How to Tame a Dragon - Kevin Sakaki (part 1 of 2) - Constant Combat

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:37):
There you go.
So let's tell everybody who youare and what rank you were back
in 2004.

SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Uh Kevin Sakaki and Sergeant in 2004.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (00:50):
Nice.
And so my memory serves youstarted in headquarters platoon,
is that right?

SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
In Iraq?

SPEAKER_03 (00:56):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (00:57):
Yeah.
So before we left, we were doingthe workup.
That was when they kind ofstarted doing the re-org, sort
of, if you will.
Like we down.
I think that's when we startedgoing with uh instead of
weapons, uh we went with mobileassault platoon, you know.
And so right before we left, Ithink that's when um at the time

(01:18):
Gunny Maraki got pulled to HS tobe the company gunny.
Am I am I right about that?
I'm I'm gonna need help with alot of this stuff too.

SPEAKER_03 (01:28):
That's okay.
But I think if he wasn't hewasn't HS's company gunny, he
was still weapons company'scompany gunny, but he was part
of headquarters platoon, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:36):
Headquarters, not H S headquarters platoon, yeah as
company gunny.
So that's when he pulled me toheadquarters platoon, you know.
And uh I remember him sayingeverybody has to do their time.
But but but though he made upfor it though.
He man, I I give that man uh somuch credit for Cap Platoon was

(01:59):
like with him and the trainingthat we got, it was unlike
anything that anybody else wasdoing except maybe the
recompletons, like the shootingthat we did on ship, the
shooting that we did in Okinawawith the jungle warfare package
and all the other stuff gettingus like into and uh you know
training like big boys, youknow, instead of unload, show

(02:21):
clear, safe let it hang, allthese things we got to do.
So I I credit him a lot for alot of my career path, so to
speak.
But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (02:32):
The training we did prior to leaving Okinawa,
especially, uh, with and hestarted with really nailing it
down with Capplatoon andOkinawa, but then he spread it
to the whole company and andmade the weapons handling skills
second nature.
Oh, yeah.
Uh when he put on that littlemini, uh made other people in

(02:54):
the company as sort of likeactors to act like they were
insurgents, and we went and didlike that uh uh using the sim
rounds to shoot each other andthrow in the fake RD sims as
grenades and stuff.
And it was just him and thatdude from Echo Company that put
that on.
Like there was nobody else thatdid that in the backyard of our

(03:16):
uh of San Mateo.

SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
Yep, that's right.
I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_03 (03:20):
Yeah, he he built he designed and built that himself,
and and the weapons handlingskills and the scenarios were
all of it all in his brain.

SPEAKER_01 (03:28):
Yeah, he he did I I I still talk to quite a few
people, and a lot of people,especially if you were in cat,
like give him credit for youknow the reason why they feel
like they came home, you know.

SPEAKER_02 (03:40):
100 uh as a as an 81s man, uh I I'm often saying
how he 100% made sure that wewere as successful as we were.
Yep, 100%.
There's absolutely no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 (03:54):
Yep.
Yeah, I remember uh like when Isay he made it up from to me,
like going to to headquartersplatoon.
That was uh that was a huge kindof kick in the nuts, if you
will, you know, like I witheverybody else.
But I got to the plus side ofthat was I got to go out with

(04:14):
everybody.
I think at one point, I think Iwent out with every platoon on
you know on patrol forsomething, whether it was
Rainmaker, whether it was mapone, two, or three.
Um, you know, and then when uhODA came into the picture and
was trying to get a reconelement to attach to them, and

(04:35):
they got uh shut down on that.
Then they even asked for likeour snipers to be attached to
them for direct action, and andhigher ups were like, no, we're
not giving them up, but we cangive you like a 10 marine
detachment.
But I that's when Gunny Marky atthe time threw my hat and the
name of the hat, and I got to godo that, which was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 (04:56):
Uh I I would love for you to talk in detail about
that because that's something Idon't think anybody knows about
because it was just you andknife and bearded ladies.
Well, that was different.
Your bearded ladies was with uhSergeant Major Booker, was a
Sergeant Major Booker's privateattempt to do that, but the uh
the ODA thing is again as muchas you can tell would be

(05:20):
wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 (05:21):
Oh my gosh, yeah, that was life-changing for me.
I learned more in the I think itwas two months that I was with
them I did in 10 years in theMarine Corps.
Um, like it was, I mean, we didso they came to I think
battalion and asked asked forwhat they asked for.
They got given what they gotgiven, which was 10 Marines.

SPEAKER_02 (05:43):
And you remember who the Marines were that were with
you?

SPEAKER_01 (05:47):
I just remember it was it was me, uh Neil, uh, I
think it was Sergeant Langford,and I think he was with HS
Company.
I'm not sure where No, it'sright.

SPEAKER_03 (05:57):
I have a picture of you and Neil and Langford
sitting together, and I waslike, oh shit, he was with them
too.

SPEAKER_01 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, he so and it was it was it was
beautiful the way they set thisup because of Langford's
connections with you know hisdirect access to HS, like the
reason ODA wanted this in thefirst place was because they
wanted to be able to do likehits on high value targets and
and direct things without havingto go through the red tape

(06:25):
because they were kind ofoperating an RAO.
And so what they did, uh theycame and they they wanted this
relationship, so they didn'thave to waste time going to blue
diamond processing everything,having it be you know put out
from there back down who wasgonna do what, like, and usually
it was us providing a cordon forthem or something else.
No, to wait for it.

(06:45):
So when we came together withthem, it it streamlined that to
it's genius, actually.
Yeah, it was really beautiful,uh, you know, just amazing for
us to be able to kind of just ifthere was something that needed
to be handled, we just did it.
And Langford could just even geton the horn and call over to the
CP and say, Hey, you know, thisis where we're gonna be, this is

(07:06):
what we're doing, you know, andboom, you know, off we go.
And so um, but that's kind ofhow the whole relationship got
started with because of whatthey wanted to do.
They didn't want to have towait, they didn't want to have
to go through the red tape, andthey wanted kind of a direct
act, direct action like trailerplatoon, if you will.

