Speaker 1: Third Squad is a podcast about war. Every episode contains
Speaker 1: strong language and descriptions of violence that may not be
Speaker 1: suitable for all listeners. Also, this is episode two. If
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to episode one, you might want to
Speaker 1: start there. Everything will make a lot more sense. That's out.
Speaker 1: Did you think it was someone else? Right now? It's
Speaker 1: March in America's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan is still five
Speaker 1: months in the future. But right now I'm at the
Speaker 1: airport in San Diego to pick up my friend and
Speaker 1: Third Squad producer, Tommy Andres. He's going to join me
Speaker 1: on that road trip I told you about in the
Speaker 1: last episode, the one from California to North Carolina that
Speaker 1: Michael Dutcher never got to take. Fow you brought a
Speaker 1: lot of ship. I'm really glad this is all you have.
Speaker 1: I did bring a blow dry. The zero hour has
Speaker 1: finally arrived, and we've got a rendezvous scheduled with Michael Minor,
Speaker 1: the first of the Third Squad Marines on our itinerary.
Speaker 1: He lives here in California and he's going to show
Speaker 1: us around Camp Pendleton's, where Third Squad lived and trained
Speaker 1: before sangin. So we stuffed Tommy's gear into the rental
Speaker 1: car and we head north alright, crossing onto the Base
Speaker 1: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Christian Needos Gates. Ei, there,
Speaker 1: what do you need a driver's license? Okay, cool? Thank you?
Speaker 1: All right. This is where it all began for Third Squad,
Speaker 1: Camp San Mateo, among the fighting fifth Marines. That's not
Speaker 1: an exaggeration. I'm Elliott Woods. This is Third Squad episode two,
Speaker 1: Riding the Wave. It's been ten years since I last
Speaker 1: saw Michael Minor back at Patrol bass Fires when he
Speaker 1: was weighed down with body armor and wearing camo. But
Speaker 1: I recognize him immediately when we pull into the parking lot.
Speaker 1: What's up? Not much long time? No see elbow bump?
Speaker 1: How are you all right? Man? I about you guys
Speaker 1: hanging in there? So tell me about who do we
Speaker 1: have here? Miner's got his two dogs with him, Bella
Speaker 1: and Kenny Bella. He was twenty five when we met
Speaker 1: back in Sangin, one of the oldest guys in the squad.
Speaker 1: Now he's thirty five and he's got some new wrinkles
Speaker 1: around his eyes. Okay. His fiancee is also joining us
Speaker 1: for the day. Hi, I'm Elliott. Must be Laura Miners,
Speaker 1: wearing a faded black hoodie that looks like it might
Speaker 1: be his new uniform. The kangaroo pockets torn on one side,
Speaker 1: and it's got the Geronimo head logo of the first Battalion,
Speaker 1: fifth Marines, the battalion that Third Squad belonged to, and
Speaker 1: or slogan make peace or Die. But it's been uh
Speaker 1: since two thousand twelves last time I was down here.
Speaker 1: Nothing has changed, for the trees got taller. We're standing
Speaker 1: in front of the barracks where Minor lived with the
Speaker 1: rest of Third Squad. It's a plane brick building with
Speaker 1: concrete walkways around each floor and exterior doors to the
Speaker 1: rooms like a motel. There's my old room, and the
Speaker 1: room there on the end had bed books, and O'Brien
Speaker 1: stayed in that room right there next to it. There
Speaker 1: are a bunch of other barracks and headquarters buildings nearby
Speaker 1: that all looked pretty much the same, almost like if
Speaker 1: a prison architect got to design a college campus, which fits,
Speaker 1: since being in the military is kind of like being
Speaker 1: a prisoner and a member of a huge fraternity at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's a fraternity. Yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: we get paid to drink and shoot guns. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, the reason why you're drinking both that
Speaker 1: carmauderies because when you get deployed, the guys your left
Speaker 1: and you're right, that's who your that's your life is
Speaker 1: in their hands. You have to break down all barriers
Speaker 1: when you for meet someone and instill that trust in
Speaker 1: them to know that they're gonna be able to pull
Speaker 1: you through any situation you get into. Now, do you
Speaker 1: feel anything when you come back here? So shitty the barracks.
Speaker 1: That's about it. It's no nostalgia, No, none of those
Speaker 1: you know, poetic feelings, none of those wheat grounds. We're
Speaker 1: not poets. There are a lot of jokes in the
Speaker 1: military about how Marines are not exactly known for their intelligence. Well,
Speaker 1: everybody thinks marines are dumb and wheat crayons and like
Speaker 1: jar head instance, because you know, the jar is always
Speaker 1: empty unless you put something in there. Here's a more
Speaker 1: charitable definition of jar head. Because of their single minded
Speaker 1: willingness to put their duty before themselves, Marines are said
Speaker 1: to have jar heads, hard on the outside and empty
Speaker 1: on the inside. We're here more than anything to see
Speaker 1: a memorial to that single minded willingness to put duty
Speaker 1: before self. And that's that's the first sergeants who sure
Speaker 1: you still want to go up? From a distance. First,
Speaker 1: a Agent's hill just looks like a gentle, grassy slope,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple hundred feet tall, but the trail to
Speaker 1: the top is slick from yesterday's rain and years of
Speaker 1: runoff have carved a deep trench down the center. All right,
Speaker 1: shall we? All right? And that's when Tommy comes in
Speaker 1: for the fn G treatment, the fucking new guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's not as intimidating as it looks. Man, I'll
Speaker 1: be fine. Also, you know, Tommy, if things got heavy,
Speaker 1: I would carry your stuff for you. I would do
Speaker 1: that for you. It's very sweet. I appreciate it. It
Speaker 1: probably won't come as a surprise to you. That ship
Speaker 1: talking is baked into the bro culture of the military.
Speaker 1: We tease Tommy about his new boots and his skinny
Speaker 1: jeans and the fact that he brought a blow dryer
Speaker 1: on the trip. Blow dryer for the fucking Sorry, this
Speaker 1: is a podcast about me getting made fun of me
Speaker 1: getting Oh there's some there's some guys you'll meet that
Speaker 1: will give you a little bit more ship than me.
Speaker 1: I'm actually one of the tame ones. Ye all right.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon it starts to feel like more of a
Speaker 1: climb than a hike ship. It's been a while. At
Speaker 1: one especially steep spot, our feet slip out from under us,
Speaker 1: and we dropped to all fours. Stuff called that other
Speaker 1: side might actually be easier because it's dry to date.
Speaker 1: What have I got myself into? Holy grab. After a
Speaker 1: few false summits, a cluster of wooden crosses comes into view.
Speaker 1: Mind blowing huh, you wouldn't expect me worry. The first
Speaker 1: crosses I see bristle out from a huge pile of boulders.
Speaker 1: There's a heap of telephone poles and truck tires and
Speaker 1: sandbags wrapped and ducked tape. That all that is ship
Speaker 1: that we carried up the hill. This is about everybody
Speaker 1: who survived the deployments. The crosses are handmade out of lumber,
Speaker 1: dozens of them, stretched back for hundreds of yards from
Speaker 1: that first cluster, up and over grassy meadow, overlooking the
Speaker 1: barracks to the north and the ocean to the west.
