Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy
Speaker 1: here today with our guest Dave Harris. Dave had a
Speaker 1: nice long army career here. He served in the eighty
Speaker 1: second Airborne before transitioning over to third Special Forces Group,
Speaker 1: where he spent seventeen years lots of Afghan deployments in
Speaker 1: different contexts, and then he was part of the Crisis
Speaker 1: Response Force when it kind of took over responsibility for
Speaker 1: the African continent, and then finished out his career as
Speaker 1: a sophalic instructor and today works with a training company,
Speaker 1: you know, through Vortec's Optics. So, Dave, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us on the show today.
Speaker 2: No, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be
Speaker 2: here man.
Speaker 1: So Dave, the first question I always ask folks is
Speaker 1: if you tell us a little bit about kind of
Speaker 1: like your upbringing and sort of like how that took
Speaker 1: you towards military service, Like what was it like for
Speaker 1: you growing up?
Speaker 3: So I grew up in the Bay Area, Richmond, calif
Speaker 3: To be exact, I've always had a affiliation with guns,
Speaker 3: loved them to death my whole life, so much so
Speaker 3: that my family wouldn't let me play with them, so
Speaker 3: like I loved guns my whole life. I always wanted
Speaker 3: to be like military, I mean more like law enforcement.
Speaker 2: When I was growing up, my mom was a single
Speaker 2: mom had me when she was eighteen.
Speaker 3: I will say my dad went to prison and was away,
Speaker 3: so he was gone.
Speaker 2: I don't really know him, didn't have much contact.
Speaker 3: So when people say like a village, like my mom
Speaker 3: had me at eighteen, I was the first grand baby,
Speaker 3: so like my uncles and my aunties and my grandparents.
Speaker 2: Like, everyone raised me like I was the only one.
Speaker 3: For like seven years, so everyone chipped in and raised
Speaker 3: me so like we lived with my grandparents, so they
Speaker 3: had the most influenced by my uncle Donald, my mom
Speaker 3: from Grandpa Be. Everyone just chipped in and raised me up.
Speaker 3: And then I was in. I went to college playing basketball.
Speaker 3: Somewhere I got off the gun thing and I went
Speaker 3: to college playing basketball. And so I was playing basketball
Speaker 3: in college at Western New Mexico University, and I realized
Speaker 3: that it was levels to this basketball thing and I
Speaker 3: wasn't gonna go pro. So I was like, man, what
Speaker 3: am I gonna do? So I decided I was sitting
Speaker 3: there and I'm not gonna lie to you'all. Was sitting
Speaker 3: in my dorm room and I was watching up black
Speaker 3: Hawk Down and I'm so simple minded. I walked him
Speaker 3: black Hawk Down and I was like, I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: do that. And the next day I walked down in
Speaker 3: the recruiter and I was like, hey, man, I want
Speaker 3: to go do that and he was like, okay, you
Speaker 3: want to be infantry. And then I went to MEPs
Speaker 3: in New Mexico, got into New Mexico, went to maps,
Speaker 3: and this is what I mean by simple minded. They
Speaker 3: were like, hey, how long do you want to do
Speaker 3: and I was like, just sign me up for twenty
Speaker 3: let's go. She was like about three. I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, three it is. And so she said, oh,
Speaker 3: what do you want to do? And I told her, look,
Speaker 3: I want to put on a ruck and I want
Speaker 3: to run. She was like, you want to rock and run.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, job, you got this, gonna let
Speaker 3: me do those two things and she was like okay.
Speaker 3: And they didn't put me infantry. They made me a
Speaker 3: fourteen Sierra Stinger missileman. So I got to that. And
Speaker 3: then you want me to keep going about the army piece?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Sure, I mean I think you know it's it's yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely go ahead.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So when they put me as a fourteenth Sierra, I
Speaker 3: went to Korea for my first duty station. When you're
Speaker 3: in Korea, and I was sitting in Korea and I
Speaker 3: was like, this is nothing like black Hawk down, so.
Speaker 2: I'm getting out right. So I was like, I'm getting out.
Speaker 2: So I went.
Speaker 3: My first artan was like, hey, you're going airborne. You
Speaker 3: were high speed private. I want to put you in
Speaker 3: airborne school.
Speaker 2: Get you in.
Speaker 3: So a month in the Korea, I knew I was
Speaker 3: going to the Airborne school, going to that eighty second.
Speaker 3: My first sarten had called and that's before I knew
Speaker 3: about calling DA and talking to.
Speaker 2: Your branch manager. And I didn't know any of that.
Speaker 2: First art took care of at all, just because I
Speaker 2: sang Cadence on some runs like oh you're good. I
Speaker 2: like you.
Speaker 3: So he pulled some strings and got me there. I
Speaker 3: did a year in Korea, went to the eighties. I
Speaker 3: went to Airborne school en route, married my wife while
Speaker 3: I was a walk en route to airborne school. Hit
Speaker 3: Airborne school, and then went straight to the eighty second
Speaker 3: and I never left Fort Bragg after that.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, you were flying. I mean, you were
Speaker 1: a recruiters dream too, to like walk through the door
Speaker 1: and be like, yeah, man, I just want to carry
Speaker 1: a rucksack, Like what can we do here? They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got something for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like my recruiter would leave me in the recruiting.
Speaker 3: Station by myself because he knew I was the type
Speaker 3: of kid like cause he was like, dude, I don't
Speaker 3: even have to sell you.
Speaker 2: You already a believer.
Speaker 3: I was like, look, man, I'm like, if I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do it, let's just do it.
Speaker 1: So what year did you arrive? In the eighty second?
Speaker 2: So I got to Fort Bragg in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, cool. So now the war is popping off
Speaker 1: and you're going to, you know, a rapidly deploying airborne unit.
Speaker 1: What was it like, Well, where did you touch down
Speaker 1: the eighty second?
Speaker 3: So I touched down in the eighty second I got there.
Speaker 3: I uh so, I touched down right on our dens.
Speaker 3: It was I want to say, five to five eighty
Speaker 3: eight second brigade at the time before they used to
Speaker 3: break everything to those BCTs, and uh so I got
Speaker 3: there and uh my unit had just got back from
Speaker 3: Iraq literally like two months before I showed up, So
Speaker 3: they had a year train up before we were going
Speaker 3: to go to the next trip. So uh, we had
Speaker 3: a lot of combat experience uh through that. And that
Speaker 3: was during the time where people were making rank real fast.
Speaker 3: So I was in for maybe two years and I
Speaker 3: was in E five. Wow, right, So I was going
Speaker 3: to Iraq as an E five And then we took
Speaker 3: our unit to Iraq as an E five and then uh,
Speaker 3: they took half the half the guys they took and
Speaker 3: put in prison because it's no air defense mission in Iraq,
Speaker 3: So half the guys just got cut and they became
Speaker 3: prison guards. And I don't know how they determined who
Speaker 3: was going to be the PSD combook convoys and all
Speaker 3: that stuff, but I got put as convoy.
Speaker 2: Escorts and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3: So I just did that all the whole time, PSD
Speaker 3: missions and convoy escorts, and I was like and the
Speaker 3: whole time, and uh.
Speaker 2: We used to we used to. I had a SF
Speaker 2: major who used.
Speaker 3: To ride with us, and we used to bring him
Speaker 3: and he would do all these meetings and like the
Speaker 3: capitals and everywhere, and uh, we do that for a
Speaker 3: while and me and him would be because he would
Speaker 3: plug into our comms right in the car, like he
Speaker 3: would have his own Peal Tours plug in, so we
Speaker 3: couldn't talk shit about him or nothing because he was
Speaker 3: plugged into the net right he plug in, and we
Speaker 3: would be because you could talk internally, and you could
Speaker 3: talk internally, and we're talking internally, and I'm just like, look, man.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to talk bad about it, but I
Speaker 3: was like, I was like, I can do more than
Speaker 3: this for my country.
Speaker 2: I was like, I get it.
Speaker 3: I don't understand because I'm a five but I've been
Speaker 3: in the army two years. I don't understand by taking
Speaker 3: him to meet to provincial governor, the implications of that
Speaker 3: meeting and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't understand that.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, I'm just a taxi driver, bro, I
Speaker 3: can do more than this. And that's so he was like, well,
Speaker 3: if you feel you could do more than this, you
Speaker 3: should go ahead and try out for SF and blah
Speaker 3: blah blah and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So we were.
Speaker 3: Doing missions and I bump into fifth Group Crift guys
Speaker 3: in Iraq and me and him are talking and I'm
Speaker 3: like hey man, what do you do? And he's saying,
Speaker 3: I do SF and I'm like, I don't really know
Speaker 3: what that is. By this point, black Hawk Down is
Speaker 3: not even on my head no more. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 3: I'm getting out right. So I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: know what that is, blah blah blah. But by the
Speaker 3: end of IRAQ, right because the bonuses were real good,
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I want to I want to
Speaker 3: re enlist, and I want to go cascout. But my
Speaker 3: intentions was when I get back to the States, I'm
Speaker 3: going to SF Like I already knew I was going
Speaker 3: to do this selection and if it wouldn't have worked out,
Speaker 3: they would have screwed me, right, Because he was like, well,
Speaker 3: just take the bonus because if you if you reclass,
Speaker 3: you're going to owe that new MOS sometime, right. So
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: So he was like, just stay your old MOS, get
Speaker 3: your reenlistment bonus, and go sl and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, that sounds like a plan.
Speaker 2: So I reenlisted and if I went and got selected,
Speaker 2: I'd have hated life as an air defense guy still.
Speaker 1: So you went to SFAs and like four five.
Speaker 3: As soon as we got back from that trip. So
Speaker 3: I got there in two niney and three six oh six.
Speaker 1: Okay, And so did it sounds like maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of time to like prepare for SFAs
Speaker 1: before you went.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: So I we were doing missions in Iraq, but when
Speaker 3: we were like go on a convoy, we take them
Speaker 3: to like major places, like we go to the embassy
Speaker 3: or we go to a major compound so they can
Speaker 3: meet this governor. Well, they had gems and everything, so
Speaker 3: I would do I would do like work out there,
Speaker 3: lift and stuff, and then when we come back, I
Speaker 3: would just be like, okay me and I actually had
Speaker 3: a captain, well lieutenant at the time who was training
Speaker 3: up to He was like our XO and we would
Speaker 3: put on our rucksack and just walk around camp.
Speaker 2: I think it victory at the time, yep. So I
Speaker 2: was just like, all right, let's do that.
Speaker 3: And then my opportunite starting at the time was really
Speaker 3: a good guy and he could and it's eighty second,
Speaker 3: so he could run like crazy, so he would just
Speaker 3: like an eighty second that's all you do. So so
Speaker 3: I would he would make us run all the time
Speaker 3: because he didn't believe in like not doing PT test
Speaker 3: because we were deployed, so we were doing every six
Speaker 3: months we were doing a PT test or something, so
Speaker 3: like we were still working out, but I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do this, so I would like get up,
Speaker 3: do our mission, go lift weights, come back from that,
Speaker 3: and then I would do my cardio at night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of had to when it was like
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten degrees during the day.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh definitely.
