shots. Young
Speaker 1: ranger getting bit out on the target.
Speaker 2: Well, that's unfortunate. I'm sorry that happened to him.
Speaker 3: But this was a very little puppy who is very
Speaker 3: sweet and bold enough to hang out around us because
Speaker 3: he had figured out that humans, especially Americans like dogs,
Speaker 3: love his kind.
Speaker 2: So he was willing to hang out with us.
Speaker 3: So you know, brought him down, kept him near us
Speaker 3: outside the compound, fed him, and he was really cute
Speaker 3: because he uh, like he knew that I was like,
Speaker 3: I would come and go, not an affectionate animal, like
Speaker 3: this was purely a resource exchange to him, and he
Speaker 3: would go and hang out on the flight line and
Speaker 3: like when the helicopter would come in, he'd be like
Speaker 3: hanging out, you know, like where's my turkey sausage? Like,
Speaker 3: glad you're not dead, where's my turkey sausage? So he
Speaker 3: really didn't give a shit about me. But I have
Speaker 3: been a lifelong animal lover.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 3: Even you know, even with my CSC partner there, that
Speaker 3: was a very isolating experience. I mean, only two women
Speaker 3: basically on that Ranger compound and then that's me.
Speaker 2: That's pretty much it.
Speaker 3: So just like a bright sunny spot in like a dark,
Speaker 3: dusty space and something hard to contend with when you're
Speaker 3: like twenty five year brain still forming. So met this
Speaker 3: dog took care of him. Finally, the rangers, similar to
Speaker 3: the Raby story, started rounding up the dogs and shooting them.
Speaker 3: And I had put a flea collar on this dog
Speaker 3: because I was like I don't want to have fleas,
Speaker 3: you know, And I got a very nasty message from
Speaker 3: the Ranger company commander saying like, whoever's putting the flea
Speaker 3: collar on the dog? He knew it was me, whoever's
Speaker 3: putting the flea collar on the dog, like cease and
Speaker 3: assist immediately. And I was like, okay, well I'm not.
Speaker 3: So I called back and I'm like, well, technically like
Speaker 3: this Jaysock Battalion commanders in charge of me.
Speaker 2: And he's like really cool, So I'm gonna call him
Speaker 2: and I'm like, hey.
Speaker 1: Sir, I have mommy daddy games.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like, I don't work, You're not my real dad.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, hey, sir, it was me.
Speaker 3: I put the flea collar on the dog and I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna stop putting the flea collar on the dog.
Speaker 2: And he's basically like I don't want to hear about it.
Speaker 3: Stephanie like live your life, but like, don't the rangers
Speaker 3: like stop pissing them off. And so finally there was
Speaker 3: like a series of incidents where dogs started getting shot.
Speaker 3: Whether it was for good measure or not, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I was kind of like I'm gonna like snap,
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna have a very hard time if somebody
Speaker 3: kills this dog. And so I reached out to an
Speaker 3: organization called Puppy Rescue Mission, and I was like, do
Speaker 3: you guys know any Americans in the area, and they
Speaker 3: were like, actually, we know this woman that's studying in Kabul,
Speaker 3: So if you can get him out of the camp,
Speaker 3: like we can start helping you. You just have to
Speaker 3: send this money to this person and then keep us
Speaker 3: posted basically, so I was able to get some of
Speaker 3: his basic veterinary meds brought in and get him some
Speaker 3: of that stuff. So he was at least like a
Speaker 3: stronger start than he probably would have been at this point.
Speaker 3: He was like outpacing his like half dead puppy brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters. I couldn't save them all. Kills me. I
Speaker 3: couldn't save them all. I had to pick one. And
Speaker 3: you know, so he's ten times bigger than everybody. And
Speaker 3: they keep telling me like, oh, at some point one
Speaker 3: night she's gonna call, and I'm just like really hoping
Speaker 3: it's not while I'm like out on mission or gone
Speaker 3: or something. And finally, like, do you remember those like
Speaker 3: shitty rochans Did you have to add minutes too? It
Speaker 3: was like these like next Tell but these.
Speaker 1: Like really crap like phone cards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you had to like put them in these
Speaker 3: like really crappy phones. And so one night I'm like
Speaker 3: really low on minutes. But they start calling and she's like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm like on my way. So it's like she calls,
Speaker 3: She's like how do I get on this space? And
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you don't, but like you can get
Speaker 3: into like the outer perimeter and then I can meet
Speaker 3: you probably, So she ends up calling.
Speaker 2: She's like, I'm outside the outer perimeter.
Speaker 3: So I geared up because I was gonna have to
Speaker 3: leave the gate.
Speaker 2: And this was not.
