Speaker 1: Third Squad is a documentary podcast about war. All episodes
Speaker 1: contain strong language and graphic descriptions of violence that may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for all listeners. M I don't break
Speaker 1: down crying very often. It's not like I'm a tough
Speaker 1: guy or anything. It just doesn't really happen, even in
Speaker 1: the privacy of my own home, until one day it
Speaker 1: does in the driver's seat of a rental car and
Speaker 1: the departures lane at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
Speaker 1: I'm Elliott Woods. This is Third Squad Episode three, The Guilt.
Speaker 1: It's the first Saturday of March. Third Squad producer Tommy
Speaker 1: Andres and I have miles to cover between San Diego
Speaker 1: and our next stop, Houston, Texas, where we're gonna visit
Speaker 1: Manny Mendoza, that hard working kid from the Texas border
Speaker 1: town who joined the Marines because of nine eleven. We
Speaker 1: turn away from the Pacific Ocean and soon we're cutting
Speaker 1: across the desert within sight of the Mexican border, West
Speaker 1: Texas town of Mexicans we got. We hit El Paso
Speaker 1: just after dark. We wolfed down some Mexican food, and
Speaker 1: then we're back on I tent heading deep into the
Speaker 1: heart of Texas. We're making great time, but we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be this far along yet. There was another
Speaker 1: Third Squad veteran in the San Diego area who we
Speaker 1: were hoping to meet up with. Third Squad's Navy corman,
Speaker 1: Matthew for It, who the guys called Doc. Here. He
Speaker 1: is telling me about his job back at patrol based
Speaker 1: fires in two thousand eleven. Yeah, I'm pretty much supposed
Speaker 1: to think of an actual doctor out here, but it
Speaker 1: is a lot more than that, because I'm also handling
Speaker 1: like not just the major emergencies, but minor emergencies as well,
Speaker 1: like when these guys get like sick with colds or
Speaker 1: when they get like a sucking like rash they know
Speaker 1: any thing about, or whether you know, I'm the one
Speaker 1: person they turned to. It wasn't hard to find for
Speaker 1: its contact information when I started tracking down Third Squad
Speaker 1: last winter, but my calls and text went unanswered for months,
Speaker 1: and it's been pretty disappointing to think I might not
Speaker 1: get to talk to him. Because none of the Third
Speaker 1: Squad veterans had a more intimate perspective on the physical
Speaker 1: destruction caused by I. E. D. S Or a more
Speaker 1: crushing burden of responsibility in the immediate moments after an explosion.
Speaker 1: But there's another reason I want to talk to for it.
Speaker 1: Something big happened to him after I left Sangin, and
Speaker 1: I've never heard a story firsthand. I just about given
Speaker 1: up on for it when somewhere in West Texas, my
Speaker 1: phone rings and I see his name on the caller.
Speaker 1: I d We turn on the recorder. Yeah, I figured
Speaker 1: I got your name. I got your name saved in
Speaker 1: my phone. How are you doing? Man? All right? What's
Speaker 1: what's new? What's going on? Under? You're gonna be in Yes,
Speaker 1: before it cuts right to the chase, he says he's
Speaker 1: going to be in Houston while we're there, and he'll
Speaker 1: actually be staying with Mendoza, the same guy we're on
Speaker 1: our way to see. He says he got my messages
Speaker 1: and he's willing to talk, which is a huge relief,
Speaker 1: But he says he doesn't have much time, so we
Speaker 1: make a plan to meet up as soon as we
Speaker 1: get into town. All right, well, cool, thanks for calling.
Speaker 1: Bye bye. We drive into the early hours of the morning,
Speaker 1: catch a few hours asleep at an off ramp hotel
Speaker 1: an oil country, and we hit Houston the following afternoon.
Speaker 1: In a stroke of luck, we find a last minute
Speaker 1: airbnb just up the road from Mendoza's apartment. It turns
Speaker 1: out to be a strange place, like it was decked
Speaker 1: out by someone on a bad Honky tonk acid trip.
Speaker 1: The walls are painted Fanta orange and decorated with no name,
Speaker 1: forty five and cheap cowboy hats, and the only light
Speaker 1: in the room comes from a single bulb and a
Speaker 1: dingy ceiling fan. To make matters worse, every surface in
Speaker 1: the place is rock hard, right up to the glass
Speaker 1: coffee table, which means the acoustics are going to be terrible.
Speaker 1: But to quote the late Donald Rumsfeld, you go into
Speaker 1: an interview about war with the airbnb you have not
Speaker 1: the one you want. We barely have time to settle
Speaker 1: in before Mendoza's pick up pulls into the driveway. Howie, partners,
Speaker 1: how's it going? All right? Yeah? Alright, yeah, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen these guys in ten years. Mendoza looks more or
Speaker 1: less the same, with a shock of gray hair and
Speaker 1: a bit more roundness to his cheeks, but for it
Speaker 1: looks totally different in the portrait I took of him
Speaker 1: and sang in back in two thousand eleven. He's clean
Speaker 1: shaven and has a strong tan line from his sunglasses
Speaker 1: and helmet. His head is buzzed and his cheeks are
Speaker 1: all hollowed out. But the guy standing before me now
Speaker 1: has wavy red hair slicked back and hanging down to
Speaker 1: his shoulders. He's got a full beard and black rimmed glasses.
Speaker 1: He's wearing Doc Martin's with jeans and a black T
Speaker 1: shirt stretched over his belly with the logo of a
Speaker 1: metal band called Three Teeth. For It has apparently left
Speaker 1: the high and tight military culture in the dust. We're
Speaker 1: gonna catch up with Mendoza later. He hops in his
Speaker 1: truck and takes off for work, and we step inside
Speaker 1: with for It. Oh yeah, this place is kind of weird.