Speaker 1: So how did how did SFA when you got there?
Speaker 2: So we got back from our deployment.
Speaker 3: I put in my packet the like during leave and
Speaker 3: I literally we came off of leave and I already
Speaker 3: had my selection date and my opportunity s are And
Speaker 3: I remember him being like, when you were going to
Speaker 3: tell me that you were going to selection next week?
Speaker 3: And I was like, I'm telling you now, I'm leaving
Speaker 3: next week right for selection. So I went to selection
Speaker 3: and uh, I always tell people it was it was doable.
Speaker 3: I'm not something special, Like I don't believe like I'm
Speaker 3: super special. I believe like God just gave me one
Speaker 3: thing is like I'm going to work hard, right, I
Speaker 3: just want to keep going. So it's just like, yo, dude,
Speaker 3: as long as you don't quit, you may not make
Speaker 3: the times, but don't quit. You don't know who times are,
Speaker 3: so just keep going. So that was my mentality, just
Speaker 3: like don't quit, don't quit. So I just was like,
Speaker 3: all right, here we go, and I was like, I
Speaker 3: just don't want to be I don't want to be last.
Speaker 3: I don't know what is good. And then I had
Speaker 3: this thing, I don't know fear because you know, in selection,
Speaker 3: you know what everyone you They don't let you know
Speaker 3: what everyone units are, but you find out, yeah, they're
Speaker 3: from Ranger bat and they're from this and they're from that, right,
Speaker 3: So on all the rucks, all I would do is
Speaker 3: like run and I look at a guy, I be like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna catch him, and then I'd run and catch him.
Speaker 3: And I remember to this day, anytime someone caught me,
Speaker 3: I would look and I'd be like, oh shit, he's
Speaker 3: a Ranger back guy.
Speaker 2: I must mean, like all of them are right behind me.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna run like whatever I'm doing, just stay running.
Speaker 1: I mean I went to selection from Ranger Battalion and
Speaker 1: like even I remember thinking, you know they have you
Speaker 1: fill out that form, like, you know, asking you what
Speaker 1: do you bring to Special Forces? What skills do you have?
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. There were guys there who grew up
Speaker 1: speaking Russian in the house, had all these like advanced
Speaker 1: skills in language and cultural know how, And I'm like, uh,
Speaker 1: I was a ranger. I know how to shoot guns,
Speaker 1: and as I felt like an adequate you know, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I really stack up. But then
Speaker 1: when I went back to the barracks and listen to
Speaker 1: the guy's talk and some of them wrote like I
Speaker 1: can carry heavy things. I was like, well maybe I'll
Speaker 1: be okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they make you do those questionnaires and stuff.
Speaker 2: You just like, I don't even know what you want me, Like,
Speaker 2: what do you want from me? Bro yep.
Speaker 1: Well, my my favorite was an old school SF guy
Speaker 1: told me the story on the psych exam. One of
Speaker 1: the questions was do you prefer it when people speak frankly?
Speaker 1: And the guy went up to the proctor of the
Speaker 1: exam and said, who's.
Speaker 2: Frank that's a good one.
Speaker 1: You may have failed the exam at that point. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: Well that so the only thing that happened to me
Speaker 3: at selection that was iffy at all was a my
Speaker 3: psychic vow. They pulled me aside because on my psychic
Speaker 3: vow I said, I get angry with my wife and
Speaker 3: they said, well, do you ever hit her? And I
Speaker 3: said no, and she was like, They were like, well,
Speaker 3: what do you mean you get so angry cause she's
Speaker 3: the only person that I have to actually listen to it, Like,
Speaker 3: I can't get away, he's.
Speaker 2: Yelling at me. I can't be like this conversation's over
Speaker 2: or walk off or it could just be done.
Speaker 3: Jesus gonna follow me from room to the room and
Speaker 3: keep this conversation going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. The psychological exam was kind of messed up
Speaker 1: in the sense that there were questions on there like
Speaker 1: it's written for civilians, but now you have all these
Speaker 1: combat veterans coming through taking the test, and there are
Speaker 1: questions on there like I know who is trying to
Speaker 1: kill me? Now, as a civilian, if you answer yes,
Speaker 1: you sound like a lunatic, and maybe you are. But
Speaker 1: if you're a veteran and you just came out of
Speaker 1: a war zone, yeah, I know who's trying to kill me.
Speaker 1: It's al Qaeda, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, I agree. I agree the guy with the gun.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, probably, yeah, it's not it's not a hypothetical.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not schizophrenic, like people really are out
Speaker 1: to get you.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you get through SFAs and what mos do
Speaker 1: you get in line? Which do you got?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: So I get through UH, I get through uh SFAs
Speaker 3: and I'm sitting there and there asking me about all
Speaker 3: these different moss and he's like starting to talk to
Speaker 3: me and he gets to like Delta, and I've never confused, like,
Speaker 3: I'm not that dude. I was like, look, man, stop,
Speaker 3: how about you just put Bravo on that paper in Spanish.
Speaker 3: We'll call it good on all the stuff you're talking.
Speaker 3: Just put Bravo in Spanish.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Afterwards, in the medical book, I probably couldn't read stop right,
Speaker 3: So he puts uh. He's like, okay, Bravo Spanish. So
Speaker 3: I get eighteen Bravo. But I get Indonesian. Okay, So
Speaker 3: I get eighteen Bravo on Indonesian and then UH.
Speaker 2: So I knew I didn't want to go to UH.
Speaker 3: I'm not nothing against first group, but I had been
Speaker 3: at BRAGG my whole time, and my daughter was born
Speaker 3: with sebral pozli.
Speaker 2: So she had already had all the medical attention.
Speaker 3: We had already been to doctors at Duke and she's
Speaker 3: seeing physical therapists and all this stuff. So I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to open. I can't do that, right,
Speaker 3: So I wasn't gonna do that. So I'm going through
Speaker 3: the Q course and I'm talking to my cadre every
Speaker 3: and I passed. I didn't fell any phases. I go
Speaker 3: through everything. Only issue I had was swimming. Hah, that's true.
Speaker 3: It's a stereotype because it might be true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you guys, you have barbecues instead of pool parties.
Speaker 1: Start it starts young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was my only issue I had.
Speaker 3: But of course I passed all the phases and uh,
Speaker 3: every phase, I would come back to Cadre like I
Speaker 3: can't like go to first group. I just can't go
Speaker 3: to Okinawa. My daughter has this, and he was like,
Speaker 3: not a problem. So I was the I got done with.
Speaker 3: I passed it all and then they put me if
Speaker 3: only Indonesia and.
Speaker 1: Speaker in third group, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: And then they switched me over to Darry and respect
Speaker 3: the language to learn that.
Speaker 1: So you are a Indo speaking eighteen Bravo in third group. Yea,
Speaker 1: and what what team? What was your first team? And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean you told me earlier you went out the
Speaker 1: first trip was a J set.
Speaker 3: Yes, So I went to three two three one, a
Speaker 3: mobility team, Charlie Company's second battalion.
Speaker 2: I went to three two three one. I got on
Speaker 2: that team.
Speaker 3: They were a mobility team at the time, and we
Speaker 3: were they were half the half of the teams were
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan and this team was back. So I went
Speaker 3: to that team that was back, and then instead of
Speaker 3: going to join the rest of the battalion in Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: they had J sets and we got hit with Pakistan.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we went to Pakistan.
Speaker 1: Uh, what was the mission in Pakistan? Were you guys training?
Speaker 1: I think it's the SSG. Is there SF guys, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's their Tier one element yeah or Tier whatever, Yes,
Speaker 3: their special operations. We were training them and they had
Speaker 3: It was weird because we didn't even get interpreters, so
Speaker 3: we were using their like basically their intel dudes were
Speaker 3: saying their intel dudes that were there taking the class,
Speaker 3: they were our interpreters to like get everything to go through.
Speaker 2: So that was it was. It was very interesting.
Speaker 3: Uh. Sign note on that is you know, you make
Speaker 3: your E and E plan if you need to get away, right.
Speaker 3: So we're sitting there and we make our plan, and
Speaker 3: the plan for our E and E is like, if
Speaker 3: something goes wrong, we're gonna E and E to Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: And our medic says, so we're gonna E and E
Speaker 2: to the war. We were like, yeah, we're running to
Speaker 2: nothing else.
Speaker 1: But I mean that's a technique. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we did our jaset to Pakistan. Uh. We
Speaker 2: were there for almost five months and uh, then we
Speaker 2: came back.
Speaker 1: How do you think the training program went? Do you
Speaker 1: think like we've seen some good positive results with the
Speaker 1: guys by the end of five months.
Speaker 3: Yes, and they were doing ops as well while we
Speaker 3: were training. They would go do ops so and then
Speaker 3: they would come back. So it was going well. I
Speaker 3: think it went real well. I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 3: I would say that that was the first time that
Speaker 3: I understood, like, you know.
Speaker 2: How everything's always being assessed.
Speaker 3: So I remember giving a class on small unit tactics
Speaker 3: and like everyone.
Speaker 2: On the team just standing there watching me.
Speaker 3: But there and I'm going through all the tactics and
Speaker 3: then and I finally look up at them and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: is something wrong, And they're like, no, keep going, And
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, they're they're watching to see what I'm
Speaker 3: putting out.
Speaker 2: They're like assessing my performance now because you're the new.
Speaker 1: Guy on the team. Yeah, any other interesting stories about Pakistan?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you get to go like some of
Speaker 1: the guys talking about patrolling around up in the mountains
Speaker 1: and stuff with those dudes.
Speaker 2: We didn't do.
Speaker 3: We didn't get to do any ops with them at all. Actually,
Speaker 3: when I was there, we didn't do anything other than
Speaker 3: train them and let them go and would come back
Speaker 3: and then we would debrief and then set up the
Speaker 3: next days like a week of training.
Speaker 2: Then they would go on to ops.
Speaker 3: Cool cool Other than the only cool, nothing really cool
Speaker 3: happened other than going through a checkpoint and getting getting
Speaker 3: hit in the paper because they caught us with a
Speaker 3: gun in our vehicles and they hit us in the paper.
Speaker 3: Apparently we were there to assassinate the president. That was
Speaker 3: the only thing we were happening to us. I remember
Speaker 3: looking at Bobby looking getting out the car, and he just.
Speaker 2: Looks back at my vehicle on his face. I was like,
Speaker 2: what happened? I have my pistol on my lap and
Speaker 2: I grab it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, are we about to get in a shootout
Speaker 3: at like in the in Islamabad, like in the capitol
Speaker 3: with the patrol because I'm like, what's going on here?
Speaker 3: And then finally the guys that you call at the embassy,
Speaker 3: that's the l and O's, they came out and got
Speaker 3: everything settled. And then the next morning we saw that
Speaker 3: we were trying to sneak sneak Oozzi's in the assassin
Speaker 3: the president.
