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Speaker 1: Welcome with the Good Stuff.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jacob Schick and I'm joined by my co host

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Speaker 2: and wife, Ashley Shick.

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Speaker 3: Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a

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Speaker 3: gold Star granddaughter. We work together to serve military veterans,

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Speaker 3: first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental

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Speaker 3: and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy. At

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Speaker 3: One Tribe Foundation, we.

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Speaker 2: Believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about

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Speaker 2: the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to

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Speaker 2: get them to where they are today.

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Speaker 3: Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,

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Speaker 3: to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape

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Speaker 3: who they are and what they're doing to pay it

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Speaker 3: forward and give back.

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Speaker 2: Our mission with this show is to dig deep into

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Speaker 2: our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope

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Speaker 2: and inspiration their story has to offer.

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Speaker 3: We're thrilled you're joining us again.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff.

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Speaker 3: Today, our guest is Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Floren Groberg.

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Speaker 3: This is a story about patriotism. He's here to tell

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Speaker 3: us about his childhood in France, his family history in Algeria,

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Speaker 3: moving to Chicago as a young kid and eventually becoming

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Speaker 3: a United States citizen.

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Speaker 2: His love of country led him to joining the army

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Speaker 2: after nine to eleven. This episode is important to us

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Speaker 2: because we want people to understand that the Medal of

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Speaker 2: Honor recipients are real people. Also, he's held in high

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Speaker 2: regard around the world because of that medal. But today

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Speaker 2: we talk to him about who he really is. His

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Speaker 2: life now, is a husband and father, the eight seconds

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Speaker 2: of action that changed his life, and what was going

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Speaker 2: through his mind when President Obama put that medal around

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Speaker 2: his neck.

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Speaker 3: We are so glad he's joining us today, and you

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Speaker 3: will be too once you hear this interview. This is

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Speaker 3: an intimate conversation amongst friends, and a swear word or

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Speaker 3: two might be included.

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Speaker 2: We both fought and bled for the right to say

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Speaker 2: whatever the hell we want, so deal with it.

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Speaker 3: In fact, Flora Groberg, so great to have you here

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Speaker 3: on the good Stuff. We have tried many times to

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Speaker 3: get you here, and you canceled twice for the two

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Speaker 3: most legitimate reasons ever, a dinner at the White House

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Speaker 3: and having your first child. Yeah, so welcome to the

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Speaker 3: good stuff.

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Speaker 1: I mean one of those is the most legitimate. It

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Speaker 1: was good dinner.

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Speaker 2: Good because I was gonna ask, like, is it everything

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Speaker 2: that you think it would be? Like first class everything?

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Speaker 2: And is the furniture comfortable? Is it like warm and inviting?

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Speaker 1: So I went to the state dinner in December between

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Speaker 1: obviously this current administration, Biden and please you know Macrone.

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Speaker 1: I'm French background, so yeah, that's part of the reason

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Speaker 1: why I was invited. And other than the dinner being

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Speaker 1: two and a half hours late literally really yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we didn't start eating around until ten ten fifteen pm.

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Speaker 1: The reason that happened is because Biden and macnt wanted

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Speaker 1: to shake everyone and take a picture with every single

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Speaker 1: guest and all the bs not and that bs but

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Speaker 1: the crap that bite In takes about being old years old.

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Speaker 1: I was really surprised that he stood for three plus

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Speaker 1: hours in the same spot and shook everyone's hand and

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Speaker 1: I took pictures. You know what I mean, You gotta

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Speaker 1: admire that. I now at forty, sure as heck, I'm

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Speaker 1: not doing it. I was like, all right, or we're

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Speaker 1: gonna go hell a lot faster.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but going back, I was born in Friends and

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Speaker 1: my mom is my aunt. So the woman that raised me.

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Speaker 1: I called mom is my aunt. Her sister had me.

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Speaker 1: I think she had a fun night or something and things,

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Speaker 1: you know, did not work out the way she planned it.

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Speaker 1: But the world was blessed with you. Shit, I got lucky, right,

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Speaker 1: So my mom adopted me, and you know, for the

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Speaker 1: first three years, just her and I we lived in

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Speaker 1: the els Heirs of Paris. She gets so mad at

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Speaker 1: me when I said ghetto. You know, we live in

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Speaker 1: the ghetto. Latta is like the French newspapers said that.

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Speaker 1: Literally after we see the Medal of Honor, one of

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Speaker 1: the headlines was from the ghetto of Paris to the

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Speaker 1: White House, right, I was like, that's what they call it,

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Speaker 1: you see it? Right? It all blame me for this,

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Speaker 1: But you take a you know, we did a Google

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Speaker 1: Earth thing and you go to my neighborhood and you

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Speaker 1: kind of look at the buildings and it's one of

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Speaker 1: those buildings with like steel doors and bars on windows

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Speaker 1: and stuff. You're kind of like spits the yeah, demographics

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Speaker 1: right there. But I loved it. You know, it was

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Speaker 1: my world. You don't know any better. When you're a kid,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's what you grew up in. Luckily, she

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Speaker 1: met this guy named Larry who my stepfather now my

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Speaker 1: adoptive father, and he was there on business and they

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Speaker 1: kind of hated it off and over in the next

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Speaker 1: six seven years it dated right, and he was in

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Speaker 1: my life and he was amazing, right from Gary, Indiana,

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Speaker 1: you know, raising Gary lived in Chicago, And one day

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Speaker 1: when I was about ten, it's seven years in he

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Speaker 1: asked my mom if she was willing to want marry him,

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Speaker 1: but also moved to the States, and so they had

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Speaker 1: to convince me and convinced me. He's so smart. He

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Speaker 1: got me Nintendo and I was playing Mike Tyes and

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Speaker 1: Punch Out Best one of the best, one of the

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Speaker 1: best games of all time. Yeah, And he came to

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Speaker 1: my ram us playing that game and he asked, hey, flow,

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Speaker 1: do you like McDonald's. You want to eat McDonald's. I

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Speaker 1: said it, yeah, and he's like, also, would you like

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Speaker 1: to meet Michael Jordan? Michael Jordan, you know, because I

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Speaker 1: mean I wasn't even basketball player, but everyone knew Jeordan

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Speaker 1: the whole world, right, Michael Jordan. And you know, this

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Speaker 1: is the nineties, early nineties, that's glory, that was Glory days.

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Speaker 1: This is like nineteen ninety three. Yea, like this dude

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Speaker 1: is just one of his first repeat right then. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: loved to met Michael Jordan's Like, wow, if we moved

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Speaker 1: to the States, McDonald's the headquarters of it there, Michael

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Speaker 1: Jordan lives in my city. I said, okay, it sounds good.

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Speaker 1: Just like that. That was the end. He ran with

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Speaker 1: it and we were gone. We were gone three weeks later, gone.

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Speaker 1: So I tell people, I lost my allegiance to my country,

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Speaker 1: my family, my friends, my school, my sports, everything about me,

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Speaker 1: my whole identity was just sold for McDonald's and Michael Jordan.

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Speaker 1: The way there's McDonald's and rents just want to bring

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Speaker 1: it out there. It's really good too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's two of the biggest franchises ever, right right,

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Speaker 2: And so yeah, I should go work for McDonald's and

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Speaker 2: just be like, this is what a great story spoke

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Speaker 2: something that, Yeah, I would like McDonald's and the Michael

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Speaker 2: Jordan to take note that not just any dude, yeah,

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Speaker 2: but a Medal of Honor recipient.

