Combat in Iraq with ODA 043 | Special Forces Team Sergeant | Grit to Glory Author | Darrell Utt (Round 2) - Combat Story

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
We have feed that's over the target andit's saturated with bad guys, people
with, uh, weapons on the rooftops,people, uh, weapons in the vehicles
position, like they have the wholeplace locked down, like they already,
he's calling the ground force commanderfrom Bravo two, three, the ICTF on
the ground commander and saying, Thiswhole place is saturated with bad guys.

(00:26):
I have a B one with a thousand poundbomb, whatever, like prepared to drop it.
Just give me the word.
We've had legal look at it.
Everything's legit armed and Bravotwo, three says, Nope, we got it.
We'll take care of it.
We got the force.
We're ready.
They don't know we're here.

(00:47):
We'll be there shortly.
And they went in there.
Bravo two, three with ICTF guys.
And they smoke everybody.
Welcome to combat story.
I'm Ryan Fugit and I serve war zonetours as an army attack helicopter pilot
and CIA officer over a 15 year career.
I'm fascinated by the experiencesof the elite in combat on this show.
I interviewed some of the bestto understand what combat felt

(01:10):
like on their front lines.
This is combat story.
On today's episode, we sit down forround two with Daryl Utt, a longtime
Green Beret and retired Master Sergeant,in an episode that is chock full of
his combat experiences from not onlyhis time in Iraq in 2006, but then some
stories from his time in 2007, whichone day will hopefully be a sequel

(01:32):
to his book that's coming out in lateNovember, early December, Breath to Glory.
If you didn't catch round one lastweek, Daryl grew up in a really tough
home where he even stopped his motherfrom shooting his father at one point.
He found his way to the army andbecame a Green Beret, serving in a
host of different places, but wasable to serve as a team sergeant
for the first time in 2006, takinga fairly junior team into Iraq.

(01:56):
We left off at the very beginningof 2006, where he had just relieved
one member of his team on arrival.
And was almost relieved himself gettinga second chance by one of his commanders.
Their first successful mission isnothing short of amazing And made
for the big screen to sit back andrelax as you enjoy some amazing combat

(02:18):
stories from none other than daryl utt
Okay, we're back again, uh as we leftoff on the previous Session you were at
what I think we could have described itOne of the lows, you just arrived in your
first combat, uh, team sergeant role.

(02:39):
You had to let somebody go effectivelyas they land in country for their own
actions, right thing to do, but not easyto do in any scenario, let alone combat.
And then you had your own run in,almost lost a sensitive item, did lose,
recovered later, but when asked by.

(03:00):
Obviously senior leadership pointblank, you know, you take responsibility
as radical responsibility forit, which is the right lesson.
I think I hope everybody listensto including my own kids when they
find themselves in a similar spot.
Um, But this is where the, the bookreally talks about grit to glory talks
about 2006 and this is the intro to that.

(03:22):
So where does it go from here?
This low apparent, uh, starting point.
Yeah.
So, uh, fortunately forus, we have some wins.
Um, our first win.
We ended up capturing someone.
Um, we captured someone that theprevious team had been trying to

(03:43):
capture the whole entire rotation.
So, um, so we got a win under our beltand it was a significant capture, uh,
because we ended up getting so muchintelligence and it really just, it.
It just really started everythingoff on a great foot for us.
Besides that little hiccup.

(04:03):
I mean, that really tookus to the next level.
Um, so can you take us through that?
Yeah.
So this is the honey pot, honey trapping.
If you have heard this thefirst time, that is okay.
Like I love this story.
Please, if you could share it.

(04:24):
So yeah, this is thehoney trapping chapter.
And I know there are a lot of peoplethat really enjoy hearing this story.
Um, but we had someonethat we were after and.
The previous team, the fifth groupteam, they, they did everything
they could to capture this guyand they couldn't bring him in.
He was, he was, he was talented.

(04:45):
He was skilled.
Uh, he was operating in a verydifficult area, which was solder city.
And, and typically 2006 solder city.
Uh, you were typically going to eatIEDs, improvised explosive devices.
You were going to eat IEDson the route in, you're going
to get in a big ass fight.
And then you were going toeat IEDs on the way out.

(05:07):
So it was a very difficult,uh, area to work.
And there were a lot of politicalmaneuvering type things going on
with, uh, the leadership of Iraqas a country was led by a Shia.
And, uh, this gentleman was allabout targeting Sunni Al Qaeda all
day long, but didn't really likeso much the Shia targeting, and

(05:32):
then you had the Iranian influence.
So I think in the simplest way Icould, I could really explain this
or describe like the scenario.
It was PhD level stuff.
It was a high level PhD levelthat we were dealing with and
we were trying to operate in.
And keep in mind.

(05:53):
You know, we're not a national levelasset like Delta or Silt Team Six,
which I want to make a quick point on.
Uh, it was really funny.
I, my book went through theDepartment of Defense review process.
And they were very sensitive to anymention of Delta or still team six.

(06:13):
And it kind of made me crack up becauseI've listened to a lot of podcasts, combat
story, Mike Ritland's, uh, Sean Ryan's.
And it's like, dude, is anybodylistening to these podcasts?
Cause they talk about somepretty crazy shit stuff.
I like didn't hear about26 and a half years.
And it's like, dude, you guys werelike doing a three man team in Africa
and you had Naval gunfire and youwere up against like a hundred dudes,

(06:35):
like, Damn, that's awesome, bro.
But, um, but anyway, I just thought thatwas kind of like a little minor point
that it was kind of funny that, uh, the,the few redactions that this book had.
Had something to do with Delta orstill team six, just the mention
of, you know, like a mentorthat was in Delta or whatever.
I thought that was kind of funny,but PhD level environment that we're

(06:58):
operating in, and because we're nota national level asset like Delta or
still team six, we didn't have allthose assets like those platforms and,
you know, signals intelligence and.
All the different, uh, enablersthat they had, we didn't have that.
So we had to get creative and, uh,at our team house, we had at Camp

(07:23):
Apache, we had a whiteboard that we usefor strategizing and it's popular in
the military, a lot of folks use thewhiteboards, but we started looking at the
target package for this individual thatwe ended up capturing on the, uh, Yeah.
Can I ask you about the whiteboard?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I haven't had to think of this becausein an aviation unit, we would never

(07:47):
have used a whiteboard for something.
What's on the whiteboardin your team room?
Is this like, like if you see a crime showor an FBI show, it's like a target package
and then linked out to different people?
Or is this you?
Hmm.
It's basically us on the whiteboardstrategizing like, Hey, give us some
ideas, like what we got the whole teamwhere we're just trying to figure out

(08:08):
ideas like, Hey, like, here's our target.
This is his age.
These are the things that he's doingbecause this is what fifth group
shared with us, you know, the targetintelligence packet, we call it a tip.
So we have all of these differentthings that we know about the target.
And then we just start puttingideas on the whiteboard.
Like, you know, Hey, we could tryto get his phone number and track

(08:30):
it, even though we didn't have allof that capability at that time.
I mean, we had the dude's phone number,but you know, we didn't have the
ability like Delta and still team six.
To go after that phone like they did.
Uh, but we would just come upwith these different ideas.
Like, Hey, maybe we coulddo this or we could do that.
So basically what happened with thewhiteboard, I was able to combine.

(08:56):
Turkey hunting, because if you thinkabout turkey hunting, like what
you're actually trying to do, you'retrying to replicate a female turkey.
And you're trying to bring the male turkeyin and you're trying to kill the turkey.
And then like with the honeypot, like with the female.
Is, you know, dealing with a male, whichis one of the oldest books time test.
Yeah.
Time test is CIA are really good at that.

(09:17):
So, uh, the whiteboard, we juststarted like piecing things together
and then, you know, talking to theteam, like no idea is a bad idea.
Like bring it out.
And I think you, as a leader, you have tomake your people feel comfortable where
it's like, I'm going to say something.
Everybody's going to think, Hey, shut up.
You're a jackass.
No, it's like, man, bring it.

(09:39):
If you're a dude about this age andyou think you're a baller and you're
killing Americans and you know, youthink you're so important and all that,
like if someone called him on the phone,cause we know his number and it was
a female voice, you know, if you wereback in the States and you were single

(10:01):
and someone caught your attention,that first you'd Five to 10 seconds
with something so awesome, so sexy.
Can't say no.
Could you, what would you do?
Would you at least listen?
You know?
So that's the thing.
So we started talking about it.
Then we started adding stufftogether, putting it on the
whiteboards, like a phone call.

