In this special Memorial Day episode, Lisa welcomes Chief Pentagon Spokesperson, Sean Parnell, a decorated veteran and author, to discuss the significance of Memorial Day and the lessons learned from the war in Afghanistan. Parnell shares his combat experiences, the bravery of his platoon, and the heavy toll of war on soldiers. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it's a memorial Day, and obviously on moremorial day
we take a moment, We take a day to remember
the fall and to remember the heroes who have paid
the ultimate sacrifice to defend this nation, defend our country.
We honor the families who have lost loved ones in
the pursuit of freedom to protect this great country. But
beyond taking the time to remember, shouldn't we also reflect?
(00:26):
And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made
as a country and things we could change moving forward,
and being more judicious with the lives of our military
men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their
sole duty with our military men and women be to
avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that
(00:48):
we have less men and women who have to pay
the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's
why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only
honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the
people who give everything this country that they love and
that we love, but also take a time to reflect.
And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it
was the longest war in American history twenty years. We
(01:10):
lost so many service members, so many service men and
women in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could
learn there, What should we take from that and do
differently moving forward? And who better to talk to than
Sean Parnell. He is a former US Army airborne ranger
who served in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years,
(01:32):
retiring as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one
for valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote
the New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and
he also wrote Man of Ward. Outlaw Platoon details his
sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat
in Afghanistan. While he was there, his platoon repeatedly was outnumbered,
(01:55):
repeatedly outgunned, and they displayed such tremendous bravery, to the
point that over eighty five percent of his platoon received
Purple Hearts for wounds that they incurred in battle. Sean
was also injured in battle, day in and day out,
fighting for freedom in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was
twenty four at the time. Can you imagine being twenty
(02:18):
four and leading a platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan,
day in, day out, outnumbered, outgunn fighting bravely and fearlessly
next to your brothers in the military and in the Army.
So we're going to get Sean Parnell's take on what
lessons we should learn from Afghanistan, what we could be
(02:40):
doing different moving forward, and how we can truly honor,
to the best of our abilities, the men and women
who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
He's an absolute hero, and he's an absolute badass, Sean Parnell,
Sean Hearnell, you are such a badass and such an
American hero. It's an honor just to have you on
(03:13):
the show. So I really appreciate you taking this time.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't know if i'd call
myself a badass, but I was in the Army for
a time and I was surrounded by badasses every day,
so I guess I was pretty lucky.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'll call you bad ass. I'll be the one. I'll
do it because you can be humble. I will take
the humility out of it for you.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
You know, we're recording this before but this is going
to air on Memorial Day and obviously a day to
honor the individuals and so many who have paid the
ultimate sacrifice and the name of defending freedom, defending this
great country that we love. But shouldn't we also take
this time to learn lessons from, you know, wars like Afghanistan,
and also use it as a time to be more
(03:55):
judicious in sending our military men and.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Women to war.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I think so, I mean, and you know, I think
I think it speaks directly to the importance of you know,
warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who
fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards
to where our country goes and the decisions that we
make pertaining to the future of America and the wars
(04:19):
that we get ourselves involved in. You know, after I
spent time in Afghanistan back in two thousand and six,
in two thousand and seven, we were there for what
like twenty years. You know, it's a long long time
that I think most most of America, America, it's difficult
to wrap your mind around that length of time, you know,
(04:41):
And so I feel like you look at what happened
in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure that we
spent there. Right after twenty years there, you look now
and it's like, well, what do you have to show
for it? You know? And look, I tell you this, like,
I'm proud of my time in Afghanistan. I don't regret
(05:02):
it for a second. I joined after September eleventh. One
of the best experiences of my life was serving this country.
So I am not a victim in any way. I'm
a volunteer and I would do it all again in
a heartbeat. And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan,
you know. But I and critics, critics would say, you know,
when I say, well, what'll we have to show for
(05:23):
critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look
at what you do, what you built for the Afghans.
You wells in the villages. You know, little girls know
how to read, and you know, boys are part of
the economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is,
even if it was just for a brief time. And
I would just say that, yes, that is all true,
but I would rather have my friends alive, you know.
(05:46):
And you look at what's happening today and the Afghani
things in Afghanistan just collapsed what like less than a
year ago, Lisa, right like August twenty twenty one, And
it seems like you have members of Congress on both
sides of the Aisle, in the House and in the
(06:07):
Senate that are clamoring to go right back into the
fight in Ukraine, which from a geopolitical standpoint is it's
far more complicated than Afghanistan. Without even taking a breath
after the Afghan War and saying, wait, is this really
worth it? Should we take time to hit the reset
(06:28):
button as a country and figure out if, if this
fight is worth Americans dying for, Because that's the question
that American moms and dads need to ask themselves, Lisa,
is like, is Ukraine so important that you are willing
to sacrifice your son or daughter for that. If the
answer to that question is no, then we shouldn't be
(06:49):
doing anything for Ukraine. And look, Lisa, I feel bad
for the people there. My heart aches for the civilians
and children who are caught in the middle. Like this
is not me saying like we should ignore it completely,
Like nobody, like a few people in this country understand
that the humanitarian disaster and people stuck in the middle
(07:10):
of the flight than me. I get that, But but
again I would say I would rather have American sons
and daughters alive. You know, I think we need to
take care of ourselves here at home a little bit. First.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
We just see politicians, you know, beating the drums of
war with Ukraine, and Joe Biden said something today about
Taiwan about you know, you should take military action. But
you just hear these politicians and it almost there's a
callousness to it, to be honest, because it doesn't take
into account that, as you pointed out, it's would they.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Send their son or daughter?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You know, it just it doesn't take intoccount Like I
just lives, American people should be the most important to us.
That lives, the precious lives our military men and one.
It should be the most important to us, and it
just doesn't. It doesn't seem to be the case. And
it makes me sad.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Look, you're right, Lisa, I mean, you're right. It's I
think part of the problem is that you you only
have zero point four percent of the people in this
country who served this country during Iraq and Afghanistan, so
twenty twenty years of war, so longest period of war
in American history, only point four percent of the country
actually experienced what it means to protect and defend freedom.
(08:22):
And so I think as a result, you have, you know,
most of America, ninety nine percent of America who enjoy
freedom on a day to day basis in this country,
and you have less than half of one percent who
protect it. So there's there's a significant gap between those
two groups. And I think that's part of the reason why,
(08:47):
you know, you have politicians who really never served anything
but themselves for the majority of their lives, talk so
callously about sending American sons and daughters into the fight
because the reality is they don't have any real understanding
of what that means for American families who are actually
doing the fighting. Like, for example, when I got back
from Afghanistan, a sixteen month combat deployment, sixteen months, like
(09:11):
four hundred and eighty five days, It's like if you
had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year,
have a good second grade year. I'll see you on
your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know. And
you know, we got back, we hit the reset button.
You know, most of we weren't even back for a
couple of weeks, we already had to go right back
down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home,
hugged our families, went back to do trading down to
(09:33):
Fort Polk, Louisiana, and prep for another combat deployment to
Afghanistan that was nine months later. I mean, it's an
incredibly heavy burden that we that we place on a
very very small percentage of Americans, and most of the
time our politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess
it sounds cool when you're up there at the podium,
(09:53):
you know, hey, of China invade Taiwan, like We're going
to get involved militarily, with no real understanding in the
geopolitical consequences or the all out for the American people
or how that would affect people who serve. I mean,
it's it's just irresponsible, especially Lisa, when you consider just
how much suffering there is here within our own borders
(10:14):
at home that I think a lot of our attention
should be focused on.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well, and I think President Trump really changed at least
my thinking on foreign policy because what he was able
to show us is that you can be strong, you
can flex muscle, you can deter the bad guys without
setting troops, without invading, without beating the you know, the
the drum beat for war, and you can do it
like he did when he was sitting with President She,
(10:38):
you know, having chocolate cake, telling him he's sending fifteen
done Tamahook missiles. This yet it right, it's such a
fall or remove or striking these peace deals on the
Abraham Accords. It just changed the way, you know, I
thought about things because he just showed us a different path.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
He really opened my eyes to you know, there there
is a different way, you know, and when you're in Washington,
I mean really, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, there
there is group think right where everyone sort of thinks
the same way about a lot of things. And I
think that's why you hear a lot of people talk
about the uniparty, you know, where you have you know,
(11:14):
people like you know, as ideologically different as Adam Kinsinger
and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance of defending Ukraine,
to even certain Democrats talking about the importance of defending
our ally Ukraine even though they're not an ally. You know,
it's like you see, you see these certain groups of
people that think alike, Lisa, And what I always admired
(11:37):
about President Trump is it takes an unbelievable amount of
mental toughness to resist that type of pressure and group
think right and and Washington, President Trump was I mean, gosh,
at any given moment in d C. In the White House,
both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in anger at
(12:00):
President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired
about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think
the American people sent him there, Because there is a
level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just
got outside the Beltway or New York City or LA
and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America,
(12:20):
they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction
of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And
you look at what he was able to accomplish in
four years in the face of I mean, what that
man faced in the White House was criminal. It was criminal.
I mean, now we're learning of what Hillary Clinton did,
(12:41):
it was like maybe legitimately criminal, I don't know. But
the things that he was able to accomplish in four
short years I never thought possible. And you know, the
Abraham accorrors and peace in the Middle East. Never thought
that was possible, but he did it. And yeah, like
you said, it really opened my eyes to a new
(13:03):
way of being and that you know, we don't have
to deploy and get locked down and like so almost
become cliche now in these in these forever wars, but
that's really what they are. I mean, twenty freaking years
in Afghanistan is a long time. I mean twenty years.
I mean think about it like this, Like I'm forty
(13:24):
years old. That's half of my life. We were in Afghanistan,
like half of my life. The only profession, the only
thing that I've known is war in Afghanistan. Lost thirty
five plus friends there. I mean, that's a long time.
And I think what President Trump showed us was that
it doesn't have to be that way. We can still
have peace as long as we're focused on the right
(13:45):
stuff and focusing on ourselves at home. And unfortunately, a
year and a half of Joe Biden, he's unraveling that
pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I mean, I never thought it could get this bad. This,
I mean, it's just it's really sad.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
But I but I honestly think I think the turning
point for him was because you know, people thought he
would restore ordery, do all these things, and obviously people
like us knew he wasn't going to do and he
wasn't capable of it. But his ratings really started to
take a nose dive after Afghanistan. And it was the
disastrous exit, the abandoning like the Bagroum airfield before getting
our people out, getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind,
(14:26):
And I think that was the turning point.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And when that all was going down.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
You tweeted out that the afghandabacles on the suits not
the boots. Talk about that disconnect in the military between
the suits and the boots and how that played out
with Afghanistan so disastrously.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Oh, it was so frustrating to me. And part of
what I do like coming back home after I got
back from Afghanistan was there was realizing very quickly that
a lot there are a lot of men and women
here who serve this country that needed help. And you know,
there's a way in which you come back from war,
and war changes you and some pretty deep and fundamental ways,
(15:02):
and you could you know, you come back and you
meet and talk to your family and you feel like
your family doesn't know you because you've changed, and you
talk to your best friends. And there was a moment
for me like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like
the first thing I do when I get back from
Afghanistan is like text my buddies, you know who I
went to college with and stuff. And like I open
up my like little flip phone and text them and
(15:25):
they text me back their address and like look at it.
Read the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these
dudes are still living in the same address they've been
living at for ten years, and I just got back
from Afghanistan feel like a totally different person show up
at their I show up at their apartment. I walk
in and like they're like all sitting in the same
spots on the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer,
(15:48):
talking about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's
posters on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge,
and I'm thinking to myself, like, oh my god, like
nothing has changed here at home, but I'm a different
person in every way. And so if I was feeling
like that, there are probably millions of Americans feeling like
that who come home for more and just feel like
(16:10):
they're different, and maybe they feel like exiles in their
own country. And so I started doing everything I could
to make sure that, like the war is really what
I guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war
for a lot of veterans really starts when you get home.
