October 1, 2024 • 39 mins
Alan's journey from Toronto to the Texas firehouses is nothing short of extraordinary. This episode features our engaging conversation with Alan, a former Navy corpsman and seasoned firefighter paramedic, whose career has spanned over 45 years. From contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan to authoring the gripping book "Postcards Through Hell," Alan shares his motivations, the highs and lows of his extensive career, and the personal stories that have shaped him. His dedication to serving the community as a suppression lieutenant and his 33-year marriage offer a heartwarming glimpse into the life of a true hero.
Prepare to be captivated by Alan's vivid recounting of his deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He shares the chaos caused by new MRAP vehicles hitting low-hanging wires, leading to a brief firefight in Iraq, and the intense response from authorities to a laser pointer incident near the Ministry of Interior. Hear about the logistical challenges and harsh conditions in Kabul, and the critical role of delivering essential supplies and mail to military sites. Alan's firsthand experiences provide a gripping look into the operational intricacies and harsh realities of life in conflict zones.
Finally, delve into the emotional and professional repercussions of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Alan reflects on the sacrifices of third-country nationals and the impact of abandoned equipment and vulnerable local allies. He also discusses the therapeutic journey of co-authoring "Postcards Through Hell" with fellow "knuckle draggers," including the emotional perspectives of their wives and mothers. This episode honors the resilience and dedication of those who serve, offering listeners an insightful and moving narrative that extends beyond the battlefield.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Charlie Mike the podcast Veterans helping
veterans.
Talking about things happeningin the veteran community, Things
we've experienced and overcome,such as addictions, PTSD,
depression, legal trouble, andwe also promote veteran-owned
businesses.
If you're talking about it,we're talking about it.
(00:24):
This is Charlie Mike thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome back to another episodeof Charlie Mike the podcast.
As always, I'm your host, Raul,and I'm so excited.
I feel like we've been on ahiatus for a little bit,
changing studios and doing a lotof back work, but we're
officially back and I'm excitedto have my guest.
(00:57):
My guest today is Alan.
We've been trying to link upfor a little bit of time and,
alan, tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, I'm a firefighter paramedic with
Community Fire Rescue in Houston.
I've been a paramedic for about45 plus years.
Former Navy corpsman, I startedcontracting in 2005 in Iraq and
I did five deployments overthere and then eventually went
(01:27):
over to Afghanistan where Ipicked up a contract for
delivering the mail to US troops.
So we wrote a book about itcalled Postcards Through Hell.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So I want to speak on that and I want to learn more
about it, but where are you fromoriginally?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I was born in Toronto , ontario it, but uh, where.
Where are?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
you from originally.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I was born in toronto , ontario, um.
I'm canadian citizen.
You know I served in the unitedstates navy.
I've been in texas for about 39years okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
How many years did you do in the navy?
Just three years?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
no, let's say just three years, that's a long time
I was on a three by six so Ionly did half my tour okay, I
have to ask uh, do you playhockey?
I, I dabbled yeah yeah, is it?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Is it true that every Canadian plays hockey?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
No.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
No, most Canadian hockey teams have Americans on
them.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Okay, okay, yeah.
So what brought you from Canadato the United States?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
We grew up in Phoenix .
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh yeah, Phoenix Arizona for a while.
So you were just born in Canada, I was just born in Canada.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
We immigrated to the United States Both we have a
very large, large family, andmost of them were in California
and once my parents had goneback to Canada I decided to stay
.
And then at that time I joinedthe military.
(02:49):
I was in the ROTC for threeyears as well, so I kind of got
a leg up when I enlisted.
So I got to go in as an E3.
And my family had all movedback to Canada.
After I got out of the militaryI went to Canada, but I
couldn't find work thatsustained my income for any
length of time.
You know a lot of unions upthere and whatnot so I just came
(03:12):
back to the United States andwent to Texas.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, so what brought you to Texas?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Truthfully yeah, hispanic women.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Man I like this guy yeah, that's why I've been
trying to leave man, that's why,you're trying to leave yeah, no
, uh.
Oh well, there you go yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
So are you married currently?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
oh yeah, um just celebrated my 33, 33rd wedding
anniversary with my wife.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Congratulations.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, I met her in San Antonio.
I used to be an officer withBear County Fire and we were
working a location that requiredfurniture.
And I went into this store tobuy some furniture and there she
was, and I kept asking her outand she kept saying no, but I
just I kept pressing.
And there she was and I keptasking her out and she kept
saying no, but I just keptpressing, and pressing, and
(04:07):
pressing and she finally saidyeah, and we got married about a
year after that.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Man, that's awesome, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Do you have any kids currently?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, three kids, six grandchildren Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Wow, okay, this is a little on the personal side.
How?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
old are you 65.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Man, you look good.
Yeah, I don't feel good, but Iyeah, okay, you look good, so
you're still working right now.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a suppression lieutenant at
Station 2.
I might have mentioned thisearlier, that I worked the
Mission Bend Aleph area, right.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So let's get back to your military.
So your first time, you okay.
So you did three years in theNavy but saw.
Did you see any combat duringthat?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
time.
No, no, never deployed yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So it wasn't until after you got out of the
military that you went intocombat.
Yeah, I got out in 1981.
Okay okay, okay, yeah, and Iinto, yeah, I got, I got out in
1981.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So, okay, okay, yeah, and I I just started doing, I
cut my teeth on 911 in Oakland,california.
I used to call that the knifeand gun club so I saw a lot of
trauma there.
Um, and then, uh, I movedaround.
I was like a very diversebackground.
As a paramedic I've done, uh,aeromedicine, I've done clinical
medicine, I've done sportsmedicine, industrial medicine,
wilderness medicine, just abouteverything that you can think of
(05:28):
.
When it comes to being an EMT,once I was nationally registered
, of course, and then when I gotto Texas, at that time they
didn't recognize nationalregistration.
But it kind of opened a lotmore doors.
And the interesting thing is,when I started contracting, I
(05:48):
was applying for jobs as apolice liaison officer.
I was going to go to Iraq andtrain Iraqi police on checkpoint
procedures and searches andthings of that nature.
But once they found out as aparamedic, they shifted me over
to the PSD side, which ispersonal security detachment,
and I ended up working on theshark teams with DynCorp for a
(06:10):
couple years.
Dyncorp, dyncorp Internationalyeah.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and so what was your first rotation like?
Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Oh yeah, it was an eye-op opener because I didn't
have what year was this 2005.
?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
2005.
Yeah, late 2005.
And this was Iraq.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
We were stationed out of Baghdad.
We're right across the TigrisRiver from the Green Zone and so
our mission there.
We had actually severaldifferent types of subcontracts.
One of them was Bering Point,where we were taking attorneys
around and settling cases withlocal nationals.
Another one was CivPol, whichwas all the international police
(06:57):
liaison officers.
We'd take them back and forthto the Ministry of Interior or
to the shooting range where theBaghdad Police College was, and
then did a lot of runs on thebiop, which was called Route
Irish, which was a prettydangerous route at that time to
and from the airport.
And then of course we had otherVIPs and dignitaries that we
(07:23):
ran around to different places.
And the last one was the CPAT,which was all the prison wardens
, and so we were making runs toall these different prisons and
making sure that apparently themoney that America was putting
into these prisons had to bemonitored and whatnot, so that
these wardens were teachingthese other Iraqis on how to run
(07:45):
prisons and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And that was just your first tour.
How long did you stay there?
The first go-round?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Well, the contract lasts a year and then I, you
know, re-signed for a secondyear and I was kind of talking
to my wife about, you know, kindof calling it quits.
But I switched over to anothercompany and ended up working for
, uh, sock at that time it wassock smg, which is special
operations consulting, buteventually they got bought out
(08:14):
by day and zimmerman, so it'd becalled securing our country,
which was the same act, you know, same um abbreviation, but
different acronyms.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
so so what did?
What did your roster look like?
You worked with a lot ofindividuals like, okay, let's
say, uh, was it mainly allspecial forces and things of
that, of that mostly, yeah, um,and in iraq.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
On the shark teams it was a large mix of third
country nationalists, a majorityof them were south African.
That were prior police defenseforce and special forces New
Zealand, australia, england.
We had a lot of French ForeignLegion guys.
You know it was a very, verydiverse mix of personnel.
(08:59):
Every team it was a 10-man team.