Speaker 1: Because this right here is where the true heroes of
Speaker 1: the Fifth and Marines law. These are the ones that
Speaker 1: paid the price. Each of these memorials bears the name
Speaker 1: of someone who didn't come home, carved into the wood,
Speaker 1: or painted with stencils. They're all different, each one decorated
Speaker 1: with some combination of military belts, rank insignia, T shirts,
Speaker 1: and threadbare flags, beer cans, and I consumed bottles of
Speaker 1: liquor rest at some of their bases. So you haven't
Speaker 1: been up here in nine years. The last time I
Speaker 1: came up here, I was pretty pretty drunk. No way,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel the hill. What about what's at the
Speaker 1: top of the hill. Did you feel that? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can feel it instantly once you walk up here. Man,
Speaker 1: just all the memories and you just feel the presence
Speaker 1: like you guys don't know if you felt it when
Speaker 1: you walked up, but it's just a sense of overwhelming
Speaker 1: feeling of oh ship, here we go. These crosses represent
Speaker 1: the dead from the fifth Marines and the supporting units
Speaker 1: that served with them, including the Navy Corman, the sailors
Speaker 1: who care for the wounded Marines in combat. Almost all
Speaker 1: of them are k I a s Killed in action
Speaker 1: from a rock and Afghanistan. We used to. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they still do it at all. The new guys,
Speaker 1: we always make them come up here, and you want
Speaker 1: them to see what they're fighting for is not only
Speaker 1: their friends and their family and you know, for the country.
Speaker 1: But you're keeping these guys memories alive. These are the
Speaker 1: warriors who pay the ultimate sacrifice for you to continue
Speaker 1: doing what you need to do today. And and this
Speaker 1: is this is how we pay homage. We don't have
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars to get grantite slabs carved with their names,
Speaker 1: but a little bit of sweat and some tears, a
Speaker 1: little bit of blood every now and then. Coming up
Speaker 1: that hill to pat respect to everyone that's been lost,
Speaker 1: Minor sets off looking for the crosses of the men
Speaker 1: he knew. Up the hill he finds one made of
Speaker 1: four by four posts and anchored by a few heavy rocks.
Speaker 1: So this is the one for McDaniels and Dutch. So
Speaker 1: I don't know when they brought it up, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna have to get replaced pretty soon because they started
Speaker 1: falling apart a little bit. The brown paint has flaked
Speaker 1: away where two names and dates are carved into the
Speaker 1: sagging arms on the left Joshua B. Nick Daniels, June twelve,
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, on the right. Michael J. Dutcher, September
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. I don't know where the one for
Speaker 1: Brian is, otherwise I would have found it. We probably
Speaker 1: have to remedy that situation when we get the chance.
Speaker 1: Minor searches high and low for a marker with the
Speaker 1: name of Nicholas O'Brien. The platoons first Kia. Maybe the
Speaker 1: timbers gave out to the wind, or maybe O'Brien's name
Speaker 1: has been worn away by the elements. But yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: have to uh ask him of the guys about it.
Speaker 1: Even this profound monument to memory requires people who still
Speaker 1: remember to keep it from disintegrating. And most of the
Speaker 1: men who knew O'Brien left here years ago. Dutcher is
Speaker 1: the one I knew. He's the one I remember, And
Speaker 1: when I run my fingers across his name etched into
Speaker 1: the timber, it feels like the real start of this journey.
Speaker 1: And you can just sit here and just like listen
Speaker 1: to the wind blow, and you can almost fill the
Speaker 1: presence around you. Afree helicopter thumps across the valley at
Speaker 1: eye level, artillery booms from a distant training range. This
Speaker 1: is California, all right, but it isn't Hollywood. Minor knows
Speaker 1: this scenery and this soundtrack by heart. He doesn't say
Speaker 1: a whole lot or show much emotion while we're walking around,
Speaker 1: But even though Laura is wearing sunglasses, I can tell
Speaker 1: it's all pretty intense for her. She was with Minor
Speaker 1: through the entire Sanging deployment and there to catch him
Speaker 1: when he came home. Laura, what's it like for you
Speaker 1: to come up here? It's a little overwhelming. It's overwhelming
Speaker 1: because it kind of brought back those memories like waiting
Speaker 1: to hear the news and looking at the articles and
Speaker 1: like seeing these names pop up. It's it's really overwhelming,
Speaker 1: it really is. I met O'Brien maybe what once bybe
Speaker 1: once or twice Dutch. I met him and like he said,
Speaker 1: they they're so young, you know, and just like that,
Speaker 1: one day after another, you just keept seeing the names
Speaker 1: pop up and and I'm just hoping that it's not
Speaker 1: your guy the next one. You know, it's really hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard, yeah, And you've been up here before. Is
Speaker 1: this your first time up here? First? Time. That's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to come up here, because I wanted to
Speaker 1: pay the homage. Well, I'm glad Michael's hum. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: am too. That's what I told him. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't care what you do. You come back with all
Speaker 1: your fingers, all your toes and your limbs. That's all
Speaker 1: I ask. He did. We'll be back after the break. Hi,
Speaker 1: it's just us, remember us. After leaving Camp Pendleton, we
Speaker 1: drive inland to men A few, where Minor lives with
Speaker 1: Laura and her daughter. The house is tucked back in
Speaker 1: a new suburban development carved out of dry hills. It's okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay. The dogs are never far from Minor's side.
Speaker 1: They follow us as he shows us around. It's a
Speaker 1: nice house. I like this neighborhood. How long have you
Speaker 1: guys been here? The house has high ceilings and it's
Speaker 1: decorated with a minimalist touch. There's a big gas grill
Speaker 1: in an AstroTurf lawn in the backyard. Check check check.
Speaker 1: We set up for the interview in the living room,
Speaker 1: with the dogs panting at our feet. I've asked Laura
Speaker 1: to join us because, in her own way, she survived
Speaker 1: the deployment too, and she's been a support to minor
Speaker 1: ever since. Just don't talk to him. But before we
Speaker 1: get into any of that, I want to know some
Speaker 1: more basic stuff, like how they met a couple of
Speaker 1: coworkers and I we decided to go to Vegas. One
Speaker 1: of the co workers she had a thing for marines.
Speaker 1: It's the Marine Ball. We need to go. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be marines. I was just getting over my divorce, so
Speaker 1: I was just like, sure, let's go. It was November
Speaker 1: two ten, the day of the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball,
Speaker 1: a huge bash celebrating the Marine Corps founding in seventeen seventy.
Speaker 1: So I had my yard of booze on walking the strip.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm trying to have a good time because
Speaker 1: I needed to kind of decompress at your yard of booth.
Speaker 1: It's Vegas, so m my favorite place on the Strip
Speaker 1: is the Bellaggio because of the falls. Laura was standing
Speaker 1: by the Bellaggio fountain when the lights went down and
Speaker 1: God Bless the USA erupted from the speakers. She was
Speaker 1: thinking about her ex husband, who was in the military
Speaker 1: and served in a rock. Her buzz was kicking in
Speaker 1: and it was all a bit too much. So I'm
Speaker 1: just like, this is how could they play this song?