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Speaker 1: Those aren't just handed out. It's not going to work

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Speaker 1: with Michael. So President Bush put me in one of

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Speaker 1: his poetry books, you know, And so I'm in there

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Speaker 1: I'm in his museum. He paid me and put me

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Speaker 1: in his museum. And in the book he says that

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Speaker 1: he's going to figure out a way to contact Michael Jordan,

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Speaker 1: and it has not happened.

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Speaker 3: So you moved to Chicago at age eleven.

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Speaker 1: Tell us about that. What was that like? Culture shock? Shot? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent culture shock. Moving to Chicago in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety four was a complete culture shock, going from the

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Speaker 1: city to the suburbs, not speaking the language. Did you

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Speaker 1: speak any English when you move? Not really? I mean

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Speaker 1: it's put It gave me a couple of courses before,

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Speaker 1: but like you know, just like you take Spanish in

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Speaker 1: school a little bit, and it's totally not my priority

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Speaker 1: at this time. And I came here and it was

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Speaker 1: just so different. Everything was bigger, wider, longer. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how I'll subscribe it. I remember being in this

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Speaker 1: town home that he lived in and we're there, walked

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Speaker 1: outside and I couldn't see people, buses, you know, metro, nothing,

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Speaker 1: It's just houses and quiet. I remember thinking like, this

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Speaker 1: is creepy. I want to be in a city. But

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Speaker 1: then it was also peaceful. It was new, so everything

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Speaker 1: was just kind of cool. Care of like wow, like

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Speaker 1: all right, let me just explore this. But one of

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Speaker 1: the things that got me super fired up was when

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Speaker 1: I saw one of those yellow school buses, because I'd

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Speaker 1: never seen one in my life before, you know, and

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Speaker 1: I've been I visited the United States a few times,

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Speaker 1: you know, usually in a city and for like a

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Speaker 1: week or two right with him. But now here I

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Speaker 1: was and that's where I lived. I knew that, and

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Speaker 1: I saw one of his buses drive by the only

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Speaker 1: time I've ever seen those buses in movies with TV

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Speaker 1: shows were Zan and things like that, right, you know

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Speaker 1: Cosby Show and the movies that we watched. I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so cool. I got super excited.

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Speaker 1: Like my dad, it's just like his kid's weird, because

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Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to be one of

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Speaker 1: those things. One day, like everyone's trying to avoid the bus.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to get in the bus. But I just

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Speaker 1: thought I was so cool and in the people.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: It was hard to communicate, but as kids, you don't

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Speaker 1: need words, you just need action. Sports was an easy way.

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Speaker 1: I was a really good soccer player, and I got

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Speaker 1: to play with some really good soccer players around and

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Speaker 1: so that I created a bond, bonding and obviously in track.

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Speaker 1: But we lived in Chicago for a little bit and

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Speaker 1: moved to DC. I went to the French International School,

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Speaker 1: so I was still every day French shot with a

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Speaker 1: lot of emphasis in English. Obviously, that got kicked out

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Speaker 1: of that school in eighth grade. Hold on what happened?

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Speaker 1: I had a racist teacher, you know. And so my

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Speaker 1: father would help me with my English, you know, on

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Speaker 1: work and I run an essay and you know, he

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Speaker 1: would look at it, and but I wrote it and

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Speaker 1: he would just give me advice. I'm like, well, you

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Speaker 1: might want to change this tone, you might want to

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Speaker 1: go through your grammar. So he would help me. But

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Speaker 1: my uncle had just been killed in North Africa right

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Speaker 1: before that, in Algeria fighting the GIA terrorist organization, going

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Speaker 1: to Ga predecessor to Raa Kaita. And my uncle was

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Speaker 1: a preacher of the Muslim faith. He was an mom

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Speaker 1: and when the GIA came in with sharer law in

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Speaker 1: a westernized Muslim country, he decided to that they were

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Speaker 1: perverting his book and his religion and his beliefs. So

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Speaker 1: he went and joined the army. He went special operations

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Speaker 1: there actually got to come to the United States and

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Speaker 1: be trained with some and had Bragg now liberty, and

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Speaker 1: he went back and fought for years. In February of

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, during a ceasefire to observe Ramadon of

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Speaker 1: all things, his unit was ambush who was shot beheaded.

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Speaker 1: This member put in a box sense to my grandfather.

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Speaker 1: And my grandfather was a war hero in Algeria French

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Speaker 1: andoshin prisoner war for three years and the cattle is

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Speaker 1: for y'all during independence against the French. So he was

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Speaker 1: really well known. So they killed his son and then

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Speaker 1: obviously that to his body and then send it to

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Speaker 1: him as a message. It only motivated more my uncles

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Speaker 1: to join the army at that point, just like terrorism

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Speaker 1: never works, it just motivates the next generation to fight

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Speaker 1: against that. Yeah, so that just happened, and you're eighth grade,

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Speaker 1: seventh grade, seventh grade, and my uncle had just been killed.

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Speaker 1: And this guy gives me a zero in my paper

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Speaker 1: and he said that cheated zero. Yeah, yeah, he said

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Speaker 1: at zero instead of cheated. I said, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how I cheat, but how you cheat on this? Right?

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Speaker 1: And he said, all your Arabs are this is the same.

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Speaker 1: So I took a remember it was like desk chairs

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Speaker 1: connected to each other. Yeah. Yeah, I took one of those,

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Speaker 1: lifted in and threw it at him, missed him obviously,

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Speaker 1: for I was scrawny and small and all my strength

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Speaker 1: in the world to picked that thing up and that

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Speaker 1: threw it and went like, oh foot. But that's the thought,

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Speaker 1: get you kicked out. Yeah I got kicked out. But

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Speaker 1: my mom was like, that sounds great, kick my son out.

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Speaker 1: But let me go out there and tell all the

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Speaker 1: diplomats around that this is a racist school.

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Speaker 3: Years.

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Speaker 1: I put a hell of a lot of money that

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Speaker 1: you know, you charge a ton of money into it.

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Speaker 1: Is not to say that probably wasn't cheap. No, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't cheap. And my dad moving here, he was you know.

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Speaker 1: I went from being super poor and nothing to like

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Speaker 1: live in a normal life and my dad investing quite

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Speaker 1: a bit of money in my education because I didn't

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Speaker 1: speak English, right, So anyway, I took the ESAUL test

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Speaker 1: after that English is the second language, and I went

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Speaker 1: to till the middle school American school, and I remember

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Speaker 1: being in school and not speaking the language. So I

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Speaker 1: had English. I didn't have English. I had Esaul. Today day,

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to figureut how I made it to class

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Speaker 1: so English that was my Esaul. So I'm there with

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Speaker 1: a bunch of like people like me, Hispanic, French, Africans.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is like it's actually a good number.

