November 10, 2025 • 44 mins
We start out with Felix Garcia’s path from Ramadi to the drill field and reckon with the quiet cost of leadership, fear, and healing. Then, we start with the Lioness teams, ad hoc tactics, and the moment a book helped name what years of silence could not. This is a story about leadership in combat that refuses easy answers and finds dignity in honesty, mentorship, and accountability.
• combat to drill instructor transition with no debrief
• coping with PTSD and isolation with alcohol
• integrating Lioness teams and mission-first culture
• redefining human response to fear
• small-unit leadership under fire and accountability
• training adaption with British advisors and drills
• mentoring a Marine who chose to speak up
• faith as anchor and the weight of command
• graveyard ambush and QRF actions
If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story
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If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ RamadiPodcast@gmail.com, or via the podcast website above.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05 (00:37):
Can you say your name and what platoon you're in?
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
Oh yeah, so Felix Garcia, uh sergeant at the time,
uh Rainmaker platoon, uh part ofthe 81 Mike Mike for Weapons
Company, second time fourthrains.
First one.
(01:01):
Drinking like four beers beforethis podcast started.
Um like you had mentionedearlier, it's it doesn't feel
right to to to talk through itlike this.
Um but reading, you know, the uhthe unremitting um I got that
word right, right?
SPEAKER_04 (01:20):
Yes, unremitting.
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
Unremitting.
So I picked it up and uh man, Iswallowed it.
I I didn't read it, I uhlistened to the audiobook during
drive.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
Um and you know, just just allthe pieces, right?
So like the you know, the navalpiece, the you know, the army
piece, the uh the the politicalpiece, uh the bigger thinking
(01:45):
kind of put all these thingstogether for me, um, where I
didn't feel embarrassed becauseI felt embarrassed for like a
very long time.
And uh I think part of it, soafter listening to the book, uh,
I really tried to internalizehow how or why I felt the way
that I felt.
And I think it's because onceonce we got back from Iraq,
(02:09):
well, during during ourdeployment to Romani, um and I'm
and I don't remember how it cameout, but um my next duty station
was coming up, and I wasconcerned that I was gonna be
tagged for a B billet.
And you know, as you guys know,I'm I'm not a huge talker, you
(02:29):
know, I'm a huge doer.
Yeah, um, and I can think ofprocesses okay, and I can you
know speak to the processes, butlike big crowds and
conversations and hanging outwas never really my thing.
So I did not want to berecruited.
And I felt that if I was arecruiter, you know, I'd get uh
you know bad fitness report, andyou know, then my career would
be over.
So I chose to to join the drillfield.
(02:51):
So um once we got back fromIraq, I went straight on leave
and never came back to 2-4.
So so there was no there was nouh debriefing for me, you know,
yeah.
And I went from a high stressfulenvironment to another high
stressful environment.
(03:13):
Uh, where the drill instructorschool at at that time uh was
probably the hardest thing I'veever done.
And I thought, you know, being aRamadi was bad.
SPEAKER_05 (03:20):
What date did you report to drill instructor
school?
That is a crazy transition.
SPEAKER_00 (03:24):
Yeah, so um we got back in September, right?
Yes, yep.
Yep, and I was yeah, I was I wasin Paris Holland in October.
Oh, wow.
Yes, it was 30 days of leave,and then I reported straight to
be a drill instructor at ParisHolland.
And um I killed it, you know, Idid a great job there.
(03:47):
Uh, but I find myself I foundmyself on more than one
occasion, uh you know, leavingthe recruits, going to the bar,
taking myself to oblivion,passing out in a car, and this
I've never said this out loud.
Uh passing out in a car, youknow, and I'd switching back
into cameras and I would getback on a boys.
And I, you know, thinkingthrough that, I think it was,
(04:09):
you know, PTSD, depression, youknow.
Um, you know, it's not likethere's a huge amount of you
know, friends, you know, you'reuh on on the boys 16 hours a
day, you know, three months at atime.
You know, so this this bookreally opened it up for me a
little bit on you know why Ifelt the way that I felt.
So when you guys had asked, andI was like, yeah, I'm ready.
(04:31):
Um I attended my first reunionuh this last year.
Yeah.
And I bought a shirt, I boughtswag, I've never worn it until
after after uh digging into thisbook, you know, and it's not
something to be ashamed of, andit's it's worth talking about.
Um, you know, especially whenthey talked about the suicide
(04:51):
rates and how the lionessescouldn't get you know uh you
know treatment or weren'trecognized for you know being
combat, so on and so forth.
I just knew that I was alone.
SPEAKER_04 (05:03):
Um speaking of the lionesses, what do you what what
is what's uh do you do youremember any of the lionesses
that went out with you?
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
Yeah, I don't know them personally, but I do
remember uh you know havinghaving a group with us and I had
read somewhere how uh uh youknow one of the female Marines
got you know got left behind andstuff like that, and that kind
of hurt a little bit becausethat's not how we operate and we
should operate.
Um but that's it and that's theextent of it.
(05:33):
I I didn't do a lot of you knowface-to-face interactions.
SPEAKER_04 (05:38):
Sure, sure.
I remember going over and in thefirst part of like trying to
find a couple of the femalesthat were interested in helping
out, and you know, some of themcame out and decided that wasn't
for them, but we ended up withone that was really solid.
She was a staff sergeant.
Um and then I was telling Nylandearlier that I I found a book
that came out in like 2009, 10or something like that.
(06:02):
That's um it was it's calledWomen on the Front Line.
And she was an army officer thatgot out and then came back in
and was doing kind of ananalysis of like, you know, can
women be on the front line?
And one of the parts that I kindof took some pride in is that
there's a chapter actually aboutus because we were her frontline
(06:24):
experience.
And I actually kind of vaguelyremember remember her, but
nevertheless, what she wrote inthere was that the safest that
she ever felt as far as likebeing like her body being safe
inside of the military was whenshe was with 2nd Battalion 4th
Marines.
Because we were so focused onour mission that as long as you
(06:45):
know, she I think her I shouldfind the exact quotation, but
it's something to the effect ofit's like we didn't care as long
as you're shooting in the rightdirection, like like we don't
care who you are.
And and so um no, the the thelarger lioness uh part is
something that I've always I'mglad that that's being talked
(07:06):
about more, I guess, because Iwas really, really proud of what
we were able to help out withand and they then more
specifically were helping uswith when we were dealing with
the women.
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
So yeah, and that program started because I
remember those issues with youknow the whole cultural uh piece
of you know men being the samewith women, and you know, uh
that's kind of how how that kindof you know transformed and
morphed into, and theninadvertently ended up then
being in combat when you knowthings got you know hairy.
SPEAKER_04 (07:36):
Yeah, there's a couple times that's that's one
of the reasons why a couple ofthem decided not to, is we got
ambushed and not that theydidn't do what they needed to do
by any means, but definitelyafterwards we're like, you know
what, I'll stay, I'll stay inJunction City.
SPEAKER_01 (07:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_05 (07:55):
My only big memory of them, because I had never had
similar to you, Felix.
I I never had a any significantinteraction with them in the
field.
But when they came out with us,we would bring them over to
Hurricane Point hours, sometimes12 hours prior to the mission,
because we didn't want totelegraph the mission or
whatever.
I don't know.
I don't know what they werethinking, but there was no place
(08:16):
for them to hang out, which madeit weird, right?
You don't want to bring theminto our living area because
that's was kind ofinappropriate.
They're from a different unit,they're also a different gender,
and so there was a lot of likethought like, don't bring them
in there.
So, where they always stuck themwas where we had those two nasty
couches and that TV in theheadquarters shed.
(08:38):
Do you remember our weird littleMWR eight-foot by eight-foot
room?
And they would be in there.
And I remember walking in thatstaff sergeant that you
mentioned.
This is the reason why thismemory even popped up.
Uh, she was in there and she waspretty tall and pretty funny.
Uh just her demeanor.
She was always telling jokes,and she was like, Hey, we're
(09:00):
about to put on full metaljacket.
Do you want to watch it?
And I was like, I'm a Marine.
I don't, I don't think I'mallowed to say no to that.
SPEAKER_03 (09:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (09:09):
And so they started watching Full Metal Jacket.
And I think I watched sevenminutes before I had to go do
something else.
But they were all super awesome.
It was great that they were, youknow, so able to integrate into
our goofy ass platoons becauseall of us all of us had our own
personality quirks, and theyintegrated right on in and just
jumped in in a seat and neverheard anything bad, never saw
(09:33):
anything bad.
I just never had them in mytruck.
SPEAKER_00 (09:36):
Yeah.
Yeah, I hope so.
SPEAKER_05 (09:39):
So you were kind of mentioning that you felt
embarrassed, and that's not aword that I hear out of very
many Marines' mouths, but I'mcurious if you're willing to
expand on that.
And then I also I have my ownpersonal comment just on the
same side of that.
I've never felt embarrassed.
(09:59):
What I have felt for 20 years isthat I can't talk to anybody
really about it.
And it's not so muchembarrassment, I just don't
think anybody else wouldunderstand.
And so I've kept it insidemostly.
SPEAKER_00 (10:13):
Yes, yes.
And uh I I think the the uh thechoice of words comes from you
know, because there's a there'sthere's different uh aspects of
combat, right?
Like you have um you know theyou know the the fighting
spirit, right?
You have when when it's acontact right, you're you're
(10:36):
pushing towards fire.
You know, when you know when youcome to a crossing, everybody
has their you know their theirprocesses and you know they're
checking and adjusting, and youknow, ID goes off, you're you
know, pushing through the killzone and then dismounting them.
You know, there's a lot ofheroic, you know, automatic
responses to things that happen,and that's that's that's
(10:59):
something to be very pride,prideful about.
SPEAKER_05 (11:01):
Yeah, I mean that shows your training.
SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
Right.
