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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Battleground podcast. We have a very

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Speaker 1: very special guest today. His name is Chris Cowan. Chris

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Speaker 1: is one of the guys that I served with in Afghanistan.

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Speaker 1: He was my second squad leader. This guy, We've been

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Speaker 1: through hell and back together, lots of different firefights, almost

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Speaker 1: died multiple times. And you know, this will be the

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Speaker 1: twenty third episode of Battleground. And as I reflect on

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Speaker 1: the last five months and how far this podcast has come,

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Speaker 1: I started thinking, like, man, it'd be cool to like

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Speaker 1: bring guys on that have been boots on the ground

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Speaker 1: front towards enemy, you know, risking their life day in

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Speaker 1: and day out for this country, and just talk about

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Speaker 1: what that experience was like, and then maybe about what

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Speaker 1: it was like to come home for them and really

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Speaker 1: do everything we can to use this platform to give

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Speaker 1: them an opportunity to tell their story to the world.

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Speaker 1: And so I think that's particularly important given that you know,

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Speaker 1: only er point four percent of this country have served

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Speaker 1: during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's twenty years

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Speaker 1: longest period of war in American history, and that all

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Speaker 1: volunteer force has carried a very very heavy burden for

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Speaker 1: a very long time, and now you know, you saw

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Speaker 1: the Iraq War, and you saw the debacle and the

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Speaker 1: surrender in Afghanistan and what that has meant for our troops.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of the men and women who served

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Speaker 1: in those conflicts are now home and trying to, you know,

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Speaker 1: raise a family and make a living and adjust to

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Speaker 1: civilian life. Chris Cowen, Welcome to the show. I love you, man,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's awesome to see you, and I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad you're here.

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Speaker 2: Thanks. Sean love me too, man, and I appreciate you

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Speaker 2: having me on. I also just want to quick quick

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Speaker 2: side note. I believe today's fourteen years since Jeff Hall

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Speaker 2: got killed in Afghanistan, one of our comrades over there.

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Speaker 2: So just thinking about Jeff's family and obviously Jeff, I'll

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Speaker 2: see you again someday, but not today, but obviously his

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Speaker 2: family is always in my prayers.

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Speaker 1: So, Man, I'm so glad you brought that up. I'm

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Speaker 1: I weare this bracelet and I'm sure I don't know

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Speaker 1: if y'all can see it, but it's basically the one

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Speaker 1: that we got and we've got in Afghanistan. Really, it's

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Speaker 1: the same bracelet. I never take it off. There are

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Speaker 1: two names on there, Jeremiah Cole and Jeff Hall. In

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Speaker 1: the anniversary of Jeff Hall's death is today, and man,

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Speaker 1: we miss him every day. I was on a radio

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Speaker 1: show with Wendy Bell, who's just an awesome radio host

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Speaker 1: here in Pennsylvania. Actually she's got a national following. But

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Speaker 1: she asked me to tell a story about Jeff or

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Speaker 1: someone on Memorial Day. And I told the story of

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Speaker 1: how well in November, like we had been, you know,

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Speaker 1: just for the viewers and people who are listening, like

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Speaker 1: Chris and I went through a sixteen month combat deployment

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, four hundred and eighty five days of combat like,

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Speaker 1: which is an insanely, insanely long combat tour. And it

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Speaker 1: was hell. I mean, just so many direct fire engagements,

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Speaker 1: thousands of indirect fire engagements, man like, like our base

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Speaker 1: got hit by thousands of rockets like it was crazy like,

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Speaker 1: And so telling the story about Jeff like towards the

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Speaker 1: tail end of our deployment. And I guess we'll just

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Speaker 1: jump into this now because I initially intended to start differently,

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Speaker 1: but whatever, we'll go where the conversation takes us. But

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Speaker 1: you know, we were doing this push on one of

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Speaker 1: the main routes from Afghanistan to Pakistan because we were

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Speaker 1: just getting pounded by rockets every day and the enemy

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Speaker 1: just lived in those mountains that separated Afghanistan from Pakistan.

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Speaker 1: And come November, now at this point in time in

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Speaker 1: our deployment, we're supposed to go home and two months,

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Speaker 1: so nobody really wanted to be going on this like

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Speaker 1: long battalion mission in November to clear the bad guys

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Speaker 1: from all the trenches from you know, like from Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: to Pakistan, which was like a ten kilometer area, and

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Speaker 1: each platoon and company in battalion was assigned a different sector,

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Speaker 1: but of course our platoon was given the most dangerous

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Speaker 1: route and almost all of eastern Afghanistan to go point

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Speaker 1: and lead this battalion operation be the main effort what

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Speaker 1: you call in the military, the main effort in this

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Speaker 1: battalion operation to clear the enemy from that mountainous border region.

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Speaker 1: And it's funny, Chris, like, as a quick side note,

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Speaker 1: like I've seen people talk about, like when was the

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Speaker 1: last time we've done trench warfare, And I thought like, well,

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Speaker 1: Chryst al Mighty, like we kind of did trench warfare

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Speaker 1: on this mission where they were all laid in these trenches.

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Speaker 1: But do you remember when we were we initially started

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Speaker 1: to push and all those bad guys ran out from

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Speaker 1: that like offshoot Wadi system and started waving their AK

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Speaker 1: forty sevens in the air, and you know, we were

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Speaker 1: sort of in the low ground and the Afghan National

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Speaker 1: Army embedded with Marines were in the high ground covering

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Speaker 1: the high ground and we because I think you were

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Speaker 1: on point for that mission, and yeah, these bad guys

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Speaker 1: just run out of nowhere, which is really unlike them

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Speaker 1: because you typically don't see the enemy in Afghanistan until

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Speaker 1: they want to be seen, and that's typically when they're

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Speaker 1: ambushing you and trying to kill you, so like waving

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Speaker 1: around their AK forty sevens like crazy people, and then

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Speaker 1: they just bolt, and of course the Afghan National Army

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Speaker 1: bolts after them, and the Marines are like trying to

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Speaker 1: get him to stop, but they end up getting baited

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Speaker 1: into this like extremely complicated ambush. A bunch of Afghan

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Speaker 1: National Army soldiers get shot this marine. Do you remember

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Speaker 1: that Marine lieutenant who got shot in the leg and

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Speaker 1: his femoral act artery weretracted up into his pelvis. We

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Speaker 1: couldn't get to him. He was cut off by two

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Speaker 1: lines of the enemy, and like of course we were

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Speaker 1: sent into the kill zone to get this guy out.

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Speaker 1: And immediately we get in there and man, we just

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Speaker 1: got shot up immediately right like Saint Shane Jean got

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Speaker 1: shot in the head, Gardea got shot in the head.

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Speaker 1: All these guys that were man of machine guns and

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Speaker 1: like you would open up your your humby door, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and it would like it was like hitting the wady

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Speaker 1: system and it was like straight up on either side,

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Speaker 1: and we couldn't get to him. And so we broke

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Speaker 1: contact evactor casualties and Jeff Hall was like, send me out,

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Speaker 1: send me up the hill with second platoon or the

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Speaker 1: platoon that was right behind us, and I'll lead the

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Speaker 1: main effort to get him out. And I'm like, yeah, okay, man,

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Speaker 1: Because anybody that knows Jeff is like you know, he

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Speaker 1: like drinks back then, drank top shelf whiskey. Rode to

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Speaker 1: Harley like, yeah, send me olk, Jeff, Yeah, you want

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Speaker 1: to go get him out. Go ahead. So he led

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Speaker 1: the main effort, fought through, fought through two uh two.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, two groups of enemy fighters in their

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Speaker 1: lines got found this marine. Uh set up a perimeter,

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Speaker 1: brought into black Hawk helicopter, which, by the way, to

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Speaker 1: Apache helicopters had to pull off station because they got

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Speaker 1: shot and they had to go back to base. So

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Speaker 1: Jeff somehow gets this black Hawk helicopter in and leads

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Speaker 1: a jungle penetrator which is like this, you know this

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Speaker 1: thing they lower from a helicopter to evaca casualty on

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Speaker 1: the ground. Jeff loads them up, stops the bleeding, saves

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Speaker 1: this marines life, comes back down the hill, slaps me

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Speaker 1: on the shoulder, lights up a cigarette, and he goes, sir,

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Speaker 1: don't even think me of put putting don't even think

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Speaker 1: of putting me in for an award. I'm like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's Jeff hall Man, Like what a crazy asshole.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was nuts, he was nuts. That was I

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Speaker 2: remember that firefight pretty vividly. I do remember. The challenge

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Speaker 2: was when we got into that Wadi system, it was

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Speaker 2: pretty much straight up and down and our guns would

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Speaker 2: couldn't traverse all the way up to their positions.

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Speaker 1: You remember that, I do, Yeah, because you you have

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Speaker 1: like these guns on these turrets that that you like

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Speaker 1: angle down, but they they can only angle down so much.

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Speaker 1: And the Wadi sys was so steep, like.

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Speaker 2: You just you got to basically get them off the

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Speaker 2: TNE or something or and then so you had like

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Speaker 2: Brown using the shotguns and stuff. It was. It was crazy.

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Speaker 1: And you know that that had to be deliberate. I

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Speaker 1: mean they had the enemy had to know that our

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Speaker 1: heavy machine guns wouldn't be able to target them in

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Speaker 1: that type of terrain.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was smart. It was very smart on their part.

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Speaker 2: I'll give that song.

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Speaker 1: I mean that ambush, I mean it was it was

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Speaker 1: textbook like all of their ambushes, but like that one

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Speaker 1: was particularly sophisticated because not only did they have this

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Speaker 1: like literally like a fireteam element that like maybe a

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Speaker 1: football field away or maybe fifty yards away where we

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Speaker 1: see them and they're just all in black like waivering

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Speaker 1: the AK forty seven, and we're like immediately because we

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Speaker 1: had been eleven months into the deployment at this point,

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Speaker 1: but immediately we were thinking, WHOA, that doesn't seem right

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Speaker 1: at all, Like what what the hell is that? And

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Speaker 1: then before we could assess this situation in the Ana

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Speaker 1: had already given chase and they got pinned down, But

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Speaker 1: when you got back into that wadie, I mean it

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Speaker 1: was like several kilometers long. But when it was finally over, Chris,

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Speaker 1: do you remember the trench system that they had lining

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Speaker 1: those that Waddi system? Do you remember all those those

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Speaker 1: dugout trenches that they were in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Crazy, Yeah, crazy man.

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Speaker 2: It was they always picked the spots or where the

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Speaker 2: fight happens, you know what I mean, really, I mean

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Speaker 2: I can't think of really any times where they didn't,

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Speaker 2: you know.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And then like, Chris, this is the guy

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Speaker 1: you're talking about, man, Like, this is Jeff Hall. And

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Speaker 1: so two years later, in two thousand and nine, Jeff

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Speaker 1: goes back to Afghanistan with out Lawlatune, a different group

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Speaker 1: of soldiers because a lot of the guys were wounded,

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Speaker 1: moved a different duty assignments or retired or whatever, were

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Speaker 1: on their way out of the military. Goes back, leads

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Speaker 1: a squad over there and gets killed by a a

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Speaker 1: roadside bomb. It's like just such such bullshit. And and

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Speaker 1: this is what I meant by a very very heavy

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Speaker 1: burden was carried by a small few, you know, I agree, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and so like I didn't intend to start the

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Speaker 1: show this way. But man, that guy was one of

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Speaker 1: a kind in this country. This country will miss him forever,

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Speaker 1: you know, And I'm sure, and he leaves behind like

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Speaker 1: you know Allison, who is then his wife, and then

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Speaker 1: his daughter Audrey, right yep. I mean, my god, I

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Speaker 1: saw a picture of her on Facebook the other day.

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Speaker 1: I mean she was like sixteen years old and riding

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Speaker 1: a horse. It's crazy, you know, It's nuts, man, it's

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Speaker 1: growing up she is. And so it's the anniversary of

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Speaker 1: his death. And so we miss Jeff every day. But

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Speaker 1: this is the cost, you know, yep. And so tells Chris,

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Speaker 1: take me back to the beginning for you, man, like,

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Speaker 1: because it takes a very special kind of person to

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Speaker 1: volunteer to serve a country that when you know you're

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Speaker 1: going to be going to war. Because if you like,

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Speaker 1: just for the viewers and the listeners, you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know you. You obviously came in before me, years

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Speaker 1: before I did. But h September eleventh, we were the

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Speaker 1: September eleventh generation. I mean that happened when we were

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Speaker 1: in our twenties. And I know that's what did it

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Speaker 1: for me, But what did it for you?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd pretty much call myself a nine to eleven baby.

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Speaker 2: You know, I hadn't I didn't have any ambitions towards

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Speaker 2: the military whatsoever, or really law enforcement. I just wasn't

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Speaker 2: really looking there. You know. I had done some college.