SPEAKER_04 (07:25):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (07:25):
And that's kind of what we became.
Um, but it was actually gold, itwas more than that though,
because we really were fortunatethat the team that we were with
integrated us into their teaminstead of kind of just being
like a outside trailer platoonsort of thing.
We got to actually we had tokind of earn their trust first.
So they put us through a wholelot of their training,

(07:47):
everything from like foreignweapons training to uh a lot of
housework.
They had their own little killhouse on the base over there.
It was freaking awesome.
That's cool.
Um and so we did a lot oftraining, a lot, a lot of
training, like with you know howthey operate and how they do
CQB, doing you know, like freeflow, you know, dynamic entry,
all the different things.

(08:07):
Like we had to learn how to makecharges to blow doors and all
these things, and then integrateinto a stack with them going
into a house.
It was kind of brutal because Iremember like one time, I don't
remember who the one man was,but you know, you show the bang
and then you the two man showsthe bang and throws it in.
But if one goes, we all go, kindof thing.
Nope.
So the one man just followed thebang in the room and they're

(08:28):
like, follow it.
I'm like, shoot.
Yeah.
So you know, you go in and it'sjust like that happened a couple
different times that I remember,but but it worked out the bugs,
you know, it was really cool.
But I mean, we were learningeverything from like
surreptitious entry to which waslike picking locks to hot wiring
vehicles to all kinds of things.

(08:50):
It was like drinking from a firehose for like a week, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, all of this stuffthat it was like, but it the
really crazy part about it wasif the Marine Corps had been
doing it, it would have beenkind of like a boot camp style
thing, not a gentleman's course.
But this was just like, heyguys, tell me you guys want to
hit the range tomorrow, youknow.

(09:12):
We'd show up and and the theguys would should come down in
uh like shorts and flip-flops,you know.

SPEAKER_03 (09:18):
Yeah, that's what I remember is uh on July 4th, they
were launching off the flaresbecause we could see their camp
and they're shooting flares offas their own fireworks display.
Yeah, and so we looked throughthe tow site to see who's doing
it, and there's two dudes inboard shorts and flip-flops just
pounding flares, and we're like,Oh my god, that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
Yeah, that day was hilarious because they actually
they had a it was it was nuts.
Like, I remember one time wewere we went back to we drove
all the way back to Baghdad.
Oh, and uh like while we werethere, like I we went into the
PX n because they we know we hadto get like civilian clothes too
to be able to because I remembergoing over to Blue Diamond a

(09:58):
couple times with them to gointo the CP and I'm wearing like
the digi bottoms and likeGoFasters and like a t-shirt and
a baseball cap, and people arelike, What the fuck?
Who's this guy?
Like with a 1911 on my hip anduh M4, because none of us had
M4s, we all had the damn longguns and all that.
Yeah, so it was kind of funny,man.

(10:22):
But I went into the PX to gobuy, you know, just like, oh,
I'm gonna get a swisher sweepwhile I'm here, some stogies,
and they had cigars, and the guywas like, Don't don't pay for
those, we'll just put it on ourbudget, you know.
I was like, Damn, okay.
So they pay for all our clothesand everything.
But I remember for 4th of July,this was this was fucking
hilarious.
They had uh one of their dudeswas like planning it, and he

(10:42):
actually bought a swarm a swarmamachine to be able to cook
swarma, make swarm dancer, anduh oh my gosh, it was hilarious.
Well, you guys heard the thefestivities, it was it was just
you know, like here, all this ishow I think that was probably
one of the most surreal thingsthat happened there because it
was just like you know, here weare in the middle of the shit,

(11:04):
and it's like you know, we'rewe're all sitting down watching
a belly dancer and and drinkinga beer, you know.

SPEAKER_03 (11:12):
Well, I couldn't see the belly dancer through the toe
site, but that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
Yeah, it was pretty good though.
I like we we did a whole lotwith with them and what they
would call um ASO AdvancedSpecial Operations, which would
be like uh, well, when I wouldgo to work for Blackwater and
then later start working for theCIA, they called it tradecraft,
yeah, like meeting with assets,developing assets, doing um you

(11:36):
know CPUs, clandestine pickups,and and all these different
things that we were doing allover the place, rolling around
in like soft skin, you know,indige vehicles dressed like
indige.

SPEAKER_03 (11:47):
Yeah.
Um, there's a lot of differentgroups that get to call
themselves special forces, butuh ODA, Operational Detachment
Alpha is like the I mean,they're the Green Berets, right?
But that's like people don'trealize how they're they're
like, I don't know, such aninteresting operational asset in
that they get to operate in thein-between portion of like the

(12:08):
the State Department, the CIA,like all these other they they
they operate differently.

SPEAKER_01 (12:13):
Yeah, it was really cool and and the way they lived
and like and then even um Iactually got to see like um
McCulliffe when he got he wentto recon before we left.
And those guys would come overand use the range to train.
Nice, like hang out in thehouse, you know, and eat eat all
the snacks and the food, and youknow, it sounds about right all

(12:35):
the lickies and chewy, and andgo, you know, yeah, that was
kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 (12:39):
Uh no, but you didn't spend that entire time
with them, or how did that howdid that work?
I mean too much because you cameback.

SPEAKER_01 (12:46):
So we we got chopped to them to to one team in ODA.
And when that team rotated out,was kind of on the tail end of
their deployment.
The the oncoming team we stayedwith for a short while, but each
team within an ODA unit kind ofdoes things differently.
So, like that team didn't havethe same, I guess, like

(13:08):
operational need that the otherteam did, or they they were
going at it from a differentangle.
I don't know what their dealwas, but they just we stayed
with them for a little while,and then they just said, Hey, we
don't really have a need fory'all, and they just cut us back
to the to the battalion.

SPEAKER_03 (13:21):
From my memory, now you'll have to correct me.
That was kind of almost I don'tknow, I don't know.
Our deployment was short, it waseight months, so it was like mid
to end of deployment because youcame back to us right after
Operation Traveler with all theZerkawi stuff.

SPEAKER_01 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, we actually were kind ofdoing something in conjunction
with that with y'all.

SPEAKER_03 (13:42):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (13:43):
Yeah, I remember one time.
Oh, I think I was talking toHeath about this recently, but
um you guys were I think thecompany was actually setting a
cordon for us.

SPEAKER_03 (13:53):
Correct.

SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
And um, yeah, that's when I shot a guy jumping across
the roof.
That was funny.
Um but yeah, it was a lot ofstuff like that.
It was pretty cool, you know.
It was just uh so I came backaround that time, and I think
that was I was not with y'allwhen Condi um was KIA.

SPEAKER_00 (14:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (14:17):
And then uh when I came back, that's when they um
sent me to map three, which wasCondi's platoon.
That was hard.
That was something I didn'treally, you know, of all the
platoon platoons I could havegone to, I I didn't want to go
to map three under thosecircumstances, you know.

(14:39):
Like to to be like it was reallyawkward for me, really awkward,
because I felt like you know howtight everybody is.
Every platoon has their own.

SPEAKER_04 (14:48):
Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (14:48):
I mean, we all love each other, we all get along
great, like we're you know, likethere's you know, there's a
whole lot of interaction betweeneverybody, but as a platoon
stands on its own, the innerworkings of that platoon are
just really unique in that whenyou're operating together, it's
hey, we already got who we got.
We don't need anybody else.
You know, so it was hard becauseI mean I knew a lot of the guys

(15:10):
in map three, I knew Latham andand Heath and I mean we were
anti-armor platoon togetherpervocate all that.

SPEAKER_03 (15:17):
So basically all the 51s and 52s knew each other
well.

SPEAKER_01 (15:20):
Oh yeah, all the shenanigans in Okinawa from IF
back back then it was IFAVplatoon, yeah, right.
Which was funny.
Rolling around in G3s beforethey were G3s or G Wagon.
Right.
Yeah, so I came back to do thatand um fill a spillet, so to
speak, which really sucked.
But it was I'm I'm glad that Igot to, and the guys were great,

(15:43):
you know.
Uh I think I was in a truck withlike Latham and Pepper.
I don't remember who my driverwas at the time, but I
definitely remember Pepper wasmy gunner.

SPEAKER_03 (15:52):
Yeah, that was gonna be my next question.
Is uh you so you were in thehigh back with Pepper and Latham
in the back, Cox sometimes inthe back, vigil.

SPEAKER_01 (16:01):
Nope, we were not not in a high back.

SPEAKER_03 (16:03):
I think we were in a they had dumped the high back by
that point, and they were in oneof the up armored, yep.

SPEAKER_01 (16:09):
Okay, yeah, because I just remember Pepper being in
the gun in the turret, yep, andalways having a bag of candy
with him, and always like tryingto hand down candy.
Hey, we want some, which wasfunny, like never without candy.

SPEAKER_03 (16:22):
I think if I and this is I'm just going off
everybody else's stories, but Ithink the driver was either
Valenzuela or uh Ortiz.
Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_01 (16:31):
Yeah, I think it was Ortiz.

SPEAKER_03 (16:34):
Could have been.

SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Ortiz.

SPEAKER_03 (16:35):
Maybe that's funny.
He might have been in map one,also.
I'm not a hundred percent sure,but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (16:41):
So after you gotten over to uh map three, did you
did you have any uh biggeroperations at that point?
Because we started, I think someof our bigger operations had
just finished.

SPEAKER_01 (16:53):
Yeah, we not so much bigger operations.
We we you know we were stillgosh, did we have another bug
hunt after that?
I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 (17:01):
So we did.
We had uh I don't remember thename of it, but it was August
9th, and it was it was in theindustrial district, right?
Uh just just north of umSaddam's mosque.

SPEAKER_01 (17:11):
Yeah, gotcha.
Yeah, we were part of that.
Like I remember that too.
Not a whole lot then.
We were going out a lot.
Um but you know, and then Ithink we were stuck doing some
of the left seat, right seatbefore we retrograded back.
And I remember being at thegovernment center when everyone
else was going to Junction Cityfor a bit.

SPEAKER_03 (17:30):
Yeah, so you were there on September 11th and 12th
for all the shenanigans thathappened with the government
center and everything.

SPEAKER_01 (17:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just just got there before Ithink uh oh, what was his name?
Diaz.

SPEAKER_03 (17:43):
Yeah, got hit by the mortar.

SPEAKER_01 (17:44):
Yep, and then he got evaced.
Um, didn't you get hit too?
Didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 (17:50):
So I got I got my truck got hit with that RPG the
day before and fucked me all up.
And then I stayed in the game,but then I was going up the
ladder to see Diaz and got blownoff the ladder, but I didn't get
I got rattled, but I didn't getright hurt hurt.

SPEAKER_01 (18:08):
Crazy, crazy.
A lot of the stuff that happenedhappened before I got cut to
ODA.
I mean, that's when I was reallygoing out a lot with um like map
Shane.
You were in map two, right?
Or map one?
Map two.
Map two, yeah.
I got to go out with you guys alot because of uh Lieutenant

(18:28):
Stevens.
Stevens, he was he was awesome.
He didn't care if I rolled withyou guys at all.
So every chance I got you guysgot to go out, I got to go with
you guys.
Not every chance, but a lot ofthe times I did between that and
map one, not so much.
Um, a few times.
Uh that was Lieutenant CrawfordCrawford.

SPEAKER_02 (18:46):
I think he only came out once or twice with
Sledgehammer.

SPEAKER_01 (18:49):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (18:50):
And then I don't think I don't remember that many
times with you.
I I remember a couple, but Idon't remember that many.

SPEAKER_01 (18:55):
Right.
And then uh anything else that Iwent out with was with Gunny
Maraki as his gunner in a highback where with the the homemade
uh pental mount, you know, likethe I don't even know who made
those.
I don't remember.
Wasn't that you, Shane?
Didn't you weld some of that?

SPEAKER_03 (19:11):
Yeah, it was a whole there was a couple of working
parties, but that specific weirdpental mount system we built
from scrap uh Gunny Marare hadscratched those plans that he
made in his head on some paperand came over and traded a bunch
of MREs to the CBS for us to usea plasma cutter and a welder.
That's right.
He had a big pile of scrap, itwas angle iron and all this

(19:34):
other stuff, and he drew thisthing out on paper and he's
like, build this.
And so it was me and Savage andMonroe and uh just a whole bunch
of people idea of what we cameinto Iraq with what we ended up
man, like the we came in with noarmor, you know.

SPEAKER_01 (19:56):
Like I remember, do you remember rolling?
Did you did you fly or did youdrive?

SPEAKER_03 (20:00):
We drove up, right?