(10:22):
And it was like, okay,well here's a problem.
We don't have a female, you know?
So you know, we're just, we're justputting all this stuff on there.
It's like, okay, so we need a female.
We actually need a female that cantalk the talk and, you know, that's
probably from that line of business,like the prostitution side of the
house, which a lot of people, you thinkIraq, Muslim country, all that, like,

(10:44):
Hey, they have all those things justlike in the, in, in the United States.
So that's the whiteboard, just ideaafter idea, things we need, you
know, all this type type of stuff.
And then we just started buildingit together and putting it together.
And it's like, okay, we'regoing to need an interpreter.
We're going to need this.
We're going to need that.
And, um, our lead Iraqi that wasworking with us always said, Hey, if

(11:08):
you guys ever need anything, and weasked for weird shit, like we asked
for mannequins and we got mannequinsbecause we had bunkers on the rooftop.
So it was like, Hey, let's,let's mix it up a little bit.
I mean, they see these bunkers,they don't see anybody up there.
Occasionally they might, but.
Let's see what happens if we put themannequins up there and we leave them

(11:29):
up there for like 48 hours Is youknow, are we gonna have reduced attack?
So we tried all kinds of crazy shitBut you know, our guy was like, hey if
you ever need anything ask nothing'stoo weird It's like hey, man We need
a female that has a sexy voice andcan talk the talk and he's like, okay

(11:53):
You got my attention And I was like,we need her to be very aggressive.
Like we need her to dig in up frontand say, like, she's talking to us.
It's like, as soon as that, thephone answers and it's like, he
says, hello, she's going deep dirty.
And, uh, and that's whatwe ended up going with.

(12:17):
And we really didn't knowwhat was going to happen.
I mean, it was risky.
It was, it was risky.
Um, but we had tried everythingelse in the previous team
had tried everything else.
So we felt like, Hey, you know,we have to give it a shot.
We owe it.
We owe it to ourselves.
We owe it to all the peoplethat are serving over here.

(12:39):
Cause this dude has killed Americans.
A lot of Americans, not just afew, like a lot of Americans.
He had a lot of blood on his handsand he killed a lot of Iraqis too.
So, um, we felt it was worth it.
And, uh, that firstcall got his attention.
He was hooked, he was hooked from thefirst call and then one call led to two

(13:02):
calls, led to three calls, led to fourcalls, and this went on for a few weeks.
And, um, and they eventually said,Hey, let's, let's set up a meet.
And just real quick, can you, can youspeak to, like, did you meet this woman?
I did meet this woman.
Yes.
Uh, and she was definitelyplayed the part.

(13:24):
Like she was, she was the real deal.
She was the real deal.
Probably a prostitute.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she was beautiful.
She was a beautiful Iraqi woman.
Yes.
Was it hard?
I mean, I assume we're payingher like, but was there any
heartache for her doing this?
No, I mean, it could be risky.
I would assume.
Yeah, it was definitely,it was, excuse me.

(13:45):
It was definitely risky.
Um, but she was safe.
She, she was never going tobe exposed like face to face.
It was always going to be aphone or like, Hey, I'm here.
I'm waiting for you to meet me.
She was never going to be there.
So to her, it was.
it was such an advantage and such abenefit to do something way low risk.

(14:09):
Uh, you know, spoiler alert,uh, they don't really treat the
prostitutes very well in Iraq.
I mean, they're known for likeputting cigarettes out on their
back and crazy stuff like that.
And, and a lot of abuse andcutting and stuff like that.
So, um, we definitelymade it worth her while.
Um, and yeah, Yeah, it was, itwas definitely a benefit for her.

(14:34):
Um, and I think we all kind of enjoyedit cause it was so new and something
so fresh and it was so outside the box.
Uh, and it was actually working.
Like every phone call we could see like,man, you know, she just played his ego.
Like stroke, that ego stroke,that ego, um, that, you know,

(14:54):
she couldn't wait to see him.
And I mean, yeah, I'm trying to imagineyour team, your team, like sitting in
there with the whiteboard, if it werethe reverse where you had to lure a
woman out, because this is like, youguys are like, all right, we're all guys.
Yeah.
We're all guys, butthis would work for us.
Like I would listen, like if I'm single.

(15:17):
And I don't have, I'm not withanybody and some woman calls me and
she has a very smooth, sexy voiceand she starts talking crazy stuff.
Like this could work on me to her,but I could imagine the opposite.
It's like, all right, wegot to get this woman out.
What do we say?
Yeah.
Right.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it works.
You know, it got, it got to a pointwhere we did kind of, you know,

(15:38):
we were in the background and, andwe're hearing the discussion and
when they finally got to the linkup part, like, Hey, we're going to.
Let's run into each other.
Let's see where this goes.
Like, I want to meet you, youknow, you want to meet me.
Let's, you know, let's do all this stuff.
Um, you know, when we actually heardthe target say like, Hey, let's meet
here in this part of town daylight,because there's not a lot of, you know,

(16:03):
uh, the military might be out and aboutdriving around, but they don't do.
A lot of capture typestuff in the daylight.
So it was really funny for usto listen to all these things.
Cause that was exactly what we wereplanning on doing was a daylight hit.
Um, and it was right outside solder city.
So, you know, it's a, it's avery dangerous time period.

(16:26):
And the way that we set thatmission up, um, she was going to
be in a clothing store and he wasgoing to come there and meet her.
And we were going to have the whole place.
I'll just kind of briefly go over it,the Reader's Digest version, but we
were going to have the whole placekind of locked down and then we were
going to have, we had Iraqi scouts ina, uh, Iraqi vehicle, civilian vehicle.

(16:51):
We had a, um, we had a bread truck,uh, that we had Iraqis in the front.
And then we had a sniper team in theback that was providing overwatch
just in case something went down.
We were going to havesniper support on target.
Um, we had the 101st, we had the rest ofthe special forces team at like, uh, it

(17:12):
was either a police location, Iraqi policelocation, or it was a military location.
They were minutes away.
And then me and Ryan, uh, this iswhen I'm wearing the infamous green
Adidas, Iraqi top lime green slush.
Lime green top, um, that peoplekind of laughed about later.

(17:33):
But, uh, we were in a vehicle, I waskind of like orchestrating everything.
You know, I was kind of like theactions on the objective guys, the team
sergeant, and it was supposed to bea really clean hit, you know, we were
going to let the Iraqis go into thestore, surround the place, take the dude
down, and it was going to be easy peasy.

(17:53):
Uh, of course she wasn't in that store.
Like she was just on the phone andshe was trying to draw him in, but we
couldn't get him in and we kept drivingby and, and, you know, yes, we're in
like a little Iraqi SUV, it's got tintedwindows, Ryan blends in a lot better.
Cause he's got dark hair, dark beard.
I got like the reddish blonde stuff goingon, but we did have the tinted windows.

(18:18):
Uh, but we're still, you know,people are seeing, you know,
it's a small area, a small town.
And people know whobelongs and who doesn't.
And we'd already been bythis area a couple of times.
And, um, and she starts ratcheting it upa little bit, like the sex talks, like,
Hey, He wants to know what she's wearingand she's like, Hey, I'm wearing the

(18:39):
full burka or whatever the hell it was.
And he's like, Oh, okay.
And she's like, Hey, uh,don't worry about that.
Cause I'm sexy underneath.
And he's like, Oh really?
Like, what are you wearing?
And it's like, I want to show you.
I mean, dude, it was gettingcrazy off the charts.
Um, it was getting off the charts,but actually he was parked.

(19:03):
But he was like perpendicularto the target location.
And, uh, we were doing like ourthird drive by and I was thinking
for a second, like, this isprobably not going to work out.
And our interpreter is in the backseat and he's working the phones
and we're listening to everything.
And he like points and he sees him,he's perpendicular to the target.

(19:28):
He's got the phone to his ear andhe's walking around and he's got
like a little pebble under his shoe.
Like he's kind of messing aroundwith why he's talking to her.
And she totally had his attention whenit's like, Hey, I'm sexy underneath like
that, that like, man, he was focused.
And, um, I knew at that point,because he was perpendicular, the
sniper team couldn't observe him.

(19:50):
He was out of their vision.
So we had our Iraqi scouts that wereright there by the clothing store in
a civilian vehicle and civilian dress.
Of course, they couldn't really do much.
So what I decided to do was kind offlex like right then change the plan.
And I wanted the QRF, like the, youknow, the Iraqis, the 101st, the

(20:13):
rest of the special forces team,it's like collapse the target.
I want everybody intheir, in their positions.
And I decided I was goingto take him down myself.
And, uh, you know, I had Ryan drive up,I got on the radio claps, the target.
And as soon as I saw the Humvee,cause they were only two minutes away.
As soon as I saw the Humvees comingand I knew I had a lot of ass just

(20:36):
in case this thing went South.
I knew I had a lot of guns and operators.
Um, I got out of the car with myrifle and my green, green lime jacket.
And I, I busted my ass to this dude.
And, uh, he didn't evensee me coming, dude.
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And now back to this combat story.
Didn't even see me coming and Igrabbed him, threw him to the ground.
Uh, he didn't even have time to get it.
He had a Glock.
Uh, cause.
We actually thought we were goingto have to kill this dude, uh,

(22:25):
because, you know, just his, whohe was, who his background was.
He's a fighter.
He said he's going to go downin a blaze, you know, whatever.
So, I mean, I really thought I was goingto have to shoot this dude and kill him.
Um, but he was just so oblivious,like when he heard the vehicles,
cause I waited for the vehiclesthat I knew I was covered.