And uh but you also, you know, Iwas a section leader, first
section leader, so I also saw uma lot of Marines in very you
know stripped situations wherethey were you know in the in the
thick of it and you knowcouldn't get their stuff
(11:24):
together, and other Marines hadto come in and you know slap
them or push them or tuck themor yank them or pull them, and
you know, hey, get your headback on.
You know, we're we're and we'rein it.
You know, let's you know, so alot of that, right?
So, and that's where theembarrassing piece I think comes
from that when somebody thinksof combat, oh you want to
combat?
Oh, you want to combat, let'stalk about.
(11:44):
You know, there's also thataspect of, yeah, but you know,
it wasn't all all rah, rah, rahthe time, you know, especially
towards towards the end of thedeployment where you know you go
into combat with this gung-hoattitude where you know, I'm
gonna kill, kill, kill, youknow, let somebody you know pipe
up, you know, I'm to the headtype scenario.
(12:05):
Yeah, and then as the as thedeployment progressed, you saw a
lot of self-preservation um outof people.
Hey, we got one one month left,and you know, we've had a high,
you know, kia and you know,we're in an action type.
So, so so Marines weren't, youknow, 100% of the times 100% in
it.
Um, and I saw a lot of that too.
(12:27):
So, so from my sense of of theembarrassment was was that uh
it's not a very postfulsituation, you know.
And then there's I've I've I'veheard of other platoons um in
the company not doing whatthey're supposed to be doing.
I I never saw that, you know,but um I remember having a
(12:47):
conversation somebody called meover, and I think it was an
officer or something that thosekid in I I don't remember his
name, but he's he he's from adifferent platoon and he
wouldn't go out with thispassion.
SPEAKER_05 (13:00):
I I do remember who you're talking about, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
Yeah, and uh young kid too.
I I I think he's you know uh avery young Marine, maybe at a
week cap or something.
I didn't know him from Adam, um,and somebody had said, Hey, I
need to go talk to him.
He you do really good, you know,influencing people.
Uh, so go talk to him.
And uh so we chatted for awhile, you know, and he's
(13:24):
crying, um, really in his feelsabout not going back out uh
because he wasn't reallyinterested in doing uh but what
uh he thought should be done.
Um you know, so and it hasn'tbeen to this last year, year and
a half, two years where I foundmy faith.
Um but I I I've always believedin a higher power.
(13:47):
You know, I've always, you know,I'm you know, there's something
bigger than me.
Like there's life, you know,there's something bigger than
all of us.
And I brought that into theconversation and I was like, you
know, I don't believe that youknow that God put us here, you
know, uh just to put us here.
You know, there's there'sthere's there's a direction in
(14:09):
life that you can choose to gooff the path, whether it's left
or right, and there's there'schoices where you can stay on
the path.
And as long as as you feel likeyou need to be on the path, God
is gonna direct you on thatpath, you know, as difficult as
it wrapped me.
And as I was talking talkingabout God, and I'm gonna
goosebumps talking about it,this huge wind from out of
(14:31):
nowhere comes and just blowsthis door open, like the back
hooch door just blows it open.
And I'm like, see, you know,that's that's that's and that's
a sign, right?
You know, you don't have to doanything that you don't want to
do, right?
You have a choice, right?
So just make the right choice.
But in the thick of it, you'regonna have your brother to the
left or right that might needyou at that particular time,
(14:53):
right?
So for no other reason, you atleast at the minimum you need to
go out there and standtoe-to-toe with your brothers in
arms when stuff you know chase.
SPEAKER_05 (15:04):
Um I cannot remember that Marine's name.
He was from Mobile AssaultPlatoon 3, and I can see his
face in my head, and I cannot, Icould not tell you his name, but
beautiful, beautiful young guy.
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04 (15:18):
And I actually go ahead.
I'm sorry.
What I was gonna say uh was uhLex is uh that that was one of
the that's actually one of mynotes of that one of the things
that I was gonna bring up was Iactually remember uh you being
asked to talk to that guy.
And I also remember you talkingto more than than than that
(15:40):
individual Marine.
And it's one of the things thatI had I like when I think about
you, it's one of the things thatI think about is how good you
were with the Marines, with thejunior Marines, and giving and
being that uh uh there is athere was a there was a sense
you had you had a strong senseof of what needs to be done and
(16:03):
you were open to hearing and andcommunicating.
And that was uh Nylan and I havejoked about this.
Uh well he has said it a coupleof times, but just that the 81s
uh are cult the 81 culture is alittle bit different inside of
uh the larger weapons companydue to uh for a variety of
different reasons.
We tend to yell a little bitmore and tend to be a little bit
(16:25):
more very structured.
Yeah.
And I always had a hard timebecause that's not I'm not a
yeller.
I was never a yeller.
And and so I was constantlypushed to do that.
And uh and when we were in,Nylan would often uh say
something to me and be like,don't let them get to you.
(16:47):
You know, this isn't that's notyour leadership style.
Don't don't do it.
SPEAKER_05 (16:51):
Well, dude.
SPEAKER_04 (16:52):
Um go ahead.
Well, I was just my my end of itis that is that uh uh flex, you
were you were you when you cameon board though.
So this is after I had picked upcorporal, that when you came on
board, I was finally being ableto say, like, there, see?
I can be like, I can be like Idon't have to yell.
I I can be I can be a a spacefor these marines.
(17:13):
And I ended up being that for uhSledgehammer, where I ended up
getting pushed some of theMarines that maybe needed uh you
know, did not respond as well togetting yelled at.
And so I would I would couldwork with them more.
But you were but but my biggestmemory of you, especially over
there, is you talking to thatMarine and a couple others of
just getting their heads screwedon straight.
(17:34):
Right.
And uh and allowing them to uhfunction as best as they could
over there.
Because I mean, if you wouldhave refused to, you know, go
further, I mean that would haveescalated.
And so you you know you yousaved a lot of heartache by
being the person you are.
So yeah, that young man, uhagain, I I think I remember who
(17:56):
it is, but I'm I'm I'mrefraining from saying their
name just because it's you knowI don't want to embarrass
somebody if they listen.
SPEAKER_05 (18:01):
So yeah, I I I can't remember his name, but I was
also asked to talk to him aswell.
And uh so I remembered that.
But he he only remained withheadquarters for maybe three,
four weeks.
And I think he went to talk toyou again or something, he
talked to someone else again,and then he went back to map
(18:22):
three and and finished the restof the deployment and never had
any other issues.
And he contacted me probably 10years ago, years later, through
social media, and he apologizedto me, weirdly, and I wasn't
even in a Splatoon abouteverything.
And he said he was gonna gothrough and apologize to
everybody.
I was like, You have literallynothing to apologize for, you
did nothing wrong.
(18:46):
It was uh a surreal moment.
I hope he is doing well.
SPEAKER_00 (18:49):
Yeah, same here.
And that's what I was gonna say.
If he ever listens or comesacross this podcast, I have
nothing but respect for thisyoung man to to you know to grab
hold and own it.
No, that's a big deal, you know,especially in this type of
environment.
You know, when you're trying toself-preserve yourself, you
know, to go against that, that'shuge.
SPEAKER_05 (19:07):
Well, he could have done worse too.
He could have gone outside thewire and in his head he wasn't
gonna fight instead of saying itout loud and letting everybody
know that, hey, I can't do this.
He could have gone outside thewire and then just crumpled up
in a ball out out there in thefield somewhere, and then he
would have been a liability.
And so this was a better choice,realistically, and a very mature
(19:28):
choice, though at the time Idoubt he thought it was that
way.
And then he probably many peopledidn't treat him that way.
That was a very smart choice.
SPEAKER_04 (19:35):
Something that Nylan and I noticed when we were
reading the book, and that kindof like struck, at least I let
me just speak for myself, thatstruck one of the biggest things
that struck me readingunremitting was being reminded
how young all of us were.
And I was just having this kindI was I just visited a very
close friend of mine just theweekend.
(19:56):
We've been friends sincekindergarten.
So he was he's been with me thisentire weird journey.
And um this topic of the podcastand in the book and everything
came up, and uh something thathe brought up also in that that
that made me go, oh wow, is youknow, like I'll just use myself
(20:18):
for example.
I I barely graduated from highschool.
I'm from Northwest Illinois.
The number of people ofdifferent cultures that I had
talked to prior to joining theMarine Corps was you know, could
count on one hand.
SPEAKER_02 (20:29):
Right.
SPEAKER_04 (20:30):
And we're being asked to do a job that for
millennia hasn't been able to befigured out by the top people
that have devoted their entirelife to this.
And uh I think going back toyour comment about being, you
know, embarrassed, which I, youknow, I appreciate that maybe
(20:53):
you're you're reprocessing thatword.
Um, you know, we were beingasked to do something very
unfair.
Like the like the the the amountof responsibility that I think
that we especially as Marines,we take on a lot of
responsibility.
And so uh but we do have to giveourselves a break.
You know, when I, you know, nowthat I'm in my 40s, I think
about, you know, 22, like I lookat a 22-year-old and it's like,
(21:17):
man, I like like we weretrusting you to do these really
like we didn't like when we gotsent over there, we didn't have
we we we gotta make up our, Imean, uh another one of my big
memories is is running isrunning some of those uh uh
drills that we were drunk.
I mean, uh you would run, I I Ilove you for it, because uh we
(21:37):
would run those drills in uhcamp uh victory before we left
to the LOD, just like we didn'tknow what we were doing, but at
least you were you were pushingthe training, giving, giving
Marines the confidence that,yeah, we might not know what's
next, but we're gonna train whatwe do know, so we'll be ready.
And because I know people werestarting to get a little worried
that it was like we don't know,you know, what drills to expect.
SPEAKER_05 (22:01):
I know what we did, but what drills did you guys
run?
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
So I remember um towards the end of our training
before going to um Iraq, therewas a huge push against, or not
against, but towards umoccupying towns, and uh it's uh
a tactic that we use used inVietnam, um, where the the
(22:24):
locals would befriend um not thelocals, the the occupying force,
I guess, would would befriendthe locals and kind of help in
that sense.
