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November 9, 2024 128 mins

Today we have round one of a fantastic two-part Combat Story with a former guest: Darrell Utt, a long time Green Beret and retired Master Sergeant. 

Darrell just finished writing a book (Grit to Glory) going into great detail about one deployment when he was a Team Sergeant with ODA 043 in 2006 to Iraq that includes all the highs and lows of leading a team of elite Green Berets. 

We met with Darrell two years ago for an episode (#74) watched by over a 100K+ people and this time around we get into more of the moments, experiences, and emotion in some of the fighting that Darrell has unearthed while writing the book.

If you pre-order his book before Veterans Day (2024), you get a signed copy of the book and one of the coolest challenge coins you’ll find. Pre-order the book at ballastbooks.com/purchase/grit-to-glory/. You can find Darrell on the socials at darrell.utt on Instagram or darrell-utt on LinkedIN.

If you haven’t seen the first episode, don’t worry, you’ll get all the context you need in this one to be up and running and I’m sure you’re going to enjoy his very real, raw, and down to earth storytelling as much as I did.

Darrell on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/darrell.utt/?hl=en

00:00 Intro

00:35 Darrell Utt Bio

03:09 Writing the Book: Challenges and Inspirations

10:12 Morgue Day: A Haunting Memory

19:26 Growing Up: Building Grit and Resilience

21:15 Family Struggles and Finding Strength

32:44 Military Path: From Humble Beginnings to Special Forces

44:53 The First Marine in the Family

45:16 Mentorship and Military Service

45:48 Challenges in Joining the Marine Corps

47:48 Receiving the Green Beret

50:28 Reconnecting with Influential Figures

54:08 Operation Ugly Baby: The Initial Invasion

01:06:05 Cultural Encounters and EPW Camp

01:18:03 Navigating Mosul and Military Strategy

01:26:13 Strategic Reflections and Military Planning

01:27:18 Looted Infrastructure and Insurgency

01:29:04 Early Signs of Trouble in Iraq

01:31:11 The Ba'ath Party Dilemma

01:33:22 WMDs and Misconceptions

01:35:27 2006: A New Team and Mission

01:47:20 Challenges and Leadership Decisions

02:03:57 Owning Up and Moving Forward

02:07:44 Conclusion and Upcoming Content

 

#usarmy #veterans #combat #specialforces

 

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
We're trying to figure outthe rules of engagement.
Hey man, everybody's armed.
If they fire at our vehicle,we're all gonna die.
Because we're in soft skinvehicles, there's no protection,
AK 47, hot knife through butter.
Welcome to Combat Story.
I'm Ryan Fugit, and I served Warzonetours as an Army Attack Helicopter Pilot
and CIA Officer over a 15 year career.

(00:23):
I'm fascinated by the experiencesof the elite in combat.
On this show, I interview some ofthe best to understand what combat
felt like on their front lines.
This is Combat Story.
Today we have round one of a fantastictwo part combat story with a former
guest, Daryl Utt, a longtime GreenBeret and retired Master Sergeant.

(00:43):
Daryl just finished writing a book.
Went into great detail about one ofhis deployments when he was a team
sergeant with ODA 043 in 2006 to Iraq.
That includes all the highs and lows ofleading a team of elite Green Berets.
We met with Daryl two years ago for anepisode watched by over 100, 000 people.
And this time around, we get into evenmore of the moments, experiences, and

(01:05):
emotion in some of the fighting that Darylhas unearthed while writing this book.
If you preorder his book beforeVeterans Day, you get a signed copy
and one of the cooler challengecoins you're going to find.
You can order it at ballastbooks.
com.
If you haven't seen our episode from 2022,don't worry, you'll get all the context
you need in this one to be up and running.
And I'm sure you're goingto enjoy is very real.

(01:27):
Raw and down to earthstorytelling as much as I did.
Darryl, thanks so much for comingback on round two, taking the time
to share even more stories with us.
Yeah.
Round two.
Happy to be here, man.
Happy to be here.
Thanks for hosting me.
Oh, it's so awesome to behere in California with you.
Two and a half years after, uh, afterthe first rundown on this episode 74 and

(01:50):
you and I were connected by Jordan Beckerand you have connected me with so many
guests over time and I am so thankful andgrateful not just for, you know, the, the
interviews I've had with those guests.
But the connections I've made, I thinkthat's a lot of what this is about.
And yeah, I still havesome more connections.
I know I'm so excited for everyone Ican get, but really this time, what we

(02:13):
talked about in episode 74, and we werejust joking before we hit, hit a record
that I think over a hundred thousandpeople have watched the two of us.
It's talking, talking about some, someinteresting moments and we'll get into
even more, but you're back becausewe've got the book, grit the glory.
Um, you could see, see some pictures ifyou're watching online and if not, we'll.

(02:35):
You can take a look in the descriptionwhere you can go get that including an
autograph copy and a very cool coin a
challenge coin I have I have a lot ofcredit goes for you for that ryan You were
the one that first planted that seed inmy mind about the book And here we are
two and a half years and here's the book.
Yep.
I find it hard to believe that I, Imay have been one of the first people

(02:56):
to mention this to you, just given howcrazy some of the stories are, even
some of the names, ugly baby, she comesto mind and right at some of these
moments in a live days and whatnot.
But I'm so glad you did it.
I wanted to spend a littlebit of time talking about what
it was like writing the book.
I've only heard from others abouthow hard it can be to publish a book.
put a lot of the emotion into it.

(03:18):
Sure.
I may have mentioned it to you, butwhat made you want to make it yourself?
What made me want to
write
the
book?
Yeah.
Well, after you first mentioned it,uh, you were my very first podcast.
So thank you for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and then as I continue to dopodcasts, I guess that maybe I was
practicing or I just, I just keptdoing them and the host would typically

(03:43):
say the same thing at the end.
Once we got off the air, it was like,man, you really need to write a book.
And I just kept hearing itover and over and over again.
Uh, and then I started thinking,thinking about it and I look at it
a couple of different ways, but.
To really turn like Iraq and Afghanistan,what happened there with, you know, with

(04:04):
us leaving and all of those types ofthings, it's really turning a negative
into a positive, because I know thatI have some, some stories that I could
share, some lessons learned from, frommy experience in combat that hopefully
it will help the next generation.
Hopefully I can inspire,inspire some folks.

(04:25):
Uh, I definitely wanted to honor somefolks honor the the folks on my team
honor the people that served And andi'm sure you were the same way growing
up ryan but you know, I grew up readingbooks about the vietnam era guys and
gals and the lerps and the rangers andnick rowe five years of freedom and

(04:47):
About face colonel david hackworth.
Uh, I just reread thatnot too long really.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a that's a great book.
Jeez um But you know, I grew upreading those books and I think that
they did have a, an impact on me.
It's hard not to have an impact whenyou, when you're reading about military
history and wars and things like that.
So I hope to do for the next generationwhat the generation before did for me.

(05:12):
It probably did for you as well.
That's
very cool.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
I mean, for me, I read a lot of the,the Richard Marchenko books, um, but
also obviously the Blackhawk downs.
I was really, really struck and,and obviously the Vietnam stories.
But one of the things I really wantedto make sure we talked about is the
inspiration for the book when you werelooking at other books, was there one

(05:35):
that you were modeling this after?
Yeah, definitely.
Well, you just mentioneda black Hawk down.
That was definitely, that wasdefinitely at the top of the list.
And two of my.
Um, two of my heroes as a young manwas Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart,
both from Delta Delta force snipers,uh, that were killed in Mogadishu.
Uh, also I was really inspired by thebook, Red Platoon by a Clint Romesha.

(05:59):
For my book, uh, and it was actuallyClint and he had a ghost writer that he
used, but I love the way red platoon,it's like that raw combat, that raw behind
the scenes, kind of dark soldier humor.
You know, I just love the way thatbook was written and how it just like

(06:21):
grabbed you and just sucks you in.
And it's hard to put down and it'sa book I would probably say, and I
can't say this for a lot of books.
Like I just mentionedabout face David Hackworth.
I know for a fact I've readthat book twice cause it's like
flipping this big, it's, it's huge.
Uh, and that man saw a lotof combat, a lot of like just

(06:43):
difficult Korea trench warfare.
It's crazy.
Like.
I know for a fact I'veread that book twice.
I can honestly sit here and look youin the eyes and tell you I've read Red
Platoon probably at least 20 to 25 times.
Wow.
Sometimes I just read it over.
It's just, it just grabs me.
And, um, my coauthor that helped mewrite grit to glory, uh, Lauren and

(07:07):
Gaudy bestselling author, I thinkshe's written 12 or 13 books now.
Um, but she said, Hey, what,what are you looking for?
Like, give me, give me some style orgive me some books that you really like.
And Red Platoon and Black Hawk Downjust totally jumped off the page for me.
And then she said, okay,let's talk about Red Platoon.

(07:29):
You really like Red Platoon.
Like, why do you like it so much?
And it's like, it's justa, it's a page turner.
Like it sucks you in.
And I love, it's like a rollercoaster and you know, there's the
humor side, but then there's the.
No kid in combat.
There's, there's life, there'sdeath, you know, all those things.
And I really want my book to, toput the reader in the front seat.

(07:52):
Like we're driving through Baghdadand we're in a firefight and they
get to experience what it's like.
To be on a special forces team awesome.
That's what I'm after.
I love it.
And Ryan you read it.
Yeah So, I mean, hopefully
we delivered part of the reason we'redoing this now is Just ahead of when
this thing gets released in lateNovember early December to kind of
general population, you know folks Iwould encourage you you can go ahead

(08:17):
and pre order this now and get a signedcopy and a coin And I think if you like
combat story If you've tuned into this,this is going to be your kind of book.
So
yeah, it's got a littlebit of everything too.
I mean, it's got, it'sgot the combat stories.
It's got the firefights.
Um, it's got emotional things.
It's got family type things.

(08:38):
It's got team dynamics.
Um, it's a book about leadershipand resilience and um, You
know, when life punches you inthe face, what, what do you do?
Yeah.
All those type of things.
We talked about this, some ofthe things we'll get into today
aren't all the, the glory.
It's some of the downsides there too,which I think it's super important
for everybody to hear that we allgo through the ups and downs and I,

(09:02):
I would just applaud you for havingincluded that in the book, which when
it's probably pretty easy to say like,eh, we don't need to mention that.
Yeah.
Can we just gloss,
can we gloss over some of the bad stuff?
Yeah.
And that's where.
Lauren came into play as an experiencedauthor that could, you know, kind
of like guide me because there weresome things that was like, uh, do

(09:23):
I really want to talk about this?
Or, you know, just how close I did come togetting fired before the rotation started.
And, and she's like, Hey,That's being authentic and
that's what people want to read.
They want to, they want to read, uh, andsee that you're vulnerable and you're
being authentic and you're sharingthe whole story because it's too easy

(09:47):
just to cover the highs, uh, and not.
Dip down and see the lows.
Um, so this is definitely not asuperhero story and everybody's, you
know, heroes, like there's, there's alot of things that happen in this book.
The, you know, it's not all jackpots.
Uh, there's some dry holes too.
So there's, there's alittle bit of everything.

(10:08):
Um, what was the hardest partabout writing it for you?
The hardest part about writing it, um,
you know, there's one incident thathappened in 2006, and it's described
in the book, the chapter of the book,it's Morg Day, and, um, this is after

(10:30):
the civil war had ignited in Iraq, whichwas 22 February, uh, 2006, and Iraq was
already a very dangerous, deadly place.
deadly place already.
And then on the 22nd of February 2006,Al Qaeda bombed a Shia mosque and
it ignited a full blown Civil war.

(10:51):
So, um, as a result of this, youknow, the deaths in and around
Baghdad just skyrocketed and my team,my special forces team, we were at
ground zero, you know, we were, we hadfront row seats to this whole thing.
So there was a day, it was maybe a monthor two after, uh, you know, the civil war.

(11:14):
actually igniting that one of ourIraqi workers was murdered and the
body was at the hospital slash morgue.
And we went and recoveredthe body from the morgue.
Well, when that happened, almostimmediately when I walked out of
the morgue, I just pushed that sofar down and compartmentalized it.

(11:40):
I never talked about it.
What you saw, what I saw.
Yeah, it was terrible.
And, uh, it was the worstof humanity is what I saw.
And I buried that so deep, so deep.
And then I have an author and we'reputting together these stories.

(12:00):
And that was one of the big stories wasmorgue day, because, What we did that day
and the relationship that we built and thetrust that we built It would come back.
We would see it later like the results
But that particular incident I wasvery sensitive to I didn't I didn't

(12:21):
want to, I didn't want to go there.
And, uh, that's why it's so importantto have a great author and to have
a great friend, uh, colleague,confidant, buddy, because Lauren was
able to very, uh, in a delicate way.
Like, Hey, Daryl, weneed to talk about this.
I know this is very hard for you, butyou know, is there, is there a way

(12:44):
that we could maybe discuss this that'smore comfortable for you or, uh, would
you like to write it down and let meread it and then we can talk about it.
So, so we went back and forthon strategies and she was very
delicate with the whole thing.
And, uh, I ended up writing.
Page after page after page, and it justkind of came out and, um, it was very

(13:10):
tough because you know, a lot of thebodies that were in the morgue had,
you know, you could clearly see thatthey'd been tortured and it wasn't
just male aged fighters, which don'tcare, like, yeah, not a big deal.
Uh, it wasn't that there were, youknow, there were, there were women

(13:31):
there, there were kids there and.
It was just the worst of humanity.
Um, and we, we got through thatand, and you know, I thought
I was doing pretty good.
I gave her the story like, Hey,you know, here's some things.
And then, and then she cameback and said, Daryl, I really
need some emotion with this.
Like, what did you feel?