SPEAKER_01 (20:02):
Okay, so yeah, like when we rolled out, like it was
the soft skins, and we just tookthe doors off so we could get
out easier if we needed to.

SPEAKER_03 (20:09):
Yeah, I had half doors.
Um, there was a National Guardunit that had come uh and they
had dumped a bunch of extraarmor, and so we had jacked some
armored half doors.
They were half doors, I meanthey literally came up to mid
mid-arm.

SPEAKER_01 (20:24):
Now I I I can't can you confirm this for me or not?
Because I think sometimes someof the memories are like a
little off for me and crazy, butlike I won't use names, but were
we?
I think at one point when beforewe LOD'd, it was like we were
two Humvees short, and the nextmorning, you know, like I had I
think it was uh Scrat and likeLance Corporal Underground,

(20:48):
right?
Like we I remember doing a countgoing down the line, and we were
right on the money.
We had two extra Humvees, don'tknow where they came from,
nobody asked, nobody cared.

SPEAKER_03 (20:57):
We did get an extra Humvee.
I don't know where that camefrom.
Just one though.
I don't remember two.

SPEAKER_02 (21:03):
So I I can't I can't speak to the Humvee, but I I
have a I just found a letterrecently and I just told the
story a little bit ago.
But uh like when they would comedown on the convoy coming back
into Kuwait, they had like adump off space that was supposed
to be shared amongst everybody.

SPEAKER_04 (21:20):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (21:20):
Well, I found out when the next guy, which when
the next convoy was coming in atlike like 21 or 22, and I took a
ponte over there and we wescavenged everything.
It was like a it was a Stanfordand Sons like back of the high
back, just filled with new tiresand jerry cans and armor.

SPEAKER_01 (21:39):
And we we I think were the most like I don't think
there's any other branch that'sas as resourceful as we are,
like literally for for what weleft with, what we ended up
doing, what we came, you know,how we managed to get through
the things that we did.
Um it's like super impressive.
You know, I mean, here's a funnystory, nothing to do with armor,

(22:00):
but um, you guys remember howlike like we were always eating
fucking carrot cake, the syrupcarrot cakes, like like and then
like we thought for like I don'tknow about you, but for a while
I thought that's all that wascoming.
And then we later we found outthere was chocolate and vanilla,
and like and uh that was HScompany that was hoarding them
because it would come into themand they would divvy out who got

(22:22):
what.
And so I remember once the sameperson like rolls down like in a
hummer, a high back hummer, andhe's doing his normal little
giggle, and he's like runningback and like filling everyone's
freezers, but he stole all ofthe chocolate and vanilla cakes,
like out to all the different solike he left them all the carrot

(22:46):
cake.

SPEAKER_03 (22:46):
Uh-huh.
Yeah, new New Meyer was my we uhwe used to joke and call him and
Horadsky, I think Horadsky.
Yeah, we used to call them theferrets because they would they
would disappear and come backwith new treasures, yeah, all
the time.

SPEAKER_01 (23:04):
So great, you know, yeah, those are some funny
stories.

SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
Yeah, my favorite one of them doing that was when
right before we were about tocross the Kuwait-Iraq border,
uh, an army convoy was next tous at whatever camp that was
that we parked at.
It was more like a parking lot,like a desert parking lot.
And they snuck over to thatconvoy and took three toolboxes

(23:29):
full of tools from theirmechanics.
And I was like, Did they needthose?
And they're like, no, no, theyhad 10 more.
And I was like, okay, I'll allowit.
Great, great.

SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
I remember walking into the hooch one time to to go
see Jimmy, and uh, like we weretalking.
I just walked in, and and NewMeyer came up with that goofy
grin on his face, and he wasjust like, and and you know,
Jimmy, he was like, What do youneed, New Meyer?
And he was just like, huh, huh?
And I was like, What, scrat?
And he was like, and then hejust yelled out, not rates

(24:06):
against the NCOs, and then likeeverybody jumped us, like so.
We're throwing these guysaround.
And do you remember that, Shane?
Oh, yeah, and like I rememberthis.
Jimmy had Harden had a a wristrocket, one of those slingshots,
yep, and grabbing Jolly Ranchersout of a bag, unwrapping them,

(24:27):
and he would he would shoot theminto the ceiling that we finally
just got hard top ceilings.
Remember that?
Shatter and explode and sendthese shards of Jolly Rancher
candy into everybody, and they'dbe screaming like they were
getting hit with glass.
It was so fucking funny.
That was some funny shit.
That's awesome.

(24:47):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (24:47):
All right.
So while you were with uh headwhat with headquarters platoon,
you stayed with in theheadquarters shop, right?

SPEAKER_01 (24:55):
Pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 (24:56):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (24:57):
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Until I had to, oh gosh, Iforgot about that.
I had to may have been the onlyMarine.
Actually, no, there was one moreI remember now.
Um, that got NJP'd in Iraq, andthat's and then my which was all
that that whole Sergeant Cookthing.

SPEAKER_03 (25:13):
Um Yeah, dude, tell the story.
That's the one I want to hear,man.

SPEAKER_01 (25:18):
He's the only person.
Well, first Sergeant Mac at thetime, now you know Sergeant
Major, but he's I think he's theonly person that ever made first
Sergeant Mac cuss.
Ever cuss.
Or say that he wanted to whoophis ass.
So y'all remember Sergeant Cook.
He got like right before wedeployed.
Like, God, I remember Shane.

(25:38):
Do you remember what our numberswere?
They were super low before weleft.
We were not at T O and E.

SPEAKER_03 (25:42):
We weren't even close to T O.
Yeah, we I do not remember ournumbers, but we were very low.

SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
Very low, right?
And we got that huge boot bootdump.
There's a lot of shit.
People just it pisses me offthat uh everyone talks about
Fallujah, where there was likefour battalions, they had tanks,
they had air, they had six sixbattalions plus six reinforced
in a city that the population atthe time was like 200,000.
Now, now compare Ramadi 400,000,one battalion.

(26:11):
That's it.

SPEAKER_03 (26:12):
Non-reinforced, yeah, yeah, non-reinforced.

SPEAKER_01 (26:14):
That's it.
Just us holding down the wholefucking city.
And uh yeah, gosh.

