Captain Andrew Parks On Leading Marines Through Chaos and Combat | Ep. 76 - The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on The David Rutherford Show, Captain Andrew Parks,
Bronze Star winner from his time in Iraq in two
thousand and six. This is one more in my series
of interviewing the real grunts of the g WATT, the
guys that were in the trenches doing the job and
getting it done. Semper five. All right, all right, so

(00:31):
again I'm so excited to welcome everybody back. You know, again,
I want to reinforce this called action that emerged out
of Clay Matthews, my g green Berave buddy, who said,
you know, there are a lot more stories out there
that are important to understand, not just the history of

(00:54):
the g WATT and the challenges that we're faced at
every level. There's a lot more stories than just the
soft community, that is for sure. In fact, I believe continuously.
And Jordy was joking with me before, He's like, hey, man, uh,
people are going to start to think that you have
some weird uh uh fascination with marines and and the
reality is I do. I don't think any other unit

(01:17):
builds a camaraderie in a brotherhood better and more in
a faster way, and and really expects more of each
other than I, than than the Marine Corps units do
and so, and continuation of that promise to to want
to get out and bring other stories, other historically relevant
story but more important, uh more, more stories directed towards

(01:41):
the young man of America who are seeking the right
types of influences. And that's why it was a no brainer.
Uh when when Andy Parks reached out direct messaged me
on X and said, Hey, I would love to come
on and share my story. So without further ado, Uh, Andy,
it is such a privilege to have you on my show.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Such a pleasure to be here, David, and I want
to save you some some heartache, I think you said
Clay Matthews, the football player Clay Martin.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
He's gonna kill me. I'm sorry, Clay, I got home
last night. I deserve that. I'm I'm just I'm like
exhausted right now. So I apologize. Clay. You can definitely
beat me up in the comments. I love you, buddy.
Thank you Andy for correcting that. All right? Brother? Like
I I guess I was thinking about reading your citation.

(02:37):
But what what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna post
a link to that. Once we released the show, just
so people can read it for themselves.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
And I know you're like, hey, man, I didn't do
it to get the award, but it is, in my opinion,
it's a It's indicative of of of you as a
leader in combat, and I think for me that's really
the inspiring stuff. But before we get into that incredible
deployment that you I've learned a little bit about, can

(03:04):
you just let's start at the beginning, like why would
you ever want to join the military, well, and in
particular to become a marine and then on top of
that to bring a marine officer.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
You know, I think my story is is weirdly typical,
especially in the Marine Corps. There are a lot of
family lineages and I'm one of them. My dad was
was an enlisted marine in the Vietnam era, and so
I just grew up watching Sansaviwajima and shit, I could
I could recite Full Metal Jacket cadences at ten years old.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
So I don't know. I don't know that there was.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Ever much of a choice for me, although along the
way I certainly thought I was going to be a
Major League baseball player, and so I went to college,
got to play ball, in college kind of bounced around
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
In fact, my the first stop I.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Made, the the only Division one offer that I got
out of high school was to the United States Naval Academy.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
And the reason you don't know that is because I
didn't make it through the United States Naval Academy. In fact,
I never even got in the front door of the
Naval Academy.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
A lot a lot of the athletes out of high school.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
If they don't either make the mark on the SAT
side of the house or the GPA side of the house,
the Navy sends you to a place called the Naval
Academy Preparatory School.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
And uh, it's actually a pretty awesome place.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
You got kind of a mix of half athletes and
the other half are guys coming right out of the fleet.
So a lot of enlisted folks that have that have
gone through those enlisted Meritorious commissioning programs. So you got,
you know, a bunch of enlisted sailors and enlisted marines
and that was kind of my first real taste at
hanging out with real marines.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, and they didn't.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
Let me down.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
The boys that I met there at NAPPS were some
hard Chargers and I really really really became good friends
with quite a few of them. So when I left
and just continue to pursue baseball, I still knew if
baseball didn't work out, man, I think that's still the
route that I want to go.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
So that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I realized I probably wasn't the next Mickey Mantle about
my junior year in college and said, we're gonna have
to find a job at some point. And that's when
I went out and found an officer selection officer. That's
kind of the mechanism for young men that were young
men and women that want to go become officers in
the Marine Corps.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
And where were you at, what school were you at,
where that was available to you, and how did that
process work? Was it seamless or was it did you
have to do some work to find that guidance?

Speaker 4 (05:46):
You know? I think I made a call.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I think I got on the website and made a
call and they said, hey, you need to find your
officer selection officer.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
There's one on your campus.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
I was at Ohio University at the time in Athens, Ohio,
And if I remember the captain's name, I think the
guy's name was Captain Spree Uh. And he looked the
part jacked up brother. Uh looked good in his uniform.
And and you know, at that point, I was in
pretty good shape. And and and I think that's that

(06:16):
we don't need to lie about it. I mean, that's
the first impression you make. What does this deal look like?
And I think he liked what I looked like. And
I said, nah, my dad was a marine. My dad
had since passed away, but he he had a pretty
successful career in the FBI. So I had a lot
of a lot of his friends that were able to
kind of guide me in the right direction. A bunch
of Vietnam Marines, Battle of Casan guys and things like that.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
So, so you grew up with with the pipe hitters
of the marines from from Vietnam as your uncle's your influence.
What were I mean? Were you sitting around while they're
you know, smoking cigars and telling stories. Did you have
access to that or was your dad a little bit
more protective of you? Or how did it work?

Speaker 2 (07:00):
You know, we did, but we were always on the periphery,
you know, the grown ups back in those days, grown
ups and kids didn't really hang out too much together
like nowadays. You know, shit, the moms got the all
the kids involved in every conversation. You know, it was
very very separated at that time. But it would be
me and my crew of buddies and all of these

(07:21):
guys Green Beret dads, Marine dads, all Vietnam dudes, you know,
so and then guys that went on to start HRT
for the FBI, the original SWAT guys in New York City,
in LA So we would hear the stories and then
we would go and run out in the woods get
our BB guns and have BB gun wars.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
And you know, we didn't want to be the kid
to come back crying.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
So they would just let let these little maniacs do
their thing.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
We're gonna have a chat. And that's kind of how
it was.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
So nothing was ever really pushed on me, but I
grew up with the influence and that it was just
always attractive.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
I don't know why it wouldn't be to a young
man or woman.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Rightly, Okay, Andy, this is awesome, But before you get
into going to OCS, I just got to give a
shout out to one of our great sponsors who we
truly love, who truly believes in exactly the ideas that
we're talking about. American patriotism. Service man, I'll tell you
what you know, freedom has never been free, and lately

(08:22):
we've been reminded of just how high the cost actually
can be. Growing violence is meant to shake us, but
you know what, it only strengthens our resolved to never
back down. And you certainly learned that in the core,
didn't you. And that's why Patriot Mobile exists. For over
twelve years, they've been defending faith, family, and freedom while

(08:43):
providing the same better premium network access on all three
major US networks, unlimited data, mobile hotspots, international room, and
they simply do it all. Now when you switch, you
don't have to sacrifice quality or service. Undreds of thousands
have joined the movement by switching their cell service to

(09:04):
Patriot Mobile. Now every time they pay their bill, they're
supporting the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the sanctity of life,
and our veterans and first responders. Switching is easy, keep
your number, keep your phone, or you can upgrade across everything.
They're one hundred percent US based. Customer support team can
activate you in minutes on the phone. Simply call nine

(09:26):
to seven to two Patriot or visit patriotmobile dot com
forward slash Rutherford today. All right, here's the deal. I
want you to use the promo code Rutherford r U
T H E R F O r D and you
will get a free month of service. Talk about that
Humpatriot mobile. Yeah, that's Patriotmobile dot com forward slash Rutherford
or call nine seven to two Patriot and make the

(09:49):
switch today. Po. Yah. Well, that's that's what it was like.
And I I, you know, I have service in my family,
but it's very disconnected, you know, through two General Ago
and and then everybody became you know, a professional, a
lot of lawyers in my family. And I knew early
on there was no way in hell I was gonna

(10:09):
want to be a lawyer. I just couldn't do it.
And but there was always this allure, right, this this
thing that that was being portrayed, whether in film or books,
and it was it was that that sense of like, oh,
this is what a man is like, this is what
a man does. This is this ability to uh have

(10:32):
other people believe in you in the most complex, scary
situations imaginable. And yet everybody's just like, let's go and
and for me like that that I think you you
experienced some of that in sport, but it's not quite
the whole thing. And you know that. And and I

(10:54):
think I was the same thing I did once I realized, well,
my my athletic career is pretty much over in college
and what do I am I gonna do? Because I
don't feel the sensation and I know I want that feeling,
and that's what that pulled me into. So it was
it was it after this call, did did it feel

(11:14):
like it was an insurmountable task or it was just
like all right, it's just it's just checking off the box, ea,
or what I have to do.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
I think at that point I was I just knew
it was going to happen. I couldn't see my life
going any other direction, you know, frankly.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
So then it was just you know, don't quit. That's
all you got.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
I mean, that's that was the guidance that I got
from anybody that had been there and done that, like, yeah,
you can do it physically, just don't quit. And I
think generally speaking, that is the correct message to give.
I mean, physically, your body will allow you to do
a lot of stuff that your mind doesn't think it can.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
It can, just don't quit.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
And I mean you guys and your brotherhood know that
about as good as anybody, because in terms of gut checks,
you know, ain't really much out there like buds.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, I mean, I certainly believe you know that twenty
one days in a swamp at Ranger School. There are
aspects of the Q course that are kicking the knots right,
every you know, Mars Socks program has gotten phenomenally difficult, right,
And it's you're right though, It's it is that simple.

(12:22):
And I mean, I'm sure we chat a little bit
before you came on. You try to mentor young young
men into the recognition that this could be a phenomenal
footstep towards the development of your life and the meaning
and of your life and whatever other pursuits you want
to engage in professionally after your service. But there's something

(12:43):
in it that teaches you that where that space is
of quitting, right. I think as a young person it's
so relative to the tangibility of physical pain or discomfort. Right.
You feel it and you're like, okay, I'm going to
push back. Well, in these programs, the physical pain, the

(13:08):
physical existence of pain is perpetual by the nature of
the job itself, so you're automatically forced to do that deeper,
the deeper evaluation of what you believe the mental never
quit space is, and that for me is like the
most the coolest thing to witness in part and see

(13:28):
as whether your peers you're going through it or when
you become an instructor or a senior level like you
watch it unfold, that expansion of perspective that says, oh wow,
that there is this whole other gear that's available to me.
How soon did you really start to feel that in

(13:48):
yourself after you got engaged in the program?