(13:54):
What did you see?
What did you smell?
What did you hear?
You know, those types of things.
And she just was able to doit in a very professional way.
And You know, I'm not the first militaryguy or the first special forces,
special ops guy that she's worked with.
She's worked with seals.
Um, she's worked with a, another author,Jeff Morris, who saw a lot of very,

(14:20):
you know, up close, a lot of his, hisown soldiers, uh, were killed in Iraq.
So she's dealt with this beforeand I'm just super thankful.
That she was able to do it because ifshe would have approached me maybe in a
different way, or if she was inexperiencedor she had never done it before, I think
I probably would have just shut down.

(14:40):
Um, because no kidding,man, it was literally.
It was buried deep into my conscious.
Was it good to get that out or?
It really was.
Um, I didn't realize thatat the time though, Ryan.
Uh, but afterwards it was very therapeuticand, um, it was almost like a secret

(15:05):
that I had, like I was, I was keepingthe secret that I, that I saw this
carnage and the worst of humanity.
And, um.
Um, you know, I, maybe I feltlike I, I shouldn't have saw
that or didn't need to see that.
But uh, it was just very dark and,uh, but once, once it came out, it was

(15:30):
therapeutic and I was able to actuallygo back and look at that for what it was.
Like, Hey, I, I didn't do this.
Um, this was another evil force atplay that, that did this carnage.
I was there to try to help those people.
And I think that kind oflike helped me repackage it.

(15:53):
And then, um, Um, my wife was thefirst person to read once we had a
complete manuscript and Lauren and Iwent back and forth and my wife was
able to read it for the first time.
I felt like I owed her that since wewere paying for, paying for the book,
but, um, It really, you know, cause mywife didn't know these stories, you know,

(16:18):
so, uh, I think maybe our, our podcast,our first one, she got to hear some of
these things, but she, she got to readthe stories and, you know, It was like,
I kind of had a partner like, okay, you,you know what I went through and I feel
like I'm a work in progress, uh, to thisday, you know, I, there's things that,

(16:39):
you know, we just have to work through.
And I think that's why I like tojump on the treadmill and it just
helps with the whole mental part.
But, uh, now that I know she's aware ofthis and I think maybe she can give me a
little bit, I mean, my wife is amazing.
Anyway, but I think sometimes if I'mmaybe just a little bit rough or, you

(17:01):
know, uh, maybe a little bit distant,I think she can give me more grace.
And I think it's, it's because I, Iput, you know, I basically bled my
heart into this book and she can seethe things that I, that I dealt with.
I wonder why it is.
We don't talk more with our spousesabout those things up front.

(17:23):
It's, it's a great questionbecause I mean, that's your
partner, that's your life partner.
And I think it would bevery helpful if we did.
You
kind of want them to understandhow impactful something like
that was to you in your life.
But then we kind of bury it.
Yeah.
You know, it's, it's interesting.
Um, I was talking to someone theother day and, and it was like,

(17:46):
man, um, after 2006 and 2007,talking a little bit about religion.
And I was like, after, uh, after 2006and 2007, and then eventually, you
know, years later ended up retiring.
And then I had, I had the freedom andthe option if I wanted to go to church

(18:07):
more and all those types of things.
And I thought to myself, like, Hey,does God really have a place for me
after the things that I've, I've done?
And the guy that I was talking to waslike, dude, Have you not read the Bible
and how violent the death and I was like,that's a good point, but to go back to
my wife, uh, out of, you know, her andI, my wife is a lot more religious and

(18:33):
understands religion a lot more than I do.
I'm learning.
I'm literally a work in progress.
So I think maybe there was a partof me, Ryan, that was worried that
And you know, like, man, couldthis maybe change something if she
knows, uh, just the things that I'vehad to do or the things I've been
around, but I was totally wrong, man.

(18:56):
I know.
Go back to your point.
I think it would be a good thing totalk, to talk to your partner and,
and share some of those things.
And.
And I think it would probably help out.
I think we all get this wrong.
Most of us, you know, like we'relike, we compartmentalize and we
think we're doing the right thing.
And we also want that partner tounderstand how important some of

(19:18):
those moments were, but they don'tget to hear any of the details of it.
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
Okay.
So look, the title is grit to glory.
We're going to talk more about thegrit code later, but I can't imagine
that there is part of grit thatdoesn't involve the way you grew up.
So I'm wondering if you can give people,even if they listen to the first episode

(19:38):
of us, what was it like growing up foryou and where did the grit come from?
Yeah, so I think West Virginia,which is my home state.
I'm from Huntington, West Virginia.
There's an abundanceof grit in that state.
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And now back to this combat story.
So, yeah, from Huntington, West Virginia,both of my parents, uh, started out
really young blue collar workers.
Uh, neither one of them graduated highschool and they just plunged into work

(21:27):
and raising a family, you know, soI had an older brother and a sister.
I was the baby, so I was already ata pretty huge disadvantage, uh, being
the youngest, the youngest person.
And then, um, and you know, Italk about this in the book, um,

(21:47):
you know, it came from an abusivefamily and it's still kind of a little
bit hard for me to even share thatnow because, you know, I, I lived
through it and, you know, Here I am.
I survived and I've, I've heardother people's story and it's like,
well, it wasn't really that bad,but I mean, it wasn't great either.

(22:11):
Yeah, it wasn't great either.
And it was definitelytaken to a higher extreme.
And And this goes into thealcohol argument, you know, or
the alcohol discussion that youstart mixing alcohol into things.
It tends to make thingsa little bit worse.
And my dad had a problem withalcohol as a younger guy.
And then, you know, he's probably tryingto provide for a family and then he's

(22:37):
got a marriage he's got to contend with.
And, um, yeah, so alcoholwas definitely a big thing.
And then he was very abusive to my mom.
Uh, even in front of us as, as youngkids, which was tough, you know, cause
you can't do anything as a young kidand you see your dad that's hitting,
slapping around your mom and it's just,it's tough, you know, but, um, and my

(23:01):
mom was, you know, she had came froman abusive family as a little girl.
So then she gets married.
She has an abusive husband.
And then for gosh sakes, youknow, three strikes, you're out.
She worked at a mental, uh, a mentalhealth institution and the, you know,
she would come home several timeswith black eyes from the patients

(23:25):
and, um, was typically fightingand doing all kinds of things at
work, getting her hair pulled out.
Uh, so I think, and I'm not trying to makeexcuses or anything like that, but I think
that combination made it really toxic.
And then there's three kids runningaround, you know, in the house and,

(23:46):
you know, um, so I think she tooka lot of her anger out on us and we
just happened to be there and, um, youknow, spatulas, belts, wooden spoons.
I mean, throw stuff like it was thewhole gamut and, you know, And I say all
these things and I just want to be veryclear about this, uh, cause I'm, I'm

(24:07):
sure my sister will be listening in, butmy sister really took the brunt of it.
And I, I don't know if it's like amom daughter thing, uh, or it was
the middle, the middle child thing.
I, I'm not a psychologist, I don'tknow, but for whatever reason,
my sister took the brunt of it.
I mean, we all got it bad.

(24:27):
Um, and of course, you know, they were.
When I was a freshman in highschool, my sister was a senior and
my brother had already graduated andwas in college and all that stuff.
So, so I got to see, you know, when Istarted my sophomore, junior, senior
year, I got to see and witness the endof the marriage where my older brother

(24:52):
and sister were already out of the house.
I got to, I got to see that.
So, um, I was part of a, of a fightslash argument over a loaded shotgun
that my mom wanted to shoot my dad andI was able to wrestle, you know, my
dad was like, do it, do it, shoot me.

(25:13):
And I'm just like in the living room.
I can't believe this is happening.
And I know the shotgun is loaded.
Cause dad and I werebig hunters, you know?
And I'm like, Oh man,this, this gun is loaded.
It's not unloaded.
Like it's loaded, ready to go.
And, um, I had to go in theirbedroom and Russell, the shotgun
away from my mom, and that was tough.

(25:34):
And I think what my mom wastrying to do, she was trying to
get me to graduate high school.
Just like, let me get to thatpoint where he graduates.
And then this is over.
And she couldn't make it.
She made it probably a couplemonths into my senior year.
No, no, she didn't.
I think she made it like rightat the beginning because football
season, I played football.

(25:55):
Uh, and I remember she went to my games,but she said on the visitor side, because
she didn't want to have any interactionwith my dad on, on the home side, it
was, it was very contentious, man.
It was a rough, it was a rough divorce,but I remember, um, Um, the day that
she left, um, you know, her dad had beenarguing and fighting, which was typical.

(26:16):
And I just sat down.
I had a plate of food and I had it inmy lap and had the TV, watching TV.
And I think dad had thrownhis plate of food at the wall.
I mean, it was crazy, man.
He had thrown his plateof food at the wall.
And she came in.
Um, and she grabbed my plate out ofmy lap and set it to the side and

(26:40):
gave me a real tight hug and said,Hey, this has nothing to do with you.
Um, but, oh my gosh, I love you.
And she walked out thedoor and that was it.
So yeah, man, um, andso that was my family.
That was like the family dynamic.

(27:01):
Uh, and I think that's where a lot of thetoughness and grit came in just from that.
Uh, but I also was a football player.
I played all sports, but I was,I was really good at, well, I
can't say I was really good.
I mean, I was decent at football,but that was kind of like my sport.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I played.
baseball, basketball, football growing up.
And then, uh, once I got to highschool, I just focused on football

(27:24):
and I love giving a shout out to my,my football coach, coach Thornburg,
cause he's retired, uh, sorry, majorfrom, uh, um, 19 special forces group.
He's national guard.
And, and we had a tough, we hada tough football program because
when I was younger, We weren't verysuccessful and we just, we got our

(27:45):
ass beat, uh, most games, which reallygoes into the toughness as well.
I mean, when you get knockeddown, you get punched in the
face, you got to get back up.
No, one's going to feel sorry for you.
Put your big boy pantsback on and get after it.
Uh, so, you know, I grew up playingfootball and we weren't successful.
And then my ninth grade year, we, Youknow, I, I played varsity, well, I

(28:11):
can't say I played, but I was on thevarsity team just was an extra, but we
got our ass kicked, uh, the whole year.
And, um, then the sophomore yearwe started winning a little bit
and then my junior year, we hada winning team and then my senior
year, we went to the playoffs.
So we kind of turned it around,but, uh, and I think we talked

(28:32):
about this on the first episodewhen you're a 14 year old kid.
Who's just kind of like went throughpuberty or maybe going through puberty and
you're going up against kids that are 18years old that are grown men that shave,
uh, it's a whole different animal whenyou have to, you're like a practice player
for, for the varsity guys and you know,Monday through Thursday, they're going

(28:56):
to come in and they're pissed off becausethey got their ass beat the Friday before.
You know, so they abused us, uh, andI remember wearing the pads and having
all the bruises up and down my arms and,you know, it was tough, man, but I, I
really, I'm grateful for that experiencebecause it made us really, really tough.

(29:18):
And then, like I said, back tothe football coach, coach Thumber
being a special forces guy.
You know, I wouldn't know until yearslater that he basically ran our football
team, like a special forces team.
Like this looks similar.
I've seen this before.
You know,
like he worked out with us, likehe was like the team sergeant, you
know, and, uh, it really was, uh, itwas an interesting flashback once I

(29:41):
pieced it all together, but, uh, butI think that's where Ryan, that's a
long way to answer your question, but.
But that's where the grit and thetoughness comes in, you know, is
from humble beginnings, poor, youknow, hunting, fishing, trapping.
Uh, sports and just thatrough, tough family life.

(30:05):
Um, it really helped build me, you know,uh, the, those strong foundational roots
for what I was going to become later on.
So it sounds like from hearingthis, maybe Thornburg is more
of the mentor or father figure.
I don't know that.
Um, is with you for thoseheight formative years.

(30:26):
Yeah.
No, my, my, my, my dad was a greatmentor and father figure as well.
Um, he was like my sports athleticfishing, hunting, trapping guy.
So he kind of made me a man or,you know, doing the boy stuff.
And my mom, surprisingly enough, is theone that made me really mental tough,

(30:48):
like really mentally tough becauseshe was a very mentally tough woman.
uh, because of the abusethat she went through.
And so I, I got the, could I sayI got the best of both worlds?
Like I got all the manly stuff for mydad, but I really got that crazy mental
toughness, like, like just almoststubborn, like a mule kind of thing.

(31:13):
And, um, I don't know if I sharedthis before or not, but, Right
before my mother passed, this is howstubborn and just mentally hardcore
she was right before she passed.
And I think this is a, this is kindof accurate because I wasn't there.
My sister was, but I believe she hadsomething with her heart and she had

(31:37):
some kind of problem with her heart.
And the doctor said, Hey, we needto do like, let's just say it's
like open heart surgery or whatever.
Like we need to do something.
You got some blockage.
We need to clean all this stuff up.
And she's like, yeah, I don'tthink I'm going to do that.
And he said, listen, we do needto do this because if you don't
do this, you're going to die.

(31:57):
And she said, well, I'm not doing it.
And he's like, I'm givingyou my best medical advice.
If you don't do this procedure,you are going to die.
Like soon.
And she said, I'm not doing the procedure.
And he said, okay, then you'regoing to go to hospice and you're
going to be dead very soon.
And that's what she decided to do.