Speaker 1: And as they're playing this song, a ce a sea
Speaker 1: of marines start walking down the strip. So my friends
Speaker 1: going crazy because like all these marines blah. I mean,
Speaker 1: for a woman that likes an uniform, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to throw it out there. It's just like, wow, look
Speaker 1: at them. But they're so young, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: all kids. And that's when Laura sees Minor for the
Speaker 1: first time. He walks by. He goes, ma'am, are you okay,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. He goes,
Speaker 1: you look like you need a hug, and he hugs me,
Speaker 1: and so of course water works. I'm like really sobbing
Speaker 1: at this point because he gave me this huge hug.
Speaker 1: He's been by my side since. Yeah. That's the story.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be more like fireworks. You know, it was
Speaker 1: a total rubbing scenario. Funny thing is my friend took
Speaker 1: a picture when he hugged me, So this is the
Speaker 1: actual picture. This is the actual picture the moment we met.
Speaker 1: That is the actual moment. In the photo, Laura's wearing
Speaker 1: jeans and a gray tank top. You can't see your face,
Speaker 1: but Miners beaming. The flash catches the brass buttons on
Speaker 1: his dress blue uniform and his white gloves and hat,
Speaker 1: which Marines call a cover. Isn't that funny how that
Speaker 1: works that we actually got an image of our actual
Speaker 1: meeting moment. That's great. Laura and Minor stayed in contact
Speaker 1: after that first fairytale encounter. She's nine years older, and
Speaker 1: she kept saying he was too young for her, but
Speaker 1: Miner said he didn't care. In the end, Laura didn't either.
Speaker 1: They got together whenever he had time off, but the
Speaker 1: clock was already ticking. Miner was shipping out to Afghanistan
Speaker 1: in a few months. You know, I think the moment
Speaker 1: where it really hit home was when he was deployed.
Speaker 1: I think that's when it got serious for me, because
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm now I'm really involved.
Speaker 1: When Miner finally left for Afghanistan in March two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: Laura wanted to show that she was still thinking about him.
Speaker 1: That was my thing. I was like, what do you
Speaker 1: want when you I'll send you your packages and I
Speaker 1: would send as much as I could so that he
Speaker 1: could share with everybody. So I was doing what I
Speaker 1: could because I'm like, I just need to make sure
Speaker 1: they're okay. Minor kept in touch with Laura when he
Speaker 1: could through Skype. In the occasional satellite phone call. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter what time one coach Hello, I was up
Speaker 1: waiting for that call every Skype. There was one time
Speaker 1: I missed your Skype and I was kicking myself because
Speaker 1: I knew how limited he was on being able to call.
Speaker 1: He never had a serious girlfriend back home during his
Speaker 1: previous deployments. In fact, he never had much of a
Speaker 1: support system at all when he was overseas. He never
Speaker 1: knew his father, and his mom worked third shift at
Speaker 1: a plastics factory near Seagrove, North Carolina, where he grew up.
Speaker 1: She was often at work or asleep when he called,
Speaker 1: so it meant a lot to him to know that
Speaker 1: Laura would always pick up, even if he didn't have
Speaker 1: much to say. It was in zombie mode. Yeah you
Speaker 1: could hear it, Yeah you can hear his voice. He
Speaker 1: was just completely just exhausted, beyond exhausted. Laura was getting
Speaker 1: limited information from Minor, but she followed the reports from
Speaker 1: Afghanistan on the computer day and day out, waiting for called,
Speaker 1: looking for every update, any information I could get. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm like the type that needs to know. I need
Speaker 1: to know. But I think when it really really hit
Speaker 1: me hard, when I started seeing the names starting to
Speaker 1: come through and the fatalities and the and there, I
Speaker 1: was like, you've got to be kidding me. Minors Battalion
Speaker 1: was getting torn apart, and sang In Marines were being
Speaker 1: killed and losing limbs to i e. D. S by
Speaker 1: the dozens. When that violence erupted around patrol based fires
Speaker 1: in June two thou eleven, mine are worried about how
Speaker 1: the younger marines would take it. Here he is back
Speaker 1: and sang In. They have short fuses, pretty much like
Speaker 1: they haven't really learned how to control their emotions whenever
Speaker 1: situations happened. Minor already had two combat deployments to a
Speaker 1: Rock under his belt before sanging he was what you
Speaker 1: would call salty. You've been around, Yeah, you're twenty five
Speaker 1: years old. You're fucking granddad. Compared to these kids, It's
Speaker 1: basically what I'm trying to say. So, what's it like
Speaker 1: seeing some of these, you know, young kids go through this?
Speaker 1: When you have as much experience as you do already.
Speaker 1: I came to this already knowing what to expect a
Speaker 1: little bit. These guys had no idea. It was at
Speaker 1: minors first time witnessing fellow marines being killed, and he
Speaker 1: knew how crucial it was to demonstrate calm. When we
Speaker 1: took out a mask, I DESI had to control everybody
Speaker 1: and like trying to calm them down, and like looking,
Speaker 1: so all right, don't worry. I've seen this before. You
Speaker 1: don't see me overreacting. You shouldn't be over reacting. I
Speaker 1: told him, the day that I overreact about something or
Speaker 1: flip out about something would be that I will let them.
Speaker 1: He's talking about the June Curse, when Third Squads platoons
Speaker 1: suffered three ask casualties in a span of just six days.
Speaker 1: When Third Squad's original squad leader got blown up in
Speaker 1: the June twelfth mass chasm was met of back to
Speaker 1: the States. It was Minor who had to step up.
Speaker 1: That was kind of hard, because you know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: really used to taking over the squad. I took it.
Speaker 1: Over run the squad for a little while, and I
Speaker 1: transferred myself from dealing strictly with my fire team to
Speaker 1: dealing with the whole squad. So, I mean that was
Speaker 1: pretty hard for me. Marines prepare for exactly this situation
Speaker 1: when the leaders with the most training and experience are
Speaker 1: suddenly knocked out of the fight and the senior marine
Speaker 1: standing has to take charge. Minor embraced his new role,
Speaker 1: and he was reluctant to let it go when Sergeant
Speaker 1: Jeric Fry flew in from the US to replace him
Speaker 1: as squad leader a month later. By then, Third Squad
Speaker 1: had more than half the deployment behind them, but it
Speaker 1: hardly felt like the down slope for the folks waiting
Speaker 1: back home. Things were tense until the final days too.
Speaker 1: They knew the deployment was supposed to last seven months,
Speaker 1: which meant the guys should hit American soil in October
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, but it was all pretty vague. We
Speaker 1: didn't know when he was coming home. They wouldn't tell us. Obviously,
Speaker 1: his mom would ask me, anybody heard any news. No,
Speaker 1: nobody knows. So we had like a Facebook page where
Speaker 1: like the families would keep in contact, and so we
Speaker 1: finally got a date and um, then it was the
Speaker 1: you know anticipation, like When are they going to be here?
