Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy
Speaker 1: here with our guest tonight, Louis Socido. He served in
Speaker 1: a number of different infantry units worse and then went
Speaker 1: to the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, served in three seven five,
Speaker 1: went over to snipers, lots of deployments to Iraq and
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and some other interesting stuff too, before he went
Speaker 1: over to the s FAB which was a new unit,
Speaker 1: a training and advisor unit that we'll get into. But Louie,
Speaker 1: first off, thank you for joining us on the show.
Speaker 2: Hey man, thanks for having me. It's real pleasure. I
Speaker 2: love everything about your books.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2: I need to get Yeah awesome. I've really liked the
Speaker 2: genre and everything that I know you. I've met Jack
Speaker 2: Carr a couple of times, and that's an awesome guy.
Speaker 3: Team. But just how y'all right's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. Man. So
Speaker 1: let's start at the beginning. If you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you grew up and how that
Speaker 1: took you into the military.
Speaker 3: Man. So, yeah, so that's a funny story.
Speaker 2: So I grew up to my dad's at Coppon Dallas,
Speaker 2: it's like a thirty seven year veteran of the Dallas
Speaker 2: Police Department. My mom was a dental hygienis of all things,
Speaker 2: and kind of middle class, but we had the I
Speaker 2: always tell people it's like we have the Me and
Speaker 2: my brother had the picturess like growing up a kind
Speaker 2: of American experience where we went to high school.
Speaker 3: I played soccer, I played a ton of sports.
Speaker 2: Me and my brother got into wrestling roughly about the
Speaker 2: same time, and we did wrestling all through high school.
Speaker 2: And so that I think, especially the wrestling portion, because
Speaker 2: you hear a lot about guys. I think I ran
Speaker 2: into mostly guys in regiment that had They were all wrestlers,
Speaker 2: every single one of them. And so it's it's I
Speaker 2: kind of laugh about that as I can think this
Speaker 2: same amount of suffering that you did in wrestling kind
Speaker 2: of translated into suffering in other parts of your life,
Speaker 2: so you could do it real well, like when you
Speaker 2: were a lot of the times that we were running
Speaker 2: around not eating, fitting in bags and wearing cash bags
Speaker 2: while we're doing everything. So it's like it was a
Speaker 2: level of suffering that you put yourself through to attain
Speaker 2: a goal, to just get out and fight on the
Speaker 2: mat to get to that wrestling match, and that I
Speaker 2: think really really translated into the type of suffering that
Speaker 2: you would do later past that. Like, my dad had
Speaker 2: had a lot of aspiration, big aspirations for us. He
Speaker 2: wanted us to be an officer, or one of us
Speaker 2: to be. He was like, hey, if you're going to
Speaker 2: go to the army. I always knew that I was
Speaker 2: going to go into the military, and so he had
Speaker 2: always had big aspirations for He was like, you're a officer.
Speaker 2: We're trying to send you to West Point or Annapolis
Speaker 2: or this is I wanted to be a pilot until
Speaker 2: I found out I was dyslexic and that doesn't work
Speaker 2: real pilots. So I've gotten into all of that wrestling
Speaker 2: and everything. Kind of knew that my path was going
Speaker 2: to be in the military. And then nine to eleven happened.
Speaker 2: And I was a junior in high school when nine
Speaker 2: eleven happened, so and everybody, you get the same kind
Speaker 2: of response from everybody where, They're like, hey, where were
Speaker 2: you during nine to eleven? And I can remember exactly
Speaker 2: where I was. And then the thought process of Okay,
Speaker 2: now now I know I'm going into the military. I
Speaker 2: didn't know how long I was going into the military
Speaker 2: for I thought I was going to do a like
Speaker 2: a four year stint and I was going to follow
Speaker 2: my dad's footsteps and go to the Dallas Police Department.
Speaker 2: So that's that's kind of really like the the growing
Speaker 2: up portion that led me into going into the military.
Speaker 2: Had there not been a war, I probably wouldn't stayed
Speaker 2: as long as I did. But definitely the way my
Speaker 2: father and my mother raised us. We were Americans where
Speaker 2: we lived in a place called Little Mexico for a
Speaker 2: little while and then we moved to Carrollton, and my
Speaker 2: dad was always like, you're not a You're not a Mexican. Like,
Speaker 2: don't don't listen to what everybody says. You're not Mexican,
Speaker 2: You're an American. So me and my brother pretty much
Speaker 2: raised on that, took that into heart and then and
Speaker 2: we just liked doing the hard stuff.
Speaker 3: We got to.
Speaker 2: I had the the risk factor that was always there.
Speaker 2: I think with all all guys that do what we do.
Speaker 2: I got into a lot of trouble, like a ton
Speaker 2: of trouble. I went to parties, I drank uh and
Speaker 2: I really knew that college kind of wasn't going to
Speaker 2: be for me, so I didn't never planned on it,
Speaker 2: plan on it, and then yeah, so I joined. I
Speaker 2: tried one year, one semester of college and then I
Speaker 2: called it.
Speaker 1: And you and your brother both joined. There are a
Speaker 1: few year gap between the two of you.
Speaker 2: So there's a two year gap between when so me
Speaker 2: and him are actually two years apart, and there's a
Speaker 2: year and a half to two year gap between when
Speaker 2: we joined.
Speaker 3: So I had joined in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: And graduated everything in May, and I was stationed at
Speaker 2: Fort Riley, Kansas, and then as soon as I got there,
Speaker 2: I was gone. Probably I think it was like three
Speaker 2: months later, like I got promoted to start first class
Speaker 2: or not start first private first class, like on the
Speaker 2: airfield when it was snowing, getting on the berg to
Speaker 2: go to go back go into Iraq.
Speaker 1: And what was Iraq like for you in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that place was the wild West, like the
Speaker 2: so everything had just had just stopped and it had
Speaker 2: just transferred over to Ohio. Two we got there, landed
Speaker 2: in Buyop. They're still doing the I don't know if
Speaker 2: you had ever gotten into Buyop. Probably did, but they
Speaker 2: were still doing the drops, so they were got the
Speaker 2: the combat drops when they would fly and they just
Speaker 2: they'd take that aircraft and then they'd be like, okay, everybody,
Speaker 2: hold on, and they just knows that thing right like
Speaker 2: right to the ground, and we That was I think
Speaker 2: that was the first time I realized like that, hey,
Speaker 2: this could be real, because I'm sitting there and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, how oh my god, I'm like like nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty years old, and I'm looking down the road. There's
Speaker 2: people throwing up into their shirts on the floor. It's
Speaker 2: going all over the place. You've got the loads are
Speaker 2: laughing on the other side, and it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: so this is there. They're trying either trying.
Speaker 3: To sear us or we're we're scared of something. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We landed in the middle of the night, got there,
Speaker 2: and then that deployment was pretty I was in Camp Taji, Iraq,
Speaker 2: and so we're there on MSR Tampa, and it was
Speaker 2: funny because we just knew that that was the big
Speaker 2: IED's hadn't the EFPs hadn't started go happening yet. I
Speaker 2: would meet those later on early two thousand and six seven,
Speaker 2: and so we were really just scared of the one,
Speaker 2: five fives, and it was just random firefights and it
Speaker 2: was all of it was super surreal when I think
Speaker 2: back about it, because.
Speaker 3: We would go down Route Irish, we'd do stuff.
Speaker 2: We'd be heading down into the green zone, taking people
Speaker 2: in or pulling people out or going on mission.
Speaker 3: And right there on Route Irish there was a bridge
Speaker 3: and as soon.
Speaker 2: As you cross that bridge, first little tick I got
Speaker 2: into is we're coming out. And as soon as you
Speaker 2: cross that bridge, everybody's shooting from both sides of the freeway.
Speaker 3: And it's just all fires coming in on you.
Speaker 2: Everybody's you're driving, the gunners are shooting, they're we're shooting
Speaker 2: back at them, they're shooting at us. And then you crossed,
Speaker 2: probably about a mile over, you cross back over and
Speaker 2: it's over. It's like somebody turned like a stick it off,
Speaker 2: And so I was just like, this is it. It
Speaker 2: got really surreal that one at a couple of points
Speaker 2: where it was just like this isn't real life, like
Speaker 2: we're living We're living in some alternate universe where this
Speaker 2: is happening.
Speaker 1: Where you're just sort of like, I can't believe that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's like I was like, so that's my
Speaker 2: first firefight. Is me sitting in this light the rear
Speaker 2: the rear of this vehicle and we're just getting ding,
Speaker 2: you know, we're getting stitched up a little bit, but
Speaker 2: we're not really scared of what they're doing. And it
Speaker 2: was funny because the unit that was bringing us in
Speaker 2: because we were ripping out with them, was just like
Speaker 2: everybody good and they like it was a normal day
Speaker 2: like that was just it was like, hey, somebody passed
Speaker 2: me that rip it.
Speaker 3: Down there, and we're like I'm like sure, here you go, buddy.
Speaker 2: Uh So yeah, So just just a very surreal experience
Speaker 2: as soon as like how I rap was then and
Speaker 2: then through the entirety of it, it was it was
Speaker 2: that it was kind of that the entire time. We
Speaker 2: had a couple of things. There was a road right
Speaker 2: on MSR. Tampa going north towards Anaconda. There was a
Speaker 2: moss that was called the Shot of Mosque, and for
Speaker 2: some odd reason, they really liked shooting down black Hawks
Speaker 2: and they did it a couple of times, and so
Speaker 2: every time it happened, the response was is we'd go
Speaker 2: down there, we'd get into a huge firefight with them,
Speaker 2: and it'd be like a two day tick and then
Speaker 2: we'd be like, all right, that's it, the show's over.
Speaker 3: Everybody go back home.
Speaker 2: We did what we said, and then we'd go back
Speaker 2: to we'd go back to Taji and hang out there.
Speaker 2: And the surreal part about it was funny, and later
Speaker 2: on I thought about this was that we were having
Speaker 2: like Friday night boxing matches at the USO's at the
Speaker 2: or at Yeah, the MWR right in front of that
Speaker 2: PX right there on Camp Todgy. They were having like
Speaker 2: volleyball tournaments and so it was like a little town.
Speaker 3: And then we had a haunted house in October.
Speaker 2: I didn't get to go to it because we were
Speaker 2: running missions out, but like they put together in these
Speaker 2: old abandoned buildings and on that camp they put together
Speaker 2: like haunted houses and stuff like that. So we were
Speaker 2: getting I was getting like this weird feel like, hey,
Speaker 2: like outside the I go outside the game a lot
Speaker 2: and it's like every man for himself the wild West,
Speaker 2: and then you come back in here and it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: there's just people.
Speaker 1: It's like a boy Scouts jamboree or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it was it was an introduction that
Speaker 2: I probably will never forget because you go into you
Speaker 2: read books and you watch movies and you think wars
Speaker 2: one way, and then you get there and you're just like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is this is nothing like what they told me.
Speaker 3: It was going to be. Those were you didn't get
Speaker 3: the next Hodge DVD you know that month?
Speaker 1: Those were Those were the years where like you guys
Speaker 1: would be playing video games, hit the pause button when
Speaker 1: you had to go on a mission, go and do it,
Speaker 1: get into a firefight, come back, sit right back down
Speaker 1: on the couch, yep, start the game again.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was like, yeah, you just come right back
Speaker 3: and you start playing.
Speaker 2: Or what is the My favorite thing was we would
Speaker 2: just come and hang out and we had chess games
Speaker 2: going on for like days, and we'd go leave. It's
Speaker 2: just like that, we go leave and then we come
Speaker 2: back and we play chess and we'd be like, all right,
Speaker 2: whose move is it? Or the biggest one is you
Speaker 2: start a fist fight over Risk because somebody, somebody moved
Speaker 2: your apart. I think r Place got banned from Risk
Speaker 2: a couple of times because they started a massive fight.
Speaker 3: It's like you're a cheater.
Speaker 2: It's like they were like, all right, well, we can't
Speaker 2: do this anymore because the privates are out there getting
Speaker 2: wild with each other.
Speaker 3: And that was the other thing too. The army was
Speaker 3: a lot different then it was.
Speaker 2: I would say it was more kind of what we
Speaker 2: knew it to be. We're like, if I had a
Speaker 2: problem with another private, I just walked outside and we
Speaker 2: just fought it out.
Speaker 1: And counseling was the thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, like E five would I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: say they'd hit you, but they would.
Speaker 3: They'd rough you up a little bit, like just to
Speaker 3: just to get it into your head.
Speaker 1: So privates were physically corrected, that's all.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're physically into the wall several times. I was
Speaker 2: one of those hard ended privates. So I think any good,
Speaker 2: I think any good n c O. When you get
Speaker 2: when you did well in the military, you you always
Speaker 2: remember you were like, yeah, I was that hard private.
Speaker 2: I was the one that was that was slightly out
Speaker 2: of control. And me at twenty, I had I had
Speaker 2: the biggest ego on the planet. I was like, I
Speaker 2: can outdo you at everything?
Speaker 3: Could I know? Not really, but I try.
Speaker 1: Well that's a uh, that's a good personality asset. That
Speaker 1: sort of have that to take you into special operations.
Speaker 1: But we'll get there. But you after that deployment, you
Speaker 1: went over to Worse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I went out to fourth IDU. I was started.
Speaker 2: I was an E four and it was funny because
Speaker 2: you get there, I'm pretty much volunteering for to get
Speaker 2: onto the next thing. So I moved from Riley to
Speaker 2: hood get there and I was just like, hey, like like,
Speaker 2: I want to get.
Speaker 3: Onto the next thing. I got picked up physically fit.
Speaker 2: I'm at that point like I'm in a good place
Speaker 2: kind of like I said, physically, which is really the
Speaker 2: only thing that matters. I could have been done as
Speaker 2: a box of hair. But as long as you can
Speaker 2: run your two mile in like you know, eleven minutes,
Speaker 2: you're great.
Speaker 3: Like you're the You're you're the next best thing.
Speaker 2: So got into that and immediately two thousand and six
Speaker 2: redeployed over to Rustamya Iraq. So we were right in
Speaker 2: the middle of Baghdad uh and we get there and
Speaker 2: this is not the most garret that I was ever,
Speaker 2: But when I realized, I was just like, oh things,
Speaker 2: things are slightly out of hand here because the surge
Speaker 2: was just starting up. We get in there and we
Speaker 2: get into it. So the normal thing we get into
Speaker 2: by up, get taken the buy. By this time, I've
Speaker 2: done it already. And so we're getting in and they
Speaker 2: get us in in the middle of the night. Well,
Speaker 2: as we're coming in, there's rockets slamming into this camp.
Speaker 3: And if anybody, if you.
Speaker 2: Know anything about rest of Maya, it sat in between
Speaker 2: two large radio towers and so bracketed. That's say bracketing.
Speaker 2: That's perfect for bracketing. And so we were getting at
Speaker 2: we were driving in that night and getting rockets. Rockets
Speaker 2: were hitting, like hitting vehicles that we were coming not
Speaker 2: our vehicles that we were coming in on, but where
Speaker 2: they're having the motor pool.
Speaker 3: You could see them slamming into the motor poole.
Speaker 2: And as we're coming in, they're like the people like
Speaker 2: get it's it was almost like a Vietnam movie where
Speaker 2: they're just like, get off, get off, we gotta go.
Speaker 2: And we're getting off and running right into a bunker
Speaker 2: and getting into these bunkers and that's that's hey, welcome
Speaker 2: to the rest of my Iraq. And it was funny
Speaker 2: because that day the next morning we're getting everything set up.
Speaker 3: We hadn't slept.
Speaker 2: We're getting we're getting finding our where we're going to
Speaker 2: be living for the next year.
Speaker 3: And this guy they come and tell us.
Speaker 2: They're like, hey, we had a casualty last night from
Speaker 2: one of the other companies, and we're like, what happened?
Speaker 2: This guy has been in country for eighteen hours and
Speaker 2: a rocket had snuck its way between because it was
Speaker 2: built it was hard stand buildings, but they had the
Speaker 2: sand bags that were built up with the barriers, and
Speaker 2: one had snuck right between the barrier and the roof
Speaker 2: of the building and hit his door.
Speaker 3: And frat put frag all over him.
Speaker 2: So he was in I think you they said he
Speaker 2: did in the country for eighteen hours and was being
Speaker 2: evaped that day. And so that was kind of the
Speaker 2: realization that we were in things. Things weren't like the
Speaker 2: surge was real. Things were getting kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And we as soon as we got in they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: all are going out? I think we We did a
Speaker 2: sort of lefty right seat ride and then we were
Speaker 2: we were to the races.
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Speaker 1: Enjoy What was that? I mean, what did that consist of?
Speaker 1: Because a worst team, of course is long range reconnaissance.
Speaker 1: I mean that's what they're designed for anyway, But what
Speaker 1: was the actual mission that you guys had when you
Speaker 1: got to Iraq?
Speaker 2: So it was it was strange because it was we
Speaker 2: were but we were basically like an area of denial.
Speaker 2: We sat and we sat in a cop and then
Speaker 2: we were running operations out of that cop and we
Speaker 2: we were tasked to watch an MSR. We were tasked
Speaker 2: to do operations on that MSR. So they essentially we
Speaker 2: got used as just a normal infantry company. So I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it was mismanaged, but i think that was
Speaker 2: the sign of the time. It's like, yeah, at that
Speaker 2: time during the surge, we were just trying to regain
Speaker 2: control and RUSS and eye. That area was one of
Speaker 2: the areas that was really contested at that point in time.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the cops name, but we we were
Speaker 2: in a cop and we had been in this cop
Speaker 2: four maybe this is a great one, and we we
Speaker 2: actually have a yearly retelling of this story. So we're
Speaker 2: in a cop We've been in there for maybe like
Speaker 2: four or five weeks running operations out of it. It's
Speaker 2: it's pretty much like there's a barracks on the top floor,
Speaker 2: the bottom floor has another set of barracks, and then
Speaker 2: we had like a bay operated and all of our
Speaker 2: trucks were in this courtyard and that's kind of where
Speaker 2: we did everything out of it. We have fuel tanks,
Speaker 2: we had like small guard shacks. But this thing wasn't
Speaker 2: very This thing wasn't very big. It was maybe five
Speaker 2: six hundred meters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those cops were like Vietnam era fire bases.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, and so and so one night.
Speaker 2: A guy named Richard and another guy named Sprouse, where
Speaker 2: they were sitting on top of his deck smoking and
Speaker 2: the normal night, like we'd gotten out of the mission.
Speaker 3: Everybody comes in, some people are eating.
Speaker 2: I was in I was in the barracks playing cards,
Speaker 2: and so we hear a thump, thump, thump, and then
Speaker 2: like explosions on the building, like not not around the building.
Speaker 3: It was on the building.
Speaker 2: And then we start hearing the guns go off on
Speaker 2: the towers. As we're running out, Sprouts and Pritchard are
Speaker 2: running back in and they're screaming at everybody like don't
Speaker 2: go out there. So what kicked this off was they
Speaker 2: were smoking and Sprouse and Pritchard look up and Sprouse
Speaker 2: even says and Pritchard says this every day. It's like
Speaker 2: he told me. He looked at me in the face
Speaker 2: and told me this. He goes, man, that's a weird
Speaker 2: shooting star. As they're looking at it, it keeps getting
Speaker 2: closer and closer and closer, and as it does, it
Speaker 2: lands right in the middle of their smoke pit. It's
Speaker 2: an inner mortar, doesn't it doesn't go off, and by
Speaker 2: all rights, that things should have killed both of them.
Speaker 3: So they're running in.
Speaker 2: They're like, they've just had this near experience, trying to
Speaker 2: keep us from all running out. So we're pinned. That's
Speaker 2: the only way out is that little stairway. We're pinned
Speaker 2: inside of that, that little thing while there's a huge
Speaker 2: fight going on, and the tanker company that we're attached
Speaker 2: to is downstairs. They're trying to get They don't have
Speaker 2: tanks at this point, so they're doing their best. They're
Speaker 2: trying to get out to the walls. And it was
Speaker 2: funny because my best friend, he was the best friend.
Speaker 2: He's my best man at my first wedding Insury Ranger fashion.
Speaker 2: He's the best man at my first wedding. His name
Speaker 2: is James Dyer. He's now major, which this man, he's
Speaker 2: an amazing he was an amazing soldier.
Speaker 3: He still is.
Speaker 2: I laugh every time I say major, because I'm like,
Speaker 2: nobody should have ever given him that.
Speaker 3: But so James is luckily.