(32:19):
And is that, that's what,and that's what happened.
That was her decision.
My sister was with her the whole timeand, and took care of her all the way up
till the end, but for whatever reason,she didn't want to go through with the
procedure that they wanted her to do.
She was just like, Okay, that'show like, that's the extreme Ryan.
That's like extreme.

(32:41):
Um, But that's where Igot my middle toughness.
How
does all of that?
And I know that the grit builds with alot of what we're going to talk about
right with with your time in service Buthow does that upbringing influence you
as a leader going into the middle notmaybe not going into the military later
once you're leading other men If at all,

(33:03):
yeah.
Um, I think that's a, I thinkthat's a great question.
I think it definitely, Ihad a huge dose of humility.
And, and I think that's something I carry.
I carry from how you grew up.
You're saying from how I grew up.
Um, And, you know, I wasn't the guythat was wearing Nike and Converse.

(33:26):
I just saw not too long agoKmart, uh, clothes, like one
of their last major stores.
I think it was somewhere in NewYork, um, and they only have
like a couple of small ones left.
But, yeah.
That's where we did our shopping Kmartblue light special, you know, jeans
and, uh, shoes and all of that stuff.

(33:47):
And everybody knows if you're not wearingNike and Converse, you're wearing like
the Kmart blue light special stuff.
And I remember, um, I'd stilllike to run into this guy.
I remember.
I don't, and I really don't evenknow who this guy is to this
day, but it was like an Adam Ant.

(34:07):
Have you ever heard of that guy, Adam Ant?
I think he's like a singer or something,but he's like a, you know, older
generic, you know, not very popular.
So I'm wearing like an Adam Antconcert t shirt and somewhere blue
light special Kmart special thing.
And you know, all the kids werewearing rat and Cinderella and
Motley Crue and all that stuff.

(34:27):
Then.
I remember this one kid inparticular was making fun of the
way I would, you know, I was wearingsweatpants and this Adam Ant shirt.
And, you know, it's like, my momdoesn't even know who that is.
And you know, how kids are, but, um,
You said your mom knows who I am.
Did you hit him with that?
No, I wish I would have, Iwish I would have, that would

(34:48):
have been a hell of a comeback.
Uh, but, but yeah, I think all ofthose things really contributed.
It gave me a big piece of humility.
And I think that really carried overwell for me, uh, you know, going into
special forces because let's be honest,some special forces guys can be a little
arrogant, a little full of themselves.

(35:10):
So I was never that guy.
Uh, and I think it's justbecause of the way I was raised.
I feel like you don't meet a ton of them.
I'm sure being in the community, you'verun into plenty of them just seemed
more cerebral, um, down to earth.
guys for whatever reason.
I don't know what it is, but
I think, I think most guysare, um, I think maybe it's

(35:34):
the lens that you look through.
Because if you ask me as a brand newspecial forces guy, you know, do you
remember anybody being a little cockyand arrogant when you're brand new?
And I do.
Yeah.
I remember.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
I remember the first time I wasever on a set of military skis
and I was in Garmisch Germany.

(35:56):
Never skied before a day in my lifewasn't a mountaineering guy, nothing.
And I'm on these skis and, um, I ambasically doing what we call the Gore
Tex slide, you know, we got our GoreTex and you know, the skis come off
cause you just crashed and burned.
And then you're just like doingthe Gore Tex slide down the slope

(36:19):
and we're in flipping Germany.
So we're out there training.
Uh, of course, you know,people are enjoying.
You know, it's like, you know, civiliansare out there, civilian Germans.
And of course they're laughing, butthen you have the German army that were
there training and they're all like, tome, they were all like Olympic style.
Like these dudes looklike Olympic athletes.

(36:39):
So if you asked me as a young guy, ifI thought there was some special forces
guys that were arrogant, yes, becausethere were guys that had the cool Oakleys.
It's the hair gel.
They had the little white thing goingacross their nose because they were skis.
No shit.
They were ski instructorsand I'm out there.

(36:59):
I have like my black silkies, my topand bottom, and then I have my Gore
Tex and I'm just like a big ringingsweat mess because I don't know what
I'm doing and I keep crashing into thesnow and I'm frustrated and I'm cussing.
And it's like, Oh, look at therummage cell over there because,
you know, everything's flying.
So, and then you got these realpretty looking guys with the gel hair

(37:22):
and the sunglasses that I'm like,that dude is so cocky, so arrogant,
but I think it's just the lens.
And then, you know, as I got alittle bit older, um, you know, more
mature, more experienced, uh, everynow and then I might see a guy like
on another team that would be like,dude, I would jack that dude up

(37:43):
because he's a little bit of himself.
So I'm going to jump ahead just a bit,and this is obviously pre 2006, but just
talking about like learning to ski, right?
I know that the army doesn't make mostcourses fun, but there is something
every time I've looked at like Qcourse selection, like what is it?

(38:04):
18 months going through that pipeline.
You do some pretty coolstuff in that pipeline.
At the time, I assume it'spretty painful going through it.
Like you're probablybeing evaluated every day.
It could get cut at any moment,but is it a hell of a lot of fun
looking back on some of that?
Or is it still so hard because themental side of you could be gone any day?

(38:27):
Looking back on it, it's like,Oh my gosh, like, especially as
an older man, it's like, man, Ican't believe that I did that.
You know, um, looking back, it's beenalmost, you know, next year it'll be
25 years since I went to ranger school.
And I still have thosememories, um, because I was

(38:49):
flying through ranger school.
I went as a 30 year old.
I was, I had a long tab.
I was a special forces guy.
Did you
say a long tab?
Yeah.
Special forces.
Is that
what you call that?
Cause it's, it's justlonger than a ranger tab.
Yes.
A long tab.
Interesting.
Okay.
Excuse me, which goes into what we weretalking about early with long tab Yeah.
Oh yeah.

(39:09):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
But, um, I went through ranger schoolas a, as a 30 year old man, already been
to special forces and to look back atthat, it's like, man, you know, it's kind
of like being an NFL running back andyou hit 30 and it's kind of like, Hey
man, your prime is kind of behind you.
You know, you can still go out thereand do it, but you're not like what

(39:31):
you were when you were 25 or 28.
That's kind of how I, I felt a littlebit, especially when you know, when
you're, when you're there with like20 year old kids from ranger regiment
and they're hardcore, you know?
So, uh, so yeah, looking back andlooking back to like special forces
assessment and selection and tothink of some of those events.

(39:54):
And it's like, man, I, mybody would break, my body
would break in half right now.
Like I, there's no way I could do that.
So it does, you know,there is a feeling there.
The hardest thing Mentally, uh, thatwas the most taxing on me, exhausting
was trying to learn Morse code though,like, you know, the rocks were tough

(40:18):
and the runs and, you know, all thedifferent things that you got graded on,
like all of that stuff was, was reallytough, but the thing, and I mentioned
it in the book, learn in Morse code.
Almost broke me The the ditsand the dashes and all the
dots and dashes like man.
It almost broke me down I I was like,I don't know if I'm gonna be able

(40:41):
to survive this and I was able tofind like a second gear And and kind
of work my way out of it But dude,Morse code was really tough for me.
It was tough, dude.
But even that, I mean, yougot the jumping skiing.
I didn't even realizethat was a part of it.
Skiing was, was once later once you're in.
Yeah.

(41:01):
And you know, that's funny too.
That's a funny story.
Um, so back when I went, like theyare always changed in the order
of the courses and all that stuff.
So for me, when I went throughspecial forces qualification course,
uh, Robin Sage was the culminatingexercise, right after Robin Sage,
you earned your green beret.

(41:21):
And then once you had your greenberet, you could wear your green beret.
You're still a student.
And then you go to language school.
And for me, I went tofour months of German.
So I forgot where I was going with that.
Uh, Oh yeah.
So graduated the Q course andI'm in four months of German.
And then I know I'm getting readyto go to Stuttgart, Germany.

(41:43):
That's my first duty assignment, whichwas kind of a big deal back then was to
go to a forward deployed battalion, whichmeans basically if something's going to
go down in the world, it's probably goingto be the forward deployed battalions.
That's just, you know, that's the wayit is, but I remember being in language

(42:04):
school and a guy showed up and, uh, Iwas just looking at this guy's, um, like
his memorial thing, cause he, he was,uh, tragically, and unfortunately he was
killed in Afghanistan a couple of yearslater, or I'm sorry, uh, he was killed
in Iraq ID, but, uh, this guy, uh, John,uh, He came and pulled the guys that were

(42:26):
going to 1st Battalion, the Stuhgart.
He pulled us out of the classroomand he asked us a few questions.
And he was asking on behalf ofthe guys that were in Germany
already, like the leadership.
And what he asked me waslike, Oh, Darrell, uh, Uh,
have you ever skied before?
No, never.
Not one day.

(42:46):
Cause they were looking at me like,Oh, this kid's from West Virginia.
And you know, I think theywere just assumed mountains,
you know, all that stuff.
Have you ever skied?
No, I've never had a pairof skis on my life to me.
That was like golf, like rich people.
That's not what we do.
Rich people, golf and ski, not poor kids.
And then he said, have youever done any mountaineering?

(43:08):
I was like, never.
Never.
Not once ever.
And he's like, okay.
And then somehow I ended upon a mountain team and it's
like, how do you do that, man?
Like, huh.
That's just crazy.
Like, why would you put aguy, uh, on a mountain team?
That's never had anyexperience in that, which.
Um,

(43:36):
so two things before we jump into 2006here, one is the, the decision to go
into the military, just for peoplewho haven't heard the first story,
where does it come from for you?
Obviously you read a lot of thebooks, but there's a big decision
in your life to go that route.
What was it for you?
Yeah.
A couple, A couple of factors, onebeing poor family and, you know,

(43:58):
I really didn't have a lot ofopportunity to do anything else.
So that was one of the, thatwas definitely one of them.
And then there, there was servicemilitary service in my family.
Um, my, my mom's brother.
actually in the air force whenI was growing up and he ended up

(44:20):
retiring out of the air force.
Uh, and then of course, like mygrandfathers and great, they were
all, yeah, they were all like inworld war two different things.
But the thing that really intrigued meand got my attention was when my dad told
me, cause my dad knew more about my familythen, you know, obviously that I did.

(44:40):
And he, and I don't even thinkhe did it on purpose, but maybe
he was trying to brainwash hera little bit or influence me.
But he said that no one in, inthe family had ever been a Marine.
And that caught my attention.
I was like, Oh, I could bethe first one to be a Marine.
I could be the first, uh, you know,it's kind of like the, the families that

(45:02):
they've never, uh, sent anyone to college.
And it's like, I'm the firstcollege graduate for my family.
So for me, it was like.
I could say that I was the firstMarine and that, that intrigued me.
And then of course, thelink with my football coach.
And I think that's where, like, youwere kind of alluding to with the
mentorship question that you ask, youknow, where he knew my background,

(45:24):
he knew my family situation.
He knew we were poor.
He knew I didn't have a lotof opportunities and he knew
that I was a decent kid.
So he was able to mentor me and say,Hey, you should look at the military.
And then of course my dad.
you know, was a wise guy, you know,he was a wise man and was like,
Hey, maybe you could get a trade.
So that's kind of like where thatmilitary service, it originated.

(45:48):
And yes, I tried to join the Marine Corps.
Uh, I was telling you about theauthor of Echo and Ramadi, uh, Scott.
Um, I told him, I said, Hey, theMarine Corps was my first choice.
Just want to let you know that.
And he's like, well,shoot man, what happened?
And then I told him the story,you know, I had a cyst in my wrist

(46:08):
and they actually lied to me.
Uh, they said I was going to be anair traffic controller or I had the
scores to be an air traffic controller.
Cause at that time I was like,Oh, I'll get a skill, join the
service, get my college money.
I could get out and have,you know, have a good job.
So they lied and said that I had thescores to be an air traffic controller.
And then I went all the way up toBeckley, West Virginia at the map station.

(46:33):
And, uh, and they said, Hey, youdon't have the scores to be an air
traffic controller, but you can doopen contract and the Marines will
tell you what you're going to do.
So I was able to get on the phone withmy dad and he kind of rescued me and
said, Hey, they can make you a cook.
How would that make you feel?
I was like, terrible.

(46:53):
That would suck.
And then, uh, before they could do areally serious pressure campaign, cause
they're really good at what they do.
Uh, I had that cyst in my wristand it's like, Hey son, you
can't join the Marines today.
You need to get the cyst cutout and then we can, we can
talk about what you're going
to
do.
That bought me some time.

(47:13):
And then I was able to go back home andthen my little West Virginia brain was
able to process like, Hey, they liedto my ass and I don't appreciate that.
So I went and talked to the army andI say that with nothing but love.
I love the Marine Corps.
I support the Marine Corps.
I support all the branches, butsometimes that shit just happens.

(47:34):
I mean, it's true.
Um, and I think it all worked outand it worked out pretty good.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
Um, speaking of working out, I guessthis is the other thing that I just
wanted to touch on the moment youget your green beret the first time,

(47:55):
like when that's given to you, like,do you still remember that moment?
Yeah.
How'd it feel?
Um, It's a very, it's, it's heavy, man.
It's a like,
it's iconic that that is aniconic part of American history.
Yeah.
You know, uh, and I can't steal this.

(48:17):
I'm going to actually, I'm going to,um, use a quote from someone else,
but this comes from Nick Lavery,who's a very well respected, well
known Green Beret, still serving, uh,His leg was shot off in Afghanistan.
Just a beast of a man, just a beast.
But, um, I heard him, I believe I read it.

