Speaker 1: Third Squad is a documentary podcast about war. Every episode
Speaker 1: contains strong language and descriptions of violence that may not
Speaker 1: be suitable for all listeners. I don't want to offend
Speaker 1: you with my skepticism. You're not going to because I
Speaker 1: like you, man, I like you. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a fucking dick, but you're not a dick. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, what's gonna fucking change? Right? Maybe nothing? Probably nothing?
Speaker 1: But you know what will change if I don't do it?
Speaker 1: Definitely nothing. I'm Elliott Woods. This is Third Squad Episode seven,
Speaker 1: make Peace or Die. Alright, So we've got our side
Speaker 1: by side a t V, all geared up, ready for
Speaker 1: an adventure. David rich Volsky is behind the wheel, wearing
Speaker 1: a mad bomber hat, got our goggles on, shiploads of clothes.
Speaker 1: It's what about five degrees outside something like that, all right,
Speaker 1: and we are ready to rock. Dude, this thing's gonna
Speaker 1: sucking all ass. There's one Third Squad marine we couldn't
Speaker 1: reach by road. I mean it was possible, but there
Speaker 1: just wasn't time to squeeze an extra five thousand miles
Speaker 1: into the itinerer. So I hopped on a flight to
Speaker 1: Alaska to meet David rich Volski, who lives about an
Speaker 1: hour northeast of Anchorage. Check check, check, Why aren't you
Speaker 1: showing on my channels anymore? Tommy had to go home
Speaker 1: for a few days, so I'm flying solo on this one,
Speaker 1: getting familiar with the recorder while wearing mittens the size
Speaker 1: of boxing gloves. Super fun. Ready for me to go? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna spend the tires to see if I can
Speaker 1: see if the fronts turn into Okay, Yeah, Richbolski hits
Speaker 1: the gas and soon we're ripping down the Connect River
Speaker 1: at fifty miles per hour, looking like a couple of
Speaker 1: Mad Max characters. This is so cool. My hands freeze
Speaker 1: into claus whenever I have to take off my mittens
Speaker 1: to adjust the recorder. But I'm having such a good
Speaker 1: time I barely notice we being out here reminds me
Speaker 1: of Montana, where I live. Oh Man. Thankfully, the sun
Speaker 1: is starting to warm the air when we pull up
Speaker 1: to our destination, the Connect Glacier, a massive sheet of
Speaker 1: ice that spills down from the chew Gash Mountains, just
Speaker 1: ten miles up river from Richbolski's house. Should we jump
Speaker 1: out and walk around exactly what I was thinking. We
Speaker 1: park on a hill where we can see the four
Speaker 1: hund foot calving face where the icebergs break off. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like this before. Man,
Speaker 1: I managed to give a fucking World Traveler reporter guy
Speaker 1: a fucking first time huh. Yep, there you, of course,
Speaker 1: because this is America. There's a guy doing donuts on
Speaker 1: the frozen lake in a vintage pickup, and another guy
Speaker 1: shooting a flamethrower next to an iceberg that looks like
Speaker 1: a giant hunk of frozen wind. As the carbon orgy
Speaker 1: clashes a bit with the pristine surroundings, but rich Volsky
Speaker 1: digs all of it, living the dream. Rich Volsky, it's
Speaker 1: pretty good, man, pretty good. The combination of remote wilderness
Speaker 1: and Arctic redneck culture is what made him fall head
Speaker 1: over heels for Alaska. I feel like it's one of
Speaker 1: the last free states. Honestly, I just have freedom. I
Speaker 1: can do what I want. I can come out here
Speaker 1: and get out here by myself and cruise around and
Speaker 1: hang out. Man, it's a great place to decompress after work.
Speaker 1: Rich Bosky grew up in most people's idea of Paradise, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: but he had no desire to go there. When he
Speaker 1: got out of the Core in two thousand fourteen, he
Speaker 1: hit the road for Alaska with the promise of a
Speaker 1: job and never looked back. It was around the same
Speaker 1: time that I moved to Montana from the East Coast
Speaker 1: for some of the same reasons. It took rich Bolski
Speaker 1: two weeks to drive all the way from Camp Pembleton's
Speaker 1: up through Canada to Anchorage, his first landing spot. Now
Speaker 1: he lives in a secluded subdivision near a town called Palmer.
Speaker 1: He makes his living as a plumber, working on big
Speaker 1: commercial projects all over the state. His hobbies are pretty
Speaker 1: full time too. Like me, he's a serious hunter, and
Speaker 1: in Alaska that means lots of scouting and planning for
Speaker 1: bear and moose hunts. With so much going on, rich
Speaker 1: Wolski tells me Afghanistan isn't something he thinks about much anymore,
Speaker 1: almost never, almost never do on a different portion of
Speaker 1: my life moved on. So when you do think about Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: what do you think about? Ah? The funny stuff, sad stuff.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I no excitement, you know, adventure is there? Anything
Speaker 1: that you miss about it. That's simple, man, a simple
Speaker 1: place to be. You know. You get up and walk around,
Speaker 1: get shot at, you walk back and sleep and do
Speaker 1: it all over again. A lot of people, I think
Speaker 1: would be shocked to hear that being at war, even
Speaker 1: in a very dangerous place in certain ways, is kind
Speaker 1: of easy. It is. It's it's it's definitely easy, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, now I got you know, bills, gotta go
Speaker 1: to work, you know, I mean, it never felt like
Speaker 1: work to me. As we're talking, heard a moose trots
Speaker 1: down the river bed. We're a long way from Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and we're even farther from Sangin, where we first had
Speaker 1: a decade ago. All right, So the first thing I
Speaker 1: need you to do is just introduce yourself in that
Speaker 1: kind of outside voice. I'll just see your regular voice,
Speaker 1: all right. Um, I'm last Corporal Davids Falsky, and I'm
Speaker 1: nineteen years old and not from Hawaii. Great, perfect, Okay.
Speaker 1: So number one, why did you join the Marine Corps?
Speaker 1: I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to have
Speaker 1: the island. Back then, he was a lanky teenager and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he could have grown a beard if
Speaker 1: he tried. Now he's six ft tall and two thirty pounds,
Speaker 1: with the righteous beard and thick forearms covered in tattoos.