Speaker 2: Enough, James had been had been a washout an EOD
Speaker 2: school and like the last week wash out, like he
Speaker 2: got thrunked and they got they got upset at him.
Speaker 2: So he washed out the last week. So he's got he.
Speaker 3: Knows a little bit. So what does he do.
Speaker 2: He's like, Okay, well, I'm gonna go out there and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna see if I can at least put some
Speaker 2: sandbags around the state. So he goes out there, does
Speaker 2: the EOD thing, puts a bunch of sandbags, and we
Speaker 2: all take off and run. We spend the entire next
Speaker 2: that night repelling an attack where they knocked down of
Speaker 2: the four walls that was at that cop they knocked
Speaker 2: down three of them, and one of the major.
Speaker 3: Things that happened.
Speaker 2: And James and Sean Myers another guy, so we were
Speaker 2: all in the same squad. Sean was the squad leader,
Speaker 2: me and James were his team leaders. And so during
Speaker 2: all of this action, the trucks are all sitting right there.
Speaker 2: They get hit by mortars and they get a fuel
Speaker 2: tank goes off on them, and so they're kind of
Speaker 2: they're burning on the side and we so we now
Speaker 2: have the vehicles either, but all of the AT fours
Speaker 2: are in there, and somebody's like is the eight veyler
Speaker 2: like hey? Or all the AT fours still on the
Speaker 2: trucks like yeah? And they're like, if those things go off,
Speaker 2: we're fucked. And so James and Sean run into this
Speaker 2: raging fire and start plucking out all these AT fours.
Speaker 2: Both of them end up with bronze stars for it,
Speaker 2: which was that one of one of the many actions
Speaker 2: that they did during that entire deployment that actually got recognized.
Speaker 2: But that was one of the knights where it was
Speaker 2: just like Holy crapt was like, this is like viet
Speaker 2: Like you said, like Vietnam style attack on a on
Speaker 2: a base.
Speaker 1: Were you guys like preparing to be potentially overrun? No?
Speaker 1: I mean was it that bad?
Speaker 2: So once they are I want to say that our
Speaker 2: own maybe mortars had knocked down our own walls at
Speaker 2: some point in time, and so I wasn't sure because
Speaker 2: we're busy on one side, but there was a point
Speaker 2: where we yeah, we had thought we were like, hey,
Speaker 2: like if this, if this goes down the way everybody
Speaker 2: thinks is luckily we had gotten air support overhead.
Speaker 3: So we've gotten attack helicopters.
Speaker 2: But we end up like we're saying, hey, like if
Speaker 2: we have to, we're gonna have to drop back into
Speaker 2: the buildings, and once that happens, like we are, we're
Speaker 2: in a bad way. Luckily, we had repelled enough of
Speaker 2: the attack and I think we had we'd had enough
Speaker 2: firepower out there.
Speaker 3: We you know, we come with a bunch of machine.
Speaker 2: Guns and everything like that that we had gotten them
Speaker 2: to get away from us. And once the attack aviation
Speaker 2: shows up, they pretty that was It was like, hey,
Speaker 2: we're not We're not messing with this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What ended up happening with that cop is they that
Speaker 2: was unusable anymore.
Speaker 3: They weren't to send anybody out.
Speaker 2: That thing was gone, and we ended up having to
Speaker 2: move to another one that we lovingly called Castle Grace
Speaker 2: Could because it was a all it was was a
Speaker 2: five story unfinished parking garage.
Speaker 3: That they put that they put barriers around.
Speaker 1: And you finish what's up? You finished the deployment out
Speaker 1: of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we ended up finishing the deployment out of there.
Speaker 2: Lots of good stories with that. Actually, have you heard
Speaker 2: of tales from the Good Square? No, it's a like
Speaker 2: collection of ghost stories from the gat Real super Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's on I G I love reading their stuff
Speaker 2: and I listened to wartime Stories. Gets a lot of
Speaker 2: their stuff off of YouTube, but I love reading the stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm about to write one because we're pretty sure that
Speaker 2: place was potted.
Speaker 3: What it ended up happening.
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, so the reason why we had gotten it
Speaker 2: at such a good price was because during the invasion,
Speaker 2: before the American forces came in, the Bathists had taken
Speaker 2: all the people who were.
Speaker 3: Not friendly to the Bathists.
Speaker 2: And the story was that we've gotten told this bye older,
Speaker 2: was that they had gotten all these guys and rounded
Speaker 2: them up in that building and then took them to
Speaker 2: the top right a book above the top four. So
Speaker 2: you had the you had the overlooked the top four
Speaker 2: where all of our machine gun nests were, but right
Speaker 2: underneath that they brought them all up there, and then
Speaker 2: they had shot them and set them on fire in there.
Speaker 3: And so what was the crazy things? When we were first.
Speaker 2: Looking at it, we walked up to that and I
Speaker 2: smelled a dead body or two burn before, and I
Speaker 2: walked up there. I was like, that's a familiar smell,
Speaker 2: and a couple of the other guys who had been
Speaker 2: around burning bodies been like, this smells weird. And then
Speaker 2: we were like, what's all these marks on these these
Speaker 2: burn parts on the ground. And turns out like any
Speaker 2: even the Iraqi police, the IA, they would whenever we
Speaker 2: were staging to do missions, would not go into that
Speaker 2: building at all period. And we definitely heard some weird
Speaker 2: stuff up there. So I don't know if it was
Speaker 2: like large animals or something, but there was there was
Speaker 2: a point in time where guys would not go up
Speaker 2: there with their nods on. They would turn their knods off.
Speaker 2: They would they would follow this air well and then
Speaker 2: they turned their nods on as soon as they got
Speaker 2: to the very top.
Speaker 1: I mean, were they like hearing voices or something? What
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 2: So at night, when we knew nobody was up there,
Speaker 2: you would hear like things moving around. One of the
Speaker 2: big complaints was either nods would completely go dead. They
Speaker 2: were the old PBS four teens, so like they would
Speaker 2: go dead for any any reason.
Speaker 3: But the it was the.
Speaker 2: Everybody had seen it, and I saw a little bit
Speaker 2: of something, and you know, you never want to say
Speaker 2: that you saw something to anybody else outside of it.
Speaker 2: But you would see shadows do things that like they
Speaker 2: weren't really supposed to be doing, right, and so, and
Speaker 2: I would always talk it up to, oh, there's a
Speaker 2: light somewhere way out in the distance. It's shining and
Speaker 2: it's it's moving shadows like that. But a lot of
Speaker 2: guys would be like, yeah, I just don't turn my
Speaker 2: nods on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you're trying to talk yourself out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like, I have to go to this guard ships.
Speaker 2: If they don't, if I don't go up there, somebody
Speaker 2: to be real mad. And I'm more scared of that
Speaker 2: sergeant than Diam or whatever's up here. So I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna go up there and just pretend it didn't exist.
Speaker 1: I did many years ago. Now, I did a Halloween
Speaker 1: episode for a different podcast where I kind of cover
Speaker 1: some of these stories, and I got a guy to
Speaker 1: tell a pretty cool story about Okinawa. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of ghost stories out there.
Speaker 3: Oh about the what is it? Gate three?
Speaker 1: I hear a lot about some abandoned buildings and stuff.
Speaker 1: There's some weird, weird stuff. And actually from from Iraq,
Speaker 1: there are quite a few UFO stories, which is probably
Speaker 1: probably it's our guy seeing our own aircraft, you know,
Speaker 1: more more than likely. But there are some stories that
Speaker 1: you hear and like, like things that an entire marine
Speaker 1: battalion saw that like doesn't really make sense, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like too, how like a lot of these stories
Speaker 2: good because you hear a lot of stuff. We spent
Speaker 2: a night out in the old Iraqi intelligence their complex,
Speaker 2: I'd like so on a lot of the videos, you
Speaker 2: watch tomahawks slamming into like a like almost triangle building
Speaker 2: and then there's a they would be like, that's still
Speaker 2: Iraqi intelligence compound.
Speaker 3: And we actually stayed.
Speaker 2: The night in that, and they have legit cells that
Speaker 2: were very strange, and that's where we were sleeping, and
Speaker 2: none of us slept in there.
Speaker 3: We slept in the we went ahead and slept in
Speaker 3: and it's jealous.
Speaker 2: It's jail cells cells. And then there's a walkway that
Speaker 2: you go up and you can see that there's islet
Speaker 2: metal islets on the ground and you could pretty much
Speaker 2: guess what they were for. But you would look up
Speaker 2: and it's a walkway and it's completely there's no cover,
Speaker 2: there's no nothing.
Speaker 3: It's a walkway.
Speaker 2: And then there's these islets on the ground and their
Speaker 2: their space pretty evenly evenly. Uh And well, later on
Speaker 2: we asked about the rule that were like, hey, what's
Speaker 2: going on with this?
Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, that's where they chained them.
Speaker 2: That's where they just sat them out in the sun
Speaker 2: and chained down there. And I was like yeah. And
Speaker 2: it was funny because our platoon sargeant it was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're not sleeping in there, like we'll just we'll just
Speaker 2: sleep out on.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I know some platoon sergeants that would
Speaker 1: have loved to lock their privates up.
Speaker 3: And yeah, privates changed in there.
Speaker 1: Then. Oh man, it's so wild. I mean, Iraq does
Speaker 1: have this like parts of it have this quality. It
Speaker 1: does have a haunted quality to it. I remember like
Speaker 1: seeing places where you can see just the very top
Speaker 1: of the foundations of buildings that no longer exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and then the new buildings built like perpendicular
Speaker 1: or opposite to it, like the the city plan actually
Speaker 1: changed and these new buildings are built over these old ones.
Speaker 1: It's just like this place is so ancient, it's unreal.
Speaker 2: Oh man, we got into uh So one of the
Speaker 2: ticks that we got into was right outside of the Babylon.
Speaker 2: So there's Babylon Gates right to the north of h
Speaker 2: to the north of Bio writing.
Speaker 3: When you're getting into the green zone, there's like ancient
Speaker 3: there was.
Speaker 2: There was a wall there that they were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's part of that used to be.
Speaker 3: This is where the Babylon gate was. We got it.
Speaker 2: It was like I remember like being by that gate
Speaker 2: or by that wall and being shot at from it
Speaker 2: and be like this is I was like, this must
Speaker 2: be where he said that this was. I was like,
Speaker 2: this is super cool. So but yeah, I think that's
Speaker 2: one of the coolest things about the military in general,
Speaker 2: and going to that area, like the g Watt was
Speaker 2: the g Watt.
Speaker 3: Was the g Wat.
Speaker 2: But the things that you got to go and see,
Speaker 2: like who how many people can say that they've been
Speaker 2: to Baghdad And Baghdad was almost the that's in the
Speaker 2: cradle of civilizations, So you're all of the history that
Speaker 2: you hear about and read about, the Bible everything like that.
Speaker 3: A lot of that stuff went through there.
Speaker 2: Uh, And I was so I love history and I
Speaker 2: was always really a really cognizant of stuff like that.
Speaker 2: When I was in northern Iraq, I'd be looking up
Speaker 2: names and stuff like that, and they can almost get
Speaker 2: translated into the Bible. And that's part of northern Iraq
Speaker 2: is part of where like a lot of the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: I mean the Bible. I believe. I believe the Nanova
Speaker 1: Forest is actually in the Bible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so that's it's it's weird because you're traveling
Speaker 2: all through these places and uh.
Speaker 3: I think one of the.
Speaker 2: Cooler trips that I did is we were going to
Speaker 2: check on on some of the Kurds and we were
Speaker 2: going towards the Iranian border.
Speaker 3: It's gorgeous, beautiful, like mountains, Like.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of pictures of us where it looks
Speaker 2: like we're at the top of the world there and.
Speaker 1: What you're talking about, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're just like and I'm like, man, it
Speaker 2: was like, it's crazy that there's this much conflict and
Speaker 2: war going on in such a gorgeous place. I think
Speaker 2: like part of where we were at there was an
Speaker 2: old ski resort there and it's like these people used
Speaker 2: to be pretty especially Iraq. If you think about Iraq
Speaker 2: in the eighties, that was like a thriving metropolis, like
Speaker 2: it was. They had nightclubs, they had, they had industry,
Speaker 2: and then you know, the wars kind of set them
Speaker 2: back probably about like sixty or seventy years.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, man, and so after that deployment,
Speaker 1: you get back and when does like the seventy fifth
Speaker 1: Ranger Regiment start sort of like entering into your mind.
Speaker 2: I'm fantastic you asked that a question. I know exactly
Speaker 2: when it happened. So we were walking down a route
Speaker 2: that had had an ID strike. Probably it wasn't IDA,
Speaker 2: it was an EFP. So one of the terrible things
Speaker 2: about the EFP when that started filtering in from Iran
Speaker 2: was that they were blowing holes in chunks through all
Speaker 2: of our armor. And so I was there during the
Speaker 2: period of time where it was like all our vehicles
Speaker 2: looked like they had come out of Mad Max because
Speaker 2: they were trying to find anyway, crazy ways. It was
Speaker 2: like Ammo cans with glow plugs in them because hopefully
Speaker 2: maybe we can catch them if they have heat, if
Speaker 2: they're not victim operated. So going through that, we would
Speaker 2: see these vehicles just get crushed by e fps. You know,
Speaker 2: a couple of them, the size of was like fifty
Speaker 2: five gallon drums that would just knuke an entire thing.
Speaker 2: You'd hear about all they would drag I think that
Speaker 2: was one of the worst things they did. Drag them
Speaker 2: into Rustamaya and they're still blood and gore all over it.
Speaker 3: You were like, yeah, they didn't. And it's funny because
Speaker 3: whenever I think about that.
Speaker 2: Did you ever see the movie Memphis bel No World
Speaker 2: War two movie about the bombers, the bomber crews, and
Speaker 2: it was about one one bomber that had made it
Speaker 2: all the way through. But the it reminded me of
Speaker 2: because I saw that movie when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: and then it reminded me of that of them pulling
Speaker 2: these planes out, like back down the runway after they'd
Speaker 2: gotten in a fight and there's you could tell somebody
Speaker 2: who died in it. And that was a lot of
Speaker 2: when they were pulling these vehicles out from EFPs, was
Speaker 2: that you could tell nobody like there's a huge there's
Speaker 2: a hole that goes in one door out the other
Speaker 2: through the radio mount and there's gore and blood everywhere
Speaker 2: on it. No one made it out of that, So
Speaker 2: that was happening a lot. So what do they do
Speaker 2: instead of it? They're like, hey, this, Uh, they're gonna
Speaker 2: walk us in front of it because we're going to
Speaker 2: do a route reconnaissance. So in a B and invert
Speaker 2: of B, we're walking down route taking out things, hoping
Speaker 2: that that EFP doesn't hit us first. Uh.
Speaker 3: And when I asked the question, because there's a you know, million.
Speaker 2: Dollar vehicle behind me, the Buffalo's, and I was like,
Speaker 2: these things are meant to take that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, why am I walking in front
Speaker 3: of it?
Speaker 2: And they're like you cost less than that would to
Speaker 2: blow it up your whatever, we have to pay your family.
Speaker 1: I never understood why why they did that. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you study World War two, the Nazis always have
Speaker 1: their infantry behind the tank. It's not not up front.
Speaker 1: Nobody does that. That's stupid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was, and we were doing it down the routes,
Speaker 2: and what I think the whenever we got the training
Speaker 2: and everything for it, it was that you did that
Speaker 2: and maybe that first guy would be far enough away
Speaker 2: from the road to catch anything that was victim operated.
Speaker 2: But if it was a pleasure player or anything like that,
Speaker 2: you're you're done. So I'm walking down there and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, so, wait a second, that buffalo is more
Speaker 2: important than I am at this point, or any of
Speaker 2: my friends or anybody else.
Speaker 3: And it was they were like, yeah, yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2: So we've gotten into a couple of things and Command
Speaker 2: I think was making some bad decisions. We had a
Speaker 2: friend of ours get killed. I won't put out any names,
Speaker 2: but in an instance where a person of leadership had
Speaker 2: put their TC into the back position or into the
Speaker 2: TC position because they knew they were targeting those they
Speaker 2: were targeting the tcs, And that's exactly what happened. And
Speaker 2: then that guy, that leader survived while a bunch of
Speaker 2: our friend did not. And so we had taken a
Speaker 2: couple of casualties at that point. Guy named Josh Plaska,
Speaker 2: who was a E four at the time, he got
Speaker 2: killed by an FP, and so we had had a
Speaker 2: lot of we'd started getting casualties.
Speaker 3: And that's when it started becoming real.
Speaker 2: And I had an epiphany at one point in time
Speaker 2: where I'm sitting there, I'm.
Speaker 3: Just like, like I.
Speaker 2: Got to get somewhere where like my life matters a
Speaker 2: little bit more like that I've upped the up the
Speaker 2: priced had on me and myself so that if I'm
Speaker 2: going to keep doing this like I'm going to survive.
Speaker 2: So my brother had just gotten in the Army and
Speaker 2: just passed rip and had gotten into three seven five,
Speaker 2: and so that was one of my phone calls to him.
Speaker 2: I was just like, hey, I was like, I think
Speaker 2: I'm going to go and I'm going to go to selection,
Speaker 2: like and if I don't make selection, I'm getting out.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do this anymore. My brother is
Speaker 2: a very was a very like person and three seventh
Speaker 2: even from a private everybody really liked him. He's just
Speaker 2: one of those guys. And so as I'm talking to
Speaker 2: him about this, I'm getting close. I was just like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm going to selection as soon as I get the
Speaker 2: second I get back second they'll let me. I get
Speaker 2: off that plane. I'm going to selection. My brother's like,
Speaker 2: so you want to go what be a teacher? He's like,
Speaker 2: you want to you want to go teach people to
Speaker 2: do stuff? And I was just like, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: I'm a regular army dude. So at this point, I
Speaker 2: think Green Beret is just like I'm going to be
Speaker 2: kicking indoors.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be doing all the cool stuff, Like
Speaker 3: it's going to be fun.
Speaker 2: And my brother's just like yeah, He's like, so, here's
Speaker 2: the thing. He was just like green Berets don't do
Speaker 2: direct action. He's like, and he's in the regimen. He's like,
Speaker 2: we do direct action. He's like, that's all we do.
Speaker 2: And I was just like at that point, I was like, cool,
Speaker 2: how do I do this? He's like, he's like, let
Speaker 2: me let me get back to you, let me figure
Speaker 2: some stuff out.
Speaker 3: I'll email you. Hear a bit.
Speaker 2: The next email I get is from Ben Durham from
Speaker 2: three seven five or he was at the point. I
Speaker 2: think at that point he was the career counselor and
Speaker 2: it's basically an emails positive.
Speaker 1: I know Durham.
Speaker 3: You probably do Ben as he was he was.
Speaker 1: On a jump into a rack. Yes, yeah, I know Durham. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a good guy.
Speaker 2: Durham's one of the best guys in the world. One
Speaker 2: of the most shiteout people have ever met.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why they had him working in the arms room.
Speaker 2: So he was actually he climbed up all the way
Speaker 2: to be the regimental career counselor.
Speaker 3: Good for him and like, yeah, he did real well.
Speaker 3: He was in charge of the fight teams, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a boxer regiment. Yeah he did all
Speaker 2: of that. Yeah, yeah, ran his own fight program and everything.
Speaker 2: He did a lot. But I didn't know him at
Speaker 2: that time yet. But he he sends me. It's just
Speaker 2: an email and it's like click here to apply, like
Speaker 2: and it's like I click it, and they're like, have
Speaker 2: this printed out, have your commander sign it, give it
Speaker 2: back to me. So I'm just like all right, So
Speaker 2: I go get my grander to sign it. And it
Speaker 2: was funny because I was at that point. I was
Speaker 2: really good friends, me and my friend, my squad leader
Speaker 2: at the time, Sean Myers and James. We were kind
Speaker 2: of all at the same point where we were disenchanted
Speaker 2: with the war and how things were going and kind
Speaker 2: of the regular army lifestyle. So I get everything together,
Speaker 2: I get it, everybody signs my paperwork, and I'm pretty
Speaker 2: much on board, Like I think I was going to
Speaker 2: get back.
Speaker 3: I was going to have the two weeks to leave
Speaker 3: and then I was going right to rip. And so
Speaker 3: we do that.