Speaker 1: When are they gonna be here? On October seventeenth, two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, while the Third Squad Marines made their final
Speaker 1: approach into California, their loved ones gathered at Camp Pendleton
Speaker 1: holding welcome home signs. We had to wait and wait
Speaker 1: and wait, and we saw the bus. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: here it comes the bus. Who are Oh my gosh, finally,
Speaker 1: thank god they're here. And the bus got there. It
Speaker 1: was another hour or two hours. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're what you guys were doing, but turning our weapons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're like, where the heck are they? We're dying.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was like, I need to see him,
Speaker 1: need to see that he's hold that he's good. Once
Speaker 1: the Marines had finished turning in their weapons, they fell
Speaker 1: into formation where the families could see them shore enough.
Speaker 1: As soon as they started marching out, oh my god,
Speaker 1: there he is. I wanted to run to him. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't until they stopped and got out of formation
Speaker 1: that we finally could go go see them, and like,
Speaker 1: I jumped on him. I was like, they got your home, Like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I think after that it was for me.
Speaker 1: It was just like, Okay, I really, really really care
Speaker 1: about this guy. He looked surprised for me to be there,
Speaker 1: the first time I had anybody meet me. When I
Speaker 1: came back from the deployment, I said, how cold? How
Speaker 1: could it be the first time you ever after having
Speaker 1: already three deployments in your built. Because I told my family,
Speaker 1: just I'll meet you guys when I can. There's no
Speaker 1: point in you guys sitting there waiting for me. But
Speaker 1: Laura did wait for him. She held him close, just
Speaker 1: as he had embraced her that night in Vegas. I
Speaker 1: could tell he was in his own zoned out. It
Speaker 1: seemed like if it was surreal to him to be home,
Speaker 1: the way Minor remembers that Laura's embrace on the tarmac
Speaker 1: that day would help set the course of his homecoming.
Speaker 1: It was the warmth that that you need when you're cold.
Speaker 1: I was in my own little world, but once I
Speaker 1: felt her embrace, and it just like it's slowly awoken,
Speaker 1: you know, the way I was before I left, Like
Speaker 1: a caterpillar coming out of his cocoon, becoming the butterfly,
Speaker 1: not not quite a butterfly, like a manly creature that
Speaker 1: comes out of looking like a cicada or something. For
Speaker 1: Laura's sake as much as his own, Minor hoped he
Speaker 1: could continue the transformation. All right, I'm no longer going
Speaker 1: to be the person that she met, so let me
Speaker 1: try to get back to halfway, or a little bit
Speaker 1: more than halfway to what I was before I left.
Speaker 1: I knew he was gonna be different. They were all different.
Speaker 1: We're all different. The other guys, they were younger. There
Speaker 1: was their first appointment, and for them I could see
Speaker 1: the difference. You can see, you know. They left boys
Speaker 1: and came back men basically as tight as the squad
Speaker 1: had been, and sang and their bonds began to loosen
Speaker 1: as soon as they got home. When we got back,
Speaker 1: we all took shots. I think Fry his wife brought
Speaker 1: like some Jack Daniels or something, and we all took
Speaker 1: like shots and Shi and we welcome back and took shots,
Speaker 1: and then we went about our lives. Some of the
Speaker 1: guys transferred to other units. They made new friends and
Speaker 1: got shipped out on overseas cruises with the Navy. After
Speaker 1: so much time together, Minor was ready to be away
Speaker 1: from the squad. We were do anything for each other,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you stare at the same person for
Speaker 1: nine months straight and eventually you want to strangle the
Speaker 1: funk out of him. It's like they can just like breathe,
Speaker 1: like stop sucking breathing. Laura had a front row seat
Speaker 1: to Miners decompression. In the beginning. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of drinking, a lot to the point where he would
Speaker 1: just pass out and he wouldn't talk about it. He
Speaker 1: was still at the red line all the time, jacked
Speaker 1: up to the point where sleep was impossible. I could
Speaker 1: probably drink maybe like twenty beers, and I still it
Speaker 1: was still take me about an hour or two after
Speaker 1: a drink all that just to fall asleep. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just alcohol down like half a bottle of that
Speaker 1: zequal stuff, which most people would like, probably drink a
Speaker 1: little capful and knock him right out. After eight years
Speaker 1: in the Marines and all that time in combat zones,
Speaker 1: Miner had developed some strange rituals. You would literally sleep
Speaker 1: with your rifle inside your sleeping bag, and that's that
Speaker 1: way you know, it doesn't get messed up, and also
Speaker 1: no one can take it from you when you're sleeping
Speaker 1: and being so used to having certain things around you.
Speaker 1: It's it's an addictive thing, and you're just naturally like
Speaker 1: reaching over for it to make sure it's still there,
Speaker 1: making sure you're like, all right, I'm good, it's right there,
Speaker 1: I'm safe. So what are the things that do you have?
Speaker 1: Things now that you find yourself reaching for. Are you
Speaker 1: still reaching for those phantom things like your rifle and
Speaker 1: your your ammunition, your your body arm or your helmet.
Speaker 1: Are you still reaching in your imagination for those same
Speaker 1: things and you're like, oh, I don't need I don't
Speaker 1: need those anymore. I have to put my phone in
Speaker 1: a certain way, I put my watch a certain way,
Speaker 1: and then I'll have a Sometimes I'll have a fan on.
Speaker 1: But there's moments that I can't have a fan. Um
Speaker 1: it gets cold in there, like the dry eyes. But
Speaker 1: I usually like, I'll sleep with a fan because when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, I would, you know, me and
Speaker 1: my mother shared a room. She worked night shift and
Speaker 1: I would you know, be in the room asleep, but
Speaker 1: she we would always have a fan. So when I
Speaker 1: turned a fan on, it makes it tricks my brain
Speaker 1: and thinking I'm back home with my family so they're
Speaker 1: or when I turn a fan on, I'm I'm done,
Speaker 1: I'm out, the term for the condition that Minor describes
Speaker 1: as hyper vigilance, basically being in a constant state of
Speaker 1: fight or flight mode, on high alert, always scanning for threats.
Speaker 1: Hyper Vigilance is a hallmark of post traumatic stress disorder,
Speaker 1: or PTSD, a mental health condition you've probably heard of.
Speaker 1: Minor was diagnosed with PTSD in two thousand twelve by
Speaker 1: the Department of Veterans Affairs, the federal government agency that
Speaker 1: provides healthcare and other benefits to veterans. The v A
Speaker 1: also evaluated the physical wear and tear for minors military service.
