Randall Parkes - Warrior to Mentor - Combat Story

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
But what really turned the tidewas what were those relationships?
And I think to an extentthat's similar to Ramadi.
I mean, they killed a tonof bad guys in Ramadi.
I'm not diminishing the importance ofthat, but what really helped to turn
it was the fact that the actual tribesthemselves started to fight Al-Qaeda.
Welcome to Combat Story.
I'm Ryan Fut, and I serve WarzZone tours as an Army attack

(00:23):
helicopter pilot and CIA officer.
Over a 15 year career, I'm fascinated bythe experiences of the elite and 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 a combat story.
First, I'm joined bymy new co-host, AJ uti.

(00:43):
As we sit down with Will Barden Warper,former 1 3 6 Infantry Officer and Civil
Affairs Princeton grad and acclaimedauthor, Wil shares his journey from a
finance career in Manhattan, inspiredto serve after nine 11 in the example
set by Pat Tillman, who we all love.
To Boots on the groundin the SUNY Triangle.
During a 13 month deployment in 2006, heopens up about the realities more, the

(01:07):
loss of close friends, and the challengesof running civil affairs in Iraq.
After the Army will became a journalistand two time author, his first book, the
Prisoner in his Palace, offers a uniqueperspective of the American soldiers
tasked with guardian Saddam Hussein.
His latest book Home Stand explores theheart of Small town America through the
loss of a minor league baseball team.

(01:28):
It really gets to some of the toxicity andchallenges we face as a society and some
of the things that can bring us together.
Will's work has appeared in theNew York Times, the Washington
Post, Harpers, and more.
I first met Will through PatFagan, a very close friend of mine
from ROTC, and we touch on thatconnection in our conversation.

(01:49):
I'm also excited towelcome AJ as a co-host.
Many of you will remember himfrom his standout guest episodes.
Where his firsthand experiencein Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
hotspots brought unique insightand energy to our conversations.
Having AJ alongside me as a regularpresence will add even more depth
and connection to the stories weshare, especially given his elite

(02:11):
background as a marine sniper reconoperator and some of the, uh, amazing
missions and challenges he faced onthe ground while I was in the air.
With that, please enjoy thisconversation with Will Barden Weer.
Will, thanks so much for taking thetime to share your story with us today.
Thank you for having me.
So, just for people who are are tuningin, you'll notice that there are

(02:34):
three of us this time, which is rare.
Usually it's Ryan and some other guest.
This time we've got Ryan and AJChui, who many of you'll recall
from a couple episodes that wehad previously, uh, retired.
Maureen Sniper Recon, very accomplished.
Uh, you can go back andcheck out his interviews.
Of course, AJ is our co-host today, sowe thought we'd bring a ground pounder

(02:56):
in as we, as we interview Will aswell, instead of just me as as a pilot.
And AJ's gonna be on theshow more and more often.
So that's just for people,people's awareness.
And will, you and I were connectedthrough an individual that
we both know named Pat Fagan.
Pat is a dear friend of mine.
I went to college with him.
We did ROTC together.
I went into aviation.
He went into armor and U2somehow connected later.

(03:19):
And I was just wondering for.
For my own insights and just forthe audience, how did you know Pat?
So we met through another, you know,it's kind of how these, uh, meetings
always occur in, in military circles.
But I had an Army friendwho was friends with Pat.
Uh, and so that was how theintroduction was made and, uh, we
ended up hanging out a little bit.

(03:39):
At the time I was livingin Arlington, Virginia.
Um, I think we may have goneto an army Navy game together.
I can't remember.
Uh, but no, wonderful guy and I, Istay in touch with him to this day.
Love hearing that.
Alright.
Um, he did mention and we, we sawonline from, from our homework that
we tried to do, you end up going toPrinceton and it does not seem like

(03:59):
the path is to go into the military.
So can you give us a little bit offlavor about what it was like growing
up, wherever you grew up, and whatyour path was supposed to be before
making the change to the military?
So I, yeah, I grew up in the DC area.
I went to a Jesuit, uh, Catholichigh school down near the
capital Gonzaga High School.
Um, uh, was always, uh, real into sports.

(04:23):
Uh, played, you know, almost everysport growing up in high school.
I, I specialized in baseball.
Um, ended up, uh, graduatedin, you know, did pretty well
academically and athletically.
Um, was lucky enough toget admitted to Princeton.
And so I went there.
Uh, played baseball for two years.
Pretty undistinguished collegiate career.
Um, um, you know, I was agood high school player.

(04:44):
I was a, you know, below averagecollege player I would say.
But it was fun.
I mean, it was a greatopportunity to have.
Um, and then the education side of,of it obviously was, was wonderful.
It was a great four years.
Um.
And I think, you know, like somepeople, at least at the end of
my four years, I didn't knowwhat I wanted to do with myself.
Um, I had this wonderful education, butI didn't really know, um, you know, what

(05:06):
direction it was gonna lead me towards.
Um, and so I actually lived out inVail, Colorado for a year and, and
lived as a ski bum, worked constructionon the mountain in the summer.
Worked at a bar as a, you know, abouncer essentially, um, at night.
Uh, and then I scanned ski passesto get my, my free season pass,
uh, which was a great year.
Uh, it was fun, but at the endof the year, my parents were

(05:27):
like, you know, we didn't help.
You know, support this collegeeducation for you to be a bouncer,
uh, for the rest of your life.
Uh, so let's think about what's next.
Um, and I still didn't really havea, a great answer to that, but, um,
like a lot of Princeton graduates,um, you know, New York City kind of
backend and, and the financial world,uh, this was the late nineties.
I graduated in 98, and so themarket was, was boom booming.

(05:51):
You know, it was actually, you know, Idon't know if I'd even be competitive
for a job there now, but at the time,um, I was, so, I got a job in, uh,
equity capital markets in New York.
Um, I'll ask you to pausefor just a second Will.
'cause I don't want tobypass the number one.
Uh, I like how you joked aboutplaying baseball at Princeton.
I feel like I have to ask AJ about hisillustrious baseball career real quick

(06:13):
that he may have referenced previously.
That's hurtful, Ryan.
Thank you very much.
I didn't know this wasgoing to be a roast.
Um, but, uh, uh, yeah, I playedbaseball in high school as well.
I have a son of immigrants.
Uh, and so that was likethe path to America was like
running and playing baseball.
That's like the most American thing ever.
So I grew up on the diamond.
Uh, I, however, uh, tried out for,so I was born in September and

(06:37):
so basically what that meant waswhen I went to high school, I was
a year younger than everybody, butbased on how I went, so I wasn't
developing as fast as my counterparts.
Mm-hmm.
That's like my son.
Yep.
Exactly right.
So it's kind of, you know, as muchas it was like my identity, I tried
out for the baseball team and in highschool and did not make the cut, and
so was cut from the, I was a catcher.

(06:59):
That was my whole identity.
And so as a freshman inhigh school, I got roasted.
They're like, sorry kid, you can't makea throw a second as fast as you need to.
So we're gonna go with somebody else.
And, and I should have pointed out,obviously, will, I mean, you've, you've
written, uh, at least two books that,that I know, um, home stand being the
most recent, which is all about baseball.
Right.

(07:19):
And, and that Heart and Soul ofAmerica, which as I've heard AJ's
story, there is a lot of that in there.
And I also need to add, since Patwill probably listen to this, that
I also played a sport in collegeand saw almost no playing time.
So I, I would be remiss if I did not alsosay that I had less than an illustrious
career playing football at Georgetown.
Gotcha.
And we're all Jesuit, uh,educated, so we got that in common.

(07:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, a will, but let me ask you, as youwere, you know, you kind of described
grown up sports, Princeton, was there anymilitary affiliation in the family at all?
Any discussion of that, evenon your radar prior to nine 11?
Uh, not really.
No.
Um, it, I mean, both of mygrandfathers served in World War

(08:02):
ii, um, but, uh, and then I hadan uncle that served in Vietnam.
Um, but, but no, um, you know, myparents had not served, um, you
know, no siblings had, had served.
Uh, my brother went onto servein the Coast Guard, but that was
after me, not, not before me.
Um, so, no.
And that, that, I mean, that actuallykind of leads to answering, you know,

(08:22):
your previous question, which was, youknow, how did this really come about?
And, um, so yeah, I found myself in NewYork, um, late nineties, uh, was having
a gr I mean, I, I really enjoyed it.
I, a lot of my friends were there.
It was a good time to live in the city.
And I was there on nine 11.
Um.
Uh, working in Midtown.
Uh, and, um, so I was not in any,you know, immediate danger, but

(08:43):
we were in like, I think one ofthe tallest buildings in the city.
And so they did actually evacuatethe building because at the time
they didn't know how many other,you know, aircraft may be, uh,
inbound, you know, for other targets.
And, um, uh, so, you know, andthen I lived there of course
in the, you know, the immediateaftermath of, of those attacks.
And, um, uh, I think what thatreally did though was just sort

(09:05):
of opened my eyes up to, to theconcept of service, broadly speaking.
Uh, it wasn't so much that I. Feltthis burning desire to go fight or,
you know, to kind of, you know, getvengeance on the people who had done this.
It was more, I, I distinctly remember justkind of being really inspired by the, uh,
NYPD, the FDNY, um, you know, you couldlook out at the, um, uh, what is it, the

(09:28):
West Side Highway or FDR Drive and, youknow, you'd see just the steady stream of,
you know, firetrucks and first respondersfor days after the attack coming from,
you know, volunteer fire departmentsall across the country, really.
Um, and.
You know, and, and then of, youknow, you could see what they
were doing down there every day.
And all of a sudden the, thefinancial, you know, spreadsheets

(09:50):
that I was working on just didn'tseem particularly important.
So that was really what was thecatalyst for, for, for quitting.
I quit my job a week later, you know,like probably September 20th, maybe, you
know, somewhere in that neighborhood.
But I still didn't reallyknow what I wanted to do.
I just had this idea that I wanna serve.
I didn't know how, uh, so I waslooking at everything, you know,
F-B-I-C-I-A, Marines, army PoliceDepartment, um, fi, you know, everything.

(10:14):
And then, um, you know, for avariety of reasons I ended up
settling on, uh, on, on the Army.
I have a quick question for you.
So I was in New York last week.
I'm not a New York native.
Um, and so.
When nine 11 happened, you know, itwas like six in the morning for me and
I was 17 years old at the time, so Ididn't have a lot of the correlation.
I took an opportunity last week to goto the, uh, nine 11, you know, memorial

(10:39):
and the museum itself, and it wasunsettling to say the least, because
I think what it gave me was a littlesnapshot, a very small snapshot into
what your world would've been likewhen those planes, you know, came in.
Can you tell me a little bit moreabout I, that just seemed like
there was confusion and chaos.

(11:00):
Um, how did you turn from that, youknow, the emotions that you were
feeling and then try to direct theminto eventually joining the army?
Yeah, I mean, it, it, I think everyoneremembers kind of where they were
at the time and, and you know, mystory was one of those, um, you know,
I was, we were working in kind oflike a trade-in floor environment.