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Speaker 1: But like history, science, math, everything else, it was in English,

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Speaker 1: like with everybody that probably didn't make it a chant

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Speaker 1: at all. The thing is, I think that helped really, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because by the time I was in regular English freshman year,

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Speaker 1: I was an Honors English sophomore year, and I was

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Speaker 1: an ap English junior year. Wow. And I think being

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Speaker 1: forced to learn in that element, I think that helped me.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how made it through, to be honest

256
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Speaker 1: with you, like maybe like they were nice to me

257
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Speaker 1: or something. But the only class that I felt really

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Speaker 1: comfortable in was in Spanish because I spoke Spanish too

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Speaker 1: at the time, because I lived in Spain for a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a period of time. So like I was like,

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Speaker 1: screw all of you, I can speak this language, right,

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Speaker 1: So me and the other like Hispanic duds were like,

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Speaker 1: let's go. That led into going into high school sports

264
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Speaker 1: and in college. And but when nine to eleven happened,

265
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Speaker 1: and I think this is like a kind of to

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Speaker 1: conclude this piece, this whole transition. I became naturalized as

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Speaker 1: a seventeen year old, right, So my dad officially adopted me,

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Speaker 1: so I became his son on paper and everything, and

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Speaker 1: that made me American right away because I was a minor.

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Speaker 1: And so in February two thousand and one, I became

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Speaker 1: a US citizen, and I remember not truly understanding that moment,

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Speaker 1: but just being happy. I'm like, one of you guys,

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Speaker 1: Now I'm American officially. But when you fast forward seven

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Speaker 1: months later and nine to eleven happens, and now you

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Speaker 1: do the connecting dots in my own mind, which is,

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Speaker 1: these individuals are the same people that killed my uncle.

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Speaker 1: So I felt like terrorism was following me, and now

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Speaker 1: they attacked my mom's side of the house, right, and

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Speaker 1: now they're attacking my newly adopted country. So as an American,

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Speaker 1: I felt that it was my responsibility to now join

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Speaker 1: the military, but also felt that was very personal and

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Speaker 1: so I mean, how could you not at that point? Especially,

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Speaker 1: I tell people I had the easiest four years in

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Speaker 1: college because I didn't really care what I was studying

285
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Speaker 1: because I knew exactly what I was going to do

286
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Speaker 1: after because nine eleven happened when I was in the

287
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Speaker 1: Orient school and I wanted to quit. And he asked

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Speaker 1: me one single question. He fit, what's the one thing

289
00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:02,520
Speaker 1: I asked of you when I give you my name?

290
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Speaker 1: I obviously didn't no ideways talking about so he ran.

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Speaker 1: He reminded me, he said, when a Groelberg starts something,

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Speaker 1: he or she finishes it because if they quit when

293
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:15,120
Speaker 1: things get tough, they will always find an excuse to

294
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Speaker 1: quit everything else that they start. That could be a

295
00:14:17,360 --> 00:14:20,560
Speaker 1: job of family, you know, relationships or whatever it is.

296
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Speaker 1: So it's like the hard thing for you to do

297
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Speaker 1: is get your education right now. And he said something

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Speaker 1: really valuable. After that, I was like, as we go

299
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Speaker 1: to war into this, this is not going to be

300
00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:31,240
Speaker 1: a two month, three month thing. This is going to

301
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Speaker 1: be a long thing. Because he's his background was in

302
00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:38,280
Speaker 1: communications from Motorola and he traveled seven months out of

303
00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:40,360
Speaker 1: the year. We didn't see him. He was always on

304
00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:43,080
Speaker 1: the road because he would go to these big deals. Well,

305
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:49,800
Speaker 1: he's former army veteran Vietnam one was in a capacity

306
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:52,080
Speaker 1: of working with the agency, and we can get into

307
00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:54,120
Speaker 1: that's of fun stuff. And now we have all the

308
00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:57,360
Speaker 1: pictures and stuff. He golfed with ben Lan's father. He

309
00:14:57,440 --> 00:14:59,600
Speaker 1: knew the King of Morocco and stuff because he was

310
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Speaker 1: selling them radio technologies on stuff all around the Middle

311
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Speaker 1: East and Asia and South America, and so he had

312
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Speaker 1: all these access points he lived. I was so lucky,

313
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Speaker 1: like he raised me and he had all these understanding

314
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Speaker 1: of like culture and stuff. And so he told me like,

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Speaker 1: this is something that's been brought for a long time,

316
00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:18,440
Speaker 1: and this is not gonna end overnight, so like you're

317
00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:20,600
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna have your opportunity to play in this game.

318
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Speaker 1: And so finished school. I said, all right. I was pissed.

319
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Speaker 1: But of course he's completely officer in me. First of all,

320
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Speaker 1: he's blonding green ice. So really a lot of questions

321
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Speaker 1: growing up about that's your dad, Okay, milkman, where are

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Speaker 1: you at?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's I mean, seeing is believing, you know,

324
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Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's one of those things.

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Speaker 1: We both have great dads too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what, man, you probably you know this.

327
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Speaker 2: You didn't have a better guy to mantally prepare you

328
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Speaker 2: for all of it. And he and clearly knew what

329
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Speaker 2: he was talking about had way more of a freaking

330
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Speaker 2: understanding than June role population, you know, watching the nine

331
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Speaker 2: to five Dad.

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Speaker 1: This is the stories he tells me. I won't go

333
00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:10,760
Speaker 1: too deep, but I'll give you this sort of a synopsis.

334
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:13,880
Speaker 1: We were sitting at the table, him and I just

335
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:16,680
Speaker 1: chatting and I'll be like, all right, so, like, how

336
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:20,400
Speaker 1: was your trip? He'll say it was good. This time

337
00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:21,880
Speaker 1: was a lot better than last time. I said, he

338
00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:23,960
Speaker 1: went to Zambia. Right, I was like, oh, what happened

339
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,760
Speaker 1: last time? He's like, a little misunderstanding? What's a middle

340
00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:30,400
Speaker 1: little misunderstanding? I go bad, like your customer, I'm thinking

341
00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:32,640
Speaker 1: of deals, right, I'm thinking like you're customer, didn't like

342
00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:34,720
Speaker 1: you're pricing whatever it is. And he's like, I was

343
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:38,320
Speaker 1: sticking pictures of this building. Police came buy and picked

344
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:39,880
Speaker 1: me up, me and my buddy up, threw us in

345
00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:42,680
Speaker 1: jail and they called the spies and it took all

346
00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:45,800
Speaker 1: our stuff and I was like, uh huh. And he's

347
00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:48,080
Speaker 1: like yeah, and there's this guy, you know, just like local,

348
00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:49,840
Speaker 1: chained up in the bench next to us, and they

349
00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:51,360
Speaker 1: came in and beat the heck out of him, pretty

350
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Speaker 1: much killed him. So at that point we realized, like,

351
00:16:53,440 --> 00:16:54,760
Speaker 1: we really need to figure out a way to get

352
00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:56,880
Speaker 1: the heck out of here. So we saw a priest

353
00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,320
Speaker 1: and we told him, hey, I'm Larry Groberg. Go to

354
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Speaker 1: the US and and let him know, like we're here

355
00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:03,680
Speaker 1: and I can come bail us out. He's like, yeah,

356
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 1: in about you know, twelve fourteen hours later, you know

357
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:08,480
Speaker 1: us guy came in and he kind of build us out.

358
00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:10,520
Speaker 1: But ha, some really misunderstanding. I said, what do you

359
00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:12,920
Speaker 1: mean what do you do for a living?

360
00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:15,360
Speaker 2: Right? You know what I mean.