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Speaker 1: no exceptions. So you guys made the papers. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, diplomatic relations. I mean it's it's probably you know,
Speaker 1: probably maybe it's just salacious press, but it could also
Speaker 1: be the bad guys trying to you know, yeah, make
Speaker 1: the team look bad, make the Americans look bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I and this team. I mean, it's interesting that from
Speaker 1: what you were telling me, it went through some transitions
Speaker 1: numerous times while you were there. What was sort of
Speaker 1: like the next thing that came for you and your ODA.
Speaker 3: So we got back from Pakistan, we were there for
Speaker 3: about six months and then uh we got tagged or
Speaker 3: we got a new team startant and he was huge
Speaker 3: in the ASO game, like the ASO thing, and somehow
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but our team got picked and
Speaker 3: we became that we were to go and become the
Speaker 3: ASO team. So so we became the ASO team, which
Speaker 3: meant everyone had to go to level two and level
Speaker 3: three and do all these different schools and.
Speaker 2: That was cool.
Speaker 3: I tried to quit because I knew I didn't want
Speaker 3: to do that, so I tried to do it the
Speaker 3: right way, which backfired. I went to my team start
Speaker 3: and his name was Chuck, and I was like, hey, Chuck,
Speaker 3: we're about to beat this ASO team, and I don't
Speaker 3: want to do it, so I would like to leave
Speaker 3: the team. And Chuck looked at me and he was like, no,
Speaker 3: I stayed on the team for two more years.
Speaker 1: Do you want to explain to folks what like ASO is?
Speaker 1: Some non SF dudes probably won't won't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just basically, uh, for the simplest way to
Speaker 3: put it is, you're writing reports and you're talking to people.
Speaker 3: You're basically working sources and dealing with like you're you're
Speaker 3: doing CIA stuff, but you're not CIA, and it's nowhere
Speaker 3: new as its high speed of CIA. Don't like, I'm
Speaker 3: not getting into that. You're just talking to people and writing.
Speaker 1: Reports and sending them up right, right, So that's all
Speaker 1: the like human intelligence side of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all those human intelligence. So we were gathering.
Speaker 1: And so you guys transition to the ASO team and
Speaker 1: you reluctantly go through the training that's required, yeah, to
Speaker 1: get qualified, and then they send you guys to Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: Yes, we go to Afghanistan as an ASO team, but
Speaker 3: we are Our story is we're just a regular ODA.
Speaker 2: So all we did was regular ODIA stuff. And then
Speaker 2: we had.
Speaker 3: Because some of us really didn't like doing the ASO
Speaker 3: mission obviously, right, so.
Speaker 2: They gave guys like, hey, Dave, you like to talk.
Speaker 2: He likes to talk. Nothing should come to this. You
Speaker 2: talk to him.
Speaker 3: So I just was like, all right, man, you're gonna
Speaker 3: come around here. Hey, every two weeks, we'll meet and
Speaker 3: you can tell me stuff. So that was mine and
Speaker 3: then we just did regular ODA missions for the whole time,
Speaker 3: and it was just going on patrols, three day patrols
Speaker 3: out come back, and then people would be writing reports
Speaker 3: and I'd be because we built the camp in gurr Gurry, Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: so I'll be basically I was base security doing all
Speaker 3: that stuff. So it really wasn't a lot of as
Speaker 3: SO I could do because I was doing.
Speaker 1: That this is during that time where they were putting
Speaker 1: smaller sfobs out there in the hinter lands of Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: Yes, so they were putting us out there. So with
Speaker 3: the Golden Hour, if everything went perfect, we were.
Speaker 2: At fifty nine minutes.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, Like so we were like, if everything goes
Speaker 3: perfect to get a guy out, we were at fifty
Speaker 3: nine minutes from the closest base you get, you to
Speaker 3: get medical aids?
Speaker 1: And what was that like? Kind of like standing up
Speaker 1: a camp from scratch.
Speaker 3: So I've done that twice. So from it's it's it's strange.
Speaker 2: Because when you get there, nothing's there.
Speaker 3: So everything is like old school, like just infantry tactics, like, hey,
Speaker 3: you build your perimeter, everyone's on security. Hey, you guys
Speaker 3: can sleep, you guys can stay awake. Hey when are
Speaker 3: these palettes coming? You gotta And I'll be honest, it
Speaker 3: teaches you a lot of the interkeys intricacies of sf
Speaker 3: as in how do you get funding, how do who
Speaker 3: needs to do paperwork?
Speaker 2: Contracting agents?
Speaker 3: What classes are needed for the contracting agents, and all
Speaker 3: those ins and outs that like a lot of guys
Speaker 3: don't never have to deal with. I had to learn
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff on the fly as a
Speaker 3: SF dude with a year in.
Speaker 1: The group and also in combat we should mention.
Speaker 3: So you're figuring out how to because most of that
Speaker 3: stuff they making you do all these classes and it's
Speaker 3: not it's power point online classes. So now you figure
Speaker 3: it like the echoes, makeshift and some internet because we
Speaker 3: don't have a camp, so sitting there trying to get
Speaker 3: this done because you need the money so we could
Speaker 3: get a building built so you can do this. So
Speaker 3: you're learning all that stuff.
Speaker 1: By the time you left, what did that camp look like?
Speaker 3: Uh? So when we started we uh so we did
Speaker 3: ten on and the first ten was uh, it was
Speaker 3: just we had. It was just the desert. So by
Speaker 3: the time we left, we had probably a two k
Speaker 3: for base, and to the north we had uh it
Speaker 3: was to the north of us we had like the
Speaker 3: junkyard and then if you went more east you had
Speaker 3: the village that was tow ourd the village, and then
Speaker 3: to the back we had the road, and then out
Speaker 3: to the other side it was just more desert. So
Speaker 3: it was just more desert and then we were and
Speaker 3: the camp was pretty big. We cut the camp in
Speaker 3: half so it was a two K base with about
Speaker 3: one k splinning in half.
Speaker 2: And that was the Afghan.
Speaker 3: Side, and then we had the American side and CEBs
Speaker 3: come out, the Seabs came out and they built us
Speaker 3: our makeshift huts so we could live in those, and
Speaker 3: we had those going around the perimeter of the American side,
Speaker 3: and then on the Afghan side we had a foreman
Speaker 3: and they built their own buildings with the concrete.
Speaker 1: If lots of filling sandbags, I'm guessing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hes yeah, yeah, a lot of hescoes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean some of those bases really looked like
Speaker 1: Vietnam aero fire bases.
Speaker 3: Oh it was, it was. And then we used to
Speaker 3: get it was this one day. I was impressed. Actually,
Speaker 3: I'm not even gonna lie I was impressed. We used
Speaker 3: to get attacked once a month by this dude shooting
Speaker 3: one o five rockets and he was shoot one oh five.
Speaker 3: He was shooting three. I don't know if he only
Speaker 3: could save money to buy three at a time. I
Speaker 3: don't know why it was always three, but.
Speaker 2: He only shot three rockets well, and he was shooting
Speaker 2: them off. He was using a car.
Speaker 3: Battery and rocks, but he was super accurate, so that
Speaker 3: was impressed me was I was like, Okay, he missed,
Speaker 3: but he stacked three rockets right here right, and he
Speaker 3: was bracking at us. So one month it hit off
Speaker 3: to the right, next mind it would hit off to
Speaker 3: the left right.
Speaker 2: Then the next month it just.
Speaker 3: Go right over the base, and I'm like, man, this dude,
Speaker 3: I'm impressed, Like this is he doing this with like
Speaker 3: rock just that and then we we answer with mortars eventually.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so that took care of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and in the meantime, you said you were going
Speaker 1: out and doing these patrols. What was it like sort
Speaker 1: of trying to balance the special forces, you know, by
Speaker 1: with and through working with the Endage, but also this
Speaker 1: sort of ASO mission that you guys have as well.
Speaker 3: It was I'll be honest, it was a I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna for me. It was not hard. And the reason
Speaker 3: why is because I didn't know nothing else. So you
Speaker 3: could say like, oh man, it was all this stuff,
Speaker 3: but I was like, that's what I walked into. It
Speaker 3: was like this was my first trip and we were
Speaker 3: doing this, so I don't know anything else. So it
Speaker 3: was like, hey, three days a week, we're going on patrols.
Speaker 3: You need to make your meetings happen on these days.
Speaker 3: Your meeting can happen on these days. A day after
Speaker 3: you meet this guy, you need to have your report
Speaker 3: written up. Go into the skiff, have your report written up,
Speaker 3: and then level three I'll look it over. So that
Speaker 3: was just normal life for me. I didn't know anything different.
Speaker 3: So like we would do our conops. We do our
Speaker 3: conops a week prior to get sent up, and our
Speaker 3: team start was actually like mentoring us.
Speaker 2: So each guy if he gave you, like, hey, this
Speaker 2: is where.
Speaker 3: We're going right to Conda, gotcha, yeah, yeah, and then
Speaker 3: he would look it over and send it up. So
Speaker 3: he was making us learn how to do all that
Speaker 3: stuff right, right, Like we learned how to do our
Speaker 3: own conops.
Speaker 2: We learned how to do all that stuff.
Speaker 3: And then I'll be honest, at first it would take
Speaker 3: like reports, everything took. If anybody's like any new job,
Speaker 3: you take six hours to get something done that might
Speaker 3: have should have took twenty minutes when you started, because
Speaker 3: you don't know what you don't know, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: it takes me almost a half a day to write
Speaker 3: one condop, right, and then by the time we were leaving,
Speaker 3: I could get a conop done in thirty minutes, but
Speaker 3: even I could have a report done in two hours.
Speaker 2: At first, it was like, Okay, this report's gonna.
Speaker 3: Take me all day to write because I don't know
Speaker 3: what you want to see. So at first it was
Speaker 3: hectic just because it took so much time to know
Speaker 3: what you're like trying to get out.
Speaker 2: But by the time you get done, it was it
Speaker 2: was easy.
Speaker 3: And then by the time we left and came back
Speaker 3: the second time, because we came back to the same
Speaker 3: base as an ASO team, the camp was really built
Speaker 3: up by the end because by that point you got
Speaker 3: so many millions of dollars and put into.
Speaker 2: That camp, and then we left and we decided to
Speaker 2: tear it down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on was that on the third trip that you
Speaker 1: tore it down.
Speaker 3: So when I left the last time, we ripped out
Speaker 3: with a team from fifth group and they ripped down
Speaker 3: the base.
Speaker 2: Part.
Speaker 1: Do you think that you know, was the team able
Speaker 1: to like kind of provide some situational awareness for the
Speaker 1: si Josoda for whoever you were reporting to about what
Speaker 1: was going on in that AO.
Speaker 3: Yes, so from the age So okay, so funny story
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 2: Did you remember I told you they gave me the
Speaker 2: guy that.
