Unbreakable Episode 79 - Shoshana and Curney Finally Reunited

Welcome to Unbreakable! A Mental Wealth podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. It’s the most beautiful reunion on today’s episode. 21 years ago, this week this incredible woman, US Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, was captured in Iraq and spent the next 22 days held captive as a POW. One day before what she says she thought would be her last day alive US Marine Curney Russell, along with his fellow marines kicked in a door where she was being hidden and rescued Shoshana saving her life. Yet, the two of them have never met in person since that day!!!! Shoshana & Curney have not seen each other since… until now, 21 years later! Talk about heroes! The two were guests on my Unbreakable podcast for Veterans Day in the fall and when they said they still have not met in-person besides the day of the rescue I made them a promise I would make their reunion happen. So last week I flew them to California, along with other members of their team, to finally meet up once again. It was MAGICAL! Buckle up for some real-life superhero stuff. Enjoy and help me celebrate them together. Such inspirations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast
build you from the inside out.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Now here's Jay Glacier.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Welcome in, everybody to Unbreakable, a mental wealth podcast today
for probably the most meaningful podcast I've.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Ever had my entire life.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
And it's a follow up from a previous podcast of
two people who I really look up to, and I
think you will as well when you hear this incredible story.
And this today was also about me keeping my promise
to two people who.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Are very special to me. But before we get into that,
I feel, like many people.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
You may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year. You
have far too many fail to receive the support they need. Carolin,
Behavioral Health is doing something about it. They understand that
behavioral health is a key part of whole health, delivering
compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs
and tandem, Carolyn, behavioral health raising the quality of life
through empathy and action. All right, Welcome into the Unbreakable

(01:03):
Mental Wealth Podcast. So on Veterans' Day I had on
two very special people who were sitting here to my left.
So Shawna Johnson, who was the first ever black female
POW in the history of our military. Connie Russell the
Marine actually kicked down the door in Iraq to rescue
and save her. And back then they told me they

(01:26):
still had not met in person. The wild thing is,
I think we think in movies that met, you get
rescued and man, you guys just keep in touch. But no,
Kearnie had you. Shoshana had to go back and she
had to get medical attention. Kearnie went back and fought
and served for years. So they had not met in person.
Besides that, so I said, I give you my word,

(01:47):
I promise you I will fly you out to meet
in person. And here we are, twenty one years this
week from your first week being held captive for twenty
two days, your first week in captivity, and you, guys,
I only get to meet. First of all, thank you
both enjoining us. And I'm gonna start with you and
both of you, like, what was it like to see
this man for the first time that saved your life

(02:09):
after twenty one years?

Speaker 5 (02:11):
Shocking? I remember the eighteen year old you know that
came through the door. And you have to remember this
is not just eighteen years old, but they was it
three weeks. Y'all have been pushing through three weeks or so,
so they looked rough. I looked rough after three weeks
in captivity, but they also looked rough because they have
been pushing and doing these firefights and so forth. So

(02:35):
this big, strapping man is not what I remember. I
remember eighteen year old kid, kind of dusty and dirty, serious,
very serious for a young man, and just getting a
job done, you know. And I also remember my security blanket.
I felt safe. I felt secure when he was right there,

(02:56):
you know. So it's kind of surreal to see this,
this grown, strapping man here, father of two, you know.
But in my head, he's always going to be that
eighteen year old kid that has pushed through three weeks
of war.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Right, But also first time again you've seen a man who.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
Saved your life. Yes, you know, Curnie. I think Kearnie
and cashtro are the only ones I haven't seen in
person since that day. I've seen some of the others,
but yet, and I tell them every time, in my head,
you're still those young men who came to my rescue.
You'll never be you'll never be old, you know what

(03:37):
I'm saying if some of them losing their.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Hair, these young superheroes are and that's it.

Speaker 5 (03:43):
You got to hit the nail on the head. They're
gonna be always the young superheroes that came through the door,
their shoulders so wide they had to turn sideways. You
know these you know, big lights behind their heads like halos.
In my mind, no matter what happens, whatever goes on
in life, that's what I see in my head, and
that's how I picture you until my dying day.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
So what is your.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Reaction when you got to see Shoshana can we had
you sneak up on her and have a little surprise yesterday,
what was your reaction like, Again, this is not you're
just meeting your high school buddy. This is somebody who's
life you've now saved, and she's affected a lot of people.
She's lifted people up. She's not speaking engaged, but by
the way, you want to bring her in to speak
to your groups. Absolutely, But what was it like for

(04:26):
you to see this woman that you've been so attached
to for twenty one years but still not seen her
since you handed her off and kuwait.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah it was like for me, it was one of
those moments where like the image I had of her
is not who she is today. You know, when we
when we first found her in the six other POWs
in captivity, she didn't look the way she looks now.
And it's just you know, in that moment, I wanted
to give her a hug, you know, I wanted to
just hug her and like she is real, you know,

(04:55):
here she is, like she is real. Like I gave
her two hugs, the second one to confirm, like, yeah,
she is still real. I was just one of those
it's a real moment, you know, something that you know,
it's kind of ranked those moments in your life. And
I think this is this one's gonna be above the
rescue for sure. We're seeing you again, really yeah, because
when we saw her, you know, seeing you, you know,

(05:16):
seeing you the first time, it was kind of like
just you know, we were doing a job, like we
were thankful and happy to be able to do that
and provide that freedom, right that like get you guys
back to safety and you know, be free again. And
then this go around seeing you, who was like here
you are. You know, it's just such a different moment.
So I think it's better than when we first found you,

(05:38):
like they're reuniting with you. Just being able to see
you and talk to you this weekend, it's been amazing.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
Very sweet. The first time is better for me because
that would have been dead. I mean, that's that's the
reality of it. By the time they came to rescue us,
we're in homes. The last two places we were in
were homes, and we couldn't hear We couldn't hear the
battle going on. Before we could hear the battle, we

(06:04):
can hear, you know, we can hear bombs going off,
you know, so that means the US is close if
that's going on. There was one place and they we
could hear the a tens or something going over and look,
the shelves could hit the roof. That's how close it was.
So people would think, oh, that's gonna be scary. I said,
that's a relief because I know the US is close

(06:26):
and they can find me. By the time they got
to where we were at, I hadn't heard a battle
in for quite a few days, so I'm no longer
close enough for them to find me, to find any
of us. So when they came in shouting in clear English,
get down, get down. Oh my god, I'm going home.
Oh my god, I'm going home. And I was just

(06:51):
it's hard to describe the feeling of not just I'm
going home, but it means I'm going I'm gonna survive,
I'm gonna live. I'm going to live, you know. And then,
of course, one of the other things I remember telling
y'all that I also meant I had to hold on.
I couldn't cry just yet. The men had to cry. First.
Being a female in the military, you got to hold

