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Speaker 2: My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and Coalition forces
are in the early stages of military operations to disarmour Rack,
to free its people, and to defend the world from
grave danger. On my orders, Coalition forces have begun striking
selected targets of military importance to under Saddam Hussein's ability
to wage war. These are opening stages of what will
be a broad and concerted campaign.
Speaker 1: On this week's episode, we are doing something a little different.
We have special guest Jack Mandeville, a veteran of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, the invasion of Iraq in two thousand and three.
Jack is the host of jacked History on YouTube. Please
go check that out. I've linked it in the show
description as well. But Jack, we're gonna be instead of
talking about history, we're gonna be interviewing someone who went
through history about going through history. So enjoy this episode
with me, Dan and Jack Mandevil of jack History on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Softcore History.
Speaker 1: What is up? Welcome back to Softcore History. I am
your host for the week, Rob Fox, joined as always
by Dan Rejester.
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure to be on the show.
Speaker 1: Rob. Yeah, good to be back. Good to be back.
And today we don't have any history to talk about.
We have history to talk to. Oh yeah, Jack Mandeville
is here. And we're not talking about some medieval knight
who has the record for molesting girls in towns he
pillaged or anything like that. We're talking about Well, I
guess the towns you pillaged?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Did? Some did not? Some not? Not medieval style pillaging, yeah,
not the raping and burning, but right, definitely grabbed a
few tokens along the way. Yeah, it'd been a long
time since the American forces had invaded a country pricens Vietnam,
so our pillaging itch was in full.
Speaker 1: It's been a while while. It's been a while because
today we have Jack Manville on the show, veteran of
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Speaker 4: And I was a member of the Kiss Army two.
But that's a different episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and there was pillaging in that one in
the old school style, but we won't talk about that today.
I don't know if the Statute of Limitations is up
on that. But we wanted to have Jack on for
two reasons. One, we've never had anyone on the show
who has been involved in a historical event. And two,
Dan just started watching Generation Kill.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's a good series.
Speaker 3: I binged it. I think in a week.
Speaker 4: That's one of those things, is it. It wasn't a banger.
It wasn't Band of Brothers or anything like that. House
of Cards or whatever. Huse of Dragons. It wasn't a banger,
but it will always hold up well.
Speaker 3: Young Scars Guard Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: That had a pretty impressive cast and Rudy Reyes playing himself.
Speaker 1: Peak Kellen Lutz, Twilight Kellen Lutz I mean just the
hits go on with that.
Speaker 3: But it was for sure a show that I think
really nailed how dudes talk to each other.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think we know whether or not you were
in the army, like if you played football in high.
Speaker 4: School, or you're ever in a locker room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like anything like that. It is the best,
maybe the best male dialogue I have ever heard in
my life. Like if you are a of the three
women listening to the show and you want to know
how it sounds when.
Speaker 3: Guys talk to each other behind closed doors, Yeah, that
generation kill.
Speaker 1: I mean, on the fucking mark.
Speaker 4: It was done by the guys that did The Wire,
and anybody that knows anything about that kind of East
Coast law enforcement will tell you that The Wires the
most accurate cop show ever. So same goes. I was
never gonna watch it because it was so personal to me,
and I was familiar with the Rolling Stones article that
led to the book that obviously led to the series.
But I was like, they're gonna, they're gonna fuck this up,
and a friend of mine convinced me to watch it.
I watched it, and I was like, this is the
most fucking accurate war movie. Ever, Yeah, none of that
flowery romantic language of why we're fighting. It's literally a bunch.
Speaker 1: Of Even though I love the movie Fury, I assume
that no one has ever in war been like there's
still more killing to do, the still more dying to do.
Speaker 4: Best job overhead, Like, yeah, saying that on ironically, it's
probably been very rare. People have actually said, right, right.
Speaker 3: BK burger king some baby killers? Yeah, yeah, why do
they keep calling them burger king?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Okay, everything was like the fucking the j Lo. Right,
that was real that the way that they focused so
much on a rumor was so important to the reality
of that series. Like, that's something that we were all
stressed out about. And that was before we didn't have
Wi Fi or anything like that. You just we just
were hearing stuff and it and literally it's all we
could talk about. As we're about to invade a country.
All we could talk about was j loo. Uh.
Speaker 1: What's really funny too. What I love about the show
before we get into talking about your shit, is this
is more of a show, but you write. You're a
writer as well. I actually recently watched some of your
episodes of was It Checkpoint Charlie.
Speaker 4: Yes, I I didn't write that, but I would say
it was written I co created. Okay, Yeah, we outlined
the episodes, but Greg Kelly did most of the legwork writing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And before you get into it, Rob, is it true
that you guys would never carry those like charm candies?
Speaker 4: That's true, yep. And I'll never forget the first time
because no one ever told me when I was in
boot camp or my infantry. I didn't learn until I
got to the fleet. And I got to the fleet
literally like fourteen days before we crossed the border. I
checked in with my unit in Kuwait as we were
fixed to go into that country. And I'll never forget
I I literally had my NCO grab it out of
my hands and throw it off the vehicle and lectured
me about not eating charms.
Speaker 1: That was a real thing.
Speaker 3: That goes back to World War two or something. It's
just like a bad luck omen to Yeah, those on
your person at all times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just one. It's just one of those things that
existed before I got there. That's that's really funny. I
don't think they put those things in MRIs anymore. I
think that, Yeah, why would they even still be this
it's an extinct product.
Speaker 1: One thing I love about that show, though, from a
or whatever standpoint, is because you know a lot of
times and I've dealt with this, like when I've worked
with like my writing partner who I love, but and
you deal with this when you talk to like people
who are like higher up who are like linking your
scripts and stuff like that, and they're like, oh, like
you know, like where's the lost all hope moment? And
you got to hit these story beats and stuff like that.
Generation kill, nothing happens. It just shows them for seven hours.
Speaker 4: Bullshitting' a couple of firefights here and there.
Speaker 1: Like there's no story arc, there's no resolution to anything.
Speaker 4: There's no music.
Speaker 1: Yeah you literally they just.
Speaker 3: Come in, well they sing yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: You come in at one point and you watch them
for a while and then it's over and it's so
fucking good to the point where I just watched that
and look, it's hard to do. Like typically you do
have to hit story beats because people are dumb and
they like to see the same things and they like patterns.
But I just like watching that, I was just like
this is great, Like this is almost like bro asmr
like it's just like it's just like, if you want
us make it sound like you're just sitting in a
room full of friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it does conclude, right, they conquer Iraq in
twenty one days and then they're just kind of sitting
in bagdad figuring out what to do. That was the war,
didn't We didn't win. We just kind of stayed.
Speaker 1: Thought we did, like, oh, I'll never have to come
back here again.
Speaker 4: Evan Wright who wrote the book, and I believe he
did the the screenplay as well or contributed to it.
Brilliant rip. Evan Wright. Yeah, he passed away recently. Uh
he he really does open the book up well basically,
you know, the appropriate title was Generation Killed. But it
really does capture the older millennial age group during that
time very well. Like, these are kids. They didn't grow
up reading Dick Tracy novels like your grandparents did. They
grew up playing grand theft auto and learning to beat
up fucking hookers and video games.
Speaker 1: Watching like Beads and now yes.
Speaker 4: And now they're at war. Right, they are so much
more desensitized than previous generation. Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's get into We're just gonna run through
fucking I got questions for you, and I'm sure a
million questions will pop up in the meantime, but let's
get this out of the way actually first, before we
get into your you know, you're US marine, uh, first
first Marine Division, all that stuff. We'll get into more
stuff about that, but I just I gotta get this
other way because you texted me about it last night,
and I just I'm not gonna able to move on
until we talk about this first. What was the most
fucked up thing you saw during the invasion, dude.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I want to without Okay, just
it is. I I saw a lot of dead, burning bodies.
Speaker 3: Man Again, don't rattle the PTSD.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, but like talk about the desensitized thing he
texted me.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask. I wouldn't you know, I wouldn't have
been on here if he hadn't.
Speaker 3: I was with me this.
Speaker 4: Because I was drinking and I was having a therapy
such because you got I. I blocked that out of
my head for probably like twelve thirteen years, and then
one day in twenty seventeen, I was just driving down
the road, just having a normal day, and that memory
flooded back out of nowhere, and I was like, oh, fuck,
that happened. That's that happened. I have not thought about
this in years. Uh No, it's weird. I saw a
lot of death and all that, as you do, and
I never lost sleep over that. I never never had
any issues. And then I saw a kid getting diddled
and it it was so it was so bad that
obviously my brain blocked that out for years. And I
get it now. Remember that he was like a graduate
assistant or something, or an assistant coach for Penn State.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the redheaded dude.
Speaker 4: I forget that. He's the one that saw that kid
getting molested and he did the right thing. He reported it,
and then a lot of people gave him ship, like
why didn't he follow up with that? Why didn't he
ask questions? Right? I can understand how his brain might
have fucking blocked that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it just like does that does not compute? Yeah, cannot, Like.
Speaker 4: You're just gonna shove that in the back.