Speaker 1: His hair is still buzz short, but that's about the
Speaker 1: only thing that hasn't changed since Sangon. Sitting in the
Speaker 1: a t V by the river, I asked him why
Speaker 1: he was so eager to get out of Hawaii all
Speaker 1: those years ago. I think it's just hot, small, you know,
Speaker 1: to go to the beach so often surfing gets quite repetitive.
Speaker 1: I was ready to go, you know, independent, young and
Speaker 1: looking for adventure. He tells me Hawaii was a great
Speaker 1: place to grow up, and he had a happy childhood.
Speaker 1: He just never felt like he fit in there. The
Speaker 1: military promised away off the island, but like several of
Speaker 1: the other members a third Squad, rich Folski was only
Speaker 1: seventeen when he started thinking about enlistening, so he needed
Speaker 1: his parents permission. I told my dad and he goes, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll go talk to some recruiters, right. So we go
Speaker 1: to town and there's like an Army and Marine Corps
Speaker 1: recruiters right next to each other, like sharing a wall office.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a clear idea of what he wanted
Speaker 1: to do in the military, let alone which branch. He
Speaker 1: wanted to join Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, but first
Speaker 1: impression settled things. The Army recruiters were literally fat and nasty,
Speaker 1: and the Marine Corps recruiter looked like a guy in
Speaker 1: the military. And I hate to say that because the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps is all about appearance and the unit form,
Speaker 1: and I always hated that about the Marine Corps. But
Speaker 1: that was the turning point where we were like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in the Army. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna hurt my feelings. Don't worry. I was in the
Speaker 1: National Guard, a reserve component of the U. S. Army.
Speaker 1: We get made fun of by pretty much everyone, including
Speaker 1: the regular army. Anyway. It was two thousand nine when
Speaker 1: rich bold Sky and his dad visited the recruiter, and
Speaker 1: the war in Afghanistan was barely on the radar for
Speaker 1: the average American. But we'd just come through the most
Speaker 1: brutal years of the Iraq War. What was your awareness
Speaker 1: of of what kind of fighting was going on at
Speaker 1: the time, if you can remember when you were in
Speaker 1: high school, I mean, I always knew there was fighting.
Speaker 1: You see the ship on the news, you know. But
Speaker 1: I mean I wasn't come from a family that's in
Speaker 1: the military, you know. I didn't. I didn't know anybody,
Speaker 1: you know, that was in the military. So my understanding
Speaker 1: of what it actually was, you know, was zero. But
Speaker 1: I knew for a fact that there was a war,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Did you know where that war
Speaker 1: was in the Middle East? I could, I could narrow
Speaker 1: it down to the Middle East at that time. Did
Speaker 1: you have a sense of what the war was about,
Speaker 1: or how it was going or anything like that. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think I have a sense now. I mean
Speaker 1: when I tell you right now that I legitimately kind
Speaker 1: of still don't understand. I'm serious. No, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do know. Rich Foldski's dad, who's also named David,
Speaker 1: supported his son's decision to join the Marines. They signed
Speaker 1: the paperwork together, and as soon as high school was over,
Speaker 1: rich Folsky shipped out for boot camp at Marine Corps
Speaker 1: Recruit Depot San Diego. Yeah, that's funny. My My my
Speaker 1: first thought was, oh my godly, all these white people.
Speaker 1: I just went to a high school. It didn't have
Speaker 1: very many white people. Your your school is mostly what
Speaker 1: a lot of Filipino, a lot of Asian, uh, you know, Polynesian.
Speaker 1: So suddenly you were in a group of people who
Speaker 1: looked like you for the first time. For a lot
Speaker 1: of recruits, the shock of the first few days of
Speaker 1: boot camp is utterly terrifying. Some of them literally pissed
Speaker 1: their pants, But not rich Volsky. You kind of thought
Speaker 1: it was funny. Everybody's yelling and everybody's running around checking
Speaker 1: with their head cut off, all this kind of just
Speaker 1: taking her all in. Were you intimidated it all? You know? No,
Speaker 1: I really wasn't. I knew I knew what it was
Speaker 1: gonna be like, so you kind of knew it was
Speaker 1: theater a little bit for sure. After thirteen weeks of
Speaker 1: boot camp, rich Volsci went about an hour up the
Speaker 1: road to Camp Pendleton for Infantry School, where you learned
Speaker 1: how to be what the Marines call an O three
Speaker 1: thirty one, a machine gunner. Then it was a short
Speaker 1: ride to his new unit, Weapons Platoon, Blackfoot Company, first Battalion,
Speaker 1: fifth Marines. He barely had time to settle in before
Speaker 1: he shipped out to Afghanistan. In about ten months. He'd
Speaker 1: gone from surfing in Hawaii to slipping an m to
Speaker 1: forty Bravo machine gun and sang it. Here he is again,
Speaker 1: back at patrol based fires. I live in a fucking
Speaker 1: mud hut. It's just three ft thick walls of mud
Speaker 1: right now. It's actually pretty dirty, just because I've been
Speaker 1: discussing and not cleaned it. And uh, I got fleas
Speaker 1: because of the fucking chickens that run around. At just
Speaker 1: nineteen years old, rich Volski was the youngest guy in
Speaker 1: third Squad. He joined the Marines looking for adventure and
Speaker 1: he definitely found it. But by the time I arrived
Speaker 1: four months into the deployment, the novelty had worn off.
Speaker 1: I always like doing my job when I'm shooting. Is
Speaker 1: that makes carrying the two forty round not just seemed
Speaker 1: like a giant piece of metal that's pulling me into
Speaker 1: the air slowly, But like getting shot, It's it's not
Speaker 1: it's not fun. It's it's fun when you're shooting. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you a hammer, sometimes you nail. It's real fun
Speaker 1: when you need a hammer. But is it the kind
Speaker 1: of fun that you want to keep having for a
Speaker 1: long time? Um No, it's it's a kind of fun
Speaker 1: where it's like it's like you get really wasted one
Speaker 1: night and you do a bunch of stupid ship and
Speaker 1: it's fun to talk about, but you don't want to
Speaker 1: do it for the rest of your life. No, it's
Speaker 1: definitely had way too many close calls to I want
Speaker 1: to do that for this my life. Okay, you can
Speaker 1: only dodge bullets for so long. Richbolski managed to dodge
Speaker 1: bullets for his entire deployment, but the bullets were only
Speaker 1: one of the threats, and sang In describe like one
Speaker 1: of the scariest or toughest things that you've had to
Speaker 1: deal with out here in as much detail as you can,
Speaker 1: something that really sticks out in your mind that you
Speaker 1: think about kind of like sucked me up. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: probably when I got bought up. I got me pretty good.