(07:12):
on and show that tough side. And even being rescued,
I was thinking, you can't cry. You can't bust out
in tears. You can't bust out in tears, Shanna, you
can't bust out in tears, because then you'd be seen
as weak. You're still trying to hold on and be
that strong one and stuff. But yeah, and then after
we asked where we were at, we didn't know where

(07:34):
we were at or anything. We were outside of Tecrete,
Saddam's hometown and stuff, so we were closer to death
than we realized.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
Explain that to.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
Crete Saddam's hometown, his stronghold. If they had gotten us
to Tucrete, there's no way we would have survived. There's
no way they would have given us up.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
So, just to kind of put that into a little
more perspective, that when we had formed that task force
trickly to get up to Saddam's hometown to create because
that's where, like the Last Stand was supposed to be,
the big fight was supposed to be there, The Revolutionary
Guard was supposed to be there, all of his loyalties
were supposed to be there, So that was supposed to
be the big fight. So I imagine if they were to

(08:13):
make it to the big fight before we did, it
wouldn't have been good.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
For them, really. So you literally thought you were a
day or two away from.

Speaker 5 (08:20):
Yeah, executed No Hugh and then another angling. The night before,
they fed us dinner and they gave us soda and
candy your last meal. Sureous, I don't know if that's
what they intended, but that's what I thought.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Really.

Speaker 5 (08:35):
I thought, we're in captivity. We've been getting rice sometimes
a piece of chicken and stuff like that, and that
was the best meal we've had the entire captivity. So
I started to think, I said, they're gonna kill us.
This is the last meal. And I kept I didn't
say it to the guys or anything, but I'm thinking
to myself, this is our last meal. They're giving us
a soda and a piece of chocolate afterwards and stuff

(08:56):
like that. And then the next day we get rescued.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
How do you process that going to bed knowing, okay,
well this is my last meal, tomorrow is my last day.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
I really didn't go to bed. You know, once we
were in that situation, we were all in the same room.
We didn't do the whole captivity in the same room.
We were saying we me and the guys. So it
was me and six guys.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Okay, and that's the seven American POWs. Yes, okay.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
So by then we're all in the same room. So
some of us would be sleeping and then others would
be up, you know, stuff like that. Nobody was all
sleeping at night and nothing like that. It's just you're
so amped up you don't know what's going on. So
sometimes I would doze off and then I'd like wake
up and look around, see who else is up?

Speaker 4 (09:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
So how many places did they seven in seven places
in twenty seven days, seven places in twenty two days,
and how like if you can just describe what the
difference of what there were and because you said you
were there were home.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
The last two were homes. For the first five.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
Yeah, yeah, we had prisons, jails. The first one was
a prison, then there were some jails in there. There's
one we call lock and leaf storage because it was literally, uh,
I would say, five by five little cell. Now I'm
five to three or five by six because I could fit,

(10:15):
I could lay down in it. But we had two
two of the guys that are over six feet, so
they couldn't lay down. Oh my god, they had to
and you're all together. No, I was by myself, but
they put the guys two by two by that point. Wow,
they're so wicked. They put the two six feet guys
together in a six by five cell.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (10:35):
So you know, and then we tried to talk and
we're like, oh, who's with who? And I'm like, I'm
by myself again. I think that's but that's actually part
of the Geneva convention that was correct. Really, you don't
house the females with the males. One of the things
they did do correct. So you know, lock and leave storage,
because they literally put us in there, locked and then
walked away. We heard them walk away, and we didn't

(10:57):
see them for hours and stuff like that. We hadn't eaten,
you know, we had to go to the bathroom, you know,
stuff like that. Then there was another house, but the
firefight was close, because that's the one where I heard
the shells hitting the roof. But the last two places
was homes and I heard no battle.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
So there you putting you in civilian homes who are
obviously supporting Saddam's I'm assuming.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
I'm assuming because who else is going to walk away
from their home and have these people in there? And
then guards.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Oh so the people who own the house, they're not there, they.

Speaker 5 (11:32):
Leave it as far as I know that, Yeah, there's
no guards there. Yes, I only dealt with guards.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Interesting, and again, this is our first reunion, the first
time you see each.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Other, and you know you you shared a great story
and a picture.

Speaker 5 (11:46):
With us that Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Right, this is I just want the world to hear.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Also, since we've all last spoken, what has happened to
your life and your family their reaction to hearing what
you actually did.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
So, yeah, you know, throughout the years, this story, I've
never really told the story and its entirety. You know,
people who knew about it would ask, you know, kind
of questions and I'd give them an answer to the
question or to the story. But this is the first
time that I was actually able to tell the story,
kind of document the story with Shashana. So like my
mother and father who both passed, who they have not

(12:22):
never heard the story. So I have sisters who had
finally heard the story. My wife finally heard the story.
My daughter has, my oldest daughter who's twenty.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
So you said, when we first had our this Unbreakable
Mental Wealth podcast, just the first time they've heard the story.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yes, yes, since the first time that they've heard the
full story instead of just the bits and pieces of Okay,
so my oldest daughter was able to hear the story.
One thing that you know, she I came home that
day and you know, kind of had a tear in
her eye and said that she had heard the podcast
and gave me a hug, and that like that's when
it kind of really sunk in, like this isn't about me,
and you know, this is a story that needs to

(12:56):
be told, you know, not just for my sake, but
you know, people who hear this, you may inspire them right.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
And also my I.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Have a three year old daughter now, so she was
able to Uh, my wife was actually out in that
twenty nine Palms area hiking around and she was able
to take my daughter out to there's a mural that's
painted of Shashana and myself out there. So my wife
sent me a picture of my youngest daughter, who's three
years old, looking up at that picture, and it was
this one of those moments that I had to, you know,

(13:23):
put my phone down then look at it again and.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Like, it's okay if I get a little teary eyed
on that.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
So it's okay if you get on that one.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
Yeah, it's a beautiful picture. Is a beautiful picture. I
sent it out my Facebook and people are just in awe.
They were like, wow, that is so wonderful that, you know,
and it's so real to see your little girl looking
up and saying like, you know, like wow, that's my dad.
You know, that's a cool thing. I can't believe he

(13:50):
didn't tell his family. I can't.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
I guess this is superhero real life stuff.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
And I yeah, like I with a lot of military
started a military foundation, MVP and a lot of things
I always says, guys, you gotta your your stories are
your equity. And I know the military says, don't talk
about it, but man, you know, in a life where
everybody else lies on their resume, you guys don't say anything.
And this is your equity, it's your experience. So you

