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Speaker 1: So it's a memorial Day, and obviously on moremorial day

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Speaker 1: we take a moment, We take a day to remember

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Speaker 1: the fall and to remember the heroes who have paid

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Speaker 1: the ultimate sacrifice to defend this nation, defend our country.

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Speaker 1: We honor the families who have lost loved ones in

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Speaker 1: the pursuit of freedom to protect this great country. But

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Speaker 1: beyond taking the time to remember, shouldn't we also reflect?

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Speaker 1: And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made

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Speaker 1: as a country and things we could change moving forward,

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Speaker 1: and being more judicious with the lives of our military

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Speaker 1: men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their

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Speaker 1: sole duty with our military men and women be to

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Speaker 1: avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that

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Speaker 1: we have less men and women who have to pay

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Speaker 1: the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's

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Speaker 1: why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only

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Speaker 1: honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the

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Speaker 1: people who give everything this country that they love and

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Speaker 1: that we love, but also take a time to reflect.

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Speaker 1: And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it

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Speaker 1: was the longest war in American history twenty years. We

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Speaker 1: lost so many service members, so many service men and

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Speaker 1: women in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could

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Speaker 1: learn there, What should we take from that and do

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Speaker 1: differently moving forward? And who better to talk to than

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Speaker 1: Sean Parnell. He is a former US Army airborne ranger

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Speaker 1: who served in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years,

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Speaker 1: retiring as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one

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Speaker 1: for valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote

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Speaker 1: the New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and

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Speaker 1: he also wrote Man of Ward. Outlaw Platoon details his

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Speaker 1: sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. While he was there, his platoon repeatedly was outnumbered,

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Speaker 1: repeatedly outgunned, and they displayed such tremendous bravery, to the

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Speaker 1: point that over eighty five percent of his platoon received

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Speaker 1: Purple Hearts for wounds that they incurred in battle. Sean

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Speaker 1: was also injured in battle, day in and day out,

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Speaker 1: fighting for freedom in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was

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Speaker 1: twenty four at the time. Can you imagine being twenty

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Speaker 1: four and leading a platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: day in, day out, outnumbered, outgunn fighting bravely and fearlessly

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Speaker 1: next to your brothers in the military and in the Army.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to get Sean Parnell's take on what

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Speaker 1: lessons we should learn from Afghanistan, what we could be

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Speaker 1: doing different moving forward, and how we can truly honor,

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Speaker 1: to the best of our abilities, the men and women

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Speaker 1: who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom.

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Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy this conversation.

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Speaker 1: He's an absolute hero, and he's an absolute badass, Sean Parnell,

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Speaker 1: Sean Hearnell, you are such a badass and such an

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Speaker 1: American hero. It's an honor just to have you on

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Speaker 1: the show. So I really appreciate you taking this time.

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Speaker 3: Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't know if i'd call

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Speaker 3: myself a badass, but I was in the Army for

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Speaker 3: a time and I was surrounded by badasses every day,

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Speaker 3: so I guess I was pretty lucky.

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Speaker 2: I'll call you bad ass. I'll be the one. I'll

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Speaker 2: do it because you can be humble. I will take

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Speaker 2: the humility out of it for you.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're recording this before but this is going

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Speaker 1: to air on Memorial Day and obviously a day to

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Speaker 1: honor the individuals and so many who have paid the

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Speaker 1: ultimate sacrifice and the name of defending freedom, defending this

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Speaker 1: great country that we love. But shouldn't we also take

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Speaker 1: this time to learn lessons from, you know, wars like Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: and also use it as a time to be more

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Speaker 1: judicious in sending our military men and.

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Speaker 2: Women to war.

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Speaker 3: I think so, I mean, and you know, I think

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Speaker 3: I think it speaks directly to the importance of you know,

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Speaker 3: warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who

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Speaker 3: fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards

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Speaker 3: to where our country goes and the decisions that we

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Speaker 3: make pertaining to the future of America and the wars

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Speaker 3: that we get ourselves involved in. You know, after I

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Speaker 3: spent time in Afghanistan back in two thousand and six,

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Speaker 3: in two thousand and seven, we were there for what

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Speaker 3: like twenty years. You know, it's a long long time

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Speaker 3: that I think most most of America, America, it's difficult

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Speaker 3: to wrap your mind around that length of time, you know,

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Speaker 3: And so I feel like you look at what happened

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Speaker 3: in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure that we

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Speaker 3: spent there. Right after twenty years there, you look now

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Speaker 3: and it's like, well, what do you have to show

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Speaker 3: for it? You know? And look, I tell you this, like,

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Speaker 3: I'm proud of my time in Afghanistan. I don't regret

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Speaker 3: it for a second. I joined after September eleventh. One

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Speaker 3: of the best experiences of my life was serving this country.

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Speaker 3: So I am not a victim in any way. I'm

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Speaker 3: a volunteer and I would do it all again in

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Speaker 3: a heartbeat. And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan,

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Speaker 3: you know. But I and critics, critics would say, you know,

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Speaker 3: when I say, well, what'll we have to show for

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Speaker 3: critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look

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Speaker 3: at what you do, what you built for the Afghans.

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Speaker 3: You wells in the villages. You know, little girls know

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Speaker 3: how to read, and you know, boys are part of

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Speaker 3: the economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is,

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Speaker 3: even if it was just for a brief time. And

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Speaker 3: I would just say that, yes, that is all true,

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Speaker 3: but I would rather have my friends alive, you know.

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Speaker 3: And you look at what's happening today and the Afghani

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Speaker 3: things in Afghanistan just collapsed what like less than a

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Speaker 3: year ago, Lisa, right like August twenty twenty one, And

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Speaker 3: it seems like you have members of Congress on both

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Speaker 3: sides of the Aisle, in the House and in the

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Speaker 3: Senate that are clamoring to go right back into the

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Speaker 3: fight in Ukraine, which from a geopolitical standpoint is it's

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Speaker 3: far more complicated than Afghanistan. Without even taking a breath

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Speaker 3: after the Afghan War and saying, wait, is this really

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Speaker 3: worth it? Should we take time to hit the reset

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Speaker 3: button as a country and figure out if, if this

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Speaker 3: fight is worth Americans dying for, Because that's the question

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Speaker 3: that American moms and dads need to ask themselves, Lisa,

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Speaker 3: is like, is Ukraine so important that you are willing

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Speaker 3: to sacrifice your son or daughter for that. If the

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Speaker 3: answer to that question is no, then we shouldn't be

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Speaker 3: doing anything for Ukraine. And look, Lisa, I feel bad

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Speaker 3: for the people there. My heart aches for the civilians

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Speaker 3: and children who are caught in the middle. Like this

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Speaker 3: is not me saying like we should ignore it completely,

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Speaker 3: Like nobody, like a few people in this country understand

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Speaker 3: that the humanitarian disaster and people stuck in the middle

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Speaker 3: of the flight than me. I get that, But but

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Speaker 3: again I would say I would rather have American sons

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Speaker 3: and daughters alive. You know, I think we need to

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Speaker 3: take care of ourselves here at home a little bit. First.

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Speaker 1: We just see politicians, you know, beating the drums of

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Speaker 1: war with Ukraine, and Joe Biden said something today about

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Speaker 1: Taiwan about you know, you should take military action. But

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Speaker 1: you just hear these politicians and it almost there's a

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Speaker 1: callousness to it, to be honest, because it doesn't take

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Speaker 1: into account that, as you pointed out, it's would they.

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Speaker 2: Send their son or daughter?

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Speaker 1: You know, it just it doesn't take intoccount Like I

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Speaker 1: just lives, American people should be the most important to us.

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Speaker 1: That lives, the precious lives our military men and one.

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Speaker 1: It should be the most important to us, and it

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Speaker 1: just doesn't. It doesn't seem to be the case. And

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Speaker 1: it makes me sad.

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Speaker 3: Look, you're right, Lisa, I mean, you're right. It's I

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Speaker 3: think part of the problem is that you you only

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Speaker 3: have zero point four percent of the people in this

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Speaker 3: country who served this country during Iraq and Afghanistan, so

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty years of war, so longest period of war

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Speaker 3: in American history, only point four percent of the country

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Speaker 3: actually experienced what it means to protect and defend freedom.