Speaker 3: Wasn't supposed to nothing was supposed to come of it.
Speaker 3: I said, they gave me the guy because.
Speaker 1: They knew I didn't like, Oh right, right, right, he's.
Speaker 2: Gonna come with this.
Speaker 3: Well, fast forward eight months and guess who was the
Speaker 3: only guy still having meetings eight months later, I'm still
Speaker 3: the only guy having meetings with my dude. And we
Speaker 3: actually were able to accomplish what they put us there
Speaker 3: to accomplish.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was like, okay, but it was cool.
Speaker 3: But then once we accomplished it and we were like, hey,
Speaker 3: we got this guy, that's when colonels and people with
Speaker 3: bags of money flew in and I was like, I don't, Dave,
Speaker 3: You're not needed at this meeting.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's always the complaint about,
Speaker 1: you know, the complaint within SF. I think, like you said,
Speaker 1: CIA is doing this like strategic level stuff, and you're
Speaker 1: doing like tactical level stuff. And if you get to
Speaker 1: a point where you're building a strategic source, the eye
Speaker 1: in the sky comes in and takes it away from you.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know exactly what I'm saying like it
Speaker 2: was like, hey, can you do this? I'm like, and
Speaker 2: they gave me us a mission.
Speaker 3: They probably they were like, you're not gonna be able
Speaker 3: to get it done. And then when we were like,
Speaker 3: oh ship someone someone can do it, it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: you don't need to be doing.
Speaker 2: That no more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you for your service.
Speaker 2: Yep. That was the end of that.
Speaker 1: Uh and then what was the third trip to Afghanistan
Speaker 1: with that team.
Speaker 3: So we switched back to being a mobility team. So
Speaker 3: when we got back, we did ten on ten off.
Speaker 3: Ten on came and we got back. They were like
Speaker 3: our colonel, which he was. It sucked, but he was
Speaker 3: the like I respected him more than any any like
Speaker 3: any commander I had. And the reason why is because
Speaker 3: we only got five months home right on this one.
Speaker 2: But he came in our team room, he took the time.
Speaker 3: Him and the start major walked in and was like, hey,
Speaker 3: do y'all feel I'm fucking you got.
Speaker 2: Excuse my language, Do.
Speaker 3: Y'all feel I'm fucking y'all over? And you know, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel that.
Speaker 1: Way, so go honest feedback.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but guess what, he took the time out of
Speaker 3: his day to come in and just be like and
Speaker 3: he said straight out of his mouth, I'm taking every
Speaker 3: team in Afghanistan. I didn't like it, but I respected
Speaker 3: it as a leader, like you came down here and
Speaker 3: told me like a man to my face.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I respect that. I can get down with that.
Speaker 3: I don't like it, but I'll execute. So after he
Speaker 3: did that, we went and I remember going in and
Speaker 3: they were giving us our papers to sign that you
Speaker 3: don't care about your dwell time, like I'll sign off
Speaker 3: my glove time. So I'm there and I'm like, so
Speaker 3: if I don't sign this, I don't have to go.
Speaker 2: And everyone starts laughing. It's like David, you're going.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I know, So, I just don't
Speaker 3: know why they even bringing this paper up.
Speaker 1: It's h mandatory, mandatory but not Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you signed his paper so that way, if
Speaker 3: something happens, he didn't want.
Speaker 2: His dwell time anyway, that's all that is. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I signed the paper and then we go back to Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: and this time we went to uh Man. We went
Speaker 3: to a police base, but we had to build another camp.
Speaker 3: We went to a police academy, but we went to
Speaker 3: the top of the mountain and it was maybe an
Speaker 3: hour away from Bath and everything where we had to drive.
Speaker 3: So we were about a how we're there. We built
Speaker 3: the academy there, and then uh we built that academy
Speaker 3: up and we were just doing ops NonStop.
Speaker 1: Any particular like operations that kind of stand out in
Speaker 1: your mind where a little uh sketchy.
Speaker 3: Uh So, yeah, we had some. I'll be honest for
Speaker 3: the I will be honest with you. I hate it
Speaker 3: being in the vehicle. Yeah, some people liked being in
Speaker 3: the vehicles, I guess, and like, like looking, I just
Speaker 3: felt like every time we got a contacting a vehicle,
Speaker 3: I couldn't see anything through.
Speaker 2: The crow system right right.
Speaker 3: So so I would do my best to be like, hey, dude,
Speaker 3: I want to be out and like put me out.
Speaker 3: And I was a sniper qualified, I'd be like, I
Speaker 3: don't care, I'll go do Overwatch. Just give me another guy,
Speaker 3: We'll go do that. Give me the side by side,
Speaker 3: I'll ride that. The only op I will tell you
Speaker 3: that I ever got nervous about. Uh, it was it
Speaker 3: was before this trip. It was another trip where it
Speaker 3: was a time where the year that the highest green
Speaker 3: on blue was happening that year.
Speaker 1: So uh.
Speaker 3: I remember we were waiting on an air drop and
Speaker 3: I was on the side by side and it was
Speaker 3: Afghans were coming down the road on their trucks and
Speaker 3: I was on the.
Speaker 1: Side by side, side by side. It is like a
Speaker 1: it's like a gator.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's no, it's just the four wheeler.
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha, yeah quatch I'm sorry, not on.
Speaker 2: Side by side. I was on the four wheeler.
Speaker 3: I'm on the wheeler and I'm going and I'm driving,
Speaker 3: and uh, as I'm driving the four wheeler, I stopped
Speaker 3: the vehicle. I don't make I don't know what makes
Speaker 3: me think. Because I'm an American, I guess I got
Speaker 3: power to make them stop in a in a truck, right,
Speaker 3: So I stop them.
Speaker 2: They want to drive past. I'm like no. And then
Speaker 2: as I pull up on them, they had.
Speaker 3: Their dish on top and everything, and in my head
Speaker 3: I was like, oh shit, this could go real bad.
Speaker 3: I'm on a four wheeler with a rifle slung on
Speaker 3: my back.
Speaker 2: This could go bad. So and then other than that,
Speaker 2: I mean I've had uh.
Speaker 3: The only time I ever would say it was a
Speaker 3: real bad mission was up I was involved in one
Speaker 3: where uh where, I was not even there at the
Speaker 3: exact moment it happened. We were all all of us
Speaker 3: were in one location and a great on blue incident happened.
Speaker 1: Oh man, are you okay like talking about it?
Speaker 3: I wasn't so when we had like all of us
Speaker 3: were on one location, and I can't really speak on
Speaker 3: what exactly.
Speaker 2: Happened because as soon as they got in, we left
Speaker 2: the camp and that's when everything broke out.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So did you have to go back and
Speaker 1: like respond to all that.
Speaker 3: No, we were out doing our thing fighting outside at
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 1: W Yeah, Jesus, it's crazy that it's just one more
Speaker 1: hazard that you got to worry about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, and that was the only time I ever
Speaker 3: was like, oh man, that's everything else that has happened.
Speaker 3: They tell me I don't have any issues because I
Speaker 3: cope with it well, and I was like, ah, I
Speaker 3: just understood.
Speaker 2: It was war and that's that. It just is what
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's pretty common. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: at least soldiers understand that you show up on a
Speaker 1: battlefield and some soldiers are going to die, Like everyone
Speaker 1: kind of knows that. It's sort of the other things
Speaker 1: I think that you know, like when you see the
Speaker 1: collateral damage that really bothers people.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I would say that's the only thing
Speaker 3: I've ever been messed up with is like seeing kids. Yeah,
Speaker 3: kids got injured. I'd be like, damn, that's younger than
Speaker 3: my daughter. Are they the same age as my son?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And the abject poverty that they're living in is
Speaker 1: just yeah, it's it's pretty rough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So you come back from that, I mean you've
Speaker 1: definitely gotten your feet wet at this point as a
Speaker 1: as an eighteen Bravo on an A team, you come
Speaker 1: back home from that and what is sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know this thing the crisis response for us, Like
Speaker 1: how did that kind of come into your life? Where
Speaker 1: did you first hear about it?
Speaker 3: So when I was coming to SF, I like, remember
Speaker 3: I have the Fifth Group guy I met in Iraq
Speaker 3: was a Crift guy. Yeah, yeah, and he said go
Speaker 3: to fifth group, tip with the spear and go to
Speaker 3: the crypt.
Speaker 2: Don't don't know if it was true. Never been in
Speaker 2: fifth group.
Speaker 3: I'm an eighty second four five at the time, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: go to the fifth group, Criff.
Speaker 2: That's all I know.
Speaker 3: So as I'm going through the Bravo course, one of
Speaker 3: the cadre was like, is there anything I ever could
Speaker 3: do for you?
Speaker 2: Let me know?
Speaker 3: So I said, yeah, there's something you can do for me.
Speaker 3: I want to go to the cryp. He responded with
Speaker 3: that was not a good idea. You should go to group,
Speaker 3: learn your job, and then you then that. So he
Speaker 3: talked to Sar Major Peters at the time, which I
Speaker 3: had never even met Sara Major Peters. He talked to
Speaker 3: Sar Major Peters, made a call, and when we showed up,
Speaker 3: everyone I was with because Fourth Battalion was trying to
Speaker 3: get manned, everyone that showed up with me went to
Speaker 3: Fourth Battalion and.
Speaker 2: I went to Second because that's where the criff was.
Speaker 1: Oh I see, so they're putting close to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I went to Second and I went to
Speaker 2: Charlie Company.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, okay, I'm doing my team
Speaker 3: time and I'm like, hey, I know I want to
Speaker 3: go to the criff. I really don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 3: I really don't know anything about it. I just want
Speaker 3: to go do that. That's what that guy told me.
Speaker 3: That's what I want to do. And as I'm there
Speaker 3: more and more and more. I'm like, oh they do
Speaker 3: cq b oh they do this. And I always could
Speaker 3: always say the problem that I found when what I
Speaker 3: was on my team was you wanted me to be
Speaker 3: good at so much crap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, I was like, man, just give me four tasks.
Speaker 3: I can master four things really good, right, But you
Speaker 3: can be good at so much crap and I it's
Speaker 3: like I can't. I'm maybe a B plus in all
Speaker 3: of it, like and some things I'm an F Like
Speaker 3: some things I'm an A.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: People don't understand like how much responsibility each guy on
Speaker 1: an ODA has. And you think if you're an eighteen Bravo,
Speaker 1: you just like clean the guns and make sure the
Speaker 1: guns are operational. No, there's so much more to it.
Speaker 1: You're training. The Afghans are in charge of based security.
Speaker 1: The Charlie's have their job. They're yeah, they do demolitions,
Speaker 1: but they're also having to build the camp and get
Speaker 1: the construction materials. The the the como guys, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in charge of the como you know, our radios,
Speaker 1: but they're also in charge of the networking within the camp.
Speaker 1: So like everyone has tons of different lanes that they
Speaker 1: have to be in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and no one's telling you about those.