Speaker 4 (13:52):
Well, you know, pretty early.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
On Marine Corps ocs, there's a couple of different avenues.
You can get commissioned through the Marine Corps or I
went through a program called PLC Combined, so atoone Leaders
Class Combined essentially that that's a program you do the
summer before your senior year in college, and it's it's
the full it's the full program.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
So you got twelve weeks combined.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Uh PLC junior seniors you do six weeks before your
junior year and then another six weeks before your senior
year slightly different approach, but regular OCS twelve week program,
and I think, I mean, it is a it is
a physically grueling event.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
You don't learn a whole ton.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
You learn the basics, you learn the march, you know,
you learn drill, immediate response to orders, those types of things.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
But basically it's like, you know, how much shit can
you do in today?

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Boy? And and and survive? And that's really it. And
I I was talking to a buddy the other day
when I told him I was going to do this program.
I was like, dude, do you remember what what our
attrition rate was back then? And I think regular OCS,
which doesn't get a lot of hubb I mean, I
still think OCS is about a fifty percent attrution rate, forty.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
To fifty percent. It's significant.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
So you get a lot of folks in there that
I think they they come in there in shape because
there's minimum requirements for showing up. They think they're in shape.
But it's just like you said, it's working past being
in shape. Everybody's in shape now everybody's exhausted.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
Your muscles don't work anymore, you can't do any more pushups.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
What do you have to keep you there, and a
lot of folks talk about the why now, and mine
was just I got to get that ega. You know,
I can't let the old man down, the legacy, that
kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
So I think that was definitely a driving factor for me.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well, I love that. One of the things that the
probably one of my favorite aspects of my service was
when I became an SQT, a reluctant SQT instructor. I
always found it fascinating, right. I think what I love
so much about our program is that officers are integrated
from the beginning every you know, and and and they
actually take, you know, more punishment than than the enlisted

(16:05):
guys do, just as in that that that has to
be the case, right, because the the responsibility is exponentially
greater when you're when you're responsible for other people's lives.
And what what what? I think I had this great opportunity.
My boss, my senior chief, Bruce Cunningham, was like, hey,
why don't you start working with the junior officers because

(16:26):
one of the things that you know, I've seen over
my twenty plus year career is that junior officers sometimes
get rooted in a particular frame of leadership that doesn't
evolve into their own and and I think that's that
was the thing for me that really was fascinating, is

(16:48):
that being a leader of other men in these units,
whatever combat unit you're part of, or even just a
supportive unit too, Like you really have to figure out
who you are like how and to get other people
that are your peers, your same age to want to
follow you, like and not just like, hey, follow me,

(17:10):
clean the head or clean the shitters like it's it's like, no, hey,
we're gonna go assault that building that has a bunch
of savages in it who want to kill us. Trust
me when I tell you follow me. How quickly did
you start to realize that that was going to be
a huge component of this, Like you needed to assimilate

(17:32):
not just the the legacy of Marine Corps leadership and
what had been the lessons learned, but also your own
yourself and growing into it.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
That's a great question, man, And I think I think
that's the answer to that question is something that every
young Marine author has to figure out on their own
and in their own time. The Marine Corps does a
phenomenal job of hammering this idea into your head from
day one. You gotta be uh tactically sound and technically proficient.

(18:03):
You have to know your job. You can't fake it.
There is no faking it, not in a life and
death scenario.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
So that's number one.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
You gotta be technically sound, technically proficient, but you also
have to do it in your own way. I personally thought,
and I actually did this at OCS.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
This is kind of a hilarious story.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
But right when you get there, like any boot camp,
if you have glasses or contact lenses, they're gonna issue
you BCGS birth control glasses. And I legitimately thought, if
I put these glasses on, these drill instructors are gonna
jack with me even more because I'm gonna look like
a nerd. So I wore my contact lenses for a

(18:44):
month straight. I would wake up in the morning and
I didn't tell anybody, of course, but I would wake.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
Up in the morning. I couldn't see shit, my eyes
are so dry.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
But I did it because I didn't want anybody knowing
that I had like a weakness that they could pick on.
And so that was my kind of concept, like you
had to look like Billy badass for marines to respect
your number one.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
Once I got.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Done with my tour that we're going to talk about
here in a second, I realized that that is total bullshit.
All marines care about is that you are technically sound
and tactically proficient and you can get them. You can
make the right call, You know how to employ the arms.
You know your marines are your best asset. All you
got to do as an officer is really put them

(19:27):
in a position to succeed.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Most violently and they will love you for it. I
didn't really get that until I had come back.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
And then I'd seen some dudes who maybe I thought
were kind of nerdy kick ass, and then I was like, Okay,
doesn't matter what you look like. It matters what you
do and what you act like. And so that took
me some time to figure that part out.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
And that's the beauty of it, right, And I really
think that You're like, that's the beauty of leadership when
you have the sell self awareness to say, all right,
what I'm doing right now is not resulting in the
level of commitment from those I'm in charge of, like
I'm not seeing it, and to have that self reflection,

(20:12):
go what am I doing wrong? What am I not doing?
To help this young marine improve their ability, make them better,
and to prepare them for those you know, more difficult situations.
Was there a particular part of your training and that
and OCS or anything that kind of stood out to
you that that really kind of you like those light

(20:35):
bulb moments, right, those are my favorite moments in any
educational processes. Like you look at like you deliver a
piece of of a message or an idea or a
training module or whatever it is, and you see the person, oh,
like they get it and it just and then all
of a sudden you watch those that you know, those

(20:57):
the ascension of of of their abilities improve more rapidly. Right,
did you have one of those moments?

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah? You know after OCS, that's that's when the real
training comes.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
You go to a program every Marine officer.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
You could be a lawyer, you could be a pilot,
it doesn't matter. And this is one of the really
cool things that really makes the Marine Corps unique and special.
Every Marine officer goes to something called the Basic School
and that's in Quantico, Virginia. That's six months. Regardless of
what your mos is. Marines have funny little nicknames, you know,
the the acronym TBS, the Basic School.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
A lot of guys will call it the Big Suck.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
I mean there's a lot, there's a lot of things
going on there.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
Man. My class was so blessed I went.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
I went to TBS and got there in November of
two thousand and three and stayed, you know, through the
good part of two thousand and four. All of our instructors,
the majority of our instructors were captains that had just
gotten back from either a platoon command or a company
command tour in a round Afghanistan. So we had all

(22:02):
of this awesome real world, real life experience, and having
with some of those folks is what really opened our
eyes and made us real, Okay, this is real. We're
getting it right from the dudes who've been there closest
to the position we're about to, you know, enter into,
and they either succeeded or failed, and they can give
us all that information.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Well that's for me, Like that was the change of
the whole time for me, Like that's when everything altered,
because I remember, like I'm going through I was lucky
if I had I got to spend times with guys
that were in Panama a little bit, right, I had
some guys that we had this warrant officer Bougelai, who

(22:44):
was the guy that actually did the combat swimmer op
that blew up No Diego's boat, which we would care that,
you know. But it was like onesies, twosies, right, And
and the real big days were when the team guys
from Vietnam would come in and tell about their knife
like they're five knife kills and you're like, what you know,
like right right, and so like, but there's this distance

(23:09):
from it, and and and also obviously as we now know,
and fuck, I can't even imagine what the the young
guys are being taught now in terms of drone warfare,
the integration of drones all just changing everything. You know,
is like now you're in the midst where your peers

(23:29):
that people that are you're your same age or you're
too older, you know who just six months before were
in combat for the first time in a lot since
the Gulf War. And now like there there must have
been like this excitement, like this newness to everything that
it wasn't before, Like, oh, we're going through training and

(23:51):
we'll have fun and party on the weekend and and
you know, maybe someday we'll you know, we'll do some
kind of FID that is little has a potential of
something connected. But now it's like, no, you are finishing
and you are going to combat it described that sensation, uh,
with the with the information like it was palpable.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
I would imagine, Yeah, it takes the you know, you
know that term notional. Hey, this is a notional accident.
It used to disgust me. You know, you're you're on
the objectives. Now what are we doing notionally?

Speaker 4 (24:27):
You know?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Now, when we were at TBS, these guys would stop
you in the middle of the patrol and ask you
why are you doing this? And the why becomes everything.
The why, this concept of commander's intent. Why are we
executing that this patrol? Why are we conducting this assault?
The why has to be understood to the lowest.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Man, or.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
You'll lose the effect on target.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
You lose, you lose your ability to win in the
absence of orders, You lose your ability to win if
the whole command suite gets their ass kicked and killed.
And that we saw firsthand in Iraq. Iraqi, you had
a country of population. I think they had ten thousand generals.
I think they had the second most generals on planet
Earth at the beginning of that thing, and we saw

(25:13):
if you cut the head off that snake. Their Jundi,
the young soldiers, they had never seen an operations order.
They didn't understand a why. They knew what you go
to that wall and look that way. That was the
extent of the order's process. We got firsthand the why
from these guys. As we're running a patrol, as we're
on the objective, as we're got to setting up a

(25:35):
support by fire position, we would always be stopped, why
are you doing this? You would give them an answer,
didn't matter if it was right or wrong. They just
wanted the opportunity to say no, no, think of it
this way.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
And man, when they.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Could give you that real life information, eyes wide open
moments every time, Oh my gosh, geometry of fires. That's
why I don't want to set up my support by
fire position here, because I got guys running in right here.
Maybe if I moved the over fifty meters and got
on this high ground, that's going to give us way
better effects on targeting. And so that kind of stuff
was the good stuff. Man, That that was. That was

(26:09):
really really what what hit home with a bunch of us.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
So I always thought of it like this as the
closer you could you could connect to the the the
actual outcome of what what the effort you were putting in,
right if if if if I, if I invested, you know,
countless hours conducting you know, close quarter battle or close

(26:35):
core combat, whatever the fuck you want to call it,
and then if I know that's going to happen, like
the're in, I'm getting the feedback, Oh, this is the
way it goes down from somebody who was just there,
and it is like, oh, now I believe it, Like
it's inevitable. There's an inevitability that I'm going to be
tested on whether or not I paid attention. Right, Whereas

(26:57):
prior to nine to eleven you never knew and so
it lacked this not that the training wasn't great and everybody,
but there was this something missing. And now that it wasn't,
it was fulfilled like you were going to fulfill that uh,
that requirement uh, and it was going to happen sooner
or later. What what was the sequence after you graduated OCS?

(27:21):
How did you get aside? Where what what what was
the next sequence before you were uh in your unit
to where like, oh, this is a group we got
to start training to go to war and we'll talk
about that.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Yeah, brother, So you know.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
You go to OCS, you come back home, graduate college,
you get your commission, then you wait on a school
slot to open a TBS. I think every TBS company
probably has I don't know, two hundred and fifty three
hundred folks in it. You graduate that at the end
of six months. Here I've heard, I've actually heard JOCKO.
He's like the only guy that I've ever heard that
has explained this.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
And I was I was a SOB story from this.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
So at TBS, there's something called the quality spread. And
what the quality spread does. It breaks down the company
into thirds. The Marine Corps is trying to make sure
that every MOS, every MM. I think there's twenty two
to twenty five military occupational specialties that you can get

(28:20):
as a Marine officer. You rank them one through twenty five.
The Marine Corps wants to make sure that higher achievers
get spread out through the entirety of the force.