Speaker 1: You're just driving down the road and somebody's just like
sawing a homeless man up. Yeah, you know what I mean,
You're probably just gonna be like, that's not real. I'm
not remembering it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw that in a movie Mike mcquerie depends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah. He did everything right and what he took ship for.
I can completely understand how he might have his brain
might have just shut that memory out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. So one thing
I love about talking to you about this, now that
that's out of the way, Yeah, is that?
Speaker 4: Yah, So that's the most fucked up thing I've ever
seen in my life. It was. It was so fucked up,
just in a ditch. No, just on the side of
the road. Man, I don't even want to go into detail.
It was just and you gotta understand it. I wasn't
the only one that saw that. We all kind of
looked at each other. No one ever spoke of it. Again,
its fucking can see.
Speaker 1: So I'll actually have a point on that later.
Speaker 4: That was into crit I remember what city that was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all back now, it's all yeah, I could
I could take you to that road right right now.
Speaker 4: That was Saddam Hussein's hometown. A bunch of child molesters
and Baptists.
Speaker 1: But you repeat yourself, yeah, yeah, So this is one
thing I like talking to you about So I've met
other Iraq veterans, and actually Dan Hallway is a history
buff as well, but I haven't asked him this question.
Speaker 4: But I don't.
Speaker 1: I feel like I haven't talked a lot of vets
who are necessarily history buffs. You're a history buff, and
you were a history buff before the war certainly too. Oh,
I grew up right, right, so that coming naturally to me.
I suppose even though the Iraq War had, like still
has big ramifications on the world and stuff like that,
it's not a major historical war in the grand scheme
of things, not compared to Normandy or World War One
or even like the I don't say, the Pelponnesian, the
Punic Wars something, you know what I mean, Like, it's
a minor conflict in the grand scale.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when we had other other major nations as our
allies and adversaries, right, yeah, we had who do we
have with us? The Brits and the to the Salvadorians, yeah,
the Coalition and the Polish guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, mostly the Brits. I guess next you
have a question on them later. But so I wonder
what did you think, if anything, going into the war,
Like what do you think a good comp for the
Iraq Wars? So to me, I always think, even though
it's kind of a different political circumstance, I always kind
of think of it as just like almost the equivalent
of like English colonial wars against like the Zulus or
something like that, You know what I mean, Like, it's
obviously major combat and terrifying combat, and yeah, it's a
real fight. It's not like we.
Speaker 3: Had such an advantage with technology.
Speaker 4: You O three. Yeah, yeah, we were had to complete
upper hand.
Speaker 1: But like, what did you think about what type of
war it was going in, because obviously, like you said, like,
you're not fighting in World War two, You're not like
it's it's a it's a it's a smaller conflict.
Speaker 3: Than that you're fighting dudes in pajama Did you think.
Speaker 1: About it in terms of, like, oh, this is more
like this war from history than it is like Napoleon
at Waterloo or something like that.
Speaker 4: Well, you're right, it would have been closer to like
a Zulu war, colonial conflict type of thing. I've thought
of this though the fighting obviously is completely different. But
if I had to compare the Iraq War to any
other war in American history, I would compare it to
in the big picture, I'd compared it to the Korean War.
And this is why, similar to the Korean War, Americans
at the beginning, they did during the invasion, people were
glued to their TVs from what I understand, But after that,
nobody really gave a shit. Everyone kind of forgot we
had people over there, and it never affected the quality
of life in America. Like World War two, people had
to ration, everybody had to do their.
Speaker 1: Part two and the Civil War like that affected the
home fronts.
Speaker 4: The home front where you know, Korea, like Iraq. Nothing
changed back home, and eventually people kind of forgot we
were over there doing that every once in a while
to make the news with Fallujah or the surge, but
other than that, yeah, like.
Speaker 1: Every two three years, because I remember so their invasion
happened when I was a junior in high school. Yeah,
and then Fallujah was I think my freshman year of college,
so I remember that like rolling back up in the
news a lot. And Fallujah was a you know, horrific
battle and everything that was huge, but that was the
largest urban operation since that was a big battle.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But even still, what's crazy about that is that was
a big battle, but like it was still kind of
small historically, like in terms of sheer numbers, horrific combat
and everything like that. But is it just interesting to
me because you know, you see, it's not like it's
not like Stalingrad, Right, it's not like some crazy.
Speaker 3: It's not random Chinese War number two.
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, it's it's not fifty thousand Chinese guy running
at with bayonets over a hill to your you know, yeah,
battalion's worth of soldiers or.
Speaker 1: Does history come into your mind at all as a
history buff as you're like thinking about getting ready or
is it even or.
Speaker 4: At the time, literally, all I had to go off
of of what that kind of combat might look like
was Blackhawk Down had just come out, So that's the
way I was imagining it might be. Yeah, And in
certain parts of that war it was like that. Yeah,
I didn't experience that during the invasion, right, we were
for the most part rural until we got into Baghdad
and then we did Task Force Triple in a decret there.
Speaker 3: That's kind of something the Hammer and Generation kill is
they never really feel like they're in danger during the invasion.
They almost feel invincible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I had my perspective, and again I
was I was three months out of boot camp, like
I literally got done with boot camp, went to my
infantry school, did another school, and literally graduated from that school,
got on a plane and landed in Quate like March sixth,
and then we went over like March twentieth. So I
barely knew who the people in my chain of command were.
I had so h it might as well have been
a giant training mission to me because I had no
context of what war was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, dude, so one thing is so actually real
quick before I get it, you mentioned something about how
people it didn't affect the home front or whatever, and
people would I don't know if I've told you this.
I think I've said this on the show before. My
experience with the invasion of Iraq was the first time
I realized that I lived in the future that I
lived in.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: It's like a like almost benevolent kind of dystopian.
Speaker 3: Just watching combat footage because I.
Speaker 1: Was homesick that week. And it's March twentieth when the
invasion happened. So and I'm a history buff two, right,
so I think history is on television right now. So
I'm watching it, but it was shocking off first, right.
So I'm watching it, I'm seeing stuff and I'm like, oh,
it's not a lot going on right now. So I
just flip over to college basketball because it was the
conference tournaments. It was like the Big Ten Tournament, the
Big Twelve Tournament. And I was just like, I am
sitting in my basement flipping between a war and college
basketball when there's no good war stuff on. Yeah, like that.
Even in the moment, I was like, this is fucking insane.
Speaker 3: You had that perspective as a teenager, I swear to
god I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I was answer about. I was like, this
is crazy.
Speaker 3: I was like twelve, So no, I didn't. I was
I didn't think that way.
Speaker 1: I was seventeen. I didn't. I didn't say you thought
that way, but like that to me, like, and you're right,
it didn't affect at all. I was like, the war's
boring right now. I think Michigan's in overtime. Let's go
to that game. Let's go yeah, yeah, watch that for
a little while. And I was just like watching that,
I was just like, this country might be invincible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean crazy The only thing that really was
a giant obstacle to us was the weather at times. Yeah,
there was the biggest sandstorm in twenty thirty years in Iraq.
Occurred when we were probably day three or four, and
it stopped the entire division.
Speaker 3: Do they call those haboobsh.
Speaker 4: I think it's called a shemal? And yeah, that put
us dead in our tracks for probably twenty four hours
or more.
Speaker 1: How fucking shitty was that sitting in a sandstorre.
Speaker 4: Oh, it was horrible. You couldn't see in front of
your you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
We had dudes get lost, Kylie. I was just with
a bunch of my old marine buddies not long ago,
and one of them was telling a story about how
they got lost. They ended up they ran into a
vehicle in another company, which you, by the way, you
don't know anybody else in any other company, right, you
might as well just be a fucking guy off the street,
even though you're on the same side. So they had
to like hunker down with these random marines. It was
like the ghetto version of the Normandy Invasion where they
all dropped into different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck and I assume like just sand
is up every fucking every crevice.
Speaker 4: And I was. I was a driver in an lav
so I could at least like kind of button myself
inside the vehicle, and it was still covering the inside
of the vehicle and everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to drop your pants and take a
deuce during the storm.
Speaker 4: Or oh, uh, you know what was.
Speaker 3: The worst poop you had to take during the war.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you. I was thinking about this in the
car right over talk about memories flooding back I when
we got to Kuwait, you know you're doing all that
long travel, you're uh your p I was, we were
probably stressed and for various reasons. And then now you're
eating this kind of You went from having burger king
at the p X back of Camp Penalton to now
you're eating nothing but this processed shit food.
Speaker 1: And I didn't ship.
Speaker 4: The first dump I took was literally the night before
the invasion happened, and I I was on watch, so
I had we had to It was it was me
and my buddy Nick. We had to watch the entire
battalion's ammo. All the AMMO was stacked up in the
middle of the desert and it was just two pfc's
out there guarding it, and I took a gigantic dump,
uh because I hadn't shit in like four or five days.
It was painful, it was horrible. And then the next day,
literally the same place I took a dump is where
my vehicle had to grab all of its AMMO from
And my doochie was sitting there right next to the
AMMO boxes, and all the my scouts in the back,
the three eleven's, they were all like, what the fuck
are gross? I don't know, man, I could could have
been from a fox or something.
Speaker 1: Who knows, Like that was like, goddamn cougar that did that?
