Killing 3 Enemy Tanks in 10 Seconds | HR McMaster | Army General & National Security Advisor | Battle of 73 Easting - Combat Story

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
I come over the rise andthen I'm up out of the hatch.
I immediately see a T 70 twos.
They're part of a much largerforce of, you know, maybe 60
tanks or so, uh, at other armoredvehicles and more tanks in depth.
My gutter says tanks direct front.
I see it, and I, and I said,fire, fire, sabo, and adjust.
We have a high explosive tankround in the, in the breach.

(00:23):
We fired that at the first tank.
I have a very vivid memory of this tank.
It was a very close range.
The high sports runner goes into the tank,detonates the ammunition in the tank, and
the tank commander is ejected out of thattank, into the air, and he's on fire.
Welcome to Combat Story.
I'm Ryan Fugit, and I served WarzoneTours as an Army Attack Helicopter Pilot

(00:47):
and CIA Officer over a 15 year career.
I'm fascinated by the experiencesof the elite in combat.
On this show, I interview some ofthe best to understand what combat
felt like on their front lines.
This is Combat Story.
Today we have an amazing combat storyas we sit down with the legendary
retired three star general H. R.McMaster, whose 34 years of service

(01:09):
included everything from spearheadingthe last great tank on tank engagement
in the famous Battle of 73 Easting.
to serving as president Trump'snational security advisor.
McMaster has been a dream interviewfor our program for years.
It does not disappoint.
We cover so much in this episode fromexactly what it felt like in the tanks
on that fateful day, taking on anddestroying the Tawakana division of

(01:29):
the Iraqi Republican Guard in minutes.
To leading a cavalry regiment thatsuccessfully and overwhelmingly
destroyed an Al Qaeda elementin Tal Afar in Iraq in 2006.
This is an amazing descriptionof combined arms warfare that
I had really never heard of.
To chance encounters with world leaderslike Henry Kissinger, to name just a few.
We spend some time discussingthe General's most recent book,

(01:52):
At War With Ourselves, abouthis time in Trump's White House.
It's an amazing look inside the West Wing.
And really is what the decisions andpeople and personalities are all about.
Fans of the show will love this book.
We get McMaster's perspective from thebattle of 73 Easting, but if you want an
even more detailed description of thatbattle, check out our past interview with

(02:13):
one of McMaster's platoon leaders, TimGauthier, who was part of that fight.
I sincerely hope you enjoy this glimpseinto one of our country's greatest and
most selfless leaders as much as I did.
Sir, thanks so much for taking the timeto sit down with us and share your story.
Hey, Ryan, great to be with you.
I'm a huge fan of what you're doing.
So great to be with you.

(02:34):
I think we have to start with TimGauthier, if that's all right.
So for people who've listened, and Ithink this, this episode will go nicely
with the one that we did with Tim.
And we dove deep into thebattle of 73 Easting, and he
was one of your platoon leaders.
One of the things he mentionedwas how competitive you were.
He said at one point in time,the two of you got into a little
bit of a scuffle, maybe a PT.

(02:56):
Maybe it was ultimatefrisbee or something.
So just out of curiosity, two thingsthere, who actually won that scuffle?
And then secondly, where doesthe competitiveness come from?
Well, I mean, I just think I'vealways just been competitive though
in sports and everything else.
And then of course, you know,combat's competitive, right?
And, and what you always want to do is, isovermatch your, your adversary, because,
you know, Barely winning in battle isnot pretty for anybody, you know, so, so

(03:19):
I've always had this kind of competitiveYou know nature and I've always played
contact sports like I played football Iplayed rugby all through college and and
I was still playing but at the time withTim and I were together I still play club
rugby in Germany So, you know, I used tohave more of a temper than I have now as
well, you know So I can't I don't rememberthe incident, you know, I don't remember
it But you know, it sounds true to me.

(03:41):
I mean, it'd be true to form kind of,you know, because, you know, I'm sure
it involved some form of contact.
Playing whatever the hell we're playingand then of course like, you know,
you learn to in contact sports Youjust leave it on the field, right?
I mean, especially rugby I think rugbyhas great lessons for society Which is
you're at you're at each other and thenyou have a beer together and you know

(04:01):
And I love I also saw in your book atwar with ourselves You mentioned playing
rugby and I wanted to touch on that.
I grew up in Southern Africa.
So I played rugby as a kid Shoelessin first grade and then into spikes.
And then I played in, uh, inthe army in Germany as well.
Oh, so what, what position did you play?
I was a wing, you know, I was,yes, I was deceptively slow.

(04:23):
So, you know, I, I played center wing,you know, and people think that I
played probably, you know, wing forwardor, you know, uh, lose forward, but
I mean, South Africa, man, fantastic.
You know, you know, national,I mean, world champions.
I was at the match actually inParis, uh, at the world cup.
Um, and then I, we, I saw spring box.
They were leaving.
Uh, around the same timewe were from the airport.

(04:45):
So I got to talk with Faf to clerk and awhole bunch of these guys, he was a scrum
half and uh, and they were fantastic.
They were really welcoming.
They were, of course, you know, veryhappy they just won, but you know, and
I'm kind of an all blacks fan too, soit's hard not to be in the final match.
So, but, uh, yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah.
I mean, and the six nationsis about to start here.
So it's big rugby season.
More Americans need to,they need to watch rugby.

(05:07):
Don't you think?
I completely agree.
I think they would be moreinterested in rugby than football.
I mean, no, no breaks, you know, two40 minute halves, constant action.
Right.
Yeah.
No substitutions.
It's a big team sport.
I mean, nobody, nobody takesoxygen on the sideline.
You know, I mean, you comeoff, you're off, right.
You're not going back up.
Um, I, I also saw in thebook, you grew up in Philly.

(05:27):
So I didn't know if there'sa kind of a toughness or.
Uh, competitiveness that,that came from there.
But I'm just curious how you grew up.
Did you come up in a military family?
Right.
I know you did, butwe'd love to hear more.
No, I grew up in a reallygreat extended family.
You know, my, my momwas a fantastic teacher.
She's one who really got meinterested in history from just
since I, when I can remember.

(05:48):
And my father, you know, he, at thetime he was working for the city of
Philadelphia, but he ran for Congress in68, but he was an, he was an army reserve.
Non commissioned officer.
He was the first sergeant of an infantrycompany in the Germantown neighborhood
of Philadelphia and then he got a directcommission from first sergeant to captain
and then Came back and and was the companycommander of the same company that he

(06:09):
was the first sergeant Well, I bet hehad a lot of credibility if you were
the first sergeant you step in, right?
And so and so I that exposed me tothe army obviously my dad's service.
He was a Korean War veteranwho went to the Korean War.
He volunteered at the age of 17, was a BARgunner, Browning Automatic Rifle gunner.
Uh, and he went there as a, as a privateand left as a sergeant first class, you

(06:29):
know, and, um, and, you know, a great,great infantry soldier and officer.
And so.
We didn't live the military life ofmoving around from post to post, but I was
always drawn to military service, alwayswanted to be an officer in the army.
And, uh, and so I, you know, in theopposite of what normally happens, I
begged my parents to go to militaryhigh school at Forge Military Academy.

(06:51):
And, uh, and so I wentto West Point from there.
What was the nucleus or theorigin of the, maybe the love,
history permeates your career.
It just seems like, where doesthe history love come from?
And then, what was the kernel for thearmy that just Blossomed into, into, well,
so you know, my, my mom was a teacher.
She's a fantastic teacher.

(07:11):
She taught in inner city Philadelphia inprobably the most underserved neighborhood
in the city at 12th in Rush in NorthPhiladelphia at the Climber School.
And she was a charismatic teacher.
She's a charismatic mom.
You know, and she got, uh, shegot my sister and I interested in
history and we lived in Philadelphia.
What a great place to bein terms of learning the
history of our, of our nation.

(07:32):
And then she just got me interestedin reading history and then for
family vacations, you know, wewould go to Gettysburg and do like
a family staff ride, you know, orwe go to, or we go to Yorktown.
And, and so, so we had this, uh, interestin history that permeated my family.
Um, and, and we all were in together.
And I just read, you know, I read alot of, you know, military biographies

(07:53):
and, and, and military history, uh,the, you know, the youth literature
and everything since I was, sinceI was in grade school, really.
Are you always readingtwo books at a time?
It just seems like you'reincredibly well read.
How many are you reading right now?
Do you have one currently thatyou're really excited about that
you might share with people?
So, so I normally have like three or fourdifferent books going at the same time.

(08:15):
And, and uh, and you know what I didover like, or just over the holidays.
I mean, I, I read fiction for thefirst time in a long time again.
You know, and, and, uh, and I'm abig fan of Christopher Buckley's
work because he's so funny.
I mean, he's, he's a satirist and,but he's written these great novels.
He's written like 17 books.
Right.
And, and, uh, and, and this bookwas called the judge hunters.

(08:36):
And it's a fantastic storyof, of really an anti hero.
Like who goes to America in the17th century to hunt down those who
were guilty of killing the king.
And, and so, so the geography is allaround, you know, Manhattan and New York,
which was, you know, which was Dutchat the time and then Connecticut and.

(08:57):
And so geographically, it's interesting,but the characters are really rich,
you know, and, and the guy whojust seems like a cad, you know, he
turns out to be really, you know, aneffective leader and he's part of it.
Anyway, it's a great story.
But I'm also, you know, finishinga book that I've been reading now,
probably I hate to admit it nowfor like a year, but I love it.