Speaker 2: I'm having a conversation with them, I'm like, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do this, and they were both like, no, I
Speaker 2: think we're done, and I'm like, I was like, why
Speaker 2: don't you just come with me? I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure they're looking for people. We can all get
Speaker 2: into this. Both of them said no, I'm the only
Speaker 2: one that said yes. And to this day when I
Speaker 2: talked to James, Sean actually died a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: but when I talked to both of them when he
Speaker 2: was still alive, they were both like, I should have
Speaker 2: gone with you, Like we should have done that because
Speaker 2: it was the We were in a squad that was
Speaker 2: was like minded, like regiment was like and I always
Speaker 2: tell people, is like the the thing you can't the
Speaker 2: thing the difference between regiment and the big army is
Speaker 2: in regiment or in the big army, you'll find one
Speaker 2: or two guys that are about it. But they're they're
Speaker 2: about the lifestyle. They are warriors. That's what they wanted
Speaker 2: to do forever. Whatever reason they didn't get into that.
Speaker 2: They couldn't make their way because getting into regiment's luck too.
Speaker 2: Like I tell people that all the time, like it's
Speaker 2: like getting through selection rop that's luck, like partially.
Speaker 3: Luck, like you could. I watched the guy walk.
Speaker 2: Out and and rip, and he was wearing the wrong
Speaker 2: T shirt. That was the end of his That was
Speaker 2: the end of his rip out. Yeah, like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: bring them the wrong one. You don't like, oh wait,
Speaker 2: you didn't bring X, Y and Z. Yeah you're done,
Speaker 2: thanks for playing. So but that's the difference between what
Speaker 2: I thought the difference between regiment and army was it.
Speaker 2: I in the big army, I found a group few
Speaker 2: and far between, but I found a group that was
Speaker 2: gonna watch my back during combat, was gonna fight like
Speaker 2: we were always fighting. We were always trying to get
Speaker 2: to the forefront of the fight. We were trying to
Speaker 2: do close with and destroy the enemy.
Speaker 3: Regiment.
Speaker 2: It's everybody, every single swing swinging guy out there is
Speaker 2: about that life. That's what he does, and if he doesn't,
Speaker 2: he doesn't belong and he won't be there anymore. So
Speaker 2: it's like a very stark difference between the big army,
Speaker 2: but you can still kind of find those pockets. But
Speaker 2: going back to it, that's that's pretty much my epiphany.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. And
Speaker 2: then I because I was in E five at the time,
Speaker 2: and it's I don't know if you've ever heard of
Speaker 2: E five is going through as a import.
Speaker 3: Hard, very hard.
Speaker 1: They go through rope though right or rest now.
Speaker 2: Well, so no, through an E five, you go through RIP, RAP,
Speaker 2: you go through RAST one. I went through RIP, so
Speaker 2: it's still the four week course I get. And the
Speaker 2: way it happened was is I got back from Iraq.
Speaker 2: Two weeks later, I'm at Benning for Jump school UH
Speaker 2: and then immediately picked up. It was in August, immediately
Speaker 2: picked up, and then I got into and then you go.
Speaker 3: I went right down to.
Speaker 2: Got into RIP and then four weeks in RIP, the
Speaker 2: four weeks in RIP.
Speaker 3: And then immediately after that.
Speaker 2: It's because I'm an n c O and I can't
Speaker 2: have an I can't be an n c O and
Speaker 2: regiment without a TAB. So right after RIP, I'm right
Speaker 2: into uh SERT. Right after SEARCH, I'm right into Ranger School.
Speaker 2: And then it was funny because I got out of
Speaker 2: Ranger School and Starry Major Merritt was the It was
Speaker 2: first arm Bohannon comes in pretty much tells us we
Speaker 2: didn't do anything special, like you're not special.
Speaker 3: Everybody does this.
Speaker 2: Immediately after, Star Major Merritt walks up and he's just
Speaker 2: like he's.
Speaker 3: Like, congratulations rinkers, and we're like that, He's like, here's in.
Speaker 2: He's like who here's in DCO Like raise my hand
Speaker 2: and he's like, you'll be meeting your platoon in in
Speaker 2: seventy two hours. You get a pass and then you're
Speaker 2: gonna be on a plane.
Speaker 3: I was just like perfect.
Speaker 2: And then a week later I found myself since I
Speaker 2: was that was my first deployment and I didn't do
Speaker 2: any of the train up, but I still have to
Speaker 2: shadow and they still needed guys. I found myself in
Speaker 2: Deco and they were like, you're a Goose.
Speaker 3: You're the ag for a Goose, and you're gonna learn
Speaker 3: how to be a team leader.
Speaker 2: So there I am with Goose rounds like walking up
Speaker 2: a mountain a couple of weeks after Ranger Schools, just
Speaker 2: being like, well, this is great.
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Speaker 1: apply Sea site for details. So you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the challenges of being an import coming as
Speaker 1: an E five rather than kind of growing up in
Speaker 1: the regiment. I mean, what was that experience like for you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Rough, the learning curve was just massive, especially not having
Speaker 2: been able to do any of the work up Like
Speaker 2: I wasn't in the train ups.
Speaker 3: I didn't do any of it.
Speaker 2: So my first like induction into the regiment was meeting
Speaker 2: them overseas in Afghanistan and starting to go out on
Speaker 2: missions like here's your kit, here's all your stuff, like
Speaker 2: follow us, don't get out, don't get don't fall behind.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of when like I kind of pumped
Speaker 2: myself up. I was like, all right, like it's gonna
Speaker 2: be normal. It was a the beast of regiment as
Speaker 2: far as going and actually doing operations was something just
Speaker 2: wildly different.
Speaker 3: In the big army.
Speaker 2: You sit around and it's like, you know, hours of board,
Speaker 2: like or days months of board, and with a couple
Speaker 2: of stark moments of terror mixed in here and there there.
Speaker 3: It was like off the gate, we're and I was.
Speaker 3: I was. I was a deco first.
Speaker 2: Armed Bullie was the first argeant and we we did
Speaker 2: not like walking at all, so everything was ex landing
Speaker 2: like what we called it the Deco bum rush, where
Speaker 2: you just took off off the back of that bird
Speaker 2: and be feet right to that target. Like if they're
Speaker 2: cheating at you, doesn't matter, keep going, get to the doors,
Speaker 2: like we'll be fine. But yeah, the learning curve that
Speaker 2: it was a it was a rough learning curve and
Speaker 2: I can see where a lot of guys don't survive
Speaker 2: that where it's like, hey, you just can't keep up,
Speaker 2: You're not this isn't for you.
Speaker 3: It is a very different place than the big army.
Speaker 2: Just what they expect of you, what the knowledge you're
Speaker 2: supposed to have as an E five, Uh, the getting
Speaker 2: anybody to actually respect you at that point because they
Speaker 2: know you're an import. So I got lucky again because
Speaker 2: my brother was well known and so they were just like, hey,
Speaker 2: like this is Saucege By that time, I think he
Speaker 2: was an he was a tap step for two and
Speaker 2: he was just like they're just like, hey, he's you know.
Speaker 3: He saw his brother.
Speaker 2: So I got I probably got a little bit of
Speaker 2: leeway on that, but it was that deployment, and as
Speaker 2: hard as it was though, that's kind of where I knew.
Speaker 2: I was like, no, this is where I was supposed
Speaker 2: to be. This was this was the road I was
Speaker 2: supposed to take. But that that road. I did eight
Speaker 2: months of schooling to get into the regiment as an
Speaker 2: E five because they don't I don't know if they
Speaker 2: do it anymore, but it was almost a gauntlet. It
Speaker 2: was the Airborne School rip Sert, then it was ranger school,
Speaker 2: then it was deployment. Hey cool, you get you get
Speaker 2: seventy two hours with your family and then you got
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's hardcore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean as a ranger like again like
Speaker 2: and especially like right afterget.
Speaker 3: I was pumped up. I got a ranger job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I was And as soon as they
Speaker 2: said hey, you're going, I was like, fantastic, this is
Speaker 2: gonna be great. I'm gonna get to And the biggest
Speaker 2: thing I was impressed with was the chow haul out
Speaker 2: of Man where where we we were down in a
Speaker 2: helmand damp, leather neck.
Speaker 3: I love the child hal there. It was great. That's
Speaker 3: what I was doing. I was just eating the whole time.
Speaker 1: So this first deployment you guys were doing time sensitive targets,
Speaker 1: I take it, and you're learning the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of doing direct action raids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was we were doing a lot of
Speaker 2: direct action if in fact it was all direct direct action.
Speaker 2: And uh so I had actually gotten there right Cubic
Speaker 2: and Centaurra had gotten killed probably about a week and
Speaker 2: a half before, and we had gotten sent to that
Speaker 2: that mission set because Marsac had had two snipers killed
Speaker 2: in that area like it was when they they had
Speaker 2: gotten n acturally surrounded, track downs, crown and killed almost kind
Speaker 2: of a red wing situation.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then they had they had been like tossed off
Speaker 2: a cliff I think at that point. So, uh, that's
Speaker 2: what they brought two strike forces in to go and
Speaker 2: start like handling that mission set.
Speaker 3: Uh. And that was a it was a really kinetic Uh.
Speaker 2: That was a kinetic kinetic deployment where we were out
Speaker 2: getting getting into fights, going to mean we have one Uh,
Speaker 2: it had to have been a.
Speaker 3: We got there pretty early, right after.
Speaker 2: Right after the what's called night time had fallen, get
Speaker 2: their land and immediately start and we didn't leave until
Speaker 2: that next morning. We've been fighting the entire morning or
Speaker 2: had been fighting that night into the morning, and that
Speaker 2: was one of the and I'm sure you've had it,
Speaker 2: the I had one of the most again going that
Speaker 2: like weird but surreal things that it ever happened, that
Speaker 2: I'd ever seen. And it's the the moments you take.
Speaker 2: So I always tell you guys or guys getting into
Speaker 2: it's like, hey, take that, like even if you're in
Speaker 2: a firefight, don't you know, don't get dangerous or anything,
Speaker 2: but take a moment to look around and realize where
Speaker 2: you're at. And one of the things I realized when
Speaker 2: I was there is so it was like a movie.
Speaker 3: We had ex filled.
Speaker 2: These guys decided to follow us from like because we
Speaker 2: had kicked up the Hornet's mess was right out things
Speaker 2: right outside of calf And we get on top of
Speaker 2: this hill and we're we're we're fighting, like the back
Speaker 2: of our formations, fighting the entire time and pretty much
Speaker 2: just withdrawing to our HLZ. Get onto our HLZ. It's
Speaker 2: on the top of this hill. The sun's coming up
Speaker 2: over the mountains, so you can on the right side
Speaker 2: you can see the mountains. Uh, and the sun's already
Speaker 2: lifting up. We're already we're already in the day, and
Speaker 2: there's bombers, uh at fifteens that are making runs on
Speaker 2: the top of these mountain, dropping bombs on the side
Speaker 2: of these mountains, and we're in this kind of a
Speaker 2: half moon shape. I'm a goose gunner at this point,
Speaker 2: so I'm helping load a gun and then I'm shooting,
Speaker 2: and we're repelling another attack on this hill and like,
Speaker 2: I look around and everybody's shooting, and you see a
Speaker 2: tens come over. They're they're like, you see a tens
Speaker 2: just laying waste to people. We're all firing on the
Speaker 2: side or we're all firing, and then you hear the
Speaker 2: wump and we look back and this chinook comes right
Speaker 2: over the top of us, turns its ass around, and
Speaker 2: the gunners just start shooting off the back of it,
Speaker 2: and we all like as soon as.
Speaker 3: They land, we all start running on the birds.
Speaker 2: We get it, and we got we got the guy
Speaker 2: that we were looking for, like I think he was
Speaker 2: like at the time, he's like number two or three
Speaker 2: in the country, and we get him on we're on
Speaker 2: and we're flying away and everybody's just jacked up. We're
Speaker 2: high fiving each other. We're just sitting there like everybody's
Speaker 2: fist bumping high five each other.
Speaker 3: We're all sitting on the ground. And one of the.
Speaker 2: Things I did is I looked out and we're flying
Speaker 2: pretty high at this point, and both of these A
Speaker 2: tens are pretty much doing circles around the formation as
Speaker 2: we're doing and I'm like sitting there and as I'm
Speaker 2: like thinking about all of that stuff, I'm like, this
Speaker 2: is like a movie, Like this is unreal, and this
Speaker 2: is my induction into regiment, this is my first employment.
Speaker 3: I was just like at that point, I was just like,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do this forever. This is this is all
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: So it was I think if you can, especially as
Speaker 2: an import, if you can make the road, it's worth
Speaker 2: it's worth.
Speaker 3: It at the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if you can get through the culture shock
Speaker 1: as you mentioned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of guys don't, not their fault
Speaker 2: because Big Army that dropped from Big Armies roos.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And then you get after that, the first deployment.
Speaker 1: What happens when you get back to the States, and
Speaker 1: now you're kind of like that ranger battalion garrison wife
Speaker 1: at Fort Benning.
Speaker 2: Oh Man, completely different from again, completely different.
Speaker 3: From the big army are you're always training, but.
Speaker 2: The good old boys club, Like I'm a at that point,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a tabby five, so you know, the
Speaker 2: world is my oyster.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm getting privates. You're running around, and I.
Speaker 2: Just remember it being you just wanted to be the
Speaker 2: best of everything, Like you wanted to be the fastest runner.
Speaker 3: You wanted to do all the rucks you wanted to.
Speaker 2: You wanted to be the team that did the best
Speaker 2: so that you could get the best missions. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then especially then being there with my brother too was
Speaker 2: a good time because we piled around a lot. Like
Speaker 2: I'd always go in and hang out with him. I
Speaker 2: think he had just made the move over to Recky
Speaker 2: and so I'd always go and like hang out with
Speaker 2: him in his in his office and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And then just kind of the small stuff that you
Speaker 2: would see where it's the you're walking around through Tambaret
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 3: And you're.
Speaker 2: Nearly untouchable on that base, Like everybody knows that they
Speaker 2: give you the wide berth. They pretty much hey, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, you're behind the brown fence and everybody knows it.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows who you are.
Speaker 2: Which is is kind of the difference in AH in
Speaker 2: the big Army is that nobody knows who you are.
Speaker 3: Nobody cares. And I had an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: So when I graduated RAS and was going to SERT,
Speaker 2: I graduate RASTS and they're saying, hey, you know you're
Speaker 2: or No it was Ranger School, No, it was RAS.
Speaker 3: It was RAS.
Speaker 2: And I graduate RAST. So I have a tambarey at
Speaker 2: that point and they're like, hey, I got a.
Speaker 3: I got a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Before my class picked up for SERTs, so they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: you need to go out to you need to go
Speaker 2: back to Port Hood.
Speaker 3: I'll process that.
Speaker 2: So I'm walking around Fort Hood with a tambareat and
Speaker 2: a scroll on and man like couldn't get any bet
Speaker 2: Like I didn't have to do nothing. Everybody was just like,
Speaker 2: oh God, that guy.
Speaker 3: They didn't know.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because in the big Army, you know,
Speaker 2: especially I didn't know anything about it. And then I
Speaker 2: didn't know that like if if you would have been
Speaker 2: in the know, you would have looked at me and
Speaker 2: be like that dude doesn't have a tab. So it
Speaker 2: was funny because that was the Garrison life was so much.
Speaker 2: It was fun, but it was also hard, and it
Speaker 2: was definitely that warrior culture, like you everybody's trying to
Speaker 2: be the best. Everybody's like I'd never seen so many
Speaker 2: guys go to the gym in my life. It was
Speaker 2: like we went for morning Pete, and then you see
Speaker 2: everybody in there going to the gym. If they were
Speaker 2: in Aco, they were all getting hairless and canning out somewhere.
Speaker 2: The drinking was a lot like That's that's another part
Speaker 2: of the culture, is man, we drank when we got
Speaker 2: back from that deployment. That was the funny thing too,
Speaker 2: is that they always had a pizza and kegs waiting
Speaker 2: for you when you got back, so that you could
Speaker 2: have a couple of drinks while you're trying.
Speaker 1: To go quick weapons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the rigmarole of getting all your weapons in there,
Speaker 2: and then you'd have the we'd always get into the
Speaker 2: platoon fights over in the zoo where people are going over,
Speaker 2: they'd block off all the stuff on the side.
Speaker 3: So nobody could get through. So it almost looked like.
Speaker 2: A World Wars one movie where you got people blowing whistles.
Speaker 2: They got the caving ladders that they've extended so that
Speaker 2: they could go over the top.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the platoon brawls get a little out of hands sometimes.
Speaker 3: Oh it was so much fun though.
Speaker 2: We got into one while we were doing elevators out
Speaker 2: on the airfield with Sea Cove of all people, and
Speaker 2: I was in h I was in HAC, but I
Speaker 2: was attached to Beco as their sniper.
Speaker 3: And we get into the huge platoon brawls.
Speaker 2: And it's that they have their guide ons there and
Speaker 2: there's the first sargeant of talking shit to each other.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I remember getting into that fight and I don't know,
Speaker 2: do you know Sessna at all? So Sessna he actually
Speaker 2: went to tag later on Giant.
Speaker 3: He's a giant. He was an egg. No, he's sicco dude.
Speaker 3: He was a.
Speaker 2: Massive man, like sixty three two hundred something pounds. I
Speaker 2: am at that point probably one hundred and seventy pounds
Speaker 2: in kit and I'm I'm all every bit of five,
Speaker 2: like five six, five seven maybe. And during the whole brawl, everybody,
Speaker 2: you know how it is, everybody's like falling or.
Speaker 3: Beating each other up.
Speaker 2: And I like lock eyes with Sesna after he had
Speaker 2: just plunged somebody else and he comes running at me
Speaker 2: and I just latched.
Speaker 3: Onto one of his legs and so he's dragging me around.
Speaker 3: It was great because we had the.
Speaker 2: Platume brawls were probably the most fun I'd had, But
Speaker 2: the met probably hated it because they were always fixing somebody.
Speaker 3: These fingers are broken.
Speaker 1: What was it when we had like battalion field games?
Speaker 1: You remember that field day? Yeah? Field day? Yeah, get
Speaker 1: those banners, you know, and we uh our battalion. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think now, was it the battalion or was
Speaker 1: it between companies or was it from platoons. I think
Speaker 1: it was platoons in my company and he had us
Speaker 1: play this game Washington over the Delaware. I think he
Speaker 1: called it where they put like or maybe it was
Speaker 1: two different companies, because I think it was our first
Speaker 1: sergeant and the company commander and one zodiac from our
Speaker 1: company and another first sergeant and company commander from another
Speaker 1: company and the other zodiac and the NCOs had to
Speaker 1: hold the zodes up and go from like point A
Speaker 1: to point B, like two hundred meters, and all the
Speaker 1: privates were lined on the edge of the field, and
Speaker 1: if those boats, God help them, got too close to
Speaker 1: those lines. Dudes were getting pulled in boom damn. Guys
Speaker 1: getting thrown off the zodiacs. I mean, I saw guys
Speaker 1: get their pets ripped right off of themselves, so they're
Speaker 1: walking around naked.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was totally nuts.
Speaker 3: We did uh.
Speaker 2: I think one of ours was dodgeball, and they had
Speaker 2: that gout like like people are sitting there calling other
Speaker 2: people cheater. You're like trying to like slam this ball.
Speaker 2: Well there was one guy who's going up to get
Speaker 2: the ball, slips and gets his face like demolished by
Speaker 2: this ball. Like somebody like runs right over him hits
Speaker 2: him with the ball. It's entry ranger fashion. Everybody takes everything.
Speaker 1: Just like any advice i'd give to like a young
Speaker 1: like ranger lieutenant, it would be you've got to be
Speaker 1: very careful when you pit rangers against each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and tell them like, hey, it's game on, go get
Speaker 1: that you know, win that banner for us, Like something
Speaker 1: really bad is gonna happen.
Speaker 2: It was so when you got new guys, it was
Speaker 2: like their first week was rough because it would be
Speaker 2: the you'd get all these new guys and in the
Speaker 2: company and get them.
Speaker 3: I remember I was a squad leader.
Speaker 2: I'd get new guys and I'd be like, hey, go
Speaker 2: into uh going to first platoons. I want you to
Speaker 2: fight every single one of them. And I'll get like,
Speaker 2: I will give those guys uh credit. The new guys
Speaker 2: didn't wouldn't even blink out charge and they run over
Speaker 2: there and tackle the first person they saw, and it
Speaker 2: was and then all of a sudden, it's more brawling.
Speaker 2: Other people are coming in. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the best ones we had was in Cicco.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: We almost had a hostage exchange at one point in time.
Speaker 2: We're all the quad leaders and team leaders sitting there
Speaker 2: and we're like we had them locked in the lockers
Speaker 2: and we're like, all right, I'll train you the fat
Speaker 2: one for my skinny guy and be like, no.