(22:46):
His attention was toward the vehicles.
He didn't know I was coming.
I was in a civilianvehicle when I got out.
So he's watching them like,who the fuck are these dudes
and what are they doing here?
And he's probably, you know,partially all turned on and
ready to go, man, all fired up.
And then here comes this big, sweatyAmerican 220 pounds dudes and just

(23:10):
grabs them and just throws them down.
You know, sack of potatoes.
And, um, you know, Ryan was ableto park the car, provide security.
The interpreter came up.
I mean, dude, it went so fast.
Uh, it went so fast.
No backup for him.
No backup for him.
Wow.
He had no backup.
No backup.

(23:31):
If he did, they kind of melted.
They melted in and they didn't do nothing.
They were probably like,we're outta here, dude.
Um, so that was a, that was a big success.
And that was a daylight.
Wow.
Civilian vehicles, civilian clerk,new team, like all these young guys.
And this is one of the first ops thatthey guys, one of the first ops we did.
How does that feel like outside the box?

(23:53):
That felt amazing for them to be big.
That was big dude.
That was like redemption and then Youknow, we didn't really know, like fifth
group had spent tons of time with thisguy and doing Intel, you know, reports and
tracking him and what's he doing and howmany Americans he's killed all that stuff.

(24:15):
Like they really knew the dynamic to us.
He was just kind of like a name andit's like, Oh, we want to get this dude.
They tried to get him.
Well, let's get him.
Um, but once we got him and we tookhim back to the detention facility and
then they started to interrogate him.
And all the information that heended up giving up was tremendous.
It was tremendous because just togo back a little bit, to give you a

(24:39):
little bit more context, like I said,it was a game on if you were Sunni Al
Qaeda game on, we'll kill thousands ofthem every day, national level assets.
That's all they were.
That's all they really cared about.
Uh, You know, JSOC, CIA, all that stuff.
But this is the time periodwhen we started seeing a shift.

(25:02):
And it was like, there's a lotof Shia target sets out here.
Like all the reportingthat we're getting is Shia.
And it's Hezbollah and IRGC andall this, uh, special groups.
Like there was a lot of Shia stuffthat was going on that a lot of
people didn't really care about.
And I remember, I'll never forget this,uh, our company headquarters was in

(25:28):
Baghdad, like in the green zone, theywere right beside the CIA compound or
annex, uh, whatever they called it.
So our company had a goodrelationship with the CIA.
And we also had the CIA that came out toCamp Apache and, uh, would talk to us.

(25:48):
And, um, they were dealing with the Iraqiarmy who were, who was adjacent to us.
I think they were, they were workingwith someone from the Iraqi army.
And it was, that waskind of their business.
But, um, but I remember the CIA caseofficer after, after we did that hit.
And it was like, Hey, did you guys getany, like, we're looking for anything.

(26:10):
She, uh, like top Shia Iraqipolice or blah, blah, blah.
And I was thinking to myself, like,You guys don't have any of this
shit because we were basicallyable to get like org charts.
He had like crazy shit inhis vehicle in the trunk.
And I remember I was naive to, to theagency, to the CIA and, and, uh, the

(26:33):
case officer was like, This really small,petite, pretty female, young, you know,
um, very good, very good at what she did.
And I remember asking her like, Hey, youknow, here's all the stuff that we got.
You know, if it, if it's going to do youguys any good, but like, if I give you a

(26:56):
name of Colonel Muhammad, Ahmed, whatever,uh, commander, Iraqi police, Otter
city, like, what do you guys do with it?
She goes, we're going to cold call them.
I'm going to have my interpretercold column and say, Hey, would
you be interested in working forthe United States government?
And it's, and I think she said somethingto the effect of like, Hey, we're probably

(27:20):
not going to say the CIA, but it'slike, Hey, would you be willing to work?
Uh, and we would compensate you very well.
And I was like, that's what you do.
That's it.
Like I thought there wassome like all this stuff.
Yeah.
Like.
That's what, like, and so I think thatstarted them off on what they needed to
start working, you know, getting moreinformation and it was a win win and we

(27:45):
would help them and they would help us.
But that really got things rolling for us.
And then it gave theleadership some confidence.
Uh, in our abilities, because whenyou're asking to do a daylight,
civilian vehicles, civilian clothes,bringing in conventional for, I
mean, you bring in conventional, uh,right outside solder city, which was

(28:07):
just a tough, tough area to work.
So, um, it w it was a huge, um,step in the right direction for us.
It was, It was, uh, it definitelygot that bad taste out of our mouth.
And it's like, okay, now we're working,we're working towards something.
And this kind of leads into somethingelse that I feel really helps set

(28:32):
us up the rest of the rotation.
And, and this goes into morgue day.
Yeah.
Uh, so like I said earlier, we had a lotof Iraqis that helped on camp Apache.
We had local Iraqis thatprovided security for us.
Uh, they were mostly Shia or Kurdish.
And we're in a Sunni town.

(28:53):
So they were like, if these dudes doanything, we're going to kill them.
So it was good for us that we had Shiaand Kurdish, you know, because sometimes
they had those, You know, if a Sunni,a Sunni, you know, there was, there was
issues there, but you know, so we hadlocal Iraqis that provided security.

(29:13):
We had a local Iraqi family thathelped us cook and clean and you
know, we had a lot of support.
We had people, you know, we weren'ton a large forward operating base.
There was no fly fishing lessons, uh, forus, which I heard about later on those.
We did.
I never, I had never heard of that.
They had a fly fishing lessonand they had salsa dance.

(29:34):
I've heard salsa.
But dude, I fishing, we didn't haveany salsa or fishing, not at Apache.
We were in the Bronx, man.
But we had to have local Iraqi support.
You know, when we put the steelI beams on our Humvees, you know,
we had to have support to do that.
And luckily, we had someone thatcould help us facilitate all that.

(29:57):
And it wasn't like we were eating,you know, MREs meals ready to
eat every single day, you know,when we could eat on the economy.
You know, someone would go and get usfresh produce or, you know, whatever.
Uh, so that would help, uh, vegetables,whatever, but that would mean the
people that work for us, you know,would occasionally go out and

(30:19):
Adamia, man, was a tough, tough area.
It was a tough area.
And, um, Um, not too long after we didthat very successful honey trap admission,
uh, one of our, one of our guys, a youngguy should have been in college instead
of in a very violent, dangerous war zone.
But one of our guys went out and I thinkhe was getting some pretty good shots.

(30:41):
Fresh bread and some other stuff.
And, um, he's in Adamia, he's aShia, um, but he, he felt safe, you
know, he's in Adamia, he's pickingup some bread and, you know, he's,
he's in one of our vehicles, uh,has a cell phone, all that stuff.
And, um,

(31:06):
I was actually, I was in the greenzone when it happened and one of our,
our dudes gets murdered and Dave, uh,called one of the guys that worked
for me, 18 Bravo weapon Sergeant.
He calls me.
It's like, Hey man, all hell'sbreaking loose at the compound.
And I'm like, dude, tell me what is it?

(31:26):
And he's like, Hey, so and so Mustafaor whatever his name was, uh, just got
murdered and, uh, He's at the hospitalslash morgue area, and our guys want the
body back for a proper burial and allthat, like, it's very sensitive how they
do all of their ceremonial funeral stuff.

(31:48):
Um, and they're not willingto give up the body.
They're basically, you know,laughing at him and stuff like that.
So it was a tricky situation.
And for me at the time, dude, I wasvery callous, I guess is probably
the best way to describe it.
I was kind of like.

(32:10):
This isn't our problem.
And to me, it's like, well, everybody'sfreaking out and they're doing the
whaling and they're, you know, punchingthemselves or pulling out their hair
or whatever, all the shit that theydo when they're super upset and mad.
Uh, but I was like, uh, dude, they'rein the most dangerous, like we're in
the most dangerous city in the worldright now, pretty much in Baghdad.