We had 10 shark teams.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Bunch of badasses huh , pretty much yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And that's where I met my co-author, ed Ford.
He was working for CrowCrucible at the time and they
provided all of the in-countrytraining for us.
So they did IED awareness, theydid foreign weapons handling,
all all of your shootingqualifications and and things of
that nature, and then theywould eventually go out on on
(09:30):
runs with us to evaluate theeffectiveness of the training.
And so him and I became reallygood friends and he also worked
for sock after dine core and wasdeployed to afghan Afghanistan.
I was covering down for somemedics at a FOB down in Al-Hilla
and one of their teams got hitand they didn't have a medic on
(09:52):
board.
So him and the guy that Iworked with at Al-Hilla or it
was actually at Diwania FOB Echo, his name was Mike Hardy, him
and Ed were in Afghanistan andthey dropped my name in the hat
and I ended up going up there tofill that void.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It's night and day huh between Iraq and Afghanistan
.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It was a different animal, because now we're doing
convoy operations that havenothing to do with PSD and so
all of my experience on the jobthere just basically kind of set
you up for IED awareness andtwo-way range ambushes and stuff
like that, but in Iraq we neversaw the enemy.
They pop off a couple shots orblow an IED off or something
(10:38):
like that, but you never sawthem.
In Afghanistan we fought theTaliban and they liked to fight.
They stayed and fought.
In Afghanistan we fought theTaliban and they liked to fight.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
They stayed and fought.
So you were in Iraq in late2005, and a few years after that
.
It was pretty hot.
You didn't see any.
Y'all didn't go through any.
Oh yeah, jesus.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Christ, we had all kinds of shit going on.
We had teams that got hit.
We did counter-assault teams,we did QRF quick reaction force.
I'll have to say something.
There's not really anything.
We did counter-assault teams,we did QRF quick reaction force.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I'll have to say something.
There's not really anythingquick about a quick reaction
force, man, you're telling methat's like waiting on.
Oh for us, waiting on EOD.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And then there's other PMCs like Blackwater and
Aegis and different privatesecurity companies that are out
there and you're kind ofcoexisting with them and doing
pretty much the same business.
And not that it was competitive, but you know, between DynCorp
and Blackwater they were the twobig names.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So, with there being so many different I guess
corporations doing similar jobs,did y'all ever have
friendly-unfriendly when it camejust to that?
Because I know sometimes themilitary had friendly-unfriendly
with different organizations aswell.
Did y'all go through any ofthat?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Well, we didn't with other companies, but other
companies might have done itwith themselves or something.
I think we had one incident thatwe were coming out of a prison
where, when the new MRAPs hadcome in to replace the Hummers,
they were so much taller.
And so everything in Iraq hasgot, you know, everybody's
plugging into electricity andrunning cable and wires, and all
(12:18):
this stuff is really low, andwe're running on a street and
we're parallel to an MRAP that'srunning on a couple blocks up.
And then we're, as they'regoing through there, uh, they're
hitting all these things andsparks are flying and stuff like
that, and I'm not sure who madethe, made the judgment, or
whatnot, but uh, we got intokind of like a little bit of a
firefight as we're going throughthese blocks, you know,
(12:38):
shooting back and forth andstuff.
But it turns out it was, youknow, the military and the
sparks were not gunfire oranything like that, it was just
kind of a misread, so to speak.
And then you just kind of getoff the X and go the opposite
direction and no harm, no foul,nobody's hurt.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yep and whatnot.
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, just taking the power, yeah, and then you know
I hate to put myself on thechopping block here, but a a
friend of mine had sent me thislaser pointer and it's the
stupidest thing.
But I went up on the rooftopwith a buddy of mine and we were
sitting there just shining itaround, whatever, and apparently
(13:14):
I flagged the Ministry ofInterior and they opened up with
50 cal.
We're on this rooftop At youguys.
At us, oh wow.
And so I just kind of likejumped down this little elevator
shaft and my South Africanfriends with me and everybody
was kind of on my shit about oneusing the laser pointer and the
(13:36):
other one was kind of likeleaving this guy behind.
And I said I never left himbehind, he was behind me the
whole time and he goes well, howdo you know?
And I was going, he was goingFook, fook.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
He was so heavily accented.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
you know that's too funny.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, so now you're in Afghanistan.
What tell me?
Tell me about it.
What's life in Afghanistan?
Like I never got to experienceAfghanistan.
I did Iraq for a couple ofyears, but never Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
You know when you could be blindfolded and fly
into Afghanistan and you wouldknow you were in Kabul.
Yeah, you know.
They burn tree roots for lackof lumber.
There's open sewage and feceseverywhere, there's
decomposition and dead animals,and then, of course, generators
(14:27):
are producing all of this dieseland when you combine that stuff
it has that particular odor andyou know you're there that
sounds sounds like a lovelyplace yeah, they, they, you know
they're, I think they're.
They're mean.
Average age for elderly is is alot lower because they're
breathing all these carcinogensand so it's not a healthy place
to live when you're in the city.
Yeah, um, what interesting tome is they knew I was coming up
(14:49):
and when I arrived there wasnobody at the airport to pick me
up and it's kind of like trialby fire.
They were actually out on amission to recover one of their
vehicles that had been hit in aprevious ambush and so nobody
was available.
So I ended up hopping into ataxi with somebody that I didn't
know.
I didn't know where I was going, I didn't even have an address,
I just knew the name,no-transcript.
(15:20):
I finally went down this onestreet and I saw a guy wearing a
sock uniform.
I'm like oh, there it is.
I was in this cab for like anhour and 40 minutes just driving
around trying to find thisfreaking bill, and I lucked out.
I got there and everything, andI think my bill was like $40.
I threw some change at him andI didn't even know if I tipped
him, but I got there and then Iwas there for about an hour when
(15:43):
the team that was supposed topick me up finally showed up and
I was going hey, what the fuckguys?
And so that was my orientation,and then we went right into
running these missions.
Initially they just had somethin-skinned and up-armored
vehicles Tahos or not Tahos, butToyota Land Cruisers, right.
(16:07):
And then they finally hadordered some Ford F-550 gun
trucks.
That arrived, they werewhite-colored.
There was a learning curve.
They had sent a trainer namedDave Gangenbach, who ended up
being my driver at the time, andhe trained us on off-road
driving and all kinds oftactical driving.
(16:28):
The Achilles heel on this thingwas the flat bottom.
Yeah, it's a catastrophictakedown if you hit an IED.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I can imagine yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Most of them had the V-holes that you would prefer,
but you know they served theirpurpose.
They were quick vehicles, um,loud as hell.
I mean.
They eventually painted themblack, you know, so we could run
missions at nighttime and kindof like reduce our, our visual
signature, but they were loud.
So I mean, uh, we might havethe element of surprise when we
(16:59):
were going there, but thetaliban knew when we were going
to have to take the same routeback Right, so it was on.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So just tell me a little bit about this.
The Pony Express, how and justhow?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, initially we were running critical supplies
to support militaryinfrastructure to O ODA sites.
Operational attachment alpha.
We had a great deal of successwhere other people had failed,
and eventually we got the USmail contract.
So the military was tasked withdelivering the mail, but it
(17:39):
wasn't a priority for them.
And so a lot of times if they'reout doing recon missions or
other types of missions, themail would sit for an extended
period of time and you know kindof like troop morale is going
downhill and whatnot.
So they contracted out to usand we had like a 98% success
rate on our drops.
We still delivered all of theseother things fuel, ammo,
(18:03):
weapons, even vehicles but wealways tacked the mail onto it
as well.
So we made these runs and theystarted to call us the Pony
Express.
I actually named the book thePony Express, but there's, I
guess, a group that had atrademark on it or something.
We got a cease and desistletter saying we couldn't use
that.
So we changed the name toPostcards Through Hell.
(18:24):
And that was the priority wasto deliver the mail.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, that's a badass name too Postcards Through Hell
.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Well, it's going through hell delivering the mail
.
The thing that's interestingabout it is nobody knew about it
.
I mean, occasionally, you know,gate guards saw trucks coming
in, but they don't know what thecargo is.
We go to the post office boxand we drop the mail off and
then we leave, and then so themilitary would go get their mail
(18:53):
.
They don't know how it gotthere.