(09:17):
And I'm just reading like acouple of chapters at a time
before I go on to something else.
And that's the British are coming,which is the first volume of
the three volume history of therevolution that Rick Atkinson.
And he's a fantastic author, I mean,and so, of course, he did the Liberation
Trilogy on World War II, you know,with an Army at Dawn, Day of Battle,
and Guns at Last Light, which Irecommend to everybody, you know, and

(09:41):
he's one of these historians, right,who writes so compelling history,
such compelling history, becausehe goes from the strategic Jake.
Down to the tactical.
He's amazing.
And then he's found all thesecollections of letters and, and,
and personal experiences, you know,that, that nobody's ever accessed.
Like one of these, one ofthese it's, it's a letter.

(10:01):
Uh, written to his family froma dying British officer who's
been wounded at Bunker Hill.
And I mean, it's, it's fascinating.
It's just, it's fascinating stuff.
Yeah.
Um, you, you mentioned goingto, to Gettysburg as a family.
It's, it's just funny.
So my father was a armyvet in Vietnam and then.
Uh, career state officer and people who'velistened to this have heard me say this,

(10:22):
but just to compare stories here, whenwe were posted to Belgium and my mom
used to say like, get out of the housewith the three boys, I need some sanity.
He would take us to the battlefield.
So my brothers and I joke today, wefelt like we've fought in some of
the, the battles of the world warsjust because we've been there so
many times and covered that ground.
Oh no.

(10:42):
And I, Hey, I'm doing thesame thing with my daughters.
All right.
And so I, I was helping ourdaughter move some furniture.
From her dorm at UVA up to myother daughter's, uh, home.
She, she had already graduatedand was working in Washington.
And so we rented a U Haul and we passedManassas battlefield and I'm like, Hey.
We're, we're going, we're goingfor a battlefield tour and I pulled

(11:04):
the U Haul in and so she took apicture of us and sent it out on the
family, you know, the family chat.
Hashtag predictable.
I'm at a battlefield.
For those who can't see,my son Owen is off screen.
We've gone to that battlefield many timesand a cracker barrel that's right there.
Um, okay.
So is it fair to say for at war withourselves, um, it feels very detailed

(11:25):
and I'm curious throughout your career,if you've been like, did you journal?
Throughout your time.
No, you know, I don't really journal.
I wouldn't know.
I mean, I wish I had, I don'thave the discipline to do it.
And then as you know, if you're, ifyou're in a job, you're task oriented.
So like in my notebooks,I've got tasks in there.
I've got like, you know, somethingthe president told me to do that's in

(11:46):
there, but it's not like a journal ormy reflections or anything like that.
So what I had to do was like kindof go to my daily diary, which
is, you know, Diary, I mean, justlike kind of the appointment book.
And then, and then what I did thatI'm really grateful that I did because
I'm kind of a historian, right?
So I, I, uh, I felt like a duty tocapture for history, my experience.

(12:07):
So I did, I did classified oral historyinterviews across five days at my home
with national archives historians andour staff historian on the NSC staff.
How interesting.
And so that was when the whole,everything was fresh in my memory.
And so that, that has gone througha declassification process is
available now if anyone wants tosee the oral history, but I use that

(12:28):
as one of the bases of the book.
And then I have this amazing team ofresearch assistants here at Stanford, you
know, and, and we have done a hundred.
Or so oral history interviews of peopleI serve with in the Trump administration.
Those are now going to behere at the Hoover archive.
And that was, so I had the benefitof, you know, kind of our collective
experience and drawing on it.

(12:50):
Um, and then, you know, and then therewas enough in my notebooks, which
are now, you know, often nationalarchives under president Trump's
papers, you know, uh, for the first,uh, for the first administration,
uh, there was enough in there.
You know that I could recreate the events.
It is very detailed and rich, whichI think makes it really compelling.
And I was, now that takesme to kind of 73 East.

(13:12):
And one of the things that's fascinatedme about that since studying it
in, you know, when I was in OBCwas that you had had your troopers
documented the next day, right.
And we'll get into thebattle a little bit here.
Um, but what made you think to do that?
And was it?
Planned ahead of time or wasit you recognize the moment

(13:33):
and ask them to do this?
So I really recognize the moment right?
Yeah, I had as a consumerof military history.
I believe that it was really importantTo capture the experience of battle
so that other soldiers could learnfrom that experience of battle well
into the future And you know, youcan get a lot out of training, right?
I mean you but what you reallycan't get out of training a lot of
times is the psychological and theemotional experience of combat.

(13:58):
And so that's what I wantedto elicit from our soldiers.
And you know, I'd read bookslike The Face of Battle, you
know, which is a fantastic book.
Um, I don't know if I'd read it at thetime, but I think I had, I'm sure I had.
Uh, and then also, you know, I'veRead a lot of, you know, fiction
about, about battle, uh, tallstories, short stories are fantastic.
And, and I think, you know, I thinkI just had a sense of duty to, to

(14:21):
my soldiers to help, to help themcapture their experience and, and, uh,
and to also make that available for.
Especially, you know, militaryreaders in the audience and, and
so I just asked for their, their,I mean, no, no structure to it.
Tell me your story about your story of thebattle that we all experienced together.
And so you get these vast differentperspectives, you know, and,

(14:41):
and really insights into combat.
Like, you know, For example, one ofour gunners, you know, and this, this,
I don't want to sound trite at allabout taking a human life or anything
like that, but he said he had thissaying, he said, you know, before
the battle, I felt a lot of stress.
After the battle and during thebattle, I felt no stress because
he was engaged in active combat.
And then you realize, you know,that the anticipation of combat

(15:05):
oftentimes creates maybe a senseof fear, stress, you know, anxiety.
But when you're in the fight, you know,your adrenaline takes over, especially
if you have confidence in one another.
Yeah, I remember him talkingabout that specifically.
And then Tim had shared some of thewrite ups and just reading through them.
You got forward observers, you got guysin the tanks, like, all in that battle

(15:25):
from where they saw it, it's fascinating.
Oh, yes, Sergeant McReynolds, youknow, Sergeant McReynolds, one
of, one of, uh, this is one of TimGauthier's, uh, section sergeants.
You know, he said when, when the battlehappened, it just kind of came automatic.
Yeah.
Nobody had to tell us what to dobecause we had trained so hard.
Uh, Sergeant Martinez, one of our tankgunners, uh, he said, you know, It kind of

(15:45):
seemed easy to us because we had trainedso hard, you know, and so that makes you
feel good, you know, as a, as a, as aleader, because you feel, you know, when
you really, you know, you really have thesacred responsibility that you realize
when you're in a leadership position,I'm sure this is your experience too,
that you want no soldier to ever die incombat or suffer a wound in combat because

(16:05):
that soldier wasn't properly trained.
You know, and we had made it, you know,we exceeded the standard on training.
I mean, sometimes to the chagrinof some of our sergeants, you know,
actually, that's, that's one of thequestions I wanted to ask, because I
think everybody knows you need to trainmore, but one of the tough things as
a leader, and I'm clearly speakingas a junior leader, not at your level

(16:29):
and where you've gone, but just.
Encouraging people to get out there andtrain again, do it again, do it again.
And fighting the pushback that comes withthat is not an easy task for a leader.
I think.
And that's one of the things thatit's hard to prepare for when
you're in ROTC or, or the academies.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
And, and you know, one of our greatplatoon sergeants, Sergeant First

(16:52):
Class Eddie Wallace, a tanker.
He came up to me, you know, justbefore we deploy, he goes, you know,
I think you're pushing us too hard.
You're burning people out, youknow, which is good counsel to get.
But I said, Hey, Sar Wallace,we're going hard because you
know, this is life and death.
I believe we're going to go to combat.
I think it was before we got alerted.
The day after the battle, Sar Wallacecomes up to me and he said, Hey, I just

(17:14):
got to tell you, you know, you're right,it paid off, the training paid off, you
know, and, and, um, and that, you know,I think also you do, you have to make
sure you aren't burning people out.
Uh, but I think you have to alsoexplain always the why, the why
of why you're training so hard.
Right.
And, and, uh, and then of courseyou can see the payoff and,
and it results in training.
You know, I mean, we had.

(17:36):
We had a, we had a fight at the Combined,uh, Combat Maneuver, or Combined Arms
Maneuver Training Center, which is likethe, you know, the, the big, you know,
um, instrumented, Training center inGermany, uh, before we deployed, we,
before we were alerted to deploy andthe battle that our troop fought in, we
called it the big kibosh because we haddestroyed 63 enemy vehicles and only lost

(17:58):
two Bradleys, you know, so, so it paid,you could see the payoff in training, but
we can really see it as combat because.
The confidence you develop in trainingserves as a bulwark against fear.
And fear is what is just, that's,it's debilitating in combat, right?
I think that's one of the things youmentioned in one of the speeches when you
were the national security advisor to, Ithink it was maybe to the Annapolis grads,

(18:23):
something about it's the psychological andemotional training and care that goes in.
That's such an importantpart of being a leader in the
military for this exact reason.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, Just before we jump into 73 Easting,you do mention in the book this moment
where you're introduced to anothergeneral and it's, oh, so and so was,

(18:44):
uh, the number one officer at WestPoint when you graduated and you said,
I was number one too, but in demerits.
So I just want to check on that.
What was that experience?
Were you really, I doubt youwere that far off the rails.
No, I was number oneafter my first two years.
I had accrued all of my Demerits andwhat they call disparate tours or

(19:05):
these are the tours you have to walk.
Yeah, you gotta walk.
Okay So I put a lot of time in there.
I was a victim of circumstance, you know,I was misunderstood at times, right?
But I I uh, I I think because I had goneto a military high school like I knew
what was a game And what was it, andwhat was really serious and important.
So, I didn't take what they call at WestPoint the fourth class system, seriously.