Ye lions out here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, just out there in the middle of nowhere. I
remember I jerked off that night well while I was
holding the uh forget what they're called. It's not the envg's,
it's the one, yeah, the single one. I was just
sitting there maning my post, jerking off. Uh uh yeah.
And that was after I dumped it, cleared everything up.
I got horny again.
Speaker 3: And how often would you combat jerk?
Speaker 4: So from uh, I'll from the actual start of the invasion,
I didn't. I didn't jerk until things had calmed down,
like three over three weeks later.
Speaker 3: Okay, was it just common place to see one of
your fellow soldiers just jacket?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'd see people jacking. Yeah, And then I don't
know how to describe an lav but I kind of
had the front all to myself for the drivers. It's
only it's the only real privacy inside that vehicle. I
you kind of have your own little alone area there,
but you can see the turret behind you, so then
you can see people jerking it in the turret. And
I had one of my scouts. His nickname was I
don't know if I want to say it's the nickname.
I actually did a documentary about him recently. People hight
know who I'm talking about, but uh, he he would,
he'd always I'd see him coming out of my driver's hole.
This is back when you'd have polaroid pictures of your
girl back home. And again, you know, it's one of
those things that that's the driver's hole, that's their space,
that's that was my kingdom. And so that got that,
you know, got a couple of fights started from that,
like what the fuck? You sick? Fuck? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what so one thing that's funny me, not funny,
but like about the the second and Asian of Iraq,
like the Second Persian Golf War whatever, if you remember
before the first one, just like historically, if you remember
before the first one, I feel like America was like,
we don't know how this is gonna go, Like remember Tsaddami,
same was like it's gonna be the mother of all battles.
I think at the time, Iraq had like the fifth
largest army the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah they did, I mean it was. It was horribly funded,
but they were huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and number of Soviet tank older but Soviet tanks
and stuff like that, huge tank divisions. And America I
feel like, was kind of bracing itself for a bloody fight,
right like really in ninety one, and that didn't happen. Obviously,
they rolled over the Iraqi.
Speaker 4: Complete upper hand.
Speaker 1: Ye, what was was there? What was the expectation going
in in three for you guys? Because I feel like
even like documentaries stuff I've watched about the first Iraq War,
they they were like, yeah, they told us, man, it
was gonna be fucking like intense. It was to be crazy,
like expect a lot of casualties and stuff like that,
and then we got in there and it was easier
than a training mission. Yeah, what was what was the
I assume because the first one had already happened, that
wasn't necessarily the expectation going in for round two. But
what was like the expectation of com like combat expectations
or the type of like resistance you would see.
Speaker 4: I remember when we kind of knew we were going
over there. Now you gotta understand too, I did. I
was probably seven years old when Desert Storm happened. So
that's some of my earliest memories of Yeah, watching a
war myself. But you gotta understand. Remember in the nineties,
we did a bunch of build ups over there, and
it was supposed to happen, and yeah, the Clinton you
know flex and we had done a big build up
and I think ninety seven, ninety eight, and nothing came
of that. So in my head, speaking purely for myself,
I thought there was a big possibility it was going
to be that again. We were just didn't even got
a flex aur nuts at the Kuwaiti border, and then
nothing was going to come of it. I remember when
we the invasion actually kicked off. I was actually probably
a little surprised it was happening.
Speaker 1: But I remember if you, huh does that fuck with
you at all? We're like, oh good? Who I was?
Speaker 4: I can't express it enough. Had I been in the
Marine Corps even six more months or a year, I
probably would have had a completely different perception of what
was going on. I was so brand new. I literally
did not have a brain. My brain didn't exist.
Speaker 3: You're just like, I guess we're doing this now?
Speaker 4: Yes? Yeah, Like I'm literally like I'm just gonna do
what I'm told. I wasn't. I wasn't super excited. I
wasn't like super scared. I wouldn't say numb was the
feeling that I had. But I I just I knew
that I didn't know what the fuck.
Speaker 1: Was going on. Yeah, so I was just like going
with the flow. I feel like that's a good way
to be.
Speaker 4: Ideally, Yeah right. I didn't overthink it or anything.
Speaker 1: Like that, like a supposed to drive now that was it? Yeah,
just do my job now.
Speaker 3: This is pretty coming with any job. Honestly, people kind
of bitch and complain about their superiors. Were they wildly
incompetent like they are portrayed in Generation Kill? I that.
Speaker 4: By the way, the Generation Kill unit was like elite. Yeah,
the marine they were recalled, Yeah, they were. Uh, you know,
that's a thing that you get. You have to go
through a selection process for.
Speaker 1: Like the almost like the Marine's Army Rangers type of
or even more than that.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of complexities to it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: They were some of the best trained, best equipped marines. Yeah,
most physically fits reconnaissance marines are notoriously like studs in
the water. They're just great swimmers. Yeah, so yes, they
would have been. They would have been some of the
more elite marine troops out there. Uh. Mind you this
is is coming from the perception of his journalists, and
the only things he's hearing about the Marine Corps is
from e lower enlisted fives in below and they're always
gonna bitch. Yeah, so was the company staff as incompetent.
There might have been a little prejudice there coming from
the Evan Wright. H But you know, as I'm a
forty one year old man now and I now am
around the people that are in charge at these higher levels,
and a lot of them are just dudes who are
very capable of being fucked up, right right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, no.
Speaker 3: I think they kind of touch on that at the
end when the Godfather talks to Evan and says, hey,
I hear this from somebody, but I hear this from
somebody else. You gotta kind of just take it with
a grain of salt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not easy to be in charge of seven
hundred people.
Speaker 1: And death twenty one year old.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's that's not an easy position to be
in for anybody. Some people handle it better than others.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but from your experience, though.
Speaker 4: Not in my company, we were a pretty well oiled machine,
even in hindsight. I didn't Again, at the time, I
didn't know. I didn't have any frame of reference to
what good leadership was. In hindsight, we were. We were
in a very good unit. We made mistakes, We fucked
a couple of things up, had a couple of friendly
fire incidents, and yeah, uh but uh yeah, uh, mistakes happens.
I'm lucky you killed that documentary I did.
Speaker 1: Don't you killed Pat Tillman?
Speaker 4: Dude? Did I show you? I've been going hard on
Grock lately. I created a picture of Pat Tillman, if
he wasn't killed, going to a VA appointment. He's like
super fat in a wheelchair. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is he wearing his cardinal jersey?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, uh yeah, I've been I've been real loose
with rock. No, you know that I that documentary that
I produced, Yes, the Warpigs documentary.
Speaker 1: Excellent documentary.
Speaker 4: So I was That's the company I was with during
the invasion. Yeah. So the company commander that I interviewed
for the war Pigs document was my company commander, and.
Speaker 1: The Warpizo was about them in Fallujah.
Speaker 4: Right, that's yeah, A year year later in Allujah. Were
you out by then or no? I I went on
a different deployment with a different company. Okay, yeah, uh
so I didn't do Fallujah, but about fifty percent of
the guys probably more that I interviewed in that I
went to lav school with they showed up at the
same time I did for the invasion. Gil Warris was
my old company commander that that during the invasion. So yeah,
I knew a lot of those fellows.
Speaker 1: You touched on a little bit. What exactly was your
specific job.
Speaker 4: I was a three thirteen and if you're the most
junior O three thirteen on a vehicle, you're the driver.
Speaker 1: Okay, I was a driver okay, Yeah, so you spent
the whole invasion driving what what? What were you driving?
Speaker 4: I was up in the turret a little bit, okay,
but yeah, I was driving most of the time. What
is it?
Speaker 1: What vehicles it?
Speaker 4: There's an LAV twenty five, a light armored vehicle the
United States, the Marine Corps is the only branch of
service in the United States that used that uses them.
And there's a only three battalions, so it's a very
small community. Uh but the Canadians have a lot of them,
Australians have a lot of them. They're popular in a
lot of NATO countries.
Speaker 1: Was it the type of thing? So again, I'm not
I'm a history buff, but my military knowledge only goes
so far, especially compared to you or anyone else.
Speaker 3: Just say, you're a bitch.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bitch. What so is this like sort
of like mechanized infantry versus like like there was a
turret with machine guns on it and everything, but like,
did you guys get out and yeah, so like have
to you know, fight on foot and maybe clear house
whatever the fuck?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah? Uh so the vehicle crewmen, there's three, the driver,
the gunner, and the vehicle commander. They're typically on the
vehicle the entire time, but you carry four guys in
the back right, so they their dismounts, their scouts. It's
very similar to the army's cavalry roll yea. So those
guys can pop out and clear houses and cleared, you know,
clear ditches. And I relied them on on the h'm
a lot for loots since I couldn't get out of
the vehicle. They they brought me back. I got the
loot that they didn't want. Yeah, so I do. I
still I have like old Iraqi army berets and helmets
and all sorts of Yeah.
Speaker 1: Dude, I was. I saw someone getting shamed on Twitter
over Thanksgiving or Christmas because they were like, look what
I'm serving my Christmas ham on and it was an
old Nazi plate.
Speaker 4: Go Grandpa brought back, right? And I was like and
people were like, oh, I was like, well, let's.