Speaker 4 (28:34):
And brother, I was that guy. Man, So.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
I was in the top third, but I think I
was like sixty eight out of seventy in the top
third something like that. Yeah, So I list my one
through twenty three two, and the instructors will tell you, you know,
you want to be at the top of any third.
You number one in the bottom third, you're getting your
pick first shot one hundred percent of the time. So

(29:00):
I ranked my one through twenty whatever.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
And I remember I.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Had my SPC staff PLATOO commander call me in and
I didn't even realize it. Dude, and I love being
a marine and I love training hard, but I also
love playing hard, and so I just kind of, man,
I just kind of thought it was all going to
work out, like surely they recognize that, Like I'm an
infantry guy and then I'm a fourth recon guy and

(29:25):
that's just what it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yep, dude, call me.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
In the office and he goes, hey, Parks, just want
to make sure you're top five.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
You're good with anything.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
So now I was like, well, shit, I'm not gonna
get my top My first pick was infantry. My second
pick was something called ground intelligence. Ground intelligence officers go
to Infantry officer course. Then they also go to They're
the ones that are like the scout sniper, PLATOO commanders
they also usually will then go on to recon.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
So so those are my first two. But then it
was like tanks.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I was like, shit, if I'm not infantry man, I'll
be a heavyweight champion of the World. Tanker you know
how to do that. And then tracks. I actually had
my fifth pick. I had in front of artillery. Looking back,
maybe I wouldn't have done that, but I was like,
artillery man, you're kind of in the rear a little bit,
You're still you're still in the fight. At the time,
it was an all male MOS, which.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
In my mind represented like combat there.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
You know that you got to be in one of
those to get to get some My number fifth choice
was something called low altitude Air Defense Stinger missiles, and
I'd heard that those guys, because there's no air threat,
they were just using those guys. It was an all
malems and they were only using them. Is like provisional
rifle companies in Iraq, right, like, go you're gonna go

(30:42):
guard something. You're you're basically an infantry guy. Basically if
you're not anyway, School Circle spc's reading right down the
list and you could have heard a pin drop when
he said parks seventy two oh four.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
Every guy in the room turned it just looked right
at me, like what what is that?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
And I was the same way, man, and I was like,
oh my god, I'm gonna miss this whole thing.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
I mean, that's really what I thought.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
I thought the whole reason I joined was to go
to war, man, and I'm gonna miss this whole freaking thing.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Holy smokes, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
And so that's how it worked out for me. Man,
I was a lad again. There's there's no fighting it.
There's not like sure, y'all, jack, this went up.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (31:26):
The numbers are the numbers, you know. The numbers are
the numbers.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
And that's where my things shook out. And so I
went to, uh, got to go to Fort Bliss, Texas
for Stinger missile school.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
There was three officers.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
It was a gentleman's course if there ever was one.
I mean, you show up to class ten am if
you want to, there's one gun re sergeant.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
They're teaching.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
You're basically learning to identify enemy threat aircraft just by
their profiles.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
And at the end of.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Six weeks you get to go and shoot a Stinger
missile that was the main part of the training. I mean,
I hate the I hate to bash it like that,
but there was there just wasn't a lot to learn
on the back of what we learned. You know, you
kind of learned that you got you're gonna want to
tie into the radar at some point and okay, and
uh you know, I I just grew up liking aircraft

(32:21):
and threat vehicles and stuff. So I was the honor
gro out of that school. Uh so I got to
I got to pick where I wanted to go.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
I got to go.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
So I was like, well, at least I want to
go to Camp Pendleton, California.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I got to go out.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
There to third lad Battalion. This is where my story
is so weird. I show up and my my battalion
is deployed there. They got about two months left on deployment.
They're not gonna send me out there to meet them forward,
there's no need and what.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
What what year?

Speaker 1 (32:49):
And what time frame in the year is this? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah, sorry about that. This is late two thousand and four.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Okay, so talking all winter two thousand and four, so
Fallujah's already gone down the Yeah, I love you.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
I love that you bring it up.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
So third Battalion, fifth Marines where I end up going, Yeah,
you know, they're They're one of the six assault battalions,
and in Operation Al Fager the Battle of Fallujah, two
of my closest personal friends that I'd gone to O
C S and TBS with are there.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Oh wow, And like you know, you have your hierarchy
as a group.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
It was always understood that Parks is like the dude.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
And now I'm having to watch these guys just hooking
jab get it on, you know, both drawing stars out
of the deal, and I'm just like, oh my gosh,
what is happening.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
To my my career? What is going on?

Speaker 1 (33:42):
They're just in it.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
But it ended up working out great, man, lad Is
is actually.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
A great unit. Like I said at the time, all
male m os and you had.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
You ended up having a bunch of folks, a bunch
of Marines that were similar in mindset to me. You
know a little bit of that disgruntled you know what
about us kind of mentality. We could fight two kind
of deal and because the mission had changed, we weren't
doing a lot of stinger stuff. I spent pretty much
my entirety as a platoon commander, executing kind of infantry

(34:19):
stuff with my guys, tons of patrolling, ambush training.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
We did a battalion package to the.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California. You know,
up at ten thousand feet. That's a hell of a
course that the Marine Corps has, So we got to
do all of that.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Stuff, good hardcore training.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
And then this brings us to probably you know, late
two thousand and five, my platoon commander tour is over.
I am now an XO, and the Marine Corps at
large has decided, okay, we are now in a counterinsurgency fight.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
We got to do this thing a little different, and
that's where.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
This whole military transition team concept came about. It came
about late two thousand and five the Marine Corps and
the Army together decided, we're gonna start chopping up small
teams very similar to what the Marine Corps did in
Vietnam with the combined action platoons, where you know, just

(35:19):
a couple of US Marines would partner with you know,
twenty or thirty indigenous folks and they would in a
small area, they would work to pacify the insurgency in
that area, and there were times in Vietnam that those
guys were getting into more fights than Big Art the Hunter.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
First Airborne for instance, Oh myke when a guy went
through boot camp with who ended up passing unfortunately early,
but his father was one of those guys in Vietnam,
and that that career leveraged him up to where he
ended up becoming part of McVie SAG, like because he
was so good with his units, they inflicted so much

(35:58):
havoc on on on their their areas, Like they're like
these guys like they're they're they're crushing the larp stuff
and and like they they are they set the standard,
the standard operating procedures for this. So you know, when
when I heard about it taking place, I was like, oh,
this makes all the sense in the world, right because

(36:21):
you're working with UH an indigenous force that somehow has
to uh figure out how to take the weight and
the bearing, and and who better to do that than
than marines, Like this is this is how you fight,
This is how you do it. And there's and then
also the camaraderie that just bleeds off you guys, I
think is is so much more uh powerful for indigenous people.

(36:46):
They just see it, right, that that regimented approach to
how you conduct operations. Right, it's so much different than
what the fit is within SF and all that. But
it's it's the same thing, but even more intense because
you know, it's that hardcore combat role. I mean, you
guys essentially took on a soft role in in probably

(37:10):
the most difficult time in the history of the Iraqi War.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
It's it's true, and we did it because there just
weren't enough Green berets to do it, man, I mean,
they just didn't have enough. The space was the battlespace
was too large. They didn't have the manpower. So what's
the next biggest thing. And here's what the Marine Corps decided, Well.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
Task organized this thing.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Let's you know, if you've got four Iraqi infantry companies
in a battalion, here's what we need.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
We need.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Let's go throughout the whole Marine Corps and find basically
executive officers, so you know, lieutenants that have already done
their platoon commander time, that have done well.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Let's grab those guys.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
They'll be the senior company advisor and let's grab some
badass three sixty nine Infantry platoon leader usually staff sergeant,
a gunnery sergeant. We'll make them their number two, and
then we'll staff it with support guys, some law guys,
calm guys, corman, et cetera, to make sure they can
take care of their ass, you know, when when there's

(38:12):
an issue. And that's kind of how they formed the team.
And by the grace of God, I had some really
great friends at three five.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
That told the guy who had been.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Slated to be the team leader, Hey, I got another
guy that might be able to fill this role. He's
in a totally another unit. It's gonna be tricky. You're
gonna have to call over there, get him to cut orders,
chop this kid away from the unit. But I think
you'll like him. And you know, you hear about cracked.
You hear you hear you go to a VFW. Not

(38:45):
that I go to a VFW, but if I did,
you hear these stories at the bar that you're just like,
that's for shit, there's no planet that that would happen
on In my particular case, this is really how it happened.
And so, uh, I got shopped and it was basically
like a tryout. I got to go to what they
call now or what they called then Mojave Viper. But

(39:05):
it's basically like the month long work of at twenty
nine Palms. Yeah, you're you know, you're operating every day.
You're really executing those tasks that you're gonna have to
execute and comment. And so I got shopped to this team.
One of my closest personal friends was the intel advisor
on the team. He introduces me to the boss. I
think our personalities just meshed. I was kind of competing,

(39:29):
I think with a few other folks organic from theurb
Italian Fifth Marines, and uh, I just took that tech
you know, that technical and tactical proficiency stuff seriously by
that point because I really wanted it.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
I really wanted to go to war and.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
I was.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
I became our kind of our fires officer. So I
had to prove myself that I that I knew what
I was doing calling for fire and you got to
do it live a bunch of times. And you got
all these instructor observers there that are you know, make
you better have your head and ass wire together or
they will jump on you.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
And then I also did the jtach primer stuff. So
I got to learn how to do all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Who gave you the inside skinny that that's a guaranteed
way to get on the battlefield. Did somebody tell you that?
Did one of your buddies saying?

Speaker 4 (40:20):
My boss man?

Speaker 2 (40:21):
My boss was like this, He goes, what are stingers?
And I go, sir, the freaking surfaced air missiles he goes.
He goes, so you probably have to like do some
coordination with aircraft And I go, oh, yeah, for sure,
you know. I mean, big sky, little bullet is what
we tell the pilots, but they don't want to.

