Speaker 1: So it's a Memorial Day, And obviously on Memorial Day
Speaker 1: we take a moment, we take a day to remember
Speaker 1: the follow and to remember the heroes who have paid
Speaker 1: the ultimate sacrifice to defend this nation, defend our country.
Speaker 1: We honor the families who have lost loved ones in
Speaker 1: the pursuit of freedom to protect this great country. But
Speaker 1: beyond taking the time to remember, shouldn't we also reflect?
Speaker 1: And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made
Speaker 1: as a country and things we could change moving forward,
Speaker 1: and being more judicious with the lives of our military
Speaker 1: men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their
Speaker 1: sole duty with our military men and women be to
Speaker 1: avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that
Speaker 1: we have less men and women who have to pay
Speaker 1: the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's
Speaker 1: why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only
Speaker 1: honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the
Speaker 1: people who give everything for this country that they love
Speaker 1: and that we love, but also take a time to reflect.
Speaker 1: And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it
Speaker 1: was the longest war in American history twenty years lost,
Speaker 1: so many service members, so many service men and women
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could learn there?
Speaker 1: What should we take from that and do differently moving forward?
Speaker 1: And who better to talk to you than Sean Parnell.
Speaker 1: He has a former US Army Airborne ranger who served
Speaker 1: in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years, retiring
Speaker 1: as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one for
Speaker 1: valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote the
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and he
Speaker 1: also wrote Man Award Outlaw Platoon details his sixteen months
Speaker 1: in combat and Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan, well,
Speaker 1: he was there. His platoon repeatedly was outnumbered, repeatedly outgunned,
Speaker 1: and they displayed such tremendous bravery to the that over
Speaker 1: of his platoon received Purple Hearts for wounds that they
Speaker 1: incurred in battle. Sean was also injured in battle, day
Speaker 1: in and day out, fighting for freedom in the mountains
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan. He was twenty four at the time. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine being twenty four and leading a platoon in
Speaker 1: the mounds of Afghanistan, day in, day out, out numbered out,
Speaker 1: gun fighting bravely and fearlessly next to your your brothers
Speaker 1: in the military and in the army. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: get Sean Parnell's take on what lessons we should learn
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan, what we could be doing different moving forward,
Speaker 1: and how we can truly honor, to the best of
Speaker 1: our abilities, the men and women who have paid the
Speaker 1: ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this conversation. He's an absolute hero, and he's an
Speaker 1: absolute badass, Sean Parnell. Sean Carnell, you are such a
Speaker 1: badass and such an American hero. It's an honor just
Speaker 1: to have you on the show. So I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you taking this time. Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't
Speaker 1: know if i'd call myself a badass, but I was.
Speaker 1: I was in the Army for a time and I
Speaker 1: was surrounded by badasses every day, so I guess I
Speaker 1: was pretty lucky. I'll call you badass, so I'll be
Speaker 1: the one. I'll do it because you can be humble.
Speaker 1: I will take the humility out of it for you. Um,
Speaker 1: you know we're recording this before. But this is gonna
Speaker 1: err on Memorial Day and obviously a day to honor
Speaker 1: the individuals and so many who have paid the ultimate
Speaker 1: sacrifice in the name of defending freedom, defending this great
Speaker 1: country that we love. But shouldn't we also take this
Speaker 1: time to learn lessons from you know, wars like Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and also using it as a time to be more
Speaker 1: judicious in sending our military men and women to war.
Speaker 1: I think so, I mean, you know, I think I
Speaker 1: think it speaks directly to the importance of you know,
Speaker 1: warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who
Speaker 1: fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards
Speaker 1: to where our country goes and the decisions that we
Speaker 1: make pertaining to the future of America and the wars
Speaker 1: that we get ourselves involved in. Um. You know, after
Speaker 1: I spent time in Afghanistan back in in two thousand
Speaker 1: six and two thousand and seven. UM, we were there
Speaker 1: for what like twenty years. You know, it's a long
Speaker 1: long time that I think most America, most of America, America,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to wrap your mind around that length of time,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I feel like, you look at
Speaker 1: what happened in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure
Speaker 1: that we spent there, right after twenty years there, Um,
Speaker 1: you look now and it's like, well, what do you
Speaker 1: have to show for it? You know? And look, I
Speaker 1: would know you this, like, I'm proud of my time
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. I don't regret it for a second. I
Speaker 1: joined after after September eleven. One of one of the
Speaker 1: best experiences of my life was serving this country. So
Speaker 1: I am not a victim in any way. I'm a
Speaker 1: volunteer and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
Speaker 1: And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: But and critics, critics would say, you know, when I
Speaker 1: would say, well, what will we have to show forward,
Speaker 1: critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look
Speaker 1: at what you do, what you built for the Afghans,
Speaker 1: you wells and villages. You know, little girls know how
Speaker 1: to read, and you know, boys are part of the
Speaker 1: economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is,
Speaker 1: even if it was just for a brief time. And
Speaker 1: I just say to that, yes, that is all true. Um,
Speaker 1: but I would rather have my friends alive, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And you look at what's happening today and the Afghan
Speaker 1: you know things, and in Afghanistan just collapsed what like
Speaker 1: less than a year ago, Lisa, right, like August two
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty one. And it seems like you have
Speaker 1: members of Congress on both sides of the Aisle, in
Speaker 1: the House and in the Senate that are clamoring to
Speaker 1: go right back into the fight in Ukraine, which from
Speaker 1: a geopolitical standpoint is just it's far more complicated than
Speaker 1: than Afghanistan. Um without even taking a breath after the
Speaker 1: Afghan warrant, saying, wait, is this really worth it? Should
Speaker 1: we like take time to hit the reset button as
Speaker 1: a country and figure out if, if this fight is
Speaker 1: worth Americans dying for, because that that's the question that
Speaker 1: American moms and dads need to ask themselves. Lisa's like,
Speaker 1: is Ukraine so important that you're willing to sacrifice your
Speaker 1: son or daughter for that? If the answer to that
Speaker 1: question is no, then we shouldn't be doing anything for Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And and look, Lisa, I feel bad for the people there.
Speaker 1: My heart aches for the civilians and children who are
Speaker 1: caught in the middle. Like this is not me saying
Speaker 1: like we should ignore it completely, Like nobody, like a
Speaker 1: few people in this country understand that the humanitarian disaster
Speaker 1: and people stuck in the middle of the fight that
Speaker 1: the me. I get that. But but again I would
Speaker 1: say I would rather have American sons and daughters alive.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we need to take care of
Speaker 1: ourselves here at home a little bit. First. We just
Speaker 1: see politicians, you know, beating the drums of war with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Udu Biden said something today about Taiwan about you know,
Speaker 1: you should take a military action. But you just hear
Speaker 1: these politicians and it almost there's a callousness to it,
Speaker 1: to be honest, because it doesn't take into account that,
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, it's it's would they send their
Speaker 1: son or daughter? You know, it just it doesn't take
Speaker 1: an account like I just lives or American people should
Speaker 1: be the most important to us. That lives the precious lives,
Speaker 1: or military men and one should be the most important
Speaker 1: to us, And it just doesn't. It doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be the case, and it makes me sad. Look, you're right, Lisa,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, it's it's well, I think part
Speaker 1: of the problem is that you only have point four
Speaker 1: percent of the people in this country who have served
Speaker 1: this country. During Iraq and Afghanistan's twenty years of war,
Speaker 1: so longest period of war in American history, only point
Speaker 1: four percent of the country actually experienced what it means
Speaker 1: to protect and defend freedom. And so I think as
Speaker 1: a result, you have, you know, most of American of
Speaker 1: America who enjoyed freedom on a day to day basis
Speaker 1: in this country, and you have less than half of
Speaker 1: one percent who protected. So there's there's a there's a
Speaker 1: significant gap between those two groups. And I think that's
Speaker 1: part of the reason why, you know, you have politicians
Speaker 1: who really never served anything but themselves for the majority
Speaker 1: of their lives talk so callously about sending American sons
Speaker 1: and daughters into the fight because the reality is they
Speaker 1: don't have any understanding of what that means for American
Speaker 1: families who are actually doing the fighting. Like for for example,
Speaker 1: when I got back from Afghanistan, sixteen month combat deployment,
Speaker 1: sixteen months, like four five days, It's like if you
Speaker 1: had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year,
Speaker 1: have a good second grade year, I'll see you on
Speaker 1: your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know, And
Speaker 1: you know, we got back, we hit the reset button.