361
00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:17,760
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, what are you talking about? Did you

362
00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:20,560
Speaker 1: got thrown in jail for being a spy for taking pictures?

363
00:17:20,600 --> 00:17:22,359
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, we're just taking pictures of a building

364
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:24,240
Speaker 1: where we're gonna put these you know, these radios and

365
00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:30,200
Speaker 1: antennas and stuff. I said, something's missing, right, Well, he'll

366
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,880
Speaker 1: tell me another story where Africa was, like his fun stories.

367
00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:37,960
Speaker 1: I think it was Zimbabwe. There was a curfew. He's like, yeah,

368
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:40,680
Speaker 1: I had a long meeting kind of went past curfew.

369
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Speaker 1: So I got my car and drove through and I

370
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:44,520
Speaker 1: saw a checkpoint. I realized, probably not a good idea

371
00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:46,280
Speaker 1: to stop at checkpoints. I kind of punched through it

372
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:47,719
Speaker 1: and they shot a couple of rounds of aca at

373
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Speaker 1: me and then they chased me. But luckily there was

374
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Speaker 1: another guy that did the same thing. They went after

375
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:57,160
Speaker 1: him and I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah,

376
00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,720
Speaker 1: there's no way. Your story's don't fit. And then the

377
00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:01,879
Speaker 1: case was when I was uh, and they moved to

378
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:04,199
Speaker 1: North Carolina and I went into the attic just like

379
00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:06,440
Speaker 1: my boxes, and this is kind of funny. That's why

380
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:08,840
Speaker 1: I liked the idea of boxes and learning the story

381
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:12,040
Speaker 1: of your dad or grandpa. And I went into one

382
00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:14,359
Speaker 1: of the boxes looking for something and I found an

383
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:18,400
Speaker 1: identification card from Moroccan Jean dal Marie right the police

384
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:21,160
Speaker 1: like National police up there, and is my dad's face

385
00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:24,879
Speaker 1: with a different name on it. And I took that

386
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:26,280
Speaker 1: brought it to him. I was like, what is this.

387
00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:29,919
Speaker 1: He's like, huh, yes, not d card. I was like, no,

388
00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,040
Speaker 1: I get that, dude. Why do you have a different name?

389
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:37,040
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know they didn't like my name, so

390
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:39,399
Speaker 1: to get on basically, just give me this card. I'm like,

391
00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:42,600
Speaker 1: Larry Grosberg is a pretty like easy name, dude, Like,

392
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:45,160
Speaker 1: why do you have like a pretty much French name.

393
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:46,760
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, it's just it just made it a

394
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:48,520
Speaker 1: lot easier. I said, not man. And so when I

395
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,720
Speaker 1: went into that world myself after the Army, I realized,

396
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:54,440
Speaker 1: like this guy was doing a little bit more than

397
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,080
Speaker 1: what it's to this day, he won't tell me your truth.

398
00:18:58,359 --> 00:18:59,359
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out one day.

399
00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:00,760
Speaker 3: You'll figure it out eventually.

400
00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:04,960
Speaker 2: That's man, that's conviction, though, amazing, this whole old school dude,

401
00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:05,480
Speaker 2: that's legit.

402
00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:08,119
Speaker 1: You don't respect that. No, hell no, I wanted to

403
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:14,760
Speaker 1: tell he just smiled, he smirts, and that makes it worse.

404
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:18,080
Speaker 1: This is just total coincidence. And really there's our stories, right,

405
00:19:19,119 --> 00:19:21,119
Speaker 1: we have top of one more. This is the best one.

406
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:23,840
Speaker 1: This is the best one. My mom to this day

407
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:27,200
Speaker 1: is incredibly still mad at him because they were going

408
00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:30,240
Speaker 1: to Luxembourg. From Paris to Luxembourg for a long weekend.

409
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,600
Speaker 1: This is you can't make this ship up. She packed

410
00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:36,879
Speaker 1: her bag, he packed his bag, and they went on

411
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,440
Speaker 1: the train, right, and my mom went to the bathroom

412
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 1: on the train to Java, and she took her bag

413
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:47,040
Speaker 1: with her. Okay, it was like a pretty sizeable bat,

414
00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:49,160
Speaker 1: right because she was she like freshing her up, doing

415
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:52,000
Speaker 1: her makeup again. She left the bag in the bathroom

416
00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:55,920
Speaker 1: forgot about it, came back, sat down like ten minutes later.

417
00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:58,800
Speaker 1: My dad's like, where's your back and she's like, oh, crap,

418
00:19:58,840 --> 00:20:00,520
Speaker 1: I left in the bathroom. Luckily, she went to the

419
00:20:00,560 --> 00:20:02,720
Speaker 1: bathroom and still there, picked up the bag. Right, It's

420
00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:06,440
Speaker 1: like complete luck. They go through customs, right. She goes

421
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 1: through customs, no issues. He goes through customers, no issues.

422
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:11,280
Speaker 1: They arrive at the hotel, he's like, can I see

423
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:13,879
Speaker 1: your bag for a second, and so she grabs a

424
00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:17,280
Speaker 1: bag and then in there he somehow put it, put

425
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:20,360
Speaker 1: it one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and he took

426
00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:23,960
Speaker 1: it out and she's like, what the fuck is this lyric?

427
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:26,879
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, we're doing this business steal and

428
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:29,080
Speaker 1: we have to pay off this third party guy. And

429
00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:31,040
Speaker 1: she's like, no, that's great. I don't care about your

430
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 1: illegal activities or whatever the hell you're doing. Why is

431
00:20:34,080 --> 00:20:36,560
Speaker 1: it in my bag? He's like, well, I can't cross

432
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:38,639
Speaker 1: customs with a one hundred thousand dollars without declaring it.

433
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 1: And she's like, why is it in my bag?

434
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:42,359
Speaker 3: You would let me.

435
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:44,840
Speaker 1: He's like, they're going to check my bag. More likely

436
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:47,439
Speaker 1: they wouldn't check yours. She's like why didn't you tell me.

437
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:48,800
Speaker 1: It's like then you would have been nervous, and if

438
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:50,640
Speaker 1: you would have been nervous going through customs, you would

439
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:51,240
Speaker 1: have checked your bag.

440
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:57,720
Speaker 4: And I'm like, dude, bro, you are he's some illegal,

441
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:00,639
Speaker 4: real stuff like you were like, that's really all I

442
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:02,879
Speaker 4: did was from Motorola.

443
00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:06,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, so yeah, I mean that's common practice.

444
00:21:07,359 --> 00:21:14,160
Speaker 3: I like, Larry, so tell us about when you did

445
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:15,760
Speaker 3: make that step to join the military.

446
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:18,040
Speaker 1: It took a couple of years sort of French government

447
00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:20,679
Speaker 1: to renounce my friend Citisenship. I didn't realize you couldn't

448
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:23,120
Speaker 1: be as you know, pleasure allegiance to two different countries

449
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:25,120
Speaker 1: and you know, and get a clearance. Yeah, I didn't

450
00:21:25,119 --> 00:21:27,880
Speaker 1: know about the stuff. So I went to the fresh

451
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 1: embassy renounced my friend Cisenship. Took a little bit of

452
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,080
Speaker 1: time to get that paperwork back, which is probably one

453
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:35,440
Speaker 1: of the suckiest part of my life, because you really

454
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:37,439
Speaker 1: want to do something and you're incapable of doing it

455
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:40,240
Speaker 1: because of a piece of paper. Right, So I sold

456
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:43,360
Speaker 1: voice of IP lines for a sub of Cisco Systems

457
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:47,080
Speaker 1: at the time called e Core Networks and just waited

458
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:49,360
Speaker 1: my time. Right, made a good money made over only

459
00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:51,440
Speaker 1: one thousand hours, as like a twenty three year old,

460
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 1: which is like unheard of. Yeah, it was just sales, right,

461
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 1: and I sold this huge deal right in two thousand

462
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:02,639
Speaker 1: and eight thousand, even they with the Embassy of Kowait.