Speaker 4 (40:35):
Hear that stuff time and space, you know.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
And and so once I could speak the language to him,
he was like, all right, yeah, you're gonna be our guy.
Go well, go go do it and prove to me
you can do it.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
And I was able to. And then that's really how
I hurt in the spot on that team.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
So it's funny, even though you know it spiraled out,
it ended up spiraling back.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
And to be lucky than good man, better be lucky
than good.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
I mean, yeah, I think that's the way all, you know,
great humble leaders describe themselves. But obviously from what I'm
hearing you had a reputation amongst your your peers that
were like, hey, this guy, we need to have this
guy in a leadership role in a combat situation. And
so you know, you created that luck for sure with

(41:24):
how dedicated you were to it, to really being proficient
at whatever they put in front of you, regardless you
want it or not. You realize that I'm gonna have
to do it the best I can do it to
get to where I want to go. And that's part
of that meritocracy that I think is so critical for
young people to realize that you can enter into into

(41:46):
the service and if you drive yourself, you establish yourself,
you work hard, you learn the skill set, and you're,
for lack of better, your gung ho about your career.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Like you it.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
It works that way, and that's the thing that I
failed it. That's the beautiful aspect of the service.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
That was always my message to my Marines, and that
has always been the message that I, you know, try
and push to my son his peer group. It doesn't
matter what you get assigned in initially, if you want
something bad enough, there are absolutely opportunities in that great
meritocracy that you talk about and that's always been the

(42:27):
most beautiful thing about our nation's military as far as
I can tell.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
And I hope it continues down that road.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
You know, we've seen some challenges over the last ten
or fifteen years where maybe we're getting away from that
merit based solution.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
But if they just stay on that track.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
There's literally nothing you can't do if you want to
work hard enough and try hard enough in that space.
And that's what makes it so cool. That's what makes
it the ultimate opportunity for young men and women.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
It really does. And I hope it never changes.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
I agree, and I think, you know, I think I
and this is a sidebar. We can talk later if
you're interested, But like you know, I, I think it
just took the right person to go back in and
and re establish Hey, we're here for the war fighter,
and that's what Pete and his crew are doing. I've
got a lot of friends in and around him, you know,
Sean Parnell having him to articulate that at the highest level,

(43:21):
he's I mean, four hundred and eighty five day deployment
with with.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Army Infantry, four Army guys man extend, extend.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Rushed, crushed and and he's right there pitching this the
thing that made his law platoons so good. He's he's
expressing that now, you know, the big veteran state thing
he did with Sean, and I love to see what
they were reinforcing. And I think that's what we all
want to do.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Before we get into your combat deployment. Uh, I just
want to make some time for one of our great sponsors,
Hillsdale College.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
Man.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
I'll tell you what. One of the great incredible courses
they got out there right now is this American Revolution course.
And it's so good when I tell you, if you
really want to do a deep dive on how our
country got started and why, you know, there's one hundred
and fifty years of history that led up to it.

(44:17):
In Hillsdale College is a place that you can really understand.
If you're a real American patriot, then this is the
course for you. All right, I'm telling you all right now,
let me tell you what. There is a brand new
six part documentary series at Hillsdale College that professors will
teach you the religious, political, cultural, and economic ideas that

(44:41):
shaped a uniquely American culture during the colonial period. You'll
learn why the idea of liberty, especially religious liberty, inspired
the settlers of America to cross the Atlantic, right right.
This is how Americans organize local governments to rule and
protect themselves and why America has in the land of

(45:01):
where virtue can lead to peace and prosperity. And most
of us know that the Declaration of Independence marks the
beginning of America as an independent nation. But the Hillsdale
course will focus on the forging of the American character
that made the Revolution possible and why it's more important
than ever to remember and reclaim that character today. Exactly

(45:23):
what Andy and I are talking about. All right. This
Hillsdale College mini series is completely free and easy to access. Plus,
Hillsdale offers more than forty other free online courses, including
a course on C. S. Lewis, the stories in the
Book of Genesis, the rise and Fall of the Roman Republic,
and you can go even deeper on the American founding

(45:46):
and the Constitution, all for free. All right, here's the deal.
I need you to go to Hillsdale dot edu Ford
slash David to enrolled in a There's no costs, it's
easy to get started. Remember all this is free. That's
Hillsdale dot edu Ford slash David to enroll now for free?
Who yah Hillsdale Way way to go? All right, you

(46:10):
now get into the place you want to be. Third PATAI,
fifth Marines. When was the when did you get the
team that you were gonna go be going to Iraq with?
And did you know, like walk walk me through that
how you got the command and then when they told
you when you're leaving? And then what what that whole

(46:30):
process was like?

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, so we probably ran that Mojave viper exercise that
I was talking about in October of five. I think
at the back end of that, I think Bill McCullough
was my boss's name.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Had Bill McCulla stayed.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
In commandant of the Marine Corps, I do not my
words the last commandant's words upon his retirement.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
I was there. He retired as a colonel regimental commander.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
But I think he selected or had his team at
the end in a Mohabi viber, he made his selections.
At that point, we got to do some really cool stuff.
We'd had a little you know, got a little intel
from the front that we're probably going to be a
pretty active unit. So the Marine Corps was willing to
spend some money. They sent us out the Gun Site Academy.

(47:17):
We became foreign weapons. We went through their Foreign Weapons
instructor packaged civilian school, but really high end. You know,
most shooters know about gun Site and Bill Cooper and
that stuff. Unbelieveab got to go out there for the
for a week and that was really cool because we
really got the bond that and and you know, our
team twelve folks at the Corps. I think we brought on,

(47:39):
you know, three or four other support folks as the
year forward went on, but those core twelve guys we
got to trade and shoot together, have beers together, have
stakes together.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
We really started to realize.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
You know, so you got senior enlisted guys and then
you got the junior officer types.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
But that point all pros. I was the only new guy.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
I was the only guy on the team that had
not deployed before.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
How guys are all Fallusiah of vs Man. So it
was pretty easy for me to just.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Sit back and shut up and let them let them
talk about what needed to be talked about. Regardless though,
Davi's really good bonding time and it lasts to this day.
I mean, we got our twenty year anniversary from this
tour coming up this year. I got maniacs already figuring
out where we're gonna go, what we're gonna do. Uh,
you know they recently divorced guys are the ones that

(48:32):
have all these exactly right.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Talk a little bit about you talk about the shooting
and the barbecues, the beers together. Why is that so critical?
Obviously the training itself make I think Pete, a lot
of people understand. You know, obviously you're in a high
stress situation. You're it's it's very taxing physically mentally, right,

(49:01):
and you accomplish something great as a group, you feel
that there's an immediacy to that. But there's an underlying
component that I believe which is the real secret of
what it means to be part of a really good unit.
And that's that brotherhood, that bond that takes place. So

(49:21):
can you describe a little bit of that? And obviously,
you know these guys were able to bring that really,
I mean, I believe that was the real kickoff to
the whole thing. Was was Fallujah and what the Marine
Corps did, and that is nothing short of just you know,
one of the greatest feats in I think our nation's
history and to have that influence. Can you describe that

(49:45):
a little bit for what.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Yeah, listen, I mean, I think there is a big
distinction between big army, big marine corps and kind of
the more specialized operations that are required for what we
had to do.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
We knew we were going to be away from the flagpole.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
There was no higher so you know, no saluting rank,
it's all out the window. So we really embraced and
I think most of the teams really embraced this kind
of special operations mindset. And it ain't hard to figure
out what SF is great at and it's kicking ass,
but then it's also creating this brotherhood through all the

(50:26):
extra curricular stuff.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
You've really become you.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Know, you know, you know, wives, you know kids, you
know all that stuff. And our boss was smart enough
to realize this is going to be important over the
course of the next year.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
So we got to start it now.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Because you know, standard battalion level infantry operations, I mean,
it's relatively regimented. Chain of command has to be the
way it is because you need immediate attention to orders
when you're assaulting you know, Mount Suribachi.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
We can't. We can't have time.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
I don't have time for you to turn around and say, well, sir,
last night over beer you said, you know, blah, you know,
it's got it's gotta be more what's the term I'm
looking for? More parochial? I guess it just has to be.
It has to be that way. But on on on
the special operations side of the house, and I'm not

(51:17):
saying we were special operations, but the mission we conducted
certainly became that.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Oh absolutely that right, So that's the pinnacle of special operations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
all unit leading foreign forces in their own war. I mean,
that's that's that's what special operations grew out of. That,
that's the core mission. I love.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
That's exactly right. So we we had to be able
to put all the all the flagpole stuff aside and
really get to know each other as as men and marines,
and and there's no better way to do that than
outside of work in a more flexible, kind of relaxed environment.
That's when you really get to know the heart of
part of the dudes you're working with. And so, like

(51:59):
I said, my boss was just a really sharp dude.
He actually is the Superintendent of Norwich Military Account Norwich University.
I took that job in retirement and those those cadets
are gonna be way better because of it. But anyway,
he recognized that early and we we took to it.
You know, you didn't have to twist most of our
arms to sit out and drink beer with each other.

(52:20):
That came pretty easy. So yeah, so working hard during
the day, playing hard at night, and and then we'll
get to how we how we got to country. Basically,
the team was split up kind of the the the
enlisted guys. Unlucky for them, they had to fly over
with the battalion, and the battalion had a totally different mission,

(52:42):
the same similar AO, but totally different mission that we had.
So they flew forward. We flew forward also on commercial aviation.
And this is where the party really gets started. We
we got to get to get to go to Kaway,
get to Iraq, and for the Mints, they sent all
the MIT teams to a place called Camp Taji close

(53:05):
to bagdad Uh and they had something called the Phoenix Academy.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
And I remember showing up and I was like this
is awesome.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
And I remember thinking like, oh, this is gonna be
like what Martin Riggs went through, because I think you were.

Speaker 4 (53:20):
He talks about Phoenix Company and weapons.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah, so so everything you know, and back in those days,
everything's a movie you don't have. You didn't have your
cell phone and YouTube. It's all whatever movie you got.
So we're all watching the same bullshit movie speed school School.
They're gonna teach us all the real ship that we're
gonna need to do. We learned some calm stuff, some

(53:48):
basic cultural uh stuff that we might have to face,
but the real the thing that every you can ask
any dude on my team, what do you remember from
Phoenix Academy.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
Everybody will have the same story. It was like the
last night we were there.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
We're on an Iraqi portion of the base and they
have somebody from the team you're going to replace, come
back and give you kind of like a just a
real quick spin up data dump on what they're dealing with,
a little quick intel brief. And I think we were
the last team to go at least that's how I remember.
So everybody's coming through and you're gonna go to this

(54:25):
area and relatively pacified, and you know the team's doing well.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
A couple of firefights here and there.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
We get our guy comes up and he's a pilot
and he's a major, and I'm I know OURTL. I'm like,
what the hell's that guy doing as part of this team?
And he goes, who's going to uh?

Speaker 3 (54:42):
One?

Speaker 4 (54:43):
Three to one? One?

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Three to one was our Iraqi unit, first Battalion, third Brigade,
first Iraqi Army Division. We all raise our hands and
he goes on to just tell us the most graphic,
brutal war stories any of us have ever heard. They
started with guys. There are four guys left on the team.
Everybody else is the two k I A. The rest

(55:05):
have been wounded in Metavact. Back to the US. He
had to come over because he was an air officer
for the battalion. They weren't really doing anything, so now
he was the number two on that team. We just
sat back and were we had just watched Armageddon and
there's a great scene in Armageddon when Owen Wilson's character

(55:25):
he just stops the guy and he goes, Oh, so,
scariest environment imaginable, That's all you have to say. Scariest
environment imaginable. We we literally said that shit to him.
We go Oh it's all you had to say. Scariest
environment imaginable. Yeah, but that's how that's literally how we
found out where we were going.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
We were like, Okay, what a wake up call. Man,
it's sure.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
And he wasn't holding anything back. He's like, you are
going to hell.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
That's exactly what the story was, all right.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Honestly, when you heard that, were you a little fired up?