Speaker 1: You know, most of we weren't even back for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. We already had to go right back
Speaker 1: down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home.
Speaker 1: Hugger families went back to do training down at Fort Polk,
Speaker 1: Louisiana and prep for another combat deployment to Afghanistan that
Speaker 1: was nine months later. I mean, it's an incredibly heavy
Speaker 1: burden that we that we place on a very very
Speaker 1: small percentage of Americans, and most of the time our
Speaker 1: politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess it sounds
Speaker 1: cool when you're up there at the podium, uh, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: of China invades Taiwan, like We're gonna get involved militarily,
Speaker 1: with no real understanding in the geopolitical consequences or the
Speaker 1: fall lot for the American people or how that would
Speaker 1: affect people who serve. I mean, it's it's just irresponsible,
Speaker 1: especially Lisa, when you consider just how much suffering there
Speaker 1: is here within our own borders at home. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of our a lot of our attention should
Speaker 1: be focused on well. And I think President Trump really
Speaker 1: changed at least my thinking on foreign policy because what
Speaker 1: he was able to show us is that you can
Speaker 1: be strong, you can flex muscle, you can deter the
Speaker 1: bad guys without sending troops, without invading, without beating the
Speaker 1: you know, the the drum beat for war, and you
Speaker 1: can do it like he did when he was sitting
Speaker 1: with President She you know, having chocolate cake, telling him
Speaker 1: he's sending Tomah health missiles. Right, it's such a fall
Speaker 1: or striking these peace deals on the Abrahambichords. It just
Speaker 1: changed the way, you know, I thought about things because
Speaker 1: he just showed us a different path. He really opened
Speaker 1: my eyes too. You know there there is a different
Speaker 1: way you know there and and when you're in Washington,
Speaker 1: I mean really when whether you're a Democrat or Republican
Speaker 1: there there is the group sink right where everyone sort
Speaker 1: of thinks the same way, um about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why you hear a lot of
Speaker 1: people talk about the uniparty, you know, where you have
Speaker 1: you know, people like you know, as ideologically different as
Speaker 1: Adam Kinzinger and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance
Speaker 1: of defending Ukraine, to even certain Democrats talking about the
Speaker 1: importance of defending our ally Ukraine, even though they're not
Speaker 1: an ally um um. You know, it's like you see,
Speaker 1: you see these certain groups of people that think alike Lisa.
Speaker 1: And what I always admired about President Trump is it
Speaker 1: takes an unbelievable amount of mental toughness to resist that
Speaker 1: type of pressure and group think, right. And and in Washington,
Speaker 1: President Trump was I mean, gosh, any given at any
Speaker 1: given moment. Uh in d C. In the White House,
Speaker 1: both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in angry at
Speaker 1: President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired
Speaker 1: about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think
Speaker 1: the American people sent him there, Because there is a
Speaker 1: level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just
Speaker 1: got outside the Beltway or New York City or l
Speaker 1: A and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America,
Speaker 1: they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction
Speaker 1: of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And
Speaker 1: you look at what he was able to accomplish in
Speaker 1: four years and in the face of I mean, so
Speaker 1: what that man faced in the White House was criminal.
Speaker 1: It was criminal. I mean, now we're learning of what
Speaker 1: what Hillary Clinton did. It was like make legitimately criminal,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But but the things that he was
Speaker 1: able to accomplish in four short years I never thought possible,
Speaker 1: and you know, the Abraham Accords and peace in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. Never thought that was possible, but he did it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like you said, it really opened my eyes
Speaker 1: to a new way of being and that you know, um,
Speaker 1: we don't have to deploy and get locked down, and
Speaker 1: like it's almost become cliche now in these in these
Speaker 1: forever wars, but that's really what they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: twenty freaking years in Afghanistan is a long time. I
Speaker 1: mean twenty years. I mean think about it like this,
Speaker 1: Like I'm forty years old. That's half of my life.
Speaker 1: We were in Afghanistan, like half of my life. The
Speaker 1: only professor, the only thing that I've known is war
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. Lost thirty five plus friends there. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a long time. And I think what President Trump
Speaker 1: showed us was that it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1: We can still have peace, um, as long as we're
Speaker 1: focused on the right stuff, um, and focusing on ourselves
Speaker 1: at home. And unfortunately, a year and a half of
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, he's unraveling that pretty quickly. I mean, I
Speaker 1: never thought it could get this bad, this fact us.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's really sad. But I but
Speaker 1: I honestly think I think the turning point for him
Speaker 1: was because you know, people thought he would restore order,
Speaker 1: he do all these things that obviously people like us
Speaker 1: knew he wasn't going to do and he wasn't capable
Speaker 1: of it. But his ratings really started to take a
Speaker 1: nosedive after Afghanistan. And it was the disastrous exit, the abandoning,
Speaker 1: like the back Roum airfield before getting her people out,
Speaker 1: getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind, And I
Speaker 1: think that was the turning point. And when that all
Speaker 1: was going down, you tweeted out that the Afghana baccles
Speaker 1: on the suits, not the boots. Talk about that disconnect
Speaker 1: in the military between the suits and the boots and
Speaker 1: how that played out with Afghanistan so disastrously. It was
Speaker 1: so frustrating to me. And part of what I do
Speaker 1: like coming back home after I got back from Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: was was realizing very quickly that a lot there are
Speaker 1: a lot of men and women here who served this
Speaker 1: country that needed help, and you know, there's a way
Speaker 1: in which you come back from war. War changes you,
Speaker 1: um and some pretty deep and fundamental ways, and you
Speaker 1: could you know, you come back and you meet and
Speaker 1: talk to your family and you feel like your family
Speaker 1: doesn't know you because you've changed, and you talk to
Speaker 1: your best friends. And there was a moment for me
Speaker 1: like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like the first
Speaker 1: thing I do when I get back from Afghanistan is
Speaker 1: like text my buddies, you know, who I went to
Speaker 1: college with and stuff. And like I opened up my
Speaker 1: like little flip phone and text them and they text
Speaker 1: me back their address and like look at it. Read
Speaker 1: the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these dudes
Speaker 1: are still living in the same address they've been living
Speaker 1: at for ten years, and I just got back from Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Feel like a totally different person show up at there.
Speaker 1: I show up at their apartment. I walk in and
Speaker 1: like they're like all sitting in the same spots on
Speaker 1: the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer, talking
Speaker 1: about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's posters
Speaker 1: on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking to myself, like oh my god, like
Speaker 1: nothing has changed here at home, but I'm different person
Speaker 1: in every way. And so if I was feeling like that,
Speaker 1: there are probably millions of Americans feeling like that. You
Speaker 1: come home from more and just feel like they're different,
Speaker 1: and maybe they feel like exiles in their own country.