Speaker 1: Rich Volski was one of the seventeen who got injured
Speaker 1: on June twelve. The blast left him with a slight
Speaker 1: stutter and with permanent brain damage. So when he tells
Speaker 1: me he doesn't think about Afghanistan much anymore, there's a
Speaker 1: caveat my whole memory of all of this is very fuzzy,
Speaker 1: you know, but uh, and it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: put it in chronological order. Rich Volski's memories all scrambled
Speaker 1: from the explosion. When I try to drill down into specifics,
Speaker 1: it goes something like this, So just tell me what
Speaker 1: your first impression of Afghanistan was, Brown Sandy. He's talking
Speaker 1: about Camp leathern Neck, the huge logistics base in the
Speaker 1: middle of the Helmon Desert where they stopped over on
Speaker 1: their way to sang It Hot. I don't particularly remember
Speaker 1: Hot too much when we first got there. Well, it
Speaker 1: was probably the perfect time of year. It was like
Speaker 1: March right spring. You don't remember, tell me, man, It's
Speaker 1: not like his memories got erased. They're just out of
Speaker 1: order and smashed together. I think I remember, Uh, somebody
Speaker 1: got their foot blown and a half. It was Captain
Speaker 1: Frank Is that right? Lost half his foot? But what
Speaker 1: was that? Right in the beginning, No, somebody else talked
Speaker 1: about that. I forget which I think? Is it the
Speaker 1: foot thing though? Or or am or am I wrong?
Speaker 1: Rich Volsky's memory trouble stem from a traumatic brain injury,
Speaker 1: or t b I. It's a catch all diagnosis that
Speaker 1: includes everything from concussions to open head wounds. Rich Volski
Speaker 1: had both, and he's still dealing with the effects a
Speaker 1: decade later. But well, I have a thought. It's gone.
Speaker 1: It's gone. That happens a lot, doesn't it. It does. Yeh.
Speaker 1: TV is a bitch man. You know what's really funny
Speaker 1: about this whole thing is I feel like, unless you
Speaker 1: saw me there, you wouldn't even believe that I did
Speaker 1: it because I don't remember all of those bullshit, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're asking me questions. I God, I do not know.
Speaker 1: You know, good thing, I did see him there, and
Speaker 1: I've got photos and audio to prove it. We'll be
Speaker 1: back after the break. I stayed with rich Bolski for
Speaker 1: a few days and got to meet his wife, Samantha,
Speaker 1: and all of his pets. This his mouse. He's a
Speaker 1: vicious little bastard. Yeah you don't. You don't like that guy.
Speaker 1: You keep an eye on him, okay. Mouse is an
Speaker 1: American Eskimo dog. He looks like an overgrown cotton ball
Speaker 1: with fangs barely bigger than the cat. Mrs Claus Richbosky
Speaker 1: also has a big lazy Bernies mountain dog. Actually they're
Speaker 1: polar opposites. This one's sweet, nothing but love, and then
Speaker 1: the other one is very skeptical. Of everything, including journalists
Speaker 1: who show up with big microphones and headphones. Especially journalist.
Speaker 1: I got him trained, you know, journalists, lawyers, auditors, politicians,
Speaker 1: that's who we have them. Bite Mouse's training has been
Speaker 1: highly affected. Hey, no, that one was a straight up ambush.
Speaker 1: I keep an eye on MOUs will Rich Volsky shows
Speaker 1: me around the home he's building. I guess you would
Speaker 1: call this what open concept, with the living rooms and
Speaker 1: the kitchens in the same spot. It's a quantt hut,
Speaker 1: a prefab steel shell in the shape of a giant
Speaker 1: upside down you similar to the ones cranked out by
Speaker 1: the tens of thousands to house American troops during World
Speaker 1: War Two. Quant huts are quintessential Alaska, gurable, no frills
Speaker 1: shelters for the kinds of frontier characters you find in
Speaker 1: Jack London stories. But this one would fit better in
Speaker 1: the pages of Martha Stewart living. The three bedroom design
Speaker 1: has heated floors, an entire wall of windows looking out
Speaker 1: on the mountains, and a deluxe kitchen for Samantha. We
Speaker 1: got the old lady a nice big Viking range because
Speaker 1: she does love to cook. You know, rich Volsky is
Speaker 1: putting the finishing touches on the interior. Now he's one
Speaker 1: of those guys who can do pretty much anything that
Speaker 1: involves tools. And you did this all yourself? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: with I mean obviously the help of so my good
Speaker 1: friends and co workers and lots of cases of beer,
Speaker 1: lots of barbecues. It's been two years since a big
Speaker 1: group of his friends helped put up the quantip frame,
Speaker 1: and now the end is finally in sight. Are you
Speaker 1: ready to be done? Absolutely? Like last year, the new
Speaker 1: house doesn't have much furniture yet, so when it's time
Speaker 1: to sit down and talk, we walk over to the
Speaker 1: one room cabin that was on the property when rich
Speaker 1: bold Sky first bought it. It's about as close to
Speaker 1: an ideal mountain man hideout as you could imagine, unfinished
Speaker 1: lumber walls, a cast iron stove, a bear skull on
Speaker 1: the kitchen table, and a double barrel shotgun hanging by
Speaker 1: the front door. Rich Bolsky might have stayed in this
Speaker 1: place forever if he'd never met Samantha. He pulls down
Speaker 1: a bottle of whiskey from the top of the refrigerator
Speaker 1: and grabs a couple of glasses. Then he warns me
Speaker 1: and I can remember ship in any kind of real order,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be frustrating for you. Okay, So
Speaker 1: then what's probably necessary is to figure out how you
Speaker 1: remember things, like what how does your memory work? I
Speaker 1: can get specific moments, and if somebody else's talking about it,
Speaker 1: you know, I can go, oh, yeah, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that clear as fucking day, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But it's also it's almost gotta be planted
Speaker 1: or or dug up, if that makes sense. We decided
Speaker 1: to dig up some of those memories together, which means
Speaker 1: we have to go back to Sangin. As a member
Speaker 1: of Weapons Platoon, rich Volsky was technically an attachment to
Speaker 1: third Squad, not one of its original members. As the
Speaker 1: machine gunner, his weapon was critical whenever the squad got
Speaker 1: into a firefight. I was normally towards the front of
Speaker 1: the patrol, so that when the sweeper and uh the
Speaker 1: spot or right term there. Yeah, the sweeper and the
Speaker 1: spotter would poke through a tree line, you know, and
Speaker 1: if they got shot, I was normally towards the front,
Speaker 1: so I could pop up there real quick and uh
Speaker 1: start laying suppression down. The Only time it wasn't effective
Speaker 1: is if it came from the rear, and then that's
Speaker 1: where you're automatic rifleman Moody was was fucking handling that portion,
Speaker 1: and he carried a slightly while lighter machine gun. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: while Moody took care of the rear with his saw,
Speaker 1: the M two four nine squad automatic weapon, rich Volsky
Speaker 1: was at the front with his M two forty Bravo,
Speaker 1: a nearly four ft long belt fed beast. The gun
Speaker 1: and ammo weighed around sixty pounds. It was a lot
Speaker 1: to be hauling around in the Afghan heat, but it
Speaker 1: was worth it. The first thing I do is, uh,
Speaker 1: I make noise, even if I'm just flying ship in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. You know, entirely I am. I'm making noise.