Speaker 1: We looked for the closest Airbnb two okay where Mendoza lives,
Speaker 1: and it's a little Yeah, it's a little strange. Somebody
Speaker 1: really likes to decorate before it's got a flight back
Speaker 1: to San Diego in the morning. We only have a
Speaker 1: couple of hours and we have a lot to talk about,
Speaker 1: so we grab a couple of shiner box from the
Speaker 1: fridge and jump right into it. It's really great that
Speaker 1: we were able to get in touch, and I'm really
Speaker 1: glad that you're here. I was starting to think maybe
Speaker 1: we weren't going to get to talk to you, So
Speaker 1: thanks for agreeing to do it. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And it's important to say right up front that I
Speaker 1: know a lot of this stuff was not easy to
Speaker 1: talk about then and it's not easy to talk about now,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty accurate. I'm interested to know what you
Speaker 1: were feeling when you saw my messages and when you
Speaker 1: you heard that I wanted to talk to you, and
Speaker 1: why that made you nervous. And I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: put you on the spot, but just what did that
Speaker 1: conjure up for you or what were you feeling? You know?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it just brought back a lot
Speaker 1: of bad memories from that time. So I kind of like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and really, like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not really good you know, these kinds of things and
Speaker 1: these kinds of interviews and such, So I guess like
Speaker 1: I got nervous. If you will, I can see four.
Speaker 1: It's anxious. He's literally recoiling from the microphone. But back
Speaker 1: in sang In he was one of the most open
Speaker 1: of the whole bunch in his interview from two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven has stuck with me more than most over the
Speaker 1: last decade, especially his vivid descriptions of treating casualties during
Speaker 1: the June curse. I remember you saying that after this
Speaker 1: string of I e d S in June, that you
Speaker 1: were justifiably, let's just say that all of your senses
Speaker 1: were firing on all cylinders at all times. It accurate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just trying to understand like the daily
Speaker 1: level of fear and anxiety and what that felt like, Like,
Speaker 1: what did it feel like to live with at every day?
Speaker 1: I guess so to as sent kind of aged me
Speaker 1: a bit and kind of definitely I know, stress as
Speaker 1: a lot has a big impact on your physical health.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of guys who started to losing
Speaker 1: their hair, started turning gray earlier, like dudes who are
Speaker 1: in they're like not even past, started to get like
Speaker 1: bald spots and gray hair. Everyone was worried about getting
Speaker 1: blown up before it carried an extra load. He knew
Speaker 1: that whenever an I e d went off, the casualties
Speaker 1: lives would be in his hands, and he would have
Speaker 1: a matter of minutes at most to stop the bleeding,
Speaker 1: very large amount of pressure. As soon as you go out,
Speaker 1: you never know, you know, is this day going to
Speaker 1: be the day when something happens. And I'm the one
Speaker 1: thing that's going to determine whether or not someone's going
Speaker 1: to be able to go home again or whatnot. Back
Speaker 1: when I met Ford and sang and he was just
Speaker 1: trying to get through the days one at a time,
Speaker 1: hoping like hell, there wouldn't be any more I E
Speaker 1: d s, but always preparing himself for the next one.
Speaker 1: He was impossibly far from the West Chicago suburbs where
Speaker 1: he grew up. For it wasn't a gung ho teenage
Speaker 1: recruit like some of the third Squad guys. In high school,
Speaker 1: he got teased because of his weight two seventy pounds
Speaker 1: at just five ft eleven inches tall. His size was
Speaker 1: a big problem for him when he first started thinking
Speaker 1: about joining the military. He told me about it when
Speaker 1: I interviewed him at Peepee Fires in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: Like I really tried wanted to join then about two
Speaker 1: years ago. Um I had the weight though, because I
Speaker 1: had traveled with my weight, like I was a little
Speaker 1: bit like overweight, so i'd like worked out for a
Speaker 1: little while and that I was able to join along
Speaker 1: with this weight for it. Struggled in high school with
Speaker 1: the learning disability called disc graphia that made it hard
Speaker 1: for him to write clearly. He up bullied and had
Speaker 1: a hard time making friends. In his own words, he
Speaker 1: was a loner. He spent his free time playing computer
Speaker 1: games and listening to metal and goth music. After graduation,
Speaker 1: he took a crack at community college, but he dropped
Speaker 1: out and got a couple of jobs working back room
Speaker 1: stock at big box stores. He was twenty three and
Speaker 1: still living with his parents when he started worrying that
Speaker 1: his life was going nowhere, so he called a Navy recruiter.
Speaker 1: At first, he thought it would be cool to be
Speaker 1: a Master at Arms, basically the Navy's version of a
Speaker 1: police officer. But by the time he cut enough weight
Speaker 1: to ship to boot camp, that job wasn't available anymore,
Speaker 1: and so they d me off the whole list of
Speaker 1: different jobs, and they had told me about Corman. Asked
Speaker 1: what Corman was Corman? Basically they said he do two thinks.
Speaker 1: You neither a work in hospital or you go with
Speaker 1: the Marines pretty much as a field medic. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll take that. When for it, finally signed his enlistment papers.
Speaker 1: He became the third generation in his family to join
Speaker 1: the Navy before its. Parents were proud of him, but
Speaker 1: it was a time of war and they worried about
Speaker 1: his decision to become what's known as a greenside Corman,
Speaker 1: one who serves with the Marines. Before it had made
Speaker 1: up his mind, he went off to boot camp in
Speaker 1: Hospital Corman School, close to home at Great Lakes Naval
Speaker 1: Station north of Chicago, where he did pretty well. Back
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, I was always good
Speaker 1: at science and biology, and I used to be and
Speaker 1: I used to being the boy Scouts, and I knew,
Speaker 1: you know, already new a little bit about first aid
Speaker 1: and ship. So that's why why when I got to
Speaker 1: course school, it was pretty easy. There will be no
Speaker 1: easy days after court school for its next stop was
Speaker 1: Field Medical Training Battalion or fm TB at Camp Pendleton's,
Speaker 1: where he learned how to treat casualties and the mayhem
Speaker 1: of ground combat. Then he completed a grueling live tissue
Speaker 1: course where he and his fellow trainees had to treat
Speaker 1: live pigs and goats with real life threatening in reasons
Speaker 1: simulated battles, the blood was real and live tissue training,
Speaker 1: and four it took it seriously. He knew that he
Speaker 1: was going to get fast tracked to Afghanistan, where the
Speaker 1: life and death scenarios would not be simulations and where
Speaker 1: the blood would be Marines. Pretty much like every day
Speaker 1: on n FMTV, all we heard was just basically three five,
Speaker 1: this and three you know, all the like. It was
Speaker 1: like every day seemed like three five was taking casualties,
Speaker 1: especially Corman. It seemed like they're losing Corman left and right.
Speaker 1: When I got here, of the company that we replaced,
Speaker 1: only like two of the original Corman remained. Everybody else
Speaker 1: had either have been like blown up or shot or something.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when I got here, I was paranoida as
Speaker 1: hell for its paranoia was entirely reasonable. In two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: Sangin was one of the most dangerous places on the planet.