SPEAKER_02 (26:21):
And they ended up splitting after us, they they
ended up splitting it up becauseit was too big.
It was it was it wasoperationally impossible, quote
unquote.

SPEAKER_01 (26:29):
Yeah, right.
Um, because we were yeah, abunch of cowboys.
But uh when we got but we heldit if you can hey, motherfucker.
Um we we got uh a huge boot dropbefore we left.
Yeah, and and then we got I Ithink Cook was one of was he the
only NCO that came fromsomewhere else?

SPEAKER_03 (26:51):
Like he was he was new to uh not the only one, but
he was new to us.
There was a couple others.
We had Lechard and Lechard camekind of late.

SPEAKER_01 (27:00):
They were in their MOS, like Cook came from
somewhere doing some pogue unitjob for like he was trying to
get out of infantry, and he evenmade claim to that that he
didn't want to be in theinfantry and doing his job as a
I don't even remember what hewas.
Was he a Blake?
Was he a mortarman at the time?
Do you remember?

SPEAKER_03 (27:21):
Yeah, I don't remember his eyes.

SPEAKER_02 (27:22):
I I'll I'll be honest, like until you just
started the story, I hadcompletely forgotten about him.
And so I'm like having I'm likeI'm barely grabbing, like I
still don't even have his facein front of me yet.

SPEAKER_01 (27:35):
So yeah, so he he was special.
Um, he didn't want to go out ononce we got into country, he was
a gosh.
When we were training and wewere doing all this other stuff,
he would always disappear whenwe got to Kuwait.
Um Gunny Maraki made me be hisbattle buddy.

(27:55):
So I had to follow him around,like we had to be paired up
everywhere so that he couldn'tjust disappear anymore.
And he would still try to.
We were getting the CP set up,and like we had to put that that
big ass map on the on the wallof the AO.

SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (28:10):
We had to may or may not have one.
We had to build that, like wehad to go get imagery from Blue
Diamond, bring it back, draw allthe grid lines on there.
Uh couldn't do it without help,but um, he would always
disappear, like disappear,disappear.
And so I'd have to send peopleto go find him.
And then once it got time forlike ops to go on, he refused to
go out of the wire, like herefused to leave.

(28:31):
So I remember getting in hisface.
Um, he got up and got back inmine, and I grabbed him by the
throat and threw him on theground.
I think actually, I was justchecking his neck for a pulse.
But um, he he left and he wentto the chaplain and told the

(28:53):
chaplain that I was threatenedthat I threatened to kill him,
and then he was suicidal, and hegot put on suicide watch for a
while.
And it pissed me off becausethat's when things started
ramping up.
And I think right around thattime is when we took our first
KIA, which was Morris.
Yep.
And Danny Coleman came to me andasked for if we could if I had
any extra gear to send back orto consolidate or for whatever

(29:16):
reason he needed, he just did.
And I said, Yeah, I got theperfect guy.
You know, so I went to Cook andI said, Hey man, I need your
magazines, and you're not, youknow, you're not going out
anyway.
So I need some magazine pouchesand magazines, and he was he
wouldn't give them up.
And he he made the commentsomething about I don't care
better him than me or somethinglike that.
Just snapped.
I slapped him so hard he likeoff his feet off his cot.

(29:39):
He got up and ran out the door,and I just walked out behind
him.
He picked up this big rock likelike overhead, like he was gonna
like like like hit me in thehead with it, and I punched him.
And next thing I know, I'm beingtackled by like Moo Mu and Heath
and somebody else were likepulling me off of him.
Oh, yeah, I got told when hewent on suicide watch.

(30:00):
I got told that I couldn't touchhim, talk to him, anything.
So after this, he went back tolike he went to the chaplain,
and then chaplain took him tolike battalion or something like
that.
I don't remember how the wholething went down.
I really don't care.
What ended up happening thoughwas I ended up having to get
NJP'd like to where they and itwas very almost comical.

(30:22):
You know, first Sergeant Macktold me to just shut my mouth
and go through the motions.
And take it, and that if Icould, you know, keep myself
clean for the rest of thedeployment, nothing would ever
happen with it, kind of thing, Iguess.
My punishment was I couldn't goout on ops.
I couldn't leak, I couldn'tleave the wire, and I had to
actually move my move move a cotinto the CP for a week.

(30:48):
Radio watch for a week, no ops,no leaving the wire for a week.
And it it sucked.
It sucked.
Yeah.
I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 (30:57):
I got grounded in combat.

SPEAKER_01 (30:59):
You can't go play with your friends.

SPEAKER_03 (31:10):
Oh, a thousand percent.
Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (31:12):
You know, I love that man.
Like he was between him and andGunny Maraki, he was probably
those were two of the men thatuh I looked up to quite a bit,
you know.
Different different ends of thescale, but but wisdom
nonetheless from both.

SPEAKER_00 (31:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (31:27):
And uh added to that fact too, Gunny Coleman um must
must have like he I remember hewas man, we when we were on
ship, I don't remember when orwhere this was, and I don't even
remember who it happened with,but I had uh gotten into a fight
with somebody, and he pulled medown to the well deck and just

(31:48):
ripped my ass.
And he's like, if you have toput hands on somebody, you
failed, and just like justcompletely ripped my ass and
then stopped.
Like he had me locked up, youknow, POA and everything, and
then and then told me at ease,and then started talking to me
like a human being, and was justtelling me, you know, that he
expects better from me and thatthat's not leadership.
And like we had this justamazing conversation about I

(32:10):
would have never I I think hejust believed in me, and you
know, he made he told me thatand he expected better from me.
It was one of those times whereyou walk away feeling like you
let dad down, you know, kind ofthing.

SPEAKER_03 (32:22):
I remember first meeting Gunny Coleman, and he
was I think fresh off the drillfield when he came to 81s, and
yes, the day before, yeah, yeah.
And it trust me, it showed, andI remember thinking, like, what
the fuck is this?
This guy is all boot shine andbullshit, and nothing, and I

(32:44):
don't remember what happened,but somebody got hurt when we
were doing the the landnavigation course in Okinawa,
and and all of a sudden heappeared and had like he was
very concerned about thismarine, he had all kinds of
things to say, he organized howwe were gonna get that dude out
of there.
Somebody rolled their ankle, itwas something simple, but it was
like oh wait, this is like athis is a real person.