Speaker 3: A good decision. I knew it was wrong, but I
Speaker 3: was gonna do it. I don't think the Statute of
Speaker 3: Limitations has passed.
Speaker 2: This is probably unwise.
Speaker 3: But yeah, basically me and my CST partner, who God
Speaker 3: bless her, was like, you're not going alone. So she
Speaker 3: suited up too, and so we put all of our
Speaker 3: gear on and everything, grab our rifles and pistols and everything,
Speaker 3: go out to the gate and we're like, hey, we're
Speaker 3: gonna We're like gonna run the gate. We're gonna take
Speaker 3: this dog and run the gate. And it's snowing like hell,
Speaker 3: and they're like, all right, good luck, ladies. Like like
Speaker 3: if something happens, like we're not responsible, like this is
Speaker 3: you're not supposed to be doing this and I'm like, yep, okay,
Speaker 3: but you know, and so we run him out. This
Speaker 3: woman jumps out of the car, opens this car. There's
Speaker 3: this Afghan man driving and there's a cat carrier, and
Speaker 3: I like, shove this puppy in, kiss him on his
Speaker 3: nasty face and tell him like, I love you so much,
Speaker 3: I'll take you on the other side. And this dog
Speaker 3: is just looking at me like I should have killed
Speaker 3: you when I got the chance, and they just take off, and.
Speaker 2: Then I didn't hear anything for a while, and I
Speaker 2: was like, damn.
Speaker 3: I think like they just like fleeced me for money, right,
Speaker 3: And then finally I get this email that's like, hey,
Speaker 3: Smokey is at this like safe house outside a couple.
Speaker 3: We're gonna like try and get them on like a
Speaker 3: cargo plane. We need this amount of money for whatever.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, if they're still scamming me, they're
Speaker 3: doing a great job, because I'm gonna send the money.
Speaker 3: And one day I get a message it's like he's
Speaker 3: making it onto the plane. Do you have somebody on
Speaker 3: the other side they can get him? And I'm like,
Speaker 3: I really didn't consider that we would get this far.
Speaker 3: So like, no, I made no coordinations for this. So
Speaker 3: I called my roommate at the time and I'm like, hey, dude,
Speaker 3: if you take care of this feral animal that I'm
Speaker 3: shipping to our house, you don't have to pay rent.
Speaker 3: He's like what, So sure enough, good guy. He took
Speaker 3: care of him. I got back like a month and
Speaker 3: a half, maybe two months later, I don't remember, but
Speaker 3: he was like ten times bigger than the last time
Speaker 3: I saw him. He starts barking and like howling at me,
Speaker 3: and then finally he like realized who it was. And man,
Speaker 3: you talk about like homecoming.
Speaker 2: That was like.
Speaker 3: That like completed me just to see this, to go
Speaker 3: from this little tiny puppy to that' like giant, nasty
Speaker 3: mountain dog living in Georgia, and all his commands were
Speaker 3: were in pasto, so like I had to work with
Speaker 3: him on that too, because I couldn't go to like
Speaker 3: a Georgia dog park and be like Bill Parasha like
Speaker 3: this is like not a good look.
Speaker 1: He caught his freedom bird home, So is he there
Speaker 1: with you? Now?
Speaker 3: He is? He's he's outside.
Speaker 1: With my my Okay. I was going to say, extra
Speaker 1: points if we could get him on camera but.
Speaker 3: He's very he's very suspicious about cameras. He doesn't want
Speaker 3: his likeness to be seen.
Speaker 1: So you get this talk back to the United States
Speaker 1: and you're not so much enjoying your reunion with the
Speaker 1: conventional military. So what did you Where did you go
Speaker 1: from there?
Speaker 3: So I called c A called the CIA branch and
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, I want to know if this CIA
Speaker 3: selection that I went to a very long time ago
Speaker 3: is still good. And thankfully at that time they were like, yeah,
Speaker 3: come on over. So even though I had done really
Speaker 3: bad on my what was the D lab? Was it
Speaker 3: the D lab the one.
Speaker 1: For language language? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I had taken that a week before I went.
Speaker 2: I went to selection, I want to.
Speaker 3: Say, yeah, it and basically the facility like lost power
Speaker 3: in the middle of it. And so then they restarted
Speaker 3: it and like it may as well have been like
Speaker 3: sim language to me, Like it was so bad at
Speaker 3: the D lab, I could have figured it out. So
Speaker 3: they were like, yeah, I mean, you're like language based
Speaker 3: scores like not very good, but do you promise us
Speaker 3: that you'll like try and learn a language.
Speaker 2: And I was like sure thing, and they're like, all right,
Speaker 2: come on over.
