The Real Marine Behind Generation Kill | Brad Colbert
Brad Colbert, retired Marine Force Recon veteran and one of the real Marines behind Generation Kill, joins us to talk about his path into the Corps, recon selection, 9/11 while forward deployed, Camp Rhino, and the early days of the war in Afghanistan.
We also get into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, how recon Marines were used as shock troops, his Royal Marines exchange, HBO’s Generation Kill, and the lessons he carried into life after the military.
Find Brad here:⬇️
https://bradcolbert.us/
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00:00 — Start
03:04 — Carry On Podcast and Generation Kill Connections
04:08 — Rough Childhood and the Road to the Marines
11:06 — Recon Selection and the Recon vs. Force Recon Divide
15:52 — Okinawa, MEUs, and a Rare Marine Port Call in China
22:37 — 9/11 While Forward Deployed
25:25 — Camp Rhino and the Longest Amphibious Assault
32:31 — First Real Recon Missions in Afghanistan
40:34 — Afghanistan Lessons and the Ramp-Up to Iraq
50:00 — Iraq Mission Changes: Recon Marines as Shock Troops
55:54 — Crossing the Berm on Iraq D-Day
59:07 — Evan Wright, the Embedded Reporter, and Generation Kill
01:21:16 — The Royal Marines Exchange
01:29:04 — Fallujah 2007 and “Garrison Combat”
01:48:39 — HBO’s Generation Kill and the Legacy of the Story
01:58:37 — Leaving the Corps for the Intelligence Community
02:15:05 — Closing Thoughts: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.
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Blue Choo for sponsoring this podcast. Hey everyone, welcome to
the Teamhouse. I'm Jack Murphy here with our guest in
studio today, Brad Colbert. Brad is a retired Marine served
in Force Recon. You did a stint with the Royal
Marines and numerous other things we'll talk about. Your platoon,
of course, was the inspiration for the book and subsequent
television show Generation Kill. And you have a podcast called
the carry On Podcast. I do. Yeah, yeah, I well,
just right off the bat, you want to tell people
what that podcast is where they can find it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, carry On Podcast is available either video through YouTube
or whatever platform they use to consume audio podcasts, Spotify
or Apple or iHeart. And you know, we do a
couple of things on the show. We talked to guests, authors,
policymakers discussing current events, treatments for veterans' health, We talk
about some fun equipment things, and we also look for
reconnections with Generation Killed cast members to sort of give
people aware they now look and maybe some stories that
weren't originally portrayed in the book or the TV series.
So you try to interview the Marines you served with
in the platoon, and do you try to interview the
actors also that portrayed them. We haven't actually had any
of the actors yet, but I certainly wouldn't put it
past them. I do keep in somewhat contact with the
individual that portrayed me, Alex Garsguard, so maybe I can
ask him if he wants to come on the show.
Speaker 1: All right, cool, well, pretty cool, we'll get We'll get
deeper into all of that in a bit, but if
we're to start at the top, you know, I always
ask people about their origin story. Tell us a little
bit about like how you grew up and what was
that path that took you towards military service.
Speaker 2: Well, I had a pretty rough childhood, not because of
my parents. I was just I was a pretty shitty kid.
So and I think my parents would probably agree with
that if I was to ask them, they may they
may couch it a little differently. But I was a
difficult child. I was fiercely independent. I was it's probably
smarter than my own good for my own good, and
I got in trouble a lot. In fact, I was
expelled from every school that I ever went to. I
was expelled from elementary school, which is pretty hard to do.
By the way, junior high I was expelled from high school.
I ended up finishing school at a military academy that
was in Missouri. All that to say that I was
very rebellious and I did not handle groups well, and
I wanted to give myself a challenge. I wanted to
find a place where I could fit in.
Speaker 3: I wanted to.
Speaker 2: I originally wanted to be and I've told this story before,
but I wanted to be an astronaut. And in order
to be an astronaut short all short circuit the story,
most astronauts were pilots. Pilots come from the military. Okay,
so I have to be an aviator. Well what do
I want to fly? I want to fly at eighteen,
So that's Navy or Marine Corps. And the Navy has
shitty uniforms. Sorry, guys, uh Marines like that.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: And this is, you know, ten eleven years old, that's
my path.
Speaker 3: And I just didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't have the personal discipline to stay in college.
I tried it for a little while after high school
and just said, fit, I'm just gonna enlist.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to say, this isn't one of those
scenarios where like the parents brought the Marine Corps recruiter
to the home.
Speaker 2: It was like no, fine, No, In fact, it was
the other way around. And again like I had a
rough go of it. You know, I had got in
trouble with the law. I was on unofficial probation, so
I got in trouble and I had to sort of
like keep my nose clean for a little while. So
I went to the recruiter and their criticisy, I can't
take you.
Speaker 3: You've got this.
Speaker 2: Thing, and I'm like, okay, cool, Well what do we
have to do to get this thing? You have to
go in front of a judge. And so I did
and I got it cleared up. But I was a
recruiter's wet dream because I marched right in and said
I want to be you know, three to eleven infantry.
Speaker 3: That's one of those things.
Speaker 2: Where because like I don't know, I'll try to pull
a few strings.
Speaker 3: We'll see what we can do, you know. You know.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, it's like that's the hardest thing they have to
get people to do. I did really well in the
ASVAB and he's like, there's a lot of other jobs.
Speaker 3: So I did. I enlisted. I wanted to be a
ricon Marine. I knew it.
Speaker 2: If I wasn't gonna fly, that was the only other option.
It is to this day, I think one of the
better decisions I've ever made in my life. And it
has served me well, not just in character development and
personal growth and interpersonal but you know, I think it's
good for the soul people who.
Speaker 3: Have done what we've done and warned.
Speaker 2: The uniform service, the sacrifice that comes with it, there
is nothing else that you get anywhere in our life,
sure from that experience, and I mean it was it
was beautiful for me, and I did it for a
long time and it was it was amazing.
Speaker 1: So what year did you enlist?
Speaker 2: Enlisted in ninety five, October of ninety five and I
left in October of sixteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so nineteen nineties Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was that like?
Speaker 2: You know, that was still where a lot of us
expected it to be, like full metal Jacket or you know,
that is not what it was like at all, or
Platoon or a lot of the movies that Hollywood dramaticizes
Marine Corps boot Camp. I had come from doing several
years at military school, and that was hard.
Speaker 3: Believe me.
Speaker 2: You know, kids can be very cruel to one another,
and when you give them implied authority over each other,
you talk about hazing. The Marine Corps was a walk
in the park. Like I was hung upside down by
my ankles the very first day I was at military
school when I was fifteen years old. Like, boot camp was,
you want me to stand on these yellow footprints and
you're gonna scream at me for a little while. So
it was fine, And I mean I found it actually
to be easy. And I was also older. I was
twenty one when I enlisted, in the average age, you know,
seventeen and a half eighteen years old, So I had
life experience, I had a little maturity.
Speaker 3: I had some.
Speaker 2: Experiences that a lot of the other recruits didn't. And
I found it really fairly easy to be. To be
perfectly honest, I think Marine Corps boot camp, out of
all of the services, is still the most challenging. It
is the longest, it has the greatest amount of attrition. Yeah,
and I left knowing that this is what I wanted
to do. I had no regrets. And a lot of
people may leave their initial entry training and say, ah.
Speaker 3: This was a mistake. No, I didn't have that, So
it's good. And you shot iron sights, Yes we did, Yes,
we did.
Speaker 2: And in fact, really the Marine Corps I want to say, recently,
within the last couple of years transitioned away from the
iron sights to using an optic. But you know, all
the way back from the sixties, Marine Corps shot the
M sixteen with iron sights at basic training and then
every year to recall.
Speaker 1: I always bring that up. I can get marines really
wound up about the iron sites. That was pretty good.
But I mean to speak to the Marine Corps, I
mean jokes aside, they do train. What do you shoot
out the five hundred yards five hundred and basic in
boot camp? Yeah, that's really good, it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's different positions.
Speaker 2: You know, you start from one hundred and then two
hundred and three hundred. Each yard line is a different
body position, so you know, at the shorter distances you're standing,
and then you're doing kneeling, and then prone at five hundred.
But make no mistake, shooting a high score on iron
sights in the prone it's.
Speaker 3: Still it's it's not easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, five hundred you're struggling to see the target.
Speaker 3: You are struggling to see the target.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean shooting iron sights again jokes aside, Like,
it is really good to learn all the fundamentals like that, and.
Speaker 2: The Marine Corps is huge into that. That adage of
every Marine is a rifle or rifle person, whatever the
adage is today, I mean, it holds true and I
think that is something that some of the other services
are struggling with you when it comes to identity. You know,
every Marine is a rifleman. So what about the Air Force?
What do you say, is every.
Speaker 1: They're not a violot?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So the Marine Corps I think nailed it
pretty early and has kept consistent.
Speaker 3: All this time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So after you graduate from boot camp, what unit do
you get assigned to?
Speaker 2: So after boot camp, you you I went to infantry
school because I didn't list as an three to eleven
at that time, or the reconnaissance CA community was what
we would call a secondary MLS right right, yep. You
couldn't get into recon at the point of enlistment. There
was a pathway, so you had to be in the
combat arms, preferably three to eleven, and then you had
to try out and go to selection and pass selection,
which I did. I did that at the School of Infantry,
which was another three months of training at Camp Pendleton,
and then from there my first unit was a third
reconnaissance company in Okinawa, Japan.
Speaker 1: Oh cool. I didn't realize that back then you could
go kind of like straight into the recon community.
Speaker 2: You could, provided that you passed assessment and selection.
Speaker 1: Yep, out there at Paras Island.
Speaker 2: Well, this would have been Camp Pendleton, but they had both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha, got yah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They had screening teams that would go around and screen people.
They try to get them as early as possible before
the unit scoops them up because once they get embedded
into an infantry unit, those units are very reluctant watching.
You want to take our best, our highers, our smartest people.
There was a GT requirement, so there's a general technical
score that the ASVAB will kick out. So when you
go to the recruiting office, you have to take a
test and it assessed to you on all these different things.
Part of that test is a general technical score which
rates your aptitude for you know, cognition and a whole
bunch of other factors. It's a number. Recon needs that
number to be you know, one fifteen or above, and
you need to have a high PFT your physical fitness test.
So if you go to an infantry unit, they're gonna
probably hide you, like, no, you're not leaving. So they
go to the school of Infantry where you're not yet
assigned to a unit, and they screen you there.
Speaker 1: So you get to the recon community and do you
want to talk a little bit about like what the
difference was at that time between recon and force.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really there was a huge cultural difference
and one that was rigid. It's a lot of people
at that time would say, you know, the reconnaissance community
is the JV team and the force reconnaissance community is
the varsity team. And I would say that's really childish
to categorize it like that.
Speaker 3: Guys, we both go through the same schools.
Speaker 2: It really comes down to mission sets. The force reconnaissance
unit typically operates outside of the artillery fan, so we're
talking you know, close air support range. They support a MEF,
which is a higher echelon of table of organization. The
reconnaissance community works within the artillery fan, so up to
thirty kilometers in most cases and works for the division.
I mean that doctrinately. That's your difference now.
Speaker 3: Culturally, night and day.
Speaker 2: They didn't like us, We didn't like them. We wanted
to go over to the forest recon force. Recon felt
that they were you know, we're we're up here.
Speaker 3: You figure it out.
Speaker 2: And there was another vetting process, you know, you have
to screen again.
Speaker 3: They usually took you when you were a little senior.
Speaker 2: You know, now you're an E five maybe an E four,
and they wanted you to have a little experience.
Speaker 3: Under your belt.
Speaker 2: And I looking back, I understand the need for that
type of progression, but there was a huge difference in culture.
Now it's a little more homogeneous. Both of those units
are now organized pretty much under the same house because
of Mars Sock's creation.
Speaker 3: But you know, in the nineties it was a different
Marine Corps.
Speaker 2: They also had better equipment in many cases because they
had access to a little bit more money. And we
were still coming off of the heels of not really
understanding what would be over the horizon, right right, Like
you know, we always trained for the last war, so
we still did a lot of jungle.
Speaker 3: Tactics, patrol based activities.
Speaker 2: We did a lot of things that we did in
Southeast Asia that we would not be doing in oif OEF.
But the forest reconnaissance community still had, you know, the
Chenniworth dune buggies. They had a lot of the equipment
that you just we don't use anymore and a mission
set to go along with it. Not that it's still
not pertinent, but it's not as pertinent, you know, especially
modern warfare with drones.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so what did they have you doing in
recon at that time? Did you end up going to Thailand?
Anything cool like that?
Speaker 2: Did a lot of cobra golds, did some marine expeditionary
units if that's when you go on ship. A lot
of people don't realize that the Marine Corps has an
infantry battalion up to three at any given time patrolling
the waters of the ocean, available for immediate dispersion anywhere
that the president deems they're needed. And Okinawa has a
MEW and I did that to why I did a
special purpose MAGTAFF, a Marine Air Ground Task Force to China.
So we went into China for about a week and
a half into the port of Quing Down. This was
the first time that Marines had been to China since
World War Two.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say the Boxer Rebellion.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yep, the China Marines were the last Marines to
be there, and it was surreal we could.
Speaker 3: We went on Liberty. We worked.
Speaker 2: It was a working port call, but we were allowed
to leave the ship in groups and we went out
into the city and I remember, I'm wearing my my well,
we would call them Charlie's your class C uniform. So
khaki long sleeve shirt, no, I tell a lie, sorry,
short sleeve shirts, no tie, green trousers, piss cutter hat. Oh,
I couldn't say that should It doesn't matter. We're walking
around and the Chinese had not in many cases seen
Americans before. They certainly hadn't seen Marines. And I'm walking
and people would come up to me and they would
stroke my arm because of the you know, the body hair,
because they're just not used to seeing that. They were fascinating.