So I mean, if you were inAfghanistan from, let's say,
2009 to 2012, there's a 90%chance we delivered the mail.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, and like you say, it's a big uh, more morale
bust uh yeah, morale booster,booster yeah go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, people don'tunderstand, you know, because a
lot of times, sometimes there'sno access to internet, there's
no, there's no.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Um well, there's just no access to internet and
letters was the way it used tobe done yeah, I think the
washington post did a story onit uh, right around christmas
time and uh it, I think peopleat that particular fob, uh when,
when, uh it was another teamthat had done this uh delivery,
but it was these guys werelining up and they were so happy
(19:39):
to, you know, get this, uh,these gifts and and letters and
and and.
When you think about you knowthe, the risk that we took.
You know, if you were wonderingabout what it's like, I, I on a
personal, on a personal level,if I got a letter, it was really
important to me and, and Ithink, to myself, is that
something worth dying for?
Of course it was, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
so yeah, that's.
It's crazy to think about onthis side, because you know I
think about the times in Iraqand you know I never really
thought about how the mail oranything along those lines got
to us.
It just.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
It was just there, it was just there.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So the whole story Postcards Through Hell is based
on one experience, or a bunch ofexperiences, multiple
experiences, it's basically thestory of my team leader, ed Ford
.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
He's a 22-year Marine recon battalion and you know,
aside from our friendship, ourbrotherhood, when he went over
to Afghanistan he picked upbasically the convoy side.
They did have a little PSDelement but it was tasked to
(20:58):
some other guys and so he had,you know, he had a lot of
experience and he had a greatteam.
And when the company expandedthey started putting up more
teams and so my job there was,you know, to train all the other
guys up to speed on combatlifesaver kind of put their
medical program together.
You know, get get supplies, dosafe havens, met outs, route
(21:21):
mapping, navigation, things ofthat nature.
We didn't have a lot of stuff,so we depended on the military
for support in that area.
We had medical supplies thatwere expired but we still ended
up using them.
I mean, I always used the goodstuff on my guys and the bad
stuff on the bad guys.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And whatever we couldn't get.
We, you know, a lot of times wewould make a run to a fob and
I'd go to the battalion aidstation and hook up with the
medic there and tell them hey,we're hurting for this, we're
hurting for that, and they wouldgive me stuff, and in my pack I
have to have enough medicalsupplies to support a 10-man
team for 72 hours.
Oh, wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, I think I lost about an inch and a half in
height from wearing all thatdamn gear.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You're serious too.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
60 pounds of ballistic protection and another
35 pounds of med gear.
You know it's like it takes itstoll on you after a while.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, what was the?
You were there in Afghanistanand you said I'm done, I want to
go home.
Was there a particular momentthat made you realize that, or
was that just you just felt?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
it contract with a company that required a security
clearance, which I didn't have.
I could have stayed, but theywould have taken me out of the
medic slot and put me in as ashooter.
So then I'm going to even makeless money, since I'm a third
country national, not anAmerican, and so that to me was
(23:00):
one of those risk benefits typeof a deal.
It wasn't really worth the riskconsidering the amount of money
that I was making, so I endedup leaving that contract and
then coming back at a later datewhen it was bought out by a
different company.
They didn't require thesecurity clearance.
At the time I didn't know whenI had applied for this job.
I had just applied for a convoyoperations, but I didn't
recognize the company name.
And so, when I got there, Ifound out it was my old crew and
(23:22):
it was, you know, same trucks.
And so, when I got there, Ifound out it was my old crew and
it was, you know, same trucks,same contract, different T-shirt
, you know.
And so I went back on boarddoing the same thing, just under
a different name Wow.
That you know what was the lasttime that you were actually in
(23:43):
Afghanistan December of 2012.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Okay, okay, okay With the.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
The contract period ended in 2016.
We wrote the book from 2009 to2012.
We had eight additionalchapters that had mentioned
certain ambushes and missions,but because the contract was
classified, we had to take thosethose chapters out.
So, you know, the owner held usto our non-disclosure agreement
(24:10):
.
Plus, we had to get all thatstuff declassified, um, and so,
at the time of the writing, um,we finished the book about seven
years ago, but it took us likethree years to get published, so
it was a real pain in the ass.
Um, so that's that.
Post period 2012 is notmentioned in the book.
But you know, I gotta givecredit out to all my brothers
(24:32):
that ran that contract.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Um, you know the stand-up guys all the way around
, we just couldn't mention theirnames um, over the past few
years we saw the I guess the,the, the pullout in Afghanistan.
Oh geez, clusterfuck yeah.
And you spending so much timeover there, probably building
some relationships with somepeople, how did that affect you?
(24:56):
I know that had to hurt in someway, because it was exactly
what you said a clusterfuck.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
When I transitioned from Kandahar.
I was in Kandahar at the timewhen my contract expired with
DynCorp and that's why I waslooking for a job in country,
and when I got it, they flew mefrom there and I stayed at the
Barron Hotel, and that's exactlythe point where that bomb was
placed, so I had somefamiliarity with it.
But when they had announced it,the first thing that I had said
(25:25):
was this is a huge, hugemistake to do a withdrawal like
that.
And there was no planning.
Basically, they had access toother airports that they could
have distributed.
So much the demobilization ofthe troops, and it was just a
total, total cluster.
And then you know, look at allthe money that they had left
(25:46):
behind, Look at all the peoplethat had worked for the United
States that were now exposed tothe Taliban.
Look at all the equipment thatturned out to be used against us
and other people at a latertime.
It was just like you know whatcan you say, what can you do.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
And it's still being used to this day, the equipment
that we left behind.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, To, I don't know, to the Taliban's credit, I
would hate to say that wastheir lack of familiarity with
some of the technical equipmentwhich turned out to be an okay,
but then again, when you justtalked about beans and bullets,
you know they were able tocapitalize on that stuff, so it
was a bad move all the wayaround.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Definitely so.
If there's a particular chapterin the book that stands out,
which one?
Or is there, or do you just sayall of it?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Well, it's very well written.
I mean, we're not writers,we're knuckle draggers.
And so when we decided to putpen to paper, I guess the first
benefit was we figured out thatit was really therapeutic.
Pen to paper I guess the firstbenefit was we figured out that
it was really therapeutic.
And so I'm basicallyestablishing a timeline of all
of these things, from thestartup to when we decided to
(26:58):
end the book.
And I'm writing chapters andI'm sending them up to Ed and
he's telling me this is right,this is that.
Oh, I forgot that.
And whenever he'd send it backto me and I would write it, and
we finally got to a manuscriptthat was tangible.
And so we sent it to an editor.
And that was a back and forththing for a long time and she
never really wrote anything, shejust told us.
(27:19):
She gave us some really goodadvice.
You know, when I took a coupleof creative writing classes, you
know, start with an actionpoint, end with a hook, you know
, have a theme brotherhood blah,blah, blah, and it actually
materialized into something thatwas really good.
So the interesting thing isit's a true story.
It's not based on a true storywhere you're throwing in this
fiction and trying to make itmore interesting.
(27:42):
So we start off with, like, thefirst chapter is basically
putting the reader in thedriver's seat.
And the first chapter isbasically putting the reader in
the driver's seat.
You know we have some missionsthat we ran so they understand
exactly the nature of thebusiness.
And then we go into the nextchapter, which is describing the
(28:04):
routes, has responsibilities on, you know, recon, weapons
preparation, fuel preparation,route preparation, alternate
route preparation, all thatstuff that everybody has to do
and they don't think about it.
It's very labor intensive andthese team leaders had to do
even more work, which wasbilleting, and they handled.
You know we'd run missions with$10,000 in cash so we'd run and
(28:26):
get out of jail free cards,kind of a thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, and then,uh, then we list them by
contact.
So we have a contact at, say,rpg, you know, or mind strike,
or, or small arms fire, orindirect fire, and, and, and we
listed all these contacts todate.
But what was most interesting,the two things that were
interesting, is one the editorhad mentioned that we didn't
(28:49):
have any female perspective, andI'm just going well, ok, what
are you talking about?
There weren't any women on thecontracts.
What do you want to.
You know what do you talk about?
And I said well, what aboutyour wives?
What did they feel like, youknow, when you were gone?
Or what about the mothers ofthe guys that had been killed?
You know in action, that hadbeen killed in action?