(32:33):
Um,
they didn't think thiswas going to happen.
I mean, there's peopledying every single day.
Um, so that was my first initial reaction.
Very callous, very distant, verylike, okay, what do you want me to do?
And, um, Dave just was like, man, it, Ithink it would be better because I was

(32:55):
like, Dave, you need to tell me, do youthink I need to come back with the team?
Or are you guys good?
Like they're going tokeep crying or whatever.
Like, just tell me.
And he goes, Hey.
Since you have the best relationshipwith the lead guy, I think it
would be best if you came back.
It's like, Roger that.
We'll be back in 15 minutes.
And we loaded up, we hauled ass backto Camp Apache and then we pulled in

(33:20):
and it was like some, the weirdestshit that I'd seen, you know,
listening to the wailing, the crying.
I'd never been exposed to that.
Um, and you know, the men arecrying, their shirts are ripped
open and just, it was very.
Very surreal to me, but I had a moment of,you know, I guess maybe humanity or I had

(33:47):
a moment where I saw it wasn't the mother.
It was like the aunt, youknow, of this of this kid.
Um, and she was crying andshe didn't look right at me.
It was just kind of looking over me.
But for a minute it was like weconnected like on a human, human
level, culture aside, like cultureaside, language aside, you're Iraqi.

(34:09):
I'm American.
And we like connected and it kind of likebrought me back to my, you know, cause
I'm used to being like this callous, like.
Make decisions, life, death, youknow, and it kind of brought me back
to being a human in a, you know.
How old was your son at the time?
Uh, my son was probably 11 or 12.

(34:30):
Yeah.
So he was a few years older.
Okay.
Uh, but not much.
Yeah, not much.
And, you know, I connected and then I,I, you know, I started thinking like.
You know, whether we want to admitit right now, because it's still
kind of early in the rotation and Ididn't really know them that well.

(34:51):
I mean, I knew the lead guy,that's who I dealt with.
I didn't really talk with the cooksand all that other shit didn't care.
Uh, and someone else dealtwith the guard force.
So I, I dealt with the lead guyand I didn't really know the rest,
but I had a moment and I was like,Hey, we're all on the same team.
And how we deal with this situation isgoing to have probably a huge impact.

(35:16):
And of course, being special forcesguys, we're in the hearts and hearts
and minds business anyway, likethis is like our bread and butter.
And this is very important.
This is a, like, I realized thatme and my captain, we both realized
this is a significant moment for us.
If we fuck this up, we'll probablyhave to deal with it later.

(35:36):
If we do this right, then.
Uh, this, this means a lot.
This is partnership, relationship,one on one type stuff.
And when I, I looked at it through thatlens, like, Hey, this is significant.
This man, like you said, besides culture,all that stuff, he's part of our team.

(35:57):
He works at our compound.
He's not American, but,uh, He's part of our team.
He might as well be, you know, and ifhe was an American, we'd be right over
there right now, getting his ass back.
And we'd probably be burningshit down to get him back.
No doubt.
And that's how we treated it, man.

(36:17):
We had a conversation, uh, and said,Hey, this is the right thing to do.
We're going to go over there andwe're going to get this kid back.
And, uh, and we talked to ourlead guy and, uh, They sent
some other people with us.
Um, so we had a few vehicles.
We went over there to the hospital.

(36:38):
Uh, it's described verywell in the book in detail.
I'll kind of just go over the highnotes, but, uh, this is where the
more kind of comes into play with.
You know, because of the civil warigniting, they didn't have enough
room to store all the bodies.
So they kind of did like a makeshiftmorgue and they had like 100, 150,
maybe more bodies into this place.

(36:58):
And when we went there, it'slike, Hey, you have one of our
guys and we want them back now.
And the doctor was smoking a cigarette.
And he's like, are you.
Fucking crazy is, I don't thinkhe said the F word, but he's
like, are you fucking crazy?
You think we have an American, adead American soldier over here?
I was like, no, I didn't say American.

(37:18):
He's one of our guys.
He's Iraqi, but he's one ofours and we want him back.
And he's like, Hey man,we don't want any trouble.
You guys take your guy.
If you can find him, take your guy.
We'll do the paperwork.
And it's like, Hey, thisis the right thing to do.
And we want to get him back to his family.
Um, cause they have likea certain time limit.
Yeah.
So, uh, me and the lead guy, we wentdown into this makeshift morgue and, uh,

(37:43):
it was a terrible, terrible experience.
Like we mentioned earlier, I'll justkinda, uh, my lead Iraqi guy ended
up finding him, you know, you'reliterally looking through bodies,
looking through bodies, looking atlooking through bodies for a body.
Um, and my Iraqi guyfound him sure enough.
That was him.
Um, and he went back to getsome more people so we could

(38:06):
bring him back to the vehicles.
We had like, uh, one of thosepole lists, not Polish, one of
those pole lists litters, um,that we ended up putting them on.
So we found him, we got him out of there.
We talked to the doctor,everything was good.
Uh, I talked to my leadguy and I said, okay.
We got the body.
And of course, you know, all theguards are super upset seeing,

(38:30):
seeing the dead, the dead guy.
Um, I said, okay, what do we do now?
It's like, Hey, we're going to go toa Shia shrine in Katamiya, which is
right across the river, and they'regoing to wash the body, pray over it,
do all that shit, wrap them up and, uh,And our lead guy was really worried.
Uh, cause he had made some phone calls.

(38:51):
It's like, Hey, they expect us.
We're going to be there.
Uh, please don't point yourweapons and all that stuff.
And I was like, Hey man, Istarted realizing in my mind,
like the dude I'm talking toright now is pretty damn powerful.
He's making phone calls and thenhe's saying, Hey, you Cata Mia, it's
good, don't worry about anything.

(39:12):
And I was like, we need to talk later.
I was like, I'm going to followthis one away for a rainy day.
Like.
Like this dude's got some power, um, whichkind of goes into another different story.
Uh, but I was like, man, okay.
So we ended up, we went into Kata Mia.
We were very respectful.

(39:33):
We let them, you know,we didn't touch the body.
We let them deal with the body.
They took it inside.
They did all their special stuffthat they were supposed to do.
Prayed over it, rinsed it, washed it,wrapped it, and then it, he came back
out in a box and it stayed there.
We stayed there.
We stayed there and pulled securityfor them while they were inside.
Oh, really?
We did.

(39:54):
We did.
And we were very sensitive to where ourweapons were oriented and all that stuff.
But we weren't going tobe out there defenseless.
Like we still protected ourself.
And because there were Al Qaeda thatwere trying to come into economy and
would do a V bit every now and then.
So we're very sensitive to that.
But when they all came back outfrom, cause it was like an hour

(40:15):
long process, maybe more, andwe were just setting out there.
And, um, when they came back out,I noticed something different than
I'd never, I'd never seen it before.
And we'd been there a couple of months.
They were different.
There was something different.
And, uh, it was a different lookthe way we exchange glances.

(40:36):
Like there was, uh, there wasa respect, like an, an unspoken
respect or an acknowledgement.
Like you guys are doing somethingthat you don't have to do.
This is extra.
No one's making you do this.
It was that kind of thing.
Like I can't really describe it that well,but it was just something I picked up in
seeing every person that walked out andit was like, it was an acknowledgement

(41:00):
of like, These dudes are kind of specialfor what they're doing right now.
They don't have to do this.
They could have told us to go fuckourself and they would have still
had that body over there and theyweren't going to give it back.
So I talked to our lead guy oncethe body came back out in the.
Uh, the wood casket thing.

(41:20):
And I said, okay, what's next?
And he said, well, the last thingis to take it to the family.
And I said, okay, you know, we'rea couple hours into this thing.
And I was like, where,where's the family at?
And it's like, oh, it's South of thegreen zone or wherever South of Baghdad.
And I was like, okay.
I was like, so.
We're going to take it to thehouse and they do all their stuff.

(41:41):
And then after they say their goodbyesor whatever, then they eventually buried,
I bury the person, something like that.
And I said, Hey, You guys knowexactly where this house is.
So we'll let you guys lead, youknow, we're going to follow,
we're going to do the same thing.
And he's like, okay.
So we went South of Baghdad towhere this dude's house was,

(42:03):
and we did the same setup, man.
We let all the Iraqis deal with thebody and the little wood casket thing.
And they went inside the houseand we pulled security while
they were doing their process.
And, um, I thought itwas very appropriate.
Yeah.
We, we used to carry a lot ofcash, you know, just for emergency
situations and things like that.

(42:24):
Each guy would personally carry,you know, a couple of hundred bucks.
And, uh, I thought it was important.
We collected up, I thinkclose to a thousand dollars.
Cause we were just like sitting therelike, man, I want to do something
like, uh, That's interesting.
Yeah.
I wanted to do something to kind oflike say, we're very sorry because
if we weren't here, your son wouldprobably be in college and probably

(42:48):
have a girlfriend and be wantingto get married at some point.
And now he's in a box and he's deadand it's kind of like, well, it's
probably because he was affiliatedwith you guys, you know, whatever.
So I felt a little guilty about that.
Collected up close to a thousanddollars, gave it to our interpreter
who gave it to our lead guy.
And he passed it on to the family.