Strangers were calling us into their homes. They just wanted
to talk, they wanted to practice their English, they wanted
to offer us food, and so we couldn't. You we
wanted to go on Liberty, but you couldn't. Is you're
just getting mobbed. But it was amazing and it was fascinating.
And this was ninety seven, and I remember we pulled
into the port and I'm looking around at their ships
and their subs or just rusted at the water lines.
Their surface fleet was not in great shape.
Speaker 1: I was young, but I.
Speaker 3: Was pretty.
Speaker 2: Into military hardware, tables of organizations. So I'm looking around
and I'm like, these guys are not in great shape.
Now fast forward, they are arguably ahead of us in
many of those same categories. They have incredible growth in
their military industrial conflict. But back then, we toured their ships,
we did some exchange, and they were not a concern.
Speaker 1: I was gonna yeah, I was gonna say, I mean,
first off, that's something that would never happen today. There's
no way that have marines going on Liberty and China. Yeah.
Speaker 3: By then, I mean, just what.
Speaker 1: A couple of years after this, we had that surveillance
bird yep, go down with Hanan Island.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, yeah, I'm not I'm pretty sure that's
the name of it. It was a bit of an embarrassment.
Speaker 3: We did.
Speaker 2: Get it cleared up diplomatically, but you know, there was
also there were some other instances as well. There were
some missile tests that they had done against Taiwan that
covered the straight We did some GPS jamming that caused
those missiles to splash into the water. They were horribly
angry about that. They knew that it was us, but
you know, neither publicly admitted it because they didn't want
to save they didn't want egg on their face. So
there were a couple of things. Yeah, you're right, it
wouldn't get done today. But what an amazing experience for
me out of the uniform. We got to go see
the Great Wall of China, got to go to the
National Art Gallery, Tanneman Square, the Forbidden City.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: That's so awesome, man.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, that's one of the great things about
the military, is that those intangibles, those travel opportunities, You can't.
Speaker 3: Get that anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of sad that something like that
wouldn't happen today.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: It is because I get that there are adversary, but
there's a lot of opportunity there as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a culture that's been more or
less intact for like a thousand years, right, I wouldn't Unfortunately,
I wouldn't go as a private citizen. I'm afraid of
you know, it's like.
Speaker 3: Going to Russia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's gonna happen. Not gonna do that, Not gonna
do that. I'm fascinated about, like the history and the culture.
I think it's super cool.
Speaker 3: It is, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: I mean, they do have and it's there's very similar
parallels with Japan as well. It's a very rich culture
with a long history. And you know, China for many
centuries was the cultural epicenter of the world. They created
a lot of and as did those in the Middle East,
you know, and then somewhere along the way, things just
oh we're going to do communism.
Speaker 3: Okay, cool, cool.
Speaker 1: I so.
Speaker 3: You're in recon.
Speaker 1: When did kind of you get the opportunity to start
thinking and thinking action about going to force.
Speaker 2: It was actually kind of an accident, really, and I
didn't spend to be perfectly honest with you, I really
didn't spend that much time.
Speaker 3: In the force community.
Speaker 2: I I dipped my toe into it because when I
left the British World Marine Exchange Program in oh.
Speaker 3: Seven, six oh seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was assigned to First Force, but only for
about six months before.
Speaker 3: MARSK stood up, gotcha?
Speaker 2: And then I found myself back with First Reconnaissance Battalion.
And then they stood up the Force company in First
Reconnaissance Battalion because you know, there was MARSOC, so they
took what was first Force. You're now MARSK. But we
need a group of you to be the force that job.
We don't know what we're gonna call it yet, And
that's what I did. So was I still Force?
Speaker 3: Was I not?
Speaker 2: I guess it's I know it's a matter of semantics.
But in a very short time I found myself as
a platoon sergeant going back over to Iraq and seven
so my stint in Force was fairly short, just because
of the circumstances. You know, uh, three years in England
with the commandos right on the heels of the of
Iraq and then Marsk changing in six so maybe seven
months with Force, maybe another three at the reconnaissance battalion
in a forced platoon.
Speaker 3: That was it.
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you're in ricon. What was sort of like the experience
like being in recon when nine to eleven happened? That
was that was.
Speaker 3: Everyone has there. Where were you when nine to eleven happens? Story? Right?
Speaker 2: That is the where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?
Version of our generation? For me, I was on a
marine deployment. I was on a Marine expeditionary unit. So
we were in the coast of Sorry, we were in Darwin,
Australia when nine to eleven happened. And as one of
the platoons, I'm trying to think if the Seals, I
don't remember. If the Seals, I'm sure they were back then, Yeah,
they were. So we had a force platoon, we had
a reconnaissance platoon. I'm pretty confident we had a seal
platoon as well. So I think those three groups were
pretty confident that we were going to do something, and
we were right.
Speaker 3: We all did separate things, but.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of us were privy to any
more intelligence than anyone else was privy to.
Speaker 1: I mean, the world was on CNN.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was pretty much open source and then
whatever you know, the captain of the ship was being
told and whatever the battalion commander was being told. It
was surreal though, being forward deployed when nine to eleven
happened was surreal.
Speaker 1: And what did you guys end up doing? What was
the Marine Corps response to it, and those you know
weeks and months after.
Speaker 3: Well, we immediately pulled, we sailed out of port.
Speaker 2: That it was late when it happened in Darwin, so
it was probably twenty I want to say twenty three hundred.
Liberty expired at midnight. They were dragging people back to
the boat, half drunk. Nobody would say what was taking place.
They're seeing some things in the news on the bars.
From what I gathered, bringing the ship's compliment back was
a nightmare. I was already on the boat. The next
day we left. We weighed Anchor and we basically went.
No one knew what had taken place. Was this the
opening shot of a war? Is this some kind of
asymmetrical attack that is going to repeat itself? So we
left and went into the open waters fifty sixty one
hundred miles off the coast and just cut squares for
a couple of weeks. Then we went into Eastmoor did
a humanitarian mission, and then it was in very short
order apparent that we were going to go into Afghanistan.
They were the ones responsible.
Speaker 3: So we made an amphibious landing into well.
Speaker 2: We hung out in Pakistan for a while at an
air base, and then we did an amphibious assault into Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: And it was amphibious assault into Afghanistan. Right.
Speaker 2: The technical amphibious assault was because we departed from ship
and we landed in Afghanistan, and that by definition is amphibious,
and it's the longest amphibious assault that's ever.
Speaker 3: Been made in the history of American right.
Speaker 1: Right, So you had to refuel a few times in
the air on the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Also one of the scariest flights I've ever had.
Speaker 3: We landed at Camp Rhino, which was.
Speaker 2: A compound in the middle of the desert. It was
a hunting preserve for some very rich individuals, but it
had a private runway, unimproved runway. It had a big hangar,
it had a little mosque, it had all these ancillary buildings,
and it was surrounded by this wall. And we're like,
that's it. So see one thirty. I mean we are packed.
In no doubt you've been on a sea one thirty before.
I don't know if you've done a mass tack, but
it's that kind of cramped. And I mean you're you
got your gear, your pack is on your legs, and
you can't move. And we flew high threat tactics, which
means you're assuming you're gonna get a lot of ground fire.
There's also gonna be a surface to air missile threat.
So you gotta fly basically nap of the earth. So
see one thirty. We did receive some ground fire, we
don't know where, but the plane did get shot a
little bit, But that wasn't the problem. It's you're going
from this really high altitude and then it goes screaming
down to like a thousand feet and you're just startined in.
Speaker 3: You can't move, and then the runway is made of
this moondust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, because you've walked that.
Speaker 3: You sink into it. It's up to your ankles.
Speaker 2: But here's a C one thirty, fully loaded, full bag
of gas and it's coming in on this runway and
it's not getting purchased and it's just sliding and yawing,
and I'm like, oh, this is it. This is how
it's gonna end. The plane is gonna clip the ground,
it's gonna cartwheel, and I'm wedged in between you know,
sixty other fuckers.
Speaker 3: I'm done. This is this is it.
Speaker 2: This is my story. It didn't turn out that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, spoil alert. This is basically kind of what
happened to the UH one thirties in Iran. Yeah, a
few months ago they got stuck in the dust, essentially
sunk in because of that whatever.
Speaker 3: It's that certain type of soil, it's unique.
Speaker 2: And then you know, so fast forward. I had a
guest on the show, Alexander Lemons, and he did some
research to find that the soil in Iraq is unique
from all of the soil in the world. I know
that we're talking about Anastana. There's some property about this
particular type of sand where it just recirculates due to
the you know, the the dust storms and stuff that
does something to grind it down. But yeah, so I
ran Afghanistan, Iraq, it's all that same type of dirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was over.
Speaker 1: It didn't turn out though, and so you guys kind
of spearheaded into Camp Ryno, we did.
Speaker 2: Yes, there was US, and then it turned into like
the who's who of special Operations forces because it became
the beachhead for everyone to flow in. So there was
you know, British Sas, there was Australian, there were French,
there was German clearly the Marines, UH Navy Special Forces.
There was I think for a very brief time, I
want to say, there was an ODA team, but it
all kind of blends in at this point we're talking
oh one, and we ran operations out of there. The
infantry was dug around the perimeter.
Speaker 3: It was just weird. You know.
Speaker 2: It was weird because nobody enlists in the military under
any illusion that you are not going to potentially go
to war, right, But I enlisted in ninety five.
Speaker 3: There was no war taking place.
Speaker 2: I mean, we had some people that were concerned, but
it was like, oh, that's you know, Nicaragua, or that's
you know, Somali, or that's right. The United States getting
attacked on its home turf and then retaliating was it
was unheard of.
Speaker 1: And then finding yourself in like such a third world country,
what's going on here?
Speaker 3: It was so weird.
Speaker 2: And we didn't have any of the equipment to really
do this type of thing. You know, you're still wearing
We had just transitioned. We didn't have them yet, but
the Marine Corps just transitioned to that new digital pattern.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: We still had the old classic tricolor woodland pattern or
chocolate chip like ninety one chocolate chip desert storm. So
that's what we had, and that was our desert uniform.
And we didn't have vehicles that were really tailored towards
what we were doing, which was you know, some long
range desert patrol. We didn't have the we didn't have
the equipment for it, so I mean we made it work,
but it was very weird.
Speaker 1: I remember working with Marines and this was a little
later on. This would have been well two thousand and
four Marine Infantry, and I mean they had like one
pair of nods per squad. They didn't have any sort
of organic or intelligence attached to their battalion. And there's
again not trying to throw shade on them, it's just
they didn't have a lot.
Speaker 2: The infantry operates under very austere conditions. They always have
so much so that it's really a point of pride
to them at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 2: We can do everything with nothing. And the marine reconnaissance
came had a lot more.
Speaker 3: It did.
Speaker 2: But now when you compare Marine recon or even the
force platoon to say a ranger battalion or an ODA
team or you know CAG oh yeah, like night and day,
like don't even get it started. But we did have
more equipment. You know, we had some laser range finders,
laser designators. Everybody had MVG's, we had M four's, we
had suppressors, we had a lot more hardware than your
run of the mill.
Speaker 3: And we had reach back.
Speaker 2: And that was one of the things that reconnaissance is
able to do in the Marine Corps is you're in
all of the other services put an officer in charge
of their smaller SF units.
Speaker 3: The Marine Corps doesn't run that way.
Speaker 2: Now MARSK does, but there was no MARSOC in O one,
so this was six enlisted marines with an E five
in charge. You will go out to twenty kilometers and
get eyes on a target and then we want you
to talk to that aircraft overhead and lays ordinance on it.
Can you do that? Yes, I can do that. The
Marine Corps is the only one that does business that way.
It's a tremendous responsibility.
Speaker 1: And then we took seriously they're sending you out on
those kinds of missions. Yeah, oh, what was that like
going out there and not like now it's for real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now it's for real, And it was It was
fun because you're finally getting to play the game you
have practiced for, right you know, it is that pro
athlete who never gets off the bench and now finally
I'm off the bench.
Speaker 3: Let's see what it's about.
Speaker 2: But it's also incredibly naive because you hadn't been shot
at yet, you didn't understand any of the fog of war.
It was very sterile in many cases because the desert
was the only opposition that we had. We did drive
into a minefield at one point, that was interesting. We
did call in some ordinance on occasion that was fun,
but a lot of it was just spent doing what
reconnaissance marines do, which is quietly getting eyes on and
just reporting.
Speaker 3: But it was fun.
Speaker 2: It was really a relief to be able to finally
do what we had always practiced.
Speaker 1: And were you guys inserting on Humvi's like walking, setting
up an observation post and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Humphy, we had a single hum vy for the six
of us and we would drive it out there, leave it,
camouflage it, make the rest of the movement on foot,
establish an observation post, and then monitor and it was
a lot of monitoring MSRs. You know, we understood Taliban
at that point, we understood who our enemy was. I'm
talking strategically, and the infantry battalion had a CIA case
officer assigned to them when we went in. So we
were getting intelligence, you know, the larger we from a
couple of different sources, military intelligence as well as the
intelligence community at large. And it was early on in one,
so the sky was just filled. I mean they were
dropping two thousand pounders off. You could you could see
the light flashes right, So there was a massive air campaign.
But overhead you had all kinds of enablers, all kinds.
Speaker 3: I mean we would see.
Speaker 2: The planes overhead and then you could just you could
pick up the radio and talk to the a wax
or you know, talk to the command control bird. If
there was fixed wing aircraft checking in, they would push
it to you and it was that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, any of those operations that kind of got a
little dicey, I don't think. So.
Speaker 3: There was there was a firefight with the forest platoon.
Speaker 2: They were out and they got into a bit of
a scrape.
Speaker 3: Should they have is.