Speaker 1: I'm basically allowing the rest of the guys to move
Speaker 1: by keeping the enemy's head down. Most of the guys
Speaker 1: in the squad carried M four car beans, semi automatic
Speaker 1: rifles that fire a small, high velocity round that's barely
Speaker 1: bigger than twenty two rounds used for hunting squirrels. If
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a picture of an A R fifteen,
Speaker 1: then you know what an M four looks like. They're
Speaker 1: lightweight and easy to shoot quickly and accurately, but they
Speaker 1: lack the intimidation factor of machine guns like the two
Speaker 1: forty and the fifty Cow, which fires around big enough
Speaker 1: to take out a truck engine. So tell me if
Speaker 1: you were on the other side of that, why would
Speaker 1: that be intimidating to you? I guess the only way
Speaker 1: to put it would be, you know, twenty two long
Speaker 1: rifle will kill you, but a fifty cow makes you
Speaker 1: feel like you'll be more dead, you know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it'll make you It'll make you more dead. That's
Speaker 1: the psychological effect it gotta be. Yeah. So do you
Speaker 1: remember the first time that you fired your M two
Speaker 1: forty Bravo and a firefight? Yeah, I was shooting out
Speaker 1: a building. What do you feel like? It's just a great,
Speaker 1: great feeling to just let a let her up. Man.
Speaker 1: I always loved, I always love shooting machine guns. I mean,
Speaker 1: even in training, it was a it was great. So
Speaker 1: did did you get to fire your machine? Got a
Speaker 1: lot after the fighting season started. There's a lot of shooting.
Speaker 1: It's what you wanted to do, right, absolutely, I guess
Speaker 1: the shooting is exactly what I wanted to do. And
Speaker 1: the blowing up is not what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and that was the unavoidable part. So tell me about that.
Speaker 1: Tell me about when that happened. It was shortly after
Speaker 1: the ninth, But it feels like like when I when
Speaker 1: I think about it, it feels like we had just
Speaker 1: got back in from picking up O'Brien. In my memory,
Speaker 1: it feels like it was those those two days between
Speaker 1: the nine and the twelfth just don't exist. The the
Speaker 1: unimportant part just gets gone, if that makes sense. It
Speaker 1: was June twelve, two th eleven, the day Joshua McDaniels died.
Speaker 1: In sixteen other Marines got wounded in a series of
Speaker 1: I D blasts. Rich Volsky got knocked to the ground
Speaker 1: by the explosion that hit McDaniels. Then he got hit
Speaker 1: again moments later by a secondary blast that knocked him unconscious.
Speaker 1: The pock marks from shrapnel and debris were still visible
Speaker 1: on his face when he told me about it back
Speaker 1: in Sangin. When I came to, I was just laying
Speaker 1: face down the sand. It's like pull of blood and Sheer,
Speaker 1: last corporal Sheer rolled me over and he has, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you got all your limbs, got your legs. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you did it. I was like, you can
Speaker 1: be okay, and I was like what because I I
Speaker 1: had a severe concussion. Um, I just got knocked straight retarded,
Speaker 1: and uh he started dragging me out in his cabin.
Speaker 1: Ten years later, I asked rich bold Sky what he
Speaker 1: still remembers about that day. I remember when I heard
Speaker 1: the first explosion, Uh, trying to I heard the first explosion,
Speaker 1: and then there was like just the dust, you know,
Speaker 1: and then just like kind of silence, kind of put
Speaker 1: my dick in the dirt, you know, and uh, just quiet,
Speaker 1: and I'm going, fuck, you know. And then I remember
Speaker 1: hearing McDaniels screaming, and uh that was like, holy fuck man,
Speaker 1: this is bad. So I screwed up that direction best
Speaker 1: I can, and uh, I get up there and I
Speaker 1: see McDaniels and looking at him, I'm I'm thinking, uh,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that he can make that much noise
Speaker 1: with how small he is. He was essentially blown in
Speaker 1: a half. Yeah he was. I remember him making an
Speaker 1: insane amount of noise for for how much of him
Speaker 1: was left, and I thought that was crazy. So I
Speaker 1: was talking to him, but it was I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if I got to him first or if Lopez got
Speaker 1: to him first, But I remember Lopez being there. He's
Speaker 1: talking about Jeffrey Lopez, one of Third squads riflemen. And
Speaker 1: this is where it gets real fuzzy, like I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about a lot of this, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But I remember Lopez being there in that moment before
Speaker 1: we blow up again, right, and I think what happened
Speaker 1: next was well, I mean, I know what happened next.
Speaker 1: The I D fucking went off when Elliott hit it
Speaker 1: because he was coming running up from the rear towards
Speaker 1: us and stepped on another I D. The route that
Speaker 1: I took to McDaniels just happened to be better than
Speaker 1: the route that Elliott took to McDaniels. Cody Elliott supervised
Speaker 1: all the platoons machine gunners, including rich Wolski. He floated
Speaker 1: between squads and happened to be out with Third Squad
Speaker 1: that day. I can remember looking at him as it
Speaker 1: as he ran up to me and blew up. I
Speaker 1: can I can see it in my mind, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. That's one of those ones that's burned
Speaker 1: into me. You know. It's just like just like looking
Speaker 1: at McDaniels, that one's burned into me too. The explosion
Speaker 1: from Elliott's I d erupted in a cone shape, widening
Speaker 1: with intensifying force as it moved upward from the ground.