Speaker 3: He's gonna be two. So it was great that like
Speaker 3: when we got bored, we got bored.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, my my privates did that in Iraq where
Speaker 1: they were they were kind of sneaking around. They put
Speaker 1: on their battle clavas and were sneaking around. If you remember,
Speaker 1: the old cold weather gear was all black, so they
Speaker 1: were dressing up like ninjas and stuff, and they were
Speaker 1: going out in the middle of the night in those shoes,
Speaker 1: and they'd wait for guys from other squads to go
Speaker 1: to the showers. So they're like walking with a towel
Speaker 1: around them, waddling over there, and privates would just bawl
Speaker 1: this guy up and flex cuff them and drag them
Speaker 1: into their chew and they'd take like trophy photos with
Speaker 1: them and stuff. It was yeah, then yeah, it becomes
Speaker 1: a hostage negotiation where like you gotta let my guy go. No,
Speaker 1: fuck you, I'm not doing.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we took everything from I think that's what I
Speaker 2: missed about it is like it was fun.
Speaker 3: The culture was always.
Speaker 2: Like about the fight, but it was everybody was in
Speaker 2: good even in Snipers.
Speaker 3: We did stuff like that.
Speaker 2: We had a guy named Baker who had a birthday
Speaker 2: and this is my favorite starting major merrit story. And
Speaker 2: a guy named Baker had a birthday and so uh,
Speaker 2: right outside of the child hall they had those uh
Speaker 2: uh the uh pull up bars and we caught Baker
Speaker 2: out there and we had duct tape and uh and
Speaker 2: buckets of water and so we tossed him up there.
Speaker 2: We duct tape and and then we throw rag over space.
Speaker 2: We start like waterboarding him right there.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And so we're sitting there doing all this stuff to
Speaker 2: Baker and uh they drive starrow.
Speaker 3: Major Marrett drives by, you know. Sergeant Major Marrit drives by.
Speaker 2: Baker thinks that like, oh God, thank god, somebody's gonna
Speaker 2: stop this, looks over at him, and Star Major Merritt
Speaker 2: like rolls down his window, like looks from side to
Speaker 2: side and goes Happy Birthday, Ranger, and then just drives.
Speaker 3: It's it's just like we like kind of look around.
Speaker 2: Like, all right, I guess I'm gonna go back to
Speaker 2: what we're up to.
Speaker 1: So Ergeant was awesome.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, everybody loves that guy. I don't think there's
Speaker 3: a I don't know anybody.
Speaker 2: Who didn't like and I'm sure, uh everybody has like that.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Major Merrit story on objectives. He went out a lot.
Speaker 2: He always went out on the mission. There was a
Speaker 2: guy named Bailey and Deco that we were up on.
Speaker 2: We were pulling security out because we had already taken
Speaker 2: the compound. So we're pulling security out and there's a
Speaker 2: big moon out like it's pretty high biz, and uh,
Speaker 2: Bailey's on the ground.
Speaker 3: We're wandering around on the ground too.
Speaker 2: And Bailey looks up and he goes, he goes, hey,
Speaker 2: whoever that is, He's like he starts cursing at him.
Speaker 3: He's like get down, and all you hear out of
Speaker 3: the darkness is oh yeah, yeah, Roger, Roger Ranger and
Speaker 3: like gets that and he goes.
Speaker 2: And so we go back to we're going, uh, we're
Speaker 2: going back to get the deber like download all the
Speaker 2: debris stuff. Star Major Merrit walks in and he's just like,
Speaker 2: where's that ranger who pulled me to get the f down?
Speaker 2: And Bailey's just everybody looks.
Speaker 3: Over at him and he's like like that. He's like,
Speaker 3: good job, Ranger coins him.
Speaker 1: And like what Like my Sergeant Major story was when
Speaker 1: we were doing airfield seizures and I was in Snipers
Speaker 1: at the time, and I mean, it's dark out, it's
Speaker 1: on Wason Airfield. You have no idea who's who in
Speaker 1: the air. But I came underneath Sergeant Major Merit and
Speaker 1: sharked his air and he dropped. He dropped like an anchor.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many feet, but came all the
Speaker 1: way down and I heard him come down and like
Speaker 1: blah and you can hear it. Yeah, that's Sergeant Major
Speaker 1: Merrit like rah yeah, And he told me later all
Speaker 1: of his pens in his pocket exploded when he hit
Speaker 1: the ground. I felt so bad, like I was horrified.
Speaker 1: But he was a good sport about it. He was
Speaker 1: like Loder Jumper has the right.
Speaker 3: Away that guy. Yeah, good times. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So after that first deployment to Afghanistan, and you know,
Speaker 1: now you're living the range of life, what was the
Speaker 1: next deployment for you?
Speaker 2: So after that deployment in Afghanistan, the next one was
Speaker 2: back to Afghanistan where we I'm trying to remember where
Speaker 2: we ended up. It was Sillernoh, so we ended up
Speaker 2: in Sillerno, out there doing a bunch of missions. At
Speaker 2: that point, I was with two Delta and uh pretty connected.
Speaker 2: That one was also pretty kinetic. We were actually there
Speaker 2: with then uh started major. Oh man, I just brained
Speaker 2: dumped his name. We were just talking about him, not Merit,
Speaker 2: Sar major then right now the current Sargat major.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, your buddy. I didn't I didn't know him,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, he was a target there for when
Speaker 3: alf are too off.
Speaker 2: I can't remember which which Africa, So but we had
Speaker 2: like we were all there. Major Taylor was there one
Speaker 2: of the he was the a JC And that was
Speaker 2: a fun deployment because my brother was actually supporting Sealerno too,
Speaker 2: so he was the wrecky guy supporting them.
Speaker 3: So you know, he went out on a bunch of missions.
Speaker 3: We tried. We didn't go out on missions together as
Speaker 3: much on that.
Speaker 2: Deployment, just because I think they were being kind of
Speaker 2: cognizant of the atmosphere what was going on during those deployments.
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, did that deployment and that was a
Speaker 2: fun one, had a real good time. We got into
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff on that like kind of the
Speaker 2: normal thing though there wasn't anything like big about it.
Speaker 2: It was the normal. We got into techs, We did
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff. There was a bunch of Shenanigans
Speaker 2: on Slearne was a base just to the Rangers do
Speaker 2: kind of like I think one of my we were
Speaker 2: talking about video people playing video games. There was times
Speaker 2: where the weather was because Sillerno is right there by
Speaker 2: the KG Pass and that's what we were doing a
Speaker 2: lot of our operations. But during that time period, you know,
Speaker 2: weather could come in and they'd be like, hey, weather's
Speaker 2: red or he'd be waiting for weather to.
Speaker 3: Clear so that we could go on mission.
Speaker 2: And so there was a lot of times during that
Speaker 2: deployment where we were sitting there playing like Nazi Zombies
Speaker 2: in full kit, Like we were just all sitting there
Speaker 2: like playing Nazi Zombie.
Speaker 3: He was like his weather sins, it's still.
Speaker 2: Black, and they're like yeah, He's like all right, like
Speaker 2: push two hours, like fantastic.
Speaker 1: I think I saw I think it was one of
Speaker 1: the medics and Charlie Company. I saw him get flexcuffed
Speaker 1: to the chain link fence at Salerno on his birthday.
Speaker 2: We had a guy named Tujo who's also an auscer now,
Speaker 2: and we found out that it was his birthday, but
Speaker 2: he kind of knew it was coming, so he went
Speaker 2: and got tasers from the box, and so as soon
Speaker 2: as the privates rushed in, he started just tasing the.
Speaker 3: Crap out of the first couple of them.
Speaker 2: Eventually he went down and they got it, and then
Speaker 2: we put him on a batboard, wrapped him up and
Speaker 2: and Kate dully to him, put all sorts.
Speaker 3: Of stuff on him, and then paraded him around the camp.
Speaker 2: And that was funny because that was the they were
Speaker 2: just testing out CST on that deployment, and so we
Speaker 2: had one and she was horrified because he's naked getting
Speaker 2: drug around the city and she's just like, I'm sure.
Speaker 3: She was like, oh my god, what have I done?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're shaving the guy's eyebrows off.
Speaker 2: We did that to a guy. I feel bad to
Speaker 2: this day. I was the squad leader. I watched a
Speaker 2: team leader do that. To this day, I was just
Speaker 2: I had actually pulled him most like, hey, like maybe
Speaker 2: not shave one of his eyebrows off before he goes
Speaker 2: to ranger school.
Speaker 3: It was like, because he's kind of a representation of
Speaker 3: us and.
Speaker 2: Right now he looks weird, but yeah, like uh yeah,
Speaker 2: they found out his birthday and he I just remember
Speaker 2: the first guy that came in because I was outside
Speaker 2: watching it because all the team leaders and squad leaders
Speaker 2: are outside watching all these privates rush in, and that
Speaker 2: first dude who came in it took it right in
Speaker 2: the neck and went right down like was I was
Speaker 2: unconscious for a little bit, and like some of them stopped,
Speaker 2: and then the team leaders started to be like, why
Speaker 2: are you stopping, And then they just all rushed in
Speaker 2: and it was funny because one of the tasers that
Speaker 2: he had actually ran out of bat he had paid
Speaker 2: so many guys who had.
Speaker 3: Actually run out of battle.
Speaker 2: So but but yeah, I was that was a really
Speaker 2: fun deployment too. I think by that time I'd kind
Speaker 2: of already gotten my feet wet. Went through an entire
Speaker 2: work up for the deployment.
Speaker 3: So I was getting getting better at being a team Were.
Speaker 1: You a team leader or squad leader around this time?
Speaker 2: So I was a team leader around that time. And
Speaker 2: then after that deployment, I went into Snipers. So I
Speaker 2: actually went over to.
Speaker 1: Snot yeah, so tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: What was the process like for making the transition from
Speaker 1: the line company to Snipers.
Speaker 3: So Snipers was looking for people.
Speaker 2: I'd actually wanted to get into w REKI because I
Speaker 2: wanted to go be with my brother and but they
Speaker 2: had been like, hey, you know, maybe you do something
Speaker 2: in HC, but you're not going to do We're probably
Speaker 2: not going to send you over to Wrecky to do that.
Speaker 2: So I was just say, all right, that's cool, went
Speaker 2: over to Snipers, got it, you know, they talked it up.
Speaker 2: I never thought I'd be a sniper. In fact, i'd
Speaker 2: for a long time, it'd been like, yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: have the.
Speaker 3: Patience to do any of that. But we did the selection.
Speaker 2: You do another selection to get into Snipers, so you
Speaker 2: do the r PAT, you do your PET tests, you
Speaker 2: do your r PAT, and then we would do a
Speaker 2: group in just to kind of see if you could. Luckily,
Speaker 2: I was an okay shot. Then I wasn't. I wasn't
Speaker 2: a great shot by any means, but I was okay,
Speaker 2: but did well enough to get in and then started
Speaker 2: getting in, and then they started putting us through almost
Speaker 2: like a pre Snipers of three something five that you
Speaker 2: would be in the session and they'd be That's all
Speaker 2: they're doing is getting you ready for sniper school. So
Speaker 2: a lot of shooting, a lot of just learning. Mike
Speaker 2: Pemberton was my pretty much my training partner.
Speaker 3: He was my early.
Speaker 2: Training partner, so and Nick I think had just left
Speaker 2: as I was getting in there, so kind of the
Speaker 2: whole Mike.
Speaker 3: You've ever met p Murder.
Speaker 1: I've never met Pemberton, but I've just heard many stories
Speaker 1: about him from guys over the years. But I'm really
Speaker 1: happy to hear that. You know, they they had a
Speaker 1: really good like induction program for you because when I
Speaker 1: went to snipers, it was kind of like, Okay, you're here.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna haze you for a year and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll teach you something at some point. But I
Speaker 1: mean I had to wait to go to sniper school
Speaker 1: to learn my entire job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what's crazy is that you don't learn especially
Speaker 2: in Regit like what we did was a close in support,
Speaker 2: Like we were a direct support, so we really didn't
Speaker 2: as the shooting stuff, which is I think what Regiment
Speaker 2: really concentrated on was making making accurate shots at distance
Speaker 2: under pressure was one of our and that was this
Speaker 2: is before all of the PRS stuff and everything, all
Speaker 2: that stuff was coming out, But we did we concentrated
Speaker 2: on that because I think they knew that, uh uh,
Speaker 2: I think they knew that.
Speaker 3: That's what we did.
Speaker 2: We made, we made we were having to make accurate
Speaker 2: shots under pressure around an assault course. And so when
Speaker 2: you go it's funny because when I went to cniper
Speaker 2: school and then having done a kind of a process
Speaker 2: to get to what they wanted us to be, and
Speaker 2: then going to cyper school, I was like, there's two
Speaker 2: different skill sets, Like of what they're asking us to do,
Speaker 2: Like this is.
Speaker 1: You're still doing like stocks and gilly suits and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're doing stocks, gilly suits and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And but in regimen I'm a You're a direct support
Speaker 2: for the assault force. I'm trying to make like I'm
Speaker 2: trying to figure out if I can make this shot
Speaker 2: like into this building as guys are moving in, and
Speaker 2: how far off I you know, how far off their
Speaker 2: barrels I have. Then also too, you're kind of doing
Speaker 2: a scouting mission. So if the assault force is walking in, uh,
Speaker 2: you're pretty much up there with the dog.
Speaker 3: I have a funny story about that.
Speaker 2: But it's the skill set is completely different from what
Speaker 2: sniper school is. But I think you go to others,
Speaker 2: you go to other schools in the army, and then
Speaker 2: you you kind of realize that that's more it's more
Speaker 2: of an assault her mindset there than it is sniper school.
Speaker 2: But I think everybody should go to sniper school if
Speaker 2: you're going to be a sniper, because you have to
Speaker 2: traditionally know how to do the job.
Speaker 1: Did you find that the ranges also were quite a
Speaker 1: bit shorter in your job as opposed to like I
Speaker 1: think the you know, kind of the standard at sniper
Speaker 1: school is shooting out through a thousand meters, but when
Speaker 1: you're doing direct support, it's more realistically like what three
Speaker 1: hundred meters at most?
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: It was funny because during the any of the TFTs.
Speaker 2: Or the the vallexies for platoon live fire, you had
Speaker 2: as far as the optics then could get you, so.
Speaker 3: They could probably get you six hundred.
Speaker 2: So you're you're shooting out, you're making shots up six
Speaker 2: hundred if you're if Loom would would let you do it,
Speaker 2: if you had the right optics for it, you could.
Speaker 2: We were making those shots out to about six hundred,
Speaker 2: but on mission, Uh, there were sometimes guys that I've
Speaker 2: heard of guys that were shooting out to like four
Speaker 2: or five, but nothing really past that because you're really
Speaker 2: focused in on like a when everybody's going up, you're
Speaker 2: probably you've climbed a roof and you're sitting on that roof,
Speaker 2: watching doors, watching windows, making sure that like there's nobody
Speaker 2: in it, and then making that shot into those windows
Speaker 2: if you have to. Uh, you really become I think
Speaker 2: an asset as far as target identification, like hey, this
Speaker 2: is what you have here, this is what I'm seeing,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of calling outdoor heights, wall heights, where
Speaker 2: entries are if things are locked. They used us a
Speaker 2: lot for that, kind of setting up the assault force
Speaker 2: to get into the target.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, as overwatch for the assault teams.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Any other sniper courses that they sent you to where
Speaker 1: you you know, had some interesting takeaways.
Speaker 2: So I think during that time period that we were
Speaker 2: going to we did rifles only and then the to
Speaker 2: the Todd hot Net. We went out there with him
Speaker 2: because he was he was out in Texas. We did
Speaker 2: those courses. We really didn't get sent to a lot
Speaker 2: of like army army courses. I think towards the now
Speaker 2: the guys go to Subpartik, they go to SODIC, I think,
Speaker 2: and some of the guys had actually gotten into SODIC.
Speaker 2: I know Chris Toper who was had been my partner,
Speaker 2: he had actually turned out to be my partner for
Speaker 2: the longest.
Speaker 3: Chris had gone to Zoda and done all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's I think it was at the point in
Speaker 2: time they tried to get you what they could.
Speaker 3: But during that point in the war, like we were
Speaker 3: we were getting.
Speaker 1: Out, we had we had a we had a couple
Speaker 1: of guys that they sent to Marine Scott Sniper.
Speaker 3: Man, we did. We had one too, and that's all
Speaker 3: he talked about. It was rough. It was rough being
Speaker 3: around him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was just like, oh, it's so great and
Speaker 2: this is the things they do. And I was just like,
Speaker 2: when's the last time you billy it up?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: So we were just like and not to take anyway.
Speaker 2: I think those guys are fantastic. Ye, they are the Again,
Speaker 2: I think they that school from what I saw later on,
Speaker 2: really concentrated on skill craft. Like skill craft was their thing.
Speaker 3: Like getting gilling up, how to move.
Speaker 2: And I think the Army, and especially because they were
Speaker 2: going more towards the like again the rifles only todd
Speaker 2: Hanet stuff, they were going a lot towards more accuracy.
Speaker 3: They were going to accuracy.
Speaker 2: Start like we were going to accuracy first, We're going
Speaker 2: to rifles only stuff like that, And that was we
Speaker 2: were really concentrated on accuracy, getting the ABC's like tuned
Speaker 2: up and actually pushing that gun to the limit. As
Speaker 2: opposed to I think from what I saw from Marine
Speaker 2: Scout Sniper, it was a lot of field craft. We
Speaker 2: were a lot of shooting and right now, I want
Speaker 2: to say that Snipers school, that's what it's based off of,
Speaker 2: is a lot.
Speaker 3: Of technical shooting, which I think is great.
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of what you needed because this
Speaker 2: day and age we're talking about warfare. Now, a sniper's
Speaker 2: a dangerous thing, but as far as skilled craft is concerned,
Speaker 2: like we have thermals, we have.
Speaker 3: Everybody's got thermals. Everybody's got a sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So it's like you can sneak around the woods all
Speaker 2: you want in a gilly like if that thing doesn't
Speaker 2: have thermal shielding on it, then you're you're kind of
Speaker 2: dead in the water.
Speaker 1: And then what was your first deployment, like with snipers,
Speaker 1: So again.
Speaker 2: Going back to that was another one where it was
Speaker 2: learning a new skill set, having to readjust my mindset
Speaker 2: from door kicker, always wanting to get into hey, like,
Speaker 2: you got to look for you're almost the vanguard, you're
Speaker 2: ahead of everybody. You got to get into you got
Speaker 2: to get into good positions, you got to climb, You
Speaker 2: got to look for where you're gonna climb. And then afterwards,
Speaker 2: after everything's set, you got to kind of get yourself
Speaker 2: into a position that you could be able to defend
Speaker 2: the assault force and make shots, whether that's like you
Speaker 2: put yourself on BPS or whether you put yourself up
Speaker 2: on top of a roof or wherever it.
Speaker 3: Is going to be on the target.
Speaker 2: The I always thought the interesting thing about especially being
Speaker 2: an E five, coming from being a team leader and
Speaker 2: then being an E five, is that as an E
Speaker 2: five in regiment, you you kind of get told, hey,
Speaker 2: this is where you're going to be at, and then
Speaker 2: you have your left and right limits of the decisions
Speaker 2: you get to make right there and then on that
Speaker 2: spot as a sniper, it was it was new to
Speaker 2: me because I went into mission planning and then I
Speaker 2: told the peel where I was going to be. I
Speaker 2: was like, hey, I think i'm I should be you
Speaker 2: know here, or I think I should travel here in
Speaker 2: the formation because I have the best of.
Speaker 3: So that was the growing growing up and having that experience.
Speaker 2: But that was I think the learning curve was having
Speaker 2: to realize that, hey, like now you have real input
Speaker 2: into this mission set, into this mission planning, especially as
Speaker 2: a sniper, because you know, you got to decide where
Speaker 2: you got to think like the enemy, where's that contact
Speaker 2: going to come from? And where can I place myself
Speaker 2: best to make the best shots on that to end
Speaker 2: whatever contact that is as fast as possible. So a
Speaker 2: lot of you know, you didn't always end up at
Speaker 2: the VPS. Sometimes you were out of BP. Sometimes you
Speaker 2: were you on the roof like I said, or you
Speaker 2: were in you were in some area, or you have
Speaker 2: to decide. Hey, we had one mission where they decided
Speaker 2: that the building next to us was higher than the compound,
Speaker 2: and then we were going to go in, and so
Speaker 2: we actually went in, made entry, pulled pistols, cleared all
Speaker 2: the way up top, got on top of it, and
Speaker 2: then they were like, hey, we don't want to clear
Speaker 2: back down because we don't know what's down there. We
Speaker 2: don't have anybody on the bottom floor because we were
Speaker 2: pulling our own security. So we shimmied down like a pipe,
Speaker 2: which was probably one of the more sketchiest.