Speaker 1: And so I started doing everything I could to make
Speaker 1: sure that, like the war is really what I'm I
Speaker 1: guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war for
Speaker 1: a lot of veterans really starts when you get home.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to just help veterans come home in
Speaker 1: the most productive way possible and not just survive on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis, but but really, but but thrive,
Speaker 1: you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan about
Speaker 1: it being on the suits and not the boots, was
Speaker 1: really it was in that spirit, because I knew there
Speaker 1: would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the
Speaker 1: hell was all this for? You know, why the hell
Speaker 1: did I Why did I lose my friend in this country?
Speaker 1: Why did I go to this country and and sacrifice
Speaker 1: a piece of myself there? You know? Why do we
Speaker 1: do all of this just to have some moron in
Speaker 1: the White House throw it all away, uh, because I mean,
Speaker 1: quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters, and he's
Speaker 1: a commander in chief, so that the term commander predisposes
Speaker 1: chief his job at first and foremost an obligation to
Speaker 1: our American military. And it was a it was a
Speaker 1: dereliction of duty of the highest order of what he
Speaker 1: did in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just
Speaker 1: leaving Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I
Speaker 1: can't even believe I have to say this, but the
Speaker 1: sacrifice that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban
Speaker 1: in a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime.
Speaker 1: It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral
Speaker 1: damage to people who served there that the ramisifications of
Speaker 1: which I don't think we fully understand yet. Um. And
Speaker 1: so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness the
Speaker 1: fall of Afghanistan and the speed at which it fell
Speaker 1: here in America after having been there for twenty years. Um.
Speaker 1: And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under
Speaker 1: President Trump or really any American president. They could speak
Speaker 1: in coherent sentences without having to read off a sheet
Speaker 1: of paper. I mean, just unbelievable, and you can't help
Speaker 1: but think you cannot help, but think, like I used
Speaker 1: to joke around in the campaign trail when I was
Speaker 1: running for the House and the Senate um well mostly
Speaker 1: when I was running for the Senate, but like about
Speaker 1: like just to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's intentional. I think that
Speaker 1: this is you can't be this good. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and in his administration a bunch of Obama
Speaker 1: appointees two point over right back in the White House,
Speaker 1: some of which are sermon in the same cabinet positions.
Speaker 1: It it's like they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying
Speaker 1: almost every pillar in this country, I mean every pillar
Speaker 1: strengthening country. It's unbelievable that they the level of which
Speaker 1: they're failing. And I think Afghanistan was just one of
Speaker 1: those pillars. Well, I think we all just felt such
Speaker 1: an amount of shame with the way that we exited.
Speaker 1: Just the loss of military men and women are sort
Speaker 1: of the thirteen service members and just leaving Americans behind.
Speaker 1: Quick Commercial break Back with Sean Parnell on the other side,
Speaker 1: talked about sort of you know, the challenge with coming
Speaker 1: home when you've been at war like that. I'll say
Speaker 1: one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had in
Speaker 1: my career was doing an honor air flight for Vietnam
Speaker 1: war vets from Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I
Speaker 1: went on this trip with them, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: it was just such a moving experience talking to these
Speaker 1: like big, strong guys who were just brought to tears
Speaker 1: of just feeling the honor of having served because they
Speaker 1: didn't get the welcome they deserved when they came home.
Speaker 1: And so just doing the interviews with them and seeing
Speaker 1: these you know, grown men and you know cry and
Speaker 1: just it was just incredibly moving, uh And I learned
Speaker 1: a lot from it. It It was just a really you know,
Speaker 1: humbling and just incredible experience, you know, spending time with
Speaker 1: them and just being able to bless them and being
Speaker 1: part of this with the trip. Yeah, well, Vietnam vets
Speaker 1: are I mean, we owe them so much. And obviously,
Speaker 1: because as you mentioned, they didn't have the welcome home
Speaker 1: that that we did. And so much of the reason
Speaker 1: why my generation was welcomed home was because after like
Speaker 1: what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era went through, they
Speaker 1: made themselves a promise to never allow another generation of
Speaker 1: veteran to experience what they did. And because of that,
Speaker 1: like we had by and large, a very positive homecoming,
Speaker 1: you know. And I when I talk about feeling like
Speaker 1: an exile in your own country, I should say, like
Speaker 1: almost everybody that you talked to you says thank you
Speaker 1: for your service. I am not again, like we're lucky
Speaker 1: to live in a country like like America and come
Speaker 1: home to people that that appreciate you. And that that
Speaker 1: is because of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when
Speaker 1: they came back, went through hell, and combat through hell,
Speaker 1: and they came back and then but didn't give in.
Speaker 1: And they they made a promise to you know, subsequent
Speaker 1: generations of Americans when they came home from the fight,
Speaker 1: and and and that promise was to never allow what
Speaker 1: they went through to happen again. And I mean, really
Speaker 1: my generation is standing on the shoulders of giants with
Speaker 1: with them and and World War Two veterans and career
Speaker 1: veterans before them. UM, so yeah, we're we're lucky. We're
Speaker 1: lucky to live in this country. But there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of work to do, that's for sure. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine how it doesn't change you, particularly some of this
Speaker 1: stuff that you endured. You know, I know you very humbly.
Speaker 1: You know, didn't take me saying that you're, you know,
Speaker 1: a complete badass and a hero, but you really are.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've retired at highly decorated captain. You're awarded
Speaker 1: two Bronze Stars, one for valor and a purple Heart.
Speaker 1: You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon.
Speaker 1: It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth
Speaker 1: Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in
Speaker 1: combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out in
Speaker 1: our ber, repeatedly outgun. Yeah, your platoon killed over three
Speaker 1: fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was
Speaker 1: able to be so effective in the face of so much? Um,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. I think when you look at
Speaker 1: the things that the American military can bring to the fight,
Speaker 1: you know, like we've got lots of cool and sexy technology,
Speaker 1: like we've got great guns and weapons, and we've got
Speaker 1: air superiority helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that.
Speaker 1: Believe me when I tell you all that really really helps.
Speaker 1: But I think really are our secret weapon was the
Speaker 1: the love and brotherhood that we shared for one another. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we we spent a lot of time training
Speaker 1: UM leading up to our deployment in Afghanistan. And I
Speaker 1: feel like I was very blessed um to lead one
Speaker 1: of the most diverse platoons that you can imagine. And
Speaker 1: it's funny when you hear a lot of these politicians
Speaker 1: talking about diversity in America being a strength, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: of course diversity is a strength, but not in it
Speaker 1: of itself. What what makes America so truly exceptional is
Speaker 1: that we unify beyond like our many differences, Right, It's
Speaker 1: not just diversity for diversity's sake. And really, my platoon
Speaker 1: was a microcosm of that strength. Like we had black
Speaker 1: next white Christians next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich,
Speaker 1: next to poor, young, next to old. We were like
Speaker 1: as wildly different as you can imagine, Yet there were
Speaker 1: no real hyper there were no hyphenative Americans out there
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan patrol on those those mountains. Um. And it
Speaker 1: was the very fact that I think we were able
Speaker 1: to put aside all of our differences and unify beyond
Speaker 1: them and the one cohesive fighting force that that that
Speaker 1: was what allowed us to to go through sixteen months
Speaker 1: of absolute hell, sixteen months of heavy combat, and and
Speaker 1: make it you know, um, you know, we made ourselves
Speaker 1: a promise. I think what drove us every day on
Speaker 1: the battlefield, Lisa was was the fear of of of
Speaker 1: not the enemy, but the fear of letting each other down.