And I wanted to just help veterans come home in
(16:31):
the most productive way possible and not just survive on
a day to day basis, but but really but thrive,
you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan, about
it being on the suits and not the boots, was
really it was in that spirit, because I knew there
(16:52):
would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the
hell was all this for? You know, why the hell
did I Why did I lose my best friend in
this country? Why did I go to this country and
sacrifice a piece of myself there?
Speaker 4 (17:05):
You know?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Why did we do all of this just to have
some moron in the White House throw it all away?
Because I mean, quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters,
and he's a commander in chief, so that the term
commander predisposes chief. His job at first and foremost an
obligation to our American military, and it was a dereliction
(17:29):
of duty of the highest order of what he did
in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just leaving
Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I can't
even believe I had to say this, but the sacrifice
that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red in
Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban in
(17:49):
a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral
damage to people who served there, that the ramstifications of
which I don't think we fully understand yet.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness
the fall of Afghanistan in the speed at which it
fell here in America after having been there for twenty years.
And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under
President Trump, or really any American president that could speak
(18:27):
in coherence sentences without having to read off a sheet
of paper. I mean, just unbelievable. And you can't help
but think, you cannot help but think like I used
to joke around in the campaign trail when I was
running for the House in the Senate, well mostly when
I was running for the Senate, but about like just
to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence. I
(18:47):
think it's I think it's intentional. I think that this
is you can't be this good. I mean, he's Joe
Biden in his administration, a bunch of Obama appointees two
point zero right back in the White House, some of
which are sermon in the same cabinet positions. It's like
they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying almost every pillar
(19:12):
in this country, I mean every country. Like it's unbelievable
that the level of which they're failing. And I think
Afghanistan was just one of those pillars.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, I think we all just felt such amount of
shame with the way that we exited, just the loss
of military men and women, or those thirteen service members
and just leaving Americans behind. Quick commercial break back with
Sean Parnell on the other side, talked about sort of
you know the challenge with coming home when you've been
(19:45):
at war like that out I'll say one of the
most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my career was
doing an honor ear flight for Vietnam war vets from
Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I went on this
trip with them, and I'll tell you it was just
such a movie experience talking to these like big strong
guys who were just brought to tears of just feeling
the honor of having served because they didn't get the
(20:08):
welcome they deserved when they came home. And so just
doing the interviews with them and seeing these you know,
grown men and you know cry and just it was
just incredibly moving and I learned a lot from it.
It was just a really you know, humbling and just
incredible experience, you know, spending time with them and just
being able to bless them and being part of this
with the trip.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, well, Vietnam vets are I mean, we owe them
so much, and obviously because as you mentioned, they didn't
have the welcome home that we did. And so much
of the reason why my generation was welcomed home was
because after like what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era
(20:48):
went through, they made themselves a promise and never allow
another generation to veteran to experience what they did, and
because of that, like we had by and large, a
very positive homecoming, you know. And when I talk about
feeling like an exile in your own country, I should say,
like almost everybody that you talk to says thank you
(21:09):
for your service. I am not again, Like, we're lucky
to live in a country like America and come home
to people that appreciate you. And that that is because
of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when they came back,
went through hell in combat, through hell, and they came
back and then but didn't give in. And they they
(21:29):
they made a promise to you know, subsequent generations of
Americans when they came home from the fight, and that
promise was to never allow what they went through to
happen again. And I mean, really, my generation is standing
on the shoulders of giants with them and World War
two veterans and Korea veterans before them. So yeah, we're lucky.
(21:52):
We're lucky to live in this country. But there's still
a lot of work to do, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I can't imagine how it doesn't change you.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I particularly some of this stuff uf that you endured,
you know, I know you very humbly. You know, didn't
take me saying that you're, you know, a complete badass
and a hero.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
But you really are.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I mean, you retired a highly decorated captain. You're awarded
two bronze stars, one for valor and a purple Heart.
You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon.
It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth
Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in
combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out numbered,
repeatedly outgunn Yeah, your platoon killed over three hundred and
(22:30):
fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was
able to be so effective in the face of so
much That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I think when you look at the things that the
American military can bring to the fight, you know, like
we've got lots of cool and sexy technology, Like we've
got great guns and weapons, and we've got air superiority
helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that. Believe me
when I tell you all that really really helps. But
(23:00):
I think really our secret weapon was the love and
brotherhood that we shared for one another. You know, we
We spent a lot of time training leading up to
our deployment in Afghanistan, and I feel like I was
very blessed to lead one of the most diverse platoons
that you can imagine. And it's funny when you hear
(23:22):
a lot of these politicians talking about diversity in America
being a strength, and it's like, well, of course, diversity
is a strength, but not in and of itself. What
makes America so truly exceptional is that we unify beyond
like our many differences, right, It's not just diversity for
diversity's sake. And really, my platoon was a microcosm of
(23:45):
that strength. Like we had black next to whites, Christians
next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich next to poor,
young next to old, or we were like as wildly
different as you can imagine. Yet there were no real
hYP There were no hyphenated Americans out there in Afghanistan
patroling those those mountains. And it was the very fact
(24:09):
that I think we were able to put aside all
of our differences and unify beyond them into one cohesive
fighting force. That that that was what allowed us to
go through sixteen months of absolute hell sixteen months of
heavy combat and and make it. You know, you know,
(24:31):
we made ourselves a promise. I think what drove us
every day on the battlefield, Lisa, it was was the
fear of of of not the enemy, but the fear
of letting each other down. You know. I would have
soldiers that would get that would get shot in the head.
A soldier that got shot through his helmet, his helmet
(24:53):
slowed the round down enough where it penetrated his skin
but not his skull, and skirted around the side of
his doll and back out the other end. And that
guy went back to the base, wrapped his head up,
and was back out on patrol twenty four hours later. So,
when you're when you're serving with men or Americans that
(25:16):
have that much like that, the level of toughness and
tenacity and dedication to duty that someone that someone like
that has, how do you fail somebody like that? Like
if you twist an ank, or you you take some shrapnel,
or you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound,
Like how do you how do you how do how
do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by men
(25:39):
like I just described? And so it was the fact
that we were able really to unify beyond our many
differences in fear of letting each other down. That really
drove us to accomplish I think, extraordinary things and and
really I mean it, like my platoon really just accomplish.
(26:00):
It was just one unbelievable triumph of the human spirit
after the next. I mean, we were not like Navy
seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen. So
we were in the tenth Mountain Division and we were
light infantry. I mean we were real well trained and stuff.
Don't get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces.
You know, the most of the jobs that a lot
(26:22):
of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine
gun and the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to
the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these kids
were It's just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's
because we relied on one another, and that's what's what
allowed us to get through it all.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And you're twenty four at the beginning right of this standing.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I mean, how do you do that.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
At twenty four and be responsible for all these brave
men that you just talked about. I mean, what an
incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot when I
was so so God did you do that?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But how do you know?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I don't know. I don't know. You just you know.
I had a conversation with my mom, uh when I
got back from Afghanistan and maybe a couple of years after,
and my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of four, and
so my youngest brother was like like helping my middle
brother move down to Texas or something like that or
and my mom was like, Oh, I'm nervous that your
(27:24):
younger brother, Andy's gonna have to drive drive, you know,
his brother's car all the way down to Texas. And
I'm like thinking, like, ma, Andy's twenty three years old.
Like I think he'll be all right. I was leading
people in Afghanistan at twenty three years old, you know,
So I don't I don't know, you know, yeah, yeah,
it was just like it was just something that we
(27:44):
were laughing about it, you know, I don't after So
I think part of that, Lisa is like I was
a sophomore in college when nine to eleven happened, and
that that hit me that like like it did millions
of other Americans. You know, and I think if you
live through nine to eleven, you can probably tell me
(28:05):
exactly where you were and what you were doing and
what you had plans to do that day. And the
only thing like I was kind of like a I
was kind of a screw up as a kid, Like
my grades were okay, but I didn't really know what
I wanted to do as an elementary education major. But again,
as a sophomore in college, I must have changed my
major a few times. Like, but when nine to eleven happened,
(28:28):
I knew that I wanted to join the army, go
in the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school,
like be on the front lines of our collective response.
And you know, I just knew. I knew it in
my heart of hearts that that was that was the
path that God intended me to walk at that specific
(28:49):
moment in my life. And that's I think. I think
this is my faith in God and that that was
my purpose. I think that that's how I was able
to do it. And you know, twenty three, twenty four
years old, when you when I just feel like when
you know what path you're meant to walk, and you
(29:10):
know that like no matter how bad things get, this
is where you're supposed to be. I've got no regrets.
I just think it gives you a sense of clarity,
you know, about what you're supposed to do. And and
in my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan at
twenty three, twenty four years old, you know, and as
(29:33):
horrible as that combat was, I mean, seriously, like we
we like anythink back to two thousand and six. You don't,
I don't know if you were doing stuff at Fox
back then. I sure as hell wasn't that.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I mean, it was like a staff.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I'm trying to think twenty four.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing
you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
It wasn't a note. I'll tell you how much you know.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I don't know. I mean, we're probably we're probably the
same age, you know, I am, so I'm a little
older than you.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I'll take those couple of years, but you know.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I don't know. I feel like it was the path
I was I was meant to walk, you know, and
you know, get back and you see I was able
to take a company command and then did a Battalian
attachment command, and so at the age of twenty eight
years old, I ended up being in charge of like
eighteen or nineteen hundred like people, where I was in
(30:30):
charge of training young soldiers to go to war and
taking care of the wounded when they came home, and
then looking after the families who were left back at home,
and then ultimately doing the casualty notification, which was ten
times worse than combat. So I've seen both sides of
the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close and personal,
(30:51):
and I've seen the fallout here at home. And what
I was saying earlier is that, like no one expected
michaeltoon or are, experience in Afghanistan leads to be like
what it was like. If you think back to two
thousand and six, and if you're a congressional staffer working
on the hill or something like that back then, then
you know the talk back then was the Iraq War
(31:14):
and whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction
there or should we should George W. Bush send more
troops to the surge in Iraq or not, should we
even be there or not? So at the time, Afghanistan
was just a stability and support operation. We had no
idea what we were getting ourselves into. And man, like
we just got thrown into the meat grind. Or we
(31:36):
were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from
the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple
as you can. You can get find Asama bin Laden,
close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man,
we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered
every single day. I mean my base, my base probably
(32:00):
we took four thousand rockets in four hundred and eighty
five days, four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements.
We just sort of just like got thrown in there.
You know, so much of the focus of this nation
was on Iraq that we couldn't even get up armored
hum best because all it was going to Iraq. Like
we were supposed to come home after a year, we
(32:22):
got extended for four more months, sixteen months. Why because
the soldiers that were supposed to replace us in Afghanistan
got sent to Iraq and supported the surge. So we were
sort of like an afterthought and we went through absolute hell.
And ultimately, Lisa that that's why I wrote the book,
because I thought to myself, like, oh my God, like
(32:43):
nobody knows in this country, and nobody knew how bad
Afghanistan was way back in two thousand and six, nobody.
And I just felt like it was my job as
the leader of that platoon to make sure that the
legacy of my soldiers that was kept alive. And you know,
even if Outlaw Platune ended up being a word document
on my computer that I emailed all of my troops
(33:06):
that like maybe once every ten years we read through
and drank beers or whatever like that would be that's
worth it. At least their experiences on the page preserved forever.
I didn't know that. I didn't know that it would
take off and become a bestseller in its first week,
and I was I feel like I was also lucky.