Speaker 3 (55:57):
Listen?

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Man, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
I think I was newly engaged at the time, and
one of the cool things about being on this team
we had sat phones. We had a couple of SAT phones,
so we could make calls home pretty frequently. And I
remember I think I called my my wife and maybe
sent an email to or my fiance, maybe sent an
email to my mom, and I was just like, Hey,

(56:20):
this is gonna be awesome. And my my wife now
my fiance at the time, Oh, that's superb, so super glad.
You're gonna have fun, and my you know, just like, yeah,
it's gonna be fun.

Speaker 4 (56:32):
Let me let me tell you this. We had a
I told you, you know.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
It was mainly like the team was built around kind
of eight infantry type guys. We were gonna be the
dudes going out and operating. And then we had some
support staff, our S two Alpha, so our intel number
two was a recently meritoriously promoted staff sergeant and he
was from Marine Corps Aviation. His job previous to joining

(56:59):
our team, he would give like weather reports to pilots
in the morning. His real job, he was on the
All Marine Corps softball team.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
But this dude would travel around the world.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
He had just gotten back from Thailand playing in some
softball tournament. He came up to me that night. We
hit it off. He had a great personality. Yeah, and
he came up to me that night, and I know
he won't mind me sharing this. He's a great dude.
But he was like, Sir, I ain't ready for this ship.

(57:32):
And I was like, dude, you're a fucking Marine. You're
ready for anything. We got you, dude, don't worry about it.
You know, bad guys in front of you shoot that way.
This ship ain't rocket science, you know, just bring the fight,
and and and and he ended up doing great for
us and everything, but that, but that that really did happen.
And because he he was like, man, I got this career.
I've only been in six years. I'm already a staff

(57:53):
sergeant and I know I want to retire, and I go, dude,
you're fine, take of breath.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
Everything is great. But that's how it started for us.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Taking the face outboard, taking drinking water. That e g.
A on your chest.

Speaker 4 (58:06):
You're not some dude off the street, bro, that's.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Right, that's right, all right. So you get this brief.
How how long before you left did you guys have
to do co training with this Iraqi unit you were
taking out.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Did they give you that that that that unit was
actively engaged?

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (58:23):
So got that brief. Let's call it Sunday night.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Monday night, we got on helicopters and flew to Habania,
which give you give you just a little background geography,
uh that that time and place. So Felujah had essentially
fallen at the beginning of five, Ramadi was in the
midst of getting hit right when we get there early

(58:48):
oh six, Ramadi was really building up.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Man.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
So this place that we went, called Jazeira, was very
close to Habania, very close.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
To Camp to Cottam TQ.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
But those that area falls kind of right in between
Ramadi and Fallujah. Ramadi is the north Fallujah to the
south and we're right on Route Michigan, which connects those
two cities right on the Euphrates River.

Speaker 4 (59:12):
And so we flew in.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Helicopters, got on fifty threes, flew to Camp Habania and Habania.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
We go right to the Iraqi side of the base.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Habania had a had a National Guard contingent I think
from Pennsylvania and Utah at the time. I got a
great story about some of those guys shooting for us
here in a bit. But we went to the Iraqi
side where we linked up with our brigade headquarters.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Okay, and the Marine.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Corps doesn't have brigades, but the Iraqi Army has brigades.
So we're talking to kind of Iraqi formation lingo and
I think we were there maybe one day where we
got kind of the intel data bron data brief from
the from the brigade intel guys and you know, hey,
same story.

Speaker 4 (59:58):
This is as active as again. It's boys and girls,
so get ready to party.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
And that was kind of a message that that that
part of the story is really funny. We we always
had like a group of barracks at a place called
the Alamo back on Hobania. It was on the Iraqi side,
but the American staffing it and we would actually send
guys off the line.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Two marines try to do it every month. Two marines
every month got to go back to Habania for two days.
And it wasn't like any of the big fobs, you know,
no great shower or anything, but it was just like
just a couple of days to take a breath.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
A shower, just sh That's that's what it was like.
A shower was the ship.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
And ship that time of year, the shower was your heater.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Because January, I'm like, man, we're going to iraqets hot desert.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
It was free. We frozen over the first couple of months.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
All right, so you get in, you get one day.
How quickly was the first operation? And just tell us
a little bit about what you witnessed in your people
you were with. You said they were all experienced before.
What was like kind of the mentality of all right,
let's go, let's start, let's dig in, and let's get going.

Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
Yeah, we got we.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Got about three or four days, as my memory remembers.
So do left seat, right seat, patrolling with the unit
that was already there. And like I said, they had
been at trended massively. They only had four of their
original members left. They got backfield. I mean they had
a full team at this point, but a lot of
backfield guys. But there was a couple of dudes that

(01:01:35):
were extraordinary Marines. One of them was a gunner. The
Marine Corps has these things called gunners that are chief
warrant officers of the Infantry.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
They're kind of the gods of infantry, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
They're called weapons officers, that's the actual name, but a
chief worn officer from the infantry. Those are that's kind
of like the tech the subject matter expert at all
Marine gun gunnery and employment of all Marine gunnery.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
And that team had a CW three man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
I wish I could remember his name off the top
of my head. Henniston maybe comes to mind.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
But anyway, this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Guy was as hard as nickel steak, and he kind
of grabbed all of us team guy, all the guys
that were going to run companies, Yeah, and really gave
us the down and dirty and he, you know, he
just hammered all the right things.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
You know, hey, ninety percent solution executed violently wins most
of these fights. Just whoever's more violent, your your Iraqis
are gonna follow. You don't trust any of them to
lead the way.

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
It's all on you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
You want to close with and destroy, They're gonna have
to follow you to do it. And so that was
that was like okay, man, okay, that that that really
really opened our eyes. I'd heard stories from other units
that maybe didn't have that same guidance. They took a
more hands off advisory role, just didn't have the same
kind of effects that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:56):
We did in Rao at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
So anyway, he had that FO or five days with
him and then here we go. So you know, boss
comes down with the working schedule. You know, we had
patrols out pretty much twenty four to seven. No, you're
either you're either patrolling, you're on QRF, or you're out
on an ambush at night repeat, unless there was a

(01:03:20):
major operation, and then those things would happen some sort
of intel driven stuff. That took us a while to
get there, but we did get there, and some of
your boys even wanted to join our party because we
got so we got engaged so frequently.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
But you know, I think we were probably there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I think it was maybe a week before we had
our kind of first shooting engagement.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Wow, all right, talk about that a little bit as
you are.

Speaker 4 (01:03:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
One of the really cool things about our ao we
were not in a built up area, so picture kind
of collections maybe ten or twenty houses and then you know,
a quarter mile a half a mile before the next
collection of houses.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
Yeah, it's dead flat right on the river. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Almost felt like Vietnam at times. A lot of palm groves,
so very cool. You know, sometimes you just you know,
take a security halt and just look around and be like, man,
I feel like I'm in Vietnam all the movies.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
I wanted just kind of like that, this is the feeling,
that's right, Yeah, yeah, yeah really.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
But one of the one of the great things about
having that kind of open space is that it gives
you more access to effects from higher So we had, uh,
you know, we had artillery at Camp Pavania. We had
some duce from the Utah National Guard a palette and
howitzer section there. So we had two palette in one
hundred and fifty five millimeters self propelled howitzers, and it

(01:04:46):
got to the point where they were kind of just
working for us because, you know, getting fires cleared in
the built up urban areas really tricky to do, you know.
And then of course we had all the fast movers
for troops and contact situations. We had t Q and
Airbase real close by. Wow, so we we would we

(01:05:07):
would get the at least the rotary wing. Guys would
be honest quick And that was awesome and our boss
really really made sure, Hey, boys, we need to employ
all of our ass kicking ability. This isn't just you know,
this is not you shoot ice, shoot you know, you
shoot me with a seven six two by thirty nine,
I'm gonna drop a five hundred pounder on your Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yes, And that's a thing right to know that your
commanding officer is like, hey, yeah, there there's this this
this presence of Roes over here. But we just went
through for Lujah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Ramadi is blowing up.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
People are getting injured all the time, We're taking casuals.
We're done, We're we're gonna, We're gonna destroy the anime.
Did that give all of you guys this this grander
sense of that there was this support behind you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
It absolutely did. We you know, again, time and time
and place luck of the draw. We certainly in terms
of ROE, we probably had it as good as anybody,
uh in that Iraq wartime. I mean the three guys
on the invasion, of course, that's a whole different story.
But but you know, the lawyers were there, they were

(01:06:19):
making sure, you know, there was some escalation of force
criteria that had to occur. But we always understood that
we had the support and the trust that that you know,
the special trust and confidence that the President gives us
as commission officers. We we really felt that in a
big way. So uh it took all the hesitation out

(01:06:41):
of the game. And I you know, my heart broke
for some of my teammates that that then didn't follow
on tours to Afghanistan, you know, in in the you know,
early teens, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and to hear, to hear
what they had to do just to get a javelin
shot off.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
Man, it was heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Hey. I was there right around the Marja push. I
was operating with the agency in south central Afghanistan during
that time. And one of the one of the ground
branch uh P mc os was a former high ranking
uh OR Marine officer and you know, his son was

(01:07:19):
a Marine officer that had gotten hit with these stupid
overt daylight patrols in the same area that that they
had cleared the day before. And and I remember just
like him shaking his hand. This guy had was a
very very highly respected guy within within the court itself,
and you know, now he's at this this this this

(01:07:40):
program with S A D and and him just shaking
his head like I don't understand this, I don't get this.
And so you know, I always love to hear the
stories from four to eight really because I think that
was the time where if you look at it, you know, yeah,

(01:08:01):
the insurgency caused some challenges, but the adaptation for the
coin initiatives that spread out to units like yours and
everybody else. They gave you guys that support, that overhead
support that no, go engage the enemy and kill the enemy,
and that that that's what America is about, right, That's

(01:08:22):
when you have that sensation you're on the front and
you know that the guy behind you, the officer behind you,
is going to be like, No, I told my men
to go get in the fight, and I'm getting them
the assets they need and deserve.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Couldn't agree more. It's in fact, it's the only way.
It's the only way, and it just goes back. I mean,
it's the special trust and confidence placed into you by
the President of the United States. That's what everybody's commissioned
document states. So then to go back and yeah, I
know the president said that, but we don't really mean it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
X Ye get out of here.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
You invested all this time and money in my training.
I'm fully bought in and committed. I'm the one in
the boots here at this time, with my ass in
the breeze, trust that I'm going to do the right thing.
And you know, you have a few stories, my lie,
let's say, I mean, really one of the few that
you can come up with in the last fifty years.
You know that some lawyer will say, well, maybe, okay, okay,

(01:09:22):
you know, things happen, but we don't. We don't shut
down the program, We don't shut down the trust that
we give these folks because of one bad apple.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
And yeah, you kind of see that with.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Policing here in the States in the last ten years.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
It's it's crutal, it's absurd. There's three point five million
officer engagements a year or something even crazier than I mean,
it's an astronomical number. And you look at the FDI
crime statistics for cops firing on our males, both white
and black or Spanic, whatever it is, and the numbers

(01:09:54):
are so fricking low. It's a it's a testament to
the control of and the responsibility placed in these people
that are on the streets engaging in a very hostile environment.
You know, And I look back at all the stories
from you know, I never got to go to Iraq,
and so you know, it was a completely different experience

(01:10:16):
than everybody else that had. You know that those times
from four to eight man in Iraq, if you had
the luck and the unfortunate reality that that was your time,
you know, that was what you had to work with,
was the the trust and the people it seemed that

(01:10:38):
were behind you guys to allow you to go do
this job which was insanely difficult.