(11:21):
Um, so it was, think of like officecubicles, but very open with okay
with, you know, TV screens, youknow, showing the, the markets,
you know, kind of a above us.
And, and, you know, CNBC wasalways on, and so like a lot of
people, you know, we CNBC showed.
Cut to this one plane hidden.
And I think like a lot of people,we all kind of dismissed it.
Oh, you know, that must be a smallCessna that got off course and you

(11:44):
know, some kind of tragic accident.
And then the next one hit and everyonerecognized, oh my gosh, you know,
something much bigger is happening.
And we watched, you know, as that washappening and we had, we didn't have
an office in the building, but I thinkwe all knew people that worked there.
We had one or two people from ourcompany that were down there, you
know, in meetings that morning.
So, I mean, there was a lot of sortof panicked phone calls to either

(12:05):
colleagues or friends or family members.
Um, you know, who, whowere in the immediate area.
My roommates were working at the world.
One of them was working at the WorldFinancial Center right across the
street, and he left work that morning.
But I mean, he saw people, you know,jump in and crash into the ground.
Oh wow.
I mean, just, you know, seeing thingsthat I'm sure he'll, he'll never forget.
Um.

(12:27):
I remember, uh, I was dating a girl at thetime who lived in Greenwich, Connecticut.
And, uh, I didn't haveany military training.
I didn't really think, it neveroccurred to me to like, go down there.
I didn't really see whatI could do to, to help.
Um, so I'm like, I'm just, you know,and I knew we weren't gonna be going to
work for the next few days, so I said Ishould just, you know, get outta here.

(12:47):
Um, but I didn't wanna go to Grand Centralbecause, you know, I thought, well,
if there is another target, that wouldprobably be target number two, you know?
Um, right.
So you had your militarykind of thinking already.
Yeah, so I was thinking, yeah, I was, Iwas trying to think through the situation
and, you know, not just walk into,you know, another ambush, so to speak.
Um, so it occurred to me, youknow, I can catch the Metro North
Train to Connecticut in Harlem.

(13:08):
I said, Harlem's probably notat the top of anyone's list as
a, you know, as an attack place.
So I just walked through Central Park,you know, from, you know, 55th Street
up to, what was it, hundred 25th Streetto catch the train to go see her.
And I, I, I was abouthalfway through that walk.
This was pre, you know, iPhone era.
So you're kind of divorced from what'shappening at, at, you know, you don't

(13:29):
know what's happening in real time.
Uh, cell phones, I think, you know,were not really getting much reception.
Um, and, and I was about halfwaythrough the park when, um, I
think the towers actually, youknow, fell, or one of them fell.
I can't remember the exact sequence,but I remember people were kind
of converging and, and lookingsouth, you know, towards downtown.
And it looked like, you know,like a nuclear bomb had gone off.

(13:51):
I mean, it was smoke from oneside of the island to the other.
Um, and at the time wedidn't have an iPhone.
I mean, for all we knew abomb actually had gone off.
Right.
You know what I mean?
We didn't know what, what that was thatcould have created, you know, such an, an
incredible explosion to, to produce smokethat covered the entire horizon basically.
Um, anyway, but I, I, I endedup catching the train and, and

(14:13):
made my way to Connecticut.
But um, but yeah, it was a pretty,pretty powerful experience.
That was one thing that drew outwhen I was in the museum itself, was.
You know, 'cause I would, youknow, I remember seeing it on tv
and then you are seeing now videofootage of the towers collapsing.
Mm-hmm.
My question that I kind of recirculatedwas, what did that sound like?
Like was there, like, I know whatan explosion sounds like, but I

(14:36):
don't know what that sounds like.
Can you, was, you were a few blocksaway, you said almost 50 blocks away.
Did you hear that from where you were at?
No.
No, we couldn't be.
I mean, we, our office was fif youknow, probably 50 to 70 blocks away.
And then, and then once Iwas walking through the park,
you know, we were miles away.
So no, I couldn't hearanything, uh, from that far.

(14:58):
So Will, this is, this is interestingand we, I think we need to point
out the job that you had in financein New York in the late nineties.
This is like a boom.
Everybody wants to be there.
That is no like luck just landing there.
Um, and probably noteasy to walk away from.
I, I, I would be interested if you couldgive us a ballpark of how much money.

(15:19):
Hit you took going from that jobto, to second lieutenant will.
Um, but in general, like that decisionsounds like you make it pretty quick.
Do you consult anyone?
Is there like somebody in your familyyou go to or is this just, you have made
up your mind and you go, and then whydid you make this great decision to pick
the Army instead of the Marine Corps?

(15:40):
Mm, okay.
Um, so yeah.
So there's a lot there.
Yeah.
As far as the salary, I mean,it, it, it was, yeah, that was.
Young.
So I wasn't like a managing director,but it was still, you know, good.
Um, I mean, there were times in mywriting career where it was still
more than I was making 20 years later.
Right.
So, you know, it kind of makes youquestion your, some of your career

(16:01):
decisions when you're like 20 years laterI'm doing, you know, financially I'm doing
worse than I was one year outta college.
Yeah.
Um, so that gives you some, youknow, perspective on, on the,
the, the salary side of the Yeah.
The, the decision.
Um, but, uh, um, and yeah, soit wasn't an easy decision.
I mean, I, I, I didenjoy what I was doing.
I enjoyed the, the lifestyle.

(16:22):
I didn't love the work, but I kindof loved the, just being in New York
with my friends and, and, and, um, uh.
But like I said, it just, it seemedultimately, you know, not that fulfilling
in light of what was happening.
And then I made the decision quickly,almost kind of consciously because
my concern was that if I wait, youknow, they always say don't make sort
of impulsive emotional decisions.
But at the same time I was convincedthat this kind of was what I needed to

(16:45):
do and I was concerned that if I lettoo much time go by, I'll just kind of
slide back into my life and, and theurgency will pass and I'll never do it.
Yeah.
Um, so I ended up pulling the triggerpretty quickly, um, you know, maybe
too quickly 'cause I didn't reallyhave a plan, so to speak, you
know, other than this kind of justamorphous idea that I wanted to serve.
Um.
And then as far as how the, the Army,actually, I was going to do the Marines.

(17:09):
Um, I, that was, thatultimately became my top pick.
Um, you know how they are.
I mean, they, they're goodwith, with, with, you know, uh,
motivational videos and flyers.
Yeah.
I was, I was right there, you know, Iwas Dragons and yeah, I was all about it.
You know, I was going to the, the Marineoffice, um, you know, for, for, for

(17:30):
pt, you know, test, you know, to getready for the PT test and everything.
Um, but what happened was they, whenwe actually had the packet ready, they
were like, you know what, it's gonnabe like a really long time because no
Marines were getting out because thiswas like what they had been kind of.
If you were in the Marines,this is what you had been
training for, for your career.
And then they had an enormoussurge of, you know, post nine 11

(17:51):
people like me that wanted to join.
Um, and so there was just a backlogand I'd already quit my job.
So I'm like, I can't just sit on thesideline now for, you know, for a year.
Um, and so of course the army, beingthe army, you know, big and uh, you
know, I went down the street to theArmy recruiting office and they're like,
sure, we'll we'll sign you right up.
Um, and so I signed anOCS contract with them.

(18:14):
'cause I, that's the other reasonthe Marines were more appealing
because you can just do straightOCS, get your commission.
You don't have to go to marine basictraining followed by OCS, which is
what you have to do in the Army.
Really?
Which, so it becomes like, you know,essentially six months of basic training
rather than, you know, three months.
'cause you just, you do basictraining and then you kind of do it
all over again on the officer side.

(18:35):
Um, well why the infantry.
Um, well, I mean, the, for punishment, Ithink it's pretty, it's very admirable.
Like you're sitting in Manhattanwhen, when all this goes down and, and
you're like, I'm joining, I'm gonnabe on the pointy end of the spear.
But a lot of guys might not.
Yeah.
I mean, I, well, I think I'm justgenerally competitive and, and, you know,
I, like, I'm attracted to sort of physicalpursuits and, and, and things like that.

(18:59):
So I, I figured if I'm gonnaquit an office job to do the
military, I don't wanna justreplace it with another office job.
And so I wanted to do the sort ofthe most demanding thing that, that
you can do, or that, you know, thatthat was of the options presented
to me, that seemed like the hardest.
And so that's kind ofwhat I gravitated towards.
So as, as you go in, you go infantryagain, it, it feels like you're

(19:23):
making these decisions on your own.
It's not like you'reconsulting anybody per se.
Mm-hmm.
But did you have, um, a particularplace you wanted to end up?
Like, were you just hoping to get intothe fight as quickly as you could?
Was there anything there?
Uh, yeah, I mean, I,I was pretty ignorant.
I mean, my mom was not too excited, youknow, I, I mean, the, I don't think many,

(19:45):
you know, the maternal instinct, you know,they don't wanna watch their son go, you
know, proactively find their way to a war.
Um, because by this point, youknow, we'd, we had already kicked
off operations, you know, I thinkAfghanistan was like October of oh one.
So things were already happening.
Um.
My father was, I think hewas more supportive, um, you
know, generally speaking.

(20:06):
Um, but yeah, I mean, therewas some resistance even
within my own family for sure.
And, and, and I, like, since I didn't haveany family members that were serving, I
didn't really have a lot of resources.
And I mean, certainly there weren't amillion Princeton people I could turn to.
I mean, it was, I was kind of on my own.
I did, um, do the best I could toreach out to anyone I knew that

(20:26):
might know someone who was serving,just to kind of get as much advice
as I could on, on things like,yeah, like what's the difference
between this branch and that branch?
What, what are the differenttraining pipelines?
You know, how should I preparefor that kind of training?
Um, so once I made the decision, I, I,you know, I. Did do the best I could to
educate myself on what I was getting into.
Yeah, there was a real sense of like, I,the way that I would describe it is almost

(20:48):
like a sense of urgency after nine 11.
We didn't know what we were getting into.
We just know that we wanted to get it.
And so kind of like you, it'salmost like caution to the wind.
It's like, how do I get therethe fastest to do my part?
Right.
So to get loan.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So then you go and you, you do, you gothrough, uh, basic first and then OCS and
then I'm assuming some sort of infantryofficer school and then ranger school.

(21:12):
Is that, is that my, isthat the correct pathway?
Yep.
I think that's almost exactly it.
Basic training.
Um.
The biggest challenge there was justcultural, you know, I was a 26-year-old
college graduate and, you know, mostof my peers there were, you know, 18
year olds right outta high school.
So you're older, they're talkingabout Yeah, they're talking about
movies and music and things that,you know, I've never even heard of.

(21:34):
So it almost felt like I waslike, back in high school, like,
you know, and you're immediatelythe old guy, like everyone old.
Sure.
When it's like four yearsof difference or, exactly.
Yeah.
You seem ancient.
Um, but, uh, I mean, physicallyit wasn't super hard.
It was more just the, the, the culturalpart and, and then just the, the.
Uh, like being hazed because you know,your bed has a wrinkle in it or your

(21:57):
boot doesn't, isn't shine properly.
I mean, just all this, that kindof stuff that after living on
your own for 26 years, it, itwas not even remotely enjoyable.
Um, but uh, yeah, so do that forthree months and then, I mean, I'm
not gonna lie, there were definitelyplenty of moments there where I was
like, what have I gotten myself into?
Oh, totally.
This is the worst decision I ever made.

(22:18):
Um, uh, but um, I get down to OCSand then that was just kind of, I
thought, okay, well now, you know,this'll be like a gentleman's course.
This'll be great, you know, and then, youknow, five minutes, five minutes is a tea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then five minutes into that,I'm on the ground doing pushups
and, you know, it's pretty muchbasic training all over again.
Um.
Uh, uh, and the challenge there wasthat you're mixed in with, with career

(22:40):
NCOs who knew all this stuff, you know,and, and so, um, just keeping up with
them was a little bit of a challengejust from like, you know, logistically,
like they kind of knew how the game wasplayed, whereas guys like, you know, me,
didn't, um, so yeah, it was, uh, basicand then OCS and then infantry officer
with the, at the time they called itIOBC, infantry Officer Basic course.
And that's when I finally.