And so we ended up conductingabout 22-something interviews
(29:14):
just to get feedback from theirpoint of view, and we created a
chapter called Calling All Wives.
But I think the mostinteresting thing about the book
is the footlocker.
There's a lot of pressurethat's on a team leader and Ed
had to suppress that in order tobe effective, and he couldn't
(29:34):
let his team know that he had todeal with you know the
psychological impact, and sowhat he would do is like every
time he got an ambush, he wouldpick up some kind of a momentum.
You know, something to remindhim, basically, of the ambush,
so he'd throw it into thatfootlocker and continue on, and
eventually it got to the pointwhere the nature of these
(29:57):
attacks were increasing infrequency and in complexity.
So I mean, you might have, youknow, a rollover of mine or
something like that.
You know a couple of guys thatare injured, you get off the X,
you take care of business.
Then the next time you get aguy that gets killed.
You've got to deal with that.
And then you get an attackwhere it's a controlled
(30:20):
detonation and it involves somepeople that you know really well
.
So now you've got close friendsthat are getting killed, and so
every time that he would putsomething into that footlocker
got worse and worse and worse.
Eventually then we had oneincident where five guys were
killed in one hit, and I thinkthat's the time you know it had
(30:41):
climaxed to the point where hedecided to get out of the game
because he was going to be thenext one on the slab, and that
was important to mention.
So that's how we did it.
It's like when we talked aboutthese things, we always
mentioned what was the item thathe had put into the footlocker.
Was it a bloody schmog or abroken cell phone.
We even have a thing called aheart of stone where this rock
that got broken in half.
(31:02):
They put it together and itmakes a heart shape.
And he had thrown that in thereand the last time that he had
to identify a really good friendof his he just dreaded opening
that footlocker.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And when he finally did, he broke down.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
And he just said I've got to get out of this, I'm
going to be next.
And so that's basically how wekind of closed it out, and, of
course, we ended up leaving thelist of the guys that had been
killed and it was important forus to honor them in some way
that obviously, third countrynationals never really got the
(31:38):
benefit of that.
They were treated like cargo.
If you weren't a veteran or hadanything to do with the
military system, they justshipped you home.
The company didn't even botherto make notifications.
In some cases, you get it.
You either get it by mail or apolice officer's knocking on
your door to let you know thatsomebody had died.
And I'm just going.
(31:58):
Yeah, this really sucks.
Um, my, my end goal outside ofthat is I want to.
You know, maybe, since we'redelivering the mail, uh, since
they called us to Pony ExpressI'm hoping to get maybe some
kind of a commemorative stampthat we can honor them further,
and so we have to go throughsome channels and talk to some
(32:20):
people and whatnot, andhopefully we can get that done.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
How's that coming along?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, interesting thing is one of the guys that
gave us an endorsement isPatrick Donahoe.
He was at the time that we weredelivering.
He was the 73rd US PostmasterGeneral of the United States,
but he never knew that we werethe ones delivering the mail,
you know.
And so when I talked to himabout getting an endorsement, he
goes.
Well, I thought I thought themilitary did that.
(32:44):
I said yeah, but the militaryor Department of Defense went
ahead and subbed it out to us,and so I sent him a copy of the
book and he read it and he gaveus this glowing endorsement, and
so I think it's kind of a footin the door for me.
I haven't approached him aboutmy end goal, but I'm pretty sure
he can tell me what proceduresI need to go through in order to
get that done.
And then, of course, we've gota couple of offers for like a
(33:07):
film adaptation and documentaryor docu-series from a couple of
high-ranking people.
We got endorsements from DaleDye, you know, captain Dye, yeah
.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I saw that.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
And some pretty heavy hitters and we've got five-star
reviews.
We're just not a bestseller yet.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, well, what do you think that is from?
Is it just from lack ofawareness or promotion?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I mean, you know, I'll tell you when we signed our
publication contract, marketingwas dumped into our lap.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Oh, so you were learning as you were going.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, I had to learn how to write the book, then I
had to learn how to publish thebook.
And now I've got to learn howto write the book.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Then I had to learn how to publish the book, and now
I've got to learn how to marketthe book and it's a painstaking
process and, like I said, we'reshooters, we're not admin types
, we're not poets.
Yeah Well, warrior poets.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
So you know we split the share of the workload.
You know Ed's in Oregon and sohe's covering the northwestern
side of it and I'm down here inTexas.
And then of course we've gotsome other people kind of
helping us out with theendorsements.
We do podcasts, radio talkshows, book signings and things
like that.
But it's just not as well.
(34:25):
I mean, we're not traditionalauthors so we don't have a big
name for one.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
And then we don't want to do any vanity press
because they'll go ahead andwrite anything, and so finding
the publisher is the key.
So once this contract ends,we'll probably end up signing
with a veteran-owned publicationcompany.
That's going to give us more interms of our royalties so that
we can reinvest back into thebook and try to get it out there
.
So the rest of it is allbudget-driven.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Right, right right.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
And we just don't have enough money to do some
mainstream stuff.
Obviously, if it gets made intoa movie or a documentary,
that's going to help quite a bitas well.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
After the show I'm going to introduce you to a
couple of people.
Email you.
I want to get you on anotherpodcast a buddy of mine, oh
right, real popular here inHouston and he's an author as
well, and I think that y'allwill have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
That'd be cool.
Yeah, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, you know so, after everything is I don't want
to say it like that Aftereverything is done, you're done
now.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Man, how are you doing?
I'm doing okay.
The interesting thing is Likereally how are you doing?
Yeah, it was weird.
You don't want to talk about mydriving habits.
When I got back, you know I'dbe going down the road and I'd
see a dead animal and I'd justswerve to the other side and my
wife's going.
What the hell are you doing?
I thought it was an IED shit.
Or you do stupid things atdinner.
(36:01):
You know you say pass thefucking salt instead of pain.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So all that bad stuff kind of catches up to you.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
But you know I'm not having flashbacks, ed's doing
okay.
You know we did have a couple ofguys post-deployment that
didn't end well for them and ofcourse you know we include that
there's kind of like an honor tothem post-deployment and it's
important to mention.
You know, but as a contractoryou don't get the same types of
(36:31):
services that veterans do.
I mean, if you are a veteranyou might be able to capitalize
on some things through the VA,but that mechanism isn't
available.
You know we fall under DBA andmost of that stuff is either
going to be injury related or,you know, burn pit bullshit,
yeah, nothing to do with.
You know that psychologicalimpact, the PTSD side of it.
(36:53):
So we have a group it's aprivate group with the 75 of us
that ran those mobile operationsand we talk to each other on a
regular basis.
We have the Pony Express whereanybody can join if they're
interested in learning aboutstuff that we went through and
we post all kinds of things bookrelated and then if anybody has
(37:14):
a problem they can reach out tous at any time.
We're there in terms ofbrotherhood and what kind of
support that we can offer on apersonal level, but I'm okay.
Obviously, writing the book wastherapeutic, like I had
mentioned before, but you know,the rest of it is just kind of
(37:36):
waiting it out.
You know, we I mean I read thisbook like 10,000 times because I
wrote it, you know, and so it'sjust trying to get, I think,
trying to get the point across.
You know about the nature ofthe business.
You know it's a business, waris a business, and so we're on
the business side of it and allof the minuscule things that we
(37:57):
had to deal with in order to besuccessful.
You know, like having anAfghanistan counterpart in order
to even operate in that country, having to include, you know,
our shooters were localnationals, our drivers were
third country nationals, and sonow we've got this really weird
kind of a thing where you knowyou have to trust somebody that
(38:19):
you can't really trust.
You know there's a lot of proxyshootings and proxy bombings
and things, and so you never youknow you never turned your back
on anybody.
But when we came back we weresuccessful in decompression.
I worked clinical medicine forNext Level Urgent Care for about
four years.
That was really beneficialbecause I still got to do
medicine but I wasn't in acombat environment and so I was
(38:41):
able to kind of settle down.
And then Ed was working forLowe's and now he's delivering
the mail, but for FedEx.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Oh yeah, so that's kind of an interesting thing, a
whole different way yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
But we have a really high degree of psychological
resilience.
Good, you know doing that kindof stuff and you know the nature
of the business, what I do as amedic.
So I've been around trauma allmy life.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
You know, I might have been burned out a couple of
times, but I would never reallythink that it was anything PTSD
related.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Right, Okay, man, that's good, it's been man, it's
been.