Speaker 1: They did like a mr Iron like scanning my ship,
Speaker 1: and I have like the bone structure of like a
Speaker 1: seven year old man. Do you know what sounds like
Speaker 1: when you pour milk on it? That's what I sound
Speaker 1: like in the mornings when I wake up, Like my
Speaker 1: whole body just like like that right there is just
Speaker 1: like me stretching my arm out and that's and then
Speaker 1: like my knees will do it. I can even do
Speaker 1: it with my nose. Like kids like everything just wait
Speaker 1: until everything loads when he walk waits, so he just
Speaker 1: has to like go into it. So like when I
Speaker 1: wake up tomorrow, because you know, we did the hike
Speaker 1: and everything. Today, I'm gonna be like you know, old
Speaker 1: people walk with it, a little walkers. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look like until my body just goes, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you're actually up. Okay, hold on, let me let me
Speaker 1: get everything going real fast. Minor has a sixty percent
Speaker 1: disability rating from the v A tent for knee issues
Speaker 1: and fifty for PTSD, which means they determined his military
Speaker 1: service reduced his overall health and ability to function by
Speaker 1: sixty This rating entitles him to about a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and disability from the v A each month. PTSD is
Speaker 1: Miner's biggest issue, and when his memories from A Rock
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan surface, it goes like this. My brain will
Speaker 1: start playing the images through and it's like a like
Speaker 1: a little reel. It'll just go, it goes through all
Speaker 1: of them, and then sometimes it will it'll stop on
Speaker 1: one moment and then you know, you remember all all
Speaker 1: the glory details, and then we'll go to the next
Speaker 1: and then it'll slow down. Yeah. So are the memories
Speaker 1: any less intense when they do come now? Or they're
Speaker 1: still like the day I was I can remember all
Speaker 1: the smells, I know all the sounds, I know everything
Speaker 1: that was going on. Memories of the June curse stand
Speaker 1: out for Minor. I can recall the moments when you know,
Speaker 1: we pulled O'Brien up onto the shoreline and we covered
Speaker 1: him in an a ponto liner. I can recall the
Speaker 1: moments and the sounds of that McDaniels were making in
Speaker 1: the moment that you know, we we knew that he
Speaker 1: was leaving us. He says. He also clearly remembers the
Speaker 1: moment Dutcher got hit. I know there was debris being
Speaker 1: thrown up whenever, whenever the Dutcher stepped on the I
Speaker 1: and D the way the trees moved from the explosion itself. Um,
Speaker 1: I remember it all really, really, really vividly, Minor tells me.
Speaker 1: The day Dutcher died started out like any other. The
Speaker 1: squad was out on patrol, walking in a single file
Speaker 1: formation called a ranger file, with everyone following the path
Speaker 1: of the sweeper. You have to patrol single file when
Speaker 1: you're over there. It's there's no way of ens or
Speaker 1: butts about it. You have to. They walked with big
Speaker 1: gaps between them so that if someone stepped on an
Speaker 1: I e D. It would be less likely to hurt
Speaker 1: the man in front of them or behind them, because
Speaker 1: there's so many I D s thrown out all over
Speaker 1: the place, and that's the reason why we would travel
Speaker 1: through corn fields, we would travel through the canals, and
Speaker 1: if we had the availability, we will let the locals
Speaker 1: heard their sheep through our patrol paths, so the sheep
Speaker 1: would step on it, not us. Dutcher had volunteered to
Speaker 1: sweep for i e d S that day because the
Speaker 1: squads still didn't have a full time combat engineer after
Speaker 1: losing McDaniels, so he was up front with the metal detector.
Speaker 1: Minor was toward the rear of the patrol, about seventy
Speaker 1: five yards from where Dutcher was. That was making sure
Speaker 1: that all of us were out of the canal. The
Speaker 1: Taliban hadn't figured out how to put I e d
Speaker 1: S in the water yet, so the squad knew they
Speaker 1: wouldn't get blown up walking through the canals, but doing
Speaker 1: that caused other problems because some of the canals they're
Speaker 1: they're like you have steep embankments and sometimes you can
Speaker 1: just reach out and grab the grass and pull yourself up,
Speaker 1: but we always had something there at the top to
Speaker 1: make sure that they actually got up because if they
Speaker 1: would fall back, because if we had all the gear,
Speaker 1: if they were to fall backwards into the canal, unless
Speaker 1: you can get all your gear off, you're going to drown.
Speaker 1: Minor was on the bank helping the last guy out
Speaker 1: of the canal. Next thing I know all her was,
Speaker 1: you know, the explosion. Dutcher had stepped on an I e. D.
Speaker 1: Chaos followed. Some of the squad members pulled security while
Speaker 1: others made their way to Dutcher's side to treat him,
Speaker 1: worrying the whole time about tripping a secondary I e. B. Bolinger,
Speaker 1: the radio operator called in a Metavac helicopter and just
Speaker 1: like McDaniels, Dutcher still had a pulse when they loaded
Speaker 1: him aboard. So what was the mood when Dutcher got
Speaker 1: put on the Metavac bird and flown away. It was
Speaker 1: surreal and quiet, like no one really No one really
Speaker 1: spoke until we got back to the patrol. This Dutcher
Speaker 1: died on the helicopter. There were only two weeks left
Speaker 1: until third Squad was supposed to leave sang In for good,
Speaker 1: and it was one of those like disbelief moments, just
Speaker 1: like there's no way that actually fucking happened. Like we're
Speaker 1: almost done, how did that happen? Sitting here in Miner's
Speaker 1: house ten years after that terrible day, I asked him
Speaker 1: what Dutcher was like when he was alive. He tells
Speaker 1: me about meeting dutch for the first time. Well, he
Speaker 1: had those goof looking fucking glasses on, and he just
Speaker 1: he looked out of place, you know, And honestly, he
Speaker 1: did not look like he was in the infantory whatsoever.
Speaker 1: He looked like he was one of those admin guys.
Speaker 1: Like he's like, honest fucking desk jockey right there. Dutcher
Speaker 1: had come to the platoon from the Marine Corps Security
Speaker 1: Force Regiment, a special unit that protects critical US assets
Speaker 1: around the world, like embassies and nuclear weapons. He arrived
Speaker 1: at one five to finish out his contract in the
Speaker 1: regular infantry. Dutcher was not a hardass. He earned respect
Speaker 1: in a different way. Dutcher would, you know, sit there
Speaker 1: and read read everything that he needed to. He asked
Speaker 1: all the questions that he needed to. He learned really
Speaker 1: quick about what he needed to do and how he
Speaker 1: needed to do it. So Dutcher had a reputation for
Speaker 1: being smart. That was not a reputation, that was a fact.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about about how how you
Speaker 1: could tell that that he didn't need crayons. We had
Speaker 1: these little um a little device like they took your
Speaker 1: fingerprint and like photos so we can I d some
Speaker 1: of the locals and ship. None of us knew how
Speaker 1: to work it. Dutchers like, well, let me get it.
Speaker 1: And he didn't even look at the owner. Man, He's like,
Speaker 1: what's easy. You just got to do this. It's yours now.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Miners talking about the bat hide, that small device
Speaker 1: I described in episode one when I talked about photographing
Speaker 1: Dutcher gathering biometric data from a villager. Duchess mastery of
Speaker 1: the bad Hide and the squad's other electronics impressed Minor.
Speaker 1: They were both from North Carolina, but they were cut
Speaker 1: from different cloth. He was the brain to the brown
Speaker 1: type situation. He would he would think his way through
Speaker 1: certain things and I would just fucking hulk smash. That's
Speaker 1: the way I've always been. I was just like, no,
Speaker 1: funk this, it doesn't work. Okay, We're gonna do it
Speaker 1: my way now. But he would be like, no, wait,
Speaker 1: let's let's try it this way, or you know, I
Speaker 1: think he would think about it, but I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this is fucking smashed through it. By the time Dutcher died,
Speaker 1: the platoon had already lost two marines O'Brien and McDaniels,
Speaker 1: and multiple others have been sent home with missing limbs.