(43:08):
And once again, I saw that acknowledgementand that like that, thank you.
And that, you know, handto the heart kind of thing.
And, uh, I swear to God, man,when we got back to Camp Apache,
everything was different because yougot to imagine, man, we're Apache,

(43:30):
Adamia, with all these Iraqis.
We don't know who's who.
We don't know.
And it's like, okay, we got allthe security cameras and HESCOs
and barbed wire, Constantina wire.
But how easy would it be for thisdude to see six of us doing PT
flipping tires or something like theguys love to do, they were crazy.
And he has an AK.
He can kill six dudes in three seconds.

(43:53):
One of our own guards, not evenleaving the wire, not even getting hit
with an IED, not getting hit with aV bid, not getting into a firefight.
Six dudes, maybe more.
One of our own people.
So we're worried about that.
After that day, everything changed.
We were worried aboutthem poisoning our food.

(44:14):
Yeah.
You know, it, all of you at once.
Yeah.
We're worried about sleeping at nightand the fire starting everywhere, dude.
We were worried aboutcrazy shit all the time.
I mean, that, and that's normal.
I mean, that's part of the gig.
That's part of the job, buteverything changed after that day.
Wow.
And it was like instant and it really.

(44:34):
It ended up carrying into somethingelse that happened later on.
That's super significant because of whatwe did on that, that one day, that one
day that we said, Hey, we're all a team.
If that was an American, we'dgo get his ass right now.
So we're going to go get him.
He's he's on our team.
Um, well, a few months later.

(44:57):
It would all like reverse itself.
So, uh, one of the things thatyou never want to hear and hope, I
don't know, maybe you did hear it.
Uh, you probably did, uh, is a dustwhen, and it's, it's kind of a crazy
acronym and it's, you don't hear itvery often, but it's like duty status
whereabouts unknown, and it's, it's whensomeone is missing in combat and you

(45:21):
don't know, like their status, like.
Are they a prisoner?
Are they friendlies?
Like, did they go AWOL like Bergdahl?
Like it's a dust wind, right?
You never want to hear that.
And, uh, one day it was a couple ofmonths later, we got a dust wind call.

(45:42):
And, uh, it was these 101st kids, 101stAirborne Division, which I am a part of.
I'm a former 101st guy, just like you are.
Uh, and we were working with 101st guys.
Uh, but these These 101st guyswere down in Eusefia and they
were, uh, they were guarding.
I think there was like three of them.
It was one vehicle, three dudes outin the middle of fucking nowhere.

(46:05):
Um, I think they were, theycalled the place like the
Alamo or something like that.
But, uh, anyway, they got hit bySunni Al Qaeda surgeons, whatever.
And they killed one guyright there by the vehicle.
And then they captured the other two.
So they had them, Al Qaeda hadthese two dudes and they are,

(46:28):
this area in Yusufiyah, wecalled it the Al Qaeda rat nest.
It was a tough, tough area.
And, uh, if you ever want to reada really good book about that time
period, and I actually cite this asa source when, uh, during my Dustwind
chapter, it's called Black Heartsand it's about the 101st Airborne
Division, like the triangle of death.

(46:50):
And that was when, um, The squadthat went rogue and they ended up,
uh, raping and killing this youngIraqi girl and, uh, a lot of death,
uh, both sides, a lot of IEDs that,I mean, they were in a very tough.

(47:10):
We called it the Al Qaeda rat nest, butactually these guys were, that was part
of this unit, uh, these three guys.
So one guy was dead andthey had two dust winds.
So we immediately, man, dustwinds, like 911 police officer,
like, you know, shots fired andyou got everybody in your brother.
It's like, What can we do to help?
What can we do?
And the only thing that we could reallydo is, you know, with our network is like,

(47:35):
reach out and start paying in our network.
Hey, do you know anything aboutthese missing American soldiers?
What do you know?
Where are you at?
You know, blah, blah, blah.
How do you know it is a third handfor, you know, all that stuff.
So that's what we did.
We activated our network and, uh, Weactually started getting a little bit
of decent information or so we thought.

(47:57):
Uh, we didn't have a lot of peopledown there in that area cause it's
just a, it was a tough, tough area andeverybody's super paranoid, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, um, we started getting a little bitof information that we thought we might
know where they were at and the down inthat area, there's a Uh, a power, it was

(48:18):
either a power plant or a thermal plant.
I can't remember.
You Sophia power plantor something like that.
Um, we were getting reporting thatthey were in that general area.
It's a huge area though.
Like, so we were starting toget information trickle in.
And then of course we're like, Hey man,we will guarantee you your family safety.

(48:40):
We'll get you to America.
Like, dude, we wererolling out everything.
Like we'll promise youa jet to fly you back.
Like.
We really, I mean, it's, it'sall hands on deck, you know,
you do everything that you can.
And, uh, we started getting a littlebit more information, more information.
And the problem was wecouldn't get Hilo support.

(49:03):
You know, we, and we weren't the, the unitthat was going to do a hostage rescue.
We knew that we are nota national level asset.
Like there's plenty of people in Iraqthat would have done that type of mission.
We thought we owed it to our brothersfrom the 101st to do something, anything.

(49:23):
And we just kept imagining themlike, man, it's probably ungodly.
What these, these guys, these youngsoldiers are going through right now.
And the only hope that they probablyhave in the back of their mind is.
Someone's going to come for me.
Someone's going to come for me.
I'm a missing American soldier.
They, they will come for mesomehow, some way, and maybe I

(49:47):
can endure whatever it is they'regoing through this ungodly torture.
Um, someone's going to come for me.
And that's what we just kept focusing on.
And it's like, what can we do?
What can we do?
Control what we can control.
We can't get helos.
The area down there was, youknow, the way they did the

(50:08):
roads, it was like, Uh, green.
Green means you can drive forever,there's no IEDs, you're safe.
Yellow, there might be an IED.
Maybe.
Uh, red, you're probablygoing to get hit with an IED.
And then black, they had black, black was,you're going to get your ass blown up.

(50:30):
Guaranteed all the roadsdown there were black.
So we couldn't get helos.
Um, and then they were worriedlike, Hey, you guys are working
on single source information.
How can you dual source it?
So, you know, we were constantlygoing back, like, Well, shit,

(50:50):
man, it's, it, you know, we gotone person telling us one thing.
This is the grid.
It kind of lines up.
It makes sense.
This is what they're describing.
Um, we can't get helos and it's like,okay, how can we dual source it?
How, how can we talk to someone else?
And Hey, can you run this number?
This is where our guy says he is.
And he says he sees, you know, whatever,whatever we're trying to everything

(51:13):
we can, and then we finally get toa point where, um, where we're going
to submit like an operation packet.
A con up, um, that we're going totry to submit, like, Hey, we're
going to go down in that area.
And we're going to dothe best that we can.
And we can't get helos.
Uh, our information'snot a hundred percent.

(51:34):
Um, but we're going to take vehicles downthere and we're going to do what we can.
And it was just, man, it was tough.
It was tough.
And so my, my team leader, my captain,he's working on all that stuff.
And we start getting the vehicles ready.
And we're going to have to, we only haveat this point, uh, two armored Humvees.

(51:58):
Cause I think we had lost one thathad got shot up on April 17th, 2006,
which was my live day up another story.
Uh, you can see in episode 74.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can see that.
Um, and we're going to have to takesome, uh, unarmored gun trucks, open
back dudes in the open, and we'regoing to be on roads that are black.

(52:18):
Okay.
And we can't get everybody on the teamin the armored vehicles because of
space, you know, so it's like, okay,well, some of us are going to have to
ride in the unarmored vehicles in theopen backs, and we're going to an area
that's black, black roads, you're goingto get hit with an IED and really, man,

(52:38):
the easiest way to describe this isit was our saving private Ryan moment.
Uh, you know, uh, operation Iraqifreedom, saving private Ryan moment.
Like, and I did, I pulled theteam together and I was like, Hey
guys, we've went through a wholelot together, but nothing like
what we're getting ready to do.
Are you guys, do you understandwhat I'm asking you to do?

(53:02):
And are you down with it?
You don't have to do this.
No one's telling us to do this.
Our command wasn't directing us to do it.
We wanted to do it.
Are you guys sure you want to do this?
Put everything on the line for these twokids from the 101st that we've never met.
We don't know.
They're not part of our unit.

(53:22):
You know, they're part of the army.
They're part of the military.
Are you sure you wantto put it on the line?
And to a man, everyone said, yes.
Wow.
We want to do this.
We are with you, man.
That's deep.
That touches somebody.
Stay back.
If they were like, I can't do this.
I would have.
Yeah.
And I wouldn't have thought, I swear toGod, I wouldn't have thought less of them.