(33:05):
This is not a caricature of amarine drill instructor, which
is what he had been up untilthat point, right?
And then all the stuff like heleft us and went over to Echo
Company, and by all accounts, hewas like the savior for, I mean,
he really was the person whokept Echo Company together, I
think.
Uh at least that's what itseemed like.
Every time I saw him over there,I always saw Marines talking to

(33:27):
him and like really leaning onhim.

SPEAKER_01 (33:30):
Yeah, he I I have mad respect for him, you know.
Um far different leadershipstyle that like you know, Kenny
Maraki was kind of the standardfor me, you know.
Like I I really, you know, likehe was the Marines Marine, you
know, like I wanted, I didn'tlike comparatively to Coleman,
like I didn't want anything todo with that.
I didn't want to go drill field,I wanted to go, like I wanted to

(33:53):
go do CQB, Sniper's Course, allthose things that he did.
Like his his jacket was likeeverything every Marine, every
infantry marine ever wanted tobe.

SPEAKER_04 (34:01):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (34:01):
You know, and so I think um you know, gosh, we were
lucky in Capitune, not justfortunate for for all the
training that we got from him.

SPEAKER_03 (34:10):
Well, that explains why you wanted to uh choke slam
another marine, because Iremember him chokeslamming
someone too.
So yeah, you took all thelessons to heart.

SPEAKER_01 (34:21):
Oh my gosh.
Uh I know who you're talkingabout too.
That was Cutter.
That was so funny.
I remember him him coming backinto my room right after that
with tears in his eyes, and he'slike, I thought I was gonna die.
Like you very well could have.

unknown (34:41):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (34:43):
Um that was funny.
Holy shit.

SPEAKER_02 (34:46):
We we we got lucky with a lot.
There you could there isn't justtoo many people in our in our
larger leadership teams thatweren't really, really solid.
But I've talked to a lot offriends that have gone in other
places and uh actually I wasjust hanging out with Markshot
um uh for the break of herbirthday and uh he ended up uh

(35:10):
you know, he got out right afterOki.
Well, he got involuntarilyextended, so you know the second
we we hit Conus, he was gone.
Well, he decided to go back intothe reserves and he went to Iraq
in 06.
And and he uh he did not havesolid leadership, yeah.
And so um that is a hugeblessing for us.

SPEAKER_01 (35:32):
Um yeah, we were really fortunate.
We had some really greatleadership.
Um gosh, I mean, like I said,you guys had Coleman and Cook
and you know, like their youknow, the other Colm um Staff
Sergeant Coleman, yep, yeah, PatColeman.

SPEAKER_03 (35:48):
And then it was map three was Gunny Cr Gunny
Crutcher and uh Staff SergeantRapazo.
Yeah, and then map one wasCrawford and Drake.
Yep, and then uh yeah, they hadGunny Cook and Lieutenant Dobbs.

SPEAKER_01 (36:06):
Yeah, Drake.
I I I think yeah, Drake wasanother good one too.
You know, like I didn't alwayssee eye to eye with him, but
like I mean his leadership waspretty solid.
I learned a lot from him.
Yeah, I was just gonna say, doyou remember we you and I were
talking earlier?
Do you remember the time when weum when I went out with y'all
when we got uh a little blue onblue with an Abrams, and Abrams

(36:28):
shot at us?

SPEAKER_03 (36:29):
Yes, yeah, please.
If you you feel free, I willchime in my part as well.

SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
Holy shit.
Oh my gosh.
I just remember we were goingout to the edge of our AO.
Supposedly, there was there wasintel on like am I wrong on
this?
It was like Chechens comingthrough, Chechen snipers that we
were supposed to be looking for.

SPEAKER_03 (36:50):
So the back end, yeah, the back end of that was
they the guys in Fallujah hadtaken down a uh some kill house,
and there was there was aChechen found in there, and so
it was nicknamed like theChechen house, only because
there was one Chechen in there.
And so, yes, we got the intelthat there were Chechen snipers

(37:10):
that were coming.

SPEAKER_01 (37:11):
I remember that, and so I remember going out to the
AO.
I remember the road was high.
There was like a little villagedown as you're heading out of
town towards the left, if I'mnot correct, and we pulled off
down into this ravine to hidethe vehicles and employ our
dismounts, which was Neil andhis team, and he took some uh

(37:34):
dismounts to the other side ofthe road to set up an ambush.
They were going to prepare to doa snap VCP if we needed to, and
like so we I don't remember howlong we were hanging out, it was
a while.
Long time, long freaking time,and we finally got the call to
just index and just you knowbring it in.
And I remember we were standingby the vehicles and someone was

(37:57):
uh smoking a cigarette in a can.
Uh that was me.

SPEAKER_03 (38:00):
I know that was me.
Hell yeah, we've been out thereforever.
I'm gonna have a fuckingcigarette.

SPEAKER_01 (38:07):
I was laughing about it because we were all just kind
of like just chilling, likestretching our legs, getting
ready to just we hadn't evenfired up the vehicles yet.
We were waiting.
Actually, I think we werewaiting for Neil to still bring
his guys back across the road,but they hadn't even no sitting
underneath the brush.

SPEAKER_03 (38:22):
Yeah, it was Neil and Miranda and one of the
junior marines, and I cannotremember who else was over
there, but I know it was Neiland Miranda.

SPEAKER_01 (38:30):
Yeah, I remember standing there in that little
ravine, and all of a sudden,like there was no sound, no
nothing.
It was just this flash and likethis red ball of fire, like
heading right at us, but sofast, like I couldn't even get
out.
I thought it was RPG, and I Istarted to yell RP.
I was like RP, boom, and it blewup behind us.
Yep, it went right down the rowof vehicles, right between all

(38:53):
of us.
Yep.
Am I right?
Is that how that happened?

SPEAKER_03 (38:55):
Yeah, by some fucking magic, it did not hit
anyone or anything.
Yeah, but the shockwave knockedall of us over.

SPEAKER_01 (39:02):
Yeah, because the the it so then all of a sudden
we like everyone just instantlystarts returning fire, not even
looking, opens up, returns fire.
I think somebody was on one ofthe vehicles parked there in the
gun in the tow, uh, in the towsystem, and they're like, I
can't, I've got a thermal, but Ican't tell what it is.
Can I shoot?