(48:38):
He posted it somewhere.
He's like, man, all the guys that spendso much time just busting their ass,
crushing it to earn a green beret that yougo on to, you don't want to wear anymore.
You want to wear a ball cap or you wantto wear a soft cap or you want to wear
anything else besides that green beret.
But all the blood, sweat, tears,hard work, determination, grit,

(48:59):
all the things that go into it.
And then once you get it, youwant to wear something else.
It's kind of funny.
Uh, and I never thought of it thatway until I heard Nick say that.
I was like, dude, that is genius.
That is very funny.
But to me, it was a heavy moment.
And then, you know, you have, luckilyyou have mentors and people, uh,

(49:21):
that have been around to, to kindof guide you and give you advice.
Like, Hey, I know you guys wentthrough a lot of stuff to get this,
but really a journey starts today.
Yeah, because now that you're wearingthis and everybody's looking at
you, you got to earn it every day.
So, so yeah, I do remember that and Ido remember, um, my dad was so proud.

(49:43):
My dad was so proud.
My mom was proud too, but um, I hada picture of me and my dad in front
of our house in North Carolina.
And, you know, I'm in my uniform andI got my green beret and it was like,
he was beaming, you know, it was like,man, my son, you know, so as a father
now, for sure, you, you know, man,I could barely, I could barely keep

(50:09):
it together when my son graduatedbasic and AIT in Georgia, you know,
just to see like the blue record.
It's like, man, he's kind of followingin dad's footsteps a little bit.
And, you know, I'm barelykind of keeping it together.
So now I get to experience what my dadexperienced, you know, it's kind of, it's
kind of neat how it all comes around.
Did you ever circle back with the coach?

(50:31):
Uh, I did, I did.
And, um, I'm so happy that he's stillalive and he's actually crushing it.
He's doing really good.
Um, I think he had like a little bitof a scare back in the day, like maybe
a heart issue or something like that,but he slimmed down and not that I'm

(50:52):
saying he was a big guy, but he gotreally, really healthy and he's fit.
And, you know, of coursehe's getting up there in age.
Um, but.
A guy, uh, actually one of the guysfrom my hometown that I played football.
He was a senior when I was ajunior, his name's Rick Fry.
Shout out to Rick Fry.
Um, Rick heard this podcast andit actually circulated through

(51:14):
Huntington, West Virginia, my hometown.
Yeah.
So Rick reached out to meout of the blue one day.
Uh, and we talked on the phoneand I asked about coach Thornburg.
It's like, man, coachThornburg still crushing it.
You know, he's still alive, doing well.
Um, He gave me his number and I was ableto call him and, uh, I sent him a copy of

(51:35):
the manuscript, one of the earlier copies.
And um, I got, I got word back throughlike a back channel that, uh, it
really, it was an emotional readfor him to see his name in the book.
Like here's the guy thatI haven't talked to.
And you know, I graduatedhigh school in 1990.

(51:55):
So.
It had been several years,decades, and here's the guy that's
writing about me in the book, theinfluence that, that I had on him.
So I heard that it was, it was, itwas really deep and emotional for him.
That's super cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean the guy's influenced andtouched so many people because you

(52:18):
know, just the guys that I graduatedwith, like all the football players.
that we had a huge class, you know,our, my graduating class was 70 people.
Jeez.
Yeah.
Small dude.
Little Hicktown.
Um, but several of the football players,you know, I think we might've had,

(52:39):
um, I don't know, 10 to 15 seniors.
I'd say the majority.
Uh, the football team went andserved in the military on some
branch, some capacity, his
own little recruiting center right there.
Yeah.
Jeez.
So I think you, you know, for, forfolks that are teachers or folks
that are out there dealing with theyouth, man, you just don't know who

(53:00):
you're, you're, you're influencing.
And I even, I even mentioned ateacher, uh, from my fifth grade
class, her name is Donna Norris.
That was just another teacher that,that saw something in me and probably
knew that I didn't have much andreally kind of helped me, you know,
because I wasn't the best student.

(53:20):
I wasn't the smartest by no means,but she just gave a little bit
more to me and I never forgot it.
That's awesome.
And I was able to thank her in the bookand I can't wait for her to read it.
So let's, we're going to fast forward,I think, and get into 2006, but.
I do think it's important if there arepoints along the way you mentioned like

(53:42):
you join up in 1990 This is early onwell before 9 11 obviously 15 years
before we get to 15 16 years beforewe get to this moment and the book
is really focused on Obviously yourlife and then these experiences in
2006 um Anything that we should kindof mentally check on before we get to

(54:03):
2006 and we kind of set the stage forwhat's about to happen for your career.
Yeah.
Um, I think we were going to talk a littlebit about operation ugly baby and that
was 2003 and that was the initial invasionfor 10th group and at Northern Iraq.
And you know, the plan was wewere going to go to Turkey.

(54:27):
And then all of our vehicles and gearwas pre staged in Turkey and then we
were just going to drive it across theborder and be right there in northern
Iraq, link up with the Kurdish Peshmerga.
And the whole strategic plan wasto keep, you know, 10 to 15 Iraqi
divisions that were staged up north,was to keep them engaged up north.

(54:50):
Reinforcing Baghdad, which wouldhave just created a shit storm.
So they needed an element up northto be with the Kurdish Peshmerga.
And we just happenedto be that, that unit.
Uh, the problem was Turkey did not wantto cooperate with us and they denied
us, uh, use of their air and land.

(55:10):
So, um, so.
Um, the war kicked off sometime in March,uh, 2003, like the third week of March,
February, you know, we were alreadyoverseas and we were in Romania, uh, and
we kept trying to get these flights andthe state department was negotiating.
Nothing.
It wasn't, you know, it wasn't,it wasn't going to happen.

(55:33):
Um, so they finally figured out like, Hey,Turkey's not going to play ball with us.
So we're going to haveto do something else.
We're going to have to do somethinga little bit radical, different, a
little bit more high risk than goingto Turkey and getting in vehicles
and driving safely across the border.
Uh, so the plan they came up with, um,uh, was for us to go down to Jordan.

(55:57):
And then we were gonna fly from Jordanover the Western part of Iraq and
then kind of like do a button hook.
And fly into, to her billon the six MC one thirties.
So it was second battalion, a 10 specialforces group, which I was part of.
And then a third battalion,10 special forces group.

(56:18):
So, so yeah, and that's what endedup happening was we got on these
MC one thirties, but, uh, and weended up flying in maybe the 22nd.
So it was like a day or so after,you know, when they first started
bombing Baghdad and stuff like that.
But they didn't have time to soften allof the AAA, the anti aircraft artillery,

(56:40):
because they didn't know where everythingwas, like, there was a lot of stuff
that was dispersed that was out in themiddle of nowhere, out in the desert.
So, they, they didn't have agood grasp of, They kind of
knew where some stuff was.
They tried to plan the route.
The MC 130 pilots, whoare heroes, by the way.
And I'm so glad that they wererecognized for their heroic actions

(57:03):
that night when they flew us in.
But, um, Yeah, because of this routeand the way it looked on the map,
that's why they called it ugly baby.
I'm still a little, you know, frustratedwith the name because I think it's
dumb, uh, Operation Ugly Baby.
I think if it would have been some coolname, you know, that we'd probably have

(57:25):
reunions in Vegas if it was a cool name.
We can have it on shirts, polos, but,uh, because it's ugly baby, no one
really hardly ever talks about it, butit was the longest air infiltration.
in combat since world war two.
So, uh, pretty historic, youknow, several hour, uh, flight.

(57:47):
And, you know, we were flying Napa theearth, which is bellies on the desert
floor, uh, sometimes like a hundredfeet, 200 feet, like way, way low,
trying to have evade all of the, theAAA, you know, into aircraft artillery.
And at some point.

(58:08):
You know, in Western Iraq,they really, the Iraqis really
lit up the six, six planes.
So uh, so we, you know, we could obviouslyhear all of that going on outside the
plane and then they started doing allthese crazy evasive, you know, maneuvers.
Which I did not appreciate at the time,uh, and I forever, since that time

(58:33):
period, I'm not too keen on flying ifit's not like a very stable, you know,
like it, it kind of messes with me.
Thank goodness.
My flight out here todayto California, uh, American
airlines, man, they crushed it.
Like it was a smooth takeoff, smoothlanding, hardly any turbulence.
But yeah, when we started doingturbulence, man, I did not like it.

(58:55):
And I think back to 2003, one timeme and my kids flew into New York and
we had some crazy turbulence and itreminded me of the initial invasion.
But
where are you strapped into an MC one 30?
We're strapped intothe belly of the floor.
Like this,
Where are you sitting
on the, on the floor.
You're sitting on the floor,you're like tethered, tether,
tethered, tethered to the floor.

(59:16):
And a lot of guys weresitting on, on their gear.
'cause we had all of our stuff with us.
Yeah.
You know, and we had these huge rucksacks, a hundred, 150 pound ruck sacks.
It was, it was crazy.
And, you know, to think back now,uh, you know, I think we lose
sight of like the magnitude ofwhat we were facing back then.

(59:38):
Yeah.
Because we didn't know.
You didn't know.
Was going to use weapons of massdestruction and And the thing is if
he would have used weapons of massdestruction He was going to kill a
lot of people and there's not a wholelot that you can do man You can maybe
try to make yourself a little bitcomfortable until your blood boils or
whatever and And I think that does bringup an interesting point about fear.

(01:00:03):
I think one of the times that I wasprobably the most scared in my military
career, especially as a youngerman was I was in basic training,
uh, during desert shield and desertstorm, you know, I got there in July.
So that was like right at thebuildup and we're learning about.

(01:00:24):
You know, chemical weapons and allof this stuff for the first time,
Kim, biological, all this stuff.
And they're showing us these pictures ofwhat happens to people and then they're
like, Hey, you better pay attention tothis class and learn how to put your,
you know, your protective gear on or knowhow to stab yourself in the thigh with
your entropy or injector or whatever.

(01:00:44):
And it's like, man, I rememberbeing terrified because it's
like, well, what do you do?
And then fast forward 13years to the initial invasion.
And we're faced with the same thingand, and keep in mind all, like
all, a lot of our gear and our,all of our vehicles were in Turkey.
So we land,
we have to get vehicles.

(01:01:05):
We have to figure out howwe're going to do our food.
We're waiting if he's going touse weapons of mass destruction.
And man, it was kind of acrazy time period, dude.
It was crazy.
Ugly baby.
That's so funny because I think theFallujah invasion is Phantom Fury.
Is that it?
That's a cool name.
That's a cool.
Yeah.
Neptune Spear.
Yeah.

(01:01:26):
Neptune
Spear is a cool name.
That is a cool one.
Bin Laden.
But going back to, uh, to that timeperiod, it's funny that, that we, you
know, we knew we were prepping for Iraq.
But we didn't know all about Iraq.
I mean, there's, there's just some thingsyou, you have to see to kind of believe.

(01:01:49):
And I remember being culturallyexposed to some of the Iraqi
ways that they do things.
And, uh, we were very unfortunate as aspecial forces team back in 03, and we
were kind of the redheaded stepkids, uh,in our battalion because before I got
there, Um, my team, they were doing somedemolition training and they had a mishap

(01:02:15):
and a guy got fucked up like, I think our,uh, the 18 Delta Keith Parish, who's just
a phenomenal medic ended up saving thatguy's life and getting a meta backed out.
Uh, if it wasn't for Keith, Ithink the guy would have died.
That's how bad he was.
I think he's good now.
But they had a mishapduring like train up.

(01:02:37):
And they were trying to rank andwho's going to go where, which
teams are going to do what missions.
So before I got to the team, thisguy got, he got blown up and was
injured really bad and that putour team at the bottom of the list.
So we were left out in the cold, youknow, for all the missions, they gave

(01:02:59):
us an enemy prisoner of war camp.
It's like, Hey, you guys are going toestablish an enemy prisoner of war camp.
Build it, run it, figure it out,coordinate with the Red Cross, because
the battle plan back then was, it wasgoing to be based off capitulation.
That's what the intel that theywere feeding us, like, Hey, there's

(01:03:21):
going to be mass capitulation.
Almost like, you know, the tankswill do this, the turrets will go
back, you know, all the soldierswill put their AKs this way.
The senior officer in charge will keephis pistol and that's not a big deal.
It's so he can control the, the troopies.
So it was all capitulationand that didn't happen.

(01:03:42):
Uh, it didn't happen becauseSaddam, the Saddam Fetidine were
killing dudes that were deserting.
So it was like, Hey, I'm either goingto fight and die against these dudes
or my own people are going to kill me.
So that really, there weren't a lot of.
Prisoners or, you know, bat party,high level, you know, and then if

(01:04:06):
there were the Kurdish one of them,of course, because they have their
own ways, you know, they can drinktea together and do high fives or
whatever they were going to do.
Uh, so at our little enemy prisonerof war camp, I think we had like
one dude and he was like a, a seniorenlisted or a warrant officer guy.
And we'd been preppingfor this guy for a while.