(19:28):
What is that?
What's the fourth class?
It's kind of the, you know, it's,it's not, it's like the rites of
initiation you have to go through.
Interesting.
Okay.
And, and now, West Point's a lot better ona lot of this now, by the way, you know.
I talk to cadets a lot oftimes at West Point now and
they're like, man, I love it.
I'm like, Something's wrong.
Do you really love it?
And they're like, yeah, we love it.
Because actually there's been aseries of really good leadership.

(19:48):
Really good leaders at West Point.
West Point is as challenging as ever.
Believe me.
I didn't know you taught there.
Oh yeah.
Old grads, you know, they usuallysay, oh, you know, the core has.
What that means is like the corehas gone to hell since I left.
Right.
Of course.
Same thing like Ranger School.
Right.
Ranger School was whatused to be hard, man.
Soft now.
It's not, it's not hard.
It's not soft.
It's hard.
As hard as it ever was.

(20:09):
You know, I'm so proud of, you know,the leaders at West Point and, but the
cadets who go there, they're fantastic,you know, it's restorative to go back
to that place, you know, and, and, um,and so I, I realized after that first
two years, I need to walk a straighterline, you know, because everybody who
had more Detroit tours than me didn'tmake it to the next year, right?
That's what put me in thelead there for a while.

(20:31):
So, uh, yeah.
The other people droppedout of a leading spot.
They got, they got ejected, basically.
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And now back to this combat story.
So, uh, but, but I always, youknow, I was, you know, playing
rugby, love that, uh, love boxing.
Um, you know, love my friends there,the summer training I love, and
I, and I think I did well there.
I mean, one of the, one of the,uh, situations I had at West Point

(21:56):
was I, I had a, not a, not a greatrelationship with my tactical officer.
That's the person who has responsibilityfor developing militarily, uh, and, and
he failed me in leadership, you know.
Wow.
And so, back then, which isanother thing that's better, it
wasn't a 360 degree assessment.
Your professors didn't assessyou, others didn't assess you.

(22:17):
It was just him and he and I, wewere kind of like oil and water.
And so, uh, all my professors jumpedin, my rugby coaches, but I had been
on summer training the summer before.
And I went directly into an infantryplatoon at 1 8 Infantry at Fort Carson,
Colorado, deployed to this new thingcalled the National Training Center.
Oh, wow.
And our platoon did a good job.

(22:39):
How great.
And so our battalion commander hadrecommended me for a commendation
medal, the Army commendation medal,which you can't get as a cadet.
But that was in my file.
to counteract, you know,this misunderstanding of
me by my tactical officer.
Got it.
Okay.
So I, I squeaked through,I squeaked through.
Oh, that's interesting.
What, uh, what was the decisionto go calve, to go, uh, armor?

(23:03):
Yeah.
Well, this is, I mean, I, I liketelling the story because, you
know, here at Stanford, I mean,tremendous students here, right?
Everybody wants, To map out their lives.
Like when they graduate, theywant to know what's the best
first job, second job, third job.
I'm like, don't worry about it.
Let me tell you a story.
And the story is really how Icame into, you know, the jobs
that I came into in the army.

(23:23):
I was commissioned as an aviationofficer from West Point in 1984.
I did not know that.
Yes.
Wow.
I wanted to fly scout helicopters, right?
I'd read chicken hawk, youknow, the novel on Vietnam and
I wanted to be an arrow scout.
I thought this has gotto be the coolest thing.
So, so I, uh, infantrywas my second choice.
And armor was my third choice.

(23:44):
So I go to Fort Knox, Kentuckybecause aviation had just
once again become a branch.
In the army.
Cause remember after that sad day in1947, when the air force gained its
independence, there was no longer the armyair corps, there was no longer a bridge.
It was a secondary specialty.
So you'd be an infantry officer or anarmed officer, and then you would go
to flight school and then you wouldhave a dual track, aviator, armor,

(24:06):
aviator, cav, aviator artillery.
Aviator intelligence, right?
So it was changing back to a branch,but Fort Rucker, which is the home
of aviation, had not stood up.
It's, it's, it's a basic course yet.
So I'm at the Fort Knox.
They found a stigmatism in my eyethat they had missed on previous
flight physicals, and they said,Hey, you know, you're no longer

(24:28):
a, uh, an aviation officer.
I said, Okay, well.
Infantry, like secondlieutenant McMaster, right?
And you know, I'm, I'm talkingto like, you know, what is
now human resources command.
I'm like, well, you know, actually I'dlike to go to Fort Benning, which is now
Fort Moore and start over my trainingbecause I want to be an infantry officer.
That was my second choice.
Don't I get my second choice?
So like, oh yeah, well, thanksfor that suggestion, Lieutenant,

(24:48):
but you're at Fort Knox.
You know what that means?
That means you're an armor officer.
Oh my God.
So I'm like, okay.
Yeah.
So I applied to pre ranger.
I compete for a ranger slot.
And, uh, and then, you know,uh, it's time to figure out like
where my assignment's gonna be.
So again, you know, I put inmy preference 'cause I thought,
hey, yeah, I'd like to go.
Sure.
I'll get it this time.
I'd like to go to Germany.

(25:08):
Yeah.
'cause a lot of tanks in Germany andthat's the front line of the Cold War.
Mm-hmm . I like, that'swhere I'd like to go.
Thanks for your preference.
Lieutenant Fort Hood, Texas.
It is.
Which is now for CSOs . That's right.
So, so I went to my first unit.
You know, no, nothing ever, nothingworked out the way I thought it would,
and it could not have been better.
I went to 166 armor andsecond armor division.

(25:29):
My first job, I'm thinking tankplatoon, I'm excited, support
platoon leader, you know?
What is the support platoon?
I don't even know what it is.
Right.
And of course that's all thelogistics for the platoon, the
fuel, the ammunition and so forth.
I learned so much in that job.
I had great sergeants in that job.
We trained our ass off by the way, uh,because I knew how to get ammo, you

(25:50):
know, we've fired more AT4s, anti tankweapons, we fired more machine guns.
That was one hell of a fighting,you know, uh, support platoon
that we, that we built.
Um, and with Sergeant Blakely,my, uh, my platoon sergeant.
And, uh, and so I just, not to goon about this, but no assignment
was ever my first choice until I,you know, I was, I was fortunate to

(26:13):
command the 3rd Cavalry Regiment.
It was my first choice for abrigade or regimental command.
But up to that point, therewas always something different.
You know, I want to go bean S3 in a Cav Regiment.
Okay.
Yeah.
But that cab regiment is the 11th cabregiment at Fort Irwin, California in
the middle of the Mojave desert, right?
People will know probably, youknow, 40 miles north of the
cultural center of Barstow, right?
So it's not a lot there, but I thinkone of the best assignments I ever had.

(26:36):
Yeah, it was fantastic, youknow So it always worked out.
It always worked.
How about just the moment whereokay, you you were all set to go
aviation You they find this issue.
I Mean you seem like water just rollsoff your back right now, but at the
time was it Oh, what's going to happen.
I can't woe is me or no.

(26:57):
I just, I thought, how do I nowmax out this new opportunity?
Right.
I'm an armor officer.
Tanks were kind of growing on me, youknow, and actually I was in the last
M60A3 course, which is the older tank.
And then I wound up going tothe first M1 Abrams battalion,
you know, that was at Fort Hood.

(27:19):
And back then, you know, thearmy was not as, you know, maybe
safety conscious as it is now.
And so I'm the support platoon leader.
I'm in my first assignment, you know,and I'm delivering ammo to the range.
I had this fantastic 1stBattalion Commander, Billy J.
McGowan, still lives in Texas.
The guy was, I mean, he wasCame from a sharecropper family.

(27:40):
Wow.
Then, you know, comes intothe army as, you know, he's,
he's an African American guy.
Um, you know, in the army when there wasstill like a lot of, you know, racial
tensions and inequality of opportunity.
And he was just the most fantastic leader,charismatic leader, larger than life guy.
So Billy J. McGowan says, Hey,uh, Lieutenant, get on that tank.
You're going to take that tank down range.

(28:02):
On Table A qualification, right?
For the tank.
I had never even been in an Abrams.
I mean, I've been in one.
This is like an annual, anannual, uh, like a big deal.
So I get in with a great gunner, agreat sergeant, and we just do dry runs.
And, like, I'm just learning the tank.
And, like, the 50 cal atthe time is different now.
It was like a race ring thing.
It was like patting your head andrubbing your stomach at the same time.

(28:24):
Fire the 50 cal. So I'm learning all this.
And, of course, they don't want thelieutenant to be a danger in there.
So they just give me allthe safety briefings.
We took that tank downranch and shot Superior.
No way!
Well, you know, great gunner,great loader, great driver.
But, you know, it just gives you kind ofa sense for Billy G. McGowan, the kind of

(28:45):
the command climate that he established.
His successor, a guy namedLieutenant Colonel Sayre,
Rich Sayre, another great guy.
Totally different styles, butI went into that battalion.
Thinking, Hey, I'm probably going todo five years, you know, and then I'm
going to transition out of the army.
Having served.
Um, you know, I bought a suit, Isigned up with a headhunter firm.