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Speaker 2: About a year and a half of college, I kind

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Speaker 2: of dropped out. Was trying to refigure my life and

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Speaker 2: I became a sheet metal worker and I did that

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Speaker 2: for a couple of years. I enjoyed it. I liked

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Speaker 2: the work. I think trades are excellent, and I kind

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Speaker 2: of maybe saw myself just kind of going that direction

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Speaker 2: and that's kind of where life would take me. And

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Speaker 2: then on September eleventh, I was I was young, but

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Speaker 2: I was. I guess God blessed me in some ways

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Speaker 2: that I was. You know, I was running a crew

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Speaker 2: doing a commercial job on a I don't know how

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Speaker 2: far we get into this, but it's basically like the

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Speaker 2: CEO of Albertson's be one of his residences, and it

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Speaker 2: was like the top two floors of the Make of

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Speaker 2: America Center, Boise, Idaho. And so basically we're we're doing

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Speaker 2: all the HVAC work up there because the whole place

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Speaker 2: was gutted. We're moving some materials in the morning, and

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Speaker 2: then somebody came up and said, hey, there was like

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Speaker 2: a plane like flew into some a building in like

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Speaker 2: New York City, and that's like the first thing I heard.

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Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, that's crazy. And then a little

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Speaker 2: while later it's like, hey, there's another plane that just

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Speaker 2: flew in, and like, like that doesn't seem right. Like

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Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about tactics or being under attack.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about, you know, foreign policy or

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Speaker 2: what's really going. I mean, I was a young you know,

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Speaker 2: I'm twenty years old, you know. I mean, I don't

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Speaker 2: not paying that stuff. And it's like something's wrong here,

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Speaker 2: like I think we're on to attack, you know. And

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Speaker 2: then obviously throughout the day, you know, not much work

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Speaker 2: was done by anybody. We listened to the radio, and

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Speaker 2: then obviously we just we gained more and more information

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Speaker 2: over the coming days. But right then I was like,

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Speaker 2: I'm going, right now, I'm gonna Who's where do I

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Speaker 2: go to go fight? Who's the ones that go fight

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Speaker 2: build the enemy? That's just the first thing I wanted

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Speaker 2: to do. And then obviously my family's like, oh, whoa

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Speaker 2: slow down, let's just see, you know, what's going on here?

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Speaker 2: But you know, it just ended up being I I

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Speaker 2: kind of waited on a little bit and I'm like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to see how this goes. And then it wasn't.

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Speaker 2: I mean it was it was like three months later

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Speaker 2: I was raising by r I am decided to go

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Speaker 2: over there. I mean, I wanted to be an infantryman

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Speaker 2: and I just wanted them to get me in as

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Speaker 2: because they could, because I wanted to get you know,

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Speaker 2: I just wanted to get right to it. And that's

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Speaker 2: basically what I did. I wanted I tried for a

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Speaker 2: I wanted to get a ranger contract. I wanted to

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Speaker 2: get a RIP contract where I could do infantry training,

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Speaker 2: airborne and UH and UH ranger. But they didn't have

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Speaker 2: any available. So I took the infantry Airborne and they

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Speaker 2: my recruiter lied to me. It's like, oh yeah, you

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Speaker 2: can volunteer for RIP, you know on airborne school A

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Speaker 2: total light. I know there's been times I think you can,

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Speaker 2: but it was that was not happening at that point

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Speaker 2: in time. So yeah, I did that. I went in,

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Speaker 2: I you know, did the infantry training, went in with

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Speaker 2: my best friend Ellen Archilette at the time. We both

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Speaker 2: went infantry. We both went to Airborne School together and

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Speaker 2: uh and from there, you know, I he went out

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Speaker 2: to Fort Irwin and went to the Tenth Mountain And

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Speaker 2: that's kind of how my military career started.

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Speaker 1: Basically, what do you think, I like, what do you

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Speaker 1: think did it? Chris? I know you said it was

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Speaker 1: nine to eleven? But do you think that? I mean,

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Speaker 1: because like you, like I, I didn't come from you know,

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Speaker 1: a crazy military family, you know where every generation served.

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Speaker 1: I mean I had a couple of people that served

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Speaker 1: in the military of my family. But what do you think?

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Speaker 1: What do you think did it for you?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: Was there anything like deep seated in your heart that

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Speaker 1: because it sounded like you knew that that was exactly

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Speaker 1: what you wanted to do at that moment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because we had never I had never felt like

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Speaker 2: we were in a place as Americans since I had

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Speaker 2: been paying attention, which wasn't long. I mean I was

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Speaker 2: a few years out of being a teenager, you know

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Speaker 2: what I mean. But yeah, where I felt like we

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Speaker 2: were under attack and we were actually threatened as a people.

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Speaker 2: And for me, it was like that was a no brainer,

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Speaker 2: Like it was a sense of duty that like, I'm

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Speaker 2: able bodied, I can do this, I'm strong enough to

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Speaker 2: do this. I have to do this my country. It

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Speaker 2: just wasn't a question. But before that, I just didn't

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Speaker 2: really feel like I didn't see I didn't see the

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Speaker 2: need really. I mean, and I'm not trying to talk

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Speaker 2: negatively towards people that join the military when we're not

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Speaker 2: in a time of war. I think it's that that's great,

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Speaker 2: But just for me personally, that's that's where I was

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Speaker 2: coming from. I just didn't see. I didn't see the

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Speaker 2: point in it until that happened.

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Speaker 1: I like thinking back on that, like in that era,

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Speaker 1: I mean, because we're pretty much the same age, and

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, we had never I never thought

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Speaker 1: in a million years growing up as insulated and free

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Speaker 1: as we are in this country, Like as I grew

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Speaker 1: up in the eighties and the nineties, and you know,

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Speaker 1: Clinton was president and there was a balanced budget for

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Speaker 1: God's sake, you know, I mean, it was it was

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Speaker 1: a time of I feel like great prosperity, a very

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Speaker 1: different time in America, and I just never thought like

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Speaker 1: we could ever be attacked like that. And if you

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Speaker 1: remember back during nine to eleven, we thought that there

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Speaker 1: was a theory out there that the planes were just

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Speaker 1: the first wave, like the opening salvo of a much

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Speaker 1: larger attack. Do you remember that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was it was really like intense.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I you know, I can remember the feelings

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Speaker 2: that I remember where I was. I you know, I know,

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Speaker 2: some people there's a whole thing about some people think

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Speaker 2: they knew they were somewhere where they weren't on nine eleven.

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Speaker 2: Now if you've heard of that not, But like I

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Speaker 2: definitely was where I was. You know, I was in

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Speaker 2: the Bank of American Center. I was working a job.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, we were like we didn't know. We're thinking,

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Speaker 2: like this could be something else, could be coming, you

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Speaker 2: know what I mean. We didn't know what was going

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Speaker 2: to happen, you know what I mean. So it was

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Speaker 2: a very I don't even it's probably worse than uncertainty,

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Speaker 2: but it was just very you know, I can't really

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Speaker 2: find their word for it, but things did not feel safe.

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Speaker 1: So you so, so we get attacked and you volunteer

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Speaker 1: to go to war.

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Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean that's just yeah.

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Speaker 1: And you said your family, your family wanted you to

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Speaker 1: slow your role a little bit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but it was just one of those things,

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Speaker 2: you know, I gave it a few months, but it

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Speaker 2: just it was it wasn't going on like it's just

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Speaker 2: I knew what I had to do, you know. It

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Speaker 2: was just a sense of duty that I felt like

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Speaker 2: that I owed my country, you know, That's why I

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Speaker 2: did it.

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Speaker 1: And so you end up at the tenth Mountain Division,

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Speaker 1: which at the time it became one of the most

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Speaker 1: deployed units during I mean it probably was the most

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Speaker 1: deployed unit in the Global War on Terror. And yeah, man,

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Speaker 1: like if I guess, if you wanted to deploy to war,

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Speaker 1: you went to the right unit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, I agree. And I think there's like

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Speaker 2: so many probably untold stories of like what's happened with

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Speaker 2: infanstruymen in the war regular Army will call it, not

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Speaker 2: special Ops, not Delta, not steel team sticks, which I like,

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Speaker 2: I respect all of it, but I think there's a lot.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's some shit went down, let's just put

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Speaker 2: it that way. And we were in some major, major

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Speaker 2: battles and places that you know, I didn't think we

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Speaker 2: were going to walk out of it.

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Speaker 1: I were the one, you know, I know, I know

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Speaker 1: it's actually looking back on it now, Chris. You know,

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Speaker 1: I can't believe I even lived through something like that.

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Speaker 1: And I don't mean like survived it, but it just

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Speaker 1: seems like it like it was something out of a dream.

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Speaker 1: Like it was surreal, you know, like the times where

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Speaker 1: you know you're leaving the wire and you know you're

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Speaker 1: rolling into an ambush. You just know it. It's it's

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Speaker 1: very hard to describe that feeling to people who haven't

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Speaker 1: been there where, Like you know that the moment you

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Speaker 1: go behind this ridgeline, you're gonna get attacked at some

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Speaker 1: point by people with machine guns who want to kill you,

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Speaker 1: who don't know you. Like the level of anxiety and adrenaline,

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Speaker 1: it floods into your body just waiting for that. It's

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Speaker 1: it's just impossible to explain. I mean, it just it

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Speaker 1: far exceeds any feeling that I had. Like I know

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Speaker 1: that you were a wrestler growing up, and like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I I wrestled for a few years as well, but like,

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Speaker 1: and you're always anxiety before matches or games, but nothing

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Speaker 1: like that, man, nothing like that.

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Speaker 2: No, it was crazy, but there was also I think

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Speaker 2: we were just proud of like what we what we

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Speaker 2: did over there, you know what I mean, like the

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Speaker 2: way our platoon handled ourselves. You know, I think we

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Speaker 2: really were one of the best platoons in the United

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Speaker 2: States Army at that time.

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Speaker 1: I think so, I think we had.

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Speaker 2: I think we I think we we did things to

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Speaker 2: prove that we were, you know, I really do. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we did some some crazy things over there.

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Speaker 1: I agree. And I remember, you know, in training, and

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Speaker 1: I don't really we haven't really we don't really talk

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Speaker 1: about a lot about this, but we trained our asses

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Speaker 1: off before we went. In fact, you know, I remember

399
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Speaker 1: like lieutenant's like getting together for a beer or something

400
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Speaker 1: when you get off late from work or whatever, thinking

401
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Speaker 1: like like talking to each other, like oh my god,

402
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Speaker 1: Like all of our other contemporaries or or lieutenants and

403
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Speaker 1: other battalions were like going home on leave or going

404
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Speaker 1: on vacations or hey, they knew that they were deploying,

405
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Speaker 1: and so like their their command was like letting them

406
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Speaker 1: off at three just to spend extra time with their family,

407
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Speaker 1: and and like in the moment, I thought to myself, like, man,

408
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Speaker 1: those guys are so lucky, you know, they like they

409
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Speaker 1: get like and I agreed with their commanders, like, oh man,

410
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Speaker 1: that's good leadership, you know. Uh, they're giving them extra

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Speaker 1: time with their family because they know they're going to

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Speaker 1: be away. But it was that extra training that kept

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Speaker 1: us alive. I think all of that extra time in

414
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Speaker 1: the field. Do you remember, like we were going to

415
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Speaker 1: the field for like months at a time while while

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Speaker 1: other units were just in garrison and they just shot

417
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Speaker 1: all the time. We shot so much.

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Speaker 2: It was like a year build up. And it was

419
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Speaker 2: like every week. I mean, it was like, you know,

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Speaker 2: Sunday morning, you know, it'd be like early Monday morning

421
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Speaker 2: at three weapons draw, two thirty am. You're out to

422
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Speaker 2: the ranges. You're out there all week till Friday night late.

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Speaker 2: You get a day and a half off, maybe you're

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Speaker 2: right back into it, you know. And just that was

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Speaker 2: just a normal not counting some of the stuff we did,

426
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Speaker 2: you know, right before our deployment. It all kind of

427
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Speaker 2: jumbles together between the two deployments. But I know one

428
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Speaker 2: thing I'll tell you is I hated Colonel Toner. I

429
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Speaker 2: hated that guy.

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Speaker 1: I was like this, he was tough, he was really

431
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 1: I mean, I was.

432
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,359
Speaker 2: Like, listen, dude, like I need a break here, you

433
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 2: know what I mean.

434
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 1: But everybody felt that way. We were everybody felt that way.

435
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,960
Speaker 1: And and now I look back, man, and we were

436
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: so lucky, so lucky to have him as as our

437
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,360
Speaker 1: commander leading up to that deployments.

438
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 2: Ready, The funny thing is is, like, here's the thing,

439
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:58,119
Speaker 2: like Colonel Hackler said something like a soldiers are bitching.

440
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 2: That's like things are status quote. They probably just normal.

441
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 2: It's just pay attention. When they stop bitching, that's when

442
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,199
Speaker 2: you got to worry. But like we never got past that.

443
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 2: But yeah, there was a lot of like there's a

444
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 2: lot of bitching about Colonel Toner for sure, from the

445
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 2: from the Joey's, you know what I mean, and from everybody,

446
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,639
Speaker 2: you know, everybody getting ready for that deployment. You know,

447
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 2: and I guess you know heavy is ahead. That wears

448
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 2: a crown, you know what I mean. Leadership is tough.

449
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: You know, so absolutely, and and and you know, even

450
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 1: the lieutenants were like, oh man, this is rough, you

451
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 1: know again, especially when you see especially when you see

452
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 1: all of your peers going home early, you know, and

453
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:38,440
Speaker 1: and you know, I again I look back, and now

454
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: I see, you know, in a forties now like actually

455
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: it was real leadership what he was doing you know,

456
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 1: and you hear all the time about like being a

457
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: leader is about, you know, not you know, doing the

458
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: hard right, not the easy wrong. You know, the easy

459
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: wrong back then was letting people go home early and

460
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: not get prepped for the deployment. Because the reality is,

461
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:06,399
Speaker 1: Chris is, many of those other battalions they took a

462
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 1: I mean, we took a high, super high casualty rate,

463
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: but they took higher casualty rates.