Speaker 1: You know. Um. I would have soldiers that would get
Speaker 1: that would get shot in the head, a soldier that
Speaker 1: got shot through his helmet, his helmet slowed the round
Speaker 1: down enough where it penetrated his skin but not his skull,
Speaker 1: and skirted around the side of his all and back
Speaker 1: out the other end. And that guy went back to
Speaker 1: the base, wrapped his head up, and was back out
Speaker 1: of patrol twenty four hours later. So when you're when
Speaker 1: you're serving with men or Americans that have that much
Speaker 1: like that, the level of toughness and tenacity and dedication
Speaker 1: to duty that someone that that someone like that has
Speaker 1: how do you fail somebody like that, Like if you
Speaker 1: twist an anc or you you take some shrapnel or
Speaker 1: you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound,
Speaker 1: Like how do you how do you how do you
Speaker 1: how do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by
Speaker 1: men like I just described. And so it was the
Speaker 1: fact that we were able to really to unify beyond
Speaker 1: our many differences in fear of letting each other down,
Speaker 1: that really drove us to accomplish I think extraordinary things
Speaker 1: and and really I mean it, like my platoon really
Speaker 1: just accomplished. It was just one unbelievable triumph of the
Speaker 1: human spirit after the next. I mean, we were not
Speaker 1: like Navy seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen.
Speaker 1: So we're in the tenth Mountain Division. We were light infantry.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were real well trained and stuff. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces.
Speaker 1: You know, the most of the jobs that a lot
Speaker 1: of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine
Speaker 1: gun in the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to
Speaker 1: the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these these
Speaker 1: kids were just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's
Speaker 1: because we were led on one another and that's what's
Speaker 1: what allowed us to get through it all. And you're
Speaker 1: twenty four at the beginning right of this painting. I mean,
Speaker 1: how do you do that at and be responsible for
Speaker 1: all these brave men that you just talked about. I mean,
Speaker 1: what an incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but how do you know? I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You just you know. I I um had a conversation
Speaker 1: with my mom when I got back from Afghanistan and
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years after, and my youngest brother,
Speaker 1: I'm the oldest of four, and so my youngest brother
Speaker 1: was like like helping my middle brother moved down to
Speaker 1: Texas or something like that or and my mom was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm nervous that your younger brother and he's gonna have
Speaker 1: to drive drive, you know, his brother's car all the
Speaker 1: way down to Texas. And I'm like thinking, like my
Speaker 1: and he's twenty three years old, Like I think he'll
Speaker 1: be all right. I was leading people in Afghanistan at
Speaker 1: twenty three years old, you know, So I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, Yeah, I was just like it
Speaker 1: was just something that we were laughing at about it. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't after so I think part of
Speaker 1: that Lisa's like I was a sophomore in college when
Speaker 1: nine eleven happened, Um, and that that hit me that
Speaker 1: like like it did some millions of other Americans, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think if you live through nine eleven, you
Speaker 1: can probably tell me exactly where you were and what
Speaker 1: you were doing and what you had plans to do
Speaker 1: that day. Um. And I the only thing, like I
Speaker 1: was kind of like a I was kind of a
Speaker 1: screw up as a kid, Like my grades were okay,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really know what I wanted to do
Speaker 1: as an elementary education major. But again as a sophomore
Speaker 1: in college, and I must have changed my major a
Speaker 1: few times, like um, but when nine eleven happened, I
Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to to join the army, going
Speaker 1: the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school,
Speaker 1: like be on the front lines of our collective response.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just knew. I knew it, um,
Speaker 1: in my heart of hearts, that that was that was
Speaker 1: the path that God intended me to walk at that
Speaker 1: specific moment, in my life. And that's I think. I
Speaker 1: think this is my faith in God and that that
Speaker 1: was my purpose. I think that that's how I was
Speaker 1: able to do it. And you know, years old, when
Speaker 1: you when I just feel like when you know what
Speaker 1: path you're meant to walk, and you know that like,
Speaker 1: no matter how bad things get, this is where you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be. I've got no regrets, um, I just
Speaker 1: think it gives you a sense of clarity, you know,
Speaker 1: about what you're supposed to do and and and in
Speaker 1: my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan a years old,
Speaker 1: you know, um. And as horrible as that combat was,
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, like we we like an you think
Speaker 1: back to two thousand and six. You I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're doing stuff at Fox back then,
Speaker 1: I sure as hell wasn't. I mean, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing
Speaker 1: you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't of no, I'll tell you that much. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean we're probably we're probably the
Speaker 1: same age, you know, so I'm a little I'm a
Speaker 1: little older than you, but you know, I'll take those
Speaker 1: a couple of years. But you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was the path I was I
Speaker 1: was meant to walk, you know, and you know, get
Speaker 1: back and you see, I was able to take a
Speaker 1: company command and then did a b a time were
Speaker 1: detachment command, and so at the age of eight years
Speaker 1: old end up being in charge of like eighteen or
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred uh like people, where I was in charge
Speaker 1: of training young soldiers to go to war and taking
Speaker 1: care of the wounded when they came home, and then
Speaker 1: looking after the families who were left back at home,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately doing the capture notification, which was ten
Speaker 1: times worse than than combat. So I've seen both sides
Speaker 1: of the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close
Speaker 1: and personal, um and I've seen the fallout here at home.
Speaker 1: And when I was saying earlier, is it like no
Speaker 1: one expected Michael Tune or or are experience in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: leads to be like what it was like if you
Speaker 1: think back to two thousand and six and if you're
Speaker 1: a congressional staffer, are working on the hill or something
Speaker 1: like that back then, then you know, the talk back
Speaker 1: then was the Iraq War and whether or not there
Speaker 1: are weapons of mass destruction there? Or should we should
Speaker 1: George W. Bush send more troops to the surge in
Speaker 1: Iraq or not? Should we even be there or not.
Speaker 1: At the time, Afghanistan was just a stability and support operation.
Speaker 1: We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into,
Speaker 1: and man, like we just got thrown into the meat ground.
Speaker 1: Were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from
Speaker 1: the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple
Speaker 1: as you can. You can get phind Osama bin laden
Speaker 1: close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man,
Speaker 1: we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered
Speaker 1: every single day. I mean my my base, my base
Speaker 1: m hmm probably took four thousand rockets and four five days,
Speaker 1: four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements, and
Speaker 1: we just sort of just like got thrown in there,
Speaker 1: you know, were the so much of the focus of
Speaker 1: this nation was on Iraq that we couldn't even get
Speaker 1: up armored humb beast because all that was going to Iraq.
Speaker 1: Like before, we were supposed to come home after after
Speaker 1: a year, Um, we got extended for four more months,
Speaker 1: sixteen months. Why because the soldiers that were supposed to
Speaker 1: replace US in Afghanistan got sent to Iraq and supported
Speaker 1: the surge, just so we were sort of like an
Speaker 1: afterthought and we went through absolute hell. And ultimately Lisa
Speaker 1: that that's why I wrote the book, because I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, like, oh my God, like nobody knows in
Speaker 1: this country, and nobody knew how bad Afghanistan was way
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and six. Nobody, And I just
Speaker 1: felt like it was my job as the leader of
Speaker 1: that platoon to make sure that the legacy of my
Speaker 1: soldiers that was kept alive. And you know, even if
Speaker 1: Outlaw Betune ended up being a word document on my
Speaker 1: computer that I emailed all of my troops that like
Speaker 1: maybe once every ten years we read through and drank
Speaker 1: beers or whatever like that would be that's worth it.
Speaker 1: At least their experiences on the page preserved forever. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I didn't know that it would take
Speaker 1: off and become a bestseller in his first week, and
Speaker 1: I was I feel like I was also lucky. It
Speaker 1: was all sort of maybe it was a state Um
Speaker 1: when Outlaw Betune came out. Do you remember that story
Speaker 1: way back in a day where UM soldiers at bog
Speaker 1: where I'm got in trouble for like burning a Koran
Speaker 1: or something like that, and that was like all over
Speaker 1: the news. Um, it was like headline news for like
Speaker 1: a week Outlaw Betune came out at that exact time,
Speaker 1: and I was like the young kid with an Afghanis
Speaker 1: with a new Afghanistan book. Then you know how that
Speaker 1: goes on Fox Dudes and stuff like that. Like I
Speaker 1: was a dude guy with a book, so I was
Speaker 1: able to go on there and promote it and the
Speaker 1: rest is history. I was just it was just it
Speaker 1: was just a blessing to be able to have that opportunity.