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Speaker 3: And so I think as a result, you have, you know,

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Speaker 3: most of America, ninety nine percent of America who enjoy

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Speaker 3: freedom on a day to day basis in this country,

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Speaker 3: and you have less than half of one percent who

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Speaker 3: protect it. So there's there's a significant gap between those

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Speaker 3: two groups. And I think that's part of the reason why,

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Speaker 3: you know, you have politicians who really never served anything

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Speaker 3: but themselves for the majority of their lives, talk so

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Speaker 3: callously about sending American sons and daughters into the fight

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Speaker 3: because the reality is they don't have any real understanding

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Speaker 3: of what that means for American families who are actually

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Speaker 3: doing the fighting. Like, for example, when I got back

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Speaker 3: from Afghanistan, a sixteen month combat deployment, sixteen months, like

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Speaker 3: four hundred and eighty five days, It's like if you

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Speaker 3: had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year,

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Speaker 3: have a good second grade year. I'll see you on

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Speaker 3: your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know. And

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Speaker 3: you know, we got back, we hit the reset button.

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Speaker 3: You know, most of we weren't even back for a

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Speaker 3: couple of weeks, we already had to go right back

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Speaker 3: down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home,

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Speaker 3: hugged our families, went back to do trading down to

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Speaker 3: Fort Polk, Louisiana, and prep for another combat deployment to

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Speaker 3: Afghanistan that was nine months later. I mean, it's an

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Speaker 3: incredibly heavy burden that we that we place on a

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Speaker 3: very very small percentage of Americans, and most of the

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Speaker 3: time our politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess

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Speaker 3: it sounds cool when you're up there at the podium,

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Speaker 3: you know, hey, of China invade Taiwan, like We're going

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Speaker 3: to get involved militarily, with no real understanding in the

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Speaker 3: geopolitical consequences or the all out for the American people

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Speaker 3: or how that would affect people who serve. I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's it's just irresponsible, especially Lisa, when you consider just

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Speaker 3: how much suffering there is here within our own borders

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Speaker 3: at home that I think a lot of our attention

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Speaker 3: should be focused on.

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Speaker 1: Well, and I think President Trump really changed at least

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Speaker 1: my thinking on foreign policy because what he was able

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Speaker 1: to show us is that you can be strong, you

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Speaker 1: can flex muscle, you can deter the bad guys without

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Speaker 1: setting troops, without invading, without beating the you know, the

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Speaker 1: the drum beat for war, and you can do it

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Speaker 1: like he did when he was sitting with President She,

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Speaker 1: you know, having chocolate cake, telling him he's sending fifteen

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Speaker 1: done Tamahook missiles. This yet it right, it's such a

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Speaker 1: fall or remove or striking these peace deals on the

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Speaker 1: Abraham Accords. It just changed the way, you know, I

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Speaker 1: thought about things because he just showed us a different path.

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Speaker 3: He really opened my eyes to you know, there there

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Speaker 3: is a different way, you know, and when you're in Washington,

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Speaker 3: I mean really, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, there

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Speaker 3: there is group think right where everyone sort of thinks

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Speaker 3: the same way about a lot of things. And I

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Speaker 3: think that's why you hear a lot of people talk

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Speaker 3: about the uniparty, you know, where you have you know,

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Speaker 3: people like you know, as ideologically different as Adam Kinsinger

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Speaker 3: and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance of defending Ukraine,

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Speaker 3: to even certain Democrats talking about the importance of defending

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Speaker 3: our ally Ukraine even though they're not an ally. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's like you see, you see these certain groups of

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Speaker 3: people that think alike, Lisa, And what I always admired

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Speaker 3: about President Trump is it takes an unbelievable amount of

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Speaker 3: mental toughness to resist that type of pressure and group

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Speaker 3: think right and and Washington, President Trump was I mean, gosh,

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Speaker 3: at any given moment in d C. In the White House,

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Speaker 3: both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in anger at

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Speaker 3: President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired

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Speaker 3: about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think

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Speaker 3: the American people sent him there, Because there is a

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Speaker 3: level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just

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Speaker 3: got outside the Beltway or New York City or LA

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Speaker 3: and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America,

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Speaker 3: they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction

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Speaker 3: of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And

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Speaker 3: you look at what he was able to accomplish in

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Speaker 3: four years in the face of I mean, what that

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Speaker 3: man faced in the White House was criminal. It was criminal.

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Speaker 3: I mean, now we're learning of what Hillary Clinton did,

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Speaker 3: it was like maybe legitimately criminal, I don't know. But

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Speaker 3: the things that he was able to accomplish in four

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Speaker 3: short years I never thought possible. And you know, the

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Speaker 3: Abraham accorrors and peace in the Middle East. Never thought

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Speaker 3: that was possible, but he did it. And yeah, like

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Speaker 3: you said, it really opened my eyes to a new

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Speaker 3: way of being and that you know, we don't have

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Speaker 3: to deploy and get locked down and like so almost

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Speaker 3: become cliche now in these in these forever wars, but

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Speaker 3: that's really what they are. I mean, twenty freaking years

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Speaker 3: in Afghanistan is a long time. I mean twenty years.

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Speaker 3: I mean think about it like this, Like I'm forty

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Speaker 3: years old. That's half of my life. We were in Afghanistan,

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Speaker 3: like half of my life. The only profession, the only

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Speaker 3: thing that I've known is war in Afghanistan. Lost thirty

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Speaker 3: five plus friends there. I mean, that's a long time.

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Speaker 3: And I think what President Trump showed us was that

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Speaker 3: it doesn't have to be that way. We can still

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Speaker 3: have peace as long as we're focused on the right

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Speaker 3: stuff and focusing on ourselves at home. And unfortunately, a

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Speaker 3: year and a half of Joe Biden, he's unraveling that

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Speaker 3: pretty quickly.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I never thought it could get this bad. This,

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's really sad.

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Speaker 1: But I but I honestly think I think the turning

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Speaker 1: point for him was because you know, people thought he

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Speaker 1: would restore ordery, do all these things, and obviously people

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Speaker 1: like us knew he wasn't going to do and he

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Speaker 1: wasn't capable of it. But his ratings really started to

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Speaker 1: take a nose dive after Afghanistan. And it was the

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Speaker 1: disastrous exit, the abandoning like the Bagroum airfield before getting

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Speaker 1: our people out, getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind,

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Speaker 1: And I think that was the turning point.

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Speaker 2: And when that all was going down.

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Speaker 1: You tweeted out that the afghandabacles on the suits not

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Speaker 1: the boots. Talk about that disconnect in the military between

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Speaker 1: the suits and the boots and how that played out

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Speaker 1: with Afghanistan so disastrously.

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Speaker 3: Oh, it was so frustrating to me. And part of

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Speaker 3: what I do like coming back home after I got

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Speaker 3: back from Afghanistan was there was realizing very quickly that

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Speaker 3: a lot there are a lot of men and women

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Speaker 3: here who serve this country that needed help. And you know,

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Speaker 3: there's a way in which you come back from war,

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Speaker 3: and war changes you and some pretty deep and fundamental ways,

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Speaker 3: and you could you know, you come back and you

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Speaker 3: meet and talk to your family and you feel like

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Speaker 3: your family doesn't know you because you've changed, and you

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Speaker 3: talk to your best friends. And there was a moment

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Speaker 3: for me like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like

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Speaker 3: the first thing I do when I get back from

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Speaker 3: Afghanistan is like text my buddies, you know who I

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Speaker 3: went to college with and stuff. And like I open

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Speaker 3: up my like little flip phone and text them and

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Speaker 3: they text me back their address and like look at it.