Speaker 4 (01:10:44):
Yeah, man, exactly that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
I mean, it just brings to mind the old quote
from Colonel Jessup and a few good men.

Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
I would rather you just say thank you and move along.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
I think I think most of us would do way
better to just thank our local police department for doing
what they're doing, or thank our marines and seals.

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):
Just thank you, guys. I didn't do it. I didn't
have to do it. You kept the wolves a day?
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Yeah, all right, you're now you're you're in. Within a
few days, you're out. You're getting into your first ticks,
you're getting the support. When did you realize, all right,
this op tempo is going to be significant? And what
were the things that you started thinking about from a
leadership perspective for not only your team, but but for
the Iraqis too, Because what a lot of the listeners

(01:11:30):
you have to understand this, this this is the time
where we the headshed realized we have to inspire the
locals to want to fight for whatever it is they're
fighting for, which is, you know, to pull away from
the tyranny of Saddam Hussein's regime, right, and and to
be able to fight for that it's I don't know

(01:11:53):
if it's independence, but the fight for the national pride
of what was emerging right, and that's what it is.
You're fighting for this deeper construct of of meaning and
and for them, they they didn't know what any of
that is. So what were what were the things that
you were relying upon as the the the intensity increased,

(01:12:16):
What were you telling your team, And what were you
telling the iraqis.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Yeah, so this team was not in a training you know,
uh status the operational from the start, So we had
to look at it. Okay, how much change can we
really affect in a short period of time.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
Marine Corps does a pretty cool job of.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Teaching UH leaders to back plan uh when when, when
you're doing any kind of planning things, back plan from
the most deadliest scenario and then then plan all the
things that are most likely to get you killed. You know,
eventually you'll get to those those things that are you know,
that you still need to train for, but they're not
as important on the objective. So that that's kind of

(01:12:59):
what did you know? Did a ton of shooting? Let
me take it even a step back. We we realized
everybody realized that at this time there was no NCO
Corps in the Iraqi Army.

Speaker 4 (01:13:11):
That didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Oh wow, they had, they had sergeants, if you will,
But that not like what we understand as an NCO
here in the American military. And this is even true
as you look at the American military versus the Russian
or military for instance, again another very Chinese military for instance.
These are these are top, drowned down driven organizations that

(01:13:34):
depend on all advice, instruction, orders coming from on high.

Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
Well, that ain't gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
When you got ten dudes in the middle of a
field in a firefight, it's just you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
Now, what do you do?

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
So we had to instill that sense of pride and
ownership of the operation to that very junior level, so
that when Dad gets killed, you know, the rest of
you don't die. You still understand the intentity operation at
the end of today what needs to be done, and
you can move forward through the objective and win.

Speaker 4 (01:14:05):
And so that's that's.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
What my my team of staff NCOs we had a
gunnery sergeant and three bad ass four badass staff sergeants,
and those guys really took it upon themselves to.

Speaker 4 (01:14:18):
Take time out of their day. So, like I said,
tempo was high talk.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
An average patrol would be four or five clicks, well
four or five click patrol in Iraq, especially once we
moved into the summer months.

Speaker 4 (01:14:30):
You know, that could take you three or four or
five hours.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
And then if you had contact in there, you know,
then it just extends forever. While you're not patrolling, while
you're not you know, up and you're in your two
RF status. It wasn't just time to sleep and play
video games. That's the time to get with your units
and really talk through this stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
And it's made even harder because you're talking through an interpreter.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
But that that's where we really formed these incredible bonds,
some of which have lasted to this day. So my
you know, my staff Sergeant Carl Newman, who was my partner,
he would go and talk to my to my companies,
enlisted guys. They'd have powwows over chai and just talking
through you know, you're running hot washes. Hey, what worked

(01:15:18):
well in our in our patrol today? What didn't go
well if we got kinetic? You know, did we get
guns up quick? I better hear those machine guns immediately,
you know, we have to get fire superiority immediately. And
I'll start telling stories here in a second. But that
took some hard lessons to learn that for those guys.
And then I'm with my company commander and we're walking

(01:15:39):
through planning. I'm teaching them how to conduct rehearsals. You know,
how do I run a rifle range? Do we even
know if these guys rifles are zeroed, you know, So
there was a lot of things we had to build
into our daily lives.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
To get these guys up to snuff. We had to
do that. Also, there there's a lot of ego in
that world, in.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
That area or culturally. Yeah, yeah about that talk, because
I think for me, anytime I worked with a foreign counterpart,
that was the most frustrating aspect of the whole thing.
Our programs are all designed to humble you instantaneously, to
knock the arrogance out of you right from the get go. Yes, well, well,

(01:16:23):
their whole culture is indicative of never losing face aroungst
your peers, and talk a little bit about that struggle,
if you could, before we get into some of the Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
So Afghanistan, this concept of Pashtu Nuali that I learned
about after I couldn't have operated the same way in
Afghanistan as I did with my iraqis because of what
you're talking about, this this kind of cultural pride. If
if if Afghani man feels like he's been slighted, you know,
that's where a lot of those green on blue attacks

(01:16:56):
came from.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
Yep, I took offense.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
And now he makes his his mission to kill the
guy that he was offended by.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
The iraqis they will take offense.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
But I think just through force of character and the
fact that we were Marines, they respected that enough to realize, okay,
maybe I should listen up and and they basically did that.
But I had a couple of run ins, and I'll
share one with you. We'll kind of jump ahead. Once
it became clear that we were going to be kind
of the most fightingest unit in the area at the time,

(01:17:27):
that's just what we did every day. So we're we're
taking l p ops cover of darkness, we know where
they're putting, planting IEDs, et cetera. And you know, we'd
wake up in the morning, send a patrol out, security
patrol out with the intent to get into a fight,
and me, you know, we started getting real technical, using

(01:17:47):
all the tools in our toolbox. But this one particular fight,
I had this Iraqi major with me. He refused to
shoot in front of his troops. He refused to come
to any of the rehearsals, just refused, absolutely refused. And
of course I tell my boss, and he'd tell his
boss and they'd smack him a little bit. But it's

(01:18:08):
you know, it didn't seem to be changing quickly enough
for my liking, at least anyway, send out a security patrol.

Speaker 4 (01:18:15):
In the morning, I talked to Carl and I said, hey, dude,
you guys take shots.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
We had an idea where the bad guys might be
because they're always doing the same stuff. And I said, hey,
I want you to break contact. I'm gonna call ahead.
I'm gonna get these guns laid, so we're gonna have
a fire mission.

Speaker 4 (01:18:31):
Ready to go.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
As soon as you guys get into contact. We're gonna
have a trigger line at this road. As soon as
you guys clear that road, I'm calling that fire mission.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
We did it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:39):
It worked perfectly, so they ben gang naan gun start.

Speaker 4 (01:18:44):
We're all up on the roof watching it happen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
I see my guys, last guy, last man clears the street.
As they're clearing the street, I get a bad guy
truck comes hauling ass down the street right at him.
So now I know they're getting shot out from here.
They're getting shot out from this truck. We engage, the truck,
truck crashes into a ditch. My guy's clear. I get
that fire mission called. We had a priority target, which

(01:19:08):
is hard to get, but we had those guys.

Speaker 4 (01:19:10):
So the guns are laid. So the time that I'd
say hey, fire.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Priority target number one zero zero one, about thirty seconds
first rounds are out.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Wow, so bing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
Ding ding, you know, ten or fifteen minutes goes by.
It's quiet. Now we're gonna send another patrol out to
look at the engagement area, do a battle damage assessment.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
And.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
We come out on this bda.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
The whole time, by the way that we're in this fight,
this major that refuses to come on anything or acknowledge
any of his soldiers is in the fetal position on
the ground doing nothing. So I say, hey, major, you're
on me, and I'm talking through my interpreter and he
comes walking with me. We're going through the engagement area
and it's not a large area, but it's there's a

(01:19:57):
lot of trees, so you can't really see it from
where we were, so we patrolled through.

Speaker 4 (01:20:03):
We find it was the most beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Battle damage assessment I ever got to report back to
my Lardi brothers because we we had two k I
A and we think we had another one that got it.
We saw drag marks, uh. The reason we figured he
probably died is because we had the entirety of his
leg from just above his knee laying there on the ground.
So he probably lost that blood pretty quick and ended

(01:20:26):
up expiring on the other side of the river. Then
as we come back, and I hate to do this,
but the marine mind in those days we were it
was all movie quotes, man. So uh so we had
just watched this movie seven Brad Pitt, cool movie.

Speaker 4 (01:20:44):
And there's a scene in it and I'm gonna I'm
gonna describe.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
What I do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
So we're we're coming through and I'm up on my
gun and the last thing we do is hit this truck.

Speaker 4 (01:20:54):
To make sure it's clear.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
And I'm coming up and I'm looking over the door
and uh, I can't really tell it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:01):
The guy is slumped over and he's got.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
His ak right down in his lap, and uh I
opened the door. And as I opened the door, he
raises his head and his head is canoue oh, he
raised his head. He was just you know, in in
the throes of death. He wasn't quite dead. He had
a pulse and he was still alive. So I made

(01:21:24):
that a RAQI major treat him. He had this really
uh high speed jacket on that he loved. He kept
him warmer than everybody else. I made him take his
jacket off and treat this guy.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
I mean, he's alive. We don't murder dudes after the
battle's over, so treat him. And uh.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
He complained about that, but my boss didn't care, and
his boss ended up sending him away.

