The RPG That Changed Everything – Ivan Ingraham’s Wildest Day in Combat | Marine Raider - Combat Story

Episode Transcript
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Ivan (00:01):
My platoon and I have been tasked to drive down and take over this compound
on the edge of the green zone as we drive.
Down into it all.
Hell just literally broke loose on us.
Uh, RPG round bounced off the hoodof the truck and blew up behind us.
Turned to started firingwith the turnt guns.
People dismounted and started doing likebounds towards these enemy positions.

(00:21):
The Marines just got out, dismountedthe trucks, and just started
going at it with these guys.
So then I go running across and overthe top of my head, my interpreter
has his AK and is just firing bursts.
Like he scared, shit lifts, but heis like, I'm, I'm gonna do something.
It is chaos.
And I run around the other sideand I call my hire and say, Hey,
we're, we're in a pretty stickysituation and we need to get out here.

(00:41):
He goes, yeah, you have my approval.
And I was kinda like,I'm out asking you truth.

AJ (00:44):
This is, this is what we are

Ivan (00:45):
going to do.

AJ (00:47):
Welcome to Combat Story.
I'm AJ Pesi, a retired marine forcerecon scout, sniper, and marine gunner
with 21 years of service, multiplecombat tours, and a lifetime of
lessons learned in the arena itself.
On this show, I sit down withwarriors from every front line to
uncover what combat truly feelslike and how it shapes the way we
see life each other and ourselves.

(01:09):
This is combat story.
In today's combat story, we sit downwith Lieutenant Colonel Ivan f Ingram,
U-S-M-C-A 24 year Marine, who spentmost of his career in special operations
as a Marine Raider with marsoc.
He's since turned those hardwon lessons into leadership,
coaching, writing, and speaking.
Ivan is the author of a novel OnceWe Pledged Forever, and a series of

(01:30):
shorter works that examine leadership,moral injury, and the human cost
of war, including the patrol.
A story of Marsoc at War 22, AJourney to the Edge of Darkness.
Athena Bravery knows noGender and Dream job.
His newsletter, the log book,explores life, leadership and purpose.
Within the same unflinching clarity,his voice will be familiar to readers

(01:53):
of the warhorse and task and purpose,where he has written on service, family,
and leading under pressure with onerecent essay reflecting on welcoming
home, his deployed daughter, andthe realities of returning from war.
Ivan's also an in-demand speaker, hiseagle in the mountains talk and leadership
workshops bring battlefield tested lessonsto companies, teams and communities
that want to perform when it counts.

(02:14):
Join us as we dive into Ivan's storyfrom Marine Raider to author and coach
to talk about courage, the weightof command building trust when the
stakes are high, and finding purposeon the far side of uniform service.
This is Ivan Ingram.
So, uh, I'm excited today to have,uh, Ivan Ingram, uh, our guest here.
Uh, so, uh, what I've understoodis 24 years active duty in the

(02:36):
Marines, uh, as an officer in bothconventional and special operations.
Uh, and so we're excited,uh, also an author.
Uh, so super excited to havea conversation with you today.
Uh, I wanted to be able to talkabout some, some combat stories,
but my first question alwaysrevolves around, um, the genesis.
So like, what led you to your service?

(02:56):
What was your family life, uh, likebefore you joined the military?
Was there a large inclination thatled you to this to be able to make the
decision to join the Marines specifically?

Ivan (03:06):
My father is, was a retired, well, he retired as an army colonel.
He was, um, life lifelong soldier,and I had spent time moving around
the world, um, with him in the wakeof, of service during the Vietnam era.
My father was not a Vietnam veteranas far as like serving in, in country

(03:28):
in that war, but he, he joined themilitary, uh, in 1967 and certainly
served all during that time.
Um, he was a military psychologist,so that has its own interesting thing
as far as, you know, growing up.
Um, so I, I grew up around the service.
All my friends for the, the most part asI was moving around were, were military

(03:51):
or former or were, were associatedwith the military in some capacity.
And I absolutely had aninterest in military history.
I enjoyed, uh, traveling around whenwe were living in Europe and going to
battlefields, and I spent a lot of timereading about, uh, I guess tales of,
of Daring Dew, uh, in the post, uh,Vietnam era growing up in the 1980s.

(04:14):
Yeah.
But oddly, it wasn't something that evercompelled me saying, okay, as soon as I
get out of, of high school or college,this is exactly what I'm gonna do.
I wouldn't say that I absolutelyshoot it, uh, but it wasn't anything
that I really thought about doing.
Um, so my first inclination to really,after I got outta college was to

(04:36):
become a federal law enforcement agent.
I thought that would be apretty interesting thing.
And I, I looked at various, uh,entities like the DEA, the FBI, the
Marshals, uh, did the mag security.
I kind of wanted this, uh,exciting, uh, lifestyle and, and,
and in a sense of doing somethingthat, that was service oriented.

(04:57):
Um, and this is in the middle of 1990s.
There's not a lot going on as far as,uh, conflict, well, there's plenty of
conflict going on in the world, butnone of the big stuff that we would run
into later, uh, or, or serving later.
But at that point in time, I, I thoughtthat that would be a great way to sort
of balance out being able to be doingsomething really interesting and also,

(05:19):
uh, serve, you know, in, in some capacity.
And then I kept getting turned downduring the interviews, um, whether
it was by lack of educationalbackground or just bad timing.
But eventually I, I asked oneof the interviewers, I said,
what, you know, what do I do?
Um, 'cause I really want to do this.

(05:40):
And, and so actually theywere, they were just blunt.
They were like, look, you're young.
Um, you quite frankly don'thave a lot of experience.
You're interviewing fine, butwe only have room for 1200 new
agents and we can be really picky.
And honestly, if you really wantto get yourself, make yourself
competitive, go become a local cop,uh, detective, go join the military.

(06:01):
Uh, get some experience and,and you'll be more competitive.
You'll still be planningyoung enough to, to do this.
But, uh, you know, it's, it's notsomething that people generally can come
in and and do, but the fact you madeit this far is actually testament to,
to, you know, your, your work ethic.
It's certainly your, howyou present yourself.
Um, but that's our recommendation.

AJ (06:20):
And so you were like 22.
Sorry to cut in, but you were like22, 23, 24 ish at this timeframe.

Ivan (06:27):
Yeah.
I was about 20, 23years old, 24 years old.
Um, I joined the mil, the, the, theMarine Corps, uh, when I was 25.
I joined in 1997.
Uh, at that point in time, it wasjust gonna be a means to an end.
I had, I really didn't knowthat much about the military
despite growing up around it.
And in that environment, I,

AJ (06:48):
I

Ivan (06:49):
didn't know much about how.

AJ (06:50):
Yeah, any of this stuff worked.
So was federal service always the goal?
Like federal law enforcement alwaysthe goal and the military was a Yeah.
Like, you know, seeding theresume to do that or to build
that, you know, that resume.
Yeah.
I mean, I grew up in the Washington DC

Ivan (07:06):
area and I, I figured I'd wanted to actually get away from that and
federal law enforcement will allow meto get assigned anywhere in the country.
My luck, I've just done right backto the Washington Field office.
I mean, but I figured something would, youknow, that would, that would help me kind
of springboard, you know, a, a career.
Uh, and then the, of course,the Marine Corps, um, military

(07:27):
was gonna be a resume builder.
And at first I started, Ilooked to join the Army.
Um, they really couldn'tget their act together.
And Marine Corps, Marine Corpssnatched me right up off the street.
Uh, the, the recruiters did afabulous job about, uh, wearing
dress blues and all this enticed me.
And, um, as the old, as the old Jody goes,uh, mama told Johnny not to go downtown.

(07:51):
Uh, and Ivan did, and theMarine Corps recruiter was
hanging around and that was it.
Uh, in fact, in fact, you know,I didn't ask a lot of questions
and they, they probably werelike, damn, are there more of you?
Like, did this make my job?
Really?
Like, oh my gosh, man, you're so dumb.
You, you even lost because this is great.
This is great.
Welcome sucker.
I mean, brother, and, youknow, sign here, here and here.

(08:14):
So yeah, I, I, I kind of had anidea, this, this sort of lofty
idea of this, you know, just kindof whims up, go through that.
And then, uh, from there I decidedmaybe I'd like to be a pilot, but I
took, uh, so I took the earth testand, uh, found that I might be better
suited to fill on one up with gas, butI sure as shit wasn't gonna fly one.
So, uh, yeah, I kind of kind,I got, got pigeonholed pretty

(08:35):
quick about where I was going to

AJ (08:37):
go.
A lot of us, I think, got hookedin with the, uh, top Gun, right?
You know, like we're the top gungeneration and we all thought
we were gonna be, I don't know,naval aviators at some sort, or
when I was growing up, my dad

Ivan (08:49):
had had a number of people.
My dad studied leadership in the Armyand kind of the, the, the trauma as
the Army rebuilt itself, particularlyits NCO Corps, after the Vietnam War.
And he wrote a book, uh, withthis, with his research partner
called The Boys in the Barracks.
Uh, and it focuses actually quiteheavily on, um, substance abuse

(09:09):
and the breakdown of cohesion,uh, in, in the United States Army.
And one of the things that he foundin his research was that, you know, it
isn't to say it didn't happen in theSpecial Forces community, but they had
much lower, uh, rates of insubordination.
They had much lower ratesof, of, uh, drug abuse.
They had much, you know, theircohesion was higher and they tried

(09:32):
to figure out, you know, Hey, whatis it that this, this group has that
the rest of the army could adapt?
It doesn't try to make everyone aspecial forces soldier who's just
saying, look, how do, how do werevamp the way that we train and
develop our, uh, because militarieshonestly thrive on their NCO court.
There's, you can talk about officershipall you want, but you, you have to
have a good, good non commissionedOfficer Corps staff end, and

(09:54):
that the user level E four above.
And so he, he looked very closely at that.
So I was, I was exposed to GreenBerets and people who'd been
involved in some pretty amazingstuff, uh, looking back on it.
And, and it's not to say I was meaning,you know, brand name guys like Stryker
Meyer and some of these other people thatthey've heard of, but I, I met a lot of

(10:15):
people who had, had been involved in somethings, you know, that, that they'd make
movies about and, and read books about it.
And I was like, wow.
So in my mind, the reason Iwanted do in the Army is 'cause
I was gonna be a Green Beret.
Now Kyle was gonna do thatinside of four years, and there
I didn't have a plan for that.
I really don't.
So, but when that didn't happen, Iwent to the Marine Corps and, you know,
they, they really sold me war on beinga Marine than, than anything else.
But I I, I, I had been told of thisother group within the Marine Corps,

(10:41):
there was very elite called, called ForceReconnaissance, reconnaissance marines.
And that in the back of my mind actuallywas like, okay, well that sounds like
it's, it's a pretty different interesting,uh, culture within this, this system.
Uh, but I didn't know anythingabout that when I first showed up.
I'm kind of getting her head of stuff.
But that's kind of how, you know,you asked about the genesis.
It's, it's, it's coming in fromdifferent, different sides and it all.