Speaker 1: Three five, the battalion that for its unit replay, had
Speaker 1: twenty five marines killed and a hundred and eighty four
Speaker 1: wounded during their seven months tour. That's almost one in
Speaker 1: every five Third Squad hit the ground that April, and
Speaker 1: for a couple of months things were quiet, but the
Speaker 1: grace period expired and on June twelve, two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: for its training would be put to the test in
Speaker 1: the most serious way. We're going up to uh third
Speaker 1: platoon was to resupply them. And I was like in
Speaker 1: the back of which all when we first heard the explosion,
Speaker 1: I saw this big as huge, sixty ft mushroom cloud
Speaker 1: just shoved in the air, and I was just like
Speaker 1: the first thing I did, I just spread it towards
Speaker 1: the front of the patrol and as soon as I
Speaker 1: crossed the bridge, that's when the second I e d
Speaker 1: went up and that's what I got hit. When I
Speaker 1: got blown up, like I lost my hearing for a
Speaker 1: couple of seconds. I just stumbled. I kind of felt
Speaker 1: straight to my knees. I ain't black out, but I
Speaker 1: just cost sat there confused for a couple of seconds
Speaker 1: to wanting what the hell was going on. And then
Speaker 1: when the dust cleared, they died. The dude who was
Speaker 1: in from the lance corporatellot, I just saw his entire
Speaker 1: face was just covered in blood. First thing I did,
Speaker 1: I just looked down to make sure I was still okay,
Speaker 1: and make sure I still had my legs and arms,
Speaker 1: and then I just went straight to McDaniels. He's talking
Speaker 1: about Joshua McDaniels, Third Squads combat Engineer. When I got
Speaker 1: to him, he had been pretty much like his legs
Speaker 1: were gone almost at least the flesh round his legs
Speaker 1: were gone, almost up to his waist, but pretty much
Speaker 1: like I would say, six yes, six inches below his
Speaker 1: hip was like where had stopped, and everything else below
Speaker 1: that was just bone. The blast had shot straight up
Speaker 1: into him, and like I said, his genitals had been well,
Speaker 1: they were intact, had been pushed up into his abdomen,
Speaker 1: and everything else around his perineum and on the other
Speaker 1: side of his thighs were just torn up. It was
Speaker 1: it looked like seed. It was pretty much just searried
Speaker 1: raw flesh. First off, I tried getting the tourniquets on him. Um,
Speaker 1: like I said, his the flesh around his leg was
Speaker 1: pretty much gone, almost the point where it was like
Speaker 1: it was hard to get a turning in on. I
Speaker 1: go why I had like even like the metal, I
Speaker 1: had a little bit difficulty just trying to get on
Speaker 1: because it was like slipping off his leg almost so,
Speaker 1: and I like, I applied like three TURNI kits on
Speaker 1: his right leg and one metal one his left leg,
Speaker 1: which had a little bit more flesh on it than
Speaker 1: the other one, and then that began stuffing both his
Speaker 1: wounds love as much gauze and combat cause that I
Speaker 1: had just trying to get the bleeding stopped by tricking
Speaker 1: an ivy start on him, but his veins were just
Speaker 1: too blown out. He had lost too much blood, and
Speaker 1: he was starting to go into unconsciousness and starting to
Speaker 1: lose a pulse. What I did was, I like, I
Speaker 1: grabbed an EpiPen and just injected with them. If you
Speaker 1: give someone an emty pens at them with a drill
Speaker 1: and it gets their pulse right back up and the
Speaker 1: blood pressure backup. So that's what I did, and after
Speaker 1: that I was able to actually get when pulse sign
Speaker 1: him and then we got him on the brig So
Speaker 1: what's going through your head when you're when you're doing
Speaker 1: all that stuff? I was just basically like pretty much
Speaker 1: just pretty much like it, just constantly saying to myself,
Speaker 1: fuck my life over and over again. I just got
Speaker 1: blown off myself. After that, I saw it was a
Speaker 1: little bit panicky as well, but I just like just
Speaker 1: win there and just like you know do I thought
Speaker 1: was right to try to save them. McDaniels was beyond saving,
Speaker 1: and the I E. D That killed him was only
Speaker 1: the first of several that day. By the time the
Speaker 1: dust settled, sixteen other men had been wounded, including for It.
Speaker 1: Three of them lost limbs. For its ear drums got
Speaker 1: blown out on June twelve, and he suffered a traumatic
Speaker 1: brain injury that made him want to puke every time
Speaker 1: he moved for days. The nausea eventually subsided, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't stop obsessing over the details of that day. After
Speaker 1: the incident, I was kind of like going through the
Speaker 1: mine to myself, maybe I should have done this. May
Speaker 1: ship done that. I told the core any other corner
Speaker 1: around me would happen. They said, hey, you did you
Speaker 1: know you'd do what you could do. You did the
Speaker 1: best of you can. There's not a whole lot you
Speaker 1: could have done for him for it. Had a new
Speaker 1: appreciation for his training and a new awareness of its limits. See, like,
Speaker 1: the problem with like course school is that like evil
Speaker 1: with your patient assessment and you're like, okay, what you
Speaker 1: do with again? Showing what if you do if you
Speaker 1: got ampy tee and you know you you explain the
Speaker 1: steps and blah blah. But it's not like you get
Speaker 1: these clean cut wounds that are like, okay, I packed
Speaker 1: you up, your guys. Now you get these wounds that
Speaker 1: like you look at your like, holy sh it, how
Speaker 1: am I going to fix that? For it learned with
Speaker 1: McDaniels that there are some wounds that can't be fixed.