Speaker 1: Fortunately for rich fold Sky and Lopez, they were crouched
Speaker 1: down low when it went off. I think if I
Speaker 1: was standing, I probably would have died or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, or it would have been incredibly worse than
Speaker 1: it was worse for rich bol Sky, that is, it
Speaker 1: was plenty bad for Elliott. He lost his left leg
Speaker 1: and took shrapnel all over his body and face. Parts
Speaker 1: of Elliott's gear and bones slammed into rich Bollski, like
Speaker 1: you know, your temple's got a little whole. It's a
Speaker 1: little a little piece of shrapnel went in like an
Speaker 1: upward angle and scoot it in the hole and like
Speaker 1: the perfect way to like not kill me pretty much,
Speaker 1: but would have it were went straight in, I mean
Speaker 1: I would have been dead. Oh wow, it was inside
Speaker 1: your skull. Yes, wow, I didn't know that. Rich Bolski
Speaker 1: has a shadow box on the cabin wall with this
Speaker 1: Camo name tape, his dog tags, his purple heart metal
Speaker 1: and a little plastic tube with that piece of shrapnel
Speaker 1: inside of it. It was removed by a field trauma
Speaker 1: surgeon at Camp leather Neck, where he got meta ACT
Speaker 1: along with some of the other serious casualties from that day.
Speaker 1: It was actually kind of cool because I'm fucking rolling
Speaker 1: in there and uh, it was like a reunion and
Speaker 1: we're coming in on the gurney and it's like, what's up, man, Like, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I know everybody in the yard, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, high fives all around. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember the nurses got rid of the little fucking
Speaker 1: separator sheets because we're all yelling back and forth to
Speaker 1: each other talking. Rich Basky thinks he had two surgeries,
Speaker 1: but he can't remember for sure. His condition was serious
Speaker 1: enough that he was laid up in the hospital for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. Here we are again, back at
Speaker 1: patrol based fires, not long after the incident, and what
Speaker 1: was the recovery? Like, it really wasn't that bad. I mean,
Speaker 1: it didn't really hurt until the next day. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I was I was just so confused and out of
Speaker 1: it from the concussion at h It's kind of just
Speaker 1: a daze the whole time, and that you are and
Speaker 1: like in the exciting care awards and stuff. I didn't
Speaker 1: really start getting my memory back or anything like that
Speaker 1: until like a week later. Rich Foldsky's shrapnel wound healed
Speaker 1: quickly enough, but his memory would never be the same.
Speaker 1: At the time, that was the least of his concerns.
Speaker 1: He was desperate to get back to the squad, even
Speaker 1: if he had doubts about the bigger mission. Tell me
Speaker 1: about how you wanted to get out of the hospital
Speaker 1: and come back, Like you probably could have gone home
Speaker 1: if you cried a little bit and told him that's
Speaker 1: what you wanted to do. I end up coming back,
Speaker 1: like not not because I wanted to fight anymore. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to find more because I kind of a
Speaker 1: serious problem with the Taliban, you know. But uh, I
Speaker 1: had some revenge to get with them. But it's really
Speaker 1: not it's really not about that I came back because
Speaker 1: of these guys, the guys I'm out here with, Like
Speaker 1: this really isn't this really isn't my fight. It's not
Speaker 1: really America's fight either. We're kind just here, so I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not for that reason. It's only because I still
Speaker 1: got boys out here that I wanted to come back.
Speaker 1: Two weeks in the hospital was long enough for rich
Speaker 1: Bollski to feel like he was letting the squad down. Now,
Speaker 1: he tells me he still feels bad about being away.
Speaker 1: One thing that I found out afterwards that kind of
Speaker 1: really made me sad, Oh man, is that a h
Speaker 1: put a moody in a spot where you do carry
Speaker 1: the machine gun. Yep, that was my responsibility, not his. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sorry to get back rich Falskis. Memories maybe out of
Speaker 1: order and fuzzy around the edges, but dates and place
Speaker 1: names don't matter much. In the end. It was the
Speaker 1: people who mattered back and sang in the PB fires Marines,
Speaker 1: especially the guys in the squad, And it's the people
Speaker 1: who mattered to rich ball Ski all these years later too.
Speaker 1: He throws another log into the wood stove, and then
Speaker 1: he tells me about Dutch glasses. It's a guy who
Speaker 1: can do smart stuff. Happens a lot in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: Guys who have glasses get tasked with smart people's stuff.
Speaker 1: For sure. That's funny. He is a sweet human being man.
Speaker 1: The word I would put on him was sweet, loving, caring,
Speaker 1: not what you would expect of a marine or what
Speaker 1: of a marine where we were good human being a
Speaker 1: lot better than me. Do you remember the day that
Speaker 1: he got killed? What do you remember about that day?
Speaker 1: Remember the fucking explosion. I remember the crack, I remember
Speaker 1: the dust. By that day, September eleven, rich Volski had
Speaker 1: already survived one near death experience. Instinct took over. I
Speaker 1: had one of them gut feelings. Man, afterwards, he had
Speaker 1: already blown up at this point. But that's one of
Speaker 1: the few times I remember having a intense gut feeling
Speaker 1: that said, do not fucking move. Then I didn't. War
Speaker 1: is usually about force, not choices. Marines are told where
Speaker 1: to go and what to do when they get there.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that means rushing headlong into machine gun fire. But
Speaker 1: this time rich Volsky did make a choice. While other
Speaker 1: third Squad marines rushed up to help Dutch, rich Volsky
Speaker 1: stayed glued to the dirt behind his gun. It may
Speaker 1: be one of the tougher things I've done. I guess
Speaker 1: is not go, But I didn't. Something fucking told me
Speaker 1: don't fucking go over there. Tactically, I made the right choice. Morally,
Speaker 1: maybe not. What could you have done differently if you
Speaker 1: had rushed up and gotten closer, clogged it up, kutting
Speaker 1: in the way, gotten in the way, hit another I
Speaker 1: again again. Yeah, as we've been talking about all this,
Speaker 1: I can't help noticing how even keeled rich Foldsky is.