(11:01):
Manifested.

AJ (11:02):
I absolutely love that.
I think that the, your, so your fun partis your recruiting story is, uh, the
more people that I interview, uh, themore I find stories similar to my own
as far as the Marine Corps recruiting.
The Army guy wasn't there.
Uh, and the Marines werelooking sharp, and then I have
no idea what I signed up for.
That is generally thestory, uh, that marines,

Ivan (11:25):
they, they're fabulously trained.
I mean, the professionally trainedsalesman, they're fabulously,
uh, invested in for what they do.
Um, and as we know, you know, aMarine Corps, Marine Corps recruiting
mission doesn't, you can't fail.
And what I mean by that,it, it cannot fail.
I mean, you can be fired and there'llbe, you know, there's consequences.

(11:45):
But that mission itself,they don't miss mission.
They don't miss, you know, getting who,who they need and, and, and how, uh,
the better qualified the candidate be.
You know?
So, so be it.
But they are, they're masters at that

AJ (11:59):
salesmanship.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Okay, so I've got, uh,so a follow up question.
I know when, kind of researchinga little bit on your website, I
remember, I, I remember seeing,um, you've been able to trace your
family lineage back to the Civil War.
So it seems like patriotism or servingyour country at some level, although.

(12:19):
Um, you know, you said that your,your, your father, you know, didn't
pressure you to join the military, butthere was always this idea of service,
you know, towards the, the country.
Is that something that, am I, amI, uh, imagining that or is that
something that was, was kind of justlaid through the generations if you I

Ivan (12:34):
don't, yes.
I think in, in an indirect way itwas, there was, there has not been a
drive through, you know, upbringingthat this is what you will do.
Although all of my family, mythree children are, two of them
are serving in the military.
One is, uh, married to militaryofficer and marine pilot.

(12:56):
Mm-hmm.
Um, so we don't make anymoney in the family business,
so we're very proud of it.
Um, so, but I mean, but Imean, their grandfather served,
their great grandfather served.
Um, it just happened to be somethingthat, that hasn't, uh, we do instill
that the country has worked defending.
Although I will say that I've,I've, I've had a little bit of, uh,

(13:19):
conscience wrestling as of late justbecause of rec reconciling my own
service and, um, kind of where weare as a country without getting,
again, too far ahead in the interview.
But I, I will say that the sense of duty,the sense that the country is worth, um,
defending in its because of its tenantsand what it espouses to be, uh, or can

(13:40):
be, uh, is in my mind worthwhile now.
How that is interpreted through othersis, is is one largely out of our hands,
but two is something worth considering.
But I have no, you know, there'snothing where we come forward and
tell people, jingle in the family.
Jing, egoistically country'sthe greatest thing ever.

(14:00):
You need to serve for it.
We, we, we do encourage it though.
Like, Hey, if that's the direction youwanna go, then, then, then, all right.

AJ (14:05):
Well, I love that.
I mean, it's also hard not to look at, youknow, again, like I, I said earlier in the
pre-interview, like, I, I've read a lotof your stuff and I am just fa, I'm like
kind of a fanboy at this point, but like,if I had you as a dad, right, I would say
like, well, I want what he has, right?
So he's, you know, obviously squaredaway, but you know, intelligent,
insightful, empathetic, has seenthe world, real world experience.

(14:29):
Like, why wouldn't I want to get that?
And I see that thread happen a lotthrough military, you know, families, I
don't wanna say dynasties, but militaryfamilies is, there's like a, it's never,
I actually think a lot of marines thatI've been around are not super forceful
with saying, you need to do this.
In fact, it's quite the opposite.
It's a lot more militant in their wayof saying, you need to understand what

(14:50):
you're getting into if you do this.
Um, uh, or for sure,

Ivan (14:55):
I mean, and I mean, I tell, I've told this story before, but it's
true, but when I signed my paperwork,I was really, I, I signed it December
22nd, 1997, and I took my oath in.
I, I told my dad that I was going to youjoin the military, and I'm not sure he,
he took me to, I mean, he, he see thatI was serious about the product, but

(15:17):
the thought of me actually committingand going to do that was something,
I don't know if he ever reconciled.
Um, because then I went to his house.
He was living in, uh, social Spring,Maryland, and I, I just signed up in,
in Hyattsville and I, I drove to hishouse about 10 o'clock in the morning.
Um, and I, I knock on the doorand he's, Hey, what's going on?

(15:40):
His pre-cell phone, you know, he just kindof dropped by and he's like, he was like,
and he, and I said, dad, I, I, I did it.
I, I joined the Marine Corps, andhis face just like dropped, like,
like he was kinda like gobsmack.
And he said, well, well, Iguess this call for a drink now.
My father was a recoveredalcoholic and he, he had a

(16:03):
bottle of gin bean, uh, bourbon.
That he kept, um, on a shelfthat had been corked and it was
dusty, like it was the last drinkhe'd ever taken from this bottle.
And, and he kept it on the, soI don't know how long this, this
thing had been, been on his shelf.
And I said, dad, you don't drink.
He goes, it's not for me, it's for you.
Like, yeah, you about to brother.

(16:25):
I'm not the one who's gonna need this.
So I had, I had the next drink out ofthat bottle before, you know, I was the
next Ingram to drink out of that bottle.

AJ (16:36):
Okay.
That's really cool.
Yeah, that's kind of, I mean, likeI, I myself, uh, uh, struggled with,
uh, alcohol abuse and since, uh,ceased that when during my career.
Um, but I completely understand, andagain, there's like this interesting
bond that shares over that.
I think that's a really cool story.
Yeah.
I appreciate you sharing that with us.
Okay.
So 1997, uh, so you signup, you said December 22nd.

(16:58):
Mm-hmm.
1997. Okay.
So when do you go to OCS?
25th of January, 1998.
So it's a little etched into your mind?
It is very, as far as that likequick, quick chain of events.
Yeah.
Okay.
Awesome.
So then you go through t uh, go throughOCS, uh, and TBS, uh, afterwards.

(17:19):
And for any non marine listeners, right?
There's officer candidate school,and then there's the basic school.
Can you describe in your own wordsthe difference that you saw between
both of those two, uh, schools, andthen I'm assuming based on your.
Your job that you went to IOCafterwards, the infantry officer course.
Would you mind taking the viewers and thelisteners through that kind of journey?

Ivan (17:37):
Sure.
Ocss, officer Kennedy School, alsoabbreviated for organized chicken Shit.
I've never heard that.
It is, it is, it is.
Uh, our, you know, is Officer bootcamp.
It is also a selection course of sorts.
Uh, it's very PT heavy.
Uh, there's some very basic, um, tacticsin understanding of military studies.

(18:01):
But you're, you're really notbeing g grinned for anything
other than your suitability forbecoming com a commissioned officer.
Um, uh, the washout rateis actually pretty high.
Um, okay.
Or at least at the time it was, I mean,certainly not everybody makes it through.
Some people quit, some peopleget trouble disciplinary wise.

(18:21):
Um, a lot of people get hurt.
Um, and then there's an academic,uh, and, and physical, uh,
standard that you have to meet.
And if you're not meeting,we just, they cut you away.
So that's 10 weeks long.
I was very fortunate in my OCS classto have a large number of prior
enlisted, uh, candidates with me.

(18:41):
Oh, great.
And once they realized that I mightactually survive this thing, they
kind of put their arm around me.
Were like, all right, listen, you'rereally motivated, but we gotta
channelize this thing that, thatyou are and help you through this.
And that kind of, that, thatreally did kind of took me under
their wing to understand, betterunderstand the Marine Corps process.
From there, you go to K sixFool, which is also Quantico or

(19:03):
another, another part of Quantico.
Um, and that's six months long.
And, and it is, they call it theBasic Officer course, and it just
teaches newly min as lieutenants howto actually be a Marine Corps officer.
And it does get into your tactics andit does get into, you know, your field
problems, defense, offense, uh, planning,uh, and everyone goes through that

(19:26):
regardless of a third ground contractoror they're a pilot or, uh, even, uh, a
jag a, uh, judge advocate the lawyer.
So everyone goes through it.
They say every Marine or rifleman.
And, and in this case, theywant every marine officer to be
able to be a platoon commander.
Make no mistake, that does not meanthat every Marine is an infant.
Forman, and every Marine is who goesto the basic school, is trained to
be an infant fleet officer, but youare trained to be a leader and you

(19:49):
are trained to be able to take chargeand, and grab a group of Marines and,
and get something accomplished toinclude, uh, fight if you have to.
And, uh, and that, that wasev I mean, that was evidenced.
Um, back in, just use an anecdote, uh,in 20 20 12, uh, 2013 timeframe, uh,

(20:09):
the attack on Bastion where, uh, theharriers were destroyed on the tarmac.
Mm-hmm.
Um, yes, there were a number of, ofpeople defending that airfield, but
the guy who led the main counterattack was a air pilot himself.
He'd actually been a J Tac, uh, friendof mine, and he grabbed a group of, um.
You know, any marine seatthat he could and said, we're
going in to, to, to the fight.
And he did.

(20:30):
So I mean, that's, that's leadershipfrom the front that is irrespective
of, of, of your training.
Um, as you know, I won't be doing this.
That's, that's one of the reasonsthey do what they do at, um,
infant inter officer course.
And that's also the reason that, you know,you, you have artillery, marine artillery
unit serving is for provisional infantryin, uh, Somalia and things like that.

(20:50):
So that's the reason the basiccourse is set up that way.
It teaches people to call for fire,do medivacs, um, stuff that honestly
you think you may never have to use.
And then it, it, it comes into play.

AJ (21:01):
So

Ivan (21:01):
that's six months long

AJ (21:02):
go.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Oh yeah.
So when comparing, when I'm sure, I'm sureyou spoke with your father, uh, you know,
when going through this or wrote letters.
I think probably the timeframe,maybe the few phone calls home.
One of the things that I, so I'm agraduate of TBS myself, um, and, um.
I went through after 15 years ofbeing an enlisted Marine first.
Um, and I was able to now kind offinally realize the Officer Corps.

