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Speaker 1: Ah, beaut Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not

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Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, military

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Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys and the community

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Speaker 1: software dot Com on time on Target. It was absolutely

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Speaker 1: pleasure and honor having uh Sergeant Dager of Mike binding

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Speaker 1: on once again in the last episode for around two Uh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it threw my mind too. I was hearing some of

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Speaker 1: those things for the first time. Excellent stories. I especially

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Speaker 1: personally just thot it's funny they're growing up and studying

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Speaker 1: explosives in the backyard. I know that that's not you

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Speaker 1: know anything, probably not even unique to him. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: a lot of people from that era. I grew up

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Speaker 1: doing the same thing. But it just made me laugh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all this funny story. Yeah, So if you haven't listened,

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Speaker 1: to check out the last episode. And the cool thing

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Speaker 1: is this episode we have a colleague of Mike's coming on,

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Speaker 1: which is David Arden, another e O D. And we're

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Speaker 1: often told here, you guys never have Air Force guys

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Speaker 1: on the show, so where we're doing it, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: be an interesting interview. Actually. Yeah, and if someone refers,

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Speaker 1: if Mike refers us to someone they've got to be good,

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Speaker 1: I would assume. Yeah. Um, so, I guess the big

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Speaker 1: news to talk about right now that everyone is talking about.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I was saying to Jack before we record,

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Speaker 1: I don't like to harp so much on the Trump stuff,

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Speaker 1: but it does apply to war and what we talk

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Speaker 1: about every week on this show. Uh. He put a

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Speaker 1: tweet out which people at least interpreted as threatening to

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Speaker 1: bomb Syria with you know, the didn't you say the

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Speaker 1: bombs are comings pretty clear? I mean you don't have

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Speaker 1: to read a lot into the tweet. Well, he's now saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's kind of backpeddling a bit. But I

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Speaker 1: I personally did like Rand Paul's response, which a lot

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Speaker 1: of people put out there um retweeted, where he said

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Speaker 1: promising war by tweet insults not only the Constitution but

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Speaker 1: every soldier who puts their life on the line. Um.

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Speaker 1: Alex Holland has put an article up on software dot

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Speaker 1: Com about it. Uh. Yeah, any reaction from you, I mean,

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Speaker 1: to me, at this point, nothing is out of the

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Speaker 1: ordinary with Trump. Yeah. I mean that's kind of the

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Speaker 1: problem too, is like we get kind of inoculated to

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Speaker 1: it and just become numb. To it, like I don't

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Speaker 1: care about anything Trump posts on Twitter. I mean I

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Speaker 1: don't take him seriously. I don't think it takes himself seriously. Um.

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Speaker 1: But nonetheless, I mean that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous

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Speaker 1: or reckless to you know, post all these things. And

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Speaker 1: I mean I think it's idiotic. Yeah. And and also

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Speaker 1: I do think if you are a service member, family

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Speaker 1: member of a service member, uh, just kind of talking

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Speaker 1: about war and it's like cavalier nature is not on Twitter.

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Speaker 1: It's like a return to like the new kind of

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Speaker 1: jingoism or something like we need to go to war

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Speaker 1: for glory here. Yeah. And I personally, I'm very uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: with it when it comes from a civilian because they've

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Speaker 1: never seen the horrors of war. You know, John McCain

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Speaker 1: is because he dodged the draft three times. Sure, you

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Speaker 1: know John McCain is very hawkish. But at least part

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Speaker 1: of me is able to say he's been there, he's

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Speaker 1: done that, he was a pow. If anyone deserves to

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Speaker 1: have this stance, I feel someone like it always says

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Speaker 1: some understanding of the costs. Yeah, yeah, maybe they just

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Speaker 1: about pay the him at sacrifice and lived to tell

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Speaker 1: about it. I think it's pretty funny too when you

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Speaker 1: contrast that with his words during the campaign, where he's

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Speaker 1: always harping on the Obama administration at the time, why

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Speaker 1: are you telegraphing our moves? Why do we tell them

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Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. Yeah, he seems to contradict himself

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Speaker 1: a lot, and he doesn't. He doesn't take himself seriously.

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Speaker 1: That's why he has no shame in kind of backpedaling

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Speaker 1: or attracting things or changing his mind. He criticized Obama

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Speaker 1: for golfing the same. I mean, yeah, that's all it's

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Speaker 1: not It's not serious for him. Yeah. Um, Well, onto

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Speaker 1: something that I know caught your attention. There was a

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Speaker 1: New York Times article on Rhodesia titled Rhodesia is dead,

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Speaker 1: but white supremacists have given it new life online and uh,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to get your take on. Yeah, And it

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Speaker 1: caught my attention because of you know, the work we've

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Speaker 1: done on Rhodesia and the people we've interviewed here, that

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Speaker 1: some of the veterans, uh Tim Bach's very recently, Hugh

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Speaker 1: Sladder was on the show. We've interviewed Keith l Um.

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Speaker 1: All these people are Rhodesian bush War vets um in

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Speaker 1: this article I read it's uh, it's not like all bad.

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Speaker 1: There's actually some good things in it and some good

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Speaker 1: things that come out of it, because what the gist

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Speaker 1: of the article is is that there's a sort of

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Speaker 1: growing Rhodesian nostalgia. Although the author doesn't really understand why it's.

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Speaker 1: It's because of, um, the fact that we've been in

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Speaker 1: a counterinsurgency, you know, low intensity conflict for sixteen years.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of soldiers who have taken a

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Speaker 1: renewed interest in the Rhodesian bush War to see, like

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Speaker 1: what kind of lessons can we learn from that? Um,

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Speaker 1: he thinks that came out of Dylan Roof, that that

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Speaker 1: nutcase that shot up the school or I'm sorry at church, um,

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Speaker 1: black right, a black church, and he posted a picture

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Speaker 1: of him or he had a picture of him came

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Speaker 1: out where was wearing a jacket with a Rhodesian flag

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Speaker 1: on it in the South African flag, which for him

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Speaker 1: is an appeal to white supremacy. Um, white nationalism, all

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Speaker 1: that kind of crap, Which makes sense because Dylan Roof,

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Speaker 1: I think all to wore the Confederate flag. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: Dylan RUF doesn't know a damn thing about Rhodesia or

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Speaker 1: probably South Africa either. But there is something to the

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Speaker 1: what what this article is trying to say. There's something

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Speaker 1: to these white supremacists who make an appeal, um or

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Speaker 1: a nostalgia towards, um, the apartheid government that existed in

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Speaker 1: South Africa or the white settler government that existed in Rhodesia,

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Speaker 1: and they try to use that too, you know, bolster

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Speaker 1: their argument or say like, oh, this was the white

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Speaker 1: homeland or whatever nonsense they believe. It's it's a fantasy

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Speaker 1: version of reality. Um. But at the same time, I

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Speaker 1: thought the article did a bit of a disservice to

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Speaker 1: Rhodesia as well, because it kind of paints this picture.

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Speaker 1: It conflates apartheid with Rhodesia at one point, which Rhodesia

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Speaker 1: did not have an apartheid government. That was South Africa. Um.

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Speaker 1: Rhodesia did have a white settler government, and you know,

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Speaker 1: thankfully we've moved on from that in the world and

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Speaker 1: we don't you know, practice that form of government governance anymore. Um.

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Speaker 1: But it kind of cont it casts Rhodesia just purely

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Speaker 1: as this white supremacist state and the Rhodesian soldiers who

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Speaker 1: are fighting for white supremacy in a racial war, and

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Speaker 1: it just isn't accurate. It's not historically or factually accurate.

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Speaker 1: The enemy in that conflict were communists inspired and communists

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Speaker 1: um like financially and with material support sponsored by the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union in China, and they were communist terrorists. They

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Speaker 1: would go into villages and cut off people's ears and

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Speaker 1: cut off people's lips and rape women and say you're

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Speaker 1: coming over to our side. You're gonna be a communist

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Speaker 1: insurgent now, or we're gonna, you know, rape the rest

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Speaker 1: of your family and we're gonna murder your wife and all.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they were communists terrorists. That's not like some

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Speaker 1: um historical revisionism or something that's true. Uh So, I

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Speaker 1: think the author definitely kind of he I got the

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Speaker 1: feeling that it was like this sort of knee jerk

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Speaker 1: attempt to virtue signal without doing a lot of the

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Speaker 1: work on Rhodesia and understanding what that conflict was about.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think it does rightly

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Speaker 1: expose some racists out there who try to use Rhodesia

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Speaker 1: and they talk about Rhodesia UM or different businesses trying

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Speaker 1: to market like Rhodesian paraphernalia. UM is not like a

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Speaker 1: popular thing. I don't know if it's a popular thing,

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Speaker 1: but there are some people, some small businesses people trying

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Speaker 1: to do that, so like Rhodesia T shirts. And they

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Speaker 1: make the point that there's a tongue in cheek kind

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Speaker 1: of like it's like it's a code word, like wink wink.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're all racists, ha ha ha um. And

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Speaker 1: I'm sure for some people that's the case and for

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Speaker 1: other people it isn't. But then it gets really silly

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Speaker 1: when they go into this stuff about Larry Vickers. And

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Speaker 1: you know, some of the people who listened, probably I'm

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Speaker 1: sure they're well acquainted with Larry Vickers because he's a

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Speaker 1: marksmanship instructor. Uh, he's former Delta Force operator. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know Larry personally, I don't know him from them,

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Speaker 1: but I thought it was pretty funny to see some

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Speaker 1: of the stuff in this article. They're like reporting on

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Speaker 1: Larry's Instagram account, like, oh look, Larry posted a picture

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Speaker 1: of a finn foul uh. And then there's a pin

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Speaker 1: from the solution Scouts and the Rhodesian s A S.

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Speaker 1: And it's all kind of like a wink wink speaking

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Speaker 1: of code words like is Larry a racist? We don't

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Speaker 1: know what, but we're just checking, you know. It's that

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. And and there's all this reporting in

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Speaker 1: there about like, oh, Larry deleted some of the racist

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Speaker 1: comments people made on his Instagram and then he turned

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Speaker 1: comments off on certain videos. And it's like, how did

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Speaker 1: journalism become this that? Like we're reporting on the like

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Speaker 1: the nuances of social media. Um, it's you know, the

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Speaker 1: whole Twitter journalism that I that I harp against, Like

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Speaker 1: how did somebody's Twitter account? And of course Trump is

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Speaker 1: emblematic of this, but he he is the president at

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Speaker 1: the same time, Um, but how how did it become

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Speaker 1: like like somebody Instagram account become worthy of a news story?

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Speaker 1: Do you think it was just put up for historical

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Speaker 1: reasons the same way you would yeah, yeah, the same

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Speaker 1: the same way we post stuff about it, I think,

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Speaker 1: the same way. Um that we had Hugh Slider on

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Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago, who was a Rhodesian pilot

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Speaker 1: who then he stuck around and tried to help out

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Speaker 1: Zimbabwe and and by the way was on the podcast

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Speaker 1: praising Nelson Mandel like definitely did not sound like like

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Speaker 1: like I said, the people who think that the Rhodesian

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Speaker 1: conflict was just about white nationalism are intellectual infants who

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Speaker 1: have no business commenting on that conflict because they haven't

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Speaker 1: done the work. They haven't done the research on it. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, Larry, I don't think he's a racist. I

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Speaker 1: don't believe that for a moment. I think it's just

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Speaker 1: that was just like a kind of like you know,

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Speaker 1: throw away, like, oh, look what's on social media. He

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Speaker 1: must be a racist. They have to find something to

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Speaker 1: write about. Yeah. And also I was writing a whole

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Speaker 1: article about the growing popularity in this movement. You gotta

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Speaker 1: find things to correlate your argument. Yeah. Well, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if I categorize it as a movement. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess white supremacy is a movement, and there are

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Speaker 1: some white supremacists who have tried to latch onto this

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Speaker 1: as as I mentioned previously, But there's also just a

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Speaker 1: larger um interest and growing understanding about Rhodesia and that

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Speaker 1: conflict and studying it and seeing what went right what

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Speaker 1: went wrong? Um, you know, most people don't understand the

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Speaker 1: things that the Rhodesian White infantry and the s A

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Speaker 1: s and the Salute Scouts did over there, much less

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Speaker 1: the Rhodesian African Rifles. A lot of people don't understand this.

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Speaker 1: There were more black people fighting for Rhodesia than there

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Speaker 1: were white and they were not conscripts. These are people

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Speaker 1: who joined the Rhodesian military. And that's just another factoid

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Speaker 1: that gets brushed under the rug. When you know, people

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Speaker 1: publish articles like this interesting and you know, it's important

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Speaker 1: that you bring this up because I think most of

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Speaker 1: the public is not very familiar with this conflict. So

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Speaker 1: if they see an article in the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: this might be their only knowledge subject. So they do

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Speaker 1: have a duty on some level to present what's really

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Speaker 1: just to present it in a in a balanced an

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Speaker 1: accurate way, um, rather than kind of you know, he

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Speaker 1: does you know this article, I think it does the

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Speaker 1: same thing that Dylan Roof does that he tries to

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Speaker 1: paint it with a very broad brush, um and try

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Speaker 1: to tries to use it and use that conflict to

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Speaker 1: advance his own agenda. UM. But it's just a little

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Speaker 1: bit more nuanced and a little bit more complicated and

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Speaker 1: all actuality interesting alright? Well, um, also, we got some

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Speaker 1: emails before we get to David, uh, and there were

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Speaker 1: some good ones. You know. I'll read the funny one

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Speaker 1: first because I loved it, Uh Jack. I am disturbed

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Speaker 1: by the lack of entire related content on your personal

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Speaker 1: Instagram account. For a man of many interests like yourself

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Speaker 1: to not have any posts related to this is quite troubling.

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Speaker 1: Please change this, Ian. Don't ever shut the funk up

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Speaker 1: about the Big Bang in pyong Yang, not till everyone

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Speaker 1: knows it's greatness. Keep up the great work, gentleman. And

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Speaker 1: that's from Hunter. There's not enough tentacle porn. Well, I

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Speaker 1: guess after you saw this email. By popular demand, By

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Speaker 1: popular demand, I posted a picture from the anime or

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Speaker 1: manga book that Um the Odissean gave me for my

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Speaker 1: wedding gift. Whoever knew that there was a there was

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Speaker 1: a book of like you know, graphic novel type book

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Speaker 1: of SF or or as special ops like cute anime

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Speaker 1: girls with like technical gear. Yeah, and it has like

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Speaker 1: the different branches, right, doesn't have like seal teams? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: by unit. You better be careful, man, The times is

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Speaker 1: gonna go troll my Instagram accounting like this is proof

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Speaker 1: that Jack Murphy is a neo fascist into anime porn

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Speaker 1: and yeah so yeah at Jack mcmurph. If you want

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Speaker 1: to look at anti porn but not really pooring. Here's

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Speaker 1: a picture of Jack Murphy Germany posted on his Instagram

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Speaker 1: account Nazi confirmed. Um. And then here's another one that

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Speaker 1: I found interesting once again. Sent to soft Rep dot

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Speaker 1: Radio at softrep dot com. Hey, guys, question for you.