Speaker 2: A matter of some disagreement. I know the guys that
were there at that time, they did exchange, they did
get into a firefight. But nothing, I don't remember anything
that was like dicey other than our own our own dangerousness.
Speaker 3: We were I've told this story before.
Speaker 2: We modified the hum vy with a pintle mount to
hold the beltfit.
Speaker 3: Okay, when I say we.
Speaker 2: Modified it, we took a piece of tubular steel, we
welded a flat plate on the bottom, and then we
took the caster off a refrigerator and welded it to
the top. That allowed for a swivel which the gun
sat on with a pin through it. You now have
a pintle mount. Once it's ratchet strapped to the humby
any machine gunner knows that you have a device under
the barrel or attached to the weapon in such a
way called a traverse in elevation, it's a fixed piece
of metal that keeps the barrel from free flowing.
Speaker 3: We didn't have that.
Speaker 2: So there was a gun in the bed of the
humvee which could pivot to shoot the floor of the
humvee or between the driver and the a driver. And
there was a moment where the gun was used and
it was like, oh my god, you just riddled the
hood of the hum V and it was between me
and the a driver of the hum V and I'm like,
oh God, this is so fucking stupid. That was the
worst thing I think that took place as far as
the enemy contact and anything. Now, Now, there were some
other very surreal moments, like getting into Kandahart Airport and
we did watch one of the marine infantry step on
a mine and get blown up. There was a couple
of other instances as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a period of time, I guess a
brief period of time when the Tale band was essentially
defeated or maybe some hold doubts we were still looking
for and there were really wasn't an ied threat. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yet it was nice because that changed, and it changed
relatively quick. I mean, any any adversary that is going
to survive will learn asymmetric warfare against the United States.
I mean that is the only way that you were
going to survive. And it's not just unique to the
American culture. And Ukraine's doing it against Russia right now.
And yeah, it was a matter of time, but in
one there was no there was no such animal.
Speaker 3: That was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and tell us about rotating back home from that trip.
Speaker 3: That was great.
Speaker 2: It was so weird too, because I compare my retrograde
from one and my retrograde from like the Iraq War
and three complete night and day. I mean when we
went into Afghanistan, we went in with a full combat load.
I mean, freaking you name it. It was like shopping cart.
I want one of those, and I'll take two claymores,
and I'll take that law rocket. I need seven fragmentation grenades. Nope,
not enough ammo more. We never downloaded that stuff. Like
we got out of Afghanistan on a helicopter and then
leap frog back to Pakistan and from Pakistan back to
the ship and we've just got our pack is filled
with stuff like I mean, just stuff, man, and our
douce gear filled with AMMO and fragmentation grenades and I've
got two of three rounds. I mean, I just and
it just all gets dumped into a quad coun and
that quad con gets closed up, not locked, not secured,
not like sign here, just hey, go put your gear
in your team quad con. And then it gets back
to Pendleton and it's like, you know, that's all full
of AMMO, right, and explosives and C four and claymores
and rocket launchers. We should probably turn that into the armory. Yeah, yeah,
we'll do that. We were the only platoon to see
any kind of combat any kind and make no illusions.
I'm not saying that we you know, were six months
constantly getting shot at. It was it was a very
short period of time, and for all intents and purposes, it.
Speaker 3: Was pretty innocuous. But we were the first platoon to
see combat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you walk back to a unit who is
operating at a very high level and is itching to
get some from nine to eleven, and you're treated like
I don't want to say heroes because that's not what
I'm saying, but you are definitely like you're the cock
of the walk right now. Yeah, we want to hear
what happened. We want to hear your lessons learned. We
want a pmme. You're going to talk to everybody. What
did you do, how did you do it? What worked,
what didn't work? And in the process of articulating all that,
I started absorbing all of those lessons because I'm now,
you know, it's an oral story. This is what worked,
this is what works in the planning process. Yeah, that
technique right there, Screw that, that doesn't work. So now
I have this great database of things that we fast
forward to three and I'm like, okay, this is what
needs to change. We are going into Iraq. We can't
do this, but we are going to keep this. This
needs to change. And that made all the difference in
the world.
Speaker 1: When you got back home, were you already hearing stuff
about Iraq a little bit? Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: There was discussions about Iran while we were still in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: There was a.
Speaker 2: Lot of talk on the on the high side about
possibly remaining and just crossing the border into Iran.
Speaker 3: We're going to do the rest of the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, let's just let's just get it taken care of.
And I think, my god, how different would the world
be today if that had actually come true.
Speaker 1: The Iranians were scared shitless after nine to eleven, not
because they were involved, but they were afraid We're going
to catch them with retaliation from this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a lot of blowback and a lot
of people were, like you said, running scared because we
were not messing around. The United States was on a
war footing, and we don't get on war footings very often.
I mean, we will get into engagements, but as a country,
we were galvanized. Everybody, I mean, especially this city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's something about like the American character
and I mean when you get the entire country pissed off,
like we'll do scary stuff, We'll do stupid stuff too,
I mean, and yeah, it's like I have this conversation
with people sometimes that about Taiwan that people are like, well,
we're not going to go and fight over like some
rocks that you can barely see at low tide and
the south of China seed. It's like, yeah, no, I
get that, You're right, we wouldn't. But if an American
aircraft carrier gets sunk in the South China Sea, yes,
this entire country will go batshit.
Speaker 2: It's five thousand people, that's more than we lost in
nine to eleven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people will lose it.
Speaker 2: Yes they will. They absolutely well. And it's a conversation
that I've had on my show as well with some
policy experts who are that's their job to talk about
that subject and not to get you off track. But
the most likely scenario is China blockade's Taiwan and we
are forced to somehow try to break that blockade? What
does that look like in a Berlin style airlift service?
But their response, their most likely co is probably going
to be just that, and God help them if they
sink one of our aircraft carriers. Yeah, that's that is
a red line that you don't come back from. And
I talk more about you can theorize what the battle
is going to look like. That is great, and that's academic.
I don't care about that. I want to know what
is the world going to look like after? What does
this do to the globe? How does it peace out
different countries? What is the alignmance is going to look like?
You know, what is six months, nine months, a year
after Taiwan?
Speaker 1: Do?
Speaker 3: That's what I think is interesting?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean the same question for Iran right now? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, loging that. So talk us through a little bit
the ramp up for Iraq.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a period of time after Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: We get back. We we.
Speaker 2: You know, we do all of the post deployment things
like put all your gear away, you know, go talk
to the shrink, take all your welcome back classes, and
then you need to take some leave, you know, and
you go on leave and you do all the things
and then it's business as usual. We went back into
a training cycle. I went to a couple of schools,
but we knew that there was something coming and it
was definitely on the front of everyone's minds, and we formed.
You know, people rotate in, people rotate out. We formed
a new platoon with new leadership, and we start preparing
for ground operations. We start preparing for Iraq. It was
it was known that we would be that that was
the target. It wasn't you matriculated down like this is
the line of departure and this is where we're going
to stay. But it was like, that's the X, that
is the target. So we started practicing a lot more
vehicle ops. We started modifying the vehicles.
Speaker 3: I got my.
Speaker 2: Vehicle prepared to do what I knew based off Iraq
or Afghanistan it would be needed to do.
Speaker 3: And we practice.
Speaker 2: I mean that's what you do, right, You train vehicle
operations and contact drills and downdriver and.
Speaker 3: All of the other things.
Speaker 2: And then medicine, I mean lots of medicine. And once
we had a date for deployment, that really I think
solidified everybody's resolve because it's like, Okay, it's real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not some buzzword.
Speaker 2: It's not something to rally the truth, like, oh, we're
going and this is the date that we're leaving, and
I think because it's not just a platoon now, and
it's not just a potential, it's real, and we're taking everybody.
The whole battalion is going, you know, a couple one hundred,
very well trained men are going into with the rest
of the US military into this little country and we're gonna,
we're gonna take it over. And I remember, and I
don't know how your experience was, but I just remember
the sheer number of body bags they ordered, oh shit,
because they expected massive casualties. I mean massive casualties was
expected anticipated not I mean, I'm not talking about for
the Marine Corps or First Reconnaissance Battalion. I just mean
the US military. They were expecting a lot of casualties.
There was anticipation of anthrax, yeah, chemical right, So we
go before two thousand and three, the full anthrax regime,
which was an eighteen month shot sequence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like six or seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a lot. And I think we had
two people in the unit that refused and were they
were out, they were gone because it was non negotiable.
This isn't COVID like you're gonna be taking anthrax.
Speaker 3: And it's so weird. I mean, just to go down
a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: How different everybody's attitudes were towards Anthrax compared to COVID.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no one gave no, one gave second thought.
Speaker 2: No, like completely untested, untried, experimental anthrax. Uh and you
compared to COVID, which had rigid Anyways, it's not important.
Speaker 1: It was I was so fortunate that I got the
Anthrax series, and but it wasn't recorded in my records.
So I got it like one point five times. You know,
I probably got like twelve instead.
Speaker 2: You're extra inoculated or extra your DNA screwed up?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Probably I'm pretty screwed up. You know, it's a good
thing I'm registered with VA. I'm probably gonna get something
weird down the line.
Speaker 2: Like I seem to remember something about you couldn't donate
blood for a period of time after the anthrax vaccine.
Speaker 1: That was also depending on certain parts of the world
that they've sent us Tokay, if you were like probably
Afghanistan and was one of them. But I remember I've
heard that story. Also, Oh, you've been hanging out in
Central Africa for six months.
Speaker 3: Like, nah, we're not taking your blood.
Speaker 2: I had so many inoculations though, like from all of
the different places that I had been to. And that's
one of the things that blows my mind because again, tangentle,
I worked in my last job with all former military guys,
you know, and when the COVID kerfuffle came, everybody starts
complaining about it. I'm like, really, I know where you
guys all served. I know what your shot records look like.
You've had like twenty five vaccinations for stuff that is
one in a billion chance you're ever going to ge
like Japanese encephalitis, and god knows.
Speaker 1: What it's I mean, it really is dependent on the
person's idea, diet and what they're consuming and what they're hearing.
Because yeah, we went through basic training or boot camp.
We lined up and they had the sun and they
injected us with all kinds of shit. I don't know
what the hell I want, no idea? Yeah, yeah, you
remember the shot that they put in your ass cheek
where it's like they're inject like it feels like there's
a golf ball peanut butter.
Speaker 2: It feels like like somebody is injecting peanut butter into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't I don't remember what that shot is for.
We got smallpox too, which Americans don't get except for military.
Speaker 2: Yep, I remember my smallpox vaccinations. Still have the scar
from it. I'm sure we all do. And so like
all of that stuff, right, it was all part of
the work up to that three invasion, and because we
expected the royal we so many casualties from Kim. A
lot of people didn't know any better. I don't want
to say didn't know any better because they were ignorant,
But I think the assumption is is like, this is
not Afghanistan, oh one, this is not two thousand and
one or sorry, nineteen ninety one first Golf War, Like
we are going to get in a fight, and we
were prepared for that, and we weren't reticent, we weren't afraid.
It was just this very pragmatic resolve like some of
you guys aren't going to come home, right, And that's
not the way it worked out, at least not in three.
That is not the military's experience during the duration of
the conflict over there. But from my battalion, we lost
no one with only you know, one real casualty.
Speaker 1: When you deployed to I'm assuming kuwait first, what was
sort of like your concept of what your unit's mission was.
Speaker 3: It was really weird.
Speaker 2: We were supposed to drive through and find a route
through a very specific trying to think how to describe it.
There was a sort of like this damn network of levies.
Speaker 3: My job was I was going to be the.
Speaker 2: Lead platoon, lead team, lead platoon for the entire battalion
that would then lead the division through. So I had
to And I was looking at you two photographs, you know,
with a magnifying glass, and just like and I'm charting
it and rehearsing and rehearsing, And that was supposed to
be what my team's job was. You're going to go
through the line of departure. Engineers are going to blow
the berm, and then you were going to navigate this route,
proof it, and then everyone's coming.
Speaker 3: In behind you.
Speaker 2: None of that fucking no, And that was what we
were supposed to do. We worked at the time. In general,
Mattis was the division commanding rule for first Marine Division,
of which First Recon fell under. Brilliant strategist. I still
think he's one of the brightest minds of our generation
as far as a warrior goes and it ended up
that that's not how things played out, but that's what
we were supposed to have been trained to do. We
must have been to Kuwait. I mean it was over
a month. I'm sure it goes by very quick. I
can't remember.
Speaker 1: And so what did they have your team doing in actuality?
Speaker 2: In actuality, the battalion still spearheaded movements, but we did
not have a lot of infantry or in many cases
any infantry behind us. We acted as shock troops. We
did more of what a ranger battalion would do. In
many ways, that is not what we were trained to do.
Not to suggest that we weren't capable, but I think
that's a lot of what the friction was for the unit,
and really for the lower ranking the rank and file,
you know, men like myself who are in E five
at the time, because I'm like, this is not what
recon marines are supposed to be doing. You know, our
job is recon poll We're gonna go over here, We're
going to locate the target, and then you do whatever
you want to do. If that's infantry, if that's rockets,
if that's an airstrike. You were using us as shock
troops were flowing in mass, We're making contact with the enemy,
we are destroying the enemy, and we are continuing to move.
And if that's what the general wanted to use us for,
that's great. Like in retrospect, who the f was I
to sit there and be like, I'm sorry, I don't
do windows. You don't say that, but you complain about it,
and we did and that did not go over well
at the end of events.
Speaker 1: But was the idea that they want you to sort
of be like a blocking force, like go out there,
see what's going on, and kind of like guard the
flank of the of the movement.
Speaker 2: In many ways, yeah, we were, and we were way
out front.
Speaker 3: I mean way out front.