464
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 2: You know.

465
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: And and real leadership back then, I mean, I guess

466
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 1: the bottom line is is that sometimes you're not going

467
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: to be popular as a leader. Sometimes you might even

468
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 1: be hated in the moment. But as long as you

469
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: know in your heart of hearts that you're doing everything

470
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,159
Speaker 1: that you can to bring as many people home alive

471
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:37,400
Speaker 1: as possible, I mean, then you're doing the right thing.

472
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: You're on the right path, you know. And and and

473
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: and that's what Colonel Toner did, man and and and

474
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: like yeah, like now looking back with some perspective, some

475
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: some age under my belt, like we were lucky that

476
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 1: he he worked us so hard.

477
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 2: War. You know, I don't think you know, war is

478
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the ultimate proving ground, that is the

479
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 2: ultimate there's nothing else higher stakes that we can I mean,

480
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 2: what else are we going to do? Or your your

481
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 2: life is online, your your friend's lives on the line,

482
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And so to prepare for

483
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:16,159
Speaker 2: something like that is is going to be incredibly difficult.

484
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 2: So the preparation's got to be in some ways harder

485
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 2: than the actual the actual missions, you know what I mean,

486
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 2: which I think it was, except for the fact that

487
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 2: when you're actually over there in a fight, you're in

488
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,239
Speaker 2: the real fight, you know what I mean. So but yea,

489
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 2: as far as like, you know, I slept more in

490
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 2: Afghanistan than I did training, which you you know is good.

491
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,680
Speaker 2: You know, things always supposed to be harder, always supposed

492
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 2: to push you to the edge, you know, take everything

493
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 2: out of you, you know what I mean. And that's

494
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:49,360
Speaker 2: what he did, and he got us ready.

495
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: He did. Do you remember, like which spent a lot

496
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: of time talking about the training, man, but like when

497
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: you and I get together, I hadn't thought about this

498
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: in damn near ten fifteen years, Chris, like, because you know,

499
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:02,920
Speaker 1: anytime anyone asked me a question, it's always about war

500
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 1: stories and combat and everything else. But remember the he

501
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 1: wanted us to run a battalion run. So a battalion, right,

502
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: like eight hundred soldiers, eight hundred soldiers in a battalion,

503
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: you know, plus or minus right, plus or minus attachments.

504
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 1: He wanted our entire battalion running a thirty two minute

505
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: four mile run. Now, you might think, if you're I

506
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: know that some of you were thinking now that are

507
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: watching or listening that oh, eight minute miles, that's not

508
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: a big deal. But when you're running in a battalion

509
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: run and the pace is set by other people around you,

510
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: and you're singing Cadence like, and there eight hundred people,

511
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: there's always somebody that's hurt. There's always somebody that's not

512
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: in good shape or just came off a profile. A

513
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: profile means like an injury. And he wanted the entire

514
00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: battalion running a thirty two minute four mile run, and

515
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: that was his standard. And do you remember we did that?

516
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: Like I feel like we were doing battalion runs like

517
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: every couple.

518
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 2: Like you heard a lot of them.

519
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: I remember a lot of them.

520
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know there's a young nco. Obviously I

521
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 2: did a lot of cadence and stuff too, and you know,

522
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 2: preparing for those things and going on on those runs

523
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 2: and stuff. But yeah, yeah, that's a high standard. When

524
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 2: you know, when you're talking about every single person getting

525
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: that hitting that standard, not nine eighty percent, we're talking everybody.

526
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 2: That's a tough standard to meet, you know for sure.

527
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 2: Even though back then I could, I could run for

528
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 2: I could go forever, man, I had no I had

529
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 2: such a motor back then.

530
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: And you were a smoker. You smoked back then, Yeah,

531
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 1: smoking the thing that was the thing about being in

532
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,119
Speaker 1: the infantry. Man, Like you have these NCOs that smoke

533
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: two packs a day that will run your ass into

534
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: the ground as a as a new lieutenant, and do

535
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 1: it deliberately and all while they're hung over, you know.

536
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: And you were one of those guys. Man, I mean, did.

537
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 2: I learned my first my first platoon stargeant. His name

538
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:12,439
Speaker 2: was Sergeant Robin. Great, great freaking guy. He was like

539
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 2: from the Bayou, man, Like from the Bayou where like

540
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,239
Speaker 2: we're off like they got their own rules. There's no

541
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 2: police force, you know what I mean. It's like do

542
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 2: you handle it by the Bayou laws? You know what

543
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 2: I mean? And this guy was off on nail. This

544
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 2: guy could run. He could do every any infantry thing.

545
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,400
Speaker 2: The guy was amazing. At he's forty five years old,

546
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 2: he'd smoked two packs a day. He had vulcro running

547
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 2: shoes he bought him from like Walmart. Spend nine bucks

548
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 2: on his running shoes, and he would pound us into

549
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 2: the ground. Dude, you know, we're in our twenties. And

550
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 2: that's I learned that toughness from him, Like he you know,

551
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 2: just that not quitting. You don't ever quit. You just

552
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 2: you just go go go. You never stopped. Like that's

553
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 2: that's that mentality that you have to have as like

554
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 2: as a to be a great soldier.

555
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: To talk about that mentality, Chris, talk about that mental

556
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: a little bit more, because I remember you telling me

557
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: about this platoon sergeant when I was a platoon leader

558
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: about never quitting. You know, because I'll talk, I will

559
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: give you some give you a sense of what I

560
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: mean is I'll hear from young soldiers or cadets or

561
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: whatever that will ask me like secrets of ranger school

562
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: or what they have to do to pass, and like

563
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: there are there are a thousand different ways I can

564
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: answer that question, but like what I typically tell them

565
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: is you just can't quit. It's it's just that simple.

566
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,959
Speaker 1: I mean, and it sounds crazy now, but there's going

567
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: to come a time where your knee is hurt, you

568
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: haven't slept in a week, you've eaten you know, you know,

569
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: maybe two hundred and three hundred calories a day for

570
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: the last week, and you're hallucinating and you can barely,

571
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: you can barely put one foot in front of the other,

572
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: and your brain is going to tell you, wow, just

573
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,479
Speaker 1: go back to your unit. It doesn't matter. Like, no

574
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: one's going to care if you don't have your ranger.

575
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: If you're not a ranger, no one's going to care.

576
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: Your career is gonna be fine. Your brain will pull

577
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: out all the stops to convince you to take the

578
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: easy path, you know, right, And so tell me about

579
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: like as a young soldier, Like what learning that lesson

580
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: meant for you?

581
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 2: Well? I think one thing is like I had a

582
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 2: good example and a good NCL that taught me a lot.

583
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 2: But I would see, you know, not every soldier, some

584
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 2: soldiers quit, you know what I mean, Not every soldier,

585
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 2: you know, I think puts the effort in that they should.

586
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 2: But I saw people that would give up, and I

587
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 2: just didn't want to be that person. Ever, I didn't

588
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 2: want to disappoint my leadership. I didn't want to be

589
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,239
Speaker 2: the person that like felt like I just quit on it,

590
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I was like, I'm

591
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 2: never going to quit ever. I think I fell out

592
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 2: of like one run. It is like where I didn't

593
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 2: I wasn't with him all the way to the end

594
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 2: because he could, he could break everybody off. But that

595
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 2: happened one time, and I was like, never again. I'm

596
00:30:57,160 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 2: never ever. I don't care if I die, I don't

597
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 2: care what. I don't care if I'm duking while I'm running.

598
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna be there at the end. Because

599
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 2: it's just like that. It's just that attitude that you

600
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 2: have to have. And I think that's you know, those

601
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 2: things are molded and like just simple things like training,

602
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 2: physical training, Why is it important, you know what I mean?

603
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 2: Because like physical training isn't just keeping you physically strong,

604
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 2: but it's your mind. It's keeping you mentally intact and

605
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: strong and able to withstand. You know, you put yourself

606
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 2: through a rigorous workout. You're running ten twelve miles and

607
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 2: you're you're doing trails and you're going through bogs and

608
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 2: you're just you're just beat up. You just keep going

609
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 2: and going and going. That builds that mental toughness that

610
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 2: you need, you know, because you're gonna need that when

611
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:39,719
Speaker 2: you go to war, you know what I mean. So

612
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 2: I think that's you know, that's kind of what he

613
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 2: taught me, you know, Sergeant Robin taught me early on.

614
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 1: Today, I want to talk about something that's been on

615
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: the minds of many Americans lately, energy independence. With rising

616
00:31:55,640 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: energy prices and geopolitical tensions, it's more important than avert

617
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: for our country to be self sufficient when it comes

618
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: to our energy needs. And that's where Deep Well Services

619
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: comes in. They're a company that's not only dedicated to

620
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,480
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621
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:19,960
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622
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,480
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623
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,959
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624
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But that's not all.

625
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626
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627
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628
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Speaker 1: want to join their team and make a difference. And

629
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630
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631
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632
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: looking for a job with purpose and meaning, or if

633
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Speaker 1: you're simply passionate about American energy independence, then you should

634
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635
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636
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Speaker 1: career opportunities. You did two deployments to Afghanistan. So when

637
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: I when I came to second Battalion, eighty seventh Infantry

638
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: Regiment at the tenth Mountain Division, which was part of

639
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,959
Speaker 1: third Brigade and the Spartan Brigade. You know, our motto,

640
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: our motto for the brigade was with your shield or

641
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: on it. And so we I feel like we we

642
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: bought into that, we believed it. And you had already

643
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: done one deployment to Afghanistan already when you and I

644
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: first met, And like I tell people all the time

645
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: how we first met, Like, first of all, like you're

646
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 1: probably like one of my you're probably like one of

647
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: my best friends. Man, But I would have never thought

648
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: that we would have been friends at all after the

649
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: first time I met you, Like.

650
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 2: Everybody, everybody who's ever been my friend, like the first time,

651
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 2: they're like, the first time at you, I thought you

652
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 2: were a total asshole. You better get to know me.

653
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 2: I'm a sloat you. It's like it takes time.

654
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: You know, I still think you're a total asshole, and

655
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: I've known you for a long time to war with you,

656
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: so I'm like, you kind of am sometimes. Well, so

657
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: the first time we meet, we were at the joint

658
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: right in his training Center, and and that's in in

659
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: Fort Polk, Louisiana, And that's like most units go to

660
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: the j RTC again, Joint right into Training Center to

661
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: prepare for what it's like to go to war. It's

662
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: like it's basically like like very elaborate war games.

663
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 2: You know.

664
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: We have what we call OP for opposing Forces, which

665
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: are act like an insurgent force, enemy guerrillas that you

666
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 1: are at war with. You're on a base embedded with

667
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: the topic Operation Center, with mission cycles, all the equipment

668
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,280
Speaker 1: that you need. We use this stuff called miles gear,

669
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 1: which is like super sophisticated laser tag and so we're

670
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: down there and I'm a brand new lieutenant, Like I

671
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: literally arrived at the unit, and my commander, like our

672
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: commander at the time, is like, you don't even have

673
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: to go, Like you don't even have equipment, but come

674
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:26,399
Speaker 1: hell or high water, I was going because I wanted

675
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: to go through that training, you know, with the soldiers,

676
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:31,840
Speaker 1: And so I ended up going. And I'm like there

677
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: and as a young lieutenant, like you don't really know anything,

678
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: and you do everything in your power as a young

679
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 1: leader to earn the respect of your troops, at least

680
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: the officers who are worth a shit's that's where they start.

681
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: They're humble, yep, they listen and they work hard to

682
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: earn it. And so but at the same time, you

683
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: have to carry yourself with like a sense of decorum

684
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: as well. So like you're trying to be I guess

685
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: you're trying to be a leader that you really haven't

686
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: proven yourself to be at that point. So it's a

687
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,800
Speaker 1: really vulnerable, tough spot. And so you're like this experienced NCO.

688
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: You've already been to combat once. All I knew of

689
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: you at the time where you smoked a lot of

690
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: cigarettes and drank a lot of coffee and and I

691
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: remember walking up to you. I don't even know what

692
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: the hell is going on, but you're standing at the

693
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: entrance to our tent, which in in Louisiana in the

694
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: middle of the summer was so unbelievably hot, like and

695
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: we didn't even have like air conditioning or anything like that,

696
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: just like swamp coolers or whatever, and we were sweating.

697
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,760
Speaker 1: It was. It was crazy. And all I walked past

698
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: you and then you just you just like out of nowhere,

699
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: punched me as hard as you can in the solar plexus. Well,

700
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: and then and then you just said to me, strength

701
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: and honor, and that was it. That was That was

702
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: the whole, And like I remember like almost doubling over

703
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 1: all the souls were like in the tent. Well, what

704
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 1: was the lesson? What was the lesson? I still don't

705
00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 1: know what the lesson was?

706
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 2: Right? That was it? What's that? And keep moving? Keep

707
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 2: driving on? You know what I mean? Rank and honor?

708
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 1: I don't know im well, so listen. So again, so

709
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: for people who like probably who haven't starved and are

710
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: watching this, the army is made up of you know,

711
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: officers and non commission officers. And the non commission officers

712
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 1: really are the ones that that that make everything happen.