Speaker 4 (01:21:45):
We actually never saw him again after that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Op dude. I for me, it's it's it's you realize
just the nepotism of of how profound it is when
you're dealing with these like and you get somebody like
a urf who's good and you're like, all right, dude,
what's the deal with this? Oh that's the other general
who's in bagdad, that's where you get all your great

(01:22:07):
intel try' that's his first cousin, that's his other buddy.
And you're like, oh, how much time does he have
in combat? Not? And he just got here, you know,
and it's just like and you start going, well, God,
what am how am I going to do this? How
am I going to work with what I got? But
it sounds to me like the other iraqis that you had.

(01:22:29):
They sounded pretty tough and they were they were gravitating
towards that those you know, your your NCO influence to
a pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
Identified We made a conscious effort to identify kind of
the best of the bunch, and we made them Okay, hey,
you're the company gunnery sergeant.

Speaker 4 (01:22:49):
Yeah, you're the company first sergeant.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
Like we gave them roles and responsibilities that forced the
other soldiers to look.

Speaker 4 (01:22:57):
At them like, oh my god, maybe this is the
guy I need to follow.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
Yeah, And you know, these guys weren't all rambo in fact,
you know, if I could just get him shooting generally
in the same direction, that was kind.

Speaker 4 (01:23:08):
Of a win. We didn't care. We knew we were
gonna win the fight anyway. But the few.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
Good ones that we did find, man, we really rode them.
They didn't believe and made and they ended up being
great leaders. I don't know how much time we have left,
but the guy that I was partnered with, my company commander,
he was the best of the bunch.

Speaker 4 (01:23:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Everybody acknowledged that by the end of our time, and
it had nothing to do with my guidance or leadership.
It had everything to do He was the only sunnie
in in our formation, the only student officer.

Speaker 4 (01:23:42):
Everybody else was she. So the way that he grew up,
his kind of sect was in.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
Charge, so he kind of was used to being in charge.
He didn't have to like figure out his way through it.
And he was courageous by.

Speaker 1 (01:23:55):
Nature's you know how it is.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
Brother on the battlefield is contagious, just like cowardice is.
So if you if you got if you got some
dudes that you really look up to and they're showing
that real courage like he did. I think that's what
made our unit in particular so so successful and deadly
to the to the enemies we were fighting because the

(01:24:18):
june that would have normally just been smoking a cigarette
and hide and try not to die. Uh, they they
they were willing to follow because they saw that courage
from my advisor team.

Speaker 3 (01:24:28):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
And some of these Iraqis that we identified early on.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
I love it all right, So how how far into
this deployment for you did you feel like you guys
hit that real efficient battle rhythm. Whereas just like, all right,
we know the mission, we know what works, we know
what doesn't, and then you you what you start to
tighten up, like the proficiency of your operational ability just
becomes like this, Uh, it's this poetic thing that emerges.

(01:24:57):
When when did you feel that? And and and and
then what were some of the things that resulted of
how effective you guys were?

Speaker 4 (01:25:07):
Exactly right?

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
So my boss was smart enough to understand, after every engagement,
we're going to have a hot wash. We're gonna talk
through this thing. Good things, bad things. How do we
become more deadly on this battlefield? And for the first
three months we kind of worked our way through that.

Speaker 4 (01:25:23):
How can we.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
Employ arms better, How can we get artillery shooting faster
on our behalf? How is there is there a way
to get helicopters up quicker? Maybe if we start doing
intel driven operations, sending some requests to hire, they'll have
units on standby for us in the form of cobras, Huey's,
things like that. And that took about three months. In

(01:25:46):
those three months, we did a lot. We had a
lot of practice, if you will. We were fighting quite
a bit, and through those fights we really did figure out,
you know, how to employ our q R F faster?
Can we drive them here? You know, kaza vacs? Are
we saving as many lives as we can? You know,
I mentioned before we got on air, I was on
a twelve man team. This twelve man team was decorated

(01:26:09):
with fifteen purple hearts.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Oh my god. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
So I mean in terms of like running guys to
shock trauma, that was a that happened a lot, and uh,
you know, the Golden hour is everything on the battlefield,
and so we started getting really drilling down on how
to how to make sure we're getting guys to that
second level of care better. We had an amazing Corman

(01:26:33):
on our team, a Navy doc still a personal friend
of mine.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
We all love him. Although he drops off the net
here and there from time to time.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
He's a he's a maniac, you know, if you could
just bottle him up and just break for war kind
of guy, personal life all over the place as long
as I've known him. But on that battlefield he is
as cool an operator as I've ever seen when it
comes to treating dudes. And I think, I think, really
he became a force multiplier because the Iraqis became less

(01:27:00):
scared to try out and get wounded because they knew
if they did. Man, we got Doc Wig in the back,
and he's going to fix you up. At least fix
you up well enough to get you up to you know,
teach you and go to shot trauma things like that so.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Well that it was the history of the Navy Corman
and the Marine Corps that really joked me to want
to be a corman. Like that was the thing. It
was like, Man, I want to be I want to
have that, you know, I want to have that trust
in my guys that you know that I'm going to

(01:27:33):
be there in the middle of it and I'm going
to be helping save their lives. Because there's just something
about that reality. And I I what I do is
I commend the entire military for the advancements they made,
you know, post Mogadishu and developing T Triple C and
Tactical Compact casually care. People always ask well, why were

(01:27:54):
there so few casualties in the GWATT and And my
response is is because medical training that took place at
every level, at every unit was so efficient and so
squared away that that was the results. That's why we
even though we were in a war longer than Vietnam, like,
we didn't even get close to their casually count fifty

(01:28:17):
eight thousand, because because I think the proficiency of those
medics that were on the battlefield, and then how they
trained their counterpart, how they trained their team to address trauma,
and and then and then the response. Right those those
medical stations and aid stations that were scattered all over
at all those theaters. Man, they were just incredible with

(01:28:39):
what they did.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Yes, two things come to mind. First off, you know this,
I mean, you know that the DOC on any team
is the most protected member of that team. You are
the most beloved, and we will whip anyone's ass who
tries to mess with our doc.

Speaker 4 (01:28:53):
That's just number one. But number two, I.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
Will say that our doc and and just the training
we got. And I skipped over it because the shooting
stuff sounds sexier at times. But we did a full
you know, I don't know if they were calling a teacher,
we'll ce at the time, but we went to we
did our pig lab.

Speaker 4 (01:29:10):
We were running ivs on each other.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
So he made sure we got really good at that
early because you know, you are your own first, best,
best first responder in a lot of these cases, especially
when you're operating like we were with just two dudes
and ten.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
I rakis all right, So now, how long was the deployment,
and was there a moment in time where you start
to see the fatigue of operations take to present itself.
What were some of the signs you were looking for?
And then also like how do you keep your guys
motivated to stay in the fight. It sounds to me

(01:29:47):
like your group didn't need any of that motivation. They
were in it regardless. They they were dedicated job. But obviously,
as as a leader, you're looking for those things, right,
You're looking for the crowd in the armor that could
potentially jeopardize the safety of HUTURE operations.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
I think our tempo was so high that it kind
of it kind of prevented some of that stuff from
coming in. I also believe that, you know, the Marine
Corps deployment cycle. Thank god I wasn't in the army man.
Like you said about Secretary of Parnell, I mean like

(01:30:25):
four hundred days, the Marine.

Speaker 4 (01:30:27):
Corps was doing seven month deployments.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
So you know, by the time you really feel like
you got it figured out, time to go home boys. Yeah, So,
so I think we missed some of that that fatigue.
I'll tell you at the end, it started to get there,
but our deployment was really broken down kind of into
three three sectors if you will. You know, the the
initial phase where it's just like, oh my god, this
is really happening.

Speaker 4 (01:30:50):
Everything is new, every fight is new.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Then then you get into the kind of the three
to six months mark where you're like, man, I think
I got this thing figured out. Now only do I
have it figured out, I think other people are realizing
we're doing such a good job they want to become
a part of it. You know, I mentioned to you
before we got on the air that we had parts
of Team one and Team three that they would shop
parts of parts of a platoon out to us.

Speaker 4 (01:31:16):
One of the ways we started this interaction there.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
They're a guy named Nick Norris, was a young lieutenant
on one of these seal teams that was out with us.
Him and Seth Stone. I know Sethstone is since past,
but you want to talk about a guy that looked
the freaking part.

Speaker 4 (01:31:30):
I remember beating him. I was like, goddamn, who was
this guy? This guy's a big strum.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
Motherfucker the etitomy of a Navy officer, the indeed, indeed
any guy for the audience that doesn't know. Also, seths
Stone was a part of Task Force Bruiser, which was
Jocko willing uh Seth and Leif Babin or platoon commanders
running those guys in Ramadi Uh And so you know,

(01:31:55):
to to you know the fact that you guys were
as operate and at the level you were doing. For
them to come out and be like, hey, we want
to come fight with you again, that speaks volumes as
to what you guys were doing in the efficiency.

Speaker 2 (01:32:08):
We had a gigantic water tower in the middle of
our combat outpost, so figure you know, a collection of
maybe ten houses. We had the engineers come out and
put a hesco around it so we, you know, relatively secure.
Right in the middle was his giant water tower. And
I came home from patrol one time. I didn't know
all the coordination that my boss was doing a lot
of times, so he had Jocko out there and they

(01:32:29):
were chatting about what they can do to help us
whip some more ass.

Speaker 4 (01:32:33):
And I come home from this patrol and I'm just having.

Speaker 2 (01:32:36):
A glance up at the water tower and I'm like, man,
those what are these black spots up there? They knew anyway,
some of your brothers had gone up there and cut
out these spider holes and then so they started sniping
on our behalf, you know, just providing us overwatch as
we're meandering through these fields. Now the bubbles are up
on you know that whatever they were shooting at the time,
they were up on the big guns, you know, giving

(01:32:58):
us the little Guardian Angel support.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
It was freaking awesome. That's cool, all right. So you
get to the end of it, was it was it
hard to leave.

Speaker 4 (01:33:07):
It became you know, you know, the bonds.

Speaker 2 (01:33:09):
It's it's just those battlefield bonds that become hard to leave.
And so our iraqis they were They were pretty emotional
when we were leaving because you know, just like it
had been some big time fighting for us. You know,
these were the biggest fights that any of these dudes
had been into up to that point.

Speaker 4 (01:33:26):
And you know, so that that was hard.

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
We had you know, it became our task to uh
introduce them to our replacements, and you know, once we
got a good warm and fuzzy that we had a
great group of dudes coming in behind us, and we did.
I think they were My memory might betray me, but
I think they were from third Battalion, Second Marines three two.
If I remember correctly, and uh, you know, the bunch

(01:33:52):
of great experience guys that came in on the on
the came in to replace us.

Speaker 4 (01:33:56):
And so once once we were.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Able to make those introductions and you know, I could point, hey,
this dude's already been in Ramadi or Falloujah or something.

Speaker 4 (01:34:03):
You know, once I kind of explained that they had
a lot of a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
Of good operational working experience in country are Iraqis settled in.