Speaker 3: So thankfully got to make the switch over to CA
Speaker 3: went through soft Triple C. Had to pause the training
Speaker 3: because I had to get my shoulder repaired.
Speaker 2: I had a series of.
Speaker 3: Like traumatic and to it, I was just trying to
Speaker 3: like nug through it, tie in it to myself at night,
Speaker 3: tying it to myself when I ran, you know, just
Speaker 3: it was like basically useless, just like a wooden arm
Speaker 3: that kept falling out. But that time that was really
Speaker 3: helpful because they were looking for a captain to come
Speaker 3: to the run the operations section at the Joint Special
Speaker 3: Operations Medical Training Center. And that was right when COVID
Speaker 3: was like really popping off. And I had been going
Speaker 3: to grad school before I left for Afghanistan for emergency
Speaker 3: and disaster management. So I was like, this is my
Speaker 3: time to shine and so had a lot of fun
Speaker 3: with that. That's just like such a cool professional organization.
Speaker 3: I mean that schoolhouse, like all of my admiration goes
Speaker 3: to the Special Operation medical community. I mean what they
Speaker 3: do is truly incredible, just really really amazing people. So
Speaker 3: to be able to be inside the Schoolhouse and like
Speaker 3: keep them resourced, you know, make sure things were on track,
Speaker 3: advocate for them, like that was a really good opportunity.
Speaker 3: And then I resumed the pipeline, went through CAA and
Speaker 3: was very blessed to be assigned to the ninety first.
Speaker 3: So Africa, I'm aligned.
Speaker 1: And did you end up having to go to language school?
Speaker 3: Yes? I did French, not well, but enough to pass
Speaker 3: the tests and honestly, at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: that's all that matters. But yes, yeah, and we only
Speaker 3: got four months of language, which is pretty tough. So
Speaker 3: I felt really bad for the guys learning like Russian
Speaker 3: and Arabic. But yeah, I just got French, which is
Speaker 3: what I wanted because I really wanted Africa. Like I
Speaker 3: was like, I will do everything that I have to
Speaker 3: do to get Africa. I want to go to.
Speaker 1: Africa, And you did, right. They sent you to West
Speaker 1: Africa a bunch of times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got to go to Senegal and then Benin
Speaker 3: was the big one.
Speaker 2: Benin was probably the most impactful.
Speaker 1: Well, let's start with Senegal. Then what was that deployment?
Speaker 3: Like that was really fun. It was thirty people. It
Speaker 3: was very much like a get immersed, figure out what's
Speaker 3: going on out here, similar to what.
Speaker 2: You had talked about when we spoke before.
Speaker 3: It was there was a kind of an ocent thing
Speaker 3: that they wanted us to test out and do stuff with.
Speaker 3: So that was a great opportunity for us to go.
Speaker 3: Kind of hard to keep a low profile with thirty people,
Speaker 3: but that was super cool.
Speaker 2: I mean we went, we went all over.
Speaker 3: We really like really went like very like local like
Speaker 3: it was. It was really good. Yeah, just a good
Speaker 3: time speaking as much French as humanly possible. That was
Speaker 3: really the intent behind it was like get as many
Speaker 3: people a bit of on continent experience as possible in
Speaker 3: a low threat environment and like integrated with the embassy
Speaker 3: because West Africa is going to become a thing, so
Speaker 3: we need to start rolling people into here and you know,
Speaker 3: getting some names to faces.
Speaker 1: And it was the intent also sort of like developing
Speaker 1: the relationship with the Senegalie.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. We went and met with the War College
Speaker 3: and then met with some of like the soldiers and
Speaker 3: then there was like a like a fight house type
Speaker 3: of thing that a lot of soldiers were in. So
Speaker 3: a bunch of the guys went and did like combatives
Speaker 3: like in the sand and just.
Speaker 1: Oh you're talking about that like that, uh, the native
Speaker 1: wrestling that they do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was crazy. I didn't partner it again,
Speaker 3: I have a fake shoulder, so like not good. I
Speaker 3: will watch.
Speaker 1: But it's huge there, huge yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, super athletes. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: We joined like a gym in the community and it
Speaker 3: was like such like a prison gym vibe, Like everything
Speaker 3: was just like filthy.
Speaker 2: Invested, and it was like such a good workout. Every
Speaker 2: time that they have.
Speaker 1: I've heard the kids state because it's a way. You know,
Speaker 1: kids do that because they make a lot of money
Speaker 1: if they become good at it. And I've heard them
Speaker 1: like lifting weights in Cadence. The guys I call in
Speaker 1: like one, two, three and you can hear the weights clacking.