(23:01):
Started to kind of enjoy things becauseI was with, I was actually with a
lot of west, recent West Point gradsbecause just by virtue of the fact I
was going through in July, which isright after they graduate, and, um, just
made some really great friends who, youknow, a lot of them had been athletes
for Army, you know, hockey players,lacrosse players, football players,
basketball players, and just good guys.

(23:22):
Um, uh, you know, kind of closer to mein age and experience than, you know,
the high school kids I had been with.
Um, and uh, and that's when we factually went into the field and
started doing sort of infantry stuff.
You know, it's the first time I actuallyfelt like I was doing what I had signed
up to do as opposed to mopping floorsand making beds and, you know, folding
the traditional like low level military,like, almost like rite of passage stuff.

(23:45):
You're like, there's a war going on.
Why am I walking right?
Yeah.
Why am I stenciling my name, youknow, on my t-shirt and getting
in trouble if you know one thing'sa little outta line or whatever.
So, and, you know, finally we're outin the woods and we're doing land
navigation and, and we're doing patrols.
And, and that's when I finallyfelt, started to feel kind of
at home with, with my decision.
And then you go straight to ranger school?

(24:06):
Yeah.
Ranger and air and Airborne.
Yeah.
So Will, you can't believe everythingpeople tell you, but Pat Fagan said there
might be a story in here about not tying.
Oh boy.
Yeah, you've done your, your homework.
I should have known,given your background.
I should have known.
That's true.
We could be on right now, come up with,but he said we had to ask about this given

(24:31):
your Princeton background that surelyKnots would not have been a problem.
Can like I've never been to ranger school.
Would love to hear the story.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I learnedthat stuff in the Cub Scouts.
I'm really scout.
Well, I've never done, I mean, that,that was my suburban upbringing.
I don't think I'd ever been,you know, camping much less, you
know, done any of this stuff.
Um, so I was alreadybehind the eight ball.
Um, for some reason I was really goodat land navigation despite having, you

(24:53):
know, never spent much time in the woods.
I don't know where I kind ofgot that ability from, but, um.
But, uh, but yeah, with the knots,so, you know, I don't know how
familiar you're with with Rangerschool, but there's three phases.
There's been in phase it's threeweeks, then there's mountain phase
three weeks up in Dahlonega, Georgia.
Then there's, uh, swamp phase, Ithink they call it, or Florida phase

(25:14):
down in Florida for three weeks.
So it's about nine weeks total.
And, um, you know, you need topass different things to advance
from one phase to the next.
Um, the main things are these likesort of combat patrols where, you
know, you'll be assigned a leadershipposition and then a mission, and then
the instructor will evaluate you anddetermine whether you passed or failed
your leadership assignment for that day.

(25:36):
Um, that, that's kind of the mainelement, but then there's all these
other things you need to do as well.
Uh, one of which is, is called knots.
And that's in preparation for themountaineering part of the course.
You know, where you, you,you know, you go, um.
Climb up and repel down MountMountains up in north Georgia.
And so it's pretty important that youcan, you know, do the right knot so that

(25:57):
you're not, you know, so that you don'tjust go plunge into your, to your death
because the thing you know is attachedsomewhere and it, it breaks loose.
Um, and, and I was just unbelievablybad for, you know, I, I, I have,
I'm pretty, um, coordinated, youknow, hand eye coordination and
kind of like big muscle sports,like football, baseball, basketball.
But my fine motor skills arejust unbel, like my, you know,

(26:20):
I just really, really bad.
And so, um, they have 10 knots thatthey teach you and, and it, for
the test, there's like a big rope.
Um, in front of you.
And then, um, you know, you have likethese, these smaller ones and you tie
it to the big one and, and you havetwo minutes, I think, to, to execute
each of these 10 ones that they assign.

(26:40):
And I think you have to getlike eight of 'em, right?
You're allowed to get two of them wrong.
And, um, the, the range of in Structorwill come by and he'll like tap
you on the helmet if it's wrong andyou just take a knee and they keep
track of how many you get wrong.
So, you know, I'll never forget like.
You know, right after the first oneor two, you know, I would just kind
of take a knee instantly and the, theinstructor would come by and he'd say
like, Hey, like Ranger, like you got,you know, another minute 40, you know?

(27:04):
And I, I said, I said, listen, Imean, you could give me an hour.
It doesn't matter.
Like, I'm not doing the double end ofline bowling or whatever the case may be.
I mean, every one of my knots wouldjust come out as a granny knot.
Like, you know, it would just,they'd all look the same at the end.
And like, I just, I almost had like,I guess some kind of like a dyslexia
or, you know, I just couldn't see them.
I couldn't do them.

(27:24):
And so I, I failed.
And Al and like Pat probablytold you, like, that's a test.
Like no one fails.
I mean, very few out of ahundred, maybe like three.
It's like the Sky Letter dude.
It's the Mark Beast.
Um, and so, uh.
I mean, people fail ruck marches,they failed timed runs, they failed PT
things, but no one fails, not except me.

(27:45):
Um, so I ended up recycling,which is miserable.
That means you just gottastay for the next class.
Um, and that happened to correspondwith the best Ranger competition.
So the whole thing shutsdown for like a month.
To host this competition.
So you're just living there like in limbo,doing odd jobs, painting, pulling weeds,
you know, just whatever they can providingsupport for Best Ranger or something like.

(28:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And like serving your classmates mealswho are moving forward to the next phase.
So I knew that my buddies were gonna belike, graduated before I even began, like
restarted the class that I was already in.
Um, it's like the boing man.
The rabbit comes out of the hole,goes around the tree, it comes
back into the hole, you know?
Oh God.
Yeah.
I'm having flashbacks now.

(28:27):
Yeah.
But those, and AJ I'm sure you got astory here, but like those cor when
you're at an army or military courseand you've got this, like you have
to pass or you don't advance like.
Those things psychologically are brutal.
Like, I have definitely been there.
Like, Hey, this is yourlast chance on whatever.
Yeah, good luck.
Like this.
It's like m right?
They like, we get oneshot and one opportunity.

(28:48):
Yeah.
And it's like if you puntthis, like your world is gonna
start changing pretty rapidly.
Um, yeah.
And that I've, I've had that discussionwith people too, is the, even a lot
of the things that like on paper don'tlook difficult, even like the PT test.
I mean, who can't do, what is itlike 49 or 50 pushups or, you know
what, like, but if you start doingit in the middle of the night, you

(29:09):
haven't slept, you're stressed out.
You have, you know, an riwho might be, you know, the
gradients kind of subjective.
Um, and you and that recognition,Ryan, that you point out like
this idea that if I fail, like I'mtotally screwed, you know, and, and
this is a big deal professionally.
All of that can start to.
Play mind games with you where Yes.
Where something that, that wouldbe like, you can go to any CrossFit

(29:32):
gym in America and someone can knockout 49 pushups, but if you put them
in that environment, it does get tobecome a little bit more challenging.
Very much so.
Even sometimes what I noticed wassometimes the, uh, different branches
have different standards, so mm-hmm.
When I went to jump school, uh, at FortBenning, I went with my assistant team
leader from third Recon in Okinawa, Japan.

(29:53):
The Marine Corps at the time did crunches,and the Army did sit-ups and then
pushups, I think to get into airborne.
That's not part of our PT test.
And so when we, like, the language didn'tcompute, so when we went to Fort Benning,
were already Marines, which is one thingto show up at Fort Bening is a jarhead.
Right.
And so the r like the, uh,the jumper masters right.
Uh, um, are, are grading their sits, mya TL fails his initial entrance exam for.

(30:20):
Because again, we cooland she gets one retest.
And if, again, being areconnaissance Marine and
failing the situps, you're done.
Right.
You know, at at jump school, atArmy Jump School, like, uh, and
then it's unfunded back to the unit.
Right.
You know, bad, you know, uh, walk ofshame all the way back to Okinawa.
And I remember looking at him and beinglike, Joe, you got one chance right now.

(30:40):
It's like, you betterfind it wherever it's at.
You better find 60 sit ups.
Yeah.
There's still, I mean, there's a lot of,and that gets you freaked out because
there's still, you'll see, you know,from the previous class, like, you'll see
someone fail and you're like, oh my God.
Like that guy was, you know, anall American, you know, uh, soccer
player at West Point, and he failedthe pt. Like, how could that happen?
And then you'll, you'll realize thatlike his pushups, you know, they weren't

(31:03):
counting his pushups because he wasn'textending properly, you know, and then
by the time he got it right, he waslike close to muscle failure and, but
you're like, this guy's like a PT stud.
You know, if he fails it,that doesn't bode well for me.
You know?
Um, so yeah, there's, there's alwaysthose, those stories, those outliers of
like, you know, how did this guy not pass?
Because, you know, he'sreally good at this.

(31:23):
Just a quick word for myself before wedive back into this combat story, many of
you know, are previous interviews with AJPesi, Marine sniper Recon operator, and
the man who tracked, hunted and ultimatelyeliminated Iraq's Deadliest Sniper Juba.
This was an enemy responsible fordeaths of over a hundred Americans,
some say up to 140, many of which.

(31:44):
Were filmed and posted online.
Aj, who was just a very humble, very youngMarine at the time, took that fateful
shot, put an end to so much pain for somany families, never took credit for it.
And over the years, that story'schanged and been retold countless times.
I'm incredibly proud to let you knowthat you can get your hands on AJ's

(32:05):
new book, dark Horse Harnessing HiddenPotential In War In Life, a book I asked
him to write after I interviewed himimmediately after I interviewed him.
It's part memoir, part roadmap, a look atthe lessons AJ learned through combat and
throughout his career, and how they canhelp all of us find strength and purpose.
If you enjoy Combat story, you'regoing to love this book to get a copy,

(32:27):
head to combat story.com/darkhorse.
That's combat story.com/darkhorse.
It's packed with details and insights thatwe never got to cover in our interviews,
and I know you're going to love it.
Now, back to this combat story.
Will, let me ask you this, andwe will jump into, uh, Iraq

(32:47):
here in a moment, but mm-hmm.
Um, later on, I in your career, you endup going back to ranger school, right?
To mm-hmm.
You've been given access to writean article, I believe on it, um,
which is f fantastic by the way.
I can only imagine.
Yeah, aj, like it was one,you're very, um, very honest
and almost self-deprecating.
Like you do talk about failingthe knots, which I think is,

(33:08):
it's funny, it's not somethingwe do as, um, as a lot of people.
Is it openly admit.
Failures, right?
Because we're, we're kind of jabbingyou about it here, but I think
that there's a lot of strengthin the article that you wrote.
This is just me being a fanboy, right?
But like in strength in the articlethat you wrote and saying like,
yeah, I totally screwed this up.
I think to me, if I am 18-year-old ajand I read a story about how somebody

(33:32):
struggled with something as, youknow, um, nominal as the knots, right?
You're like, okay.
Like, it almost gives me permissionto be like, okay, like other people
can tarnish their armor at timesand still come out pretty strong.
Um, I'm super interested into whereyou went and like how the juxtaposition
between coming back, what, 20 years later,um, and watching young men and women go

(33:54):
through the same thing that you went to.
Was there almost like a, a bond or didyou ever, like, you're gonna be all
right dude, you know, kind of thing,or, or, you know, any moments like that
as you went through the second time?
It, it was, it was neat.
Um, yeah, I mean, for, forthe reasons you mentioned.
Um.
I, I think the main thing forme was the ability to just kind
of see it from the other side.