It was also maybe it was a state when out
(33:26):
Laul Patune came out. Do you remember that story way
back in the day where soldiers at Bagram'm got in
trouble for like burning a Koran or something like that,
and that was like all over the news. It was
like headline news for like a week. Well, outlawl Butatoon
came out at that exact time, and I was like
the young kid with an Afghania with a new Afghanistan
(33:46):
book and you know how that goes on Fox News
stuff like that. Like I was a duke guy with
the books, so I was able to go on there
and promote it and the rest is history. I was just,
it was just it was just a blessing to be
able to have that opportunity own tell tell the story
of my troops.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
You had talked about.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment, being
the US, but you're on their terrain and you're in
the mountains. How difficult is it to try to navigate
that when you know you're you're on their home base, right,
you're in their mountains.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
That is That's another great question.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
It was.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It was ridiculous. I mean, it's another thing about Afghanistan.
Like if you want to go back to a time
where Jesus Christ walk the earth, had the AK forty seven,
like the icon walkie talkie type radio and a pickup truck,
and you've got Afghanistan there. When we were there, there
was like one paved road in the entire country, no
running water, no electricity, no economy. All all fighting age
(34:44):
males would do. All the men in the villages that
we were around would cut down wood all summer and
prep for the winter and that was it. That's all
like there was nothing, nothing, and it's just all tribal.
And so when we were where we were in Burmel,
like Burmel District, was that we were in the valley,
(35:05):
our base was in the valley, but fighting up in
the mountains. I mean we're probably at fourteen fifteen thousand
feet there, you know, in the Hindu Kush mountains. And
so if you if you're like a football fan, that's
like playing a football game at Mayahai Stadium times three.
And the enemy that we faced over there again, like
you hear the media talk about and you certainly saw
(35:29):
this during the collapse of Afghanistan, but the media talks
about the Taliban as if they're a monolithic force, and
they are not. I mean, you have so many different
enemy factions that you face over there on a day
to day basis, whether it's the Heikkani Network or Hekmatia
or al Qaeda or Taliban or just crimes that happened
(35:51):
on a day to day basis like any other country.
That like any other country in the world. And as
a young leader, you've got to like navigate all that
somehow be almost like you know, an ambassador, an American
ambassador with a gun, you know, ready on a moment's
notice to either you know, fire your weapon in defense
(36:11):
of your troops or cradle a baby in a village
where you're doing a humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was
one of the most complex, rugged environments that I certainly
have ever been in. And you know, you add to
that the fact that all of those enemy factions that
I just told you about, like most of those most
(36:32):
of the enemy that we faced in Afghanistan cut their
teeth against the Russians in the eighties and then fought
in the Afghan Civil War in the nineties, and then
against us in a post nine to eleven era. And
you know, the average Afghan that we were fighting had
ten years combat experience on an eighteen year old American private.
(36:55):
You know, this was not a group of farmers with
pitchforks or some sort of ragtag insurgency that they just
mustered up at the last second. Now, the people that
we fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they
displayed on the battlefield on a day to day basis
(37:16):
was just as good, if not better than us, And
they weren't weighed down with one hundred pounds of gear
like we were, and they knew the terrain better than
we did, at least initially, because what you know, as obviously,
being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce. It
was horrible. But what was interesting is this, I don't
(37:37):
mean to sound crass, but we killed so many of
them over there that we were getting intel in May
of two thousand and seven that Pakistan families were sick
and tired of sending their sons into the fight. They
were no longer going to commit male fighters to the
war in Afghanistan. And what we saw is that a
(38:00):
lot of the new fighters that had replaced the older
ones that we had killed didn't know the terrain as
good as us. So it was a real odd dynamic
where at first they were better than us, they were
faster than us, they knew the terrain, but slowly over time,
because we never broke contact, we never surrendered, We always
pressed the enemy. We would never give them that moral
(38:21):
victory on the battlefield. We just slowly whittled away at
their force and killed them one by one to the
point where at the end of sixteen months we knew
the terrain better than they did. And all of this
culminated in an attack probably in January. It was early
January of two thousand and seven. We had built my
(38:42):
PLATOONA had built or my company had built, the first
combat outpost. And I'm sure you've seen, like you know,
can't remember some of the movies' names that the movie
where you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun.
Probably every year after I was in Afghanistan, a combat
outpost had been overrun, Lisa, and and like I was
(39:05):
highly critical of that strategy because like all they would
be manned with almost no combat power, with like a
squad and all they would they would just be simply
relegated to a defensive position. There and all along the
border of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with
what they call cops, like combat outposts, and it almost
looked like a modern day version of the magine O line,
(39:25):
thinking like, well, if we have all these bases along
the border, there's no way the enemy will be able
to get bias and that's complete bs. So anyway, like
they tried to attack this base that we had built
and we ended up kill killing I think like two
hundred plus fighters just in that one engagement decisively because
we caught them just prior to them kicking off the attack.
(39:46):
And I mean, I would wager to say that from
a strategic and tactical standpoint back in two thousand and six.
In two thousand and seven, we had we had decisively
won the fight Afghanistan. And then we shifted from a
counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a counter
terror mission is going after and killing the enemy, and
(40:09):
through killing the enemy you secure the people, to a
counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And you know,
I think there are the strategists that would say that
surge in Iraq was successful. I think I would tend
to agree at least that in the moment back then,
it was pretty successful. Well, they tried to implement that
exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which is an entirely different country,
(40:31):
and once we shifted to counterinsurgency, we lost the initiative
and Afghanistan went slowly downhill from there.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
We've got more of a Memorial Day episode, But first.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Take us back to you know, June tenth, two thousand
and six your platoon was outnumbered by almost ten to one,
ended up leaving you with injuries.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
You know, talk about that day and what happened.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
So June tenth, we had been tasked, we were tasked
with finding a high value target, and we had been
out for a week up until that point. And we
sat up and what we call an observation post, and
we were just watching infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
And we knew that this al Qaeda leader was using
(41:20):
a cave complex to navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which
is how he was avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance
and surveillance drones. So we perched up on this hill,
we laid our sites in on this cave site which
which he thought he was using, and set in for
the night. Woke up the next morning and all throughout
(41:42):
the night I applotted target reference points and confirmed them
with our base. That got target reference point is like
when you've got artillery at your base, you want to
be able to Artillery is basically like big guns, and
you want to be able to get those guns into
the fight as fast as humany possible. Should you make
contact with the enemy. And the best way to do
that is not like trying to plot it in the
middle of a fight, right, I think is the best
(42:04):
military commanders would look at a map and pick key
terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain.
If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to attack.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Us here easily.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So I'm gonna plot this hill it's target reference point one.
And then you can coordinate with the with the guns
and say, look, this is my target reference point one.
When I say fire TRP one, this is what I mean,
and you just you set in target reference point one
through ten prior to even leaving. And so I had
been I'd studied those throughout the night. The sun crested
(42:35):
the hill the next morning, and I remember walking out
and looking at some mountaintops to directly to our east
that were a lot higher than the one that we
were on, and I just thought to myself, that's not
a good tactical position to be in. And so I
don't have the man power to occupy those hills with troops.
In a perfect world, you would just occupy terrain that
(42:58):
was higher than yours would boots, but I didn't have that.
I just had one platoon, so I figured I'd occupy
those hilltops by fire and if enemy was watching us,
they would think twice about setting in there, because I
know that I have those positions diled in, and so
I fired those target reference points with my forward observer,
watched those watch the rounds land on point and on target.
(43:21):
I remember walking back to my truck and it's just
like somebody threw a veil over my entire world, and
I remember I don't remember much, but I do remember
waking up in a smoldering hole about twenty feet from
where I had been standing, laying flat on my back,
(43:43):
and I couldn't see, I couldn't really hear, but I
could feel this stinging on my face and it just
felt like like like someone was slapping me. And as
I blinked my eyes open, I see one of my
team leaders, Tim Stalter, slap me and trying to get
me to wake up, and I finally I wake up,
(44:05):
opened my eyes. I look at him. He's got this
big smile on his face. I'm like, what do you
smile at? What's going on? And he goes, sir, He's like,
you got blown the f up, and he started laughing
like what the hell is he laughing at? And I
remember just like looking beyond him at these trees, because
we had these big, huge trees up on the hilltop
with us that a lot of my men were taking
(44:26):
cover behind, and the tops of these trees that looked
like they hadn't been touched since the prehistoric era, they
were just getting blown to smithereens like this crazy. And
I remember looking to my left hand, which was shaking,
and it just like kind of laying in the Afghan dust,
and I could see rounds landing between my fingers, like
(44:51):
like the level of fire that we were being hit
with was like nothing I've ever seen before or felt
before like it like I felt like there on the
ground with one of my soldiers on top, like if
I moved even one centimeter to the left of the right,
I'd get shot. And that's how heavy the fire was.
And I remember looking to my left and I see
(45:11):
my platoon sergeant Greg Greeson, and his back is like
covered in blood and he's pointing to himself like saying
that he's hit. And all around my perimeter, I had
five gun trucks on the hilltop that day, and I
had twenty four soldiers on the ground, along with one interpreter,
but all along the perimeter. At every one of my trucks,
almost everybody was hit. Like my platoon sergeant was hit.
(45:33):
He's my number two and chain of command. Squadlier Phil
Baldwin was shot in the leg. He wasn't really trying
to deal with that injury, but he was trying to
furiously stop the bleeding of his team leader, Bennett Garvin,
who was shot in the arm. I watched Mike Emrick
up on the up on his fifty caliber machine gun
up on a truck. He got shot in the head,
(45:54):
fell in the truck, popped back up without a salmon on.
I mean, it was all hell was breaking. Within sixty
seconds of getting attacked that day, almost every key meter
in my patune had been hit, including myself. And as
I sat up, like the stalter of the kid that
had brought me back sat me up straight, and I
(46:18):
remember feeling this like clear liquid leaking out of my
nose and my ears. And I didn't know it at
the time, but it ended up being like serebral spinal fluid.
I had fractured my skull very slightly after getting blown up,
and I just remember thinking, well, okay, I'm not bleeding,
it must be something else, and got up and got
back into the fight. And I'm trying to figure out
(46:40):
at this point, like how many people were injured, how
many of my trucks can drive, what weapons systems are
up versus down? How many rounds of ammunition that we
have left, Like I've got to get the artillery at
the base firing back on these guys. I should be
calling for air support. I got to get back to
my truck to do it all. Looking at those hilltops
(47:01):
that I had called for fire on, Lisa, the enemy
had emplaced three machine gun nests on each hilltop that
I called for fire on, So they had six machine
guns dialed in on our position, and they were firing
in what was like an X, like if you had
to draw an X over my hilltop. My hilltop was
right where that where the X intersected, So they had
(47:24):
us in a wicked crossfire. They were at an elevated position,
so they were hitting us with what's called plunging fire,
so they were arcing the rounds down on top of us.
The reason why people do that is because if you're
like taking cover behind a rock, or something. You want
to be able to like drop the round in on
top of them. So it just minimizes minimizes your an
enemy's ability to take cover. And I'm watching them hit
(47:46):
us with plunging fire and thinking like, holy hell, like
how the hell do they know how to do that,
you know? And I'm watching the guns, the support by
fire positions that they had, the two separate ones. They
weren't just firing all of the same time. One gun
would fire and stop, the next gun would fire and stop,
the next one, you know, and so on and so forth.