Speaker 3: It was incredible, Like those gyms were incredible. I mean
Speaker 3: these guys were I don't know if they were using substances.
Speaker 3: I never asked, it was none of my business, but
Speaker 3: I mean some of the largest men I'd ever seen.
Speaker 2: It's so encouraging.
Speaker 3: Like I usually get irritated at the gym when somebody's like, ooh,
Speaker 3: check your form on that, But like when these guys
Speaker 3: gave me guidance, I'd be like, just sir, we'll implement
Speaker 3: that immediately. Just a good time it was. It was
Speaker 3: really just make some friends, understand the area, get some
Speaker 3: faces to names, and ingratiate ourselves at that phase.
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk at all about like the
Speaker 1: leadership challenge that you faced out there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, without like sharing anybody's like private information. We
Speaker 3: had a pretty severe mental health crisis that happened, and
Speaker 3: this was like a pretty formative like leadership lesson for me.
Speaker 3: The company commander stayed back, so I was like the
Speaker 3: ground force commander out there, and I was which meant
Speaker 3: my peers, like I was responsible for reporting back on
Speaker 3: behalf of me and my peers as well, so other
Speaker 3: captains and one of the one of the soldiers we
Speaker 3: took with us, had a very serious mental health episode
Speaker 3: that we probably should have seen coming, like Echelon's above,
Speaker 3: us probably should have seen coming. So I was very
Speaker 3: frustrated by that, but it didn't matter. Like at that point,
Speaker 3: it was like deal with it and do what we
Speaker 3: have to do. And so again thankful to the Special
Speaker 3: Operations medical community. The medics across the teams in that
Speaker 3: unit were just absolutely fabulous, did what they needed to do,
Speaker 3: got very creative, tapped in some embassy resources to help
Speaker 3: us out and hold us over to make sure nobody
Speaker 3: was in like an immediately life threatening situation, and then
Speaker 3: we were able to coordinate a very interesting evacuation to
Speaker 3: get that soldier out and get him the help that
Speaker 3: he needed, which I mean, you've you've been over there,
Speaker 3: that's like not a place where you go to like
Speaker 3: local clinics or you right, yeah, like mental health is
Speaker 3: not a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not. I remember I had a local
Speaker 1: woman in Senegal tell me, she said, uh, what was
Speaker 1: it that that like anxiety is a Western thing? Like
Speaker 1: we don't have that here?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And also I mean let's also think like
Speaker 3: I don't I don't want to speculate, but like let's
Speaker 3: also think about like the the substances that are available
Speaker 3: in those markets that you might not even know if
Speaker 3: you're like out on the town, you might not even
Speaker 3: realize that you're you've engaged with.
Speaker 2: You know, probably not even on purpose, hopefully not on purpose.
Speaker 3: So I don't really know precisely what ha and I
Speaker 3: just knew that we had to we had to handle it.
Speaker 3: And again the team like really rallied to to respond
Speaker 3: to that and get that soldier out, and then you know,
Speaker 3: we came back and there was a big discussion on
Speaker 3: like what are civil affairs medics carrying when they are
Speaker 3: overseas because if the ideas that were small autonomous teams,
Speaker 3: we are not always gonna be in a situation where
Speaker 3: you can call the embassy and say hey, come help.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what we had to do. So that
Speaker 3: was that was an interesting learning lesson I think for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, and then you said Benin was kind of
Speaker 1: a big one for you.
Speaker 3: Benin was like my caa super Bowl. So we were
Speaker 3: the soft civil affairs country opener for Benin. My team
Speaker 3: had the best team, very lucky, so we did Adja
Speaker 3: set with them. That was awesome. It was, like I said,
Speaker 3: the first civil fairs ones. So the semic focus. Benin
Speaker 3: was having a really hard time. The forces, uh Ben
Speaker 3: and wah. So if we call them the fab but
Speaker 3: they were having a really hard time because they're being
Speaker 3: a bit heavy handed up on some of the border
Speaker 3: regions and you know, rounding young men up, whether they
Speaker 3: were actually affiliated with terrorists or not. You know, they
Speaker 3: were still participating in general banditry to probably survive for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, you know, but they were being pretty heavy
Speaker 3: handed and so it's creating a really big rift with
Speaker 3: the community.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: Uh, soccaf and African were like, hey, this is a
Speaker 3: good place to target a civil affairs j set.
Speaker 2: Let's work through some of these sib MIL dynamics.
Speaker 3: So we had a great time, went out there, worked
Speaker 3: with them thirty days.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: We maximized it. We made the most of it. We
Speaker 3: did everything with them, you name it, we did it.