So and it was weird because wedidn't there was no talk of that
until like a month beforedeploying.
Right.
And uh in my mind, I was like,well, you know, what's what are
we really planning to getinvolved in?
(22:46):
Um so I did some research, youknow, I I read some books, you
know, try to you know spin up onwhat the the holistic thought
thought process was behind that.
And then we got to Camp Victoryand we got some training from
the British Special Forces, Ibelieve.
Yes, around satellite trainingor satellite patrol.
Yes.
Um so that's what I worked on.
SPEAKER_05 (23:07):
So so interestingly, it was the Scottish Dragoons
very specifically, and uh theand the British SAS, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:15):
Yep, SAS, yep.
And um, so I I put two and twotogether.
I was like, okay, so you know,the and the command is kind of
giving us some insight that hey,we might be left alone or very
limited resources to executewhatever mission that we that we
had.
And then we had this new styleof patrolling that was not
linear.
Um, so I I relied heavily on youknow the very efficient and uh
(23:41):
self-sustained work groupswithin within that piece, and
that's why I kept I kept pushingthat, expecting that at some
point we were gonna be in athick of it with no resources,
uh, and we you know need to beprepared as you know, as play as
many scenarios as we can um tobe as successful as we can.
SPEAKER_05 (24:02):
Do you remember what you read?
I'm and that actually just yousaying that is I'm very curious
because I I read a couple ofbooks too.
I was very much uh cerebral asfar as that went, preparing for
war and and hoping that I coulddisseminate knowledge.
That was the goal.
SPEAKER_00 (24:16):
Yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (24:17):
What did you read?
SPEAKER_00 (24:18):
Yeah, I don't remember.
SPEAKER_05 (24:19):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04 (24:20):
Yeah, I uh you uh it was uh um small oh shoot it uh
because uh you gave it to me.
Um and I got a copy of it.
It was like small small unitwarfare.
Um it was a great it was a greatbook with a red line on the
back.
SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
Yeah, and it was a very short read, right?
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't like youknow, it wasn't a huge, you
know, yeah, but anything.
SPEAKER_05 (24:46):
Just I mean, just the fact that as a sergeant uh
and you said you were a sectionleader, to take that on yourself
to do something that essentiallyis really an officer's job and
disseminate that to Marines isunique and impressive on a in
and of itself.
And I mean I was just that wasinteresting to me that you ran
drills yourself because that wasthe kind of crap I also tried to
(25:09):
do for the same thing.
Right, because I didn't thinkanybody was preparing us for
anything, right?
SPEAKER_00 (25:15):
Yeah, it was a it was a shot in the dark for sure.
Um I think I read a questionhere, so uh uh off that podcast
sheet that I want to talk about.
There was there was this pointwhere uh an ID went off or
something, or somebody got shot,or it was our first you know
(25:36):
interaction, and it wasn'tweapons platoon, it was you
know, you know, combat outposts,you know, like out there.
And uh I really internalized it,I was like, man, it was IDs, it
had to be IDs.
But uh I remember journaling, soyou know, because as a section
leader, you can't reallyarticulate how you feel, right?
(25:57):
You know, you gotta be thestrongest you can for everyone
around you.
So um I would journal sometimes,and then I would also call uh my
girlfriends, plural, um, youknow, to kind of you know walk
through some of the emotions Iwas going through.
SPEAKER_05 (26:12):
We'll come back to that uh here in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (26:17):
And uh and when I I remember a a turning point in my
thought process, and I think Igotta drill run house somewhere,
but it was it was somethingalong the lines that if an IED
goes off, I either made it ordidn't make it.
(26:37):
Right?
So I shouldn't be afraid whenwhen something you know huge
happens.
If anything, I need to act.
And I and I carried and Icarried that and trained you
know and the team to thatthought process.
And uh I was like ready to die,like at any point, even even on
(27:00):
our last day of uh of Iraq.
Um one time specifically we wereyou know it was towards the end
of the deployment and we weredoing patrols throughout the
city, and we ended up at thisintersection.
Uh and you know, there's a lotof fear going on, right?
Because you know, the the theApril sind eggs and uh and the
(27:25):
cash and mass casualties andstuff.
So we're we're we're hoppingacross an intersection and one
of my marines wouldn't post upand protect down the alleyway or
whatever it was or thestreetway.
And uh I kept I kept grabbinghim.
I'm like, hey, hey, we gotta go.
You gotta post up, you gottapost up right here.
Because if you don't post up,you know, it's the same shit,
(27:45):
right?
Like, hey, your your area ofoperation during this crossing
is this corner, that this iswhat you need to be.
And he wouldn't do it.
He was he was scared shitless uhfor obvious reasons.
And uh I was like, all right,fuck it.
So I stood in the middle of theintersection with my hands in my
pocket, and I'm like, you'reeither gonna post up and take
your post, or we're just gonnawait for someone to shoot me.
But you're gonna do your fuckingjob.
(28:07):
It's it's gonna happen.
And after you know, some someyou know heated words and
conversations, you know, hefinally took his post.
Uh but but that was you knowbased on that initial thought
process of you know, that'seither gonna happen or not gonna
happen.
Um yeah, and that was that washard.
(28:27):
Keeping keeping everybody inline mentally was probably the
hardest thing I uh I did whilewhile I'm in Iraq.
SPEAKER_05 (28:35):
The burden of command and burden of leadership
is very real.
I I think that is also somethingthat is underrepresented.
I think I I don't know, youknow, you and I are pretty close
to the same age, and so you grewup with the the pinnacle of
Vietnam movies and all that crapin the 80s and 90s and and all
that.
And so there was some moviesthat got down to that there
(28:57):
where there was leaders who werereally stressing their
decisions, not what everythingwasn't Rambo.
Some of the movies actually didreally good at that.
And I don't think there is amodern version of that right now
uh for the global war on terror,because now we're 20 years out
from some of the biggest battlesof the global war on terror.
(29:18):
And people don't talk about thatenough about how much that
weighs on you, as a small unitleader, especially, that you are
you're looking your friend inthe eye and you might have been
paying playing cards a minuteago, and now you're, as you just
said, standing in anintersection where very
frequently people were justpopping around corners and
firing weapons, and you werelike, Look, I'll show you.
(29:40):
I'm not scared, you can stand onthat corner, and how hard that
is on you specifically to belike, Well, that's fine, I'm
gonna gamble my life so that wayeverybody else will do what
they're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00 (29:52):
100%.
SPEAKER_05 (29:54):
Yeah, that's and it that and you again you're
thinking about this moment 20years later, and I imagine it
weighs on you now just the sameas it did then, where you're
like, damn, that was a dumbchoice, yeah, personally, but it
did the right thing at the timeand it kept everybody going, it
kept everybody alive.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
Yeah, it's it was you know, it's about holding
people accountable.
Um you know, you have one personnot doing their job, and you
think that your six is coveredand it's not covered, and there
goes, you know, a young 18 yearold, you know, 21 year old, you
know, with newborn.
Kids that they've never seenbecause some some jackass in the
back and doesn't want to do thejob.
(30:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (30:32):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
Yeah, that's that's that's not it's it's
unsatisfactory.
unknown (30:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (30:38):
Some of the in the other, especially when we were
talking with Jordan and Nylonand I talked about this
extensively, and we've kind ofalready touched on it a little
bit here too, but it isabsolutely wild to think about
in the historical perspectivethat when we went over there,
how how new everything was.
I mean, we went over, we didn'thave the armor.
(31:00):
When we went over there, wedidn't have tactics.
When we went over there, wedidn't even understand.
I mean, I mean, I don't know ifyou remember the weird little
slide deck presentation that wegot on what IEDs are, and then
saying that we needed to havelike a 200-foot offset if like
if a soda can was filled withyou know gunpowder and it's like
get, you know, and and none ofit, I mean, it it was it was
(31:22):
nice to have some of theinformation, but they really
didn't give us anything.
And we were inventing, we were,you know, needing to invent it
on the fly.
And so not only were we at thedisadvantage of trying to figure
this all out, um, but we werealso trying to navigate exactly
(31:42):
what you're talking about oflike, you know, we're we're
trying to invent this.
We're also trying to navigatethe, you know, your own Marines
when you're in when you are in,when you do have, you know,
leader when you're inleadership.
And then you're also trying tomanage your own shit.
You know, you're you know,keeping yourself, you know, to
that higher, to that higherechelon of of uh of
(32:05):
proactiveness, higher echelon ofuh reasonability, you know.
I remember um somethinghappened, I don't remember
exactly, but Gunny Cook saidsomething to me after a mission
and it changed it fortunatelysaid it it was early on.
And he said, make sure that youremember you have the dogs of
war on a leash and don't let outmore leash than you can handle.
(32:27):
Because if if if if they getaway from you, you can't pull
the leash back.
And um, I mean, it was acritique because I had I I don't
know exactly what had happened,but it doesn't really matter.
Uh, but he I think he sensedthat I was a little too lax with
my, you know, letting the guysget a little too angry with what
(32:48):
had happened.
I think it was right after Ithink it was that no, I actually
I do know what had to happen.
It was after Worth got hit.
And uh we were getting rocksthrown at us by a crowd.
SPEAKER_05 (32:57):
And uh I so that was March 20th when Worth got hit by
that bike IED.
SPEAKER_00 (33:03):
Yep.
That that took out his eye,right?
SPEAKER_05 (33:06):
I'm sorry, it took out his eye.
SPEAKER_00 (33:08):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (33:09):
Where's he at nowadays?
Last I heard he was in Ohio,question mark.
I reached out to him severalyears ago.
Um, I need to do it again.
SPEAKER_00 (33:19):
Yeah, he he's not on socials, right?
Because I've I've looked at him.
SPEAKER_05 (33:22):
I have not, yeah, I have not seen him, haven't been
able to reach out with him or orkeep in touch with them at all,
unfortunately.