(14:19):
should get out there and say, yeah, this is what
I did, and be proud of what you've done, proud
of your scars, and be proud.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
Of your accomplishments.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
And now you're seeing that because you're finally able to
talk about it and be proud of it. The reaction
you have with your twenty year old daughter. You got
emotional yesterday and telling us about that.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Right, yeah, And you know, go back to one of
the questions you had asked earlier. You know why I
think like this moment or this reunion to me, why
it's a little it's you know, I hold it higher
than the rescue day is.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know, I was never able.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
To really sit with you and talk to you, you know,
so I was able to sit with her talk to
her and she's not just Shashana Johnson, the pow that
you know, myself and the Marines for a third letter
arm reconnaissance battalion rescue. Like she's a person, you know,
I know her as a person now, so I think
that makes it like more special, you know, you know, the.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
Fact back then she was a mission. Now she's a person.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
She's a person, right, And the fact that like from
my oldest to my youngest daughters now you know, my
oldest able to hear it, my youngest able to see that, it's.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Like it makes it just that much.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
It's just a special moment, you know, like this whole
thing is specially I said, it's above that rescue day
for me.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
I hope after this your kids referred to her as
and your daughter the first name is uncle Kurk because
this is closer than is it closer bond than many
are born into.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
This is different.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, I think we spoke yesterday and I mentioned, you know,
my oldest daughter at the time, my girlfriend, my wife.
Now I didn't know the sex of our daughter because
she was pregnant during that deployment. So you know, everybody
throws these big gender reveals. Now it's like a new
thing now. Whole Shoshana was part of my gender reveal
because when I got down to quait, you know, because
of her in the six other and that day I

(16:01):
was able to use the phone and find out, you know,
the sex of my daughter who you know, Maya, who's
my oldest. So that's another moment that you know, we share.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
So here's what I want to do now, because this
is the first time, like you're saying, you are able
to see each other in person, I want to shut up,
but I'm gonna let you to ask each other questions
about things.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Like you said, it's first that we yet, right, you guys,
I'm sure have.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Things that you haven't been allotted because you haven't talked
to each other in person. So ask each other stuff.
And I'm just going to be a fly on the
wall with everybody else out there.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
So one question I have is, so we kind of
touched on it briefly yesterday, is like, I know what
it's like to come off of a deployment, what I
would say, a regular deployment.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know, you come off of the deployment.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
It's the welcome home, right, It's the if your family's there,
It's what you see on TV. They run up, they
hug you. For me, coming off the first deployment was
kind of depressing. I didn't have any family, and just
walking back to the barracks type deal, you know, with
my buddies. Right, we're walking back to the barracks kind
of asking ourselves, well, what now, what was your homecoming like?

Speaker 5 (17:02):
Well, my mine was kind of spectacular. Well, because people understand,
I deployed out of Fort Bliss. Fort Bliss, El Paso's
my hometown is where my dad retired, I grew up
in the area and so forth. So when we got
after we got rescued a week later, we're flying into
El Paso, my hometown. My aunts and uncles are there,

(17:24):
some of the cousins, my sisters, and so forth, and
then the town comes out to support. You know, Al
Passo is a very big military town and that's just
who they are. So I had all of that there,
and then on top of that, I had my family
there to support me. And we are a military family.
My dad served twenty one years, my sister was active duty.
I have a great uncle from Vietnam, God bless him.

(17:46):
He's still trucking at ninety Uncle I was gonna be
ninety three and stuff like that. So we know how
to bring it together as a military family and but
we also know the journey. You know, We've done the deployments,
we've done the wars and so forth. So I had
a lot of support. I had my village, and I
tell people all the time. They were like, oh, you're

(18:07):
doing so well. And I said, first of all, you're
only see a piece of me. You're not seeing the
whole story. Second, I have a lot of support for
my community because I deployed and returned to my community,
and I have this military family. And I said, and
on top of that, you don't see the days that
I don't want to get up out of bed, the
three hospital stays for suicidal and homicidal ideations, you know,

(18:32):
the going to therapy, the family calling, you know, every
other day to make sure that I'm okay. You know,
So they don't understand. They don't see all of that.
In the background, I said, there are days when I'm
laying in bed and I'm questioning my existence. And you know,
nine people from my unit died and two others that

(18:54):
were attached. So why am I here? How did I
get so blessed? You know? I took two bullets to
the legs, and although the Iraqis did an operation towards
the beginning. By the time I got rescued, I hadn't
had a bandage change in a while, and you know,
I had to be rushed to surgery the next morning
to repair, and you know, worried about infection and stuff

(19:15):
like that. So and I'm here heals. I mean, they
gonna hurt tomorrow. But you know, so I do people
see a little bit. They don't understand the back struggle
and stuff like that. So now my question to you
you've done is like three times. How the fuck did
you do? Three deployments? Man?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Uh? Yeah, every deployment was a little bit different. You know,
from the invasion that was, uh, that's quite the experience.
So glad that you know, I was able to be
part of an invading force, right liberating force. Then the
second deployment was more of like we were calling SASSO
or support and stability operations, trying to restore some government

(19:54):
to that to that country. So that deployment was completely
different than the first deployment. Fast forward did Afghanistan deployment,
completely different country, completely different war. And then last deployment
was out on Navy ship part of the eleventh Marine
Expeditionary Unit kind of just out there in certain areas

(20:16):
as a prepositioned force if needed. But every deployment, working
up to it, it was different, was hard, you know,
a little bit challenging than the other biggest takeaway with
that is the time away from family.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
You know, that's the time that I'm not going.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
To get back. But looking back at it, to me,
it was all worth it. You know, I believed in
what we were doing. I just wanted to keep going,
keep going with the mission. So you know, like I said,
it's the family time.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
That I that I will never get back.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
That's probably one of the hardest things, you know, the
time away from my wife, the time away from my
oldest at the time, you know, Gia wasn't born yet,
but it was that time away like that was really hard.
And then coming home off of every deployment is hard
again because now here I was off on deploy But
you know what, people don't understand it. It's not just hey,
you're going on deployment today. It's the year long work

(21:06):
up prior to that. So it's all the field ops
is out in the field for a month at a
time or weeks on it.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
Is the people don't see that.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
You put in right, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, and then coming home it's almost like or every
time coming home, it's having to almost reintroduce myself to
my family, you know, lett letting my wife know, hey,
I'm here. Now, I can help with that, I can
take care of that. You know, you don't have to
reach out for the help that you've been trying to
get through friends and things like that, Like I'm home.
Like that's that's the hard part too, is coming back