Speaker 1: You tell, tell the story of my troops. You have
Speaker 1: talked about. You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment,
Speaker 1: being the US, but you're on their terrain and you're
Speaker 1: in the mountains. How difficult is it to try to
Speaker 1: navigate that when you know you're you're on their home base, right,
Speaker 1: you're in their mountains. That is a good That's another
Speaker 1: great question. It was. It was ridiculous. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: another thing about Afghanistan, like do you want to go
Speaker 1: back to a time where Jesus Christ walk the earth
Speaker 1: at the a k forty seven like the icoon walkie
Speaker 1: talkie type radio at a pickup truck, and you've got
Speaker 1: Afghanistan there. When we were there, there was like one
Speaker 1: paved road in the entire country, no running water, no electricity,
Speaker 1: no economy, all all finding age males would do all
Speaker 1: the men and in the villages that we were around
Speaker 1: would cut down wood all summer and prep for the winter.
Speaker 1: And that was it. That's all like there was nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: and it's just all tribal. And so when we were
Speaker 1: where we were in Burmel, like Burmel District, was that
Speaker 1: we were in the valley, our base was in the valley.
Speaker 1: But fighting up in the mountains, I mean we're probably
Speaker 1: at fourteen fifteen thousand feet there, you know, in the
Speaker 1: Hindu Kush mountains. And so if you if you're like
Speaker 1: a football fan, that's like playing a football game at
Speaker 1: Marahei Stadium times three. And the enemy that we faced
Speaker 1: over there again, like you hear the media talk about
Speaker 1: and you certainly saw this during the collapse of Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: but but the media talks about the Taliban as if
Speaker 1: they're in monolithic force and they are not. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have so many different enemy factions that you face
Speaker 1: over there on a day to day basis, whether it's
Speaker 1: the Hakkani network or hak Matier or al Qaeda or Taliban,
Speaker 1: or just crimes that happened on a day to day
Speaker 1: basis like any other country. That like any other country
Speaker 1: in the world. And as a young leader you've got
Speaker 1: to like navigate all that somehow and be almost like
Speaker 1: you know, an ambassador, an American ambassador with a gun,
Speaker 1: you know, ready on a moment's notice to either you know,
Speaker 1: fire your weapon in defense of of your troops or
Speaker 1: cradle a baby in a village where you're doing a
Speaker 1: humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was one of the most complex,
Speaker 1: rugged environments that I certainly have ever been in. And
Speaker 1: you know, you add to that the fact that all
Speaker 1: of those enemy factions that that I just told you about,
Speaker 1: like most of those most of the the enemy that
Speaker 1: we face in Afghanistan cut their teeth against the Russians
Speaker 1: in the eighties and then thought in the Afghan Civil
Speaker 1: War in the nineties and then against us in a
Speaker 1: post nine eleven era. And you know, the the average
Speaker 1: Afghan that we were fighting had ten years combat experience
Speaker 1: on eighteen year old American private you know, Um, this
Speaker 1: was not a group of farmers with with pitchforks or
Speaker 1: some sort of rag tag insurgency that they just mustered
Speaker 1: up at the last second. Now, the people that we
Speaker 1: fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they displayed
Speaker 1: on the battlefield on a day to day basis was
Speaker 1: just as good, if not better than us. And they
Speaker 1: weren't weighed down with a hundred pounds of gear like
Speaker 1: we were, and they knew the terrain better better than
Speaker 1: we did, at least initially, because what you know, as
Speaker 1: obviously being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce.
Speaker 1: It was horrible. But um, what was interesting as this,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound crass, but we killed so
Speaker 1: many of them over there that that we were getting
Speaker 1: intel in May of two thousand and seven that Pakistan
Speaker 1: families were sick and tired of sending their sons into
Speaker 1: the fight. They were they were no longer going to
Speaker 1: commit male fighters to the war in Afghanistan. And what
Speaker 1: we saw that a lot of the new fighters that
Speaker 1: had replaced the older ones that we had killed didn't
Speaker 1: know the terrain as good as us. So it was
Speaker 1: a real odd dynamic where at first they were better
Speaker 1: than us, they were faster than us, they knew the terrain,
Speaker 1: but slowly over time because we never broke contact, we
Speaker 1: never surrendered, We we always pressed the enemy. We would
Speaker 1: never give them that moral victory on the battlefield. We
Speaker 1: just slowly whittled away at their force and killed them
Speaker 1: one by one, to the point where at the end
Speaker 1: of sixteen months we knew the terrain better than they did.
Speaker 1: And and all of this culminated in an attack, um,
Speaker 1: probably in January. It was early January of two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. We had built my pet tune had built
Speaker 1: or my company had built, the first combat outpost. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen like you know, uh, I can't
Speaker 1: remember some of the movies names that the movie where
Speaker 1: you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun. Um,
Speaker 1: probably every year after I was Afghanistan a combat outpost
Speaker 1: had been overrun. Lisa and and and like I was
Speaker 1: highly critical of that strategy because like all, they would
Speaker 1: be manned with almost no combat power, with like a
Speaker 1: squad and all they would David just be simply relegated
Speaker 1: to a defensive position. There and all along the border
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with what
Speaker 1: they call cops like combat outposts, and it almost looked
Speaker 1: like a modern day version of imagine O line thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: if we have all these bases along the border, there's
Speaker 1: no way the enemy will be able to get bias
Speaker 1: and that's complete bs um. So anyway, like they tried
Speaker 1: to attack this base that we had built and we
Speaker 1: ended up killing, killing, I think like two hundred plus
Speaker 1: fighters just in that one engagement decisively because we caught
Speaker 1: them just prior to them kicking off the attack. And
Speaker 1: I mean I I would wager to say that that
Speaker 1: from a strategic and tactical standpoint, back in two thousand
Speaker 1: six and two thousand seven, we had we had decisively
Speaker 1: won the fight in Afghanistan, and then we shifted from
Speaker 1: a counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a
Speaker 1: counter terror mission is going after and killing the enemy,
Speaker 1: and through killing the enemy you secure the people UH
Speaker 1: to counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think there are there are the strategists
Speaker 1: that would say the surgeon Iraq was successful. I think
Speaker 1: I would tend to tend to agree, at least in
Speaker 1: the moment back then, it was pretty successful. While they
Speaker 1: tried to implement that exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which
Speaker 1: is an entirely different country, and once we shifted to counterinsurgency,
Speaker 1: we lost the initiative and Afghanistan went slowly downhill. From there,
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then more
Speaker 1: on Sean's time at Afghanistan on the other side. Take
Speaker 1: us back to you June tenth, two thousand six. Your
Speaker 1: your platoon was outnumbered by almost tend to one, ended
Speaker 1: up leaving you with injuries. You know, talk about that
Speaker 1: day and what happened. So June tenth, um we had
Speaker 1: been tasked, we're tasked with finding a high value target,
Speaker 1: and we had been out for a week up until
Speaker 1: that point. And we sat up and in and what
Speaker 1: we call an observation post, and we were just watching
Speaker 1: infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan. And we knew that
Speaker 1: this al Qaeda leader was using a cave complex to
Speaker 1: navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which is how he was
Speaker 1: avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance and surveillance drones. So
Speaker 1: we perched up on the hill, we we laid our
Speaker 1: sites in on this cave site, which we what she
Speaker 1: thought he was using. UM, and set in for the night.