SPEAKER_04 (33:27):
Yeah, I still have one of his DVDs, and every time
I see it, I feel bad that Inever got it back to him.
His name's actually on it, andI'm like, God, I need it.
I owe you.
I should have returned that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
Yeah, I think that was our first bad connection
here.
Who is that?
Is it is that me?
SPEAKER_05 (33:47):
It's all right, go ahead.
You you froze for a second, butit's okay.
You can say it again.
I can clip it.
SPEAKER_00 (33:52):
No, I was asking uh oh, I think Worth was our first
weapons company uh, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05 (34:01):
The first wounded?
SPEAKER_00 (34:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (34:03):
No, he was not the first wounded.
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Who was it?
SPEAKER_05 (34:06):
Um that's a good question.
I don't know, but I was woundedbefore Worth was.
I was wounded on the 18th, andWorth was wounded on the 20th.
Uh I but I think someone gothit, and Staleman seemed to
think it was uh minor, but Idon't know that it was minor.
But someone caught shrapnel onthe way up from Kuwait from an
(34:27):
IED.
SPEAKER_00 (34:29):
Yeah, I thought that was Worth.
SPEAKER_05 (34:31):
That was not Worth's on the 20th.
We came up on from Kuwait onMarch 6th.
I have the four I have thefortune of having looked up all
these dates, so I I've got atimeline sort of scribbled down
actually.
It it uh it makes it easier forme to keep in sort of in were
you a part of the convoy goingup?
SPEAKER_04 (34:52):
Or were you did you come did you come with everybody
else later?
SPEAKER_00 (34:55):
Yeah, we we yeah uh off C 130, I think it was.
SPEAKER_04 (35:00):
I was gonna ask, like, how did you guys get up?
Because Nylon and I were part ofthe convoy that drove from
Kuwait to Ramadi.
SPEAKER_00 (35:08):
So this thing was a shit show.
Um should like a funny story,shit.
SPEAKER_04 (35:14):
Uh I'm actually really excited about this
because I don't know any of thisstory.
Like like once we left once weleft uh Camp Victor, uh Camp
Victory, and then when you guysshowed up a few days later, I
have no idea what happened inbetween then.
SPEAKER_05 (35:28):
Yeah, same.
I just remember the seven tonspicking you up.
SPEAKER_00 (35:31):
The the core memory I have uh around that movement
was we're we're NSP 130 and it'slate at night, like two o'clock
in the morning or something.
Um and you know it's cold,right?
And there's you know, there'sthere's no right so it's
freaking freezing in the in thein the bins, and we're in full
combat gear, and we're about toyou know land to wherever it
(35:54):
was, you know, sod or I don't Idon't know.
SPEAKER_05 (35:56):
Probably Al-Assad, I'd imagine that was the closest
big airbase that would land aC-130.
SPEAKER_00 (36:00):
And this freaking bird starts to climb and climb,
and I'm talking about a steepclimb.
And you know, nobody, nobodyget, you know, get gave us a
heads up that this is proper,you know, procedure, you know,
when you're coming into acombat.
Yeah, this thing is at like at a45 degree angle, and we're
picking up and we're picking upand we're picking up and we're
(36:21):
coming, and it gets colder andcolder and colder, and then this
motherfucker drops.
SPEAKER_01 (36:25):
Oh, we did a combat dive in.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, everybody in there was likeah like a freaking roller
coaster.
Like everybody's like rabbingeach other, like, what the
hell's going on?
We just got shot, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (36:36):
Um and then right before we land, this you know,
he levels out, and you know, nottoo much longer, you know, where
you you can feel it land.
And I was like, This thesefucking beef bags, you know,
warn somebody.
Uh but yeah, that was ourexperience flying in.
So to the pilot, screw you.
SPEAKER_04 (36:59):
No, I remember, I don't remember who it was.
It was somebody on ship when wewere on the ASICs, uh, and we
had been down in the belly forforever.
And uh and I remember saying Ican't remember who it was.
It was one of the it was a staffNCO, and I was like, why are
they doing this to us?
And they said they tortureMarines to make sure that you
don't want to go back to ship incase there's a war, because they
(37:19):
want to make sure that whatever,no matter how bad it is in war,
no matter like you don't want toeven think about what uh peace
felt like.
Uh now, were you a part of theuh stay behind uh key leadership
at the end?
SPEAKER_00 (37:40):
I was not.
Nope.
No, okay.
SPEAKER_05 (37:43):
Yeah, you were you were there for the left seat,
right seats at the end.
SPEAKER_00 (37:46):
Was I?
Oh, yeah, you're right, becausethat uh that that that was uh an
ID that hurt hurt uh two fivewas two five and everything.
SPEAKER_04 (37:57):
That was my truck.
Almost killed me.
SPEAKER_00 (37:59):
Was it worth it?
SPEAKER_05 (38:01):
He got hit by an RPG, Diaz got hit by a mortar.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
Um that was Captain Rapicolt.
SPEAKER_05 (38:10):
That was actually earlier than the left seat right
seats.
Uh, when did he get burned?
I've actually got that writtendown too, just because of this
particular conversation.
That was July.
July was when that guy gotburned.
But September 12th, uh, 11th and12th were the left seat right
seats for key leaders beforewhen we sent all the platoons
(38:30):
back.
And the reason why I know youwere there is because I remember
specifically we almost all diedon the 12th with the mass
uprising and all of the ambusheson the truck center.
Yeah, at the government center.
And we drove back under fire.
I don't know about you, but alot of everybody that I was
attached to was shooting out ofthe trucks essentially to keep
(38:52):
people from overthrowing thetrucks.
SPEAKER_02 (38:54):
Right.
SPEAKER_05 (38:55):
We got back to Hurricane Point, and that was
when they had the mass rush onthe snake pit and the front gate
of Hurricane Point.
And right after all of that, Iwalked over and you were sitting
in the smoke pit, and I satright next to you.
I think it was the only time Ihad ever seen you smoke a
(39:16):
cigarette ever.
I don't know if you smoked atthat time, but you did that day.
And you you were you had justpulled a cigarette out, and I
grabbed my sweaty bullshitcigarette pack out of my gear
and pulled out a cigarette, andI looked at you and I said,
Garcia, I am so sorry foranything I have ever said about
(39:38):
81 Splatoon.
You guys are amazing.
And these guys are the biggestfucking bunch of idiots I've
ever met in my life, and I hopewe never go out again.
And we didn't, we didn't majorHarold call it, and they brought
a seven-ton over and picked usup and took us over to Camp
Ramadi.
And you were laughing your assoff, and you're like, it's okay,
man.
You're like pat me on the back.
(39:59):
I was like, I don't know whatthe fuck we just witnessed, but
that was not none of that wasorganized.
SPEAKER_00 (40:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's uh and Ramadi at that many times
with this show.
Yeah, that's uh so in the book,um unremitting, it covers uh an
ambush, it glosses over anambush that uh specifically
talks about Jeremiah Savage.
So we were uh QRF, I don'tremember what number, but it was
(40:28):
it was heavy out there, and wedrive out our out of Hurricane
Point, we made a ride somewhere,and then uh you know, and we're
trucking through the city,right?
Because we're trying to get towhoever you know is locked up in
in uh in combat in a firefight.
And we make this left, and as wemake this left, um we get two
(40:51):
Hum D's.
I'm in the second, Jeremiah,Lieutenant Dobin, and then Regal
Sperker are on their firstvehicle.
I think Lewis Lane was in the inthe vehicle behind me.
Maybe Dahl was a fourth driver,I don't remember.
But uh man, as soon as we takethat left terminal, it contact
left.
So when we make a left turn, itwas contact left, and all the
(41:13):
vehicles stop, everybody'sscreaming contact left,
everybody gets out the vehicle,and to the left, there's this
grave, and the grave uh is isprotected by eight-foot like
gate fencing or another.
Jeremiah opens up, you know, heyou know, there's there's
there's people in this grave,uh, you know, the enemy or
(41:35):
whatever.
SPEAKER_05 (41:35):
And you guys were taking small arms fire, like AKs
and RPK type fire, or AKs and uhmedium machine guns, yeah, from
a very close range, probablylike 20 feet, uh very wild and
very vicious.
SPEAKER_00 (41:48):
And uh we ended up scaling this fence.
We jump over the fence, uh,we're running up on the enemy,
we're we're dropping bodies, weuh we get to this wall um
because it was it was fencingabout 25-30 feet worth of
graves, you know, about three orfour uh and I don't want to say
the incorrect term, but youknow, bad guys.
(42:10):
Um you know, there's machineguns and AKs on the ground, and
I look at and I'm gonna say hisname because we've we've spoken
about this before.
Uh we get to this wall, and I'mlike, Hersher, scale the wall.
He's like, I'm not fuckingscaling the wall.
Like, fuck it, I'll scale thewall, right?
So fucking I scale the wall up,right?
(42:31):
Because we're pushing through,you know, we're pushing through.
We don't know how deep is, youknow, we're pushing through
contact left.
We we engage the enemy, theenemy's dead.
We're we're pushing through thiswall.
I'm gonna figure out what's up,yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (42:43):
Make sure there's nothing on the other side 100.
SPEAKER_00 (42:45):
And uh, so I scale the wall by myself, right?
I scale the wall when I land,I'm in this intersection as far
as you can see, in the middle ofan in an in an intersection, as
far as you can see, and thenthere's street as far as you can
see, as far as you can see.
See, and I'm like, this was afucking bonehead move.
This was dumb.
(43:06):
Like Percy was was right to say,I'm not scaling that wall.
Uh but you know, luckily enough,there was you know there was no
contact after the that wall, butthere was a vehicle parked
behind the wall, and uh thetrunk was open and it was ammo
for days, and we ended up uh youknow shooting you know the
engine block to make sure thatvehicle couldn't be used again,
(43:28):
and yeah, you know, did a quickquick look and then we got back
on our trucks and and went outto what we were called to do for
that day.