(21:34):
home operating at that high level. And then you know,
last week we're in Iraq.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
This week I'm home. I need to be dad.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Now that's that tough transition, you know, that's so tough.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
And yeah, I just.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Helped a lot of veterans trying to help a lot
of veterans with transition. What advice would you give your
fellow vets about those times when you do come home
and now you know, okay, this this helped me a
little better. Hey, if I knew this, this would have
helped me.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Then be patient, be understanding, let your wife know, hey,
I'm here to help. Don't just go in and think
that you're going to do it the way that you
did it when you left.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Because things have changed.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know, your wife or significant other has been holding
down that household and it's been fine without your house
didn't burn down.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
So when you come home, just be patient and just
allow yourself to slowly get back into it. Just don't
try to dive back in it because he or she
has been doing it and they want to do it
together with you.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Again, I just want you both understand, like you sign
up for a life or service.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
By doing things like this, you're still being of service.
And I hope you realize that. I hope that both
you realize that.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
Well, sometimes it gives me purpose. Yes, you know, I
question why I'm here and stuff like that. So lots
of times if I could give advice and maybe help
somebody out, then then it gives me a like, Okay,
that's that's why I'm here. That's what I did. And
to go back to what you just said, I remember
being the kid as my dad came back from deployments
and stuff like that, and we got so used to

(23:03):
doing stuff without dad, and then he'd come back and
you know, we start doing stuff and he was like
I can I can do that, I can help and
stuff like that. So it's an adjustment for everybody. And
if one bit of a vice I give to the
kids and the wives is include him, you're not. You know,
there's lots of times my mom had to say, hey,

(23:24):
go tell your dad, don't come tell me, because we'd
automatically go to mom because she was there and stuff
like that. So we would scoot around dad and she
would send us back to Dad to make sure, you know,
to include him, because we really got used to doing
things without him, because he went to Desert Storm, we
went to Haiti, he went, you know, and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
So I want to go back to something you kind
of like we broughth it over. We can't brush this over.
Your captors perform surgery on yes? So they are rakis
who caught you perform surgery on your yes?

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Did they give were you out?

Speaker 5 (24:01):
Were you general anesthesia?

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Press? Is that these people who try to kill me,
now we're doing surgery.

Speaker 5 (24:08):
Please they you know, they came in I think it
was maybe a little bit five days or so into
captivity and they were like, you need to have surgery,
and I'm thinking, what the hell are you talking about?
But I was bleeding through my bandages every single day,
you know, I was constantly bleeding through the bandages. So
I knew I needed something and they made me sign
a release. What, Yeah, you're not I am consenting to

(24:34):
having medical procedures done. Yes, they made me sign a release.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
I'd love to see that documentary.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
And I.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
Had to and they think and one day I have
to give them. They made me write it out. It's
not like it was an Arabic and I signed something.
I wrote it out myself in English and signed it.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
What did they have you saw? What was there? What
were you clearing them off?

Speaker 5 (24:58):
I don't know. She all the doctor told me. It
says you need to write out that you know you
need medical surgery, and you said yes, And that's what
I said. I'm aware that I need to have surgery.
I can sent you know, to have surgery. Shahana Johnson.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, believable, that's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
That's okay.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
So now are you relieved that they're performing surgery or
are you like, I'm done.

Speaker 5 (25:20):
I'm terrified, but I know I need it.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
So it was one of those decisions where you're like,
damned if I do damn if I don't, like yes, I.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Just need to get something done.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
So you made the decision based off of what you
thought is going to be best for you to live
the next.

Speaker 5 (25:35):
Day, Yes, the best, because I guess if I had
said no, they would have just left me alone. But
then that's on me if I'm I'm dying, gangreen or whatever.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Was there any infection or anything that was starting to set.

Speaker 5 (25:47):
It in U, not that I can tell. But I
don't have any medical training. I mean I did combat
medic like a week before we left, So I mean
I knew how to put on a pressure dressing and
that and like stuff like that, and I knew it
was bad because every day they had a little medic
dude that came in and changed my bandages up until
that point, every single day, and they would put iodine

(26:08):
on it and then change the bandage. And it was
bleeding and it just looked like raw meat. So they said,
you know, we'll come and get you in the night.
So the three of us, me Edgar Hernandez and Joseph Hudson,
and they came one night, said you're gonna have surgery.
Come on, and they put us in the back of
a van and drove us to the hospital. He went

(26:31):
to a hospital for Okay, Yeah, they blindfolded us and
took us to a hospital. They rolled me in. They said,
you're gonna have you know, surgery, general anesthesia. And the
doctor thinks he's funny. He was like, first time having
surgery and in Baghdad. Yes, And he's like making behind him, yes,
and I'm I'm like what and I'm like okay, I'm

(26:52):
in shop. Bombing is going on, the building is vibrating.
The windows are taped so they wouldn't you know, how
they wouldn't implode and stuff like that, And I underneath
general anesthesia and it's.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Open mic night for the surgeon. But did you look
at that like he's an asshole? Did you look at
it like there's a humanity.

Speaker 5 (27:10):
A little bit of humanity. He was trying to make it.
He was trying to lighten it up a little bit
to make me feel better. He could have been stonefaced
the whole time if he really wanted to. So I
just you know, I'm blessed. I woke up and both
my legs are bandaged. To hurt like hell, It hurt
worse than I remember being shot. But when I was shot,
the adrenaline is pumping so hard you kind of and

(27:32):
stuff and I remember being wheeled out and then I
see Joe and Edgar there and I was like, are
they okay? You know, and they take us back to
the prison.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
You know, it's crazy, is you know?

Speaker 1 (27:43):
When we first did the podcast that the two part
this is something that like I'm hearing it now for
the first time, Like it's just mind blowing. And I think,
you know, people that know the story, guys who are
with me during that rescue, they don't know that, right,
Like nobody that I know knows that, and.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
That that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
People would automatically assume because obviously I'm not the only
person in that room to be doing that rescue. So
there's other guys throughout the country who have told this
story that were on the ground with me, And that's
a detailed nobody knows.

Speaker 5 (28:15):
I'm telling you I And that's one of the reasons
I questioned them, But how did I get so blessed?

Speaker 4 (28:21):
But one question it you are?

Speaker 5 (28:22):
But why?

Speaker 1 (28:23):
You know what?

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Don't try and figure life out. I'll try, you crazy
one answers. Here's the thing to say, I am blessed?
What do I do with it? Now?

Speaker 5 (28:31):
Yeah, that's that's another side of the coin side of
the coin.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
I guarantee you, because you've told your story, you have
been an inspiration of people. I guarantee you you have
already saved somebody that you have no idea about. And
if it was just one, then that's why.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
I tell you right now, just hearing this story talking
to you, it's like it gives me more.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Strength, you know, it gives me strength. It's inspiring. It
really is. Like just like I said, the way I saw.