(48:06):
And the reason why they did that is because if
they fired those guns on like a cyclic rate, their
barrels would melt. So they were firing and letting their
barrels cool like all the way up and down the line. Again,
never fought like that's what we do, Lisa, that that's
how we fight. And so the enemy had hit my
(48:26):
position with airburst mortars to keep the head keep our
heads down, while they simultaneously in placed two separate support
by fire positions. And the next step is I'm trying
to like unpack everything that's happening and really, like when
you're in a moment like that, it's like you remember,
like you ever look through like a kaleidoscope when you're
a kid, and you turn the kaleidoscope and you see
(48:49):
all those colors move around like that. It's all sort
of happening at once. That's like that. It's like being
like that. It's like combat is like that, a million
different things happening all around you all at once. And
I'm trying to figure out what they're going to do,
and I'm thinking, oh my god, like I vower them,
I'd attack, and no sooner did I did. I think
that they did from both of those hilltops, two platoon
(49:13):
size elements, like forty men plus so rushing down those
hilltops and up to our position. But it wasn't just
like a human wave attack. Again. They were one fire
team moving, the other one shooting, and they were bounding
and with squad leader like giving fire team commands. It
was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. So I ended
(49:35):
up getting to my truck and calling for fire. I
called for fire danger close on our position, which essentially
means like right on top of us ourselves. The whole
intent of that is to just try to keep them
off of us and give give my men some time
to react, reload, consolidate, reorganize, and fight back. And I'm
watching these rounds land with ruthless efficiency and like vaporize,
(49:57):
like these guys as they as they they out towards us.
And it didn't matter how many rounds landed, they had
people to replace them. It's just it was just an
unrelenting assault in our position. And they got so close
to us that that we had to blow clay More minds.
Like we put Claymore minds in around our positions just
in case, like we're about to be overrun. So we're
(50:19):
like blowing clay More minds. Like people all my squad
leaders are saying they're going black on ammunition. Every member
of my platoon is hurt. I've got all these casualties
out there stranded, you know. I'm watching my medic try
to carry one of my one of my squad leaders
back to the casualty collection point. He lifts up this guy.
I watch him get shot in the face. He falls down.
(50:42):
I think my medic is dead. He's just Jose Pantoha.
He's this kid from Mexico. He came to America because
he loved he loved the country and wanted to serve
the country. And I remember he got shot in the face.
Was even a citizen of the country who's supposed to
get his citizenship July fourth, a month later. I'm like,
oh my god, he just got shot before he can
become a US citizen. But he got back up. The
(51:04):
entire left side of his face was completely destroyed, but
he got one of my squad leaders to the casualty
collection point. That was the kind of day it was, Lisa,
and we That fight took probably eight at least eight hours.
We dropped probably eleven two thousand pound bombs and at
(51:25):
the end had to bring in a B one Strategic Lancer,
a B one bomber to drop like probably ten more.
And what it ended up happening, Lisa, was that I
called for fire on those target reference points earlier, but
it looked what we had come to learn is that
the enemy at night had planned to attack us, and
(51:48):
I had hit him just before they were going to attack,
and so it was like hitting a hornet's nest with
a baseball bat or something. They were already in position
ready to attack us. I just hit him before they
hit us, which I guess hindsight being twenty twenty, I'm
glad that I did, because it would have probably not
gone as good for us as it did. As even
(52:10):
though it wasn't I mean, all things considered, it wasn't good,
but I would have I was glad that we attacked first,
you know, and every one of my trucks was was destroyed.
They had to be towed off the hill top and
got back to the base that day after like that long,
(52:31):
long firefight, and I think like every member of my
platoons got treated. We took another platoons trucks and went
right back out after the enemy after we got back,
went right back out after them to hunt them down.
And we said in that night, and we did. We
hunted them all down, and we got them. We killed probably,
oh man, we probably killed probably killed like one hundred
(52:52):
people that day, like bad guys tried to attack us.
And so but that's the kind of deployment that we
the kind of employment that we had. It was absolutely hell.
I look back on it, You're like, you asked me,
how did you do it? And the answer is, I
have no freaking clue. I can't believe I lived through it.
I can't believe I made it through all that, you.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Know, Seana, as we recount this and as you look
back and you know, talk about those times, and you know,
we talked about Ukraine going on now, you know, Taiwan.
What should our lessons? What lessons should we learn from
Afghanistan as a society. What do you hope that politicians learn?
What do you hope the country learns from our time
in Afghanistan?
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Just be more careful with America's sons and daughters. You know,
I I know, I know that freedom is worth fighting for,
freedom is worth dying for America. My god, if we
were attacked, I'd be the first in line, ready to
ready to fight back. But we should not be getting
(53:56):
ourselves locked down in these fights that take twenty thirty
forty years, costs tens of thousands of American lives or
wounded Americans, people whose lives are changed forever. You know,
if you lose a love one in Afghanistan, the ripple
effect from that is profound. You have family members, moms, dads, sisters, brothers,
(54:18):
spouses that will never see that person again. And the
whole that that leaves in people's hearts, the void that
it leaves in their lives, is something that it lasts forever,
like every second of every day. And again, please don't
misunderstand me. This is not like a poor me thing. Again,
(54:39):
I would do this again in a second, but every
second of every day the war in Afghanistan is with me.
Doesn't mean that I'm broken, has nothing. You know, I'm fine.
I can handle it. I do it all again. But
it's it's like spywear on your computer. It runs without
you even knowing, you know, like my troops that I
lost in Afghanistan. First thing I think about when I
(55:01):
wake up and the last thing I think about when
I go to sleep. And over twenty years in that fight,
lost so many people in that country that I wish
we're still here. And I think, what's even more tragic
than that is that in however many combat deployments that
my men went on, and they there are some of
my soldiers even went on combat deployments after the one
(55:24):
that I took them on. I mean, we probably we've
lost in my small unit, we've lost more people to
suicide than we have to combat. What does that tell
you about the way in which we take care of
our soldiers, or are our men and women who serve
this country here at home. Not that the VA isn't amazing,
Like I'm grateful and glad that we have the VA,
(55:47):
but the problems that we face here are far greater
than you know, maybe going to see a doctor or
you know, being given some drugs in a paper bag
and hey, send on your way, you know, on behalf
of a great nation. The problems that veterans face here
at home are largely existential problems, cultural problems that I
(56:09):
think America as a country needs to face. And so
what I'd like I'd like to see is that I'd
like to see our politicians be more careful with America's
sons and daughters. Number One, I'd also like to see
America like our country as a whole. And that means
like these little communities that we all live in, like
(56:32):
do everything that we can to recognize our men and
women and serve and that, and I think it needs
to We need to go beyond like thank you for
your service, Like I think we need to to bring
these people like into a high school gymnasium and have
them tell their story if they're willing, in front of
a bunch of high school students, so that those kids
(56:53):
not only learn about what it means to defend freedom,
the legacy of that soldier and the people that that
person lost lives on in the and and the people
that hear that story. Like as I just think as
a society, we need to do more with regards of
bringing our our men and women home and so yeah,
(57:17):
be more careful with America's sons and daughters in American
society getting in the fight from a cultural standpoint, to
to appreciate and love our vets.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Well, that's why we really wanted to have this conversation
with you, you know one not only to just you know, obviously, uh,
to honor that you know, those who have served and
have lost their lives serving this country and defending this country,
but really just sort of bringing awareness to what it
takes and what you guys go through and and why
we should be judicious and why we should be careful
(57:48):
with our people's lives. And I think are you know
our lives are the most or military men and women
or our own people like their lives, that's the most
important thing, right, That's a most cherished asset. Like we
left a bunch of weapons, what are behind in Afghanistan?
Obviously that's a challenge, but it's the lives, it's our
people that we should cherish and be careful with. And
so you know, that's why I really wanted to have
(58:08):
this conversation with you about that.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
And again, your ir Platum was sober.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Over eighty five percent receive purple hearts for wounds they
incurred in battle, and I wanted to get you on
this real quick before we go. You talked about sort
of that that brotherhood that brought you guys together day
in and day out, didn't matter what you're facing.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
You know, you looked beyond. It wasn't about.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Looking at you know, race or religion or any of
these other things. You just saw them as you know,
your brother more or less. Right, And now it's like
we're sort of injecting all these things in the military,
whether it's critical race theory, whether it's things like you know,
gender pronouns.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
And what kind of impact does that have on our military.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
It's it's devastating. It's devastating because again, it's not like
the military is not about diversity, Okay, like it, I'm
grateful to have intellectual diversity in my platoon or in
my units that I commanded, I'm grateful to have racial
(59:08):
diversity or people from a lot of different backgrounds, like
that makes us better. But the problem with a lot
like critical race theory being injected into the military or
some of these others, like I got these people with
their pronouns and their bios and stuff and all this
other stuff, and like, hey, do what you want to do.
But the military is about unifying beyond those differences, not
(59:29):
celebrating them. So anytime, like the whole point of going
through basic training, right, the whole point of it, Lisa,
is you go in there an individual. You know that
you come out a member of a collective team. The
whole point, the reason why you have drill sergeants screaming
in your face and yelling at you the whole time
is to whittle down, break down your sense of individual
(59:52):
self and teach you in a very like rubber meets
the road kind of way that the individual doesn't matter
here anymore. What matters is the collective. And you're only
as fast as your slowest person.
Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
And going to.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Afghanistan the way that we did and experiencing the things
that we did, if that if our dedication to our
team and our unit wasn't first and foremost, we would
have not survived. One hundred percent guarantee you we would
have not survived. And so this focus on oh, like, oh,
(01:00:29):
look how diverse we are, because this is is a strength.
Yeah it is, but it's only a strength in a
military if you unify beyond it. That's where the strength is.
And so I think it's I think it's dangerous. I
think it's real dangerous.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Is there anything else you want to leave us with
before we go?
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
A lot of people You're going to see a lot
of people on Memorial Day talk about like, well, this
isn't for barbecueing, you know, And I would just say, like,
you celebrate Memorial Day the way that you want, because
you know, I feel like my soldiers who haven't been
a who you know, who didn't make it back, they
(01:01:09):
don't get to celebrate at all, you know. And I
think it's incumbent upon all of us. I think it's
really our duty and responsibility to live freely and enjoy
the freedom that they sacrifice themselves to protect. I mean,
of course, you know, if you get them in it,
like you know, if you're drinking a beer or walking
on the beach or reading the book or just sitting
(01:01:31):
on your deck or watching your kids play, like just
say a sign in prayer, and just for the men
and women who didn't come home. But you celebrate the
way that you want in America because that's what the
men and women who sign up and volunteer to serve
this country, that's what they gave their lives to do.
So just just don't forget, never forget them, and have
(01:01:53):
a good Memorial Day.
Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Sean, it's an honor to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
You are a hero, and I thank you so much
for your service or and just sharing you know, what
you went through in Afghanistan and the bravery of your
platoon with my audience and me, and thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Well, thanks for having me, Lisa,
So it's a memorial Day, and obviously on moremorial day
we take a moment, We take a day to remember
the fall and to remember the heroes who have paid
the ultimate sacrifice to defend this nation, defend our country.
We honor the families who have lost loved ones in
the pursuit of freedom to protect this great country. But
beyond taking the time to remember, shouldn't we also reflect?
(00:26):
And shouldn't we also reflect on mistakes that we've made
as a country and things we could change moving forward,
and being more judicious with the lives of our military
men and women. Shouldn't the people in charge shouldn't their
sole duty with our military men and women be to
avoid casualties, avoid sending them to unnecessary wars, so that
(00:48):
we have less men and women who have to pay
the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of freedom. So that's
why I wanted to do this Memorial Day. Not only
honor the fallen and honor their bravery, and honor the
people who give everything this country that they love and
that we love, but also take a time to reflect.
And one of those wars is Afghanistan. You know, it
was the longest war in American history twenty years. We
(01:10):
lost so many service members, so many service men and
women in Afghanistan. So what are the lessons we could
learn there, What should we take from that and do
differently moving forward? And who better to talk to than
Sean Parnell. He is a former US Army airborne ranger
who served in the legendary tenth Mountain Division for six years,
(01:32):
retiring as a captain. He received two Bronze Stars, one
for valor and a Purple Heart as well. He wrote
the New York Times best selling book Outline Platoon, and
he also wrote Man of Ward. Outlaw Platoon details his
sixteen months in combat in Afghanistan. Sixteen months in combat
in Afghanistan. While he was there, his platoon repeatedly was outnumbered,
(01:55):
repeatedly outgunned, and they displayed such tremendous bravery, to the
point that over eighty five percent of his platoon received
Purple Hearts for wounds that they incurred in battle. Sean
was also injured in battle, day in and day out,
fighting for freedom in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was
twenty four at the time. Can you imagine being twenty
(02:18):
four and leading a platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan,
day in, day out, outnumbered, outgunn fighting bravely and fearlessly
next to your brothers in the military and in the Army.