713
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: They're the backbone of the military. They're your sergeants, and

714
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: then you have enlisted personnel, and then listed personnel. If

715
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: they stay in long enough and they demonstrate the proper

716
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: leadership potential, they're promoted to go to school that become

717
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: a sergeant like non commission officer school. But you were

718
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 1: basically an E five back then, and that and I

719
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: was a young second lieutenant, gold bar lieutenant, you know,

720
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: butter bar or whatever. And that was our first interaction.

721
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 1: And so.

722
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we got to annoy each other. We're all like,

723
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 2: you know, when we first a board, because I was

724
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 2: in the our first agent pulled me out of zech

725
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 2: in platoon and maybe take over the communications, which I

726
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 2: hated so doing the company rto stuff. And then I

727
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 2: wanted to go to your platoon and then and you did.

728
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we kind of got to know

729
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 2: which other like working out lifting weights when you guys

730
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 2: would be back from mission. But I would only go

731
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 2: out when the commander went out, you know, and I

732
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 2: would be the commander's gunner, and I was just responsible

733
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: for all the communications on the entire FOB, which is

734
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 2: kind of scary because like, I'm not really like a

735
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 2: that's not like my bread and butter instrument.

736
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: But well, you know why you got selected for that, right.

737
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 2: Can't hack it as a team leader. So they had

738
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 2: to throw me down to the common.

739
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: No, it's because you were squared away like you'd like, no,

740
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: no one, you don't talk about this, but like you

741
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: were up for Division NCO of the year, which is

742
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 1: a huge deal. Like, right, yeah, I didn't.

743
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 2: I think I didn't. There's a few skills I didn't

744
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:55,879
Speaker 2: know when it came to like risk, you know, doing

745
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 2: like a you know, a risk management, so I don't

746
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 2: remember what they call it's risk assessment, you know, things

747
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 2: like that, and ANNCO does they learn it. I didn't

748
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 2: have formal NCO training. I never went to PLDC, I

749
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 2: never went to be knock. I was an E five

750
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 2: promotable when I got out, so I was if I

751
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 2: would have extended out for a year reenlisted, I was

752
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 2: immediately going to be an E six. But I literally

753
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 2: had The training I had was all just basically real

754
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 2: world like war I'm training, you know, not, which I

755
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 2: kind of prefer that way anyways, to be honest with you,

756
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:30,399
Speaker 2: Although I.

757
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: Mean, you're Chris, You're glossing over like how Division n

758
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: c O of the Year is a huge deal. A

759
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: division is like thirty plus thousand people like, and when

760
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,800
Speaker 1: you say a division, it's we're talking like the tenth

761
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: Mountain Division. So every and noncommissioned officer on that post,

762
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 1: you know, the super squared away ones, compete for Division

763
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 1: NCO of the Year and even the fact that like

764
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: you're up for it is an honor. But what I'm

765
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: trying to say is is that that's why you were selected

766
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: for Company or t t O Radio rt O Radio

767
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: Telephone Operator because it was just like you were being

768
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,399
Speaker 1: you were you were sort of being mentored to do

769
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: a career in the army. I think a lot of

770
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: people thought that you were going to be a sergeant

771
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,240
Speaker 1: major someday. So that was just like a very important

772
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 1: and necessary step in your career at the moment. Unfortunately,

773
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: for a guy like you, who is a door kicker,

774
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: you know, filling radios and working in comms equipment is

775
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: about the least sexy thing on the face of the planet.

776
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 1: But it's also it's also a huge, huge responsibility. Cars

777
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: go down, Yeah, yeah, coms go down. In a FOB

778
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,479
Speaker 1: and you're under attack, you're dead. If coms go out

779
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,319
Speaker 1: and it kill zone, you're dead. Like and so it's

780
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:46,720
Speaker 1: a it's an unbelievably important job that you were given.

781
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it is important. It is an important task,

782
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 2: which is something I didn't love. But uh as suppose

783
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 2: the battalion stuff. So I'm trying to remember because I

784
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 2: did a lot of bars at the battalion level, and

785
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 2: I you know, I think I did some. I was

786
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 2: battalian sale was a month, a few times quarter and

787
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 2: the Battalionancal of the year, and then I think I

788
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 2: went to the brigade board and I didn't I did

789
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 2: okay there, but I think there was like a risk assessment.

790
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 2: I didn't do well on that kind of that kind

791
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 2: of guy. But yeah, it was the boards were fun

792
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 2: to do. I like competing, you know, just stuff like that.

793
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 2: I think it's put yourself to the task. You're doing

794
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 2: the PT shooting, all the other things you do land navigation,

795
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 2: you know. So yeah, it's all infantry. All.

796
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 1: Wait, didn't you and I go through our eib Our

797
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: Expert Infantryman's bats training together too? Didn't you? And I

798
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: like sid to unofficially pair up for that. Yeah, we

799
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: like we just got together some of it. Yeah, we

800
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: just like got together and practiced and then like sort

801
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: of went through a lot of the stations together. And

802
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about this and for like until just now,

803
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: but I think I think you and I were we

804
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 1: we went through a lot of those stations as as Yeah,

805
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: as partners. I mean, it's not a partner thing like

806
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: the expert Inforstrment're just like it's like a really really

807
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: really difficult thing to do. Like you're like something like

808
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: twenty seven stations of like tasks, proficiency tasks like assemble

809
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:18,720
Speaker 1: and disassemble a squad automatic weapon M two forty Bravo

810
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 1: machine gun, you know, call for fire and place a

811
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,760
Speaker 1: claim more. I mean all of the like basically everything

812
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: that you do as an infantryman. They like it's like

813
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: a it's like the Olympics of of that. Like you're

814
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: being judged and there's a non commissioned officer standing there

815
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 1: with a clipboard making sure you do everything the right way.

816
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: And what is it, Chris, Like you only get to

817
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: fail to like you have to pass, you have to

818
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 1: pass everything, but if you fail twice, like you're like done,

819
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 1: you don't get it.

820
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if you fail one station twice, you're

821
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,480
Speaker 2: automatically done. And then if you've had three total no

822
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 2: goos or failures and out of any stations, you're done.

823
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 2: So you get there's a little bit of leeway, but

824
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 2: not much verty much. You got to be pretty much

825
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 2: got to be on it. And then you know you

826
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: have like the the twelve mile foot marchs with your

827
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 2: equipment and all your your weapon and all that stuff

828
00:43:08,840 --> 00:43:11,359
Speaker 2: and your rock and well you gotta I think there

829
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 2: was land nab and you got to qualify expertally, rightfle

830
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 2: That's that's.

831
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: The ide man. So it's it's very it's difficult. And

832
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: there are a lot of hell of a lot of

833
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: infantry soldiers that were better than me. I'll tell you

834
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: what that that that didn't get their e IV then

835
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: and maybe even didn't get it later because you know,

836
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 1: you have to wait for the training to come around too.

837
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: Like it it's e I B training. It's not like

838
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: they have it on a regular basis or you can

839
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: always do it. It's like, you know, every couple of

840
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: years it'll be like hey, you can train to get

841
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: your e I B. Here like, come on out if

842
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: you want it. If not, you don't have to do it.

843
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't even mandatory. But I think you

844
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: and I, God, we went through all of that stuff,

845
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: and I think you and I both got our I

846
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: know I did, but I think you did too, right,

847
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: I got I got crazy crazy.

848
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 2: Well, it was my first time I did it. I

849
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 2: think I was a private and I didn't make it.

850
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't get it. And so it's just

851
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 2: something I wanted before I got out of the army.

852
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:05,399
Speaker 2: It was a big deal. It's something I wanted to get.

853
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 2: So I'm glad. I you can definitely get stripped up,

854
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 2: like it's you know what I mean. Yes, great fielders

855
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,479
Speaker 2: don't get it, you know, just for some little one thing.

856
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 2: You know. It's yeah, it can. It's it's nasty, you

857
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: really so much.

858
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: And you might get a greater that just hates you,

859
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: you know, that just wants to see you fail. So

860
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: there are like a lot of variables that make it

861
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 1: so difficult, you know, I agree, And especially and also

862
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: like guys that you're competing with, because like if you're

863
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: you know, you start getting promoted past captain or even

864
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 1: as E five to E six. You do these boards

865
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: and you know, guys that have their EIB get that's

866
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 1: like a that's you get more points or however, however

867
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 1: it is for you guys, for non commissioned officers. But

868
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's good for your career to get it

869
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: right and right.

870
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think especially if you're if I was a

871
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 2: stay in and once you start hitting E seven, starts

872
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 2: in first class like you're an infantruyman, like you need

873
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 2: any IV you know, a ranger tab. I think. I

874
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:08,359
Speaker 2: think the one thing about Ranger School was so I

875
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 2: obviously never went to Ranger school. This somewhere I probably

876
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 2: would have went had I stayed in, but uh, I

877
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 2: went to.

878
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: Which is like the grad school for ranger school.

879
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 2: Like that. You're probably going to get some ranger hate

880
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 2: on this because you know, I never went to ranger School.

881
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 2: But a lot a lot of you know, ARSTIC is

882
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 2: mostly rangers that go through that training.

883
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: It's mostly it's like, look, look, I went to Ranger School.

884
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: I graduated Ranger School. It sucked. It's draconian like, it's

885
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: it's really difficult, but a lot of the advanced skills

886
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: in the next phase of that training, it's Arslick. It's like,

887
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: what is what is the acronym for God? It's been

888
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: so like leadership course, reconnaissance surveillance leadership course. Like that's

889
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: like the grad with what people refer to in the army.

890
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: It's like the grad school for ranger school. But you

891
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: went to that and not ranger school, which is crazy

892
00:45:56,960 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: about and you graduated.

893
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I went to that. But I will tell you,

894
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 2: like for anybody who's gonna go in the military, like

895
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: go to ranger school first. It's like, why would you

896
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 2: go to It's just one of those things where because

897
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,720
Speaker 2: you're gonna see the hell they put these these guys

898
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 2: through when they're going to ranger school. You don't want

899
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 2: to see that first. You just need to just go

900
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 2: and be there. I think, you know what I mean,

901
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,360
Speaker 2: because they treated that's like really good. It was. It

902
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:21,799
Speaker 2: was a gentleman's course, so we get there. I mean,

903
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:23,879
Speaker 2: they're all rides who are training us, but they're all

904
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 2: our eyes who have a lot of like former lurse

905
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 2: D the long range we're constance like the divisional detachment

906
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:32,879
Speaker 2: like you. They used to do at the division level,

907
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 2: then they brought it to the brigade level, like when

908
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 2: I when we were in but those are the guys

909
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 2: running it, but we were treated differently, like you guys

910
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 2: gonna need to wait in line or just yelling at

911
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 2: all that, you know what I mean, like all the

912
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:46,879
Speaker 2: all the ranger students and stuff, and we're just kind

913
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 2: of like hanging out eating lunch. But like, but it

914
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,280
Speaker 2: was hard in the way that it was a gentleman's course,

915
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,959
Speaker 2: but it was like thirty four days. It was very

916
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,439
Speaker 2: mentally demanding, like you had like a few days to learn,

917
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 2: like four hundred pieces of equipment like artilly like point

918
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 2: are you just you name it? Like you got to

919
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 2: name all this stuff, and like they just flash a

920
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 2: picture of it could be any angle of a tank

921
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 2: or something, and like you got like three seconds and

922
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 2: you got to get the answer. If you don't pass

923
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 2: that test, you failed to school. And if you don't

924
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 2: pass the land. Now the land is a star course,

925
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 2: so that's like basically you get your next point when

926
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 2: you get to that point. And a lot of these

927
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 2: points are five to seven kilometers away. You can't dead reckon,

928
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 2: you can't go through a straight line. You got to

929
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 2: use the high ground. You get in a low ground

930
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 2: at bending like you're in trouble, like you're just you're

931
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 2: gonna beating brush all day and you're just gonna.

932
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

933
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 2: So the first time we did that, the first time

934
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 2: we did it, one guy passed. One guy passed the

935
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 2: land Now in our whole class, it was like it

936
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 2: was like a horse recontact. He like ran through the course.

937
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: The guy was like a team. Everybody else failed. He's

938
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 2: the only one that made it. And the second time around,

939
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 2: you know, some of us passed, but it was you know,

940
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 2: they said about every class, it's about a forty forty

941
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:00,399
Speaker 2: to failure rate, and that's with only a few didn't

942
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 2: have ranger tabs. Most every single person in there was

943
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:06,839
Speaker 2: tabbed or SF. And yeah, the class before mind, they

944
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 2: had said they're eighty percent failed, eighty percent failure rate

945
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,240
Speaker 2: and this is mostly this is mostly guys with ranger tabs.

946
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 2: So this isn't you know. So that's probably the hardest

947
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:17,959
Speaker 2: thing I did in the Army, is go through our slack.

948
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 2: That was kind of my I would say that landap

949
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 2: course is one of the toughest things I ever did

950
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 2: in my life. That was really difficult.