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Speaker 3: Read the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these

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Speaker 3: dudes are still living in the same address they've been

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Speaker 3: living at for ten years, and I just got back

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Speaker 3: from Afghanistan feel like a totally different person show up

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Speaker 3: at their I show up at their apartment. I walk

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Speaker 3: in and like they're like all sitting in the same

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Speaker 3: spots on the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer,

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Speaker 3: talking about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's

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Speaker 3: posters on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge,

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Speaker 3: and I'm thinking to myself, like, oh my god, like

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Speaker 3: nothing has changed here at home, but I'm a different

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Speaker 3: person in every way. And so if I was feeling

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Speaker 3: like that, there are probably millions of Americans feeling like

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Speaker 3: that who come home for more and just feel like

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Speaker 3: they're different, and maybe they feel like exiles in their

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Speaker 3: own country. And so I started doing everything I could

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Speaker 3: to make sure that, like the war is really what

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Speaker 3: I guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war

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Speaker 3: for a lot of veterans really starts when you get home.

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Speaker 3: And I wanted to just help veterans come home in

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Speaker 3: the most productive way possible and not just survive on

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Speaker 3: a day to day basis, but but really but thrive,

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Speaker 3: you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan, about

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Speaker 3: it being on the suits and not the boots, was

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Speaker 3: really it was in that spirit, because I knew there

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Speaker 3: would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the

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Speaker 3: hell was all this for? You know, why the hell

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Speaker 3: did I Why did I lose my best friend in

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Speaker 3: this country? Why did I go to this country and

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Speaker 3: sacrifice a piece of myself there?

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Speaker 4: You know?

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Speaker 3: Why did we do all of this just to have

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Speaker 3: some moron in the White House throw it all away?

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Speaker 3: Because I mean, quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters,

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Speaker 3: and he's a commander in chief, so that the term

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Speaker 3: commander predisposes chief. His job at first and foremost an

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Speaker 3: obligation to our American military, and it was a dereliction

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Speaker 3: of duty of the highest order of what he did

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Speaker 3: in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just leaving

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Speaker 3: Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I can't

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Speaker 3: even believe I had to say this, but the sacrifice

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Speaker 3: that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red in

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Speaker 3: Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban in

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Speaker 3: a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime.

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Speaker 4: It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral

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Speaker 4: damage to people who served there, that the ramstifications of

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Speaker 4: which I don't think we fully understand yet.

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Speaker 3: And so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness

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Speaker 3: the fall of Afghanistan in the speed at which it

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Speaker 3: fell here in America after having been there for twenty years.

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Speaker 3: And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under

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Speaker 3: President Trump, or really any American president that could speak

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Speaker 3: in coherence sentences without having to read off a sheet

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Speaker 3: of paper. I mean, just unbelievable. And you can't help

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Speaker 3: but think, you cannot help but think like I used

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Speaker 3: to joke around in the campaign trail when I was

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Speaker 3: running for the House in the Senate, well mostly when

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Speaker 3: I was running for the Senate, but about like just

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Speaker 3: to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence. I

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Speaker 3: think it's I think it's intentional. I think that this

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Speaker 3: is you can't be this good. I mean, he's Joe

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Speaker 3: Biden in his administration, a bunch of Obama appointees two

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Speaker 3: point zero right back in the White House, some of

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Speaker 3: which are sermon in the same cabinet positions. It's like

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Speaker 3: they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying almost every pillar

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Speaker 3: in this country, I mean every country. Like it's unbelievable

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Speaker 3: that the level of which they're failing. And I think

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Speaker 3: Afghanistan was just one of those pillars.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think we all just felt such amount of

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Speaker 1: shame with the way that we exited, just the loss

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Speaker 1: of military men and women, or those thirteen service members

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Speaker 1: and just leaving Americans behind. Quick commercial break back with

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Speaker 1: Sean Parnell on the other side, talked about sort of

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Speaker 1: you know the challenge with coming home when you've been

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Speaker 1: at war like that out I'll say one of the

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Speaker 1: most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my career was

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Speaker 1: doing an honor ear flight for Vietnam war vets from

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I went on this

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Speaker 1: trip with them, and I'll tell you it was just

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Speaker 1: such a movie experience talking to these like big strong

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Speaker 1: guys who were just brought to tears of just feeling

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Speaker 1: the honor of having served because they didn't get the

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Speaker 1: welcome they deserved when they came home. And so just

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Speaker 1: doing the interviews with them and seeing these you know,

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Speaker 1: grown men and you know cry and just it was

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Speaker 1: just incredibly moving and I learned a lot from it.

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Speaker 1: It was just a really you know, humbling and just

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Speaker 1: incredible experience, you know, spending time with them and just

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Speaker 1: being able to bless them and being part of this

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Speaker 1: with the trip.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Vietnam vets are I mean, we owe them

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Speaker 3: so much, and obviously because as you mentioned, they didn't

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Speaker 3: have the welcome home that we did. And so much

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Speaker 3: of the reason why my generation was welcomed home was

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Speaker 3: because after like what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era

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Speaker 3: went through, they made themselves a promise and never allow

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Speaker 3: another generation to veteran to experience what they did, and

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Speaker 3: because of that, like we had by and large, a

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Speaker 3: very positive homecoming, you know. And when I talk about

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Speaker 3: feeling like an exile in your own country, I should say,

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Speaker 3: like almost everybody that you talk to says thank you

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Speaker 3: for your service. I am not again, Like, we're lucky

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Speaker 3: to live in a country like America and come home

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Speaker 3: to people that appreciate you. And that that is because

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Speaker 3: of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when they came back,

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Speaker 3: went through hell in combat, through hell, and they came

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Speaker 3: back and then but didn't give in. And they they

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Speaker 3: they made a promise to you know, subsequent generations of

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Speaker 3: Americans when they came home from the fight, and that

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Speaker 3: promise was to never allow what they went through to

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Speaker 3: happen again. And I mean, really, my generation is standing

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Speaker 3: on the shoulders of giants with them and World War

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Speaker 3: two veterans and Korea veterans before them. So yeah, we're lucky.

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Speaker 3: We're lucky to live in this country. But there's still

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Speaker 3: a lot of work to do, that's for sure.

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Speaker 2: I can't imagine how it doesn't change you.

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Speaker 1: I particularly some of this stuff uf that you endured,

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Speaker 1: you know, I know you very humbly. You know, didn't

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Speaker 1: take me saying that you're, you know, a complete badass

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Speaker 1: and a hero.

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Speaker 2: But you really are.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you retired a highly decorated captain. You're awarded

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Speaker 1: two bronze stars, one for valor and a purple Heart.

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Speaker 1: You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon.

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Speaker 1: It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth

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Speaker 1: Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in

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Speaker 1: combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out numbered,

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Speaker 1: repeatedly outgunn Yeah, your platoon killed over three hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was

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Speaker 1: able to be so effective in the face of so

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Speaker 1: much That's a great question.

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Speaker 3: I think when you look at the things that the

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Speaker 3: American military can bring to the fight, you know, like

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Speaker 3: we've got lots of cool and sexy technology, Like we've

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Speaker 3: got great guns and weapons, and we've got air superiority

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Speaker 3: helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that. Believe me

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Speaker 3: when I tell you all that really really helps. But

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Speaker 3: I think really our secret weapon was the love and

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Speaker 3: brotherhood that we shared for one another. You know, we

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Speaker 3: We spent a lot of time training leading up to

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Speaker 3: our deployment in Afghanistan, and I feel like I was

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Speaker 3: very blessed to lead one of the most diverse platoons

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Speaker 3: that you can imagine. And it's funny when you hear

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Speaker 3: a lot of these politicians talking about diversity in America

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Speaker 3: being a strength, and it's like, well, of course, diversity

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Speaker 3: is a strength, but not in and of itself. What

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Speaker 3: makes America so truly exceptional is that we unify beyond

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Speaker 3: like our many differences, right, It's not just diversity for

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Speaker 3: diversity's sake. And really, my platoon was a microcosm of

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Speaker 3: that strength. Like we had black next to whites, Christians

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Speaker 3: next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich next to poor,

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Speaker 3: young next to old, or we were like as wildly

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Speaker 3: different as you can imagine. Yet there were no real

434
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 3: hYP There were no hyphenated Americans out there in Afghanistan

435
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 3: patroling those those mountains. And it was the very fact

436
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 3: that I think we were able to put aside all

437
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:16,439
Speaker 3: of our differences and unify beyond them into one cohesive

438
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,920
Speaker 3: fighting force. That that that was what allowed us to

439
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 3: go through sixteen months of absolute hell sixteen months of

440
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 3: heavy combat and and make it. You know, you know,

441
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 3: we made ourselves a promise. I think what drove us

442
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,880
Speaker 3: every day on the battlefield, Lisa, it was was the

443
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 3: fear of of of not the enemy, but the fear

444
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 3: of letting each other down. You know. I would have

445
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 3: soldiers that would get that would get shot in the head.