(29:07):
I had a, I had a, a, I had aninterview set up with Procter and
Gamble or somebody like in Chicagoat a plane ticket, like the old
digital or the, uh, print out plenty.
And, uh, and I went to a rightarm night at the officers club
again, like, you know, again, whatare these points in your career?
And my sergeants are thereand they're like, Hey.
What the hell are you doinggetting out of the army?
You know, I think you're, wethink you're pretty good at this.

(29:28):
You're having a good time.
Why would you get out of the army?
You know, I thought,you know, you're right.
And so I went home that night andsaid to Katie, said to my wife,
Hey, are you up for just staying in?
She's like, yeah, I'm up for staying in.
And so then I went to Germanyto the 2nd Cav Regiment.
And, you know, I mean, thereare many points like that.
There's many points in my career where.
You know, uh, I didn't go in, I think,you know, at my, at my retirement roast,

(29:53):
kind of, that when I, when I retiredafter 34 years, you know, uh, Katie gave
this talk that was like, it was like alaugh line, every line, you know, so she
looks, she's looking at me, she said,Hey, when I married HR, we're going to
get out of the army after five years.
Thank you for the bonus 29.
Oh, and the right, all the placesand the times you've been gone.

(30:13):
Yeah.
And the girls.
Wow.
Right.
Okay.
So maybe this is a good segue into 73Easting, just people have heard the story.
And for those who really wantthe deep dive, listen to the
interview with Tim Gauthier.
We went deep on that, but just fromthe company commander perspective,
sir, like the lead up going in,um, going against the Republican
guard, you didn't really know.

(30:35):
That it was going to play outthis way was on their turf.
They were in great defensive positions.
Can you just talk us through, Idon't know, the burden of command to
some degree at that moment in time?
How old are you then even?
Gosh, you know, how old was I back then?
Like 27?
Yeah, I was 28.
28. Yeah, 28 years old.
Yeah, maybe 27.

(30:56):
Yeah, 27 we deployed, 28 probablyat the time of the battle, I think.
So, um, you know, I really felt thatI had this, you know, been given this
gift across my career of, of, uh,having kind of these formative tactical
experiences, uh, at the NationalTraining Center with this fantastic
unit in the 2nd Armored Division.
Um, you know, we were part of the PhantomCorps, the 3rd Corps, and, and our Corps

(31:19):
Commander's motto was, Fight at Night.
He really inculcated in us a very,you know, a very high determination.
To be at the highest level of training,to always be ready for combat.
And I took that into our troop when Itook command of that troop in February
of gosh, you know, of, of, uh, 1990.
So before Saddam invades Kuwait, now I wasaccelerated into command of that troop.

(31:44):
Uh, because the troop hadnot performed well during a
gunnery exercise in Grafenwoehr.
At the time I was the RegimentalPlans Officer waiting for command,
desperate to get into command.
Yeah, of course.
Off of the regimental staff.
I was like, oh my god.
So, uh, I couldn't wait to, you know, to,to be part of a team and lead soldiers.
So, so, um.
You know, I, I, I met Gunnery, uh, thetroop apparently wasn't doing well.

(32:06):
I was planning a maneuver exercisefor the regimental commander.
The regimental commander cameinto the plans van as I was the
regimental plans officer and said,uh, Hey, I'm getting in my van.
Uh, it's going to take you toBamberg and you're going to start
your change of command inventory fortaking over command of Eagle troop.
So I go up there, there's a reardetachment guy who needs to be there.
You know, you have to, you know,inventory property and all that stuff.

(32:28):
I mean, so I just got tojumpstart on all that.
And, and, and, and Richard, um,so that's why you're doing this?
He's like, I was just looking at myvideo, this is why you don't like this?
And he was like, And then theystarted telling me, There was
all this talent in this troop.
I mean, Tim Gauthier, man, his fellow,uh, platoon leaders, they were fantastic.

(32:50):
We had incredible, uh, platoon sergeants.
You know, I think the first sergeant atthe time was kind of part of the problem.
He was, you know, one of theseguys who like, you know, when I,
when I laid out a training plan,he said, well, why is it that we
want to do all this extra training?
And I said, well, youknow what I'm going to do?
I want to find you another job, man.
Yeah.
And so, so there weresome changes to be made.
Don't get me wrong.

(33:12):
I think that's part of that leadership of.
Right.
Making sure that you can trainyour guys and push them hard.
Yeah.
All right.
Absolutely.
Sorry to interrupt.
So, so we were confident by this time.
And the other thing that helpedus a lot, I don't know if Tim, I
don't think Tim talked about this.
It's kind of a detail, but youknow, we were losing, going
to lose a lot of our NCOs.
Remember Saddam invades Kuwaitin August of, of 1990, right.

(33:34):
And then, you know.
I just knew from that point we're going.
Yeah.
In fact, we, we got togetheron a basketball court.
We're about to do amaneuver rights exercise.
You go out on the German countryside.
We're maneuvering againsta British cavalry unit.
And I, and we were doing our rehearsal,you know, with the, with the train
drawn on the, uh, drawn on the,on the, on the basketball court.
And I brought her by together.
I said, okay, listen.

(33:55):
We have to max out this trainingexercise and we were doing platoon and,
uh, and troop gunnery, uh, afterwards.
And because, you know, the next operationsorder I give you will likely be in the
desert sands of Saudi Arabia, right?
They're all looking like,yeah, right, right, right.
So, but, you know, I really believed it.
So we, we ramped up ourtraining from that point.

(34:15):
But between then and when we were alerted.
We were losing a lot of our keysergeants and, you know, I mean,
where does combat power come from?
Combat power comes fromsergeants leading soldiers.
and Lieutenant's leading platoons.
That's where real power comes from.
Right?
And, and so I start to train upmore junior NCO's, Sergeants,

(34:35):
to take over those positions.
And we were doing it in the context of,you know, mounted maneuver, but we're also
doing military operations in urban terrainbecause we're developing leaders, right?
Who are preparing defenses of a buildingand those who are attacking, and Couldn't
get a call for fire, I mean, it was soSo we're, we're training super hard.
Then what happened is when we got alerted,we got to keep a lot of those NCOs and

(34:58):
now we had all this depth, you know, andwe had depth of knowledge and confidence.
Right?
Confidence.
They weren't frustratedthat they were kind of No.
Having to go, Hey, there'senough work to go around, right?
Yeah.
So it's great if you have a scoutobserver who's ready to be a gunner,
you're in 24 hour operations.
Yeah.
The gunner can't be in thegunner seat out every day.
all day, if that gunner's trainedto be a Bradley commander.

(35:21):
So I think it's one of the key things isyou always want to train your soldiers
for the next level of responsibility.
Always, right?
Because that gives you tremendous depth.
The other key thing is you want totell soldiers everything about how
you're thinking about maneuver, howyou're thinking about how you're
going to fight and win together,but you want your privates to know.

(35:42):
Yeah.
How you're envisioning troop Operationsand maneuver and actions on contact
and integration of fires because thatfrees them up to take initiative,
which is what we saw in this battle.
I mean, we really, you know,I, I issued fragmentary orders
during, in contact and everything.
I probably didn't need to do any of it.
We were like, we knew what we were doing,you know, and we knew where we were in

(36:03):
relation to each other, how to cover foreach other, you know, and in Tim's case,
you know, how to secure our Southernflank as we conducted this assault.
You know, so, um, what was the feelingfor you the night before that kicks off?
And I know you all are movingup to that, but could you feel
this, this coming to a head?
It was a combination of, of, you know,kind of, you know, maybe a little

(36:25):
bit of anticipation, but frustration.
Because we kept moving for 20 kilometersand then stopping and moving and
stopping like let's get on with it.
Not because of you.
That was headquarters.
Like you go to, you advanceto this space line and hold.
Because what you, what you had is youhad the divisions behind the regiment.
The regiment was what was conductedwas called an offensive covering
force operation, which is meantto ease the forward movement of

(36:49):
the main body, which were theheavy armored divisions behind us.
We were supposed to prevent indirectand direct fire on that main body, allow
them to get the logistics in place.
We were And then identify and destroythe reconnaissance of the enemy.
But what we kept hearing, and thisdidn't make sense to me at the
time, because we have tanks, youknow, don't get decisively engaged.
I'm like, what does that mean?

(37:09):
You know, and so, so I, you know,we were, we were, uh, there was an
emphasis on control of our forwardmovement such that we could hand
off to the divisions behind us, youknow, and, and so the night before.
Our G Troop, our Ghost Troop, uh, ledby a guy named Joe Sordiano, one of
my West Point classmates, good friend.
Uh, they had come acrossan enemy screen line.

(37:31):
So had our Fox Troop, uh, which wasbeing led, uh, by Captain Tom Sprouse.
Great guys.
T. J. Lindsey was our lead platoon leader.
Fantastic leaders across the squadron.
Um, so they encounter, uh, these,these scouts, uh, and they, they,
they destroy, uh, BMPs, they capturesome of these MTLBs, which are, you
know, if you think of a BMP without aturret, right, it's a personnel carrier.

(37:52):
And they brought them toour squadron headquarters.
We'd go to our squadrontactical command post.
You know, I jump off my tank.
Joe Sardiano brought over these MTLBs.
We're looking at the maps.
We're looking at the, the weapons.
These are brand new weapons.
They're in very, these, thesevehicles are in very good condition.
And it's clear they belongto the Tahlequahna Division
of the Republican Guard.