Speaker 1: And it isn't just the whiskey. Rich Foldski was laid
Speaker 1: back and sang into like he was just rolling with
Speaker 1: the punches. Do you ever get angry? Do you ever? No?
Speaker 1: I don't. I do not have rage. I did a
Speaker 1: lot of thinking about it. I think is is what
Speaker 1: it was, you know, of whether I wanted to be
Speaker 1: piste off about it or not. There's a short period
Speaker 1: of time after I got blown up, after the ninth,
Speaker 1: after the twelve brooded. That that brood took a long time,
Speaker 1: more than more than most of my broods. But yeah,
Speaker 1: came up with no, no, what, I don't have any
Speaker 1: hatred towards them. By them, rich Foldski means the Taliban,
Speaker 1: like fucking it's it's ward is just some guys killing
Speaker 1: each other, and it's that's the way it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be human nature. That's what it is. Dudes have been
Speaker 1: killing each other since the beginning of time, and we
Speaker 1: will continue killing each other till the end of time.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna change, man, you know, so there's no
Speaker 1: real grudge to be had. You know, this is pretty
Speaker 1: close to what Rich Bolski told me back in Sangin.
Speaker 1: What do you think about about Taliban? Why do you
Speaker 1: think they're fighting? What do you think they're their purposes?
Speaker 1: I'm sure if I was fucking born in Afghanistan, i'd
Speaker 1: probably be Taliban. Yeah, it's their deal, this is my deal.
Speaker 1: I remember being surprised by rich Boldski's sober view of
Speaker 1: the war. Back then. He didn't say anything about good
Speaker 1: guys or bad guys, nothing about good or evil. He
Speaker 1: didn't hold himself for America's cause up to be morally superior.
Speaker 1: And after all these years, outlook hasn't really changed, you know.
Speaker 1: I honestly believe they probably hated us more than I
Speaker 1: hated down Uh, because I'd really hate a guy that
Speaker 1: was fucking landed on my property coming up into your village. Yep,
Speaker 1: this is mine, you know. And yet his lack of
Speaker 1: hatred for the enemy does not imply an abundance of sympathy.
Speaker 1: I would have gladly killed any race of people for
Speaker 1: that any religion for that purpose of war at the time.
Speaker 1: If we were going anywhere else in the world, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have mattered what the opposition was. All it is
Speaker 1: is opposition the enemy, right, Yeah, yeah, all that's all that.
Speaker 1: That's all it would have ever been. You know, it
Speaker 1: didn't matter that they were in Muslim, didn't matter that
Speaker 1: they were you know, brown, It didn't matter man, that
Speaker 1: was the enemy at the time. It would be comforting
Speaker 1: to think that seventeen and eighteen year olds and lists
Speaker 1: out of patriotism and a deep commitment to service. But
Speaker 1: in my experience, the U. S Military, especially the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps Infantry, is chock full of rich Bolski's young men
Speaker 1: looking for adventure, who want to fight and don't really
Speaker 1: care where the war is happening or why, like Brian
Speaker 1: Sheer doing pull ups in the recruiter's office when he
Speaker 1: was eight years old, for John Bollinger, who just wanted
Speaker 1: to fight. Some guys have doubts farther down the road
Speaker 1: once they've had a taste of the big sock, but
Speaker 1: not rich Volski. For him, the war happened and now
Speaker 1: it's over. He proved himself in the ancient right of combat,
Speaker 1: made some great friends, and now he's home. Time to
Speaker 1: move on. I asked rich Volski if he thinks of
Speaker 1: what helps some of the other guys, if they learned
Speaker 1: to view their own war experiences dispassionately the way he does,
Speaker 1: to let go of their hatred of the enemy, for example.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't know if that would
Speaker 1: help him. I do not know. I think some people,
Speaker 1: some people need there to be a demon there to
Speaker 1: justify their feelings and their actions. Huh. I just don't
Speaker 1: need that. I don't go to sleep at night and
Speaker 1: wonder if I'm a good person or not, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I can look at myself and know
Speaker 1: that I'm a good person, regardless of whether you know
Speaker 1: I did some killing or not. Rich Volski tells me
Speaker 1: about one specific time in Sangin when he shot and
Speaker 1: killed a man on a roof the way he remembers it,
Speaker 1: the guy was setting up to shoot at Brian Scher.
Speaker 1: When you squeeze the trigger and took that life, did
Speaker 1: you feel like it was muscle memory, like it was
Speaker 1: doing your job or not. It's fucking exhilarating. It's good,
Speaker 1: it really is, you know, because that motherfucker was about
Speaker 1: to kill Sheer. So yeah, it's good, and it's still good,
Speaker 1: still good to this day. I like Shear Mourner, like
Speaker 1: that motherfucker. It will be easy to apply the word
Speaker 1: dehumanizing here. Rich Volsky had dehumanized the enemy, and therefore
Speaker 1: killing was easy. Rich Volski himself had been dehumanized by
Speaker 1: the military before he even arrived in Sangin, and therefore
Speaker 1: killing was easy and so on. But it's only dehumanizing
Speaker 1: if you believe that the capacity to kill for whatever
Speaker 1: reason is alien to human nature rather than part of
Speaker 1: what makes us human. Well, what's interesting to me about
Speaker 1: you versus the other people I've talked to so far
Speaker 1: is I think you're will nus to say that you
Speaker 1: don't hold a grudge, your willingness to say even back then, Hey,
Speaker 1: if people like us showed up in my hometown, I'd
Speaker 1: be fighting them too. You were willing back then and
Speaker 1: are still willing now to say that your enemy was
Speaker 1: doing something that made sense to you. Your enemy was
Speaker 1: basically human. And yet you're also willing to say that
Speaker 1: you felt exhilarated when you neutralize the threat, when you
Speaker 1: got to do your job, when you got to fire
Speaker 1: your machine gun, particularly when you got to eliminate the threat,
Speaker 1: when you got to kill the person who was trying
Speaker 1: to kill you. That that felt good. It's primal, man.
Speaker 1: The surge of adrenaline that comes with that primal experience
Speaker 1: is intoxicating, and I know how addictive it can be.