Speaker 1: He also learned that his bonds with the Marines went
Speaker 1: way beyond professional obligation. When you care for someone and
Speaker 1: you tend to like work a little harder to like
Speaker 1: for them, it's not just like some random person now,
Speaker 1: it's it's like as someone you know. So when you
Speaker 1: actually care about your go put them a little more
Speaker 1: initiative into treating them, make sure they come back home
Speaker 1: safe and alive, and if like something does happen to them,
Speaker 1: you just feel like devastable when it does, it like
Speaker 1: hits you really harder a lot more than it was
Speaker 1: like some random stranger like a hospital or something, because
Speaker 1: this is someone you'd like, because it's people like I've
Speaker 1: I've spent time with, I like I like talked to
Speaker 1: like chill with I consotly see on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: Third Squad had become a second family to for it,
Speaker 1: but his real family was back in the Chicago suburbs,
Speaker 1: so far from Sangon they may as well have been
Speaker 1: on another planet like our first mascasts happened. I did
Speaker 1: get a chance to talk to my folks, but I
Speaker 1: ain't tell them completely what happened because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to scare the crap out of them. At least I
Speaker 1: wanted to, like, I wanted to wait till we get
Speaker 1: back and then tell him everything that happened. But then
Speaker 1: they got an email from Templeton's wife explaining what happened
Speaker 1: with McDonel's and O'Brien and there, and then I got
Speaker 1: next time I took called them after that They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And then I told him what was happening.
Speaker 1: So now now everybody's pretty much scared out of their
Speaker 1: minds sitting in the safety of the Houston suburbs together
Speaker 1: all these years later. I want to know what sticks
Speaker 1: with for it most from the deployment, I would say
Speaker 1: for me, it would definitely be working on on McDaniels
Speaker 1: and then afterwards being extremely shook up by the whole
Speaker 1: thing and finding out that he passed away on the
Speaker 1: bird and everything. The you know smell of like iron
Speaker 1: from the blood and everything, and ah, that would be
Speaker 1: probably one of the things that bothers me the most.
Speaker 1: I would say that still kind of haunts me. There's
Speaker 1: another clip from two thousand eleven that I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about a lot ever since for it walked in the door. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about it a lot longer than that.
Speaker 1: Tommy cues it up for us, people telling me, I
Speaker 1: get get me. It doesn't really really hit you till
Speaker 1: you get back to the state and you actually see
Speaker 1: their families and ship and you see the guys walking
Speaker 1: around with like prosthetics. So it's something. But I have
Speaker 1: to probably deal with playing it back. But I mean
Speaker 1: I just try to, like, I just try to move on.
Speaker 1: That was weird hearing me say that benching prosthetics, I'd
Speaker 1: end up with a prosthetic. That was a bit odd.
Speaker 1: Here save it. The thing that everyone in third squad
Speaker 1: was worried about happened to Ford. He stepped on an
Speaker 1: I E. D. We'll be back after the break. So
Speaker 1: just so I'm clear, what day was this again? What
Speaker 1: was the date on AUGUSTA? Do you remember what you
Speaker 1: guys were going out to do. I remember we were
Speaker 1: going out to a farm. We found something suspicious by
Speaker 1: some dudes house, some dudes farm, and we came back,
Speaker 1: waited for e O D two to arrive, and then
Speaker 1: we went back out there. That's Explosive Ordinance disposal, basically,
Speaker 1: the bomb squad. We had just crossed one of the
Speaker 1: canals and I remember taking a few steps forward and
Speaker 1: I just the first thing I saw was this kind
Speaker 1: of giant dust cloud kind of pop up in front
Speaker 1: of me, and that's when you heard the boom. My
Speaker 1: first thoughts were, all right, this is it. I'm gone.
Speaker 1: I guess I fell to the ground owned I was
Speaker 1: dazed for a bit. I know, I wasn't unconscious. I
Speaker 1: was just dazed and a little confused for a moment.
Speaker 1: Then dust kind of settled down and kind of like
Speaker 1: just sat there for a couple of seconds. But I
Speaker 1: kind of came to and I kind of first thing
Speaker 1: I did was just I just kind of patted myself
Speaker 1: down and and I'll be honest, yeah, the first thing
Speaker 1: I packed down with my dick because that's a lot
Speaker 1: what's That's what a lot of guys do pretty much
Speaker 1: in all honesty, and I was like, okay, I'm somewhat okay,
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm still alive and I'm still here. And
Speaker 1: that's when I felt the pain in my foot and
Speaker 1: I realized that part of my foot was missing. My
Speaker 1: guys came rushing forward. They started treating me kind of
Speaker 1: like pointed out some things what to do, what not
Speaker 1: to do, like to leave the boot on, because that's
Speaker 1: kind of what's going to be holding my foot together.
Speaker 1: All the Marines had basic medical training, but for it
Speaker 1: was the expert, and now there he was coaching his
Speaker 1: friends on how to help him. The one thing you
Speaker 1: do in those situations, you don't take a lot of
Speaker 1: people would want to take the boot off. You don't
Speaker 1: do that. That's kind of acting as like accessory split.
Speaker 1: So sort of help helping to keep all your stuff
Speaker 1: together down there. So then I remember getting a hoist
Speaker 1: onto the bird, getting sent to a leather neck. That's
Speaker 1: when things kind of got hazy. That's when they started,
Speaker 1: I guess, operating on me and everything. I don't really
Speaker 1: remember a whole lot from that, I'll be honest to say,
Speaker 1: I was high. Was it would be an understatement. I
Speaker 1: was pretty much in fucking outer space, the amount of
Speaker 1: pain pills I was on. Since you were the corman,
Speaker 1: where you usually farther back in the ranger file further back. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's why. I think that's why a lot of people
Speaker 1: are kind of like shocked by that, because I was
Speaker 1: usually the third person from the last, from the end
Speaker 1: of the line, so a lot of people walk past it.
Speaker 1: I mean that that happens that I forget who told me.
Speaker 1: But they had actually done a little experiment where I
Speaker 1: think it was the O D. They took a pressure
Speaker 1: plate hooked up to a small amount of explosives, like
Speaker 1: enough to fill like a firecracker, and they like drove
Speaker 1: over it and it was like seventeen times for it
Speaker 1: actually went off. The way it was out there, you
Speaker 1: can step on one, but it won't go off, and
Speaker 1: you never know you were stepping on one. That's how
Speaker 1: scary that ship was. Anyone in third squad could have
Speaker 1: stepped on that I E. D. And because he was
Speaker 1: so far back in the patrol and the Marines marked
Speaker 1: where they stepped, some of them probably did step on it.
Speaker 1: For it was the unlucky one that day. But that's
Speaker 1: not how he sees it. Honestly, I really lucked out.
Speaker 1: I found out later on that it was about ten
Speaker 1: pounds of explosives and only two pounds actually went off,
Speaker 1: obviously if the whole thing went off, and the fact
Speaker 1: that they also buried it kind of deep. It was
Speaker 1: like pretty like I'd say, about two or three feet deep.