463
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:06,119
Speaker 1: It was like three million dollars and I was gonna

464
00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:09,440
Speaker 1: net me like seventy thousand hours of bonus. And the

465
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 1: next day I got a call for my recruit to

466
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 1: come in because you see my paperwork back and now

467
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:16,879
Speaker 1: the army was ready to put me through the board

468
00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 1: so I could go off security to school. And so

469
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,359
Speaker 1: I went to my job and Michael Berdermini at the

470
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: time was the big boss, and I said, hey, I'm resigning,

471
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: and he's just like, are you serious, Like you're about

472
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 1: to get paid, dude, Like you're so good at this,

473
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 1: Like you're about to get paid. You know, next month

474
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 1: you're going to get like thirty five k and then

475
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:36,639
Speaker 1: four months later you get the other thirty five k.

476
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: He said, that's big money and stuff. And I told

477
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: him I was like, ude, I been waiting for two

478
00:22:40,119 --> 00:22:43,360
Speaker 1: years for this. I care that about money. I'm twenty

479
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 1: three four years old, Like money is not my objectives.

480
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 1: This is what I want to do. So I quit

481
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 1: that day and they were all shocked because like, no,

482
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 1: one will not take their money, right, No, of course,

483
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 1: and I started training again. You know, I was a

484
00:22:55,840 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: division athlete before and running track from Maryland, and I

485
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: needed to get back in to it, and so I

486
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:02,880
Speaker 1: started training and that's what I focused for the next

487
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 1: month and a half before I went to boot of

488
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 1: just getting like into top physical shape.

489
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 2: So which thank guy that you were an athlete before that,

490
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 2: because you had an advantage in how to prepare.

491
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: You knew what you had to do. Yeah, no doubt.

492
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 1: That was my full time job. I did side jobs

493
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 1: for a little bit of cash, just to like pay bills,

494
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,160
Speaker 1: but I had money anyway, so you know, saved up.

495
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: So I did that and I went to Benning one July.

496
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 1: It was hot.

497
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 2: I was about to say, so you went the best

498
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 2: time of year to Georgia. There's no humidity and it's

499
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:36,159
Speaker 2: just it's cold. Yeah, Chili, it's tropical.

500
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:38,159
Speaker 1: It was the best decision I've ever made, making it

501
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 1: from ad one hundred thousand hours making twenty seven thousand hours.

502
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: You did it for the paycheck, obviously, I'm sient. I

503
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 1: didn't even get paid. For the first three months, I

504
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: didn't know. I did not get paid at all during

505
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,399
Speaker 1: basic training. There was a problem in the pay system

506
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 1: with my name, a glitch in the system, imagine that.

507
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: But you know I learned something valuable though and Basic.

508
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: First of all, people hated me in Basic. I was

509
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 1: the assistant PG and they hated me because every morning

510
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: I get up a zero four hundred whenever I will

511
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,679
Speaker 1: wake up was obviously I didn't sleep under the covers.

512
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:08,880
Speaker 1: No one did, really, but some did. They were idiots.

513
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: But I was fired up every day because every day

514
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: I would get out of bed, now just be like

515
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 1: great roll And I would tell these guys like we

516
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: get you get ship ready, let's go faster and stuff.

517
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 1: And I would hold them to the standard because I

518
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 1: told him, every day is a theay closer to me

519
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,880
Speaker 1: coming to us army soldier. Yeah, and that is real shit.

520
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: People are fucking dying. This is not a joke. This

521
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,360
Speaker 1: is that summer camp. This is what is this tell

522
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: Nate two thousand and eight. Yeah, okay, I mean yeah,

523
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 1: and you'll go through like probably one of the worst

524
00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 1: other than three or four right five in Iraq. This

525
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,719
Speaker 1: is like becoming like really bad specific in Afghanistan. And

526
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: so when I was telling and had friends deployed, and

527
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: I said, this is real shit, like every day. We

528
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: need to embrace this and learn from what they're teaching us,

529
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: because this is Deanna we're going to get. And people

530
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: just thought I was I just ran from the crewer

531
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: too much. And so things that I did in basic training,

532
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: I didn't tell anyone I was going to basic training,

533
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: nor my friends. One guy, Matt Sanders, dropped me off

534
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: at Maps and that's you want to got innew A

535
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: couple of reasons I did that is One, I didn't

536
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: want letters. I wanted to focus on on the job. Second,

537
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: I sure saw did not want my friends to know

538
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 1: where was at so they would send me this dolls

539
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: and stuff to get you. So that was like, you know,

540
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 1: part of that, but I really wanted to focus. Third

541
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 1: is I'm a track athlete and the Olympics were happened

542
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: that year in that summer, I didn't want to look

543
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: forward to a letter with like times and things like that.

544
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: I wanted to just be one hundred percent focused on

545
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: this trade. And so I did that, and believe it

546
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: or not, that created some the droll instructors. I throw

547
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: a walk caught on and then you know how you

548
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:47,919
Speaker 1: do mail call and it throw your mail and stuff.

549
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: And I've never got.

550
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 2: Anything in front of God and everybody, right, it's never

551
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 2: one on one like yeah your grandma. Yeah, ever it's

552
00:25:57,800 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 2: in front of everyone.

553
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: And then one they realized, probably week six and seven,

554
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: like at the end, they're like, Roberg, you never no

555
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: one likes you. You fucking I think everyone here hates

556
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 1: you because you're so mean to them. The reason why

557
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: the bear with you because you win every like a

558
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: physical competition here and you know that means the team wins.

559
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: They don't like you here, and it shus I don't

560
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,880
Speaker 1: like you out of here because you never gotten a letter.

561
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: And I was like yo, So guys started coming to

562
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: me and at night and giving me their letters.

563
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 3: Story.

564
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: It was so funny. So actually you know what worked?

565
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: Though it worked, it worked, and like you got empathy,

566
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't care about empathy.

567
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:36,959
Speaker 2: Yeah I know you didn't care about that crap. But

568
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 2: you got to read all this all the I can

569
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 2: only imagine. So we had I can only imagine.

570
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: But when I graduated and then I went to a

571
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: CS and infantry school Airborne School and en Rangel School.

572
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: I tell you what those fifteen sixteen months where so

573
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 1: I'm of the hardest but best moments of my life

574
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: because every day I got closer to my objective. Yeah,

575
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: that you've been waiting for a lot longer than most

576
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: had the way whole life home as I felt like, yeah.

577
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,719
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and talk about your deployment to Afghanistan

578
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 3: twenty twelve.