(53:43):
It was that dangerous.
It was that risky.
I wouldn't have thought less of them.
Um, it was, it was a, itwas a tough thing, man.
And it's not like a macho kind ofthing where it's just like, yeah, man.
And there's like cool ass musicplaying in the background and.
All that stuff.
It's, it's not like that at all, man.
It's very quiet.

(54:05):
Um, and your life starts flashingand we're all, you know, husbands or
fathers or sons or, you know, uncles.
And like, for me, I was thinking like,man, I want to see my son turn into a man.
I want to see my daughter get married.
I want to walk my daughter down the aisle.
Like that hit, that hit me, dude.

(54:26):
That was on my heart.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like, well, man, ifI'm not around, like who's
going to do that for her?
Um, so that was a very, very deep moment.
No cool music.
No, no, uh, no cool dudetalking in the background.
Like there's a decision thatneeds to be made by the team.
They just made it like.
There's nothing like that, man.
It's very, very quiet.

(54:48):
But, um, while my team leader was workingon trying to get the operation approved,
uh, I was working on the vehicles andgetting everything lined up and trying
to figure out how we're going to,you know, who's going to ride where.
And I started putting my gear, I wasgoing to do the open back thing because
as a team leader, you lead by example.
I believe in that.
And, uh, if you know, you can'task your guys to do something that

(55:12):
you're not willing to do yourself.
So I put my gear, you know, andthen I started doing something else.
We're messing around with weaponsand commo and then I would come back
and my gear was moved and it was itwas moved To the armored vehicle and
I'm like what the fuck is going on?
Like I'm not I'm not gonna ride inan armored vehicle when my guys if

(55:32):
any of my guys are in an open backUnarmored like I'm not doing it.
So I didn't know I just grabbed my stufffrom the armored vehicle Put it back in
the open back unarmored vehicle Starteddoing something else, start working,
you know, like, Hey, who's doing this?
We got the med bag.
We're going to need afucking med bag, you know?
And then my gear is gone again.

(55:55):
And someone had put it back in thearmored, the up armored vehicle.
And I was like, who thefuck is doing this, man?
And then it dawned on me.
That we started getting more andmore Iraqis that were coming to us.
That was like puttingtheir gear on the vehicles.
And I saw it was the Iraqis thatwere moving my gear to the, to

(56:17):
the armored vehicle, cause theywanted me to be safe and they were
wanting to set in the open backs andthey wanted to be on the mission.
They're like, we'll go.
And it was the same guys.
That were with us when we did moreday and we recovered their brother.
And then all of a sudden they were therefor us and they wanted to go to use a fee.

(56:40):
Of course, they're all Shia or Kurdish.
So they were down to go to aSunni area to fuck some people up
and rescue some Americans maybe.
But, uh, they just kind ofcame out of the woodwork, dude.
And it hit me, it hitme in the heart so bad.
Then I almost teared upright then and there.
I probably did at some point once theyall left, but it, man, it really, it

(57:01):
really touched my heart and, uh, I justcouldn't believe that they did that.
And then I realized the reason why theydid that is because we did that for them.
And, uh, it all came full circle.
And then of course, uh, wesubmitted the, we submitted the

(57:21):
operation and it got disapproved.
It was the only mission that we eversubmitted that we got disapproved.
And thank God, thank God it did, becauseI probably wouldn't be here right now,
or a lot of people on my team wouldn'tbe here, which would, that would put me
in a really bad spot in a bad headspace.
But um,

(57:43):
they said, Hey, you know, denied, you'renot, you're not doing this mission.
And uh, once it gotdenied, I was like, man.
Our leadership, like what the fuck?
Like we, we worked really hard onthis and I was kind of pissed off.
Uh, but then I kind of understood.
I was thinking at the same time, like, allright, they have the full picture, man.

(58:05):
They're looking at everything.
We're only seeing a littlebit from our little aperture.
Like they got the whole picture and thenour, our secure line, uh, red phone.
And it was, uh, SeanSwindell, battalion commander.
And I, he's like, Hey man, Darylappreciate everything you guys
are doing, but this, there'snothing else for us to do.

(58:28):
This is out of our hands.
Um, he worded it in a waythat was very ambiguous.
Like, Hey, there's nothing to be done.
And it, and then once I let that, like,I, I kind of like thought about it a
little bit longer, I realized what hewas saying was like, these guys are dead.
Like, this is, you know, this is arecovery and it's not worth risking more

(58:54):
lives to a whole special forces team.
Plus they're Iraqi surrogates,you know, all that stuff.
Plus whatever other assets they'd haveprobably thrown our way and sure enough
that is what happened We realized and theywere actually in that general vicinity.
Yeah They did they did find them inthat general vicinity a little bit

(59:16):
later and they they had already beentortured and mutilated and Decapitated
and set on fire and drug around.
And, uh, it was, itwas very heartbreaking.
And, um, the video that disgustedme that they released Al Qaeda.
Um, but as a team sergeant, itwas a mission that I never did.

(59:42):
We didn't get approval to do it.
We were ready to do it.
We would have done it, but it'sone of my most proudest moments.
Yeah.
Uh, as, as a leader of the teamthat this group of guys said,
Hey, Send me, yeah, we'll go, man.
That is so cool.
Despite the risk.
Yeah.

(01:00:02):
Black roads.
No.
Yeah.
Uh, we don't really know forsure exactly where they're at.
So we're probably going to be, youknow, if we even make it there without
getting blown up, it's going tobe, it's going to be kind of a bad
situation, but not only for my team,but for the Iraqis as well, like, uh,
yeah, they didn't have to do that.

(01:00:23):
They didn't have to do that.
So that was a very significant.
Uh moment for me and it's still man.
It still hits me in the heart Itreminds me so i'm just gonna If
you go this book So who will go?
So I interviewed thisguy, uh, terry buckler.
So he's a former green beret.
Okay, he was on the sante raidin vietnam I gotta get it.

(01:00:46):
Um, so they went in deep deep into Enemyterritory a whole bunch of green berets.
He was the youngest green beret on themission And as you were describing that
scenario, it reminded me a lot aboutthis guy's story because they were
going to rescue like true POWs who hadbeen in some bad conditions for years.

(01:01:10):
And in the end, spoiler alert,they, they hit a dry hole, but this
is like multiple helos, a largecontingent of green berets who go
in, um, hit a dry hole that come out.
But then.
They have, um, testimonials fromsome of the POWs who are there.

(01:01:30):
They had just been movedthe day before and.
And they could hear from where theywere moved to the helos coming in the
next day and they didn't get rescued,but it was just like this hope that
somebody fucking came to get them,you know, risked all this way behind
enemy lines, like very complicatedlogistical trail to get in and just the

(01:01:53):
idea, like somebody did that for us.
And it just reminded me ofthat as you were talking.
Yeah.
And that's, that's one of those thingsthat's probably hard to quantify that.
It's like, man, maybe they did hit, they,you know, obviously they hit a dry hole.
But like you said, they gave someone hopethat maybe it was like borderline, like,
man, I can't, I can't deal with thistorture anymore, but it's like, dude,

(01:02:15):
they might come back for me, you know?
Yeah.
And I think that's what, like,that's where we were like, man, if.
God, I hope it never happens.
But if, if it was me, like I, I wouldhave that in the back of my mind, like
someone's going to come for me, man.
That's how they train us.
Right.
When you go through seer and everything,it's like, hold out as long as you can.
Yeah.

(01:02:35):
Oh man, that is a tough one.
Geez.
So I guess with this, like, obviouslythese stories are in the book.
We were only touching, scratching thesurface of this, um, And we didn't even,
you know, people can, can check out thealive day story in our previous recording,

(01:02:55):
you did mention that ideally there mightbe a sequel to this one day to this book.
And that's kind of the nextyear, which is hard to believe.
Like you got 2006 and then the nextyear, you know, as you've described to
me off camera is even more challenging,but for different reasons, yeah.
This is a great story.

(01:03:15):
2006 it's a great story, but when youlook at 2007, the 2007 combat deployment,
we were in Baghdad once again, we had,um, we were like the tip of the spear.
We had the top mission.
Um, and we were dealing with ISOF recce.

(01:03:38):
So once again, we were, wewere doing the whole sensitive
special operations for impact.
Um, I mean, we were the main effortfor that entire rotation, uh, in
2007 and it really, what we did in2007 really made what we did in 2006
look like kindergarten, How is that?
Opera room shit.
And this is the heightof the surge at the time?

(01:04:00):
This is the height of the surge.
This is when General Petraeus came in.
This is when Bush took the gloves off.
For the Iranian, uh, threat actors.
And it was like, let's kill these dudes,uh, kill capture, like on steroids.
So, yeah, it was, it was, itwas kill capture on steroids.