SPEAKER_03 (39:21):
It was McCabe because he's he was a machine
gunner, not a tow gunner, right?
And he was like, I don't knowwhat I'm looking at.
Yeah, and so I jumped on theback of the vehicle and climbed
down.
He went down, I went over, yep,and I looked in, I was like,
That's a fucking tank.

SPEAKER_01 (39:36):
Yeah, right when like everything like bullshit,
and all of a sudden you heardthe turbine kick up that weep,
and everybody was like, Son of abitch, motherfuck.
So then they came rolling down,you heard that clack clack clack
clack clack clack because theywere hitting the pavement, they
rolled right down the road.
I remember hardened climbing upthat thing like a monkey, faster
than I've ever seen anybodyclimb something.

(39:57):
Grab the the the guy in thehatch and start slamming him
into the hatch and yelling, Icouldn't even tell what he was
saying.
Yep, but and then come to findout later that they the gunner
got the order to to hit to spraythe he saw dismounted troops and
he said spray him with a coax.
Is that right?
Do you remember that?
When we went back to the CD andand he actually fired the main

(40:20):
gun on purpose and missed onpurpose because he wasn't sure
of what he was shooting at.
Had that guy just followedorders and done what he did, I
think, man, that would have beencatastrophic.

SPEAKER_03 (40:29):
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, we would have justfired back, we would have been
who knows what would havehappened.
Later, I can't remember who whomet that guy or why.
Somebody got evacued orsomething.
Anyway, they were on a they wereon an evac with that or on a
bird with that guy.
Um, one of the people that wasin the tank, the Abrams tank

(40:49):
that shot at us.
And they said we knew it wasMarines because no one else
would have fired back instantly,instantly.
He's like, You there was nodelay, you all fired back.
Yeah, that ended up being adouble blue-on-blue incident.

(41:10):
Uh, Monroe opened up with the50, but when he first shot, he
shot at Neil and Miranda.
And Harden screamed at him, andhe turned the gun and then fired
at the tank as well.
But his first shot, he did nothave a good ID as to the where
our dismounts were in thebushes, and he shot at the

(41:33):
bushes.
I found out later that heskipped a 50 round right off of
Miranda's back.
What?
Yeah, and everybody was fine.
We had to replace his his gear,but all you want to talk about,
uh Guardian Angel was sittingover the top of us that day.
There's there's so reason whysomebody shouldn't have died.

SPEAKER_01 (41:53):
So many times, like I can tell you things that like
just didn't make sense.
I remember I don't remember whatvehicle we had to escort back
with the wrecker.
Hercules was the call sign, Ithink, for the wrecker.
Was that with you with map twowith you guys where we we got
hit because we had to oh, youknow what it was?

(42:14):
It was a seven ton that got hit.
They got everybody out, they gotthem to combat outposts, I
think.
But then we had to go back forthe vehicle and escort the
vehicle all the way back to her.
Did we have to take it toHurricane Point?

SPEAKER_02 (42:26):
I think that's I think that was with us.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
Oh my gosh.
But I remember being with youguys, it was one of the times I
got to roll with you guys, andfollowing so we had to double,
like we went through the samearea twice and then would have
to cut back through it again.
And so the the likelihood ofgetting hit was high
probability, and then all of asudden the street lights go off
and everyone's like, hey, headon a swivel, and then the flares

(42:51):
pop, and then like was that thetime that like an RPG fell out
of a window and hit the street?
Like I don't remember that.
There were times of stories likethat crazy like I remember

(43:12):
somebody's vehicle got an RPstuck in the grill.

SPEAKER_03 (43:15):
That was our platoon, that was Randall.

SPEAKER_01 (43:18):
Yeah, they didn't pull the tag off it.

SPEAKER_03 (43:20):
No, it wasn't that they didn't fire, it was a uh
training round.
What they didn't know thedifference between an AT and a
training round because the mostof the rounds were either older
or the guys just didn't know,but they fired a training round
and it just stuck in the grill.

SPEAKER_01 (43:33):
Yeah, nuts.

SPEAKER_03 (43:34):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:35):
We had some serious guardian angels watching out
over.

SPEAKER_03 (43:38):
Yeah, man.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
We all I mean a lot of blue on blue.
Like I remember the strikersfired Mark 19 on us.
Yep.
Man, just some some nutty shit.

SPEAKER_03 (43:50):
Now the strikers fired that was uh you, right,
Blake?
That was a sledgehammer.
Uh no.
It was it was an 80, it mighthave been Rainmaker then.
I believe it was an 81 Splatoon.

SPEAKER_01 (44:00):
Yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 (44:03):
And then we had the same thing, we had the strikers
fire the uh machine guns acrossthe river at us, driving down
Nova.
Oh yeah, yeah.
The only reason why they stoppedis uh Richie was on the Mart 19
and hit direct hits with uhalmost all the belt of Mark 19

(44:24):
right on top of them.
Yeah, and they stopped and thenstarted blowing up red flares,
started going up, and andeverybody was like, Oh, oh, oh
shit.

SPEAKER_02 (44:32):
Crazy.
And then uh we had uh when wewon't name who, when they
decided to drop uh HE to start abug hunt, but they had their
grid squares way off and theywere dropping rounds right on
top of our heads.
Um and uh nothing I rememberbeing curled up on the backside
of that berm being like this isgonna be absolutely most ironic

(44:55):
way to go.
The FDC chief of the 81s gettingkilled by friendly mortar fire.

SPEAKER_01 (45:02):
Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 (45:05):
Yeah, yeah.
The uh this is I we've talkedwith Jordan quite a lot about
this when we first interviewedhim because he remembers a lot
of shit with com failures, and II feel like all of this is the
perfect example of we had noinner service comms with anybody
in the air force or the army orthe navy, all of which were in
our AO at some point.

SPEAKER_02 (45:26):
Yeah.
Uh I remember being up on top ofthe the the cemetery the one
time, and we were trying to wewere trying to send it up
through the chain, and wecouldn't get it past battalion,
and then we couldn't get it,anyways.
Like we we couldn't talk innerinner service a lot.
There was almost no way to talkinner service.

SPEAKER_01 (45:44):
Just like you said, it had to go, it had to go start
back at at headquarters and goup.