(34:15):
Yeah.
Um, uh, because I had neverbeen like an instructor, you
know, at a military school.
I'd always just been onthe, the receiving end.
Um, you know, and kind of always viewedthese guys as just these like, you know,
sadistic you guy, you know, people thatjust wanna make your life horrible.
And, I mean, there probablywere half true or two.
Yeah, I was, but, but you know,in my experience, and I think the,
the quality of the instructionhonestly had even improved because.

(34:38):
When I went through a lot of, I'd sayhalf, you know, it was oh four maybe.
So there was a decent number that hadnever deployed to combat, you know, that
were ranger instructors at the time.
These, these wars had justkind of just begun, uh, by
20, you know, whatever it was.
When I went back 15, whatwas it, 20 years later?
20. 20, uh, 15 years.
It was 15 years later when I went back.

(34:59):
And so everyone had, you know, multiplecombat deployments at that point.
Was the course super different?
Um, it was a little different.
So, I mean, I think there was arecognition from the cadre that, you
know, this is real world, you know,that we're, it's not just a game
like we, we need to prepare thesepeople to, to succeed in combat.
Um, and so I think there was adegree of professionalism maybe that

(35:20):
there, there had been before, but notuniversally among the instructors.
Um, as far as the, so just seeingit from their standpoint, I thought
was, was, was, was, was really neat.
Um, uh.
And, uh, but at the same time, I,I could clearly sympathize with the
students 'cause I had been one of 'em.
Um, and so, you know, I, Iwasn't being judgemental.

(35:41):
Like there was one episode where, Imean, it was just a terrible patrol.
Like the poor, the platoon leaderjust did a, which, a disastrous job.
Like, I mean, it was 10 minutes,you could just tell, you know?
Yeah.
I mean, he was 10 minutes.
It's like a slinky effect of just, justeveryone hating life for the, yeah.
I mean, 10 minutes into like the actionson the objective, like, it was, I was with
one of the instructors kind of talking tohim and we didn't even know where he was.

(36:04):
We're like, who's in charge?
Where's the, you know, that, like,who's, who's the, who's leading this?
And that's not a, you shouldn'task that question 10 minutes, you
know, into a firefight, you know?
So, um, and then he like comesout from like behind a bush.
I mean, it was a lot like that scenein Band of Brothers where was a Captain
Sobel, you know, comes out from behindthe, you know, and so I found myself
kind of laughing and then I'm like,I, I, that's terrible because I mean.

(36:26):
Put yourself back inthose shoes, you know?
Yeah.
I don't think I ever had done quite thatpoorly, but like everyone's been tired
and made mistakes and, and it, you know,I didn't wanna be the obnoxious guy on
a good night's sleep and a big breakfastthat comes out and laughs at this poor
guy who's doing the best he can underlike, really challenging circumstances.
But, um, uh, anyway, that's a detour.
I forgot, what was your,the original question?

(36:47):
Let me, let me jump in here.
So I, two things.
One is, one of the guests I've hadon the program probably two years
ago now, a guy named Ray Mcpa, whowas also a, an infantry officer.
He was telling me about a firefighthe was in, in Afghanistan.
Like, really difficult, really difficultfor a couple days, low on ammo and food.
Yeah.
And just, and he was like,honestly, ranger school

(37:10):
really helped me on that one.
So when you talk about just the, thereality of it and, and he was probably
closer to your time, maybe like oh 5, 06, I'm probably getting it slightly wrong.
Yeah.
But just the pain that they put youthrough there, he was like, I truly
drew back on that time from thatschool and the suffering and it was
way more, um, digestible in the moment.
So I, I would say there's something there.

(37:31):
And then the second lighthearted storyis I have an older brother who went
through Ranger school in 94 actually,when some of the, there was like a class
where people died from hypothermia.
Um, he was the class just behind themso that they kind of altered some of
the change, some changes as a result.
But he went back.
Two years ago.
So he's 55, he's 52 years old now.

(37:52):
He went back two years ago to Dahlonega,was camping out and left a whole bunch of
snacks in a place for these guys to grab.
Just as a little like, I see you.
That's a good move.
Good move right there.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
No, the, um, so yeah, youtouched on a few things.
Um, you know, I would say, yeah,that, that the class where the student
died, that's still very much likein their consciousness, you know,

(38:15):
and I think they've taken a lot ofmeasures to help to hopefully ensure
that that doesn't happen again.
Um, uh, you know, it's like that wason a, a water movement down in swamp
phase and it was hypothermia, um,because there was like flooding and the
water got higher, faster than they'dexpected, and they didn't end up getting
out, uh, that they were lot lost.
Um, the, as a consequence ofthat, the movement in the swamps

(38:38):
has become, I would say, a.
I don't wanna say easier, butit's certainly more controlled.
Um, yeah, like the, the instructorshave a much tighter leash on,
like, on the navigation element.
So they're not gonna let people justwander around for 10 hours, you know, if,
if they're that far off azimuth, they'regonna kind of point that the person's
probably gonna get, get a no-go on thepatrol, but they're gonna not let them

(39:00):
stay out in the water for that long.
Um, there was a lightning strikeactually when I was there.
Um, um, and a little bit of a safety,there was discussion as to whether the
instructors, you know, had, um, youknow, recognized this incoming storm
quickly enough and taken action to avoidthe potential for lightning strikes.

(39:21):
Um, uh, because, you know, somestudents were like, you know, this
thing was like on top of us beforewe sit down our weapons and try to.
To avoid it.
Um, luckily everyone,um, you know, survived.
I mean, a bunch of peoplehad to get medevaced.
Um, but, but they all ended upwalking away from it eventually.
But, um, as far as the, um, you asked,you know, if the course has changed

(39:41):
a lot, um, 'cause everyone, youknow, you, you guys both know in the
military, everyone likes to say, youknow, well, when I did it, it was hard.
You know?
Now, now it's the, yeah, the, theclass after mine is when it started
to get really easy, you know?
And so my, and so everyone I know, youknow, always asks that question and I
think, you know, objectively speaking.
Uh, what I will say is there's not nearlyas much what we would just call, like,

(40:03):
you know, getting smoked, but like hazing.
So, I mean, I remember that any spareminute, um, you were doing pushups,
flutter kicks, getting yelled at, youknow, especially in the gar that you
do like one week in sort of a trainingenvironment before you go out in the
field and, and execute that trainingso that, that, that garrison setting is
when most of the ha you know, most of thepushups and stuff would take place just

(40:25):
because there was downtime and they'dfill it by making you do those things.
And that made everything harderbecause there's just this constant
sort of physical exhaustion andthe stress that comes with that.
Um, but it was also arguably not superproductive or conducive to learning.
Like, um, so I think you could have thatdebate, you know, to what extent was that.

(40:48):
Making the course better ormaking you better versus kind of
distracting you from the abilityto like actually focus and learn on
whatever it was you were being taught.
Yeah.
It was almost like a sweet spot, right?
That I remember in the article youwrote, there was a First Sergeant
kind of talking about mm-hmm.
You know, learning and toughness,and I feel like there's levers
that we, as instructors can pull toensure that learning is occurring.

(41:09):
But I completely agreedwith the sentiment that.
Having, um, a baseline of like suckfactor, baseline, um, that you can pull
back to like when you're in Afghanistanor Iraq and you're like, well, it's
not as tough as ranger school, right?
Mm-hmm.
You know, like, I think that there's,uh, provides you a little bit of a,
you know, almost ammunition, you know?
Yeah.
I, I think ultimately, I think it madeit probably a little easier, but, but

(41:33):
the, the main elements didn't change.
I mean, there still was no sleep,you know, two hours and, and,
and, uh, usually about four hoursa night for that first week.
And then like, you know, one ortwo hours on the ground for those
subsequent two weeks, there'sstill the same lack of food.
I mean, they don't get more mealsor more res, so I mean, the, the
sleep deprivation, the lack offood, the, the stress of getting

(41:54):
evaluated on these patrols.
Just being out, you know, in,in rough environments for, for
weeks on end that hasn't changed.
Um, so I think overall there haven't,it's, I don't wanna overdo how much
it's changed, even though there werea few differences that I noticed.
And like you said, I absolutely, uh,uh, drew from that, um, you know,
later in my military career, just,you know, no matter how bad things

(42:17):
are outside, I'm still getting moresleep than I would've had back then.
I'm still getting more food, you know,I, I might have a roof over my head.
Yeah.
You know, even, even a mattress anda blanket's better than just being
on the ground in the rain, you know?
So, um, all of that really does.
And I, I still draw on it to this day.
You know, if there's a, a part of mycivilian job that's difficult, you
can step back and be like, wait asecond, I can still take a shower.

(42:39):
I can still have a hot meal.
I mean, there's still thingsthat, that make it not so bad.
That perspective is really cool.
Well, I was gonna jump us to Iraq now.
If we kind of.
I know you go to Germanyand Pat's there as well.
You, you all don't know each other then?
No, I'm also in Germany at that time.
Oh wow.
But then I think you end up going to,um, Obar Province, Ramadi, um, hit

(43:02):
around 2006 if I'm getting that right.
And I was wondering if youcan give us a lay of the land.
I think you're in 1 3 6.
Uh, infantry First Armor.
What is your role?
What's the, what's the lay ofthe land, um, battle of Ramadi?
Where are we at?
If you can kind of ground us therebefore we jump into what it was like.
Yeah, so we, we be, we began ourdeployment in Tal far to the north,

(43:25):
and that was right after Generalat the time Colonel McMaster
had had kind of cleared it out.
Um, and that was one of the firstexamples of the whole like clear
hold, build, counterinsurgency modelthat he implemented almost before
it became, you know, a a more widelyadopted by Petraeus and all this.
Well, can I, I'm gonna interrupt youjust for a second, just for listeners,
if you're that battle specifically,if you're interested in McMaster, we

(43:48):
interviewed him not long ago and he goesinto detail about how he set that up and
it's very interesting his take on it.
So, but to your point, will like,kind of unprecedented to some
degree how he went about that.
So sorry.
Please continue.
Yeah, no, no.
I mean he, yeah, I, I mean hecould explain it better than I,
but my understanding was that he.
He did a lot of the things that laterwere adopted by the rest of the army

(44:11):
before everyone else had done it.
And, and, and, and our brigade commander,Colonel McFarland learned a lot of that.
And so, anyway, about four or fiveand there was not much, I mean,
to answer your question abouthow it was, it was pretty stable.
There wasn't a lot of actionbecause it, he had done a good job.
Um, and, and things were,you know, pretty secure.
Um, about four or five months into thatis when we got dropped down to Ramadi.

(44:33):
Um, uh, the brigade,most of the brigade, um.
Found themselves in Ramadi.
This, this would've been likeMay, June oh six timeframe.
Uh, my battalion got kicked out tothe, I guess the northwest, along
the Euphrates to this town called theHIT, we called it pronounced IT Heat.
Um, and uh, we actually fell undera marine higher headquarters.