Speaker 1: Just not assume. I was like, if he's doing it
because he likes the Nazis, and yeah, I guess fuck him. Weird. Yeah,
more likely he's just like this is sweet. Yeah, I'm
gonna serve this is Christmas dinner. What Grandpa brought home
and that's awesome.
Speaker 4: My grandpa frecking swiped this fair and square. It's in
a family, now.
Speaker 1: Dude, if Mike want so, I had a grandpa in
Europe and grandpa in the Pacific. Grandpa the Pacific was
a doctor, so he didn't really get to loot anything
or whatever. But like man, if he had brought home
a katana, I'd be cutting the turkey with.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, he saw a lot of trench foot, that's
for sure.
Speaker 3: I would only serve Jewish food on that plate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everything's gotta be uh kosher.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how you get a poltergeist. I think some
spirit attached to the plate.
Speaker 3: It's just like a Nazi.
Speaker 4: I've got I if you want some story time, Yeah, baby,
we were the first ones into into decrit. I did
Task Force Tripoli and uh that was Saddam's whole hometown.
My first bath in thirty days was swimming in the
uh euphrates there, it's either maybe I think it was
the euphrates. Uh. We we we each got our own
fucking bath party palace to ourselves, and I looted.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, what did you take from Saddam's palace?
Speaker 4: I had been sitting on that damn seat vibrating my
just hurting my ass for weeks. I took a pillow
just so I could have something to sit on, and
then I still have that pill to this day. I'm like,
I have one of Saddam Hussein's fucking pillows. That's fucking yeah,
And I only I only took it because I literally
needed something to put my ass on it.
Speaker 1: You need to have a baby just so you can
rest that child on.
Speaker 4: The pillow, on the old bath party pillow.
Speaker 1: And you seem like you see on my Instagram with
my kids, but like everyone, babies are born, like the
women are like, hey, we need to spend four hundred
dollars on a photographer immediately, Like okay, cool, my phone
has a camera, but sure, yeah, and uh they're just
like they're always nestled up in a little in a
little basket and got their little swaddle on. Take a
little picture. Anyway, if you have a kid, you need
to bring the bath party pillow. Yeah, put it in
a bat that's what the child needs to have the
picture taken on is the bath party? Yeah yeah, and
maybe put the beret on them.
Speaker 4: I tried giving it to my mom because I kind
of I'm I don't really hold on to stuff a lot.
I kind of gave a lot of that loot away
to friends and family, and I tried giving it to
my mom and she had no interest in it because
I think she didn't. I think she was creeped out
by it. So I have it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did resistance pick up in into Crete? Because I know,
like in other wars for example, like you know, it
would have been a bad it would have been a
bad propaganda blow to say, lose Staliningrad right right when?
Like was there? What did did? Was there any I
don't know, heavier resistance into create, like we can't lose
the city or was everyone just on their heels at
that point they were on their heels.
Speaker 4: I think we got into a couple of gunfights on
the way in, but once we were in the city,
uh Ta, Crit was very well taken care of because
it's with Saddam's hometown. Uh And I think, oh, I remember, yeah,
that I had some I think that was into Crit.
Might have been Bagdad, but I had some homemade chicken
from some lady that they seemed relatively polite there. I
think things kicked back up there later, but at that time,
they're like, well, I guess they're in charge now. Yeah.
Iraqi are used to having other countries, They're used to
being strong armed by other foreign powers. The British were there,
uh back in the day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh. The first off, Iraq is you know, people like
to say or like Dan Lison our show, like Palestine's
not a real place Iraqs not.
Speaker 3: I don't say that, by the way, I don't say
me halloway hollow. I was saying pointing to you because
you said Dan and pointed to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just met because we're on that show together. Sorry, yes,
you Dan believes that Palestine should conquer Israel. Dan doesn't
like Jews. This Dan doesn't like Jews. Other Dan doesn't
like Palestinians.
Speaker 3: So I think it belongs to the Pope.
Speaker 1: Yes, agreed, The Crusades need.
Speaker 4: To if you want to take it all the way
back to King Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah fuck yeah. But like Iraqs not, it's a
fake country, right, Like it's not.
Speaker 4: All those countries are technically fake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The Europeans drew up the borders, Yeah they didn't. They
didn't think about the Europeans when they left Arabia. Did
not give a lot of thought to the way they
drew those borders.
Speaker 1: No, so that's the thing with that too, is it.
I wondered if you actually encounters it all, did they
even have a sense of like, oh, no, my country,
because it seems like they would be. They are more
religiously and ethnically separated than nationally.
Speaker 4: I you know from Uh, because I've been to southern
Iraq as well. They're they're different down there. But I
think anywhere near and around central Iraq there is there
seems to be a sense of identity of being Iraqi. Uh.
They know, they know their history. They Babylon is history.
It's by Babylon's not far from Baghdad.
Speaker 3: And say what you will about the Husseins, I think
he probably brought that kind of like national pride with
the Olympics, like Uday's committee for the Olympics. As bad
as it was, he's like you win or you fucking die.
Speaker 4: A lot of effort into I mean, I'm not gonna
sit here and say Saddam obviously Saddam Hussein was not
a good guy.
Speaker 3: But you rough stability.
Speaker 4: You can't ask for anything better than a secular leader
in that region.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no joke.
Speaker 4: He kept religious extremism at Bay, which is all you
can ask for in that region.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing, so more about that a little bit.
One thing I kind of like joke about is like
you obviously can't travel back in time, but maybe the
closest thing you can get is going to like the
Middle East or India or something, because I feel like
they're kind of like socially and culturally a little behind.
Like it's I was surprised, I really, That's why I
want to ask, because it seems like to me, it's
almost like the sixteenth seventeenth century.
Speaker 3: And to build off that. When you were there, did
you kind of appreciate how old the land was?
Speaker 4: Yes? I did. We went to Babylon almost like a
fucking field trip after everything and died down and we
took a day trip to Babylon. The lady, the curator there,
she just picked up like we were just some any
other tourist group. Yeah, we're all in uniform carrying our
rifles around. My Babylon was such an amazing experience to
to get to go see that.
Speaker 1: How big is it?
Speaker 4: It's pretty big. The original ruins are there where the
Tower of Babel was Saddam actually invested a lot of
money in rebuilding, like the gates of Ishtar.
Speaker 1: He rebuilt those, which is sweet. Yeah, I mean honestly
a big part in national pride for them, I would
imagine would be like this is where civilization started.
Speaker 4: We're older than the Egyptians. Yeah, yeah, we invented writing
like we did. We are the beginning and iraqis. I
think they they understand that, but I was. I was
surprised because, you know, again, my all I knew about
Iraq was from the television. I thought they all hated
us and everything was about death to America because that's
all you'd see on the on the news. One of
the first times I was out of the vehicle going
into it, I went into a local you know, like
a convenience store type place where they sold cigarettes and
tea and it there was a poster Britney Spears on
the wall. In two thousand and three. Yeah, hell yeah,
poster of Britney Spears.
Speaker 3: Saddam's kids would invite rappers of it for their party.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah. Saddam loved barbecue. He ate fucking pork. He
brought that ship in from the United States.
Speaker 1: Really funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, again, this was not a family whose power came
based on any religious stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just took power.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you have any weird like obviously weird, not beyond
them shooting?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that that kid I saw getting freaking Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have any like bad interactions with with Iraqi's.
Speaker 4: Outside of the combat part.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah. Outside of the combat part, I don't. There was
some culture shocking. They're not nice to kids with Down syndrome.
I noticed.
Speaker 1: See, that's what I taught. That's what I mean when
I'm like, yeah, it's a little bit like going back
in time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it would like pick I remember it happened a
couple of times and my my, my gunner, my direct superior,
his brother had Down syndrome, and we we'd watched this.
Kids were kind of mean to the down syndrome kids. Yeah.
I remember seeing that and I was like, that's not good.
But man, no, outside of this combat part, I don't
recall any They were all, you know at that time, Oh, welcome,
happ We're happier here. They were having a party out
in the streets. I remember one night specifically, when I
think we were out in some bag Dad suburb or
something like that. They were all in the streets cheering
and dancing and shooting off fireworks and playing music. It
was surreal.
Speaker 1: That's really funny. Odd, real quick, we have some ads
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Speaker 4: They they brought out fresh food for us, chicken and stuff.
They were getting their feeding us chai. To this day,
if I've go to other Arab countries, which I've been
to quite a few, and I asked for chai, I'm like,
can you put more sugar in it? Because the first
time I ever had chai, which is a big thing
out there, was in Iraq. Yeah. An Iraqi shop owner
just made me a big, nice hot glass of chai,
and uh it was delicious. It was so good. And
to this day, if I'm in other air countries, I'm like,
can you put more sugar in it? And and they'll
be like, no, iraqis they do that. I'm like, I
know that's where That's why I like it. I'm American,
give me the sugar. Other Arabs historically, this predates anything
that's happened in recent years. Other Arabs kind of look
down on iraqis.
Speaker 1: Really so actually, I've you've mentioned before maybe on the
show was certainly off of mine.
Speaker 3: That's kind of crazy though, because Baghdad was like the
center of the Islamic oldag.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was very international. I saw white people,
Asian people, black people in the streets of Baghdad. It
was a very international, diverse community.