579
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:10,199
Speaker 1: So in twenty twelve, my second deployment Afghanistan, I was

580
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: in charge of the security detail for at the time

581
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: Colonel Mingus who is now the Chairman Joint jesus is

582
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:21,640
Speaker 1: APP Director, And the mission was simple. I selected six

583
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: highly qualified individuals across the brigade to run a personal

584
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: security detail for him and Cremns Homage Griffin, and we

585
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: were going to protect them in Afghanistan and the eastern

586
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: part of Aghanistan. We're based in nangarhar At in Jalalabad,

587
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: Jabad and we had forty five different now stations across

588
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: six provinces. So our stations meaning US or friendly basis

589
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: that were part of his ecosystem. And so the job

590
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: was simple, it was really awesome. I would coordinate his routes.

591
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: I would coordinate with the receiving units his intent, his arrival,

592
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: and then I would just work with the birds to

593
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: get all the bursts scheduled, and then when it was

594
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: going on the ground, I would protect them. So if

595
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: we went out out of wire, I would always ask

596
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: for twelve to fifteen soldiers at a minimum to escort us,

597
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: because my team was designed to protect him and the

598
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: Starry Majrix. So meeting, if we went outside of wire

599
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: and we got hit, what our job was to do

600
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: was to collapse on these folks, on these leaders in essence,

601
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: like they really put them to their ground and shield

602
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: them with our bodies and then X filled them away

603
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: from the threat. And having that element of twelve or

604
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: fifteen soldiers really a squad platoon that's halfway sixty, that's

605
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: the security to fight the fight so we can successfully extract.

606
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 1: And so that was it, and it was awesome. I

607
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: got to see Avihanistan in ways that I never saw

608
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: my first tour. I got to sit in meetings with ambassadors,

609
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: with politicians, with General Meyville, all the top military officials

610
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: form partners. I got to sit in a tri state

611
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: boarder meetings with Pakistanis while Afghans and you know Indians, right,

612
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: I bet that was interesting. Oh it was amazing, Like

613
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: I got to really learn about the mission of Afghanistan

614
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: from a very high level terms about leadership, and it

615
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: gave me a better perspective of what the heck we're

616
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: doing over there versus what I learned was a regular

617
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: infantry all sering with our platoon in ALL nine and

618
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: a jab wasn't particularly dangerous. We just knew that, you know,

619
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: it's Afghanistan and she can go crazy at any moment.

620
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: We had a couple of close calls. A v bid

621
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: Finley shields a vehicle born id, so they put a

622
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,239
Speaker 1: bunch of explosive blew it through the gate. Got into

623
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: a nice little firefight there. That was fun. I didn't

624
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: do anything. I watched it, so that's a little sad,

625
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: but it's still fun. Another one they put an ied

626
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: right before we landed our aircraft's thank god, like local

627
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: Afghan National Army guy on that base was noticed it,

628
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: so then we went through video cameras identify that the

629
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: other Afghan National Army guy had put it there, so

630
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: you get rid of him. Had dinner at lunch at

631
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: Ben Laden's house in you know, Nangahar. It was crazy,

632
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: like amazing. And then off of course did the whole

633
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: Perun Northern afghanist ten peace where there was no roads, nothing,

634
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: get to do some advanced patrol with the State Department

635
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: and CIA and some other folks to bring the ambassador

636
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: up there Olsen to the you know, a meeting with

637
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: the provincial governor. And lastly, I'll say this, every governor

638
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: that I met, it ties back to the United States.

639
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: So the guy in Perun, yeah, would find out way

640
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: to get out of Perun, what a bumping in a

641
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: ride with us or like you know, taking a two

642
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: week journey through the woods and stuff, so he could

643
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: go back to Kabul and fly out back to the

644
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: United States so he can run his taxi driving service

645
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: in New York. Right, come on, yeah, no, they all

646
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: have They all have investments in the US. They have

647
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: friends that they live here. I'm talking about, like it's

648
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: such a corrupt business over there. But they're all back

649
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: they have there, so live here half the fucking time, right,

650
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them. So it's absolutely fascinating

651
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: when I learned about the ends. So I'm here in

652
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: Perun and no one is near right DA's muhammed On,

653
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: one of our number one high value target is like

654
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: living across the freaking mound right there. And this guy,

655
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: you know, his cousin for the governor comes to talk

656
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: to me in English like we're talking right now, hey man?

657
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: Oh yeah zoo. And I was like, oh my god, hi,

658
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: who are you. He's like, oh, I live here and

659
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: I go to New York. I come back, said, but

660
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: do you ever come back here? What's wrong with you?

661
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, business, you know. Family. It's like I

662
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: so blessed I had the opportunity to this tour. But

663
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: on August twenty twelve, we're going to actually the sun

664
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: Kuna Provincial Governor's Security meeting happened every Wednesday at ten am,

665
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: and on augusta, twenty twelve, we landed at Combat Oppos Fires,

666
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: which was about a thousand meters away from the Governor's compound,

667
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: so it's a military base and the escort I had

668
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: requested the night before was not there. So it was

669
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: one of those s fat leaders from the under ind first.

670
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: So at the time in twenty twelve, with these really

671
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: did this program where members who were not infantry people

672
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: would go through this training program and come in and train.

673
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: They'd be assigned to a unit there like us. It

674
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 1: was four five D and they'd just spend time with

675
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: just y Afghans, right, National Army and stuff, and just

676
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: train them just like special Forces mission, right. But they

677
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: wanted to go to more conventional, grander scale. And so

678
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: these folks were there and this guy was one of them,

679
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: and he was in charge of that base. He didn't

680
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: have an infantry background, so when asked for that escort,

681
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: he was like, no, I walk the route, you know prior,

682
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: and then we're clearer. I was like, dude, no, you

683
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: want to walk it with me? Man like and anyway,

684
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: he decided to not listen and he did that. But

685
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: guess what he did. Your onder standard is very clearly.

686
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: He walked it, he cleared it, and he left. He

687
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: wanted to do a governor's compound. It's a hot route again,

688
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: no doubt. They just stayed in the fucking house. Yeah,

689
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: they just watched them. Yeah. So he took all of

690
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: my soldiers, all the soldiers that requested, and he left.

691
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: And so when we landed, I saw no one. My

692
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: heart started beating a little bit faster. My Spidey sense

693
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: started kicking up. You know, I got two brigade commanders,

694
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: three battalion commanders, and Afghan generals, two gs, fifteen State

695
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: Department guys with me. I got two commands, arm majors

696
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: and two majors. Like you know, brigade level, there's a

697
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: lot of brass. That's a lot of It's a ton

698
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: of brass. I mean, you have one hundred Colonel Warrath

699
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: Brigid commanded for undred, first year colonl Mingus Briget commanded

700
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: for four five D. You have a bunch of battalion commanders.

701
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: And the reason why they were all there with us

702
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: is the night before he had an all hands leadership

703
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: meeting in July, albat so well Raff wanted to go

704
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:31,479
Speaker 1: with him, but some of these battalion commanders were going

705
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: to bump a ride, go to the security meeting, and

706
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: then go back to their bases. So then I had

707
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: six security for all that. What I immediately did is

708
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: freaked out internally, right, took a deep breath. This is

709
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: all happened like within four seconds, and said, what the

710
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: hell do I do now? So I saw my Protucerrian,

711
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: and I said, Brink, get the translator in Cdfgan martial

712
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: army guys smoking cigarets by the gate. Get all tell

713
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: this trans they're all coming with us. And then I

714
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: sprinted towards the base and I went to the three

715
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: places you go look for soldiers, right, maybe just four,

716
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: but three. I went to the hooches. I went to

717
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: see they were asleep. You know where they're sleeping. They're barracks. Whatever,

718
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: make sure barracks. I went to the chow hall and

719
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: I went to the gym. Right, the only other places

720
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: to latrine, so right, the shitters. And I found two guys.