SPEAKER_05 (43:36):
How many enemy do you think were in the ambush?
SPEAKER_00 (43:39):
Uh four or five, I would say.
Enough to fit in that vehicle.
SPEAKER_04 (43:49):
If you like what you've heard, this is a multi
part episode.
Make sure you listen to the restof the story.
Can you say your name and what platoon you're in?
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
Oh yeah, so Felix Garcia, uh sergeant at the time,
uh Rainmaker platoon, uh part ofthe 81 Mike Mike for Weapons
Company, second time fourthrains.
First one.
(01:01):
Drinking like four beers beforethis podcast started.
Um like you had mentionedearlier, it's it doesn't feel
right to to to talk through itlike this.
Um but reading, you know, the uhthe unremitting um I got that
word right, right?
SPEAKER_04 (01:20):
Yes, unremitting.
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
Unremitting.
So I picked it up and uh man, Iswallowed it.
I I didn't read it, I uhlistened to the audiobook during
drive.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
Um and you know, just just allthe pieces, right?
So like the you know, the navalpiece, the you know, the army
piece, the uh the the politicalpiece, uh the bigger thinking
(01:45):
kind of put all these thingstogether for me, um, where I
didn't feel embarrassed becauseI felt embarrassed for like a
very long time.
And uh I think part of it, soafter listening to the book, uh,
I really tried to internalizehow how or why I felt the way
that I felt.
And I think it's because onceonce we got back from Iraq,
(02:09):
well, during during ourdeployment to Romani, um and I'm
and I don't remember how it cameout, but um my next duty station
was coming up, and I wasconcerned that I was gonna be
tagged for a B billet.
And you know, as you guys know,I'm I'm not a huge talker, you
(02:29):
know, I'm a huge doer.
Yeah, um, and I can think ofprocesses okay, and I can you
know speak to the processes, butlike big crowds and
conversations and hanging outwas never really my thing.
So I did not want to berecruited.
And I felt that if I was arecruiter, you know, I'd get uh
you know bad fitness report, andyou know, then my career would
be over.
So I chose to to join the drillfield.
(02:51):
So um once we got back fromIraq, I went straight on leave
and never came back to 2-4.
So so there was no there was nouh debriefing for me, you know,
yeah.
And I went from a high stressfulenvironment to another high
stressful environment.
(03:13):
Uh, where the drill instructorschool at at that time uh was
probably the hardest thing I'veever done.
And I thought, you know, being aRamadi was bad.
SPEAKER_05 (03:20):
What date did you report to drill instructor
school?
That is a crazy transition.
SPEAKER_00 (03:24):
Yeah, so um we got back in September, right?
Yes, yep.
Yep, and I was yeah, I was I wasin Paris Holland in October.
Oh, wow.
Yes, it was 30 days of leave,and then I reported straight to
be a drill instructor at ParisHolland.
And um I killed it, you know, Idid a great job there.
(03:47):
Uh, but I find myself I foundmyself on more than one
occasion, uh you know, leavingthe recruits, going to the bar,
taking myself to oblivion,passing out in a car, and this
I've never said this out loud.
Uh passing out in a car, youknow, and I'd switching back
into cameras and I would getback on a boys.
And I, you know, thinkingthrough that, I think it was,
(04:09):
you know, PTSD, depression, youknow.
Um, you know, it's not likethere's a huge amount of you
know, friends, you know, you'reuh on on the boys 16 hours a
day, you know, three months at atime.
You know, so this this bookreally opened it up for me a
little bit on you know why Ifelt the way that I felt.
So when you guys had asked, andI was like, yeah, I'm ready.
(04:31):
Um I attended my first reunionuh this last year.
Yeah.
And I bought a shirt, I boughtswag, I've never worn it until
after after uh digging into thisbook, you know, and it's not
something to be ashamed of, andit's it's worth talking about.
Um, you know, especially whenthey talked about the suicide
(04:51):
rates and how the lionessescouldn't get you know uh you
know treatment or weren'trecognized for you know being
combat, so on and so forth.
I just knew that I was alone.
SPEAKER_04 (05:03):
Um speaking of the lionesses, what do you what what
is what's uh do you do youremember any of the lionesses
that went out with you?
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
Yeah, I don't know them personally, but I do
remember uh you know havinghaving a group with us and I had
read somewhere how uh uh youknow one of the female Marines
got you know got left behind andstuff like that, and that kind
of hurt a little bit becausethat's not how we operate and we
should operate.
Um but that's it and that's theextent of it.
(05:33):
I I didn't do a lot of you knowface-to-face interactions.
SPEAKER_04 (05:38):
Sure, sure.
I remember going over and in thefirst part of like trying to
find a couple of the femalesthat were interested in helping
out, and you know, some of themcame out and decided that wasn't
for them, but we ended up withone that was really solid.
She was a staff sergeant.
Um and then I was telling Nylandearlier that I I found a book
that came out in like 2009, 10or something like that.
(06:02):
That's um it was it's calledWomen on the Front Line.
And she was an army officer thatgot out and then came back in
and was doing kind of ananalysis of like, you know, can
women be on the front line?
And one of the parts that I kindof took some pride in is that
there's a chapter actually aboutus because we were her frontline
(06:24):
experience.
And I actually kind of vaguelyremember remember her, but
nevertheless, what she wrote inthere was that the safest that
she ever felt as far as likebeing like her body being safe
inside of the military was whenshe was with 2nd Battalion 4th
Marines.
Because we were so focused onour mission that as long as you
(06:45):
know, she I think her I shouldfind the exact quotation, but
it's something to the effect ofit's like we didn't care as long
as you're shooting in the rightdirection, like like we don't
care who you are.
And and so um no, the the thelarger lioness uh part is
something that I've always I'mglad that that's being talked
(07:06):
about more, I guess, because Iwas really, really proud of what
we were able to help out withand and they then more
specifically were helping uswith when we were dealing with
the women.
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
So yeah, and that program started because I
remember those issues with youknow the whole cultural uh piece
of you know men being the samewith women, and you know, uh
that's kind of how how that kindof you know transformed and
morphed into, and theninadvertently ended up then
being in combat when you knowthings got you know hairy.
SPEAKER_04 (07:36):
Yeah, there's a couple times that's that's one
of the reasons why a couple ofthem decided not to, is we got
ambushed and not that theydidn't do what they needed to do
by any means, but definitelyafterwards we're like, you know
what, I'll stay, I'll stay inJunction City.
SPEAKER_01 (07:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_05 (07:55):
My only big memory of them, because I had never had
similar to you, Felix.
I I never had a any significantinteraction with them in the
field.
But when they came out with us,we would bring them over to
Hurricane Point hours, sometimes12 hours prior to the mission,
because we didn't want totelegraph the mission or
whatever.
I don't know.
I don't know what they werethinking, but there was no place
(08:16):
for them to hang out, which madeit weird, right?
You don't want to bring theminto our living area because
that's was kind ofinappropriate.
They're from a different unit,they're also a different gender,
and so there was a lot of likethought like, don't bring them
in there.
So, where they always stuck themwas where we had those two nasty
couches and that TV in theheadquarters shed.
(08:38):
Do you remember our weird littleMWR eight-foot by eight-foot
room?
And they would be in there.
And I remember walking in thatstaff sergeant that you
mentioned.
This is the reason why thismemory even popped up.
Uh, she was in there and she waspretty tall and pretty funny.
Uh just her demeanor.
She was always telling jokes,and she was like, Hey, we're
(09:00):
about to put on full metaljacket.
Do you want to watch it?
And I was like, I'm a Marine.
I don't, I don't think I'mallowed to say no to that.
SPEAKER_03 (09:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (09:09):
And so they started watching Full Metal Jacket.
And I think I watched sevenminutes before I had to go do
something else.
But they were all super awesome.
It was great that they were, youknow, so able to integrate into
our goofy ass platoons becauseall of us all of us had our own
personality quirks, and theyintegrated right on in and just
jumped in in a seat and neverheard anything bad, never saw
(09:33):
anything bad.
I just never had them in mytruck.
SPEAKER_00 (09:36):
Yeah.
Yeah, I hope so.
SPEAKER_05 (09:39):
So you were kind of mentioning that you felt
embarrassed, and that's not aword that I hear out of very
many Marines' mouths, but I'mcurious if you're willing to
expand on that.
And then I also I have my ownpersonal comment just on the
same side of that.
I've never felt embarrassed.
(09:59):
What I have felt for 20 years isthat I can't talk to anybody
really about it.
And it's not so muchembarrassment, I just don't
think anybody else wouldunderstand.
And so I've kept it insidemostly.
SPEAKER_00 (10:13):
Yes, yes.
And uh I I think the the uh thechoice of words comes from you
know, because there's a there'sthere's different uh aspects of
combat, right?
Like you have um you know theyou know the the fighting
spirit, right?
You have when when it's acontact right, you're you're
(10:36):
pushing towards fire.
You know, when you know when youcome to a crossing, everybody
has their you know their theirprocesses and you know they're
checking and adjusting, and youknow, ID goes off, you're you
know, pushing through the killzone and then dismounting them.
You know, there's a lot ofheroic, you know, automatic
responses to things that happen,and that's that's that's
(10:59):
something to be very pride,prideful about.
SPEAKER_05 (11:01):
Yeah, I mean that shows your training.
SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
Right.
And uh but you also, you know, Iwas a section leader, first
section leader, so I also saw uma lot of Marines in very you
know stripped situations wherethey were you know in the in the
thick of it and you knowcouldn't get their stuff
(11:24):
together, and other Marines hadto come in and you know slap
them or push them or tuck themor yank them or pull them, and
you know, hey, get your headback on.
You know, we're we're and we'rein it.
You know, let's you know, so alot of that, right?
So, and that's where theembarrassing piece I think comes
from that when somebody thinksof combat, oh you want to
combat?