Speaker 1: It's got to be the biggest metropolis, metro area, or
at least like the most important metro area in the
Middle East, right at least used to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in the Arab world.
Speaker 1: What other city would even like.
Speaker 4: I think nowadays Rio is yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously Dubai. Yeah,
but Baghdad historically was like the center of the Arab world.
Speaker 1: Uh. You've mentioned this before, Like I said, maybe just
off mic, but uh, you fucking hate Kowaiti's like you
were kind of power not hate like racistly, but like
you were like kind of power ranking a little bit. Yeah,
the different people from Arab countries, and you were like,
I don't know, like Kuwaiti's.
Speaker 4: Iraqis are fucking awesome. They wear blue jans, they want
the nice car and the big TV like us. They
have posters of Britney spears on their wall. They're not
that vastly different from US. Maybe a little behind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean I guess that's the secularism versus.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I love Jordanians are phenomenal people. I don't
like the way Kuwaiti they They're lazy, yeah, they they
they don't actual Kuwaitis, they don't work. They treat immigrants horribly.
I mean, that's what bothered me.
Speaker 1: That's one of the countries that basically has like slaves, yes, yeah,
like Qatar and Yep, probably Saudi Arabia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but we don't talk about.
Speaker 4: Even my Filipino driver when I was in Kuwait. I
was there a couple of years ago for I was
doing like the USO show out there. We had a
Filipino guy that was our driver. There's a lot of
Filipinos in Kuwait. And he said kuwaits ten times better
than Saudi Arabia as far as the way that he's treated. Really, yeah,
I think he Now, yeah, I don't like the way
that they there. They treat other people poorly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh. And just like there's so much wealth there.
Speaker 1: And I remember people don't work because they're just like
rich families from way back and it's just national oil prince. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The actual true indigenous Kuwaitis are the Bedouins, right, but
you don't really see them unless you're in certain areas
the desert. Yeah. I remember when we used to go
train it Udari Range there, which is where you go
before you go into Iraq, you you know, do some
live fire stuff, some last minute training before you go
in country. The Bedouins would just hang out at these
live fire ranges and as soon as we were done
in the military, the first thing you're you do, you
clean up the mess. You clean up the brass. The
bed onaness would come out and clean it all up
and they take it back and melt it down and
sell it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually I think Holloway has said that before too,
or maybe it was some other vet that was on
the Drinking Pro Show, but they were just like we
would have a gunfight and then come back twenty minutes
later in all the brass. Oh yeah, yeah, like in
a city even like it was just like all it
was gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The that Vedoin culture is very very interesting. It's
they're saying, I mean, there's a lot that javas. Yeah,
that's a that's a great episode is basically how you
know the the veterans of who is Lawrence T? Lawrence
was with Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very interesting culture. Uh
you see him out there just walking their camels in
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Speaking of living in the past. Yeah, that is like
straight up like a two thousand years old yep type
of they're still doing things there. They are the Amish
of the of the Arab world. I'm sure they have
like a cell phone or a satellite phone.
Speaker 4: They do and they'll drive. They have like junk cars
that they drive right right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's what was what was u Was there anything?
Did you have any like real moments where you were
just like, oh, I'm I'm invading a country. Yeah, I
think uh.
Speaker 4: Once we started getting closer into the cities and uh
uh you know, people were swarming our vehicles and you know,
all the cheering and hoopla, that's I think when it
kicked in for me that we I'm like, oh my god,
I'm doing war. Holy shit. Yeah. Uh yeah. When we
got closer to Bagdad there. Yeah. But even after we
took bag Dad, we got a big fight which was
shown on Generation Kill because we were with them and
we got into a pretty big at night.
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 4: The one?
Speaker 1: Which which fight was that.
Speaker 4: It was in a city called Baqua Bah, which I
think is if I'm not mistaken, I could be. I
think it's northeast of bagh Dad, and that was like
a Fetaine stronghold. And we went up against like Republican
guard like legit dudes, legit uniformed Republican.
Speaker 1: Can you tell the difference in terms of like, oh,
these guys are doing real military.
Speaker 4: The l shape ambushed us. Okay, yeah, so that I mean, yeah,
they did an L shape ambush. They were firing from
the front and aside from the left, yeah, our left,
I believe. And this is in the middle of the night,
so all you know, all I could see was out
of my periscopes.
Speaker 1: And okay, so racers bouncing around. I know the exact
scene you're talking about that because there's a night combat
that's like.
Speaker 4: That was that we Yeah, we did that fight with them.
We were leading that column. And I'll never forget because
I had a mortar land in front of my vehicle
and it blew up like six of the eight tires.
So we had to when we had to, I forget
all the terminology. It's been a long time. I wouldn't. Yeah,
but we basically had to peel off, uh. And I
remember I had to get out of the vehicle while
the gunfight was still happening, and I had to start
changing those tires. And I remember seeing the recon guys
pop white smoke and they're they were clearing through the
field where all the Republican guard were. Yeah, yeah, I
remember that.
Speaker 1: How was that being in the middle of a gunfight
not changing tires? Yeah, like I feel if I'm on
the side of a highway, I'll just be like, I'm
not getting my car some assholes. Yeah one hundred yeah,
do you at least have like a drill. You weren't
doing it with like a fucking hand wrench.
Speaker 4: Nope, doing it with a hand wrench. Yeah, fuck doing
it manually. I had a couple of people get out
and help me, but uh, yeah, you only carry I
think one spare tire on lav so I was having
to have.
Speaker 1: Why were you even changing him?
Speaker 4: Because, uh, man, I'll tell you what I'll because that
one was that was pretty gnarly. That mortar exploded right
in front of me. It knocked me out unconscious. Yeah,
knock me out. And I came to and the vehicle
was still driving. I'm like, okay, we're still good and
there's everyone shooting. Was it just a concussion and I
could hear the Yeah, it was the because it landed,
it blew my pack up, so I I was I
didn't have any spare underwear uniform for the rest of
the chime up there because it blew my pack up.
And uh and what happened, Uh that might be the
TV I speaking.
Speaker 3: You were concussed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 4: Man, I'll never forget once the tires are changed. I've
never fallen asleep so fast in my life because that
adrenaline all dumped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh.
Speaker 4: And then we slept for maybe three hours and we
were back at it the next morning.
Speaker 3: You do hear that from a lot of like former
military where they get addicted to the adrenaline or is
just the spike during combat.
Speaker 4: That's the highest my adrenaline has ever been in my life.
And I don't know if I I don't know if
I could have gotten addicted to it. But it is
a weird, especially when you know you're gonna be okay, right, Yeah,
And we didn't lose anybody on my vehicle or anything.
Everybody's okay. It is kind of a euphoric feeling. Uh,
for a period of time after uh that, you just like,
did you realize, like someone tried to kill me? That's
such a weird The first time he truly experienced and
we we fired our weapons a few times before that engagement.
That was the first time I was like, oh, I'm
gonna die. And that's that when you realize someone tried
to kill you and it was intentional it's such. I
don't know, and I'm only speaking for myself, but I
wasn't angry, I wasn't scared. I wasn't uh, but I
knew someone tried killing me. And it's a weird feeling.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you get you like more locked in?
Speaker 4: Well? I I slept and it was ground. It was
back to the normal routine the next day, I think,
if I recall correctly, The next morning, we woke up
and we were not far from where the engagement happened,
and we dropped. We dropped, uh, one of the bigger bombs.
So I got to watch that. Uh yeah, it's crazy,
like I'll never forget. I think We're driving down the
road and I was like, what's that smell in my vehicle?
Commander grew up in rural Arkansas. Is like chicken farms.
I can, I can, that's a chicken farm. Sure enough,
it was like chicken farms. I'm having all these memories,
but yeah.
Speaker 1: Good, good, good memories.
Speaker 4: Yeah except for the kids getting freaking diddled.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, are you saying chicken farm though? Because you
the bomb dropped and it just like roasted all the chickens.
Speaker 4: Oh, I know a cow got killed. I remember that.
My buddy Dan, who's a lawyer now in la. Uh,
he's he saw the cow evaporate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my favorite story from another military dude I do.
He was like, we were actually just doing like training
in the United States and uh they were shooting an
automatic grenade launcher. Yeah, like mounted on.
Speaker 4: A hum oh like Mark nineteen I met.
Speaker 1: I think so yeah, And he was like it was
just a range, right, and there were a bunch of old,
like shitty cars down and he was like, I was
on it and I was just you know, emptying it right,
like just finished off the whole bag or whatever the
fuck drum whatever, And he was like as the last
one went, like as I could feel last one leaving,
I saw a deer run out three with the thing
and I was like, oh no, and it hit the fuck.
He was like the deer just smop the oh yeah,
like just didn't like Randy Johnson bastball.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all the kids on that range. As soon as
everyone else saw that deer, it's a race because they're
gonna call cease fire. So as soon as you see
that deer, it's a race before they're telling you to
stop firing because you want to you want to shoot
that fucking thing. I mean, because they're gonna tell you
to stop firing as soon as the range officer sees
the deer, like they're shutting the range down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, fu deer anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a deer.