721
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: One of them was a soldier, former soldier of mine,

722
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: start On O'Brien, who was sleeping, told him to get

723
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 1: the heck out, He's come with me. Put on his

724
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: gear really quickly. And then the other one was a

725
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 1: KBR type of fucking American contractor. And I was like,

726
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: you have a weapon. He's like yeah. I was like,

727
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: I don't know how. It was like, you're coming with

728
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: us too, So toda's day. He's probably like, holy crow.

729
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: I don't even know his name. Nothing about this guy, seriously, Yeah,

730
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 1: I just brought him with me, and so I had

731
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: the Afghan National army guys get up front. The game

732
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 1: plan was to put them to be up front about

733
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 1: ten feet in front of us because I didn't trust them,

734
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: but also to appear bigger. Yeah. Right. And then I

735
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 1: changed the configuration of our diamonds so the way we work,

736
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: we would do a diamond and I would put my

737
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 1: principles inside his diamond. And I was always a rear

738
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: of diamond because I wanted the responsibility, like all hell

739
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: breaks loose, to grab the boss first and put them

740
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:07,359
Speaker 1: to the ground yep, and then it will take them

741
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: to safety. This time, I wanted to be at the

742
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: spear of it so to have better visibility. And I

743
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,839
Speaker 1: put my pre fc O chart twenty one year old

744
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: kid behind me in my position, and I told him,

745
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: if something happens, whatever direction I go, I need you

746
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: to take the boss go to the opposite direction. He's

747
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: like Roger that. And then we drove on went out

748
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: there and you know, atmospherics were shitty and there's quiet

749
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:35,280
Speaker 1: Toyota corollas are following us. It's an interesting place because

750
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: it's off the water, right off the river. We were

751
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: the last point right of that base before you hit

752
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:45,959
Speaker 1: the water. It's one road, so that you have water

753
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: on the left, there's nowhere else to go. So like

754
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,240
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm after like five minutes of walking

755
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: on this eleven hundred thousand thousand meters movement, there's a

756
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 1: car that is following us. So on radio, I was like, yo, yeah,

757
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: get this guy like off our but in the diamond,

758
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 1: I put all the officers. When he puts our Major

759
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: Griffin in there too, he told me, hell no, it's

760
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: like there's way too many dumb ass but leaders here.

761
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: I was like, I have the most infantry experience of

762
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: everybody here. I'm going to be in a rear. We're

763
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: doing rear security, and I was like, this is awesome, right, yeah,

764
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: this guy's warrior. So it was like that's I'm covered

765
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: in my rear, so I don't have to worry about that.

766
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 1: So I felt like I got an extra guy right there.

767
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: But long story short, seven hundred meters into a movement,

768
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 1: right before you cross the bridge and then seas across

769
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: the bridge, you take these stairs, you by the Governor's

770
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 1: comp You go a couple of hundred years in your

771
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: governor's compound. They came at us for motorcycles at the

772
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: entrance to the bridge. There's houses to are left right

773
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: on the water, and then it was on the right

774
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: side was the police academy right for the Afghan National

775
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: Police Academy. What they were doing is two side bombers

776
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: waited inside thus houses and they initiated their ambush by

777
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: creating a diversion with motorcycles coming directly at us.

778
00:36:58,680 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 3: Yea.

779
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: Luckily, the Afghan National Army point guy did a really

780
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: good job of identifying the motor cycles early on that

781
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 1: he like starts screaming and raised his you know, rifle

782
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: and started screaming darry, which literally forced a bike to fall,

783
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: like those guys to fall off the bike and they

784
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: started running. So he started chasing them. But I created

785
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: enough of the version to a lot of the guys. Yeah,

786
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 1: the first guy to come out, So by the time

787
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: I realized that he was out, like, he was about

788
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: forty feet from us. So I turned around, looked at him,

789
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: couldn't see a weapon. I was kind of confused. I

790
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: was like, what is this kid? Do you come from?

791
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: So as he made his moving towards us, I sprang

792
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: it towards him. He ought a couple of names and stuff,

793
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: and when I got to him. I hit him with

794
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 1: my rifle across the chest hard, and when I hit him,

795
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 1: I realized like I just hit something that wasn't flush right,

796
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: So I was like what, So I'd let go of

797
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,400
Speaker 1: my rifle. It was slunk to my kit and I

798
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: grabbed him by what I realized at that point was

799
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,359
Speaker 1: a suicide mess. It's a really odd feeling grab man,

800
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: you know, the even it's the best. So at that

801
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 1: point I could think about was I got to get

802
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: him away from everybody as quickly as possible, as far

803
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: away as possible. He's about to kill my friends, and

804
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: you don't think about yourself. You just said about doing

805
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: your job. And I drove him and threw him, and

806
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: as I threw him, I saw him Mahoney followed me

807
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: into it. He received a civil store for this. He

808
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: landed on his chest, he detonated, and everything went black.

809
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: I just saw the demonstray come out of his hand.

810
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: That's the last memory. And then everything went black, and

811
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: I woke up a couple of minutes later, twenty feet

812
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: away with my foot facing me. FIBIOI blood everywhere right.

813
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: My producer found me and dragged me into a ditch

814
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: in my medic saved my life. He applied a tournique to

815
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: my leg and kept me awake and things like that.

816
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 1: But the first thing I asked was what's the status

817
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: of my own War six and World War seven? What's

818
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: status to the colonel? And I saw major and they

819
00:38:57,239 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: said my War six fine. You know why he's fine

820
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: because my fucking PFC caes. You saw me running towards

821
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: the guy the other way. Wow, exactly what you told him,

822
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: and the boss had a concussions about it while we're seven.

823
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 1: The guy I was telling you about was like I

824
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: got real security. He died because when I talkled this

825
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: guy and Lenna in his chest, the ball bearings, the

826
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,880
Speaker 1: concussion of the blast threw me and it shaved off

827
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,359
Speaker 1: a piece of my leg with the you know, but

828
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: the majority of ball bearings went the complete other directions.

829
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:34,280
Speaker 1: Thirty feet away from the blast is where they wiped

830
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:36,839
Speaker 1: out everybody. And they wiped out command Arrew Griffin, Midjic Gray,

831
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: Mister Kennedy, and Reggae ab delfalta USAD guy in a

832
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: state apartment. And so when he told me that my

833
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 1: Worse seven didn't make it, I told him to get

834
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: me out of this ditch and take me to him,

835
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: and they were like trying to drag me. I was like,

836
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 1: I get one good leg, you know what I mean,

837
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: I can hop So I was holding on to hopping.

838
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: I had my pistol in my hand this whole time, right,

839
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: because when I got when I will, I couldn't find

840
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: my riflece I took my pistol. I didn't know if

841
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 1: I was getting ambush whatever. And the local popular started

842
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: to congregate towards the blast right, and I saw my

843
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: friends dead, you know, and my heart I kind of sunk.

844
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: But what I saw next was something I'll never forget.