(01:04:20):
We were the main effort for10 special forces group.
And, uh, you know, we did a lot ofhuman, you know, human intelligence and
we were, uh, a kill capture machine.
So, and, you know, wewere dealing with Iraqis.
You know, when you talk about likean informant or a lead or a contact,

(01:04:42):
like these were no shit, like dudesthat have been working with Americans
for a long time that were recruited,polygraphed, like, and we had a
whole, yeah, we had the whole country.
It wasn't like, Hey, you guyshave Adamia and you're working
out of the Apache house.
It was like, you have the wholecountry of Iraq from the North,

(01:05:04):
all the way down to the South.
We could reach out and touch anybody.
Jeez, we were lethal.
Was it, is that rare fora team to be doing that?
Yeah, it, well, at that level, it is,it is because we were, you know, when
the Al Qaeda, like some of the top AlQaeda dudes were so good because they

(01:05:25):
just totally dropped off SIGINT and theyknew like, Hey, if I talk on my phone,
I'm going to get smoked and then theystarted doing humid while we didn't, we
weren't really as a force, we weren'treally strong, that strong with humid.
That was our strength was humid becausewe didn't get any of the other stuff.
So we had to be very good at humid, but,um, we did some incredible operations.

(01:05:48):
I mean, some incredible operations.
There's one that I remember in particularthat we did, and this was Dave Roten's
target, uh, one of the guys that workedfor me, uh, he went up to Diyala province
and, you know, as ice off recce, we,we were able to, we had an action arm.

(01:06:09):
Plural, we had Iraqi special operationsforces, which was Iraqi soft dealing
with American soft special forces guys.
And then we had Iraqi counter terrorismforces that were working with like
the top dudes from special forces,like the SIF guys that were trained.

(01:06:30):
Specifically for that.
So that's a higher level, youknow, counterterrorism force.
We had those guys every singlenight and they were waiting
for us to feed them targets.
And, uh, we fed them a target.
It was so spectacular.
It was up in Diyala province.
And, uh, we knew from the reporting,like, Hey, this is going to be a no shit.

(01:06:55):
There's bad guys here.
And at that time it was Bravo two, three.
Uh, it was third specialforces group, Bravo two, three.
And, uh, we loved working with those guys.
Cause they were like,we don't give a fuck.
Send us where we can kill people.
We don't give a fuckwhere we loved it, man.
That's all we needed to hear.

(01:07:15):
Cause you never know, like, Heyman, you know, we want to do
some confidence targets or, Hey,don't send us on some bullshit.
Like we, you know, to them, it waslike, Hey, we don't give a fuck.
Send us where there's bad guys.
We'll fucking kill everybody.
That's what they wanted.
So that's what we deliveredand that's what we gave them.
So we had this target set up in Diyala.

(01:07:36):
And, uh, you establish this justthrough human, the target package.
Yes.
I mean, and we were able to pull someother things, but it was primarily
through human, um, and it was, youknow, our, our group headquarters,
the siege of soda was up in Belon.
That's where Colonel Tovo was.
So I had the same, same team.

(01:07:57):
I was going to ask you same team.
Wow.
Yep.
So I went from January,2006, almost getting out.
I hope.
And then of course, you know, youread about in the book, you know,
we were the Larry Thorny award, youknow, best team in all of 10th group.
And then the next year we were themain effort in 2007, still working
for Colonel Tovo and, uh, uh,Lieutenant Colonel Sean Swindell.

(01:08:18):
So, um, this, this place up in DL provincewas not too far from blood, which is
where people Colonel Tovo and we callit a kill TV, you know, cause we were
always sending guys out, like, you know,I was basically farming my guys out.
Sometimes they would go on the missionswith ice off and ICTF and third group
or 10th group, and I would have acouple of guys, I would go up to

(01:08:43):
watch kill TV with Colonel LieutenantColonel Swindell, who was at biop, and
then Colonel Tovo is watching kill TVfrom below, just in the room with all
the, all So they queue up everything.
ICTF flies up there.
They do a helicopter offset andthey're walking to the target.

(01:09:06):
And of course it's like fucking twoin the morning or whatever time.
And we have, we have feed that's over thetarget and it's saturated with bad guys.
It's saturated.
I mean, it's no, it's like peoplewith weapons on the rooftops, people,
uh, weapons in the vehicles position.

(01:09:28):
Like they have thewhole place locked down.
Like they already, and Tovo seesthis and says, Hey, and I can't
remember what aircraft it was likea B1, B2, whatever the fuck it was.
I don't know, but he's like, he'scalling the ground force commander
from Bravo two, three, the ICTF onthe ground commander and saying, this

(01:09:49):
whole place is saturated with bad guys.
I have a B1 with a fucking thousand poundbomb, whatever, like prepared to drop it.
Just give me the wordwe've had legal look at it.
Everything's legit armed, blah,blah, blah, ready to do it.
And Bravo two, threesays, Nope, we got it.

(01:10:10):
We'll take care of it.
We got the force we're ready.
They don't know we're here.
We'll be there shortly.
Blah, blah, blah.
Cause Colonel Tovo was just going todrop everything and he waved them off.
They waved the aircraft off.
And it's like, all right,you guys want to do this?
And they went in there.
Bravo two, three with ICTF guys.
And they smoked fucking everybody.

(01:10:30):
Overwhelming numbers.
Overwhelming numbers.
Um, I mean, you know, smoked all the arms.
There was, there was some friendliesin there too, or some, you know,
females and stuff like that.
Kids.
They didn't kill any friendlies.
Didn't kill any kids.
Smoked all the bad guys.
I can't even remember how many it was.
It was a shit ton.
And, uh, That was just one of the, I mean,that was just like one of the operations.

(01:10:54):
We also, we had guys that, uh, there wasa down south in a place called Diwania.
There was a special forces teamthat was there that I think they
got like blown out of their house.
Like they had got hit so bad.
And they had to like, everything gotdestroyed their gear, their quarters.
Luckily, I don't thinkmaybe somebody got killed.

(01:11:16):
I'm not for sure, but they just, theywere getting hammered down there.
And it was like, I soft Recky D whenNia, what can you do for us down there?
And we're just like, callingpeople up on the phone.
And then we would send areport up to Colonel Swindells.
Like, Hey, we got.
Our guys are telling us there's 10armed dudes getting ready to attack camp

(01:11:38):
echo or where the fuck was down there.
Blah, blah, blah.
If you can get some airsupport, confirm it.
Legal looks at it and they're like, yep,we just fucking killed all those dudes.
And literally, man, I mean,we did seven or eight months.
I think easily it was probably, we wereresponsible for four or five, 600 people.
Oh my gosh.

(01:11:59):
I mean, dude, it was,it was a massive scale.
Wow.
That was 2007.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That could be the sequel.
Yeah, I like it.
Yeah, I think it should be.
Yeah.
Oh, geez.
All right.
Well, so we have been talking off camera,obviously just about, um, getting your,
your brand almost out there with thebook and you know, you've been asked

(01:12:23):
to go and speak at different events.
What's next for you?
Well, I am trying to share someof these lessons learned and.
You know, the last chapter of thebook, uh, it's called the grit code and
it's basically these principles, theprinciples that comprise the grit code.
It's a blueprint for navigatingthrough the ups and downs of life.

(01:12:45):
That's simply what it is.
And there's eight principles of thegrit code and it's, uh, I'll, I'll
try to name them here real quick.
Adopt a no surrender mindset, controlwhat you can control, possess an extreme
work ethic, relentlessly execute, calmbreeds, calm, courage is contagious.

(01:13:06):
Embrace innovation anderadicate arrogance.
And as you hear the stories and.
You know, and it's like, man, youkind of hit a hard patch right here.
How'd you get through that?
Like I use these principles and thisgoes all the way back decades from humble
beginnings in West Virginia, joining themilitary, joining special forces, fighting

(01:13:27):
in Iraq to being a senior executive, theseare the principles that have helped me
navigate through not just the tough times.
Excuse me.
Not just the tough times,but the good times as well.
Like, Hey, I'm sitting right here.
I'm doing pretty good, but Iwant to take it up a notch and
go from success to exceptional.

(01:13:47):
I've used these principlesfrom the grit code.
So I think that I want to share that,uh, because it's not just a military
or special forces green beret.
It transcends occupations.
Um, students can use it, you know,uh, just anybody that's, that's

(01:14:08):
navigating through life because it'snot a matter of if it's a matter of
when adversity is going to hit you.
Life's going to punch you in the face andthings are going to come crashing down.
You don't get the job, you don't get thepromotion, you don't get the pay raise.
You and your wife are gettingready to get divorced.
Your kids don't speak to you.
There's no money in the bank.
You know, you're going toget punched in the face.