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Speaker 1: In recent marine recruiting ads, you can see what appears

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Speaker 1: to be a breaching in house to house fighting situation.

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Speaker 1: As an army and listy, I will be the first

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Speaker 1: to say that combat and by extension, killing or necessary

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Speaker 1: evils that must be exercised to preserve order. Still part

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Speaker 1: of me finds it unsettling that we may be advertising

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing and recruiting ads. We hear a

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Speaker 1: lot of debate in this country, especially lately about gun

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Speaker 1: violence and video games, movies, etcetera. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should be shown people exactly what they could

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Speaker 1: be getting into. On the other always said, on one hand, sorry,

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Speaker 1: and then he says, on the other maybe this is

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Speaker 1: too far for ads that target young men I'm torn,

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Speaker 1: and I'd love to hear your take on it. Does

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Speaker 1: come Does combat footage or dramatizations of combat have a

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Speaker 1: place in recruiting ads? Thanks for your time. That's from Ryan. Um.

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Speaker 1: Good question, really good question. I'm not sure I have

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Speaker 1: the answer. Um, and I haven't seen the advertisement. I

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Speaker 1: could actually pull it off if you want to see,

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Speaker 1: go ahead and pull it up because he sent it. Um,

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Speaker 1: he sent a one to it. Just give me a

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Speaker 1: minute here. Ah, alright, so this is the ad, all right? Um,

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Speaker 1: So while the rings because this is the land that

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Speaker 1: I love in the country i'morn to serve. I am

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Speaker 1: gonna say that was pretty tame. I thought I thought

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Speaker 1: it was pretty tame. I think it's pretty much what

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Speaker 1: you expect from a recruitment ad. It's a lot of

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Speaker 1: you know, Americana, wholesome America. We're playing sports where doing

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Speaker 1: high school things, were voting. It looks like it could

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Speaker 1: have been a training exercise. Yeah, and then we're showing, oh,

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Speaker 1: here's all the cool stuff that you get to do

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Speaker 1: in the Marines, and you know, you're waving the flag

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Speaker 1: around and blah blah blah. I mean I don't know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I'm not like offended by it. Really,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, not at almost anything in there that's wrong. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what I was gonna say, I mean, you certainly have

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Speaker 1: a right to your opinion on this, but my reaction,

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Speaker 1: I really didn't see anything even remotely controversial. No, I

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Speaker 1: don't think so. Um, I don't. I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: recruitment ads should like just show people what it is,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, go ahead and show them, show them

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Speaker 1: the real deal. Yeah, And I think there was anything

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Speaker 1: when you say showed the show them the real deal.

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Speaker 1: There was nothing that graphic there, um, and those like

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Speaker 1: Hollywood stuff. Yeah, and it very much that particular scene

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Speaker 1: looks like I mean, I've never been in the military,

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Speaker 1: but that looks like it could have been something done exercise.

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Speaker 1: So and then there's a scene where they're like helping

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Speaker 1: refugees and yeah, yeah, alright, Well, keep sending emails to

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Speaker 1: soft Rep dot Radio at soft rep dot com, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I think unless you have anything else to say, we

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Speaker 1: can get to David rat And so joining us on

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Speaker 1: the podcast is a guy referred to us by um,

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Speaker 1: Sergeant Major Mike Vining. And you know, prior to prior

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Speaker 1: to the Sergeant Major Vining. I don't even think we

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Speaker 1: had any e O D s on the podcast, right, No,

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Speaker 1: I don't believe we did. Yes, it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: real honor to have another e O D following that episode,

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Speaker 1: and the Air Force guy because David we often get

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Speaker 1: told we never have Air Force guys on here. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: David is an Air Force e O D. Served in

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Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf War and Iraq War. Um. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the biggest thing that we'll get into was that you

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Speaker 1: were there during the Kobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia,

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Speaker 1: which killed twenty guys um or twenty people, injured nearly

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Speaker 1: five hundred people. And uh, before we even get into

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Speaker 1: all that, I was actually curious, are you currently still serving?

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Speaker 1: Because I saw that you were at a dot Mill address? Right? Oh? Nos? Okay, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I retired in a four after twenty four years.

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Speaker 1: I came in the Air Force in nineteen eighty as

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Speaker 1: a fireman. No less, I did that for five years.

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Speaker 1: But during those five years I had always supported e

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Speaker 1: O D guys and I loved the work. I just

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Speaker 1: didn't like, uh, the politics involved in the in the

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Speaker 1: military fire department. It just not the same as a civilian.

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Speaker 1: And uh so, my last duty station as a fireman

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Speaker 1: was at Egglin and if you ever get a chance,

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Speaker 1: they do have an awesome museum there, but they also

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Speaker 1: the U D Shop. They're responsible for testing the weapons

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Speaker 1: that come online, so it might take ten to twenty

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Speaker 1: years before they actually perfect a weapon, and they have

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Speaker 1: all the cutaways and so when you go in there,

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Speaker 1: it's just pretty dang impressive. Um So that's I made

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Speaker 1: a decision to do that, and I graduated from Indian Head, Maryland.

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Speaker 1: The e O D School now is currently down at

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Speaker 1: Eggland Air Force Base, and they moved mostly because they

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Speaker 1: were restricted to the explosive uh quantities they could actually do.

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Speaker 1: I think the most we ever did one time was

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Speaker 1: five to ten pounds, but it broke windows a lot

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Speaker 1: of times in the the community around the the demo range.

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Speaker 1: And uh So, anyway, best job in the Air Force,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you that right now. I love being

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Speaker 1: an e O D guy, But you get older, you

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Speaker 1: start putting the glasses on, you know, then your staff guys.

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Speaker 1: So I retired No. Four and the Civil Engineer Squadron,

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Speaker 1: which is in the Air Force Construct at US where

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Speaker 1: e O D is located. We've had many homes over

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Speaker 1: the years. People thought that we fit under munitions or

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Speaker 1: overseas it was supplied. There's just not really a would fit.

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Speaker 1: And they recently tried to put us under Battlefield Airman.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you could have some really good conversations about that.

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Speaker 1: Battlefield Airman is attach p compair of rescue guys, and

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Speaker 1: they thought that was a good fit for you O D. H.

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Speaker 1: It probably is, it could be, but civil engineers invested

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Speaker 1: too much money and officers and they didn't want to

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Speaker 1: give up the officers. So I think that was the

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Speaker 1: main uh block right there, to have e O D

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Speaker 1: transfer over to Battlefield Airman. But that would probably be

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Speaker 1: a good fit, and it might might happen down the road,

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Speaker 1: especially if we continue to have conflicts. But you D

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Speaker 1: and the Air Force probably just like the Army or

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Speaker 1: the other ones, were support function and that has blurred

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Speaker 1: over the years, especially with Afghanistan and Iraq, and you

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Speaker 1: saw a lot of UDI guys that were in convoys

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Speaker 1: got called up to do a lot of the work

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Speaker 1: for the convoys clearing. And I don't know if anybody

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Speaker 1: knows this, but the Air Force was responsible probably for

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Speaker 1: seven of the clearance operations for convoys. I'm sure you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have smarmy guys dispute that, but the mission was different.

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Speaker 1: They were clearing actually property. That was I think the

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Speaker 1: main mission for the army. So the Air Force got

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Speaker 1: most of those missions. And we've even had people said,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Air Force still lives in hotels, and

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Speaker 1: I think if you ask anybody, those lines have blurred

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Speaker 1: and I think everybody is pretty much doing the same thing.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's that's where we're at now. Things have

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Speaker 1: changed a lot, and I hope that we don't forget

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Speaker 1: the old lessons. As well as we bring technology online,

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Speaker 1: you still got to have a guy walk down and

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Speaker 1: look at things from time to time. One of the

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Speaker 1: things I wanted to ask you to clarify is I

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Speaker 1: can hazard a guess, of course, but what's the difference

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Speaker 1: between the e O D texts between the different services?

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Speaker 1: Because the Air Force has their guys, Navy, Army, Um, well,

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Speaker 1: what's the difference between the more Are they all kind

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Speaker 1: of homogeneous? No? No, that's no, No, that's definitely not true.

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Speaker 1: So and again this is my opinion, you're gonna you

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Speaker 1: can probably ask anybody. But for the Air Force, we

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Speaker 1: do aircraft, we do range clearances, we do secret service support.

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Speaker 1: Everybody does secret service support. We also have a new

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Speaker 1: mission that we support. When you talk to the Marines

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Speaker 1: in the Navy, of course, they do support aircraft on carriers.

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Speaker 1: And I love what the the Navy did to their airplanes.

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Speaker 1: They made safety h munitions racks very simple like on

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Speaker 1: the f A A team. But the Army used to

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Speaker 1: have a new programs, but that has basically gone away.

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Speaker 1: So when you go to UD school and uh, you

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Speaker 1: might again want to check with some of the guys

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Speaker 1: that are still in. It's been it's been a long time.

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Speaker 1: It's been almost eighteen years for me. Um. Everybody used

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Speaker 1: to go to school together, and then the Navy would

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Speaker 1: break off and go to Dives school before the nuke program,

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Speaker 1: and then you would see him again. Uh. They would

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Speaker 1: come back later. So the class usually broke up, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of times the Army, if you were E

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Speaker 1: five and below, you didn't go through the new portion

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Speaker 1: of the school. Uh. And then they basically have phased

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Speaker 1: it out, but the Air Force goes all the way

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Speaker 1: through and UH. Again, the missions have kind of changed

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Speaker 1: a little bit, but I you know, you're gonna see

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Speaker 1: that some of those things are specialized. Uh. Can any

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Speaker 1: service take care of an airplane crash? Sure? I mean

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Speaker 1: you just have to look into t O S R

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Speaker 1: t O S are the same technical orders and they

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Speaker 1: follow the same patterns. You just look it up. Now

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Speaker 1: you're gonna see that each service has different pieces and

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Speaker 1: parts they use. Uh. But as far as mission, I

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Speaker 1: think the Navy guys try to be a little more

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Speaker 1: seal like uh sometimes um, but it's been historically that

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Speaker 1: somebody knocks on your door and ask you if you

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Speaker 1: can support him, and we've usually done that. I think

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Speaker 1: one of the things that change for the Air Force.

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Speaker 1: You remember the the pilot that crashed he suicide in

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Speaker 1: an eight in the side of a mountain. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: do recall reading about that accident. Yeah, well that was

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Speaker 1: one of the instances where we had no idea. We

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Speaker 1: only had some guys that actually did mountain climbing as recreation,

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Speaker 1: and at that time, somebody just would come up and say, hey,

426
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 1: we got a mission for you. We go, okay, we'd

427
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 1: figure out and go do it. But we realized they're

428
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 1: that the helicopters they can only fly up so high.

429
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: They made a base camp drop stuff off, and you

430
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: definitely had to know how to climb mountains. I mean

431
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 1: that was no kidding. You were going to get killed

432
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: just climbing if you made a mistake. I took a

433
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 1: long time to clean that up, so I think, uh,

434
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:47,360
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna guess that was probably ninety six when

435
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 1: that happened, and then they started getting more specialized training. Uh.

436
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: The only the only issue I ever ever had with

437
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: that is if you know you're you do so many

438
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: different diversified tasks that you're still not able to do

439
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: your basic task, which is render safe munitions and I

440
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: E D S. So if you can keep that as

441
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 1: a good balance, I think that you're going to do well.

442
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 1: But I think there's sometimes you've got to hand missions

443
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: over to somebody else or have people assigned to that mission,

444
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: kind of like the nuke mission, and when they finish that,

445
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: they go to another base. But the basic training program

446
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: uh is the same. Well, I mean that's what we've

447
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: seen throughout the war on Terror, right, And I mean

448
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: that's how I'm familiar with E O D personnel mostly

449
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: is that they would get assigned to special operations units

450
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: and because of the I E. D threat, and you know,

451
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: of course you find munitions on objectives. UM, you know

452
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 1: we we often worked with E O D technicians. Oh yeah,

453
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 1: most definitely. UM. And I spent five years in Okinawa,

454
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: and I love that place. You know, the Navy hit

455
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: that place hard for World War two and UH, basically

456
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: around for every yard if not more with the big guns.

457
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: And UH, I think when they said we still had

458
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,199
Speaker 1: like maybe seven hundred tons to remove and we had

459
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: already cleared out during the five years I worked there.

460
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: But of course the UH, the Japanese Self Defense Force,

461
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 1: they had everything outside of the base perimeter. But I

462
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: almost anytime somebody was digging in the soil, just like Germany,

463
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: they would dig something up and then it would become

464
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: you'd become a little bit of an archaeologist, right you'd

465
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: have to measure and because there was really no defining

466
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 1: marks any more except for some of the the screw

467
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: together points and the width and all that, and then

468
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: you would have to figure out what the filler was. UM.

469
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: It was just very interest. I loved that work. But

470
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: uh that of course all the rounds that divers would

471
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 1: bring up, so Uh, that has always been a neat

472
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: thing about going over and finding the history of rounds

473
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: um being a rattle of the will to keep us

474
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: in is this forever? But as far as range clearances,

475
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: and I think that the Navy was not the Navy,

476
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: but the Army was fairly new on this. The Army

477
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: didn't start clearing ranges probably till the mid eighties. The

478
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 1: Air Force actually had to start doing range clearances because

479
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: in the early seventies we had planes dropping bombs and

480
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: the ranges were so polluted that you had hard bombs

481
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: bouncing back up in the air and exploding, causing damage

482
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: to aircraft. So that's really in the seventy four started

483
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 1: the U D program to clean ranges, and there's a

484
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: regular schedule for that. So I know that the Army

485
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: actually started that, and that causes a lot of problems

486
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:40,719
Speaker 1: on a fluted range. You blow some up, next thing,

487
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,479
Speaker 1: you uncover five other things, and you know, it's just

488
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: a long drawn out process to get that range clearance started. Wow.