845
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:26,280
Speaker 1: Was a younger kid, this guy smiling a local yeah okay,

846
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: and I almost shot him, yep. I mean I was

847
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: about shooting the fucking head and that PFC, which I

848
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: grabbed my hand and pulled it down. He's like, not

849
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: worth this or not worth it. We'll get him eventually,

850
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 1: and then they put me in a truck and that

851
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 1: was the end of my war. I received the Medal

852
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:42,920
Speaker 1: of Honor for that action, and he's out the fifteenth

853
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,879
Speaker 1: for President Obama. I'll close out with this like I've

854
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 1: never been more uncomfortable in my life. It felt more

855
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: like a fraud in my life than standing on that

856
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: stage received the Medal of Honor, because you feel like

857
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: it's the greatest failure I've ever had. I've lost four

858
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: guys under my command on my protection, that command protection,

859
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: and that wasn't the only one there, Bahony was there,

860
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: brink O chart sequel, borrow a Mama medic O'Brien. I

861
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 1: lost half a butt cheek that I woke up. I

862
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,839
Speaker 1: still pissed at me probably this day. You know, from

863
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: that blast. God knows what happened at KBR, dude, right,

864
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: I'd love to know. But the reality is that you

865
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 1: feel like you're put on this stage and highlighted and

866
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: called the hero from the world literally, and nothing that

867
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: you ever do in the military is about you, So

868
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: it's about the team. It's never done by yourself, so

869
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: it's about the team. And so I was really glad

870
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: that President Obama took the time to recognize them, But

871
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: most importantly I spoke so highly and recognized the will

872
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: Star families, yeah, and told them to stand up. So

873
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: I won. You know, that was a big part of it.

874
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 1: But I felt like such a fraud getting it and

875
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable as you go on with it. You realize

876
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: it's a platform do some good. It does open up

877
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 1: a lot of doors. Of course, it does gives you

878
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: you know, so it's like, what do you want to

879
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 1: do with that? What do you want to make out

880
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 1: of that? And to me, I've taken it to be,

881
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 1: you know, sort of my mission to make sure that

882
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: I earn it. But it doesn't mean that I make

883
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: a living doing off that. Right, I want to LinkedIn Boeing,

884
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: Microsoft did all different things because I don't want anyone

885
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: to ever say this guy, this is what he has

886
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: a house because he's a melbody recipient. Now fucking I

887
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: work for him, dude. You know what, as somebody that

888
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 1: knows you, I know a lot of people with the metal.

889
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: There's a reason I'm not tight with all of them. Yeah.

890
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 2: If you weren't what I said earlier, if you weren't

891
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 2: a genuine, authentic human being, your ass wouldn't be in

892
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 2: that seat.

893
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that.

894
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the burden that that metal brings. And

895
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 2: I think it's important that our listeners understand. You know,

896
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 2: the metal doesn't define you. It's not who you are.

897
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 2: It was a moment in time and unfortunately you've been

898
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 2: given the burden of representing this country that you fought

899
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,120
Speaker 2: so hard to fight for, that took years to do

900
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 2: because of a piece of paper, and now you have

901
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 2: the burden of representing it the rest of your life,

902
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 2: you know. And there's every day you wake up, say

903
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:11,359
Speaker 2: you have to do an event at the Metal Bourne

904
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 2: Room Museum, or you gotta do something where you have

905
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,439
Speaker 2: to done that metal. Yeah right, it's just like every

906
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 2: day I wake up and you know I have to

907
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:18,480
Speaker 2: put on a.

908
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: Leg before I go pee.

909
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:24,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that daily reminder of this is just a

910
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 2: tool for me to do something to leave this spin

911
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 2: and ball of chaos better than I found it.

912
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: It's just a tool. Yeah, that's hell. Man couldn't agree

913
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: with you more. But you know, if that tool and

914
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: that platform can provide me with an opportunity to help

915
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:45,359
Speaker 1: our community and save lives, because that's what we're doing now, right,

916
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We're losing more folks and

917
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: suicide more than ever than ever, and then never that

918
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: we ever lost in combat. That's the battlefield today. And

919
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 1: so that's what this platform allows me to be more

920
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: of an advocate and just get through the doors a

921
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: little bit faster, and I would have ever had the

922
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: opportunity to before still took, I would have been able

923
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: to do stuff. But like so, that's the way I

924
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: look at it. It's a burden, but it hard percent

925
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:14,280
Speaker 1: agree with you, does not define me. I'm a courier

926
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: to the metal of Bounty recipient melt. No human being

927
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: can be the metal of audit. That's how big and

928
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 1: important that thing is. Yeah, it's unbelievably powerful and represents

929
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,439
Speaker 1: the top of our nation in terms of the meeting

930
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: will beyond the metal. So I'm a courier and hell, no,

931
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: eight seconds of action can that define me as a

932
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: human being?

933
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 2: Right?

934
00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: You know? That could be a complete ship back. Yeah,

935
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 1: I mean you know so, yeah, And we'll leave it

936
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: at that. Bro, I you know how I feel about you.

937
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 2: I don't even have to tell you, but I love you,

938
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 2: and you make this world a better place. Your existence

939
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 2: makes this world a better place, and I'm grateful that

940
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:46,879
Speaker 2: that day.

941
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: Yeah. Selfishly, I'm super grateful you're here.

942
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 2: I know that you're making a bigger impact, and I

943
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 2: mean what we do now is way bigger than what

944
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 2: we did then.

945
00:44:58,320 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: Ha percent.

946
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 2: I'm grateful to build to call your brother's a that's

947
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:03,719
Speaker 2: an honor and privilege and that has nothing to do

948
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 2: with the medal.

949
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: Well, I mean this means a lot, you know, T

950
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 1: Coomin and Ashley, I think you guys man, he have

951
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: a team doing this. Thank you for opening it up

952
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 1: for guys like me to have a voice and share

953
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: some common thoughts. And my world is my son and

954
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: my wife, right everything I do is about them. And

955
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 1: then if you ask me the second piece out that

956
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: is to make sure that I get to earn it

957
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: for insit our names to bigger and wider audience. And

958
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: that's commissioned Griffer, Major Grahamager Kennedy and Reggae ab Delfata.

959
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: Guys that were you know, really represent the medal way

960
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 1: more than I do because they die for our country.

961
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,439
Speaker 1: It's an honor to be here and I'm looking forward

962
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 1: to your next guest. This is cool shit.

963
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 3: Man, Flauren Groeberg, Thank you so much for coming and

964
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 3: opening up and telling us your story and giving us

965
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 3: parental advice and all the things. This was truly the

966
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 3: good stuff and just so great to see you and

967
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 3: spend time with you. Thank you so much for listening.

968
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 3: If this app so touched you today, Please share it

969
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 3: and be part of making someone's day better.

970
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 2: Put on your bad ass kch and channel your inner

971
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 2: flow and go be great today. And remember you can't

972
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 2: do epic stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening

973
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 2: to the good Stuff. The Good Stuff is executive produced

974
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:26,320
Speaker 2: by Ashley Schick, Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media.

975
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: Hosted by Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick.

976
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 2: Produced by Nick Cassilini and Ryan Countshouse. Post production supervisor

977
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 2: Will Tindi. Music editing by Will Haywood Smith, edited by

978
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 2: Mike Robinson,