Speaker 1: If it weren't for those variables, probably wouldn't be here
Speaker 1: before it got meta Act back to the US by
Speaker 1: way of Germany, first to San Antonio and then eventually
Speaker 1: to his new home, Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego,
Speaker 1: about an hour from Camp Pendleton. When is the first
Speaker 1: time that you really take stock of your injuries? Right
Speaker 1: when I landed in San Antonio, I has lifted up
Speaker 1: and I just saw that my foot had looked like
Speaker 1: a piece of chunk of meat with a bunch of
Speaker 1: like skewers punched through it. They were using a bunch
Speaker 1: of pins and to hold it together. And that's that's
Speaker 1: when I kind of really realized, Oh wow, how bad
Speaker 1: that was? And what did they tell you? What did
Speaker 1: the doctors tell you when they first came to talk
Speaker 1: to you? Oh, that that they're going to just do
Speaker 1: whatever they can to save the foot and everything. The
Speaker 1: unsanitary conditions the Marines were exposed to, and sang In
Speaker 1: could make injuries like four, it's much worse. They had
Speaker 1: no running water and went days sometimes weeks without bathing,
Speaker 1: and they were constantly waiting through canals to avoid i e. D. S.
Speaker 1: Those canals are basically that's where they throw all their garbage,
Speaker 1: all their sewage, bones, stuff like that. At Balboa, for
Speaker 1: Its doctors grew concerned about his lack of progress. They
Speaker 1: told him those unsanitary conditions may have contributed to a
Speaker 1: nightmare infection. The infectious disease doctor took a live culture
Speaker 1: from my foot, and I believe what he said was
Speaker 1: it was four different types of bacteria just pretty much
Speaker 1: eating away at the flesh. He was the one that
Speaker 1: noticed that there was this just big, giant like glava
Speaker 1: pus leaking from the foot. And they must have had
Speaker 1: you on gallons of antibiotics at that. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like I had two separate I vs. In me
Speaker 1: of antibiotics and pain killers. Four. It didn't want to
Speaker 1: freak out his parents about how dangerous it was, and
Speaker 1: sang in, but there was no hiding in anymore. They
Speaker 1: flew from Chicago to San Diego as quickly as they
Speaker 1: could to be by his bedside. They had to wear
Speaker 1: head to tell isolation gowns and maintain distance because before
Speaker 1: its weekend immune system he was dazed from the pain medication.
Speaker 1: But it was a comfort to have them there, especially
Speaker 1: as mom Darlene, So, what was it like for her
Speaker 1: to come and find you injured? And she was just
Speaker 1: glad I was alive pretty much, and she did get
Speaker 1: a little bit emotional. I'm sure it was kind of
Speaker 1: hard for her not to be able to touch me
Speaker 1: and hugged me and everything. But she was there to
Speaker 1: help you, Yeah, to sit out there for a month
Speaker 1: with me and San Diego and to help me out
Speaker 1: with the severity of his injuries. It was clear that
Speaker 1: for it was going to be in the hospital for
Speaker 1: a long time. The infection in his foot just kept
Speaker 1: getting worse and the aggressive antibiotics didn't seem to be
Speaker 1: having any effect. One of the Navy surgeon and laid
Speaker 1: out a grim prognosis. He was talking with me and said,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, we're gonna leave it up to you
Speaker 1: whether or not you want to like take off the
Speaker 1: leg or try to save it. We're gonna be honest
Speaker 1: with you. We've seen this numerous times, and most of
Speaker 1: the time people usually just end up getting it cut off.
Speaker 1: They said if if if I tried to save it,
Speaker 1: more than likely I'd be still in the impatient for
Speaker 1: additional seven months. It was after they got done talking
Speaker 1: to me, and actually, that's what I kind of agreed. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just take the leg off. The surgeon amputated for
Speaker 1: its infected foot above the ankle, and with the foot gone,
Speaker 1: he thought he could finally focus on healing. But then,
Speaker 1: lying in his hospital bed at Balboa the night after
Speaker 1: his amputation for it, got an unexpected call, Michael Dutcher
Speaker 1: was dead. Well that happened, I had pretty much broke
Speaker 1: down and started crying like a baby. I had just
Speaker 1: gotten the lead cut off when I had heard about him,
Speaker 1: and I kind of lost it. But I took his
Speaker 1: his death pretty hard for it. Had a special fondness
Speaker 1: for Dutcher because Dutcher always had four It's back when
Speaker 1: I first got to got the platoon and didn't really
Speaker 1: know a whole lot and didn't have any real experience
Speaker 1: at the Marines. He kind of helped me out, and
Speaker 1: you know when a lot of people weren't really will
Speaker 1: willing to help me out, help me, you know, adjust
Speaker 1: to the unit. He was always always there and everything.
Speaker 1: That chubby kid who had to cut weight to joined
Speaker 1: the Navy, struggled to keep up with the Marines, who
Speaker 1: pride themselves on being physical beasts. The tactical stuff was
Speaker 1: challenging to Dutcher was there to help smooth the way.
Speaker 1: He was definitely one of the most helpful Marines. I knew.
Speaker 1: He was always always there and everything. So that's probably
Speaker 1: my best memories of him. When Ford found out about Dutcher,
Speaker 1: he totally shut down. Yeah, that's why I do when I,
Speaker 1: like GiB said, I just kind of I do kind
Speaker 1: of isolate myself for a bit and then I kind
Speaker 1: of move on and such. So, but you know, when
Speaker 1: I heard about that, I was straight up devastated. Do
Speaker 1: you remember the first person who you talked to about
Speaker 1: it after the phone call? Yeah, my mother, she was there.
Speaker 1: Third Squad wouldn't be home from Afghanistan for several weeks,
Speaker 1: but a few of the guys from PB fires were
Speaker 1: recovering with Forward at Balboa, including his original platoon sergeant
Speaker 1: and squad leader and one of his fellow corman. They
Speaker 1: scrambled to get permission from Naval Medical Command to fly
Speaker 1: out for Dutcher's funeral on September for It was hardly
Speaker 1: a week out of surgery when pumped full of drugs
Speaker 1: and with his corman buddy pushing his wheelchair, he boarded
Speaker 1: a plane for North Carolina to say goodbye to Dutch.