(01:04:29):
And we thought he was goingto be like a big deal.
Like, is he like the six of clubs orman, this dude didn't even make it.
Like he's not even close to being on the,he was like going back to the Udo cards
for, for Kosovo that we would do later.
But, uh, which is another funny story,the yellow draw too, but this dude was a

(01:04:50):
nobody and the, the Kurdish, I think we'rejust trying to entertain us, like, We'll
give the Americans like one day and then,you know, we were so prepped and ready
because that's all we had to do everysingle minute of the day was to get ready.
And actually, this isn't so cool, butwe had like this schoolhouse, this
like abandoned school is what we usefor the enemy prisoner of war camp,

(01:05:14):
which didn't really last that long.
Um, but we had the red crossthat came in and we, Hey, how
do you do the sanitary stuff?
How do you do the feeding?
Um, It's like, Hey, whateveryou guys eat is what they eat.
So if you guys eat twice aday, they eat twice a day.
If they eat three timesa day, interesting.
If you eat two MREs, they eat two MREs.
Like it can't be that you guys areeating, you know, chicken and rice and

(01:05:39):
you're giving them crackers and cheesefrom, you know, like, so that's how
we're going to keep everything legit.
And I remember to this day.
This guy, he was kind of a bigger guy,the senior enlisted warrant officer.
And he'd be like, youAmericans, you feed me too much.
You feed me too much.
So good to me.
mister.
Thank you.

(01:05:59):
And it was like, Oh my gosh,
this is what I'm doing.
This is what I'm doingfor the initial invasion.
Like this is the punishment, butyou know, going back to the culture
thing, we were there, we had, it wasour team, our special forces team,
and we had some Kurdish Peshmerga.
And everyone knows the reputation of theKurdish Peshmerga as fierce fighters.

(01:06:21):
Like they are down to fightand they had our respect.
Um, but culturally we weren'tprepared for how they do things.
And I remember being on a night dutythe first time I got exposed to this and
luckily it didn't do anything visually.
I just, I just heard it.

(01:06:42):
But, uh, I wasn't prepared, you know,like the Kurdish soldiers, they, you
know, would have sex with one anotherand like, you know, they'd be in like
one room, like 20 dudes and you couldhear like stuff going on in there.
And it's like, is thatwhat I think I'm hearing?
Like, does anybody

(01:07:02):
tell you that's going to happen?
No, that I didn't
know.
Like, and I, you know, I never servedin Afghanistan, but I would hear.
from all the Afghanistan folks thatthere were similar things with the
chai boy and all that type of stuff.
And this wasn't anything like that.
This was consensual or consensual,you know, uh, with, with the Kurds.

(01:07:24):
But man, I was not prepared for that.
It was like, Hey man, to eachtheir own, but it still kind
of freaked me out a little bit.
And then it kind of, you know,played with my mind a little bit.
Cause I'm like.
Man, these dudes are, arefighters, like they are down to
fight, but it's like, okay, theyjust have a different lifestyle.
That's fine.

(01:07:44):
But, um, I mean, obviously it didn'tchange anything, but it was just
something for us to be aware of.
So yeah, you're like,
look, I'm a West Virginia boy.
All right.
Yes in this stuff for the first time.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh it's interesting mentioningthe EPW camp so just And the idea

(01:08:06):
like under Geneva Convention,we feed them what we eat, right?
And obviously you guys are probablyReady for battle like you're eating a lot
like, you know, in case you get calledin Trying to maintain muscle mass and
everything else just a couple weeks ago.
I was traveling, uh to Latviaand I went to a former kgb Um

(01:08:28):
headquarters in riga the capital.
So this is a balticcountry borders russia.
So soviet union days This was youknow, soviet union satellite And the
KGB set up in the center of town.
They converted an apartmentbuilding into their headquarters,
the prison in the basement.

(01:08:49):
So they give tours right now andthere's not a lot going on in Latvia.
This tour, they do this tourprobably 10 times a day and
it's sold out almost every time.
Like we were lucky to get tickets.
Uh, another buddy and I, so we go inand uh, This latvian guy gives us a tour
they take us through like where they inprocess people the areas where they're

(01:09:12):
store where people have to sleep and Imean it is terrible the interrogation
rooms you can only imagine but they'refeeding these guys Like fish soup and
a slice of bread and they're there foryears years, and I mean it's Terrible.
It's the russians at theirfinest doing what they do best

(01:09:32):
And that would be horrible.
It's just so funny What you went through,like, all right, we're in combat.
We're the elite SF unit and what theyeat, we, you know, they eat what we eat.
And it's just such a differentstandard that we hold
ourselves to across the board.
That's just so interesting to me.
That's kind of what you experienced.

(01:09:54):
Luckily, you know, we had the, uh, theone 73rd ended up, you know, jumping in.
And I'm not going to make any one73rd jokes because I have a lot of
good, good friends that serve there.
Uh, and that was all part of the strategywas to keep those divisions up north.
Like they needed, you know, it'slike, Hey, they got some, these

(01:10:16):
special dudes running around.
But then it was like, that waspart of like, Hey, they're up here.
We need these units tofight these, these dudes.
So to keep them from reinforcing.
So I know it was very strategic for them.
To kind of do the show for usand to jump in and all that.
And it was very importantthat they were there.
Uh, also we had the 10th mountain,um, And as soon as the 10th mountain

(01:10:38):
came in, because they were, theywere dealing with the same thing, you
know, they couldn't go through Turkey.
Uh, so they ended up relieving us atthe enemy prisoner war camp and it freed
us up and, uh, we were able to go toall tune Capri and liberate that little
place, uh, which ended up to be nothing.
Uh, there was no resistance at all.

(01:11:00):
Uh, there was some comedygoing on in Christian town.
So, you know, we had these satphones, you know, if you remember
back of the day, back in the day,man, you know, the sat phones,
but that had to be cuttingtech SF is only going to, yeah,
that was big that we hada couple of sat phones.
We had the little sat pagers,you know, that were like blocks.

(01:11:23):
Um, but you know, I was a little bitof a comedian or I thought I was funny.
Um, And I thought it was, you know,because especially when we were all
tuned Capri in and around that town,because it was a Christian town.
Um, so I always thought it was funnyfor me to pretend like I'm talking to
president Bush on the sat phone and, youknow, I'd have all these Iraqis because,

(01:11:47):
you know, they're seeing Americans,a lot of them for the first time.
And they, they're likeall up in our business.
They're like standing around.
So I always thought it would be hilariousto make kind of a big deal out of this.
And I would get out of the car,shut the door and I'd be like, shh,
getting ready to make a phone call.
Like this is important, right?

(01:12:08):
It's like, it's president Bush.
It's like Bush, Bush, Mr.
Bush, you know, presidentBush, this is Daryl.
How's everything?
I'm in Iraq, sir.
Everything's going great here.
So all the Iraqis, theireyes are getting big.
I thought it was funny.
Uh, they enjoyed it becauseI think they really thought I

(01:12:28):
was talking to President Bush.
So they would try to yell, Mr.
Bush, Mr.
Bush, thank you.
You know, at that timethere were very grateful.
They liked Bush.
They liked Bush.
They liked us.
I think the Christians wouldkeep liking us throughout.
But, uh, I also thought it was funny.
Sometimes, you know, Iwould get these packages.
So actually we would get these randomcare packages, which was very nice.

(01:12:50):
That was cool.
Yeah, that was super cool.
Uh, it's very important, but Iwould stockpile all this candy.
And, uh, sometimes after I do my littlepresident Bush thing, you know, I'd
have all these people just gathered outbecause they're like, dude, That dude
was just on the phone with the president.
He's a big deal.
He's like this guy.
He's a big deal.

(01:13:11):
Uh, and I had this huge bag, acandy and a Ziploc, uh, you know,
a plastic Ziploc, clear Ziploc.
And I'm with my buddy, MattGerard and you know, the rest
of the team's there as well.
But I'm, I'm kind of hanging out withMatt and I'm like, Matt, there's a lot
of kids in the crowd and I want to givesome of this candy out to these kids.
You know, like I treated him kind of likethey were my fans, like they're paparazzi.

(01:13:32):
It was like my fan club, you know?
And, uh, it's like, Hey, let's justkeep this little illusion thing going.
And he's like, dude, I don'tthink that's a good idea.
And I was like, dude, it's candy.
Like, you know, kind of hearts and minds.
And, you know, I think it'sgoing to be a good thing.
He goes, dude, I think, I think probablyit's going to cause a lot of fights and

(01:13:53):
they're going to fight over the candy.
And then the bigger kidsare going to want it.
And then, uh, you know, theolder adults are going to beat
the, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, dude, I thinkthey're going to understand.
I was putting like my Americanbrain on this whole thing.
And I was like, Hey man,these are my people.
These are my fans.
I'm going to go out thereand give them what they want.
And I'm going to give themsome of this candy out.

(01:14:13):
And, uh, he's like, all right,this is going to be funny.
Have a good time.
I get out of the truck, man.
And I give out like the firsthandful and I'm just mobbed, dude.
Mobbed from everywhere.
I've like, people are feelinglike my, my legs, my pants.
Like they're totally takingadvantage of like in this mob.
And then before I know it, thebags ripped out of my hands.

(01:14:35):
It's gone.
There's stuff everywhere.
People are fighting over,you know, I was like.
Holy shit, man.
Is Matt like
how'd that go?
He's laughing laughing laughing.
I kind of slinked my wayback into the vehicle.
I was like, all right, you wereright about that That was wrong.
Oh, man.
He's like that is I

(01:14:57):
Didn't want to ask that that storythat you said about like hair our
team was Red headed stepchild andlike pecking order for the missions.
Yeah, I think You People mayhave seen that if you've read
or seen 12 strong, right?
Like who gets to go in.
So that really happens.
That really happened to us.
And we weren't 12 strong.

(01:15:17):
We weren't on horseback.
Uh, we would have been the guys likeback in Uzbekistan, like feeding
the horses or something like.
Yeah, like we had some teams that wereat the top of the pecking order, like
the 12 strong guys, Iraqi version thatwere up on the green line with combat
controllers calling in airstrikes,killing hundreds of Iraqi soldiers and

(01:15:40):
armor and tanks and all that other shit.
Um, yeah, actually one of our sisterteams, the halo team was up on the
green line and it's, it's actuallya somewhat of a famous battle for,
for up north where we were, you know,like the thunder run and Baghdad and
all that stuff got all the attention.
But one of the missions up north, whichwas our sister team, the halo team, it's

(01:16:02):
called the battle of the Becca pass.
You got a halo team.
These guys are like dug intothese fighting positions out
in the middle of nowhere.
And then they got Iraqi tanks approachingthem, like coming right at them, dude.
They're like little dudes on the ground.
And, uh, I'll give them a shout out.
Eric Strugatti, uh, was a newerguy, 18 Bravo weapon Sergeant.

(01:16:26):
And, uh, he was able to actually get sometank kills along with some other people,
like actually, what was he shooting?
I think he was shooting a javelin.
I've heard those things work.
Almost everybody I've talked tois like, I mean, we've only fired
like one of them in practice, butin combat, they work as advertised.
He was, he was killing tanksand so we're, so we're other
teams and so we're other guys.

(01:16:48):
And actually, um, we got, uh, kind oflike backfield with some, uh, team,
uh, maybe it's a company or a battalionfrom third special forces group.
So it was second battalion, 10 specialforce group, third battalion, 10 special
force group out of Fort Carson, Colorado.
And then a battalion or a company,I think, I don't remember from third
special forces group out of Fort Braggand those dudes, those dudes, they had

(01:17:14):
served in Afghanistan in oh one or oh two.
So for the initial invasion inIraq in oh three, it was like,
this was our cherry, you know,kind of like our first, first deal.
This was their second go around.
They had these big ass Mad Max trucks, youknow, like they had crazy weapon systems
set up and mortars and they, they werevery proficient, man, very skilled and

(01:17:39):
man, they had our respect, you know, whilewe had all these brand new four wheelers
that were still silver and just around thebox and they got all their stuff Mad Maxed
out and, you know, Camouflage and paintedand gun racks and all kinds of do you
learn from that pretty quickly?
You're like, yeah, and i'm sure as youadvance in your, you know leading teams.
Yeah.
Yeah, we did We did learnfrom that and they were man.

(01:18:02):
They were impressive.
Uh After Altoon Capri, though, we endedup rolling into Mosul when Mosul, like
we were there for the fall of Mosulbecause we were in the east in Erbil
and then we were working our way acrossthe western part of Iraq and we were
headed toward Mosul and the night thatMosul fell, I was driving in a soft

(01:18:27):
skin vehicle because that's all we had.
We didn't have gun trucks or Humvees.
It was like a Toyota Hilux soft skin.
Soft skin.
And, uh, I've always heard like the,there's never an atheist in the Fox
hole or there's no atheist in the Fox.
So I call bullshit on that.

(01:18:48):
I drove in for the fall of Mosul.
There was two special forces.
I was in the back, two specialforces, dudes, a driver and a TC.
And they were both atheists.
You know,
these guys, I know.
Yeah.
No, but yeah, they're on your team.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're
on my team.
One of them was Keith.
I don't know if he's an atheist anymore.
I mean, it's his businessif he is, I don't care.

(01:19:08):
But, uh, I just remember saying I grewup, you know, Presbyterian and went
to church, you know, all that stuff.
But I, and we're going into Mosul man.
And, and it looks a little hairy,like shit looks a little crazy.
We can see the tracersand loud noises, like.
It's looking a little crazy.
I was like, man, we might want tosay a little prayer on this one.

(01:19:31):
It's looking pretty rough up there, boys.
Like, fuck that.
There ain't no such thing asGod and all this other stuff.
And I was like, man, I opened upa can of worms on these two guys.
And they're both like very smart.
Like the big brain kind of dudes.
Um, So they're having this bigdiscussion and I'm like, Hey man,
sorry that I even brought that up.
Sorry I said that.