Alan, it's been a pleasurehaving you on the show.
I really appreciate you havingme and speaking with you.
I'm going to make thoseconnections after this and we'll
, we'll, we'll get that rolling.
But again, you guys, some ofthe subject that we talked on
today was very sensitive andalways remember that you're not
alone and it's okay not to beokay If you are in crisis.
Always remember the suicidehotline is 988.
(39:36):
You can call or text, as always.
Thank you for tuning in and,Charlie Mike, Yo yo yo.
What's going on?
Everybody, it is me, SouljaHarwell, Redcon1 Music Group,
and thank you for listening toCharlie Mike, the podcast.
Yay.
This is Charlie Mike the podcast Veterans helping
veterans.
Talking about things happeningin the veteran community, Things
we've experienced and overcome,such as addictions, PTSD,
depression, legal trouble, andwe also promote veteran-owned
businesses.
If you're talking about it,we're talking about it.
(00:24):
This is Charlie Mike thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome back to another episodeof Charlie Mike the podcast.
As always, I'm your host, Raul,and I'm so excited.
I feel like we've been on ahiatus for a little bit,
changing studios and doing a lotof back work, but we're
officially back and I'm excitedto have my guest.
(00:57):
My guest today is Alan.
We've been trying to link upfor a little bit of time and,
alan, tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, I'm a firefighter paramedic with
Community Fire Rescue in Houston.
I've been a paramedic for about45 plus years.
Former Navy corpsman, I startedcontracting in 2005 in Iraq and
I did five deployments overthere and then eventually went
(01:27):
over to Afghanistan where Ipicked up a contract for
delivering the mail to US troops.
So we wrote a book about itcalled Postcards Through Hell.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So I want to speak on that and I want to learn more
about it, but where are you fromoriginally?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I was born in Toronto , ontario it, but uh, where.
Where are?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
you from originally.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I was born in toronto , ontario, um.
I'm canadian citizen.
You know I served in the unitedstates navy.
I've been in texas for about 39years okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
How many years did you do in the navy?
Just three years?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
no, let's say just three years, that's a long time
I was on a three by six so Ionly did half my tour okay, I
have to ask uh, do you playhockey?
I, I dabbled yeah yeah, is it?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Is it true that every Canadian plays hockey?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
No.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
No, most Canadian hockey teams have Americans on
them.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Okay, okay, yeah.
So what brought you from Canadato the United States?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
We grew up in Phoenix .
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh yeah, Phoenix Arizona for a while.
So you were just born in Canada, I was just born in Canada.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
We immigrated to the United States Both we have a
very large, large family, andmost of them were in California
and once my parents had goneback to Canada I decided to stay
.
And then at that time I joinedthe military.
(02:49):
I was in the ROTC for threeyears as well, so I kind of got
a leg up when I enlisted.
So I got to go in as an E3.
And my family had all movedback to Canada.
After I got out of the militaryI went to Canada, but I
couldn't find work thatsustained my income for any
length of time.
You know a lot of unions upthere and whatnot so I just came
(03:12):
back to the United States andwent to Texas.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, so what brought you to Texas?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Truthfully yeah, hispanic women.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Man I like this guy yeah, that's why I've been
trying to leave man, that's why,you're trying to leave yeah, no
, uh.
Oh well, there you go yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
So are you married currently?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
oh yeah, um just celebrated my 33, 33rd wedding
anniversary with my wife.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Congratulations.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, I met her in San Antonio.
I used to be an officer withBear County Fire and we were
working a location that requiredfurniture.
And I went into this store tobuy some furniture and there she
was, and I kept asking her outand she kept saying no, but I
just I kept pressing.
And there she was and I keptasking her out and she kept
saying no, but I just keptpressing, and pressing, and
(04:07):
pressing and she finally saidyeah, and we got married about a
year after that.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Man, that's awesome, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Do you have any kids currently?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, three kids, six grandchildren Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Wow, okay, this is a little on the personal side.
How?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
old are you 65.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Man, you look good.
Yeah, I don't feel good, but Iyeah, okay, you look good, so
you're still working right now.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a suppression lieutenant at
Station 2.
I might have mentioned thisearlier, that I worked the
Mission Bend Aleph area, right.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So let's get back to your military.
So your first time, you okay.
So you did three years in theNavy but saw.
Did you see any combat duringthat?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
time.
No, no, never deployed yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So it wasn't until after you got out of the
military that you went intocombat.
Yeah, I got out in 1981.
Okay okay, okay, yeah, and Iinto, yeah, I got, I got out in
1981.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So, okay, okay, yeah, and I I just started doing, I
cut my teeth on 911 in Oakland,california.
I used to call that the knifeand gun club so I saw a lot of
trauma there.
Um, and then, uh, I movedaround.
I was like a very diversebackground.
As a paramedic I've done, uh,aeromedicine, I've done clinical
medicine, I've done sportsmedicine, industrial medicine,
wilderness medicine, just abouteverything that you can think of
(05:28):
.
When it comes to being an EMT,once I was nationally registered
, of course, and then when I gotto Texas, at that time they
didn't recognize nationalregistration.
But it kind of opened a lotmore doors.
And the interesting thing is,when I started contracting, I
(05:48):
was applying for jobs as apolice liaison officer.
I was going to go to Iraq andtrain Iraqi police on checkpoint
procedures and searches andthings of that nature.
But once they found out as aparamedic, they shifted me over
to the PSD side, which ispersonal security detachment,
and I ended up working on theshark teams with DynCorp for a
(06:10):
couple years.
Dyncorp, dyncorp Internationalyeah.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and so what was your first rotation like?
Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Oh yeah, it was an eye-op opener because I didn't
have what year was this 2005.
?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
2005.
Yeah, late 2005.
And this was Iraq.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
We were stationed out of Baghdad.
We're right across the TigrisRiver from the Green Zone and so
our mission there.
We had actually severaldifferent types of subcontracts.
One of them was Bering Point,where we were taking attorneys
around and settling cases withlocal nationals.
Another one was CivPol, whichwas all the international police
(06:57):
liaison officers.
We'd take them back and forthto the Ministry of Interior or
to the shooting range where theBaghdad Police College was, and
then did a lot of runs on thebiop, which was called Route
Irish, which was a prettydangerous route at that time to
and from the airport.
And then of course we had otherVIPs and dignitaries that we
(07:23):
ran around to different places.
And the last one was the CPAT,which was all the prison wardens
, and so we were making runs toall these different prisons and
making sure that apparently themoney that America was putting
into these prisons had to bemonitored and whatnot, so that
these wardens were teachingthese other Iraqis on how to run
(07:45):
prisons and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And that was just your first tour.
How long did you stay there?
The first go-round?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Well, the contract lasts a year and then I, you
know, re-signed for a secondyear and I was kind of talking
to my wife about, you know, kindof calling it quits.
But I switched over to anothercompany and ended up working for
, uh, sock at that time it wassock smg, which is special
operations consulting, buteventually they got bought out
(08:14):
by day and zimmerman, so it'd becalled securing our country,
which was the same act, you know, same um abbreviation, but
different acronyms.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
so so what did?
What did your roster look like?
You worked with a lot ofindividuals like, okay, let's
say, uh, was it mainly allspecial forces and things of
that, of that mostly, yeah, um,and in iraq.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
On the shark teams it was a large mix of third
country nationalists, a majorityof them were south African.
That were prior police defenseforce and special forces New
Zealand, australia, england.
We had a lot of French ForeignLegion guys.
You know it was a very, verydiverse mix of personnel.
(08:59):
Every team it was a 10-man team.
We had 10 shark teams.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Bunch of badasses huh , pretty much yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And that's where I met my co-author, ed Ford.
He was working for CrowCrucible at the time and they
provided all of the in-countrytraining for us.
So they did IED awareness, theydid foreign weapons handling,
all all of your shootingqualifications and and things of
that nature, and then theywould eventually go out on on
(09:30):
runs with us to evaluate theeffectiveness of the training.
And so him and I became reallygood friends and he also worked
for sock after dine core and wasdeployed to afghan Afghanistan.
I was covering down for somemedics at a FOB down in Al-Hilla
and one of their teams got hitand they didn't have a medic on
(09:52):
board.