Oh, you want to combat, let'stalk about.
(11:44):
You know, there's also thataspect of, yeah, but you know,
it wasn't all all rah, rah, rahthe time, you know, especially
towards towards the end of thedeployment where you know you go
into combat with this gung-hoattitude where you know, I'm
gonna kill, kill, kill, youknow, let somebody you know pipe
up, you know, I'm to the headtype scenario.
(12:05):
Yeah, and then as the as thedeployment progressed, you saw a
lot of self-preservation um outof people.
Hey, we got one one month left,and you know, we've had a high,
you know, kia and you know,we're in an action type.
So, so so Marines weren't, youknow, 100% of the times 100% in
it.
Um, and I saw a lot of that too.
(12:27):
So, so from my sense of of theembarrassment was was that uh
it's not a very postfulsituation, you know.
And then there's I've I've I'veheard of other platoons um in
the company not doing whatthey're supposed to be doing.
I I never saw that, you know,but um I remember having a
(12:47):
conversation somebody called meover, and I think it was an
officer or something that thosekid in I I don't remember his
name, but he's he he's from adifferent platoon and he
wouldn't go out with thispassion.
SPEAKER_05 (13:00):
I I do remember who you're talking about, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (13:02):
Yeah, and uh young kid too.
I I I think he's you know uh avery young Marine, maybe at a
week cap or something.
I didn't know him from Adam, um,and somebody had said, Hey, I
need to go talk to him.
He you do really good, you know,influencing people.
Uh, so go talk to him.
And uh so we chatted for awhile, you know, and he's
(13:24):
crying, um, really in his feelsabout not going back out uh
because he wasn't reallyinterested in doing uh but what
uh he thought should be done.
Um you know, so and it hasn'tbeen to this last year, year and
a half, two years where I foundmy faith.
Um but I I I've always believedin a higher power.
(13:47):
You know, I've always, you know,I'm you know, there's something
bigger than me.
Like there's life, you know,there's something bigger than
all of us.
And I brought that into theconversation and I was like, you
know, I don't believe that youknow that God put us here, you
know, uh just to put us here.
You know, there's there'sthere's there's a direction in
(14:09):
life that you can choose to gooff the path, whether it's left
or right, and there's there'schoices where you can stay on
the path.
And as long as as you feel likeyou need to be on the path, God
is gonna direct you on thatpath, you know, as difficult as
it wrapped me.
And as I was talking talkingabout God, and I'm gonna
goosebumps talking about it,this huge wind from out of
(14:31):
nowhere comes and just blowsthis door open, like the back
hooch door just blows it open.
And I'm like, see, you know,that's that's that's and that's
a sign, right?
You know, you don't have to doanything that you don't want to
do, right?
You have a choice, right?
So just make the right choice.
But in the thick of it, you'regonna have your brother to the
left or right that might needyou at that particular time,
(14:53):
right?
So for no other reason, you atleast at the minimum you need to
go out there and standtoe-to-toe with your brothers in
arms when stuff you know chase.
SPEAKER_05 (15:04):
Um I cannot remember that Marine's name.
He was from Mobile AssaultPlatoon 3, and I can see his
face in my head, and I cannot, Icould not tell you his name, but
beautiful, beautiful young guy.
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04 (15:18):
And I actually go ahead.
I'm sorry.
What I was gonna say uh was uhLex is uh that that was one of
the that's actually one of mynotes of that one of the things
that I was gonna bring up was Iactually remember uh you being
asked to talk to that guy.
And I also remember you talkingto more than than than that
(15:40):
individual Marine.
And it's one of the things thatI had I like when I think about
you, it's one of the things thatI think about is how good you
were with the Marines, with thejunior Marines, and giving and
being that uh uh there is athere was a there was a sense
you had you had a strong senseof of what needs to be done and
(16:03):
you were open to hearing and andcommunicating.
And that was uh Nylan and I havejoked about this.
Uh well he has said it a coupleof times, but just that the 81s
uh are cult the 81 culture is alittle bit different inside of
uh the larger weapons companydue to uh for a variety of
different reasons.
We tend to yell a little bitmore and tend to be a little bit
(16:25):
more very structured.
Yeah.
And I always had a hard timebecause that's not I'm not a
yeller.
I was never a yeller.
And and so I was constantlypushed to do that.
And uh and when we were in,Nylan would often uh say
something to me and be like,don't let them get to you.
(16:47):
You know, this isn't that's notyour leadership style.
Don't don't do it.
SPEAKER_05 (16:51):
Well, dude.
SPEAKER_04 (16:52):
Um go ahead.
Well, I was just my my end of itis that is that uh uh flex, you
were you were you when you cameon board though.
So this is after I had picked upcorporal, that when you came on
board, I was finally being ableto say, like, there, see?
I can be like, I can be like Idon't have to yell.
I I can be I can be a a spacefor these marines.
(17:13):
And I ended up being that for uhSledgehammer, where I ended up
getting pushed some of theMarines that maybe needed uh you
know, did not respond as well togetting yelled at.
And so I would I would couldwork with them more.
But you were but but my biggestmemory of you, especially over
there, is you talking to thatMarine and a couple others of
just getting their heads screwedon straight.
(17:34):
Right.
And uh and allowing them to uhfunction as best as they could
over there.
Because I mean, if you wouldhave refused to, you know, go
further, I mean that would haveescalated.
And so you you know you yousaved a lot of heartache by
being the person you are.
So yeah, that young man, uhagain, I I think I remember who
(17:56):
it is, but I'm I'm I'mrefraining from saying their
name just because it's you knowI don't want to embarrass
somebody if they listen.
SPEAKER_05 (18:01):
So yeah, I I I can't remember his name, but I was
also asked to talk to him aswell.
And uh so I remembered that.
But he he only remained withheadquarters for maybe three,
four weeks.
And I think he went to talk toyou again or something, he
talked to someone else again,and then he went back to map
(18:22):
three and and finished the restof the deployment and never had
any other issues.
And he contacted me probably 10years ago, years later, through
social media, and he apologizedto me, weirdly, and I wasn't
even in a Splatoon abouteverything.
And he said he was gonna gothrough and apologize to
everybody.
I was like, You have literallynothing to apologize for, you
did nothing wrong.
(18:46):
It was uh a surreal moment.
I hope he is doing well.
SPEAKER_00 (18:49):
Yeah, same here.
And that's what I was gonna say.
If he ever listens or comesacross this podcast, I have
nothing but respect for thisyoung man to to you know to grab
hold and own it.
No, that's a big deal, you know,especially in this type of
environment.
You know, when you're trying toself-preserve yourself, you
know, to go against that, that'shuge.
SPEAKER_05 (19:07):
Well, he could have done worse too.
He could have gone outside thewire and in his head he wasn't
gonna fight instead of saying itout loud and letting everybody
know that, hey, I can't do this.
He could have gone outside thewire and then just crumpled up
in a ball out out there in thefield somewhere, and then he
would have been a liability.
And so this was a better choice,realistically, and a very mature
(19:28):
choice, though at the time Idoubt he thought it was that
way.
And then he probably many peopledidn't treat him that way.
That was a very smart choice.
SPEAKER_04 (19:35):
Something that Nylan and I noticed when we were
reading the book, and that kindof like struck, at least I let
me just speak for myself, thatstruck one of the biggest things
that struck me readingunremitting was being reminded
how young all of us were.
And I was just having this kindI was I just visited a very
close friend of mine just theweekend.
(19:56):
We've been friends sincekindergarten.
So he was he's been with me thisentire weird journey.
And um this topic of the podcastand in the book and everything
came up, and uh something thathe brought up also in that that
that made me go, oh wow, is youknow, like I'll just use myself
(20:18):
for example.
I I barely graduated from highschool.
I'm from Northwest Illinois.
The number of people ofdifferent cultures that I had
talked to prior to joining theMarine Corps was you know, could
count on one hand.
SPEAKER_02 (20:29):
Right.
SPEAKER_04 (20:30):
And we're being asked to do a job that for
millennia hasn't been able to befigured out by the top people
that have devoted their entirelife to this.
And uh I think going back toyour comment about being, you
know, embarrassed, which I, youknow, I appreciate that maybe
(20:53):
you're you're reprocessing thatword.
Um, you know, we were beingasked to do something very
unfair.
Like the like the the the amountof responsibility that I think
that we especially as Marines,we take on a lot of
responsibility.
And so uh but we do have to giveourselves a break.
You know, when I, you know, nowthat I'm in my 40s, I think
about, you know, 22, like I lookat a 22-year-old and it's like,
(21:17):
man, I like like we weretrusting you to do these really
like we didn't like when we gotsent over there, we didn't have
we we we gotta make up our, Imean, uh another one of my big
memories is is running isrunning some of those uh uh
drills that we were drunk.
I mean, uh you would run, I I Ilove you for it, because uh we
(21:37):
would run those drills in uhcamp uh victory before we left
to the LOD, just like we didn'tknow what we were doing, but at
least you were you were pushingthe training, giving, giving
Marines the confidence that,yeah, we might not know what's
next, but we're gonna train whatwe do know, so we'll be ready.
And because I know people werestarting to get a little worried
that it was like we don't know,you know, what drills to expect.
SPEAKER_05 (22:01):
I know what we did, but what drills did you guys
run?
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
So I remember um towards the end of our training
before going to um Iraq, therewas a huge push against, or not
against, but towards umoccupying towns, and uh it's uh
a tactic that we use used inVietnam, um, where the the
(22:24):
locals would befriend um not thelocals, the the occupying force,
I guess, would would befriendthe locals and kind of help in
that sense.
So and it was weird because wedidn't there was no talk of that
until like a month beforedeploying.
Right.
And uh in my mind, I was like,well, you know, what's what are
we really planning to getinvolved in?
(22:46):
Um so I did some research, youknow, I I read some books, you
know, try to you know spin up onwhat the the holistic thought
thought process was behind that.