(01:14:30):
It's going to happen.
And these principles, theseeight principles of the grit
code have really helped me.
So I want to share these and that'skind of getting to your, to your answer.
The long window is great.
Yeah, but, uh, sorry about that.
No, um, But I really want to start doingsome more speaking engagements and start
to share some of these stories that Ilearned the hard way or I learned through

(01:14:52):
failure because I think people learn,sometimes they learn better through a
couple of punches to the face, dude.
That's life.
Uh, and I'd really enjoysharing these stories and doing
some more public speaking.
Uh, You know, maybe I do another bookor hopefully this book does really well.
I mean, it's a great book.

(01:15:13):
I hope it does.
Maybe I do another book.
Maybe I do some corporate workshops, uh,and just kind of share these lessons on
resilience and leadership and all of that.
When you think courage iscontagious, what comes to mind there?
Like, is there a moment or two that, Yeah.
Stick out to you.
Yeah.

(01:15:33):
The first moment that sticks out to me forCourageous Contagious is April 17th, 2006.
And, um, you know, the 101st had beeninvolved in like a, I think it was a five
hour firefight when they finally calledus and said, Hey, we need some help.
Like we're getting short on ammo and,and these guys aren't going away.

(01:15:56):
Like they're maneuvering on us.
And once again, it was, it wassomething that we didn't have to do.
No one directed us to do it.
No one told us to do it, but we had agentleman's agreement with the 101st.
If they ever neededus, we would help them.
And same thing.
If we ever needed help, theysaid they would help us.
So here.

(01:16:17):
They were in their time of needand they asked us for help.
And I felt like we wereobligated to respond to that.
So this is April 17th, 2006, a liveday as the chapter in the book.
But, um, you know, we showed upwith two gun trucks, you know,
240 machine gun and a 50 cow, sixgreen berets and an interpreter,

(01:16:38):
which is not a very big package.
That's three green berets per vehicle.
And then my vehicle hadthe Terp, the interpreter.
Uh, That's a very, very light package to,to really have any ass to really change.
But, um, speaking ofcourage is contagious.
And what I think of is when we firstpulled up, we met up with the Iraqi army.

(01:17:00):
First, that was the first unit wedidn't, we were trying to find out
where our friendlies were before westarted fucking killing, killing people.
Um, We linked up with the Iraqi armyand when we pulled up, the look on their
face was terror, fear, surprise, andthen it was kind of like, oh shit, these

(01:17:24):
dudes, these dudes aren't like, theseare the bearded guys, the special forces
dudes, and it was almost like, Shock,you know, because they hadn't seen us
in the daylight, you know, firefightlike that, they'd seen us at night, you
know, we'd show up and help them at nightand we'd fuck stuff up and blow shit up

(01:17:45):
and stuff would be on fire and smoke.
But this is the first timethey're seen us in daylight.
And I try to position our vehiclesto where we had a little bit of
protection, but it was hard to seewhere everything was coming from.
It's a, you know, we were in an urbanenvironment and there's pictures
in the book that really illustrate.

(01:18:06):
The difficulties that we face becausewe're in a 360 degree shooting
environment, urban daylight, no airsupport because the bad weather,
but, uh, courage is contagious.
Park the vehicles.
And I saw where the Iraqi army orwhat I thought was the Iraqi army

(01:18:26):
command post was, and we're thenew, we're the new people here.
You know, we're the new dudes.
And I felt like I had tomake a conscious decision.
How am I going to respondto get out of my vehicle?
The problem was my ass was sittingback here and I needed to go about 150
meters to go to this Iraqi command post.

(01:18:48):
And shits everywhere.
There's fire everywhere.
There's RPGs going off,all kinds of stuff.
PKM machine guns, AKs.
Um, and I made a decision that Iwanted to try to calm people down.
And I wanted them to see me like,Hey, I've been here before, man.
I'm not like spiking the ball and freakingout and run around, uh, showboating.

(01:19:12):
Like I've been here before.
I'm not scared.
I'm ready to do this.
I'm with guys that we'reready to do some shit.
And I made a conscious decisionto briskly walk, but not run,
not do a Tom Cruise sprint.
Because to me, what my experience whenyou panic and people see that you're
panicked or you're scared, Then they getpanicked and then they get scared and

(01:19:35):
then panic, scare people, do dumb shit.
And then dumb shit endedup getting people killed.
So I calmly, but briskly walkedaround all of that chaos.
And I think that wascourageous, contagious.
Like that's my leader.
He's risking it.

(01:19:56):
He's putting his, his ass out there.
To go link up with these cats andhe's not scared of the situation.
And, um, and I saw that, thatwhole, you know, we ended up being
in a firefight for two hours.
I saw that with my gunners that wereexposed in the turret for two hours.
And when I had to get out of thevehicle to clear obstacles, because

(01:20:19):
they, the bad guys have put obstaclesacross the roads, wire and trash and
dumpsters are, uh, barrels and shit.
You know, I think that's courageous,contagious, uh, and everybody just
kind of feeds off that it, you know,if, if I'm like hunkered down, I don't
want to get on my armored vehicle.
It's like, but I expect my gunners tobe up there and a turret for two hours,

(01:20:40):
slinging lead, you know, and then, youknow, an hour and 40 minutes in, uh, an
hour and 45 minutes into the firefight.
It's a two hour firefight.
Uh, my vehicle, the engine block getstotally shot out and we lose power.
And, um, you know, if I'm turtled upin the vehicle, but I expect somebody

(01:21:03):
to get out of the vehicle and hook upthose toe straps and get us out of there.
Spoiler alert, there's no triplea roadside assistance in Baghdad,
at least there wasn't in 2006.
Um, but we didn't panic, man.
We, we were trained and it goesback to hard work beats talent.
Talent doesn't work hard.
We were trained in doing towstraps and hooking up the

(01:21:25):
vehicles and doing self recovery.
Yep.
It went back to the basics for us andwe were able to relentlessly execute
when it mattered the most, and thatwas because we had prepared, we
had TR trained for that moment and.
Um, you got to prepare, you got totrain, you don't rise to the occasion,
you rise to your level of training.

(01:21:46):
And we were able to get thatshot up vehicle out of there.
And we went back to base, swappedit out with another vehicle, got
double basic load and returnedto the fight with our brothers.
So all of those moments, likethat courage is contagious.
Everybody feeds off that, you know.
And I think that's,that's what I think of.

(01:22:06):
Calm brains, calm, all that.
You're right.
So, again, we had mentioned thispreviously, but books coming out
late November, early December.
Unless you pre order it.
Or you can pre order it beforeBasically by November 11th.
Yes.
And then you can get asigned copy with a coin.
That's awesome.
Looking at, you could see a pictureof, yeah, you'll get a signed copy,

(01:22:29):
you'll get a challenge coin and you'regoing to get it before anybody else.
That is awesome.
I am so glad you came out for this, Daryl.
Is there anything else we needto, let's talk your socials.
How can, how can people find you online?
We'll have it in the description,but how do they find you?
Uh, you can, you canfollow me on Instagram.
I'm trying to build up my Instagram.

(01:22:49):
Um, I'm not really a big Instagram.
I'm trying to get better atInstagram, but I'm at daryl.
ut, D A R R E L L.
ut.
Uh, I'm primarily on LinkedIn still.
That's kind of like my bread and butter.
Uh, there's not a lot of Daryl Lutz onLinkedIn, but I'm at Daryl, uh, dash.

(01:23:09):
And then I don't know how you wantedto do the link for the preorders.
If you're just going to post that orwe'll have it in the, we'll have it in
the description that you can find it.
But if you're looking,it's at ballastbooks.
com and then search for grit to glory.
Yeah.
Yep.
Grit to glory.
And that's, what's going to getyou that coin in the signed copy.
Awesome.
Harold.
Thanks so much, man.
I'm so glad you've made it out here.

(01:23:30):
We finally did it.
Congrats on the book.
I'm stoked to be here, man.
It grateful.
I have a lot.
I'm, I'm indebted to you, man, forever.
Uh, you're the one that gotthis whole journey started.
So I appreciate you ups and downs.
Thanks a lot, man.
Yeah, you got it.
Hope you enjoyed a round two with Daryl.
That one had a lot more combatin it than I was expecting.

(01:23:53):
I hope you all enjoyed that.
And it's just a little tasteof what you get in his book.
Of course, that's coming outlate November, early December.
You can get it at ballastbooks.
com Um, I think you are going to enjoythis one, if you enjoyed any of what you
just heard from Daryl in this episode.
But, um, we're hoping for a sequelto cover 2007, which it's hard to

(01:24:16):
believe that he said that makes2006 look like kindergarten work.
And we, as combatstory.
com slash newsletter.
You can check it out whereveryou're at in the world.
Hope you have a good rest ofyour day, week, or weekend,
and as always, stay safe.

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Combat in Iraq with ODA 043 | Special Forces Team Sergeant | Grit to Glory Author | Darrell Utt (Round 2)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Combat in Iraq with ODA 043 | Special Forces Team Sergeant | Grit to Glory Author | Darrell Utt (Round 2)