So him and the guy that Iworked with at Al-Hilla or it
was actually at Diwania FOB Echo, his name was Mike Hardy, him
and Ed were in Afghanistan andthey dropped my name in the hat
and I ended up going up there tofill that void.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It's night and day huh between Iraq and Afghanistan
.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It was a different animal, because now we're doing
convoy operations that havenothing to do with PSD and so
all of my experience on the jobthere just basically kind of set
you up for IED awareness andtwo-way range ambushes and stuff
like that, but in Iraq we neversaw the enemy.
They pop off a couple shots orblow an IED off or something
(10:38):
like that, but you never sawthem.
In Afghanistan we fought theTaliban and they liked to fight.
They stayed and fought.
In Afghanistan we fought theTaliban and they liked to fight.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
They stayed and fought.
So you were in Iraq in late2005, and a few years after that
.
It was pretty hot.
You didn't see any.
Y'all didn't go through any.
Oh yeah, jesus.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Christ, we had all kinds of shit going on.
We had teams that got hit.
We did counter-assault teams,we did QRF quick reaction force.
I'll have to say something.
There's not really anything.
We did counter-assault teams,we did QRF quick reaction force.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I'll have to say something.
There's not really anythingquick about a quick reaction
force, man, you're telling methat's like waiting on.
Oh for us, waiting on EOD.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And then there's other PMCs like Blackwater and
Aegis and different privatesecurity companies that are out
there and you're kind ofcoexisting with them and doing
pretty much the same business.
And not that it was competitive, but you know, between DynCorp
and Blackwater they were the twobig names.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So, with there being so many different I guess
corporations doing similar jobs,did y'all ever have
friendly-unfriendly when it camejust to that?
Because I know sometimes themilitary had friendly-unfriendly
with different organizations aswell.
Did y'all go through any ofthat?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Well, we didn't with other companies, but other
companies might have done itwith themselves or something.
I think we had one incident thatwe were coming out of a prison
where, when the new MRAPs hadcome in to replace the Hummers,
they were so much taller.
And so everything in Iraq hasgot, you know, everybody's
plugging into electricity andrunning cable and wires, and all
(12:18):
this stuff is really low, andwe're running on a street and
we're parallel to an MRAP that'srunning on a couple blocks up.
And then we're, as they'regoing through there, uh, they're
hitting all these things andsparks are flying and stuff like
that, and I'm not sure who madethe, made the judgment, or
whatnot, but uh, we got intokind of like a little bit of a
firefight as we're going throughthese blocks, you know,
(12:38):
shooting back and forth andstuff.
But it turns out it was, youknow, the military and the
sparks were not gunfire oranything like that, it was just
kind of a misread, so to speak.
And then you just kind of getoff the X and go the opposite
direction and no harm, no foul,nobody's hurt.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yep and whatnot.
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, just taking the power, yeah, and then you know
I hate to put myself on thechopping block here, but a a
friend of mine had sent me thislaser pointer and it's the
stupidest thing.
But I went up on the rooftopwith a buddy of mine and we were
sitting there just shining itaround, whatever, and apparently
(13:14):
I flagged the Ministry ofInterior and they opened up with
50 cal.
We're on this rooftop At youguys.
At us, oh wow.
And so I just kind of likejumped down this little elevator
shaft and my South Africanfriends with me and everybody
was kind of on my shit about oneusing the laser pointer and the
(13:36):
other one was kind of likeleaving this guy behind.
And I said I never left himbehind, he was behind me the
whole time and he goes well, howdo you know?
And I was going, he was goingFook, fook.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
He was so heavily accented.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
you know that's too funny.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, so now you're in Afghanistan.
What tell me?
Tell me about it.
What's life in Afghanistan?
Like I never got to experienceAfghanistan.
I did Iraq for a couple ofyears, but never Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
You know when you could be blindfolded and fly
into Afghanistan and you wouldknow you were in Kabul.
Yeah, you know.
They burn tree roots for lackof lumber.
There's open sewage and feceseverywhere, there's
decomposition and dead animals,and then, of course, generators
(14:27):
are producing all of this dieseland when you combine that stuff
it has that particular odor andyou know you're there that
sounds sounds like a lovelyplace yeah, they, they, you know
they're, I think they're.
They're mean.
Average age for elderly is is alot lower because they're
breathing all these carcinogensand so it's not a healthy place
to live when you're in the city.
Yeah, um, what interesting tome is they knew I was coming up
(14:49):
and when I arrived there wasnobody at the airport to pick me
up and it's kind of like trialby fire.
They were actually out on amission to recover one of their
vehicles that had been hit in aprevious ambush and so nobody
was available.
So I ended up hopping into ataxi with somebody that I didn't
know.
I didn't know where I was going, I didn't even have an address,
I just knew the name,no-transcript.
(15:20):
I finally went down this onestreet and I saw a guy wearing a
sock uniform.
I'm like oh, there it is.
I was in this cab for like anhour and 40 minutes just driving
around trying to find thisfreaking bill, and I lucked out.
I got there and everything, andI think my bill was like $40.
I threw some change at him andI didn't even know if I tipped
him, but I got there and then Iwas there for about an hour when
(15:43):
the team that was supposed topick me up finally showed up and
I was going hey, what the fuckguys?
And so that was my orientation,and then we went right into
running these missions.
Initially they just had somethin-skinned and up-armored
vehicles Tahos or not Tahos, butToyota Land Cruisers, right.
(16:07):
And then they finally hadordered some Ford F-550 gun
trucks.
That arrived, they werewhite-colored.
There was a learning curve.
They had sent a trainer namedDave Gangenbach, who ended up
being my driver at the time, andhe trained us on off-road
driving and all kinds oftactical driving.
(16:28):
The Achilles heel on this thingwas the flat bottom.
Yeah, it's a catastrophictakedown if you hit an IED.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I can imagine yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Most of them had the V-holes that you would prefer,
but you know they served theirpurpose.
They were quick vehicles, um,loud as hell.
I mean.
They eventually painted themblack, you know, so we could run
missions at nighttime and kindof like reduce our, our visual
signature, but they were loud.
So I mean, uh, we might havethe element of surprise when we
(16:59):
were going there, but thetaliban knew when we were going
to have to take the same routeback Right, so it was on.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So just tell me a little bit about this.
The Pony Express, how and justhow?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, initially we were running critical supplies
to support militaryinfrastructure to O ODA sites.
Operational attachment alpha.
We had a great deal of successwhere other people had failed,
and eventually we got the USmail contract.
So the military was tasked withdelivering the mail, but it
(17:39):
wasn't a priority for them.
And so a lot of times if they'reout doing recon missions or
other types of missions, themail would sit for an extended
period of time and you know kindof like troop morale is going
downhill and whatnot.
So they contracted out to usand we had like a 98% success
rate on our drops.
We still delivered all of theseother things fuel, ammo,
(18:03):
weapons, even vehicles but wealways tacked the mail onto it
as well.
So we made these runs and theystarted to call us the Pony
Express.
I actually named the book thePony Express, but there's, I
guess, a group that had atrademark on it or something.
We got a cease and desistletter saying we couldn't use
that.
So we changed the name toPostcards Through Hell.
(18:24):
And that was the priority wasto deliver the mail.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, that's a badass name too Postcards Through Hell
.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Well, it's going through hell delivering the mail
.
The thing that's interestingabout it is nobody knew about it
.
I mean, occasionally, you know,gate guards saw trucks coming
in, but they don't know what thecargo is.
We go to the post office boxand we drop the mail off and
then we leave, and then so themilitary would go get their mail
(18:53):
.
They don't know how it gotthere.
So I mean, if you were inAfghanistan from, let's say,
2009 to 2012, there's a 90%chance we delivered the mail.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, and like you say, it's a big uh, more morale
bust uh yeah, morale booster,booster yeah go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, people don'tunderstand, you know, because a
lot of times, sometimes there'sno access to internet, there's
no, there's no.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Um well, there's just no access to internet and
letters was the way it used tobe done yeah, I think the
washington post did a story onit uh, right around christmas
time and uh it, I think peopleat that particular fob, uh when,
when, uh it was another teamthat had done this uh delivery,
but it was these guys werelining up and they were so happy
(19:39):
to, you know, get this, uh,these gifts and and letters and
and and.
When you think about you knowthe, the risk that we took.