Speaker 3: Things I've done. I did that.
Speaker 2: It was app Did you know Paperella, No Vico Paperella.
Speaker 2: He's a Now he's a he's also a sargy major.
Speaker 2: Uh and so, but that was one of the things
Speaker 2: where he was like a path was a was the
Speaker 2: platine's sergeant at that time, and I and he had
Speaker 2: put himself on that mission and he's like, let's go,
Speaker 2: and we did that, and I was like, this is
Speaker 2: one of the sketchier.
Speaker 3: Things I've.
Speaker 2: I was just like, and I've done some sketchy that
Speaker 2: I'd kicked some rocks that were real, suss and this
Speaker 2: is more sketchier than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in full kit that doesn't sound fun.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it was it.
Speaker 2: But that was one of the things too, is that
Speaker 2: as a sniper you started kind of learning, like your
Speaker 2: kids set up, and like what you need and didn't need,
Speaker 2: and what what was.
Speaker 3: Advantageous for your mission.
Speaker 2: As a team leader, it shoot a preference, but hey,
Speaker 2: this is this is what you're gonna wear. You're aware
Speaker 2: all of this stuff, and you got to carry by
Speaker 2: the way, you got to carry the shotgun, you got
Speaker 2: to carry.
Speaker 3: Yeah you're you're or yeah, you got a sketch on you.
Speaker 2: And the as a sniper, it was I could tailor
Speaker 2: my kit to my mission. I could figure out how
Speaker 2: best what was going to work for me, and they
Speaker 2: let you do that. I think it's like that's part
Speaker 2: your learning processes as a team leader, Like you pretty
Speaker 2: much you're getting told a lot of what to do.
Speaker 2: You're just like, Hey, you're gonna be here and you're
Speaker 2: gonna do this, and then like that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. So you're you're like dropping down to
Speaker 1: a plate carrier and a couple of magazines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, or you're running play carry a couple of magazines,
Speaker 2: or you're running you're trying to figure out like how
Speaker 2: you're gonna cary some stuff on your belt differently, or
Speaker 2: where your radio really needs to be because you don't
Speaker 2: have all that stuff, so you have a lot more leeway.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time, you know.
Speaker 2: I think one of the biggest things with snipers is
Speaker 2: that that's where I learned, is like, hey, you don't
Speaker 2: want a lot of stuff on the front of your
Speaker 2: plate carrier. You want to be as light as you
Speaker 2: can on there, because I gotta climb up walls. If
Speaker 2: you're on a sporter in an addiction, I got to go
Speaker 2: chase somebody Like that's you know, how hard is that?
Speaker 2: In full like and if you're carrying everything known to man?
Speaker 1: Any memorable missions from that deployment.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Particularly, I remember one where we almost got left.
Speaker 3: Uh we almost got left for.
Speaker 2: A remain over day because we hit the target really
Speaker 2: late and then some stuff happened on the target where
Speaker 2: we were looking for a couple of things, and they
Speaker 2: were just like, hey, like if we don't get to
Speaker 2: the HLZ, and like, I think the HLZ was like
Speaker 2: three k away and I think we had like twenty
Speaker 2: five minutes to get there.
Speaker 3: And so it was a legit hit run that we
Speaker 3: just the.
Speaker 2: Entire soft force just running and you could see the
Speaker 2: sun coming up and everybody's sitting there trying to get
Speaker 2: everybody like guys are like the gun team's just dying,
Speaker 2: and so people are trying to take a stuff from
Speaker 2: the gun team, and I just will I remember that.
Speaker 3: The only reason I remember that is because a snow everywhere.
Speaker 2: It was just the most snow I've ever seen, And
Speaker 2: a lot of that deployment was like my first deployment
Speaker 2: with Cyphers was like that. Where we were everything was
Speaker 2: snowy because we were in deep snow.
Speaker 3: I hopped off one.
Speaker 2: Of the birds on one mission and sunk right and
Speaker 2: I'm a short guy. I sunk right in the snow
Speaker 2: and real fares far enough to where it startled me.
Speaker 3: So I was like, I'm gonna get my left in here,
Speaker 3: and so I took my.
Speaker 2: I took my stifle rifle and I just shoved it
Speaker 2: up so that somebody could grab it and pull me out,
Speaker 2: and I was like, don't leave me.
Speaker 3: It was like trying to get somebody on the radio.
Speaker 3: But I remember.
Speaker 2: That one because the aircrew got onto our net and
Speaker 2: was like, hey, it's it's negative twenty five degrees.
Speaker 3: Boys, have a nice night, and like thanks, appreciate you.
Speaker 2: But that that deployment was relatively quiet.
Speaker 3: We didn't we got into some stuff. We didn't do
Speaker 3: anything real crazy.
Speaker 2: It's and it's funny because the relatively quiet for regiment
Speaker 2: is we'd get into texts, but nothing was ever like
Speaker 2: you never really thought too much about it. It was
Speaker 2: the next employment, when I was in Snipers, where I
Speaker 2: was a senior sniper, that it got.
Speaker 3: It got like real we got into some Harry stuff.
Speaker 1: Where was that?
Speaker 2: So I started out in Shank with BECO, but they
Speaker 2: weren't doing too many missions and so we had two
Speaker 2: snipers that were down in Jabad and as they were
Speaker 2: in Jabad, there was a really bad strike on Jaybad
Speaker 2: where so two of our guys it was two of
Speaker 2: our snipers had gone to they were doing something. It
Speaker 2: was a normal morning and mornings are night, so everybody's
Speaker 2: getting kind of tying down, getting ready to go, and
Speaker 2: so they go, they're getting ready for bed and ticks
Speaker 2: starts off on the Lesion Air. We were on the
Speaker 2: Lesion Air side of Jabad, and so they're outside the gate.
Speaker 2: It tick starts, and so a couple of guys run
Speaker 2: up to the to see what's going on. National Guards
Speaker 2: on the towers and two of our snipers run up
Speaker 2: to the tower because they're like.
Speaker 3: Hey, maybe we'll get some maybe we'll get some trigger time.
Speaker 2: And they get up there and one of the national
Speaker 2: guard it was a girl and she was from the
Speaker 2: story that we were told by these guys is she
Speaker 2: was cowering down on the side and because they were
Speaker 2: shooting out that time, they were putting effective fire on
Speaker 2: the tower. So one of our guys gets on the
Speaker 2: machine guns, starts shooting, like, takes the machine gun over,
Speaker 2: starts shooting the other guys sitting there. He's on his
Speaker 2: rifle calling out shots and they look down and as
Speaker 2: soon as they look down, they're like, hey, how long
Speaker 2: has that box car been here? And as soon as
Speaker 2: she was just like oh, it pulled up like fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes before this started, and as soon as they had
Speaker 2: said that, the boss car blew up ended up throwing
Speaker 2: both as a sniper kills.
Speaker 3: They get killed. The female throws both the snipers out of.
Speaker 2: The tower and one of the guys was it took
Speaker 2: it almost took his arm completely off, so uh, it
Speaker 2: blows a hole inside of on that uh that side
Speaker 2: of the thing, and the it was elements of it
Speaker 2: was the seals, elements of the seals, and then the
Speaker 2: rangers end up fighting over a like four foot hole
Speaker 2: in the wall trying to push these guys back.
Speaker 3: One of the one of the tyrant, the uh.
Speaker 2: Jay At tax ends up getting like a I want
Speaker 2: to say, you got like a silver star for call
Speaker 2: calls in a random flight randomly going by gets them
Speaker 2: to come and respond to it and actually repels the
Speaker 2: rest of the attack. So at that deployment we are
Speaker 2: on that one we lost two guys ended up getting
Speaker 2: going home because they were both really messed up. So
Speaker 2: me and Chris get the call and we're down in
Speaker 2: Shank and they call us up and they're just like, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys need to head up to a Jabab. So
Speaker 2: we take their spot down there and then the rest
Speaker 2: of that deployment was it was a little we had
Speaker 2: gotten into a lot of ticks. We had been kind
Speaker 2: of running around Jabad and that was around the.
Speaker 3: Time that you'd be gotten Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: That was just a That was the deployment where I
Speaker 2: think I kind of learned like.
Speaker 3: Had a maneuver under fire a lot better.
Speaker 2: And then me and Chris are we're still best friends
Speaker 2: to this day, but me and him like hung around
Speaker 2: each other as kind of where we learned to trust
Speaker 2: each other a little bit. Because that platoon like sending
Speaker 2: the snipers up, and there was one where I'm it
Speaker 2: was actually was funny because there was two twins in
Speaker 2: regiment when I came through. When I came through RIP,
Speaker 2: and there was a they were called the Drafty Brothers
Speaker 2: and one went to be co woman at SICCO and
Speaker 2: I went through RIP with both of them.
Speaker 3: Uh, and so we're good friends.
Speaker 2: And one of them's in that platoon with me and
Speaker 2: they end up sending he's a team were at that time.
Speaker 3: They send me.
Speaker 2: They sent me as a sniper, him and one of
Speaker 2: the dogs in the one of the canines up and
Speaker 2: we're operating four or five hundred media and we're walking
Speaker 2: through a town like in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: and we're sitting there but like whispering each other like
Speaker 2: this is it, this is how it ends. So but
Speaker 2: kind of the being in that sniper role that kind
Speaker 2: of that was the deployment where I really got used
Speaker 2: to it and actually being able to move like it,
Speaker 2: operate like it, get to that was kind of the
Speaker 2: identity that I had taken on. And I did snipers
Speaker 2: for a real long time after that, but yeah, that
Speaker 2: was that was probably one of the more memorable moments,
Speaker 2: not in that deployment, and again I go back to
Speaker 2: memorable moments.
Speaker 3: We were getting the fights every night.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those things where from the first
Speaker 2: part of my career where I can remember every single
Speaker 2: firefight that I got in to towards in regiment, it
Speaker 2: was just so yeah, it was it was just like, oh,
Speaker 2: you'd be I remember being in one fight and being
Speaker 2: duck behind a wall, going trading shots and ducking down
Speaker 2: to reload or just kind of move positions and looking
Speaker 2: over at one of the guys and be like, what
Speaker 2: do you think they're serving at midnight?
Speaker 3: Child? Like they get back before this, So it's just
Speaker 3: that you just became.
Speaker 2: Numb to everything at that point, just how how all
Speaker 2: that would happen. And and then I think you take
Speaker 2: that for granted tude when you got new guys in
Speaker 2: and then you'd see them kind of reacting a different way.
Speaker 2: You just be like, what's his problem? And it's because
Speaker 2: he has his his uh you know, ah neurological system
Speaker 2: hasn't gone like his CNS is not tuned up, like
Speaker 2: it's not tuned down too, and he's still hopped up
Speaker 2: on it. So I think that was the Psychologically, I
Speaker 2: think that was a cool point where you go back
Speaker 2: to the first part of your career, you think about
Speaker 2: your first firefight and you're like, I remember what it
Speaker 2: smelled like. And then you go to the middle of
Speaker 2: your career and you're just like, I can't even remember
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 3: Like this one blended in with that one, blitted in
Speaker 3: with this other one.
Speaker 2: It was just really like some of them were just
Speaker 2: like anti climactic.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, but now now you're learning like the
Speaker 1: operational art of the job. It sounds like yeah.
Speaker 2: I think at that point, like I was, you always
Speaker 2: think you're good. But at that point and during with
Speaker 2: as much as we were doing it, we go back
Speaker 2: to like Green Bereys and all like that other other
Speaker 2: like tier T units, railar army units.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: I think we just were better because we did it
Speaker 2: so much more often. Like every night we went out,
Speaker 2: we were looking for a fight or we were going
Speaker 2: to get.
Speaker 3: Into a fight one or the other.
Speaker 2: And so it's the I think it's really that that's
Speaker 2: what sets us apart from it. So you have the
Speaker 2: Green Berets, and it's not their fault. They weren't getting
Speaker 2: into things like that every single night. The operational temp,
Speaker 2: their tempo wasn't that bad. I think the worst part
Speaker 2: for them is they were just stuck out all the
Speaker 2: time because you'd always hear the transmission where they'd be
Speaker 2: like they're off on their own in the wild way.
Speaker 1: Like doing like three or four day patrols sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as opposed to us, where we were sitting
Speaker 2: there and like anytime we got into a fight, it
Speaker 2: was we could just bring the might of everything that
Speaker 2: we had in country down on top of you, depending
Speaker 2: on where we were in the mission set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if you really get into it, I mean
Speaker 1: a one is going to be overhead.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, we saw one it was my and then
Speaker 2: that was that was one of the first times, the
Speaker 2: first time I'd ever seen it was that first deployment
Speaker 2: was watching in AC one thirty and then the Green
Speaker 2: Beam of Death that they that they put out there
Speaker 2: where it's just like playing whack a mole with people
Speaker 2: is basically all it was doing.
Speaker 3: It's like some guys would pop up.
Speaker 2: We saw a group running parallel to us, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm happened Haley, who was one of the gutters. He
Speaker 2: gets it and he starts firing on them. And as
Speaker 2: he's firing on them, you see the blinking light and
Speaker 2: then just it just the ground exploding and disappearing around
Speaker 2: these people and they're gone. Or you see there the
Speaker 2: gun go off and the thirty milimeters and it looks
Speaker 2: like they tossed somebody into a blender.
Speaker 3: And I was like, that was the But then you're on.
Speaker 2: These missions, were like, I don't have to worry about
Speaker 2: too much because I know somebody's coming for me.
Speaker 3: It's the Green Berets.
Speaker 2: I think that's where I give them a lot of credit,
Speaker 2: is that like there's times where they they didn't know
Speaker 2: if anybody was coming.
Speaker 3: They were their exiles, right, So, but yeah.
Speaker 1: And what were your other trips with snipers?
Speaker 3: So I did.
Speaker 2: Man, So I did one more after that and it
Speaker 2: was too calf lesson So and again that was another
Speaker 2: one where it was it was me and Chris.
Speaker 3: We kind of just piled around.
Speaker 2: We were out with Biko again and again it was uh,
Speaker 2: we were just kind of hanging around and getting into
Speaker 2: these like little tics. But it wasn't I think during
Speaker 2: that point in time of the war, everything was starting
Speaker 2: to not wind down but kind of settle into a
Speaker 2: very At that point in time, the networks, the Hakani network,
Speaker 2: you know, isis all these people not isis yet, but
Speaker 2: the precursors to it in now Kaeda were they kind
Speaker 2: of realized that, like we were the guys that you
Speaker 2: didn't fight because we would kill you. It was almost
Speaker 2: better for you to just get captured because then all
Speaker 2: we were doing is we would we would detain you,
Speaker 2: hand you off to the Afghans, and then the Afghans
Speaker 2: would release you and we'd pay you for the pleasure.
Speaker 2: And so they were kind of figuring that out around
Speaker 2: that time. So it started to be less fights, not
Speaker 2: dry holes, but we were actually going in and We're.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, this is the dude, and the dude would
Speaker 3: we have one.
Speaker 2: We at that deployment where me and Chris climbed, we
Speaker 2: climbed ladders, were going in and this guy like popped
Speaker 2: his own him light, threw it out there, had zip cuffs,
Speaker 2: put a zip cuff on one hand and then worked
Speaker 2: the other one and then walked out and all the
Speaker 2: females and males started separating each other.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, hey, it looks like they've
Speaker 3: done this before. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they build a fire drill.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we were like, they know what's going on here,
Speaker 2: and the guy just he was like yeah, it was
Speaker 2: like you know the turp, they get the pequan bit
Speaker 2: out there, you got the turf out there.
Speaker 3: And then they were like, yeah, he knows we're here
Speaker 3: for him, and he's ready to go.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 3: So but I think that was the sign of the
Speaker 3: time of this.
Speaker 1: Was the futility of what we're trying to do over there,
Speaker 1: like fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was almost the they're just like, it's
Speaker 2: better off for us to just go with you guys,
Speaker 2: like because like we were just gonna show up and
Speaker 2: kill you and we weren't. If we showed up at
Speaker 2: night to come and get you, that was bad, uh,
Speaker 2: and you'd rather not just deal with that.
Speaker 3: And so you were still.
Speaker 2: Having i know, the BSOT battlespace owners. The regular army
Speaker 2: guys were still having a lot of ticks and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, like small attacks on their cops or other
Speaker 2: forward operating bases, but they would pretty much like that,
Speaker 2: pretty much everything was settled into a a even keel
Speaker 2: low of we thought that we were gonna be. That
Speaker 2: was what like fifteen, like eighteen years into the war
Speaker 2: something like that, Like, so like everything is pretty much
Speaker 2: settled at that point, where just it's we were almost
Speaker 2: doing like, hey, here's the we killed the last guy
Speaker 2: in an airstrike, you know two weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Here's the new guy. Let's go get him.
Speaker 2: And so it was every time they promoted somebody, we
Speaker 2: would just either kill them or go get them. And
Speaker 2: like I said, I think at that point they'd kind
Speaker 2: of realized that it's it's pretty much better off if
Speaker 2: we just go get you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the game's rigged.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then when you went to uh Europe as an
Speaker 1: sm was that with Regiment.
Speaker 3: Uh No, So it actually it was almost a detachment off.
Speaker 1: Of s m oh okay, so we'll get to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you got back from that deployment with UH
Speaker 1: the Calf, you went to the Army Marksmanship unit. Was
Speaker 1: that the next thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So kind of just like anything else, you get offers
Speaker 2: to do stuff. And so UH, me and my partner
Speaker 2: Chris had actually gone there together, went down to the UH.
Speaker 3: I had done some deployment deployment with CICCO.
Speaker 2: Was any six now, had done my squad leader time,
Speaker 2: and they're just it was an offer that was on
Speaker 2: the table, and I was just like, yeah, sure that
Speaker 2: sounds fine. It's on base and that sounds fun. So
Speaker 2: we went, Me and Chris went down to the instructor
Speaker 2: training group and we actually were there with other regiment guys.
Speaker 3: A lot of snipers were there.
Speaker 2: There was a couple of Delta guys there, and it
Speaker 2: was basically they hired people who were.
Speaker 3: To go out to the Army to teach them marksmanship.
Speaker 2: And I always say this, it was like I thought
Speaker 2: I could shoot when I was in the regiment, I
Speaker 2: basically didn't. I realized I didn't know anything because they
Speaker 2: start training you upstairs.
Speaker 3: So I get there, I go through a shoot through.
Speaker 3: They look at my resume.
Speaker 2: It's almost like applying for a job, and then they
Speaker 2: say yes or no. So they say yes, and so
Speaker 2: we immediately we come in and we start training with
Speaker 2: oh Man, we start training with like Dan Horner, and
Speaker 2: there's a couple other like Green is there and all
Speaker 2: these like kind of superstars within the the shooting world
Speaker 2: is there, and so we start going through all the
Speaker 2: shooting and I was like, I thought I was a
Speaker 2: good pistol shooter. I had no idea what I was
Speaker 2: doing with the pistol until I got there, and you
Speaker 2: start learning that you don't know what you didn't know,
Speaker 2: what you didn't know. And I was always like, because
Speaker 2: I was a I had gone through AR Mike, the
Speaker 2: Regimental Marximans instructor of course, so I thought I was
Speaker 2: a good shooter at that point. And then so I
Speaker 2: get there, I do that and realize that I'm not
Speaker 2: nearly as good of a shooters. So that's almost the
Speaker 2: uh kind of work up to what I started doing,
Speaker 2: especially with sniper stuff. So I did the time with
Speaker 2: the I TG trained, went around and started teaching regular
Speaker 2: army units how to how to train. We were we
Speaker 2: were in charge of teaching iyebullock we're UH or the
Speaker 2: Infantry Basic UH alsoor course. We started to treat teaching
Speaker 2: the Captain's Career course guys coming through the starry Major's
Speaker 2: academies coming through because and I really appreciate this about
Speaker 2: how regiment does is they want to send guys out
Speaker 2: to know to get to know things.
Speaker 3: We want to be the best at at our craft.
Speaker 2: So any ranger does and where do you send You
Speaker 2: got to send them to the guys that are going
Speaker 2: to know how to do that.