(38:12):
So, okay, now we know, all right.
We're going to get in the scrapprobably, you know, because we're close.
Then it poured rain allnight, poured rain all night.
And, uh, and so I'm justtrying to get some sleep.
So I'm ready for the next morning.
And, you know, not a lot ofcomfortable spots on a tank, right?
We're inside a tank turret.
I go into our troop command post,this is a 577, it's like a big cracker

(38:34):
box type vehicle with the map boardand this is where Lieutenant John
Gifford, our XO, it's his vehicle,with Staff Sergeant Vizcarra, our
communications guy, one of the funniesthuman beings on the face of the earth.
So, so there's a shelf on this thing.
I just, I just lay on the shelfand I go to sleep, you know, on
the shelf of the command post.
And then, then a fragmentary order forthe next day's operation comes over

(38:55):
the radio and Gifford like shakes me.
Hey sir, you know, we'regetting a fragmentary order.
I'm like, oh, just takeit John, just take it.
He shakes me again, he goes, Hey,sir, you know, it is wartime.
You know, I'm like, okay, all right,I'll get up since it is wartime.
So I took the fragmentary order,we, we get ready for the next day.
Uh, so what we have the next dayis we get fog from the rain, right?

(39:15):
Obscures our vision.
Then the wind kicks up really highand then we went from fog and rain
to like a sandstorm, you know?
So we're, we're now conductingthis halting movement to the east.
And what the Fragmentary Order didis it moved our troop from behind
Fox troops in a diamond formationinto a box formation where we now

(39:36):
assume the lead of the South, right?
So, it's a big shift.
Our GPS didn't work, you know, threequarters of the time we're doing
dead reckoning in the desert onthe kind of a plotting board map,
making contact with the Jason unit.
So I mean, this is goth.
You had to do a lot of this.
Yeah.
You know, uh, and, and it's, you know,it's, it's, uh, it was, it was advanced
yet it was, it was graduate level stuff.

(39:57):
And, uh, and so that'sall going on the next day.
This is the 26th of February.
And we begin again, this kind ofhalting movement to the east and my,
the height or the low point for me.
The point of depression for me almostwas, okay, well, we've gone far enough
now and we're going to hand off thedivisions and, uh, we're going to
send up bulldozers to dig us in.

(40:18):
And my, my squadron commanderpulls up and I'm like, Hey, sir,
I can't, I can't a good consciousdig in the 70 ton killing machine.
What the hell are we doing?
I mean, are we not goingto get in the fight?
I mean, we, we had engaged a, uh, a,uh, BMP destroyed one, um, and so,
so, so our scouts the day before.
So we've been a little bitof some skirmishes, right?
But we weren't in the fight thatwe got there to get into it.

(40:39):
And this might sound strange to peoplethat you really wanted to be in battle.
I mean, I wanted to getinto a fight, right?
We were ready.
Who else was more ready than us?
I don't think anybodywas more ready than us.
So, so, uh, my squadroncommander pulls up.
I always had a stash of repair partstoo, you know, which, I mean, I was
bored with it, shared it with others,you know, but you know, we had, we had a

(41:00):
thermal receiver unit, which you're notsupposed to have like in a cavalry troop.
The squadron commander comes up, hesaid, man, I kept my thermal sights
bad, and I go, I think we can fix it.
Masias, our turret mechanic.
Masias jumps in there.
Uh, he, uh, we need a TRU I'm like, okay,put one in, put our, just replace it.
Spare, replace it.
And he's looking at me like, I said, don'task me, sir. You know, your tank is fixed.

(41:24):
Be grateful for that.
Yeah.
So then, so then.
Then we get a change in orders, right?
This is at the, uh.
I don't know, 6 2 Eastie, who knows,you know, and then we went to the 6
5, and that's when we got in contact.
We got in contact at the moment wehad been given permission to advance
to the 7 0 North South grid line.
And then once we were in contact,uh, it was during the attack that my

(41:46):
executive officer called me and said,Hey, you're at the limit of advance.
And I say, just tell himI'm sorry, we can't stop.
And then, you know, you saw,you heard from Tim, we continued
the assault for another, youknow, three or four kilometers.
Uh, and then we stopped when we really hadnothing left to shoot is when we stopped.
Can you describe the moment, like Timkind of describes what he's hearing on
the radio, but as you're sitting in thetank and you kind of crest this ridge and

(42:07):
you take, ridge, and you take, or berm, Isuppose, and you take these three shots.
Pretty quickly, right?
What's going on in a tank?
Is that just for people who'venever had to think of this?
Sure.
Yeah.
So what happened is when we get thispermission to go to the seven zero.
I think, you know, I don't, I can't,I don't know what, how to attribute

(42:28):
this except providence, man.
I mean, honestly, you know, I think,you know, um, there's some things
that happened in this battle thatare not explainable, many things,
except for, I think, my belief in God.
I mean, honestly, you know, so before wego over that rise and we, we, we, uh, we,
He had done a fire command to, to suppressthe village where Tim initially took fire
or Sergeant Harris, uh, one of his scoutstook fire and Tim pulls up fire to toe.

(42:52):
We shoot at the village orthe really barracks area and
fortified infantry enemy position.
We get then permission to,to continue to the East.
I crest this imperceptible rise aboutthe same time that the first platoon
who are our scouts, who are now orienteddue to the, to East, identify a hotspot.
And this is, this is a Sergeant DavidLawrence, who was one of my scout squad

(43:15):
leaders when I was a platoon leader atFort, is now a scout section Sergeant.
And he is a fantastic scoutand just like an irascible.
So, Bradley Feltman, later CommandSergeant Major Feltman, now Sergeant E 5
Feltman, is his gunner, and they pick up ahotspot, and, uh, and he says to Feltman,

(43:36):
hey, put a tow into it, see what it is.
You know, because wecouldn't see what it was.
The tow hits it, it's a T 72, itexplodes the tank, and the turret,
they, they identify as a T 72, andthe turret gets blown up in the air.
So he yells on the platoonnet, tanks, tanks right front.
And then.
Our platoon did whatthey're trained to do.
They start pumping out 25.
He recounting by fire 20, this25 millimeter on the Bradleys

(43:59):
them they opening fire, held backthe two other two tank platoons.
'cause they don't wanna cross in frontof the Bradleys when they're firing.
Mm-hmm . And you can hear if you'vegot the, uh, you know, the, the audio
of this, of this battle is available.
Uh, we come over that rise, uh, rightbefore that I'm saying, Hey, red
one sees fire, red one sees fire,red one sees fire, God damn it.

(44:20):
You know, and then, and then I come overthe rise and then I'm up out of the hatch.
I immediately see eight T 72s.
They're part of a much largerforce of, you know, maybe 60
tanks or so, uh, and other armoredvehicles and more tanks in depth.
And so I, you, you go, you dowhat you're trained to do, right?
You give a contact report.

(44:41):
Well, first of all, youstart shooting at the tanks.
So, so I, you know, my gunnersays, tanks direct front.
I see him.
And I said, fire, fire, sabot, and adjust.
Which means, you know, you got it, man.
We have a high explosive tank roundin the, in the, in the, in the breach.
We fired that at the first tank.

(45:02):
I have a very vivid memory of this tank.
It was a very close range.
The, the high explosiveround goes into the tank.
detonates the ammunition in the tankand the tank commander is ejected.
Out of that tank, intothe air, and he's on fire.
So, that's the first, thenthe crew is trained, right?
So, imagine if you're in atank, it's a 120mm round.

(45:24):
With service ammo, or combatammo, the breach comes all
the way back to the back door.
The gunner's out of the way.
Of that breach comingback to the ammo door.
He hits the ammo door release,which with his knee, the heavy
armored door slides open.
He hits the release on the SABOround are all marked S and H.
Cause I said, fire, fire, SABOfire, the heat now fire SABO next.

(45:47):
Right.
And then he drops this 90 poundround in his lap, spins it while
the tank is moving, puts itinto the breach with his fist.
The breach comes up.
He yells up.
Which means the gun is up andhe arms the gun at that time.
Gets back out of the way.
The gunner, who is now index Sabo forthe ballistic solution to fire a 14 pound

(46:13):
titanium dart depleted uranium dart.
Actually, that that flies attwo kilometers a second, right?
So that's the second round that comes out.
This all, now we'rethree seconds in, right?
We're three to four seconds in.
So, I'm now on the troop,on the troop net, right?
My crew's doing what they need to do.
I'm on the troop net, contacteast, eight armored vehicles,

(46:36):
green and white, are you with me?
These are the two tank platoons.
That's exactly what I said, right?
Because I wanted them with me.
And so, because now I've separatedon the other side, it's at the same
time now, as this is going on, roundtwo's out, second tank destroyed.
My driver says, Hey sir, we'regoing through a minefield.
I think you want, I thoughtyou might want to know.

(46:56):
So then I get on the troop net asTaylor now is putting the third
round in right and Yelling up andwe're now destroying the third tank.
I'm on the troop net.
I said minefield direct front tanksdrive around the mines Bradley's getting
the tracks of the tanks Bradley's getin the tracks of the tanks because the
tank could take an explosion, right?

(47:17):
And these were surface laidmines They were interspersed
with anti-personnel minds.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
These little ones with like the littleprongs on 'em, you know, toe popper,
some people call 'em, they were poppinglike microwave popcorn under the tanks.
Doesn't matter.
But what you wanna do is avoid the boxmines that are the big anti tank mines.
We had One tank, yes, threetank, uh, commanded by major.
Then Doug McGregor, his, his, his,uh, his tank hit a mine, but it

(47:41):
just blew off end connectors andthe tank was able to continue going.
So, so now, okay, what'sgoing on in the turret?
You know, you've got the cordite,the smoke coming out, I'm still up
out of the hatch, I'm identifyingthe other armored vehicles.
And then, green and white bothcome over the top at the same time.
Henscog, my driver, who said we'regoing through a minefield, he
looks at the array of the enemy.