Speaker 3: The actual Uh, no one's ever hitting you with the
Speaker 3: actual the little.
Speaker 2: S shop duties. No one's telling you those.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: No one's ever given you all that.
Speaker 1: The the medics are often there, aren't They lost that
Speaker 1: already got a phone call?
Speaker 2: Yeah, your book.
Speaker 1: Right now? All right, guys. Uh so, I want to
Speaker 1: tell you about my novel, The Most Dangerous Man, came
Speaker 1: out in June. It is up on Amazon or Barnes
Speaker 1: and Noble for one ninety nine. You can go find
Speaker 1: it right now.
Speaker 2: I apologize.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no worries, dude, you just got to plug in
Speaker 1: your phone.
Speaker 2: No, something just happened. I don't know when.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so talking about that eighteen delta's they have the
Speaker 1: admin duties and yeah, and.
Speaker 3: No one tells you about like that in itself is
Speaker 3: another job.
Speaker 1: And then the ASO stuff is stumped on too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like no one tells you about like, oh,
Speaker 3: don't forget you need to learn how to do risk assessments.
Speaker 2: What right?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this guy needs to learn how to do
Speaker 3: all this other crap. Oh yeah, he needs to learn
Speaker 3: how to do purchase requests, and he's.
Speaker 1: Got you need to go down down down the road
Speaker 1: and get the hazmat class and learn how to take
Speaker 1: this huge book and look through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like no one tells you all those extra duties.
Speaker 3: And then it's like, well, there's no way I can
Speaker 3: do all that crap. Yeah I can't be So I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, the.
Speaker 2: Criff is all that is.
Speaker 3: Is like like, yes, the Criff has all those other
Speaker 3: duties at least, and I'm just gonna be blunting my opinion.
Speaker 3: They just blow off all the other say at least
Speaker 3: when I was there, it was like, yeah, we're supposed
Speaker 3: to do ASO.
Speaker 2: Do we ever train ASO?
Speaker 3: No cek be it this so you get really good
Speaker 3: at ccbing shooting, right. So that's why I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I just want to go and let me just hone.
Speaker 3: Let me just work on one skill. Let me work
Speaker 3: on one or two skills. I could be really good
Speaker 3: at those. So I really after about I was selling
Speaker 3: my company for six years and then I was sniper
Speaker 3: qualified already. So I was like, hey, I remember I
Speaker 3: went to Group Battalion Start Major, and I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I want to re enlist and he was like, okay, what.
Speaker 2: Do you want And I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: If you know, thor Or three is like a workout program,
Speaker 3: So I happened to THOR at the time needed help
Speaker 3: with trainers. They didn't have enough trainers, so I was
Speaker 3: my Sartain Major's trainer because I had been using thor
Speaker 3: for like four years program.
Speaker 2: It was I went there every day for four years.
Speaker 3: So I started working with my startint major because he
Speaker 3: would come in and I would be the guy that
Speaker 3: worked them, so I knew him pretty good. So I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, sar Major came into the office. I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, I want to re enlist. He was
Speaker 3: like okay, what do you want? And I was like,
Speaker 3: move me to the crist and he was like that's
Speaker 3: it and I was like yeah, and he was like,
Speaker 3: so when will you re enlist? And I was like
Speaker 3: when you move me? I played this game before.
Speaker 1: I like your bargaining techniques, you know, yeah, the star
Speaker 1: Major being like a used car salesman.
Speaker 3: But here's my question. And I told someone in the
Speaker 3: crypt desk. I was like, if he would have said no,
Speaker 3: I would screwed my tap. He knew I wanted to
Speaker 3: stay in. I already put my cards on the table.
Speaker 2: I'm staying in. This is what I want to stay in.
Speaker 2: But he was cool.
Speaker 3: He told me, Okay, you'll be moving in February. I
Speaker 3: stayed there for the rest of that year. February I
Speaker 3: moved over to the Criff, re enlisted, and that was that.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So what was your first position when you
Speaker 1: got to the Criff.
Speaker 3: So they put me in the arms room until I
Speaker 3: could get saphardic qualified. Gotcha, because I'm sniper qualified, but
Speaker 3: I'm not sephardic, so I guess by doctor and I
Speaker 3: wasn't able to go on operations like going do CQB.
Speaker 3: So they put me in an arms room for six
Speaker 3: months while I trained with the guys getting better at
Speaker 3: pistol shooting, and because my pistol shooting was bad, so
Speaker 3: they had to really work with me a lot.
Speaker 2: So they worked with me a lot.
Speaker 3: Actually, one guy and the mel took me under his
Speaker 3: wing and like trained me up for it to the
Speaker 3: point when I got to Sapharta, the shooting wasn't the problem.
Speaker 3: I wasn't worried about that, and they kind of trained
Speaker 3: me to the point where They were like, we want
Speaker 3: you to only care about CQB. We don't even want
Speaker 3: shooting to be something you're thinking about. So that way
Speaker 3: you can just learn the CQB.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So I went to I trained for six months with
Speaker 3: them there, and I was like shooting. I was with
Speaker 3: the teams every time they went to do anything. And
Speaker 3: after that, after that, I went from there to CQB.
Speaker 3: I went to Sefhartick and I went and after I
Speaker 3: got out there. After that, I got out there. I
Speaker 3: graduated from Safardik in two thousand. Let me think here.
Speaker 3: In twenty fourteen, fifteen, I graduated from Seafartick. And then
Speaker 3: after I graduated from Safartick, I went straight to three
Speaker 3: two to two. Okay, I went straight to three two
Speaker 3: two two uh, and I was on the sault side.
Speaker 1: Awesome. So what did you think of Saphartik, I.
Speaker 2: Will be honest.
Speaker 3: So comparing sniper school to Safartick, Safardik was a way
Speaker 3: funner school, but it's super subjective. Sniper school is way
Speaker 3: it was fun too, but but it's not subjective.
Speaker 2: Sniping school was like you take the shot. You either
Speaker 2: here or you missed right right.
Speaker 3: The partic is like you go in a room, you
Speaker 3: dig a corner, cat like, you didn't dig your corner.
Speaker 3: You're like, I did, I didn't see you dig your
Speaker 3: corner dig you. So it's way more like okay, you're
Speaker 3: kind of like, okay, I have to actually do this
Speaker 3: and collapse the.
Speaker 2: Sector and do all this stuff.
Speaker 3: But to me, the school was way more fun blowing
Speaker 3: up doors or going in building shooting.
Speaker 2: It's just way more interactive, right.
Speaker 1: Right, right. We should take a second here just to
Speaker 1: tell people, explain to people who are not military sephardic,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to get the acronym right. Special Forces
Speaker 1: Advanced for Connaissance and.
Speaker 2: Course is that it course and technical next league yep.
Speaker 1: Uh, And and that is the Special Forces course for
Speaker 1: it really is specifically for the CRIFF to get them
Speaker 1: qualify FIED to do a hostage rescue missions really and
Speaker 1: to support JSK and help them out as necessary. And
Speaker 1: then sniper the SODIC course which is now the Special
Speaker 1: Forces Sniper Course and same thing but on the sniper side.
Speaker 1: And then the CRIFF itself. The Crisis Response Force used
Speaker 1: to be called the Commander's in Extremist Force, and they
Speaker 1: are the Special Forces sort of rapid response element is
Speaker 1: that all?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: Right? Did I get anything wrong?
Speaker 2: No? You're good?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you had a good time at Sephardic and
Speaker 1: then you get back and they put you on one
Speaker 1: of the assault I think they call them assault cells.
Speaker 2: Right, assault teams, and you have sales in the team?
Speaker 1: Gotcha? Okay? And were you I mean when you got there,
Speaker 1: what was like your conception of like what the unit's mission.
Speaker 3: Was h So to me, I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 3: got there and it was the tail end of Iraq,
Speaker 3: so the mission was changing, so it was the tail
Speaker 3: in Iraq. So those guys, a lot of those guys
Speaker 3: had been doing Iraq. They were just hitting buildings. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I mean, guys probably gonna get some hate for this.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna be honest though, Like guys say like, oh,
Speaker 3: we were doing this and doing that. They were doing
Speaker 3: real stuff. But you're doing what the big boys don't
Speaker 3: want to do. Like let's be real, Like if they
Speaker 3: really thought it was that important, Tag would have hit
Speaker 3: the building. Yeah, Delta would be there, Like you're doing
Speaker 3: the ones that they're not really interested in doing.
Speaker 2: So you're doing a lot of ops.
Speaker 3: But they also were doing ops with them too, so
Speaker 3: I wasn't a part of any of that. They were
Speaker 3: getting it on and doing a lot, and then they
Speaker 3: were helping out and doing a lot, so they had
Speaker 3: a lot of that. And then when I got there,
Speaker 3: that was dying m h. So that was when I
Speaker 3: got there, was more you're the QRF for the big
Speaker 3: boys when they go do stuff right right, you were,
Speaker 3: you were on you were on standby waiting. And then
Speaker 3: I wasn't a part of that deployment. I was the
Speaker 3: next deployment up. So I went on that My team
Speaker 3: had just got by from Iraq and that's why I
Speaker 3: joined them when I graduated Safardik and then the other
Speaker 3: team pushed out the door that had trained me.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, and so what was your first deployment with them?
Speaker 3: So my first deployment when I got to when I
Speaker 3: got to my team, we were going straight to Germany
Speaker 3: to rip out tenth Group and take over.
Speaker 1: The continent, take over the African continent. Yes, and this
Speaker 1: is all I'd like to have you actually tell the
Speaker 1: a little bit of the background in the history. But
Speaker 1: that happened A lot of it happened because of Benghazi, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, uh so when I showed up the Third Group.
Speaker 3: I don't know what happened because Africa was part of
Speaker 3: Third Groups AO. When I showed up and we were
Speaker 3: doing Afghanistan and we were doing other things, and then
Speaker 3: one day we had a group formation and they told
Speaker 3: us we were af Pack, which basically meant we were
Speaker 3: we were were we af Stan or something weird, right,
Speaker 3: But all it really meant was we had Afghanistan and
Speaker 3: everything that ended with a Stan, so Chajikastan, Pakistan, all those.
Speaker 2: We did all those now. So that's how I got
Speaker 2: the JA set the Pakistan because Tiff Group took over.
Speaker 3: Africa, they were gonna watch the kind of Africa just
Speaker 3: because we didn't have the manpower to do all the
Speaker 3: JA sets they wanted and and covered down in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: So the Colonels, I guess, met and they decided to
Speaker 3: split everything up.
Speaker 2: Well, then when I got when we were.
Speaker 3: Going back toward the end of my career, about toward
Speaker 3: the end when we were taking over Africa again, it
Speaker 3: was like switching everyone back to French from Africa, from
Speaker 3: Dari and all that stuff, and we took back afghan
Speaker 3: on Africa as the continent and gave Timproup with Tim
Speaker 3: Group actually sent teams to Afghanistan because we flip flopped,
Speaker 3: so we I guess that that would got argued was
Speaker 3: they took they started sending teams Afghanistan, and we took
Speaker 3: back the continent of Africa and kept some of the stands.