You know, if you were wonderingabout what it's like, I, I on a
personal, on a personal level,if I got a letter, it was really
important to me and, and Ithink, to myself, is that
something worth dying for?
Of course it was, you know.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
so yeah, that's.
It's crazy to think about onthis side, because you know I
think about the times in Iraqand you know I never really
thought about how the mail oranything along those lines got
to us.
It just.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
It was just there, it was just there.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So the whole story Postcards Through Hell is based
on one experience, or a bunch ofexperiences, multiple
experiences, it's basically thestory of my team leader, ed Ford
.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
He's a 22-year Marine recon battalion and you know,
aside from our friendship, ourbrotherhood, when he went over
to Afghanistan he picked upbasically the convoy side.
They did have a little PSDelement but it was tasked to
(20:58):
some other guys and so he had,you know, he had a lot of
experience and he had a greatteam.
And when the company expandedthey started putting up more
teams and so my job there was,you know, to train all the other
guys up to speed on combatlifesaver kind of put their
medical program together.
You know, get get supplies, dosafe havens, met outs, route
(21:21):
mapping, navigation, things ofthat nature.
We didn't have a lot of stuff,so we depended on the military
for support in that area.
We had medical supplies thatwere expired but we still ended
up using them.
I mean, I always used the goodstuff on my guys and the bad
stuff on the bad guys.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And whatever we couldn't get.
We, you know, a lot of times wewould make a run to a fob and
I'd go to the battalion aidstation and hook up with the
medic there and tell them hey,we're hurting for this, we're
hurting for that, and they wouldgive me stuff, and in my pack I
have to have enough medicalsupplies to support a 10-man
team for 72 hours.
Oh, wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yeah, I think I lost about an inch and a half in
height from wearing all thatdamn gear.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You're serious too.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
60 pounds of ballistic protection and another
35 pounds of med gear.
You know it's like it takes itstoll on you after a while.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, what was the?
You were there in Afghanistanand you said I'm done, I want to
go home.
Was there a particular momentthat made you realize that, or
was that just you just felt?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
it contract with a company that required a security
clearance, which I didn't have.
I could have stayed, but theywould have taken me out of the
medic slot and put me in as ashooter.
So then I'm going to even makeless money, since I'm a third
country national, not anAmerican, and so that to me was
(23:00):
one of those risk benefits typeof a deal.
It wasn't really worth the riskconsidering the amount of money
that I was making, so I endedup leaving that contract and
then coming back at a later datewhen it was bought out by a
different company.
They didn't require thesecurity clearance.
At the time I didn't know whenI had applied for this job.
I had just applied for a convoyoperations, but I didn't
recognize the company name.
And so, when I got there, Ifound out it was my old crew and
(23:22):
it was, you know, same trucks.
And so, when I got there, Ifound out it was my old crew and
it was, you know, same trucks,same contract, different T-shirt
, you know.
And so I went back on boarddoing the same thing, just under
a different name Wow.
That you know what was the lasttime that you were actually in
(23:43):
Afghanistan December of 2012.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Okay, okay, okay With the.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
The contract period ended in 2016.
We wrote the book from 2009 to2012.
We had eight additionalchapters that had mentioned
certain ambushes and missions,but because the contract was
classified, we had to take thosethose chapters out.
So, you know, the owner held usto our non-disclosure agreement
(24:10):
.
Plus, we had to get all thatstuff declassified, um, and so,
at the time of the writing, um,we finished the book about seven
years ago, but it took us likethree years to get published, so
it was a real pain in the ass.
Um, so that's that.
Post period 2012 is notmentioned in the book.
But you know, I gotta givecredit out to all my brothers
(24:32):
that ran that contract.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Um, you know the stand-up guys all the way around
, we just couldn't mention theirnames um, over the past few
years we saw the I guess the,the, the pullout in Afghanistan.
Oh geez, clusterfuck yeah.
And you spending so much timeover there, probably building
some relationships with somepeople, how did that affect you?
(24:56):
I know that had to hurt in someway, because it was exactly
what you said a clusterfuck.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
When I transitioned from Kandahar.
I was in Kandahar at the timewhen my contract expired with
DynCorp and that's why I waslooking for a job in country,
and when I got it, they flew mefrom there and I stayed at the
Barron Hotel, and that's exactlythe point where that bomb was
placed, so I had somefamiliarity with it.
But when they had announced it,the first thing that I had said
(25:25):
was this is a huge, hugemistake to do a withdrawal like
that.
And there was no planning.
Basically, they had access toother airports that they could
have distributed.
So much the demobilization ofthe troops, and it was just a
total, total cluster.
And then you know, look at allthe money that they had left
(25:46):
behind, Look at all the peoplethat had worked for the United
States that were now exposed tothe Taliban.
Look at all the equipment thatturned out to be used against us
and other people at a latertime.
It was just like you know whatcan you say, what can you do.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
And it's still being used to this day, the equipment
that we left behind.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, To, I don't know, to the Taliban's credit, I
would hate to say that wastheir lack of familiarity with
some of the technical equipmentwhich turned out to be an okay,
but then again, when you justtalked about beans and bullets,
you know they were able tocapitalize on that stuff, so it
was a bad move all the wayaround.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Definitely so.
If there's a particular chapterin the book that stands out,
which one?
Or is there, or do you just sayall of it?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Well, it's very well written.
I mean, we're not writers,we're knuckle draggers.
And so when we decided to putpen to paper, I guess the first
benefit was we figured out thatit was really therapeutic.
Pen to paper I guess the firstbenefit was we figured out that
it was really therapeutic.
And so I'm basicallyestablishing a timeline of all
of these things, from thestartup to when we decided to
(26:58):
end the book.
And I'm writing chapters andI'm sending them up to Ed and
he's telling me this is right,this is that.
Oh, I forgot that.
And whenever he'd send it backto me and I would write it, and
we finally got to a manuscriptthat was tangible.
And so we sent it to an editor.
And that was a back and forththing for a long time and she
never really wrote anything, shejust told us.
(27:19):
She gave us some really goodadvice.
You know, when I took a coupleof creative writing classes, you
know, start with an actionpoint, end with a hook, you know
, have a theme brotherhood blah,blah, blah, and it actually
materialized into something thatwas really good.
So the interesting thing isit's a true story.
It's not based on a true storywhere you're throwing in this
fiction and trying to make itmore interesting.
(27:42):
So we start off with, like, thefirst chapter is basically
putting the reader in thedriver's seat.
And the first chapter isbasically putting the reader in
the driver's seat.
You know we have some missionsthat we ran so they understand
exactly the nature of thebusiness.
And then we go into the nextchapter, which is describing the
(28:04):
routes, has responsibilities on, you know, recon, weapons
preparation, fuel preparation,route preparation, alternate
route preparation, all thatstuff that everybody has to do
and they don't think about it.
It's very labor intensive andthese team leaders had to do
even more work, which wasbilleting, and they handled.
You know we'd run missions with$10,000 in cash so we'd run and
(28:26):
get out of jail free cards,kind of a thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, and then,uh, then we list them by
contact.
So we have a contact at, say,rpg, you know, or mind strike,
or, or small arms fire, orindirect fire, and, and, and we
listed all these contacts todate.
But what was most interesting,the two things that were
interesting, is one the editorhad mentioned that we didn't
(28:49):
have any female perspective, andI'm just going well, ok, what
are you talking about?
There weren't any women on thecontracts.
What do you want to.
You know what do you talk about?
And I said well, what aboutyour wives?
What did they feel like, youknow, when you were gone?
Or what about the mothers ofthe guys that had been killed?
You know in action, that hadbeen killed in action?
And so we ended up conductingabout 22-something interviews
(29:14):
just to get feedback from theirpoint of view, and we created a
chapter called Calling All Wives.
But I think the mostinteresting thing about the book
is the footlocker.
There's a lot of pressurethat's on a team leader and Ed
had to suppress that in order tobe effective, and he couldn't
(29:34):
let his team know that he had todeal with you know the
psychological impact, and sowhat he would do is like every
time he got an ambush, he wouldpick up some kind of a momentum.
You know, something to remindhim, basically, of the ambush,
so he'd throw it into thatfootlocker and continue on, and
eventually it got to the pointwhere the nature of these
(29:57):
attacks were increasing infrequency and in complexity.
So I mean, you might have, youknow, a rollover of mine or
something like that.