Speaker 2: In many cases. And it's not just us, I mean
the military to a whole, but the Marine Corps specifically
moved so fast there were several times where they just
had to say, you guys have to stopped.
Speaker 3: You've outstripped your supply lines. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know
where you were.
Speaker 1: I wasn't in the invasion, okay. I joined the army in.
Speaker 3: O two, got it, okay, fair enough, fair enough.
Speaker 1: I was in I was actually in ranger selection when
the invasion happened. God, yeah, Well when when the guys
came home with like a bunch of broken ankles and
stuff from that jump, they're like, oh maybe, yes.
Speaker 2: I never jumped a combat jump. And I'm really kind
of glad, you know, I have a lot of parachute
jumps to my name.
Speaker 1: We'll get one of those guys in here. I mean
they told me the static line was at waist height
because they're so weighed down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, thanks, Yeah, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1: Kind of kind of my thought about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, even even jumping a square with
combat load is not It's not a fun ride. I
don't know how it was for you. We jump front
mounted rucks. We don't typically jump back mounted roucks.
Speaker 1: We in free fall we did front mounted okay, front Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like that beach ball until that is lowered, and
it's just such a pain in the ass. We trained
for it. I'm just really glad that I never did it.
I'd much rather just walk.
Speaker 3: I'd do a free fall jump.
Speaker 1: But like a static line jump into combat, I mean
sounds pretty cool, you know, band of brothers and all that,
but in reality, that's scary as hell.
Speaker 2: You've got I did a j RTC at Fort Polk
years ago, and I say years ago because the C
one one was still flying, so you know it's years ago.
And they did a mass attack with like sixteen or
seventeen over Fort Poke. You could walk across the sky
from one canopy to the nats, so many jos in
the sky, and they assume a ten percent combat injury rate,
and that was legit. And this was a training jump.
I mean broken ankles. They had a couple of casualties
and I'm not celebrating that, but combat now, so let's
take that template. And now you've got guys on the ground.
Speaker 3: Potentially shooting at you. No thanks, I'm good.
Speaker 1: Tell us about uh, you know, the D Day, the
day of the invasion, pushing across the Berm.
Speaker 3: So cool, I mean it was.
Speaker 2: They did all of these preparatory fires, surface fires and aircraft.
They did tomahawks, I mean all kinds of soft and
they did you know, some diversions and try to draw
the iraq Is to confuse them where we were going.
And the engineers blew the berm very shortly before we
crossed the Led and was it night, so everyone's on nods.
We did so much driver's training on nods and it
still sucks because these are the old single tubes seven
broblems ys sevens zero depth perception because there's one tube
and that takes a lot of practice in order to
get good at. But it was surreal. It's just like
you're with your friends and you have trained with these
guys for a long time. You trust them, you know
how they're going to react, but it's still not been proven.
So there was a lot of that anxiety like what's
gonna happen? Not fog of war because you don't know
what the enemy is gonna do. But you're there's this
little like Jimminy cricket on your shoulder.
Speaker 3: Like don't fuck up, hope you go really well. I
hope you don't die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't suck. You just don't know how you're going
to react. So I think there's a lot of not
not at the forefront of your mind, but there's that
little voice like what if I screw up?
Speaker 3: What if I shanic? What if I freeze?
Speaker 2: What if I'm not as competent as I hope I am.
Speaker 3: But it was just weird.
Speaker 2: You know, bombs are going off, there's explosions way off
in the distance. You can hear gunfire.
Speaker 3: Is it ours? Is it theirs?
Speaker 2: Is it a firefight? Is it misdirection? Like what is
all that? And you don't know and you're just you're
just driving. And that's what we did. I mean, we
left it oh dark thirty and we drove and we
did not stop driving for a couple of days. But
like all through the night, we just drove and it
was very like staccato. You know, you drive for like
twenty minutes and then for some reason you had to stop.
Sometimes our vehicles were in front, sometimes we were in
the back of the convoy. Sometimes we've spread out. Sometimes
you have to come together. But it was clunky for
all night, and it's got to yeah, and then it's
just anticlimatic, and you're like there's nothing going on, there's
nothing to see. It's all just like just desert, right,
And it was that way for until the next day.
And then suddenly it's daytime and the nods you're off
and you're you know, wiping the crust out of your
eyes and you're like, oh, this is Iraq.
Speaker 3: Huh, well this is cool. Oh look there's a goat herder.
Speaker 2: And then there's more people, and then you come to
this little mud hut town and village and people were
just kind of looking at you.
Speaker 3: Like there's a war on you could it's it was
just it was weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, unexpected.
Speaker 2: I've never invaded a country. That was my first time,
so it was a lot of firsts. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you guys had an embedded journalist, right, we did? Yes?
What was that? What was he specifically with you?
Speaker 2: He was specifically with my Well, he was assigned to
First Reconnaissance Battalion and just through this weird twist of fate. Well,
I consider it to be a twist of fate. I
have talked to some other people that say, actually, no,
you were specifically chosen because they wanted him to be
with your team, or you specifically because they felt you
would be a good fit, that you could handle it
and all this stuff. But I felt, and I am
still that is my position. It was just dumb luck.
I had an empty seat. We had four humvis. We
had three teams, so that means one team of six
is going to have to be split into two groups.
Humvey has four seats, so if you take six people
and you have eight seats, you're going to end up
with an empty seat somewhere. I had an empty seat
in my HUMV. Reporter, you're riding with him again. There
is another side to that story, but that is my
version of events. I wouldn't say that I wasn't crazy
about having him, but I was not super enthused. He
grew on me because he's very personable and he's very likable.
But I'm like, I'm not going to be responsible for
this guy. You can't give me a civilian and like,
if we get into a firefight, I'm not dealing with
this person. You know that, right, And all of that
was explained like, nope, you do you. He'll look after
himself if he gets hurt, that's that's on him. But then,
of course you have this, you have this implied responsibility. Yea, yeah,
Like I'm not just gonna leave you helpless. So all right,
let's talk about it. Where's your gas mask, where's your
mop suit, Let's talk about two pam chloride and atropine.
Let's talk about, you know, speed drills. Where's your weapon?
He had no weapon, but we would give him access
to one from time to time if we felt like, hey,
I think we're probably going to be in a firefight,
if one of us gets shot, you need to pick
up his M four. Let's just make sure you understand
how to use it. And he was keen across the
board on all of this. He came with his own mopsuit,
he had his own body armor, he had his own
gas mask. I have no idea where he got any
of this stuff. The corman hooked him up with some
of the stuff that he basically needs, you know, tourniquits.
In those days, they were all homemade tourniquits. It was
a crevass and popsicle sticks to make them win those.
And they gave him the atropine and the two pam
chloride for chemi tax and just like all the stuff.
And he did well. And he was a big dude.
I don't mean like we're he was a little, but
not a lot.
Speaker 3: He was just tall. It's like six', four so he
was not.
Speaker 1: Small it's interesting, that you, know at the time he
probably didn't even think about, this but like someone had
once told me That youngllen was not the first person
to circumvent the, world but he was the first person
to do it with a historian on the ship that
wrote about. It, yeah And that's why everyone Remembers. Magellan
and you, know your your, team your platoon had a
historian along for the ride we.
Speaker 2: Did, Yeah and another interesting footnote about this is that
he was the only print journalist in the entire marine.
Division he, WAS i want to, say he was only
one of two in the entire. Theater everyone else was
news OR tv or you, know, film they were all.
Films he was the only person that was there as
part of a printed, publication which meant that he wasn't
in and, out and that changed things. Too it would
have been very different if it was like an embed
FROM cnn OR bbc Or Al jazeera or you know,
whatever because he was going to be there for the
duration he. Was he was there for three months and
just hundreds hundreds of, notebooks and he got to know
all the, guys intimately heard the, stories was witness to,
everything and we didn't censor, ourselves which bit a lot
of people in the ass, later, right a. Lot but you,
know early, on And i've said this before in some other,
interviews BUT i made its decision very very early.
Speaker 3: ON i could take one of two.
Speaker 2: APPROACHES i could bring the platoon or the team, together
AND i say all, right, listen, guys we've got a
reporter with. Us everyone's just gonna have to shut your
mouth and not say. Anything OR i could just, say
don't change a thing and just be. Yourself, yeah let
history be the.
Speaker 3: Judge let history be the.
Speaker 2: Judge because WHAT i didn't want to happen WAS i
knew what we were getting, into. RIGHT i didn't know
if somebody was going to, die or if we were
going to get. SHOT i didn't know if we were
and get blown up or witnessed. Whatever but the last
thing THAT i wanted to do was to tell them
not to process. It and a lot of, people when
they are, nervous or when they are, scared or when
they are, whatever you.
Speaker 3: Know they're gonna.
Speaker 1: Verbalize, right that's just how we. Process and there are
probably some things that they could talk to a reporter
about that maybe they wouldn't say to like a, teammate you,
know like you wouldn't tell your teammate, like, MAN i
was scared, shitless you. Know SO i just felt that
the easier thing to do between those two linear choices
would just, be, like just treat them like one of the.
Guys whatever's gonna happen is going to, happen AND i
stand by. It, Yeah and so in those subsequent, days
what was the story that he was? Capturing what was
it that you guys went out and.
Speaker 2: DID i think everything that you, know The generation killed
the book And Generation killed the series talks about is you,
know it's out, there it's the.
Speaker 3: Story it's pretty self.
Speaker 1: Evident but.
Speaker 2: It was all of the you, know the day to.
Day it was driving from one position to the. Next
it was interacting with, people it was helping, sometimes it
was treating, wounded it was collecting, POW's it was uncovering weapons.
Speaker 3: Caches it was.
Speaker 2: Sometimes getting in, firefights sometimes being ambushed or calling in helicopter.
Strikes it was. War it was all of. It it
was the, good the, bad the, ugly and he. Was
he was there for its. Entirety AND i think it
was really great to have somebody narrate that. HISTORY i, think, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it was absolutely somebody's got to capture those
stories and capture that. History.
Speaker 2: Yeah you, know we've had so much published On. Vietnam
there were so many. Journalists it was long campaign and
it was a bloody, campaign and it was you, know
somebody said to me the other day that one of
the generals made a comment recently that The United states
has been in combat for the last twenty, years but
we have not been in war for. Decades, Sure AND i,
said that's that's, brilliant because he's, right we haven't been in.
War AND i, MEAN i would Argue Southeast. ASIAS i
would Say vietnam was our Last american war where you
had an entire generation baptized in. Combat we've had hundreds
of thousands of men and women over the last twenty
years be in.
Speaker 3: Combat but it's. Different it's.
Speaker 2: Different and so you had all of these stories come
out About vietnam on the air, side or the navy,
side or the ground, side from every walk of, life
from men and, women old and. Young you didn't have
that IN oif AND, oef not to the same. Level
you certainly didn't have anyone writing the type of story
That Evan wright did at that time and.
Speaker 1: Place, yeah there's my opinion is that there's very little
coverage of that like, lance corporal, perspective boots on the,
ground and it sounds like he did that very.
Speaker 2: Well he did, it and that is one of the
reasons WHY i think so many people identify with the
story because it is the every man's. Story it doesn't
matter if you are a you, know An army eleven,
bravo if you are a, coasty you, Know National guard,
reservist it doesn't. Matter if you were AN e five
and below In iraq in two thousand and, three that's your.
Speaker 3: Story, yeah it. Resonates, yeah we all get.
Speaker 2: It the same, food the same, conditions the same fog of,
war the ambiguity that can like all of. It, yeah
it's like everybody gets. It if you want to know
what it's like to be in the, military that's a
pretty good way to do.
Speaker 1: It. Yeah so it sounds like they kept you incredibly,
busy like you were kind of like doing it.
Speaker 3: All we were doing it. ALL i wouldn't say THAT
i was.
Speaker 2: Bored but, combat for anyone who's been in it is
long periods of boredom interrupted by intense periods of. Violence that's.
Combat and that was two thousand and. Three there were
long stretches of just.
Speaker 3: Like, fuck.
Speaker 1: Very flat out.
Speaker 2: Here yeah it's very, flat or like this is. Boring
we have to wait and you, know you don't know
where the goalpost.
Speaker 3: Is it's just, like, well what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2: Today, well today we're gonna you, know we're gonna drive
five miles or five kilometers or whatever the case may.
Be we're gonna go check out this thing over. Here
and then, uh we're just gonna wait. Around and there's
just a lot of, it, Right and it's just day
after day of that kind of unknown, goal, post unknown.
Speaker 3: Objective and but it's but.
Speaker 1: Busy, yeah and you guys ran into some Like iraqi military.
Speaker 2: Holdouts we ran in to a lot of different. People
The Iraq war was kind of this bell weather to
anyone who wanted to Fight.
Speaker 3: American, sure you know it.
Speaker 2: Was we got into some a firefight in. Particular and
then when we did the post firefight analysis and we
find passports from Like syria and other countries fighters who
had crossed.
Speaker 1: That was happening. ALREADY i thought that came out a
few years down the. Line, yeah that was right then and,
there right in the right in the, Beginning right in the.
Speaker 2: Beginning we got into a pretty good ambush trying to
cross a bridge one. Time and then that's that's WHERE
i fired at two oh. Three that didn't blow up
because it was too short of an army distance and
just went right through the chestnel.
Speaker 3: Cavity, yeah it.
Speaker 2: Was i'm, like WELL i didn't didn't know it could do,
That but then, again well why DIDN'T i know it
could do?
Speaker 3: That and why HAVEN'T i done that?
Speaker 2: Before but, yeah they Had syrian passports and a couple
of other foreign fighter passports and it was all.
Speaker 3: Over that Was.
Speaker 2: Iraq anybody who wanted to come in and get their
jihat on that was the place to do it at
that time and.
Speaker 3: Place but we.