Speaker 1: So what was that experience, like kind of standing up
Speaker 1: that element and and you know you're having to do
Speaker 1: it in Germany but be postured to respond into Africa.
Speaker 3: So uh, the Tenth Group team we ripped out with
Speaker 3: was awesome. So like they had it dowed in. They
Speaker 3: they were like they had their stuff dialed in and
Speaker 3: they were put together. So like when we got there,
Speaker 3: what they handed us was a great product. It was
Speaker 3: a great product. Everything was legit. If they were if
Speaker 3: we were have probably had to stand it up from scratch.
Speaker 3: I don't know what would have happened, honestley, because they
Speaker 3: gave us a good product. But they had been doing
Speaker 3: it for so long. I have no idea what they're were.
Speaker 1: Like, Tenth Group had the first SIFT team if I
Speaker 1: recall correctly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they had two so they had one in
Speaker 3: Colorado and one I think forward in Germany. So they
Speaker 3: had two so we got put into so when we
Speaker 3: ripped out with them, we had a barracks and then
Speaker 3: Ramstein that had the airfield and one bird stayed at
Speaker 3: Ramstein ready to go all times, ready waiting for Africa.
Speaker 3: And then in there we had a hangar. And in
Speaker 3: the hangar was all the humvees already with the guns
Speaker 3: on them. Ammo's already ready to go. Everything like stayed
Speaker 3: in the hangar loaded, prepped. Everything was on standby, ready
Speaker 3: to go. You had a bag packed and everything. And
Speaker 3: underneath in our barracks you had a third floor to
Speaker 3: the bottom floor.
Speaker 2: That's where we kept all our go bags. Everything's prepped,
Speaker 2: ready to go.
Speaker 3: It actually was more actually like a that's what the
Speaker 3: christ was supposed to actually be like, where you're on call,
Speaker 3: ready to go, and you couldn't go further Yep, you
Speaker 3: couldn't go further than an hour away from base because
Speaker 3: we could be recalled at any moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's like real life g I Joe mission.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, And I'll be honest, you said, what was
Speaker 3: life like there in Germany?
Speaker 2: Extremely boring?
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, because you're just waiting to see if you're
Speaker 3: gonna get the call.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So for me, I'll be honest, it would be like
Speaker 3: we lived like right down the road from the gym,
Speaker 3: so I would wake up. If we were doing training,
Speaker 3: I would go do the training. If we weren't doing training,
Speaker 3: like it got to the point sometimes it'd be like
Speaker 3: a Saturday, I'd be like, all right, today, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go to the gym. I'm gonna do an hour on elliptical,
Speaker 3: an hour on the bike, and then I'm gonna do
Speaker 3: an hour on the treadmill. I would just do three
Speaker 3: hours of cardial one day. It's because I'm like, I
Speaker 3: got nothing else to.
Speaker 1: Do, because yeah, I mean, now that you say it,
Speaker 1: because you can't travel more than an hour away. It's
Speaker 1: not like you really go sight seeing in Europe.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, so you're just like, okay, So I just like,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna stay on the base and I'm just
Speaker 3: going to just be here and workout and train, and
Speaker 3: then we do our we do our training training trainings,
Speaker 3: and then that was it.
Speaker 2: I got lucky, so I got to blow out.
Speaker 3: To a couple of deployments with them, I got to
Speaker 3: do the I got to go to Nigeria by myself
Speaker 3: to do embassy the embassy whole security plan thing, because
Speaker 3: that's part of the mission. So I got to do that,
Speaker 3: and then we got to blow out for South Sudan,
Speaker 3: and then I got to do two weeks in Berlin
Speaker 3: waiting for my passport for Nigeria.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start with the first one. Was it
Speaker 1: the Nigeria or South Sudan.
Speaker 3: South Sudan was the first thing I got. Well, Ghana
Speaker 3: was the first thing we did. Ghana was the first.
Speaker 2: Thing we did.
Speaker 3: So when we landed in UH in Germany, we ripped
Speaker 3: out with them, and then we went to Ghana to
Speaker 3: do a joint training with the Ghanaian Special Forces.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, because yeah, that's another another like mission that
Speaker 1: the CRIFF had over the years. Correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: was to train the like Tier one elements of are
Speaker 1: in countries. They're they're units, yep.
Speaker 3: So that's what we did. We trained with them and
Speaker 3: then we did uh.
Speaker 2: We did uh. I wouldn't say operations.
Speaker 3: I would say we did training events and everything with
Speaker 3: them and U six and still Team six.
Speaker 1: And how did that go? What was your question? Ghana?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: It was great. They put us in a called it Resort.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a resort.
Speaker 3: Okay, it wasn't a resort at all, but they put
Speaker 3: us up.
Speaker 2: In a resort.
Speaker 3: Uh, it was baw boons just walking around everywhere.
Speaker 2: That was different. The baw boons would attack you. Uh
Speaker 2: you wake up.
Speaker 3: They had these three ladies that would make food, like
Speaker 3: you ordered food in the morning, Like they make pancakes
Speaker 3: and fish and whatever you like. Whatever was on the
Speaker 3: menu you could order that was there and then we
Speaker 3: would literally just train non like with them for that
Speaker 3: was two weeks every month. I got to kind of
Speaker 3: go somewhere. So that was my first month there. We
Speaker 3: did in four months there before coming back, so that
Speaker 3: was my first month and then we did that for
Speaker 3: two weeks with them training and doing missions.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool training missions.
Speaker 1: Well, what was like the security threat in Ghana that
Speaker 1: you were kind of training these guys for. Was it terrorism?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they were looking the operation we were actually
Speaker 3: training them for. Was they were more about terrorism and
Speaker 3: CQB and hostage rescue situations. That was like we were
Speaker 3: hitting a lot of I guess you would call them
Speaker 3: hotels and uh and apartment complexes.
Speaker 2: M like that seemed like that every time we did
Speaker 2: a training. That's what we were hitting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe maybe there were some fears after like Nairobi
Speaker 1: and things like that that this is the threat profile.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because the hit that happened at the Hilton when
Speaker 3: they had that accident.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, and that was what Molly.
Speaker 1: It was a hotel I think, and then it was
Speaker 1: a shopping mall in uh and Kenya if I recall correctly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we did a lot of training with them
Speaker 3: doing uh like every hit seemed like we were hitting
Speaker 3: either apartment complex or some kind of a hotel complex.
Speaker 1: And then you went back to Germany.
Speaker 2: Yep for two more weeks, and then I got to
Speaker 2: be in it. And then South Sudan happened.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well yeah so I mean, yeah, your feet
Speaker 1: are barely touching the ground here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, and then South Sudan happened. So South Sudan happened.
Speaker 3: They were having a civil war. Because how they do
Speaker 3: their politics is Trump won the election, so Harris would
Speaker 3: be his vice president.
Speaker 2: So that's how they do their politics.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a parliamentary kind of system.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but what happened was what happened was, yeah,
Speaker 3: everything starts good like that.
Speaker 2: So what happened was.
Speaker 3: The guy who won the election won, but the guy
Speaker 3: who was getting put as the vice president.
Speaker 2: Was the military general general who decided. He was like,
Speaker 2: he was basically dumped that it's a coup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I should be in charge.
Speaker 3: Actually, so that happened, and then uh so we we
Speaker 3: actually had to We got blown out for that. And
Speaker 3: the only reason, honestly we got blown out is because
Speaker 3: the general that was posted that was because we are
Speaker 3: because when you're in Germany, you are the commander's crisis
Speaker 3: response for us, for the whole continent of Africa. So
Speaker 3: he doesn't want to send you out because guess what
Speaker 3: if he sends you out, he doesn't have someone that
Speaker 3: responds in Africa. So he wasn't he wasn't there that day,
Speaker 3: and the general in uh Jabad, the general there, said
Speaker 3: send them, and he was like, and I'll just talk
Speaker 3: to and I'll deal with him on the on the
Speaker 3: flip side, because we slept in the hanger for a
Speaker 3: day and a half. We just sat in a hanger
Speaker 3: for a day and a half waiting to be like, okay,
Speaker 3: are we going?
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 1: What was the feeling? What was the feeling when you
Speaker 1: guys got the call and they were like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: got the green light. Go.
Speaker 2: Well, at that.
Speaker 3: Point we were sitting there, everything was on the and everything.
Speaker 3: We were just sitting in the hangars. I had my
Speaker 3: hammock up attached to two things laying in a hammock,
Speaker 3: just like I don't know what we're doing right, So
Speaker 3: we were just sitting there and then they were like going.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh shit, for real, like we're really
Speaker 3: going to do this, and so it was it was
Speaker 3: weird to go there. And then it was strange like
Speaker 3: when you when we got off the bird and drove
Speaker 3: all when we landed, all the Americans because so much
Speaker 3: stuff had happened the Americans that they actually had a
Speaker 3: civilian plane for the Americans.
Speaker 2: To get on like that. We escorted it in with us.
Speaker 3: But the Americans as we got off our plane to
Speaker 3: see one thirties, they got on and one lady and
Speaker 3: one lady no one lady had got it real bad
Speaker 3: and she was like she was like I'm not getting
Speaker 3: off this plane.
Speaker 2: No wow. So she wouldn't get off the plane.
Speaker 3: So that civilian plane no one even took because she
Speaker 3: just was like, I will not get off this plane
Speaker 3: like this happened to me, and it was a lot
Speaker 3: like as you can know, which I'm probably talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so she was like no, I'm not
Speaker 2: getting off the plane.
Speaker 1: Wow. And you guys deep plane obviously hit the airfield
Speaker 1: and this kind of like really is sort of the
Speaker 1: quintessential like criff mission, right that they were designed to,
Speaker 1: if need be, fight their way to the embassy, complete
Speaker 1: the mission, and fight back off the target.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Oh so yeah, we came off the As we exit
Speaker 3: the trucks, I'm on top of a gun truck loaded
Speaker 3: with a fifty cow like ready to go like whatever
Speaker 3: we're going to get into we're here. As the trucks
Speaker 3: come off, we all pull a security right off the airfield.
Speaker 2: The Americans come in. The ambassador didn't want.
Speaker 3: To leave, so then we had to convoy to the
Speaker 3: to where the American compound was. And then we sat
Speaker 3: there for two weeks doing ops with the ambassador.
Speaker 1: Wow, like you were like escorting him the meetings and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Gordon NonStop.
Speaker 1: Was that kind of dicey, I mean in the midst
Speaker 1: of a civil war?
Speaker 3: Yes, because before we even took off, the general that
Speaker 3: is a jag come out to talk to us, which
Speaker 3: is never a good sign. And basically his I remember
Speaker 3: this quote verbatim, they are at war, you are.