489
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: So you for you, your e O D career started

490
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: because you were stationed on Egglin as a firefighter and

491
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: saw what the e O D guys down the street

492
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 1: did well, but so that the first time I saw

493
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: you O D. This is I'll just go. My first

494
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: base was Holloman, and uh I was I always got

495
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 1: put together with a civilian. He was kind of a

496
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: sour puss, and he just told me to get in

497
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: the truck. You know, I'm in any one. He goes

498
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: getting the truck. We gotta go do this thing. He

499
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: didn't really explain anything. And uh. At Holloman, there's a

500
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,400
Speaker 1: lot of test missions that go on and and one

501
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: of those is the the the uh the test sled

502
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: track and they do anything from putting chimpanzees in ejection

503
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: seats and then it goes down to the track and

504
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: then the seat goes off and then you got some

505
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: guy drinking the chimpanzee so he's not hurting anybody. Um,

506
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: and then they do other acceleration tests as well. At

507
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: the end of the sled track was a the e

508
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: O D disposal pit. So we drove out there in

509
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: the truck and we saw them putting all these rocket

510
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: motors in there, and uh. The civilian goes over and

511
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: he asked, guys, what they're doing. He comes back, Oh,

512
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: they're gonna blow up fifty pounds right, so, and then

513
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: he told us where we were gonna have to park,

514
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:08,719
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm this young guy, and I'm thinking, we're

515
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: gonna be a mile away. Why are we this far back? Right? Well, anyway,

516
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: when this thing went off, it we're in an eight

517
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: team wheeler with a water tank. We're there to put

518
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: the fire out. It pushed the eighteen wheeler down and back,

519
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: and uh so, anyway, without the permission, the UNDI guy,

520
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: the civilian drove down there and start putting fires out

521
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: and we get cut off by the u D guys

522
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: in the truck and they proceeded to cuss them out

523
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: and we're gonna beat him up, I think, if you

524
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop. And then these other guys ran over this

525
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: bigger hole in the ground. They're jumping up and down,

526
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: and I go, you know what this is. This looks

527
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: like a pretty good job. So that was the first

528
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: time that I thought that, you know, there's other other

529
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: opportunities in the Air Force. And I was just back

530
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: in my mind, I was thinking I would love to

531
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: do that. So that was the start of that, But

532
00:29:57,760 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: every other place I was at it was the same thing.

533
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,719
Speaker 1: They came in. They reported to the basic commander. They

534
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: went out and did their job, coordinated with who they

535
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: needed to and then they would usually leave. So yeah,

536
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: I thought it was a pretty interesting job. And Uh,

537
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: at Eggland, I ran into a retiring shape the same

538
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: day I was actually out processing and when I told

539
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: him I was going to u D school, he gave

540
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: me a look that I've given too many people myself,

541
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: And basically it's just okay, So you think you're gonna

542
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: make it through school, right, well, good luck to you.

543
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: And uh, and you have people that that have problems

544
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: when they go through the course. Um, you gotta have

545
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: common sense, you've gotta have mechanical skills, and you have

546
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: to be able to come up with the plan. I

547
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: mean that's and stay with that plan. That's pretty much

548
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: what an eu D guy that's worth the salt is

549
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: gonna do. Right, you hadn't study hand in a calm mind. Also, yes,

550
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you if you get that out of shape,

551
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: hopefully your guys and it can happen. Uh, your guys

552
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: that you're talking to, they're gonna help you. And it

553
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: pretty much comes down to you know, you do have

554
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: your rank and your respect for authority, but even the

555
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: youngest airman. If he's got an idea he brings up.

556
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: Everybody listens, and then they go, Okay, I think that's

557
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: a good idea, and then we'll go with the plan.

558
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: But everybody gets to say so and it usually works

559
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: out pretty good. So how do you want to get

560
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: into the Cobar Towers story? Um? I was actually refreshing

561
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: my memory a little bit, brushing up on the history

562
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: and the thing that David sent us, like the entire timeline. Well,

563
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: and again, I just wanted if you wanted to, we

564
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: could just talk through that and uh, and then when

565
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: you say okay, that's good enough, and then we can

566
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: just move on to the next thing if that's okay. Okay, Well,

567
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: I'll start off with so I was stationed at Barkstelle

568
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: Air Force Base when I got tasked to go to Cobar.

569
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: Now I just come from Okinawa and uh, and how

570
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: long have you been in EO DE attack at this point? Oh,

571
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: let's see, so I came in eight five, so this

572
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: is almost ten years. Okay, So you're pretty salty when

573
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: you got sent over. Yeah, I was. I would say

574
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: I was at my prime. I was thirty five years old,

575
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: a tech sergeant and UH which is an East six

576
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: for the army folks out their navy. UM. The reason

577
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: why I got stuck with going to Cobar so at

578
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: Barksdale two years prior they had just left SACK. There

579
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: was no longer a Strategic Air Command and it came

580
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: under Air Combat Command now UH SACK they did not

581
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: do deployments, and so they brought a bunch of us

582
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: into Barksdale and some of the other SACK former SACK

583
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: basis to actually teach these guys how to do conventional warfare.

584
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: So it was very agonizing, it was hilarious as sometimes,

585
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: and a lot of people didn't listen to the advice

586
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: they gave him, at least the first time we had

587
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: exercises and then they quickly adjusted. But the hard thing

588
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: about it at Barksdale was the SACK or the nuclear

589
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: mission took a lot of time. You had to QC

590
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: a lot of the operations, and with everybody going t

591
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: d y to other locations to work, a lot of

592
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: the people ended up doing these SERTs over and over

593
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,239
Speaker 1: again to get one or two guys qualified. So this

594
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: was just a very tedious and long drawn out process.

595
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: I remember guys who were assigned to the green Light

596
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: program back in the day telling me about the inspections

597
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: they had to go through, and it just sounded so

598
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: strenuous and stressful for all of them. Oh yeah, it

599
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: was and some of the so some of the mission

600
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: of the weapons systems, it was eight plus hours just

601
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: to do the sert and we would do a couple

602
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: of practices, so you were out there all day just

603
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: doing one system. Very tedious, but of course it was

604
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: that's what was demanded. Um. So when I got there, Uh,

605
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: I'd already been to the Gulf War, and there was

606
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: hardly the former SAT guys. They had not gone. And

607
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: if you look at the e O D most of

608
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: the folks were doing uh, they were doing the Northern

609
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: Watch and the Southern Watch and they had gone. But

610
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: we had a huge list of E five's that probably

611
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: needed to go, but they were still undercover. We had

612
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: so many guys that wanted to go, and we had

613
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,880
Speaker 1: a gentleman he made the six. He jumped right to

614
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: the top of the list. Well, uh, in our flight.

615
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: One of the things that we didn't know. He immediately

616
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: went to the commander and he finagled a h job

617
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 1: down at England to go teach at the E. O. D. School.

618
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: So the first thing that our flight chief heard about

619
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: this was that, hey's your guys been selected to go

620
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: down to to teach at the schoolhouse. And oh, by

621
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: the way, you have to replace him with somebody else.

622
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: So I got basically stuck to take his deployment and

623
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: uh so I arrived on the night teenth of June

624
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: and me and there was two other YOD texts on

625
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: the airplane with me that we flew in from Philadelphia

626
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: along with the rest of the rotation. This was the

627
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: beginning of the rotation change. So what usually happens is

628
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: the personnel coming in, we'll take in a lot of

629
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: the additional duties. And we already had a person that

630
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: was going to take the equipment, so he was coming

631
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: in later. But we were trying to take all the

632
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: additional duties for those guys getting ready to rotate out.

633
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: Uh so we were the new guys. Of course, there

634
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: was a joke about everything, how many days do you

635
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: have left? And uh But for me, some of the

636
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: key things I'll just want to highlight about this deployment.

637
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: This was the first time that of the personnel there

638
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: were female There was almost this university filled to the

639
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: the atmosphere at this place, and uh so when you

640
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: got there, you also had uniforms waiting for you. I

641
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:00,320
Speaker 1: have never had a deployment life as so some of

642
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 1: the Army guys are gonna go like, you know, this

643
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:04,839
Speaker 1: is unbelieved. This sounds like the true Air Force deployment, right.

644
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: But if you look at Cobar Towers, a quick history

645
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 1: of it. The towers were built to actually house the

646
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: beta ones the Gulf State nations. They were tired of

647
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 1: the beda ones going across the borders doing whatever and

648
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: then moving out. I mean they were still making raids

649
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 1: on people, and so they built the towers and hopes

650
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: that the better ones would stay in it, and of

651
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: course then the better ones trying to bring their camels

652
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: inside the towers, and I think that was it. They said, okay,

653
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: go back to roaming. So these towers were basically standing

654
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:40,919
Speaker 1: vacant until the Gulf War. And uh the Air Force

655
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: actually stayed at Prince dis Ease Air Base, which is

656
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: just across the street from the towers, and the Army

657
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: was was in there the permitent party. So you still

658
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: had the I don't know if you remember the Army

659
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,800
Speaker 1: personnel that were killed by the scut that hit the

660
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: the hangar they were waiting in before they were going

661
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: to go forward. Right during the Gulf War, you had

662
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: the personal party of the army that was in the

663
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: towers during the Gulf War. Uh So then the towers

664
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: were empty again unless there was a skeleton crew. I

665
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't really remember that, but when I

666
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 1: showed up on nineteen June, it was just a hurricane

667
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 1: of moving through and figuring out what your duties were,

668
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: where everything was at, who you needed to deal with,

669
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: and oh, by the way, you know these some of

670
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: these people you're talking to, they'll be gone in a

671
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, so just remember where their office is

672
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: at and you'll be able to deal with that. Um.

673
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: So it was kind of interesting that we were actually

674
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,359
Speaker 1: uh in the towers in ninety six and then CE

675
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 1: was in the building. The building that was blown up

676
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,360
Speaker 1: was one thirty one and I think our building was

677
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: one thirty three. Yeah, CE building. So uh my initial

678
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 1: impression after arriving was looking out the window of the

679
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: tower as e O. D had the whole six floor

680
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: war so the rest of the CE was in the

681
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: bottom so this was a complete ce building and then

682
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: the officers were on the seventh floor and I got

683
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 1: my own room, which was amazing, And UH, it was

684
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: just it just seemed like we had kind of age

685
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:22,280
Speaker 1: that we were actually not intense. We were in a building,

686
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: and I think everybody thought this was pretty neat, even

687
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: though you were deployed for for three months. So UM,

688
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: we were just running all over the place trying to

689
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: figure out what we're doing. And our our actual work

690
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: center was across the road. We were in a trailer

691
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:44,919
Speaker 1: fairly close to the entrance of the air base. And uh,

692
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: that was the situation. So I think we had about

693
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: nineteen people when I got there, and we were gonna

694
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: go up to about twenty two twenty four. So we

695
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 1: had already had some of the uh current rotation folks

696
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: leave and we were picking up their responsibilities and we

697
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: were just figuring out what we were gonna do. Um,

698
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: it really wasn't a bad deployment. UM at that time. Well,

699
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: we were still able to go to different countries without orders,

700
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 1: and that changed. I remember in UH deploying for this

701
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: the UH you know three you actually had to have

702
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: an order that in to leave Doha to go up

703
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 1: to aw you did, and it was just crazy that

704
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: we used to be able to go out drive across

705
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: country lines without and just use our regular deployment orders

706
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 1: right and go to different places and get the mission done.

707
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 1: But that's you can still do that in nineties six.

708
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: And we went to Bahrain uh in those first five

709
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: days to get some equipment calibrated, and went up to

710
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: the Navy base up there, and we did some other things,

711
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 1: but it was mostly just to get us a feel

712
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:01,720
Speaker 1: of how we were supposed to do things once the

713
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: these guys rotated out and it was just us, so

714
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: it would be up to upon us to train the

715
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: other guys coming in for the new rotation. Were you

716
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: aware of any kind of terroristic threats against the installation

717
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: at that point? No, So this is this is the

718
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: kind of funny thing. So uh standing looking out of

719
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: our our day room on the sixth floor and I

720
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: looked down and go, wow, that that fence is pretty

721
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 1: close and uh and I go, yeah, it's about eighty

722
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: feet away from the building, a little bit more than that,

723
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: and I, oh, there's another meaning we go to on

724
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: a monthly basis, the Security Council, and uh, you know

725
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: every time, you know, do you guys stand up and

726
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: say it's sir, we see either vacate these buildings or

727
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: we move the fence out and they go duly noted,

728
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: they'd write it in the notes and uh so anyway

729
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: that that have been going on for two years. But

730
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: I this this whole thing that we didn't understand their culture,

731
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: that that parking lot supported a mosque. And when the

732
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 1: Devi Saudis said we will think about it, we didn't

733
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: have people that understood that really meant like, well, no,

734
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: we're never going to give you an answer, but we

735
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: are just pushing this down the road. That's like the

736
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: very Arab way to deal with things. Actually, they don't

737
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: want to say no that we said, you know, really

738
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: we just need to clear these buildings out, and that

739
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: would have that would have been it. But when you

740
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: get there in your walk around and we're going, why

741
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: are these security forces up on the roofs of the building,

742
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 1: goes oh, that started like two weeks ago. That's all

743
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: anybody knew. The general population, okay, And of course that

744
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,919
Speaker 1: came out in the Downy report that they had known

745
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: that we had had tests of our perimeter and they

746
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: decided to keep that between os I and the commander level.

747
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: That did not come down. It sounds like, um, what

748
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: was it the Holloway Commission that die Beirut barracks bombing?

749
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: Well you would have you would have thought so. But

750
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: then you also had the O P saying remember the

751
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: contractors in UH in re odd and if you look

752
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: at that, I mean of course they had a parking lot,

753
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: they didn't have a fence, but was still very similar

754
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: to what happened to UH at this location at Cobar Towers.

755
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 1: So picking picking it up from there, Um, you know,

756
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: you just got into the day to day routine of

757
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: things going about your work. Correct. So then also at

758
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: this time, we never had officers and e O D

759
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: under the Air Force had always been in a listed operation.

760
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of wing commanders were frustrated

761
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: when they actually had any five six show up and

762
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 1: explain what needed to be done, and a lot of

763
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:43,760
Speaker 1: them just felt uneasy about that. We had tried several

764
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: experiments throughout the years and basically they would give you

765
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: an officer and you go, well, sir, I want you

766
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: to go over and tell the colonel this is what

767
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,240
Speaker 1: we're doing. You know, and he was just basically repeating

768
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 1: what you were going to tell him. Anyway, it made

769
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: the officers feel better, but it's really slowed down the process. Okay,

770
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: So uh, this was the solution. They they hired this guy,

771
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Jones. He was the first euty officer. He had

772
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: been on the previous rotation and about the third day

773
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: and we found out there we're going to keep him

774
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: for our rotation. And uh, I had issues with the

775
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 1: guy who was a show boat. Um, he was a

776
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: braggart and we were just gonna everybody knew we were

777
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: gonna have problems with the guy. Uh he was. I mean,

778
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,799
Speaker 1: we've had some great Air Force eu D officers, don't

779
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but this was the wrong guy to

780
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 1: be the first guy to come in. And uh, and

781
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,879
Speaker 1: I'll explain that a little bit later. But we've had

782
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,760
Speaker 1: some great leaders. The the one thing that I disagree

783
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: with the program is most of these EUT officers in

784
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: the Air Force, they stayed one uh tour and then

785
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,760
Speaker 1: they rotate back into CE and of course they understand

786
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: what UD does. But again, uh, you don't see those

787
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 1: guys again. So we just continually go through lieutenants and

788
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: maybe some captains. Uh, who knows if that's gonna change,

789
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 1: But it would be great if we actually kept officers

790
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: longer in the program, or at least they could go

791
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: to an eu D position at the school house or

792
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: maybe up at the Pentagon. That would be a great thing.