(21:27):
That's almost, I think TBS itself, inmy personal opinion, is kind of what
makes the Marine Corps, the MarineCorps right, to is it, it it shows
everyone that we are not just a cook,a baker, a candlestick maker, or an
infantry marine, and they are different,uh, you know, and separate parts.
We are all underneath one war fightingbanner, you know, to effectively, you

(21:48):
know, locate and close with the destroy.
Right.
And I, I, I don't know.
Did your conversations with your father,is the Army set up like that or was his
training something different than that

Ivan (21:58):
at the time?
No, it was not.
The Army has actually gone to greatlengths to develop what they call a bloc,
which is basic, uh, officers course.
Uh, so then they call itBullock, basically basic
officer, uh, leadership course.
We, but it's, it's still MOS focused,uh, whether you're an combat engineer or
you go to infantry, near infantry school,um, the Army's very big on having their,

(22:22):
uh, particular infantry officers orcombat arms officers go to ranger school.
That is a proving course, uh,to, you know, as a mark of
distinction, uh, to lead troops.
Um, so it is the same but different.
Uh, the Army sources their, theirofficers a little bit differently
than the Marine Corps does.
Certainly we've got.

(22:42):
You are getting them from ROTCor N-R-O-T-C, there's plenty
of Naval Academy, uh, marineoption graduates who, who go, but
everyone goes to the basic school.
And the basic school is just that,that that central, uh, commonality.
It's like a funnel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the Army doesn'treally do it that way.
Like if you get commissioned fromWest Point, your, uh, their, their

(23:03):
curriculum there is completely focusedon, you know, leadership training.
Whereas you go to ROTC at a college,once you're commissioned, you know,
let's say you went to Notre Dame,you're not going to any sort of
TBS, you're going to Fort Benningor whatever your MOS happens to be.
And then you from there, you know, kind ofpick up and learn how to be in the army.
So the, the TDS is really good.
Good.
That way.
Uh, yeah.

AJ (23:24):
Kind of flatline.
It does education level.
Yeah, it

Ivan (23:26):
does.
It brings everybody to a, you know, as Isay, the basic level of, of instruction.
Um, and from there you get your MOS,your military occupational specialty.
Um, did you choose anything, uh,other than what the one you got?
I was told I could only work allowedand hot job and the marine and the
entry free was like perfect for me.
Uh, carry heavy stuff, break things.

(23:46):
Um, yeah, I mean, I wascustom tight, tailored.
No, I, I actually really did one ofthe entry jobs, or I did, I liked,
I liked going to the field, I likedall the stuff that went with it.
I was, I took to it.
Um, again, I had sort of this ideaof getting into reconnaissance and
I was told, Hey, you can't get thereunless you become an infantry guy.
And well, that's okay.

(24:06):
That's easy.
I wanna be one.
Uh, and then if I didn't get that,I didn't know what I was gonna do.
'cause I was still like, well thisis literally all I all I want to do.
And so I was fortunate.

AJ (24:15):
That's another similar parallel with a lot of young Marines is
like, I'm just gonna send it.
I have one option that I'm gonna go for,and I don't know what failure means.
Right.
And I think that's actually kindof a cool thing for, I think it
sets you up for later on, right?
There is no, it's like, I dunno,burning the boats or burning the ships.
Yep.
Right.
I don't have a second option.
I'm gonna do this.
No,

Ivan (24:33):
right.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, this is whereI'm gonna fight it out right here.
So yeah, I, I have, uh, I havegood memories of, of basic school.
And then from there we went to,um, I-O-C-I-O-C is 10 weeks long.
Uh, I mean, I, I, I spent a whole yearat Quantico basically just back to
back to back just training and working.

(24:55):
Um, so that, that workedreally pretty well.
And then, you know, that tookme to the end of, end of 1990.

AJ (25:01):
So now you did, so, uh, 24 years you were able to see, um, you know,
uh, a lot of the service obviously.
Um, do you think that, um, IOC in thenineties versus what you know of IOC
in the late two thousands and 2000tens, do you think that there was a,
a developmental shift or anything thatyou saw inside of IOC that, um, that,
like were they adaptive or is it thesame curriculum that you saw in 1997?

Ivan (25:26):
It, it was very, it, it, it was adaptive.
Um, I, I believe, and I, I haven'tbeen to ranger school, so I'm,
I'm gonna say this with a caveat.
But I do believe that IOC producesthe finest light infantry leader
in the world based upon itstraining, live fire, its curriculum.
They've expanded it,they've got a desert phase.
They do a lot more with supporting ours.

(25:46):
Mm-hmm.
Than we did.
We, we were trained in that regard.
But, you know, at that point in time,the most recent things that had happened
were a little bit of stuff in Bosnia,maybe some Somalia vignettes or Haiti.
But we didn't have anything like thebaseline of combat experience that would,
that, you know, come to define the MarineCorps in the American, uh, armed forces in

(26:07):
general from, let's call it about 2003 on.
And so I was also not an, an instructorat infantry officer course, but I did
go back there several times to seepeople who either were commissioned
and graduating, uh, or quite frankly,got to see how infantry officers,
uh, served and fought in, in combat.

(26:30):
And I realized that, you know, what,what they're being taught and, and
how they're being, uh, resourced to,to enable them to make the decisions
and, and fight the way that they do.
Marine Corps is very big on teachingthe fighter leader, um, you know,
your warrior, but you, your mainweapon as a, as a platoon commander
is the, you know, the Marines underyour, uh, you know, in your command.

(26:52):
At least that's in my mindhow you should see it.
Although you better be able to fixa x and shoot, you'd have to, you
have to be able to do all of that.
Correct.
So in their, in that case though, thatthat ethos was alive and well and, um.
I, I still think it's impressive.
Absolutely.

AJ (27:07):
Absolutely.
Okay, cool.
So you graduate, uh, uh, IOCI'm guessing now, probably
December-ish, uh, of, of, uh, 1998.
Yep.
Uh, and then heading to your firstunit, what was your first unit?

Ivan (27:19):
I went to, uh, camp Pendleton.
I was in the first battalion,fourth Marines and, uh, first

AJ (27:24):
Marine Union.
All right.
Yep.
Right on.
Right on.
Yeah.
Uh, big fan of one four.
I spent some time, uh,associated with them overseas.
Okay.
So then, uh, what did you, what did youstep into when you were with one four for
the first time as a new platoon commander?

Ivan (27:38):
Um, my first, first day there, I was presented with a congregate, uh, which
is a congressional investigation for,uh, misconduct by a bunch of my Marines.
So that was my welcoming.
I don't know

AJ (27:50):
that they teach that in, uh, TBS.
Yeah.
No, no.
That was,

Ivan (27:54):
that was,
that was in this fine printthat I never bothered to read.
You probably see a trend here.
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, I, uh, I was metby my platoon sergeant.
Um, well, at first I was trying togo into my, uh, CP command post, and

(28:16):
the staff sergeant could walk downand he goes, Hey, where you going?
And I said, uh, inside,it's not like this or not.
He reaches up and he like, fixes my tie.
And I was like, dammit.
And then I bent down to, Ibent down to tie my shoe and
popped the stitching on my.
And so those were, um, that's how Ientered the cp and as soon as I did, I,

(28:39):
I went upstairs and met my xo and thatdidn't go nearly as well as I'd hoped.
And by the time I worked myway back downstairs, my, my ben
platoon sergeant, um, he's like,oh man, I'm glad to see you.
And I thought, oh, this, okay, fine.
You know, this is some, hesaid, well, here's, here's
the investigating paperwork.
Here's the stack of, and I was gonnahave to do this, but today you got

(29:02):
it, and tomorrow we're gonna go seeBattalion Commander, but I'll be with you.
Don't worry about it.
I was like, uh, right on.
So yeah, that was welcome to the fleet.
Yeah.

AJ (29:12):
Yeah.
A lot of like, figure this out.
Yeah.
Right.
I think that we do place a lot as anenlisted guy and then an officer later on.
We place a lot of, um, of weighton young lieutenants shoulders.
Uh, and oftentimes without a lot oftraining, you know, in specific things
like the ancillary duties that they haveto have, uh, inside of a unit is, is,
uh, is it's, I think it actually makesthem, to your point, you know, later on

(29:35):
and as far as your current career andwhere you're at as, as, as a consultant
and as a lecturer and a leader is, Ithink that's also, I don't know that
it's an intended, uh, effect, uh, butit is something that teaches young
officers to be able to solve any problem,uh, that they're faced with pretty
early on without a lot of instruction.
That was at least myexperience of watching that
kind of go through my career.

Ivan (29:57):
Yeah.
I, I think it's, it's.
You have to adapt or requiresa great deal of adaptability.
So I absolutely, I had to.
So

Ryan (30:09):
just a quick word for myself before we dive back into this combat story, many
of you know are previous interviews withAJ Chui, Marine sniper Recon operator, and
the man who tracked, hunted and ultimatelyeliminated Iraq's Deadliest Sniper Juba.
This was an enemy responsible fordeaths of over a hundred Americans,
some say, up to 140, many of whichwere filmed and posted online.

(30:33):
Aj, who was just a very humble,very young Marine at the time, took
that fateful shot, put an end toso much pain for so many families.
He never took credit for it.
And over the years, that story'schanged and been retold countless times.
I'm incredibly proud to let you knowthat you can get your hands on AJ's
new book, dark Horse Harnessing HiddenPotential In War In Life, a book I asked

(30:56):
him to write after I interviewed himimmediately after I interviewed him.
It's part memoir, part roadmap, a look atthe lessons AJ learned through combat and
throughout his career and how they canhelp all of us find strength and purpose.
If you enjoy Combat Story,you're going to love this book.
If you get a copy, head tocombat story.com/darkhorse.

(31:17):
That's combat story.com/darkhorse.
It's packed with details and insights thatwe never got to cover in our interviews,
and I know you're going to love it.
Now, back to this combat story.

AJ (31:31):
Okay, so first deployment, um, did you do a mu, is it one of the
Westpacs or something like that?
Uh, inside of, uh, uh, campPendleton or, yeah, I did a Campton.
Yeah, I

Ivan (31:40):
did a Westpac at a 15th

AJ (31:41):
with 15th Mu.
Um, okay.
So you chopped to the 15th muuh, and then you, uh, go on a
Westpac, uh, on the 15th view.
Is that correct?
Yeah, well,

Ivan (31:52):
we, we didn't have much in the way of tasking except that you're just
gonna go out and before deployed, weknew we would be going eventually to
the Middle East, uh, to be part ofOperation Southern Watch, um, in Kuwait,
um, as a result of, of Gulf, of Gulfone, and kind of keep as keeping the

(32:12):
Iraqis north of their line demarcation.
Uh, but be other than that, we had no realidea of, of what we were gonna get into.
And at that point in time in theworld, you deployed for presence,
but you weren't necessarily taskedwith doing anything ahead of time.
It wasn't like your news or goingstraight into combat as they started
later in Afghanistan and Iraq.

(32:32):
Um, so that's 2000, and my first realoperation is humanitarian ops, although
it was considered a combat op, um, ineast to more, uh, in, in the Pacific.
So that that wasn't even really the,I mean, it was exciting because you
were part of something interesting.
Um.
But we didn't get into any action.