Speaker 3: So we started. We learned to shoot really well. And
Speaker 3: when I mean, we learned to shoot like we were
Speaker 3: shooting every day.
Speaker 2: They had a really cool program where I could go
Speaker 2: to their bunker with my gun. I'd signed my guns
Speaker 2: out from my cage. I would walk over to the
Speaker 2: bunker and we'd walk up and be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I want two grand of five five six and I
Speaker 2: need you know, four grand of nine zero, and then
Speaker 2: I would take that and I would go and shoot
Speaker 2: all day long, just all day.
Speaker 3: So it was great.
Speaker 2: Just that, but you learn the skills of actually marksmanship,
Speaker 2: of how to run a gun, how to hold a gun.
Speaker 2: All the small nuances of footwork when you're shooting, and
Speaker 2: that really, I think is something that Regiment later on
Speaker 2: took back home and said, there's like one of the
Speaker 2: biggest things we got taught from Amy was that shooting
Speaker 2: marksmanship combat shooting is almost like a martial art.
Speaker 3: There's footwork involved in this.
Speaker 2: There's where you place your foot, where you place your hand,
Speaker 2: the little movements that you make with your head, those
Speaker 2: all come into play, and that's something that you all
Speaker 2: have to train so that you can optimally take targets
Speaker 2: down and make good shots on good shots on a body.
Speaker 3: And so we took all of.
Speaker 2: That out we went and we were giving that to
Speaker 2: the Army because, like I said, coming out of Regiment,
Speaker 2: I thought I knew how to shoot.
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the Army holistically, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of NCO's officers who think it's sarga Majors who
Speaker 2: really think that they're very good at shooting, and they
Speaker 2: are not.
Speaker 3: They were not the best.
Speaker 2: And so having an instructor training group like that to
Speaker 2: go out to the Army to actually do that was great.
Speaker 3: One of the notable things I did.
Speaker 2: Is I was the NCUIC for the X seventeen which
Speaker 2: became the seventeen the project. So I went down to
Speaker 2: Aberdeen and I actually did a lot of the testings
Speaker 2: for that. And while I was in the am you,
Speaker 2: me and Chris also shot international stipher together. So it's
Speaker 2: really cool, my partner from Regiment, we both go over
Speaker 2: to AMU and then we both shoot an international stiper which.
Speaker 3: Was a great time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, but I really appreciate my time in AMU because
Speaker 2: that's where I learned to do to actually enjoy the
Speaker 2: skill craft, the craft of marksmanship, and then that actually
Speaker 2: carried me over and kind of the rest of my career.
Speaker 3: That's what I ended up teaching and being known for
Speaker 3: wherever I went.
Speaker 1: And how did that take place that you went from
Speaker 1: a MU to the s fab Uh.
Speaker 3: So I went through some stuff personally, as most rangers do.
Speaker 2: A marriage fell apart, and I'm from Texas and so
Speaker 2: the closest place in Texas is is or the closest
Speaker 2: base in Texas is Fort Hood.
Speaker 3: So there's an stab standing up at Fort Hood, asked.
Speaker 2: A favor, uh, and they let me come, They let
Speaker 2: me leave and come kind of the follow my family.
Speaker 2: So so as soon as I got into that, it's
Speaker 2: actually a strange place because there's a lot of rangers.
Speaker 2: If there's a ton of rangers, they're not the not
Speaker 2: RFS rangers. It's guys who were like, oh, hey, I
Speaker 2: need to get out to do something else. I need
Speaker 2: to go somewhere else and do for whatever reason they had.
Speaker 2: So I ended up in there in the STAB and
Speaker 2: started doing pretty much to control of a martianship program there,
Speaker 2: got a team and started running that, and that's how
Speaker 2: I ended up in the European Deployment.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell folks out there what the
Speaker 1: s FAB was?
Speaker 2: So the SAB is a is pretty much a Security.
Speaker 1: Forces and Advisory Battalion.
Speaker 2: Advisory battalion, so we would go to partner forces and
Speaker 2: we would advise them on how to do it. So
Speaker 2: they're really big into troop leading procedures, operations procedures.
Speaker 3: We were teaching.
Speaker 2: At first, I think it started when it first got
Speaker 2: kicked off, guys were doing low level.
Speaker 3: Taxes, almost like an SF job without having been SF.
Speaker 2: But then they kind of started taking When I got there,
Speaker 2: it was more strategic levels. So it was battalion. It
Speaker 2: was a battalion and brigade up for the partner forces.
Speaker 2: So yeah, how to move formations, how to actually be
Speaker 2: able to get your equipment and sustainment out to that
Speaker 2: was one of the big things. They would send you
Speaker 2: to sustainment courses and they had for each operate, uh,
Speaker 2: for each level in operation they had their we had
Speaker 2: a counterpart for us, so whether that be intelligence, So
Speaker 2: each part of the operations order we would have like
Speaker 2: we had an intelligence guy, we had a sustainment guy,
Speaker 2: we had a command and control guy, we had a
Speaker 2: maneuver and so they would take people from each part
Speaker 2: of the army who were subject matter experts in that
Speaker 2: and then they would put them in those positions to
Speaker 2: be able to advise other units. So essentially it was
Speaker 2: taking I don't want to say it was taking work
Speaker 2: from s SF, but it was taking the.
Speaker 3: The strategic level work from it.
Speaker 2: So now they wouldn't have to put people strategically in
Speaker 2: their commands. There could be this this overarching and it
Speaker 2: wasn't for I think special forces kind of had their
Speaker 2: knit their their thing and in special in a special
Speaker 2: operations mindset, this was a big like we were.
Speaker 3: A big army mindset. We were like, hey, like this
Speaker 3: is how you put an army together.
Speaker 1: There's there's another organization I believe it's called SMATCO that Yeah,
Speaker 1: were did I mean, did you guys dovetail with them
Speaker 1: at all? Uh?
Speaker 2: We ran around with them, but we weren't. We never
Speaker 2: really liked work work with them, but we we would
Speaker 2: be in commonplaces.
Speaker 1: Because those are like, as I recall, that organization would
Speaker 1: have like, here's our expert on the Bradley fighting vehicle
Speaker 1: and they'd send them to like a country like Ukraine
Speaker 1: and be like, teach these guys how to do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So and that's what I said, is I think that's
Speaker 2: taking that You're starting to take it down more.
Speaker 3: We were more in the end of the operations.
Speaker 2: So like when we would set guys over, it was
Speaker 2: just like, hey, here's how it comes up to defense,
Speaker 2: Like this is how we defense, this.
Speaker 3: Is how we do offense, this is how we do
Speaker 3: route reconnaissance.
Speaker 2: And we would take that and we would have our
Speaker 2: uh whoever our counterpart was, we would be training them
Speaker 2: on that portion of it.
Speaker 3: So generally, your maneuver guy was a infantry guy.
Speaker 2: Generally your sustainment guy was somebody who did sustainment at whatever.
Speaker 3: Brigade he was at, he did a high level brigade operation.
Speaker 3: So it's.
Speaker 2: That's where we were going. I know that's where Scot
Speaker 2: was going with it. I think they're kind of coming
Speaker 2: away from that now though I know they're closing down
Speaker 2: a lot of them.
Speaker 1: But when you were there, you were the sniper sme.
Speaker 1: I take it well.
Speaker 2: They had they had stuff that was going on, they
Speaker 2: got requests for things that were going on, and so
Speaker 2: I was a sniper. I've done all this stuff and
Speaker 2: as as much as I was that, I had done
Speaker 2: a lot of shooting too. It was funny because when
Speaker 2: I got sent over there, I competed in the European
Speaker 2: Best Warrior while I was there, so they actually pulled
Speaker 2: me out to go to Germany to do European Best Warriors.
Speaker 2: So i do European Best Warrior there, but I'm not
Speaker 2: allowed to win it, which.
Speaker 1: Was funny that they did.
Speaker 2: They told me there was like, hey, you're competing, but
Speaker 2: this is more for for us to get our name
Speaker 2: out there, not for you to like, you can't specifically
Speaker 2: win because you have to be the European Best Lawyer
Speaker 2: has to be in a unit that's currently stationed like
Speaker 2: home stationed in in Europe. So I go there and
Speaker 2: I do the whole dance, which was it was fun
Speaker 2: but like I got uh, I got top shot and
Speaker 2: I did really well in combatives, got taught and I
Speaker 2: got the top shot out of the thing.
Speaker 3: It was out of the competition.
Speaker 2: It was funny because when they were giving the award,
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, no surprise here.
Speaker 3: Uh you know a SAR first class. I'll say it
Speaker 3: blue y'all out a little with the shooting. And so
Speaker 3: it was funny because.
Speaker 2: During the quall, I was really cocky at that point
Speaker 2: in time because I knew I was winning. I got
Speaker 2: down and they have this known distance range with an
Speaker 2: F and it's iron sights and the fort and so
Speaker 2: you have so many shots and I was knocking all
Speaker 2: of them down. I was just out there. I was
Speaker 2: just like bam down, down, hitting all of them. I
Speaker 2: was like, this is super easy. Hit the last one
Speaker 2: out at four hundred. And as soon as I do it,
Speaker 2: I immediately like unload my rifle. I'm like yeah, and
Speaker 2: the cadre looks down at me and he's like target
Speaker 2: up and I look out and I had like the
Speaker 2: last round I had I had ejected the magazine's empty.
Speaker 2: I'd ejected this round. It falls on the floor. I
Speaker 2: look out and this pop just goes just right up
Speaker 2: and it's like it's the It's like one hundred meters popper.
Speaker 2: I immediately reached down, grab the bullets, shove it in finger,
Speaker 2: put my finger in the magazine. Well, slammed the bolt shut,
Speaker 2: and then fire from almost the shoulders. I wasn't even
Speaker 2: on the stop. Thing goes down and I immediately go, yeah,
Speaker 2: stand up in the It was funny because the cadre
Speaker 2: was there's like, I've never seen anything like that.
Speaker 3: He's like that's he was like, that was crazy.
Speaker 1: So you kicked ass the first couple of days, and
Speaker 1: then the last day you had to go get drunk
Speaker 1: off your ass and not show up so that you
Speaker 1: lost the thing.
Speaker 3: Oh man, No, it was the road March. I didn't
Speaker 3: prepare it at all for it. So I came in
Speaker 3: top of the pack, but not first, but so they did.
Speaker 2: I'll give it to him. Like the way they put
Speaker 2: this competition on was good. There was an unknown event
Speaker 2: at the end of the competition after the road March.
Speaker 2: We all knew that, so I was just like, man,
Speaker 2: I was like, it's probably gonna be an O course
Speaker 2: or something weird like that.
Speaker 3: I was like, I can handle a course.
Speaker 2: Came in probably top middle of the pack, not great,
Speaker 2: but not terrible. Like in true Ranger fashion, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of sprinting the whole time, and I got
Speaker 2: like short little legs because I'm a three seven five
Speaker 2: Ranger and all of us are tiny. And so we
Speaker 2: get to the end and as we're getting in, they'd
Speaker 2: made us have a uniform on the very top of
Speaker 2: our our ruck. So I get in and they go, hey,
Speaker 2: go inside. As you get in, it's immediate. It's like
Speaker 2: as soon as everybody gets in there, like go inside
Speaker 2: to the gym, get into that new uniform, and then
Speaker 2: you guys are going to line up underneath the stadium steps.
Speaker 3: And they're like, all right, so.
Speaker 2: We go and do it real quick. And they were like,
Speaker 2: they give us something like ten minutes to do. So
Speaker 2: we get dressed, we go out there. Well, as soon
Speaker 2: as we go out there, you walk out and they're
Speaker 2: introducing everybody and there's a mat on there and they've
Speaker 2: got shin guards and gloves and it's a round robin
Speaker 2: combative tournament and it is you can do, you can kick,
Speaker 2: and it was fists, you can do fists to the body,
Speaker 2: and it was open handslaps and we had so it
Speaker 2: was a European Best Warrior.
Speaker 3: So it was a lot of it was a little
Speaker 3: bit of everybody.
Speaker 2: There's females with US one hundred and ten pound females
Speaker 2: and they were It was a round robin fight, so
Speaker 2: we're like, we're going out there, We'll watching like a
Speaker 2: chick get picked up and hucked across this mat on
Speaker 2: one match and then everybody had to fight each other,
Speaker 2: uh and so like, and it was right after a
Speaker 2: rough march and I was just like it was I
Speaker 2: think it was like my third or fourth match.
Speaker 3: I was just like, I'll give it to them. This sucks, Like.
Speaker 2: This is rough, Like I'm so tired of fighting this guy. Uh,
Speaker 2: but I was. It was it was an experience. Uh.
Speaker 3: That was a really good experience.
Speaker 2: And that whole deployment was a good experience being able
Speaker 2: to work with a Eastern European Army who uh like
Speaker 2: didn't have the.
Speaker 3: Equipment but definitely.
Speaker 2: Had the guys like the the want and then the
Speaker 2: want and to know how without the equipment and then
Speaker 2: kind of showing us how we showing them how we
Speaker 2: do things, and then showing them how they do things.
Speaker 3: And it's a completely different mindset.
Speaker 2: Like we talked earlier about like the close in support,
Speaker 2: like direct support for assault forces.
Speaker 3: That's not a thing to them.
Speaker 2: Then when we when they talked ciphers, Eastern Europeans talk
Speaker 2: like like old.
Speaker 1: Time, Yeah, we're shooting a Nazi general from the bell
Speaker 1: tower of a church.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you're expelling like you know, back to
Speaker 2: your lines or you're you're in it. Like they We
Speaker 2: did one scenario where we talked about we they had
Speaker 2: it on their actual compound where they had a bell
Speaker 2: tower and it was like, hey, you're gonna shoot from
Speaker 2: this belt markets from this bell tower and they were
Speaker 2: just like yeah, so we go over mission planning because
Speaker 2: that's our job, like all right, so how would you
Speaker 2: do this? And they're like oh no, it's like so
Speaker 2: what's your excell plan? And he's like xill I was
Speaker 2: like no, I get it. Yeah there. I was like
Speaker 2: you're on a bell tower. You're probably not getting out
Speaker 2: of that tower. Like maybe you should make some kind
Speaker 2: of plan or maybe we don't even do it from
Speaker 2: this bell tower like.
Speaker 3: So uh that was that was a really really cool experience.
Speaker 2: And then just the ability to travel Europe because in
Speaker 2: regiment you don't really do that a lot. It was
Speaker 2: all it was all mission missions, mission, and we were
Speaker 2: the only place we went to is you know, bad
Speaker 2: third world countries.
Speaker 3: Uh. And they got a lot.
Speaker 1: Of opportunities to meet women in the range of regiment.
Speaker 2: Oh no, not not even a little bit. And then
Speaker 2: you go to this other place and it's like it's
Speaker 2: you know, Germany.
Speaker 3: It was oh man. Uh the base was m K
Speaker 3: and that was in Romania.
Speaker 2: And I always tell people, I was like, hey, if
Speaker 2: you want uh, if you want a good vacation for
Speaker 2: bottom dollar, go to Romania.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna have a lot of fun. We had.
Speaker 3: It was it was bad.
Speaker 2: There was like a beach there that was a topless
Speaker 2: beach and so like, you know, nobody was that unit
Speaker 2: that was there. Nobody was ever there. Like we were like, hey,
Speaker 2: it's so, you know Wednesday, where is everybody. It's in
Speaker 2: the summer, Like, oh, they're all on the beach, Like
Speaker 2: of course they are. What kind of peta we're doing?
Speaker 2: We're doing beach pt cool?
Speaker 1: Hey, ask the Secret Service about Moldova out there.
Speaker 3: I have a buddy that I work with now.
Speaker 2: One of the guys that I work now on the
Speaker 2: team is h He's an X for Service guy, and
Speaker 2: I always give him hell about Columbia.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Colombia, Like, you know, I'll just.
Speaker 3: Pay the hookers so they won't tell on you.
Speaker 1: My understanding was that was kind of like a setup,
Speaker 1: like it's a scam where like the girl pretends that
Speaker 1: she's just a normal girl that wants to sleep with you,
Speaker 1: and then you get to the hotel room and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you got to pay me.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. I would have been like, I just
Speaker 2: get out and here's some money. I'm gonna pay you
Speaker 2: to leave.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's a five spot, see you later.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those guys, I was like F like s F
Speaker 2: like those guys like constantly getting the Seventh Group man's
Speaker 2: constantly getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: I know, I.
Speaker 3: Always give I think you know Alejandro.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Me and him are good friend Like me and him
Speaker 2: are good friends. Every time I go to Colorado, we
Speaker 2: stop and visit him. But uh, and I talked to
Speaker 2: him all the time but I always give him that.
Speaker 2: I was just like, yeah, man, it's like a ranger,
Speaker 2: a ranger in a green Berets, Like, sounds like you
Speaker 2: might have had a hooker problem.
Speaker 1: So after or no, you're still in the s FAB
Speaker 1: and you got deployed to h Orbil.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So my last deployment was in uh A Rebel Iraq
Speaker 2: and we were working hand in hand with the courage.
Speaker 3: So at that point I.
Speaker 2: Kind of worked my way and being a sniper, I
Speaker 2: think everybody kind of says that there was just like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're kind of like a you're, you know, scout intel guy,
Speaker 2: you know stuff about intel. And then I went to
Speaker 2: a school or two and then I found myself as
Speaker 2: the chief intel guy for my UH for the s
Speaker 2: FAB in a Rebel. So apart from a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff was I wouldn't call it humid stuff that
Speaker 2: we were doing, it was a lot of checking in
Speaker 2: on guys. And then that's kind of where I learned
Speaker 2: a lot about the culture.
Speaker 1: Like liaison, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: A liaison because we were definitely we were being used
Speaker 2: by a their entities to collect to give up like
Speaker 2: good information. So there was a lot of entities that
Speaker 2: we'd get downloads from they'd be like, what did you see?
Speaker 3: What'd you do? Okay, I need you to ask for
Speaker 3: this when you go back. I needed to do this.
Speaker 2: There's points where we were pretty much running sources just
Speaker 2: because we were very in with the Kurds and so
Speaker 2: we talked a lot to them, and like I said,
Speaker 2: like we try, like as as as we are an army,
Speaker 2: we trust people to a point. But then we're also
Speaker 2: keeping tabs on everybody too, So that's a lot of
Speaker 2: what we were doing. So we had our side reports
Speaker 2: that we were writing, kind of collecting on other people,
Speaker 2: which was a super interesting job, especially for a ranger,
Speaker 2: because I'm going out there and I'm just like okay,
Speaker 2: Like you know, we'd go and look at their storehouses.
Speaker 2: One of us pair up like peel off and go
Speaker 2: look out what they had, and then you compare it
Speaker 2: to numbers what they actually said, and you'd be like,
Speaker 2: this dude just lying. And then not only are they lie,
Speaker 2: he's asking us for more stuff. And it was funny
Speaker 2: because one day I asked one of the our Curdish counterparts,
Speaker 2: it was like, what are you getting ready for? I
Speaker 2: was like, like, you got enough? I was like, you
Speaker 2: got enough at weapons in there to kickstart the next war.
Speaker 2: I was like, so what is it? And he was
Speaker 2: just like, oh, y'all are leaving soon. And he's like
Speaker 2: straight up looking at me and phase he's like, he's like,
Speaker 2: as nice as you guys are. It's like, y'all are
Speaker 2: going to be here for very much longer. And he's like,
Speaker 2: and then the curbs are going to be left alone
Speaker 2: like Kurdistan's can be.
Speaker 3: They called it Curtis Dan.
Speaker 2: Nobody else wanted to call it that, but they were like,
Speaker 2: the curves are going to be left alone and we're
Speaker 2: going to have to fight him. And I was just like,
Speaker 2: there's a point where I was like, now you're right, yeah, OK,
Speaker 2: fair enough man?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And it's always like one of those things
Speaker 1: we're like, man, could you guys not like start a
Speaker 1: war with the Arabs at least swallow here please?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like and then so it was funny because that was
Speaker 2: right when I think the precursor to what's going on
Speaker 2: and ran was going on then because we had an
Speaker 2: ICBM like alert, we all had to get in.
Speaker 3: They were like, hey, is this is this?
Speaker 1: When we smoked Solamani and then they fired missiles.
Speaker 2: They fired they fired an I C B M and
Speaker 2: they were like.
Speaker 3: Everybody get to a bunker.
Speaker 2: And I was like why because it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: we should really just get on top of one of
Speaker 2: these uh one of these cheers and enjoy enjoy what we.
Speaker 3: While we can.