Speaker 5 (28:59):
You you like the superhero, but the way.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
I saw you, to the way I met you, to
the way I saw you again yesterday, it's like wow,
Like how strong are you? You know, days that I'm
having a bad day for something that doesn't even matter,
like what you had to go through during that time,
and like you're here, like hence the two hugs I
gave you, Like you are here, Like that's strong, Like

(29:25):
you're a strong woman.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Like that's incredible.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
And one thing I like to tell people, you don't
know how strong you are until you have to do it.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
In that situation. So absolutely, I don't know how.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
I don't know how I would have been in that
situation in credible, I don't want to.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
But this is called unbreakable, because not everybody is unbreakable.
A lot of people break You did not. You are unbreakable.
You came through this other side of this tunnel and
it wasn't always pretty.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
But you're still here to inspire at least the two
of us in a year, which means you're inspiring other
people sitting at home that is unbreakable.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
That that's what your purpose is, that's what your blessing is.
That's why you're here. So don't question why you're here.
Say thank you God that I'm still here. We still
do this and I can still inspire and lift up
other people. I want you to like be proud of
yourself saying I know I'm affecting people and that's good enough.

Speaker 5 (30:18):
I am a survivor. I readily admit I survived, and
you know, there were times and that, you know, I
just wanted to lay down and give up, but I
had to say, I'm like and there were times I
was like, this is it and then I was like,
you know what, I survived the ambush and that's you know,
during the twenty two days. I just think that it's

(30:40):
within every human being. I think it's within every human being.
It's there, you just got to tap into it.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Some people don't know where that breakpoint is. I don't
think you really know where your break point is because
like others would have broken.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
I've read stories of POWs in the past, like Vietnam bows,
who played mind games with themselves keep themselves going. Is
there anything while you're in captivity that you did that
a little trick you used to keep yourself going.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
Oh. I planned out my life and this ain't it.
You know, at the time I had a two year
old daughter. I wanted to have more kids. I saw myself,
you know, getting married and living that. You know, that
American dream I have, and I have part of American
dream I have. You know, my daughter is growing up
to be a lovely young woman. She drives me crazy sometimes.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
Which means she's like a normal daughter.

Speaker 5 (31:30):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm blessed enough to be able to have
a home. I was able to live out part of
my dream of going to culinary school. So there's aspects
that I've done that I'm you know, very happy with
and stuff like that. But sometimes I feel I'm still
searching for that golden purpose, you know, and I test
out other things to find out if that's it. I

(31:53):
do enjoy speaking. I enjoy speaking more at home to
the younger kids than I do when I have gigs
out of town. I'm a member of the Military Order
of Purple Hearts, and one of our things that we
do is we talk to the elementary school kids and
sometime the high school kids. And talking to the elementary
school kids is what the thing that gets me every time.

(32:16):
First of all, you got to prepare yourself because they
gonna come out and ask you every damn thing, and
they want to know every detail, and they gonna think
of some things that you never thought of before. The
hardest some of the hardest questions I got for some
like third graders and fourth graders, and I had to
go home and take a drink. I had to go
home and take a drink none And I was like,

(32:37):
oh my god, what one kid was actually, you know,
if we're the greatest military, how you get caught? And
I was like, what did you say to that? What
do you say? I was like, well, I don't, I.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Don't want to. I want to.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
I want to get back. I'm sorry. My eight HD
kicking in, so I don't want to lose it. You
said you were playing out your life. Oh is that
like a other thing?

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Is that? So fill me in.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
If you're building your life, You're going to meet the
right guy, You're gonna have more kids, you're gonna be
You're gonna be this big culinary chef. You're gonna do this, you.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
You know, And so you're envisioning your life.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
Past, yes, past captivity. What am I gonna do when
I get home, you know, stuff like that. You know,
I'm gonna you know, see my daughter. I'm gonna continue
with my military career. You know, I'm going to go
to the culinary arts team. I'm going to you know,
go to culinary school AFT. And I thought this I
was going to do to finish out my twenty years,
I said, I'm after you know, so I'm literally planning

(33:34):
out my life. It's going to go like this, It's
going to do like this, and none of it happened
the way.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
But also, getting killed, Yeah, that's not part of the place, right,
It's getting kill is not part of the plant.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
So that's what kept you going, That's yes, that's what
kept kind of the mind saying during that.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
Time, especially my daughter part. I'm going to see her
and I'm gonna see her grow up. I'm gonna see
her go to college. I'm going to see her getting married.
I'm going to see you know, and they like that.
So I'm planning out this life, you know, for myself
during my captivity, thinking of my family and stuff like that.
And then you know, I have a belief in God.
I had long conversations, you know, with the Lord and

(34:13):
and you know, all the all the crap you did
as a kid, terrorizing your sisters. I'm the oldest. I
terrorized the hell out of my sisters and stuff like that.
So it is twenty two days. I God blessed the
men that did it years years.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
So during that time, because I know, during my deployments,
you miss certain foods, right, Like there was a time
that you know, we we had outran our supply chain
and we didn't have food for around four days. So
during that time, you know, we were limited on the
water that we could drink. So during that time of
not eating for the four days, like you come up
with this list, you know, like I had this list

(34:49):
of anything for four days, nothing, nothing for four days,
you know, and I always, yes, they did.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Yes, I always, you know, during the.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
But you know, it's it's like, you know, you as
a kid watching cartoons Tom and Jerry, and you know
Tom looks at Jerry as like a big hambone.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Like that's how you start looking at people, you know.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
But like during that time of captivity, was there something
that like was there a food that you're like, I'm
having this when I get home, because like this is.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
Like there was two things. First, I wanted a big
fat steak, a bake, and a beer.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
That all makes sense.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
Yeah, and then God bless my grandma, God rest her soul.
I wanted my grandma's fish. We're from Panama, originally kingfish
the way my grandmother fries that fish. And since her passing,
none of the aunts my mother can duplicate it. My
dad asked me, what do you want when you get here?