446
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 3: A soldier that got shot through his helmet, his helmet

447
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 3: slowed the round down enough where it penetrated his skin

448
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 3: but not his skull, and skirted around the side of

449
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 3: his doll and back out the other end. And that

450
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 3: guy went back to the base, wrapped his head up,

451
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 3: and was back out on patrol twenty four hours later. So,

452
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 3: when you're when you're serving with men or Americans that

453
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,719
Speaker 3: have that much like that, the level of toughness and

454
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 3: tenacity and dedication to duty that someone that someone like

455
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 3: that has, how do you fail somebody like that? Like

456
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 3: if you twist an ank, or you you take some shrapnel,

457
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 3: or you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound,

458
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 3: Like how do you how do you how do how

459
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 3: do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by men

460
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 3: like I just described? And so it was the fact

461
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 3: that we were able really to unify beyond our many

462
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 3: differences in fear of letting each other down. That really

463
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 3: drove us to accomplish I think, extraordinary things and and

464
00:25:53,800 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 3: really I mean it, like my platoon really just accomplish.

465
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 3: It was just one unbelievable triumph of the human spirit

466
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 3: after the next. I mean, we were not like Navy

467
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 3: seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen. So

468
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 3: we were in the tenth Mountain Division and we were

469
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 3: light infantry. I mean we were real well trained and stuff.

470
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,360
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces.

471
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 3: You know, the most of the jobs that a lot

472
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 3: of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine

473
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 3: gun and the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to

474
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 3: the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these kids

475
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 3: were It's just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's

476
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 3: because we relied on one another, and that's what's what

477
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,360
Speaker 3: allowed us to get through it all.

478
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 1: And you're twenty four at the beginning right of this standing.

479
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: I mean, how do you do that.

480
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,880
Speaker 1: At twenty four and be responsible for all these brave

481
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 1: men that you just talked about. I mean, what an

482
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot when I

483
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: was so so God did you do that?

484
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 2: But how do you know?

485
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know. You just you know.

486
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 3: I had a conversation with my mom, uh when I

487
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 3: got back from Afghanistan and maybe a couple of years after,

488
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 3: and my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of four, and

489
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 3: so my youngest brother was like like helping my middle

490
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 3: brother move down to Texas or something like that or

491
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 3: and my mom was like, Oh, I'm nervous that your

492
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:27,199
Speaker 3: younger brother, Andy's gonna have to drive drive, you know,

493
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 3: his brother's car all the way down to Texas. And

494
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 3: I'm like thinking, like, ma, Andy's twenty three years old.

495
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 3: Like I think he'll be all right. I was leading

496
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 3: people in Afghanistan at twenty three years old, you know,

497
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't know, you know, yeah, yeah,

498
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,239
Speaker 3: it was just like it was just something that we

499
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:48,239
Speaker 3: were laughing about it, you know, I don't after So

500
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 3: I think part of that, Lisa is like I was

501
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 3: a sophomore in college when nine to eleven happened, and

502
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 3: that that hit me that like like it did millions

503
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 3: of other Americans. You know, and I think if you

504
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 3: live through nine to eleven, you can probably tell me

505
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 3: exactly where you were and what you were doing and

506
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 3: what you had plans to do that day. And the

507
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 3: only thing like I was kind of like a I

508
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 3: was kind of a screw up as a kid, Like

509
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 3: my grades were okay, but I didn't really know what

510
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 3: I wanted to do as an elementary education major. But again,

511
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:22,919
Speaker 3: as a sophomore in college, I must have changed my

512
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 3: major a few times. Like, but when nine to eleven happened,

513
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 3: I knew that I wanted to join the army, go

514
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 3: in the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school,

515
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 3: like be on the front lines of our collective response.

516
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: And you know, I just knew. I knew it in

517
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 3: my heart of hearts that that was that was the

518
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 3: path that God intended me to walk at that specific

519
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 3: moment in my life. And that's I think. I think

520
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 3: this is my faith in God and that that was

521
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 3: my purpose. I think that that's how I was able

522
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 3: to do it. And you know, twenty three, twenty four

523
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 3: years old, when you when I just feel like when

524
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 3: you know what path you're meant to walk, and you

525
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 3: know that like no matter how bad things get, this

526
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 3: is where you're supposed to be. I've got no regrets.

527
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 3: I just think it gives you a sense of clarity,

528
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 3: you know, about what you're supposed to do. And and

529
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 3: in my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan at

530
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 3: twenty three, twenty four years old, you know, and as

531
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 3: horrible as that combat was, I mean, seriously, like we

532
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 3: we like anythink back to two thousand and six. You don't,

533
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 3: I don't know if you were doing stuff at Fox

534
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 3: back then. I sure as hell wasn't that.

535
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 2: I mean, it was like a staff.

536
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 3: I can't.

537
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think twenty four.

538
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing

539
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing.

540
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 2: It wasn't a note. I'll tell you how much you know.

541
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, we're probably we're probably the

542
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 3: same age, you know, I am, so I'm a little

543
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 3: older than you.

544
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: I'll take those couple of years, but you know.

545
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 3: I don't know. I feel like it was the path

546
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 3: I was I was meant to walk, you know, and

547
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 3: you know, get back and you see I was able

548
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 3: to take a company command and then did a Battalian

549
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 3: attachment command, and so at the age of twenty eight

550
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 3: years old, I ended up being in charge of like

551
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 3: eighteen or nineteen hundred like people, where I was in

552
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 3: charge of training young soldiers to go to war and

553
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 3: taking care of the wounded when they came home, and

554
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 3: then looking after the families who were left back at home,

555
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 3: and then ultimately doing the casualty notification, which was ten

556
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 3: times worse than combat. So I've seen both sides of

557
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 3: the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close and personal,

558
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 3: and I've seen the fallout here at home. And what

559
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 3: I was saying earlier is that, like no one expected

560
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 3: michaeltoon or are, experience in Afghanistan leads to be like

561
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 3: what it was like. If you think back to two

562
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 3: thousand and six, and if you're a congressional staffer working

563
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 3: on the hill or something like that back then, then

564
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 3: you know the talk back then was the Iraq War

565
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 3: and whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction

566
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 3: there or should we should George W. Bush send more

567
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 3: troops to the surge in Iraq or not, should we

568
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 3: even be there or not? So at the time, Afghanistan

569
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 3: was just a stability and support operation. We had no

570
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 3: idea what we were getting ourselves into. And man, like

571
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 3: we just got thrown into the meat grind. Or we

572
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 3: were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from

573
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 3: the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple

574
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 3: as you can. You can get find Asama bin Laden,

575
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 3: close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man,

576
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 3: we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered

577
00:31:54,360 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 3: every single day. I mean my base, my base probably

578
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 3: we took four thousand rockets in four hundred and eighty

579
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 3: five days, four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements.

580
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 3: We just sort of just like got thrown in there.

581
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 3: You know, so much of the focus of this nation

582
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 3: was on Iraq that we couldn't even get up armored

583
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 3: hum best because all it was going to Iraq. Like

584
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 3: we were supposed to come home after a year, we

585
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 3: got extended for four more months, sixteen months. Why because

586
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 3: the soldiers that were supposed to replace us in Afghanistan

587
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 3: got sent to Iraq and supported the surge. So we were

588
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 3: sort of like an afterthought and we went through absolute hell.