Speaker 1: I have hard time remembering that right when I got
Speaker 1: out of the hospital and I was on a lot
Speaker 1: of medication. You know, I have like bits of pieces
Speaker 1: of it in my mind. There are some things, for
Speaker 1: it does remember clearly, the crowds of people who came
Speaker 1: out to the Western Carolina State Veterans Cemetery to pay
Speaker 1: their final respects, and the love he felt for the
Speaker 1: wounded men who helped him make the trip. They pose
Speaker 1: for a picture in front of a sloping field of
Speaker 1: identical granite headstones, together, ten of them, five in wheelchairs,
Speaker 1: their uniform pants pinned where their limbs used to be.
Speaker 1: Back at Balboa, for It eventually healed up enough to
Speaker 1: move into his own room and an outpatient facility for convalescence.
Speaker 1: With his mom's help, he started learning how to live
Speaker 1: as an amputee. Basically came back back and forth right
Speaker 1: until I d I got comfortable walking out my prosthetic.
Speaker 1: So again, like I said, going back to me and
Speaker 1: how how you guys see me walk on my prost
Speaker 1: egg right now? That took me like a couple of months.
Speaker 1: But it was until, like I said, around April spring
Speaker 1: of two thousand and twelve, that's I kind of got
Speaker 1: really comfortable with walking on the prosst egg to the
Speaker 1: point where I was, you know, almost got most of
Speaker 1: my mobility back. The physical rehab was a distraction from
Speaker 1: his grief. It gave him something tangible to work on,
Speaker 1: and he made progress slowly, but surely. I'm glad they
Speaker 1: gave me the choice. And honestly, and I think you
Speaker 1: can both probably attest to it. Seeing the walk on
Speaker 1: this thing, I feel like I made the right choice.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't even realize them in amputee
Speaker 1: unless like show him this. So you're pulling up your
Speaker 1: pant leg right now and showing your prosthetics. So tell us,
Speaker 1: tell us about this technology. Tell us about your prosthetic,
Speaker 1: what it's made out of, and all, okay, Well, the
Speaker 1: main base right here is a carbon fiber. I can
Speaker 1: just pull it up like this. You've got your your
Speaker 1: pant leg rolled up, and there's a blue sock kind
Speaker 1: of thing that's over your which would be your calf
Speaker 1: basically up to your knee essentially. Yeah, right, I would
Speaker 1: say right right up to my I'd say right here,
Speaker 1: just past my ankle a bit. That's where that's how
Speaker 1: much they took off. The stump swells and retracts with
Speaker 1: changes in his diet, which means he has to get
Speaker 1: his prosthetic recalibrated or change the number of socks he
Speaker 1: wears from time to time. Before it says, all of
Speaker 1: that is manageable, So you get around pretty well on
Speaker 1: that Like people, people don't even notice. The only person
Speaker 1: that really noticed was my own mother. She actually noticed
Speaker 1: that a difference in my walk, So because she's my mother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: moms tend to know us pretty well. Because of his
Speaker 1: injury for it, was medically retired from the Navy in
Speaker 1: November two thousand twelve, a little more than a year
Speaker 1: after his surgery. And then, what are you doing with
Speaker 1: yourself at that point? What you know, what are you
Speaker 1: doing all day. I mean, I'm not looking I'm not
Speaker 1: like a full blown alcoholic or anything, though. But there
Speaker 1: was a while, kind of a few years after I
Speaker 1: got out where I spent a lot of time kind
Speaker 1: of to put lightly drinking and partying. So what if
Speaker 1: you were not putting it lightly. I was really big
Speaker 1: into the goth uncan metal seem growing. Um, so I
Speaker 1: go some of the gothus in San Diego and I'd
Speaker 1: get kind of really really fucked up. I remember, I
Speaker 1: think one time kind of like puking on a park
Speaker 1: bench somewhere. I think, you know, because when I got
Speaker 1: I had, you know, a good deal of money in
Speaker 1: the bank, and that combined with my mental health at
Speaker 1: that time obviously not a good situation before it. Saw
Speaker 1: a therapist when he was still at Balboa and got
Speaker 1: diagnosed with PTSD. He continued seeking therapy off and on
Speaker 1: in the years after he got out, which helped, but
Speaker 1: there were other problems related to his traumatic brain injuries
Speaker 1: that didn't seem to improve with therapy. To this day,
Speaker 1: I have problems with like memory, remembering things, um, staying focused,
Speaker 1: reacting a certain situations, sometimes overreacting. The drinking helped him
Speaker 1: cope with his mental issues for a while, but it
Speaker 1: also made him gain back the weight he'd worked so
Speaker 1: hard to lose. He was on a cocktail of pain meds, too,
Speaker 1: and he worried about becoming dependent. He'd come so far
Speaker 1: from that aimless kid who called the Navy recruiter desperate
Speaker 1: for a change, and he didn't want to go back there,
Speaker 1: for it. Was determined not to let himself slide further,
Speaker 1: so he cut down on his drinking and weaned himself
Speaker 1: from the pain mets. He started hitting the gym and
Speaker 1: got back to a healthier weight. He enrolled in college
Speaker 1: and started working towards a psychology degree, but Sangin kept
Speaker 1: dragging him back. So, for you, what do you think
Speaker 1: was harder overcoming your physical injury or dealing with the
Speaker 1: release of all that pressure and stress and dealing with
Speaker 1: the memories of everything that happened? What do you what
Speaker 1: do you think was at the time harder for you?
Speaker 1: And what do you think is harder now? The second one,
Speaker 1: both back then and now kind of because I mean
Speaker 1: going back and remembering the day I lost this. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that didn't I would say, mentally mess with me as
Speaker 1: much as it did when McDaniels died. Yeah, take over again. Thanks,
Speaker 1: We'll be back after the break. I told for It
Speaker 1: that we would stop anytime. He wanted to take a
Speaker 1: break and collect himself. So we grab a couple more
Speaker 1: shiners from the free age, and after a few minutes
Speaker 1: we picked back up talking about McDaniels that day. Going
Speaker 1: back on that day, I would say that day definitely
Speaker 1: has messed with him more e mentally than did Actually
Speaker 1: losing the leg I learned to walk again wasn't really
Speaker 1: that big of a deal for me, for It says
Speaker 1: his biggest hurdle was his conscience. He blamed himself for
Speaker 1: McDaniels death, and he worried that the McDaniels family would
Speaker 1: blame him too. In two thousand thirteen, he had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to meet Brent McDaniels, Josh's dad. I was a reunion.