793
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: And maybe that's eventually what they're gonna do. Um. So anyway,

794
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Jones, we had to start working with him, and

795
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: I spent almost every day with him, going over these

796
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: changes and picking up the rotations stuff and checking on

797
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:36,839
Speaker 1: the new people coming in and the people going out

798
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: and making sure that we had their stuff ready for

799
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: him when they showed up. Uh. And I think that

800
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 1: takes us to the day of the bombing twenty six June. Um.

801
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: We went through the whole day and Uh, it was

802
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:56,720
Speaker 1: dinner time and we were told that we were getting

803
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: these arm eu D couples from uh Kawait. That's all

804
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: he told us, right, so they were gonna go into

805
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: our space. We had rooms, and we're going couples they're married,

806
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: and go, yeah, we're getting two married couples from the

807
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: same UD team coming down from Doha. I guess they're

808
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: having problems. They came in. So when we came in

809
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: at the end of the day to get cleaned up

810
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,879
Speaker 1: for dinner and everything. We noticed that none of them

811
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 1: were talking to each other, so I must have been

812
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,800
Speaker 1: pretty bad stuff. But we welcomed them and then showed

813
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: them around and uh uh they just kind of went

814
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: on their own for the rest of the day. Um. Anyway,

815
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 1: I took a shower after dinner, and uh so you

816
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: used to be able to go downtown wearing shorts and

817
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: T shirt and a Saudis had had enough of that

818
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:45,240
Speaker 1: after the Gulf War. Uh there was actually a dress standard.

819
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:48,319
Speaker 1: You had to wear long pants nice and then a

820
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: shirt with a collar, long sleeve. And I had actually

821
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 1: put on a long sleeve shirt with a collar and pants.

822
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: And uh so, after dinner, Lieutenant Jones came up and said, Hey,

823
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,439
Speaker 1: he's somebody you go downtown with me, uh to pick

824
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: up the colonel's going away gift. And and so of

825
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: course all these guys pointed to he goes, he's already dressed, right,

826
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: he's your guy. Right. So, and I know you guys

827
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: remember this. If you were in a in a camp

828
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 1: or whatever, it is a linky process. To leave that camp.

829
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:19,839
Speaker 1: You have to check out through your unit. Then you

830
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: have to check out through the the wing or the

831
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: battalion or the brigade and the and they got to

832
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:28,240
Speaker 1: make sure that you have a vehicle and a radio

833
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 1: all that stuff. It takes about forty five minutes. So um,

834
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 1: before we left, I was sitting in this chair in

835
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: the day room, h and I forgot to mention the

836
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: rotation before. These guys loved you know, so they would

837
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 1: play until like eleven o'clock and uh, they were just

838
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: they were having a great time. I was one of

839
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: the army couples, the one of the females. She came

840
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: in and sat on the couch next to me, so

841
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: I started talking to about like, okay, so what is

842
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: it like to work with your spouse. So we were

843
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: engaged in conversation pretty well until the lieutenant came up

844
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: and says time to go. So we went and signed out,

845
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: picked up a radio. There was no cell phones at

846
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 1: that time for us. I mean they had them, but

847
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: that was for the officers. We just had a brick

848
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: and got a vehicle and we signed out and finally

849
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: left it. It It was just starting to get too dark,

850
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:21,439
Speaker 1: and if you've been to Don Haran, it was still

851
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: hot and muggy. It was. It was uncomfortable. Um So

852
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: we headed downtown to the TCN Mall, the Third Country

853
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: National Mall. I don't know why he was named that,

854
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 1: but that was the name. It had three floors, had

855
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: a parking garage on the top, and this is where

856
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,399
Speaker 1: we were going to pick up the colonel's going away

857
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: gifted plaque. And he was a great guy. Shortest colonel

858
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my life. I think he was

859
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 1: like four seven or something like that. I mean he

860
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: was short, but this guy he made up for it.

861
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: I mean he was a dynamo. And uh I'll talk

862
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: about him a little bit later for the post blast.

863
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: But uh. Um, so we we we went downtown to

864
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: get the plaque and and and uh we're talking. I'm

865
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 1: trying to fill out the lieutenant. He's trying to fill

866
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: me out and figure out, you know, how we're gonna

867
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 1: do things, and and and uh so, anyway, we still

868
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 1: needed a superintendent to come in. I was gonna be

869
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,680
Speaker 1: middle management. That was okay by me. Um we picked

870
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 1: up the plaque. And so so you want to go

871
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: to the mall, go inside and go shirt. It's been

872
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 1: a while I've been been four years for me since

873
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: I had been there. Uh. So we went in the

874
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: mall and we walked Florida floor and looked at stuff,

875
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: and uh about thirty we were up on the third

876
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 1: floor and we're looking around and you know, we're the

877
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:45,879
Speaker 1: only Americans in there, and you know it's probably time

878
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:51,319
Speaker 1: for us to head out the door. So, um, we

879
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,919
Speaker 1: were standing on the staircase at the third floor when

880
00:48:56,000 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: the detonation went off. And so when I bring this up,

881
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people, well, how did you hear that?

882
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: I heard a double boom? Okay, I heard a boom

883
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: boom and immediately thought this was on the parking garage

884
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: on top of the mall, and in my mind just

885
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 1: from it blew the windows out. It shook us really well.

886
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: And this mall is six kilometers away from Kobart Towers.

887
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: I thought we had had at least a two dred

888
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 1: pound bomb go off on the roof and the windows

889
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:34,799
Speaker 1: went out. And so I don't know if you're if

890
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: you guys want to get into this, but I mean,

891
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,840
Speaker 1: there's two phases of an explosion. You have the positive phase,

892
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: which is the blast energy being expanded pushing out, and

893
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: you have a negative phase, and you have a vacuum

894
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:48,800
Speaker 1: created by that push, and then you have air rushing

895
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: back in. And a lot of times the damage caused

896
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: is not by the initial of course, it is some damage,

897
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 1: but a lot of the damage you get us on

898
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: the negative phase when the air comes rushing back in.

899
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 1: It's what they say the same about nuclear weapons, right

900
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: that it's it's the negative I mean, it's the same

901
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:10,839
Speaker 1: same thing. Um. So we saw men pushing women out

902
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:13,279
Speaker 1: of the way to run down the stairs, Saudi men

903
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: and and we were just standing there and we're looking around, so,

904
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 1: you know, you're trying to process all this stuff. And

905
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:22,759
Speaker 1: before we went down the stairs, we walked over to

906
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: one of the side windows and looked down and saw

907
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: the glass broke in. Uh. There was people getting up

908
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 1: off the ground, and we looked at it. The other

909
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: across the there was other stores and businesses. Their windows

910
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: were all gone. And when we look south towards the

911
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: Cobar towers, there was no lights on. Okay, so that's

912
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:43,439
Speaker 1: when we started thinking like, oh my gosh, how big

913
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: was this this explosion? So, uh, we left the radio

914
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: in the car. We don't want to carry the radio around,

915
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 1: and we started making our way down the stairs and

916
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: and down to the vehicle. I would have to say

917
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: this was the most press draining time of this. This

918
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 1: whole thing was from the vehicle getting in and getting

919
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: information as to what was happening. Uh. So we we

920
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 1: did a quick search on our vehicle make sure there

921
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: was no devices, and tried the radio. Once we got

922
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: inside the car and the lieutenant was driving, UM, I

923
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: was trying to raise somebody on the radio. So we

924
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: were on a group channel, so there it was a

925
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: shared channel. It was the emergency channel, and uh, nothing's

926
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: coming across and I'm trying to call and I'm not

927
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: getting anything. And he pulls into traffic and we are

928
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: surrounded by all these faces looking at us, and Uh

929
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: it took us about twenty minutes before we were making

930
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 1: any headway in traffic. Uh. That we actually started to

931
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: get some radio traffic. Being a fireman, I mean we

932
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:57,720
Speaker 1: learned how to use the ten codes. Are you familiar

933
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 1: with ten codes? Uh? They finally moved away from that

934
00:52:01,239 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: because I guess people didn't want to learn them. But

935
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,399
Speaker 1: you had a ten ten code was in a ten

936
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: with another number behind that, and you knew what that

937
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: man like you were going to unch, you were coming

938
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 1: back to the station. You had a vehicle accident. There

939
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: was a code for everything. Well, the first thing that

940
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: I heard on the radio come across, and I was

941
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: just totally shocked, was a fireman said we found another one.

942
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:28,360
Speaker 1: And there was no emotion in his voice, and he

943
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 1: said he's dead, He's decapitated. And I'm thinking, like, so,

944
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 1: how many communications have already happened, how many dead people

945
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: are there? And this guy has totally lost radio protocol

946
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 1: right and probably oh yeah again. I was just so

947
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: at this point in time, the lieutenant, he starts this

948
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: mantra about I should have been with my men. I mean,

949
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: he just went on and on he goes, and they

950
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:01,000
Speaker 1: started saying purple heart, purple heart. And I just said, sir,

951
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: you just got to calm down, Okay, you're driving, just

952
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: paying attention to driving. But he just continued to do this.

953
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:09,279
Speaker 1: So I was I was thinking, like, you know, we

954
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: could be I could be the only functional you D

955
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: guy in the area. That's what I was thinking, Uh,

956
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: is you don't know if all your friends, all your

957
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:22,879
Speaker 1: comrades might have been killed in the blast. Correct, it

958
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: was not. It took another five minutes before I start

959
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 1: getting reports and I so the superintendent at that time

960
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 1: was Senior mess sar In David, and uh I heard

961
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,239
Speaker 1: him and he said, yeah, we're on the seventh floor.

962
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: We're clearing room by room. And I waited till I finished,

963
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,839
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, uh, we're in a vehicle. We're

964
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:44,880
Speaker 1: heading your way and we're gonna go to the shop

965
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: and get some equipment and we're coming back. And he said, okay,

966
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 1: get off the air shut up, and I said okay.

967
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 1: So after that we just continued to listen what was

968
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:57,319
Speaker 1: going on, and uh that's what they were doing. They

969
00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:00,719
Speaker 1: were reporting how many floors they had cleared, worked their

970
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,839
Speaker 1: way up and then back down, and then again hearing

971
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 1: the fireman talking about that they found another body or

972
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 1: they were helping wounded out of Building one thirty one,

973
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: and uh so anyway, I just tried to concentrate. Again.

974
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: I knew these guys were We're gonna be okay. I

975
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 1: didn't know how many wounded we had or what the

976
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: situation really was. It just uh, by the time we

977
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 1: got to the U D Shop on Princesses, we had

978
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 1: heard about seven bodies being found. So, uh we had

979
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: an a PC and a couple of vehicles, and UH,

980
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: I was thinking possibly we wouldn't even be let into

981
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:42,560
Speaker 1: the compound because we had both the security forces a

982
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:46,760
Speaker 1: security police at that time and the Saudis on the gate,

983
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:50,720
Speaker 1: and we also had to kill box uh to prevent

984
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: anybody from coming in the main gate with h M

985
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: sixt on that and so you would have to actually

986
00:54:57,120 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 1: come into the south side and come up the longside

987
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: before you actually turned into the base proper, the tower's proper. UH.

988
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: So I had the lieutenant. We we left the vehicle

989
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:12,719
Speaker 1: that we used to go downtown at the shop, and

990
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 1: we took a van and loaded all we already had

991
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: the standby equipment in their emergency response and some explosives

992
00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 1: and UH. Then we grabbed everybody else's ready bags and

993
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: just threw them in there. Didn't know who was, who

994
00:55:26,120 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 1: is good, who was? And UH threw him in there

995
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: and then I drove the a PC. I led the

996
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:36,439
Speaker 1: lieutenant and we drove over and the Assidi is trying

997
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 1: not to let us go in on the inside. So

998
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,120
Speaker 1: I jumped the curve, had the lieutenant falls and we

999
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 1: went in through the outside. I was standing up in

1000
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:46,760
Speaker 1: the hatch. I wanted to make sure that the security

1001
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:49,719
Speaker 1: forces guy, a security police guy could see me so

1002
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get shot. And then we drove slowly up

1003
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: and there was a parking area behind building one thirty one.

1004
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 1: That's where you're supposed to part. And again i'm gonna

1005
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 1: say that there is no lights on. So there was

1006
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,720
Speaker 1: light side at the gate, but there was no lights

1007
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:07,560
Speaker 1: on at the the two buildings. You couldn't see hardly anything.

1008
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 1: So what was that seem like that you first encountered

1009
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 1: when you came up to the building. Well, and so uh,

1010
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 1: nobody was there, so I actually uh had to run

1011
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: around the c A building and then I started hearing voices.

1012
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,160
Speaker 1: So I had thought maybe the UT guys had moved

1013
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: to uh, because we were now starting to get some

1014
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:29,760
Speaker 1: light from the mosque and you could see the smoke

1015
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 1: and the dust. It was still in the air, right,

1016
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 1: And I came around the building and then you saw

1017
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,920
Speaker 1: almost everybody in the from the towers in the middle

1018
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 1: between the buildings. So they were doing triage and then

1019
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 1: people were just waiting. They had already cleared their buildings

1020
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:49,239
Speaker 1: and they were doing re road call. That's what they

1021
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 1: were doing at that point in time. So it was

1022
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 1: pretty easy to find the UTI guys, and we had

1023
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: some guys pretty beat up. The guys that picture I

1024
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 1: sent you from the east side of the build lane

1025
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: the guy's rooms that had been in there. They had

1026
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: been hit by the window frames. So not only did

1027
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 1: they have a glass uh fragments coming out of shards,

1028
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: the window frames had broken free. One guy took a

1029
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 1: corner of a window frame between his big toe. It

1030
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 1: split his toe about two inches in between the toes,

1031
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 1: and then it missed his head and stuck in the wall.

1032
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 1: And two of the army guys, I guess they were

1033
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 1: covering their wives when the explosion went off, but they

1034
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 1: both took a window frame to their back. One guy

1035
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: had six stitches, the other guy had about thirty in

1036
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 1: his back. And everybody else was doing pretty good except

1037
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 1: for the dust. I mean there there is Their ear

1038
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: drums weren't just blown out by the blast. No, that's

1039
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: so they weren't. They were doing pretty good. I'm sure

1040
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: that if you were to check with him now, they

1041
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:56,400
Speaker 1: had some hearing issues. Um, but this this is the

1042
00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 1: amazing thing. Uh. So they were telling me, uh, well, now,

1043
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 1: I'll get into that later about what actually happened. That

1044
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 1: night for them. But uh uh so the lieutenant he

1045
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: immediately wanted to go to the blast site. These guys

1046
00:58:11,720 --> 00:58:13,720
Speaker 1: told them where it happened because we couldn't see it

1047
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 1: from that location, and we had some guys from the

1048
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:21,360
Speaker 1: current rotation. They were on standby, and they said, hey,

1049
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 1: we want to take this. So they did. They went

1050
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 1: to go look at the site and make sure that

1051
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: the security guys were actually protecting the evidence, right. We

1052
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: didn't want the city guys to start meandering around taking

1053
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 1: up souvenirs. And so they went out there and Uh,

1054
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: I'm we're talking to the other guys and they're just

1055
00:58:39,720 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: telling us what happened. I was just amazed by what

1056
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: they had done. Um. And then a security policeman came

1057
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 1: by and he said, hey, we need an eu D rep. Uh.