(32:53):
You know, Australians said long,long before taking care of that.
In fact, I met Dave Co Collin yearslater and it turned out that we
were there at about the same time.
So always playing d Dave Co.Collins are taking, taking my
mission, but that's all right.

AJ (33:08):
Okay, awesome.
And so now you come back from the15th Mu um, you know, seems like
it would be a kind of a fun to, youknow, fun deployment, something that,
you know, unique to the timeframe.
I brought my golf clubs with me.
Aj, are you serious?
Yeah,

Ivan (33:23):
I

AJ (33:25):
different world back then,

Ivan (33:26):
I'm sure.
Yeah, I was, I I justdidn't even think about it.

AJ (33:29):
You got to see the full spectrum of the Marine Corps.
Like, like I am, my experience, Ijoined right after nine 11, um, and
then, so all I knew was war and thenretired kind of when the war ended.
And it, you had this opportunity tosee the Marine Corps before we were at
full scale war, go through all of this,and then, uh, you know, kind of, I, I,
you know, retire towards the end or,you know, at the end of the conflict.

(33:51):
I'm really exci excited to hear about whatyou saw as the differences between the
service, if the service changed or adaptedor moved, uh, you know, along those lines.
Yes.

Ivan (34:01):
Um, I, I have to put, just to keep things in perspective, um, I joined, you
know, pre-war in Klac Marine, uh mm-hmm.
Marine Corps and then subsequent.
Common odd from there.

(34:21):
Certainly changed and changed thecore, made changes to the core
as as it progressed, and I thinkin many ways for the better.
Um, I'm not so sure towards the end ifsome of those choices that were made were
circumspect, but certainly on war footing.
You know, Marine Corps is a very, asyou mentioned, adaptive organization.

(34:43):
Um, and it's hard to, to make a, a groupthat, you know, almost 200,000 people,
you know, change and change your culturesand change the way that you do stuff.
And, and so some of ittakes some innovation and
it also takes a bit of time.
So I, I think that the marineethos, uh, lends itself to that.

(35:05):
But I, once I got into serving in Marsoc,which became a completely different
world, uh, you know, I wasn't reallyin the line Marine Corps anymore.
Mm-hmm.
So that, which I saw waskind of from a periphery.
Uh, but I also felt those changes withinthe organization, uh, in Marsoc itself.
Um, in, in, in, in

AJ (35:25):
different ways.
So after your first deployment, uh,based on what I know about that time
in the service, you had now met therequirements to take a, a recon in dock.
Uh, is that the path that you took?
Is, is that you continued down that, that,that pathway and kind of accomplished that
goal of becoming a reconnaissance spring?
Yeah,

Ivan (35:42):
I took re, I took the Recon indoc actually before I went on deployment,
uh, to set myself up to then come backand I actually, I did want to go to
First Force, uh, but they did not haveany officer slots, so I went to first
Recon at the Time Company and they did.
And, uh, I took the indoc, my battalioncommander was supportive and then sent

(36:02):
me, uh, or got me made orders, uh,when I got back to go to, to go to
First Recon and I checked in there.
And, uh, so when

AJ (36:09):
did you check into First Recon Battalion?
Uh, the fall of 2000.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Alright, so you, now I have to ask the,you know, the elephant in the room.
Like, okay, so you're in firstrecon at, you know, in 2000.
Where were you on September 11th?
Um, and, and, and can you describewhat that was like, you know,
kind of, you know, where whereveryou were at witnessing that?

Ivan (36:28):
Well, I was, I was at first recon, um, I was not deployed, in
fact, I was earmarked, uh, to support,uh, RCT deployment if, if it went.
Uh, but that was, that was allpart of just a, a, a kind of.
Ethereal plant.

(36:48):
Like if this regiment had to goout, you would be assigned to it.
And that was just part of the waythat we, we were training at the
time, it was seven, it was seventhMarines that, that my platoon was
attached to, to be their Okay.
Regimen console.
Which, which would've been great.
Um, but that's not, and what happened?
Um, so I was there.
Yeah, I was, I was living in CampPendleton, uh, when nine 11 occurred
and there were recon units that werealready deployed on, on news that then

(37:13):
went into Afghanistan shortly afterward.
Um, all of us werewatching how that unfolded.
Um, and so I, I like the rest of usin the unit just sat and watched it
unfold and stood, stood by waitingto see what was going to happen next.

AJ (37:30):
So what was the mood at first recon when, like that?
So again, I wasn't active dutyat the time I was in high school.
What was the mood like while being activeduty watching this kind of thing happen?
Let's go get these guys,

Ivan (37:42):
let's go get to work.
And when we started hearing aboutplatoons that had, that were, that
were forward deployed and actuallystarted getting into action and
doing things, we were like, damn it.
You know, good, good for them, but boydo we, we wish we were, we were harder.
That, and we looked pretty, um, welooked pretty hard at our training.

(38:03):
We looked pretty hard at ourequipment and just started getting
things ready 'cause we just didn'tknow what was was going to happen.
And that, that took us all the waythrough, uh, 2001 and, uh, into 2002.
And I, um, unfortunately wasunable to take my Marine, my recon

(38:24):
platoon, uh, to war because, uh, Iwas given orders at that point in
time, uh, oh no, in summer 2002.
So where did you take orders to?
Uh, I went to the Infa Chicon School.
So if I had to be sent somewhere,at least I got to train and
be around recon Marines.
But there were a number ofus who were training recon
Marines with big pouty faces.

AJ (38:47):
Oh man.
God.
Uh, so were you, so was thatyou said a RS That was, yeah.
The east coast.
Okay.
Uh, so my, uh, friends of mine callthat actual recon school, uh, and
not, uh, uh, baby recon school.
Yeah.
Well, I,

Ivan (39:00):
I'm, I'm both, I'm, I'm both the president and the client.
I, uh, I went to BRC andthen I became the XO at a RS.
So I, I've done both.
I, I, each, each hasits pluses and minuses.
Sure.
Um, and I mean, that's a reasonthey consolidated all the recon
training on the west coast.
Yeah.
Um, it did, it did makesense for them to do so.

(39:21):
Um, although a little bit bittersweetto drive by what's now called mc gig,
which was the old compound there,which I and others helped, helped
build and manifest, uh, or manage andmaintain, and then it, you know, got
repurposed for Marine Corps stuff.
There's

AJ (39:37):
plenty of options.
That is one of the hard things is likegoing back and seeing things that you
like, literally put your blood, sweat,and tears into building something.
Um, I at Scout Sniper School,camp Pendleton, um, I mean,
it's boarded up, right?
And I was a student there,I was an instructor there.
Yep.
I painted the walls, you know, and I lookat it, I'm like, oh, like, so there's like

(39:58):
this, I understand progress, but man, it'sreally hard to be in the midst of progress
when you have built something that youfelt was going to last for a long time.
I can, I can definitelyempathize with that.
Yeah.

Ivan (40:07):
I mean, we, we named the place Kaufman Hall after
Buck Kaufman or the Navy CrossRecipient Reconnaissance Marine.
Um, anyway, so there was this ahuge, you know, that was a little
bit, little bit of a letdown.
Um, sure.
But I, I, so yeah, I was therefor, from oh two to oh five and I
remember, you know, not only do Iremember nine 11, but I also remember

(40:28):
watching, um, OIF kickoff, uh, yeah.
On TV while we were, you know, we trainedguys who then weren't reconnaissance
units that, that went into combat.

AJ (40:39):
Yeah.
And like watching that guy, whoever thatwas, that survived the court martial, uh,
then step off on the line of departure.

Ivan (40:45):
Oh yeah, yeah.

AJ (40:48):
You're like, I might have done things differently.

Ivan (40:50):
Well, the system's, the system and, you know, he, he, he was in his,
it was within his, uh, rights as aMarine to, to request that he did.
So that's fantastic.
Okay.

AJ (41:01):
So then after, so you do three years, so now 2005 timeframe.
Um, and if from, from my recollection,we had, um, I mean I'll let you
kind of describe what was going on.
Is that when you made thecrossover to Mars Sock?
I know that started in 2006 ish.
Um, or where did you go in between before?
'cause I know that you ended upover at MARSOC and became a Raider.
What was the process before that happened?

Ivan (41:23):
So I actually, I went to Second Force, uh, after a RS.
Um, and in fact, I, I was told Iwouldn't have a career if I did
that because as an infantry officerand I said, Hey, if you don't take
infantry company command, it's over.
But you know, that's what you want to do.
I couldn't, honestly, I couldn't takemy, uh, monitor at the time enough
for, for actually doing that for me.

(41:44):
Uh, but I had to like submit a letter ofwriting that I knew that I was taking a
huge risk, but I've known a few peoplewho had done it and, and come out okay.
And I just figured, okay, wellthis is where I wanna serve.
This is what I like doing.
There's place open, uh, or slots open.
And I, and I, I wanted tobe a force recon marine.
And so therefore there, that's goingto, you know, not only a reconnaissance
marine, but this is where I wanna serve.

(42:05):
So, uh, I went there, I did not,you know, I for went, uh, Marine
Infantry company command mm-hmm.
And took a platoon.
Um, and at the time right around2003, the Marine, uh, SOCOM debt one,

(42:25):
detachment one had been activated.
And was doing stuff over in Iraq,uh, in support of US SOCOM and had
demonstrated the Marine Corps could,could put together not only, well that
was a super unit for one, but two Yeah.
Stake eaters in that one.
I know some, there's some bloody legendsin that, in that group, in that group
of people from the commander on down.

(42:46):
Um, but they, you know, they, they'dacquitted themselves very well.
And so at that point, debt One was sortof completing, its its genesis or it
was the genesis for what became marsoc,but they were completing, um, its
inaugural, uh, deployment, uh, lookingto get more work, looking to become the

(43:07):
baseline of, of what we formed marsoc.
And then it was in classicMarine Corps fashion.
It was stood down and then theydecided to build MARSOC out of hand
out of Hyde, uh, a little bit later.
So I was in Force Recon in 2005, andthen they stood up MARSOC in 2006.
So I again was going to be attachedto a u as part of my platoon.

(43:29):
There was two wars going onnow, or two front war going
on in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And I figured, okay, you know, we'llfinally get to get in, get, get into with
people that, you know, have done this.
And, and I, the platoon I checked into andjust come back from the first Fallujah,
and I was, I've said this before, butI was like, if I was a new lieutenant

(43:49):
or captain checking into the hundredfirst Airborne after they got back from
Normandy, I mean, I was just, yeah, shit,what am I, how do I lead these guys?
What do I do?