589
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 3: And ultimately, Lisa that that's why I wrote the book,

590
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 3: because I thought to myself, like, oh my God, like

591
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 3: nobody knows in this country, and nobody knew how bad

592
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 3: Afghanistan was way back in two thousand and six, nobody.

593
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 3: And I just felt like it was my job as

594
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 3: the leader of that platoon to make sure that the

595
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 3: legacy of my soldiers that was kept alive. And you know,

596
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 3: even if Outlaw Platune ended up being a word document

597
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 3: on my computer that I emailed all of my troops

598
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 3: that like maybe once every ten years we read through

599
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 3: and drank beers or whatever like that would be that's

600
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 3: worth it. At least their experiences on the page preserved forever.

601
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 3: I didn't know that. I didn't know that it would

602
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 3: take off and become a bestseller in its first week,

603
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 3: and I was I feel like I was also lucky.

604
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 3: It was also maybe it was a state when out

605
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 3: Laul Patune came out. Do you remember that story way

606
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 3: back in the day where soldiers at Bagram'm got in

607
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 3: trouble for like burning a Koran or something like that,

608
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 3: and that was like all over the news. It was

609
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 3: like headline news for like a week. Well, outlawl Butatoon

610
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 3: came out at that exact time, and I was like

611
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 3: the young kid with an Afghania with a new Afghanistan

612
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 3: book and you know how that goes on Fox News

613
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 3: stuff like that. Like I was a duke guy with

614
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 3: the books, so I was able to go on there

615
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 3: and promote it and the rest is history. I was just,

616
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 3: it was just it was just a blessing to be

617
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 3: able to have that opportunity own tell tell the story

618
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 3: of my troops.

619
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 2: You had talked about.

620
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment, being

621
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: the US, but you're on their terrain and you're in

622
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: the mountains. How difficult is it to try to navigate

623
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 1: that when you know you're you're on their home base, right,

624
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: you're in their mountains.

625
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 3: That is That's another great question.

626
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 4: It was.

627
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 3: It was ridiculous. I mean, it's another thing about Afghanistan.

628
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:25,320
Speaker 3: Like if you want to go back to a time

629
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 3: where Jesus Christ walk the earth, had the AK forty seven,

630
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 3: like the icon walkie talkie type radio and a pickup truck,

631
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 3: and you've got Afghanistan there. When we were there, there

632
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 3: was like one paved road in the entire country, no

633
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:44,959
Speaker 3: running water, no electricity, no economy. All all fighting age

634
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 3: males would do. All the men in the villages that

635
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 3: we were around would cut down wood all summer and

636
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 3: prep for the winter and that was it. That's all

637
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 3: like there was nothing, nothing, and it's just all tribal.

638
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 3: And so when we were where we were in Burmel,

639
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 3: like Burmel District, was that we were in the valley,

640
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 3: our base was in the valley, but fighting up in

641
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 3: the mountains. I mean we're probably at fourteen fifteen thousand

642
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 3: feet there, you know, in the Hindu Kush mountains. And

643
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 3: so if you if you're like a football fan, that's

644
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,240
Speaker 3: like playing a football game at Mayahai Stadium times three.

645
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 3: And the enemy that we faced over there again, like

646
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 3: you hear the media talk about and you certainly saw

647
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 3: this during the collapse of Afghanistan, but the media talks

648
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 3: about the Taliban as if they're a monolithic force, and

649
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 3: they are not. I mean, you have so many different

650
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 3: enemy factions that you face over there on a day

651
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 3: to day basis, whether it's the Heikkani Network or Hekmatia

652
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 3: or al Qaeda or Taliban or just crimes that happened

653
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 3: on a day to day basis like any other country.

654
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 3: That like any other country in the world. And as

655
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 3: a young leader, you've got to like navigate all that

656
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 3: somehow be almost like you know, an ambassador, an American

657
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 3: ambassador with a gun, you know, ready on a moment's

658
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 3: notice to either you know, fire your weapon in defense

659
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 3: of your troops or cradle a baby in a village

660
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 3: where you're doing a humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was

661
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 3: one of the most complex, rugged environments that I certainly

662
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 3: have ever been in. And you know, you add to

663
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 3: that the fact that all of those enemy factions that

664
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 3: I just told you about, like most of those most

665
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 3: of the enemy that we faced in Afghanistan cut their

666
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,479
Speaker 3: teeth against the Russians in the eighties and then fought

667
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 3: in the Afghan Civil War in the nineties, and then

668
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 3: against us in a post nine to eleven era. And

669
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 3: you know, the average Afghan that we were fighting had

670
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 3: ten years combat experience on an eighteen year old American private.

671
00:36:55,640 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 3: You know, this was not a group of farmers with

672
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 3: pitchforks or some sort of ragtag insurgency that they just

673
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 3: mustered up at the last second. Now, the people that

674
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 3: we fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they

675
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 3: displayed on the battlefield on a day to day basis

676
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 3: was just as good, if not better than us, And

677
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 3: they weren't weighed down with one hundred pounds of gear

678
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 3: like we were, and they knew the terrain better than

679
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 3: we did, at least initially, because what you know, as obviously,

680
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 3: being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce. It

681
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 3: was horrible. But what was interesting is this, I don't

682
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 3: mean to sound crass, but we killed so many of

683
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 3: them over there that we were getting intel in May

684
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 3: of two thousand and seven that Pakistan families were sick

685
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 3: and tired of sending their sons into the fight. They

686
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 3: were no longer going to commit male fighters to the

687
00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 3: war in Afghanistan. And what we saw is that a

688
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 3: lot of the new fighters that had replaced the older

689
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 3: ones that we had killed didn't know the terrain as

690
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 3: good as us. So it was a real odd dynamic

691
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,879
Speaker 3: where at first they were better than us, they were

692
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,320
Speaker 3: faster than us, they knew the terrain, but slowly over time,

693
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 3: because we never broke contact, we never surrendered, We always

694
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 3: pressed the enemy. We would never give them that moral

695
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 3: victory on the battlefield. We just slowly whittled away at

696
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 3: their force and killed them one by one to the

697
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 3: point where at the end of sixteen months we knew

698
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 3: the terrain better than they did. And all of this

699
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:38,320
Speaker 3: culminated in an attack probably in January. It was early

700
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 3: January of two thousand and seven. We had built my

701
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:44,720
Speaker 3: PLATOONA had built or my company had built, the first

702
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 3: combat outpost. And I'm sure you've seen, like you know,

703
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 3: can't remember some of the movies' names that the movie

704
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 3: where you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun.

705
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 3: Probably every year after I was in Afghanistan, a combat

706
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 3: outpost had been overrun, Lisa, and and like I was

707
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:08,919
Speaker 3: highly critical of that strategy because like all they would

708
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 3: be manned with almost no combat power, with like a

709
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 3: squad and all they would they would just be simply

710
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 3: relegated to a defensive position. There and all along the

711
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 3: border of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with

712
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 3: what they call cops, like combat outposts, and it almost

713
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 3: looked like a modern day version of the magine O line,

714
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 3: thinking like, well, if we have all these bases along

715
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 3: the border, there's no way the enemy will be able

716
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 3: to get bias and that's complete bs. So anyway, like

717
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 3: they tried to attack this base that we had built

718
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 3: and we ended up kill killing I think like two

719
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,240
Speaker 3: hundred plus fighters just in that one engagement decisively because

720
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 3: we caught them just prior to them kicking off the attack.

721
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 3: And I mean, I would wager to say that from

722
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,879
Speaker 3: a strategic and tactical standpoint back in two thousand and six.

723
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 3: In two thousand and seven, we had we had decisively

724
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 3: won the fight Afghanistan. And then we shifted from a

725
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,919
Speaker 3: counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a counter

726
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 3: terror mission is going after and killing the enemy, and

727
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 3: through killing the enemy you secure the people, to a

728
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 3: counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And you know,

729
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 3: I think there are the strategists that would say that

730
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 3: surge in Iraq was successful. I think I would tend

731
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 3: to agree at least that in the moment back then,

732
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 3: it was pretty successful. Well, they tried to implement that

733
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 3: exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which is an entirely different country,

734
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 3: and once we shifted to counterinsurgency, we lost the initiative

735
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 3: and Afghanistan went slowly downhill from there.