Speaker 3: And it was good because it was a totally different
Speaker 3: group that had not benefited from the odas because they
Speaker 3: had like their there are like more tactical units that
Speaker 3: of course, you go to any country and you're like,
Speaker 3: we want to do a j set and they're going
Speaker 3: to give you their like their arranger regiment, right because
Speaker 3: they're like, that's who we want to give all this to.
Speaker 3: This was great because they were like they genuinely understood
Speaker 3: that this does not necessarily need to be like their
Speaker 3: their frontline guys that are like door kicking.
Speaker 2: It probably needs to be dispersed throughout the force.
Speaker 3: So they had like medics, vets, everybody in there, like lawyers,
Speaker 3: and then some like some of the ground troop guys,
Speaker 3: so that it could really disperse through the through the
Speaker 3: formations and then we closed that out and thankful to
Speaker 3: the gracious support of Spirit of America, we were able
Speaker 3: to secure a lot more money than I expected, and
Speaker 3: we were able to do a medical Civic Action program
Speaker 3: UH in a rural community. We also brought in an
Speaker 3: Odia to help trade in the fab that had done
Speaker 3: the j set with us, and then we're going to
Speaker 3: do this capstone event was going to be the medcap
Speaker 3: for a couple of days, they came in and talked
Speaker 3: to them about like setting up security for these types
Speaker 3: of events. So it was like a lot of layering
Speaker 3: effects and wouldn't have been possible without Spirit of America.
Speaker 3: But that was really really eye opening. It was like
Speaker 3: I felt like I was watching the baby birds fly,
Speaker 3: almost as like I had just spent thirty plus days
Speaker 3: with these guys, like teaching them everything I could possibly
Speaker 3: know about what they needed to know, or at least
Speaker 3: what I thought they needed to know, and doing it
Speaker 3: in French right, and like we had so much fun.
Speaker 3: And then that first day of the MEDCAP, I was
Speaker 3: like being very micromanagy and just because I was like
Speaker 3: you cited and jazzed up and I wanted it to
Speaker 3: go really well, and it was like so great because
Speaker 3: at one point one of the guys, like one of
Speaker 3: like the junior officers, came over and he was like,
Speaker 3: we'd got it, like we were doing this, We're okay,
Speaker 3: Like it's okay, like you can go hands off, and
Speaker 3: I was like cool. And then like for the rest
Speaker 3: of that medcap over a couple of days, it was
Speaker 3: like so much fun just observing helping, like using certain
Speaker 3: things as training opportunities, but at that like micro level,
Speaker 3: with the intent that would spread throughout the formation. And
Speaker 3: then the Embassy did a really good job of amplifying
Speaker 3: that story. And so it's great now because I see
Speaker 3: the one of the kernels that was in that j set,
Speaker 3: I see him like on the news now all the
Speaker 3: time talking about Benin and like the work that the FAB.
Speaker 2: Is doing in the local communities.
Speaker 3: And how they're repairing relationships and they're hosting events to
Speaker 3: get them a little bit closer to the population. So
Speaker 3: it just I'm super proud of that one because I
Speaker 3: think there was there was ripples from that, and I
Speaker 3: don't think that you always get to say that, like
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily feel like there was ripples from my
Speaker 3: time in Afghanistan, right, I feel like there was genuinely
Speaker 3: ripples from the time and Benine and that to me
Speaker 3: is like civil Affairs isn't always seen as like the
Speaker 3: sexiest soft tribe, you know, but to me, that's like.
Speaker 2: Why it matters.
Speaker 3: That's that's really like the impact is that that human
Speaker 3: terrain aspect of it. And so I was very very proud,
Speaker 3: very thankful to be part of that that mission.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm really glad that you could explain to
Speaker 1: people what civil affairs does because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: misunderstanding or so it's more of a harder cell, I
Speaker 1: think than like a Special Forces guy or a Navy cel.
Speaker 1: People kind of understand.
Speaker 3: That, yeah, we do that to ourselves.
Speaker 1: I set my novel in Beneen.
Speaker 3: Oh really yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Had I known you were there, I would have
Speaker 1: called you up for some research.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know about that.
Speaker 3: I was busy. And also I got like heat stroke
Speaker 3: like four times. So again, thank got for my medics.
Speaker 3: Like I remember teaching teaching one of the classes with
Speaker 3: like an ivy like running through my arm as I'm
Speaker 3: like trying to like fight through my French translation of
Speaker 3: how to speak to people.