So we're going to get Sean Parnell's take on what
lessons we should learn from Afghanistan, what we could be
(02:40):
doing different moving forward, and how we can truly honor,
to the best of our abilities, the men and women
who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and the pursuit of freedom.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
He's an absolute hero, and he's an absolute badass, Sean Parnell,
Sean Hearnell, you are such a badass and such an
American hero. It's an honor just to have you on
(03:13):
the show. So I really appreciate you taking this time.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Oh well, thanks, Lisa. I don't know if i'd call
myself a badass, but I was in the Army for
a time and I was surrounded by badasses every day,
so I guess I was pretty lucky.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'll call you bad ass. I'll be the one. I'll
do it because you can be humble. I will take
the humility out of it for you.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
You know, we're recording this before but this is going
to air on Memorial Day and obviously a day to
honor the individuals and so many who have paid the
ultimate sacrifice and the name of defending freedom, defending this
great country that we love. But shouldn't we also take
this time to learn lessons from, you know, wars like Afghanistan,
and also use it as a time to be more
(03:55):
judicious in sending our military men and.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Women to war.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I think so, I mean, and you know, I think
I think it speaks directly to the importance of you know,
warriors coming back, you know, American men and women who
fight our wars coming back and being involved with regards
to where our country goes and the decisions that we
make pertaining to the future of America and the wars
(04:19):
that we get ourselves involved in. You know, after I
spent time in Afghanistan back in two thousand and six,
in two thousand and seven, we were there for what
like twenty years. You know, it's a long long time
that I think most most of America, America, it's difficult
to wrap your mind around that length of time, you know,
(04:41):
And so I feel like you look at what happened
in Afghanistan and all the blood, the treasure that we
spent there. Right after twenty years there, you look now
and it's like, well, what do you have to show
for it? You know? And look, I tell you this, like,
I'm proud of my time in Afghanistan. I don't regret
(05:02):
it for a second. I joined after September eleventh. One
of the best experiences of my life was serving this country.
So I am not a victim in any way. I'm
a volunteer and I would do it all again in
a heartbeat. And I'm proud of what we did in Afghanistan,
you know. But I and critics, critics would say, you know,
when I say, well, what'll we have to show for
(05:23):
critics would say, well, look, I mean, you know, look
at what you do, what you built for the Afghans.
You wells in the villages. You know, little girls know
how to read, and you know, boys are part of
the economy now and they understand what what freedom, freedom is,
even if it was just for a brief time. And
I would just say that, yes, that is all true,
but I would rather have my friends alive, you know.
(05:46):
And you look at what's happening today and the Afghani
things in Afghanistan just collapsed what like less than a
year ago, Lisa, right like August twenty twenty one, And
it seems like you have members of Congress on both
sides of the Aisle, in the House and in the
(06:07):
Senate that are clamoring to go right back into the
fight in Ukraine, which from a geopolitical standpoint is it's
far more complicated than Afghanistan. Without even taking a breath
after the Afghan War and saying, wait, is this really
worth it? Should we take time to hit the reset
(06:28):
button as a country and figure out if, if this
fight is worth Americans dying for, Because that's the question
that American moms and dads need to ask themselves, Lisa,
is like, is Ukraine so important that you are willing
to sacrifice your son or daughter for that. If the
answer to that question is no, then we shouldn't be
(06:49):
doing anything for Ukraine. And look, Lisa, I feel bad
for the people there. My heart aches for the civilians
and children who are caught in the middle. Like this
is not me saying like we should ignore it completely,
Like nobody, like a few people in this country understand
that the humanitarian disaster and people stuck in the middle
(07:10):
of the flight than me. I get that, But but
again I would say I would rather have American sons
and daughters alive. You know, I think we need to
take care of ourselves here at home a little bit. First.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
We just see politicians, you know, beating the drums of
war with Ukraine, and Joe Biden said something today about
Taiwan about you know, you should take military action. But
you just hear these politicians and it almost there's a
callousness to it, to be honest, because it doesn't take
into account that, as you pointed out, it's would they.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Send their son or daughter?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You know, it just it doesn't take intoccount Like I
just lives, American people should be the most important to us.
That lives, the precious lives our military men and one.
It should be the most important to us, and it
just doesn't. It doesn't seem to be the case. And
it makes me sad.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Look, you're right, Lisa, I mean, you're right. It's I
think part of the problem is that you you only
have zero point four percent of the people in this
country who served this country during Iraq and Afghanistan, so
twenty twenty years of war, so longest period of war
in American history, only point four percent of the country
actually experienced what it means to protect and defend freedom.
(08:22):
And so I think as a result, you have, you know,
most of America, ninety nine percent of America who enjoy
freedom on a day to day basis in this country,
and you have less than half of one percent who
protect it. So there's there's a significant gap between those
two groups. And I think that's part of the reason why,
(08:47):
you know, you have politicians who really never served anything
but themselves for the majority of their lives, talk so
callously about sending American sons and daughters into the fight
because the reality is they don't have any real understanding
of what that means for American families who are actually
doing the fighting. Like, for example, when I got back
from Afghanistan, a sixteen month combat deployment, sixteen months, like
(09:11):
four hundred and eighty five days, It's like if you
had a kid, it's like, have a good first grade year,
have a good second grade year. I'll see you on
your way to third grade. That's crazy, you know. And
you know, we got back, we hit the reset button.
You know, most of we weren't even back for a
couple of weeks, we already had to go right back
down to Fort Polk, Louisiana. So we got back home,
hugged our families, went back to do trading down to
(09:33):
Fort Polk, Louisiana, and prep for another combat deployment to
Afghanistan that was nine months later. I mean, it's an
incredibly heavy burden that we that we place on a
very very small percentage of Americans, and most of the
time our politicians are unaffected by that. But I guess
it sounds cool when you're up there at the podium,
(09:53):
you know, hey, of China invade Taiwan, like We're going
to get involved militarily, with no real understanding in the
geopolitical consequences or the all out for the American people
or how that would affect people who serve. I mean,
it's it's just irresponsible, especially Lisa, when you consider just
how much suffering there is here within our own borders
(10:14):
at home that I think a lot of our attention
should be focused on.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well, and I think President Trump really changed at least
my thinking on foreign policy because what he was able
to show us is that you can be strong, you
can flex muscle, you can deter the bad guys without
setting troops, without invading, without beating the you know, the
the drum beat for war, and you can do it
like he did when he was sitting with President She,
(10:38):
you know, having chocolate cake, telling him he's sending fifteen
done Tamahook missiles. This yet it right, it's such a
fall or remove or striking these peace deals on the
Abraham Accords. It just changed the way, you know, I
thought about things because he just showed us a different path.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
He really opened my eyes to you know, there there
is a different way, you know, and when you're in Washington,
I mean really, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, there
there is group think right where everyone sort of thinks
the same way about a lot of things. And I
think that's why you hear a lot of people talk
about the uniparty, you know, where you have you know,
(11:14):
people like you know, as ideologically different as Adam Kinsinger
and Ted Cruz both talking about the importance of defending Ukraine,
to even certain Democrats talking about the importance of defending
our ally Ukraine even though they're not an ally. You know,
it's like you see, you see these certain groups of
people that think alike, Lisa, And what I always admired
(11:37):
about President Trump is it takes an unbelievable amount of
mental toughness to resist that type of pressure and group
think right and and Washington, President Trump was I mean, gosh,
at any given moment in d C. In the White House,
both Republicans and Democrats were fired up in anger at
(12:00):
President Trump for different reasons. And that's what I admired
about him the most. And that's ultimately why I think
the American people sent him there, Because there is a
level of dissatisfaction in this country that if people just
got outside the Beltway or New York City or LA
and they took a stroll through you know, Middle America,
(12:20):
they would feel that sense of discontent about the direction
of our country. And President Trump tapped into that. And
you look at what he was able to accomplish in
four years in the face of I mean, what that
man faced in the White House was criminal. It was criminal.
I mean, now we're learning of what Hillary Clinton did,
(12:41):
it was like maybe legitimately criminal, I don't know. But
the things that he was able to accomplish in four
short years I never thought possible. And you know, the
Abraham accorrors and peace in the Middle East. Never thought
that was possible, but he did it. And yeah, like
you said, it really opened my eyes to a new
(13:03):
way of being and that you know, we don't have
to deploy and get locked down and like so almost
become cliche now in these in these forever wars, but
that's really what they are. I mean, twenty freaking years
in Afghanistan is a long time. I mean twenty years.
I mean think about it like this, Like I'm forty
(13:24):
years old. That's half of my life. We were in Afghanistan,
like half of my life. The only profession, the only
thing that I've known is war in Afghanistan. Lost thirty
five plus friends there. I mean, that's a long time.
And I think what President Trump showed us was that
it doesn't have to be that way. We can still
have peace as long as we're focused on the right
(13:45):
stuff and focusing on ourselves at home. And unfortunately, a
year and a half of Joe Biden, he's unraveling that
pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I mean, I never thought it could get this bad. This,
I mean, it's just it's really sad.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
But I but I honestly think I think the turning
point for him was because you know, people thought he
would restore ordery, do all these things, and obviously people
like us knew he wasn't going to do and he
wasn't capable of it. But his ratings really started to
take a nose dive after Afghanistan. And it was the
disastrous exit, the abandoning like the Bagroum airfield before getting
our people out, getting thirteen service members killed, leaving Americans behind,
(14:26):
And I think that was the turning point.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And when that all was going down.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
You tweeted out that the afghandabacles on the suits not
the boots. Talk about that disconnect in the military between
the suits and the boots and how that played out
with Afghanistan so disastrously.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Oh, it was so frustrating to me. And part of
what I do like coming back home after I got
back from Afghanistan was there was realizing very quickly that
a lot there are a lot of men and women
here who serve this country that needed help. And you know,
there's a way in which you come back from war,
and war changes you and some pretty deep and fundamental ways,
(15:02):
and you could you know, you come back and you
meet and talk to your family and you feel like
your family doesn't know you because you've changed, and you
talk to your best friends. And there was a moment
for me like where I'm from Pittsburgh and so like
the first thing I do when I get back from
Afghanistan is like text my buddies, you know who I
went to college with and stuff. And like I open
up my like little flip phone and text them and
(15:25):
they text me back their address and like look at it.
Read the address. I'm like, oh my gosh, Like these
dudes are still living in the same address they've been
living at for ten years, and I just got back
from Afghanistan feel like a totally different person show up
at their I show up at their apartment. I walk
in and like they're like all sitting in the same
spots on the couch, like drinking the same Iron City beer,
(15:48):
talking about the same girl problems. And I'm like Simpson's
posters on the wall and family Guy magnets on the fridge,
and I'm thinking to myself, like, oh my god, like
nothing has changed here at home, but I'm a different
person in every way. And so if I was feeling
like that, there are probably millions of Americans feeling like
that who come home for more and just feel like
(16:10):
they're different, and maybe they feel like exiles in their
own country. And so I started doing everything I could
to make sure that, like the war is really what
I guess I'm getting to Lisa, is that the war
for a lot of veterans really starts when you get home.
And I wanted to just help veterans come home in
(16:31):
the most productive way possible and not just survive on
a day to day basis, but but really but thrive,
you know. And when I tweeted that about Afghanistan, about
it being on the suits and not the boots, was
really it was in that spirit, because I knew there
(16:52):
would be a lot of veterans thinking like, what the
hell was all this for? You know, why the hell
did I Why did I lose my best friend in
this country? Why did I go to this country and
sacrifice a piece of myself there?