736
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 2: We've got more of a Memorial Day episode, But first.

737
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 1: Take us back to you know, June tenth, two thousand

738
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: and six your platoon was outnumbered by almost ten to one,

739
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: ended up leaving you with injuries.

740
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 2: You know, talk about that day and what happened.

741
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 3: So June tenth, we had been tasked, we were tasked

742
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 3: with finding a high value target, and we had been

743
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 3: out for a week up until that point. And we

744
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 3: sat up and what we call an observation post, and

745
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 3: we were just watching infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

746
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 3: And we knew that this al Qaeda leader was using

747
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,399
Speaker 3: a cave complex to navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which

748
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 3: is how he was avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance

749
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,959
Speaker 3: and surveillance drones. So we perched up on this hill,

750
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,879
Speaker 3: we laid our sites in on this cave site which

751
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 3: which he thought he was using, and set in for

752
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 3: the night. Woke up the next morning and all throughout

753
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 3: the night I applotted target reference points and confirmed them

754
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 3: with our base. That got target reference point is like

755
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 3: when you've got artillery at your base, you want to

756
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 3: be able to Artillery is basically like big guns, and

757
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 3: you want to be able to get those guns into

758
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 3: the fight as fast as humany possible. Should you make

759
00:41:57,280 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 3: contact with the enemy. And the best way to do

760
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,359
Speaker 3: that is not like trying to plot it in the

761
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 3: middle of a fight, right, I think is the best

762
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 3: military commanders would look at a map and pick key

763
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 3: terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain.

764
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 3: If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to attack.

765
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:14,760
Speaker 4: Us here easily.

766
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna plot this hill it's target reference point one.

767
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,799
Speaker 3: And then you can coordinate with the with the guns

768
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 3: and say, look, this is my target reference point one.

769
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 3: When I say fire TRP one, this is what I mean,

770
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 3: and you just you set in target reference point one

771
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 3: through ten prior to even leaving. And so I had

772
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:35,240
Speaker 3: been I'd studied those throughout the night. The sun crested

773
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:38,360
Speaker 3: the hill the next morning, and I remember walking out

774
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:43,399
Speaker 3: and looking at some mountaintops to directly to our east

775
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 3: that were a lot higher than the one that we

776
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 3: were on, and I just thought to myself, that's not

777
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 3: a good tactical position to be in. And so I

778
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 3: don't have the man power to occupy those hills with troops.

779
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 3: In a perfect world, you would just occupy terrain that

780
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 3: was higher than yours would boots, but I didn't have that.

781
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 3: I just had one platoon, so I figured I'd occupy

782
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 3: those hilltops by fire and if enemy was watching us,

783
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 3: they would think twice about setting in there, because I

784
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 3: know that I have those positions diled in, and so

785
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 3: I fired those target reference points with my forward observer,

786
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 3: watched those watch the rounds land on point and on target.

787
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 3: I remember walking back to my truck and it's just

788
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 3: like somebody threw a veil over my entire world, and

789
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 3: I remember I don't remember much, but I do remember

790
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 3: waking up in a smoldering hole about twenty feet from

791
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:43,280
Speaker 3: where I had been standing, laying flat on my back,

792
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 3: and I couldn't see, I couldn't really hear, but I

793
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 3: could feel this stinging on my face and it just

794
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,400
Speaker 3: felt like like like someone was slapping me. And as

795
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 3: I blinked my eyes open, I see one of my

796
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:02,399
Speaker 3: team leaders, Tim Stalter, slap me and trying to get

797
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 3: me to wake up, and I finally I wake up,

798
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 3: opened my eyes. I look at him. He's got this

799
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 3: big smile on his face. I'm like, what do you

800
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 3: smile at? What's going on? And he goes, sir, He's like,

801
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 3: you got blown the f up, and he started laughing

802
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 3: like what the hell is he laughing at? And I

803
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,720
Speaker 3: remember just like looking beyond him at these trees, because

804
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 3: we had these big, huge trees up on the hilltop

805
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 3: with us that a lot of my men were taking

806
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 3: cover behind, and the tops of these trees that looked

807
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 3: like they hadn't been touched since the prehistoric era, they

808
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 3: were just getting blown to smithereens like this crazy. And

809
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 3: I remember looking to my left hand, which was shaking,

810
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 3: and it just like kind of laying in the Afghan dust,

811
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 3: and I could see rounds landing between my fingers, like

812
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 3: like the level of fire that we were being hit

813
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 3: with was like nothing I've ever seen before or felt

814
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 3: before like it like I felt like there on the

815
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 3: ground with one of my soldiers on top, like if

816
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 3: I moved even one centimeter to the left of the right,

817
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 3: I'd get shot. And that's how heavy the fire was.

818
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 3: And I remember looking to my left and I see

819
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 3: my platoon sergeant Greg Greeson, and his back is like

820
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:17,720
Speaker 3: covered in blood and he's pointing to himself like saying

821
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 3: that he's hit. And all around my perimeter, I had

822
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 3: five gun trucks on the hilltop that day, and I

823
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:26,280
Speaker 3: had twenty four soldiers on the ground, along with one interpreter,

824
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 3: but all along the perimeter. At every one of my trucks,

825
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 3: almost everybody was hit. Like my platoon sergeant was hit.

826
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 3: He's my number two and chain of command. Squadlier Phil

827
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 3: Baldwin was shot in the leg. He wasn't really trying

828
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 3: to deal with that injury, but he was trying to

829
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 3: furiously stop the bleeding of his team leader, Bennett Garvin,

830
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 3: who was shot in the arm. I watched Mike Emrick

831
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,399
Speaker 3: up on the up on his fifty caliber machine gun

832
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 3: up on a truck. He got shot in the head,

833
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 3: fell in the truck, popped back up without a salmon on.

834
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 3: I mean, it was all hell was breaking. Within sixty

835
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 3: seconds of getting attacked that day, almost every key meter

836
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 3: in my patune had been hit, including myself. And as

837
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 3: I sat up, like the stalter of the kid that

838
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 3: had brought me back sat me up straight, and I

839
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 3: remember feeling this like clear liquid leaking out of my

840
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 3: nose and my ears. And I didn't know it at

841
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 3: the time, but it ended up being like serebral spinal fluid.

842
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:30,879
Speaker 3: I had fractured my skull very slightly after getting blown up,

843
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 3: and I just remember thinking, well, okay, I'm not bleeding,

844
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 3: it must be something else, and got up and got

845
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 3: back into the fight. And I'm trying to figure out

846
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 3: at this point, like how many people were injured, how

847
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 3: many of my trucks can drive, what weapons systems are

848
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 3: up versus down? How many rounds of ammunition that we

849
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 3: have left, Like I've got to get the artillery at

850
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 3: the base firing back on these guys. I should be

851
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 3: calling for air support. I got to get back to

852
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 3: my truck to do it all. Looking at those hilltops

853
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 3: that I had called for fire on, Lisa, the enemy

854
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 3: had emplaced three machine gun nests on each hilltop that

855
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 3: I called for fire on, So they had six machine

856
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 3: guns dialed in on our position, and they were firing

857
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 3: in what was like an X, like if you had

858
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 3: to draw an X over my hilltop. My hilltop was

859
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 3: right where that where the X intersected, So they had

860
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 3: us in a wicked crossfire. They were at an elevated position,

861
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 3: so they were hitting us with what's called plunging fire,

862
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 3: so they were arcing the rounds down on top of us.

863
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 3: The reason why people do that is because if you're

864
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 3: like taking cover behind a rock, or something. You want

865
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:39,840
Speaker 3: to be able to like drop the round in on

866
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 3: top of them. So it just minimizes minimizes your an

867
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 3: enemy's ability to take cover. And I'm watching them hit

868
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 3: us with plunging fire and thinking like, holy hell, like

869
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 3: how the hell do they know how to do that,

870
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 3: you know? And I'm watching the guns, the support by

871
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 3: fire positions that they had, the two separate ones. They

872
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 3: weren't just firing all of the same time. One gun

873
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 3: would fire and stop, the next gun would fire and stop,

874
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 3: the next one, you know, and so on and so forth.