951
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 1: Oh my god. The land Nab and the Star course

952
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 1: at Benning Is. It's just brutal when you're talking about

953
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 1: when you're saying, like, first of all, like I sprinted

954
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:36,879
Speaker 1: the entire last half of the Ranger school Land Nap

955
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: course just because you're timed. You know you have to

956
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: get your points in a certain amount of time, and

957
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: like you don't want to get like I don't remember

958
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 1: how many points you had to get, but you don't

959
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,319
Speaker 1: want to get like four of five points and then

960
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 1: cross the finish line, or get five of five points

961
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: and cross the finish line, or get back to base,

962
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: Like even thirty seconds late doesn't matter. You're a no

963
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: go done. And when you talk about like you can't

964
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: get trapped in a low gund, I mean the brush

965
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: is so thick that you'll have plant, you know, thorn,

966
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 1: scratch in your face and everything else, Like when you

967
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 1: talk about dead reck and you're talking about like you

968
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: have a point here and a point here. You can't

969
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:16,399
Speaker 1: go from point A to point B straight. So you're

970
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 1: talking about like using the high ground. It means looking

971
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 1: looking at a map and saying, okay, here's my point right,

972
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 1: But I also know that there's a there's a there's

973
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:28,320
Speaker 1: a hot there's high ground. There's a hill right here,

974
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna I'm gonna like use my pro tractor

975
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: and my compass and plot an asthmuth from where I

976
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: am right now to that hill and I'm gonna get there,

977
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna use that hill to plot an

978
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: asthmuth down to uh my pro tractor price and plot

979
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: an asthmud down to my point and terrain associate get

980
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: to that point. And then when you get to that point,

981
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: it's like that they're hanging on these little trees right

982
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: in these little metal boxes, and there's like it's like

983
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: the point name would be like you know, J six

984
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: or whatever, like there's something like that. I don't know, right,

985
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: and you get the next the next point is in there,

986
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: so you start from there to the next one. It's brutal.

987
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 1: It's brutal.

988
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:09,720
Speaker 2: The good thing about the Arseny coin was they actually

989
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:11,719
Speaker 2: had points that weren't like you weren't looking for a

990
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:14,719
Speaker 2: coffee can and they'd actually be like an ri there

991
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:17,720
Speaker 2: and a truck or something so like. But the points

992
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 2: were they were far and it was like a seven

993
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:22,160
Speaker 2: hour time limit. It's a day to night or a

994
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:24,359
Speaker 2: night to day movement and Yeah, like you said, it's

995
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 2: basically all terrain association. And like using backstops. The big

996
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 2: thing I tell people on land Avage Room is into

997
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 2: this stuff. It's like fun, use proper backstops. Know, if

998
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 2: there's a creek going through there, if you hit that

999
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 2: creak and you're at your point, something's wrong. You know

1000
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 2: what I mean, You've hit your backstop, you know what

1001
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,479
Speaker 2: I mean, or whatever that may be. If it's a road,

1002
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 2: if it's anything like that, you know.

1003
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: But yeah, and then Chris Chris, Yeah, so what we're

1004
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,360
Speaker 1: talking about is just during the day. You have to

1005
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: do it at night too, Yeah, right, Like yeah, you

1006
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: get like.

1007
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 2: Half of it's at night half a day. Yeah.

1008
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 1: I mean I again when I talk about looking back

1009
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: at those experiences and thinking it's surreal, like I do,

1010
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: because like I'll get lost using my Google Maps, like

1011
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: on some back road and I'm like, how the hell

1012
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: did I pass the Ranger nav or the Ranger land

1013
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: nav course, but I'm getting lost on my way to Walmart.

1014
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 2: You know.

1015
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: It's weird.

1016
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 2: Man. Like Afghanistan, the roads is like on the maps,

1017
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 2: like and the map doesn't help that much just they're

1018
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 2: all different roads. They make the roads change over time.

1019
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, this is like what.

1020
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:33,840
Speaker 1: Roads? There are no roads?

1021
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just over there.

1022
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like yeah, it's crazy you go to ars

1023
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 1: Lake and then you know, we went through all this

1024
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 1: hardcore training, which we talked a lot about. We should

1025
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: really divide this episode into two. It should have you

1026
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,240
Speaker 1: back and we'll talk about we're talking about the training

1027
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 1: and the lead up now and we really talk about

1028
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: the deployment to Afghanistan next. We've already been doing this

1029
00:51:55,239 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 1: for fifty minutes. But so we get so we you know,

1030
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 1: we were going to Afghanistan, like you know, I meet

1031
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: you in two thousand and five, We do like a

1032
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 1: year's worth of train up. We know we're going to

1033
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:11,720
Speaker 1: Afghanistan two thousand and six, and you know, we started

1034
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: to have an intel trickle in from the border. But honestly, Chris,

1035
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 1: it was a joke. Do you remember, Like we were

1036
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: hardly getting anything, and you know you had already been

1037
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. What I mean, I don't even want to

1038
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: I don't want to gloss over that. Actually I'm gonna

1039
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 1: stop because I want to start with your first deployment

1040
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan. You went, you went to Afghanistan two thousand

1041
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 1: and four.

1042
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, it was two thousand and three to two

1043
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 2: thousand and four. It was let me think it was

1044
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 2: August two three, made two thousand and four and came back.

1045
00:52:42,360 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you come back in two thousand and four, right,

1046
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 1: and that deployment for you, I don't I you know

1047
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: what this is two years after nine to eleven. And

1048
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:54,840
Speaker 1: by the way, after you volunteer to serve the country,

1049
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: your your boots on the ground in Afghanistan, like less

1050
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: than less than two years later after volunteer to serve,

1051
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:04,480
Speaker 1: your in combat. You're at war looking for bin Laden.

1052
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: I mean that's always part of the mission. And where

1053
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 1: were you on your first deployment, if memory service, It

1054
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: was like Gosney.

1055
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 2: So that was a lot of places. It was a

1056
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 2: weird deployment. It wasn't like our our deployment where we

1057
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 2: had just our area of operation. We were in Tactica.

1058
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:22,399
Speaker 2: We were in Promel Valley, you know what I mean.

1059
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 2: This one was weird. We did. Uh. We started out

1060
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 2: my platoons start out in barry Kut, which is the

1061
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 2: most northern place where we had US forces. Uh, we

1062
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 2: had one platoon there and we were there with it.

1063
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 2: There was like a few CIA guys there, and it

1064
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 2: was weird. Man. They were doing stuff like people are

1065
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 2: meeting them in like like a tent and stuff and

1066
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 2: they're like got a backpack of money and it was crazy.

1067
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 2: I'm like a private, I'm like, what the hell's going on?

1068
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 2: This is crazy, like you know, and uh, and it

1069
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 2: was just still cool. I'm like talking to those guys,

1070
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I was like Delta. And then they went.

1071
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 1: They had like one name right, like like, oh, my

1072
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:00,800
Speaker 1: name's Chester, Like we're Tick Roger.

1073
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 2: It's like, you know what I mean. I'm like, all right, man,

1074
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 2: I'm not going to ask you more questions. I'll leave

1075
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 2: you alone. But uh, but they helped us out a lot.

1076
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 2: They were good. They were good guys and people. We

1077
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:11,800
Speaker 2: were there. I mean we were just as young. You know,

1078
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 2: I'm a young private. I don't know anything, you know

1079
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 2: what I mean. So they were good dudes. A few

1080
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 2: times when like we took some a couple of like

1081
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 2: rockets that didn't really land that close, like they'd hop

1082
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,720
Speaker 2: up on the towers with us, get some flayers and stuff.

1083
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 2: You know. So like, yeah, they were they were nice guys,

1084
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 2: you know, what I mean. But yeah, so we we

1085
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 2: were there for a while. Then we went to like

1086
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 2: bog Um where we did we did a q RF

1087
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 2: for the country, which was weird. It was like we

1088
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 2: did this for like a month where we're QRF. Like

1089
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 2: we had one was like called a Karzai extraction if

1090
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 2: you had to take the president of Afghanistan like was

1091
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 2: getting attacked and like we have to go in and

1092
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 2: save them and like chinooks and stuff. So we do

1093
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,239
Speaker 2: all these training missions. We had one was like a

1094
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 2: vehicle takedown and I think we called it j LO

1095
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 2: or something, and we would train this, you know, we

1096
00:54:57,160 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 2: like do all this stuff like yeah, and I would

1097
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 2: have like the eighty four. So I'm like I'm the

1098
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:02,320
Speaker 2: one who's gonna like take this thing out or a

1099
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 2: law and uh, we actually did one that hey this

1100
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 2: is real, Like we got one. We got to be

1101
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 2: like it was like I'm like, oh my god, we're

1102
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:11,840
Speaker 2: gonna do this, Like I'm gonna take out a vehicle

1103
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 2: I think, you know what I mean, Like we get

1104
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 2: on the we get out there, I'm like, oh, but

1105
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 2: this is it. This is it didn't really I got

1106
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 2: the law, like I'm ready to go and like all right,

1107
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 2: index were all said that was it was just a

1108
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:26,719
Speaker 2: training run. I was like, what, it was just a

1109
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 2: training run we did but in in country, that's correct.

1110
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 2: Kind of nuts, right, yeah? Yeah, And they didn't tell.

1111
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 1: You that it was just training No, I mean that

1112
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:41,279
Speaker 1: sounds that that's that's crazy. I mean, what if you

1113
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:45,000
Speaker 1: landed on HLZ and there was like you know, it's

1114
00:55:45,040 --> 00:55:48,279
Speaker 1: like family, yeah, and you like, shoot.

1115
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, but I'm telling you that happened.

1116
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 1: I believe you. I believe you.

1117
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:58,319
Speaker 2: You know what. I'm pretty sure because my memory spells you.

1118
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 2: I know we're on the I think we actually went

1119
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 2: up and landed and we sat up. But that's an

1120
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 2: interesting point because you know that was a long time ago.

1121
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:10,400
Speaker 2: But yes, it was. It was kind of crazy, you know.

1122
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:13,280
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Chris, things change all the time. Like

1123
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 1: when we were in Afghanistan, we did like the what

1124
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 1: we call O h and I fires, basically harassment and

1125
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: interdiction artillery fire. So we would have these target reference

1126
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 1: points and we'd fire like at random every single night

1127
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:33,920
Speaker 1: and by the way, multiple times a day. But every

1128
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:39,440
Speaker 1: single night, random ambu historical ambush sites, just no eyes

1129
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:44,480
Speaker 1: on our target, just pound those sites with artillery. And

1130
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: we call that harassment an interdiction because we just wanted

1131
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: to keep the enemy guessing. We never wanted the enemy

1132
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:51,799
Speaker 1: to you know, you plot in an ambush there or

1133
00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:53,919
Speaker 1: something or I think twice before they did it. Right,

1134
00:56:54,920 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: You don't do that shit anymore, you know, if you happen, Yeah,

1135
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:03,319
Speaker 1: it happened. Yeah. So like what I'm saying is is like, yeah,

1136
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:07,040
Speaker 1: things change. Our tactics, techniques and procedures change all the time.

1137
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: And so I but here's what here's what I'm asking.

1138
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:13,719
Speaker 1: Here's why I don't want to gloss over your first

1139
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 1: apployment because, like you and I got real close, I

1140
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 1: think in garrison, did lots of things together. And you

1141
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 1: told me about like your first experience with death on

1142
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 1: that first deployment, right, and you could do you got

1143
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: blown up as well, didn't you?

1144
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah I did. I didn't. I mean I didn't

1145
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 2: take any trapnel, but I thought I was dead. Yeah.

1146
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 2: So yeah, first deployment for us, it was kind of

1147
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 2: glossed it over. When we were up in that furthest

1148
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 2: north place, very cow where we it was just our

1149
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 2: oppatun We did have a we had an op. It

1150
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 2: was like a big hill op on top. It took

1151
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 2: about an hour to get there on foot. And uh

1152
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 2: my buddy, they got attacked up there. It was a

1153
00:57:55,920 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 2: squad plus sized element enemy attacking the op and they're

1154
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 2: pounding it. And so we got our cure apt together

1155
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 2: and so we get out and I'm a private, you

1156
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 2: know what I mean, and like just like this, you know,

1157
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 2: one of the staff starts just like count You're on point. Go.

1158
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 2: It's like, what me, all right, I'm a private, but sure,

1159
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 2: I'll the point, you know. I just kind of I

1160
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 2: thought like an NCAA would be leading the charge on

1161
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 2: that one. But yeah, I took us up the mountain.

1162
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 2: We got up there, we got shot out on the

1163
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 2: ridge line. We we didn't return fired because there was

1164
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:35,320
Speaker 2: concern about where we were and we didn't want to

1165
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:38,040
Speaker 2: get in a crossfire situation with our guys on the op.

1166
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:41,080
Speaker 2: But basically what they ended up getting getting a tent

1167
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 2: on station and they basically were doing these strafing runs

1168
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 2: they didn't want so close to us. They called a

1169
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 2: danger close draping run. I'm telling you, man, it's the scariest,

1170
00:58:49,160 --> 00:58:50,760
Speaker 2: one of the scariest things that I've seen in my life.

1171
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 2: It's a wall of fire just coming at us. And

1172
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:55,640
Speaker 2: it was way way too close. It's just coming in

1173
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 2: and I had my head behind a rock like this

1174
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:00,040
Speaker 2: big and I was just screaming at the top of

1175
00:59:00,240 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 2: my lungs just like and it was I mean, it

1176
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:04,680
Speaker 2: was so close to us. I mean they got on

1177
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:06,440
Speaker 2: we had the j tech and on the other like

1178
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 2: way too clock. It was just nuts, you know what

1179
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:13,160
Speaker 2: I mean. We get through that firefight. We ultimately bounced around.