(44:56):
So we were kind of assigned, likeour higher command was was Marine.
We were an army battalion under marine,whatever you would call a brigade.
Was it RRCT?
Yeah.
Regimental Combat Team.
Yep.
Yeah.
And so, you know, our lieutenant colonelwas reporting to our Marine oh six.
Um, but anyway, it was like, so,you know, most of my friends that

(45:16):
weren't in 1 3 6 were in Ramadi,and we were only a few hours away.
So I kept in pretty close touch with them,even though we were in a different place.
He was, I, I would kind of.
Classify it as like a micro,a mini Ramadi, so mm-hmm.
You know, not as big of a city,but we weren't as big of a unit.
So it was kind of the same, asimilar fight, but with, you know,
fewer of us and fewer people.

(45:37):
Um, but the dynamicswere very much the same.
A hundred percent Sunni, Muslim.
Uh, a lot of Al-Qaeda, youknow, sympathizers, a lot
of former bath party people.
Basically, just not a lot of peoplethat really seemed to want us there,
um, at, at least at that time.
I'll come back to youWill in just a second.
I want to know kind of what role you'rein, if you're a pl, like if you're at
staff, but aj where are you at that time?

(45:57):
I mean, you spent a ton of time in Iraq.
Yeah, we were actually in the same,we kind of chewed the same dirt.
Um, I was in like legitimately inMay of 2006, I was, uh, uh, outside
of camp, uh, I was outside of Tedomand I was in a place called Hania,
which was an old Royal Air Force.
Um, did you in Ramadi route, Michiganis what connected Ramadi to Fallujah.

(46:21):
Um, and our battalion, um, wasresponsible for keeping, uh, the
route Michigan east of Ramadi intoFallujah, uh, open and secure.
And we based out of, uh, Habana itself.
So yeah, I worked a lot in thereand we would go to, I think the
five, five easting was kind of, um,was our limit of advance because I

(46:42):
know that we crossed into differentbattle space at that timeframe.
Um, so yeah.
And then I, I traveled Ithink through heat, right?
I was there at one point, but just ona brief convoy, I didn't spend a lot
of time there, but I completely, um.
Understand the idea that a lot ofthe population at that timeframe in
2006 was a little, uh, less than,um, excited that we were there.

(47:04):
Um, especially because there wasthe Sunni Shia rivalries and the
establishment of, of governments.
Uh, it was a prettytumultuous time to be around.
Most of time it didn't feel like wewere really watched by really anybody.
I remember feeling that.
Did you guys face anythinglike that out there?
Yeah, exactly.
Um, it, it, you know, from the best Icould gather, most of the locals were kind

(47:28):
of, of the opinion that, you know, uh.
You didn't necessarily liberate us.
You kind of just took our guyand replaced them with our
enemy, you know, the, the Shia.
Um, and, and so, you know, even ifthey didn't love, I mean, I don't
think there was necessarily a hugeaffinity for Saddam, but you know, a
lot of them had been bath party people.
Um, so, you know, all of a suddenthey don't have jobs anymore.

(47:51):
Um, and all of a sudden they, they, youknow, they were sort of smart enough
to know that it was most likely gonnabe a Shia government that would replace
Saddam, which is what in fact happened.
Um, and so.
You know, not everyone necessarilywas like taking up arms against us.
Some of them were, but the ones whoweren't, you know, it was always unclear
the extent to which they sympathizedwith the people who were, um, and

(48:14):
so, yeah, it was a rough, um, youknow, that was a very dramatic change
from, you know, from tah far where atleast a, a portion of the population
seemed to be genuinely appreciativeof our presidents and grateful for
what we were doing to, and borrower.
It was, you know, it was, there wasa lot of fighting and a lot of, uh.
Uh, resistance and, and as far as myjob, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that.

(48:35):
So I was the, um, battalion,what we called it was, uh,
civil military relations orcm, civil military operations.
So essentially like civil affairs.
Um, there was a marine cateam, uh, embedded with us that
I worked very closely with.
And then there was a, um, a specialforces, uh, ODA that I worked for at

(48:55):
baseball, you know, all of our missions.
Those two missions kind of overlapped.
And, and then as did mine, I waslike our battalion's sort of liaison
or counterpart to the SF ODA andto the marine ca working on, um.
Basically, you know, trying to,it really became the part of the,
the anbar awakening, the tribaloutreach to the SUNY tribes.

(49:17):
But ostensibly it was, you know, civilaffairs projects, reconstruction, trying
to do anything we could to get thiscommunity kind of back on its feet.
Um, hopefully, um, incentivizethem to work with us and to help,
you know, provide intelligenceto fight the insurgency.
But it, what it really became was aneffort to reach out to the Sun SUNY
tribes, and, uh, encourage them tohave their tribesmen enlist in the

(49:41):
Iraqi police, because that was whatwe saw as kind of our exit strategies
to stand up this police force so thatthey can help secure their own city.
And all the while you hadat that time, I think.
Uh, a Q ip.
What, or, uh, sorry.
A QI Right.
Starting to develop, and I'm surethat they were working against you.
Did you have any instancesof, of them trying to attack

(50:03):
your convoys, your efforts?
We faced down in the south, wefaced a lot of, um, murders.
Right.
So like we would, it was challenging toput marine infantry into peacekeeping
because it's not really our role.
Mm-hmm.
But also what I found with combattroops is kind of like when you have
a combat organization or a combat unitthat is providing peace and trying to

(50:24):
do, you know, stability operations,we get pulled to where the combat is.
And so oftentimes what we found waswe would establish relationships and
work diligently to be able to uplift,you know, the Iraqi police Right.
In the military or whatever that was.
And then we'd get orders andlike overnight we were gone.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
So did you, and then those people wereleft to whenever, did you have anything

(50:45):
like that while you guys were there?
Or any instances offighting Al-Qaeda and Iraq?
Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean,there were sig acts every day,
you know, as far as fighting.
Um, I mean, I think our battalion hadclose to 200 wounded, you know, out
of what, six 50 or, you know, 700.
I mean, you know, that, that's, yeah.
So it's a pretty high number.

(51:06):
Um, I mean, luckily, I shouldn'tsay luckily, but, you know, I think
maybe only 15 to 20 KIA, which isstill 15 to 20 more than you'd like
to see, but, but an enormous numberof wounded, um, you know, I guess
that speaks to success in, you know,medevac and the people who were wounded.
Um, but, uh, um, but it, itwas, it was a rough deployment

(51:26):
as far as the kinetic element.
And, um, I think that, uh.
I think the, the enemy knew that thiseffort to develop the Iraqi police was
a real threat to their, you know, sortof hegemony, you know, in that area.
Um, and they knew that if wewere successful in co-opting
some of these tribes, um, thatwouldn't be good for them.

(51:49):
And so they fiercely, you know,opposed that, um, you know, we,
we tried to strategically in placeIraqi police stations in some of the
most contested parts of the city.
It's kind of like a smaller versionof what Colonel McFarland was doing in
Ramadi and what, what gen or colonel, um,uh, McMaster was doing up in Tali far.

(52:09):
Um.
And, you know, when we'd put themin, I mean, they'd be fighting from
the moment the engineers started totry to, to, to, to put, you know, put
that, uh, thing in place overnight.
Um, so yeah, I mean, they knewwhat was going on and they
didn't want us to succeed.
Will, can I ask, so especiallywith civil affairs, and sorry for
people listening, sig acts are likesignificant activities that happen.

(52:30):
Mm-hmm.
So, detonations attacks, fights,whatever that are tracked by the units.
Um, with civil affairs and, and kindof the work you're doing, you're
often outside the wire, right?
Like you're engaging, you're influencing,like you gotta be on the ground, right?
Do you recall the first time you gooutside the wire in a combat zone?
Like some people it's crazy.

(52:51):
Some people, it's completely mundane.
Most people feel like they'reabout to go into World War III
until they do it the first time.
Like, do you remember your first.
There.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So my first, you know, time outsidethe wire would've been up in Tafari.
Um, and, and those times were,were, you know, very, you
know, uneventful in retrospect.
But at the time, I mean, theydo seem kind of exciting 'cause

(53:12):
you haven't done it before.
Um, and I remember, you know, I, Iwent, I think, yeah, probably on my
like first, you know, patrol or whateverand, you know, nothing happened.
But, um, you know, I got back and,and a buddy of mine who had had a, you
know, a bunch of deployments before, youknow, I was like, man, my head hurts.
And he is like, yeah, you know, it'sprobably because you're just like
stressed out and your body's kindof like hyper vigilant and alert

(53:32):
and, you know, it's funny lookingback on it because, you know, it,
it should have been pretty relaxing.
Like, there was really nothing tobe that afraid of up there at the
time, but, you know, you don'tknow that for you it's a big deal.
But, um, but yeah, down in Anbar,I mean that the, the, the, the, the
enemy activity was a lot more routine.
Um, I mean I, one little exampleof it that is just sticks in

(53:55):
my mind, not because it was.
In any way, you know, that noteworthy,but it was just kind of illustrates
kind of how crazy this whole thing was.
Um, you know, I had convinced my, uh,brother who was in high school back in DC.
To raise money at his school and buy allthis, you know, like soccer jerseys and
soccer equipment and all this stuff, youknow, to that I would then distribute

(54:18):
to the schools in the area to developgoodwill and, you know, we, sure enough,
he sends it and we, you know, get thisconvoy to go out, you know, and, and yeah,
we were out, you know, almost every dayjust by the nature of this, of this job.
And it was kind of cool because unlike a,a particular company, you know, we would.
Go anywhere in the AO because,you know, our, my area of
responsibility was everywhere.

(54:38):
It wasn't like oneparticular, you know, outpost.
Um, and so we went out, uh, madethis delivery and the kids loved
it, and the teachers loved it.
I mean, it was actually, itseemed to have been a success.
Um, and then we get hit with an IED on theway back and, and, you know, no one got,
it was like, went off between Humvees.
I, you know, might have blowna tire, but no one got hurt.
But it did make you step back and be like,all right, what are we doing here again?

(55:02):
You know, like, why am I, you know,risking all of our lives to, to
do something and then the peoplethat were presumably ostensibly
doing it to help are trying tokill me on the way out, you know?
Um, so yeah, there, that wasjust one of those moments
where, you know, you kind of.
Reassess the what, the, what exactly itwas that we were trying to accomplish.
Yeah.
If I can, I, I really wanna thank you.

(55:24):
I think that there's so much emphasisput on, um, specific types of troops
and types of roles inside of combat.
Um, I can tell you that I don'thave the guts to do what you did.
Um, because my role as a sniper or asa straight leg infantry guy, everybody
knew what we were there to do.
I didn't have to have aconversation if I didn't want to.

(55:47):
Like, we were there to do onething, and that was like, keep
the peace through violets, right?
Yours was like openly, willingly,Hey, I've gotta meet and engage
and put yourself, and you had tomake yourself vulnerable, right?
Mm-hmm.
Constantly vulnerable in orderto connect with the populace, uh,
and to be able to, um, I think.
Bring them towards our way of thinking.

(56:08):
It was really, really, I remember havinga lot of, uh, affinity for, um, you
know, our, our outreach teams or peoplethat would do that because the places
that you would go with the limitedamount of support, like I had the Mar
ground task force behind me, right.
And you were like, Hey, I'mgonna go hand out Serger.
I think that's really cool.
And I think that's, it's really impactfulto the mission itself because I think

(56:29):
that that, um, really ties into whywe were there and trying to establish,
um, a, a, a local government andcreate an opportunity for democracy.
Uh, I just wanna thank you againfor that and just tell Yep.
Get good call out on that.
Like respect rather.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I mean, yeah, it was tough and I thinkit was tough even on the infantrymen,
uh, in our battalion because.