Speaker 2: Did we we came into contact with a Few iraqi,
regulars but most of it were militia.
Speaker 3: Fighters that's so. Weird, yeah yeah it, was and.
Speaker 2: You, know tactically now OR i should say not, now
but like four oh five oh, six that would have
we would have, stopped and we would have been, like,
okay let's let's prosecute that whole right back, then it's
like not our. Problem just keep. Moving we're going to
shoot as many as you can mitigate the. Threat if
it's not a, threat or it's a mitigated threat OR
i should say, reduced we're just gonna keep.
Speaker 3: Pushing, yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 1: Weird so when was it that you did find that goal.
POST i mean that that your unit must have stopped
you at some.
Speaker 2: Point we stopped at Uh Bakuba. Bakuba i'm probably saying it.
WRONG i cannot pronounce.
Speaker 1: A lot of these.
Speaker 2: Words the rest Of baka. Buzz, yeah that's as far
north as we made. It it's on the other side Of.
Baghdad and then we kind of declared it was game,
over like not first reconnaissance, batealion but Miss alisssion. ACCOMPLISHMENT
i think that's When america, Said, okay The saddam regime is.
Speaker 3: Toppled they are.
Speaker 2: Unseated saddam wasn't. Hiding we'd captured the, palaces we'd captured
some of the family. Members they have no functioning system of.
Government they can provide no real. Opposition and, truly when
you're fighting, war that's the measure of success is when
opposition ceases to. Happen and at least at that time and,
place it was declared that's.
Speaker 3: It that was the.
Speaker 2: Goalpost so then it was just a matter of, well,
FUCK i guess we got to drive all the way back.
South we didn't drive all the way back To. Kuwait
we drove basically back To. Baghdad we kind of made
an assembly area there and later slowly retrograded back To
kuwait and then back To. America should that have been the? Goalpost,
wow this is a great. Conversation the way that we
fought that entire WAR i think was probably. MYOPIC, yea
many people would agree back then in two thousand and,
three we probably did the best that we.
Speaker 3: Could but, YEAH i think no one would. Disagree if
we were to do it, again we would do it.
Speaker 1: Differently, WELL i would. Hope it seems sometimes like we're
The United states Of amnesia and we just do these
things over and over.
Speaker 3: Again american suffers. THAT i, mean that's just our. Culture
we are shows short sighted to say the. Least, yeah.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the recept back home this, time because
you said it was different than very.
Speaker 2: Different it was an Amazing So america still had a
lot of. Jingoism you come back and there's parades And
america you, know you could not be more. Patriotic we had,
vindicated you, know supposedly nine to. Eleven we got chicks fuck, Them, yes,
yes But Camp pendleton is right outside Of, Oceanside, California
and you've never seen a more patriotic little town than.
That And i'm sure it was the case whether it
was you, Know fayetteville or. Anywhere, yeah, Yeah america was
grateful we could not get a better. Reception but then
the magazine article came Out Evan write's. Home he was
a freelance reporter For Rolling. Stone he was originally commissioned
to do one article in one issue Of Rolling. Stones
they end up loving it so much they make it
a three.
Speaker 3: Part series into three. Articles so the first issue comes.
Speaker 2: Out and then it's, like oh, yeah, yeah they don't like.
That The Marine corps doesn't like. It General mattis doesn't like.
It First Reconnaissance battalion leadership doesn't like it because it
openly criticized a lot of the decisions that the officers.
Made it openly criticizes the decisions that The Marine corps
as a whole was. Making whoever wanted to be the
face of The Marine. Corps it was critical because, again
you are talking about A e five and below's version of.
Events and, look if you don't know anything about the,
military let me tell you one. Thing members of the,
military especially at that, rank do nothing all day long
other than. Complain that's what people. Do you will sit
around and you will find something to complain. About it
does not matter if you have lobster and steak and
caviare and all the free views you want.
Speaker 3: On and that's what we.
Speaker 2: Did and now you're not just doing it in peacetime.
Garrison you're doing it in. Combat and that's you, know
where everyone is hyper vigilant and you are, stressed you are.
Scared in some, cases you're, hungry you are a whole
host of. Emotions, yeah you're gonna, complain and there's a
guy documenting. Everything, oh this person said That lieutenant so
and so is A The Marine corps didn't like.
Speaker 3: That it has since been.
Speaker 2: Relooked, at but at that, time you, know you're talking
what winter of two thousand and, three they didn't want
to hear that.
Speaker 1: Shit well, yeah and what it is too, IS i
mean they're worried about their own career. Progression and this
makes you, know our command look bad and this and that.
Speaker 2: Command is what is this going to do to The
Marine corps public? Relations and is potentially any of this?
Actionable did you violate anything in THE?
Speaker 1: Ucmj, yeah, YEAH i was gonna ask what did they
try to retaliate against any of.
Speaker 3: You SO i Had.
Speaker 2: While In, IRAQ i was nominated for a meritorious, promotion
a combat meritorious promotion to staff sergeant TO e six
for the entire. Division so it wasn't in the. Battalion
they had one meritorious combat slot FOR e, six one
FOR e, seven one FOR e. EIGHT i competed AGAINST
i don't know how many people FOR e, six AND i.
WON i was the first meritorious combat promotion Since.
Speaker 3: Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yep so my warrant is a date of rank on
the second of the month instead of the, first and
it says in combat should have said that it got taken.
Away General madis rescinded the promotion warrant in light of
what had taken place in the. Article NOW i ended
up getting, it but it was gone for about six. Weeks,
yeah and it wasn't just. Me there were other people
in the platoon as. Well and the prevailing attitude of
the leadership at the time, was, well you should have
kept your mouth. Shut you Should you didn't have to say.
Anything i'm, like, okay hold on a. Minute you put
this person in.
Speaker 3: Our, growth you put a rolling stone reporter in the
midst of.
Speaker 2: Ye freelance, reporter be that as it. May former publisher
For Penthouse, Letters New flint personally, like he's got a
great street. Reputation he was not the Liberal Ivy league
acts to grind. Democrat, no he was cool as. Fuck
but come, on, man.
Speaker 1: He was still a.
Speaker 3: Reporter what did you think was gonna?
Speaker 2: Happen that was the first thing THAT i had sort
of stood on as and then, Secondly i'm, like.
Speaker 3: What was really so? BAD i, mean, REALLY.
Speaker 2: I i had known and had conversations With General Madis.
PRYOR i spoke to him him many times In afghanistan
WHEN i was reporting directly to him In. Kandahar i'd
had a couple of other conversations on other times through
a weird set of. Circumstances it's not important he knew.
Me General madis has a great, memory by the, way
he will meet somebody one time and he will always remember,
you which is incredible BECAUSE i was a.
Speaker 3: Nobody he knew.
Speaker 2: ME i had a very very, unpleasant one sided conversation
with The, general and this was the conversation that was
going to determine whether or NOT i was allowed to
be promoted to that next. Rank under the circumstances THAT i.
Speaker 3: Was it worked, out but, hmm it was.
Speaker 2: Painful he was, pissed he was, furious he was fucking.
Furious and, again it was a one sided. Conversation he
didn't give a shit WHAT i had to. Say he
was not asking for my version of. Events and, honestly
it was interesting because the general didn't care.
Speaker 3: What the officers looked.
Speaker 2: Like he didn't care that they were questioned or slandered or.
Ridiculed he's, LIKE i DON'T i don't want it affecting
the enlisted. MEN i don't want YOUR i don't remember
the exact words that he, said but you Know i'm.
PARAPHRASING i don't want your cancer affecting the enlisted.
Speaker 3: Ranks and it worked out.
Speaker 2: Well but really the only reason it worked out well
is because he had a sergeant major and his sergeant
major liked, me and his sergeant major listened to, me
and he heard my story and he listened to my.
Argument but he was one of SEVERAL i had to
go in front of every single sergeant major in the ENTIRE. Mef,
okay that's a, lot because remember a division is below
a meth first Free commementalian is below the, division so there's.
Speaker 3: A lot of sergeant.
Speaker 2: Majors there's like eight of these, dudes the, artillery the,
infantry like they're all in a room and There's Sergeant.
Colbert And i'm having to explain myself to senior enlisted
people who don't like recon marines, anyways because we're all
a bunch of. Cowboys and now here's an uppity little
sergeant who thinks that he can just say whatever he wants. About,
yeah it was it was, rough.
Speaker 3: BUT i won the.
Speaker 2: DAY i won the, day AND i got to keep my.
RANK i got to pick up my next rank and
my next.
Speaker 3: One and you, know the story has aged.
Speaker 2: WELL i think people will realize, that like, one there
were a lot worst things to come for.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah like in the grand scheme of our adventure In,
Iraq Sergeant colbert's mouth is not the thing that we
are going to. Blemish so, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And does does this have anything to do with your
stint with The Royal marines that they're kind of, like
we need to get this guy out of here for
a little.
Speaker 2: While, no in, fact quite the. Opposite that is a coveted.
BILLET i would, think, yeah highly sought. After you are completely.
Alone you have no higher. Headquarters you are. Isolated like
WHEN i say you're, embedded it's, like that's.
Speaker 3: It it's.
Speaker 2: YOU i have No american chain of command in the,
country not. Marine the only marine in the country are
the embassy folks up In london's, embassy and they have
no association with. Me my reach back was a, officer
a major In, quantico and so it was highly sought,
after AND i was selected and screened and.
Speaker 3: Found to Be, yep it was. Good it was not.
Speaker 2: Universal the angst over The Generation kill magazine articles was not.
Speaker 3: Universal there were a lot of people that were, like, yeah,
DUDE i get.
Speaker 2: It what could you do? Right you were in a tough.
SPOT i don't think you did anything that was that.
Egregious it was really just the upper, echelons.
Speaker 3: You know WHAT i, Mean and it all rolls, downhill
and it all rolls.
Speaker 2: Downhill so to be selected for The British Exchange, PROGRAM
i mean it was, great phenomenal. Opportunity really personally and
professionally it was.
Speaker 1: Great did you have to go through their training?
Speaker 2: COURSE i had the option to go through their training.
COURSE i started to go through their training. Course there
were some circumstances that prevented me from finishing The All
Arms commando. Course one of the unique things about The
British commandos is the individual Row marine goes through their
EIGHT i think it's eight month eight enough positive things
about their, spighting fighting, spirit their, morale their attitudes are
you just you cannot demoralize this group of. People it
Is i've never seen anything like. It they can't be miserable.
Enough they're just really good. Dudes AND i think it
has a lot to do with the fact that their
training pipeline is incredibly. Long eight months is a long
time to be in basic and they go through some
very arduous physical, courses they go through a lot of,
schooling and there's not that many you, know thirty five
hundred and four thousand at any given.
Speaker 3: Time that's.
Speaker 2: Small AND i, MEAN i found them to just be
an incredible group of. Guys And i've said this. BEFORE
i think they could do so much better if they
would un ask more funding for, them if they had
access to more money to pay for some really top
tier equipment and get access to some really good.
Speaker 3: Training and their training is. GOOD i don't mean to
insinuate that it's.
Speaker 2: Not BUT i compare it to, us, right, Right like
my platoon of twenty four recom marines would typically have
a range day where the animal lot of it was
nine ten thousand. Rounds that's pretty average, REALLY i mean flat,
range maybe a shoot, house you, know maybe you do
some live fire and, maneuver some immediate action drills ten
thousand rounds of five to five six and then some
other associated belt fed and smoke and like that's. Nothing
that's a lot of ammo for those. Guys, yeah that's a.
Lot so that's the kind of stuff That i'm talking,
about not that they're not doing anything, wrong but, like,
bro if you had you, know the latest cutting edge communications,
equipment an absolute top, tier like, Amazing what did you.
Speaker 1: Think are the similarities in the differences between them and
The American Marine.
Speaker 2: Corps, well they're still very much embedded into The. Navy
one of the really weird things about the The british
military on a whole is that their pay system is
not the same across the board like in The american.
Military if you are An ARMY e one or A
Marine CORPS e one or An Air FORCE e, one
you were.
Speaker 3: Getting the same amount of. Money that's not the case over.
There it's.
Speaker 2: Different Their navy pay is different than Their army pay
than it's different than Their Marine corps. Pay so that's
the first thing that's. Weird they also don't have an
up or out policy like we, do, right so you
could potentially so they sign up For AND i could
be getting this wrong because my memory is a little
fuzzy these, days but you basically sign up for a
twenty two year enlistment and you can leave after a certain,
period but that's. It and you don't have to be
promoted to stay in like you do in The american military.
System so you could be a corporal of twenty. Years
you just don't want the responsibility of, leading and you're
quite happy to be at that. Rank that's a big, difference.
Speaker 3: AND i think that is.
Speaker 2: Very impactful on their leadership because just because you're upwardly
mobile doesn't mean that you were necessarily ready for that next,
Right SO i DON'T i don't think that you're promoting
the right way when you do it like. That i'm
sure there's reasons beyond WHAT i can see on the surface,
level but those are some pretty pretty big glaring differences
between our, military or at least Our Marine corps and.
Theirs we want everybody to have the mantle of, leadership
and you are going to do, it and you're probably
gonna suck at, it but somebody will teach. You they're
still in The department of The, navy and in almost
all ways their Their navy controls their budget and their
manpower and a lot of their other, things whereas in
THE Us Marine. Corps, yeah we Say department of The,
navy but that's really just something that's still.
Speaker 3: On the figurehead and the, walls and that's not the.
Speaker 2: CASE i would love to see The british, commander you,
know The Royal marines sort of separate themselves in more
ways from their.
Speaker 3: Parent. Service did you end up the point with?
Speaker 1: Them?