1058
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: The wing commander wants to see this is like forty

1059
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:55,560
Speaker 1: minutes after the deatonation. He wants to see us I

1060
00:58:56,280 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 1: security police and eu D right now. So they're looking

1061
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:02,840
Speaker 1: around and going, hey, you you're pretty fresh. Why don't

1062
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 1: you go? So me and uh step certain reins. We

1063
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: went to the uh they were using the uh the

1064
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:15,760
Speaker 1: dining facility as his U temporary command post. And so

1065
00:59:16,120 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 1: it's right smack dab in the middle of everything, and

1066
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 1: uh so we're standing tall in front of General Swally

1067
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: Air and he goes, somebody's he just started right out

1068
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 1: because somebody's ass is gonna hang out and it's not

1069
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: gonna be mine. He goes, you guys need to go

1070
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 1: back to your office find any documentation, uh that explains

1071
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 1: why this happened. And so he come out and we're

1072
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 1: looking at each other and we're going unbelievable certain rains

1073
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: he was on the current rotations, goes, yeah, we got

1074
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:52,920
Speaker 1: all the security council, many meetings. We've been saying everyone

1075
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 1: that we should be done in these buildings or move

1076
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 1: defence right. Sorry, okay, So we drove back across looking

1077
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 1: to say we found everyone. We made a copy of him,

1078
01:00:03,200 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: and we brought him back and I think at that

1079
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 1: time he had only been on the job for two

1080
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:14,439
Speaker 1: or three months General Swally Air, So, uh we brought

1081
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,640
Speaker 1: it back and he looked. He goes, okay, you're excused,

1082
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 1: and so I'm glad we made copies. He just kept

1083
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:22,920
Speaker 1: them and the security police guy he had only been

1084
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 1: there probably five days longer than me um and he

1085
01:00:27,480 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: ended up having to stay in there with the O

1086
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: side guys. So we were dismissed. We went back. We're

1087
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:36,160
Speaker 1: right back to where our guys were at and uh

1088
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 1: we were still It's still the middle of the night.

1089
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 1: So they did roll call again and uh, we had

1090
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:46,280
Speaker 1: a lot of injured injured people that had been taken

1091
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 1: to the hospital downtown UM. And it comes to find

1092
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 1: out that they did another search through the building UM

1093
01:00:57,040 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 1: in the morning. They waited till the lights the sun

1094
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: came up, and they did find one guy that had

1095
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 1: been missed, but he would had been in a chair

1096
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:10,320
Speaker 1: on the fourth floor and uh, he was killed almost immediately.

1097
01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:13,800
Speaker 1: He took a piece of glass to his right leg.

1098
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: The famorary was cut and even if at these guys

1099
01:01:17,320 --> 01:01:19,880
Speaker 1: when they were doing the search and clearing the building,

1100
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:23,960
Speaker 1: he's probably dead within four minutes. But the chair when

1101
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:25,959
Speaker 1: he rolled backwards in the chair went over the top

1102
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: of him, so nobody saw him. Of course, he didn't

1103
01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: call out when people were searching, so he had only

1104
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: been there two days before the blasts, so there was

1105
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:36,439
Speaker 1: a lot of people that didn't, you know, know who

1106
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:40,440
Speaker 1: he was. And so he was found on the second

1107
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 1: search and that was at that time. The only person

1108
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 1: in our building that was killed from the blast. There

1109
01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:50,880
Speaker 1: was a lot of people that were damaged, their eyes,

1110
01:01:51,040 --> 01:02:00,200
Speaker 1: their faces. Um, when I read nearly people. Yeah, And

1111
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: and of course that the blast was channeled and focused

1112
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:05,880
Speaker 1: as it went through the buildings, kind of like Chicago,

1113
01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:09,400
Speaker 1: the windy Cindy Right. Um, we have a there's a guy,

1114
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 1: here's a civilian here with me. He was in one

1115
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: of the fourth or fifth buildings back and when he

1116
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 1: was telling me what happened his building, I was just

1117
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 1: amazed that they took almost as much damage as we did.

1118
01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:25,360
Speaker 1: Our building actually twisted, it was pushed and twisted, and

1119
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:28,000
Speaker 1: in some of the floors the staircase was separated from

1120
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:32,600
Speaker 1: the wall eight inches. And uh so when the sun

1121
01:02:32,680 --> 01:02:35,520
Speaker 1: came up and they actually could see the damage, we

1122
01:02:35,520 --> 01:02:38,000
Speaker 1: were not allowed back in the building except for the

1123
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: search crew to do one more search. And so basically

1124
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:43,240
Speaker 1: we were told we were gonna have to find other

1125
01:02:43,280 --> 01:02:46,439
Speaker 1: places to stay. So most of the Unity guys went

1126
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: back to our work center the trailer, and uh we

1127
01:02:51,360 --> 01:02:54,520
Speaker 1: just started figuring out what we're gonna do now. H

1128
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:57,880
Speaker 1: None of us could sleep right, uh So we started

1129
01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:01,720
Speaker 1: thinking about this new potential vehicle born I E D.

1130
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: We were just called it a large I D at

1131
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 1: that time. UM. So we we looked at the size

1132
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:10,960
Speaker 1: the reports was it was an eighteen wheeler, it was

1133
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:14,920
Speaker 1: a tanker truck, and we figured that at that time

1134
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:17,440
Speaker 1: we had to go with worst case scenario that this

1135
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:21,960
Speaker 1: was at least probably twenty pounds of explosive. Now that

1136
01:03:22,040 --> 01:03:25,480
Speaker 1: could vary if this was a more like a dynamite,

1137
01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:27,920
Speaker 1: you know, or if it was more like Symtex or

1138
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 1: C four, you were going to get different results. But

1139
01:03:30,680 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: at this time, and it was still dark, we figured

1140
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:36,800
Speaker 1: out we wouldn't even need the bomb suit we would

1141
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 1: we would just within seven feet. There was no need

1142
01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 1: to even have a bomb suit or any protection walking

1143
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: up to this thing if we get another one. So

1144
01:03:44,840 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 1: that's what we were basically trying to do is see

1145
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:49,680
Speaker 1: if we were going to get another rapid attack right

1146
01:03:49,720 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 1: after this one, and what kind of procedures we could

1147
01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 1: come up with to to counteract it. UM. We basically

1148
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:00,480
Speaker 1: figured out from the other description from the UH the

1149
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 1: security policeman that was talking was it was probably a

1150
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:07,920
Speaker 1: non electric initiation. Was nothing sophisticated. UH. The guy got

1151
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 1: out of the truck, he started and he left and

1152
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:13,680
Speaker 1: he had about five minutes. So, Uh, we just tried

1153
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:15,439
Speaker 1: to come up with an RSP and what we could

1154
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:18,240
Speaker 1: do to counteract it, or if we could even just

1155
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:21,120
Speaker 1: get in the truck and drive it away, if if

1156
01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:23,480
Speaker 1: we had enough time. Right, So these are the things

1157
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 1: that we were talking about until early in the morning,

1158
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 1: and uh the next day, Uh started out very confusing,

1159
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:40,040
Speaker 1: of course. Um, we waited for the senior restaurant damned

1160
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: to come back from the morning meeting at the wing,

1161
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 1: and we just conducted business as we were doing before

1162
01:04:46,720 --> 01:04:51,160
Speaker 1: the blast. Uh. Some of the things that we're going

1163
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,480
Speaker 1: on was if we were gonna have to relocate, if

1164
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: we're gonna get more people in. But we found that

1165
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,360
Speaker 1: fairly quickly that the FBI was coming in. They had

1166
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:05,120
Speaker 1: already put it team together. They showed up the next day. Uh,

1167
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 1: we're wasting that evening. So this is the next day.

1168
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 1: They showed up late that evening. They were pretty tired. Uh,

1169
01:05:13,560 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 1: but they requested that we take them around to a survey.

1170
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 1: So we went to the top of the buildings and

1171
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: we started looking for evidence and uh, these guys were

1172
01:05:22,600 --> 01:05:27,280
Speaker 1: tagging it and bagging it, taking pictures and a lot

1173
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:29,920
Speaker 1: of people confused why it was the the FBI. But

1174
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:32,080
Speaker 1: who would you have come in to do this? Would

1175
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: you actually have O S I C I D or

1176
01:05:35,640 --> 01:05:38,520
Speaker 1: N C I S military Would you have A C

1177
01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:41,000
Speaker 1: I A. I mean, really, the FBI probably made the

1178
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:45,320
Speaker 1: best since and also they're interested in criminally prosecuting the terrorists,

1179
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:53,360
Speaker 1: so the FBI. So, um, there was a I'm gonna

1180
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 1: tell you this. There was a lot of emotional people

1181
01:05:57,480 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 1: wonder why they were having to take care of the FBI.

1182
01:06:00,200 --> 01:06:03,200
Speaker 1: But it within a couple of hours it worked out.

1183
01:06:03,200 --> 01:06:05,439
Speaker 1: I mean, they kept their cools. We finally got other

1184
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:09,200
Speaker 1: people to realize this is gonna happen. I mean we

1185
01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:12,800
Speaker 1: actually they went into space. We people were trying to

1186
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:14,720
Speaker 1: clean up their areas and figure out how they were

1187
01:06:14,720 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: gonna stay in their their buildings. And there was just

1188
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: a lot of wray motions that first morning through the day. Um,

1189
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:26,560
Speaker 1: but I guess it. It did a pretty good job.

1190
01:06:26,680 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: I think it even for the Oklahoma City bombing. I

1191
01:06:30,040 --> 01:06:33,520
Speaker 1: think the A t F was the lead on the

1192
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:37,680
Speaker 1: investigation and then they assisted the FBI. I think this

1193
01:06:37,760 --> 01:06:42,560
Speaker 1: was actually the first FBI lad investigation with explosives. Now

1194
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: I may be incorrect, but I think that is why

1195
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 1: this was so important to to get these guys out.

1196
01:06:48,520 --> 01:06:54,120
Speaker 1: Um So, what happened after that was they decided it

1197
01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:57,000
Speaker 1: was too damn hot to work at Coobar Towers during

1198
01:06:57,000 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 1: the day, so they started work at ten o'clock and

1199
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:04,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people that were working regular days, including us,

1200
01:07:05,280 --> 01:07:08,440
Speaker 1: went and helped sifted through dirt and we worked from

1201
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:12,520
Speaker 1: ten to two h every night until that was actually finished,

1202
01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: and then we'd go back and get some sleep and

1203
01:07:14,440 --> 01:07:19,480
Speaker 1: go back and do our regular job. Um. So are

1204
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:24,920
Speaker 1: rotation guys. Most of them left about three days after

1205
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 1: the blast, and we got new guys in and we

1206
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:32,840
Speaker 1: actually had an F six team go down south of

1207
01:07:32,960 --> 01:07:35,080
Speaker 1: Half Moon Bay. Do you know where that's at? I

1208
01:07:35,080 --> 01:07:37,200
Speaker 1: don't know where it is now, Okay, it's it's it's

1209
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:40,720
Speaker 1: about forty five minutes south the da Haran. So half

1210
01:07:40,720 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: Moon Bay is also where the Saudi ut guys did

1211
01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 1: their demo. That's where we did our demo and it

1212
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:49,240
Speaker 1: was pretty close to their. So in F six team

1213
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 1: went down with live ordinance and uh our new superintendent.

1214
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:59,520
Speaker 1: When he came in h cms are in groth. Uh

1215
01:07:59,600 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 1: he said, was gonna take charge? Well, he kind of

1216
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 1: screwed the pooch right from the get go. He he

1217
01:08:06,720 --> 01:08:11,520
Speaker 1: took a truck to the the checkpoint area where they

1218
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 1: were bringing together all the assembly area for the uh

1219
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: the folks that we're gonna go down range to recover

1220
01:08:16,560 --> 01:08:21,439
Speaker 1: the aircraft. All of our trucks had been at half full. Uh.

1221
01:08:21,800 --> 01:08:25,599
Speaker 1: The pumps weren't running, but we did have reserve cans

1222
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:27,439
Speaker 1: that we could fill up the truck. And we kept

1223
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:31,800
Speaker 1: asking him, you know, uh, certain growth, you not want

1224
01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 1: to fill up the trucks. We got times we can

1225
01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:37,080
Speaker 1: bring the cans to you. He kept saying no. So

1226
01:08:37,720 --> 01:08:40,599
Speaker 1: they they went out to uh half Moon Bay. They

1227
01:08:40,640 --> 01:08:45,080
Speaker 1: started doing the uh, the initial assessment and recovery, and

1228
01:08:45,120 --> 01:08:50,200
Speaker 1: then they ran out of fuel. So they he decided

1229
01:08:50,240 --> 01:08:52,679
Speaker 1: to have the fire department push him all the way back,

1230
01:08:52,760 --> 01:08:55,800
Speaker 1: I mean push him, hit bumper to bumper, pushed him

1231
01:08:55,800 --> 01:08:59,479
Speaker 1: all the way back to Cobart Towers. And that kind

1232
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:01,920
Speaker 1: of started the bad blood between the both of us

1233
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:06,720
Speaker 1: and some other folks. UM. So when they had a

1234
01:09:06,720 --> 01:09:10,000
Speaker 1: mission at all the all Sealine which is up in Kuwait,

1235
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:14,240
Speaker 1: about a week and a half into this, the troublemakers

1236
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:17,080
Speaker 1: got sent up to Kuwait and clear that, so they

1237
01:09:17,080 --> 01:09:21,400
Speaker 1: were looking at expanding the location where they had trailers

1238
01:09:21,479 --> 01:09:24,760
Speaker 1: for pilots. We were gonna get more crews, so we

1239
01:09:24,800 --> 01:09:27,920
Speaker 1: needed to go up there and and uh clear this area,

1240
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:31,240
Speaker 1: make sure he was munition free. Um. This should have

1241
01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 1: been a fairly easy thing to do, but this area

1242
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: not only had it been a trash area, but the

1243
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:41,559
Speaker 1: Iraqis they had shot a lot of rounds here and

1244
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:46,240
Speaker 1: we had to so um every day. It was a

1245
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:50,360
Speaker 1: daily walk with the metal detector, and we were we

1246
01:09:50,360 --> 01:09:54,559
Speaker 1: were bringing up eating utensils as well as rebar We

1247
01:09:55,160 --> 01:09:59,760
Speaker 1: probably dug up almost that entire five acres to make

1248
01:09:59,760 --> 01:10:03,640
Speaker 1: sure it was clear. We did find two blue it's

1249
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:08,360
Speaker 1: a it's a bomb it and uh, I'll tell you,

1250
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:10,160
Speaker 1: it was so hot and dry up there. We were

1251
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:13,559
Speaker 1: drinking a leader of water and maybe only having to

1252
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 1: to pee once a day. We were drinking you know,

1253
01:10:17,160 --> 01:10:20,320
Speaker 1: we couldn't drink anymore water. We were just sweating it

1254
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:24,200
Speaker 1: out that fast. But we uh, we did that mission

1255
01:10:24,240 --> 01:10:26,960
Speaker 1: and we came back down and we uh two of

1256
01:10:27,040 --> 01:10:30,360
Speaker 1: us got hit to go down and recover the A

1257
01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:34,400
Speaker 1: one twenty warheads. They had been marked but they hadn't

1258
01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:37,760
Speaker 1: touched them yet. And uh, so we came back from

1259
01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:41,439
Speaker 1: a very dry location to a very human one again

1260
01:10:42,760 --> 01:10:45,320
Speaker 1: and uh there was also better ones out there. That

1261
01:10:45,360 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 1: was the other thing. They wanted to get stuff back

1262
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:51,120
Speaker 1: to uh the base and get it wrapped up, and

1263
01:10:51,160 --> 01:10:54,240
Speaker 1: then we were going to take the warheads and to

1264
01:10:54,720 --> 01:10:57,840
Speaker 1: half Moon Bay and demo those and blow them up.