1180
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 2: We go to Jalalabad for a while and that was

1181
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:18,320
Speaker 2: a terrible place to be. It was just brifick. We

1182
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 2: were just doing like security that thought we did. It

1183
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 2: was really boring, terrible time. And then we did uh.

1184
00:59:23,240 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 2: We went to Gosney and then we were doing some

1185
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 2: more missions there in Gosney. That's why I got blown up.

1186
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 2: Was in Gosney. The they buried like one hundred and

1187
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 2: seven millimeters rocket actually two of them, on the side

1188
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:37,520
Speaker 2: of a roadway. And what had happened was I had

1189
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 2: gone to to h I had gone to Bogram to

1190
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 2: do an R and R and so we they we

1191
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 2: got to go to Duha Guitar or whatever for like

1192
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 2: three days and like have some drinks or whatever. Nuts.

1193
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 2: That's actually a whole nother story because I almost got

1194
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:57,040
Speaker 2: like court martialed there pretty much. That's a whole nother thing.

1195
00:59:57,520 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 1: You tell me what happened. You have to tell me

1196
00:59:59,560 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 1: if you can't.

1197
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 2: If you can, I absolutely can't. So we go to Doha, right,

1198
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 2: and you're young. It's like, dude, let's we.

1199
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: Want to have some drinks, right, Like we've been explain

1200
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 1: explained to explain to people, like where Doha is and

1201
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:11,680
Speaker 1: what the process is.

1202
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 2: Oh, just Doha, Like it's in Qatar, cutter, which is

1203
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 2: like the country in the Middle East, and there was

1204
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:21,919
Speaker 2: you know, we had a military base there and that's

1205
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 2: a place where you could go on that what they

1206
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:27,160
Speaker 2: call a rest and relaxation for three or four days.

1207
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:30,160
Speaker 2: But since we were over, we got extended on an

1208
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:32,840
Speaker 2: employment from an original six month deployment to nine months.

1209
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 2: So some of our guys they were filtering guys too

1210
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 2: to get them like, you know, three four days off

1211
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 2: and you know, out of country, you know. So we

1212
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 2: get there and uh, I think it was like I

1213
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 2: don't know, it's probably the first or second and it

1214
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 2: was like the second day we were there and you

1215
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:53,280
Speaker 2: take the bus into you know, into like the city

1216
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 2: and there's a huge mall and stuff. It's very rich country,

1217
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 2: you know, all oil money and stuff like that. And

1218
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 2: so we were like going on the moon stuff. I'm

1219
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 2: buying a Cuban cigars and all these things. And uh

1220
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 2: so we stop at one of the you know, it

1221
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:07,760
Speaker 2: was like they you know, had one of the bars

1222
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 2: in the mall. So we just kind of hold up

1223
01:01:09,240 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 2: there and we had you know, we probably had seven

1224
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 2: eight drinks. You know, I think got crazy we were

1225
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 2: having drinks. We get back on the loop.

1226
01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:16,600
Speaker 1: Isn't Cutter a dry country though.

1227
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:19,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, but they have it's just like anything else.

1228
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:22,360
Speaker 2: When there's foreigners coming in, they have like places where

1229
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:24,320
Speaker 2: you can go. They still have bars and things like that.

1230
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 2: They interesting still sell alcohol. Yeah yeah, yeah, I've never been.

1231
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 1: I've never been there. I've never been there.

1232
01:01:29,640 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. So like the Air Force people, right, they're totally

1233
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 2: like all right, we do their all time, our pilots

1234
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:35,840
Speaker 2: and we do this stuff, and it's like but for us,

1235
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 2: we're up under different rules, you know what i mean.

1236
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 2: It's like you know what I mean, like we're under

1237
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:42,280
Speaker 2: like the infantry like you're lucky or even on an

1238
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 2: air force base. You piece of set, you know what

1239
01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 2: I mean, Like, don't even don't even look me in

1240
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 2: a face, you know what I mean.

1241
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, for.

1242
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 2: Infantry people when you smoke that, it's about two miles

1243
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:53,920
Speaker 2: down that way, you know what I mean. Like, Okay,

1244
01:01:55,320 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 2: So we get on the bus and some idiot doesn't

1245
01:01:58,720 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 2: show up. He's not on the bus, and like the

1246
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 2: MPs are like, what the hell is going on? Now?

1247
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:05,000
Speaker 2: They're looking for this guy, and we're like sitting there

1248
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:09,440
Speaker 2: for hours. Eventually they find this guy, bring him back.

1249
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 2: He's been drinking. Guy's like gone, he's like almost passed

1250
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 2: out or something. They bring us all and they's MP

1251
01:02:15,720 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 2: gets on the bus and like he's like, has anybody

1252
01:02:18,520 --> 01:02:21,520
Speaker 2: been drinking? We're gonna prepalyze everybody. And I'm like, oh

1253
01:02:21,600 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 2: my god, Like what like that? That's very cool? Cool, cool,

1254
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 2: cool cool cool. I'm like I think I'd just gotten

1255
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 2: like my e F I just became a specialist. I'm like, oh,

1256
01:02:29,640 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 2: that's done. Going down to E one now, so be you.

1257
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: Know, explained to explain to people. Explain to people why,

1258
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:39,480
Speaker 1: like you're not allowed to drink in country. It's it's

1259
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:42,800
Speaker 1: it's a violation of what right, like general Order number one?

1260
01:02:43,920 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.

1261
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:46,920
Speaker 1: Are you allowed? Were you allowed to drink when you

1262
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 1: were there?

1263
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 2: You were allowed to drink on the post. You had

1264
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 2: like three beer tickets a day, which for an infantrument

1265
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:57,480
Speaker 2: is an absolute joke, not nearly enough for us.

1266
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 1: Especially you're gonna send guys home, like you're gonna send

1267
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: guys over there for rest and relaxation and only like

1268
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:12,479
Speaker 1: coming from a war zone, they only have like three

1269
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 1: light beers. Yeah, you know, like and like in World

1270
01:03:16,280 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: War Two, as tough as those they these guys had it.

1271
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 1: These guys went through hell on in the European Front.

1272
01:03:22,240 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: At least they were rotating back to London where they

1273
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:27,000
Speaker 1: could drink and go to bars and all this other stuff.

1274
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 1: And they're sending you to Cutter. Oh my god.

1275
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we long story short. I'm like, I was like, dude,

1276
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:37,520
Speaker 2: they're good, we're smelt like, and the guys like, listen,

1277
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 2: if you had drinks, it's tell me now, and like

1278
01:03:41,440 --> 01:03:43,520
Speaker 2: we'll deal with it, but you gotta be honest with me.

1279
01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 2: So I was, you know, like, okay, ahead, you know

1280
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 2: what I mean, and bad idea. So they like they're

1281
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 2: like you know, like he's like, you're gonna for the

1282
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:56,640
Speaker 2: sergeant major ta't come tomorrow zero nine hundred out. I'm like,

1283
01:03:57,160 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 2: oh my god, that was so much double And then

1284
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 2: he sat there for a while and like for like

1285
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,000
Speaker 2: an hour, and these guys talk. They're like all right,

1286
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 2: you're all sad, just don't do it again. And we're

1287
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:08,320
Speaker 2: like there's like, yeah, you can go, and they just

1288
01:04:08,400 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 2: let us go. That was it just like hearing the

1289
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:12,040
Speaker 2: hell out of us and then just let us go.

1290
01:04:13,440 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: That was it nothing, That wasn't even you know, this

1291
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 1: is what frustrates me about the army sometimes, like one

1292
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 1: jackass does something stupid and then commanders basically say okay,

1293
01:04:24,760 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 1: now everybody can't do it, or now everybody gets in trouble, right, Yeah, you.

1294
01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:31,640
Speaker 2: Know that's what that's what's tough about in the infantry world,

1295
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:34,440
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It was always like that,

1296
01:04:34,560 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 2: like when you've got to courage stand or whatever. Like

1297
01:04:36,240 --> 01:04:38,200
Speaker 2: everybody in the Air Force could like drink and stuff,

1298
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 2: but like, yeah, I know, army people.

1299
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:46,000
Speaker 1: It's so it's so crazy you talk about like you

1300
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:48,720
Speaker 1: know because like now like uh, you know, Air Force

1301
01:04:48,920 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 1: Army Marines like all these jokes, but there, but there

1302
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: really is a difference, like they like and in many cases,

1303
01:04:56,240 --> 01:04:58,240
Speaker 1: like you know, the pilots that need to have their

1304
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:00,240
Speaker 1: rest and they need to get X numbers out a

1305
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 1: sleeping like it's like they have a whole different mission

1306
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:05,240
Speaker 1: set but they're sleeping. I mean, like I think the

1307
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:07,400
Speaker 1: Air Force and I don't think that this is I

1308
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:12,160
Speaker 1: think this is true. They get paid substandard housing, pay

1309
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:16,320
Speaker 1: to live in army bases and our infantry housing. Infantry

1310
01:05:16,360 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 1: housing is a whole other thing. It's like I believe

1311
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:25,760
Speaker 1: it too, and yeah, so so do why so do I?

1312
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:28,400
Speaker 1: But so you get so do you go to cutter

1313
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:30,120
Speaker 1: before after you got blown up?

1314
01:05:31,320 --> 01:05:33,560
Speaker 2: It was before actually, so what ended up happening is

1315
01:05:33,640 --> 01:05:36,480
Speaker 2: we get back from that and apparently we had had

1316
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,040
Speaker 2: there's like some village elders in some village. It was

1317
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:43,000
Speaker 2: in the Ghazni province. And we go out one day

1318
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:45,560
Speaker 2: just like our squad. It wasn't many, but we didn't

1319
01:05:45,560 --> 01:05:47,560
Speaker 2: have up on our vehicles then it wasn't like you know,

1320
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:49,640
Speaker 2: we had a couple of kevlar blankets over the side

1321
01:05:49,640 --> 01:05:51,800
Speaker 2: of the truck, you know what I mean. And uh,

1322
01:05:52,320 --> 01:05:54,120
Speaker 2: we go out to the spot. I'm like Okay, we're

1323
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:56,080
Speaker 2: going out here. It's like we're gonna meet with some

1324
01:05:56,240 --> 01:05:58,960
Speaker 2: elders out here at this village. We get there and

1325
01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 2: I noticed there's like nobody in like the town square,

1326
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:04,560
Speaker 2: which I'm like, I'm like, huh, okay, there's like nobody here,

1327
01:06:05,200 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 2: which kind of weird, right, you know what I mean?

1328
01:06:07,480 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 2: Because afghanis stand it just seems like when you're in

1329
01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 2: a built like there's just people around someone's And so

1330
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:14,760
Speaker 2: we start to get out of the humby. It's in

1331
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:16,560
Speaker 2: one of those cargo ones where it's got like the

1332
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:18,800
Speaker 2: little tailgate thing, and I was like had my foot

1333
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 2: on top of the tailgate. I was stepping over the

1334
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:24,960
Speaker 2: edge just abuck to get out when just boosh, it

1335
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 2: just blew up one hundred and seven millimeters rocket. There

1336
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:31,560
Speaker 2: was a guy standing like two feet from it. There

1337
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:33,520
Speaker 2: was another guy standing right next to it, about a

1338
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:36,600
Speaker 2: foot from him, and then I was about probably seven

1339
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 2: or eight feet away, standing on top of the straight

1340
01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 2: way up in the air, which is like a bad

1341
01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:43,480
Speaker 2: place to be with something floating like that, and it

1342
01:06:43,640 --> 01:06:46,440
Speaker 2: just completely just tocked me just straight back, and I

1343
01:06:46,480 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 2: thought I was dead. I really I thought, like there's

1344
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:51,439
Speaker 2: no way and I remember checking my body to see

1345
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:54,240
Speaker 2: like in my intact and I was I was like,

1346
01:06:54,320 --> 01:06:56,440
Speaker 2: I mean it rung my bell. I think I got

1347
01:06:56,480 --> 01:07:00,200
Speaker 2: a pretty good concussion from it. But never I never

1348
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:02,280
Speaker 2: got medically checked out or anything like that. They never

1349
01:07:02,360 --> 01:07:03,040
Speaker 2: had me checked out.

1350
01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:05,040
Speaker 1: But I mean, you shouldn't you should have been awarded

1351
01:07:05,080 --> 01:07:09,240
Speaker 1: a purple heart for it. Yeah, you know, because clearly

1352
01:07:09,400 --> 01:07:13,760
Speaker 1: clearly like had at least a traumatic brain injury, which

1353
01:07:14,200 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: you know, years later, even after we were there, it

1354
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:18,720
Speaker 1: was that wasn't even a thing. Traumatic brain injury wasn't

1355
01:07:18,720 --> 01:07:20,600
Speaker 1: even an acronym when we were in Afghanistan, but it

1356
01:07:20,720 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 1: is now.

1357
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 2: Well now they call it the same thing as PTSD.

1358
01:07:23,880 --> 01:07:26,280
Speaker 2: Like if you try to do acclaim saying, you know,

1359
01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:29,440
Speaker 2: traumatic brain injury or PTSD, they'll just lump them all together.

1360
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:31,800
Speaker 2: They don't even it doesn't even matter for the VA.

1361
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, So what happened to those guys that

1362
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 1: were right next to the one or seven?