And then we got to Camp Victoryand we got some training from
the British Special Forces, Ibelieve.
Yes, around satellite trainingor satellite patrol.
Yes.
Um so that's what I worked on.
SPEAKER_05 (23:07):
So so interestingly, it was the Scottish Dragoons
very specifically, and uh theand the British SAS, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:15):
Yep, SAS, yep.
And um, so I I put two and twotogether.
I was like, okay, so you know,the and the command is kind of
giving us some insight that hey,we might be left alone or very
limited resources to executewhatever mission that we that we
had.
And then we had this new styleof patrolling that was not
linear.
Um, so I I relied heavily on youknow the very efficient and uh
(23:41):
self-sustained work groupswithin within that piece, and
that's why I kept I kept pushingthat, expecting that at some
point we were gonna be in athick of it with no resources,
uh, and we you know need to beprepared as you know, as play as
many scenarios as we can um tobe as successful as we can.
SPEAKER_05 (24:02):
Do you remember what you read?
I'm and that actually just yousaying that is I'm very curious
because I I read a couple ofbooks too.
I was very much uh cerebral asfar as that went, preparing for
war and and hoping that I coulddisseminate knowledge.
That was the goal.
SPEAKER_00 (24:16):
Yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (24:17):
What did you read?
SPEAKER_00 (24:18):
Yeah, I don't remember.
SPEAKER_05 (24:19):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04 (24:20):
Yeah, I uh you uh it was uh um small oh shoot it uh
because uh you gave it to me.
Um and I got a copy of it.
It was like small small unitwarfare.
Um it was a great it was a greatbook with a red line on the
back.
SPEAKER_00 (24:39):
Yeah, and it was a very short read, right?
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't like youknow, it wasn't a huge, you
know, yeah, but anything.
SPEAKER_05 (24:46):
Just I mean, just the fact that as a sergeant uh
and you said you were a sectionleader, to take that on yourself
to do something that essentiallyis really an officer's job and
disseminate that to Marines isunique and impressive on a in
and of itself.
And I mean I was just that wasinteresting to me that you ran
drills yourself because that wasthe kind of crap I also tried to
(25:09):
do for the same thing.
Right, because I didn't thinkanybody was preparing us for
anything, right?
SPEAKER_00 (25:15):
Yeah, it was a it was a shot in the dark for sure.
Um I think I read a questionhere, so uh uh off that podcast
sheet that I want to talk about.
There was there was this pointwhere uh an ID went off or
something, or somebody got shot,or it was our first you know
(25:36):
interaction, and it wasn'tweapons platoon, it was you
know, you know, combat outposts,you know, like out there.
And uh I really internalized it,I was like, man, it was IDs, it
had to be IDs.
But uh I remember journaling, soyou know, because as a section
leader, you can't reallyarticulate how you feel, right?
(25:57):
You know, you gotta be thestrongest you can for everyone
around you.
So um I would journal sometimes,and then I would also call uh my
girlfriends, plural, um, youknow, to kind of you know walk
through some of the emotions Iwas going through.
SPEAKER_05 (26:12):
We'll come back to that uh here in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (26:17):
And uh and when I I remember a a turning point in my
thought process, and I think Igotta drill run house somewhere,
but it was it was somethingalong the lines that if an IED
goes off, I either made it ordidn't make it.
(26:37):
Right?
So I shouldn't be afraid whenwhen something you know huge
happens.
If anything, I need to act.
And I and I carried and Icarried that and trained you
know and the team to thatthought process.
And uh I was like ready to die,like at any point, even even on
(27:00):
our last day of uh of Iraq.
Um one time specifically we wereyou know it was towards the end
of the deployment and we weredoing patrols throughout the
city, and we ended up at thisintersection.
Uh and you know, there's a lotof fear going on, right?
Because you know, the the theApril sind eggs and uh and the
(27:25):
cash and mass casualties andstuff.
So we're we're we're hoppingacross an intersection and one
of my marines wouldn't post upand protect down the alleyway or
whatever it was or thestreetway.
And uh I kept I kept grabbinghim.
I'm like, hey, hey, we gotta go.
You gotta post up, you gottapost up right here.
Because if you don't post up,you know, it's the same shit,
(27:45):
right?
Like, hey, your your area ofoperation during this crossing
is this corner, that this iswhat you need to be.
And he wouldn't do it.
He was he was scared shitless uhfor obvious reasons.
And uh I was like, all right,fuck it.
So I stood in the middle of theintersection with my hands in my
pocket, and I'm like, you'reeither gonna post up and take
your post, or we're just gonnawait for someone to shoot me.
But you're gonna do your fuckingjob.
(28:07):
It's it's gonna happen.
And after you know, some someyou know heated words and
conversations, you know, hefinally took his post.
Uh but but that was you knowbased on that initial thought
process of you know, that'seither gonna happen or not gonna
happen.
Um yeah, and that was that washard.
(28:27):
Keeping keeping everybody inline mentally was probably the
hardest thing I uh I did whilewhile I'm in Iraq.
SPEAKER_05 (28:35):
The burden of command and burden of leadership
is very real.
I I think that is also somethingthat is underrepresented.
I think I I don't know, youknow, you and I are pretty close
to the same age, and so you grewup with the the pinnacle of
Vietnam movies and all that crapin the 80s and 90s and and all
that.
And so there was some moviesthat got down to that there
(28:57):
where there was leaders who werereally stressing their
decisions, not what everythingwasn't Rambo.
Some of the movies actually didreally good at that.
And I don't think there is amodern version of that right now
uh for the global war on terror,because now we're 20 years out
from some of the biggest battlesof the global war on terror.
(29:18):
And people don't talk about thatenough about how much that
weighs on you, as a small unitleader, especially, that you are
you're looking your friend inthe eye and you might have been
paying playing cards a minuteago, and now you're, as you just
said, standing in anintersection where very
frequently people were justpopping around corners and
firing weapons, and you werelike, Look, I'll show you.
(29:40):
I'm not scared, you can stand onthat corner, and how hard that
is on you specifically to belike, Well, that's fine, I'm
gonna gamble my life so that wayeverybody else will do what
they're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00 (29:52):
100%.
SPEAKER_05 (29:54):
Yeah, that's and it that and you again you're
thinking about this moment 20years later, and I imagine it
weighs on you now just the sameas it did then, where you're
like, damn, that was a dumbchoice, yeah, personally, but it
did the right thing at the timeand it kept everybody going, it
kept everybody alive.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
Yeah, it's it was you know, it's about holding
people accountable.
Um you know, you have one personnot doing their job, and you
think that your six is coveredand it's not covered, and there
goes, you know, a young 18 yearold, you know, 21 year old, you
know, with newborn.
Kids that they've never seenbecause some some jackass in the
back and doesn't want to do thejob.
(30:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (30:32):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
Yeah, that's that's that's not it's it's
unsatisfactory.
unknown (30:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (30:38):
Some of the in the other, especially when we were
talking with Jordan and Nylonand I talked about this
extensively, and we've kind ofalready touched on it a little
bit here too, but it isabsolutely wild to think about
in the historical perspectivethat when we went over there,
how how new everything was.
I mean, we went over, we didn'thave the armor.
(31:00):
When we went over there, wedidn't have tactics.
When we went over there, wedidn't even understand.
I mean, I mean, I don't know ifyou remember the weird little
slide deck presentation that wegot on what IEDs are, and then
saying that we needed to havelike a 200-foot offset if like
if a soda can was filled withyou know gunpowder and it's like
get, you know, and and none ofit, I mean, it it was it was
(31:22):
nice to have some of theinformation, but they really
didn't give us anything.
And we were inventing, we were,you know, needing to invent it
on the fly.
And so not only were we at thedisadvantage of trying to figure
this all out, um, but we werealso trying to navigate exactly
(31:42):
what you're talking about oflike, you know, we're we're
trying to invent this.
We're also trying to navigatethe, you know, your own Marines
when you're in when you are in,when you do have, you know,
leader when you're inleadership.
And then you're also trying tomanage your own shit.
You know, you're you know,keeping yourself, you know, to
that higher, to that higherechelon of of uh of
(32:05):
proactiveness, higher echelon ofuh reasonability, you know.
I remember um somethinghappened, I don't remember
exactly, but Gunny Cook saidsomething to me after a mission
and it changed it fortunatelysaid it it was early on.
And he said, make sure that youremember you have the dogs of
war on a leash and don't let outmore leash than you can handle.
(32:27):
Because if if if if they getaway from you, you can't pull
the leash back.
And um, I mean, it was acritique because I had I I don't
know exactly what had happened,but it doesn't really matter.
Uh, but he I think he sensedthat I was a little too lax with
my, you know, letting the guysget a little too angry with what
(32:48):
had happened.
I think it was right after Ithink it was that no, I actually
I do know what had to happen.
It was after Worth got hit.
And uh we were getting rocksthrown at us by a crowd.
SPEAKER_05 (32:57):
And uh I so that was March 20th when Worth got hit by
that bike IED.
SPEAKER_00 (33:03):
Yep.
That that took out his eye,right?
SPEAKER_05 (33:06):
I'm sorry, it took out his eye.
SPEAKER_00 (33:08):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (33:09):
Where's he at nowadays?
Last I heard he was in Ohio,question mark.
I reached out to him severalyears ago.
Um, I need to do it again.
SPEAKER_00 (33:19):
Yeah, he he's not on socials, right?
Because I've I've looked at him.
SPEAKER_05 (33:22):
I have not, yeah, I have not seen him, haven't been
able to reach out with him or orkeep in touch with them at all,
unfortunately.
SPEAKER_04 (33:27):
Yeah, I still have one of his DVDs, and every time
I see it, I feel bad that Inever got it back to him.
His name's actually on it, andI'm like, God, I need it.
I owe you.
I should have returned that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:38):
Yeah, I think that was our first bad connection
here.
Who is that?
Is it is that me?