(35:47):
I said, zell gonna be there my grandmother. He goes, yeah,
of course I want kingfish. Wow, that fish was fried.
I got that fish the night I landed in the past,
So I love that. The night I landed in me
pass so. As a matter of fact, they they made
us stay on posts because the media was all over
the place. My father drove back to the house, went
and got my fish. And brought me that fish that night.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
You see, Like that's the thing that those are, like
the things Jay, that like undeployments that like you look
forward to. So I can only imagine like in captivity,
like you're looking forward to something, something's keeping you going,
and like you know, it's if it's a food, or
if it's your daughter, if it's your faith, it's just
you have to hold onto whatever it is and just
keep like you know it tomorrow is going to be better.
My time and her time were completely different in that country,

(36:33):
but I still had things in my mind to like
keep me going to the next day, keep me going
to the next day.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
And so yeah, I was just curious where that was after.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
You came home and you know, you had your daughter
and stuff like that, and you experience the conflict. I mean,
you would have headed a spear, You would have headed
a spear going into in country, and yet you still stayed,
you still stayed in the Marine Corps.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, it was you know, I you know at the time,
I really like that mission, like.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Was with the Iraq War.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
So like backstory on me, so that you know when
I joined the I joined at a young age, right eighteen.
The average group, the average age of that military fighting
force is like between that eighteen and twenty two year old.
There was things that I wanted to do when I
joined the Marine Corps as a high schooler watching nine
to eleven happen.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
I wanted to go to Afghanistan, like I was.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
I was angry, just like every every other American, right,
I was angry. So I knew I was going to
join the Marine Corps. I wanted to go to Afghanistan.
I say that that plan got derailed a little bit
because the Iraq War started kicking off, so we went
into Iraq right, went back to Iraq a second time.
So the things that I wanted to do was go
to Afghanistan, and I wanted to go on a MEW.

(37:46):
You know, I wanted to go on on ship. So
I said Iraq twice and then fast forward, you know,
some years later, I finally made it into Afghanistan. So
I checked off that box of Afghanistan because I was
still that was kind of like my bucket list, and
I still wanted to go on a MEW. So when
we got back off of deployment to Afghanistan, they were

(38:09):
looking to stand up a platoon to go out on
a MEW and I raised my hand, volunteered and was like, like,
I want to get on that. So it was a
quick turnaround time from when I was back coming off
of deployment to write back into another workup cycle to
go on that MEW. So I was able to check
the boxes of things that I wanted to do. So
that's kind of what made it a little easier, is
like I wanted Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
I wanted that MEW.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
So like that's why I kept doing what I did
until I checked the boxes before we.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Got to let you guys, y'all go and hit your flights.
What an incredible weekend it's been so far though, Oh yes, amazing.
You told us yesterday, so you knew she was missing,
that she was captured. Your family didn't.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
Oh the notification, Yeah, yeah, the notification of my family
of my p POW status. It was botched. My father
found out was a prisoner of war on a Sunday morning,
trying to find cartoons for my daughter and turn it
to Telemundo and you know, found out his daughter was
a prisoner of war.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, that's that's insane, That's that's crazy, because you know,
I know, going on deployments, you know, telling my wife
prior to leaving undeployment, like, hey, if if somebody comes
dressed in blues like knocking on the door, I'm sorry,
but I'm not here anymore. So like the whole procedure
of how it was done for somebody that's taking pow, Like,

(39:34):
is somebody coming to knock on your door?

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Is it a phone call? What's that?

Speaker 4 (39:38):
Like?

Speaker 5 (39:39):
It's crazy. Yeah, they messed up, like.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, he and my mom was at he's at my door.
This can't be real because we didn't get a phone call, like.

Speaker 5 (39:49):
Well my mother was at Mass Mass. Yeah, yeah, she's
at Mass. She comes home and they're telling me this stuff,
and my mom didn't believe it at first. She was
like no, Claude and my dad did twenty one years.
He deployed the Desert Storm. And she goes to work
and she works on Fort Bliss. But then you know,

(40:09):
she ends up coming home and they're calling, you know,
they're calling Fort Bliss to getting to run around. So
they get a babysitter from my daughter and they go
up there and they were like oh okay, and they
kind of bring him to a room to inform them
and stuff like that. It's actually a chaplain that told
them before they go into the room. Yes it's true
and stuff like that. But they had everybody had already known.

(40:32):
It was all over the place by that time.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
They you know how many days into this.

Speaker 5 (40:37):
It was the same day, it was the same Sunday,
but it was hours later.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
I'm saying, the same day you were captured. News probe
doesn't It didn't take a few days.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
If I remember correctly, Like looking back at like you know,
video news footage and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
They had a few of.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
The American POWs like trying to have a mixed statements
on TV or.

Speaker 5 (40:58):
We did interviews where I mean it was like two
hours after being shot and captured, you know, Iraqi TV
is putting a microphone in my face talking about what
is your name? You know, where are you from and
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Propaganda.

Speaker 5 (41:13):
Well, no, they just access those questions and news cameras.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
I think we're both looking at like they have you
there and hey, you better share this.

Speaker 5 (41:21):
No, they didn't not like that, nothing like that. They
just came and asked me questions, why are you here
because I'm told to be here?

Speaker 3 (41:29):
I'm right, Yeah, why you brought me here such a
terrible question, why are you here?

Speaker 4 (41:35):
Yes, I'm handcuffed and have my ankle's blown out, you.

Speaker 5 (41:39):
Know, and they're they're asking me and I'm answering, you know,
because they're like, why are you here? And I was like,
I'm told to be here, you know. It's not like
I'm here to invade. I'm like, because this is my job.
What do you you know? And so forth. It was
nothing big, but that's the piece I guess. They started
showing across the world and how my dad, you.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Know, so I have a similar story, white similar, I mean,
nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
My mother saw me on TV too, but it was
news footage of the rescue, so it.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Was Shashana and myself. So that's how I was seen
on TV. See and I can't get broken in a
good way to my family that I'm still alive when
news is being broken to her family that they don't
you know, who knows what's going on?

Speaker 5 (42:22):
And that's one of the read I can't believe you
didn't tell them the whole story. After your face is
plastered when I came home, that was the picture Currnie
trying to keep the news cameras out of my face
as you're trying to get me onto another transport to
get you know, and stuff like that. M yes, I
must have left the bruise or something. I was gripping hard.

(42:44):
But that's the picture when people ask me about anything about,
you know, the priers, that's the picture they have in
their head and they tell me, you know, I just
remember that picture of you captured and then you rescued,
you captured and then the big rescue and stuff like that.
So I'm like, how didn't dig deeper?

Speaker 1 (43:01):
You know, I'm sure the questions were asked, and I
just kind of avoided them, you know, you like because
some of that, you know, you're coming off deployments and
you know, kind of get back to the mental health
aspect is you know, I didn't really talk about all
of it because at the time, eighteen years old, nineteen
years old.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
How do you process that? You know, how do I
process that?

Speaker 1 (43:20):
And like I came off that deployment with my friends
and we're joking and oh yeah, I remember this and that,
and as we're cracking beers, like that's how we processed
it was like through alcohol. We didn't really have anybody
to talk to about it. You know, they're like, hey,
like what you guys went through at this age is
it's pretty significant, you know?