(01:19:52):
Let's just focus on, youknow, but so get past that.
So I just wanted to call BS onthat whole, there's no idea.
Foxhole thing.
But, uh, when we came into Mosul dude,If you watched Escape from New York, like
the first one, that's what it looked like.
Mosul, because we're trying to gothrough Mosul to get to the airport.

(01:20:12):
That's, that was kind of like theobjectives, like get to the airport,
secure the airport so we could bringfolks in and equipment and all that stuff.
Um, but literally, man,we're in soft skin vehicles.
It's dark as hell.
You know, there's a wargoing on in their country.
And, uh, I rememberpassing all these dudes.

(01:20:33):
Everybody's armed.
How many, like how many vehiclesare you guys rolling in?
Um, I think we were part of, I thinkthere were several ODAs, so there's
probably 10, 15, 20 vehicles or whatever.
Not very much.
No.
Looking back, a big ass city like Mosul,but, um, but dude, Everybody had weapons

(01:20:57):
and everybody was out on the street.
I remember seeing like the dude, it wasliterally like escape from New York.
It literally was because they're allaround the fire barrels, you know,
and they all got their weapons andthey're looking at us and it's like,
Hey man, all these dudes are armed.
Like
what's the discussion in the vehicle, man?
What are you guys talking about?

(01:21:17):
Trying to
figure out the rules of engagement.
Yeah.
Like, Hey man, everybody's armed.
Like.
If they fired our vehicle,we're all going to die because
we're in soft skin vehicles.
There's no protection AK 47 hotknife through butter, you know?
So we're like, okay, I mean, arethey going to have to pull it up?

(01:21:37):
Like you see the eyeballs, like, youknow, or is it just going to be like,
Hey, he's kind of looking our way, buthe's not really, I don't think he's going
to like, we were trying to figure out.
Should we kill these dudes over herebecause they look a little bit more
aggressive, a little bit more dangerous.
These dudes over here looked a littlebit more subdued, scared, no threat

(01:21:59):
whatsoever, but these dudes look like theykind of want to dance a little bit here.
So that was the discussion that we had.
And, uh, that night we didn't, we didn'thave any skirmishes or engagements.
We got to the airport.
I think they were just tryingto figure out who we were.
You know, maybe what our capabilitieslike, Hey, if we mess with these dudes,

(01:22:22):
is the whole one mile radius going toget bombed by all these jets and stuff.
So we did have a lot of flyovers, likeshow a force type stuff, but it was
definitely, it was definitely hairy, man.
It was definitely, definitely hairy.
I think of that a lot with how smallof a footprint you'd roll around in.
In the middle of the chaos,basically, and how you build up

(01:22:45):
the confidence to keep going.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was something that we dealt with lateron because we did have a few skirmishes.
Nothing like we were neverdecisively engaged or like man.
Oh, man.
Oh, toe to toe.
It was kind of like some harassment fire.
And, you know, we had our, our softskin, Toyota Hilux is, and we had weapons

(01:23:08):
mounted machine guns, things like that.
So luckily for us, and I know some othersdid get in some serious engagements
and, um, they were able to kill alot of folks and stuff like that.
But for what we saw, it was like minor,minor skirmishes, some harassment, fire.
They were scared to death of, ofair power for obvious reasons.

(01:23:32):
Cause they were just burning shitdown, uh, the air force and, um, the
other aircraft, you know, they were,they were getting after it, man.
And we saw a lot of, uh, actuallyI have a couple of pictures in the
book or one picture of, of, we saw alot of abandoned tanks and equipment

(01:23:52):
and they just got hammered, man.
They got hammered.
If they didn't melt away from,from those vehicles, then it wasn't
going to be a good day for them.
Geez.
Does that, do you end upbuilding up a tolerance to that?
Like rolling around enemy territory,just a handful of y'all over time.

(01:24:14):
Yeah, we did.
And what we ended up doing was,um, we were waiting at this time.
This is back in Oh three.
So this is a couple monthsafter the initial invasion.
And we were waiting for, uh, MajorGeneral Dave Petraeus, 101st Airborne
Commander, Division Commander.

(01:24:35):
We were waiting for the 101st to comeup north and they were gonna basically
do a relief in place with us andthey were gonna take over the airport
and they were gonna take over Mosul.
So, uh, but what we ended up doingwas we would go back to Erbil.
And then we would drive into Mosul everyday and do our patrols and, and it was

(01:24:58):
funny, man, because Erbil was, it wasalmost like being here in San Jose.
You're just driving around.
Everything's fine.
People are nice.
You know, Kurdish people love us.
We love them.
Um, so we would, we would leave Erbiland then we would get to like a certain
point, like right outside of Mosul.

(01:25:19):
And then we'd be like, allright, we'd stop our vehicles.
We put, we had Ranger body armor backthen we put our Ranger body armor on,
we made sure everything was ready to go.
And then we'd start doing our patrolsand we were looking for, you know, a
lot of munitions and tanks and, andwe did have, surprisingly enough, we
did have people that were trying tocommunicate and tell us, of course,

(01:25:43):
you know, Not a lot of us spoke Arabic.
Uh, and we ended up, we kind of hadsome interpreters, but they weren't
really like full blown, you know, likelegit interpreters, they were kind of
like helpers or like, Hey, my son canspeak a little bit of English, but we
did have people like trying to pull usover, Hey, weapons of mass destruction.

(01:26:05):
Mr.
Mr.
You know, here, here.
And it was like, we go check it outand it would be like our artillery
shells or something like that.
But.
It does bring up something I wantedto make sure I talked about today.
Strategically, I think we, wehave a lot of room for, uh,
improvement going forward.
That's
a very diplomatic way of saying this.

(01:26:26):
Yes, right?
And I'm not known for my diplomacy,
but I think there is a lot of room forimprovement because, you know, all of
the military bases or, uh, all of the,all of the locations that had munitions.
We should have had a plan forall of those to get secured.
Like, I mean, I thinkit's, it's well known.

(01:26:47):
It's been researched that we wentin light as hell, way, way light.
Iraq is not Afghanistan and the horsesoldiers and a few ODAs and the CIA
and airstrikes and all that shit.
Like that was, I think they weretrying to replicate Afghanistan and
Iraq and the infrastructure in Iraq.
I mean, you're, it'sapples and oranges, bro.

(01:27:10):
And I don't know who was on theplanning side of that, but here's,
here's what I would learn later.
All of that infrastructure, allthose military bases, all of those
locations that had munitions, all ofthat shit ended up getting looted.
And then the Iraqis ended up taking that.
And I'm sure the Kurdish Peshmerga.

(01:27:31):
They squirreled a lot of shit away andthey took it back to their little areas.
Uh, you know, cause they'realways fighting Turkey and
Iran and all that stuff.
So they probably, man,they're well equipped.
Uh, but some of those other places,you know, it was the locals that
were like, Hey, we're probablygoing to need some of this, this
weapons and munitions and all that.

(01:27:54):
And dude, I'm telling you, we couldn'tgo anywhere without running into it.
And we only had so much like our, myspecial forces team, we had like two
special forces engineers, uh, of course,Matt, uh, was a former special forces
engineer and of course we're all crosstrained and stuff like that, but we
only have so much expertise and so muchtime to try to blow all this shit up.

(01:28:20):
And I mean, it was everywhere.
Oh, interesting.
It was like, it was buried andlike these big underground storage.
I mean, I just don't know how theymissed that because all of that stuff
that was left, if we couldn't blowit up or the team that replaced us or
the 101st, it all ended up biting usin the ass when the insurgency kicked

(01:28:44):
off later, later that year, the nextyear, no four Oh five Oh six Oh seven.
We all had to deal with it becausethey had the equipment then because
they took it and they used it.
Yeah.
So, um,
yeah.
And you saw it kind of firsthand.
Yeah.
A couple of times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was terrible.

(01:29:04):
And another thing too, that I want to makesure that I covered was the first sign
that things are probably going to go Southor this thing isn't going to be like.
We're going to be met with flowers onthe hood and, you know, they're going
to be happy and giving us stuff and allthis, you know, whatever, like the stuff

(01:29:26):
that you would see, like for World WarTwo, like, um, I think the first sign
that this isn't going to go so wellwas probably the capitulation part.
Like, Hey, we kind of thought that theywere like, they were waiting for us and
the CIA had maybe, and I'm not trying tothrow the CIA under the bus, but I think
there was maybe at least an understanding.

(01:29:48):
Maybe I could have been waywrong, but I was like, man,
someone's talking to someone.
You know, like the CIA is talkingto like all these Iraqi generals
that are on the books and they'relike, Oh yeah, our men are going to
surrender and you know, all this stuff.
And I was like, well,that shit didn't happen.
So I think that waskind of the first sign.
And then the second sign I rememberdriving around Mosul and we had these

(01:30:16):
big ass American flags and we wereproud, man, we didn't know any better.
And it was, it wasn't just special forcesguys, all the units that were over there.
Like we were at war, like we got achance to go to war and participate,
uh, because a lot of us didn'tget to participate in Afghanistan.
So this was like our big shot.
And it's like, man, this is awesome.

(01:30:37):
And we're driving our vehiclesaround huge ass American flags.
And I remember for the first time seeingpeople look at us like, who the fuck do
you think you are coming into our country?
And just doing whatever you want.
And you know, you couldsee it in their eyes.
Yes, but, uh, I think that wasthe second real indication.

(01:31:01):
Like, dude, this, thiscould go a little South.
And then of course the third is,is all the weapons and not being
able to secure the infrastructureand the military installations.
And then you fast forward to thedecisions, the poor, poor, poor.
Badass decisions and I saybadass not in a good way.
It's a negative way When they said hey ifyou're part of the bath party, you can't

(01:31:24):
be part of blah blah blah and it's likeI just wish that they someone had put
like a lens like hey, let's think aboutthis In the united states in america.
That's
interesting.
Yeah,
let's think about it like this ifchina comes in And they start taking
over all of these places and thenthey say hey You If you were military

(01:31:47):
at all, ever, uh, you're, you don'thave a place to work and you're not
getting any of your pension or money.
You're done.
You're off the books, law enforcement,military, like all of those.
That's a very interesting way.
Yeah.
I mean, just imagine.
And then you kind of, you go backand forth with that little scenario

(01:32:07):
and then you say, okay, that's whathappened in Iraq when they did with,
you know, people that had served inthe bath party, which was damn near.
You know, a lot of people,because that was Saddam's thing.
And then you look at those areasthat actually resisted and fought.
And I think it was a lot morenationalists than we thought.
I think it's like, Oh, it was Al Qaeda.

(01:32:28):
I think there was a lot more peoplethat was like, Hey man, I'm from Iraq.
This is my country.
Just like we would do ifsomeone came to our country.
And especially if they cut yourpension or your money, or they
say, Hey, you have no opportunitybecause you serve the U S army.
So you don't have a place hereWell, what are you gonna do?
You're gonna fight Yeah most likely you'regonna fight and then you look at all of

(01:32:51):
those areas and and I love to go back andforth because it's like You can almost
look and compare it to the United StatesLike, you know, like those those country
kind of areas The farmers the fishermenall those like country kind of people They
fought they fought us like they did a goodjob And then I think that was probably the

(01:33:14):
same thing that you would see in the u.
s That's just my opinion though.
What about the thing thatcomes up all the time wmd?
I think how do you think about it?
I think Iraqis were convinced thatthere was WMD in Iraq, at least
the ones that we interacted withup in and around Mosul, like Mr.

(01:33:35):
Mr.
WMD, WMD, I think they thought thatand maybe it was because, you know,
they were conditioned because ofSaddam was trying to keep them in line.
And he had actually usedWMD against his own people.
Um, but I think he was such a goodbullshit artists that his own people

(01:33:55):
were convinced and, and, and it, Ithink it's unfortunate that if he
fooled the CIA and our governmentinto thinking that he had WMD and that
was the whole reason for the invasionalong with some other bullshit stuff.
But I just look at it now, dude,and it kind of breaks my heart.

(01:34:16):
Especially now, you know, witheverything that's going on in Israel.
And the threat right now, at leastthe last I heard, and I'm not
like, well, it's not like I readintelligence reports or anything.
I'm just reading open source news.
But the thing that I'm readingright now is Israel is worried about
Iran striking Israel from Iraq.

(01:34:37):
And it's like, dude, you wouldn't evenhave thought that like that wasn't even
possible pre invasion of Iraq back in 03.
Iraq, you know, Saddam and Iran hadthis relationship, man, they Hatred.
Yeah.
There was like a buffer there, dude.
Like, and we came in and remove thatthreat and now they're going to use

(01:34:59):
Iraq, the, the country that we foughtand bled to attack one of our allies,
possibly to try to like prevent, you know,Israel from going back and bombing Iran.
It, it, it's heartbreaking, man.
It's, it's a little bit disgusting too,that that's what we ended up doing.
Passing over like we handed Iraqto Iran on a silver platter.

(01:35:26):
It's terrible, dude.
Um, as, as we talk,let's jump to 2006 here.
Okay.
Put us in time.
Like where are you at in your career?
What are you doing there?
You're rolling the team.
Like where are you all going in?
Yeah, 2006.
Um, well in 2005, uh, justtaken over as a team sergeant.

(01:35:52):
So I'm leading a specialforces team as an enlisted.
I'm an E eight.
I'm a master sergeant.
Uh, the pinnacle of my career.
Yeah.
It's a huge deal.
The highest of the highs.
I, I, you know, to that point, 15years in the making to get to that
level, to lead a special forces team.