Speaker 1: Woke up the next morning, UM, and all throughout the
Speaker 1: night I had plotted target reference points and confirmed them
Speaker 1: with our base at A target reference point is like
Speaker 1: when you've got artillery at your base. UM. You want
Speaker 1: to be able to Artillery is basically like big guns,
Speaker 1: and you want to be able to get those guns
Speaker 1: into the fight as fast as humanly possible should you
Speaker 1: make contact with the enemy. And best way to do
Speaker 1: that is not like trying to plot it in the
Speaker 1: middle of a fight, right, I think is the best
Speaker 1: military commanders would look at a map and pick key
Speaker 1: terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain.
Speaker 1: If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to
Speaker 1: attack if you're easily. So I'm gonna plot this hill
Speaker 1: it's target reference point one. And then you can coordinate
Speaker 1: with the with the guns and say, look, this is
Speaker 1: my target reference point one. When I say fired t
Speaker 1: RP one, this is what I mean, and you just
Speaker 1: you set in target reference point one through ten. UM.
Speaker 1: Prior to even leaving, and so I had been I
Speaker 1: had studied those throughout the night. The sun crested the
Speaker 1: hill of the next morning, and I remember walking out
Speaker 1: and looking at some mountaintops to directly to our east
Speaker 1: that were a lot higher than the one that we
Speaker 1: were on, and I just thought to myself, that's not
Speaker 1: a good tactical position to be in, and so I
Speaker 1: don't have the manpower to occupy those hills with troops.
Speaker 1: In a perfect world, you would just occupy terrain it
Speaker 1: was higher than yours with boots, but I didn't have that.
Speaker 1: I just had one platoon. So I figured I'd occupy
Speaker 1: those hilltops by fire, and if the enemy was watching us,
Speaker 1: they would think twice about setting in there because I
Speaker 1: know that I have this position styled in. And so
Speaker 1: I fired those target reference points with my forward observer,
Speaker 1: watched those, watched the rounds land um on point and
Speaker 1: on target. Remember walking back to my truck and and
Speaker 1: it's just like somebody threw a veil over my entire world,
Speaker 1: and I remember, I don't remember much, but I do
Speaker 1: remember waking up in in a smoldering hole about twenty
Speaker 1: ft from where I had been standing, laying flat on
Speaker 1: my back, and I couldn't see. I couldn't really hear,
Speaker 1: but I could feel this stinging on my face and
Speaker 1: it just felt like like like I was someone was
Speaker 1: slapping me. And as I have blinked blinked my eyes open,
Speaker 1: I sid one of my team leaders, Tim Stalter, slapping
Speaker 1: me um and trying to get me to wake up.
Speaker 1: And I finally wake up, open my eyes. I look
Speaker 1: at him. He's got this big smile on his face,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what are you smiling at? What's going on?
Speaker 1: He sir, He's like, you got blown the f up?
Speaker 1: And he started laughing, like what the hell is he
Speaker 1: laughing at? And I remember just like looking beyond him
Speaker 1: at these trees, because we had these big, huge trees
Speaker 1: up on the hilltop with us that a lot of
Speaker 1: my men were taking cover behind, and the tops of
Speaker 1: these trees that looked like they hadn't been touched since
Speaker 1: the prehistoric era. Um, they were just getting blown to
Speaker 1: smithereens like just crazy. And I remember looking to my
Speaker 1: left hand, which was shaking, and it's just like kind
Speaker 1: of lane in the Afghan dust, and I could see
Speaker 1: rounds landing between my fingers, like like the level of
Speaker 1: fire that that we were being hit with was like
Speaker 1: nothing i've ever seen before felt before like it. Like
Speaker 1: I felt like laying there on the ground with one
Speaker 1: of my soldiers on top, Like if I moved even
Speaker 1: one centimeter to the left of the right, I get shot.
Speaker 1: I And that's how heavy the fire was. Remember looking
Speaker 1: to my left and I see my platoon sergeant Greg Greason,
Speaker 1: and his back is like covered in blood and he's
Speaker 1: pointing to himself like saying that he's hit. And all
Speaker 1: around my perimeter, I had five gun trucks on the
Speaker 1: hilltop that day, and I had twenty four soldiers on
Speaker 1: the ground along with one interpreter. But all along the perimeter,
Speaker 1: at every one of my trucks, almost everybody was hit.
Speaker 1: Like my platoon sergeant was head he's my number two
Speaker 1: and chain of command. UM squadly or Phil Baldwin was
Speaker 1: shot in the leg. Um. He wasn't really trying to
Speaker 1: deal with that injury, but he was trying to furiously
Speaker 1: stop the bleeding of his team leader, Bennett Garvin, who
Speaker 1: was shot in the arm. I watched Mike Emrick up
Speaker 1: on the gun, up on his fifth the caliber machine gun,
Speaker 1: up on his truck. He got shot in the head,
Speaker 1: fell on the truck, popped back up without his helmet on. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean it was all hell was breaking loose. Within
Speaker 1: within sixty seconds of getting attacked that day, almost every
Speaker 1: key meter in my opportune had been hit, including myself.
Speaker 1: And as I sat up, like the stalter of the
Speaker 1: kid that had like brought me back stat me up straight,
Speaker 1: and I remember feeling it's like clear liquid leaking out
Speaker 1: of my nose and my ears. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: it at the time, but it ended up being like
Speaker 1: strebral spinal fluid. I had fractured my skull very slightly
Speaker 1: um after getting blown up, and I just remember thinking, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not bleeding, I must be something else, and got
Speaker 1: up and got back into the fight. And I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out at this point, like how many people
Speaker 1: are injured, how many of my trucks can drive, what
Speaker 1: weapons systems are up versus down? How many rounds of
Speaker 1: ammunition that we have left, Like I've got to get
Speaker 1: the artillery at the base firing back on these guys.
Speaker 1: I should be calling for air support. I got to
Speaker 1: get back to my truck to do it. All. Um,
Speaker 1: looking at those hilltops that I had called for fire on.
Speaker 1: Lisa the enemy had emplaced, uh, three machine gun nests
Speaker 1: on each hilltop that I called for fire on. So
Speaker 1: they had six machine guns dialed in on our position,
Speaker 1: and they were firing in in what was like an X,
Speaker 1: like if you had to draw an X over my hilltop,
Speaker 1: My hilltop was right where that where the X intersected.
Speaker 1: So they had us in a wicked crossfire. And they
Speaker 1: were at an elevated position, so they were hitting us
Speaker 1: with what's called plunging fire. So they were arching the
Speaker 1: rounds down on top of us. Um. The reason why
Speaker 1: people do that is because if you're like taking cover
Speaker 1: behind a rock or something, you want to be able
Speaker 1: to like drop the round in on top of them.
Speaker 1: So it just minimizes minimizes your an enemy's ability to
Speaker 1: take cover. And I'm watching them hit us with plunging
Speaker 1: fire and thinking like, holy hell, like how the hell
Speaker 1: do they know how to do that, you know, And
Speaker 1: I'm watching the guns, the support by fire positions that
Speaker 1: they had, the two separate ones. They weren't just firing
Speaker 1: all at the same time. One gun would fire and stop,
Speaker 1: the next gun would fire and stop, the next one,
Speaker 1: you know, and so on and so forth. And the
Speaker 1: reason why they did that is because if they fired
Speaker 1: those guns on like a cyclic rate, their barrels would melt.