Speaker 1: The feeling of being the hunter and the hunted in
Speaker 1: a place where life isn't precious and the future isn't guaranteed,
Speaker 1: and you feel more alive because you're always ready to die.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after the break. In the decades since
Speaker 1: rich Bollski came home from Sangin, he says he's cried
Speaker 1: exactly twice. He was hammered drunk both times, and with
Speaker 1: other veterans, though not guys he served with. I asked
Speaker 1: him what brought on the tears? I just wish everybody
Speaker 1: would have come back. That would be what brings the sadness?
Speaker 1: And are there questions related to that? Uh? Like what
Speaker 1: I mean? Example? Can you give me an example? The
Speaker 1: simplest example would be why did I come back and
Speaker 1: they didn't. I do not have that question though, because
Speaker 1: life's a bit man. That's the way it works. So
Speaker 1: another question would be, and this is a question that
Speaker 1: a lot of your squad mates asked themselves, is could
Speaker 1: I have done something different? That's also one that doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't get to me either. I accept my actions, man,
Speaker 1: So what what would you say to guys who put
Speaker 1: that personal responsibility on themselves, who are asking themselves that question,
Speaker 1: could I have done something different? Or maybe if I
Speaker 1: had done this and not that, so and so would
Speaker 1: be here? What would you say to people who are
Speaker 1: kind of tortured by that? Make east with it, bud,
Speaker 1: and they're never gonna fucking change. Rich Volski is adding
Speaker 1: a new layer of meaning to the motto of the
Speaker 1: first Battalion, Fifth Marines, make peace or die, or maybe
Speaker 1: he's got a new motto altogether, make peace and live
Speaker 1: your life. It's fucking ten years later. If you're still
Speaker 1: blaming yourself, you better accept that it's your fucking fault.
Speaker 1: At this point, you gotta move on with your life.
Speaker 1: That sounds fucking savage, I know, to fucking say that
Speaker 1: a better way, Well, don't you think it would be
Speaker 1: better for them to accept the other side of it,
Speaker 1: which is accept that it's not my fault. Just I
Speaker 1: do think that's better, you know, And that's the side
Speaker 1: of it that I think is the truth. But it's
Speaker 1: been a fucking while now, and I feel like if
Speaker 1: you're still on that one, I think you need to
Speaker 1: figure a way to live with yourself because you may
Speaker 1: not be able to change it at this point. So
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. And I don't want to,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say this the wrong way, but
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong that you've had an easier
Speaker 1: time making peace with things than some of your friends.
Speaker 1: I would say, do you ever wonder about why that is?
Speaker 1: Do you ever or do you have any ideas about
Speaker 1: why that is? The The only answer to that question
Speaker 1: that I can give you is when I saw the Wizard,
Speaker 1: I only went to one once ever, and uh, she said,
Speaker 1: you had a good childhood, essentially, and that's why you're
Speaker 1: all right. So the whether there's a truth behind that
Speaker 1: or not, I don't know how anybody could her. No,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how a psychiatrist knows anything,
Speaker 1: because in my opinion, you can't be in anybody's brain.
Speaker 1: I think your brain is your brain, and I don't
Speaker 1: care how much science you'll throw at it. Fucking nobody's
Speaker 1: ever been in here but me, Like, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? So the wizard this is a fun expression.
Speaker 1: What does the wizard mean? That's the shrink psychiatrists. You know.
Speaker 1: I remember being there. I feel like I just played,
Speaker 1: I played the game, you know. Uh Like I felt
Speaker 1: like I knew the answers that she wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just I went with that, you know, And
Speaker 1: then she was like, all right, good you go. Richbolski
Speaker 1: and the rest of third Squad had to go see
Speaker 1: the Wizard after they got home from Sangon as part
Speaker 1: of a routine post deployant health screening. What were the
Speaker 1: answers that you thought she wanted to hear? What were
Speaker 1: the questions? Oh, there's a lot about guilt. I mean,
Speaker 1: funk man, you could be a psychiatrist. Hey, you're talking
Speaker 1: to me about all the same bullshit she did. You know.
Speaker 1: I swear to God, I believe this is it. It's
Speaker 1: not a very It's not all that different when you
Speaker 1: get down to it. Yeah, yeah, this is it. This
Speaker 1: is what we fucking did, except what we're putting it
Speaker 1: on audio. Well, also, you're not telling me what you
Speaker 1: think I want to hear. Are you no good? Because
Speaker 1: I don't want that. Like Michael Miner and Brian Sheer,
Speaker 1: rich ball Ski doesn't think the mental health profession has
Speaker 1: much to offer him. Do I think it's a bad thing. No,
Speaker 1: I think it's a good thing for people who need it.
Speaker 1: I just I don't think I needed it, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get roped into a thing. I feel
Speaker 1: like I could have easily got prescribed some fucking weird
Speaker 1: brain drugs to fucking make my brain crazy. I didn't
Speaker 1: like it. Shrinks aren't the only people rich Volsky is
Speaker 1: skeptical of. Should I'm skeptical about you, Bud. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that. Tell me about what what your skepticism is,
Speaker 1: because you weren't. You weren't skeptical of me when I
Speaker 1: was in Afghanistan. Yeah, I know I was. I was
Speaker 1: young and dumb. But you're skeptical of me now? Yes.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of ways to twist everything
Speaker 1: that I've said in the last hour, and it uh
Speaker 1: worries me that you're gonna do that. Rich Volski is
Speaker 1: built a quiet life for himself up here in Alaska,
Speaker 1: and he wants to keep it that way. When I
Speaker 1: first got in touch with him. He told me I
Speaker 1: could come visit and that we could talk, but he
Speaker 1: said he didn't really want to be the story and
Speaker 1: he didn't want to get too political. Now that I'm here,
Speaker 1: he tells me what he thinks I need to focus on.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the killing that needs to be
Speaker 1: touched on. I don't think it's uh why we got
Speaker 1: sent there that needs to be touched on. I don't
Speaker 1: think any of that fucking matters. The only part of
Speaker 1: this that would matter would be the guys who didn't
Speaker 1: come back, that didn't get to the side, if they
Speaker 1: want to be fucked up or if they want to
Speaker 1: fucking build a house. I think that's the part of
Speaker 1: the news to be touched on. Like well, I would
Speaker 1: be a very dishonest person if I told you that
Speaker 1: that's all I was going to touch on, I would
Speaker 1: be lying to you. I know, I know, because why
Speaker 1: you got sent there, the sense that you all made
Speaker 1: of it at the time, how you remember it, the
Speaker 1: nitty gritty, bad, sad, terrible things that happened, the killing,
Speaker 1: the aftermath, what you've all done since all of that
Speaker 1: stuff is is the story, right? I think a little uh,
Speaker 1: distrust on my end. It needs to go in there
Speaker 1: because I'm sure I'm not the only one. There's there's
Speaker 1: no fucking way, you know. I think you need to
Speaker 1: show that. It makes us feel weird to tell the story.