SPEAKER_05 (33:47):
It's all right, go ahead.
You you froze for a second, butit's okay.
You can say it again.
I can clip it.
SPEAKER_00 (33:52):
No, I was asking uh oh, I think Worth was our first
weapons company uh, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05 (34:01):
The first wounded?
SPEAKER_00 (34:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (34:03):
No, he was not the first wounded.
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Who was it?
SPEAKER_05 (34:06):
Um that's a good question.
I don't know, but I was woundedbefore Worth was.
I was wounded on the 18th, andWorth was wounded on the 20th.
Uh I but I think someone gothit, and Staleman seemed to
think it was uh minor, but Idon't know that it was minor.
But someone caught shrapnel onthe way up from Kuwait from an
(34:27):
IED.
SPEAKER_00 (34:29):
Yeah, I thought that was Worth.
SPEAKER_05 (34:31):
That was not Worth's on the 20th.
We came up on from Kuwait onMarch 6th.
I have the four I have thefortune of having looked up all
these dates, so I I've got atimeline sort of scribbled down
actually.
It it uh it makes it easier forme to keep in sort of in were
you a part of the convoy goingup?
SPEAKER_04 (34:52):
Or were you did you come did you come with everybody
else later?
SPEAKER_00 (34:55):
Yeah, we we yeah uh off C 130, I think it was.
SPEAKER_04 (35:00):
I was gonna ask, like, how did you guys get up?
Because Nylon and I were part ofthe convoy that drove from
Kuwait to Ramadi.
SPEAKER_00 (35:08):
So this thing was a shit show.
Um should like a funny story,shit.
SPEAKER_04 (35:14):
Uh I'm actually really excited about this
because I don't know any of thisstory.
Like like once we left once weleft uh Camp Victor, uh Camp
Victory, and then when you guysshowed up a few days later, I
have no idea what happened inbetween then.
SPEAKER_05 (35:28):
Yeah, same.
I just remember the seven tonspicking you up.
SPEAKER_00 (35:31):
The the core memory I have uh around that movement
was we're we're NSP 130 and it'slate at night, like two o'clock
in the morning or something.
Um and you know it's cold,right?
And there's you know, there'sthere's no right so it's
freaking freezing in the in thein the bins, and we're in full
combat gear, and we're about toyou know land to wherever it
(35:54):
was, you know, sod or I don't Idon't know.
SPEAKER_05 (35:56):
Probably Al-Assad, I'd imagine that was the closest
big airbase that would land aC-130.
SPEAKER_00 (36:00):
And this freaking bird starts to climb and climb,
and I'm talking about a steepclimb.
And you know, nobody, nobodyget, you know, get gave us a
heads up that this is proper,you know, procedure, you know,
when you're coming into acombat.
Yeah, this thing is at like at a45 degree angle, and we're
picking up and we're picking upand we're picking up and we're
(36:21):
coming, and it gets colder andcolder and colder, and then this
motherfucker drops.
SPEAKER_01 (36:25):
Oh, we did a combat dive in.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, everybody in there was likeah like a freaking roller
coaster.
Like everybody's like rabbingeach other, like, what the
hell's going on?
We just got shot, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (36:36):
Um and then right before we land, this you know,
he levels out, and you know, nottoo much longer, you know, where
you you can feel it land.
And I was like, This thesefucking beef bags, you know,
warn somebody.
Uh but yeah, that was ourexperience flying in.
So to the pilot, screw you.
SPEAKER_04 (36:59):
No, I remember, I don't remember who it was.
It was somebody on ship when wewere on the ASICs, uh, and we
had been down in the belly forforever.
And uh and I remember saying Ican't remember who it was.
It was one of the it was a staffNCO, and I was like, why are
they doing this to us?
And they said they tortureMarines to make sure that you
don't want to go back to ship incase there's a war, because they
(37:19):
want to make sure that whatever,no matter how bad it is in war,
no matter like you don't want toeven think about what uh peace
felt like.
Uh now, were you a part of theuh stay behind uh key leadership
at the end?
SPEAKER_00 (37:40):
I was not.
Nope.
No, okay.
SPEAKER_05 (37:43):
Yeah, you were you were there for the left seat,
right seats at the end.
SPEAKER_00 (37:46):
Was I?
Oh, yeah, you're right, becausethat uh that that that was uh an
ID that hurt hurt uh two fivewas two five and everything.
SPEAKER_04 (37:57):
That was my truck.
Almost killed me.
SPEAKER_00 (37:59):
Was it worth it?
SPEAKER_05 (38:01):
He got hit by an RPG, Diaz got hit by a mortar.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
Um that was Captain Rapicolt.
SPEAKER_05 (38:10):
That was actually earlier than the left seat right
seats.
Uh, when did he get burned?
I've actually got that writtendown too, just because of this
particular conversation.
That was July.
July was when that guy gotburned.
But September 12th, uh, 11th and12th were the left seat right
seats for key leaders beforewhen we sent all the platoons
(38:30):
back.
And the reason why I know youwere there is because I remember
specifically we almost all diedon the 12th with the mass
uprising and all of the ambusheson the truck center.
Yeah, at the government center.
And we drove back under fire.
I don't know about you, but alot of everybody that I was
attached to was shooting out ofthe trucks essentially to keep
(38:52):
people from overthrowing thetrucks.
SPEAKER_02 (38:54):
Right.
SPEAKER_05 (38:55):
We got back to Hurricane Point, and that was
when they had the mass rush onthe snake pit and the front gate
of Hurricane Point.
And right after all of that, Iwalked over and you were sitting
in the smoke pit, and I satright next to you.
I think it was the only time Ihad ever seen you smoke a
(39:16):
cigarette ever.
I don't know if you smoked atthat time, but you did that day.
And you you were you had justpulled a cigarette out, and I
grabbed my sweaty bullshitcigarette pack out of my gear
and pulled out a cigarette, andI looked at you and I said,
Garcia, I am so sorry foranything I have ever said about
(39:38):
81 Splatoon.
You guys are amazing.
And these guys are the biggestfucking bunch of idiots I've
ever met in my life, and I hopewe never go out again.
And we didn't, we didn't majorHarold call it, and they brought
a seven-ton over and picked usup and took us over to Camp
Ramadi.
And you were laughing your assoff, and you're like, it's okay,
man.
You're like pat me on the back.
(39:59):
I was like, I don't know whatthe fuck we just witnessed, but
that was not none of that wasorganized.
SPEAKER_00 (40:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's uh and Ramadi at that many times
with this show.
Yeah, that's uh so in the book,um unremitting, it covers uh an
ambush, it glosses over anambush that uh specifically
talks about Jeremiah Savage.
So we were uh QRF, I don'tremember what number, but it was
(40:28):
it was heavy out there, and wedrive out our out of Hurricane
Point, we made a ride somewhere,and then uh you know, and we're
trucking through the city,right?
Because we're trying to get towhoever you know is locked up in
in uh in combat in a firefight.
And we make this left, and as wemake this left, um we get two
(40:51):
Hum D's.
I'm in the second, Jeremiah,Lieutenant Dobin, and then Regal
Sperker are on their firstvehicle.
I think Lewis Lane was in the inthe vehicle behind me.
Maybe Dahl was a fourth driver,I don't remember.
But uh man, as soon as we takethat left terminal, it contact
left.
So when we make a left turn, itwas contact left, and all the
(41:13):
vehicles stop, everybody'sscreaming contact left,
everybody gets out the vehicle,and to the left, there's this
grave, and the grave uh is isprotected by eight-foot like
gate fencing or another.
Jeremiah opens up, you know, heyou know, there's there's
there's people in this grave,uh, you know, the enemy or
(41:35):
whatever.
SPEAKER_05 (41:35):
And you guys were taking small arms fire, like AKs
and RPK type fire, or AKs and uhmedium machine guns, yeah, from
a very close range, probablylike 20 feet, uh very wild and
very vicious.
SPEAKER_00 (41:48):
And uh we ended up scaling this fence.
We jump over the fence, uh,we're running up on the enemy,
we're we're dropping bodies, weuh we get to this wall um
because it was it was fencingabout 25-30 feet worth of
graves, you know, about three orfour uh and I don't want to say
the incorrect term, but youknow, bad guys.
(42:10):
Um you know, there's machineguns and AKs on the ground, and
I look at and I'm gonna say hisname because we've we've spoken
about this before.
Uh we get to this wall, and I'mlike, Hersher, scale the wall.
He's like, I'm not fuckingscaling the wall.
Like, fuck it, I'll scale thewall, right?
So fucking I scale the wall up,right?
(42:31):
Because we're pushing through,you know, we're pushing through.
We don't know how deep is, youknow, we're pushing through
contact left.
We we engage the enemy, theenemy's dead.
We're we're pushing through thiswall.
I'm gonna figure out what's up,yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (42:43):
Make sure there's nothing on the other side 100.
SPEAKER_00 (42:45):
And uh, so I scale the wall by myself, right?
I scale the wall when I land,I'm in this intersection as far
as you can see, in the middle ofan in an in an intersection, as
far as you can see, and thenthere's street as far as you can
see, as far as you can see.
See, and I'm like, this was afucking bonehead move.
This was dumb.
(43:06):
Like Percy was was right to say,I'm not scaling that wall.
Uh but you know, luckily enough,there was you know there was no
contact after the that wall, butthere was a vehicle parked
behind the wall, and uh thetrunk was open and it was ammo
for days, and we ended up uh youknow shooting you know the
engine block to make sure thatvehicle couldn't be used again,
(43:28):
and yeah, you know, did a quickquick look and then we got back
on our trucks and and went outto what we were called to do for
that day.
SPEAKER_05 (43:36):
How many enemy do you think were in the ambush?
SPEAKER_00 (43:39):
Uh four or five, I would say.
Enough to fit in that vehicle.
SPEAKER_04 (43:49):
If you like what you've heard, this is a multi
part episode.
Make sure you listen to the restof the story.
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