Speaker 1: So they were firing and letting their barrels cool. It's
Speaker 1: like all the way up and down the line again,
Speaker 1: never fought like that. That's what we do, Lisa, that
Speaker 1: that's how we fight. And so the enemy had hit
Speaker 1: my position with air burst mortars to keep the head
Speaker 1: keep our heads down, while they simultaneously in placed two
Speaker 1: separate support by fire positions. And the next step is
Speaker 1: I'm trying to like unpack everything that's happening. And really,
Speaker 1: like when you're in a moment like that, it's like
Speaker 1: remember like you ever looked through like a kaleidoscope when
Speaker 1: you're a kid, and you turn the kaleidoscope and you
Speaker 1: see all those colors move around like that, it's all
Speaker 1: sort of happening at once. That's like that. It's like
Speaker 1: being like that. It's like combat is like that, a
Speaker 1: million different things happening all around you all at once.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to figure out what they're gonna do,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, oh my god, like a viour them,
Speaker 1: I'd attack and no sooner did I did? I think
Speaker 1: that they did from both of those hill tops. Two
Speaker 1: platoon sized elements like forty men plus so rushing down
Speaker 1: those hill tops and up to our position. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just like a human wave attack. Again. They were
Speaker 1: one fire team moving, the other one shooting, and they
Speaker 1: were bounding and with squad leader like giving fire team commands.
Speaker 1: It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. So I
Speaker 1: ended up get into my truck and calling for fire.
Speaker 1: I called for fire danger close on our position, which
Speaker 1: essentially means like right on top of us, ourselves. The
Speaker 1: whole intent of that is to just try to keep
Speaker 1: them off of us and give our give give my
Speaker 1: men some time to react, reload, consolidate, reorganized, flight back.
Speaker 1: And I'm watching these rounds land with ruthless efficiency and
Speaker 1: like vaporized like these guys as they that they they
Speaker 1: bound towards us. And it didn't matter how many rounds landed,
Speaker 1: they had people to replace them. It's just it was
Speaker 1: just an unrelenting assault in our position, and they got
Speaker 1: so close to us that that we had to blow
Speaker 1: claim more minds, like we put claim more minds and
Speaker 1: around our positions just in case, like we're about to
Speaker 1: be overrun. So we're like blow and claim more minds,
Speaker 1: like people. All my squad leaders are saying they're going
Speaker 1: black on ammunition. Every member of my comple tune is hurt.
Speaker 1: I've got all these casualties out there stranded. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm watching my medic try to carry one of my
Speaker 1: one of my squad leaders back to the casualty collection point.
Speaker 1: He lifts up this guy. I watched him get shot
Speaker 1: in the face. He falls down. Um, I think my
Speaker 1: medic is dad. He's just Jose Panto has this kid
Speaker 1: from Mexico. It came to America because he loved He
Speaker 1: loved the country and wanted to serve the country. And
Speaker 1: I remember he got shot in the face. Wasn't even
Speaker 1: a citizen of the country. Who's supposed to get a
Speaker 1: citizenship July four, a month later, I'm like, my god,
Speaker 1: he just got shot before he came to become a
Speaker 1: US citizen. And but he got back up. The entire
Speaker 1: left side of his face was was completely destroyed. But
Speaker 1: he got one of my squad leaders to the casualty
Speaker 1: collection point. Um, that was the kind of day it was.
Speaker 1: Lisa and we That fight took probably eight at least
Speaker 1: eight hours. We dropped probably eleven two thousand pound bombs
Speaker 1: and at the end had to bring in a B
Speaker 1: one Strategic Lancer, a B one bomber to drop like
Speaker 1: probably ten more. And what had ended up happening, Lisa,
Speaker 1: was that I called for fire on those target reference
Speaker 1: points earlier. But it looked what we had come to
Speaker 1: learn that the enemy at night had planned to attack us,
Speaker 1: and I had hit him just before they were going
Speaker 1: to attack, And so it was like hitting a hornet's
Speaker 1: nest with a baseball bat or something. They were already
Speaker 1: in position ready to attack at us. I just hit
Speaker 1: him before they hit us, which I guess the hindsight being,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I did, because it would have probably
Speaker 1: not gone as as good for us as it did,
Speaker 1: as even though it wasn't I mean, all things considered,
Speaker 1: it wasn't good, but I would have much I was
Speaker 1: glad that we attacked first, you know, and every one
Speaker 1: of my trucks was was destroyed. They had to be
Speaker 1: towed off the hill top uh um that and got
Speaker 1: back to the base uh that day after like that
Speaker 1: long long firefight. And I think like every member of
Speaker 1: my platoons, I treated we took another platoons trucks and
Speaker 1: went right back out after the enemy, like after we
Speaker 1: after we got back, went right back out after them
Speaker 1: to hunt them down. Um. And we said in that night,
Speaker 1: and we did. We hunted them all down and we
Speaker 1: and we got them. We killed probably oh man, I
Speaker 1: probably killed probably killed like a hundred people that day,
Speaker 1: like bad guys trying to attack us and so um.
Speaker 1: But that's the out of deployment. That the kind of
Speaker 1: deployment that we had, it was absolutely hell. You know,
Speaker 1: I look back on it, like you asked me, how
Speaker 1: did you do it? And the answers, I have no
Speaker 1: freaking clue. I can't believe I lived through it. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I made it through all that, you know, Shota,
Speaker 1: as we recount this and as you you look back
Speaker 1: and and you know, talk about those times, and you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about Ukraine going on now, you know, Taiwan.
Speaker 1: What should our lessons what lessons should we learn from
Speaker 1: Afghanistan as a society. What do you hope that politicians learned?
Speaker 1: What do you hope the country learns from our time
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan? Just be more careful with America's sons and daughters.
Speaker 1: You know, I I know, I know that freedom is
Speaker 1: worth fighting for, freedom is worth dying for. America. My god,
Speaker 1: if we were attacked, I'd be the first in line,
Speaker 1: ready to ready to fight back. Um, but we should
Speaker 1: not be getting ourselves locked down in the fights that
Speaker 1: take forty years, costs tens of thousands of American lives
Speaker 1: or or wounded Americans, people whose lives are changed forever.
Speaker 1: You know, if you lose a love one in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: the ripple effect from that is profound. You have family members, moms, dad's, sisters, brothers,
Speaker 1: spouses that will never see that person again. And the
Speaker 1: whole that that leaves in in people's hearts and the
Speaker 1: void that it leaves in their lives is something that
Speaker 1: it lasts forever, like every second of every day and
Speaker 1: and again, please don't misunderstand me. This is not like
Speaker 1: a poor me thing. Again. I would do this again
Speaker 1: in a second, but every second of every day the
Speaker 1: war in Afghanistan is with me. Doesn't mean that I'm broken,
Speaker 1: has nothing. You know, I'm fine, I can handle it.