Speaker 1: And so as you start like winding down your active
Speaker 1: duty time, I remember you had told me you spent
Speaker 1: some time in Italy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So my final assignment on active duty, I was
Speaker 3: the Aide de camp to the Navy four stars. So
Speaker 3: that was super eye opening to work for the Navy,
Speaker 3: really great experience. He was the commander Naval Forces Africa,
Speaker 3: Naval Forces Europe and ally Jointed Force Command Naples, so
Speaker 3: the NATO Command in Naples, Italy. And so that's what
Speaker 3: I did for the last two years of my active
Speaker 3: duty time.
Speaker 1: Now, how do you like that? That sounds on paper
Speaker 1: it sounds like a pretty cush assignment.
Speaker 3: It was so not cush, like you know, my husband
Speaker 3: came over there for a little bit and then he
Speaker 3: was like, now I'm going to go back, because like
Speaker 3: you're never here, and when you are here, you're just
Speaker 3: like so stressful to be around.
Speaker 2: It was an incredible experience. The exposure.
Speaker 3: I mean I went to like over like think I
Speaker 3: did account It was like over like twenty five countries
Speaker 3: or something crazy some of those multiple times. The peak
Speaker 3: behind the curtain. You know, if you're the person that's
Speaker 3: attached the hip of a four star, especially in those commands,
Speaker 3: like to see historical events playing out in real time
Speaker 3: that nobody in the world but you and those people
Speaker 3: in that room or know that are happening right then,
Speaker 3: and then knowing you can't tell anybody about it, and
Speaker 3: then you see it on the news a couple days
Speaker 3: later and you're like, Okay, cool, now I can like
Speaker 3: kind of talk about it. Just a really good learning
Speaker 3: opportunity to the I would say to like anybody that's
Speaker 3: still in the military and deciding like broadening assignments like that.
Speaker 3: So I had to choose between that or an assignment
Speaker 3: at first Group, and I really wanted the first Group one,
Speaker 3: and that would have been an amazing opportunity as well.
Speaker 3: But there was like something niggling in the back of
Speaker 3: my brain that like a NATO assignment is like crazy,
Speaker 3: and a NATO assignment in a four stars like personal
Speaker 3: staff is like nuts. So I'm glad that I did
Speaker 3: that because the NATO exposure fabulous, Like just to be
Speaker 3: in an environment where you're not immediately like the big
Speaker 3: dog when you walk in, like you know, you go overseas,
Speaker 3: you go to all these places and you're like, I'm
Speaker 3: an American but then you walk into a NATO command
Speaker 3: and it's not always like the Americans in.
Speaker 2: Charge of the thing.
Speaker 3: So that was very humbling and very helpful. And then
Speaker 3: again to go to some of those countries that like
Speaker 3: in what world would I be going to like Serbia, right,
Speaker 3: you know, or like watching like crises in Kosovo like
Speaker 3: unfold from you know, the back of a plane and
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what we're gonna do when we
Speaker 3: hit the ground, like we had like an emergency landing
Speaker 3: in Poland that was nuts, and like I was in
Speaker 3: the cockpit with like the little GPS tracker, like trying
Speaker 3: to figure.
Speaker 2: Out where we were going and what needed to happen.
Speaker 3: Like just crazy like that, because like you're responsible for
Speaker 3: getting the four star where he needs to be because
Speaker 3: he's a four star, he's.
Speaker 2: Got a lot going on. He's the only guy that
Speaker 2: can do the thing.
Speaker 3: So very high pressure, but a lot of fun. Very
Speaker 3: thankful to have worked for that commander because he was
Speaker 3: very patient, very kind, very cerebral, and so my exposure
Speaker 3: to the Navy in that regard was I think that
Speaker 3: was good, good Navy exposure.
Speaker 2: And then just such a professional staff around him.
Speaker 1: But you didn't care for Naples so much.
Speaker 3: No, And you know, I'm ethnically Italian, like Theresa is
Speaker 3: my maiden name, Rittola is my married name. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm wearing a Cornicello necklace, like I'm Italian. But Naples,
Speaker 3: man Naples was the food ten out of ten, the
Speaker 3: wine ten out of ten when you went down to
Speaker 3: the Amafi coast beautiful. But living in Naples like felt
Speaker 3: like Syria. It's just the governance is very poor. They've
Speaker 3: been gutted in terms of the resources. In southern Italy,
Speaker 3: it was just chaotic. It kind of felt like a
Speaker 3: war zone. So I also, you know, I took the
Speaker 3: assignment and thinking, ooh, my European vacation, and it was
Speaker 3: very much so not a European vacation one because of
Speaker 3: the nature of the assignment and too just the location
Speaker 3: wasn't necessarily what I think one thinks of when they
Speaker 3: think about going to Naples, Italy. But nice to be
Speaker 3: able to just jump in the car on the weekend
Speaker 3: and like go to Sirecto or go like you know,
Speaker 3: rent a boat for like barely anything and just go
Speaker 3: cruise around. Even though I'm like, in no way qualify
Speaker 3: to drive a boat.