Speaker 2: NO i was at a training. Command, Okay so the
way that the exchange program works is it's one of
theirs in one of, ours and we. Swap so my
counterpart went to a unit that was, deployable and he
did get a chance to. Deploy INTEREST i would have
loved to have to have gone over To iraq with those,
folks but now it was a training and education, command
SO i spent a decent amount of time teaching asymmetric
warfare amphibious you, know, operations boat, driving, vbsss that kind of.
Speaker 1: Stuff yeah that's pretty. Cool yeah yeah uh in three
years almost in THE. Uk, yeah that must have been.
Speaker 2: Fun yeah it. WAS i had a great place to.
LIVE i had a two bedroom flat right on the.
Water like you could jump off of my balcony into
the ocean if you wanted. TO i don't recommend it
as cold as, fuck but you could do. It and
then it was right next to. Work SO i got
up in the morning AND i walked next door to
the training compound and it was. GREAT i WOULD i
had two of my motorcycles went with. ME i tmoed
him over. There SO i would regularly put a motorcycle
on the ferry and go over To, france you, know
and drive through the coast Of. Normandy OR i would
go over To, ireland you, know and ride the motorcycle
through the countryside Of, ireland and or go up To
scotland and tore the. Distilleries so a lot of personal. Takeaways, yeah,
yeah it, was it.
Speaker 1: Was it was.
Speaker 3: GREAT i had a good, time learned a.
Speaker 1: Lot and after that wrapped up and you got sent
back to the Mother Marine. Corps, yea what was the
next assignment for? You, well so that's WHEN i went
To First. FORCE i was there for you, know about six,
months and there was unfortunately a cabal of people who are, like,
yeah that whole generation kill, Thing.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna be a good.
Speaker 2: Fit i'm, like you, KNOW i went to school with
a lot of you, guys like we all went through
the same. Pipeline we all tried to the same. Ground,
again don't be a. Dick but, okay if that's your,
attitude then that's.
Speaker 3: Fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, SO i MEAN i just came back to the Mother,
SHIP i reintegrated, myself tried to do it whatever was,
asked whatever was, needed and then in short order found
myself back At First Reconnaissance battalion getting ready to go
back To iraq.
Speaker 1: Again how'd that? Go it was a little.
Speaker 2: Rough, yeah it was a little. ROUGH i mean WHEN
i went To iraq and three it was the Wild.
WEST i, mean we were in. Combat you. Know now
it's like we have forward operating bases and there's gate.
Speaker 1: Cards what you're going TO spa.
Speaker 2: Seven So i'm In fallujah in seven and you, know
this is oh, seven so none of the really horrible
fighting that was taking place in four oh five six was.
There it was, well we did combat operations and we
got into some scrapes and but for the most, part
it was like it's kind of WHAT i call peacetime,
combat garrison. Combat it's, bureaucratic it's, administrative it's it's your
hands are. Tied you, know you can't do, this and
you can't do. That and we still went out and
we did a lot of really WHAT i think is
to be you, know good, work a lot of cordin and,
clearing a lot of ied, stuff schwacked a lot of,
dudes putting in roadside bomb and you, know found weapons
caches and.
Speaker 3: All the stuff that we all. Did but it was
also horribly.
Speaker 2: Bureaucratic it was you can't do, this you can't do,
that and we got to ask permission to. This and
this is this is where we had a zero injury.
Mentality you, know we started loading these vehicles up that
were never designed.
Speaker 3: For all of this armory with all this, stuff.
Speaker 2: And, like, oh you can't go, out you need you
need full, Ppe LIKE i can't run with. This by the, Way,
okay you put eighty pounds of armor on. Me IF
i get into a, firefight how AM i supposed to
maneuver or grab my friend who is shot AND i
have to maneuver.
Speaker 3: Him this is.
Speaker 2: Stupid but somewhere along the, line we as a country
decided we will not allow, casualties, like we're not having.
Speaker 3: It you.
Speaker 1: CAN'T i was looking pretty bad in the.
Speaker 3: Press, yeah, YEAH i can't fight a war that.
Speaker 2: Way did anyone not read A Soldier's load and The
mobility of A? Nation BECAUSE i, did and you. Haven't
CLEARLY i have that manual here.
Speaker 1: Somewhere actually it's a good.
Speaker 3: Book yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah so the two thousand and seven deployment was very
different for. ME i was also not a team. LEADER
i was now a platoon, sergeant so, senior enlisted for
twenty four, individuals AND i had a pretty shitty platoon.
Commander yeah, yeah, yeah pretty. Shitty he was a last minute.
Substitution the original one rotated back to The United states
because his significant another had cancer and he's, Like i'm, out, okay,
thanks and they substituted somebody else. In and this guy
was a, douche a total.
Speaker 1: Douche did he come out of the recon community or,
no he was, there but he had no reconnaissance and
the officers typically.
Speaker 2: Don't usually their ground intelligence or aviation intelligence.
Speaker 1: Officers, OH i can see that being an, issue.
Speaker 2: Which for the most, part is not a big, deal
because they understand the significance of the mission and the
reconnaissance and they are mature enough for the most part
to be, like this is your area of. Expertise i'll
just sort of help muld you and point you in the.
Direction you, know this guy was straight from the, infantry
and he had some very didactic and rigid ideas, about you,
know the way things should be, done like, okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: So how did that relationship end up working? Out not?
Speaker 3: Good not, good not.
Speaker 2: GOOD i also got into it with our first sergeant
at the time a, lot.
Speaker 3: You, know LIKE i, said we.
Speaker 2: It's not THAT i FORGOT i was in The Marine.
Corps it was just that the reconnaissance community had always
been a little to the right of.
Speaker 3: Center you, know you have The.
Speaker 2: Marine corps rank and, file rigid like this is a
marine and then over here you Have ricon Who i'm
not saying shouldn't adhere to the, norm but by virtue
of its.
Speaker 3: Mission, set doesn't they have to adapt a little bit
a little.
Speaker 2: Bit AND i had a couple of individuals in the
chain of command that were, Like, nope this is the
way we do.
Speaker 3: Business that's not how we do.
Speaker 2: It i'll do it that way because all of you outrank,
me but fuck, you this is not how we do. It, so,
yeah there was some. Contention we did not get. Along
we made it. THROUGH i made it through the, deployment,
clearly but it wasn't. Fun it wasn't. Enjoyable, yeah it felt.
Speaker 3: Hamstrung it sounds, like, YEAH i, WAS i, Was i'm.
STRONG i was really just ready for it to be.
Speaker 1: Over, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yep how?
Speaker 1: Long how long was that?
Speaker 3: Deployment seven eight?
Speaker 1: Months, yeah it's a long, time.
Speaker 3: It, Is, yeah it.
Speaker 2: Is and again it's It's Camp, fallujah and everything had
just been like all of the fun of war was
stripped away because you, know you're living in a pod
and there's a dining facility and there's all these rules
about well this.
Speaker 1: Has to be, done and how you can use the,
shower what you have to have with you when you
go to the chow, hall and all this weird.
Speaker 2: Stuff i'm like this is not WHAT i remember of
Three and for me to go from that period and
really be away from The Marine corps In england while
all of this other stuff was going on and now
reintegrated with, IT i haven't got a platoon commander THAT
i can't, stand And i've got some other people in
the chain of command that are difficult and prickly to work.
Speaker 3: With was just not a good.
Speaker 1: Experience, YEAH i recall that kind of being difficult because you're,
like maybe it's a sense of, entitlement but also it's
just culture shock that you're doing these like combat operations
and then you come back to THE fob and there's
like a whole one page print out of the rules
of how you're allowed to use the coffee. Maker it's,
like this is feels, weird you, know.
Speaker 2: It, does AND i think somewhere along the way we
just industrialized the whole process of. Fighting, yeah The Marine
corps does not do peacekeeping very. Well The army doesn't.
Either in, Fact i'll go so far as to Say,
america we just. Don't and that's what we were trying to.
Do you, know you're fighting this asymmetric warfare at the
same time we're trying to help the transitional government Of,
iraq and it was just.
Speaker 1: When the MP's are handing out speeding tickets on the. Fobs,
yeah it's kind of, like what are we doing, here,
guys what are we?
Speaker 3: Doing oh in the road, GUARD i don't want to talk.
Speaker 1: About, yeah, yeah fucking road. Guard that was like a huge.
Preoccupation so, YEAH i mean THAT'S i know exactly what
you're talking.
Speaker 3: About uh and so what uh.
Speaker 1: Where did you land after That iraq.
Speaker 2: Deployment back At First, RECON I i took over as
the headquarters And service company, Gunny SO i was the
company gunny FOR h AND. S i did that for
a little while and then got another platoon and this
time we were going to go on. Ship SO i
was a platoon sergeant for A, mew which coincidentally would
be my last would be my.
Speaker 1: Last that's pretty. COOL i, mean that's pretty rare to
get multiple, platoons.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah it is at least multiple deploying. Platoons So
i've HAD i think total five, mews Five Marine Expeditionary unit,
deployments which are all you, know on, ship AND i
during that five held every position that you could, have
so it book ended it very very.
Speaker 1: Nicely, yeah oh you guys were back in The. Pacific, Yep,
yeah yeah it.
Speaker 2: Was that was a great deployment AND i did some
things on that deployment THAT i had never been able
to do, before didn't even know we.
Speaker 3: Could we went to went To.
Speaker 2: MALAYSIA i spent like a week in the jungle with
Their malaysian, recons just just living on the land and
eating monkey and squatting over rice and it was it
was fucking. Cool, yeah that was really. Cool kuwait and
did a bunch of other.
Speaker 3: Stuff, yeah it was. Fun we had a lot of. Fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah and eventually they sent you to airborne, school yes for.
Speaker 3: Betting so, okay.
Speaker 2: That decision was made WHILE i was on the way
home from ship on that. Meal at that, Time Fort
benning was where you sent the like your ship, birds
you're the people on the nowhere else to, go like
four years man as a, marine especially as a recomery
like oh, Wow SO i called up the, monitor and
the monitor is the person in The Marine corps who
sends people to their. Jobs like they have the big
chess board and they're, like this person's up for. Reassignment
where DO i need this person And i'm AN e,
seven So i'm not cannon. Fodder i'm gonna pick UP e.
Speaker 3: Eight so the.
Speaker 2: MONITOR i had a good relationship with the, individual and
HE i see the orders come across the. Computer i'm
on ship And i'm, like oh. No so the first
CHANCE i, GOT i picked up the phone AND i call.
Him it was a very short, conversation BUT i basically,
said right off the bat LIKE i know THAT i
have ruffled, feathers BUT i had no IDEA i was
this much of a.
Speaker 3: Shipbird and he, said slow.
Speaker 2: DOWN i am not sending you To Fort benning because
you have done anything, wrong because you have not had
a good, career because you are not in a.
Speaker 3: FIT i need the, opposite he. Said we have been sending.
Speaker 2: The worst of our worst To Fort benning and we
cannot do it anymore because it's given The core a,
bit it's given The corps a bad, name and we
have not had good mentorship and leadership At Fort. Benning
so if you don't, know The Marine corps had a
presence On Fort benning Since World War. Two it is
an agreement we made with The army way back In
World War, two which basically, says we will allow The
Marine corps to go through our parachute, school but in,
return we want one or two of Your marines to help.
Teach so the reconnaissance community is really the only people
that are born that are airborne, qualified so it inevitably
stands to reason that the instructors would be from that.
Speaker 1: Community one of my ris On benning was a staff
sergeant in The Marine.
Speaker 2: Corps and it's not just The airborne. School so we
Have Infantry mortar leaders course. There we Have, pathfinder we
have Jump, master we Have Ranger. School there are air
assault schools. There Fort benning has a lot of. Schools
each one of those schools has a marine on the.
Staff all of those individuals have to be shepherded by.
Somebody that's what he was asking me to. Do And i'm, Like,
OKAY i hate, you BUT i will go do.
Speaker 3: This AND i. Did Fort.
Speaker 2: Benning, well it's an interesting, tour you, know from having worked.
THERE i was part of The Marine. DETACHMENT i was
The infantry operations chief for The Marine detachment and it
was very, small there was only twelve of.
Speaker 3: Us it. Grew there was a.
Speaker 2: Time where The tank school that used to be At
knox was bracked. Closed they put all of that structure
At Fort. Benning Fort benning changes from The Maneuver center
of Our Infantry center Of excellence to The Maneuver center
Of excellence doesn't. Matter so Now Marine corps tanks are.
There and we went from a twelve twelve individual mom
and pop detachment to, oh we have ninety people here
now and that was.
Speaker 1: Interesting, yeah and how was it providing that, coaching teaching
and mentoring to young marines marines coming through airborne.
Speaker 2: School SO i spent a year as a static line
jump master instructor and that was the first thing THAT i.
Speaker 1: Did, okay that's.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah after, THAT i went into the office and was
just you, know permanently in the office as the.
Speaker 3: Operations chief.
Speaker 2: Essentially so part of the duties and responsibilities would be
too talk to The marines when they showed up for
the Basic Airborne school or marines that were showing up
For Ranger, school or it didn't matter.
Speaker 3: What, LIKE i would be the guy that come. BY
i was a master.
Speaker 2: SERGEANT i picked Up Master sergeant so e eight halfway
through that, tour AND i would just be you, know
let's talk a little bit, there young, sergeant so welcome
to the. Army you were going to be called. Sergeant
whether you're AN e five or an.
Speaker 3: Eat they all get called.
Speaker 2: Guy, yeah, yeah, Yeah i'd Make i'd make one correction
today that was my quota as AN e eight or
AN e. Seven at that, time a lot of the
soldiers would refer to me as. Sergeant i'm, like not
a fucking. Sergeant i'm a gunnery sergeant or a master.
Surgant but one correction today after, THAT i reached my,
quota AND i would just like help manage. Expectations there
were a lot Of marines that would come through the
schools and uh As. Marines for, example we don't wear
A pt gear in the mess.