(56:49):
More often than not.
I mean, yes, we would mount, youknow, raids and, and things to try to,
you know, kill or capture bad guys.
But a lot of the time, you know, wewere on the, just on the receiving
end and not really able to fight back.
Um, and I mean, I think thatapplies to, to, you know, regular
infantry companies as well as to.
To what I was doing in that, youknow, just the nature of the fight.

(57:12):
You know, you hit an IED most of thetime, a lot of them were just, um,
they weren't remote detonated, theywere a pressure plate, you know, so
someone just leaves like a, you know,a styrofoam, you know, whatever, or
not styrofoam, but like a cardboardbox or something, and you hit it.
Um, I mean, you, you, there's noopportunity to, to shoot at anything.
You know, you're just pure,purely receiving sniper fire.
Same thing.

(57:32):
Um, even if people engage and then justdrop the weapon and leave, I mean, it
was rare that you would have a chanceto really, you know, fight back.
And so I think that being on the receivingend really was a challenge for a lot
of the troopers out there who were justlike, man, you know, I just have a, a
target on my head and I'm not reallyable to, um, you know, ever kind of get
revenge on what people are doing to it.

(57:53):
That was the biggest killer ofmorale for us, was the fact that
we felt like victims, right?
Mm-hmm.
That we were cruising throughand like something would.
We would lose a guy or somebodywould get super injured.
How did you deal with thatas a, as a, as the officer?
Because I was like, Shinto, uti.
Right.
You know, at the time, how did youdeal with that as the boss when guys
are super frustrated and there's anatural inclination to, uh, humanistic

(58:17):
almost like to go blood for blood.
Right.
Um, how did you work to be ableto reassociate back to the mission
and saying, Hey, no, this is,these are different or separate
people from the commandment?
Yeah, I mean, it's a challenge.
I wish, you know, I had a, a betteranswer because I mean, that really
was, I think one of the biggestchallenges of the deployment was,
you know, how do you keep, you know,young soldiers heads in the fight

(58:41):
when they see their buddies, you know,getting killed and wounded regularly.
Um, and they don't necessarilysee a lot of progress being
made in the form of them.
You know, fighting back.
Um, and so communicating to them that,hey, you know, we're not gonna win
this fight by, you know, killing thisinsurgent leader or capturing 'em like

(59:05):
more, you know, that, that's great.
Um, it's not a bad thing, butthat's not how we're ever gonna win.
You know, we're gonna win by turningthese tribes against Al-Qaeda and
then they can do that work for us.
But that's hard to, you know, it'shard to convince an 18-year-old, uh,
enlisted soldier or Marine about that.
'cause that's like, it's abstract.
You don't see, you know, youdon't get the satisfaction of

(59:27):
pulling a trigger yourself.
Like it's all kind of abstract stuffthat maybe will happen in the future.
It's, it's not immediate.
So, I mean, you could try tomake that case to them, but,
you know, I can't say that.
It would, you know, that it didsink in, um, you know, uh, as much
as maybe you, you would like it to.
Um, but just back to the one other thingI wanted to touch on that you mentioned
before, um, you know, as far as likethe, the importance of the ca work.

(59:51):
Um, you know, I think, and this actuallyanswers this question as well, um,
you know, one of the ways you couldcommunicate that to them was just
by pointing to like the real worldimpact of some of what we were doing.
So for example, um.
There was an incident when, uh, I thinkthere was like a, a raid at night and you
know, they kicked down a door and threwin a flash bang and an old lady was like

(01:00:13):
in the living room or something and wasburned or injured, and we kind of deviated
from the standard procedure in that they.
Uh, evacuated her to, I think, Aladand provide, to provide medical
treatment, which I don't think weordinarily would do for like every
civilian who was wounded, but in Right.
In this instance they did.
And so they thought theywere doing the right thing.
Like we're going out of our way to help.

(01:00:34):
Well, the enemy, of course, you know, getswind of this and, and they're not stupid.
They, they get out, you know, they're,they're friendly imams the next day to
start blasting out messages saying, youknow, the Americans abducted this lady,
they're doing, you know, God knows what toher, you know, violating her and getting
everyone agitated, you know, at us forsomething that, you know, was completely

(01:00:56):
the opposite of what we were doing.
We actually were trying to help her.
Um, so, but this is an exampleof where, you know, this sort of
recognition and this outreach can,can have like a tactical benefit.
You know, we went and, uh, thechaplain and some of the other
battalion leaders, we went out and.
Communicated to these imams, and wewould say, and the chaplain had actually
established relationships with them,which was a very, I think, smart and

(01:01:19):
productive thing that our battaliondid kind of outside the box thinking.
Yeah.
He introduced himself.
He's like, Hey, I'm not carrying a weapon,you know, I'm a man of faith just like
you, you know, we just want to, uh, workwith you to try to, you know, minimize
the, the death and the bloodshed, and,and, and we could kind, we actually mapped
out the mosques, you know, in the city bytheir level of like, hostility, you know,

(01:01:41):
from like, you know, red, bright red to,to green and, and actually tried to Yeah.
And tried to work with them.
And so this was, that was actuallytremendously beneficial because
when this episode happened.
We could go to all of those peoplethat we already knew and, and, and
at least some of them, uh, listened.
And they actually did try tosort of tamp down the emotion.

(01:02:02):
And that probably led, that probablysaved lives because it, you know, we
were on the verge of, I don't wannasay an uprising, but like, you know,
a pretty dramatic inflamed situation.
Um, and we were able to kind of diffuseit through, um, you know, kind of a smart,
um, non-kinetic approach to the area.
So I think if, you know, to the extentI, I could point to like, tell a soldier,

(01:02:25):
hey, like, this is why we do what we do.
Because otherwise all these guys wouldbe shooting at us, you know, and,
and now hopefully they're not, youknow, so that, that's just one example
of, of, you know, if you can speak.
To them, you know, through these actions.
Maybe they'll recognize, you know, why itis that you're doing some of these things.
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And now.
Back to this episode.
Well, I wanted to ask somethingthat, um, pat had also mentioned to
us, not in a, this is not a roastway, you know, if you're comfortable

(01:04:17):
talking about it, but mm-hmm.
You know, you mentioned that numberof casualties, and I mean, that sounds
like, you know, my math isn't great,like a third to a quarter to a third
of folks injured or, or, or killed.
Mm-hmm.
Um, he, he mentioned thatyou have two names tattooed.
Somewhere for, mm-hmm.
I think it's Jason West and Travis Petr.
Yeah.

(01:04:37):
Uh, yeah, right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was wondering if you could speakto, you know, some of the hairier
moments you may have been in.
You described all this kinetic activity.
Mm-hmm.
And I think Pat was saying that, uh, thatTravis once told him like, about you Will,
that you were known for, like, you wouldcrawl through a firefight to fix someone's
generator, to build kind of goodwill withthe locals and try to advance the mission.

(01:05:02):
Um, but he did mention he feltlike these two had a pretty
significant impact on your life.
And I don't know if you've lost themduring this battle, but I'd be interested
to hear, um, the kind of atmosphericsaround that, if you're comfortable.
Yeah.
Well, I don't, I don't know aboutthe, I'd like to take credit for
crawling through a firefight to fix it.
You, you was very specific.
Yeah.
I mean, I, it sounds great.
I don't think I actually ever didthat, but I'm not gonna, who am I?

(01:05:24):
Just get in the way of a good story.
Story.
That's right.
Um, but, uh.
Um, I had to convoy Alad to tell amutual friend about that, um, that
our friend Jason had been killed.
So I, you know, I, on my birthday, Ialways remember that birthday, um, as
being a not particularly great one.
Um, but to, to Travis.

(01:05:45):
Yeah.
So, yeah, pat, um, I think knewTravis pretty well also because
they were in Ramadi together.
I had known Travis from Tafari andfrom Germany and, and could you tell
us who Travis is also just for listen?
Yeah.
So he was a captain, um, uh, veryunorthodox, sort of irreverent guy.
Um, there's actually abook written about him.
Travis Pat, his, his name'sTravis Patrick Quinn.

(01:06:06):
Um, I'd recommend it to anyone.
Um, it talks all about the Battleof Ramadi in oh six, but he, he was
kind of my counterpart working withColonel McFarland, doing the civil
military stuff in Ramadi, um, fluentin Arabic, and really helped, um,
spearhead that, the tribal outreach.
Um, I mean, he was onthe forefront of that.

(01:06:26):
I don't think.
You know, that would've succeededwithout, um, his, his role.
Um, he was just incredibly charismatic.
Um, just had incredible sort ofpersonal magnetism, uh, with the Iraqis.
They loved him.
He loved them.
Um, and so Colonel McFarland wouldalways have Travis there, you know,
when he was going to meet with thesenior SUNY Sheiks, uh, in Ambar.

(01:06:47):
And, um, and he was also justlike a, just an awesome guy.
Funny.
Um, and so he, I was pretty close to him.
Pac was as well.
Um, and his role in kind of helpingto, to turn Ramadi around, I
think was extremely significant.
And he was killed, um, unfortunately latein December of that year, December of, uh,

(01:07:08):
oh six by an IED, along with, uh, therewere, it was him, it was a Marine, the
Marine PAO, uh, Megan McClung, a major.
Um, and then it was, uh, aspecialist, uh, Vincent poi.
Um, and it was, that was tough.
For a lot of reasons.
Um, 'cause p one of which I hadknown Po Poman as well, um, because

(01:07:32):
I had been doing some of thatpublic affairs work in tal far.
I had asked the colonel, Hey, you know, Iwanna get back to my infantry battalion.
Um, and so he was like, cool,you know, you did a good job.
Well, I'll send you back.
Um, and you know, had I not made thatrequest, that probably would've been me.
You know, and because it was, itwas usually Patrick Quinn Poi and

(01:07:52):
me, in this case it was PatrickQuinn poi and this female Marine.
Um, and so, you know, there'salways just in the back of your mind
like, Hey, that could have been me.
And now I don't feel guilty becauseI had made, I had asked to kind of
go back into the fight, you know,from like this brigade staff job.
So it wasn't like I was tryingto get out of that situation.

(01:08:16):
But still, I. But you can'thelp think of the coincidence.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, but, you know, there, butfor the grace of God would've been me.
Um, uh, so that was, that was a, youknow, that was probably, I think most
people with the brigade would acknowledgethat that was probably one of the most
challenging days because everyone, I,I never had the opportunity to meet
major McClung, but everyone who did,spoke unbelievably highly of her.

(01:08:39):
I speak unbelievably highly ofTravis and PII was a, a great kid.
So it was just, I think that wasa real tough day for everyone.
Well, without, uh, uh, well, pat mentionedyou'd be very humble, which you are,
but if you think, like for people whohaven't done the ca mission and, and
you, you know, you talked about handingout jerseys and soccer balls and doing
tribal engagement, a meeting with Imams.