Speaker 1: I do it all again. But it's like it's like
Speaker 1: spy wear on your computer. It runs without you even knowing,
Speaker 1: you know, UM, like my troops that I lost that
Speaker 1: Afghanistan first thing I think about when I wake up
Speaker 1: and the last thing I think about when I go
Speaker 1: to sleep. And over twenty years in that fight, lost
Speaker 1: so many people in that country that I wish we're
Speaker 1: still here. UM. And I think, what's even more tragic
Speaker 1: than that is that And however many combat deployments that
Speaker 1: my men went on, and and they there are some
Speaker 1: of my soldiers even went on combat deployments after the
Speaker 1: one that I took them on. UM. I mean, we
Speaker 1: probably we've lost in my small unit, we've lost more
Speaker 1: people to suicide than we have to combat. What does
Speaker 1: that tell you about the way in which we take
Speaker 1: care of our soldiers. There are our men and women
Speaker 1: who serve this country here at home. Not not that
Speaker 1: the v A isn't amazing, Like I'm I'm grateful and
Speaker 1: glad that we have the v A. UM, but the
Speaker 1: problems that we face here are far greater than you know,
Speaker 1: maybe going to see a doctor or you know, being
Speaker 1: given some drugs in a in a paper bag and
Speaker 1: hey sent on your way, you know, on behalf of
Speaker 1: a grateful nation. The problems that veterans face here at
Speaker 1: home are largely existential problems, cultural problems that I think
Speaker 1: America as a country needs to face. Um. And so
Speaker 1: what I'd like I'd like to see is that I'd
Speaker 1: like to see our politicians be more careful with America's
Speaker 1: sons and daughters. Number one, Um, I'd also like to
Speaker 1: see America like our country as a whole. And that
Speaker 1: means like these little communities that we all live in,
Speaker 1: like do everything that we can to recognize for men
Speaker 1: and women and serve and that, and I think it
Speaker 1: needs to we need to go beyond like thank you
Speaker 1: for your service. Like I think we need to to
Speaker 1: bring these people like into a high school gymnasium and
Speaker 1: have them tell their story if they're willing, in front
Speaker 1: of a bunch of high school students, so that those
Speaker 1: kids not only learn about what it means to defend freedom, uh,
Speaker 1: the legacy of that soldier and the people that that
Speaker 1: person lost lives on in the and and the people
Speaker 1: to hear that story. Like as I think as a society,
Speaker 1: we need to do more with regards to bringing our
Speaker 1: our men and women home. And so yeah, be more
Speaker 1: careful with America's sons and daughters in American society getting
Speaker 1: in the fight from a cultural standpoint to appreciate and
Speaker 1: love our bets. Well, that's why I really wanted to
Speaker 1: have this conversation with you, you know, one not only
Speaker 1: to just you know, obviously to honor that you know,
Speaker 1: those who have served and have lost their lives serving
Speaker 1: this country and defending this country, but really just sort
Speaker 1: of bringing awareness to what it takes and what you
Speaker 1: guys go through, and why we should be judicials and
Speaker 1: why we should be careful with our our people's lives.
Speaker 1: And I think our you know, our lives are the
Speaker 1: or military men and women or our own people, like
Speaker 1: their lives, that's the most important thing, right that's a
Speaker 1: most cherished asset, Like we off the bunch of weapons
Speaker 1: whatever beyond in Afghanistan. Obviously that's a challenge, but it's
Speaker 1: the lives, it's our people that we should cherish and
Speaker 1: be careful with. And so, you know, that's why I
Speaker 1: really wanted to have this conversation with you about that.
Speaker 1: And again, your your petun was sober received purple hearts
Speaker 1: for wounds they incurred in battle, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: get you on this real quick before we go. You
Speaker 1: talked about sort of that that brotherhood that brought you
Speaker 1: guys together day in and day out, didn't matter what
Speaker 1: you're facing. You know, you looked beyond. It wasn't about
Speaker 1: looking at you know, race or religion or any of
Speaker 1: these other things. You just saw him as you know,
Speaker 1: your brother, more or less. Right. And now it's like
Speaker 1: we're sort of injecting all these things in the military,
Speaker 1: whether it's critical race theory, whether it's things like you know,
Speaker 1: gender pronouns, and what kind of impact does that have
Speaker 1: on on our military? It's devastating. It's devastating because again
Speaker 1: it's not like the military is not about diversity, Okay,
Speaker 1: like it, I'm grateful to have intellectual diversity in my
Speaker 1: platoon I'm in, or in my units that I commanded.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful to have racial diversity or people from a
Speaker 1: lot of different backgrounds, like that makes us better. But
Speaker 1: the problem with a lot like critical race theory being
Speaker 1: injected into the military or some of these other like
Speaker 1: I got these people with their pronouns and their bios
Speaker 1: and stuff and all this other stuff, and like, hey,
Speaker 1: do what you wanna do. But the military is about
Speaker 1: unifying beyond those differences, not celebrating them so any times,
Speaker 1: Like the whole point of going through basic training, right,
Speaker 1: the whole point of it, Lisa, is you go in
Speaker 1: there an individual. You know that you come out a
Speaker 1: member of a collective team. The whole point, the reason
Speaker 1: why you have drill sergeants screaming in your face and
Speaker 1: yelling at you the whole time is to whittle down,
Speaker 1: break down your sense of individual self and teach you
Speaker 1: in a very like rubber meets the road kind of
Speaker 1: way that the individual doesn't matter here anymore. What matters
Speaker 1: is the collective and you're only as fast as your
Speaker 1: slowest person. And going to Afghanistan the way that we
Speaker 1: did and experiencing the things that we did. If if that,
Speaker 1: if our dedication to our team and our unit wasn't
Speaker 1: first and foremost, we would have not survived. Guarantee you,
Speaker 1: we would have not survived. And so this focus on oh, like, oh,
Speaker 1: look how diverse we are, because this is a strength.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, but it's only a strength, and in
Speaker 1: a military, if you unify beyond it, that's where the
Speaker 1: strength is. And so I think it's I think it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: I think it's real dangerous is there anything else you
Speaker 1: want to leave us with before we go. A lot
Speaker 1: of people you're gonna see a lot of people on
Speaker 1: Memorial Day talk about like, well it isn't for barbecuing,
Speaker 1: you know, And I would just say, like, you celebrate
Speaker 1: Memorial Day the way that you want, because is you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like my soldiers who haven't been a who
Speaker 1: you know, who didn't make it back, they don't get
Speaker 1: to celebrate at all, you know, And I think it's
Speaker 1: incumbent upon all of us. I think it's really our
Speaker 1: duty and responsibility to live freely and and and enjoy
Speaker 1: the freedom that they sacrifice themselves to protect. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, if you get a minute, like
Speaker 1: you know, if you're drinking a beer, or walking on
Speaker 1: the beach, or reading the book, or just sitting on
Speaker 1: your deck or watching your kids play, like just stay
Speaker 1: a sign in prayer and just for for the men
Speaker 1: and women who didn't come home. But you celebrate the
Speaker 1: way that you want in America because that's what the
Speaker 1: men and women who sign up and volunteer to serve
Speaker 1: this country, that's what they gave their lives to do.
Speaker 1: So just just don't forget, never forget them and and
Speaker 1: have a have a good Memorial Day. Sean, It's an
Speaker 1: honor to have you on the show. You are a hero,
Speaker 1: and I think you so much for your service or
Speaker 1: and just sharing you know, what you went through in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and the bravery of your platoon with my audience
Speaker 1: and me, And thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: the show. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Lisa,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I
Speaker 1: think I was one of the most fascinating conversations I've
Speaker 1: ever had with anyone in my entire life. And I
Speaker 1: just think it's so helpful towere it's left back with
Speaker 1: Sean about what you went through with his platoon and
Speaker 1: what show many people went through in places like Afghanistan
Speaker 1: during a time of work. You know, we're either disconnected
Speaker 1: from it, you know, when we're here in America and
Speaker 1: we're living her everyday lives and they're out there on
Speaker 1: the battlefield, you're fighting for freedom, fighting for their own
Speaker 1: lives and the lives of the rest of their platoons.
Speaker 1: So I think what better way to honor at the
Speaker 1: fall and than talk to someone like Sean for now.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it. I loved it. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you guys were listening. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: the podcast. Tell your friends, tell your family, you know,
Speaker 1: share on social media. We'd really appreciate it. And I
Speaker 1: also just think anyone who's listening who has served, or
Speaker 1: who was a family member who has served, and if
Speaker 1: you have a family member whos paid the ultimate sacrifice,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry if you're lost, and I'm praying for
Speaker 1: you today. Uh And be sure to listen every Monday
Speaker 1: and Thursday. The Truth with Lisa Booth