1265
01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:01,320
Speaker 1: They weren't they were not need it for the investigation.

1266
01:11:01,479 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 1: They didn't cause any uh incident to the aircraft. So

1267
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:07,799
Speaker 1: that's why we were getting ready of the rocket motors

1268
01:11:07,840 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 1: in the warheads. Uh. So we finished that when we

1269
01:11:11,560 --> 01:11:15,120
Speaker 1: came back, and when we came back, there was talk

1270
01:11:15,120 --> 01:11:18,000
Speaker 1: of that we were probably gonna go down to Prince

1271
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 1: Salton Air Base. You know where that's at. I don't.

1272
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:24,320
Speaker 1: I think I know where it is. I've never been

1273
01:11:24,320 --> 01:11:26,839
Speaker 1: there though. Well it's out in the middle of the desert,

1274
01:11:27,040 --> 01:11:29,680
Speaker 1: and we had used it, used to call it Al's Garage.

1275
01:11:30,240 --> 01:11:33,439
Speaker 1: The Air Force has had vehicles out there since the

1276
01:11:33,479 --> 01:11:37,360
Speaker 1: early eighties with a contractor crew that maintained them, and

1277
01:11:37,400 --> 01:11:39,680
Speaker 1: there's a you know, runway and everything out there that

1278
01:11:39,760 --> 01:11:42,160
Speaker 1: was supposed to be our you know, the issue with

1279
01:11:43,560 --> 01:11:47,200
Speaker 1: rapid deployment, I mean the Army used ships, right and

1280
01:11:47,600 --> 01:11:49,360
Speaker 1: we saw that with the first golf for that a

1281
01:11:49,400 --> 01:11:53,720
Speaker 1: lot of stuff got um stovepiped at Dover and Charleston.

1282
01:11:53,760 --> 01:11:56,240
Speaker 1: There just wasn't enough aircraft to move that stuff. We've

1283
01:11:56,240 --> 01:12:00,519
Speaker 1: known that for a while. Um So anyway, that was

1284
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:02,919
Speaker 1: the air Force solution was to put stuff in place.

1285
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:06,080
Speaker 1: And you know that stuff that the tires rought. And

1286
01:12:06,120 --> 01:12:09,000
Speaker 1: if you don't have a good crew maintaining the vehicles,

1287
01:12:09,040 --> 01:12:11,639
Speaker 1: they're not really worth anything. Once you get you get

1288
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:15,600
Speaker 1: a deployment or a need for them. So uh it

1289
01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:17,680
Speaker 1: had been used for that. And then they told us

1290
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:21,679
Speaker 1: we were gonna start getting tense set up and getting

1291
01:12:21,720 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 1: ready to receive the majority of the forces coming in.

1292
01:12:25,439 --> 01:12:30,080
Speaker 1: So we uh, the same crew and some other people

1293
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:33,839
Speaker 1: got sent down to Prince Saltan and we started that

1294
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:37,000
Speaker 1: that process so that this is within three to four

1295
01:12:37,040 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: weeks of the blast and uh so we started setting

1296
01:12:41,479 --> 01:12:44,920
Speaker 1: that up and that that went pretty well. And our

1297
01:12:44,960 --> 01:12:47,599
Speaker 1: superintendent was actually one of the last people to league

1298
01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:50,080
Speaker 1: cob Our Towers. He did not want to come there.

1299
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:54,719
Speaker 1: Uh and he finally showed up and just in time

1300
01:12:54,760 --> 01:12:57,080
Speaker 1: for us to get ready for our rotation to end

1301
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:02,040
Speaker 1: and then fly out on the rotator out Now, I

1302
01:13:02,080 --> 01:13:04,519
Speaker 1: don't know if you're familiar with what happens in the

1303
01:13:04,760 --> 01:13:08,320
Speaker 1: a very hot, dry place. It limits the flight of

1304
01:13:08,360 --> 01:13:13,120
Speaker 1: heavy aircraft. So um, most aircraft was coming in and

1305
01:13:13,160 --> 01:13:17,639
Speaker 1: going out very early in the morning, like two o'clock,

1306
01:13:18,080 --> 01:13:23,280
Speaker 1: just so that you actually had air to lift the aircraft. Right. Uh,

1307
01:13:24,520 --> 01:13:25,920
Speaker 1: and that was one of the You didn't really have

1308
01:13:25,960 --> 01:13:30,360
Speaker 1: that problem at Haran with moisterire, but thin air. Definitely

1309
01:13:30,360 --> 01:13:34,439
Speaker 1: with the hot conditions, with a heavy load, you definitely

1310
01:13:34,439 --> 01:13:37,560
Speaker 1: needed lift to get out of there without any problems.

1311
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:40,960
Speaker 1: What ended up happening with the Cobar towers, I mean,

1312
01:13:41,000 --> 01:13:44,160
Speaker 1: what was the end result from that investigation? And you

1313
01:13:44,160 --> 01:13:47,080
Speaker 1: know your your your perception on it or take on

1314
01:13:47,160 --> 01:13:51,360
Speaker 1: it well, and there there's a lot of conflicting parts,

1315
01:13:51,360 --> 01:13:55,400
Speaker 1: and I guess it's still issues today. Right. I will

1316
01:13:55,439 --> 01:13:58,479
Speaker 1: say that I still think it is higher than five

1317
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:05,200
Speaker 1: thousand pounds. We did our own little cheap tests and uh. Again,

1318
01:14:05,280 --> 01:14:07,439
Speaker 1: this is one thing about explosives that I think a

1319
01:14:07,439 --> 01:14:10,360
Speaker 1: lot of people don't said. They're used to seeing what

1320
01:14:10,439 --> 01:14:15,639
Speaker 1: you see in the movies. Right. I've been on several

1321
01:14:15,680 --> 01:14:18,400
Speaker 1: tests with scientists and then they write their numbers down

1322
01:14:19,040 --> 01:14:21,360
Speaker 1: and what they don't take into account when you do

1323
01:14:21,439 --> 01:14:25,519
Speaker 1: these calculations for explosives, is that the terrain, the ground,

1324
01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:30,479
Speaker 1: the clouds, the air density. Uh, they can take some

1325
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:33,559
Speaker 1: of these things effect, but it's still you can see

1326
01:14:33,600 --> 01:14:36,719
Speaker 1: things happen just basically because the lay of the land

1327
01:14:36,720 --> 01:14:41,439
Speaker 1: and how the wave travels um and again that just

1328
01:14:41,520 --> 01:14:46,960
Speaker 1: comes with experience. But I'll tell you I just a

1329
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:49,760
Speaker 1: lot of this comes down is that they tied the

1330
01:14:49,960 --> 01:14:53,200
Speaker 1: the formal report to a number and a lot of

1331
01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:56,360
Speaker 1: people disagreed with that, and it's based solely on that.

1332
01:14:56,360 --> 01:14:59,519
Speaker 1: That one individual that ran down from the top of

1333
01:14:59,560 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 1: the building, the security police guy that ran down from

1334
01:15:02,240 --> 01:15:06,400
Speaker 1: the building and ran towards the truck. Now I think

1335
01:15:06,479 --> 01:15:11,320
Speaker 1: about this still, this totally amazes me that this individual

1336
01:15:11,479 --> 01:15:14,680
Speaker 1: ran towards the truck and when the bomb detonated, he

1337
01:15:14,840 --> 01:15:17,880
Speaker 1: had his clothes ripped from him. Could you imagine that?

1338
01:15:18,320 --> 01:15:21,479
Speaker 1: And he was tumbled backwards. I mean, it's all his

1339
01:15:21,520 --> 01:15:24,799
Speaker 1: ear drums were blown out. But to have your actual

1340
01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:27,240
Speaker 1: the force of something to rip the clothes off your

1341
01:15:27,320 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 1: left in your underwear and your boots and that's it.

1342
01:15:31,960 --> 01:15:36,400
Speaker 1: And uh, it's still just amazed me that guy lived. Um,

1343
01:15:36,439 --> 01:15:38,960
Speaker 1: So the perpetrator was it was a man by the

1344
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:43,880
Speaker 1: name of Hezbollah al Jah's Uh, not to be confused

1345
01:15:43,920 --> 01:15:46,720
Speaker 1: with the actual group hez Blah. It was the guy's name,

1346
01:15:47,240 --> 01:15:50,800
Speaker 1: um and he was reportedly a Shia terrorists. But as

1347
01:15:50,880 --> 01:15:54,680
Speaker 1: Jack and I were discussing before we recorded, there's allegedly

1348
01:15:54,800 --> 01:15:58,839
Speaker 1: some controversy with that, with with alleged ties to Iraq

1349
01:15:58,920 --> 01:16:02,320
Speaker 1: as as you were saying, well, yeah, I was just

1350
01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:04,840
Speaker 1: reading about how after nine eleven I think they tried

1351
01:16:04,840 --> 01:16:09,960
Speaker 1: to maybe shift the blame to al Qaeda. Well, yeah,

1352
01:16:09,960 --> 01:16:12,120
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that. I think this is still

1353
01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:18,640
Speaker 1: it was I ran sponsored and so if if the

1354
01:16:18,680 --> 01:16:21,880
Speaker 1: explosive was sim Tex, where did they get all that?

1355
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:24,840
Speaker 1: Where did they come from? And who paid for all this? Right?

1356
01:16:24,880 --> 01:16:27,920
Speaker 1: So I think there was some some pretty big hands

1357
01:16:28,040 --> 01:16:32,559
Speaker 1: in in sponsoring and and and probably engineering this. But uh,

1358
01:16:33,439 --> 01:16:36,080
Speaker 1: I gotta say that one of the things that I've

1359
01:16:36,120 --> 01:16:38,479
Speaker 1: totally disagreed with. So when when we went up to Quait,

1360
01:16:38,560 --> 01:16:42,000
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention this, So that the security policeman,

1361
01:16:42,040 --> 01:16:44,559
Speaker 1: the captain that got there a couple of days before me,

1362
01:16:45,720 --> 01:16:47,840
Speaker 1: we found him up in Kuwait when we went up

1363
01:16:47,840 --> 01:16:50,519
Speaker 1: there for our the range clearance, right, And I mean

1364
01:16:50,600 --> 01:16:55,880
Speaker 1: He looked totally downbeaten, and he told us. He goes,

1365
01:16:55,960 --> 01:16:59,439
Speaker 1: my career is destroyed, and we're going what happened? He goes,

1366
01:16:59,680 --> 01:17:02,240
Speaker 1: So I've been exiled by the wing commander. He says,

1367
01:17:02,320 --> 01:17:05,320
Speaker 1: it's my fault, right, And I goes, so, how's it

1368
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:09,800
Speaker 1: your fault? Your guys did not let them penetrate the gate. Okay,

1369
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:13,360
Speaker 1: that truck did not come into the gate. The issue

1370
01:17:13,439 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 1: is with the perimeter, and that's still not your issue.

1371
01:17:16,200 --> 01:17:18,840
Speaker 1: You're doing what what you and all your predecessors have

1372
01:17:18,960 --> 01:17:22,360
Speaker 1: been told to do. You defend the inside the perimeter.

1373
01:17:23,960 --> 01:17:26,080
Speaker 1: And I'm sure his career was over. And I mean,

1374
01:17:26,120 --> 01:17:30,600
Speaker 1: I felt really bad for the guy. And you know,

1375
01:17:30,720 --> 01:17:34,280
Speaker 1: you this guy, the wing commander, tried to get his

1376
01:17:34,360 --> 01:17:39,320
Speaker 1: second stars that it wasn't his fault. Uh. This this

1377
01:17:39,439 --> 01:17:42,120
Speaker 1: goes back to every wing commander should have been held

1378
01:17:42,120 --> 01:17:45,559
Speaker 1: accountable for that. Right. They picked a location, they thought

1379
01:17:45,600 --> 01:17:48,360
Speaker 1: it was safe, and they didn't listen to their folks.

1380
01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:52,599
Speaker 1: And and again, heck, we could got back to tents.

1381
01:17:52,640 --> 01:17:55,400
Speaker 1: I think most people would have done that. But I

1382
01:17:55,520 --> 01:17:57,640
Speaker 1: just I really hope that we never come across this

1383
01:17:57,760 --> 01:18:03,080
Speaker 1: situation again where people think that comfort is over safety, right,

1384
01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:09,000
Speaker 1: and uh well, I just this is probably gonna be

1385
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:12,720
Speaker 1: a hot issue for a long time. But who did it?

1386
01:18:12,840 --> 01:18:15,920
Speaker 1: Who was responsible? But there's been a couple of good

1387
01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:19,240
Speaker 1: books on that. Again, I think it really points back

1388
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:23,080
Speaker 1: to Iran and their operations over Iraq as a way to,

1389
01:18:23,880 --> 01:18:27,280
Speaker 1: I guess, undermine our operations in Iraq, which we we

1390
01:18:27,479 --> 01:18:30,439
Speaker 1: at that time a lot of just for some people

1391
01:18:30,439 --> 01:18:33,439
Speaker 1: who may not recall, we were enforcing a no fly

1392
01:18:33,600 --> 01:18:38,200
Speaker 1: zone over Iraq at that time, correct, And then for

1393
01:18:38,320 --> 01:18:40,160
Speaker 1: both them we had the Northern Watch out of Turkey,

1394
01:18:40,200 --> 01:18:41,920
Speaker 1: and then of course we were the Southern Wash And

1395
01:18:41,960 --> 01:18:44,280
Speaker 1: I mean, just how much money we spent with the

1396
01:18:44,320 --> 01:18:48,000
Speaker 1: aircraft coming down and the people, Um, that was a

1397
01:18:48,000 --> 01:18:51,400
Speaker 1: big operation. Now that the lieutenant told me he was

1398
01:18:51,400 --> 01:18:54,200
Speaker 1: going to put us in for decorations and all that stuff.