(01:09:00):
If you look back, I think it wasa 13 month deployment, you had
split between those two places.
What would've been the most impactyou had, like as you're right in
your OER or whatever, what is it, youknow, if you tried to land that, what,
what do you think you had the mostinfluence on or was most useful for?
People who normally only hearstories about door kickers?
I would say it was, I. Any number of timesthat, and, and I have to give the, the

(01:09:27):
army ODA credit because they were kind ofspearheaded this, but I, but I helped out
with it and helped, you know, helped kindof get the weight of the battalion behind.
It was the time that wespent with this particular.
Tribal, uh, leaders, uh, across the river.
Um, and, you know, honestly, just we wouldconvoy down there, um, and just, you know,

(01:09:48):
eat and smoke cigarettes and drink chaiand they, they had this like pretty cool,
you know, compound right on the river.
I mean, pretty nice place.
Um, uh, you know, just, I mean,getting, it wasn't like, I mean,
you could get shot at or IE ded,you know, on the way there or back.
It doesn't mean that this waslike a, a stress-free situation.
Sanctuary.
Yeah.

(01:10:08):
Yeah.
Um, and, and, you know, and they had atarget on their head because, you know,
the bad guys knew who they were also.
But, um, just that, that the hoursthat we spent with them, um, many
of which were, you know, once yougot there, it was kind of fun.
I mean, it was a nice meal and, andthere, there were funny, you know,
enjoyable people to, to hang out with.
Um, and, uh.
So, yeah, it doesn't necessarilysound exciting, but that, that those

(01:10:31):
hours are what basically contributedto a large degree to our success.
Because what they did iswe went from having zero,
essentially zero Iraqi policemen.
We'd have like a recruiting driveand like two guys that show up.
But by virtue of that relationship andthe patients that, that, that SF team
had in cultivating those relationships,by the time we left, you know, we had,

(01:10:53):
I think, built three police stations andeach one was fully manned by, you know,
dozens if not hundreds of these tribesmen.
And they know who the bad guys were.
I mean, they live there, they grew upthere, they know who the outsiders are.
They, they have their ear to the, the,you know, the, the ground, so to speak.
I mean, they, they could get more intelin a, in an hour than we could, than
we, we could get, you know, in a year.

(01:11:13):
Um, I shop down the road.
Yeah.
I mean they, they could tell us, Hey,this guy that you've been talking to.
For six months giving civil affairsmoney to, you know, he's actually
like his cousins, the Al-Qaeda, Amir.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, yeah.
You know, mean they could, it's, yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it was, ittremendously valuable.
And as a result, um, you know, we, when weleft, I kept in touch with my interpreter.

(01:11:36):
Who, who stayed.
And, um, you know, three months afterwe redeployed, let's call it like
March oh seven, somewhere in thatneighborhood, March, April of oh
seven, you know, he's like, you cantake your IBA off and sit down and
have a kebab outside the hospital.
And, and, and when we were there, youknow, if you go to the hospital, you're
like shooting a smoke grenade, running,you know, you know, if you're outside for

(01:11:59):
two seconds, you're gonna get shot at.
Um, it was completely stable.
It was night and day.
Now we didn't get to see it unfortunately.
You know, when we left it was stillpretty hot, but within a few months
it was like 180 degree turnaround.
And, um.
And those relationships are, youknow, what really enabled, enabled
that It wasn't because we caughta particular guy or you know,

(01:12:20):
threw a particular guy in jail.
Like, I mean those things all help.
But what really turned the tidewas were those relationships.
And I think to to an extentthat's similar to Ramadi.
I mean they killed a tonof bad guys in Ramadi.
I'm not diminishing the importance ofthat, but what really helped to turn
it was the fact that the actual tribesthemselves started to fight the Al-Qaeda.

(01:12:41):
Yeah.
Well quick question and then I'm gonnapass it to AJ to talk about writing
'cause he is actually an author as well.
Um.
Did you smoke cigarettesbefore that or were you like, I
gotta do this for the mission?
I'm lightening up.
Uh, well, I, I, I hope my kids don'tlisten to this someday, but, um,
I, I did a little bit in Germany.
I mean, I, I wasn't like a, you know,a pack a day, you know, but in, in
Germany it's kind of part of, I mean,you said you were in Germany, right?

(01:13:03):
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of part of the, thebar culture there, so every once in a
while, but, but it was also in Iraq.
I mean, there was no alcohol.
There's nothing else to do, so youhad to have some, you had to have some
vice or something to look forward to.
Okay.
It's like, yeah, maybethis is just the mission.
I gotta do it.
First time I'm lighting up.
Okay.
Hey, I wanted to pivot just a bit.
AJ uh, recently wrote a book.

(01:13:23):
We're waiting on DOD clearance for it,but definitely have some questions of you
since you've done so much in this space.
Sure.
So I have my, well, my first question is,did you ever smoke the Iraqi cigarettes?
Uh, like Medos or whatever?
Uh, the, there's a couple ofdifferent, I forget like Parliament
esque or whatever it was.
I think there was one calledMiami maybe or something.
Yeah, it was a Miami, like lung darts.

(01:13:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Something tells me that they werenot, would not be approved in the
US Yeah, I remember those as well.
When, when things got tight, whenpackages weren't coming in, it was like
avocados, Miami's, uh, I remember takinga pack back and like trying a cigarette
and years later, which was just as bad.
Um, so I have some questions for you inregards to writing, so I'm just absolutely

(01:14:12):
fascinated with the way that you talkabout combat and the way that you talk
about the environment in which we existed.
So many times I hear stories.
About, uh, you know, we focus on likethe, like you said, the door kickers.
Mm-hmm.
Who are integrally importantto, you know, creating a space
to change or help win a war?
Well, like I said before, I think thatwhere civil affairs came in was just

(01:14:36):
providing that opening gap, right?
Or once the opening gap was there,running through it saying how do we now
start changing the hearts and minds?
Where in your.
Thought process.
Did you ever think about writing a book?
Did you ever think abouttalking about your experiences?
Um, or did you take notes?
Did you ever, 'cause I know that youproduced or you wrote a book, you

(01:14:57):
know, which is fascinating by the way.
I won't get too much into it, but almosthumanizing Saddam Hussein, not giving him,
not giving him a pass, but humanizing him.
Prisoner in his palace.
Right, right.
That's the name that,just for people listening.
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
So the first question revolvesaround did you ever think
that you would write a book?
Um, and if so, did you start taking notesearly on, or what was the kind of the,

(01:15:21):
uh, the, the genesis of that thought?
Um, yeah.
So, uh, um.
I was an English major in college.
Um, I always, so I always loved to read.
Um, and I'd like to think thatI had been a, a decent writer
just because as an English majoryou do a lot, a lot of writing.
Um, and then I had spent a little, I haddone like, kind of like, almost like a

(01:15:41):
glorified apprenticeship with the NewYork Times, um, before graduate school,
um, after I'd gotten outta the military.
Um, and so that had provided me witha little bit of background, but I
wasn't like a full-time staff writer.
I was kind of like, you know.
Filling coffee and making copies.
And then in my spare time, Icould learn from, you know, the

(01:16:02):
actual more experienced people.
But I did get some things publishedand I did learn from, from some
talented journal journalists.
Um, so I kind of, in the backof my mind, I always had that.
But it wasn't until, um, you know, aboutfour years actually that I was at the
Pentagon, that I, I'd made the decision tomake that career transition to write in.
Um, and it was primarily because Ihad just, I, I knew about the Saddam

(01:16:24):
story, I knew how powerful it was.
Um, and it occurred to me, youknow, if this doesn't, if I don't
tell it, it's not gonna get told.
And, and it's Can you give people justa, a, an idea of the story real quick?
Will Yeah.
Like we, we are aware ofit, but just for listeners.
Yeah.
So it, it basically tells the story ofthe American, the young American soldiers
who had been tasked with guard Saddamin the days leading up to his execution.

(01:16:45):
And the fact that they developed thesereally improbable relationships with him.
Um, I mean, they were spendingeight hours at a time, basically.
Five feet away from him.
Um, and, you know, there'snothing else to do.
So naturally they're gonna start talking.
He could speak English when he wanted to.
Um, and they, they just, you know, wouldjust talk and they got to know each other.

(01:17:06):
And they found themselves, I mean, theyrecognized like on an intellectual level
that he was a terrible human being.
They, they weren't naive.
They, they didn't, uh, they knew thathe was guilty of all the things that
he had been charged with, but at thesame time, they didn't ever see that.
They just saw this sort ofcharming old man that reminded
them of like their grandfather.
Right.
How weird to have this two.

(01:17:26):
I mean, there was onestory who, he was a medic.
He was actually an older AfricanAmerican, um, medic from a very rough
neighborhood in, in, in St. Louis.
He and Saddam really bonded over theirlike childhoods because they both had
had kind of challenging childhoods.
I mean, Saddam's was worse.
I mean, it was more poor, but both kindof violent childhoods abs, you know,
without a, a sort of a male, you know,father figure, um, kind of had to grow

(01:17:50):
up just, uh, with their own smarts, um,you know, on the streets, so to speak.
Um, anyway, the, the, it got to thepoint where, when, when this, uh,
medic got word that he had to go backto St. Louis because his brother had
either been killed or overdosed, Idon't remember how he died, but he got
word that, you know, you have to gohome to, to your brother's funeral.
He actually went out of his way totell, he could have just left, but he,

(01:18:12):
such was their relationship that heis like, I need to go tell Saddam so
he doesn't, you know, worry about meor doesn't wonder, wonder where I am.
You know, because he would do his dailychecks and so he went to Saddam and he
said he told him what had happened tohis brother, and Saddam gets up, hugs
him and says, you know, don't worry.
You may have lost your brother,but I will always be her brother.
You know?
And so you hear these stories and you'relike, you know, this is just not nuts.

(01:18:36):
You know?
And, and, and, you know, and so thequestions kind of the unanswered question
in the book is, you know, to what extentwas this just, you know, he's just a. Uh,
a, a a sociopath and he, this is just whathe's good at and, and his whole life, he
can, uh, influence people and, and, and,and manipulate things to benefit himself.

(01:18:57):
Or was there like a, a genuine human,you know, connection that developed
in, in these improbable circumstances,you know, or was it a combination?
And, and I don't think, you know,anyone will ever, and that's
kinda what makes it interesting.
We won't really ever know, if you forceme to answer that question, I would
probably say it's somewhere in the middle.
I think it probably began as, youknow, Hey, I'm gonna, you know,

(01:19:19):
befriend these guys so that I canget whatever it was he wanted.
Like a cigar or, sure.
He's manipulating them of some sort.
Right.
And then over time, I think itdid grow into something deeper.
You know, that's not, again,that's not to, um, whitewash him.
That's not to rehabilitate his image.
That's not to say hedidn't deserve what he got.
It's just to say that, you know, humanbeings are complicated and, and, exactly.

(01:19:39):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So, yeah, it was, it wasa pretty crazy story.
So my next question revolves, um, I'llmake a, a pretty, you know, heavy jump,
but when coming back home, right, comingback into this sense of Americana, I've,
you're on your website, uh, which Irecommend everyone goes to your articles
on there are just fascinating, right?
And I think that it really providesa really good, um, full, full script,

(01:20:03):
I would say, full breath picture intoexploring what it is to be an American.
Um, one, I do wanna talk about yourmost recent book and some of your, um,
sort of writings, you know, surroundingthat as a baseball player, as a huge
fan of Minor League baseball, uh, in mychildhood, the San Jose Giants, where I'm
from, um, and watching them go throughtheir trials and tribulations, right?