Speaker 4 (01:34:11):
But you know, one of.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
The real sad stories. You work so hard to bring
these guys to a certain level. I think I think
in my company, I probably had I probably lost twelve
somewhere around twelve ka under under my command, if you will,
not Americans, but Iraqis, and they were doing they were.

Speaker 4 (01:34:29):
Executing the fight that I was calling on them to fight.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
So you know, those are.

Speaker 4 (01:34:33):
All hard losses.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
Well, let let me just let me just add this
one story because I guess it paints a picture for
the love that I really had for these guys and
kind of, you know, even though we were the main
effort according to the president and the commandant, the rest
of the normal formations in big Army, big Marine Corps,

(01:34:56):
they really didn't even know we were out there operating.
So I had I think I think we had two
k I A s and I had two urgent surgicals.
And you know, for anybody in that AO to operate,
it was it was a doctrine, doctrine that you could
not run a convoy on that route of Michigan. That
that put particular stretch a route Michigan with less than

(01:35:19):
a twelve vehicle convoy and it took two days of
coordination to get anybody on the road there.

Speaker 4 (01:35:25):
I had four trucks on my whole team.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
We were running guys with two vehicle convoys all day,
every day up and down that road, just you know,
a little sign of the cross. Let's let's run it, boys,
Let's go as fast as we can here. And Uh, anyway,
I'm running a I'm running a metavac to t Q.

Speaker 4 (01:35:43):
I got blood all over me. I had a I
had I remember, I had a T shirt on.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
In sweatpants because I was kind of you know, on
q RF status at the time when we got hit.

Speaker 4 (01:35:52):
And uh, running these boys up through.

Speaker 2 (01:35:55):
I got me and another American in my hum V
and then I got an iraqi V behind me carrying
all the wounded, well, the two wounded, two killed. And
they stop us at the gate and we've done this
many times before, and they go, sir, I need your.

Speaker 4 (01:36:11):
Rakis to all step out of the vehicle.

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
I need him to show, you know, unload and show
clear on their weapons and such.

Speaker 4 (01:36:17):
And I go, dude, time is money. I got two
dudes bleeding to death. Fuck no.

Speaker 2 (01:36:21):
My name was Lieutenant Andrew Mulligan Parks, United States Marine Corps.
I will be at shock trauma. Send whoever you want
to come and chew my ass. And that's what we did. Yeah, press,
and we got there and they got my guys in immediately.
We had developed a really close working relationship with those
guys at Shock Trauma.

Speaker 4 (01:36:41):
There was a Navy Master chief petty officer.

Speaker 2 (01:36:43):
That was running that thing, and anyway, I told him,
I said, master Chief, I apologize, you may be catching
some hell over this. He goes, dude, you did the
right thing. I'll crush anybody who comes here. Well it
wasn't fifteen minutes later that this freaking army guy comes
rolling up. I don't know, sergeant first class type, and
he look, he's doing his job. I don't know him,

(01:37:05):
but he comes up, where's Lieutenant Parks? And I go,
I'm right here, and like I said, bloody T shirt
and sweatpants with my flag and kevlar, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:37:14):
And he goes, well, you're not gonna turn blah blah blah,
and I go, please stop.

Speaker 2 (01:37:21):
I said, first of all, you're talking to offshore the
United States Marine Corps. Secondly, I'll do what I did
every day twice on Sunday. Comes to you my ass.
That's fine. He goes, well, you're not gonna talk to
me like that. I'm just like I just did talk
to you like that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:37):
So take it up. I go run it up your chain,
I'll run it up mine. We'll see who wins. Dude,
I mean, he wouldn't let it go though.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
He wouldn't let it go, And so he's yelling and
this master chief comes out and just got in his
ass and ran him the hell off.

Speaker 4 (01:37:52):
And I love that guy until the day I died
for doing that for me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
He was awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:37:57):
But anyway, you know, we love those guys, and that's
the only way you can operate that environment.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
Of course, you're gonna form bonds with the dudes you're
fighting with, doesn't matter, you know, raise color or creed,
it don't matter. Everybody bleeds red. And we're all on
the same team here, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
And I think that for me, that's the essence of
this whole thing, because obviously you go and you're in
this high thread environment. People are getting killed, right, but
you just you keep going back into the fight. You
just keep going. You don't quit, right, And that's what
it is. What was it? What was it like when
you came back, your your team gets dispersed, You made

(01:38:35):
the decision to get out. What were some of the
things that you were going to take with you that
you knew that were critical for whatever that the next
chapters of your life were going to be.

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
Yeah, listen, I got back in uh what have we
got back? Late two thousand and six? And I was
kind of a guy without a home at that point.
I but I had I had made enough of the
right people happy that I was at I got to
meet General Madis and he said, Parks, what do you

(01:39:08):
want to do in the Marine Corps? You get to
write your ticket? Where do you want to go? And
this is going back to just being kind of silly here,
but my first two platoon sergeants had seven marriages.

Speaker 1 (01:39:21):
Between the two of them, Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:39:23):
And I just saw what a heavy burden the Gwatt
was on a family. And I knew at that point
that I wanted to get married and have a family,
and I really felt like it was going to be
hard to do.

Speaker 4 (01:39:37):
That in that lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
This is not to say that there aren't thousands of
folks that did exactly that and it worked out perfectly.
It just in my mind, in my twenty six or
seven year old brain at the time, I just didn't
I didn't see how it could possibly work. So I said, well, sir,
I think I'm gonna get out, and he was like, well,
we're gonna get as much out of you as we
can before you leave.

Speaker 4 (01:39:58):
So they threw me.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
I got to be like the operations officer as a
first lieutenant the entirety of the West Coast training operation
for all the new advisors going forward.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
So, I mean, I had a major that was my boss,
but he was a pilot, a harrier pilot, so he
didn't really he didn't really have a lot of ground
stuff to impart to the teams. So I got to
I mean me, I say, I it was me in
a collection of badass senior enlisted. I had a master
gunnery sergeant, two master sergeants, and a gunny. They were

(01:40:30):
all sign seriously wounded guys. They were going through their
rehab and it was like the five of us that
would come up with the training plan for all these folks.
You want to talk about feeling like you're way over
your head. I mean every team is led by at
a minimum major at a maximum carnal. So it's Lieutenant Parks,
you know, not ordering, but go you know, basically in

(01:40:53):
charge of all these senior dudes. Yeah, anyway to answer
your question, that last year allowed me to leave the
Marine Corps feeling like whatever came in front of me
from here on out.

Speaker 4 (01:41:06):
And I kind of still feel like this, Dave.

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
I mean, it's kind of easy compared to the stuff
that I did back then. So, you know, in terms
of in the job that i'm I'm a sales guy
for a military company and you know, so I do
a lot of high level briefings, could be on the
hill or with you know, senior level officers, generals, et cetera.

(01:41:28):
You know, just communicate the point, know your stuff, be
technically proficient, tactically sound, you know, know your stuff and
you know trust it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
You know, well, nobody's gonna shoot you over it, so
it's it's all relatively easy.

Speaker 3 (01:41:42):
I love.

Speaker 4 (01:41:42):
That's just kind of how it's been.

Speaker 1 (01:41:44):
All right. Last question for you, if what advice could
you give to a young man right now that's contemplating
joining they're not quite sure if for through the craziness
of what we just went through there, you know, maybe
they're a little nervous about what's out in front of
us with some of the other things that are going
on around the world in Ukraine or in the Middle East,

(01:42:06):
Like what is the thing that you could what information
or wisdom that you could bestow on them that would
kind of help push them over the edge to say, no,
this is this is a career or just a short
portion of my life that will really be transformational.

Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
Man, you will never know how good you can be
unless you try. And they're the great crucible. I mean,
and this is I fancy myself a bit of a historian,
you know, I love to read and stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:42:37):
I mean, these are these are almost.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
Biological kind of archetypes at this point. I mean, did
the heroic archetype just to see what you can do
on the field of battle. I mean, this is what
ancient our ancient Indian tribal leaders would sit around campfires
at night and go over this. You know, you weren't
a man in some of these ancient cultures until you had,

(01:43:00):
you know, proven yourself on the field of battle and
been with a woman and had children.

Speaker 4 (01:43:05):
I mean, those were kind of the three pillars of manhood.

Speaker 2 (01:43:09):
And I'm not saying that every man has to do
that or every woman has to experience these things. But
I am saying it's not bad for you. And I
mean I mean, I mean that in the in the
biblical sense, yeah, in the worldliness sense. It will give
you a greater perspective for everything you do from here
on out than having not done it. I have plenty
of friends that thought about doing it, that wanted to

(01:43:31):
do it, that would have been phenomenal at it, but
they didn't know or they didn't do it, and they
always have that thing in the back of their head. Man,
I wish I wish I would have tried it. Man,
I bet I would have been good. You know, the
folks that do sign up answer the call. You never
have to question that you did it, and the opportunities

(01:43:52):
are boundless, as you and I both know. I mean,
if you want something bad enough, if you get in
the door, you make it through the original screening process
of boot camp, uh, which which is challenging for anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:44:04):
I mean, you know it just that that's the first crucible.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
But all of I think any hard thing you can
do in life only makes things easier going forward.

Speaker 4 (01:44:15):
I had an old old leader.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
He was like, every hard thing you do is like
a marble in your You put a marble in a cup, and.

Speaker 4 (01:44:21):
You know, right now, you got like three marbles in there.
But one day you're gonna look at that cup.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
There's gonna be fifty of them, because in the later
part of life, you're gonna have to start drawing from
that because you're not gonna be able to do hard
things anymore, and you're gonna you're gonna have to live
off of those memories and you want a cup really full.
So you got a great story to tell. And I
was like, shit makes sense to me, Makes sense to.

Speaker 1 (01:44:39):
Me, man, Andy Man, that is true genius right there.

Speaker 3 (01:44:43):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
I have a big jar of marvels that each represents
something badass. I love it. Hey, uh, I thank you
so much for coming on. You know, uh, your story
and the story of the guys that you went to
war with and including those Iraqis. It's meaningful, it's historic,

(01:45:05):
and I just I really appreciate you wanting to come
on and share a little bit of your your history
with us. It means the world to.

Speaker 4 (01:45:13):
Me, man. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
Really special opportunity, probably maybe even more special.

Speaker 3 (01:45:19):
We're two or three days removed from the birthday two
hundred and fifty years and just big shout out to
my brothers, Mit, three, five cowboys.

Speaker 4 (01:45:31):
We're legends in our own mind if nothing else, and
that's good enough for us.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
So can't wait to see you boys. Hope I did
you proud and thanks so much. Dave, You're awesome man.

Speaker 1 (01:45:40):
Giddy up all right,

All Episodes

Captain Andrew Parks On Leading Marines Through Chaos and Combat | Ep. 76

Episode Transcript

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Clay Travis

Buck Sexton

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Ruthie's Table 4

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Captain Andrew Parks On Leading Marines Through Chaos and Combat | Ep. 76