Speaker 3: Hall we just.
Speaker 2: Don't it's horribly. Forbidden nobody would ever think to do.
That but in the army after, whatever you're gonna go
eat in. Ptgear and so sometimes you'd have an over
zealous staff sergeant like everyone's going back to change And
i'd have to be, listen, dude they can't do. That
there's a, schedule they don't have time for. That just
leave the little guys. Alone things like, that or you,
know there WAS i don't even know IF i should say.
This there was a senior enlisted marine who failed the
physical fitness test for the basic airborne.
Speaker 3: Course, yikes, yeah it was.
Speaker 2: Good he didn't lied to his parent unit and said
that he didn't, fail that there was an administrative, error
that he was being recycled to the next. Class SO
i had the unpleasant conversation with his unit to, say,
yeah that's that's not what.
Speaker 3: Happened he didn't come.
Speaker 1: Back oddly, ENOUGH i always found The marines going through
those schools to be pretty squared. AWAY i think it
might have been the skills that needed adults suit. Provision they,
did and they stopped going through that sea back.
Speaker 3: In the, day.
Speaker 1: You. REMEMBER i don't know if this was still going,
On and it sounds so bizarre to say this out.
Loud people watching this are probably, like what the. Hell
when we went through airborne, school they would like check
to make sure that you weren't wearing underwear under your
pts because they're, like we have to monitor how hot
or over heat exhaustion or something like, that and so
they would do these like random underwear spot checks on.
Guys and one of the seals decided to wear lingerie
underneath HIS pts one, day so they check. It he's
wearing like a thong From victoria's secret or.
Speaker 2: SOMETHING i went through The Basic Airborne course as a,
STUDENT i want to, say in two thousand and. Two
it was one of the first THINGS i did After,
afghanistan and then Free fall school the next, year and
we went through and there were still seals, there and
it was, LIKE i look back now AND i think to,
myself what a freaking joke it.
Speaker 3: Must have been for those.
Speaker 2: Guys, yeah absolutely to finish buts and be like, really,
yeah this and they've proven clearly because they're They're parachute
school is one week now that it doesn't take three Weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah to jump out of the. Plane.
Speaker 1: Yeah that really feels like a relic of like The
World War. Two it so. Does and and there were complaints.
Too IS i remember as we were getting out of
the army they were trying to change things because you
remember to do a, jump a training, jump that's an
old day. Event, yeah to come in and do your
sustained airborne, training drop parachutes, jpips go down to the
hangar rig. Up, yeah it's like a full day. Event it's,
like doesn't really need to.
Speaker 3: Be it's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Work AND i gotta SAY i still think, tactically well,
strategically does an airborne unit have?
Speaker 3: Worth? Yes but less and. LESS i, mean if you
think about.
Speaker 2: What the need for the eighty Second airborne, is AND
i say that with all due respect to those, individuals
but can you envision a battlefield where we would need
to parachute and hold ground and hold in season airfield
for Fallow on forces in twenty twenty six with what
we know about taking place In ukraine and the drone
threat that is permeated. WARFARE i don't, KNOW i don't.
Know maybe, yeah, WELL i mean this is.
Speaker 1: Sacriligious but you also have to, ask, like do we
really need all of these guys who are free fall
and dive? Qualified, Yeah, like you, know the amount of
people that we qualify on it versus how many combat
jumps we've done during the. War how many combat dives
have we done during the?
Speaker 2: WAR i, Mean AND i spent the bulk of my
time In recon on the dive, team you. Know SO
i went to dive school in ninety seven AND i
spent the next god knows how many years diving with
all manner of equipment and like the same thing that
you trained me to, do there's now an autonomous system
that can do better without any. Risk so you're. RIGHT
i don't know if it's really required. ANYMORE i think
The Marine corps sees it because they're drastically changing what
their units are going to look.
Speaker 1: Like. Yeah in somewhere around this, timeframe when is The
Generation kill was turned INTO hbo.
Speaker 3: Series two thousand and.
Speaker 1: Eight, yeah so it's around this.
Speaker 2: Timeframe did you get kind of hit a second time
by THE i? DID i did this Time it is
not as pejorative as it was in three because he
wrote those three articles and then it was turned into a.
Book that book was optioned BY. Hbo NOW hbo is producing.
It So i'm In fallujah IN o seven and the
series is in production and then comes out IN o.
Eight SO i come back from that seven deployment almost
to the first episode being released. ALMOST i helped a
little bit in post, production did some technical advising on the,
show you, know made some trips To hollywood And Corror bank,
actually and did some. Work Met David, simon met who
at that time was very well or, sorry it was
Unknown alexander right, like hung out with him for.
Speaker 3: A, while did some press. Stuff BUT.
Speaker 2: I didn't really get hit with the negative. SIDE i
did get hit with a lot of just the other,
side the love the show or love the, book or you, know.
Speaker 3: Did this?
Speaker 2: Happen did that? Happen did he really say? This what
did you think? Of Captain? America and a lot of
these guys at that time were still, in they were still,
around and they were, Like i'm not gonna slander or
bad mouth or say one thing or. Another he's over,
there you can go ask. HIM i learned my, lesson you,
know there was a bulk of time between three and
eight for me to be, like, Yeah i'm, Wiser i'm,
OLDER i am going to handle this one differently this. Time,
SO i, mean discretion was definitely the better part Of.
Speaker 1: Valor was it a little surreal seeing those experiences on the? Screen?
Speaker 2: Yes, YES i read the scripts early. On the technical
advisor on that series was a good friend of. Mine
he had access to the. Scripts, well the first technical
advisor he bowed out and another friend of mine ended
up taking. Over but point, IS i read the scripts
AND i saw what they were trying to, do AND
i thought it was pretty, good, right but you don't
know what it's going to look, like, Right and SO
i see it AND i, thought, oh, okay WELL i look.
Good the rest of you GUYS i don't know, about
but they got this when they nailed, me.
Speaker 3: Clearly it was, very very. Surreal one of.
Speaker 2: The things those, like even Before Generation kill was even a.
THOUGHT i don't know how it was for your, experiences
but there were times where when you're just bored and
sitting around as a platoon or a team or just a,
couple you would sort of what, if like if this
was a, movie who would play? You never in a
million years DID i actually think that would come to.
Light and it, did and so you, know THERE i.
Am i'm actually At Evan wright's house In. California i'm,
there my girlfriend at the time is, there And Alexander
scarsguard is, there and we're watching it In evan's living.
Room we're watching a pre like a pre RELEASED dvd
of the first, episode you, know and it's still got
the editing code scrolling, through and it was, like, yeah all,
right this is not. Bad this is not. BAD i
think this will play. WELL i think it'll do it,
justice AND i think it.
Speaker 1: Did what do you think has been like the kind
of legacy of the series because people talk about it
to this. DAY i, MEAN i think it resonated with
a lot of.
Speaker 3: Folks you, KNOW i think we kind of hit on it.
Speaker 2: Earlier there has not been a chronology or, capturing an
oral history or written history about what was it like
for The american soldier And i'm using that term universally
to go to. War we just didn't have anything because
we hadn't had a. War you could argue ninety. One
but if anyone says jar, Head i'm just gonna punch
him in the.
Speaker 3: Face that book. Sucks i'm, sorry the book. Sucks the
movie was Whod Three kings was?
Speaker 2: Good Three Kings actually Three kings is pretty. Good, yeah, yeah,
YEAH i like that. Movie but there wasn't. Anything we
just and this was. It now there has been numerous
things since, then but you, know Maybe i'm a little.
BIASED i don't think anything captures just the raw, grit
the absolute truth of what is it like for a
young man to go to war in this generation or
in that. Generation nothing else captures. It AND i think
it's still to this day fairly representative of what it
is like for that.
Speaker 1: Generation, yeah and it's important to communicate that to the. Public,
yes who largely don't serve in the. Military that is
another interesting.
Speaker 2: Demographic less than POINT i want to, say point one
point zero one percent of our, population where's the uniform
at any, time the lowest it's been in the history
of The United. States and even less of that is
actually in theater exchanging. Gunfire SO i do feel like
your point is. Valid this is, transparency this is, empathy
this is. UNDERSTANDING i have never been one of these
people to, say you, know the veteran needs a. Handout,
no but just understand what it's. Like put yourself in
the shoes of somebody who is, eighteen nineteen years, old
twenty years, old away from, home maybe for the first,
time and in a foreign land and they are picking
up arms against an unknown aggressor and.
Speaker 3: Seeing SO i think it's. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah and for, you what came after your glorious stint
At Fort, Benning.
Speaker 2: GEORGIA i got another call from the, monitor this time
the last call THAT i would get from. Him now
we talked all the. TIME i MEAN i just talked
to him a couple of months ago and he's long since.
Retired he basically, said what do you want to. Do do
you want to stay in The Marine corps or do
you want to get? Out and, NOW i had never
intended to serve longer than twenty. Years that was always
my goal twenty years to the, day And i'm done
nothing against The Marine. CORPS i just wanted to do something. Else,
yeah but you got to do your Twenty if once
you're past, fourteen you're, committed that's sort of that fork
in the.
Speaker 3: Road and he, says do you want to stay? In
AND i said.
Speaker 2: No he, says, OKAY i need you to do one
more thing then THEN i would like you to go To.
QUANTICO i want you to work At raids And recon
and if you're not going to get, promoted that's where
you're going to. Go said, Okay i'll do, that AND
i did and also very interesting career ender never expected
to end up. There raids And recon is the group
that is in charge of acquisitions for the reconnaissance community
and in some cases The Marine corps as a. Whole
so if you don't, know The army has a, version
The navy has a, version The Air force has a.
Version there is a group of people and it is
a mix of civilian and active duty whose job it
is to buy you. Things that uniform that you're, wearing
that pack that you're, carrying that rifle you're, shooting all
of those things had to go through some kind of
a purchase process where there is a need. Identified we
need a new. Gun, okay tell me about this new.
Speaker 3: Gun what are the?
Speaker 2: Capabilities describe? It what do you want it to? Do
or maybe there's a there's a training, gap there's who. Knows,
well you've got to have a group of smart, people you, know, engineers,
logistitions subject matter experts who, say, oh well they need
a new gun and it has to fit this. Criteria,
well then that means it must be you get the.
Idea so that's WHAT i. DID i was a project
officer For raids And. RECON i had a PORTFOLIO i
was in charge of which were boats and, engines breaching,
equipment and hearst, Equipment hurst, helicopter wrote suspension. Training so
all of The army's air assault, equipment The Marine corps
we call it. Hearst so if you're doing, fast if
you're doing, repelling if you're doing anything like, that that
suite of equipment we would label AS. HURST i was
in charge of it. Breaching so if you're doing, explosive, mechanical,
thermal or ballistic, breaching all of the, tools, techniques, tactics
and PROCEDURES i would be in charge. Of, so for,
example it's all about battery powered these. Days the quickie.
Saw i'm sure you're familiar with. It it was gas.
Powered those are, great but when you're using it in
confined spaces like on a, ship that engine that'll fill
up a space pretty. Quick what about an electric?
Speaker 3: Saw? Oh? Interesting how do we recharge? It what is
the battery?
Speaker 2: Life does it have enough horsepower to get through a
bulkhead of a? Ship all that, Stuff but predominantly it was.
Boats The Marine corps uses an inflatable craft called a.
Zodiac you guys do, Too everybody uses. It it's kind of old.
Technology there's new stuff out. There SO i worked on
trying to bring that to. Market and then a lot
of parachute. Testing go out To yuma and you, know
get new data for new glide, data release data for the,
parachutes or a lot of underwater propulsion, testing a lot
of diving stuff like, that and then just going out
to industry and talking to people and going to trade
shows and finding new.
Speaker 3: Things and that must have.
Speaker 1: Been actually a pretty good gig to help you transition
into the civilian. WORLD i don't know what you did in,
retirement BUT.
Speaker 3: I worked after The Marine. Corps do you want to jump? Ahead?
Speaker 1: Yeah, YEAH i, mean unless there's something in between.
Speaker 2: The, two that not REALLY i got out of The
Marine corps on A, friday and on A, SATURDAY i was.
Speaker 3: Flying to my new. Job.
Speaker 2: Yeah SO i spent the last about ten years in
the intelligence community after The Marine. CORPS a good friend
of mine was already doing the. Job and it's kind
of one of those jobs where it's word of. Mouth
there's no website you can go, to there's no resume
you can, send there's no application.
Speaker 3: Process it's just, like, hey you're interested in doing some, Work, yeah,
sure what's the? Job can't tell?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 3: Okay WOULD i like?
Speaker 5: It?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well can you tell me anything about? It? Now
you want to do? It, okay let's try. It and
it was like.
Speaker 2: That my name was, dropped a phone call was, made
interview was, done and then assessment in, selection which is no.
Joke there's been two schools in my life WHERE i
THOUGHT i am not going to. Graduate dive school is
one of. THEM i never unpacked my bag from dive.
SCHOOL i went From, Okinawa japan in ninety seven To Panama, City,
florida to The naval Divid salving And Trading unit For
Marine Combatant. DIVE i loved that school AND i could
swim like a, fish BUT i could not run to
save my. Life and they had extremely rigid pet, standards
And i'm, LIKE i am not going to pass this.
Course i've unpacked my bag AND i, graduated AND i
loved it and it was. Great but the other thing
THAT i thought there's no effing WAY i was going
to pass was the assessment and selection for my last.
Job the shooting standards are. INCREDIBLE i, mean there were
guys from pick a, unit doesn't, matter all the letters
that you could think, of they had guys there from
all of. Those you have a seventy eight percent attrition.
Speaker 3: Rate it's.
Speaker 2: Hard And i'm not a, shooter not LIKE i can
shoot the long, gun but my pistol skills are just
average and they couldn't be. Average and SO i was
really worried about, it AND i had about three months to,
prepare AND i spent a lot of time doing a
lot of shooting and a lot of things.