Speaker 1: Not, so you're you can only shoot if you're shot at,
Speaker 1: basically exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So like seeing seeing like I saw them shooting at
Speaker 3: each other, but I'm just sitting there like this is weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and also also weird in the sense that
Speaker 1: like they probably don't care so much about you because you're.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're like, look, dude, you have nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're not part of this quarrel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but here's the problem you have is now the
Speaker 3: ambassador want to meet with one of the sides, right,
Speaker 3: so you're putting me involved. Where Now I got to
Speaker 3: make sure that hey, you're not really trying to shoot
Speaker 3: at me, but we just happen to be in this building.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it looks like you're taking sides even
Speaker 1: if you aren't.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so it took We were there for two.
Speaker 3: Weeks and then finally Obama I don't know the commander
Speaker 3: and then would talk go the teams are in the
Speaker 3: commander would have meetings and stuff, and finally I guess
Speaker 3: they got Obama to get on the phone with the
Speaker 3: ambassador and tell that person.
Speaker 2: They needed to leave plug. Yeah, and then we all
Speaker 2: got the leaf.
Speaker 1: I heard a story about you guys and UH and
Speaker 1: Seal Team six actually working over there at the same time.
Speaker 1: Were those guys there at all?
Speaker 2: I wasn't say. And when in South Sudan?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I could.
Speaker 3: Say if they were there. Uh, I don't know anything
Speaker 3: about it. But when I went. But when I went
Speaker 3: to meet with the guys to talk about when I
Speaker 3: was going to Nigeria, we were talking a lot and
Speaker 3: and from everything the guys were telling me, was the
Speaker 3: only people because you know, fine fixed finish right, So
Speaker 3: the only people that were really action in a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff was the French.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: So that's what I was.
Speaker 3: Told when I was doing that, because I was trying
Speaker 3: to figure out the evacuum wish and plan for the
Speaker 3: embassy in Nigeria.
Speaker 1: Tell us about first, you know, blowing out of South Sudan.
Speaker 1: What the the extraction was sort of like if you
Speaker 1: can call or X film maybe is a better.
Speaker 2: Term, Okay, So for us or for when the.
Speaker 1: Americans, Uh, for you guys, when you when you left
Speaker 1: with the ambassador, Okay, So.
Speaker 3: For us when we left with the ambassador, at this point,
Speaker 3: everything is already gone. All the people are gone, but
Speaker 3: their all their belongings are still there. Everything is still there,
Speaker 3: like their rooms still full, close, everything's there. We didn't
Speaker 3: take any of that. So for us it was like
Speaker 3: we had to wait for our bird. So we were
Speaker 3: in the Americans living quarters, give or take, and it's
Speaker 3: basically a big compound which we couldn't secure because we
Speaker 3: don't have a platoon of marines. So we have twelve dudes,
Speaker 3: so we basically have guys on every corner of the
Speaker 3: of the compound that we that's all we really can do.
Speaker 3: And then uh so we were just sitting there. We
Speaker 3: have our gun truck station. We have one in the
Speaker 3: center and the rest are in the corner, so we
Speaker 3: could actually do overlapping fire and we just had rotations
Speaker 3: going on that for the two weeks. And then when
Speaker 3: it was time to blow out, we waited for the
Speaker 3: aircraft to land, and then our CCT had overhead just
Speaker 3: circling and doing show of forces to make sure like.
Speaker 2: Hey, nothing bothers us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he was doing a lot of show of
Speaker 3: force and then he did a show of force like
Speaker 3: when we all prepped and got in all the vehicles,
Speaker 3: all the up armors and up arbor hum v's and
Speaker 3: up arbor SUVs to leave, Like we had up armored
Speaker 3: SUVs as well. So when we got that and all
Speaker 3: the planes had landed because they were escorted in, he
Speaker 3: did a show of force. And after the show of force,
Speaker 3: we immediately took off and just started going down the
Speaker 3: road and it was like a straight shot, go out,
Speaker 3: make one left, and you were straight shot to.
Speaker 1: The airport and the bird was there waiting for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bird was there waiting for us. Everything was there,
Speaker 2: and we just drove straight on.
Speaker 1: Wow, and flew back to Germany. Yep, No, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Well you got to do the job. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. You didn't get to shoot no rounds,
Speaker 2: but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I mean, who knows what would have happened
Speaker 1: to that ambassador though if you weren't.
Speaker 3: There, that's true, that's true. Hope, maybe they would have left. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you get back to the mothership and the next
Speaker 1: thing that happens is Nigeria.
Speaker 2: Yes, so Nigeria.
Speaker 3: So I get tagged to go be the guy to
Speaker 3: go do the Nigerian mission, which you just basically go
Speaker 3: to the embassy and every year guys go to embassies
Speaker 3: and we do security protocols and making sure the security
Speaker 3: is up today, making sure or everything is still where
Speaker 3: everyone's saying, everything is right, so if we ever have
Speaker 3: to go in there, we know where the doors are,
Speaker 3: what doors or what, who's going where.
Speaker 2: How many rooms are in there, everything. So I get
Speaker 2: hit with that.
Speaker 3: I fly to Nigeria by myself, which I was like,
Speaker 3: oh that's different. So I have to go to Berlin
Speaker 3: for two weeks. So I go to Berlin and I
Speaker 3: only got I was there. I was supposed to be
Speaker 3: there for two days. And I get there and the
Speaker 3: embassy there in Berlin is closed, so I can't get
Speaker 3: my passport stamp.
Speaker 2: To go to Nigeria.
Speaker 3: So I got to hang out in Berlin for two weeks,
Speaker 3: which was awesome, right right, because I don't get to
Speaker 3: see nothing, but we only can go an hour away.
Speaker 3: So this got me out of the base, right, So
Speaker 3: I got to see Berlin for two weeks, just wander
Speaker 3: around Berlin. Finally get my passport stamp, get back. The
Speaker 3: next week, I get on a plane to.
Speaker 2: Go to Nigeria.
Speaker 3: I land and when I land in Nigeria, there's a
Speaker 3: white guy there with my with the things that Sartinford
Speaker 3: class Harris, He's got a piece of paper, right. But
Speaker 3: it was a guy from Third Group that was in
Speaker 3: my company and Charlie Company that knew me and now
Speaker 3: worked down at Tampa.
Speaker 2: So when I got there, he was like, hey, are
Speaker 2: you super Dave?
Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, I'm super Dave because that's
Speaker 3: what the team start and called me on that other
Speaker 3: team right, because we did a lot.
Speaker 2: Of trips and a lot of deployments together.
Speaker 3: So he I won't say I did nothing crazy, but
Speaker 3: he knew about he knew me, so he was like,
Speaker 3: hey you super Dave.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm super Dave. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 3: And they was like hey, so and so said what's up.
Speaker 3: Gray says what's up? And I was like, oh, Gray
Speaker 3: said what's up? Oh yeah, he does work in Tampa.
Speaker 3: So we get in the vehicle and we drive to
Speaker 3: the hotel, the Hilton, which the Hilton was baller, but
Speaker 3: it was totally different than what you see here.
Speaker 2: It's like you're walking through it's like going in the airport. Oh,
Speaker 2: go to the Hilton. Yeah, like when you're going into
Speaker 2: the Hilton, it's like going through.
Speaker 1: The airport, all the metal detectors and TSA kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything is just like that.
Speaker 3: So you go in there, you get to the Hilton,
Speaker 3: they're like, hey, we'll be here tomorrow to pick you up.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: So what I didn't know was how it actually worked
Speaker 3: was so they have a team from Tampa there right.
Speaker 2: Then they had a guy from the Navy, like a
Speaker 2: Navy guy.
Speaker 3: Then they had a CCT there, and then they have
Speaker 3: a and then they have a Marsac guy there and
Speaker 3: all of us working together on this packet. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then they had four civilians who are actually the guys.
Speaker 3: Like you come in and you'd be like, hey, man
Speaker 3: here because they know like we're just I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: here's the paper, this is the way the camera looks.
Speaker 2: And then he gets on the computer and.
Speaker 3: Does his whiz bang stuff and so that way it's
Speaker 3: all the diagrams in there. And then they'd be like,
Speaker 3: so I got put in charge of routes, cameras and
Speaker 3: cameras at the embassy and uh door breaching, like how
Speaker 3: to get through each door, And that's what I did
Speaker 3: for almost a week and a half, just going around
Speaker 3: being like okay, going to different embassies, meeting with the
Speaker 3: ambassadors and all that stuff, and just going in and
Speaker 3: going to every door. And then spun around and was
Speaker 3: like all right. And then I don't know, one day
Speaker 3: that the Marine.
Speaker 2: Guys there heard about.
Speaker 3: What I did and they were like, hey, can you
Speaker 3: teach a CQB. So we stayed and I started teaching
Speaker 3: CQB to the Marines all site.
Speaker 1: And so it's interesting because you're a criff guy, so
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense they sent you sort
Speaker 1: of as a recon dude to do in case they
Speaker 1: ever had to go in and evacuate that embassy. You know,
Speaker 1: your team knows where everything is and exactly how that
Speaker 1: building is constructed.
Speaker 3: And that's why you have the computer imagery and so
Speaker 3: that way, all that stuff gets put into computer database
Speaker 3: and if anyone else has to do it, guess what
Speaker 3: they can pull up.
Speaker 1: Oh you mean like three D imagery and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So and then I take it the CCT guy had
Speaker 1: the airpiece, and the Marsaka guy had like the ports
Speaker 1: and the Amphibian.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, yep.
Speaker 3: Everyone had all their own pieces, and we're just like, okay, hey,
Speaker 3: we're going to do routes today. And me and the
Speaker 3: Marcide guy would get in the vehicle and I'd be
Speaker 3: like all right, and I sit in the passenger seat
Speaker 3: and I'd be like, all right, turk over right here,
Speaker 3: and I'd be like telling them and I'd be like,
Speaker 3: all right, here's this. This is the quickest way to
Speaker 3: the airport that goes into the computer. You know.
Speaker 1: We we have been doing some operations in Nigeria over
Speaker 1: the last year or so, I mean, well a few
Speaker 1: years now. What was sort of like your impression of
Speaker 1: Nigeria and what it would be like trying to work there.
Speaker 2: It was where we were by the embassies and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. It was urban.
Speaker 3: It was an urban environment. It was like it was
Speaker 3: like any built up major city. I would tell you
Speaker 3: that it was closer to uh I was.
Speaker 2: In New York. It was closer to New York Ish
Speaker 2: than it is to like Charlotte.
Speaker 3: And what I mean is the buildings are really close,
Speaker 3: like it's not really like distance.
Speaker 2: I didn't really go into neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: I only was really down in the downtown's areas like
Speaker 3: where the Hilton was, where the Embassy was, where the American.
Speaker 2: Stayed those areas, So it was really more like that.
Speaker 3: And then the highway wise, unless you know the route
Speaker 3: you want to go or have maps and GPS's and stuff,
Speaker 3: everything was written. I mean, you ain't reading signs, so
Speaker 3: you better know where you want to go.