1399
01:18:54,920 --> 01:18:57,960
Speaker 1: And uh so, I just kind of saying, the guys

1400
01:18:58,000 --> 01:19:03,000
Speaker 1: that were there, excluding the louten it myself, they deservedly

1401
01:19:03,040 --> 01:19:06,679
Speaker 1: earned a commendation medal with valor for what they did.

1402
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:09,240
Speaker 1: So I didn't really talk about that. But the senior

1403
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:12,200
Speaker 1: Sartain David, he led the team from he gathered them

1404
01:19:12,200 --> 01:19:14,720
Speaker 1: all together from the sixth floor and they went to

1405
01:19:14,760 --> 01:19:17,759
Speaker 1: the seventh floor, and they brought back some uh severely

1406
01:19:17,760 --> 01:19:22,160
Speaker 1: wounded folks. They saved two lives and that was too

1407
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:30,360
Speaker 1: uh the credit of one of the tech sergeants. UM.

1408
01:19:30,400 --> 01:19:34,040
Speaker 1: He had actually been in a failed experiment at a

1409
01:19:34,080 --> 01:19:36,160
Speaker 1: Court Air Force space. They tried to take E O

1410
01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:39,720
Speaker 1: D Fire Department and paramedics and put them together with

1411
01:19:39,840 --> 01:19:43,720
Speaker 1: one unit, and they expected everybody to be cross trained. Well,

1412
01:19:43,800 --> 01:19:45,800
Speaker 1: the only people that actually had to cross train was

1413
01:19:45,840 --> 01:19:48,479
Speaker 1: the O D guys. This really hurt the airman there

1414
01:19:48,560 --> 01:19:52,000
Speaker 1: and I think that, uh, most of those guys have

1415
01:19:52,080 --> 01:19:54,600
Speaker 1: gotten out now, but tech s are in Lyonel that

1416
01:19:54,760 --> 01:19:58,120
Speaker 1: was his name. He was on the the current rotation

1417
01:19:58,240 --> 01:20:01,439
Speaker 1: and he left shortly after this. It because of the

1418
01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:04,599
Speaker 1: paramedics skills he learned. He actually saved two lives and

1419
01:20:04,600 --> 01:20:08,599
Speaker 1: and it was great that he did that. Um. So

1420
01:20:08,720 --> 01:20:11,479
Speaker 1: the lieutenant said he was gonna do a decoration for us.

1421
01:20:11,520 --> 01:20:14,080
Speaker 1: I said, I don't really care, it's okay. But what

1422
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:16,800
Speaker 1: he did was he put our names on that decoration,

1423
01:20:17,439 --> 01:20:19,479
Speaker 1: and we were not there. We were not part of that.

1424
01:20:20,160 --> 01:20:23,720
Speaker 1: And so what happened was one of the guys on

1425
01:20:23,760 --> 01:20:26,679
Speaker 1: our rotations he had gone to Nellis for a range

1426
01:20:26,720 --> 01:20:30,120
Speaker 1: clearance operation, which is a regular thing. That's where Lieutenant

1427
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:34,559
Speaker 1: Jones was from. And he was talking to uh one

1428
01:20:34,560 --> 01:20:36,760
Speaker 1: of the admin specialists there at Nellis at the O

1429
01:20:36,840 --> 01:20:41,680
Speaker 1: D shop and the the guy working and says, hey,

1430
01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:44,400
Speaker 1: you know, Lieutenant Jones is gonna get this medal, right,

1431
01:20:44,520 --> 01:20:47,200
Speaker 1: and so he said, no, you might if I see it.

1432
01:20:47,240 --> 01:20:48,720
Speaker 1: So he reads it and go, oh, this is a

1433
01:20:48,720 --> 01:20:51,320
Speaker 1: complete lie. He wasn't there for that. So anyway, he

1434
01:20:51,439 --> 01:20:54,120
Speaker 1: called me up and said, hey, can you write a statement?

1435
01:20:54,880 --> 01:20:58,160
Speaker 1: And I said sure I can. So I wrote a statement.

1436
01:20:58,160 --> 01:21:01,080
Speaker 1: I explained exactly what we did where we were at

1437
01:21:01,120 --> 01:21:04,600
Speaker 1: and we were not in any part of that evacuation

1438
01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:07,839
Speaker 1: of our buildings. So that went up there and Lieutenant

1439
01:21:07,920 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 1: Jones was asked to resign. He took his medal and

1440
01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:13,720
Speaker 1: then of course they said, well, uh, you know you're

1441
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:15,439
Speaker 1: gonna get a medal next week, and I said, yeah,

1442
01:21:15,439 --> 01:21:17,000
Speaker 1: I don't want to just go ahead and turn it in.

1443
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:20,920
Speaker 1: I didn't do any of that stuff. So anyway, Uh,

1444
01:21:21,040 --> 01:21:24,439
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Jones actually got picked up for secret service. UH

1445
01:21:24,520 --> 01:21:27,240
Speaker 1: within a month of being resigning from the Air Force.

1446
01:21:28,280 --> 01:21:31,840
Speaker 1: What's the breakdown of the twent how many of those

1447
01:21:31,880 --> 01:21:36,439
Speaker 1: were civilians? How many service members. Well, so those those

1448
01:21:36,479 --> 01:21:39,479
Speaker 1: twenty were all uh, they were tasked to that C

1449
01:21:39,640 --> 01:21:43,759
Speaker 1: one flying squad right, it was all air Force. Now

1450
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:46,719
Speaker 1: when you start talking about the Saudi desks, and again

1451
01:21:46,760 --> 01:21:50,080
Speaker 1: that's another thing, I'm glad you brought that up. So, uh,

1452
01:21:50,240 --> 01:21:55,080
Speaker 1: two days after the blast, there is a Cobart Towers

1453
01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:59,400
Speaker 1: like uh community just to the east of our buildings.

1454
01:21:59,439 --> 01:22:01,080
Speaker 1: It's almost the exactly say. If you go to the

1455
01:22:01,120 --> 01:22:04,640
Speaker 1: Google and look, you'll see what I'm talking about. Uh,

1456
01:22:04,880 --> 01:22:07,040
Speaker 1: somebody called in an I E. D. And why we

1457
01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:11,240
Speaker 1: got called. I was on standby, so we took a

1458
01:22:11,240 --> 01:22:15,479
Speaker 1: truck over to these other buildings. I'm gonna tell you

1459
01:22:15,640 --> 01:22:20,519
Speaker 1: right now that they probably lost a hundred to two

1460
01:22:20,600 --> 01:22:24,920
Speaker 1: hundred people civilians, the Saudis did on that side and

1461
01:22:25,000 --> 01:22:28,759
Speaker 1: on the other side. So the floors, the dried blood,

1462
01:22:28,800 --> 01:22:32,599
Speaker 1: I mean there was it was just completely dried red.

1463
01:22:32,840 --> 01:22:36,200
Speaker 1: All the wild windows were broken out and they still

1464
01:22:36,200 --> 01:22:39,519
Speaker 1: will now report how many people they had killed. Yeah. Yeah,

1465
01:22:40,120 --> 01:22:41,840
Speaker 1: when I was reading about it, I didn't see anything

1466
01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:46,080
Speaker 1: about Saudi fatalities. So just walking through that, I had

1467
01:22:46,080 --> 01:22:48,800
Speaker 1: to walk through several floors. So the call came in.

1468
01:22:48,880 --> 01:22:50,920
Speaker 1: I think it was a prank. Call. I did not

1469
01:22:51,080 --> 01:22:54,439
Speaker 1: find a suspicious package or an I d but I

1470
01:22:54,439 --> 01:22:57,559
Speaker 1: could see that every room had people that had come

1471
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:01,320
Speaker 1: out of their bleeding drastically okay, and they either were

1472
01:23:01,400 --> 01:23:04,040
Speaker 1: dragged down the stairs or whatever. But there was a

1473
01:23:04,040 --> 01:23:09,840
Speaker 1: lot of people. So um, and that's that's all we

1474
01:23:09,920 --> 01:23:12,439
Speaker 1: had of that. So I I told our other guys

1475
01:23:12,560 --> 01:23:15,840
Speaker 1: what I had seen, and uh, you know, there was

1476
01:23:15,880 --> 01:23:17,719
Speaker 1: nothing we could do about that. We were just waiting.

1477
01:23:17,760 --> 01:23:20,519
Speaker 1: We thought that the that would be published, but that

1478
01:23:20,720 --> 01:23:24,760
Speaker 1: was never published. Everything. Um. I had an unrelated question

1479
01:23:24,800 --> 01:23:27,719
Speaker 1: because I think we've covered this at length for sure,

1480
01:23:27,720 --> 01:23:31,519
Speaker 1: and I'm glad we did, because most people listening probably

1481
01:23:31,680 --> 01:23:35,519
Speaker 1: have not heard, you know that much about what went

1482
01:23:35,560 --> 01:23:39,400
Speaker 1: on that day. And so I'm curious of the connection

1483
01:23:39,479 --> 01:23:42,800
Speaker 1: with Sergeant Major Mike Vining. How did you meet him?

1484
01:23:42,800 --> 01:23:46,680
Speaker 1: Did you did your service crossover at some point? No? No,

1485
01:23:46,800 --> 01:23:49,920
Speaker 1: so um uh one of my the guys. So when

1486
01:23:49,920 --> 01:23:52,800
Speaker 1: I left Barksdale, I went and stood up a unit

1487
01:23:52,840 --> 01:23:56,360
Speaker 1: called the Twenties Security Forces Group. That unit was said

1488
01:23:56,479 --> 01:23:59,439
Speaker 1: specifically to deal with these kind of issues. So our

1489
01:23:59,479 --> 01:24:02,599
Speaker 1: mission was to go into a a site, first set

1490
01:24:02,680 --> 01:24:04,840
Speaker 1: up the perimeter for the wing, and then when the

1491
01:24:04,880 --> 01:24:07,200
Speaker 1: wing came in, we transitioned to him, so they had

1492
01:24:07,240 --> 01:24:09,280
Speaker 1: to stand off. Already they knew where all their stuff

1493
01:24:09,360 --> 01:24:12,240
Speaker 1: was supposed to go. And we did that for five years,

1494
01:24:12,360 --> 01:24:16,479
Speaker 1: Dennis asking and myself and Jodi Alt where the eu

1495
01:24:16,560 --> 01:24:19,920
Speaker 1: D guys assigned to the cops. We also had see guys,

1496
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:25,400
Speaker 1: calm guys, um, other non cop functions that supported them.

1497
01:24:25,400 --> 01:24:28,439
Speaker 1: So we were basically a unit that could go in

1498
01:24:28,479 --> 01:24:31,320
Speaker 1: and take care of everything that we needed to and

1499
01:24:31,360 --> 01:24:35,040
Speaker 1: then come out. We rarely didn't come out that quickly.

1500
01:24:35,080 --> 01:24:39,040
Speaker 1: We usually got stuck for a while. But Dennis was

1501
01:24:39,080 --> 01:24:40,479
Speaker 1: the one. He sent me an email and said, Hey,

1502
01:24:40,479 --> 01:24:43,840
Speaker 1: they're gonna talk about Cobar towers or something here, talked

1503
01:24:43,840 --> 01:24:46,240
Speaker 1: to Mike Minding and then Uh, he was the one

1504
01:24:46,280 --> 01:24:49,840
Speaker 1: that that connected us. So I appreciate that, but I

1505
01:24:49,880 --> 01:24:52,080
Speaker 1: mean we that is one thing about eu D guys.

1506
01:24:52,120 --> 01:24:55,320
Speaker 1: We are joint. I think we're probably one of the

1507
01:24:55,360 --> 01:24:59,800
Speaker 1: first joint schools to go together. Uh and do the same.

1508
01:25:00,040 --> 01:25:06,160
Speaker 1: Think that the badge is old, it's d D badge um.

1509
01:25:06,200 --> 01:25:08,640
Speaker 1: And if you don't know, there's a memorial wall. It

1510
01:25:08,720 --> 01:25:12,760
Speaker 1: used to be at Indian Head Michael Schoolhouse. They have

1511
01:25:12,840 --> 01:25:15,679
Speaker 1: a ceremony every year and they had the new names

1512
01:25:15,800 --> 01:25:20,840
Speaker 1: for people killed in dealing with explosives. Um. Mike was

1513
01:25:20,880 --> 01:25:23,839
Speaker 1: saying that thankfully they don't have to put any names

1514
01:25:23,920 --> 01:25:27,519
Speaker 1: on for but that they are going to add some

1515
01:25:27,680 --> 01:25:30,680
Speaker 1: names of people from past conflicts who you know, for

1516
01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:34,120
Speaker 1: one reason or another didn't end up on there. So

1517
01:25:34,200 --> 01:25:36,479
Speaker 1: if you ever get a chance to a ceremony, that's

1518
01:25:36,520 --> 01:25:41,120
Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty nice ceremony. Um. But they've had

1519
01:25:42,360 --> 01:25:45,160
Speaker 1: they've done that for a long time, so it's a

1520
01:25:45,200 --> 01:25:50,160
Speaker 1: long tradition Air Force guys, you know the guys. The

1521
01:25:50,200 --> 01:25:55,400
Speaker 1: first ones was a after a rocket attack in Vietnam,

1522
01:25:55,520 --> 01:26:00,760
Speaker 1: and they had aircraft that had this chemical fusing. So

1523
01:26:01,120 --> 01:26:03,320
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know anything about chemical fusees,

1524
01:26:03,320 --> 01:26:06,160
Speaker 1: but when you put the fuse in, you broke a glass.

1525
01:26:06,439 --> 01:26:09,760
Speaker 1: Chemical pencils, yes, but but this is a little more

1526
01:26:09,760 --> 01:26:12,839
Speaker 1: sophisticated than that. It actually, so you had a different

1527
01:26:13,280 --> 01:26:17,799
Speaker 1: delay based on the acidity. Right once you loaded these bombs.