Speaker 2 (43:37):
So I think I just kind.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Of brushed the story or gave little bits and pieces,
never really got into detail for people.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Who, again they didn't hear the first podcast we all
did it Veterans Day with Shoshana Johnson Curnie Russell.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Shshana her American pow for twenty two days in Iraq.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
Kurnie Russell kicked out the door to rescue her again
kind of just quickly from both your point of views
that day of the rescue, and you have two different
viewpoints eversly, you're inside hearing them try to kick the
door down. You get word that morning that there were
these Americans you can go rescue, So.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
I guess you go. First.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
I want people to hear the actual store of what
really happened that day, and then your viewpoint in there
and then and then we'll get a couple of questions to.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Wrap you guys up.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
All right, So, yeah, that that night or you know,
we had formed Task Force TRIPLEY get up there towards
Saddam's hometown and to create my opatoon. We were responsible
for you know, securing this bridge. The next morning, I say,
it was a boring more morning, you know, I've set
it over and it was kind of you know, people
think during war it's NonStop, you know, and there's moments
of like the pause and the fight where it's like, Okay,

(44:41):
what are we doing now?

Speaker 2 (44:42):
So it was one of those moments.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
And you know, all these rumors circle around throughout the war.
Weird rumors, right, like fifty cent lost his arm on
my second deployment. I think j LO died on one deployment.
So there's these rumors that people just spread. One rumor
was that the Army's third Infantry Division is going to
come and leave us place. So that morning they're like, hey,
Battalion Command going home. Yeah, Battalian commander wants to talk

(45:06):
to you guys. So we're all like the Army's third
ideas here, we're leaving, you know, and uh, we weren't leaving.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
We we found out we were doing that mission.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
So we go, we go, you know, we load up
kind of like ad hoc plan, like this is what
we're gonna do on the fly. We're kind of talking
about what's going on and get to the wrong house
we're about to you know, hit the wrong house or
hit the house, and we realized wrong house.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
We start moving through that.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Uh, who writes up the game plan? Like yeah, again,
I'm sitting here football term, right you're is it like
done in the cars?

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Game plan was done just before our platoon commander company
commander and came down and kind of talked about what
we're going to do. Chief scout got got you know,
Chris Castro kind of came up with a plan and
we were just there to kind of you know, execute
that plan.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
So we went to the wrong house. Then we we
went back.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
I'm sorry this football. You got a game plan?

Speaker 3 (45:56):
It's a week that you started plan and right, you
how long should they tell you the plan?

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Tell you we probably had like we probably had like
five minutes on that just to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
It was quick and so.

Speaker 4 (46:08):
They give your plan in five minutes, figure out and go.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, because we that was that was we got information
that we had to act on fast. If we would
have delayed any of that, they could have been moved,
you know, they could have been moved.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
So h we come up with the plan really quick.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
And again it's as you're taught, you know, We're taught
the marine cording, like you know, semper gumby, So always
be flexible. If that plan doesn't work, figure out something else.
So the first house we went to that wasn't it.
We had to try to figure out where it was.
Uh So we moved through the town a little bit,
figure out where that house is. I was a point
man going in, and I always say, you know, you
watch Hollywood TV. Those doors just fly off when somebody

(46:44):
kicks it open, right, that's Hollywood. But everything I've ever
seen leading up to it led me to believe that
you just kick a door and it's gonna.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Fly in, It's gonna fly open. Didn't happen. So I
was the point man.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
So I remember I kicked the door, nothing happens, and
and that quick like and like during that moment before
I made the second kick, I really I was thinking,
like I'm gonna get shot because now they all know
I'm here. Like every gun in that house is gonna
be pointed at this door when it comes in.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
People coming outside like, yeah, we saw black Hawk down.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, so people were everywhere.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
And I always tell the story, you know, I watched
black Hawk Down in high school.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
I obviously wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
But from what I saw on TV, there was just
people all around rooftops. And what I saw in real
life in Iraq, there was people on every rooftop. You know, imagine,
imagine a new a new force is here, you know
is here in California. You know, everybody's gonna go outside
and look to see what's going on. So, you know,
get back to the the to the door. So the

(47:40):
second kick again, nothing happens, and I'm like, I'm getting shot,
you know.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
So when the third kick, finally I was.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Able to get the door open with like the third kick,
and I when I went in, you know, rifle up,
kind of flinching expecting to be shot, didn't get shot,
and uh we.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Found them immediately and you have to go swim.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
So yeah, it was it was kind of like a
long hallway door on the left, door on the right.
They were inside of the room on the right, and
my memory serves me it's like there was another room
just past that that kind of opened up, kind of
call it like a living room area, if you you know,
so to say. So they were in that first room
on the right. So when I went into that first room,
everybody in the stack behind me is reacting different differently,

(48:22):
So we flooed that room. Every room pretty much got
flooded with marines. We fled that room, dominate that room,
you know, to everybody get down and get.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Down, trying to figure out who's who.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
And then then somebody says, hey, if you're an American,
stand up, and at that point, the Americans stood up,
you know, the seven of them stood up.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
There may have been a little confusion as to who's who,
so you know, get back down.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
I'm like, no, she's American.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
But the moment you see her and realize like wow,
we just say these people.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Didn't even process it at the time because it's everything's
still happening, Like now we found them. Now we have
to get them out of there. Everybody's outside looking, you know,
the lookie loser out. Everybody's trying to figure out what's
going on. So now we found them, Now we have
to get them out of there because that's where they're
at right there. It's it's they know that as like
a danger situation. So we need to get them somewhere safe.

(49:14):
So we have to get them out of where they're at.
Load them up, you know, load them up, on the
vehicles and just speed through that town. I said, it
wasn't just me. There was a bunch of other marines
on the ground behind me. It was a it was
a whole unit that did it. You know, a whole company.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Of marines that that accomplished this. So we have to
get them in safety, right.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Other platoons are tasked with securing routes for us to
get out of there. We have contingency plans. If something
goes wrong with us, who's going to come in to
get us? Yeah, we're aybody to get them out.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
All right. So that's your that's your out. The version
from the outside going in.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
That was my day.

Speaker 4 (49:47):
Yeah, that's your day. What's the version from the inside
going out?

Speaker 5 (49:50):
Well, I remember they had just giving us breakfast and
then you hear the bang?

Speaker 4 (49:56):
What was the him kicking the door?

Speaker 5 (49:57):
The bang?

Speaker 4 (49:59):
You didn't hear any promotion outside.

Speaker 5 (50:01):
I don't remember hearing anything outside. Wow, that I don't
remember that at all. I mean you can ask the
guys if you get a chance, But I don't remember
hearing anything. All I hear is the bang, and I
kind of jump and then bang bang and then get down,
get down, And I'm thinking clear English. I said, that
is clear English. I'm going home. And it was just
so real. I'm going home. And then they're like, get down,

(50:24):
get down, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm the American.
I'm not getting down. So I stand and one of
the guys, Grenon Miller, comes over and pushing my pushes
me to the ground. Get down. They put everybody on
the ground to control the situation, and then they pick
up you know and stuff like that. And from the
moment they said okay, Americans, stand up, and I start
to stand and they like and they're like okay, they
start hustling us out, hustling us out.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
You know, and are you crying or are you not?