You know a couple of guys thatare injured, you get off the X,
you take care of business.
Then the next time you get aguy that gets killed.
You've got to deal with that.
And then you get an attackwhere it's a controlled
(30:20):
detonation and it involves somepeople that you know really well
.
So now you've got close friendsthat are getting killed, and so
every time that he would putsomething into that footlocker
got worse and worse and worse.
Eventually then we had oneincident where five guys were
killed in one hit, and I thinkthat's the time you know it had
(30:41):
climaxed to the point where hedecided to get out of the game
because he was going to be thenext one on the slab, and that
was important to mention.
So that's how we did it.
It's like when we talked aboutthese things, we always
mentioned what was the item thathe had put into the footlocker.
Was it a bloody schmog or abroken cell phone.
We even have a thing called aheart of stone where this rock
that got broken in half.
(31:02):
They put it together and itmakes a heart shape.
And he had thrown that in thereand the last time that he had
to identify a really good friendof his he just dreaded opening
that footlocker.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And when he finally did, he broke down.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
And he just said I've got to get out of this, I'm
going to be next.
And so that's basically how wekind of closed it out, and, of
course, we ended up leaving thelist of the guys that had been
killed and it was important forus to honor them in some way
that obviously, third countrynationals never really got the
(31:38):
benefit of that.
They were treated like cargo.
If you weren't a veteran or hadanything to do with the
military system, they justshipped you home.
The company didn't even botherto make notifications.
In some cases, you get it.
You either get it by mail or apolice officer's knocking on
your door to let you know thatsomebody had died.
And I'm just going.
(31:58):
Yeah, this really sucks.
Um, my, my end goal outside ofthat is I want to.
You know, maybe, since we'redelivering the mail, uh, since
they called us to Pony ExpressI'm hoping to get maybe some
kind of a commemorative stampthat we can honor them further,
and so we have to go throughsome channels and talk to some
(32:20):
people and whatnot, andhopefully we can get that done.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
How's that coming along?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, interesting thing is one of the guys that
gave us an endorsement isPatrick Donahoe.
He was at the time that we weredelivering.
He was the 73rd US PostmasterGeneral of the United States,
but he never knew that we werethe ones delivering the mail,
you know.
And so when I talked to himabout getting an endorsement, he
goes.
Well, I thought I thought themilitary did that.
(32:44):
I said yeah, but the militaryor Department of Defense went
ahead and subbed it out to us,and so I sent him a copy of the
book and he read it and he gaveus this glowing endorsement, and
so I think it's kind of a footin the door for me.
I haven't approached him aboutmy end goal, but I'm pretty sure
he can tell me what proceduresI need to go through in order to
get that done.
And then, of course, we've gota couple of offers for like a
(33:07):
film adaptation and documentaryor docu-series from a couple of
high-ranking people.
We got endorsements from DaleDye, you know, captain Dye, yeah
.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I saw that.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
And some pretty heavy hitters and we've got five-star
reviews.
We're just not a bestseller yet.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, well, what do you think that is from?
Is it just from lack ofawareness or promotion?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I mean, you know, I'll tell you when we signed our
publication contract, marketingwas dumped into our lap.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Oh, so you were learning as you were going.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, I had to learn how to write the book, then I
had to learn how to publish thebook.
And now I've got to learn howto write the book.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Then I had to learn how to publish the book, and now
I've got to learn how to marketthe book and it's a painstaking
process and, like I said, we'reshooters, we're not admin types
, we're not poets.
Yeah Well, warrior poets.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
So you know we split the share of the workload.
You know Ed's in Oregon and sohe's covering the northwestern
side of it and I'm down here inTexas.
And then of course we've gotsome other people kind of
helping us out with theendorsements.
We do podcasts, radio talkshows, book signings and things
like that.
But it's just not as well.
(34:25):
I mean, we're not traditionalauthors so we don't have a big
name for one.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
And then we don't want to do any vanity press
because they'll go ahead andwrite anything, and so finding
the publisher is the key.
So once this contract ends,we'll probably end up signing
with a veteran-owned publicationcompany.
That's going to give us more interms of our royalties so that
we can reinvest back into thebook and try to get it out there
.
So the rest of it is allbudget-driven.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Right, right right.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
And we just don't have enough money to do some
mainstream stuff.
Obviously, if it gets made intoa movie or a documentary,
that's going to help quite a bitas well.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
After the show I'm going to introduce you to a
couple of people.
Email you.
I want to get you on anotherpodcast a buddy of mine, oh
right, real popular here inHouston and he's an author as
well, and I think that y'allwill have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
That'd be cool.
Yeah, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, you know so, after everything is I don't want
to say it like that Aftereverything is done, you're done
now.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Man, how are you doing?
I'm doing okay.
The interesting thing is Likereally how are you doing?
Yeah, it was weird.
You don't want to talk about mydriving habits.
When I got back, you know I'dbe going down the road and I'd
see a dead animal and I'd justswerve to the other side and my
wife's going.
What the hell are you doing?
I thought it was an IED shit.
Or you do stupid things atdinner.
(36:01):
You know you say pass thefucking salt instead of pain.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So all that bad stuff kind of catches up to you.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
But you know I'm not having flashbacks, ed's doing
okay.
You know we did have a couple ofguys post-deployment that
didn't end well for them and ofcourse you know we include that
there's kind of like an honor tothem post-deployment and it's
important to mention.
You know, but as a contractoryou don't get the same types of
(36:31):
services that veterans do.
I mean, if you are a veteranyou might be able to capitalize
on some things through the VA,but that mechanism isn't
available.
You know we fall under DBA andmost of that stuff is either
going to be injury related or,you know, burn pit bullshit,
yeah, nothing to do with.
You know that psychologicalimpact, the PTSD side of it.
(36:53):
So we have a group it's aprivate group with the 75 of us
that ran those mobile operationsand we talk to each other on a
regular basis.
We have the Pony Express whereanybody can join if they're
interested in learning aboutstuff that we went through and
we post all kinds of things bookrelated and then if anybody has
(37:14):
a problem they can reach out tous at any time.
We're there in terms ofbrotherhood and what kind of
support that we can offer on apersonal level, but I'm okay.
Obviously, writing the book wastherapeutic, like I had
mentioned before, but you know,the rest of it is just kind of
(37:36):
waiting it out.
You know, we I mean I read thisbook like 10,000 times because I
wrote it, you know, and so it'sjust trying to get, I think,
trying to get the point across.
You know about the nature ofthe business.
You know it's a business, waris a business, and so we're on
the business side of it and allof the minuscule things that we
(37:57):
had to deal with in order to besuccessful.
You know, like having anAfghanistan counterpart in order
to even operate in that country, having to include, you know,
our shooters were localnationals, our drivers were
third country nationals, and sonow we've got this really weird
kind of a thing where you knowyou have to trust somebody that
(38:19):
you can't really trust.
You know there's a lot of proxyshootings and proxy bombings
and things, and so you never youknow you never turned your back
on anybody.
But when we came back we weresuccessful in decompression.
I worked clinical medicine forNext Level Urgent Care for about
four years.
That was really beneficialbecause I still got to do
medicine but I wasn't in acombat environment and so I was
(38:41):
able to kind of settle down.
And then Ed was working forLowe's and now he's delivering
the mail, but for FedEx.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Oh yeah, so that's kind of an interesting thing, a
whole different way yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
But we have a really high degree of psychological
resilience.
Good, you know doing that kindof stuff and you know the nature
of the business, what I do as amedic.
So I've been around trauma allmy life.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
You know, I might have been burned out a couple of
times, but I would never reallythink that it was anything PTSD
related.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Right, Okay, man, that's good, it's been man, it's
been.
Alan, it's been a pleasurehaving you on the show.
I really appreciate you havingme and speaking with you.
I'm going to make thoseconnections after this and we'll
, we'll, we'll get that rolling.
But again, you guys, some ofthe subject that we talked on
today was very sensitive andalways remember that you're not
alone and it's okay not to beokay If you are in crisis.
Always remember the suicidehotline is 988.
(39:36):
You can call or text, as always.
Thank you for tuning in and,Charlie Mike, Yo yo yo.
What's going on?
Everybody, it is me, SouljaHarwell, Redcon1 Music Group,
and thank you for listening toCharlie Mike, the podcast.
Yay.
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