Speaker 1: Got to get rid of them.
Speaker 4: We we would have buffalo and can't Penalton there. We'd
have buffalo walk onto the range while we're out there firing,
really shut everything down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like a bison. Yeah, yeah, he can't kill
a bison. No, no, no enough, very enough military members
have killed bison over the years.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, it's in our blood we have, right, right,
did you?
Speaker 1: Actually I'll touched on this earlier a little bit, but
because you said black hawk Down did, Like at this
point in two thousand and three, we're kind of like
peak war culture at this point because you've got like
saving Private Rye blackhock Down, band of brothers that come
out all the shit. Did any of that paint and
expectation for you at all?
Speaker 4: Black Hawk Down did?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Because I remember seeing that my senior year of high school.
That came out like right after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: I think it. Yeah, yea, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I remember seeing that in high school and I'd already
joined the Marines at that point, so that movie did
resonate with me a lot, and that's kind of how
I imagined Iraq was gonna be. H was like black
Hawk Down.
Speaker 3: You're like, if I die, it will carry my corpse
through the streets.
Speaker 4: Right right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, strip you naked and be like. That was
my biggest frame of reference with probably black Hawk Down.
How old are you invasion Aga?
Speaker 4: Nineteen years old?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah. I graduated boot camp right around my nineteenth birthday
of two thousand and two. I went to my Infantry school,
which was like two months, and I went to the
LAV School, which is about two months, and then right
on right on a plane to Kuwait.
Speaker 1: And you didn't we used on a plane with other
random Marines and a lot of guys I.
Speaker 4: Went to LAV school with, so a lot of those
guys I interviewed in that documentary and everything like that,
So we were all brand new together. Yeah, and we
all showed up about a week you know, yeah, a
week before everything kicked off, and those were the only
guys I knew because I was just so brand new
I didn't know who anybody was and back the mill.
So to go back to what you're talking about, were
they that inept? Wait?
Speaker 1: Was who that inept?
Speaker 4: The periodship? Okay, I will I will say the Marine
Corps was different back then because, uh, the nineties Marine
Corps was in the new a lot and not for
combat stuff. They had a big hazing problem in the
Marine Corps in the nineties. They were like doing sixty
minutes stuff on it. It was a real problem. And
I caught the tail end of that peacetime Marine Corps.
None of my superiors, with the exceptions a couple, you know,
first gardens, did Desert Storm, but none of them had
been in combat.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: We were all doing that for the first time together,
from the the newest guy to you.
Speaker 1: Know, everyone in charge, everyone in.
Speaker 4: Charge, all these officers and everything. We were all doing
it for the first time. And there was still a
lot of that really bad nineties Marine Corps mentality with
a lot of my superiors where they were really not
rough on us in a good way. They were you know,
I see veterans romanticized, not just veterans, but active duty people.
I see them romanticize this kind of hazing era in
the Marine Corps. They they they look at it with
these rose colored glasses like it was just so better
to be able to beat the shit out of someone
when they fucked up back in the day. And I
lived the kind of the end of that period. It
was not good. Hazing is bad. I deadlined a fucking
vehicle when we were just outside of bag Dad. I
fucked up our readiness because I was so afraid to
ask a question because they would just beat the ship
out of us for no reason, just for their own
amusement in the middle of a world.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the stereotype of Marines, is you know, biggest
meat heads. Just kind of was that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they kind of showed that a little bit in
a jar head. Yeah, where they're like branding them and
like fucking them up and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Sh It was real. Yeah. Uh, I don't the branding stuff.
I never personally witnessed that, but uh, yeah, that that
was the nineties Marine Corps. It was very hazing intensive
and uh and it was not healthy. It was. It
was bad for the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I had never heard that before in my life.
I was younger than itty, so I was necessarily following
hazing news in the Marines, but like you would ask
a question and they would just fucking class.
Speaker 4: You're just afraid of them. Yeah, yeah, they didn't like
they didn't make it. Uh and you canta understand, like
my leaders were two years older than me. They were
just barely old enough to drink themselves. Yeah uh, but yeah,
they were just you were afraid to fucking ask questions,
which you know, when you're invading a country, you should
feel comfortable asking questions if you're the new guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh that's fucking what happened with the
what was the readiness situation?
Speaker 4: It was abysmal, But I.
Speaker 1: Mean like with what was that what was that incident
where you deadline the vehicle and.
Speaker 4: Oh oh yeah, I uh pulled You know, you're an infantryman,
but you're you're doing a lot of vehicle maintenance and uh,
I pulled the wrong plug and I drained the transmission
fluid and it it busted up the engine and everything
thing and they fixed it within twelve hours. I got
an ass chewing and yeah, but again they were like
they would put their hands on us for far less stuff.
And then I actually did a big fuck up and
then I like got my ass chewed. It was weird, like, Okay,
really I thought you were gonna hit me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought I was gonna get another mortar blast
to the face.
Speaker 4: Yeah uh yeah. And it was bad timing because I
think it was like right when we were about to
go into Baghdad, but we got it fixed on time,
and yeah, we went into But also those vehicles were
on the Lav's they're swim qualified. You can actually float them. Yeah,
they have propellers, but none of us were taking those
things in that river, so we still had to wait
for the engineers to build bridges and kind.
Speaker 1: Of like I feel like they're kind of gnarly rivers.
Yeah they're big. Yeah, they're big, and I guess it depends,
but there they flood like violently and erratically. Yeah, I
would be.
Speaker 4: That was uh, that was March, so it was kind
of a wet seat. Yeah, what part of the year
out there?
Speaker 1: Yeah that how was uh how much like were you
worried at all about urban combat versus because you said
you're in rural areas a lot, right, For the most part,
I feel like urban combat just like looking at stuff
and reading about stuff and watching stuff horrible. Urban combat
and jungle combat are the two things where I'm just like, Nope.
Speaker 4: That's why Fallujah was so gnarly was because of the
urban environment. Yea. If it was just the number are
numbers versus their numbers wiped, you know in a rural area,
that would have not barely made the news. It was
because of the urban atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did they try to hunker down.
Speaker 4: I think we did get into a couple of fights
inside city. I was there that when that Jessica Lin
shit happened. We drove through that like the next day. Uh.
She was in a company of army mechanics. They weren't
like infantry, and back then, I don't think the army
put as much emphasis on training them those kind of
jobs for combat. Yeah, it's changed because of Iraq, but I.
Speaker 1: Mean, if you're occupying a country, everyone has to be
ready for combat. Yeah, and like when they're literally all
around you at all times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we draw our and there were some marines that
got horribly ambushed. I think they lost like a whole
squad of marines and we drove I remember driving past
those am traks after that happened, and they were all
burnt out and something terrible had happened there. Yeah, and
that happened in an urban environment.
Speaker 1: Yeahs fucking it seems like a nightmare. Like it seems
like it also erases like fifty percent of your advantage.
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially you can't just call You can't call on
air strikes on random ass buildings.
Speaker 1: You have to go in there, right, Well we can't. Yeah, yeah,
Russia can. Yeah, you know what I mean, China probably would.
Speaker 4: Had different SOPs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're like, God damn it, we gotta fucking go
in yeah yeah, yeah, And and honestly, it's it makes sense,
it's it would be. That's the main thing I took
away that the whole world took away after the First
Iraq War was like, you can't fight these people in.
Speaker 4: An open field, in an open field.
Speaker 1: Like in open combat. The Americans, Oh yes, yeah, no,
we we own that. Yeah, Like it's just you're not
going to win.
Speaker 4: No, And that first desert storm was that was in Kuwait,
and that and Kuwait is nothing just but desert, That's
all it is. Until you get into the city. There
is nothing else going on there but desert. No where
to hip where Iraq was relative fairly vegetated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and there was a more hilly terrain in Iraq. And
I've never been to northern Iraq. I hear that's one
of the prettiest places on the planet.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 4: I hear it's gorgeous up there.
Speaker 1: We'll never know.
Speaker 4: I want to go. Yeah, I hear her Biel is
a cool, cool place to go visit and you're safe
there if you're.
Speaker 1: In America's been back to Iraq?
Speaker 4: Right? No?
Speaker 1: Been.
Speaker 4: I've been to Kuwait quite a few times. I haven't
been to I. I flew over Iraq, but I have
not been. I have not set my foot in Iraq.
I go back, especially like northern Iraq. Yeah, check that out.
Speaker 1: Where were you What parts of Iraq were you in?
Obviously to Crete and Bagdad.
Speaker 4: And yeah, all over. Ok. We did a field trip
to Babylon.
Speaker 1: After the initial invasion. Were you just kind of getting
sent wherever because presumably you're kind of unrelatively in one area.
Moving up towards we went to the border.
Speaker 4: I think of Syria and did like a bullshit mission
out there, and then after that we uh the entire
first Marine Division because marines are useless at that point.
The offensive operation is over right, So we sat in
a town called a Dwinea for like a month and
just got our mail and jerked off and and just
kind of hung around for like a month, and then
we went back to them.
Speaker 3: That's another thing. Did you encounter anybody from like Syria
or neighboring countries that came over for a jahad uh?