Speaker 5 (50:49):
No, I'm holding on.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
She could hardly walk at that point.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
I remember bringing her out to the vehicle and like
having like she could hardly walk.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
It was kind of wobbly, yeah, very much so. And
then they had us like crouched in a certain position
because they're they're clearing, make sure we're good. Then they're
talking about when I give you the word, you're gonna
make a for that vehicle right there, and that's when break.
I can't run and I don't know who it was

(51:18):
that said I got you.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
It wasn't I brought you to the vehicle, but no.

Speaker 5 (51:24):
It was you.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
And then.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
I get out of here and like hooked me and
then I'm not look, I'm not a twig.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
That's I didn't regize it was you.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
It was me, And it may have been another marine,
but I remember specifically walking with you out to the vehicle.

Speaker 5 (51:40):
To the vehicle because we got to get you to
that vehicle, and I was like, I can't run. I wasn't,
you know, And I started to lose it because I'm like,
one of the first things is I don't want anybody
to get hurt because I can't carry my own load,
you know what I'm saying. So if I'm slowing them down,
and it causes a problem because there are people, you know,
after they're looking, you see them putting, like watching and

(52:03):
stuff like that as they're trying to get us. So
I'm like, my thought is I can't let anybody get
shot or something because I can't. I can't move fast enough.
That's the worst thing you can ever think. I think
probably for you if you can't make you know, run
up and stuff. Somebody takes a bullet for you. That's
not what you want. So I start to That's when

(52:26):
I start to break down. But they got me to
that vehicle quick fait, And I'm not l liked. Even
though I lost some pounds in captivity, I'm not light.
They got me to that vehicle quick fast, in a hurry,
and I remember it's being like stuff back there and
then just moving and I was like, oh my god,
I'm going home. It was just so it was surreal.
It's surreal.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
This whole weekend has been surreal just having you all here.
So my final question to you, we're gonna get you
both back on flights. You have not seen her since
you handed her off. You got on a plane after
yes got her to their medical facility. Wait right, and
then you went back and fought more, and you haven't
seen her twenty one years. Now that you're sitting here

(53:07):
seeing her for the first time in twenty one years,
has it made you feel and has she changed your life?
What would you like to say to her?

Speaker 1 (53:15):
It's great to see you, you know, it's amazing. It's
great again, Jay, thank you for this opportunity right to
bring it to get us both together. You know, I
want to thank you for that, but you know, to
like thinking back, I kind of think, like, you know,
not not was I ready to see you at the time,
but like I was still processing other things, and like
maybe this is the best time, right, Like I'm more

(53:37):
mature about things. Uh, you know, I've I've done, you know,
things in life and like to be able to sit
with you and like have an adult conversation, right because
back then she would have been having a conversation with
a nineteen year old kid. You know, I don't know
if we would have been relating on much, you know,
So I think this is you know, why did we
wait so long? Why has it been so long?

Speaker 2 (53:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
This is the perfect I think it's been the perfect weekend,
the perfect opportunity for us. And I would just say,
like I don't want to wait another twenty years.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
To see you.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
No, no, no, I'll be getting your address. I'll even
mailing cookies. That's my favorite thing. I love mailing out
my cookies and stuff like that. It's been, it's been.
I don't know how to describe it because I keep
on seeing the nineteen year old, so to see you
develop into this grown ass man who raised a twenty
year old, raising another baby, more deployments. I mean, it's

(54:29):
hard to put it in the word. There's a sense
of pride there to see what you have become from
that moment, that young man who does just and you
were really focused on your job. To see you mature
to this man, and I think you need to get
into some speaking and stuff for yourself, because you are
very eloquent in the way you speak and the way

(54:51):
you handle yourself. And not only I think you could
not just inspire him from your experience, but maybe steer
a lot of young men into the right direction of
how they should handle things, and especially in sense in
the way of being a father. You know, sometimes you
get boggled down but what you couldn't do instead of

(55:12):
realizing what you can do and being able to talk
to you here about you know, raising your girls from
then and then now that young lady. Now, I think
you can help a lot of young men, especially military
young men, you know, move forward and raise kids and
stuff like that. So there's a sense of pride of

(55:33):
the man you have become. Thank you very much so,
but it is surreal and damn bro. Now it's been
really wonderful weekend and I appreciate you doing that, doing
this and everything. You know, things happen in life and
sometimes you want to do something and you know, life
happens that you don't get to do it. And I

(55:54):
appreciate the fact that you kept insisting and I get
the text message and said what about this date? What
about that? You know, because people live life, and you
kept going. It's appreciated. It's appreciated.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Yeah, not just that, Jake, but uh, you know, just
not just when you gave us your word and followed through,
like that just shows the guy that you are, but
just take a step above that is you know, the
text messages on the side about stuff and you know,
just like genuine guy who you know, we met through
a mutual friend and like, you know, we're building a
friendship of our own. And it's not just hey, come

(56:28):
do this podcast. Thank you guys, and I'll see you later.
Was it was you know this the follow up and
you know, I feel like if I need to reach out,
you'll respond back, you know, thank.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
You, because like I do think God bless me with
the ability to communicate, and I have a platform in
a form to be able to communicate. But I got
to learn from people like you when I learned from
you and I have that voice to give it out there.
I'm a hundred to be teammates with the two of
you where I can learn from you.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
And I've learned so much from the two of you, from.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
The last time we talked to the time we talked
an MVP to just sitting here in person. I do
feel like we have our own little team now that
we're gonna be able to lift each other and inspire
each other, but also continue to lift and inspire the world.

Speaker 4 (57:12):
Thank you both for.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
Making the time to come out here with me and
appreciate you guys. Allow me the honor of keeping my
word to you, which is really important.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
And I think the best thing for me is just
when I saw you guys double hug yesterday. It's pretty
damn special. With that, we're gonna sign off.

Speaker 5 (57:31):
I'm gonna give you something, Okay, Military order to Purple Heart.
I am a member three nine three in O Paso,
Texas from us to you military thing for the support
of our military community, we thank.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
You, thank you, We thank you, thank you.

Speaker 5 (57:53):
The ultimate survivor you very much and once for you
shot shout up.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Kurty guys, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
This has been the breakable Mental Wealth podcast, the greatest
podcast episode we have ever had by far.

Speaker 5 (58:10):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Love you guys,