AJ (43:57):
Um, okay, so let's talk about, I gotta, I gotta dive into that because
this is something that, so I dealtwith a ton as later in my career.
So I was a gunner before I retired,and that was often the question
that I would get from a lot of younglieutenants who would come into, so,
you know how the gunner can be right.
You know, if he's not a total jerk, right?
He's kind of like thelieutenant whisperer, right.

(44:19):
You know?
And so, uh, that wasthe question that I had.
How do I lead these marines?
How do I take charge of thesemarines when they've done the thing?
And I've only practiced the thing.
How did you overcome that?
Was there NCO leadership?
Was there, um, you know, how did you,I'm sure that there was some level
of imposter syndrome that you had.
How did you overcome those things?
Because like, this is what Ithink is to me, is like really

(44:41):
the essence of leadership.
How do you take something wherein our gun club there is haves and
have nots, and at this point youhave gone through all the training,
all the things, you are the thing.
But in this weird classification,they may see you as a have-not, how
did you, how did you o overcome that?

Ivan (44:58):
Well, you're right in that it's, it's a feeling of imposter syndrome.
Even though I had all the schools andI had been trained in the same way that
they had, I knew some of these guys, um,both from the west coast and, and people
that I trained in combat or, or trainedwho had been to combat and, uh, returned.
Um, and there were people that I had,you were my former students who, you
know, as they saw me coming through,they're like, Hey buddy, how you doing?

(45:21):
You know, like, so, um.
My own self-conscious feelingshad to be put to the side.
And I had that feeling that, youknow, what people were judging me
on, not only how I would performas we trained, but they didn't

(45:45):
know wh how I'd perform in combat.
But I don't think anybodyknows that ahead of time.
But there was also noguarantee that I wouldn't.
And there was also no, no, no precedentto say that I couldn't do the job.
And so at that point I was like,look, I need to lead this unit,

(46:07):
but I have to be circumspect.
I have to be careful in how Iapproach it because it can't
just be like an infantry unit.
'cause that one, there was way too muchexperience inside of the organization.
But then when we stood up in to marsoc,we almost doubled the number of, of
staff NCOs within my platoon becausewe became a direct action assault
platoon, uh, based upon the, which,which was an amazing experience.

(46:30):
Uh, but now I've got, you know, fivegunnery sergeants running around and
my platoon sergeants master sergeant,and they're, they're all combat that.
And then like from the staffsergeant up, they're all combat
bets with very few, uh, exception.
And if they're not with re recon combatbets, they've been, they've gotten combat.

(46:53):
With infantry units, which arguablyhave has done more than a fourth
reconnaissance unit in combat.
Like they fixed bayonets against Yes.
The enemy.
And we were, I was briefed by a guynamed Black Jack Matthews, who led
Navy Cross recipient and led, uh, Iwanna say fifth, one of the battalions
and fifth Marines in the battle away.

(47:15):
But he said when he gave the order tofix bay, that's, that it was one of the
toughest he ever given because someone oneither end of that rifle was gonna die.
Yeah.
And so, so we had guys who literally likefought people in a hand to hand combat or
now, you know, picking their teeth withtheir K bar, looking at me like, what are
you going to, what are you gonna teach me?
What are we gonna work?

(47:36):
But
organizations need leadership.
And the way you approach that, Iapproached it, was that there was a
lot I didn't know, there were thingsabout me that they didn't know.
And we had to be able to form a teamand it had to be formed quickly.
And I had, I would take thingsunder Revisement and listen

(47:57):
to what they had to say.
Ultimately the decision was mine.
And when the decision wasmade, we went forward.
And it didn't mean that we didn'thave, uh, quite frankly some heated
discussions behind the doors.
But when we came out unifiedfront in front of, front of the
boys, that's just how it went.
Um, and there was never any playing offavorites and there was never any, um.

(48:22):
There was never any sort of parochialism.
Now some of that was a little, or atleast from my side, you know, working
downward cliques and other things formwithin units, and that that happens.
But we didn't have this, asyou said, have and half nots.
Like, if you haven't been incombat, you can only go over here.
You know, everyone was expectedto be trained to a certain level,

(48:43):
perform at that level, and thenmaintain that level of proficiency.
And it didn't matter who you were.
And Delta approaches this the same way.
They don't care if you'rea truck driver, um mm-hmm.
A, a tank mechanic, uh, or, or therangers the best ranger when you show
up there, everyone is trained exactlythe same and they don't give a shit.
If you've got the, you know, the Medal ofHonor or you, you've just got two ribbons.

(49:06):
If you're, if you can performor do the job, then that's
what what you're there to do.
And that's, that's how we've very,very much approached it there.
It takes a lot of maturity to take that.
And also as a leader, it takes alittle bit of humility, a lot of
bit of humility to sit there and go,okay, I, I really don't know what
I don't know, and I need some help.
Um, people can, people canbe taking advantage of that.
Perhaps I was over the course ofmy career, but I like to think

(49:27):
I probably had more wins than,than losses in that regard.

AJ (49:30):
So now you're with Second Force, which is now transitioned.
Portions of it have stood upinto what would be, uh, second
Raider Batal or Second Marsoc?
Second SO at the time.
Yeah.
So they took

Ivan (49:41):
all of first and second recon, uh, or first recon and made them
the nucleus for first and second.
Uh, Marine Special OperationsBattalion, the mop, it doesn't
become Raiders, uh, until much later.
Um, although that,

AJ (49:57):
that's

Ivan (49:57):
a moniker that almost immediately begins to, you know, be, be taken on,
uh, particularly because the WorldWar II Raiders wanted, they wanted
a legacy to continue to, to put, uh,continue their, their stolen history.
And they kind of started adaptingus, uh, or adopting us everywhere.
But, so that happens in 2006, uh,the nucleus for that, for those two

(50:22):
battalions, uh, a third battalion stoodup eventually out of what was called the
Foreign Military, uh, training Unit, FMTU.
So yeah, you've got all these mm-hmm.
Disparate groups of, uh, peopleor, you know, or groups of marines
who are now coming together to formsomething that hasn't been done before.

(50:42):
Um, and you talk about evolution, justbeginning to have a selection process.
Uh, there isn't, uh, anoperator training course yet.
There's a bunch of thingsthat have yet to be built.
Mm-hmm.
Um, not only structurally, um, but alsoinfrastructure, you know, as far as
buildings and, you know, the, the, themassive MARSOC compound, it's down in
campus Union, that, that didn't exist.

(51:04):
In fact, that was a land ncourse they used for, um, sniper
course down there as well.
As a matter of fact.
So, yeah.
Um, all of that is, is yetto be built and put together.
Um, so it was aninteresting time for sure.

(51:27):
And again, it was one of thosethings where we don't know what's
gonna happen, but we're now workingfor socom kind of cutting out
a lot of the backstory on this.
But we, you know, we, we, we basicallyare not working for the Marine Corps.
We're Marines who we're now working forsocom, and we gotta remember that Don
Donald Refield told, uh, you know, Hagueat the time, uh, commandant, you know,
if, Hey, you're doing this, so go do it.

(51:50):
Not like, well, we needto do an assessment.
No.
That, that, that, that wasn't happening.
So we stood out, you know,then yeah, the time for

AJ (51:56):
analysis was over the time for action.
Yeah.
And

Ivan (51:59):
it was, it was, it was a, uh, a, it, it was a situation
that the Marine Corps was standingup something it didn't want to.
Um, and they were no obligationto, to do it as well as it
could be done out the gate.
They did, they did pretty well as faras grabbing, you know, us, us all,
but they're still, I, I'll say that,that the MARSOC that's developed now

(52:21):
20 years later is pretty impressive.

AJ (52:24):
I, I think that, that there is, I've got so many questions to, you
know, in regards to the kind of the not,I think growing pains has a negative
connotation to it, but, you know, theforming of a, of a new dynamic team.
When MARSOC stood up.
Right.
Was there, what was the biggest, some ofthe biggest like cultural friction points.
So you came from Recon or you camefrom the infantry and now you are

(52:46):
classified as special operation.
Were you accepted by SOCOMas special operations?
Were you accepted by the MarineCorps as special operations?
Were you accepted by Recon,um, as something, you know,
as something different?
What was that?
What was that transition like?
I

Ivan (53:00):
think there was a lot of resit reticence within the
SOCOM community to accept this.
Uh, I think at, at face value, they tookthe force recon thing, just saying, okay,
you've got the right attitude as far asyou, you do run a selection of, of sorts.
You are, uh, focused in your training.
Um, but unlike Army SpecialForces, so there's soft right?

(53:25):
Special operation forces, and then you'vegot special forces and the Army is very
particular about their charter and whogets to be called that and rightfully
so, and longtime guys have earned that.
But they wanted to, SOCOM wanted to makesure that we were more than just a combat
rating force, which, um, which is what wewere best suited to do, to be quite frank.
Um, but they wanted a little more, theability within SOCOM to spread load the,

(53:51):
the mission, particularly the advisortrain and assist mission around, uh, both.
Afghanistan and Iraq, and alsoin other parts of the world.
I mean, it's still a huge foot footprintfor sa And so there was some limitations
there within our own training structure.
Uh, it's one of the reasons FMTU wasabsorbed into that to kind of get
ahead of what would eventually becomea more holistic training program.

(54:12):
Uh, but we had like this very, thesetwo very aggressive, you know, war
fighting battalions, if you will.
And then you had sort of this otherunit of FMTU guys that were, were
doing all of the, uh, not so sexystuff, but arguably more important
in other places in, in the world.
And so you wanna talk about half andhalf nots or, you know, a feeling,
ah, he's the first fmt U and I,he's just a third battalion guy.

(54:35):
That's, that was not theright way to approach that.
But you It is, it is.
Growing pains.
It, you have to, we, we were buildingthis on, on the move and trying
to go to war in different places.
We eventually, we spent most, youknow, our soc spend most of their
time in Afghanistan isn't to saythat there were people mm-hmm.

(54:56):
Who weren't serving elsewhere.
But then when you talk aboutthe recon community, because
they took us all very worse.
Recon guys out of, uh, and essentiallydisbanded first and second force only
to stand them up a little bit later,um, as com as their original, uh.
Components, uh, within the reconnaissancebattalions, re reconnaissance formations.

(55:18):
And it's interesting because we were bothfirst and Second Force and we took all
the paddles and lineage from those unitswith us as we became first and second mso.
And then when they stood first and SecondForce back up, the O 3 21 community
was like, Hey, give us our shit back.

AJ (55:31):
Yeah, that was tough.
I remember.
Now I've, hindsight is a fantastic Right.
You know, uh, and then a littlebit of gray hair on the side helps.
But I remember I was at, uh, at SecondForce in 2000 and tens when I checked
into Second Force, and there was, Imean, my best friend in the entire
world is currently the oh 3 72 monitor.