(48:03):
Chris Henscog.
And he knows how we fight.
He knows that it's a frontalfire, uh, distribution pattern.
So he turns our tank 45 degreesto the South, to the Southeast,
to get all the guns in the fight.
Like he does that on his own.
I didn't tell him to do that.
Right.
So now you have eight other tanks.
Imagine now nine tanks firing aroundevery three seconds and nobody misses

(48:27):
and you're all taking different targets.
So if you're the enemy, that'snot a good situation to be in.
They got two rounds off at mytank that I didn't even notice.
Uh, the, the, our two platoonleaders who came over next
saw two T 72s engage my tank.
Another one of these thingsyou can't maybe fully explain.
Those impacted short.
Uh, of my tank, um, I think a lot of ithas to do with bore wear of the T 72s.

(48:50):
Uh, maybe their ammo was wet, you know,uh, and they have an autoloader thing.
So, anyway, thankfully, uh,nobody hit, you know, nobody hit.
We penetrate the first line andthen Tim told the story, you know,
of the continued assault, thedestruction of the enemy reserve.
The consolidation, the defeat of thecounter attack, and all told we, you

(49:11):
know, we destroyed about a brigade sizedformation and suffered no casualties.
Amazing, yeah, amazing.
Um, gosh, normally I would spend alittle more time here, but just in the
interest of time, I'm going to jumpus for a moment, sir, if it's okay.
When you're commanding the 3rdACR, you're in Iraq, 2005 2006,
southern Baghdad, Tal Afar.

(49:32):
I've read about Operation,uh, Restore, restoring rights,
restoring rights, restoring rights.
And I don't know what I, what I wouldlove to hear from you is jumping to that
level of command and that responsibility.
Do you recall a moment or an experience?
And maybe it's around that operationor maybe it's something else on that
deployment that was particularlydifficult for you from a leadership.

(49:54):
Perspective.
Yeah.
Well, you know, obviously I think it wasin many ways a much more challenging, uh,
environment, uh, because you know, the,what happened in the Gulf war, right.
Is the fourth largest army in theworld fought us symmetrically.
Not a good idea.
Right now, the telecom divisionfought with courage, honestly.

(50:15):
I mean, they, they in determination.
I'm very proud of our soldiers.
When we took the prisoners, Idon't know if Tim talked about it,
they were crying and they thoughtthat it was going to be bad.
Yeah.
They thought we're going to use themor kill them, you know, and we treated
them with great humaneness and, um,uh, which is what American soldiers do.
I mean, actually, you know, We weresearching their wallets and they had

(50:35):
all stolen cash from, from Kuwait.
They had Rolex watches.
We're giving it back to themand they're like, what is this?
Right.
So, so, um, you know, really I'mso proud of our, our soldiers.
You know, what people don't reallyrealize is our warrior ethos is what
makes combat units effective, butit's also what makes combat less.
Inhumane, right?
And, and it's our standards,which are immensely important.

(50:57):
So, you know, it's, itwas a different enemy.
It's like we called them out onthe schoolyard and beat them up.
Right.
And, and, uh, and, you know, theyhad fought against the Iranians.
Uh, they were used to these kindsof human wave infantry attacks.
They had no idea what, you know, whatnine tags, 12 Brownlees could do to
them in like 45 seconds, really a 23minute battle and even beyond that.

(51:19):
But.
Uh, really the battle was wonin like a minute, I think.
So now this enemy, uh, in Iraq in2004 or five, six, uh, really five and
six, if we're talking about operationrestoring rights, you know, it was a
different fight against an enemy whowas fighting asymmetrically, it was a
terrorist organization organized into fourbattalions, the battalions of the one true

(51:41):
God, uh, who took over the city of Talaferand other parts of Nineveh province so
they could access supply routes to Syria.
Supply routes for suicide bombers,for fighters, for explosives.
And, uh, this became the Fort Benning,or now Fort Moore, Georgia, of the,
uh, of the insurgency, Fort Talofer.
They ran courses on kidnapping and murder,uh, roadside bombs, obviously, mortars,

(52:05):
snipers, first aid, propaganda, right?
Yeah.
I mean, it was, it was the training base.
And so they wanted tohold on to this place.
And they gave orders to hold on to it.
And I'm like, that's great.
Because we're going to kill orcapture every one of these guys,
you know, and what we did, um, iswe first, like a good reconnaissance
unit, we conduct a reconnaissance.

(52:26):
Guess who I run into as, as the S3 ofa striker cavalry squadron attached us?
Tim Gauthier.
And, and, and so, so we planned withhim this major zone reconnaissance.
Across all these, you know, rat linesor infiltration lines coming from Syria.
We identify a lot of safe houses.

(52:47):
Uh, we actually, sadly, in afirefight, uh, you know, we, we, uh,
we, we lost the governor of Anbarprovince who was being held by Al
Qaeda in a safe house down there.
But we, but we disrupt them.
We built up, you know, oursurveillance of the border, our
ability to respond to the border.
We secured the outlying towns.
And then, what we did at the same time,my friend of mine was the commander of

(53:08):
the Engineer Brigade in Iraq, ColonelBill Rapp, he sent me every dozer.
Every dozer.
And we built Burr around theentire red, the entire city.
I mean like a 12 foot highburr across the whole city.
We only left three routes in and out.
We started to screenpeople coming in and out.
We captured a lot of peopletrying to bluff their way through
Al Qaeda fighters and so forth.

(53:30):
And then, uh, we conducted someraids, you know, that were quite
effective inside the city, but we'repreparing for this large operation.
where we would conduct an offensiveoperation to identify and destroy the
enemy within the city and set conditionsfor return of security and, and
normalcy to, to the city of Tel Aviv.
To do that.
We also evacuated the civilians and,uh, Al Qaeda tried to keep them there

(53:53):
as human shields, but we really forcedthe issue with the local leaders.
We got them to, to, to evacuate.
We screened the people who were leaving.
We identified a few hundred.
Uh, who were trying tobluff their way out.
But then we put triple standardconcertina wire around the most
dense areas of where the enemy wasoccupying so they couldn't get out.

(54:15):
So we could kill or captureall, all of them in there.
Uh, and then we, you know,we employed a large number of
Iraqi forces and our forces.
We, uh, task organized with reallya half cavalry troop of, of six
Bradleys and four tanks, uh, who wereadvising and giving combat support.
Yeah, we saw that.

(54:36):
So you had, you know, half troop, Iraqibattalion, then what we were missing,
and I briefed, uh, General Kasey, youknow, came out to get the briefing on
our operation cause they thought, is thisgoing to be another Fallujah, you know,
they were worried about similar Rack.
He's worried about it, you know, We,that's why we, you know, we, we named
it, you know, the previous operationto law firm was called black typhoon.

(54:58):
Okay.
We named it restoring rights for a reason.
I'm going to clarify our intentions.
Right.
So, and so we, so we, and we, and wehad a lot of, we had a lot more Iraqi
capacity deal with general core sheetcommander, the third entry division,
this guy, mayor Najum, who had been thechief of police, fantastic Iraqi leader.
We had this guy, you know,uh, general Kais, a brigade.
We had great Iraqi leadership.

(55:20):
You know, it was a big part of the story,you know, so, uh, but Casey comes to
get the briefing at our headquarters.
I brief him about it.
I requested two U. S. infantry battalionsmonths earlier, multiple times to
my division and my core commander.
Nothing.
Crickets, right?
I'm bugging, I keep bugging them.
You know, Hey, I need U. S. infantry.
I need skilled infantry.

(55:40):
You know, because in thecavalry, you're infantry poor.
We're going to dense urban areas.
You know, you don't drive tanksinto urban areas without infantry.
You don't actually send infantry intourban areas without tanks either, right?
It's combined arms, right?
So, so, uh, we're in the, we're in mylittle SUV thing, driving General Casey
back to his airplane after the briefingand I'm sitting in the front right of the
car and my division commander's back left.

(56:01):
He goes, you know, HR, Ithink you need more infantry.
And I'm looking at my divisioncommander like, are you going to say,
are you going to say anything, man?
He didn't say anything.
So I said, well, sir, youknow, I requested two or
three battalions months ago.
Second of the 325 Parachute InfantryRegiment was landing in Baghdad at the
time, got diverted that day and landedat our airfield in Tel Aviv the next day.

(56:24):
And Colonel Chris Gibson, uh,there were three, a guy named
Mazaraki, a fantastic team.
I mean, unbelievable team, ready to fight.
They came in ready to fight.
So.
I really upset, obviously, my divisioncommander, my corps commander.
There are reasons why.
You know, I was not selected for promotionto brigadier general for quite some time.
But I was at peace with that, right?
Yeah.

(56:44):
Because it was what we needed.
So we had had a concept of operationto defeat the enemy in detail.
Which means take a chunk of the city ata time, consolidate, take another chunk.
Having infantry, more infantry allowedus to achieve a higher degree of
simultaneity in the offense, right?
And, and so, uh, which createdmore dilemmas for the enemy.
Like they had nowhere to go, you know?

(57:04):
Um, and, and as I said, this infantry,Parachute Infantry Battalion,
man, they did a fantastic job.
The White Falcons of the86th Airborne, you know?
So, uh, and then we, we, wedynamically task organized.
I attached.
Uh, tanks and Brad attached a cavalrytroop, our, our, uh, our G troop, uh, to
grim troop to that infantry battalion.