Speaker 1: And then after you after that, you headed back to
Speaker 1: Germany again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then I went back to Germany and then we
Speaker 3: did our last week and a half and then I came.
Speaker 2: Back to Bragg.
Speaker 1: And was that kind of like winding down your time
Speaker 1: at the criff?
Speaker 2: That was probably I was at that point.
Speaker 3: I was at three in my cell and I was
Speaker 3: there and then I had I did about I think
Speaker 3: I did two and a half more years there. I
Speaker 3: made it to UH. I was a one in my sales.
Speaker 3: I was a cell leader. Cool for about two and
Speaker 3: a half years. I was a cell leader, and then
Speaker 3: I volunteered to go to Southawic.
Speaker 1: What was like kind of the last the subsequent like
Speaker 1: two and a half years, like.
Speaker 2: A lot of training getting ready to go back to Germany.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, oh to rotate back over.
Speaker 3: I got you yeah, because there was three troops because
Speaker 3: they broke us down into two O das making a troop.
Speaker 3: So it was like you do four, you do four,
Speaker 3: you do four, you do four, you do four, you
Speaker 3: do four.
Speaker 1: So that they also have you training for the counter
Speaker 1: WMD mission.
Speaker 2: Yes, we did that as well. Yeah, that we did that.
Speaker 3: We went up to Virginia Beach and used six's compounds
Speaker 3: up there to do a lot of that training.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's cool, man. And so you've reached the
Speaker 1: kind of end of your time at the and uh
Speaker 1: and then you go to Cephallic. So again we should
Speaker 1: tell the tell the listeners who don't know the Special
Speaker 1: Forces Advanced Urban Combat Course, Yes, sir so, and Cephalic
Speaker 1: is different than Sephardic, and that Cephaic is training the odas,
Speaker 1: not the CRIFF, but the odas on urban warfare CQB stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's an important course too because the odas go
Speaker 1: through intact as a twelve man team, not like onesies
Speaker 1: and twosies. But I mean, let's hear, you're the expert, Dave.
Speaker 1: If you tell.
Speaker 3: Us, well, you exactly, you're one hundred percent right. The
Speaker 3: difference between Cephatic Sephalic and Sephardic is Cephalic teaches.
Speaker 2: Basic po D CQB.
Speaker 3: At least when I was there was basic PODCQB. Safardic
Speaker 3: teach free flow CQB with an emphasis on hostage rescue.
Speaker 3: Sefaic does not. We do not get into the hostage
Speaker 3: rescue portion. Does that mean they won't never do it? No,
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that it's we don't get into teaching it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's the odas don't have that mission.
Speaker 1: I mean things would have gone really wrong if they're
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm not saying it can never happen. I'm
Speaker 3: just saying that wasn't our mission to like prep them for.
Speaker 3: So I got there as a Faulic and you do
Speaker 3: it's really hammering CQB and basics like basic pod, point
Speaker 3: of domination CQB. How do you do that and the
Speaker 3: safest way to do it? And I did that for
Speaker 3: I got to teach there for three and a half years.
Speaker 1: That's cool. So it's just like company after company coming
Speaker 1: through your course.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so it would be a company.
Speaker 3: It was like I saw probably every company, like because
Speaker 3: it's mandated that every team goes once a year. Well
Speaker 3: at least when I was there was once a year,
Speaker 3: so they had to go every I think it was
Speaker 3: once every two years because we couldn't see everyone, so
Speaker 3: it's once every two years. So literally it's like we
Speaker 3: did a six week course, take two two weeks off,
Speaker 3: another six week course, take a week, take two weeks
Speaker 3: off another six week course two and.
Speaker 2: That's just the rotation.
Speaker 1: Six weeks is a lot too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was when I was there, we were
Speaker 2: teaching six week course.
Speaker 3: It was two weeks for CMM MESS combat combat Marksmanship,
Speaker 3: two weeks of CMO MESS.
Speaker 2: Then we followed that with four weeks of.
Speaker 1: CQ BIG and then there's like a some kind of
Speaker 1: collex at the end, right.
Speaker 2: Yep, So it was a collex.
Speaker 3: So we would do uh so you do two weeks
Speaker 3: a CMO MESS and we at the end of those
Speaker 3: two weeks it was vote. In that same two weeks,
Speaker 3: you would do a it's called a stress shoot, and
Speaker 3: if you didn't pass the stress shoot, some guys wanted
Speaker 3: to kick dudes out, some guys we disagreed.
Speaker 2: It basically got voted.
Speaker 3: If you don't pass the stress shoot, you get have
Speaker 3: to shoot sims and you couldn't shoot live bullets in
Speaker 3: the house. Yeah, because you're still with your team. You're
Speaker 3: not getting fired from your team, so we can't not
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we said, hey, you're not shooting live bullets in
Speaker 3: the house, you'll shoot sims.
Speaker 2: So we made them shoot sims and that was it.
Speaker 2: We just let them and that with.
Speaker 3: The training continued and then after the week one, we
Speaker 3: did a uh it was called an eval on CQB,
Speaker 3: but make sure you understood basic CQB with a three
Speaker 3: room set before we started moving into breaching and shooting
Speaker 3: shotguns and explosive breaching and things.
Speaker 2: Of that such.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So you it sounds like you like doing that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I loved it. I still love it. Uh.
Speaker 3: I was the primary instructor for the CQB for two years,
Speaker 3: and then I became the primary instructor for Combat Markesmanship
Speaker 3: for a year, and then after that I did my
Speaker 3: last six months and then I got out.
Speaker 1: You want to tell us about that like last six months,
Speaker 1: what it was like, you know, leading up to your
Speaker 1: retirement and kind of how that felt after a pretty
Speaker 1: long army career.
Speaker 2: So for me, it was strange, as in I.
Speaker 3: Knew what I wanted to do the whole time I
Speaker 3: was as a PHAWIC, I knew I wanted to get
Speaker 3: out and train people.
Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to continue that, so I.
Speaker 3: Was like, okay, So I kind of started prepping it
Speaker 3: while I was in Like I would teach on a
Speaker 3: Friday and drive and do a class some other state
Speaker 3: on a Saturday and drive through the night on Sunday
Speaker 3: night to get back for SEFAWIC Monday morning.
Speaker 2: And I was doing that on my own and.
Speaker 3: My last six months, I'll be honest, when I signed
Speaker 3: out on terminal leave, and I've already been working with
Speaker 3: Vortex Optics.
Speaker 2: So the day I signed out on terminal leave, Vortex
Speaker 2: called me and was like, are you ready to go?
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: And lets get let's do it.
Speaker 1: And what is I mean obviously they make optics, but
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about like the products
Speaker 1: that Vortex makes, they.
Speaker 2: Make up they are I call them the Walmart of optics.
Speaker 3: And I mean by that is, if you have a budget,
Speaker 3: like hey, I have a two hundred dollars budget, it's
Speaker 3: an optic we have for that. If you are like, hey,
Speaker 3: I want to buy three thousand dollars, like top of
Speaker 3: the line.
Speaker 2: We have optics for that.
Speaker 3: So they are the number one optic company, the biggest
Speaker 3: opting company in.
Speaker 2: The world right now.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: And they sell a lot of optics and they also
Speaker 3: have a golf line. I don't know where that came.
Speaker 1: And so does that that's I mean, first off, that's
Speaker 1: great that you had a post retirement job lined up
Speaker 1: right away. And what has that been like you were
Speaker 1: saying that they have you traveling all over the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Mike, Mike, I'm a contractor for Vourtex. But
Speaker 3: how it's played from them to me is my company
Speaker 3: runs their training. So I had to make my own
Speaker 3: LLC and started my own company and I run their
Speaker 3: training through them. So cops hit me up. I handle
Speaker 3: all scheduling, all the planning, everything, and we go around
Speaker 3: this country teaching cops free of charge.
Speaker 1: And is it teaching them how to use those vour
Speaker 1: Tech products? No, Oh, it's anything really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we go to any agency and teach them. Hey,
Speaker 3: you got red dots and you need a ripe pistol
Speaker 3: Red Dot Transition Corps. We don't care what dot you have.
Speaker 3: We want you to get training Okay, that's pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Vortex wants you to go home at the end of
Speaker 3: the shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well that's super cool. And you're still doing
Speaker 1: that today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I started when I got out, and we've been going
Speaker 3: and we are now booking in the February of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Eight yep.
Speaker 1: What else do you got going on over there? And
Speaker 1: you're still in the Fort Bragg area?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir?
Speaker 1: What else is keeping Dave Harris busy nowadays?
Speaker 2: So when I'm not doing that, I am.
Speaker 3: When I'm not training cops, I go to shoot competitions
Speaker 3: on my own free time, or I train like dry
Speaker 3: fire and stuff. And then in the meantime, I've been
Speaker 3: married for twenty one years. My daughter's twenty. I've been
Speaker 3: married going on twenty two years December third. My daughter's
Speaker 3: twenty one, my son is seventeen. So every once in
Speaker 3: a while I have to act like I love them
Speaker 3: and do stuff with them. For the most part, if
Speaker 3: I'm not doing something with my family, I'm training.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I got you.
Speaker 1: So you're shooting IPsec or long ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, USPSA ipsick three two gun.
Speaker 3: I left to stop shooting three gun just because I
Speaker 3: was like, I don't see the purpose of the shotgun
Speaker 3: for what I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Anything else that you want to talk about
Speaker 1: that I didn't ask?
Speaker 2: No, I I mean, I hope is there anything you
Speaker 2: that I didn't talk about?
Speaker 1: No, No, I think we covered a lot of grounds, man,
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me man.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And shout out to Jay for putting us
Speaker 1: in touch.
Speaker 2: Yes, Jay, Yeah, he's a great guy, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, Jay's awesome. So yeah, Dave, Where can people
Speaker 1: find you if they want to, you know, inquire about training.
Speaker 1: Are you on like LinkedIn? Is there a website or
Speaker 1: anything that we should check out?
Speaker 2: Yes, you can go to harrw Strategicsolutions dot com. You
Speaker 2: can go there.
Speaker 3: You can hit me up on Harry Strategic Solutions on Instagram, right,
Speaker 3: you can hit me there directly.
Speaker 2: Both of those go directly to my email.
Speaker 3: You also can go to IWI dot us and they
Speaker 3: have a tab on their IWIS Vortex Optics Collab and
Speaker 3: you can go there and it tells you a breakdown
Speaker 3: of every class we teach, everything we do, and at
Speaker 3: the bottom it's a request form and the request form
Speaker 3: goes directly to my phone.
Speaker 2: As soon as I get the email, I'll hit you back.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, man. Well, we'll have some links down the
Speaker 1: description for people that are watching this or listening. But Dave,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time spending some you know, some
Speaker 1: of your Wednesday night with us.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for doing it and everyone else out there.
Speaker 1: We'll see you guys next time. Thanks for joining us. Hey, guys,
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