Speaker 4 (17:05):
You know?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Why did we do all of this just to have
some moron in the White House throw it all away?
Because I mean, quite honestly, he's a bumbling idiot. Leadership matters,
and he's a commander in chief, so that the term
commander predisposes chief. His job at first and foremost an
obligation to our American military, and it was a dereliction
(17:29):
of duty of the highest order of what he did
in Afghanistan. And it's not just it's not just leaving
Americans behind, which is horrific, horrific enough, right, I can't
even believe I had to say this, but the sacrifice
that twenty years of Americans bled the ground red in
Afghanistan just to seed it back to the Taliban in
(17:49):
a few weeks. I mean, that's a that's a crime.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
It's a crime, and it's it's gonna do unbelievable moral
damage to people who served there, that the ramstifications of
which I don't think we fully understand yet.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And so it's just like unbelievable to have to witness
the fall of Afghanistan in the speed at which it
fell here in America after having been there for twenty years.
And again, never ever, ever, ever would have happened under
President Trump, or really any American president that could speak
(18:27):
in coherence sentences without having to read off a sheet
of paper. I mean, just unbelievable. And you can't help
but think, you cannot help but think like I used
to joke around in the campaign trail when I was
running for the House in the Senate, well mostly when
I was running for the Senate, but about like just
to utter incompetence. But I don't think it's incompetence. I
(18:47):
think it's I think it's intentional. I think that this
is you can't be this good. I mean, he's Joe
Biden in his administration, a bunch of Obama appointees two
point zero right back in the White House, some of
which are sermon in the same cabinet positions. It's like
they're unbelievably efficient, ruthlessly efficient at destroying almost every pillar
(19:12):
in this country, I mean every country. Like it's unbelievable
that the level of which they're failing. And I think
Afghanistan was just one of those pillars.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Well, I think we all just felt such amount of
shame with the way that we exited, just the loss
of military men and women, or those thirteen service members
and just leaving Americans behind. Quick commercial break back with
Sean Parnell on the other side, talked about sort of
you know the challenge with coming home when you've been
(19:45):
at war like that out I'll say one of the
most rewarding experiences I've ever had in my career was
doing an honor ear flight for Vietnam war vets from
Wisconsin for Fox and Friends. And I went on this
trip with them, and I'll tell you it was just
such a movie experience talking to these like big strong
guys who were just brought to tears of just feeling
the honor of having served because they didn't get the
(20:08):
welcome they deserved when they came home. And so just
doing the interviews with them and seeing these you know,
grown men and you know cry and just it was
just incredibly moving and I learned a lot from it.
It was just a really you know, humbling and just
incredible experience, you know, spending time with them and just
being able to bless them and being part of this
with the trip.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, well, Vietnam vets are I mean, we owe them
so much, and obviously because as you mentioned, they didn't
have the welcome home that we did. And so much
of the reason why my generation was welcomed home was
because after like what these Vietnam what the Vietnam era
(20:48):
went through, they made themselves a promise and never allow
another generation to veteran to experience what they did, and
because of that, like we had by and large, a
very positive homecoming, you know. And when I talk about
feeling like an exile in your own country, I should say,
like almost everybody that you talk to says thank you
(21:09):
for your service. I am not again, Like, we're lucky
to live in a country like America and come home
to people that appreciate you. And that that is because
of Vietnam veterans who went through hell when they came back,
went through hell in combat, through hell, and they came
back and then but didn't give in. And they they
(21:29):
they made a promise to you know, subsequent generations of
Americans when they came home from the fight, and that
promise was to never allow what they went through to
happen again. And I mean, really, my generation is standing
on the shoulders of giants with them and World War
two veterans and Korea veterans before them. So yeah, we're lucky.
(21:52):
We're lucky to live in this country. But there's still
a lot of work to do, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I can't imagine how it doesn't change you.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I particularly some of this stuff uf that you endured,
you know, I know you very humbly. You know, didn't
take me saying that you're, you know, a complete badass
and a hero.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
But you really are.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I mean, you retired a highly decorated captain. You're awarded
two bronze stars, one for valor and a purple Heart.
You wrote the New York Times best selling book, Outlaw Platoon.
It's about your time serving as commanding the Army's tenth
Mountain Division in Afghanistan. As you mentioned, you served in
combat for sixteen months. You guys were repeatedly out numbered,
repeatedly outgunn Yeah, your platoon killed over three hundred and
(22:30):
fifty enemy fighters. Why do you think your platoon was
able to be so effective in the face of so
much That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I think when you look at the things that the
American military can bring to the fight, you know, like
we've got lots of cool and sexy technology, Like we've
got great guns and weapons, and we've got air superiority
helicopter and fixed wing aircraft and all that. Believe me
when I tell you all that really really helps. But
(23:00):
I think really our secret weapon was the love and
brotherhood that we shared for one another. You know, we
We spent a lot of time training leading up to
our deployment in Afghanistan, and I feel like I was
very blessed to lead one of the most diverse platoons
that you can imagine. And it's funny when you hear
(23:22):
a lot of these politicians talking about diversity in America
being a strength, and it's like, well, of course, diversity
is a strength, but not in and of itself. What
makes America so truly exceptional is that we unify beyond
like our many differences, right, It's not just diversity for
diversity's sake. And really, my platoon was a microcosm of
(23:45):
that strength. Like we had black next to whites, Christians
next to atheists, Democrats next to Republican, rich next to poor,
young next to old, or we were like as wildly
different as you can imagine. Yet there were no real
hYP There were no hyphenated Americans out there in Afghanistan
patroling those those mountains. And it was the very fact
(24:09):
that I think we were able to put aside all
of our differences and unify beyond them into one cohesive
fighting force. That that that was what allowed us to
go through sixteen months of absolute hell sixteen months of
heavy combat and and make it. You know, you know,
(24:31):
we made ourselves a promise. I think what drove us
every day on the battlefield, Lisa, it was was the
fear of of of not the enemy, but the fear
of letting each other down. You know. I would have
soldiers that would get that would get shot in the head.
A soldier that got shot through his helmet, his helmet
(24:53):
slowed the round down enough where it penetrated his skin
but not his skull, and skirted around the side of
his doll and back out the other end. And that
guy went back to the base, wrapped his head up,
and was back out on patrol twenty four hours later. So,
when you're when you're serving with men or Americans that
(25:16):
have that much like that, the level of toughness and
tenacity and dedication to duty that someone that someone like
that has, how do you fail somebody like that? Like
if you twist an ank, or you you take some shrapnel,
or you get maybe a shot, but it's a grazing wound,
Like how do you how do you how do how
do you not saddle up when you're surrounded by men
(25:39):
like I just described? And so it was the fact
that we were able really to unify beyond our many
differences in fear of letting each other down. That really
drove us to accomplish I think, extraordinary things and and
really I mean it, like my platoon really just accomplish.
(26:00):
It was just one unbelievable triumph of the human spirit
after the next. I mean, we were not like Navy
seals or anything. You know, we were light infantrymen. So
we were in the tenth Mountain Division and we were
light infantry. I mean we were real well trained and stuff.
Don't get me wrong, but you know, we weren't special forces.
You know, the most of the jobs that a lot
(26:22):
of these kids had, like prior to carrying a machine
gun and the mountains of Afghanistan, the job prior to
the military is like high school shortstop. Yet these kids
were It's just accomplished unbelievable things. And I think it's
because we relied on one another, and that's what's what
allowed us to get through it all.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And you're twenty four at the beginning right of this standing.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I mean, how do you do that.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
At twenty four and be responsible for all these brave
men that you just talked about. I mean, what an
incredible amount of responsibility. I was an idiot when I
was so so God did you do that?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But how do you know?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I don't know. I don't know. You just you know.
I had a conversation with my mom, uh when I
got back from Afghanistan and maybe a couple of years after,
and my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of four, and
so my youngest brother was like like helping my middle
brother move down to Texas or something like that or
and my mom was like, Oh, I'm nervous that your
(27:24):
younger brother, Andy's gonna have to drive drive, you know,
his brother's car all the way down to Texas. And
I'm like thinking, like, ma, Andy's twenty three years old.
Like I think he'll be all right. I was leading
people in Afghanistan at twenty three years old, you know,
So I don't I don't know, you know, yeah, yeah,
it was just like it was just something that we
(27:44):
were laughing about it, you know, I don't after So
I think part of that, Lisa is like I was
a sophomore in college when nine to eleven happened, and
that that hit me that like like it did millions
of other Americans. You know, and I think if you
live through nine to eleven, you can probably tell me
(28:05):
exactly where you were and what you were doing and
what you had plans to do that day. And the
only thing like I was kind of like a I
was kind of a screw up as a kid, Like
my grades were okay, but I didn't really know what
I wanted to do as an elementary education major. But again,
as a sophomore in college, I must have changed my
major a few times. Like, but when nine to eleven happened,
(28:28):
I knew that I wanted to join the army, go
in the infantry, go to airborne school, go to ranger school,
like be on the front lines of our collective response.
And you know, I just knew. I knew it in
my heart of hearts that that was that was the
path that God intended me to walk at that specific
(28:49):
moment in my life. And that's I think. I think
this is my faith in God and that that was
my purpose. I think that that's how I was able
to do it. And you know, twenty three, twenty four
years old, when you when I just feel like when
you know what path you're meant to walk, and you
(29:10):
know that like no matter how bad things get, this
is where you're supposed to be. I've got no regrets.
I just think it gives you a sense of clarity,
you know, about what you're supposed to do. And and
in my case, it was lead troops in Afghanistan at
twenty three, twenty four years old, you know, and as
(29:33):
horrible as that combat was, I mean, seriously, like we
we like anythink back to two thousand and six. You don't,
I don't know if you were doing stuff at Fox
back then. I sure as hell wasn't that.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I mean, it was like a staff.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I'm trying to think twenty four.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think it was like working on Capitol Hill doing
you know, like nothing of nothing like you were doing.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
It wasn't a note. I'll tell you how much you know.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I don't know. I mean, we're probably we're probably the
same age, you know, I am, so I'm a little
older than you.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I'll take those couple of years, but you know.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I don't know. I feel like it was the path
I was I was meant to walk, you know, and
you know, get back and you see I was able
to take a company command and then did a Battalian
attachment command, and so at the age of twenty eight
years old, I ended up being in charge of like
eighteen or nineteen hundred like people, where I was in
(30:30):
charge of training young soldiers to go to war and
taking care of the wounded when they came home, and
then looking after the families who were left back at home,
and then ultimately doing the casualty notification, which was ten
times worse than combat. So I've seen both sides of
the fight. I've seen I've seen combat up close and personal,
(30:51):
and I've seen the fallout here at home. And what
I was saying earlier is that, like no one expected
michaeltoon or are, experience in Afghanistan leads to be like
what it was like. If you think back to two
thousand and six, and if you're a congressional staffer working
on the hill or something like that back then, then
you know the talk back then was the Iraq War
(31:14):
and whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction
there or should we should George W. Bush send more
troops to the surge in Iraq or not, should we
even be there or not? So at the time, Afghanistan
was just a stability and support operation. We had no
idea what we were getting ourselves into. And man, like
we just got thrown into the meat grind. Or we
(31:36):
were an eastern Afghanistan about five clicks five kilometers from
the Pakistan border. Our mission was like about as simple
as you can. You can get find Asama bin Laden,
close with and destroy the enemy, that's it. And man,
we just got attacked every single day. We were outnumbered
every single day. I mean my base, my base probably
(32:00):
we took four thousand rockets in four hundred and eighty
five days, four thousand, you know, hundreds of direct fire engagements.
We just sort of just like got thrown in there.