Speaker 1: It's not just that rich Volsky is skeptical of how
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell his story. It's also that he
Speaker 1: doesn't really see the point. I don't want to offend
Speaker 1: you with my skepticism. You're not going to because I
Speaker 1: like you, man, I like you. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a fucking dick, but you're not a dick. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that what's gonna fucking change, right? Maybe nothing?
Speaker 1: Probably nothing, But you know what will change if I
Speaker 1: don't do it? Definitely nothing. I doubt the Third Squad
Speaker 1: Marines were thinking about their historical legacy when they were
Speaker 1: in the thick of the fight and sang in they
Speaker 1: had more urgent concerns. But they are a part of history,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important to hear their stories. Rich
Speaker 1: Volski would just as soon close the book, and he's
Speaker 1: not tortured by his memories or his feelings about the
Speaker 1: war like some of the other guys. Why some people
Speaker 1: struggle more than others after a traumatic experience is one
Speaker 1: of the great unanswered questions. In rich Volski's case, his
Speaker 1: tb I induced memory problems might actually be a blessing,
Speaker 1: like the fact that there isn't this very clear, organized
Speaker 1: set of memories that you go back to over and
Speaker 1: over and over. I'm wondering if that doesn't help you
Speaker 1: in a certain way, sure does. Nothing is forced upon
Speaker 1: me repetitively by my own brain. Rich Volsky's tb I
Speaker 1: symptoms are relatively mild, but not everyone is so lucky.
Speaker 1: T b ies can cause serious problems like amnesia, seizures,
Speaker 1: chronic fatigue, and increased risk of dementia, as well as
Speaker 1: a host of emotional issues like violent mood swings, anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: and sexual dysfunction. T b I and PTSD often go
Speaker 1: hand in hand, and veterans with t b ies are
Speaker 1: more than twice as likely to commit suicide. World War
Speaker 1: One veterans who showed similar symptoms in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: artillery barrages were said to have shell shock, the signature
Speaker 1: injury of trench warfare. Almost a century later, t B
Speaker 1: eyes emerged as the signature injury of the post nine
Speaker 1: eleven Wars because of troops frequent exposure to i EB explosions.
Speaker 1: According to the Department of Defense, more than four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand U S service members experienced to t b I
Speaker 1: in the past two decades, including as many as one
Speaker 1: in every five I Rock and Afghanistan veterans. Rich Volski
Speaker 1: has come to view his tv I is something that
Speaker 1: helps him more than it hurts him, and there may
Speaker 1: be other reasons why he seems so unburdened by the war.
Speaker 1: Like the Wizard said, he might have bounced back because
Speaker 1: he had a good childhood in a supportive family. Or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just his laid back Hawaiian side shining through
Speaker 1: his gruff Alaskan exterior. I've made peace, man. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm at peace with myself. I'm at peace with where
Speaker 1: I'm at in my life. I'm good. Hi Ho, Hi Ho.
Speaker 1: It's off to work. We go. It's so much better
Speaker 1: of a drive when there's not anybody else. It's single
Speaker 1: digits and pitch black outside. The next morning, when rich
Speaker 1: Revolski and I climb into the cab of his pickup,
Speaker 1: I've got an early flight out of anchorage, and he
Speaker 1: has to be at work by seven am. On the drive,
Speaker 1: we keep our eyes peeled for moose. We swap hunting
Speaker 1: stories and talk about our mutual love for the wilderness,
Speaker 1: the mountains, rivers and wildlife that demand respect and deliver
Speaker 1: swift punishment to anyone who doesn't give it. Do you
Speaker 1: feel free? You know, no distractions, nobody around you, rely
Speaker 1: on yourself. Being out there in those vast and unforgiving
Speaker 1: places is exhilarating, but nothing matches the high of being
Speaker 1: at war. Unfortunately, that high and its soul shaping effect
Speaker 1: came at the steepest price. For us to have that
Speaker 1: primal experience that made us who we are, others had
Speaker 1: to die. Next time on third Squad, I'll be back
Speaker 1: in the lower forty eight visiting Scott mccitchen in Kentucky.
Speaker 1: I got kicked to the curb because I made one
Speaker 1: poor choice after fallless service, I would say when I
Speaker 1: got kicked out, I had no benefits or no direction
Speaker 1: or guideline, or none of my friends I had served
Speaker 1: with around me or in my life. I started selling cocaine,
Speaker 1: so I mean, and I was going to school as well,
Speaker 1: But how the hell else am I going to payper.
Speaker 1: I'm back to square one. What did that feel like
Speaker 1: for you? Suck felt like fucking defeat. I would describe
Speaker 1: it like the same way a guy feels when he
Speaker 1: walks in on his fucking wife Lane in bed with
Speaker 1: another dude. It felt that shitty. Third Squad is written
Speaker 1: and produced by Elliott Woods, Tommy Andres, and Maria Burne.
Speaker 1: It's an Heirloom Media production distributed by iHeart Media. Funding
Speaker 1: support for Third Squad comes from the National Endowment for
Speaker 1: the Humanities in collaboration with the Center for Warren Society
Speaker 1: at San Diego State University. If you're interested in supporting
Speaker 1: our work, please visit the donate page at third squad
Speaker 1: dot com, where you'll also find photographs from Sangin and
Speaker 1: from our road trip. Original music for Third Squad by
Speaker 1: Mondo Boys, editing and sound designed by John Ward, fact
Speaker 1: checking by Ben Kalin. Special thanks to Scott Carrier, Marianne Andre,
Speaker 1: Ted Genoways, Benjamin Bush, Caitlin esh Kerry, Gracie, Kevin Connolly,
Speaker 1: and Lena Ferguson. If you got a minute, please leave
Speaker 1: us a rating in your preferred podcast app. It will
Speaker 1: help other people find the show. You can Find me
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at Elliott Woods.