Speaker 1: Does the action change with each time or is it
Speaker 1: fresh every time? It's fresh every time, but you get
Speaker 1: numb to the experience, like, yeah, it sucks when someone
Speaker 1: gets hit and when someone gets hurt. But like I said,
Speaker 1: I was already numb to a lot of the experiences
Speaker 1: going on because I kept everyone close. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: like buddy Buddy with a lot of the guys. Minor
Speaker 1: told me about this tactic back at patrol based fires
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven. I'll learned through personal experiences and
Speaker 1: stuff I've seen, and some of my old seniors used
Speaker 1: to tell me, get close, but not too close. That way,
Speaker 1: you have no emotional attachments to anybody around because you
Speaker 1: never know when their time is. So feeling wise, don't
Speaker 1: have to come off as a cold hearted motherfucker, because
Speaker 1: I really don't see the difference easier said than done. Now,
Speaker 1: Miner tells me he had, in fact let his guard
Speaker 1: down and sang in before Dutcher died with O'Brien and
Speaker 1: just dropped the ball when it came to O'Brien because
Speaker 1: I I just got a little too closely. Again. It
Speaker 1: hit me really, really hard because I used to hang
Speaker 1: out with the guy, used to well we used to
Speaker 1: uh drink water together at the barracks late at night
Speaker 1: and smoke cigarettes. Um. He wasn't twenty one, but this
Speaker 1: is all euphemism for you got used to drink together. Well,
Speaker 1: we used to drink water together. Yeah, Um, but I
Speaker 1: just got I let my guard down with him because
Speaker 1: you know, we're from the same state and at the
Speaker 1: time we were to the same rink. The explosion that
Speaker 1: killed O'Brien ripped his body in half and launched his
Speaker 1: torso into a canal, and third Squad received the awful
Speaker 1: mission of searching for O'Brien scattered body parts. We had
Speaker 1: to take him out of some of the trees and
Speaker 1: stuff and pulling out of the water. I definitely definitely
Speaker 1: hit different cord at that time, and that's when I
Speaker 1: knew I was just like, and this is the reason
Speaker 1: why you don't want to get too close. And so
Speaker 1: when Dutcher died three months later, Minor was already closed up.
Speaker 1: That's the way I treated everyone after after that situation,
Speaker 1: A threw O'Brien. It's like, I got close, but I
Speaker 1: didn't let myself. I didn't open myself up any more
Speaker 1: than what I did with him. When they finally arrived
Speaker 1: at Camp Pendleton, Minor found Laura waiting for him on
Speaker 1: the tarmac and with her hope for something better. His
Speaker 1: boots had barely hit us soil when he made a
Speaker 1: decision he'd had it with the Marine Corps. I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm done. I'm not going anymore, because I
Speaker 1: knew that was I'm not going on any more deployments.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm dropping my pack and I'm out.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after the break. Miners growing relationship with
Speaker 1: Laura kept him grounded as he transitioned into civilian life.
Speaker 1: But it's not like things were peaceful for him. Some
Speaker 1: nights he would drink to fall asleep to defeat the
Speaker 1: hyper vigilance that kept him wired. Other times he'd get
Speaker 1: hammered to try to unlock emotions that he couldn't access
Speaker 1: when he was sober. And those nights that I would
Speaker 1: drink a lot, I would just let it all just
Speaker 1: flew through. When you say you would let it all
Speaker 1: flow through, I would let all the emotions and everything
Speaker 1: that I went through just rush over me. So what
Speaker 1: would happen? Crying, sobbing, sitting there like wondering why? Why?
Speaker 1: What could I have done? What could I have done
Speaker 1: to this? How could I have changed that? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: like there was a few moments when I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: that should have been me, you know, I should have
Speaker 1: been on that patrol and not them, or it should
Speaker 1: have been me upfront and not those guys. And I
Speaker 1: would just sit there and just let it just overtake me.
Speaker 1: I would ride the wave per se, and once it
Speaker 1: got done hit the shore line, I would, you know,
Speaker 1: gather myself up and go on about what I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing. And did you feel better after that?
Speaker 1: I felt a lot better after it. But the drinking
Speaker 1: is also a form of numbing, and it's a form
Speaker 1: of numbing and kind of makes you feel less of
Speaker 1: the emotions than what you would if you weren't drinking.
Speaker 1: They're intense emotions, but it will be a less a
Speaker 1: little bit less intense. It's it's like when you when
Speaker 1: you cook with a pressure cooker, you have to release
Speaker 1: some of the tension and the cooker otherwise this is
Speaker 1: going to explode on you. So did you figure out
Speaker 1: how to do all that stuff on your own? Or
Speaker 1: did you go to therapy? I did it on my own.
Speaker 1: And my thing about therapy is the only way a
Speaker 1: psychi just can actually help you as if they went
Speaker 1: through the same s ship that you went through. Because
Speaker 1: you can go to Harvard freaking and get like the
Speaker 1: best freaking schooling you can for psychiatry. But unless someone
Speaker 1: experienced the ship that you've experienced, there's nothing they can
Speaker 1: say to you to help you out. There's nothing. This
Speaker 1: is Miner's opinion, and I respect it, but I don't
Speaker 1: really agree. I don't think a therapist needs to experience
Speaker 1: combat firsthand in order to help veterans get relief from PTSD.
Speaker 1: But I can understand where Miners coming from. He says
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to try therapy and he definitely doesn't
Speaker 1: want pills. He wants to deal with it on his own.
Speaker 1: He's drinking less these days, and says he's having an
Speaker 1: easier time accessing his emotions while sober, and he's got
Speaker 1: Laura to lean on too. As we're talking, Laura and
Speaker 1: Minor scoot close to each other on the couch. She's
Speaker 1: been quiet for a while, so have you heard most
Speaker 1: of this stuff before? He has talked to me like there.
Speaker 1: I think he's game more trust in me to kind
Speaker 1: of let me know this kind of stuff, and I
Speaker 1: think he's grown to kind of get through it a
Speaker 1: little bit more as time goes by. But old habits
Speaker 1: die hard. There are days like when the anniversaries come up,
Speaker 1: I do see him like pecking up the fridge or
Speaker 1: not as much anymore because I hound him on it um.
Speaker 1: There were several times where I just saw him just wasted, wasted,
Speaker 1: passed out, and it's not an image you want to see.
Speaker 1: But it's also like, well, what do you do? Deployments
Speaker 1: are tough on relationships and so is PTSD, So it's
Speaker 1: no small feat that Laura and minors relationship has gotten
Speaker 1: stronger since he came home. I think being together kind
Speaker 1: of helped him a little bit. I'm hoping the transition
Speaker 1: because he's he's not as big of an a hole
Speaker 1: as he used to be, because he is, he's he's
Speaker 1: he can be an asshole, a complete asshole, and and
Speaker 1: he will be very now and then it comes out
Speaker 1: because he is he putting on his best is he
Speaker 1: on his best behavior right now? He yes, this is
Speaker 1: the nice mike, this is the mic we like. And
Speaker 1: for me, it's like I can't even fathom having to
Speaker 1: see something like that he's gone through. It hurts me
Speaker 1: too to know that he's had to go through that,
Speaker 1: that they all had to go through that. Laura knows
Speaker 1: how war has affected Minor. She lives with it every day,
Speaker 1: but as with so many veterans, minor psychological and emotional
Speaker 1: wounds are invisible to most people outside of his home.