Speaker 1: And now you are in the civil Affairs Reserves and
Speaker 1: also out on sippy street work in a real job.
Speaker 1: How are you finding that? How's that treating you?
Speaker 3: It's good, you know. I got off activeduty with fourteen years.
Speaker 3: Made that decision for my family because, as I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people that are drawn to this community,
Speaker 3: if we don't actively pull ourselves out of it, will
Speaker 3: just continue to get on planes and go to other countries,
Speaker 3: and we're gonna chase that feeling every time. So I
Speaker 3: had to make a hard decision get out. My husband
Speaker 3: had gotten out like four years before, so he was
Speaker 3: he was pretty over the Army experience and went and
Speaker 3: did good things from there. I was terrified because so
Speaker 3: much of my personality is the Army. I mean, like
Speaker 3: I said, I I genuinely believe the Army saved me
Speaker 3: from a really bad future, like I was going down
Speaker 3: a bad path, like I talked about.
Speaker 2: So I owe a lot of my.
Speaker 3: Like just my everything, my education, my confidence, my friendships,
Speaker 3: everything I have to the Army. My dog, my husband,
Speaker 3: I met him in the Army, right, like I owe
Speaker 3: everything the Army. So very hard for me to make
Speaker 3: that tradition transition, which is why I made the decision
Speaker 3: to stick with reserve, So got off activity. The next
Speaker 3: day I was assigned to reserve unit. That Reserve unit
Speaker 3: is super cool. They're out in Virginia Beach. They're actually
Speaker 3: getting after stuff, really good realistic training and super high
Speaker 3: quality experienced people willing to learn but also teach. Just
Speaker 3: a good time with with good access out there. Virginia
Speaker 3: Beach is like incredible, So like sure, I'll go do
Speaker 3: drill in Virginia Beach because it's just beautiful. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: working on the civilian side, I work for an AI
Speaker 3: enabled decision intelligence company. They're London based.
Speaker 2: And I have a lot of autonomy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely love what I do. It's a it's a platform
Speaker 3: that I wish that I had had. Definitely would have
Speaker 3: been helpful in Afghanistan, would have been very helpful in
Speaker 3: West Africa, especially towards the soft and a regular warfare
Speaker 3: mission set. So you know, if you you believe in
Speaker 3: the in the platform that you're helping people get onto
Speaker 3: and learn about, and the team culture is awesome, that
Speaker 3: is really very much so making the transition easier. It's
Speaker 3: it's a great team, really great company. Everybody's awesome. A
Speaker 3: lot of former military soft from Allied nations as well,
Speaker 3: so I still get that kind of like NATO feel
Speaker 3: to it as well. And so it's been it's been
Speaker 3: really great. But you know, I still keep tabs on everything.
Speaker 3: I still get those those hunger payings for the Army sometimes.
Speaker 3: But then I go on the Army subreddit and like
Speaker 3: read all the crap that's going on, and.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, it sounds like there might be
Speaker 1: another adventure or two for you out there with the reserves,
Speaker 1: if they some more time spent in Africa.
Speaker 3: Maybe, Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think that's the seriously
Speaker 3: like undersung aspect of the reserves is like if you
Speaker 3: what I'm coming to realize is like, if you want
Speaker 3: to do something and you want to get after it,
Speaker 3: those opportunities available, and you're so much less at the
Speaker 3: whims of timing, Like I feel like it is on
Speaker 3: active duty, where like you missed the deployment by a month, right,
Speaker 3: or you know whatever, you recycled to school so then
Speaker 3: it delayed something like that. It's it's it's not like
Speaker 3: that in the reserves. Like if you want to do it.
Speaker 3: You want to contribute, even if it's for shorter stints,
Speaker 3: like you can go do that. So there's definitely opportunities
Speaker 3: that could come down the pipeline if if it makes sense.
Speaker 1: So tell us about All True.
Speaker 3: So All True was formed by former csts Jessey. You
Speaker 3: had her on one of your episodes earlier and she
Speaker 3: is incredible. So nonprofit founded by former csts, like I said,
Speaker 3: and it has grown to be an amalgamation of women
Speaker 3: and men from the soft community that are all about
Speaker 3: empowering future generations.
Speaker 2: So they're doing a lot of great work.