(55:53):
Um, and so he, we were bothin three five together.
And so we had this kind of, hewent over to the FMTU or third M
Oag, I think it was at the time.
And then con, you know, progressedthrough there, had a whole bunch
of really cool deployments.
Yes.
And then I went over torecon and then forced recon.
And so we would often tryto like OutCo each other.

(56:15):
We would send each otherpictures from wherever we were
at in the world, you know.
Um, but there was always like this, likesilent, like we just didn't talk about it.
Sometimes it's like when peoplehave different political opinions,
like, we're like, Hey, I, I loveyou, but I'm just not gonna talk
about how these are our paddles.
Right.
You know, like

Ivan (56:33):
the operative word is culture.
Uh, we had to develop our own, um,while at the same time none of us can.
Turn our backs on being in therecon community, OT 20 ones.
And there were people who afterdoing some time with marsoc, even
as the offer came around, theysaid, yo, I, I like being in OT 21.
I like being a recon Marine.
I just, I want to staywith the Marine Corps.

(56:54):
And so you talk about kinda someof the problems that we ran in,
you know, twos from, as we're notonly building, but growing and
developing reputation within socom.
Uh, they were unsure what we could doand how we perform, uh, and were work.
And they weren't really takingus seriously in, in some regards.

(57:15):
Uh, and then you had your parentorganization, your parent service who
didn't want you around or didn't wantyou, and they wanted you as Marines, but
they didn't, you guys, they didn't wantyou to be the redheaded step children.
Absolutely.
The Marine Corps, it was like a, they,they were just like, okay, well we,
we didn't, we didn't ask for this.
We didn't want this.
And if you're off doing that thanyour SOCOMs issue, and you know, there

(57:38):
was a, there was money, there wasresourcing, there was equipping all
kinds of things that we were enjoyingin a way that most Marines did not.
And I think one of the bigger thingsthat the Marine Corps has done well is
maintaining the MAR in SOC and the MarineMarine Corps part of it because that
ethos does lend itself to a disciplined,highly disciplined organization.
Um, which is good.

(58:00):
Uh, but I think that it probablycould have been a better lean to
saying, oh, well if we got this groupthat does this stuff from our side.
Uh, or called marsoc.
Well, that could get the rest of ourMarines involved in this in ways that
other soft forces just could not do.
And that, that include whetherit's humanitarian aid or, you

(58:20):
know, helping with training.
It's one thing to say, okay, I'vegot a guy who you say Army Parlin
Systems, the 18 Problem weapons course.
And they're supposed to be thesubject matter weapons expert
in all things, um, NATO and, andWarsaw Pact, uh, weapons systems.
Um, but they're not gonna be able totrain how to do no kidding mortar gunnery

(58:44):
better than the Marinos 3 41, right?
So mm-hmm.
That's who I used when weneeded mortar training.
I, I didn't say, okay, go get a manual.
We, we went to the infantryunit and said, Hey, we need, we
need to learn how to do this.
'cause we were deploying with mortars, theMarines were like, okay, we'll do that.
And, you know, within a weekour guys were doing just fine
and learned how to do stuff.
Um, but, you know, thereare something to be said for

(59:06):
specialties that, that is worse.
Um.
Tapping into and worse acknowledgingand, and, and working with
even within your own service.
So there was, there were somemissed opportunities there,
I think in a lot of ways.
Um, and it was, it was a little bit ofa struggle to not only demonstrate your
competence, but also that your, to yourservice that you, you were relevant.

(59:27):
And a, we got a lot of pushback.
Even I got pushback from guys inthe infantry, like, there's nothing
you're doing that we couldn't do.
I don't understand whywe stood this thing up.
Yeah.
There's, this is pointless.
Like, okay, well that's great,but where's the Marine Corps doing
to advocate for the missions foryou to get in there and do that?
Because we had a whole mu, we had a wholemu sitting off the coast of Afghanistan
right after nine 11 and instead theyflew an entire assault squatter from

(59:48):
Delta on on and cleared an, an entireaircraft carrier to fly them nine
hours into Afghanistan to do that raid.
And that the first phonecall was not to the mute.
So if we really have our shit together,

AJ (01:00:00):
we're that good, right?
What are we doing?
And that was the real goldenchild of the Marine Corps, right?
That is what we, you know,expeditionary operation.
Heck yeah.
That was the And so when thatdoesn't get moment's notice.
Yeah, exactly.
So then when that get, doesn't getused, that became a, um, my own
personal experience that became kindof a trend was a lot of times Naval

(01:00:20):
shipping or Marine, you know, slatedvessels would just be, turn into.
Um, uh, you know, a lily pad forhighly specialized units when
the mu had all those things.
And that was a very, it's a very, itwas, it was a lot of different sandboxes
that people were trying to play in.
It was an interesting dynamic.

Ivan (01:00:39):
Well, that comes down to, in, you know, just taking this
in one direction for a moment.
I mean, that comes down tobranding and confidence.
That's really what comes downto is, is just those units have,
have a high degree of branding.
Uh, and, and they have the, thepeople who, who employ them have
a high level of confidence for agood reason in what they can do.
And when you're re, when you'rere compositing your muse every 18

(01:01:00):
to 24 months, and you're havingyour retrain and rebuild, yes, you
have a base level of skill thatyou can go and do certain things.
But when you have standing forces likethe one 60th, and that's all they do,
I like, I like marine aviation pilotsand, and you know, I, shit, if I want
something destroyed, I want us marineinfantry to make it pea size rubble.

(01:01:22):
They'll do it better than the Rangers.
They can destroy an anvil and that's fine.
That's exactly who I want.
But we're, you're talking about specifickinds of application, almost like a dagger

AJ (01:01:36):
and in the Marine Corps district versus a broad Yes.
So I have a question.
So let's talk about the dagger, right?
Uh, you know, that's somethingthat's very, very true to this,
you know, symbolism, um, that,uh, that you use as Raiders.
Can you explain a littlebit more of the dagger?
Uh, yeah.
There was a

Ivan (01:01:50):
adapted off of what it was called, the, uh.
Fairburn Sykes Dagger like that.
Yeah.
Which was developed, uh, as a closedcombat weapon in the Second World War.
Um, and then the Marine Raider knifes,uh, was inspired by that as a, as a
commando was 'cause this is what wasissued to the commandos in, in World

(01:02:13):
War ii, where this a type like this,this one's actually a later issue model,
but the ones, um, and of course theRaiders also had a, had a belt knife,
sort of a larger K bar looking thing.
But that the Raider Stiletto, uh, wasdeveloped specifically, you know, in
the same vein of the Syke stacker.
That's awesome.
And that goes all theway back to World War ii.
That's really cool.
Yeah.

AJ (01:02:31):
Okay.
So now you are with, uh, second Msab, uh, at the time, and you're
ready for your first deployment.
When do you go and where you goand who do you take with you?

Ivan (01:02:41):
Uh, at the time we went to Afghanistan, we were, uh, the
companies were organized verydifferently than they are now.
Um, at the time we had a directaction, the Special Reconnaissance
Platoon, which consisted of 45, um, ohthree, 20 ones and sars, um, special
amphibious reconnaissance, corpsman.

(01:03:04):
It was a very unique way ofdeveloping, uh, or, um, organizing
a unit, tons of experience.
And you almost exclusively hadto be selected to be in it.
I mean, you, you're assigned,but you also have to prove that
you could be part of this thing.
And, and we had, uh, five man assaultteams, uh, and four squads of 10.

(01:03:27):
And then you have five man headquarterselement, and you had some other
attachments that came with it.
So that was the corewas the Dasra platoon.
And then attach to that was an infantryplatoon, uh, which would be unfairly
characterized, um, as a trailer platoon.
That's what they used tocall them back in the day.
They kind of quote unquote trailedbehind a force, recon platoon and
provided security, uh, and allowedthem to do their jobs on objectives.

(01:03:48):
But in this case, um, theywere gutters and drivers.
Some of these guys had been in Ramadi.
They had experience,combat experience too.
So you couldn't just sneerthese guys for being grus.
They had their own level of, of expertise.
Um, and then within you, you, you hadthe in platoon as well, and then you
also had headquarters platoon, whichwas led by, uh, a major and had, uh,

(01:04:09):
a very robust intelligence sectionas well as EOD and, um, all kinds
of enablers, mechanics, et cetera.
So you guys were

AJ (01:04:17):
like combat

Ivan (01:04:18):
boxed is what it seems like.
Yeah, and, and we, we rolledaround in what was called gvs,
uh, which were for custom builtHumvee variant, um, gun trucks.
And we went to Afghanistan, uh, in 2007.
And that was our, that was ourfirst deployment as a golf company.
That's who I was a member of.
But Fox Company had been therebeforehand and they'd gotten into a

(01:04:42):
pretty good scrape out in the east.
Uh, and then that's.
Unfortunately ended in, in, insome, a little bit of economy,
which they had to work through.
And I think that that's beencovered plenty of times.
Uh, but we deployed in, in the wakeof that, uh, and that was one more
thing, this, the soft community,particularly army soft community,

(01:05:02):
like, well who are these guys?
Like what do

AJ (01:05:04):
just added on?
Right.
You know, to this like, yep.

Ivan (01:05:07):
Well, and they, they assigned SF units to us to sort of, you
know, they were supposed to showus the ropes, if you will, but they
were there to keep tabs off us.
I mean, there's no otherway around it, but they.
The guys we work with are pretty, pretty

Ryan (01:05:20):
square away.
At least a guy from someSpecial forces group.
Just a quick word from oursponsor, veterans help group.
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(01:05:41):
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And now back to this episode.

AJ (01:06:45):
So what was that deployment like?
Where are you at in Afghanistan?

Ivan (01:06:47):
We're in the helmet outside of Las ga, um, in Moala
Valley is a very extremely, uh,violent area, uh, Taliban hotbed.
Um, I would equate it tojust being in the Wild West.
Uh, a it was, it was like, to that point,I had not experienced any real combat.

(01:07:10):
I'd done that one sort of combatmission in East Timor, meaning I
had live ammunition in grenade andflying around helicopters and kinda
looking at humanitarian sites.
You might get into something, butthat, that was not necessarily combat.
I certainly had no direct actioncombat, no, no direct combat.
Like all the re mostmajority of my guys did.
Uh, like I said, includingsome of these infantry guys.