1363
01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:40,160
Speaker 2: So the guy right next to he, I mean he

1364
01:07:40,280 --> 01:07:43,480
Speaker 2: got his belt on, you know, pull him out of there,

1365
01:07:43,640 --> 01:07:45,600
Speaker 2: you know, grab him by the back of the vast

1366
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:47,480
Speaker 2: pull him out of there, because we don't know what

1367
01:07:47,560 --> 01:07:49,240
Speaker 2: the hell is going on. If there's anything else, we

1368
01:07:49,320 --> 01:07:53,520
Speaker 2: get a perimeter going. The guy it was had been

1369
01:07:53,600 --> 01:07:56,800
Speaker 2: right next to me. He had a like a bottle

1370
01:07:56,840 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 2: of water in his pocket. It exploded just the overpressure

1371
01:07:59,880 --> 01:08:02,120
Speaker 2: of splowd the water in its pocket. I don't thought

1372
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 2: that was crazy completely just boosh, just blew it up.

1373
01:08:06,480 --> 01:08:09,000
Speaker 2: But yeah, that was basically it. And obviously, like clearly

1374
01:08:09,120 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 2: the villagers like knew that there was an ID there,

1375
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:14,840
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like they knew that basically

1376
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:17,439
Speaker 2: the EOD when the EOD looked at it, they basically

1377
01:08:17,520 --> 01:08:20,760
Speaker 2: determined that that had it. Just it was buried just

1378
01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 2: a little bit too deeply on the side of the

1379
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:25,760
Speaker 2: road here and it's kind of a little bit of

1380
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:28,560
Speaker 2: a hill or how it kind of you know, the

1381
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:32,400
Speaker 2: grade kind of filters down like that. And that's what

1382
01:08:32,640 --> 01:08:35,120
Speaker 2: saved us is because a lot of that blast went

1383
01:08:35,280 --> 01:08:39,160
Speaker 2: up more rather than into us. And that's why, you know,

1384
01:08:39,200 --> 01:08:40,920
Speaker 2: because they're not I'd be dead. I mean that you're

1385
01:08:40,960 --> 01:08:42,640
Speaker 2: like eight ft from one oh seven, Dude, You're like

1386
01:08:43,240 --> 01:08:46,240
Speaker 2: that ain't good. That's that's going to rip you apart. No,

1387
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:50,000
Speaker 2: it's a huge rocket, huge, you know, and there's two

1388
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:51,479
Speaker 2: of them, so one did even go off so if

1389
01:08:51,520 --> 01:08:54,120
Speaker 2: they've both gone often it's like, I mean, I just

1390
01:08:54,200 --> 01:08:55,760
Speaker 2: I don't think you're walking away from that thing.

1391
01:08:55,960 --> 01:08:59,240
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, one of one or seven milimeters rockets basically.

1392
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 2: Like this this big right, Yeah, I mean it's like

1393
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:05,720
Speaker 2: a big rocket yearimeters round. I mean it's it's a

1394
01:09:05,840 --> 01:09:08,479
Speaker 2: big few. It's no joke. Yeah.

1395
01:09:09,360 --> 01:09:11,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, And those are what they're firing at us like

1396
01:09:12,360 --> 01:09:14,760
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the time. And yeah, they make

1397
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:18,960
Speaker 1: big explosions. Yeah, that's it's crazy that you did. Do

1398
01:09:19,040 --> 01:09:20,479
Speaker 1: you survive Everyone survived that.

1399
01:09:21,479 --> 01:09:26,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody survived it. Yeah, but it was just kind

1400
01:09:26,560 --> 01:09:29,280
Speaker 2: of you know, and yeah, I just didn't know. We

1401
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:31,519
Speaker 2: you know, we've been there before. I think we've been

1402
01:09:31,560 --> 01:09:33,080
Speaker 2: there a couple of times. Just one of those things.

1403
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:34,920
Speaker 2: You know, that's what the enemy looks for. They see

1404
01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:37,080
Speaker 2: you stop. Hey, they park right there every time, you

1405
01:09:37,120 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 2: know what I mean that they're looking, they're always watching it.

1406
01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:41,599
Speaker 2: Even our first appointment, we didn't have I was only

1407
01:09:41,720 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 2: one direct fire engagement and then they lobbed a few

1408
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:47,439
Speaker 2: rockets here. There nothing really that close, not like when

1409
01:09:47,479 --> 01:09:50,560
Speaker 2: are not in our deployment, and uh, a lot of

1410
01:09:50,640 --> 01:09:52,360
Speaker 2: the stuff we did was like we would go after

1411
01:09:52,439 --> 01:09:54,880
Speaker 2: like high value, medium value targets, like we would go

1412
01:09:55,040 --> 01:09:57,760
Speaker 2: try to find people that worked for intelligence or under

1413
01:09:57,760 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 2: the Taliban and like things like that that we spent

1414
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:01,960
Speaker 2: a lot of time doing that, like when we were

1415
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:05,080
Speaker 2: in Gosney and we were successful in getting people like

1416
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:07,280
Speaker 2: on you know, the most Wanted list, and you know,

1417
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:11,439
Speaker 2: not missions that like probably you know, like Seals or

1418
01:10:11,520 --> 01:10:13,280
Speaker 2: Delta is gonna take on not the high you know,

1419
01:10:13,320 --> 01:10:16,200
Speaker 2: but you're just going after people that probably have intel,

1420
01:10:16,320 --> 01:10:20,000
Speaker 2: medium value to high value targets. You know, we would

1421
01:10:20,040 --> 01:10:21,479
Speaker 2: just we'd scoop them up all the time.

1422
01:10:23,400 --> 01:10:25,599
Speaker 1: That's crazy, man. And then you get so you get

1423
01:10:25,680 --> 01:10:29,639
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and five, two thousand and four.

1424
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:34,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, like yeah, May two thousand and four, yep.

1425
01:10:34,960 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, so May two thousand and four, and then there's

1426
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 1: a there has to be a change of command somewhere

1427
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:42,120
Speaker 1: after that, right of two eight because you're in two

1428
01:10:42,160 --> 01:10:45,120
Speaker 1: eight seven, second Battalion, eighty seventh Divituy Regiment at the time, right,

1429
01:10:46,120 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 1: so there when was the change of command after you

1430
01:10:48,040 --> 01:10:50,360
Speaker 1: got back? It had to happen the battalion change of

1431
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:53,120
Speaker 1: command the Talian Yeah, it.

1432
01:10:53,160 --> 01:10:56,720
Speaker 2: Wasn't long after. So we had Colonel Pascal was our

1433
01:10:57,320 --> 01:10:59,880
Speaker 2: Battalian commander, and then Colonel Toner took over not long

1434
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:05,120
Speaker 2: after we got back. I mean, you know, maybe I

1435
01:11:05,160 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 2: don't know if it was two or three months. It

1436
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:09,240
Speaker 2: was right in that timeframe though, just right after we

1437
01:11:09,320 --> 01:11:09,720
Speaker 2: got back.

1438
01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:13,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so yeah, two or three, two or three months,

1439
01:11:13,880 --> 01:11:16,280
Speaker 1: and this is two thousand and four, halfway thro yours

1440
01:11:16,320 --> 01:11:20,160
Speaker 1: probably like change command July August of two thousand and four,

1441
01:11:20,800 --> 01:11:25,160
Speaker 1: and Colonel Toner didn't waste any time, you know, he

1442
01:11:26,200 --> 01:11:29,240
Speaker 1: ramped up and you guys started training for the two

1443
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:33,559
Speaker 1: thousand and six deployment right away, right, yeah, I mean,

1444
01:11:33,600 --> 01:11:36,720
Speaker 1: and that's this is what I'm talking about, Like this

1445
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:41,320
Speaker 1: volunteer force. You know, this is just your story, but

1446
01:11:41,560 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 1: multiply that by one thousand, ten thousand, and that's the

1447
01:11:46,439 --> 01:11:49,439
Speaker 1: experience of people who are in the combat arms, you know,

1448
01:11:50,400 --> 01:11:54,599
Speaker 1: and and force Colm Forces command in the Army where

1449
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:56,640
Speaker 1: you didn't even get a year off and you were

1450
01:11:56,720 --> 01:11:59,600
Speaker 1: already training to go back to war, you know, and.

1451
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:02,680
Speaker 2: You live out of your rucksack, man, you live out

1452
01:12:02,680 --> 01:12:05,200
Speaker 2: of rucksack. If people want to know what it's like

1453
01:12:05,240 --> 01:12:07,559
Speaker 2: to be an instrument, just try thinking about being cold

1454
01:12:07,600 --> 01:12:09,880
Speaker 2: and wet for weeks at a time that hasn't been

1455
01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:11,840
Speaker 2: cold and wet for two weeks, and there's nothing you

1456
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:15,840
Speaker 2: can do to get warm. Sleeping in puddles, constant rain,

1457
01:12:16,400 --> 01:12:20,040
Speaker 2: you can't get dry. Your feet are falling apart because

1458
01:12:20,080 --> 01:12:23,080
Speaker 2: your feet are just soaked. You don't have enough pairs

1459
01:12:23,120 --> 01:12:24,479
Speaker 2: of socks, you know what I mean. Like it's just

1460
01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 2: that's it's rough, you know what I mean. Just training

1461
01:12:28,320 --> 01:12:30,240
Speaker 2: is rough, you know what I mean, let alone like

1462
01:12:30,360 --> 01:12:31,240
Speaker 2: actually going to war.

1463
01:12:31,600 --> 01:12:34,559
Speaker 1: You know, And this is why I think to your

1464
01:12:34,680 --> 01:12:37,200
Speaker 1: point earlier when you said, you know, there are lots

1465
01:12:37,200 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 1: of lots of amazing stories by the way of Navy,

1466
01:12:40,080 --> 01:12:43,960
Speaker 1: seals and Special Forces guys, like they had a unique

1467
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:46,519
Speaker 1: mission set and some of those guys were on once

1468
01:12:46,560 --> 01:12:49,200
Speaker 1: in a lifetime missions. You know, there's no question about it.

1469
01:12:49,360 --> 01:12:54,040
Speaker 1: But like there there is or there are not enough

1470
01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:59,839
Speaker 1: stories of light infantry or just infantry guys in combat

1471
01:13:00,560 --> 01:13:03,200
Speaker 1: over over these twenty years of war. Not enough. And

1472
01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:06,040
Speaker 1: these are the guys that are I mean, no joke.

1473
01:13:06,120 --> 01:13:08,479
Speaker 1: You talk about like you're in a fighting position getting

1474
01:13:08,560 --> 01:13:12,360
Speaker 1: rained on, you're freezing cold, you're probably hungry, you know,

1475
01:13:12,680 --> 01:13:15,960
Speaker 1: eating mrs. If you're lucky, getting shot at day in

1476
01:13:16,040 --> 01:13:18,680
Speaker 1: and day out. There's no you know, because a lot

1477
01:13:18,720 --> 01:13:20,640
Speaker 1: of these, a lot of the Special Forces guys, and

1478
01:13:20,680 --> 01:13:22,479
Speaker 1: again this isn't like a knock on any of them.

1479
01:13:22,720 --> 01:13:25,240
Speaker 1: Their mission, their mission set was very different than ours.

1480
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:28,640
Speaker 1: But they would they would leave. They'd go on a

1481
01:13:28,760 --> 01:13:33,240
Speaker 1: kinetic mission, like a high value target mission. Or if

1482
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:35,400
Speaker 1: you're a Green Beret, you're you know, sometimes you go

1483
01:13:35,479 --> 01:13:37,519
Speaker 1: on counter terror missions and stuff like that. But like

1484
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:39,680
Speaker 1: your mission is foreign internal defense. So you've got a

1485
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:43,679
Speaker 1: small teams train training indigenous forces. Very different mission set,

1486
01:13:44,160 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 1: uh than than conventional infantry. You know, Uh, conventional infantry

1487
01:13:49,240 --> 01:13:52,040
Speaker 1: you're just freezing, starving, getting your ass shot off every

1488
01:13:52,120 --> 01:13:54,400
Speaker 1: day and you never leave. You rare, you know, you

1489
01:13:54,479 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: don't leave, you don't.

1490
01:13:56,240 --> 01:13:58,840
Speaker 2: No, and seeing with the train up, I mean when

1491
01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:00,960
Speaker 2: you're the train up is the same thing, you know

1492
01:14:01,000 --> 01:14:05,879
Speaker 2: what I mean? You know we did it, uh Fort Knox, Kentucky.

1493
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:08,960
Speaker 2: We did that. I think that was before yeah.

1494
01:14:09,360 --> 01:14:09,840
Speaker 1: I got there.

1495
01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:11,840
Speaker 2: Was that right before you got there.

1496
01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:14,160
Speaker 1: That when you guys, when you guys you went to

1497
01:14:14,240 --> 01:14:16,519
Speaker 1: Fort Knox to do the train up there, that was.

1498
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:20,400
Speaker 2: A terrible It rained like every day every single day, dude,

1499
01:14:20,400 --> 01:14:22,479
Speaker 2: we were just you know, you're out there for eleven days,

1500
01:14:22,520 --> 01:14:24,479
Speaker 2: you're sleeping an hour day and they're putting us up

1501
01:14:24,479 --> 01:14:27,320
Speaker 2: against strikers. And the whole point was as for us

1502
01:14:27,400 --> 01:14:30,040
Speaker 2: to fail, like they just would. You gotta go six clicks,

1503
01:14:30,040 --> 01:14:32,200
Speaker 2: you got you know what I mean, We're just going, going, going.