Speaker 2: But it's it's that deployment kind of as far as
Speaker 2: my military career is concerned, uh, really kind of opened
Speaker 2: my eyes.
Speaker 3: I know people get into a lot cooler stuff.
Speaker 2: But like having a career kind of like that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're in like this intel world of you're playing like
Speaker 2: I was playing checkers and now I'm I'm watching chess
Speaker 2: getting played with everybody, and it was it's it's funny
Speaker 2: to come from kind of that to be able to
Speaker 2: see all of that in a career.
Speaker 3: Uh uh just very odd.
Speaker 2: Like I said, there were times where I was listening
Speaker 2: to things and I was just like this should be
Speaker 2: in a book. I was like sometimes somewhere like this
Speaker 2: is like the truth is strangers in fiction.
Speaker 3: Like as much as we can.
Speaker 2: Write about things and make these stories up, it's like
Speaker 2: stranger things are happening.
Speaker 1: Any stories like that that you can tell or that
Speaker 1: you can share one of.
Speaker 2: My favorite stories was me and my partner got sent
Speaker 2: out to with some other agency guys to talk to
Speaker 2: two people and it was because we were the only
Speaker 2: ones around, so they were just like.
Speaker 3: Hey, we need you to go look at this.
Speaker 2: It ended up being two Russians that had stuff there,
Speaker 2: face full of they were trying to get in. They
Speaker 2: had fake accents. They were trying to use fake accents
Speaker 2: saying they were from Tennessee, but in.
Speaker 3: A really bad way.
Speaker 2: And what they were trying to do is they had
Speaker 2: gotten a bunch of dip and they were putting in
Speaker 2: their mouth. They trawl in their mouth so that they
Speaker 2: would they were spitting and trying to do it.
Speaker 3: One of them never done.
Speaker 2: It before, throwing up everywhere, yeah, and cursing and Russian
Speaker 2: like they all they were the gay guards like, hey,
Speaker 2: you don't come and talk to these people. And we
Speaker 2: go over there and just like oh, and immediately it
Speaker 2: was what you think.
Speaker 3: They were trying to gain access to the camp and
Speaker 3: get on.
Speaker 2: But we had a lot of stuff like that going
Speaker 2: on because our offices were outside of camp, Like we
Speaker 2: weren't on or Bil. We were out and we were
Speaker 2: out in the town, so we were like constantly going
Speaker 2: we were in civilian clothes going around doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Russian SVR has a station out there in Kurtistown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we knew, and we knew exactly where it was to.
Speaker 2: So but the having been, the having been there and
Speaker 2: to see all of that and others other stories of
Speaker 2: you were watching international play happen kind of right there,
Speaker 2: like Portugal, like and you can't I can't really get
Speaker 2: into a lot of it, but you know, in twenty
Speaker 2: five years, maybe.
Speaker 3: I can write a book about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But it's the.
Speaker 2: Being going from like like I said, what we were
Speaker 2: talking before, going from the start of the war, me
Speaker 2: getting there as a as a nineteen year old and
Speaker 2: being bagdad fighting and stuff like that, and then the
Speaker 2: end of my career. I think one of the times
Speaker 2: I was sitting on.
Speaker 3: Top of the.
Speaker 2: One of the airfield, not bunkers, but we'd climbed up
Speaker 2: on top of the oh gosh, I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 2: It was the hangars and we were there was a
Speaker 2: group of us sitting there smoking cigars on a hangar,
Speaker 2: and I was just like it was I didn't know
Speaker 2: at the time that that was going to be my
Speaker 2: last apployment, but I knew I was coming towards the end,
Speaker 2: just I had a back injury and it had it
Speaker 2: progressed to the point where I didn't know if I.
Speaker 3: Was going to be able to keep going, and I
Speaker 3: was up on the eight list.
Speaker 2: It was just like I knew it was that I
Speaker 2: was like, hey, my time's coming close to the end
Speaker 2: of this. So standing up there on the again, going
Speaker 2: back to that, like you take snapshots of your service
Speaker 2: and the times you bad stuff, and you think about
Speaker 2: like from the time from the firefights to the guys laughing,
Speaker 2: to watching sunrises come up over the like Hindu cush
Speaker 2: or you know, being watching suns go down, like the
Speaker 2: sun go down over Baghdad by the Babylon gates, or
Speaker 2: doing all of that and then being cursed, and you know,
Speaker 2: being on the over by the Iranian border, but watching
Speaker 2: looking down and out of the mountains and seeing how
Speaker 2: gorgeous it is. And then I think one of the
Speaker 2: last things I remember is being like on that hangar
Speaker 2: and smoking a cigar, watching DC rams go off and
Speaker 2: being like this was cool. This was a this was
Speaker 2: a cool experience, and realizing that like the things that
Speaker 2: you touch through it. Maybe it didn't affect so much,
Speaker 2: but it affected a lot to you. So I think
Speaker 2: that's that was kind of the the endcap to my
Speaker 2: military career.
Speaker 1: And when you got home, you went through the med
Speaker 1: board process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I went through med board. It's the worst
Speaker 2: thing I think you can ever do.
Speaker 3: The What was rough about that was I thought I
Speaker 3: had more left in me.
Speaker 2: I was still doing a bunch of stuff. I like,
Speaker 2: I think I was in my I was like thirty six.
Speaker 2: I did Best Ranger at like thirty six, thirty seven
Speaker 2: years old. Shit, and I still had I was still
Speaker 2: doing a lot of stuff Like I was still going
Speaker 2: out and training, running across it. I'd gotten into jiu
Speaker 2: jitsu and I started competing in jiu jitsu, and I
Speaker 2: was just like man, I got a ton. But there
Speaker 2: would be times where I couldn't get out of bed
Speaker 2: and I had to call somebody to my house to
Speaker 2: be like, hey, I need you to come and help
Speaker 2: me out of bed. And so I've been getting shot
Speaker 2: to my l or my s it's like L five
Speaker 2: S one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'd.
Speaker 2: Been getting up a durals for a long time, and
Speaker 2: when we were in reveal, we've gotten into a little
Speaker 2: car wreck.
Speaker 3: We were with the Brits.
Speaker 2: You know, crazy crazy Iraqi drivers don't know how traffic
Speaker 2: circles work. I want to go in the wrong way,
Speaker 2: hit our hit my car. Back was a little messed
Speaker 2: up after it, and I was like, I'll be fine,
Speaker 2: I'll get back and it'll be good. I was on
Speaker 2: the E eight list, you know, getting ready to look
Speaker 2: at where I was going to go next, what I
Speaker 2: was going to do next, and I was actually looking
Speaker 2: at selection another selection and doctor comes in.
Speaker 3: He's like, I've done all the X rays and stuff.
Speaker 2: And she comes in and she's like, hey, she's the
Speaker 2: first thing she says, it's like, do you do you
Speaker 2: want to walk when you're sixty? It's like, what kind
Speaker 2: of question is that? Yeah, I want to walk when
Speaker 2: I'm sixteen. She's like, okay, then you're done, Like you'r
Speaker 2: mean back med board. We're recommending med board right now.
Speaker 2: We're going to start going through the process and you're in,
Speaker 2: You're essentially you're finished. And I was just like that
Speaker 2: took that took a little bit too kind of internalize.
Speaker 1: That moment, didn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't ready for that. I was just like
Speaker 3: I didn't think I was going to do.
Speaker 2: In fact, I've made a promise to my ex wife
Speaker 2: that I was going to die at my desk so
Speaker 2: that she didn't get into retirement. So I was like,
Speaker 2: I was, I was fully intending on following through with that.
Speaker 2: So uh, you know, I had that had kind of
Speaker 2: taken taken me aback a little bit. But then at
Speaker 2: that point I met somebody. She was in Dallas, and
Speaker 2: I was just like I was over the moon for her,
Speaker 2: and so I was just like, Okay, maybe this isn't
Speaker 2: too bad. Kind of started getting the feeling that I
Speaker 2: was on my way out trying to make peace with it,
Speaker 2: and then started trying to like make those plans, but
Speaker 2: the Army makes it really hard to make plans for that,
Speaker 2: so eventually they approved it.
Speaker 3: I got out.
Speaker 2: What I will say is the Army does need to
Speaker 2: do a better job and TAPS the Regiment does a
Speaker 2: fantastic job. I will say that regiment is I think
Speaker 2: one of the and that's just because now I work
Speaker 2: a little bit with them, But the Ranger for Life
Speaker 2: program and the way they do it is so much
Speaker 2: better for rangers in general. I didn't have that option
Speaker 2: at that point, or I had the option. I just
Speaker 2: I think there was a point time where I was
Speaker 2: in a little bit of a denial. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: maybe this won't go through, And then it came to
Speaker 2: a point in time where I was just like, oh no,
Speaker 2: it's something to leave now, like you're you're done, so yeah,
Speaker 2: med boarded out started my transition. The transitions probably, like
Speaker 2: I said, one of the hardest things I've ever done
Speaker 2: in my life. It's I can see where guys just
Speaker 2: self disrupt at the end of it day as you
Speaker 2: come from, you're coming from like me, I think I
Speaker 2: have seventy one months deployed, seventy one two, seventy five
Speaker 2: months deployed overseas, and it's that was like, you can't
Speaker 2: tell me that like at nineteen, like when my front
Speaker 2: of love is not even really developed yet at nineteen.
Speaker 2: This is the way life I learned. And then at
Speaker 2: the end of it say hey, thanks for playing, talk
Speaker 2: to you later. Yeah, And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: one day you find yourself and like, I'm not that
Speaker 2: thing anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not ranger. I'm not a ranger. I'm
Speaker 3: not a I'm not operating in AUSTR environments anymore.
Speaker 2: There's no next deployment for me, and I think that's
Speaker 2: kind of what took a long time too, even when
Speaker 2: I got out. So I got out, actually I did
Speaker 2: the very private thing. I feel like when I got
Speaker 2: out of I did everything in one year. So I
Speaker 2: I guess I've met somebody I was over the moon for.
Speaker 2: We kind of we have a very that's an interesting story,
Speaker 2: and that's something i'm kind of I'm writing about now
Speaker 2: because of how funny that was.
Speaker 3: But got married, moved, blended families.
Speaker 2: Bought a house all in that year that I got
Speaker 2: out of here, like right before I got out of
Speaker 2: the army, and that got out of the army, so
Speaker 2: it was that probably didn't help the situation any much more,
Speaker 2: but just going through it and having to realize that
Speaker 2: that wasn't me and then find a new purpose.
Speaker 3: So that was the that was the hard part.
Speaker 1: I mean, how did that come about? You mentioned to
Speaker 1: me that you worked in project management for like six
Speaker 1: months and that helped teach you what you didn't want
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't recommend for men of our ilk
Speaker 2: and people men of our stature, and I'm gonna say
Speaker 2: men of action, I don't recommend going to be a
Speaker 2: project manager. Like that's the like you gotta kind of
Speaker 2: be dishonest. Everybody everything's from was better. And then like
Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, this building may fall down, but like
Speaker 2: I got it done under budget.
Speaker 1: You know, we got a lot of that here in
Speaker 1: New York City.
Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah. And so I hated it. I hated
Speaker 2: when I realized what it was, I was just like,
Speaker 2: this is not for me. And I would go to
Speaker 2: work and just dreaded it. I would I tell my
Speaker 2: I'd wake up and tell my wife. I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to go to work today, Like I
Speaker 2: really don't. And then you know, being learning that like
Speaker 2: nobody was gonna yell at me if I didn't go
Speaker 2: to work, it was fun because then I would just
Speaker 2: be like, you know what, I'm not going to work
Speaker 2: and I don't have to give you a reason why.
Speaker 3: And so that was the that was the funny part
Speaker 3: of the whole thing.
Speaker 2: And it was fun because I was working with one
Speaker 2: of my best friends, Anthony Willstrom, who's a mentor in
Speaker 2: jiu jitsu for me, and me and him kind of
Speaker 2: worked together a little bit too and we.
Speaker 3: Had those conversations all the time.
Speaker 2: I was just like, man, I was just like, what
Speaker 2: would happen if I just, you know, broke my leg
Speaker 2: and didn't show up. He's just like, you don't have
Speaker 2: to go that far. Just don't just don't show up.
Speaker 2: So you got into that and really learned that that's
Speaker 2: not where I wanted to be or what I wanted
Speaker 2: to do. I wanted a little bit more purpose in uh,
Speaker 2: in my life. So kicked around being a cop. Talked
Speaker 2: to my dad, who's he's a dollar he retired Dallas
Speaker 2: police officer, and he's like, don't be a cop right now.
Speaker 3: And he's like, it's rough.
Speaker 2: He's like, and you you stand a good chance of
Speaker 2: going to jail, like more than youbody else else, just
Speaker 2: because of our service. Talk to some other guys and
Speaker 2: it's like, I think, especially coming from where we came from,
Speaker 2: violence is a thing that we do well, and it's
Speaker 2: our spoken language. And so with normal beat cops, that's
Speaker 2: something that they have to learn over time. When you
Speaker 2: put a guy like us in it, and we already
Speaker 2: know it, our threshold for I'm going to kill you
Speaker 2: is so much lower, and so when it's the when
Speaker 2: that threshold is lower, you're you. I think we don't
Speaker 2: understand why like the you know, this guy pulls out
Speaker 2: a knife and I blasted him, Like but I did it,
Speaker 2: like I shot him twenty times instead of like the
Speaker 2: cursory three or four and.
Speaker 1: You'll comply and the night stick is coming out.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like yeah, Like it's that like ooh a fight
Speaker 2: like I'm in today. So it was funny because my
Speaker 2: dad was just like, hey, maybe that's not something you
Speaker 2: want to get into right now.
Speaker 3: And honestly, I still kick that around a little bit. Mike. Uh.
Speaker 2: My wife is in law enforcement. She's in federal law enforcement,
Speaker 2: and so you know, she's always the one kind of
Speaker 2: telling me. She's just like, yeah, maybe maybe not that.
Speaker 2: I think maybe we don't get see this month. So
Speaker 2: learning that though from the project manager point and then
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I
Speaker 2: got really lucky and stumbled into what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2: And so essentially that is I work for Allegiance Project Security,
Speaker 2: and it is a company security company.
Speaker 3: That takes veterans and we try to put them into
Speaker 3: schools and churches.
Speaker 2: Which is It's funny because after Yuvaldi happened. I remember
Speaker 2: talk having a conversation as an AMU, having a conversation
Speaker 2: with my partner Chris, and it was just like, hey,
Speaker 2: what like we should put like special operations guys in
Speaker 2: like they don't want to be cops or anything like that,
Speaker 2: they should we should stick them into schools. Well, Matthew Easter,
Speaker 2: who's the president and the owner of the company, had
Speaker 2: that idea. He's not a special operations guy. He's never
Speaker 2: been in the military, he never did anything like that.
Speaker 2: What he does have is a wife that's a teacher
Speaker 2: that he's worried about. And he was just like, why
Speaker 2: aren't we taking these guys who already did this and
Speaker 2: put them into these schools and churches. And it's funny
Speaker 2: because I say that when I think about Yuvalde in
Speaker 2: situations like that, because now it's my job to think
Speaker 2: about those security risks in schools, in churches and Red
Speaker 2: Team that take that intelligence background Red teamate and say
Speaker 2: what would I do if I was if I really
Speaker 2: wanted to cause damage?
Speaker 3: What would I do?
Speaker 2: And I take Valdi as a I always tell the
Speaker 2: story around people, but people were talking to I take
Speaker 2: Valdi and what I take from that is it's not
Speaker 2: that police officer's fall. He learned that he was not
Speaker 2: about that life at that door, at that breach, we've
Speaker 2: realized that's not what he's built for. What now kind
Speaker 2: of the mission is is to take guys that are
Speaker 2: built for that.
Speaker 3: They pretty much.
Speaker 2: Did a year years in their lifetime of running through doors,
Speaker 2: and not only that, but made that decision of life
Speaker 2: or death, like, hey, I could die in this room.
Speaker 2: Because you remember what they told us when we were
Speaker 2: doing ct BE and stuff like that. They're like, you're
Speaker 2: running into a room with four guys, like four or
Speaker 2: five guys.
Speaker 3: You're running in a group.
Speaker 2: With four or five guys on your team, and then
Speaker 2: a room with a couple of guys who have guns.
Speaker 2: Somebody is getting shot, somebody's getting killed, and there's a
Speaker 2: really good chance that a lot of you are are
Speaker 2: getting shot in that room.
Speaker 3: So that when I say that it's not that CoP's
Speaker 3: fault is because he had that thought right at that door.
Speaker 2: We had the probably the same thoughts that we did
Speaker 2: during training where you kind of internalize it. You're like,
Speaker 2: oh God, but we got indoctrinated into it. We lived it.
Speaker 2: We were that's that we understood that was our purpose.
Speaker 2: Like we our purpose was to run into doors, like
Speaker 2: run into danger, run into doors.
Speaker 3: We were going to breach that threshold. We were going
Speaker 3: to jump out of that airplane.
Speaker 2: So the question of life and death never stopped entering
Speaker 2: our mind, and it was like how do I get
Speaker 2: in here and how do I stop the threat? So
Speaker 2: that's what this this organization basically does is we're trying
Speaker 2: to take guys like that usher them into civilian life
Speaker 2: by easing them into it, not taking everything away that
Speaker 2: they are, not taking the gun away from them, and
Speaker 2: not taking the brotherhood away from them, not taking that
Speaker 2: culture away from them, and slowly kind of saying hey.
Speaker 3: Like you're not running through those doors.
Speaker 2: There's not This isn't a TST right now, could be,
Speaker 2: But what your job is is we're going to give
Speaker 2: you that new mission to protect these children, protect these churches.
Speaker 2: Once you do that, like you start kind of easing
Speaker 2: them into it, and then eventually the point of the
Speaker 2: whole thing is for that guy one day to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm done. I think I got it out of my system.
Speaker 2: I think I've transition.
Speaker 3: Enough to stone.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it's almost like, essentially we're drug addicts when
Speaker 2: you leave the regiment, when you leave the military, I'm
Speaker 2: an adrenaline junkie.
Speaker 3: I still do it. I fight.
Speaker 2: I go fight people on my off time for competition
Speaker 2: because I like it, because I like the way it
Speaker 2: makes me feel. I'm a drug addict as far as
Speaker 2: like that adrenaline. I'm always looking for that next rush,
Speaker 2: that next thing. We are all like that, and you
Speaker 2: got to kind of step yourself down on it, so
Speaker 2: you never just take a dude off cold turkey. And
Speaker 2: essentially that's why I have a problem with the taps
Speaker 2: in the military.
Speaker 3: The way they do.
Speaker 2: Offloading of in retirements and pushing people out of the
Speaker 2: army is they essentially just drop you off at the
Speaker 2: bus stop and say, hey, good luck man.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: Getting into that though, has really kind of made me
Speaker 2: really kind of given me that new purpose. And then
Speaker 2: aside from that, I do the mercenary thing. I'm a
Speaker 2: gun for hire. I I always tell guys will have gun,
Speaker 2: will travel. I've done a lot of executive protection work,
Speaker 2: done some overseas stuff, and that's I think for a
Speaker 2: lot of US and especially rangers and special operations, that's
Speaker 2: where we end up there, not because we want to,
Speaker 2: but because that's what we know.
Speaker 3: And I know a lot of guys that do a
Speaker 3: good job in the transition.
Speaker 2: I just stepping away from and it's always been one
Speaker 2: of those things where it's it's hard to do.
Speaker 3: And I'm only a year out, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still in that point where I'm
Speaker 2: not looking for a fight, but still kind of stepping
Speaker 2: myself down from it.
Speaker 1: I totally get it, man, And I mean, like you said,
Speaker 1: you're a year out from retirement, and I mean, I
Speaker 1: swear to god, I was only in the army for
Speaker 1: eight years, but it took me at least another eight
Speaker 1: years to like de army myself. You know, it becomes
Speaker 1: something else and do something else. So for a guy
Speaker 1: like you, you know, somebody that did twenty years or whatever,
Speaker 1: it's it's just fundamentally a part of who you are.
Speaker 1: Like you said, I mean, it's you can't really deny it.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's who you are.
Speaker 3: I don't think you're ever going to really get away
Speaker 3: from it either.
Speaker 2: Like I tell my wife all the time, I was like,
Speaker 2: I still have dreams, and I dream in green sometimes
Speaker 2: I dream I dream a runoff for ramp. I dream
Speaker 2: and you know White fosph is like I dream in
Speaker 2: those colors. Yeah, in those places that I don't think
Speaker 2: they'll ever leave you. I think I think that will
Speaker 2: always be a part of us. And it's just a
Speaker 2: figuring out how to to combine those worlds.