1528
01:26:17,800 --> 01:26:19,559
Speaker 1: They don't do this anymore. Once you loaded them on

1529
01:26:19,560 --> 01:26:21,519
Speaker 1: the airplane, you had to get that airplane to take

1530
01:26:21,560 --> 01:26:25,799
Speaker 1: off and go drop those bombs. So they had loaded

1531
01:26:25,800 --> 01:26:27,320
Speaker 1: that the aircraft, they were ready to go when this

1532
01:26:27,439 --> 01:26:30,240
Speaker 1: rocket attack came in and it it damaged the base

1533
01:26:30,320 --> 01:26:35,559
Speaker 1: and damaged the airfield, and so they canceled the mission. So, uh,

1534
01:26:35,600 --> 01:26:38,240
Speaker 1: these Air Force guys were called out to go ahead

1535
01:26:38,320 --> 01:26:42,760
Speaker 1: and remove these fuses. Now, these fuses, I mean, they

1536
01:26:42,760 --> 01:26:44,400
Speaker 1: had a lot of things crazy, and you had to

1537
01:26:44,439 --> 01:26:47,280
Speaker 1: put the bomb down, you had to hold the fuse

1538
01:26:47,320 --> 01:26:49,800
Speaker 1: in place, and you had to roll the bomb. Okay,

1539
01:26:49,840 --> 01:26:54,519
Speaker 1: if you changed the uh the position of the fuse,

1540
01:26:54,640 --> 01:26:57,840
Speaker 1: it could go off, right. So they got quite a

1541
01:26:57,840 --> 01:26:59,639
Speaker 1: few of these done, but they didn't get them all done,

1542
01:26:59,680 --> 01:27:02,800
Speaker 1: and they were killed together. So that was the first

1543
01:27:02,840 --> 01:27:08,080
Speaker 1: Air Force official Air Force casually was in Vietnam. David, Um,

1544
01:27:08,120 --> 01:27:11,160
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this,

1545
01:27:11,320 --> 01:27:14,880
Speaker 1: talk about Kobar towers and what happened out there. It's

1546
01:27:14,920 --> 01:27:18,320
Speaker 1: one of those incidents that uh probably you know, over

1547
01:27:18,360 --> 01:27:20,960
Speaker 1: people most people's heads that probably I haven't really thought

1548
01:27:20,960 --> 01:27:24,519
Speaker 1: about it that much. Happened both of us pretty young

1549
01:27:24,600 --> 01:27:27,679
Speaker 1: when when this slant down. So yeah, yeah, um, And

1550
01:27:27,800 --> 01:27:29,400
Speaker 1: so this is the first time I've actually heard a

1551
01:27:29,439 --> 01:27:32,080
Speaker 1: first person account of what happened that day, um, and

1552
01:27:32,160 --> 01:27:33,400
Speaker 1: I think it will be for a lot of our

1553
01:27:33,439 --> 01:27:35,840
Speaker 1: listeners too. So this is really great, and we really

1554
01:27:36,080 --> 01:27:39,200
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time for us today. Well good,

1555
01:27:39,320 --> 01:27:43,599
Speaker 1: Can I just say yea. I was able to call

1556
01:27:43,680 --> 01:27:46,400
Speaker 1: my wife. I mean we've been married thirty seven years.

1557
01:27:46,439 --> 01:27:49,000
Speaker 1: I was able to call her within about three hours.

1558
01:27:49,880 --> 01:27:53,360
Speaker 1: And I had friends that saw on TV back home

1559
01:27:53,400 --> 01:27:57,599
Speaker 1: at Streetport and they went and got my wife and

1560
01:27:57,720 --> 01:28:01,080
Speaker 1: uh and so they sat with her until I called. So.

1561
01:28:01,560 --> 01:28:04,760
Speaker 1: I used to get injured somehow on one of these deployments,

1562
01:28:05,040 --> 01:28:07,280
Speaker 1: and uh so when I called her, the first thing

1563
01:28:07,360 --> 01:28:09,400
Speaker 1: she said, so are you missing? I are you missing

1564
01:28:09,439 --> 01:28:11,479
Speaker 1: a limb? And I go, no, No, I got everything.

1565
01:28:11,520 --> 01:28:13,920
Speaker 1: I'm good to go. And she didn't believe me. And

1566
01:28:13,960 --> 01:28:17,720
Speaker 1: so I had the guy Jeff Smith, a good friend

1567
01:28:17,760 --> 01:28:19,599
Speaker 1: of mine. He got on the phone and go, Jeff,

1568
01:28:19,640 --> 01:28:22,479
Speaker 1: I am, okay, there's nothing wrong with me. Okay, I

1569
01:28:22,560 --> 01:28:25,080
Speaker 1: was downtown when this went off, and I'm okay, so

1570
01:28:25,560 --> 01:28:28,559
Speaker 1: can you just tell her and just she'll believe you. Right. So, anyway,

1571
01:28:28,600 --> 01:28:32,120
Speaker 1: we finally got that straightened out. But I'll tell you

1572
01:28:32,200 --> 01:28:34,599
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely hard on the families that had to wait.

1573
01:28:35,160 --> 01:28:39,120
Speaker 1: There was one snaff food. There was a young man

1574
01:28:39,640 --> 01:28:41,680
Speaker 1: that was injured and he was all wrapped up that

1575
01:28:41,720 --> 01:28:45,200
Speaker 1: nobody could see his face. And so at that time,

1576
01:28:45,240 --> 01:28:48,080
Speaker 1: you know, we've gotten better at reporting death, but this

1577
01:28:48,120 --> 01:28:50,960
Speaker 1: time they really screwed up. They told one family their

1578
01:28:51,000 --> 01:28:54,280
Speaker 1: son was dead and another family their son was alive,

1579
01:28:54,360 --> 01:28:56,600
Speaker 1: and then three days later they had to reverse that.

1580
01:28:56,840 --> 01:28:59,439
Speaker 1: So that was that was a pretty sad thing. But

1581
01:29:00,240 --> 01:29:03,080
Speaker 1: I'll tell you it's it's uh terrible. We still got

1582
01:29:03,080 --> 01:29:06,640
Speaker 1: to do this, but you know it's I get the

1583
01:29:06,720 --> 01:29:08,760
Speaker 1: job done. We go into harm's way right, and we've

1584
01:29:08,760 --> 01:29:10,599
Speaker 1: got to have people that do that, and they got

1585
01:29:10,600 --> 01:29:13,640
Speaker 1: to do the job. And uh, it's great that you

1586
01:29:13,680 --> 01:29:16,759
Speaker 1: guys are going over this stuff and and and talking

1587
01:29:16,760 --> 01:29:19,519
Speaker 1: to people. If for anything, if you need me for

1588
01:29:19,560 --> 01:29:21,680
Speaker 1: anything else, you can text me. You can call me,

1589
01:29:22,200 --> 01:29:25,160
Speaker 1: uh to clarify something. If there's anything else about Air

1590
01:29:25,200 --> 01:29:27,720
Speaker 1: Force c O. D you want to talk about, I

1591
01:29:27,720 --> 01:29:30,600
Speaker 1: would love to. I've enjoyed this, I really have. I

1592
01:29:30,680 --> 01:29:32,920
Speaker 1: amn't talked about this in a long time. It's been

1593
01:29:33,520 --> 01:29:35,439
Speaker 1: twenty two years and a lot of people don't want

1594
01:29:35,439 --> 01:29:39,439
Speaker 1: to hear about it. But it's important, a defining moment

1595
01:29:39,479 --> 01:29:42,200
Speaker 1: in my life. And I mean I I always get

1596
01:29:42,200 --> 01:29:44,240
Speaker 1: the sense when I when I talk to people like you,

1597
01:29:44,320 --> 01:29:46,120
Speaker 1: I bet we could go back in time and talk

1598
01:29:46,160 --> 01:29:48,720
Speaker 1: about like you guys just talk about World War two

1599
01:29:48,760 --> 01:29:51,720
Speaker 1: history and e O D disarming bombs that are left

1600
01:29:51,760 --> 01:29:53,519
Speaker 1: over from the war. And we could probably go on

1601
01:29:53,640 --> 01:29:56,880
Speaker 1: for another hour easily. If you guys want to watch

1602
01:29:56,920 --> 01:30:01,479
Speaker 1: something cool. Uh, PBS they had a show they did

1603
01:30:01,520 --> 01:30:04,559
Speaker 1: called U x B and that right there, that's the

1604
01:30:04,600 --> 01:30:09,160
Speaker 1: Brits right Uh check out see if you can find it,

1605
01:30:09,920 --> 01:30:12,320
Speaker 1: if you can get past all the screwing around and everything.

1606
01:30:12,320 --> 01:30:14,960
Speaker 1: But so the Brits when they did it, the officers

1607
01:30:15,000 --> 01:30:17,720
Speaker 1: actually went down to work on the bomb. Okay, the

1608
01:30:17,880 --> 01:30:21,000
Speaker 1: list of guys, they prepped the hole, they prepped the equipment,

1609
01:30:21,040 --> 01:30:24,200
Speaker 1: and then the officer went down. So I would recommend

1610
01:30:24,280 --> 01:30:28,920
Speaker 1: watching that. It's very good. What's it called again, U

1611
01:30:29,120 --> 01:30:33,160
Speaker 1: x B U x B Okay unexploited bombs. Yes, and

1612
01:30:33,240 --> 01:30:37,280
Speaker 1: that's that's where we got our start. Awesome. Well, thank

1613
01:30:37,320 --> 01:30:40,160
Speaker 1: you so much, David. Thanks for taking the time, Hamnon

1614
01:30:40,439 --> 01:30:43,960
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, we appreciate it. Likewise, feel free to

1615
01:30:43,960 --> 01:30:46,760
Speaker 1: reach out to us if you ever need anything. All right,

1616
01:30:46,880 --> 01:30:50,040
Speaker 1: Jack and I and thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, mhm,

1617
01:30:50,560 --> 01:30:53,719
Speaker 1: bye bye bye. I think the cool thing about having

1618
01:30:54,040 --> 01:30:57,680
Speaker 1: David raredan on. Uh, much like having Mike vining on

1619
01:30:57,840 --> 01:30:59,720
Speaker 1: is and I kind of hinted at it on the

1620
01:30:59,760 --> 01:31:02,920
Speaker 1: last episode with Mike binding Is. We've had snipers on

1621
01:31:03,120 --> 01:31:05,439
Speaker 1: to talk at length about what they do. And I

1622
01:31:05,479 --> 01:31:07,920
Speaker 1: feel like, um, with the amount of books out there

1623
01:31:08,400 --> 01:31:10,599
Speaker 1: that our audience has read, people know a lot about

1624
01:31:10,640 --> 01:31:13,360
Speaker 1: that culture. And I think e O D is another

1625
01:31:13,720 --> 01:31:17,160
Speaker 1: really interesting group of guys in the military that share

1626
01:31:17,240 --> 01:31:20,880
Speaker 1: this really great bond and we've hardly talked about it

1627
01:31:20,920 --> 01:31:24,800
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, because it's a totally different way of

1628
01:31:24,840 --> 01:31:29,040
Speaker 1: getting to harm's way. I mean the possibility of strong

1629
01:31:29,160 --> 01:31:34,120
Speaker 1: possibility that, you know, investigating something you're you could die

1630
01:31:34,120 --> 01:31:36,639
Speaker 1: at any moment. The e O D guys we haven't

1631
01:31:36,640 --> 01:31:39,240
Speaker 1: talked to enough. UM. Also got to make a note

1632
01:31:39,520 --> 01:31:42,840
Speaker 1: the Civil Affairs guys and the psy ops guys need

1633
01:31:42,880 --> 01:31:46,639
Speaker 1: to get some of those dudes on to talk absolutely. UM.

1634
01:31:46,720 --> 01:31:49,680
Speaker 1: So for any of you who have said that we

1635
01:31:49,720 --> 01:31:51,439
Speaker 1: need to v O D guys on in the past

1636
01:31:51,520 --> 01:31:54,440
Speaker 1: or Air Force guys, I hope that this really, um,

1637
01:31:54,479 --> 01:31:57,840
Speaker 1: you know, did it for you. Wrapping things up, there's

1638
01:31:57,880 --> 01:32:01,160
Speaker 1: only one club out there with gear handpicked by Special

1639
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1640
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Speaker 1: Create Club. Past items we've had in our premium crates

1641
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Speaker 1: have been an E d C med kit put together

1642
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Speaker 1: by ben Ghazi survivor and Army ranger Chris Tonto Pronto,

1643
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Speaker 1: and a ballistic shield insert for your backpack made by

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Speaker 1: game right now as progresses by putting out custom products

1646
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1649
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1650
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Speaker 1: Once again, that's Create Club dot us. And for your dog,

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Speaker 1: your dog owners, check this out. You're gonna love this.

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1654
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Speaker 1: all of that. It's at Kuna dot Dog, that cu

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1662
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Speaker 1: see you n A dot d O G last I

1663
01:33:19,600 --> 01:33:21,559
Speaker 1: gotta let you know. As a reminder for all of

1664
01:33:21,560 --> 01:33:24,559
Speaker 1: those listening, for a limited time, you can receive a

1665
01:33:24,680 --> 01:33:29,160
Speaker 1: fifty percent membership discounted discount of membership, I should say

1666
01:33:29,160 --> 01:33:32,080
Speaker 1: to the spec Ops Channel, our channel that offers the

1667
01:33:32,120 --> 01:33:37,160
Speaker 1: most exclusive shows, documentaries and interviews covering the most exciting

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Speaker 1: military content today. The spec Ops channel Premier Show Training

1669
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Speaker 1: Cell follows former Special Operations Forces as they participate in

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Speaker 1: the most advanced training in the country, everything from shooting schools,

1671
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Speaker 1: defensive driving, jungle and winter warfare, climbing and much more. Again,

1672
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Speaker 1: you can watch this content by subscribing to the spec

1673
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Speaker 1: Ops Channel and that's a spec channel dot com. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You can take advantage of a limited time offer get

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Speaker 1: off your membership that's only four nine nine a month.

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Speaker 1: Or the other way that you can watch the spec

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Speaker 1: Ops Channel is to be a team room member at

1678
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Speaker 1: soft Rep and you'll get that as well, and you

1679
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Speaker 1: can check that out in the app if you go

1680
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Speaker 1: to the app store and look up the soft Rep app.

1681
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Speaker 1: It's free to download, but you know, in order to

1682
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Speaker 1: get all those perks, you've got to be a team

1683
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Speaker 1: room member. UM. So check it out. You go to

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Speaker 1: the app store and download the softwarenp app. UM really

1685
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Speaker 1: great stuff. Our web designer Chris did an amazing job

1686
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Speaker 1: and it is constantly updating what we have on there.

1687
01:34:37,240 --> 01:34:40,000
Speaker 1: UM and I think that's it. Man. Great shows, Two

1688
01:34:40,080 --> 01:34:43,479
Speaker 1: great shows this week for the audience to enjoy. UM

1689
01:34:43,560 --> 01:34:46,240
Speaker 1: from two E O D guys in a row. Yeah,

1690
01:34:46,920 --> 01:34:51,000
Speaker 1: you've been listening to Self Rep Radio. New episodes up

1691
01:34:51,040 --> 01:34:54,360
Speaker 1: every Wednesday and Friday for all of the great content

1692
01:34:54,560 --> 01:34:57,800
Speaker 1: from our veteran journalists. Join us and become a team

1693
01:34:57,840 --> 01:35:01,400
Speaker 1: room member today at soft RiPP dot com. Follow the

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Speaker 1: show on Instagram and Twitter at self Rep Radio, and

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Speaker 1: be sure to also check out the Power of Thought

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Speaker 1: podcast hosted by Hurricane Group CEO and Navy Seal Sniper

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Speaker 1: instructor Brandon Webb M