Speaker 4: From what I recall, most of the people we were
fighting were uniformed. Iraqis a couple that did happen, that
started happening. I think later the guys in Foluja were
fighting those guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, why would you even go over right away?
But let the invasion happen then?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's precisely like like I said, there was
a three or four months after the invasion was over
where it it was kind of back to normal. Yeah,
I didn't there were some gun fights that happened here
and there, but we were we felt like the war
was over.
Speaker 1: It was pretty quiet before they kind of got their
shit together for a second, well for a resistance, I
guess or whatever.
Speaker 4: I think he should absolutely like I think he should
be in fucking prison for this. And you know, we
can talk a lot about about George Bush and Dick
Cheney and Colin Powell and Connolly's Rice and all them
and all you know, everything leading up to it. But
one person I think fucked up so badly that they
they need to be held responsible and it's never gonna
happen is the is the fucking dipshit who disbanded the
Iraqi army after the invasion was over. That's nation rebuilding
one on one. Yeah, you retain the army and you
get them back to work. He sent a bunch of
twenty year olds with military training, he took their jobs
away from them and sent them home. Right. It's one
of the biggest fuck ups in American history. And that
guy's a dumb piece. I forget his name. I think
his brimmer. He was Bush's National security advisor. He's an absolute, horrible,
fucking dipshit of a human being.
Speaker 1: That I'm not getting an answer on it right away,
but you are, I assume you're, Oh, yeah, Paul Bremmer.
Speaker 4: Paul Browner up an absolute fucking piece of shit idiots
that is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember, uh people roasted Patent back in
the day because he was giving essentially like Nazi officers
jobs like running the cities he had taken it.
Speaker 4: They know how to do it, right, You're gonna have
to leave eventually, right, Like.
Speaker 1: It's not he's not condoning Nazism, but no, like I
need someone who knows how to run this town. Yes,
Like I can't just get the Baker to do it.
Speaker 4: That guy's a fucking engineer, right yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like if he if he needs to go to
Nuremberg later, we'll send him to Nuremberg. Right now, I'm
just trying to fucking settle ship down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we didn't just sipand the fucking German army.
Speaker 1: No, No, yeah, it's it's that's that's yeah, especially to
what you send them home without a job and like
maybe stinging from the l two so they just have
to stew about it instead of like.
Speaker 4: Well they may not even be like super religious dudes,
but they're they're pissed off and they're young.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Young pissed off men are a problem if you don't
contain them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a you need to focus them in the
right direction. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: The last question I have is you said you did
you fight alongside the British at all?
Speaker 4: I went back there. I went back there a second time,
and was with the British. Okay, but not during the invasion.
Speaker 1: Okay, how was that? How was How are the Brits cool?
Cool culture?
Speaker 4: Man? Yeah? They their military is a lot yeah, I
mean they you know, there's a reason why they're they're military.
Conquered half the world. They're a very adequate military. Uh.
But they're a lot more loose than we are. Really. Yeah,
they'd have beer and shit like that.
Speaker 1: That's just the culture, man. You gotta have your five
o'clock fucking pint.
Speaker 4: Yeah. They I was with a bunch of Scottish dudes, Okay,
so I had a hard time understanding them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's fucking barely English.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah. Uh, and but it was weird because I
could tell their officers were like English.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Which in the American military, like you can be
from bump fuck Arkansas or like a shitty inner city
neighborhood and if you meet the qualifications, you're an office.
Speaker 1: So you can be a hill person, go to r
OTC West Virginia community, you're.
Speaker 4: In charge of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Where I think in a lot of those years, definitely
the Arab militaries, but a lot of those European militaries.
There's still a lot of bloodline that goes on there
who gets to be an officer.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though that there's like, which isn't a
thing in the United States. It feels like it's a
thing in the UK and obviously Arab countries and stuff.
But like there's a certain amount of the well off families,
a lot of them, not all of them by any means,
but some number of them expect military service out of there,
like suns or oh, the Windsors. Yeah, yeah, Like I mean, yeah,
Harry was both of them were in the in the
in the military. Harry deployed. Yeah, but like even other
there's even other family, Like there's another listener to the show, Houston.
I won't say his last name. He was talking about.
He was he's dealt with British officers before and stuff
like that, and they're all like absolutely to do you know,
well to do yes, And it's not but you wouldn't.
There's not there's not gonna be someone from the Walton family,
no running a company in the US military, right, There's
not gonna be like Jeff Bezos' kid is not going
It's rare.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that happens. Yeah, there's certain political families that McCain's
sons all served.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't think any of the Bushes
did after HW No, I'm not to my knowledge.
Speaker 4: George Bush did the National Guard.
Speaker 1: Right and and like barely and like I don't know
that any anyone from the Bush from his generation now below,
like his kids are, like Pierce Bush or Prescott Bush
was the railroad commissioner here. I'm pretty sure they didn't
serve in the military.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of the last president that had
one of their kids go off to military service at
any point. I mean, it would technically be oh, Biden,
never mind Biden. Yeah, here's a jag. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Biden did. Actually, other than that, you didn't.
Speaker 3: Got got by those burn pits, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean every every war generation has to have their
age orange, right, that's our age and orange exactly. Actually,
I did a story on one of those organizations recently,
and the cases of cancer are highest in the Air
Force in the Navy. It's not necessarily people that were
around burn pits and country, although that is a thing.
It's the Navy and Air Force people because of all
the kind of munitions and fuel that they handle. I'm
sure they have much higher rates of cancer.
Speaker 1: You're probably and I mean the Navy too, you're dealing
with I assume a lot of like fumes and shit
in enclosed spaces. Yeah fuck that. Yeah, not a Navy guy.
Love the Navy.
Speaker 4: They have the worst living conditions out of any Yeah,
I mean people. Yes, when the Marines in the Army
have to go invade a country, they're sleeping in the dirt,
no doubt. But day to day, the Navy is the
hardest place to live.
Speaker 3: Then listen, Jack. When you're on a submarine, everyone's a hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 4: And that that the officer culture in the Navy from
what I observed, because I was on a couple ships.
It a marine officer, and I would imagine Army officer
would never think to talk to enlisted people the way
that Navy officers talked. They're enlisted in what way? It's
officers have a lot more weight in the Navy, and
it's very it's they're a lot quicker to chew an
enlisted person out. They take their rank structure a lot
more seriously. As far as you're really not shit until
you're an E seven or unless you're an officer where
in the Marine Corps you have a twenty one year
olds in charge of squads of people that are they're
having to make life or deaf decisions.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that makes First off, it probably
makes sense just from inheriting the legacy of like what
being on a ship used to be, like.
Speaker 4: Naval tradition is so much different than any other military.
Speaker 1: And I guess secondly, like it maybe makes sense in
just that like you guys are out in the dirt,
like you said, and maybe you got an lav or
like that, but you're not really maybe dealing with like
insanely expensive equipment, right and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Where an entire ship can sink if you fuck up
right right right right, yeah you might. And yeah, and
you're living, your officers are sleeping right next to you.
You're all in it together.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, next to Jack's pooh yeah yeah, income they
all saw that just a bit, just.
Speaker 4: A huge dump right onto a freaking ammal can what uh?
Speaker 1: The only question what was your like main takeaway from
your time interact, both like just from what you experience
and like do you have any do you look at
it now from like a his oh like, oh I
was involved in history, or oh, what is this thing's
placed in history?
Speaker 3: You have a positive kind of memory of that looking back.
Speaker 4: I have a positive memory of the people I did
it with, But the war itself and everything, Uh, I
honestly don't think about it that often, but uh, I
think I really enjoyed getting to I mean, that's what
Generation Kill was, right, It's really a story about they
weren't necessarily all buddies, but it's a story about a
bunch of freaking dudes hanging out with each other. Yeah,
and I think that's what I fondly remember, was kind
of getting to share that was my buddies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like an adult field trip.
Speaker 4: That's a good question. Uh, battleon was a fucking field trip.
That was a field trip. It was a war. I
almost died for sure, But you know, again, the guys
that I did that deployment with a lot of them
went and did Fallujah. Yeah, that was some fucking That
was some That was some shit.
Speaker 1: That strikes me from seeing the your documentary and even
just like stuff I saw before about Fallujah and stuff
like that, that seems like the most vietnam Esque portion
of the Iraq War yeah, it's just like Charlie's in
the tree Slash, but like just night mayor fucking in
the shit.
Speaker 4: You didn't know what you were walking into, right at
any point? Yeah, uh those guys, uh and they never
treated me any different uh not, you know. Uh, I
came back from a deployment right when they were coming
back from the Fallujah deployment. Deployment, and again, you know,
they never treated me any differently. We picked up where
we left off. There's still some of my dear friends
this day, but I could tell something had happened over there. Yeah,
they were a little more quiet than before.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were worn out.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine, literally, I cannot fucking imagine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, uh yeah yeah yeah. So the invasion of Iraq
compared to Fallujah, that was just like a might as
well just been a gunfight. Yeah, just everything.
Speaker 1: Everyone's as cake as a war could be.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the only thing so in hindsight, you know,
and I was nineteen, I had fucking energy back then.
But man, we were not sleeping. Yeah, I was maybe
averaging three or four hours a night at most.