Speaker 1: We went to DC and got to visit the tum
Speaker 1: of the Unknown Soldier for It spotted Brent McDaniels immediately
Speaker 1: in the crowd of former Marines and family members. He
Speaker 1: looked exactly like an older version of Josh. I know
Speaker 1: he would say to me, I know if he would
Speaker 1: if he'd like claim me for what happened. But we talked,
Speaker 1: and I don't gett mootional, but yeah, we we talked
Speaker 1: and he said he didn't you know, he understood everything
Speaker 1: that happened, and that definitely did take a laugh my shoulders.
Speaker 1: So take a breaking quick one. Okay, thanks, take a breath,
Speaker 1: just breathe. We can stop, but just we're not gonna
Speaker 1: stop rolling in front. Just breathe and and we'll pick
Speaker 1: back up again when you're ready. Yeah, it's still something
Speaker 1: that does bother me to this day. But you know,
Speaker 1: listening to Brent and you know, hearing him how he said, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I understand you did all you could do really did
Speaker 1: help me out a lot. It helped me out in
Speaker 1: more ways. Again, like I said, I'm trying to compose myself.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, none of this is your fault. Survivor
Speaker 1: is guilty, and so tell people who don't know what
Speaker 1: survivor's skill is. Essentially, when you feel responsible for something
Speaker 1: that I would say wasn't necessary, your fault in these
Speaker 1: kinds of situations. So something that kind of dealt with
Speaker 1: off and on throughout the years. For it, still has
Speaker 1: trouble talking to his family about his war experiences and
Speaker 1: the baggage he came home with, including his survivor's guilt.
Speaker 1: But that second family, his military family, he can still
Speaker 1: lean on them. Usually when I've talked with them, I
Speaker 1: can be a little bit more kind of honest and
Speaker 1: everything about it. When it comes to those kind of
Speaker 1: like more kind of emotional and gruesome things that happened,
Speaker 1: That's generally what I usually talk about with and with them,
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about freaking them out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what their reaction is going to be in everything.
Speaker 1: And is it important to have those kinds of people
Speaker 1: in your life, like people like Mendoza you can oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean all the both my squad platoon. They've helped
Speaker 1: me out a lot, So I definitely love them my family.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy to hear you say that. Actually, thanks
Speaker 1: the love between people who served together in such extreme circumstances.
Speaker 1: And it really is love, isn't it before it says
Speaker 1: that love makes it possible to live with the rest
Speaker 1: of it. I feel like in the long run, I've
Speaker 1: made a lot of really close connections with people. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I had never joined, I'd never have been any
Speaker 1: of these people I'd still be working a shitty job
Speaker 1: in retail. You know. Physically, it's fucked me up, you know,
Speaker 1: losing a leg, dealing with having PTSD and anxiety issues
Speaker 1: and stress issues and issues with alcohol and such. But
Speaker 1: be honest, I don't regret joining or anything, and then
Speaker 1: necessarily don't regret you know, going to Afghanistan. It would
Speaker 1: have been nice, nicer to have gotten a little bit
Speaker 1: more training, to be a little bit more prepared because we,
Speaker 1: like and we were just kind of rushed out the
Speaker 1: door pretty much. But you did the best you could
Speaker 1: with what you had. Yeah. Yeah, it has changed me
Speaker 1: in terms of outlook on life and everything. Has maybe
Speaker 1: very thankful for being alive and that you know, things
Speaker 1: could have been a lot worse. Yeah. Fuck, it's not fair. Well,
Speaker 1: life's not fair. So I mean, again going back by me,
Speaker 1: I've never I don't really like to complain about these
Speaker 1: things because you know, in general, I don't I've never
Speaker 1: believe life, for the most part is necessarily should be fair.
Speaker 1: I think that's just how it is. I think that's
Speaker 1: just how the universe is and everything. It's you know,
Speaker 1: that's just how things are. I guess I'm just glad
Speaker 1: to be still here and talking to both of you.
Speaker 1: I promised for it, I'd make him dinner. So I
Speaker 1: tossed some Elk sausage and the skillet and warm up
Speaker 1: left over sauer kraut and mashed potatoes. It feels good
Speaker 1: to step away from the awkwardness of the mics and
Speaker 1: stretch our legs. We keep rolling from a distance. I
Speaker 1: think it's actually very courageous. Thank you. I really do.
Speaker 1: You know, in some ways, I think it's easier to
Speaker 1: go into a gunfight, that is, to talk about this,
Speaker 1: so you know what I mean. Yeah, it's not fun.
Speaker 1: It hurts like going back to what you said and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Nick Daniels's father. You know. It definitely
Speaker 1: helped me out, But is that has taken a while
Speaker 1: and I get over a bit. Well, you don't have
Speaker 1: to get over you just have to grow around it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I know what you've been through,
Speaker 1: because I don't. I really don't. But if I can
Speaker 1: suggest that I've tasted a sliver of it, I know
Speaker 1: what it feels like to wonder why why somebody else
Speaker 1: got it, didn't I tell for it? How two guys
Speaker 1: from my unit got killed in a suicide bombing. It
Speaker 1: was during my own deployment to a Rock in two
Speaker 1: thousand four, And I tell him about losing more friends
Speaker 1: over the years to the wars in a Rock and Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and how hard it's been to live with my own
Speaker 1: sadness and guilt in my own life. Um, what I
Speaker 1: come around too is that it's like a tree that
Speaker 1: gets struck by lightning, or it's like somebody who loses
Speaker 1: a limb. You can walk, but you're never gonna get
Speaker 1: that one back. That tree that gets hit by lightning
Speaker 1: and gets split in half but doesn't die, It's never
Speaker 1: gonna be unsplit in half. It will grow around that injury,
Speaker 1: will incorporate that injury into whatever it becomes. That thing
Speaker 1: that it becomes would be just as alive, be just
Speaker 1: as beautiful, it will be just as whole. Just we'll
Speaker 1: have that scar. And sometimes a scar hurts, sometimes a
Speaker 1: scarf robs. Sometimes you feel that missing limb, but you
Speaker 1: grow around it. You don't have to forget it, you
Speaker 1: don't have to move past it, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I actually get kind of upset when people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: how do you find closure? How did you move past that,
Speaker 1: or it's time for you to put this on. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the clear indicator. You have no fucking idea
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. We drive for it back to
Speaker 1: Mendoza apartment after dinner, and I offered to come back
Speaker 1: in the morning to take him to the airport for
Speaker 1: his ten am flight. Good morning, So do you know
Speaker 1: what terminal you're flying out of? Oh? Yeah, American Airlines.