(01:20:25):
So my, my question is two part.
What led you to write, uh, and explorethe idea of Americana when returning
home, and then what eventually led you towrite about baseball as a, uh, exploration
of what it means to be an American?
Yeah, so I, I think, um, what, youknow, I, I never had what you would
call, you know, I guess traditionalPTSD as far as like, you know, waking

(01:20:49):
up with nightmares or things like that.
But what I had had kind of ever since Icame home was just a sense of, a little
bit of like, disillusionment over kindof the state of our country and, and
like, you know, this idea that, you know,you've seen people sacrifice so much
for it, and then you get back and you'relike, is this really what it's all about?
You know, like, you know, is thisworth what we, is what we have

(01:21:10):
here worth what I saw over there?
You know, and, and oftentimesit seems like it's not right.
And so, um.
I'd always kind of heldup baseball as like this.
Yeah, like kind of more than just asport, but kind of if I were to try to
identify something that's kind of likeright about America or that, that kind
of puts me in a good place mentally,you know, it would be just like this

(01:21:31):
image of a ballpark and people comingtogether and having a good time.
So it kind of always occupiedthis place in my mind that.
Was kind of exalted or whatever.
Um, it's like home.
It's like this, this, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this manifestation of, yeah,because people talk about,
I don't know where it was.
I, I was recently reading about like,you know, what motivates people to fight.
And I think we were looking at it fromthe Taliban perspective and it's like,

(01:21:54):
you know, you know, they, or likeother Afghans, you know, like why they
would even sympathize with the Taliban.
And it's kind of like, there'ssomething about like home and place
and community, you know, that thattranscends maybe even abstract ideas
of, you know, like about like, youknow, democracy or whatever else.
And so, you know, when I was overseas, Iwouldn't always just think like, oh, I'm,

(01:22:17):
you know, I'm here because of, I havethis profound, you know, appreciation.
To spread democracy.
It was kind of like, I'm here tosomehow sort of safeguard this
place called home that in my mindI would kind of imagine this Norman
Rockwell, you know, baseball diamond.
You know, so you draw on like weirdthings, you know, to kind of mo motivate
yourself, um, more, more than maybeabstract sort of philosophical concepts.

(01:22:40):
And so for me, baseballwas always a big thing.
And, and so I, I remember reading one day.
That, uh, the minor league, themajor leagues were gonna cancel
or extinguish essentially 40 ofthese minor league affiliates.
So there were 160 at the time andthey were gonna go down to 120.
And I had been doing a lot ofreporting from sort of small town
America at the time, and I justkind of could connect the dots.

(01:23:01):
I had this in, in intuitive sense thatthis just isn't gonna be good for these.
Places and, and I knew that,you know, the money is there.
Um, talking about a multi-billion dollarindustry, um, it costs about $600,000
a year to keep one of these teamsafloat for their major league parent.
You know, to put that in context, youknow, that's basically what, uh, the major

(01:23:24):
league minimum salary is for one player.
Okay.
That's what superstars in themajor leagues will make in
like three games, you know?
So it's not a lot of money as a rivalof the, uh, Los Angeles Dodgers.
I'm well aware.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That's like, it's like a few atbats for otani, you know, so.
That's right.
Um, and so I just knew this wasn'tgreat and, and, and it occurred to

(01:23:44):
me, you know, what would be a neatstory would be to like, tell the
story of one of these teams, um, youknow, that is facing elimination.
It was.
Projected to occurafter this final season.
So it goes somewhere and it'slike the last season of a century
old minor league, uh, community.
Um, and uh, so that was kind of thegenesis for what led led to this book.

(01:24:06):
So the Muck Dogs, right?
Yeah.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Batavia Muck Dogs.
Yep.
And, and so I, I wrote an article forHarper's Magazine and then someone read
that article and that was what was,was really the catalyst for the book.
He said, you know what?
Everything you wrote about theAppalachian League resonated because
it reminded me so much of this teamwe have up here in Batavia, New York.
Would you like to come up?
I'll introduce you to some of the fans.

(01:24:27):
Um, and I went up there, we had abeer, you know, this was like on
a cold, you know, wintry WesternNew York Day outside Buffalo.
Um, and I just was like, wow,like this is such a really
charming group of, of people.
They're so passionate about their team.
It's clear how much thisteam means to this community.
Um, and so that's kind ofwhat, what led to the book.

(01:24:47):
So Will I know we gottaget you outta here.
There's a lot of things we'd love to askyou about with the books, but just for
people listening, we'll have links tothe books, the website, the articles in
the description, so you can catch those.
Well, I'm gonna ask you two questions thatwe ask everybody to round you out here.
So we'll speed run these.
One is when you were down range or workingin the Pentagon, which some people would
associate with being downrange, was thereanything you carried with you that had

(01:25:10):
sentimental value, good luck, charm.
Just something you wanted nearby.
So one thing that I carried with me, and Idon't, I don't have it now, so I'm trying
to remember when I stopped, but I, um.
Yeah, I don't know when that would'vebeen, but I had a, um, a news
clip in about Pat Tillman's death.

(01:25:32):
Um, and, or maybe it was, I don'teven know if it was before he died.
It might've been while he was, becauseI was in ranger school actually when he
was killed with some of the guys in my.
Uh, uh, some of the, when I wasrecycled, actually after failing
knots, um, some of the guys that werein that recycle platoon were in the
same company as Tillman when he died.

(01:25:52):
And they, they, I remember theinstructors coming to tell him them,
you know, that he had been killed.
Um, so, uh, because I think thatmust have been in oh four, but, so
I, I kept in my wallet just likethat little clip in, because I had
always been inspired by his decision.
Same, yeah.
To leave the NFL and, and like, kindof like if this guy can give up that
life, you know, it's, you know, and,and just, he was just like a really sort

(01:26:15):
of inspirational human being, um, kindof this larger than life, uh, figure.
So I used to carry that.
And then, um, where'd you carry it?
I just kept it in.
I don't think it's thereanymore, but just in my wallet.
Just like a Okay.
Just like a picture.
Cool.
Um, yeah, so that was one, and Ithink I also had created a list
at some point of things that.

(01:26:35):
Like, like kinda like inspirationalreasons, like why I had joined the
military, you know, like, you know, justlike a list like Grandfather World War
ii, you know, so that if I ever got liketoo depressed, like why am I doing this?
I could look at this list and like remindmyself of why I was where I, where I was.
Yeah, mopping floors wasprobably on that list.
Yeah, exactly.
That's when I had to take thelist out and be like, why am

(01:26:57):
I here whopping floors again?
Again, I mean, also, I'll ask you thelast question here, but I did think it
was funny that you mentioned you were anEnglish major at Princeton and then still
got hired in Manhattan to do finance.
So there's probably anotherstory to explore there.
Um, however, last question Will, like,looking back on that time, I mean, you
did leave a, what many people wouldsay is a, a golden career to do this.

(01:27:19):
You went through a lot of pain, youlost important people as you have
tattooed on your arm now, wouldyou go back and do that again?
Yeah, I would, I mean, as muchas I, uh, you know, I, I question
kind of the overall strategicvalue of, of, of, you know, what we
accomplished in some of these places.
You know, on a macro level, I'mvery proud of, of what, you know,

(01:27:42):
I did and what Mike, you know,the guys I served alongside did.
Um, and so, yeah, I don't haveany, you know, personal regrets.
Um, and I've made lifelong, youknow, friends with, with people.
Um, you know, I, I learneda lot about myself.
Um, you know, I, I certainly don't.
You know, I would not, I wouldn'treplace my experiences with, you
know, however many more years,you know, doing Excel sheets.

(01:28:05):
Um, even though my, my bank account,I mean, it's easy to say except for
the fact that like, you know, prettysoon some of these friends of mine that
didn't do this are gonna be retiring,you know, to the, to Bermuda and I'm
gonna be, you know, counting my pennies.
But, um, yeah, but getting abeer with you will is more fun.
So it's, I got, I got good storiesI might not write, you know?
Yeah, exactly.

(01:28:26):
That's right.
Right.
Uh, hey Will, thank youso much for the time.
Um, aj, any last, lastthings I'd forgotten here?
Uh, I meant what I said earlier.
Uh, thank you for whatyou did, uh, overseas.
Thanks for making sure that thework that the young men and women
on the ground as far as infantry,were going to create that space.
And then using that, uh,we paid a lot for it.
And, and turning it over to people likeyou who won, uh, inside Ramadi and heat

(01:28:50):
and the areas in which you, you operated.
That was the thing that solidified.
Uh, you know, our, ourvictory in the area.
So thank you so much for that.
Thanks, will.
Yeah, thank you guys.
I mean, you're, you're, you'veserved longer than I did and
did a lot of, you know, probablymore exciting stuff than I did.
So I appreciate you having me.
Alright, well, appreciate it, man.
Thanks so much.
Okay.

(01:29:10):
Thanks dude.
Thank you guys.
Close to meet you.
Look forward to you.
I appreciate it.
I hope you enjoyed that, uh, that combatstory with aj, myself and Will, um,
again, pat Fagan, who had mentionedat the beginning, put us in contact
with Will, I believe Will, has, uh,has just a great presence and has

(01:29:30):
been featured in many publications.
Jocko.
Uh, his books are great.
So, you know, it was reallyan honor to have him on.
Um, pat and I go way back, justliterally from freshman year of college.
Um, I remember us going out andlearning how to march in our at TC
out in the morning in the parkinglot as a couple freshmen, morons.

(01:29:53):
He didn't know anything about themilitary and what we were getting into.
Um, and then when we graduatedand got commissioned, he went to
Armor, uh, to Armor Officer Basic.
I went over to Aviation and he, pat wentthrough Ranger school and the whole thing.
And it was funny 'cause we werestationed in Germany together as our
first assignments and we connected, youknow, once or twice while we were there.

(01:30:17):
And as many of you have probablyheard me say on, on the podcast
when I've been interviewed, um, Ididn't get down range for like five
years after we got commissioned.
He was as down rangemaybe within two years.
And the whole time we werein Germany, I didn't deploy.
And it was personally just avery difficult time for me.

(01:30:38):
I remember him saying that he was in thedeploying army, not the one that I was in.
I was, in my mind I was, man, that is sucha terrible place to be for me right now.
But of course eventually got down range.
Um, but you know, pat has been a very,uh, gracious friend over time and pings

(01:30:58):
me every now and then after hearing,hearing an interview like with McMaster,
you know, being an armor officer.
He of course knows who McMaster isand, and the legend of 73 East Dean.
And so it's been great and I can't thankhim enough for connecting us with Will.
And then obviouslyyou've heard AJ on here.
You're gonna hear AJ more and more, um,as I transition the podcast over to him,

(01:31:20):
um, for many reasons, not least of whichis his amazing resume on the ground,
having done things I have never done.
And being able to connect with guestsin a way I cannot, but also so that
I can go and focus on, um, a slightlydifferent podcast, but really digging

(01:31:40):
into international security relations.
Um, really closely watching whatcountries like Russia, China, Iran,
North Korea are doing, um, whatthat means for us as a country.
Things that I'm very passionateabout and worried about.
Um, and AJ also has an incredible networkof veterans that he can connect with

(01:32:02):
and he has trained with some of the bestin the world and fought alongside them.
So, um, I think this is best for everyone.
It's gonna be great.
And, uh, you will nothave heard the last of me.
We've still got a few, uh, interviewswe're gonna do together, but over time
you'll hear more of him and I am sureI will come back from time to time.
But with that, thank you.

(01:32:22):
If you made it this far for listening,being a part of this and wherever
you are in the world, we can.
Day, weekend.
Yeah.
Whatever continent you're on, stay safe.

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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;}Randall Parkes - Warrior to Mentor