875
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 3: And the reason why they did that is because if

876
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,239
Speaker 3: they fired those guns on like a cyclic rate, their

877
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 3: barrels would melt. So they were firing and letting their

878
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 3: barrels cool like all the way up and down the line. Again,

879
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:21,879
Speaker 3: never fought like that's what we do, Lisa, that that's

880
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 3: how we fight. And so the enemy had hit my

881
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 3: position with airburst mortars to keep the head keep our

882
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 3: heads down, while they simultaneously in placed two separate support

883
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,439
Speaker 3: by fire positions. And the next step is I'm trying

884
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,879
Speaker 3: to like unpack everything that's happening and really, like when

885
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,160
Speaker 3: you're in a moment like that, it's like you remember,

886
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 3: like you ever look through like a kaleidoscope when you're

887
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 3: a kid, and you turn the kaleidoscope and you see

888
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 3: all those colors move around like that. It's all sort

889
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 3: of happening at once. That's like that. It's like being

890
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 3: like that. It's like combat is like that, a million

891
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 3: different things happening all around you all at once. And

892
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out what they're going to do,

893
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, oh my god, like I vower them,

894
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 3: I'd attack, and no sooner did I did. I think

895
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 3: that they did from both of those hilltops, two platoon

896
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 3: size elements, like forty men plus so rushing down those

897
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 3: hilltops and up to our position. But it wasn't just

898
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:24,280
Speaker 3: like a human wave attack. Again. They were one fire

899
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 3: team moving, the other one shooting, and they were bounding

900
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 3: and with squad leader like giving fire team commands. It

901
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:34,919
Speaker 3: was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. So I ended

902
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 3: up getting to my truck and calling for fire. I

903
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 3: called for fire danger close on our position, which essentially

904
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:44,799
Speaker 3: means like right on top of us ourselves. The whole

905
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 3: intent of that is to just try to keep them

906
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 3: off of us and give give my men some time

907
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 3: to react, reload, consolidate, reorganize, and fight back. And I'm

908
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 3: watching these rounds land with ruthless efficiency and like vaporize,

909
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,960
Speaker 3: like these guys as they as they they out towards us.

910
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 3: And it didn't matter how many rounds landed, they had

911
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 3: people to replace them. It's just it was just an

912
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 3: unrelenting assault in our position. And they got so close

913
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 3: to us that that we had to blow clay More minds.

914
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 3: Like we put Claymore minds in around our positions just

915
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 3: in case, like we're about to be overrun. So we're

916
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 3: like blowing clay More minds. Like people all my squad

917
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 3: leaders are saying they're going black on ammunition. Every member

918
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 3: of my platoon is hurt. I've got all these casualties

919
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,879
Speaker 3: out there stranded, you know. I'm watching my medic try

920
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 3: to carry one of my one of my squad leaders

921
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:38,919
Speaker 3: back to the casualty collection point. He lifts up this guy.

922
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 3: I watch him get shot in the face. He falls down.

923
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 3: I think my medic is dead. He's just Jose Pantoha.

924
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 3: He's this kid from Mexico. He came to America because

925
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:50,879
Speaker 3: he loved he loved the country and wanted to serve

926
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,880
Speaker 3: the country. And I remember he got shot in the face.

927
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 3: Was even a citizen of the country who's supposed to

928
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 3: get his citizenship July fourth, a month later. I'm like,

929
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:00,720
Speaker 3: oh my god, he just got shot before he can

930
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 3: become a US citizen. But he got back up. The

931
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 3: entire left side of his face was completely destroyed, but

932
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 3: he got one of my squad leaders to the casualty

933
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 3: collection point. That was the kind of day it was, Lisa,

934
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:20,720
Speaker 3: and we That fight took probably eight at least eight hours.

935
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 3: We dropped probably eleven two thousand pound bombs and at

936
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:29,240
Speaker 3: the end had to bring in a B one Strategic Lancer,

937
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 3: a B one bomber to drop like probably ten more.

938
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 3: And what it ended up happening, Lisa, was that I

939
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 3: called for fire on those target reference points earlier, but

940
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 3: it looked what we had come to learn is that

941
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 3: the enemy at night had planned to attack us, and

942
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 3: I had hit him just before they were going to attack,

943
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 3: and so it was like hitting a hornet's nest with

944
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:58,240
Speaker 3: a baseball bat or something. They were already in position

945
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 3: ready to attack us. I just hit him before they

946
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 3: hit us, which I guess hindsight being twenty twenty, I'm

947
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 3: glad that I did, because it would have probably not

948
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 3: gone as good for us as it did. As even

949
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 3: though it wasn't I mean, all things considered, it wasn't good,

950
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 3: but I would have I was glad that we attacked first,

951
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 3: you know, and every one of my trucks was was destroyed.

952
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 3: They had to be towed off the hill top and

953
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 3: got back to the base that day after like that long,

954
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 3: long firefight, and I think like every member of my

955
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 3: platoons got treated. We took another platoons trucks and went

956
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 3: right back out after the enemy after we got back,

957
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:42,799
Speaker 3: went right back out after them to hunt them down.

958
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 3: And we said in that night, and we did. We

959
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 3: hunted them all down, and we got them. We killed probably,

960
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:52,720
Speaker 3: oh man, we probably killed probably killed like one hundred

961
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 3: people that day, like bad guys tried to attack us.

962
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 3: And so but that's the kind of deployment that we

963
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 3: the kind of employment that we had. It was absolutely hell.

964
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 3: I look back on it, You're like, you asked me,

965
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 3: how did you do it? And the answer is, I

966
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 3: have no freaking clue. I can't believe I lived through it.

967
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 3: I can't believe I made it through all that, you.

968
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,160
Speaker 1: Know, Seana, as we recount this and as you look

969
00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: back and you know, talk about those times, and you know,

970
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,760
Speaker 1: we talked about Ukraine going on now, you know, Taiwan.

971
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: What should our lessons? What lessons should we learn from

972
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:29,319
Speaker 1: Afghanistan as a society. What do you hope that politicians learn?

973
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: What do you hope the country learns from our time

974
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan?

975
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 3: Just be more careful with America's sons and daughters. You know,

976
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 3: I I know, I know that freedom is worth fighting for,

977
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 3: freedom is worth dying for America. My god, if we

978
00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:50,400
Speaker 3: were attacked, I'd be the first in line, ready to

979
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 3: ready to fight back. But we should not be getting

980
00:53:56,480 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 3: ourselves locked down in these fights that take twenty thirty

981
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 3: forty years, costs tens of thousands of American lives or

982
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 3: wounded Americans, people whose lives are changed forever. You know,

983
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 3: if you lose a love one in Afghanistan, the ripple

984
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 3: effect from that is profound. You have family members, moms, dads, sisters, brothers,

985
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 3: spouses that will never see that person again. And the

986
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 3: whole that that leaves in people's hearts, the void that

987
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 3: it leaves in their lives, is something that it lasts forever,

988
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 3: like every second of every day. And again, please don't

989
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 3: misunderstand me. This is not like a poor me thing. Again,

990
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 3: I would do this again in a second, but every

991
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 3: second of every day the war in Afghanistan is with me.

992
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean that I'm broken, has nothing. You know, I'm fine.