You know, so much of the focus of this nation
was on Iraq that we couldn't even get up armored
hum best because all it was going to Iraq. Like
we were supposed to come home after a year, we
(32:22):
got extended for four more months, sixteen months. Why because
the soldiers that were supposed to replace us in Afghanistan
got sent to Iraq and supported the surge. So we were
sort of like an afterthought and we went through absolute hell.
And ultimately, Lisa that that's why I wrote the book,
because I thought to myself, like, oh my God, like
(32:43):
nobody knows in this country, and nobody knew how bad
Afghanistan was way back in two thousand and six, nobody.
And I just felt like it was my job as
the leader of that platoon to make sure that the
legacy of my soldiers that was kept alive. And you know,
even if Outlaw Platune ended up being a word document
on my computer that I emailed all of my troops
(33:06):
that like maybe once every ten years we read through
and drank beers or whatever like that would be that's
worth it. At least their experiences on the page preserved forever.
I didn't know that. I didn't know that it would
take off and become a bestseller in its first week,
and I was I feel like I was also lucky.
It was also maybe it was a state when out
(33:26):
Laul Patune came out. Do you remember that story way
back in the day where soldiers at Bagram'm got in
trouble for like burning a Koran or something like that,
and that was like all over the news. It was
like headline news for like a week. Well, outlawl Butatoon
came out at that exact time, and I was like
the young kid with an Afghania with a new Afghanistan
(33:46):
book and you know how that goes on Fox News
stuff like that. Like I was a duke guy with
the books, so I was able to go on there
and promote it and the rest is history. I was just,
it was just it was just a blessing to be
able to have that opportunity own tell tell the story
of my troops.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
You had talked about.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You know, obviously we had superior you know, equipment, being
the US, but you're on their terrain and you're in
the mountains. How difficult is it to try to navigate
that when you know you're you're on their home base, right,
you're in their mountains.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
That is That's another great question.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
It was.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It was ridiculous. I mean, it's another thing about Afghanistan.
Like if you want to go back to a time
where Jesus Christ walk the earth, had the AK forty seven,
like the icon walkie talkie type radio and a pickup truck,
and you've got Afghanistan there. When we were there, there
was like one paved road in the entire country, no
running water, no electricity, no economy. All all fighting age
(34:44):
males would do. All the men in the villages that
we were around would cut down wood all summer and
prep for the winter and that was it. That's all
like there was nothing, nothing, and it's just all tribal.
And so when we were where we were in Burmel,
like Burmel District, was that we were in the valley,
(35:05):
our base was in the valley, but fighting up in
the mountains. I mean we're probably at fourteen fifteen thousand
feet there, you know, in the Hindu Kush mountains. And
so if you if you're like a football fan, that's
like playing a football game at Mayahai Stadium times three.
And the enemy that we faced over there again, like
you hear the media talk about and you certainly saw
(35:29):
this during the collapse of Afghanistan, but the media talks
about the Taliban as if they're a monolithic force, and
they are not. I mean, you have so many different
enemy factions that you face over there on a day
to day basis, whether it's the Heikkani Network or Hekmatia
or al Qaeda or Taliban or just crimes that happened
(35:51):
on a day to day basis like any other country.
That like any other country in the world. And as
a young leader, you've got to like navigate all that
somehow be almost like you know, an ambassador, an American
ambassador with a gun, you know, ready on a moment's
notice to either you know, fire your weapon in defense
(36:11):
of your troops or cradle a baby in a village
where you're doing a humanitarian distribution. I mean, it was
one of the most complex, rugged environments that I certainly
have ever been in. And you know, you add to
that the fact that all of those enemy factions that
I just told you about, like most of those most
(36:32):
of the enemy that we faced in Afghanistan cut their
teeth against the Russians in the eighties and then fought
in the Afghan Civil War in the nineties, and then
against us in a post nine to eleven era. And
you know, the average Afghan that we were fighting had
ten years combat experience on an eighteen year old American private.
(36:55):
You know, this was not a group of farmers with
pitchforks or some sort of ragtag insurgency that they just
mustered up at the last second. Now, the people that
we fought there, the level of tactical acumen that they
displayed on the battlefield on a day to day basis
(37:16):
was just as good, if not better than us, And
they weren't weighed down with one hundred pounds of gear
like we were, and they knew the terrain better than
we did, at least initially, because what you know, as obviously,
being in Afghanistan for sixteen months sucked something fierce. It
was horrible. But what was interesting is this, I don't
(37:37):
mean to sound crass, but we killed so many of
them over there that we were getting intel in May
of two thousand and seven that Pakistan families were sick
and tired of sending their sons into the fight. They
were no longer going to commit male fighters to the
war in Afghanistan. And what we saw is that a
(38:00):
lot of the new fighters that had replaced the older
ones that we had killed didn't know the terrain as
good as us. So it was a real odd dynamic
where at first they were better than us, they were
faster than us, they knew the terrain, but slowly over time,
because we never broke contact, we never surrendered, We always
pressed the enemy. We would never give them that moral
(38:21):
victory on the battlefield. We just slowly whittled away at
their force and killed them one by one to the
point where at the end of sixteen months we knew
the terrain better than they did. And all of this
culminated in an attack probably in January. It was early
January of two thousand and seven. We had built my
(38:42):
PLATOONA had built or my company had built, the first
combat outpost. And I'm sure you've seen, like you know,
can't remember some of the movies' names that the movie
where you see in Afghanistan a combat outpost getting overrun.
Probably every year after I was in Afghanistan, a combat
outpost had been overrun, Lisa, and and like I was
(39:05):
highly critical of that strategy because like all they would
be manned with almost no combat power, with like a
squad and all they would they would just be simply
relegated to a defensive position. There and all along the
border of Afghanistan, you had like a main base with
what they call cops, like combat outposts, and it almost
looked like a modern day version of the magine O line,
(39:25):
thinking like, well, if we have all these bases along
the border, there's no way the enemy will be able
to get bias and that's complete bs. So anyway, like
they tried to attack this base that we had built
and we ended up kill killing I think like two
hundred plus fighters just in that one engagement decisively because
we caught them just prior to them kicking off the attack.
(39:46):
And I mean, I would wager to say that from
a strategic and tactical standpoint back in two thousand and six.
In two thousand and seven, we had we had decisively
won the fight Afghanistan. And then we shifted from a
counter terror mission, which the basic premise of a counter
terror mission is going after and killing the enemy, and
(40:09):
through killing the enemy you secure the people, to a
counterinsurgency mission, like after the surge in Iraq. And you know,
I think there are the strategists that would say that
surge in Iraq was successful. I think I would tend
to agree at least that in the moment back then,
it was pretty successful. Well, they tried to implement that
exact same strategy in Afghanistan, which is an entirely different country,
(40:31):
and once we shifted to counterinsurgency, we lost the initiative
and Afghanistan went slowly downhill from there.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
We've got more of a Memorial Day episode, But first.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Take us back to you know, June tenth, two thousand
and six your platoon was outnumbered by almost ten to one,
ended up leaving you with injuries.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
You know, talk about that day and what happened.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
So June tenth, we had been tasked, we were tasked
with finding a high value target, and we had been
out for a week up until that point. And we
sat up and what we call an observation post, and
we were just watching infiltration routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
And we knew that this al Qaeda leader was using
(41:20):
a cave complex to navigate from Pakistan into Afghanistan, which
is how he was avoiding like our intelligence and reconnaissance
and surveillance drones. So we perched up on this hill,
we laid our sites in on this cave site which
which he thought he was using, and set in for
the night. Woke up the next morning and all throughout
(41:42):
the night I applotted target reference points and confirmed them
with our base. That got target reference point is like
when you've got artillery at your base, you want to
be able to Artillery is basically like big guns, and
you want to be able to get those guns into
the fight as fast as humany possible. Should you make
contact with the enemy. And the best way to do
that is not like trying to plot it in the
middle of a fight, right, I think is the best
(42:04):
military commanders would look at a map and pick key
terrain and say, okay, this hilltop here is key terrain.
If the enemy takes this hilltop, they'll be able to attack.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Us here easily.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So I'm gonna plot this hill it's target reference point one.
And then you can coordinate with the with the guns
and say, look, this is my target reference point one.
When I say fire TRP one, this is what I mean,
and you just you set in target reference point one
through ten prior to even leaving. And so I had
been I'd studied those throughout the night. The sun crested
(42:35):
the hill the next morning, and I remember walking out
and looking at some mountaintops to directly to our east
that were a lot higher than the one that we
were on, and I just thought to myself, that's not
a good tactical position to be in. And so I
don't have the man power to occupy those hills with troops.
In a perfect world, you would just occupy terrain that
(42:58):
was higher than yours would boots, but I didn't have that.
I just had one platoon, so I figured I'd occupy
those hilltops by fire and if enemy was watching us,
they would think twice about setting in there, because I
know that I have those positions diled in, and so
I fired those target reference points with my forward observer,
watched those watch the rounds land on point and on target.
(43:21):
I remember walking back to my truck and it's just
like somebody threw a veil over my entire world, and
I remember I don't remember much, but I do remember
waking up in a smoldering hole about twenty feet from
where I had been standing, laying flat on my back,
(43:43):
and I couldn't see, I couldn't really hear, but I
could feel this stinging on my face and it just
felt like like like someone was slapping me. And as
I blinked my eyes open, I see one of my
team leaders, Tim Stalter, slap me and trying to get
me to wake up, and I finally I wake up,
(44:05):
opened my eyes. I look at him. He's got this
big smile on his face. I'm like, what do you
smile at? What's going on? And he goes, sir, He's like,
you got blown the f up, and he started laughing
like what the hell is he laughing at? And I
remember just like looking beyond him at these trees, because
we had these big, huge trees up on the hilltop
with us that a lot of my men were taking
(44:26):
cover behind, and the tops of these trees that looked
like they hadn't been touched since the prehistoric era, they
were just getting blown to smithereens like this crazy. And
I remember looking to my left hand, which was shaking,
and it just like kind of laying in the Afghan dust,
and I could see rounds landing between my fingers, like
(44:51):
like the level of fire that we were being hit
with was like nothing I've ever seen before or felt
before like it like I felt like there on the
ground with one of my soldiers on top, like if
I moved even one centimeter to the left of the right,
I'd get shot. And that's how heavy the fire was.
And I remember looking to my left and I see
(45:11):
my platoon sergeant Greg Greeson, and his back is like
covered in blood and he's pointing to himself like saying
that he's hit. And all around my perimeter, I had
five gun trucks on the hilltop that day, and I
had twenty four soldiers on the ground, along with one interpreter,
but all along the perimeter. At every one of my trucks,
almost everybody was hit. Like my platoon sergeant was hit.
(45:33):
He's my number two and chain of command. Squadlier Phil
Baldwin was shot in the leg. He wasn't really trying
to deal with that injury, but he was trying to
furiously stop the bleeding of his team leader, Bennett Garvin,
who was shot in the arm. I watched Mike Emrick
up on the up on his fifty caliber machine gun
up on a truck. He got shot in the head,
(45:54):
fell in the truck, popped back up without a salmon on.
I mean, it was all hell was breaking. Within sixty
seconds of getting attacked that day, almost every key meter
in my patune had been hit, including myself. And as
I sat up, like the stalter of the kid that
had brought me back sat me up straight, and I
(46:18):
remember feeling this like clear liquid leaking out of my
nose and my ears. And I didn't know it at
the time, but it ended up being like serebral spinal fluid.
I had fractured my skull very slightly after getting blown up,
and I just remember thinking, well, okay, I'm not bleeding,
it must be something else, and got up and got
back into the fight. And I'm trying to figure out
(46:40):
at this point, like how many people were injured, how
many of my trucks can drive, what weapons systems are
up versus down? How many rounds of ammunition that we
have left, Like I've got to get the artillery at
the base firing back on these guys. I should be
calling for air support. I got to get back to
my truck to do it all. Looking at those hilltops
(47:01):
that I had called for fire on, Lisa, the enemy
had emplaced three machine gun nests on each hilltop that
I called for fire on, So they had six machine
guns dialed in on our position, and they were firing
in what was like an X, like if you had
to draw an X over my hilltop. My hilltop was
right where that where the X intersected, So they had
(47:24):
us in a wicked crossfire. They were at an elevated position,
so they were hitting us with what's called plunging fire,
so they were arcing the rounds down on top of us.