SPEAKER_03 (45:49):
Right, which which is insane.

SPEAKER_01 (45:51):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Like that's like that night thatwe got uh shot up by the Abrams.
Like when we got when we calledthat in, nobody believed us.
Yeah, they're like, What?
No, no, come to the CP when youguys get back.
We're like, Are you fuckingkidding me?

SPEAKER_03 (46:04):
Yep, that was I I distinctly remember like uh that
was so harden jumped the the uhdriver in the hatch, but then it
was JD who jumped on top of thetank and was screaming down
through the hatch at thecommander, and we were like, we
were dragging him off.
Like, I was like, Okay, what isthis?
This is gonna go badly.
Like, he's gonna, I don't know.
Anyway, that was funny, but uhyeah, that was I was calling it

(46:28):
in over the radio, and we hadcranked off, we had cranked off
red flares as well.
Uh saying, yeah, and Abrams justshot at us, and that was no,
just come back to the CP.
And they're like, Are you sure?
It's like it drove up.
Here's a picture of it.

SPEAKER_01 (46:45):
Yeah, yeah, the good old days, huh?

SPEAKER_03 (46:48):
So let me uh let me try to take you back on the
timeline as far as that goes.
I know you were with me on theseventh, but who were you with
on the sixth of April?

SPEAKER_01 (46:57):
I don't remember, man.
Like all of dates and times forme are kind of a blur.
You know, there was a while whenI could recall everything.
And, you know, like there was atime when, you know, I carried,
you know, like like I made it apoint to remember every name of
every Marine that we lost.

SPEAKER_04 (47:11):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (47:11):
Everything changed when I had my son for me, you
know, like not trying to jumpahead, but like I kind of tried
to put some of that behind me.
I kind of gave myself permissionto start trying to live my best
life, you know, instead of youknow, for for you know, I ended
up I would end up getting out,going right to work for
Blackwater, the CIA, and doingall of that for another 10

(47:32):
years.
I'd and then I'd have a son andI I quit it all.
I gave it all up.
But uh when I got out of that, Istarted working with veterans
and I just remember dealing alot with survivor's guilt and
thinking to myself, hey, well,if these people were standing
right in front of you, wouldthey tell you, hey,
congratulations for throwingyour life away and pissing away
your family and drinkingeverything away because I died?
Thank, thank you for using mylife as an excuse to fall apart,

(47:54):
you know.
And so, like, I rememberthinking that, and at some point
I just remember being able tojust not in a dishonorable way,
like I I, you know, like here,I'll show you this if you guys
can see this.
I still have oh, this won't letme do it.
Put the screen around that.

SPEAKER_03 (48:07):
Oh, yeah, that's cool.
Yeah, picture of the memorial.
That man, when was that?
That was right after uh thefirst battle of Ramadi, right?
That was April, uh uh EasterSunday when they did the service
for all the fallen.

SPEAKER_01 (48:20):
And you got a great memory, Shane.
You know, that's when that was.
That was the picture somebodytook in the in the of that whole
memorial thing.
And I just I have that I I'venever forgotten, you know.
I have you know, I tell thestory to my son, I talk about
it, you know.
I've done a whole lot of guestspeaking on at different events,
and and I talk about it, youknow, like what it means to
remember like Memorial Day.

(48:40):
What does that mean for for forveterans?
You know, like you know, do youthank a veteran for Memorial
Day?
Do you not?
And I'm like, you know, like youhear guys getting upset about oh
well, people just don'tunderstand, and you know,
Veterans Day isn't a date.
And I was like, shut the fuckup.
Look, dude, we did what we didso that these people can go out,
act stupid, drink, go take aboat out on the lake and flip it
if they want.
Who cares?

(49:00):
We did what we did for us, notthem.
It doesn't matter what they do,they don't have to, there's no
right or wrong way.
If somebody comes up to you andsays, Thank you for your
service, you don't have to be adick and say, Well, I didn't do
it for you, or happy memorialday.
It's not happy, they're nothappy about just thank them.
Just say, hey, thank you foryour support.
You know, they're they're nevergonna get it and they won't.

(49:21):
And don't try to.
It's just just things that wethat they'll never understand
and things I don't think we canever explain to people.
Our service, the the losses.
Like, how can you?
You know, I think that's whatmakes us who we are.

SPEAKER_03 (49:32):
Yeah, man.
Yeah, 20 years on, it's uh it'sa weird feeling, and and you
have 10 years on top of that, soit's uh it adds more weight.

SPEAKER_01 (49:41):
I uh but to answer your question, I don't remember
where I was on the sixth.

SPEAKER_03 (49:48):
That's right, that was a good sidetrack.
I I can tell you where you wereon the seventh because you rode
in my truck specifically.
Uh and we got engaged uh up inthe Soviet district, and that
was when both you and GunnyMaraki were riding with our
platoon, and I I got to seemagic in action.

(50:08):
Uh you dove out one way and wentup the left side of the street,
and Gunny Maraki dove out theother way and went up the right
side of the street.
And I I distinctly remember justwe took heavy, heavy contact
after the first shot, it wasshots from all directions.
And he hadn't even Gunny Marakihadn't even got out of the
vehicle, and he turnedleft-handed, he was not

(50:31):
left-handed, and in the offhand,just sort of leaned over and
shot two dudes off the roof withhis left hand.
And I was like, Oh wow! Like, Ialmost couldn't shoot back
because I was in awe of thethings I was witnessing.

SPEAKER_00 (50:47):
The Meraki magic, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, he was, yep.

SPEAKER_03 (50:51):
And then him and Neil, uh, he grabbed Neil
because I think Neil was in histruck at that point, and he and
they went up like up thesestairs and like up on the top of
this building, and like cameback down, were like going down
the street, clearing houses bythemselves.
I was like, what the hell isgoing on?
I've never seen anything likethis.
This is great.

SPEAKER_01 (51:08):
That was uh I almost forgot about that.
So you just so you just broughtit up.
Yep.

SPEAKER_02 (51:14):
If you like what you've heard, this is a multi
part episode.
Make sure you listen to the restof the story.

All Episodes

How to Tame a Dragon - Kevin Sakaki (part 1 of 2)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How to Tame a Dragon - Kevin Sakaki (part 1 of 2)