Speaker 3: If that's what you want to do. There's some guys
Speaker 3: that get out.
Speaker 2: Colend Master is a farmer, uh, you know, and he
Speaker 2: was he was in Beko for a long time, did
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. That guy's a farmer now. Uh.
Speaker 2: One of my buddies, Chris.
Speaker 3: He's uh.
Speaker 2: I would say like I used to say that that
Speaker 2: that guy killed more people than played.
Speaker 3: And he's a therapist now. It people. There's people who
Speaker 3: do well at it.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people go into a profession because they're trying to
Speaker 1: warn it for themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, and I got that's definitely that is. That
Speaker 3: is definitely Chris. And he's another one that he got
Speaker 3: injured at.
Speaker 2: Just the the beating that your body takes out of it
Speaker 2: from a lifetime of that, you're not gonna be able
Speaker 2: to sustain it.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna be able to keep going. There's a
Speaker 3: point where your body's going to fail you.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So it's the I think for guys like us,
Speaker 2: the most important thing is and again that's what Allegianus
Speaker 2: Project Foundation does is we're trying to offer you where
Speaker 2: we try to offer the guys a community again to say, hey,
Speaker 2: don't step away like wet. Every ranger that I ever
Speaker 2: knew that killed themselves isolated themselves. It was a they
Speaker 2: They took themselves from the path. They decided that they
Speaker 2: were going to do it by themselves and then never
Speaker 2: made it. And we don't make it through Rangers fool
Speaker 2: by ourselves. We never made it through this deployment by ourselves.
Speaker 2: So I don't understand why guys think that you're going
Speaker 2: to make it through the rest of this by yourself.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: So well, three rangers, Allegianus Projects Foundation, both of them
Speaker 2: are offering that tribe. We're a tribe special especially in
Speaker 2: special operations and the big armies of their own tribe
Speaker 2: or whatever service that you did. You have that tribe
Speaker 2: in there. And then I have friends, I have really
Speaker 2: good friends that are seals that I met here and
Speaker 2: they're their own tribe. They have their own jokes. And
Speaker 2: then we have Green berets. They're their own tribe. They
Speaker 2: have their own jokes Rangers where we have our own tribe.
Speaker 2: We're all tribal and we stay within those. But especially
Speaker 2: when you get out, it's important that I don't have
Speaker 2: rent friends that are just ranger. I don't just stick
Speaker 2: around with rangers because I never find them. There's not
Speaker 2: They're feming far between out here. Most of us are scattered.
Speaker 2: I have friends that are seals and we sit around
Speaker 2: and talk about everything anything. So finding originations a that's
Speaker 2: I think one of the biggest things that's helped me.
Speaker 3: It's fine because I was in a deep dark hole too.
Speaker 2: My wife, God bless her, she married me and probably
Speaker 2: at the worst the furthest down I could be at
Speaker 2: that point. And so but finding a finding those communities,
Speaker 2: getting with those trips, getting with your tribe, find your tribe,
Speaker 2: find the other special operations guys, and then fight off
Speaker 2: the drop done together, which is now life. And then
Speaker 2: the other thing too, is that like a lot of
Speaker 2: these guys, I don't know what it is, we get
Speaker 2: divorced like it's going out of style.
Speaker 3: Just maybe that's the ranger way.
Speaker 2: But realize that like you've made mistakes of your life
Speaker 2: and to find that person, like you said my wife,
Speaker 2: I met her. This is actually a really funny story
Speaker 2: and something I'm writing about. But we met on Hinge,
Speaker 2: and I'm not afraid to say that, like I was
Speaker 2: getting out kind of new, I was coming back to Dallas.
Speaker 2: So I get on Henge. We get meet on Hinge
Speaker 2: and we meet each other. And it's funny because at
Speaker 2: the time I was still working kind of some of
Speaker 2: the intel piece and her Hinge profile said it said
Speaker 2: like law something like that.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what that meant. And so we start meeting.
Speaker 2: We start talking and through conversations we're not being one
Speaker 2: percent open with what we are, but you can kind
Speaker 2: of tell.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: So I go to the first date Hugger uh realized
Speaker 2: that there's a gun on her.
Speaker 3: And so when I helped you brought a gun to
Speaker 3: the date.
Speaker 2: I was like, there's a gun. There's I was like,
Speaker 2: there's a gun. I was like, maybe it's just super
Speaker 2: two A or something. Uh And like I was like,
Speaker 2: this is Dallas, you know maybe, And so we sit
Speaker 2: down and we start talking and I start realizing from
Speaker 2: training I'm in I'm in an interrogation like it is going.
Speaker 3: It is going exactly a rig. Yeah, it's immediately it
Speaker 3: was like, oh no, like who is she? What is this?
Speaker 3: What have I gotten?
Speaker 2: And myself into uh And so I start going through
Speaker 2: your usual like what they train you. You like, you
Speaker 2: start answering with one words, asking like a certain qudits
Speaker 2: like if you're going to ask questions, you're asking questions,
Speaker 2: and then you know, if they say anything, it's you know, deny, deny, deny,
Speaker 2: make counter accusations.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, you're gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're ready to karate chopper in the neck and run.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm like sitting there looking at exits being like, all right,
Speaker 2: so how am I getting out of here?
Speaker 3: I was like, cause she's definitely armed.
Speaker 2: And so through the course of this date, we're kind
Speaker 2: of very subversive and during the speaking to each other,
Speaker 2: just texting. Meanwhile, I don't know that later on I
Speaker 2: find out behind the scenes, like an entire dossier is
Speaker 2: getting made about me.
Speaker 3: She's like open sourcing me. She's looking up all this stuff.
Speaker 2: She's found a video that was in that I'd made
Speaker 2: an AMU like years before, about like teaching. And so
Speaker 2: we start going through the song and dance, and there's
Speaker 2: a point where at the end of it, I was
Speaker 2: just like, yeah, I was like, I think you're something else,
Speaker 2: and she was just like, I think you're something else.
Speaker 3: I was just like, I was like, I am in
Speaker 3: the Army.
Speaker 2: I was like, I work in tell stuff, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm a I'm a ranger. I was like,
Speaker 2: I was a ranger, and she goes and she just
Speaker 2: comes out with it. She's like, oh, yeah, I'm federal
Speaker 2: law enforcement. So then that starts the whole thing where
Speaker 2: we've we kind of have grown in that where I
Speaker 2: did all that. I made a mistake one time where
Speaker 2: we were we were talking and I hadn't sent her this,
Speaker 2: but this picture showed up late. It was at Halloween,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, I'm a Navy seal. And
Speaker 2: apparently so many Navy seals have said that their Navy
Speaker 2: seals here that and as far as dating is concerned that,
Speaker 2: she was just like, oh, yeah, she.
Speaker 3: Another Navy seal.
Speaker 2: Go great, you know that joke that there's you know,
Speaker 2: a thousand Navy seals and I've all I've met all
Speaker 2: seven thousand of them.
Speaker 3: So she kind of went through that almost dropped me
Speaker 3: off the app.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of cool because I found somebody who
Speaker 2: understands the work, understands me.
Speaker 3: Uh, And then we actually started.
Speaker 2: She's a firearms instructor too, and so we actually trained together.
Speaker 2: She got me into the police Week thing where I
Speaker 2: went in and got to shoot with her in armor.
Speaker 3: We did some stuff and so I have this picture.
Speaker 2: It's pretty funny where we're sitting on a car, a
Speaker 2: shot up car, and it says I have the black
Speaker 2: box over our eyes and mindsets MRK. And her says then,
Speaker 2: so it's uh, but the stories too that I think
Speaker 2: we're hard on ourselves in our lives. As a ranger,
Speaker 2: you're you're always you're so hard. You know, you're so
Speaker 2: hard that you don't find the connections and you don't
Speaker 2: connect with somebody. And so I think as far as
Speaker 2: finding your tribe, finding your community, the other like important
Speaker 2: things is like find that person, like find that person
Speaker 2: for you, because we do. We do a lot of
Speaker 2: damage to ourselves in our relationships. In while we were
Speaker 2: in the regiment, we we put everything first, like you everything,
Speaker 2: nothing circumvented the mission, nothing certain.
Speaker 3: You want to go on that next deployment, you wanted
Speaker 3: to do the.
Speaker 2: Next thing, and to survive all of that, you had
Speaker 2: to put your family on the back burner. So once
Speaker 2: guys get out, they still get in that mindset and
Speaker 2: it's like, hey, you don't have to ruin everything now
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 3: You can go be happy.
Speaker 2: So I really think out of all the friends that
Speaker 2: I've seen, the Rangers, they've taken their lives, those are
Speaker 2: the two key components that I think they need to
Speaker 2: realize and reach out and actually say, hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: give life to try and help it.
Speaker 1: That happened that that's like such a like when we
Speaker 1: say it out loud, it's such an odd thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it's it's totally true that, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to give your yourself permission to enjoy life and to
Speaker 1: find something that you like. You know, it's beyond you know,
Speaker 1: that sense of duty, but something for yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's and I think it's just hard for us.
Speaker 2: It's because you don't you don't do all of that
Speaker 2: without coming out of it, without some kind of identity
Speaker 2: crisis that can take it away from you. It's just
Speaker 2: a it's so ingrained in us. Everything, Like if you
Speaker 2: think back to like anything we did in the regiment.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I laugh about the like it's so
Speaker 2: indoctrinating in us in anything. In the regiment, we sing
Speaker 2: songs about us like well like, and not only do
Speaker 2: we sing songs about us, army sing songs about us.
Speaker 2: So we're this big giant thing and we don't stop
Speaker 2: to realize that we're also human in that. Like there's
Speaker 2: a point where we have to say, hey, like, I
Speaker 2: was that for that reason for that time, and now
Speaker 2: it's time to be something else. It's time Tom, and
Speaker 2: I'll admit I'm It's not time to lose the ranger
Speaker 2: in you. It's not time to lose that identity, but
Speaker 2: it's time to take on another mission. I'm a ranger
Speaker 2: and I can be used at anything, and that's I
Speaker 2: think our biggest strength. I can literally do anything. I
Speaker 2: can do anything that anybody wants me to do. And
Speaker 2: I've suffered so much that I can suffer through a
Speaker 2: whole lot more. But that gives us a unique skill
Speaker 2: set in this world now where now you can you
Speaker 2: you were probably more driven than ninety nine nine percent of.
Speaker 3: Society, absolutely, and then all you have to do is
Speaker 3: go out and find that thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Louis, tell us where people can go to find
Speaker 1: uh what is it? Alliance and three Ranger So.
Speaker 2: Three Rangers Foundation is uh the one you can go
Speaker 2: to three Rangers uh foundation dot.
Speaker 3: Org dot org? Yeah, yes, dot org.
Speaker 2: And then i'd ask I had to ask my better
Speaker 2: alp uh and then uh, the Allegiance Project uh foundation
Speaker 2: is is a dot org and then there's Allegiance Project
Speaker 2: Security dot com. The security side is actually a security company.
Speaker 2: So guys need any help with like getting into the
Speaker 2: security industry, Man, I got it in spades.
Speaker 3: You guys come to me, and.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a way we can leave my email up,
Speaker 2: email me, talk to me. I'll get you to know how.
Speaker 2: I'll even help get you your level three Level four
Speaker 2: in Texas if you need it.
Speaker 3: We have guys for that.
Speaker 1: We'll put some links down the description. But if you
Speaker 1: want to give out your email, I mean feel free. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So my.
Speaker 2: Work email is Luis l u I s at Allegiance
Speaker 2: Project dot org all on word and just like I said,
Speaker 2: email me there for any guys that want it, and
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 3: We're very connected.
Speaker 2: The other thing we're doing if anybody is in Texas
Speaker 2: during October third.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows what October third is.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming it's Thethics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Gothic Serpent.
Speaker 2: So we're actually putting on three Rangers and Allegious Project
Speaker 2: Foundation is actually putting on the first movie Diishan Mile
Speaker 2: in Dallas.
Speaker 3: So we're going to be in current Texas. We got
Speaker 3: a great place.
Speaker 2: We're trying to get as many rangers out and again
Speaker 2: that's that community thing, finding your tribe. We're inviting seals.
Speaker 2: I'm going to make fun of some seals. You know,
Speaker 2: I'll be like, hey, do you need me to carry
Speaker 2: you out of here? Like do we get to the
Speaker 2: halfway point and you want me to carry you back?
Speaker 3: Like how are we doing that?
Speaker 2: Don't get on a ridge or anything. But the it's
Speaker 2: finding that it is being able to kind of chat
Speaker 2: it up and find this. But we're putting on that
Speaker 2: run for the guys that aren't at Benning that think
Speaker 2: that can make it here, so that we can we
Speaker 2: can get communities going everywhere. The goal is that one day,
Speaker 2: like on October third, we're celebrating all of that, Like
Speaker 2: all of us are celebrating.
Speaker 3: Gothic Serpent.
Speaker 2: We're celebrating that that portion of our history and actually
Speaker 2: just making it almost like a big reunion that we
Speaker 2: don't have to get together to funerals.
Speaker 3: We can get together.
Speaker 1: Tell you, are you also on social media at all?
Speaker 1: Any anywhere else people can go to find you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I G H from the later days is
Speaker 2: uh Diego dela Vega, So I'm a I'm a reader
Speaker 2: and aspiring writer too. So Diego del Vega was a
Speaker 2: was the real name of Zoro, but that's my name
Speaker 2: on Instagram and Facebook, so anybody can go on and
Speaker 2: find me there. Also, Uh, we run a company, a
Speaker 2: training company's Stand Strategic and that's on I G two
Speaker 2: and you guys, I can answer there too. And anybody's
Speaker 2: in Texas and just wants to come out and shoot,
Speaker 2: that'd be awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, Louis, thank you so much for this interview and
Speaker 1: telling your story. It's been great. H Is there anything
Speaker 1: else that you'd like to bring up, anything that I
Speaker 1: didn't ask during this interview that you'd like to talk about.
Speaker 2: Man, there's some like again, you go through that and
Speaker 2: I'm sure you run into this. It's like you remember things.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, remember that story and remember that story.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'll be sitting around one day and I'll
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I could have I could have I
Speaker 2: just said this is this you know X, Y and Z.
Speaker 3: Or I could have gone through.
Speaker 1: Say it's okay, you come here to this studio if
Speaker 1: you're ever coming through New York City, and we'll smoke
Speaker 1: some cigars and we'll tell the other stories.
Speaker 2: You know, I saw you you were smoking citars. I'm
Speaker 2: a big fan of stars too. I smoke a lot
Speaker 2: of them. I smoke them out back because my wife
Speaker 2: hates the smell. I have to come in and shower
Speaker 2: if I do do it, which was great because when
Speaker 2: we were dating, she takes me. When we sell two
Speaker 2: months into dating, my now wife says, hey, you want
Speaker 2: to go to Vegas. I was like, yeah, look for
Speaker 2: I've never been to Vegas, but sure, and she goes, oh,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go to a shot show. It was like,
Speaker 2: this is like two months into dating, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna marry you, so I The cursory thing is
Speaker 2: two months into dating, you don't know a lot about
Speaker 2: each other other than you like each other. So I
Speaker 2: don't know some things and I was just like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I really want to go to a cigar bar in Vegas,
Speaker 2: and so she's like, yeah, let's go.
Speaker 3: Little did I know that she was in.
Speaker 2: The bathroom like snorting a Zertec because she's extremely allergic
Speaker 2: to cigars, and then lets me we go into the
Speaker 2: cigar bar and like she's she's a champ about it.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't realize it until like a year later
Speaker 2: when she told me. She's like, yeah, I'm super allergic
Speaker 2: to cigars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like thirty people in there, puff and a
Speaker 1: why oh yeah.
Speaker 3: She And she was a champ too when I was deployed.
Speaker 2: She goes to every every few like every month, she
Speaker 2: would go over to this place with a cigar Internationals
Speaker 2: and she would get the cigars I like, and she'd
Speaker 2: buy them in boxes and then ship them over to Iraq.
Speaker 1: And so do what bless her soul?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, she was fantastic. I realized I was
Speaker 2: getting married real quick. But it was funny because she
Speaker 2: ended up winning a drew Estate Humidor and she doesn't
Speaker 2: smoke cigars at all, and so she had got she
Speaker 2: had entered this Uh, they'd given her a couple of
Speaker 2: tickets because she buys cigars there and they call her
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, you won this, and she said
Speaker 2: she she was walking out of there. She was like
Speaker 2: almost got jumped. Everybody wanted this thing. It's really cool.
Speaker 2: It's it's if you do any of the drew Estates stuff.
Speaker 2: They got the Deadwood series and it's all the like
Speaker 2: the old Deadwood Hookers basically, and but the the humid
Speaker 2: door that she got holds I think it holds like
Speaker 2: two hundred and forty cigars, but it's Spanish wood and
Speaker 2: it's in the shape.
Speaker 3: Of a coffin.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, So she won that and like she
Speaker 2: doesn't smoke. She they were just like, oh, do you
Speaker 2: smoke cigars. She's like, no, it's my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, so super cool. But yes, well I'm going
Speaker 1: to go and check out Drewid State Human Doors. Louis,
Speaker 1: thanks again, man, really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate, really appreciate the time guys to be
Speaker 2: able to tell my story and really to get them
Speaker 2: kind of the reliving in the mission of a Rangers
Speaker 2: and helping out my tribe because I owe everything to
Speaker 2: the Ranger Regiment. And then the other thing is is
Speaker 2: like being able to get that message out of helping
Speaker 2: the guys. At the end of it, like we should
Speaker 2: all be able to tell our stories, tell how we
Speaker 2: got there, the times we got to look at things,
Speaker 2: the hurts, the pains, whatever it is, and then at
Speaker 2: the end of it say because of that, I'm this
Speaker 2: and I hope that everybody like you. You're like spent
Speaker 2: like a writer, which amazing, Like I want to do writing.
Speaker 2: I'm just I don't think I'm as articulate as.
Speaker 3: I could be.
Speaker 1: It's a skill, It's a learnable skill like anything else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, promise, But.
Speaker 2: I think being able to say get the message out
Speaker 2: there that we we are rangers, but that means that
Speaker 2: we can do anything we were given the we were picked,
Speaker 2: we were specially selected to do that job. But specially
Speaker 2: selected means we can almost do anything we want. That
Speaker 2: wasn't just for the Ranger regiment. It was a specially
Speaker 2: selected person, a type of person who who would have
Speaker 2: succeeded at anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to not pigeonhole yourself that if you want to
Speaker 1: go and get MBA or you want to become an astrophysicist,
Speaker 1: like you can do those things. Uh, yeah, don't don't
Speaker 1: get down. You know some of the guys I find
Speaker 1: get down on themselves and think I'm just a dumb ranger.
Speaker 1: I can't do anything else. It's like, no, that's that's bullshit.
Speaker 3: No, just you're a ranger. You can do everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like are we have innate abilities that were that
Speaker 2: were given to us a by the generations before A
Speaker 2: lot of the rangers that we learned from and then
Speaker 2: we passed down to other rangers that learned from us
Speaker 2: that we would We are the type of people, and
Speaker 2: I think this is true of most special operations. We're
Speaker 2: the type of people that would have been successful almost
Speaker 2: at anything you could have put us anywhere. You always
Speaker 2: look at these other rangers that are or other special operations,
Speaker 2: guys that are doing businesses doing this is and that
Speaker 2: you're literally taking somebody who would have been He would
Speaker 2: have been a professional athlete if it wasn't for the war,
Speaker 2: he would have been a like if he had gotten
Speaker 2: the college education that he can still go and get,
Speaker 2: you would have been a fortune five hundred.
Speaker 3: You would have been leading leading titans of industry. We
Speaker 3: can do anything.
Speaker 2: I think it's just we pigeonhole ourselves into what we
Speaker 2: were and being that warrior the fighter the soldier, and
Speaker 2: we say that's the only thing I could have done.
Speaker 3: It's like no, it means a lot more so.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I appreciate being able to get that message out anytime.
Speaker 3: I can remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hell yeah, yeah absolutely man, And thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone who joined us tonight. Appreciate you coming by and
Speaker 1: checking out the Teamhouse again. And we will see you
Speaker 1: guys next week. So thank you, Louie. Hope you have
Speaker 1: a good time. He hit us up if you're ever
Speaker 1: coming through the city, Yes, fair, I will. Hey, guys,
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