(01:36:12):
I'm experienced and I'm well trained, youknow, I'm by that point, I'll be working
on my third combat deployment to Iraq.
Um, I've multiple rotationsand missions in the Balkans.
I've done, uh, combatsearch and rescue missions.

(01:36:33):
I've done special reconnaissancein the mountainous terrain of
Kosovo on the border of Macedonia.
I protected two U.
S.
presidents by providing countersniper security support.
Uh, Clinton in Sarajevo on SniperAlley, which was really cool whole
total another story on that one.
And then president Bush 43 in Kosovo.

(01:36:54):
And you know, in addition to being aGreen Beret and Ranger qualified, I'm
a graduate of the special operationstarget interdiction course, uh, SOTIC,
which is a fancy name for being a sniper.
So dude, I'm at the pinnacle of mycareer and, um, I have a young team.
Most of my team are all brand new.

(01:37:14):
They've never been to combat before.
Um, a lot of them had never deployedbefore, even if it was like a peacetime,
like, Hey, we're going to go toPanama and do some jungle training.
Like a lot of them, it was their firsttrip and it was a combat trip to Baghdad
and Baghdad was donkey Kong crazy.
So, um, so the time period thatwe're looking at, um, that,

(01:37:38):
you know, I took the team.
I basically with help of othersbuilt the team up because, um, it
was kind of like a brand new team.
It had been formed with a previous team.
Because of bodies, but it was like, Hey,this is going to be four, three ODA zero,
four, three operational detachment, alphazero, four, three special forces team.

(01:38:02):
Uh, and we're going to goto Baghdad and do sensitive
special operations for impact.
And that was very ambiguous and vague.
Um, and I credit chief SteveDayspring, one of my mentors.
It's like, Hey, you just weren'tover there doing human, you know,
human intelligence, taking reportslike that's not what we do.

(01:38:24):
You know, you were doing sensitivespecial operations to create impacts.
And that allowed us a lot of latitude, butthat was the primary thing that we were
doing was to, Uh, we took it to a wholenother level and, but we were going to be
there from January, 2006 to August, 2006in Baghdad and we were at Camp Apache,

(01:38:52):
which is an Adamia, which is basicallya suburb of Baghdad and it was actually,
which, which is really interesting,I think, about Adamia is Adamia is a
suburb of Baghdad, which is Reportedlywas one of the last known locations that
Saddam surfaced before he disappeared.

(01:39:15):
And then I think he went up, Ithink they ended up catching him,
uh, capturing him like to critor somewhere around his hometown.
But, uh, reportedly Adamia.
Was the last place publicly he was seen.
And then he, he vanishedand went on the run.
And the reason I think that's, Ithink it's kind of interesting, but it
makes sense because Adamia is a Sunnistronghold, you know, like the different

(01:39:41):
little districts and, and there's apicture in the book, which hopefully
it'll help people kind of follow along.
But the, the nine little suburbs ofBaghdad, you know, kind of broken down.
Um, and there might be some Shia inthis area, like solder cities, you know,
primarily Shia, but Adamia was, was Sunni.

(01:40:01):
And uh, in Adamia, they hadone of the largest Sunni
mosque and it was Abu Hanifa.
And there was no way that you weregoing to drive the Sunni out of
Adamia and away from Abu Hanifa, liketheir top, one of their top mosque.
Like it wasn't going to happen because.

(01:40:23):
What we saw happening was when, whenSaddam fell and all of his top people
were getting killed, the deck ofcards, um, the Shia started moving in.
And I think this is where I ranwas definitely playing chess
while we were playing checkers.

(01:40:43):
And, uh, they were out maneuveringthe shit out of us, dude.
They really were.
And I remember hearing about it in 04.
And I remember kind of like, you know,some of the reporting that we would
get laughed at, you know, it's like,Hey, we're getting reports and we're
out in like some small little town.
Uh, we were, we were east of the Cuba.

(01:41:05):
This is 2004, 2005.
We were east of the Cuba, uh, inbetween like Balaad, Ruz and Mandalay,
two little small, no name towns, butit was right on the Iranian border.
And we would get a lot of reports.
There's Iranians coming in,killing all the teachers,
pilots, instructors, professors.

(01:41:29):
Like it all makes sense looking backthat they were, they were targeting
some very key people that they didn'twant to, you know, maybe replicate
things or be able to influence.
Like it was pretty damn strategic.
I remember hearing that in 04, 05,but, um, Um, but anyway, Iran was

(01:41:51):
having some influence, but there was,and the Shia were, were getting pushed
in all these formerly Sunni areas,but it wasn't happening in Adamia.
There was no way it was goingto be, uh, an all out, you know,
Sunni, Sunni,
which it ended up, that'swhat it turned out to be.

(01:42:12):
But, uh, but it was aninteresting dynamic, man.
And that's when I tell you, um, Well,do you want to talk a little bit about
kind of the start of the January 2006?
And real quick, just before you get there,so the team is new, but have they trained
together or they're truly like throwntogether in the previous few months?

(01:42:32):
Yeah, they, they were formed inthe, in the previous few months.
And I think this is very tough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think this is very important, uh,because this was, this was something,
um, that was very intentional.
I'd had experience in Iraq and, and I knewBaghdad was going to be a whole different

(01:42:54):
ball game, you know, cause the firstcombat deployment was up north in Erbil,
the second one was kind of like a sleepy,you're out there on the Iranian border.
Uh, so I knew that we weregetting ready to be involved in
something a lot more serious.
And my team and I, we embrace the mission.
We embrace where we were going.

(01:43:17):
And I had a vision.
And I share the visionwith everyone on the team.
So no one, there was no doubt I wanted togo to Baghdad and I wanted to dominate.
I wanted to dominate.
I didn't want to be reactive.
I wanted to be proactive.
I didn't want to be on the defense.
I wanted to be on offense.
I wanted to take the fight to the enemy.

(01:43:38):
And I made that very clear, like,because unfortunately it all depends on
what kind of team you're dealing with.
Not all teams think that way.
Some teams, maybe their senior leadershipor like maybe, you know, they're realizing
things that it took me years to realizelike, Hey, this is kind of bullshit.

(01:44:00):
No, I see.
You know what I'm saying?
Play it easier.
They play it easierbecause you have so much
dude, your left and right limit isginormous in SF and special forces.
Yeah.
It's a lot of, it's your call.
And, uh, I mean, dude.
I know of some teams that wanted todo Halo and Call of Duty shit, and

(01:44:24):
they would do some reports here andthere, and we could have done that.
We could have easily done that.
We could have, we could haveeliminated most of the risk.
And just bullshitted around and, anddid our January to August eight month
rotation and went home, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, you mean
Halo and Call of Duty?
Shit.
Like play those games.
Those games not, not like go and Yeah,and do crazy stuff out in the Yeah.

(01:44:45):
Oh, I see.
Yeah, they're gamers.
Yeah.
Yeah, dude, got it.
I mean, seriously, I'm not joking.
Um, so the, the, the leadership ofa Special forces team has a lot of
latitude and, you know, we wantedto have that extreme work ethic.
And it's bust our ass, dedicateourself to the mission.

(01:45:07):
And I knew that I had to do that becauseI had a young inexperienced team.
And dude, we're doing basics.
We're doing basics atFort Carson, Colorado.
We're changing tires.
We're doing vehicle maintenance shit.
We're trying to do our towstraps and how we're going to
tow vehicles around and all that.
The other teams in the companyare more experienced, are more

(01:45:28):
mature, are more talented.
And they had their laughs,you know, they're seeing us.
And a lot of those times, man,they would take the afternoons off,
take the weekends off and we'reworking, man, we embrace the grind.
And, uh, they had, they kindof had a laugh at our expense.
But here's one thing that I learnedthat I thought was very valuable.

(01:45:49):
And of course, this is in the book.
We outwork those teams, man.
And hard work beats talent.
When talent doesn't workhard, hard work beats talent.
When talent doesn't work hard.
And, uh, all those things thatwe did that they laughed at
or they thought was stupid.
Some of that stuff camein to save our lives.

(01:46:10):
I mean, we, we didn't knowit, but, um, but yeah, it was
a, it was a challenging time.
We had a young team and I had one,um, I had one really experienced dude.
Uh, that I'd served with before, uh,that was probably, he didn't have the
experience that I had, but he was, hewas pretty close and he was senior.

(01:46:34):
Uh, and unfortunately that's going tolead us to, you know, I get, I get to,
uh, we fly into Baghdad internationalairport, uh, early January, 2006.
And like our first few days, we're justsupposed to like, kind of in process
They have all of our photos and you know,how we're going to do our arrangements.

(01:46:56):
If we get killed, you know, theyhave all of those things, right.
That you have to take care of.
Um, and there's only like a couple ofus, we're like the advanced party and
it's kind of like this, it's gottabe very orchestrated because we're,
we're trying to relieve another specialforces group with our group and how you

(01:47:17):
change out all those different teamsand personalities and all that stuff.
Um, so there's only a few of usand, um, almost immediately when I
get on the ground, I start hearingrumors and whispers, it's like, oh,
that's the, that's the party team.
That's four, three, you know,that's the booze team, you know?

(01:47:38):
And I'm like, what the fuckare they talking about?
I didn't know.
I look, what do you, like, you know,I'm not even really a big drinker.
I don't really have a taste for beer.
And I couldn't understand it andthen I started piecing it together.
I'd sent that experienced dude,I won't say his name, but I,

(01:48:00):
I had sent my number two guy.
Basically, I sent him over early,like a month or two before the
guy was going through a divorce,going through a hard time.
I was trying to take care of him,get him some extra pay and kind of
get him away from the situation.
Cause like most SF guys,he wanted to deploy.
He wanted to be, you know,he wanted to be in combat.

(01:48:21):
So I thought I was taking care ofhim, but what he ended up doing was
embarrassing himself and the team.
And he, he started telling the fifth groupteam, you know, Hey, it's alcohol and
booze and pills and all this crazy shit.
Right.
So naturally when we get inthere, because fifth group was
a little bit different than us.

(01:48:43):
you know, they tended to keeptheir teams in the same areas.
So this team, they're in the, they'reat Camp Apache and Adamia, uh, and
they know they're coming right back.
So we're going to comein and relieve them.
And then they're comingright back to the same place.
So it's important
that you guys do so it'scritically important

(01:49:03):
because 10th group, we would tend to go,you know, Hey, I'm up North and Mosul.
Now I'm down in all theway South and Basra.
We would totally change up ourrotation but fifth group so when
fifth group hears when they hearParty this party that alcohol booze.
Can you get us this?
Can you get us that their ears perked up?

(01:49:24):
And they're like thesedudes are ass clowns.
They're not serious and They're gonna jackup our area These guys are going to just
bullshit around over here and party, andthen we're going to come back and this
whole place is going to be a tinderboxand it's going to blow up on our watch and
our guys are probably going to get smoked.

(01:49:44):
I get that.
I understand that.
Uh, so once I realized that was the reasonI was like, okay, I'm gonna have to deal
with this problem like right off the batdude That was like that was my opening.
Is that like a team sergeant to teamsergeant behind closed doors discussion?
Like hey, why are you guyssaying this about our team?

(01:50:05):
How do you figure this out?
yeah, we well I just I ended uphearing it and then I would hear the
whispers in the hallway and then Ibelieve it was a warrant officer like
a senior warrant like our companywarrant officer Had some friends from
fifth group, like some other ones.
Yeah.
And then it was like, Hey dude,what is the deal with this?

(01:50:25):
And it's like, Oh, this dude wastalking about all this party stuff.
So that's how I was ableto piece it together.
But I knew almost immediatelythat I needed to fix this.
And I had a cancer within the ranksand I had to cut the cancer out,
even though it was one of my mostexperienced dudes and one of the few

(01:50:46):
guys that had been to Iraq before.
So I had a problem right from the getgo and uh, when I finally linked up
with the fifth group team that we weregoing to replace, which is a really
good team and they did some reallygood stuff and I talked to the team
sergeant and I, and I apologize, man.
I said, man, I'm so sorry.

(01:51:06):
I thought I was taking care of thisguy and I was trying to get him some
extra pay, get him away from hissoon to be ex wife, all that shit.
That's on me.
I take that hit, butI'm going to fix this.
And that guy's not goingto come to the team house.
He's, he's done.
Um, and the military is a littledifferent, you know, as far as firing
people, it's not really, if they kind ofmove someone to like for a special forces

(01:51:29):
guy to get moved from a team to a moreof an administrative role, like that's.
That's as close as you're gettingfired, but you're still in the
army, you're still special forces.
You're just not operational per se.
And, um, so I talked to thefifth group team sergeant.
I told him that was my plan andit kind of soothed things over it.
Like he was like, okay, these guys aren'tgoing to be like party animals and they're

(01:51:53):
going to destroy the infrastructure thatthey had spent so much time building.
So I, I fixed that part and Ijust, I had to deal with it though.
Because he's still the guy that did that.
It's still, I think he was in Italy atthe time, uh, or no, he was, I'm sorry,
he was in Spain with the rest of the team.

(01:52:14):
So I had to wait for the team tofly in from Spain to land at in
Baghdad, uh, so I could tell him.
So there was a few of us that werealready at Camp Apache and, uh, the day
came that they were going to arrive andI was basically going to fire this guy.
Which is a big day.