1504
01:14:32,760 --> 01:14:34,599
Speaker 2: And the only time he slept was when they download

1505
01:14:34,640 --> 01:14:37,639
Speaker 2: your miles gear. They harvest all the data from the battles,

1506
01:14:38,439 --> 01:14:39,920
Speaker 2: and you sleep for like an hour, hour and a

1507
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:43,400
Speaker 2: half to smoke a bunch of cigarettes, drink tons of coffee,

1508
01:14:43,760 --> 01:14:45,600
Speaker 2: and then you just keep going and like you're just

1509
01:14:45,840 --> 01:14:47,840
Speaker 2: cold and wet, and you just live like that for

1510
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:49,560
Speaker 2: two weeks and then you get back. You got a

1511
01:14:49,640 --> 01:14:50,960
Speaker 2: day and a half off and you do it all

1512
01:14:51,000 --> 01:14:53,320
Speaker 2: over again. And we did. We spent like forty seven

1513
01:14:53,400 --> 01:14:55,559
Speaker 2: days in the field. The guys that were down there,

1514
01:14:55,600 --> 01:14:57,960
Speaker 2: the subject matter experts, you know there were most of

1515
01:14:58,000 --> 01:15:00,040
Speaker 2: them were tab they had Ranger tabs. They were you

1516
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:02,599
Speaker 2: know they were and they were like, guys, you're getting

1517
01:15:02,680 --> 01:15:04,840
Speaker 2: like you get basically they're doing Ranger school and you're

1518
01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:07,200
Speaker 2: not getting any credit for it. Like basically what they said.

1519
01:15:09,360 --> 01:15:10,720
Speaker 2: We had a couple of guys that got done with

1520
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:12,880
Speaker 2: Ranger school, and they were like they like wanted to

1521
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:14,640
Speaker 2: go back to Ranger School. They just finished and they

1522
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 2: like sent them there, Like, I'd rather go back to

1523
01:15:17,320 --> 01:15:19,519
Speaker 2: Ranger School right now. This is terrible, Like and I

1524
01:15:19,760 --> 01:15:21,680
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't have the experience. I think Ranger

1525
01:15:21,760 --> 01:15:24,479
Speaker 2: School is incredibly difficult. Anybody who's got who has a

1526
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:26,040
Speaker 2: Ranger tab, He's got a lot of respect from me,

1527
01:15:26,040 --> 01:15:28,200
Speaker 2: because I know that's really really tough school. So I'm

1528
01:15:28,240 --> 01:15:30,200
Speaker 2: not trying to knock. I'm not saying it was hard.

1529
01:15:30,479 --> 01:15:32,479
Speaker 2: I'm saying it did stuck really bad though. And I

1530
01:15:32,600 --> 01:15:35,240
Speaker 2: would rather have probably just been in Ranger School working

1531
01:15:35,280 --> 01:15:38,439
Speaker 2: on getting a Ranger tab than just this train up

1532
01:15:38,479 --> 01:15:41,519
Speaker 2: for us to light infantry against a striker, you know

1533
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:41,920
Speaker 2: what I mean.

1534
01:15:42,000 --> 01:15:44,120
Speaker 1: But I mean, at least you get something to show

1535
01:15:44,160 --> 01:15:46,080
Speaker 1: for it when you graduate, you.

1536
01:15:46,120 --> 01:15:48,200
Speaker 2: Know, exact great, you know what I mean. Like's like, yeah,

1537
01:15:48,200 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 2: I went to Fort Knox once just so I could

1538
01:15:50,240 --> 01:15:52,080
Speaker 2: be abused for two months, you know what I mean. Like,

1539
01:15:53,200 --> 01:15:57,559
Speaker 2: but yeah, it was good time. You know, I think

1540
01:15:57,640 --> 01:16:01,760
Speaker 2: the add you know, I probably had one. I have

1541
01:16:01,880 --> 01:16:05,360
Speaker 2: something one funny story about the first first sergeant I had.

1542
01:16:06,560 --> 01:16:07,439
Speaker 2: You ever tell you that story?

1543
01:16:08,400 --> 01:16:08,800
Speaker 1: I don't know.

1544
01:16:09,120 --> 01:16:11,680
Speaker 2: First Stargeant Tucy. We called him Toucy. It was like

1545
01:16:11,760 --> 01:16:13,640
Speaker 2: a long he was Samoan. He had a very very

1546
01:16:13,680 --> 01:16:15,360
Speaker 2: long last name. I can't even say it right now,

1547
01:16:15,880 --> 01:16:17,880
Speaker 2: but it's like Housty's what we all call him.

1548
01:16:17,960 --> 01:16:19,320
Speaker 1: That's what he had. A he had like a he

1549
01:16:19,360 --> 01:16:23,160
Speaker 1: had like a super high voice, right, you know.

1550
01:16:23,280 --> 01:16:27,200
Speaker 2: He was like super huge guy, huge guy. Well, he

1551
01:16:27,240 --> 01:16:28,680
Speaker 2: didn't like me a lot because like I got in

1552
01:16:28,720 --> 01:16:31,400
Speaker 2: a fight. So I got a fight one time, like

1553
01:16:31,520 --> 01:16:34,360
Speaker 2: in you know, Watertown. It was just my battle buddies

1554
01:16:34,479 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 2: left me and I should have went with them. These

1555
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:39,960
Speaker 2: guys tried to fight me. There's like three guys. I

1556
01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 2: got into it with them. The cops got there. I

1557
01:16:43,160 --> 01:16:45,040
Speaker 2: had knocked all of these guys down, and you know,

1558
01:16:45,080 --> 01:16:46,760
Speaker 2: one of these I just I got hit with like

1559
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:51,840
Speaker 2: distorally conduct or whatever. But long story of it, so

1560
01:16:51,960 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 2: that you know, the first sergeant was I was kind

1561
01:16:53,400 --> 01:16:54,640
Speaker 2: of like on his radar, but I was like a

1562
01:16:54,760 --> 01:16:57,400
Speaker 2: good It just was like a really unfortunate circumstance, like

1563
01:16:58,040 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 2: you know, being a soldier and like if you're in

1564
01:17:00,320 --> 01:17:04,200
Speaker 2: somewhere like Watertown and stuff, like you gotta stay, you know,

1565
01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:06,760
Speaker 2: you gotta you need to have your friends with you.

1566
01:17:07,200 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 2: Long and short of it was, we were doing some

1567
01:17:10,479 --> 01:17:13,120
Speaker 2: inspections after that, and uh for like all of our

1568
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:15,920
Speaker 2: gear and stuff. My cat's yelling at me. Hold on,

1569
01:17:17,000 --> 01:17:17,519
Speaker 2: it's okay.

1570
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:21,719
Speaker 1: We were doing some inspections on cats, like don't don't

1571
01:17:21,760 --> 01:17:23,240
Speaker 1: tell the story, don't do it.

1572
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:30,839
Speaker 2: Oh, you gotta stay hi, Stay hi. There's my emotional

1573
01:17:30,920 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 2: support animal. You gotta get down.

1574
01:17:33,200 --> 01:17:35,479
Speaker 1: Where's its jacket? He should have a he should have

1575
01:17:35,560 --> 01:17:37,679
Speaker 1: a jacket on, that says service animal.

1576
01:17:38,040 --> 01:17:39,920
Speaker 2: We just got that cat like two months ago. Wakes

1577
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:41,479
Speaker 2: us up at like three in the morning all the time.

1578
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:44,960
Speaker 2: It's terrible. Great but uh yeah. So he's expecting our

1579
01:17:45,040 --> 01:17:48,000
Speaker 2: year and we got our T fifties, like the old

1580
01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:49,760
Speaker 2: T fifty you know what I mean, like with the

1581
01:17:49,840 --> 01:17:56,280
Speaker 2: canteen pouches and all that stuff. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

1582
01:17:56,520 --> 01:17:59,360
Speaker 2: And so and he's like looking and my stuff is clean.

1583
01:17:59,400 --> 01:18:01,680
Speaker 2: I cleaned it all. Everything was fine, and he was like,

1584
01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:06,840
Speaker 2: you know, he's like looking at it like clean, and

1585
01:18:06,920 --> 01:18:08,760
Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, you did, like but I kept like yes,

1586
01:18:08,840 --> 01:18:11,560
Speaker 2: first sergeant, He's like it that's a Friday night and

1587
01:18:11,640 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 2: we were like wanting to go out that night, and

1588
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:16,120
Speaker 2: he was like you clean news, you know whatever. He

1589
01:18:16,200 --> 01:18:18,320
Speaker 2: goes and I was like, yes, first Sergeant. So me

1590
01:18:18,400 --> 01:18:20,559
Speaker 2: and he did the same thing with my body voice.

1591
01:18:20,600 --> 01:18:22,160
Speaker 2: We were roommates, and so we get back to our room.

1592
01:18:22,200 --> 01:18:24,719
Speaker 2: We just throw our gear against the We're like, ah,

1593
01:18:24,920 --> 01:18:27,439
Speaker 2: we're just mad. We went out all night. We got

1594
01:18:27,520 --> 01:18:30,080
Speaker 2: back like two in the morning. We wake up at

1595
01:18:30,160 --> 01:18:31,960
Speaker 2: like eight and I'm like, oh crap, we got it.

1596
01:18:32,200 --> 01:18:35,200
Speaker 2: We didn't clean our gear last night. So I just ran.

1597
01:18:35,320 --> 01:18:37,680
Speaker 2: We just got like grabber gear, ran down to the

1598
01:18:37,720 --> 01:18:39,160
Speaker 2: first startut off because they had to be there by

1599
01:18:39,200 --> 01:18:42,800
Speaker 2: like eight thirty. And he he looks like he's looking

1600
01:18:42,800 --> 01:18:44,560
Speaker 2: at my gears. He's like, did you clean news? And

1601
01:18:44,680 --> 01:18:48,479
Speaker 2: I was like yes, first Sergeant And he was like no,

1602
01:18:48,760 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 2: not really but and he was like what did you

1603
01:18:50,840 --> 01:18:53,559
Speaker 2: do to it? And I was like I couldn't think.

1604
01:18:53,760 --> 01:18:55,599
Speaker 2: My head was foggy. And I was like, I threw

1605
01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:58,400
Speaker 2: it and need the Losher, which it literally says like

1606
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:02,000
Speaker 2: do not put t fifty in the you cannot do it.

1607
01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:06,080
Speaker 2: And he's like, fop, and I that was it and

1608
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:07,720
Speaker 2: you just gave him that stuff back and I was

1609
01:19:09,080 --> 01:19:11,040
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, I don't know how

1610
01:19:11,120 --> 01:19:13,360
Speaker 2: I got through that one that was pretty stupid to me, Like,

1611
01:19:14,479 --> 01:19:16,680
Speaker 2: but yeah, and then the guy who actually cleaned his

1612
01:19:16,680 --> 01:19:18,280
Speaker 2: stuff all night. He had clean to stuff like all

1613
01:19:18,360 --> 01:19:19,920
Speaker 2: day and he kept bringing it back down and just

1614
01:19:19,960 --> 01:19:20,759
Speaker 2: kept getting failed.

1615
01:19:21,840 --> 01:19:29,719
Speaker 1: Figure that is That's that's a that's an amazing story.

1616
01:19:29,840 --> 01:19:33,000
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's that's like every I mean, every

1617
01:19:33,080 --> 01:19:34,600
Speaker 1: soldier has stories like that.

1618
01:19:34,800 --> 01:19:38,360
Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, that's like a funny, weird story from you

1619
01:19:38,439 --> 01:19:41,320
Speaker 2: know what I mean, weird stuff.

1620
01:19:41,520 --> 01:19:44,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chris, We've been talking for an hour and fifteen

1621
01:19:44,800 --> 01:19:48,280
Speaker 1: minutes now, and I feel like we could talk for

1622
01:19:48,400 --> 01:19:51,200
Speaker 1: probably another three hours. So I think what we're gonna

1623
01:19:51,280 --> 01:19:54,840
Speaker 1: do is release this in two parts. So the first

1624
01:19:54,920 --> 01:19:58,360
Speaker 1: part of the episode will be you know, talking about

1625
01:19:58,680 --> 01:20:01,680
Speaker 1: why you joined the military and and the train up

1626
01:20:02,080 --> 01:20:07,160
Speaker 1: and your first deployment. In the second part, which we'll record, uh,

1627
01:20:07,840 --> 01:20:10,200
Speaker 1: you know, either later today or a couple of days

1628
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:13,600
Speaker 1: from now, we'll talk about our deployment to Afghanistan and

1629
01:20:13,720 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 1: all of a bunch of war stories and then and

1630
01:20:16,439 --> 01:20:19,559
Speaker 1: then what you're doing now as a law enforcement officer.

1631
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:23,000
Speaker 1: And so, man, I I'm grateful for the time that

1632
01:20:23,040 --> 01:20:26,720
Speaker 1: you've given me today, Chris, thank you, and I'm so

1633
01:20:26,920 --> 01:20:31,360
Speaker 1: psyched to record this. This second episode sounds good.

1634
01:20:31,479 --> 01:20:32,560
Speaker 2: Thanks, Sean appreciated it.

1635
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:33,840
Speaker 1: All right, brother, we'll talk to you soon.

1636
01:20:33,880 --> 01:21:00,360
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you. Oh