Speaker 3: You penned down ripped heel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well we had uh yeah, we had all sorts
of uh, a little supplements here and there we were on.
I'd bean you would do anything to stay awake. I would.
I would. I would jerk it, knowing that I wasn't
actually gonna you know, yeah, just to stay awake. I would. Uh.
I'd mix my Copenhagen if we had coping, I'd mix
Copenhagen with Folger's coffee grinds. Hell, yeah, yeah, you're you're
using tobacco just to give yourself something to do to
stay awake. Man, you would fall asleep. You guys would
be in a you'd be in a pause and the vehicle,
you know, everyone stopped. You don't know why. You're the
lowest ranking guy. You'd maybe be stopped for ten minutes.
You'd take a nap, and you'd feel like you got
fucking eight hours of sleep in that ten minute nap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was tired. I was going to ask you, actually, how,
if at all, did smoking like kind of gas you
at all? Like you were you running? Were you ever
like running or something like in the gunfight, like running
to get the fucking wrench for your tires, and you
just like, oh god, damn it a little.
Speaker 4: Now you're in such good shape. Ah. We ran out
of all the cigarettes we brought with us, all of
our Marlboroughs and nice and big American brands, and we
started having to buy Iraqi brands. They were called suomers.
They were Iraqi Blent tobacco. It was the nastiest shit
I've ever tasted. But you smoke all of them. Oh yeah,
it was smoking cardboard. Man. It was so gross. But
we we raided. I think it was those Recon guys
raided the cigarette factory. The whole division got replenished with
free cigarettes.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, decent ones.
Speaker 4: They were gross. No, they were summers. They were It
was like Iraqi tobacco.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even good cigarette tobacco is still like it's growth,
the lowest form.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, it's the lowest form of smoking, right right. Yeah?
Oh man, that's all you have.
Speaker 1: Any more questions? But it's all I got.
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I think he covered everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I appreciate this because I I don't know if I
could tell you a day by day recollection of everything
that happened, But I have memories.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to know. It's just it's like
for me, if it had been me, I would have
at some point been like I wonder where does this
fit into history? Like what did I? Where does what
I just did fit into history? And I just wanted
to Honestly, my main question is just like did that
ever even.
Speaker 4: Occur to you?
Speaker 1: Do you think about it now? Like what kind of
historical event did I take place?
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about it like right now because we're doing
a show on it, So that is I suppose, yeah,
has got me thinking about where that uh stands in history.
But I I just assume that younger people don't give
it shit. Yeah, And I don't think that's necessarily a
bad thing because other than the invasion of Iraq and
maybe Fallujah, no one really fucking gave a ship when
we were there for ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 4: News, no, And it's like that's why I compare it
to the Korean War, where it's like everyone kind of
just forgot we were over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Although my grandfather described Korea as the best years of
his life.
Speaker 4: Really, Yeah what years was he was he there for?
Like the heavy fighting in the late forty Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: He fixed plans. He was in the Air Force, oh yeah,
and he said he just went from base to base
and played basketball and fixed planes.
Speaker 4: Do you know who were wingmen in Korea together?
Speaker 1: It was Ted Williams and John Glynn.
Speaker 4: That's fucking They flew like fucking ten missions together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, Williams has bodies.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, when you look at his baseball resume and
you see those those period, those three or four years
because of World War Two and Korea.
Speaker 1: I don't think he actually got to do anything in
World War Two.
Speaker 4: No, No, he was late to the game, but he
It still took him out of the league for like
two years.
Speaker 1: Now he would have been Dude.
Speaker 4: He literally comes back from World War Two? When's the
when's the American League? MVP batting titles, goes to Korea,
comes back from that, when's the fucking American League?
Speaker 1: He's probably the greatest baseball player of all time if
he didn't go to war.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And eventually when the technology gets there will unfreeze Ted
Williams seven years ago.
Speaker 4: Well get him back in the lineup.
Speaker 3: No, but we'll interview him on the show. Yes, also that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hey, we're doing an episode on Korea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us about it. I don't wan to hear
about your hitting. I don't want to hear about where
you're where you're ask him about where your son is.
He's dead too, Where am I? Yeah? Just fucking answer
our questions about Korea?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: Ted?
Speaker 4: Why why were you?
Speaker 1: Why did you write anybody? You were Mexican? I'm so
ashamed of that?
Speaker 3: Was he?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: His mom is Mexican.
Speaker 1: That's really funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah he was born in California when he's from San Diego,
I believe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well that's all I got for today. Jack, This
has been Thank you guys.
Speaker 4: This is good.
Speaker 1: Where can they find you Jacked History? Talk about that
real quick?
Speaker 4: Oh? Jack? Thank you guys. And I've always said you're
my favorite podcast, history podcast. I listen to you guys
all the time. I started my own history show on YouTube.
It's called Jacked History. Jack Ed History, And you know,
I do average twelve to fifteen minute videos. And like
I said, I'm not trying to change the world. I
want people to be entertained and have something fun to
tell their buddies at the bar.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Where what was the most recent episode on?
Speaker 4: I did the most recent episode?
Speaker 1: I guess athletes.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, comparing the athletes of ancient Rome to the
athletes of today and how they're really not that much different.
I think people act like athletes having a certain social
standing is a new phenomenon. It's not athletes who were
at the top of their game were well compensated in
Ancient Rome and had pretty nice lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like peak Rome, pops mona ye athletes. Yeah,
because I know in Eastern Rome. Later we did an
episode on the chariot Racers because chariot racing was like
the NFL to the Byzantine Empire. Yes, they were also.
Speaker 3: And fandom was insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, you're cheering for like the Greens or yes, the.
Speaker 1: Reds, Guias, Diocles.
Speaker 4: Uh they say they they estimate he wasn't the richest
athlete of ancient Rome. He was the richest athlete of
all time. Yeah. So like again, a guy like Lebron
or Michael Jordan creating generational wealth for being good at
their job. That's not unheard of in history.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Good, good to know. Check out jacked History on
YouTube and maybe soon on Spotify.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I'm going to toss it up on the I
guess you can do videos on Spotify now, so might
as well get that revenue from Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I
just was able to monetize after two episodes. Very lucky.
I'm at a good pace right now, and it's nice
seeing that those dollars grow in the thing every day.
Yeah so yeah, yeah, I uh, it's been a long
time coming. I've done I've worked for a lot of
people over the years. I've done a lot of stuff
for other people. This is I'm doing, doing my own thing,
and it's exciting.
Speaker 1: Time for Jack to get I agree, Yeah, I can agree.
Speaker 4: I'm just used to being a supporting character and I'm
I'm I've become comfortable in that. But I gotta I
gotta be the guy's main character energy now, I gotta
I gotta be a main character.
Speaker 1: Goddamn.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah, well the hair, I think, yes, yeah, well
that's a problem. It's hard to make a guy that
looks like me a main character. No traditional looks. Typically
the hair spectacular. Right now, you got a little bun going.
Oh yeah, this is my professional Jack. When I want
to get into when I want to be stupid Internet Jack,
that's when I let the hair down. But we're talking serious.
We're talking war here, We're talking serious stuff.
Speaker 1: That aan member of a historical community.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, man, Yeah, we invaded a country. It's pretty sweet. Yeah,
pretty cool. I got to I got to loot Saddam's palace.
Not a lot of people got to say.
Speaker 3: Ye know, if you have that pillow, bring it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: It's in my storage facility.
Speaker 3: We'll put it in the set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, put that on the set.
Speaker 4: It's still like because it's a white it's like a
silk pillow and it's there's a white flower, and uh,
you could tell my ass was sweating on that pillow.
I don't think I've ever washed it. You shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have the shout of touring at this point.
You got to just let it be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think I have some berets and other stuff.
I have a Quran. You know, don't bring kar You've
never taken a You've never taken a Bible from a
hotel before?
Speaker 1: Uh No, they're not Catholic Bibles usually, So I'm just, oh, yeah,
it's basically fake.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I learned so much about Catholicism by listening to
y'all's show. I learned more about I know, like Catholic
history obviously that's well recorded, but like what it is
to be Catholic. I've learned the most about just what
it's like to be Catholic listening to you guys.
Speaker 3: It's more of a culture thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all I equate it to, Like, it's the same,
almost the same as being like Jewish at this point, right,
not in terms of like the consequences you might encounter from.
Speaker 4: The Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt, right in.
Speaker 1: Terms of just like the religion being as much of
a culture as it is a religion. Yeah, it's very similar, yeah,
I think, oh yeah, yeah, and it's not as crazy
as like Mormonism or something like that, because that's a
whole separate yeah, bag.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but at least us in the Mormons have a
football team, true, true.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's true. Notre Dame and b Yu.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the Jewish college football team?
Speaker 1: Is there even a Hebrew college? I mean, I'm sure
there's a Hebrew college somewhere, but not not d One.
Speaker 4: Yeah, n Yu, no football team?
Speaker 1: They got a basketball team? Yeah, Well that's all I got.
Speaker 3: It's probably Florid Atlantic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. That's all I got for today, Jack,
Thank you, thank you so much for being here. Awesome
episode for Thanks for having me on that Jan Jester
and jack Man Lum Rob Fox, you just gut saw
served