Speaker 3: Wrong and the organization sent me to a school in
it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Matter like A Mid south or something like. That you,
said it not.
Speaker 2: Me that changed my entire pistol. Approach if not For Mid,
south probably wouldn't have. Passed BECAUSE i learned a way
of shooting THAT i wasn't aware, of and it completely.
Speaker 1: Changed what was that thing that?
Speaker 3: CHANGED i have a tendency to.
Speaker 2: MUZZLE i always have BECAUSE i learned how to shoot
with very very large caliber. Guns it WAS i never
really had a proper pistol. Education the long guns are.
Different SO i learned how to shoot on some guns
that were just like nobody learns how.
Speaker 3: To shoot with a four to fifty four.
Speaker 2: Casule i'm quoting a movie that Was Harley davidson and
The Marlborough, man but big, guns and SO i have
a tendency to muzzle a little. Bit they taught me
a way to press that support hand palm into the,
gripswell and it helped so much so THAT i suddenly
started bringing my grip in, nice AND i JUST i
naturally offset a little. BIT i, KNOW i shoot low and,
left SO i offset a little bit. Right AND i
was consistently making a. Boxes it's all ipsick target for.
Scoring so Suddenly i'm getting a's were BEFORE i was
getting B's and, yeah it, cool it Was, yeah it was.
Great and then the, speeds like you draw from the
holster and you're talking about two rounds in less than
two seconds from the, draw and that you have to
be in THE a.
Speaker 3: BOX i, mean that's.
Speaker 2: Fast AND i just didn't do anything like that. Before
it wasn't THAT i, couldn't and OBVIOUSLY i did BECAUSE i,
passed but there was a learning curve.
Speaker 3: There needless to.
Speaker 2: Say it was incredibly it was incredibly. Hard and THEN
i watched a lot of people wash, out dudes that
come from communities that we would we always would emulate, like,
wow you're you know you're from that.
Speaker 3: GROUP i thought for sure You, nope.
Speaker 1: Was there any like additional training you had to go
through after.
Speaker 2: That there wasn't anything THAT i had to go, through
BUT i was afforded the opportunity to and some of
the best, TRAINING i mean, amazing and the people that
you work with are really fantastic. Individuals and you talked
about transition and While quantico that last book ended tour
in The Marine corps was fantastic for helping me transition
into the private, SECTOR i promise you what really did
it IS i found myself in an organization of all
prior military and in a semi military. Environment so, no
there wasn't a rank, structure but it's, like, oh you
served here and you served, there AND i remember that,
part and you remember, this and you know all of
the services from ALL i, mean pick AN sf unit
and that's who you're all now. With but you're wearn't
playing clothes and there's no, rank and you're all doing
the same job and it's. Fun so there's a little
bit of measuring, still but not. Much and that's what
really made the trend positions so.
Speaker 1: Seamless, yeah and you said you did that for ten,
Years like what Was how did you like the? Job,
oh it's.
Speaker 2: Fantastic not only were the travel opportunities, incredible but you're
working with some people who are absolutely at the tip
of the sphere and you're helping accomplish a mission that
is really important to national. Security you're helping support real world,
operations and so there's relevancy a lot of the things
that we do in The Marine corps.
Speaker 3: Or The navy or The Air.
Speaker 2: Force it doesn't, matter you're not going to see the
effects of for years to. Come LIKE i have no
idea in my heart of hearts If iraq is a
better country today because of two thousand and.
Speaker 3: Three i'd like to think that it, is BUT i
can't prove. It it's hard to prove a, negative, Right.
Speaker 2: BUT i can emphatically say THAT i have, helped helped
been a part Of i'm not taking ownership of, it
BUT i have helped support operations THAT I i know
had immediate impact to national, security and that's very very, gratifying.
Speaker 1: Was, it, Uh speaking of, transitions was it difficult for
you to transition from being a recon marine To i'm
guessing in this case more of like A quindestine will
visibility sort of.
Speaker 2: Framework it was very easy because it was a lot
of the stuff THAT i did wearing a uniform or
sometimes plain, clothes but in the military under title ten
and now it's a different, title but it's a lot
of the same mo.
Speaker 3: More so in many.
Speaker 2: Respects one of the things THAT i think it really
solidified for me is just how much more vulnerable or
less safe you are the more that you try to
make yourself, safe, right, right.
Speaker 3: Right the more armor you're sticking on the side of the.
Speaker 2: Vehicles, yeah all of, it the convoy, operations the you,
know the SOPs raising your.
Speaker 3: Profile you're just raising your.
Speaker 2: Profile and, wow it wasn't a foreign concept to. ME
i don't THINK i saw it illustrated as much WHEN
i left The Marine corps and worked in the government
sector and, went, oh, wow The State department's rolling around
in five level sevens all in a convoy with toastraps hanging. Out,
yeah you guys are fucking. Targets that kind of highlighted
it for.
Speaker 3: Me and so.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of, takeaways a lot of things
THAT i think the reconnaissance training and all of those
years in uniform helped me.
Speaker 1: Along the way in.
Speaker 3: That next Walk. Alive, Yeah and, honestly.
Speaker 2: It was really really easy to go from being a
master surgeon and eight in The Marine corps with all
of the courtesies and customers and Now i'm Just i'm
up private, Again, like no, Problem i'll clean that for.
YOU i will absolutely get you another cup of. Coffee
dry cleaning me picked.
Speaker 3: Up i'm on.
Speaker 2: It it was, like it was kind of cool again
to have nothing to worry about and just individual.
Speaker 1: Efforts and you did that for ten. Years what kind
of convinced you to move on to the next.
Speaker 2: Thing nothing convinced. Me somebody took that away from. Me
SO i had been working on the training side of
the house AND i loved, it and it was. Incredible
probably the best JOB i have ever. HAD i, like
and that is not. HYPERBOLE i worked in a very
small group with some amazing, dudes and we had some
great freedoms and we designed some fantastic. TRAINING i just
happened to have the misfortune of telling The emperor he
had no. Clothes there was an individual at my last.
Job let's, SEE i want to protect the, name so
we will call this Person. Skyler skyler is a piece of.
Speaker 3: Shit there.
Speaker 2: Was, yeah SO i had a personality conflict AND i
Was it wasn't. Egregious but when the individual transitioned from
the position in WHICH i met him to a position of,
authority he, decided, like your services are no longer.
Speaker 3: REQUIRED i, said, okay no.
Speaker 2: PROBLEM i get, It and in, hindsight it's probably good
because it afforded me the opportunity to do, this to
do the Carry on, podcast to have conversations with individuals
such as yourself about my story about what comes, next
and then all of the projects and things that Carry
on allow for BECAUSE i couldn't do it in my last.
Speaker 1: Job yeah. Right they didn't want you being like. Public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no you would have had to have asked permission
for each and every you, know podcast ahead of, time
for each and every all of.
Speaker 3: It but that's actually interesting BECAUSE.
Speaker 1: I also got to see how to phrase. This there's
a guy that once worked for me and wrote for,
me AND i think he did the same job you,
did but the client did not give a shit as
long as he wasn't writing about the. Client, yeah you're
writing about The Marine. Corps they're, cool no.
Speaker 3: Problem.
Speaker 2: YEAH i think it's part and. Parcel due to my system's,
access there's rules for individuals that have access to the
system and those that. Don't so if you have A
tssci and you have the ability to log into these classified,
systems you're under much greater restrictions than if you.
Speaker 3: Don't AND i think that's.
Speaker 1: That could make.
Speaker 3: Sense that's.
Speaker 2: Why, yeah just by virtue of doing the, job you
are still, restricted but not to the degree that somebody
who is doing the. Job oh and you can log
into the. System, yeah they want to make sure that
you're you, know not talking about things that you, shouldn't
sharing locations that you. Shouldn't AND i get.
Speaker 3: IT i get.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 2: Man there's a lot of people that currently hold tsscis
that SHOULDN'T i, think, yeah one point two, million and
we've seen through the.
Speaker 3: News, yeah some of you guys don't need.
Speaker 1: It, yeah the military especially hands them out like. Candy they.
Speaker 2: Do and it's funny because WHEN i left The Marine,
CORPS i had A i had A ts and THEN
i went to the new job and they're, like have
you ever held A ts?
Speaker 3: FOUR i said, Yes like who have you had it?
Speaker 2: WITH i, said you. Know The Marine corps is, like
oh that's so. Cute, yeah we don't fucking care. That
we don't recognize, That like they don't care at, All
like we're starting from. Scratch and THEN i GUESS i
kind of realized, like, oh there's different degrees of like, wow,
OKAY i get it, Now, well, yeah.
Speaker 1: They don't put military guys through a lifestyle poll is
one of the big, differences is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Huge so, yeah when you go through, that you're definitely
like put through the.
Speaker 3: Ringer.
Speaker 1: YEAH i don't know how most military guys can even pass.
Speaker 3: That, yeah, yeah, ABSOLUTELY i.
Speaker 1: DON'T i.
Speaker 2: DON'T i passed, mind so it can be. Done but, yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting so since you've left that position behind or helped
out of that, position what's been consuming your time since? Then,
WELL i have some side. BUSINESSES i have a distillery cool, yep,
yep single malt and a. BOURBON i do have a
small gun business, manufacturing AND i can do modifications and
then from whole metal ar fifteen's eight. Ks SO i
do that AND i Always i've had this fabrication.
Speaker 3: Yep oh.
Speaker 2: Wow and Then i'm back in school from a master's,
degree and that's taking up a lot of my. TIME
i do have, children they take up a lot of my.
Time and then the podcast and the story and the.
Conversation i'm very motivated and passionate to shepherd that and
grow and continue To, yeah see where it, goes have
conversations with.
Speaker 1: Folks tell us where people can go to.
Speaker 3: Find the distillery and the gun. Business they both have.
Speaker 2: Websites the distillery is Called Raider. Distilling it is an
homage to The Marine raiders Of World War. TWO i
was not creating that title because Of, marsk BUT i
certainly don't mean any disrespect to The marsk. Folks this the,
bottle the, website the the the history of the, distillery
if you. Will it's all goes back To World War
two and Those marine. Raiders so that's WHY i named
it WHAT i named, it the gun, business very. Innocuous
it's It's bravo two to One tactical and it's named
so because of my platoon In iraq and three it,
was you, Know Bravo, company Second, Platoon team. One So
bravo two to One tactical is the, website so folks.
Speaker 3: Can go if they.
Speaker 5: Want, yeah and we spoke about it a little bit
early on in the, podcast but the Carry on, Podcast,
yes and tell people again where they can go to find.
Speaker 2: That they can go To Brad coolbert dot. Us, okay
really easy to. Remember Brad colbert Dot us is the
splash page for the, website and then from there it
talks about all of the different styles of interviews or.
Videos that we, do and there's a variety of things
that people may identify, with but our bread and butter
is our weekly sit rep we call. It so we
talk about some current events about an hour hour and
a half a discussion with news and stories that are
relevant to.
Speaker 1: Today you got anything coming up that you're particularly excited
about that you tease a little.
Speaker 3: Bit, well we were.
Speaker 2: Working our way through The Generation Kill. Platoon we've had
several individuals come. On we are going to Have Rudy
reyes next. Month people seem to be very excited About.
Rudy he is a individual that was portrayed in the.
Book he actually portrays himself in the. Show he is
on television. Now he does one of those Special forces Shows,
cool so he.
Speaker 3: Seems to be very.
Speaker 2: Popular we're gonna have him on next month In, july
SO i think people will probably be excited about, that
and we're just going to continue to. Work Nate fick
is going to come on the. Show he was the
platoon commander for that. Time and we have a few,
others all of which are. Forthcoming and we also have authors,
too regularly have. Authors we've had a couple and they're
coming up. Soon Jody fletcher has a book. Out Andy
pritty has a book, out all of which are available
in future episodes coming.
Speaker 3: Up super. Cool, yeah and.
Speaker 1: We'll have links down the description for people who are
watching this on YouTube or podcast or. Whatever we'll have
links to all of these places before we get going. Today,
brad is there anything that you know you WISH i had,
Asked ANYTHING i failed to cover here you'd like to
put out?
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: UH i liked the opportunity to come on the show
and talk about some of the the you, know the
history THAT i have been witnessed to and some of
the stories that have brought me WHERE i. Am but,
honestly the one thing THAT i Feel i've always tried
to let people know Is i'm standing on the shoulders of.
GIANTS i love the fact that people identify with The
Generation kill. Story they may have been inspired by myself
or others that are depicted in that, story BUT i
still look back to the men from you, Know vietnam
Or World War, two and there's not that many left
less and less every day and the things that they.
Did i've been To, Normandy i've seen the, Sand i've
touched those pill boxes that The American rangers had to
Cliff assault to get TO.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything the shores Of Triple The Marine
corps been around for a.
Speaker 2: While, Yeah i've been to what was The Beroot barracks In.
Lebanon it's now an. Airport but Like i've seen that.
Soil i've been to the beaches At. TRIPOLI i have
touched that. Sand all of these, PLACES i stand on
the shoulders of. GIANTS i am so humbled to have
been a part of The Marine corps, story but also
just the story of all of us who have. Sacrificed
my hat's off to.
Speaker 1: Them, yeah that's. Great, well best of luck with the
podcast the. Businesses it sounds like you're doing good.
Speaker 3: STUFF i appreciate, it my. Friend thank you for having
me on your.
Speaker 1: Show, yeah thanks for making the trip out here To New.
Speaker 3: York it's my. Pleasure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really so thank you everyone who joined us, today
and we'll see you guys next. Time, hey, GUYS i
want to take a moment to tell you about The
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Speaker 3: There the link will be down the description