993
00:54:48,239 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 3: I can handle it. I do it all again. But

994
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,919
Speaker 3: it's it's like spywear on your computer. It runs without

995
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 3: you even knowing, you know, like my troops that I

996
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 3: lost in Afghanistan. First thing I think about when I

997
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 3: wake up and the last thing I think about when

998
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 3: I go to sleep. And over twenty years in that fight,

999
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:10,399
Speaker 3: lost so many people in that country that I wish

1000
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 3: we're still here. And I think, what's even more tragic

1001
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 3: than that is that in however many combat deployments that

1002
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 3: my men went on, and they there are some of

1003
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:24,439
Speaker 3: my soldiers even went on combat deployments after the one

1004
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 3: that I took them on. I mean, we probably we've

1005
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 3: lost in my small unit, we've lost more people to

1006
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 3: suicide than we have to combat. What does that tell

1007
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 3: you about the way in which we take care of

1008
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 3: our soldiers, or are our men and women who serve

1009
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:43,760
Speaker 3: this country here at home. Not that the VA isn't amazing,

1010
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 3: Like I'm grateful and glad that we have the VA,

1011
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 3: but the problems that we face here are far greater

1012
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 3: than you know, maybe going to see a doctor or

1013
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 3: you know, being given some drugs in a paper bag

1014
00:55:56,719 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 3: and hey, send on your way, you know, on behalf

1015
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 3: of a great nation. The problems that veterans face here

1016
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:09,840
Speaker 3: at home are largely existential problems, cultural problems that I

1017
00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 3: think America as a country needs to face. And so

1018
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:17,680
Speaker 3: what I'd like I'd like to see is that I'd

1019
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:22,239
Speaker 3: like to see our politicians be more careful with America's

1020
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:25,840
Speaker 3: sons and daughters. Number One, I'd also like to see

1021
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 3: America like our country as a whole. And that means

1022
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 3: like these little communities that we all live in, like

1023
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:35,279
Speaker 3: do everything that we can to recognize our men and

1024
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 3: women and serve and that, and I think it needs

1025
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 3: to We need to go beyond like thank you for

1026
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:43,720
Speaker 3: your service, Like I think we need to to bring

1027
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:47,840
Speaker 3: these people like into a high school gymnasium and have

1028
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 3: them tell their story if they're willing, in front of

1029
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 3: a bunch of high school students, so that those kids

1030
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 3: not only learn about what it means to defend freedom,

1031
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 3: the legacy of that soldier and the people that that

1032
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 3: person lost lives on in the and and the people

1033
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 3: that hear that story. Like as I just think as

1034
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 3: a society, we need to do more with regards of

1035
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 3: bringing our our men and women home and so yeah,

1036
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 3: be more careful with America's sons and daughters in American

1037
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 3: society getting in the fight from a cultural standpoint, to

1038
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 3: to appreciate and love our vets.

1039
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:28,000
Speaker 1: Well, that's why we really wanted to have this conversation

1040
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: with you, you know one not only to just you know, obviously, uh,

1041
00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: to honor that you know, those who have served and

1042
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: have lost their lives serving this country and defending this country,

1043
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 1: but really just sort of bringing awareness to what it

1044
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,240
Speaker 1: takes and what you guys go through and and why

1045
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: we should be judicious and why we should be careful

1046
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: with our people's lives. And I think are you know

1047
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: our lives are the most or military men and women

1048
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: or our own people like their lives, that's the most

1049
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 1: important thing, right, That's a most cherished asset. Like we

1050
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: left a bunch of weapons, what are behind in Afghanistan?

1051
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: Obviously that's a challenge, but it's the lives, it's our

1052
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 1: people that we should cherish and be careful with. And

1053
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: so you know, that's why I really wanted to have

1054
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: this conversation with you about that.

1055
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 2: And again, your ir Platum was sober.

1056
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: Over eighty five percent receive purple hearts for wounds they

1057
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 1: incurred in battle, and I wanted to get you on

1058
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: this real quick before we go. You talked about sort

1059
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: of that that brotherhood that brought you guys together day

1060
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 1: in and day out, didn't matter what you're facing.

1061
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 2: You know, you looked beyond. It wasn't about.

1062
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: Looking at you know, race or religion or any of

1063
00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: these other things. You just saw them as you know,

1064
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: your brother more or less. Right, And now it's like

1065
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 1: we're sort of injecting all these things in the military,

1066
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: whether it's critical race theory, whether it's things like you know,

1067
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:43,000
Speaker 1: gender pronouns.

1068
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 2: And what kind of impact does that have on our military.

1069
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:51,920
Speaker 3: It's it's devastating. It's devastating because again, it's not like

1070
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 3: the military is not about diversity, Okay, like it, I'm

1071
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 3: grateful to have intellectual diversity in my platoon or in

1072
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 3: my units that I commanded, I'm grateful to have racial

1073
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 3: diversity or people from a lot of different backgrounds, like

1074
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 3: that makes us better. But the problem with a lot

1075
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 3: like critical race theory being injected into the military or

1076
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 3: some of these others, like I got these people with

1077
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:22,760
Speaker 3: their pronouns and their bios and stuff and all this

1078
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:25,000
Speaker 3: other stuff, and like, hey, do what you want to do.

1079
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 3: But the military is about unifying beyond those differences, not

1080
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 3: celebrating them. So anytime, like the whole point of going

1081
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 3: through basic training, right, the whole point of it, Lisa,

1082
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,800
Speaker 3: is you go in there an individual. You know that

1083
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,000
Speaker 3: you come out a member of a collective team. The

1084
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 3: whole point, the reason why you have drill sergeants screaming

1085
00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 3: in your face and yelling at you the whole time

1086
00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 3: is to whittle down, break down your sense of individual

1087
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 3: self and teach you in a very like rubber meets

1088
00:59:56,160 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 3: the road kind of way that the individual doesn't matter

1089
01:00:00,400 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 3: here anymore. What matters is the collective. And you're only

1090
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:05,280
Speaker 3: as fast as your slowest person.

1091
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,760
Speaker 4: And going to.

1092
01:00:08,720 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 3: Afghanistan the way that we did and experiencing the things

1093
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 3: that we did, if that if our dedication to our

1094
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 3: team and our unit wasn't first and foremost, we would

1095
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 3: have not survived. One hundred percent guarantee you we would

1096
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 3: have not survived. And so this focus on oh, like, oh,

1097
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,440
Speaker 3: look how diverse we are, because this is is a strength.

1098
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 3: Yeah it is, but it's only a strength in a

1099
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 3: military if you unify beyond it. That's where the strength is.

1100
01:00:39,680 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 3: And so I think it's I think it's dangerous. I

1101
01:00:42,680 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 3: think it's real dangerous.

1102
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 2: Is there anything else you want to leave us with

1103
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 2: before we go?

1104
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 3: A lot of people You're going to see a lot

1105
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 3: of people on Memorial Day talk about like, well, this

1106
01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:54,280
Speaker 3: isn't for barbecueing, you know, And I would just say, like,

1107
01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 3: you celebrate Memorial Day the way that you want, because

1108
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like my soldiers who haven't been

1109
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:09,720
Speaker 3: a who you know, who didn't make it back, they

1110
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:13,000
Speaker 3: don't get to celebrate at all, you know. And I

1111
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 3: think it's incumbent upon all of us. I think it's

1112
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:21,240
Speaker 3: really our duty and responsibility to live freely and enjoy

1113
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:24,720
Speaker 3: the freedom that they sacrifice themselves to protect. I mean,

1114
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:26,760
Speaker 3: of course, you know, if you get them in it,

1115
01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 3: like you know, if you're drinking a beer or walking

1116
01:01:29,440 --> 01:01:31,320
Speaker 3: on the beach or reading the book or just sitting

1117
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:34,360
Speaker 3: on your deck or watching your kids play, like just

1118
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 3: say a sign in prayer, and just for the men

1119
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:39,960
Speaker 3: and women who didn't come home. But you celebrate the

1120
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,680
Speaker 3: way that you want in America because that's what the

1121
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:45,000
Speaker 3: men and women who sign up and volunteer to serve

1122
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:46,960
Speaker 3: this country, that's what they gave their lives to do.

1123
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 3: So just just don't forget, never forget them, and have

1124
01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:54,400
Speaker 3: a good Memorial Day.

1125
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:56,480
Speaker 2: Sean, it's an honor to have you on the show.

1126
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: You are a hero, and I thank you so much

1127
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 1: for your service or and just sharing you know, what

1128
01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 1: you went through in Afghanistan and the bravery of your

1129
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 1: platoon with my audience and me, and thank you so

1130
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:09,040
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show.

1131
01:02:09,080 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.

1132
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for having me, Lisa,