The reason why people do that is because if you're
like taking cover behind a rock, or something. You want
to be able to like drop the round in on
top of them. So it just minimizes minimizes your an
enemy's ability to take cover. And I'm watching them hit
(47:46):
us with plunging fire and thinking like, holy hell, like
how the hell do they know how to do that,
you know? And I'm watching the guns, the support by
fire positions that they had, the two separate ones. They
weren't just firing all of the same time. One gun
would fire and stop, the next gun would fire and stop,
the next one, you know, and so on and so forth.
(48:06):
And the reason why they did that is because if
they fired those guns on like a cyclic rate, their
barrels would melt. So they were firing and letting their
barrels cool like all the way up and down the line. Again,
never fought like that's what we do, Lisa, that that's
how we fight. And so the enemy had hit my
(48:26):
position with airburst mortars to keep the head keep our
heads down, while they simultaneously in placed two separate support
by fire positions. And the next step is I'm trying
to like unpack everything that's happening and really, like when
you're in a moment like that, it's like you remember,
like you ever look through like a kaleidoscope when you're
a kid, and you turn the kaleidoscope and you see
(48:49):
all those colors move around like that. It's all sort
of happening at once. That's like that. It's like being
like that. It's like combat is like that, a million
different things happening all around you all at once. And
I'm trying to figure out what they're going to do,
and I'm thinking, oh my god, like I vower them,
I'd attack, and no sooner did I did. I think
that they did from both of those hilltops, two platoon
(49:13):
size elements, like forty men plus so rushing down those
hilltops and up to our position. But it wasn't just
like a human wave attack. Again. They were one fire
team moving, the other one shooting, and they were bounding
and with squad leader like giving fire team commands. It
was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. So I ended
(49:35):
up getting to my truck and calling for fire. I
called for fire danger close on our position, which essentially
means like right on top of us ourselves. The whole
intent of that is to just try to keep them
off of us and give give my men some time
to react, reload, consolidate, reorganize, and fight back. And I'm
watching these rounds land with ruthless efficiency and like vaporize,
(49:57):
like these guys as they as they they out towards us.
And it didn't matter how many rounds landed, they had
people to replace them. It's just it was just an
unrelenting assault in our position. And they got so close
to us that that we had to blow clay More minds.
Like we put Claymore minds in around our positions just
in case, like we're about to be overrun. So we're
(50:19):
like blowing clay More minds. Like people all my squad
leaders are saying they're going black on ammunition. Every member
of my platoon is hurt. I've got all these casualties
out there stranded, you know. I'm watching my medic try
to carry one of my one of my squad leaders
back to the casualty collection point. He lifts up this guy.
I watch him get shot in the face. He falls down.
(50:42):
I think my medic is dead. He's just Jose Pantoha.
He's this kid from Mexico. He came to America because
he loved he loved the country and wanted to serve
the country. And I remember he got shot in the face.
Was even a citizen of the country who's supposed to
get his citizenship July fourth, a month later. I'm like,
oh my god, he just got shot before he can
become a US citizen. But he got back up. The
(51:04):
entire left side of his face was completely destroyed, but
he got one of my squad leaders to the casualty
collection point. That was the kind of day it was, Lisa,
and we That fight took probably eight at least eight hours.
We dropped probably eleven two thousand pound bombs and at
(51:25):
the end had to bring in a B one Strategic Lancer,
a B one bomber to drop like probably ten more.
And what it ended up happening, Lisa, was that I
called for fire on those target reference points earlier, but
it looked what we had come to learn is that
the enemy at night had planned to attack us, and
(51:48):
I had hit him just before they were going to attack,
and so it was like hitting a hornet's nest with
a baseball bat or something. They were already in position
ready to attack us. I just hit him before they
hit us, which I guess hindsight being twenty twenty, I'm
glad that I did, because it would have probably not
gone as good for us as it did. As even
(52:10):
though it wasn't I mean, all things considered, it wasn't good,
but I would have I was glad that we attacked first,
you know, and every one of my trucks was was destroyed.
They had to be towed off the hill top and
got back to the base that day after like that long,
(52:31):
long firefight, and I think like every member of my
platoons got treated. We took another platoons trucks and went
right back out after the enemy after we got back,
went right back out after them to hunt them down.
And we said in that night, and we did. We
hunted them all down, and we got them. We killed probably,
oh man, we probably killed probably killed like one hundred
(52:52):
people that day, like bad guys tried to attack us.
And so but that's the kind of deployment that we
the kind of employment that we had. It was absolutely hell.
I look back on it, You're like, you asked me,
how did you do it? And the answer is, I
have no freaking clue. I can't believe I lived through it.
I can't believe I made it through all that, you.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Know, Seana, as we recount this and as you look
back and you know, talk about those times, and you know,
we talked about Ukraine going on now, you know, Taiwan.
What should our lessons? What lessons should we learn from
Afghanistan as a society. What do you hope that politicians learn?
What do you hope the country learns from our time
in Afghanistan?
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Just be more careful with America's sons and daughters. You know,
I I know, I know that freedom is worth fighting for,
freedom is worth dying for America. My god, if we
were attacked, I'd be the first in line, ready to
ready to fight back. But we should not be getting
(53:56):
ourselves locked down in these fights that take twenty thirty
forty years, costs tens of thousands of American lives or
wounded Americans, people whose lives are changed forever. You know,
if you lose a love one in Afghanistan, the ripple
effect from that is profound. You have family members, moms, dads, sisters, brothers,
(54:18):
spouses that will never see that person again. And the
whole that that leaves in people's hearts, the void that
it leaves in their lives, is something that it lasts forever,
like every second of every day. And again, please don't
misunderstand me. This is not like a poor me thing. Again,
(54:39):
I would do this again in a second, but every
second of every day the war in Afghanistan is with me.
Doesn't mean that I'm broken, has nothing. You know, I'm fine.
I can handle it. I do it all again. But
it's it's like spywear on your computer. It runs without
you even knowing, you know, like my troops that I
lost in Afghanistan. First thing I think about when I
(55:01):
wake up and the last thing I think about when
I go to sleep. And over twenty years in that fight,
lost so many people in that country that I wish
we're still here. And I think, what's even more tragic
than that is that in however many combat deployments that
my men went on, and they there are some of
my soldiers even went on combat deployments after the one
(55:24):
that I took them on. I mean, we probably we've
lost in my small unit, we've lost more people to
suicide than we have to combat. What does that tell
you about the way in which we take care of
our soldiers, or are our men and women who serve
this country here at home. Not that the VA isn't amazing,
Like I'm grateful and glad that we have the VA,
(55:47):
but the problems that we face here are far greater
than you know, maybe going to see a doctor or
you know, being given some drugs in a paper bag
and hey, send on your way, you know, on behalf
of a great nation. The problems that veterans face here
at home are largely existential problems, cultural problems that I
(56:09):
think America as a country needs to face. And so
what I'd like I'd like to see is that I'd
like to see our politicians be more careful with America's
sons and daughters. Number One, I'd also like to see
America like our country as a whole. And that means
like these little communities that we all live in, like
(56:32):
do everything that we can to recognize our men and
women and serve and that, and I think it needs
to We need to go beyond like thank you for
your service, Like I think we need to to bring
these people like into a high school gymnasium and have
them tell their story if they're willing, in front of
a bunch of high school students, so that those kids
(56:53):
not only learn about what it means to defend freedom,
the legacy of that soldier and the people that that
person lost lives on in the and and the people
that hear that story. Like as I just think as
a society, we need to do more with regards of
bringing our our men and women home and so yeah,
(57:17):
be more careful with America's sons and daughters in American
society getting in the fight from a cultural standpoint, to
to appreciate and love our vets.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Well, that's why we really wanted to have this conversation
with you, you know one not only to just you know, obviously, uh,
to honor that you know, those who have served and
have lost their lives serving this country and defending this country,
but really just sort of bringing awareness to what it
takes and what you guys go through and and why
we should be judicious and why we should be careful
(57:48):
with our people's lives. And I think are you know
our lives are the most or military men and women
or our own people like their lives, that's the most
important thing, right, That's a most cherished asset. Like we
left a bunch of weapons, what are behind in Afghanistan?
Obviously that's a challenge, but it's the lives, it's our
people that we should cherish and be careful with. And
so you know, that's why I really wanted to have
(58:08):
this conversation with you about that.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
And again, your ir Platum was sober.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Over eighty five percent receive purple hearts for wounds they
incurred in battle, and I wanted to get you on
this real quick before we go. You talked about sort
of that that brotherhood that brought you guys together day
in and day out, didn't matter what you're facing.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
You know, you looked beyond. It wasn't about.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
Looking at you know, race or religion or any of
these other things. You just saw them as you know,
your brother more or less. Right, And now it's like
we're sort of injecting all these things in the military,
whether it's critical race theory, whether it's things like you know,
gender pronouns.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
And what kind of impact does that have on our military.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
It's it's devastating. It's devastating because again, it's not like
the military is not about diversity, Okay, like it, I'm
grateful to have intellectual diversity in my platoon or in
my units that I commanded, I'm grateful to have racial
(59:08):
diversity or people from a lot of different backgrounds, like
that makes us better. But the problem with a lot
like critical race theory being injected into the military or
some of these others, like I got these people with
their pronouns and their bios and stuff and all this
other stuff, and like, hey, do what you want to do.
But the military is about unifying beyond those differences, not
(59:29):
celebrating them. So anytime, like the whole point of going
through basic training, right, the whole point of it, Lisa,
is you go in there an individual. You know that
you come out a member of a collective team. The
whole point, the reason why you have drill sergeants screaming
in your face and yelling at you the whole time
is to whittle down, break down your sense of individual
(59:52):
self and teach you in a very like rubber meets
the road kind of way that the individual doesn't matter
here anymore. What matters is the collective. And you're only
as fast as your slowest person.
Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
And going to.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Afghanistan the way that we did and experiencing the things
that we did, if that if our dedication to our
team and our unit wasn't first and foremost, we would
have not survived. One hundred percent guarantee you we would
have not survived. And so this focus on oh, like, oh,
(01:00:29):
look how diverse we are, because this is is a strength.
Yeah it is, but it's only a strength in a
military if you unify beyond it. That's where the strength is.
And so I think it's I think it's dangerous. I
think it's real dangerous.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Is there anything else you want to leave us with
before we go?
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
A lot of people You're going to see a lot
of people on Memorial Day talk about like, well, this
isn't for barbecueing, you know, And I would just say, like,
you celebrate Memorial Day the way that you want, because
you know, I feel like my soldiers who haven't been
a who you know, who didn't make it back, they
(01:01:09):
don't get to celebrate at all, you know. And I
think it's incumbent upon all of us. I think it's
really our duty and responsibility to live freely and enjoy
the freedom that they sacrifice themselves to protect. I mean,
of course, you know, if you get them in it,
like you know, if you're drinking a beer or walking
on the beach or reading the book or just sitting
(01:01:31):
on your deck or watching your kids play, like just
say a sign in prayer, and just for the men
and women who didn't come home. But you celebrate the
way that you want in America because that's what the
men and women who sign up and volunteer to serve
this country, that's what they gave their lives to do.
So just just don't forget, never forget them, and have
(01:01:53):
a good Memorial Day.
Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Sean, it's an honor to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
You are a hero, and I thank you so much
for your service or and just sharing you know, what
you went through in Afghanistan and the bravery of your
platoon with my audience and me, and thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Well, thanks for having me, Lisa,
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