(01:07:33):
And then we got there and, youknow, we were still really getting
into, this is before they, itwas called VSO Billability Ops.
We were just really working on operatingbase and going out and fighting the enemy
and fighting and fighting them as, as hardas we could in the effort of just kind of
getting Taliban on their heels for whatwould hopefully be a larger offensive that

(01:07:55):
eventually manifested in more Marines,muse, et cetera, coming in on behind us.
But at that point in time, we werejust out there as a raid force,
combat force looking for fights.
Picking fights, right?
Yeah.
Or they picked them with us.
Um, one, I hate thatthere was no, no shortage.
Um.
I mean, you could get in a, what'scalled a tick, uh, troops in contact

(01:08:19):
situation, literally on demand

AJ (01:08:22):
wouldn't take very long.
Can you describe some of those, thoseengagements or, you know, a couple in
particular that you, you know, lifechanging things that were, you know,
a culmination of a lot of trainingand like, here you are at the, at
the moment you're in the gate, right?
And what do you do?

Ivan (01:08:35):
I won't say that I was in so many, I can't remember, right.
But there was a lot of them,and some of them are more, um,
more protracted than others.
But two in particular, we we're actuallytrying to take, take down this Taliban

(01:08:57):
commander inside of this, this area.
And, you know, as far as the organizationchart would be like taken out a
colonel or even a brigadier general,depending on, on how he looked at it.
Um, so we're always trying to get thisguy and, you know, you could hear him on
the radio and we always figured, okay,if we could just take him out, then we
would probably be able to just piecemealor turn their, his unit into a piecemeal

(01:09:21):
unit and we could, it'd just be easierfor them to, for us to fight them.
So we, we tried some directraid looking for this guy, or at
least developing intelligence.
But other times we would just beout and we'd get into, uh, a fight,
um, and we could hear him and justsay, cool, maybe we can vector him
and we'll try and try and get him.
But in one, one part we weretrying to get down into, uh.

(01:09:44):
What's known as the green Zone,which is where most of the Afghan
villages reside, uh, along Riverbed.
And that's where most people live'cause it's obviously a source of water.
It also allows 'em to have, uh,irrigation for their crops, uh, support
their, their animals and families.
Uh, but they also makefabulous French lines.

(01:10:05):
And the Taliban was adapted,u very adept at using them.
Uh, they also had quite abilityto fight with defense in depth.
Um, and they were fairly wellorganized when it came time
to, to get into larger fights.
Um, and they could masssome people pretty quickly.
So
I've been tasked to, my platoon and Ihad been tasked to drive down and take

(01:10:29):
over this compound on the edge of thegreen zone, which is up on a little bit
of a rise, so we could get a higher pieceof dominating terrain to actually then
use that as a jump off point as we'regonna try and push further into the
green zone and a five vehicle convoy.
And as we drive down into it, it all,hell just literally broke loose on us

(01:10:51):
and we got, there's a saying that ifyour attack's going well, you an ambush.
And my, my attack was going, my attackwent, was going famously aj like amazing.
And, uh, RPG round bounced off the hoodof the truck and blew up behind us.
Um, we, it, it was just insane.

(01:11:12):
So.
We had been trained in immediate actiondrills and guys, you know, turned to
and started firing with the Turt guns,people dismounted and started doing like
bounds towards these, um, enemy positions.
The enemy had to have been thinkinglike, these guys are absolutely insane.
Um, because they're, the, the, thetactic if you're in a close ambush

(01:11:33):
is to fight through it, otherwiseyou're just gonna get shot to pieces.
And so that's what they did.
Uh, my, the Marines just got out,dismounted the trucks and just
started going at it with these guys.
And I, I can still vividly see a dudestanding, firing his saw from the
offhand in short bursts owning it.
Yeah.
Going like, I mean, it just, yeah.
And I, and I, I could, Isee, I can see his face.

(01:11:55):
I, he wore a ball cap underneathhis helmet and I can see the ball.
Just all these weird things that come up.
And so I jumped out to help with thisfight and as I'm getting out, I go to
run around the other side of the truck.
'cause I wanted to get thereand actually get on the radio.
Now this is an i, Iwanted to be out enabled.

(01:12:16):
You were talking about that fighterleader thing where you're out and
able to have command and control.
I really couldn't do thatfrom inside the vehicle.
Even though I had better communicationsinside of the vehicle, I could still
operate my radios off of, off of my body.
And as I'm getting out, I hearthis, sir, could you shut the door?
Like it is the most calm statementand it's my driver and I'm like.

(01:12:36):
I'm like, two steps down the, the GMV.
I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah.
So I walk back and I, do you mindmind there's bullet flying mind.
Yeah, sir. Just if you, if as a,as a point of fact, it would just
really help me to knock a shot.
I appreciate if you would shutthe armor plate the door for me.
Yeah.
Thank you.
So I'm like, oh, my bad.
So then I go running acrossand over the top of my head.

(01:12:57):
My, my interpreter has his ak he'sjust perched it on the top of the armor
plate and it's just firing bursts tolike, he steered shit lifts, but he
is like, I'm, I'm gonna do something.
So I'm like, ducking, I can like this.
This is booming over my head.
The 50 cows going off.
It is chaos.
And I run around the other sideand I call, uh, you know, my,

(01:13:18):
my hire and say, Hey, we're,we're in a pretty good situation.
We, we, our sticky situationand we need to get out here.
He goes, yeah, you have my approval.
And I was kinda like, I'm not asking you.
Yeah.
I'm telling you what's happening.
This is, this is what we are going to do.
So we, we, we passed that over the radioto everybody and now I've gotta think
about all these guys who've dismountedto go, I don't know if anybody's

(01:13:39):
in these trench lines or whatever.
So I'm like, get everyone back.
But it was the, even as crazy as thecacophony is all the gunfire and you
can hear the bullets smack it off ofthe plating and the, and everything,
the, the clarity that I somehowmanufactured, I had it developed was.

(01:14:01):
Just amazing.
And I don't, you can't train for that.
And I don't know what happened there.
People know me.
You know, I can be excitable andsomebody's going can be Yeah.
Accused the same.
Yeah.
Don't worry how to put it, I'm passionate.
So we're in a passionate situation there.
I uh,

(01:14:23):
then remember as I'm getting readyto go back around the vehicle, I then
remember that I've been, you know,some of, some training that we had
from some people were, were helpingus out, uh, before we deployed.
Some of 'em former, uh, tag guys.
And, and some of 'em, uh, were, wereour own people who'd been in combat.
And one of 'em was a guy namedMass Sergeant Eden Pearl, who,

(01:14:44):
who, who succumbed to his wounds anumber of years ago, unfortunately.
But at the time, he had been a mentorto me and, and he said, Hey, if you
are behind some cover that you haven'tcleared, even though you were on the
other side of it, you need to cle thatmeaning you need to make sure it's safe.
You can't just assume that it'ssafe on the other side of that.
'cause you don't, you don't know.
And I don't know, I had the presenceof mind to be like, don't run

(01:15:08):
around this vehicle right now.
Like, you need to, like,they call it piling it off.
Like you, you, you break downthe, the sectors that you can
see and keep yourself protected.
And I leaned around the corner andthere's three guys running down the
edge of this trench line with a PKMand I just, just shot all of them.

AJ (01:15:24):
No way.
And they went, I mean, like, what a.And again, had you have come around
that corner without, you know, thelessons from somebody beforehand
would've exposed you to a, youknow, an open bolt weapons system.
Right.
Um, well,

Ivan (01:15:36):
they were, they weren't employing it.
They were running, like theguy had it over shoulder.
They had already gone from somewhereelse and they were then moving.
But, but that doesn't matter.
I mean, there was already the peoplethere, you know, who gave, but they,
they themselves could have beenemploying that pretty, pretty quickly.
Oh, wow.

AJ (01:15:48):
Um, but yeah, I will give the Taliban a little bit of credit.
Like anytime that I had, they werefantastic at, uh, finding, fixing and
flanking us, uh, totally as if theyread our own, our own doctrine, uh, and
then knew how we were going to fightand then worked against that as well.
Yeah,

Ivan (01:16:05):
they had, they had put mortar rounds, indirect fire on, on a
support by fire position I had behindme to make them displace ahead of
us, uh, getting into this ambush.
I mean, it was very well prepared.
They'd been watching us during the day.
Um, I'm not sure, you know,aside from overhead, this is why
battlefield drones are great.
Like, if we'd had some ability to throwsomething up there and go, you know,

(01:16:25):
take a look at what was out in frontof us that might have helped us here.
But in this case we were just,you know, firing closed combat.
Um, so yeah.
And so, so at that point then Iran back around and fired a few
more rounds into the, uh, trenchand got back in, in the vehicle.
Um, and so we, this is all happeningin like a compressed period of time,

(01:16:47):
and we're trying to turn these vehiclesaround and get out of this thing.
My, my J tac during the time has.
Calmly opened the door and like preparedhis nine line and he's got out a, um,
flow grenade so he can mark our position.
Like he's doing all these things thatI'm, would be thinking like, Hey, do this.
And he's already, and, andyou know, he's a hair pilot.

(01:17:10):
He hasn't done, uh, any, hehasn't, you know, dug the
grounding, done ground combat.
In fact, when I remember him getting offthe air aircraft and he still had his
bright cap, his bars on and his flightwings, and I was like, take that shit off.
Like, you can't be wanderingaround here with us.
Like he was outta a movie.
Like, ah.

(01:17:31):
So, but I mean, he, he, he doeseverything he's supposed to do.
We get in the vehicles, we start to turnaround and he rolls down the window so
he can put his rifle out like in a, andstart shooting from inside of the vehicle.
And it's loud as shit.
And I'm like, what are you doing?
I'm helping.
He looks at me, he looks at me like, what?
And the brass hit my driveron the back of the neck and.

(01:17:53):
Sir, can you stop doing that?
And I was like, what is wrong with you?
And like, we're having like thisphilosophical discussion about why
he's returning fire and a fire.
I'm like, we have a gun up top.
There's a pin mount oftwo 40 that's now gone.
And I we're, we're, we don't need,you're not helping, we don't need
this interior help right now.
And he, and because he, he was usinga close quarter battle, you know, it's

(01:18:15):
only about 10 and a half inch barrels.
So it's really short andit's really freaking loud.
So I was just like, oh my gosh.
So getting over the radio, I hear like,Hey, one of our vehicles is stuck.
But it's, it's much moreemotional than that.
It's like we're, oh my God, I don'tknow if we can get out here now.
These, these, these gvs are in a lot,you know, like seven tons maybe maybe 10
tons with all the ammo and everything.