Speaker 1: There's guys that you know, we've worked with that have
Speaker 1: you know, like amputees and like they have prosthetics and
Speaker 1: ship that's that's the first giveaway for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But there's like people like me, I have very very
Speaker 1: minimal like scarring on my body from from all the
Speaker 1: experiences I have, but most of my ship is it's
Speaker 1: mental psychological trauma has been a by product of war
Speaker 1: and violence forever. Even though PTSD only became a formally
Speaker 1: recognized diagnosis in the nineteen eighties. These days, PTSD is
Speaker 1: a fairly common diagnosis. For better or worse, it's become
Speaker 1: a household term. Part of me thinks everybody has heard
Speaker 1: a very cliche version of the PTSD story, like to
Speaker 1: the point where they either think that we're Chris Kyle
Speaker 1: American sniper superheroes who are like indestructible, or they think
Speaker 1: that we are like hiding in our basement, you know,
Speaker 1: and surrounded by a bottle of a pile of beer
Speaker 1: bottles and empty pill bottles, like there's no in between.
Speaker 1: It's much more complicated. It's more complicated than two scenarios. Man.
Speaker 1: That's the reason why I said earlier, I won't talk
Speaker 1: to anyone unless they have similar experiences, because then they
Speaker 1: at least understand where you're coming from. I'm not surprised
Speaker 1: to hear minors say this. He's already said he won't
Speaker 1: talk to a shrink who hasn't been to war, and
Speaker 1: I remember him telling me back in Sangin that he
Speaker 1: didn't plan on talking to civilian in about his combat
Speaker 1: experiences for the same reason. We play that clip for him.
Speaker 1: What do you think he'll tell people back home about
Speaker 1: this place your friends, and I'll tell them ship. Tell
Speaker 1: me why they don't need to know this ship. No
Speaker 1: one needs to know the ship that we go through,
Speaker 1: because if they started asking us questions about the ship
Speaker 1: we go through, they would they wouldn't have any understanding
Speaker 1: because they were never there. They wouldn't know what you felt.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't know how it affected you mentally and physically.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't know how to approach you after you told
Speaker 1: them something that happened, you know, I mean, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have any idea of what it feels like too hold
Speaker 1: of a turniquet on somebody's leg while you're watching them
Speaker 1: bleed away. They wouldn't know any of that. Do you
Speaker 1: still feel that way? They're still in the point like
Speaker 1: some of the people that I have told some of
Speaker 1: the stuff too, they don't. They don't treat me the
Speaker 1: same anymore. They treat me like I'm a fragile a
Speaker 1: little like almost like a grenade with the pen being
Speaker 1: pulled on it. They just have to like make sure
Speaker 1: that they don't do anything to trigger me. And it
Speaker 1: irritates me the most is because treat me like you
Speaker 1: would anyone else. Patronizing is one of the least enjoyable
Speaker 1: things I've ever had to endure before. When I told
Speaker 1: somebody some some of the stuff I've done, I can't
Speaker 1: stand it. I would rather tell somebody go to go
Speaker 1: funk myself after I told him a story. Didn't have
Speaker 1: someone try to patronize me, like, um, thank you for
Speaker 1: your service, for example. I mean, that's that's that's like
Speaker 1: the go to thing. Because most people don't know how
Speaker 1: to approach a veteran. Just just walk up to us,
Speaker 1: talk to us, like have a normal conversation as if
Speaker 1: you were talking to you know, your neighbor or your friend.
Speaker 1: You can ask her when somebody says that stuff and
Speaker 1: was like, thank you, and I just go on about
Speaker 1: my business because you hear it all the dawn time.
Speaker 1: I never know what to say when people say that.
Speaker 1: I know you're dumbfounded because you're just like, well, funk,
Speaker 1: thank you for your service, thank you for thanking me,
Speaker 1: well fuck you know, thank you for being a civilian.
Speaker 1: This is a good example of something that's known as
Speaker 1: the civilian military divide, the cultural barrier between people who
Speaker 1: have served and people who haven't. One of the things
Speaker 1: you hear a lot when veterans talk about how frustrated
Speaker 1: they are about how civilians talk to them about their
Speaker 1: experience is they say, the first thing civilians always ask
Speaker 1: you is did you kill anyone? Or how many people
Speaker 1: did you kill? And I can obviously why are you laughing?
Speaker 1: Because that's actually the first question they asked. It's like
Speaker 1: how many people would you kill? So what do you
Speaker 1: when people ask you that? What do you? What do
Speaker 1: you say? Seven? And is do you just pull that
Speaker 1: number out of a hatter? Is that the truth? Foreign Iraq?
Speaker 1: And in three in the citation in Afghanistan? So you
Speaker 1: would tell a stranger that who asked, no, I would
Speaker 1: not tell you. You're just telling me. I'm telling you
Speaker 1: to help bring awareness. But I will tell a stranger
Speaker 1: to go fund himself so he has no funking need
Speaker 1: to know? Like why why is that your first instinct?
Speaker 1: This isn't fucking call of duty? Like why is that? Well?
Speaker 1: How many people should you kill? Clearly not enough? You're
Speaker 1: still alive? Like I don't understand. I understand, like what
Speaker 1: goes through their fucking heads? But what do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean? Why why do you think I don't know. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you. My family doesn't even know how
Speaker 1: many people have killed. Asking a veteran how many people
Speaker 1: they've killed is about as clumsy of a first question
Speaker 1: as you could possibly ask. But I can kind of
Speaker 1: understand it. When we're kids, we learned that killing is
Speaker 1: the worst crime a person can commit. But then we
Speaker 1: send young people off to war to kill on our behalf,
Speaker 1: and when they come home, we don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about the people who get hurt,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about the people who get killed,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about the suicides, but we don't
Speaker 1: talk about the killing. And war is killing just as
Speaker 1: much as it is dying. And so I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: for you, you know what, how has that factored? Like
Speaker 1: obviously seeing not faed by it all by killing someone,
Speaker 1: Shooting someone in the line of duty doesn't bother And
Speaker 1: what does other mean to them? It's literally like fight
Speaker 1: or flight, And there's no way in hell I'm run
Speaker 1: from a fight, especially when I know people that around
Speaker 1: me could get hurt. So if it doesn't phase you
Speaker 1: that you did it in the moment because it was
Speaker 1: kill or be killed, you really were fighting for your
Speaker 1: life to save your yourself and your friends and all
Speaker 1: of that. Then why is it offensive for people to
Speaker 1: ask the question? It's offensive because they don't need to
Speaker 1: know that information. It's like if I walked up to
Speaker 1: you and go, how many girls have you fucked? You know,
Speaker 1: it's like like that. It's like, how is that any
Speaker 1: of my business? Like it's it's way too fucking personal
Speaker 1: to ask when you first meet someone, Right, it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine Minor talking to people who never served about
Speaker 1: any aspect of the war back in sang And he
Speaker 1: told me he didn't think too highly of civilians. I
Speaker 1: can't stand the people as it is, because they're just winers,
Speaker 1: like they want everything handed to them and but they
Speaker 1: don't want to work to get it. You ask someone
Speaker 1: in America to do something for you, they want to
Speaker 1: give you that fund yourself. Look what the fund are
Speaker 1: you gonna do for me? But being in the military,
Speaker 1: just like he really thinking, helped me all this. Look
Speaker 1: like you didn't worry about it. I'll help you out.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's like everyone that's civilian is like
Speaker 1: conceded about me. Me, me, me me. Despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Minor is a civilian now he says his perspective
Speaker 1: hasn't changed. It's still true. I completely agree with everything
Speaker 1: that's smart ass handsel Men said, he still thinks civilians
Speaker 1: take things for granted, and he still thinks there's no
Speaker 1: point talking to him. Even after being out of uniform
Speaker 1: all these years. The barrier between us and them remains clear.