(57:26):
And I attached an air cavalry,uh, uh, troop to that.
And they're like, really?
Cause you know, infantry men aren'tlight infantry, they're ascetics.
They're used to getting nothingand liking it and liking it.
Right.
I mean, that's what, that'swhat their culture is.
Now they've got all this combatpower, they employed it masterfully
and they, they went to the denseurban area of Sarai, which is the.
This is a, this is a 16th century Ottomancity, you know, with just buildings

(57:51):
built on top of buildings, you know, and,and again, it's why you need infantry.
Are you thinking in your mind, this couldbe like Fallujah, like guys kicking in
doors and meeting that kind of resistance?
Well, no.
So we, we had, we evacuated the civilians.
We had done raids against leadership.
I think I can say this now.
We shut down their comms.
Yeah.
When we shut down their comms,what they did is they started

(58:13):
to gather in alleyways, right?
Oh.
We were flying our Apaches at 5, 000feet and we just started slamming
them with HE frag Hellfire missiles.
And we expended our entire basic load.
Our entire basic load of Hellfiremissiles had to get an emergency resupply.
Then we turned this, remember everybody'sisolated now, like they're, they're

(58:34):
penned in by concertina wire, right?
We turned their comms back on.
Our first intercept from themis we are being slaughtered.
Wow.
That's good.
That's right.
That's good.
And then they started taking inventory.
Is this guy alive?
Is that guy alive?
No, dead, dead, dead, dead.
So we're getting all this battle damage.
Who's gonna, who's, weneed new leadership.
Let's have a meeting and get to,and figure out who the leaders are.

(58:56):
This is a lot, a little bitlike what, what, uh, Israel did.
Yeah, I was just thinking this.
Yeah.
So, so, so then we watch them.
We've got an unmannedaerial system watching them.
They go into an abandonedschool for the meeting.
So we put a light laser guided bombfrom an F 16 into that building, right?
But it was a dud, right?
Unusual, but you know what happens isall of their security detail guys run

(59:19):
into the building collapse into thisThe second bomb was not a dud and so
now we killed all the guys who weretrying to reestablish their chain of
command and So their leadership wasfragmented and that's when we attacked
and the night that we attacked We hadwe were gonna use everything we wanted
to use every every Weapon system in ourarsenal, you know, not just for style

(59:41):
points, but for the psychological effect.
We fired GMLRS missiles, first onesever in combat from Sinjar first from
Sinjar into the headquarters building.
We knew we had identifiedas a headquarters building
for Al Qaeda in the town.
It's at night.
They came like black darts out ofthe sky, drop that building, you
know, with the precision munition.

(01:00:02):
And that kicked off.
Apaches, the laser guided bombs, andthen we had to raid even our air defense
troop with, you know, with our, youknow, with our Avenger systems, with
the quad 50 calibers and everything.
We're all pumping into anything thatlooked like a defensive position.
Our tanks that are coming up through,like, a cemetery on the southern

(01:00:23):
part of the Sarai district, they'reexpending, like, you know, basic
loads of ammo, you know, tank main gunrounds into the, into the, uh, where
the enemy defensive positions were.
And then we're hitting them indepth, uh, with all sorts of
other, you know, capabilities.
We use the Miklik.
The Miklik is the armoredline charge you fire.
Because we knew that there were like80 or so, maybe 90 IEDs on this road.

(01:00:46):
So we cleared the road with aMiklik, you know, we used everything.
I mean, and again, not just to getstyle points, but on the, from the
enemy perspective, all hell was,all hell was coming down on them.
Our Iraqi division commander,General Khorshid, really great guy.
He was, he was a short guy,hated to wear a helmet because
he looked silly in a helmet.
He looked like the Flintstonescharacter Kazoo, you know, Kazoo,

(01:01:08):
like the guy from Outer Space.
So, so, so I, but I madehim wear a helmet, man.
And we're walking out at the16th century Ottoman castle.
that allows you to look downinto, uh, uh, into the city.
We also had a SEAL team with us.
Uh, we had Iraqi specialoperations forces.
We had, uh, an Iraqi, uh, brigade,uh, special operations brigade.
We also had our Iraqi division,as I mentioned, with these

(01:01:31):
battalions tasks organized.
So of course, she's walking with me.
I gave him a PBS 14, which is amonocular night vision device.
And he's watching as.
30 millimeter casings fromApaches are raining down on us.
The MLRS is hitting, everybody'sopening up, tanks, Bradleys, as
I mentioned, Quad 50s, right?
The Miklik's going off.
And so then we get into the SEAL,uh, position and we put our long

(01:01:54):
range, uh, acoustic device up andwe're blasting heavy metal music.
Down into the, uh, to the dense urban areain Sarai and, and, cause of course, he
looks at me, he goes, he goes, I'm gladI'm on your side this time, this time.
Cause he's fought in the Gulf.
Oh my gosh.
So what a story.
So, so this, like there was reallyno, there was only one reporter there.

(01:02:18):
Yeah.
This is the other thing that's good.
And, and so, you know, whenwe unleashed this on them.
Uh, you know, uh, also in theUnited States, uh, Katrina was
happening, Hurricane Katrina.
So there was really nofocus on what we're doing.
We had evacuated the city.
So we're bringing, we were able touse this firepower without really
the fear of, of harming innocence.

(01:02:39):
Yeah.
Uh, and then when, when wedestroyed Al Qaeda, uh, the, the
city just came back to life, man.
And we had everything wired for that.
You know, we had, we hadthe power lines ready to go.
We had all the, everything was alreadypre contracted, restore the police force.
You know, we had the training linedup, the screening for it, you know,

(01:02:59):
the, the, I mean, refurbishingthe gardens and the schools.
We had the, the school booksand the teachers aligned, right?
Life had been choked out ofthe city for over a year.
So the people just saw, just come back,you know, and it was a beautiful thing.
It really was, you know, and ourtroopers did a fantastic job.
I mean, what a combined arms effort.
One thing, just as we,as we kind of wrap here.

(01:03:23):
Obviously you are a, a masterof history, a student of it.
You've best selling author lookingat where we are today in America.
Is there any historical referenceyou think people should be looking
at given where we sit right now?
You know, I'll tell you, I thinkalways you can learn from history.
And I'm thinking abouta couple of examples.
You know, I think the pre World War Iperiod, which should be of great concern.

(01:03:46):
There's a great essay by a greathistorian named Margaret Macmillan,
um, who wrote a book about, you know,how to be careful about not misusing
history, uh, uh, called Dangerous Games.
But she wrote a fantasticessay back in 2014.
And Unquiet 2014 was like 1914.
It's called The Rhyme of Historyand it's on the Brookings website.

(01:04:08):
I highly recommend it.
And there's a book called UnquietFrontier that was co authored by
Jakob Griegel and Wes Mitchell.
I reviewed it in the Wall StreetJournal before I met the authors.
Now I know the authorsand they're good friends.
But What, what Jakob does and what Westdoes is they reasoned by historical
analogy in a very effective way andessentially they took kind of the

(01:04:30):
geostrategic perspective of some ofthe great, you know, geopolitical
theorists, Mackinder, for example,uh, And, and talked about how we're
at risk of the Eurasian landmass,the world island, in the words of
Mackinder, is becoming dominated by arevanchist, revisionist power hostile
to us, and that's a dangerous situation.
And so they talk about strengtheningalliances on what they call the Rimland,

(01:04:53):
what Mackinder called the Rimland, right?
Uh, and, and the importance ofstrengthening our deterrence
at this critical time with verycapable forward position forces,
strengthening our alliances.
It's a fantastic book.
But I mean, it's the way I thinkabout the world is through historical
analogy, recognizing the limits.
History can help youask the right questions.
It can help you avoid kind of thesame mistakes, you know, that you,

(01:05:15):
you, people have made in the past.
Um, and you know, I think it can,it can help you maybe identify
opportunities that you're missing, right?
Yeah.
You know, in combat, I'lltell you, I mean, it's all
about seizing the initiative.
You know, we talked about twovery different wars, but what
I always had in my mind is, Howdo you kick the enemy's ass?
Yeah.

(01:05:36):
How do you, how do you, how do you posethe enemy with so many dilemmas that
they're just worried more about theirsurvival than what they can do to you?
How do you seize, retain,exploit the initiative, right?
And if you always think that wayopportunistically, that carries
over, I think also, to some of thesegeostrategic competitions short of war.
What are the sources of enemystrength and how do you isolate

(01:05:57):
them from sources of strength?
What are the enemies, your adversaries,your rivals weaknesses and how
do you exploit those weaknesses?
It's thinking competitively like I guessthe, you know, as I was doing on the, on
the, the soccer field or whatever, theFrisbee football field with Tim Guthier.
Overwhelmed.
Um, the other thing I was struck, uh,in the book, all these fascinating

(01:06:20):
people you sit down and have adinner with or a lunch with when
you're a national security advisor,certainly in your time in uniform.
Is there one, one person that wasjust like, this was a very memorable.
Oh yeah.
A lot of them, you know, certainly some ofthe world leaders, you know, I met with,
I had Mohammed bin Salman over for dinnerat the house, you know, or King Abdullah

(01:06:42):
or, you know, there's, uh, my counterpartswere fantastic internationally, but you
know, Henry Kissinger was, I mean, hebecame a friend, you know, and you know,
the guy was very witty, very witty.
I also tell the story, I tell astory in the book, this moving
experience I had with him.
So my, my books had just gottendelivered to the office, right?
He had visited before, but my, my,my office collection was not there.