Speaker 1: I think it's terminal too. Okay, all right, here we
Speaker 1: go rocking the shorts. I like it. Yeah, it makes
Speaker 1: a travel easier. Actually, yeah, so I don't have to
Speaker 1: like show them the leg, right, I think the are
Speaker 1: acs he makes it. It It just makes it more up streamlined.
Speaker 1: They have to wipe down my leg and everything for
Speaker 1: our security purposes. So it just makes like I said,
Speaker 1: it just makes it my life way more easier, just
Speaker 1: to wear shorts at the airport. On the drive, Ford
Speaker 1: tells me he's giving up on his college plans once
Speaker 1: and for all. He says he's going to become a plumber.
Speaker 1: He's planning to move to Houston to enroll in a
Speaker 1: nonprofit training program that's free for veterans, and to be
Speaker 1: near Manny Mendoza, his friend from Third Squad. But for now,
Speaker 1: for it's headed back home to San Diego, where he's
Speaker 1: working as a security guard at a storage facility to
Speaker 1: supplement his v A disability checks. Near the airport, we
Speaker 1: passed a couple of huge glass and steel buildings with
Speaker 1: the familiar name emblazoned in big red letters on a
Speaker 1: sign out front Haliburton Headquarters. It's funny interack and Afghanist end,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, Haliburton is the oil services beheamoth that
Speaker 1: Dick Cheney ran before he became George W. Bush's vice president.
Speaker 1: The company made tens of billions of dollars in government
Speaker 1: contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, one clear winner in the
Speaker 1: war since nine eleven. You might call it the ability
Speaker 1: of the beast. In our last few minutes together, I
Speaker 1: asked for it. If he has any questions for me,
Speaker 1: I mean the other other, I mean like, I mean,
Speaker 1: how you feel I guess about you know, the situation
Speaker 1: we're in over there? Oh boy, so we got the
Speaker 1: point four miles terminal. I feel like we've made a
Speaker 1: lot of mistakes that have gotten a lot of people
Speaker 1: killed and a lot of people hurt. And cause a
Speaker 1: lot of political and cultural problems that are going to
Speaker 1: take generations to fix, if they can ever be fixed
Speaker 1: at all. And I think, you know, for me, the
Speaker 1: biggest frustration over the last fifteen years since I came
Speaker 1: home from Iraq is that all of this suffering has occurred,
Speaker 1: and most Americans don't seem to give it a passing
Speaker 1: thought on a day to day basis. And for me,
Speaker 1: that's just really frustrating, and it makes me really upset.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had to spend years trying to
Speaker 1: tamp down that anger and frustration and try to try
Speaker 1: to channel it into something productive, which is a big
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I wound around talking to
Speaker 1: you guys, because you know, it helps me feel a
Speaker 1: little bit less loan to reconnect to the people who
Speaker 1: I was with as a journalist over there and to
Speaker 1: people that I served with, to try to take our
Speaker 1: stories and and remind people that all of this happened.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like at least I can do.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, I've been pretty upset about it
Speaker 1: all these years. I've been pretty Yeah, i'd pretty I
Speaker 1: would definitely say I feel kind of the same way
Speaker 1: I've come coughed back and forth in my mind a
Speaker 1: bit kind of try to like justify it, but overall
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you on that. Yeah, well here
Speaker 1: we are. I'll just pull up right up here. Thank
Speaker 1: you very time. Good see me again. Goodn't see to
Speaker 1: keep you in touch, and yeah, if anything, just let
Speaker 1: me know, I will thank you. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: finally reaching out. I'm really glad to me, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of looking at you. I think I'm black. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff off my chest, so good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: h what are you feeling that? Just I could see
Speaker 1: that as he was saying goodbye, saying that it actually
Speaker 1: that he was glad that he talked, that he was
Speaker 1: getting emotional, and I just think it's really brave for
Speaker 1: people like him to be willing to to tell their stories.
Speaker 1: And I just got so lucky. I just got so
Speaker 1: fucking lucky in every single way to not get hurt physically,
Speaker 1: to get out of all this ship with my brain
Speaker 1: mostly whole um, and so to be around these guys
Speaker 1: and for them to trust me to talk about the
Speaker 1: most difficult things in their lives, and to bring up
Speaker 1: all this stuff that they don't talk about with anyone
Speaker 1: it's just a it's really hard. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: really hard, and it's really rewarding, but it's also feels
Speaker 1: like a huge amount of responsibility, and you know, I
Speaker 1: have to keep it together. I have to. I can't
Speaker 1: break down in front of these guys. I have to
Speaker 1: listen to them. It's kind of the story of the
Speaker 1: story of my life in a certain way. So yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes it just sneaks up on me. Sometimes it just
Speaker 1: sneaks up on me and grabs me when I least
Speaker 1: expect it. Next time on third Squad, we stay right
Speaker 1: here in the Houston suburbs to meet up with Manny Mendoza.
Speaker 1: That is sound really fucked up, because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to make her worried, so I told her I was
Speaker 1: an electrician. Well, I was in the Marine Corps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't tell ours infantry until the night before I left.
Speaker 1: That's a big fun lie. Yeah. As soon as the
Speaker 1: sun comes up and we're out there looking for pieces
Speaker 1: and we found him everywhere. It feels wrong talking about
Speaker 1: this um feels disrespectful when n't you know, I just
Speaker 1: felt like I gave up, or actually I did give up.
Speaker 1: I was like, let's just put it all away. Now,
Speaker 1: Let's just put it all away. Third Squad is written
Speaker 1: and produced by Elliott Woods, Tommy Andres, and Maria Byrne.
Speaker 1: It's an Heirloom Media production distributed by iHeart Media, funding
Speaker 1: support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and collaboration
Speaker 1: with the Center for Warren Society at San Diego State University.
Speaker 1: Original music by Mondo Boys, editing and sound design by
Speaker 1: John Ward. Fact checking by Ben Kalin. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Scott Carrier, Benjamin Bush, Caitlin ash Carry, Gracie, Kevin Connolly,
Speaker 1: and Lena Ferguson. If you'd like to see my photographs
Speaker 1: from Sangin and from our road trip, please visit Ward
Speaker 1: Squad dot com. You can find me on Instagram and
Speaker 1: Twitter at Elliott Woods m