Speaker 1: To Minor, he works the night shift at a convenience
Speaker 1: store near his house, and he says he can tell
Speaker 1: whether a customer was ever in the military as soon
Speaker 1: as they approached the counter. You can tell the difference
Speaker 1: because the veterans, we carry ourselves a lot differently. We
Speaker 1: carry ourselves with a little bit more more pride than
Speaker 1: what a normal person would, because you know, we've we've
Speaker 1: we we've signed on that dotted line and we agreed
Speaker 1: to you know, pay that ultimate second was we agreed
Speaker 1: to go as far as we needed to. The idea
Speaker 1: that veterans are defined by pride and selflessness while civilians
Speaker 1: are defined by hunt shoulders and a me me me
Speaker 1: attitude just doesn't square with my experience on both sides
Speaker 1: of the divide. In fact, the longer I'm out of uniform,
Speaker 1: the more I think the veterans are civilians, and they're
Speaker 1: just as varied in their personalities and values. Summer saints,
Speaker 1: summer ship bags, and most fall somewhere in between. As
Speaker 1: for the US in that attitude, I just don't think
Speaker 1: it helps anyone. I tell Minor all of this, and
Speaker 1: I asked him, is it up to us veterans to
Speaker 1: talk more, to explain to people what it was like?
Speaker 1: Is it up to us to bridge the divide? What
Speaker 1: we need to do is a lot of veterans. What
Speaker 1: we need to do is we need to start making
Speaker 1: sex tapes. When you start putting gorilla glue in our hair,
Speaker 1: anything remotely dumb and stupid, make TikTok videos. What we're
Speaker 1: fucking eating tide pods and fucking snorting condoms. Stupid ship
Speaker 1: is what gets people's attention. I swear I think the
Speaker 1: world now is um like the the the attention span
Speaker 1: of a fucking Labrador retriever. Oh squirrel, Oh squirrel. For Minor,
Speaker 1: the biggest kick in the balls. The thing he really
Speaker 1: can't get over is that civilians are just not interested
Speaker 1: in what he and his fellow marines did in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't care. It's not in their backyard.
Speaker 1: But you care, right? I care? Yeah, fun, yeah, I
Speaker 1: care well, assuming like too many good people for people
Speaker 1: just not to give a shit about it because they
Speaker 1: get tired of, oh, we're at war, we don't want
Speaker 1: to hear about it. Fuck you, you're losing a good
Speaker 1: American people who would literally throw their life on the
Speaker 1: line even if they were back here. They would throw
Speaker 1: themselves in front of danger just to protect your spoiled ass.
Speaker 1: Come on, they deserve more respect than that. It's getting
Speaker 1: late and it's been a long day. Before we wrap.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know what Minor thinks about his own
Speaker 1: evolution over the last decade. So do you think you
Speaker 1: got halfway back to the person you were before? I'll never,
Speaker 1: you know, be whole after some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: we've seen. No one, no one in the right mind
Speaker 1: will ever be whole unless you're like fucking damer or
Speaker 1: in those fucking serial killer people that there's probably the
Speaker 1: only ones that would like, oh this is cool, you
Speaker 1: know um, But no, I mean maybe if you had
Speaker 1: to put a percentage, probably eight eight five somewhere in there.
Speaker 1: I'll never get back to to the ash whole that
Speaker 1: I was apparently, but you feel like you've gotten back
Speaker 1: some of what I've gotten back a little bit of
Speaker 1: my humanity, but there's there's certain parts of me that
Speaker 1: I I kind of I still want to feel the pain,
Speaker 1: because if you get past that point and you forget
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that you went through, you
Speaker 1: will never know how you're going to succeed in the future.
Speaker 1: The next morning is the start of another gorgeous California day,
Speaker 1: and for the first time in weeks, I feel well rested.
Speaker 1: I finally got a good night's sleep. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I've been extremely anxious about this whole trip. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask every one of these guys to talk to me
Speaker 1: about things they don't really talk about with anyone, not
Speaker 1: their families, not their friends, not even their fellow veterans.
Speaker 1: And I'm also going to be looking into a lot
Speaker 1: of dark places in my own memory and in my heart.
Speaker 1: So I sort of wish we could hang out here
Speaker 1: for a while, kick back on one of those deserted
Speaker 1: beaches near Camp Pendleton, maybe even rent a board in
Speaker 1: a wet suit, But the mission cannot be delayed. Tommy
Speaker 1: and I have to hulk smash a mile drive to Houston.
Speaker 1: As for Minor, when the anniversaries come around again and
Speaker 1: the next wave of memories rolls in from Sangon, I
Speaker 1: hope the ride isn't too rough. And when he hits
Speaker 1: the shoreline and gathers himself up, I hope he reaches
Speaker 1: for Laura. Third Squad is written and produced by Elliott Woods,
Speaker 1: Tommy Andreas, and Maria Byrne. It's an Heirloom Media production
Speaker 1: distributed by iHeart Media, funding support from the National Endowment
Speaker 1: for the Humanities and collaboration with the Center for Warren
Speaker 1: Society at San Diego State University. Original music by Mondo Boys,
Speaker 1: editing and sound design by John Ward. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Ben Kalin. Special thanks to Scott Carrier, Benjamin Bush, caitlinsh
Speaker 1: Carrie Gracie, Kevin Connolly, Lena Ferguson, and Nick Ward. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to see my photographs from Sangin and from
Speaker 1: our road trip, please visit Third Squad dot com. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Elliott Woods.
Speaker 1: Before we go, if you are someone you know is
Speaker 1: suffering from PTSD, please know there's help, and if you're
Speaker 1: a veteran, you can get it for free from the
Speaker 1: v A. Visit Mental Health dot v A dot gov
Speaker 1: for more information. If you're having thoughts about suicide or
Speaker 1: self harm, please call the Veterans Crisis Line immediately at
Speaker 1: one to seven, three, eight to five f