(01:07:05):
And I had selected the booksI thought would be relevant.
And of course, Kissinger's books, allof them, but I pulled down the White
House years, you know, and which is hismemoir of his time as national security
advisor and the secretary of state.
And, uh, and so I, I, uh, I openit up and ask him to inscribe it.
And what I see is an inscription frommy mom who gave me the book in 1991.
And then it dawned on me that thatday that I was meeting with Kissinger

(01:07:27):
was the anniversary of my mom's death.
And so I had this opportunity.
To tell him about my mom, you know,and then he told me about his mother
and how she was, you know, so strongand helping them flee in advance of the
Holocaust and get to, to get to America.
And so I had this moment, this kindof moment that was very moving, but
he also gave me really good adviceacross the, you know, the time, or even

(01:07:50):
retrospectively, when I was writingthe book, I did a zoom with him.
This is shortly before he passed away.
And I said, Hey, uh, yeah, Henry,what, what advice do you have for me?
You know, and, and hegoes, don't do what I did.
Don't try to write about everything,you know, write about experiences that
illuminate your experience, bring readersinto the white house with you, and then,
and then, uh, decide what themes you wantto, you want to, you want to, uh, address.

(01:08:13):
And I said, you know.
Henry, when we met and I mentioned thetime we had this conversation, I tell the
story in the book, you know, I don't tellthis part of the story in the book, but,
um, you know, I said, I had this decisionto make, you know, do I play the political
games, you know, and then fighting or do Ijust do my job, you know, and, and I said,
I just figured I was just going to do myjob when I was used up, I'd be used up.

(01:08:33):
And I was at peace with that.
He goes, you made the right choice.
They would have eaten you alive.
I just can't, I can't do it.
Like I can't figure out how to ingratiatemyself to a boss or how to play these,
you know, you know, the politics gamesor the, you know, the infighting,
the power politics of Washington.
But he had a great sense of humor.
I mean, you know, he told me.

(01:08:55):
He said, remember, he goes, uh, aboutthe relationship I was talking about,
I had a difficult relationship with theSecretary of State, you know, and I,
I didn't bag on the Secretary of Statewhen I talked to him, but I, you know,
I said, how can I make this better?
He goes, he said, never hasthe relationship between the
National Security Advisor and theSecretary of State been better.
Then when I held both positions,I wonder if you'd been waiting

(01:09:16):
to say that for a long time.
No, he's a guy.
He's a guy.
He lived life to the fullest.
I called him on New Year's dayin 2018, just to say, thank you.
You know, Hey, happy new year.
Thank you for the supportyou've given me over the months.
And he said, I have an Oscar de la rentas.
mansion in, in, uh, you know, somewhere inthe Caribbean, somewhere in the Caribbean.

(01:09:37):
Um, it is magnificent as one does.
And he's like, he's like 98 years old, youknow, so, so he was a fantastic person.
Um, and, uh, and so many people Igot to, it's a, you're, you're, and
I hope the theme through the book isit was a privilege to do that job.
You know, it's clear and it's aprivilege to serve right in any capacity.

(01:09:57):
And, uh, and so, and anyway, I, Ionly lasted 13 months and I explained
that why that happened in the book,but the book is largely a story of
a difficult environment, but tryingto transcend those difficulties
and to get some good work done forthe country and for the president,
you know, So it, it, it comes true.
There's two questions I askeverybody, sir, right at the end here.
One is, is there anything you carriedwith you when you were deployed

(01:10:20):
that had sentimental value, goodluck, charm, something somebody gave
you that you just wanted on you?
Yeah, right.
So, you know, I, I would always carry,you know, things that my, you know,
my family gave me, you know, St.
Christopher Metals, that kinda stuff.
But, you know, I carried books with.
You know, I mentioned Tolstoy's shortstories, like the tree felling or the
wood felling or best of all sketches.
Right.
And so I would, I would read, you know,um, and, and, uh, and that I think

(01:10:43):
takes you away from, you know, from,but also helps you contemplate maybe,
um, you know, what's ahead of you andhow to be a more effective leader.
So, so the books I took with me,one of the books I took with me
was, uh, was combat commander.
Uh, which was general Ernest Harman'smemoir, who actually wrote kind of the
Rosetta Stone of desert combat calledCombat Notes on Combat Actions in Tunisia

(01:11:06):
and North Africa, uh, which I based ourbattle drills, a lot of what we did.
So, um, that book got destroyed.
Somebody ransacked somebody or oneof our mill vans or, you know, the
storage containers because I didn'ttake it with me on the attack into Iraq.
But my dear friend, Louis Sorely, uh,Bob Sorely, who's a fantastic historian,

(01:11:27):
was a great military professional.
Um, he, uh, he, he found anothercopy for me, another first
edition and sent it to me later.
Um, but you know, books, booksare, you know, were my friends.
Always with you.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I tell the story in the book, inthe book Battlegrounds, I tell the story
of when I first go to, to get to, youknow, So to go to, uh, to Washington

(01:11:48):
to be a national security advisor, myfuture son in law was, was there, uh,
cause he was on his way back to FortBenning, uh, from some, uh, you know,
I think his, I think his bachelor'sparty is coming back from Connecticut
down his way and I'm pulling books down.
He's like, why are you takingall these books with you?
And so I have a discussion in thebook Battlegrounds about how history.
Can help you understand yourresponsibilities and think clearly about

(01:12:09):
how maybe how you can discharge thosethose responsibilities effectively.
What last one is looking back 34 yearsof a lot, a lot of sacrifice time
away leading troops and difficultsituations that we didn't even get
into looking back on those times.
Would you do it again?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And you know, I miss it, man.
I mean, I, you know, obviously, you know,as you know, combat is not without cost.

(01:12:34):
And the hardest part is seeing yourfellow soldiers, people who you love,
members of your family, really yourown family, uh, killed or, or wounded.
We lost 63 troopers in ourregiment in Iraq from 2005 to 2006.
I think about them a lot.
You know, I think about thosewho are on my security detail,
you know, quite, quite a bit.
You know, a private knotwas our first casualty.

(01:12:55):
I wrote an essay about him in the FreePress on Memorial Day a couple years ago.
It was hard to write it.
It was hard.
Oh, I can't even imagine.
Somebody asked me to do it.
Barry Weiss, you know, who'sthe editor and founder of Free
Press, asked me to write an essay.
So I did it.
And I'll tell you, you know, it made merealize that sometimes Suppressing your
emotions, maybe it might not be healthy,but sometimes the best way to cope with

(01:13:16):
it, you know, and so you think about that.
You think about the hardship of service,but I think what people don't get
and what I try to explain to peopleare the rewards of service, right?
Being part of a team in which the manor woman next to you is willing to
give everything, including their ownlives for you and good army units,
your good military units, they takeon the quality of a family, right?
And you're bound together by mutualtrust, respect, and affection.

(01:13:40):
Your sense of honor, not wanting tolet each other down, your willingness
to sacrifice for one another.
Military service is tremendouslyrewarding, and I think our popular
culture kind of cheapens andcoarsens the experience, you know,
it doesn't allow people to understandthose rewards a lot of times.
Sir, I can't thank youenough for the time.
Really, really appreciate it.
Oh, Ryan, hey, thanks for theprivilege of being with you, and

(01:14:02):
thanks for this awesome program.
I mean, I hope you get more andmore listeners, and it helps, you
know, what you're doing is fantasticfor a number of reasons, but what
you're doing is you are helpingAmerican citizens understand better.
Those who fight and serve in their name.
Yes.
You know, and I think that'sa super important mission.
Thank you, sir. I hope youenjoyed that combat story.

(01:14:24):
As you could probablytell, I definitely did.
Um, that was one I had been lookingforward to for a long time and never
imagined we'd have a chance to sitdown with someone like, uh, Like HR.
Um, I was also just beyondimpressed with how well read he was.
Um, and in particular, somethingI mentioned afterwards to a family

(01:14:44):
member was he remembered the name,the names of all of these people
he served with, who they were, fullnames, ranks, where they were from.
And I think that's like reallythe mark of a great leader.
Um, you know, he genuinely caredabout all these guys and that is

(01:15:05):
something you don't see every day.
And that really came through.
And the fact that he just reads so muchand has such a great grasp of history.
New York Times best selling authorHe's a professor at Stanford.
I can't even imagine being in his class.
I hope that the kids who are thereAppreciate what they're getting with that.

(01:15:25):
I guess that's why you go toStanford Hey, I just wanted to say
thanks for everybody for listening.
Of course, check out our newslettercombat story comm slash newsletter one
interesting comment we had from mark sretired and Uh, on our, uh, sit down with
Glenn Korn digging into Lebanon, Israel,Middle East, uh, you know, a little bit of
a different Take on combat story to justgive people a taste of what's going on.

(01:15:48):
But he says another another goodepisode Thanks, Ryan and Glenn This
satisfies my combat story appetite.
Keep them coming And we'regoing to do a few more of those.
I find them very interesting and Glenn issomebody who reminds me a lot of HR just
very senior ranks Very down to earth,still very much tied into what's going on.

(01:16:08):
So I hope you all enjoyed it.
Thanks so much for, uh, forlistening this far, if you've made
it this far and of course, whereveryou are in the world, stay safe.

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Killing 3 Enemy Tanks in 10 Seconds | HR McMaster | Army General & National Security Advisor | Battle of 73 Easting

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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;}Killing 3 Enemy Tanks in 10 Seconds | HR McMaster | Army General & National Security Advisor | Battle of 73 Easting