Speaker 3: They've done some incredible stuff in Ukraine and then Kenya
Speaker 3: was a recent one and they've got a lot of
Speaker 3: great stuff coming up. But that has been so critical
Speaker 3: to such a that that tiny community of women that
Speaker 3: were csts of like just being like I see you,
Speaker 3: I know what you did, I know what you're about,
Speaker 3: and just the rallying around each other, advocating for each other,
Speaker 3: and then all of the men that are part of that,
Speaker 3: that worked with us or worked around us, that also
Speaker 3: believe in that that operational imperative of of essentially like
Speaker 3: I don't want to say weaponizing gender, but knowing there's
Speaker 3: value in UH using that gendered aspect in for for operational.
Speaker 1: Success and and also you want to talk about Guerrera.
Speaker 3: Guerrera. Yes, did you watch Gera? No?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: So. Guerrera is a three part series produced by All
Speaker 3: True and Dulcinea Productions.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 3: It tells the UH story of Jenny and Captain Jenny Morino,
Speaker 3: she was killed in action when she was a CST,
Speaker 3: but it also tells the story of the broader CST
Speaker 3: story and also the Afghan Female Tactical Platoon story from
Speaker 3: csts that were there, ftps that were there, and then
Speaker 3: the men that we or at least those teams. I
Speaker 3: was not on those teams that was early in the
Speaker 3: in the CST program that were there and worked with
Speaker 3: those women and saw their value and still beat the
Speaker 3: drum for it. Like I said, three part series Apple,
Speaker 3: Apple TV, YouTube Premium and then Amazon. It's really incredible,
Speaker 3: if not just for like the footage alone, I still
Speaker 3: don't understand how they got some of the footage that
Speaker 3: they did, like archived footage, just really incredible. If you've
Speaker 3: been to Afghanistan, like you will, you will be like
Speaker 3: transported back. You can like you can smell it almost
Speaker 3: like that that distinct Afghanistans. Then while you're watching this
Speaker 3: but very moving, very important story captures a part of
Speaker 3: uh our history that I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: don't know about and probably would would never know about
Speaker 3: unless they went looking for it, just because the CST
Speaker 3: story has not been captured in that way necessarily before.
Speaker 3: So I think if anybody is interested in that, they
Speaker 3: want to learn more about the Odas and range A
Speaker 3: regiment and all of that and how we worked with them.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a really good primer. And then the
Speaker 3: context of like everything that was going on for the
Speaker 3: CST program to be stood up. I think that's an
Speaker 3: important part to understanding the the the policy and the
Speaker 3: strategic failures of the global we're on terror as well.
Speaker 2: So just a just a different, different approach to capturing
Speaker 2: that history.
Speaker 1: Definitely, I'm looking forward to it off to check it out.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about? Anything
Speaker 1: I've failed to ask during this interview that you'd like
Speaker 1: to get into.
Speaker 2: Oh, I feel like we've been like talking for hours.
Speaker 2: I've just been talking so much.
Speaker 3: No, I really appreciate it I think what you're doing
Speaker 3: spreading the word, capturing people's stories is really important, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's we were talking about before, Like this just
Speaker 3: makes it's a small world, but the military makes it
Speaker 3: even smaller. So I think it's really important to know
Speaker 3: what our our our brothers and sisters are doing out
Speaker 3: there or have done, because it informs what you could
Speaker 3: possibly do or what you might be interested in. Right Like,
Speaker 3: if people hadn't talked about the CST program, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have known about it. I wouldn't have known to keep
Speaker 3: you know, I wouldn't have known to like key in
Speaker 3: on that when it came out on the in the mill.
Speaker 2: Per message because I would have had no context.
Speaker 3: So I think it's very important to talk about these
Speaker 3: these programs, even if they're sunseted they don't exist. I
Speaker 3: personally believe there will be a need for a CST
Speaker 3: or a CST like program again, and so I think
Speaker 3: it it would benefit us all to learn about it
Speaker 3: now and take some of the lessons from it, so
Speaker 3: we're we're a little bit more prepared next time.
Speaker 1: Definitely, where can people find you? Are you on social
Speaker 1: media or LinkedIn or anything?
Speaker 3: Yeah? The only social media I have is linkedin' I'm
Speaker 3: a LinkedIn girl these days. You know, you make the
Speaker 3: pivot to corporate, you got to be on the LinkedIn game.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. It's Stephanie R.
Speaker 3: D Rotolo. If you want to see my dog, I do.
Speaker 3: I have to put pictures of him on there. He
Speaker 3: has his like very own branded aspect.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's where you can find me. I'm on
Speaker 2: there all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and yeah, we'll have a link down the
Speaker 1: description of this podcast also for folks. Well, Stephanie, I mean,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing this interview. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much. It was super fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well stay in touch and everyone else. We'll
Speaker 1: see you guys next week. Hey, guys, I want to
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