(01:52:35):
You know, it's a big heck.
Yeah,
it's, it's not the norm.
So there's a few of us from 10th group andwhat we did was we were going to take some
fifth group guys back and drop them off.
And then, you know, it's that kind of thatshuffle that you kind of strategically
got to do, cause you have to have so manypeople for convoys and all that stuff.

(01:52:58):
So, um, so my communications guy.
Help prepare the vehicles loadthem all up and you know crypto
so we could talk secure all thatstuff and We got the weapons ready.
We had the routes, you know, everythingwas straight and I ended up Me and

(01:53:19):
another guy We ended up driving back toBaghdad International Airport To pick
up the team and to tell this guy thathe was not going to be coming with us.
So I'm probably 10 minutes outfrom the link up, you know,
we already did the convoy.
Everything was great.
Uh, we're at the airport.

(01:53:40):
We're, you know, friendly territory.
And we're, we have these little embassycell phones that, uh, that we could talk
on and communicate easier than everybody,you know, everybody and your brother
can hear what's going on the radio.
So we have these little cell phones atthe embassy issue to all the special
forces teams so we could communicate.
So I'm 10 minutes out and,uh, I get a phone call from

(01:54:05):
the fifth group team sergeant.
He's like, Hey dude, bad news.
Want to let you knowwe're missing a CYZ 10.
And a CYZ 10 is somepeople call it a crazy 10.
Some people call it alittle black magic box.
It's basically, it gives the military theability to have secure communications.
Think of it like signal, you know, youcan text your friends and your family and

(01:54:29):
you have encrypted secure communications.
You don't have to worry aboutanyone taking those messages.
That's what the little CYZ10, the little black expensive
and yeah, it's a big signed item.
It's a
big, big deal.
He goes, Hey, we're, we're missingthe CYZ 10, but the way I was
hearing him say it, I was hearingthey were missing the CYZ 10.

(01:54:51):
So I'm like, man, sucks to be you, bro.
But I didn't say that, of course,because I knew how sensitive that was
like, you know, to miss, to, to bemissing a piece of equipment like that,
someone's probably going to get fired.
So I was just like, damn, headsare going to roll over this shit.
Glad it's not me.
I'm thinking like, man, I'm glad I'mjust getting ready to do this firing

(01:55:13):
thing, you know, uh, instead ofdealing with what he's dealing with.
Uh, but then I get like a few minutesout and then, uh, my communications guy
calls and he's kind of moping around.
And I'm like, dude, spit it out.
What?
What's up?
Because I'm focused onwhat I'm getting ready.

(01:55:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
With one of my senior, get the weight.
Yeah.
And, uh, he's like, Hey, you know,the missing CEO, I was like, dude,
that's fifth group's problem.
That's fifth group.
Like, why are you so worried about nice of
you to try to help out?
Yeah.
He's like, that's ours.
It's our missing CYC.
And I was like, so we'rethe fucking jackasses.

(01:55:56):
And that was a gut punch, dude.
Yeah.
Because suddenly You know, like Iwas talking about earlier, 15 years
experience, well trained pinnacle of mycareer, you know, highest of the highs.
I went from the highest of thehighs to the lowest of the lows.
I'm getting ready to take someone offmy team and I'm, I'm missing a piece

(01:56:16):
of equipment that is so sensitivethat someone is going to get fired.
And that someone wasprobably going to be me.
So it wasn't lost on me.
It was not lost on me that I'mgetting ready to tell someone
you're not going to camp Apache.
You're going to work atbattalion and you're going to
be in an administrative role.
And I might be the nextperson next to you.

(01:56:36):
That's going to be working atbattalion sitting next to you
doing administrative stuff.
Like it wasn't lost on me, dude.
But, um,
I said, Hey dude, it'sgoing to show up somewhere.
Keep looking, keep looking.
That's what I told my communications guy.
And I just kind of pushedit off to the side.
I was like, I got to focus on this.

(01:56:57):
So then we get there and theyhave these tents set up and I see
our team and they start grabbingtheir bags when they see us.
And I see the dude that I'm getting readyto talk to and I call them off to the
side, keep in mind, this isn't like somecorporate thing where it's like, Hey,
we're in the HR room and the HR manager'sthere and the director of whatever's
over, like, this is too, too much.

(01:57:19):
Special forces guys arm to the teeth,weapons, grenades, like full a one's got a
drinking problem andgoing through a divorce.
Yeah.
Right.
Once.
Yeah.
Going through a problem.
And he is got a, uh, an asp.
Yeah,
he's got an like a night stick.
Kind of a Yeah.
Yes.
Like one of those Expandable.

(01:57:39):
Yeah.
Expandable, whatever.
Expandable, uh, ask that he keeps hittinghis hand with, that's what he's doing.
When I say, Hey, come over, let's talk.
And I said, Hey, bro, um, youknow, all the stuff that's going on
between fifth group and 10th group.
I kind of gave, I filledthem in a little bit.
And I said, Hey, man,you, you embarrassed us.

(01:58:00):
Uh, you embarrass me.
You embarrass the teamand I can't trust you.
And I've already talked to theleadership and you're not going
out to Apache, you're going to bestaying here in administrative role.
And I knew that was going to crushhim, man, because already he's, he's
low and now he's, he doesn't get todo the fun, cool SF combat stuff.

(01:58:22):
And he was pissed and hewas pissed and I was pissed.
I mean, yeah.
I'm even more pissed because he doesn'tknow what I'm getting ready to deal
with as soon as I walk away from him.
But uh, I ended up was just like, hey man,I'm, you know, I, to myself, it's like,
hey man, I'm not here to make friends.
Like this is the decision.

(01:58:42):
There's nothing we can talk about now.
It's done.
Like yeah
Yeah,
yeah, and that was a brand new e8and he's a senior e7, you know, I'm
a young master sergeant he's a seniorsergeant first class both with a lot
of experience and uh, but that's justthe way it was and I had one of my guys

(01:59:02):
help carry his stuff, you know up to theadministrative part of what he's gonna
be doing and And then we got to lookingfor this missing piece of equipment.
And, uh, we ended upconvoying back to Apache.
And, and I was like, dude, how the fuckdid you lose this piece of equipment

(01:59:23):
when you walked it from the safe?
Like that's how sensitive this,like it's secured in a safe inside.
I was like, you got it out of alocked safe, loaded the vehicles.
Did you not walk it backand put it in the safe?
I don't know.
You know, so we, we neverdid find that immediately.

(01:59:45):
And I had two theories.
One of the theories was he loadedthe vehicles and he put it like
up on the roof or on the bumper.
And then he kind of just
like a cup of coffee.
Yeah.
He got something else.
It was like, man, I want to makesure this is like our first convoy.
I want to make sure Dset up and ready to go.
And everything's, you know, theradios are working and he left

(02:00:07):
the CYZ on one of the vehicles.
And then we rolled out of there.
And at some point on our journey, Itfell off the vehicle and some body
picked up a little black magic box.
Uh, the second theory was we did havea lot of local Iraqis that secure the
compound that worked on the compound.
We had a family that cookedand cleaned and all that stuff.

(02:00:30):
The second theory was theysaw a target of opportunity.
We're a brand new team.
They saw someone wasn't really payingattention that much and they were
like, I think I can get a lot ofmoney for this little black magic box.
And they took it.
I don't, I never did find out what itwas, whether it fell off or somebody

(02:00:51):
took it and sold it or whatever.
But to get ahead of the story, I don'tthink I talk about this in the book,
but, uh, this part, probably four monthsinto that rotation, we get a phone call.
Hey, uh, a Taji, which was northof where we were in Baghdad,
the big, the big base and Taji.

(02:01:11):
It's like, Hey, some Iraqi just walkedin with this little black magic box.
And they let
you stay in, in your rolefor those four months.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I got ahead of myself for that.
So, um, I kind of got ahead ofmyself with the, the, the CYZ.

(02:01:32):
It was ended up it, you know, someonedid find it and turn it back in,
which didn't help the situation.
But, um, At the time going back to, Hey,someone's probably going to get fired.
And that someone's probably me
at the time.
I was like, man, I justgot rid of this dude.
And now I have this problem.
We're not looking so hot.

(02:01:53):
Like we're off to a really bad start.
Like I haven't even gotthe full team there yet.
And I can't blame anybody elsebecause the captain who outranks
me and the warrant officer whotechnically outranks me as well, but.
Like they weren't there, they were inSpain and they were just coming in.
So I can't say, well,Hey, it's the captain.

(02:02:14):
That's should take the, like, I was thesenior guy on the ground and, uh, I'm
a little bit embarrassed and ashamedto say that when you get punched in the
face like that, and it's your dream job,like you've been, you've been wanting
this for 15 years and you finally havea chance to lead and, and you know, yes.
Leading a special forcesteam is the pinnacle.

(02:02:37):
There is a step higher and that's tolead a special forces team in combat.
So yeah, it, it did affect me, man.
And, and I did embarrass a little bit ofshame to say that, uh, my initial reaction
was to kind of hide that tendency was kindof like deflect and be like, he lost it.

(02:02:59):
I didn't know that he's responsible.
I'm not responsible.
He should get fired.
I shouldn't get fired, butI had to, I had to kind of.
You know, I had to kind of remindmyself, control what you can
control, take a deep breath.
You know, it's oftentimes how werespond to these situations or

(02:03:21):
adversity that really define whowe are, that define who we are as
a person or defines our character.
That's not, you know, Hey, thesituation happened and it was
just a bad situation, dude.
And I was, you know, I was somewhere else.
Yep.
But, you know, how am Igoing to respond to this?
And I, and I had to kind oftake a deep breath and regroup.

(02:03:42):
And then within hours, uh, ourmain boss, uh, at the time, Colonel
Kentovo, who's now retired LieutenantGeneral Kentovo, had a great career.
And he's a, he's a great mentor of mineand he wrote a very nice testimonial
for the book that I really was humbledand grateful as I was with yours.

(02:04:06):
He wrote a nice one for me too, but Ifound out Ken Tovo was going to come
to the team house like right after themissing piece of equipment was reported.
And I knew.
The team knew he knew the reason hewas going to come down and it was
either going to fire me or keep me.

(02:04:28):
And, uh, going back to that controlwhat you can control mantra.
Um, I, I said, Hey, this, thesituation happened and it sucks, man.
It sucks.
I'd never saw myself in asituation like that with such
a sensitive piece of equipment.
But the only thing I can control is.

(02:04:50):
I can be a man and own up, put my bigboy pants on, don't do that whole victim
mentality bullshit and have like radicalownership, take radical responsibility.
And that's what I felt like wasthe best decision at that time.
And man, it sucks.

(02:05:11):
It sucks.
When you have an Oh six full bird,Colonel coming down to talk to you.
And you know that yourass is on the line, man.
And it's, and you're in your dream job.
And I had to look him in theeye and say, sir, I take full
responsibility for the missing CYZ 10.
I take responsibility.
I can assure you, sir,it'll never happen again.

(02:05:33):
And I can assure you, if you give mea second chance, you won't regret it.
And to this day, I shouldhave a conversation with him.
I would love to hear that conversation.
Uh, to this day though, in my humbleopinion, I haven't asked him, but I think
that's why he gave me a second chance.
Uh, because I owned it.
I think if I would have done the typicalvictim mentality bullshit, Deflect

(02:05:57):
human tendency, blame someone else.
I think I probably would have beenout of there probably like that, dude.
Uh, but I think I owned it and I thinkhe saw something in me and I think I had
the support of my battalion commander,uh, Sean Swindell, a lieutenant colonel,
Sean Swindell, now major generalretired Sean Swindell, uh, and my

(02:06:19):
company sergeant major and my companycommander, Phil Mala and Howie Massengill.
I think they all had.
A lot of support and trust anddude, once I had that second
chance though, it was game on.
Like it was.
And you get it back
later.
I can't even imagine how excitedwere you on that call when they're
like, Hey, this thing came back.

(02:06:40):
Yeah.
It, it did make me feel good,but, and by that time though,
we were already on a good road.
Yeah.
But, but yeah, man, my.
And I think that's what's reallyimportant to kind of say about the book.
That's
the grit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the grit part of it.
That resilience getting punched in theface and how you get back up and you got

(02:07:00):
to get back up because help's not coming.
It's all on you.
And I think just telling that story andexposing something that's kind of shitty,
that's not the way anybody wants to start.
Uh, combat deployment.
I mean, you're, you're at thebottom of the bottom, dude.

(02:07:21):
And, uh, it wasn't a goodfeeling, but we were able to, to
work our way through it, dude.
So I think that's perfect.
Cause it speaks to the book.
It speaks to the grit, which we'lljump into here in a bit, but I think
that's a good place to pause for thisfirst portion, um, getting us into
what is going to take place in a lotof the book and thereafter, so awesome.

(02:07:44):
I hope you enjoyed that combat story.
We've got round two comingup with Daryl next week.
I think you're really going to enjoy it.
It is chock full of some of his combatexperiences, the highs and the lows, and
some really interesting ones, not justfrom 2006, which you'll see in this book.
But also in 2007, uh, definitelytake a look at the book, but go

(02:08:05):
to ballast, B A L L A S T books.
com to find it puts a little moremoney in Daryl's pocket, which
we want to do to help him out.
Um, but it'll be available toeverybody in late November, early
December of 2024, depending onwhen you're listening to this.
Um, but if you do order that thingbefore November 11th, Veterans

(02:08:27):
Day, you can get a signed copyand a very cool challenge coin.
As always, you can check outour newsletter at combat story.
com slash newsletter and whereveryou are in the world, hope you have
a good rest of your day or week orweekend, and as always stay safe.
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