(01:18:36):
And the back wheel had hookedon this pr this drop off that
was on the edge of the road.
And I'm like, great, now we are, theword fixed, the technical term is fucked.
I was like, man, what, what?
Dammit.
So as we're, because they're right behindme, our SOP is that we're the ones who
then would hook up the tow ropes fromtheir, so as I'm getting ready to exit

(01:19:00):
the door again, luckily this is nowon the safe side, uh, because we're
now facing the opposite direction.
The hand of God, I don't know,comes down and lifts this truck out.
Now we had all been sent todriver training before we went.
Both on and off road as one of thereasons we did that is because one of
the highest, uh, casualty producersin, in, in both theaters was vehicle

(01:19:24):
rollovers and vehicle accidents.
So we want everybody to be able toknow how to drive, and we send both
the infantry and the, and the, uh,uh, daer guys to that training.
We did it together.
So this guy learned, you know, he'sfeathering, he's breaking, he's, he's,
he's working and he just drop, gets thisthing out and you hear this, we're free.
Go.
And as we are driving away anotherr, you know, RPG hits and blows

(01:19:45):
up, like why it took him longto get the RRP G back in action.
Well, maybe it didn't, butit, it doesn't really matter.
And we speed out of thisthing and we get back to, um,
another coverage kill position.
And my, my, my commander looks at meand he is like, is everyone all right?
And I'm like, I have no idea.

(01:20:06):
Like, I know we, we, we gotaccountability as we're leaving,
but we need like, no kidding.
See what happened here.
I haven't got any casual, likeI don't have, uh, you know, the,
or AML ACE report, AML casualtyexpenditure, you, anything like that.
So.
He, he just had likethis look on his face.

(01:20:28):
He was like, I, I can'tbelieve what I just witnessed.
And I was like, yeah, youwill try living through it.
Like this was crazy.
Yeah.
And at the time, and so the, the J TAC hasactually popped this purple smoke grenade.
And again, everyone's making so like,oh, do you have any other color?
Great buddy.
Like, now we're all joking.
And I'm like, what?
And, and 2 80 10 show up andthey pulverize this line and it,

(01:20:51):
and it breaks the back of this.
Like we broke the back of the a amateur.
Then it absolutely justtears this place up.
And, and then after that we got anAC one 30 on on station a little
bit later and, and pummeled them,

AJ (01:21:02):
you know, quite a bit more.
I pause you on that.
I wanted to ask, so a lot of our viewersand listeners haven't had the, um,
experience of seeing an A 10, uh, go in,you know, wings level, uh, at a target.
Can you describe that,uh, a little bit more?
Uh, what that, what that,what that process, what that

(01:21:23):
site, what the sound was like.
Right.
That specific weapon system itself.

Ivan (01:21:27):
Yeah.
It's pretty surreal actually.
And it was, it was getting on tour, Imean, when this ambush happened, it was
at dusk, well, not, not quite dark enoughthat we could use night vision goggles,
which is another reason that they mm-hmm.
Attacked us at that point.
'cause it realized that mm-hmm.
We, it was nighttime we'd hadcomplete tactical advantage with
our MVGs and lasers and stuff.
So we got it, we hit a dusk and then aswe were working our way back out, by the

(01:21:50):
time the 1810 showed up, it's now justgetting into that, that twilight darkness.
Uh, but the A 10 As as aplatform is a purpose design,
close air support platform.
That, uh, was it one time on thechopping block, uh, to be decommissioned,
but they may be bringing it back.
I'm not sure.
Um, I've heard both.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I was, yeah, I I've heard both as well.

(01:22:10):
I wrote an article about, uh, you know,defending the reason to keep the eight
10 published a number of years ago.
I think it was in the Havoc Journal.
People can look that up.
But, um, the, the, the aircraft, uh, wasessentially built around a 30 millimeter
cannon that was developed by, of allthings General Electrics, whose motto
is, uh, we bring good things to life.
So the 30 millimeter cannon, uh, is anabsolute, it's meant for destroying tanks.

(01:22:37):
Uh, but the payload of this, thisaircraft, it has a titanium tub,
armored tub that protects the pilotand then its payload is unbelievable.
It can take off from short runways.
It's meant to be flownin a steer environments.
It's actually quite perfect forworldwide combat and the Marine
Corps probably should just buy it.
Uh, because it, it, you know, it's great.

(01:22:57):
Could you imagine that?
Or soft as an attack platform.
SOCOM could just buy it and have theirown organic, uh, attack, attack platform.
Just take the whole thing and just turnit into a socom, uh, you know, asoft wing.
That's, that's, that's an opinion.
Uh, but it would be, it'd bereally problematic to lose
all the close air support, um,knowledge within the Air Force, uh,
particularly within that community.
'cause they're the ones who actuallydo ground combat, uh, or support ground

(01:23:19):
combat forces with close air support.
And we're assured by Air Force, um,tactic tacticians, that the F 22 can
deliver and do everything the A 10 can,and you don't have to worry about it.
But the F 22, uh, is a very,the delicate aircraft, it
doesn't have nearly the payload.
Um, the pilots who fly it are not either,they're obviously quite skilled and

(01:23:40):
capable, but they don't have that closeair support capability, and they're
not gonna break a hard deck, uh, forfear of actually damaging the aircraft.
Whereas the A 10 is purposely built toweave, uh, at less than 10,000 feet.
And these guys came screaming inat somewhere like a thousand feet.
In fact, from where I was standing,I probably, uh, could, if it was
daylight, would've been able to seethat the pilot's eyes were blue.

(01:24:02):
Because that's how close they were.
I

AJ (01:24:03):
mean, a ten's an absolute pig.
Right.
It's a, it's not, it is not pretty.
It's not, it's meantto do one thing Right.
You know, low and slowand deliver its payload.

Ivan (01:24:12):
Yep.
Um, and it, it can takea shit ton of damage too.
You can, you can, you can add, youcan take, you can see pictures of,
particularly from a YF one of a tens,that it took just a tremendous amount
of battle damage and they still flew'em home and they just replaced,
it's meant to be replaced and, youknow, they put it back in the air.
Yeah.
Warthog iss an appropriate namefor that, for that aircraft.
It is, it's an ugly, it's an uglyaircraft that does its job amazingly well.

(01:24:35):
And so, uh, yeah, it, you get to seethis thing fly in and just the sound
of that main gun, I mean, it soundslike bur and it, and then there's this
just explosions because what they'refiring is depleted, uranium bullets,
you know, and it's just explodingand shielding all over the place.
And, and I know if you get herewith that, you're losing limbs.

(01:24:56):
Um, but it, it probably way worse.
Um, and then from there, you know,so they did a couple gun runs and
then they, we dropped a few bombson 'em and, and yeah, we heard them
over the Icom After we, after we'dgotten out of this ambush, uh, my, uh,
my, uh, interpreter who now coveredhis senses after you getting his

(01:25:18):
AK over my head, he says, sir, youneed to hear what they're saying.
And I said, what, what's going on?
He's like, um, they, they need,they need more, more, more
vehicles for the wounded and, um.
They said that we areworse than the Russians.
No kidding.
Which is probably the highestcompliment I've ever been given.
Yeah.
Well, you know, we'll take that.
I mean, again, they

AJ (01:25:36):
fought them for what, over a decade, right?
I think, uh, right.
Um, right.
And the Russians were Ruth,I don't know how many,

Ivan (01:25:42):
and I don't know how many like white haired Afghan war vets were still
rubbing around in the Taliban ranks,but there was enough to remember.
And they're also, you know, a countrythat prides itself on lore in stories.
So Lord knows that people have beenbrought up with like, Hey, look,
this is in your lineage to do this.
So well that, so that was, thatwas one pretty particular area.
And then, you know, we, I, I certainlycould tell another one, but yeah,

AJ (01:26:04):
I mean, we very pause, let,

Ivan (01:26:05):
we need chat,

AJ (01:26:06):
chat about that.
So let me ask you a question in regardsto something that you've kind of written.
I wanna call.
So again, uh, fantastic author.
I highly recommend that anyone listeningto this or watching this checks out your
substack checks out your webpage, becauseI think you have four, uh, titles, if
I'm not mistaken, that you've published.
Um, and five now.
Five, excuse me.
Excuse me.
Um, yep.
So one of the things you'vewritten about was, uh, a little

(01:26:28):
bit of the ambiguity of combat.
Right.
And so.
The fact that, and I think this is reallyimportant for leaders, specifically young
leaders, or actually really any leaders,and I think this plays into your, uh,
you know, your current profession, right?
Is that decisions aren'talways right versus wrong.
Can you walk us through a momentin combat when the uncertainty
was a little overwhelming, andhow you found the clarity to act?

(01:26:50):
Um, in my personal experience, whatI've seen is a lot of people or
lessons and formal lessons, whetherthat be tactical decision games or
whatnot, have forced people intothis idea that sometimes combat or
conflict or uncertainty is binary.
There is a right answer andthere's a wrong answer, but
oftentimes what I've seen on theground is it's quite different.

(01:27:10):
Have you experienced things like thatand what have you done to kind of
overwhelm or overcome that, um, and,and get clarity in inside of the gray?

Ivan (01:27:18):
Yeah.
Well, luckily haven't beenfaced with too many of those.
Nobody, that, those are the kinds ofthings that really weigh on on a leader
and, and, you know, you're talking aboutthings that there's no right answers
per se, because we're not dealingnecessarily, uh, you're dealing with
things that are happening in the moment,not a pre-decision, uh, or something

(01:27:42):
that, you know, you're going intoit going, you know, I, this is gonna
compromise my ethics, or, or, or morally.
I feel that this is really notsomething that we should be doing.
Like pre ahead of going in there.
You, you're now faced with this at thepoint of time, the point of of impact.
And, um, not on this deployment inparticular, but you know, as we're

(01:28:05):
talking about this as a vignette,um, we were in combat and taken some
pretty heavy fire from a, a compound.
My guys were not pinned down, butdefinitely needed some help to, we
were not gonna assault this compound.
It wasn't worth attacking.
We we're actually going towardsit to, to try and ascertain like

(01:28:28):
whether this person was there.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and you know, somebody was there.
Uh, but it was to a point of like,you know, we, we made a decision
before we went on the objective.
Like, okay, if we're on and we getinto combat, you know, then, then
we're on and we're, we're gonnajust fight while we're there.
But this is not meant to like assault,to destroy assault, to, to, you know,

AJ (01:28:48):
to

Ivan (01:28:49):
kill, capture this guy.
He's not so important that we have to,you know, fight him out with scaling
ladders and all this other stuff.
Um, and you want to have thoseconversations ahead, like what's,
what is the value of this mission?
Like, what are we going to do?
And I learned, I learned that fromworking primarily with, uh, with
Army aviation, army soft Aviation.
'cause they were like, look, ifwe're gonna fly there and we're
gonna do everything, we're gonnalist risk, machine, life, limb,

(01:29:10):
eyesight, and most importantlyyour guys, because we're, we're the
kind of the, you're the customer.
Mm-hmm.
We need, there's no time in thecockpit to have a discussion as
to whether or not we're going in.
If we, if the orders were going in andwe're going in, and if we're not, then
we're gonna pull out and there's not.
That's it.
So what, what is the decision points?
Where, where and now is the timeto have those, those, those chats?

(01:29:30):
And so in this case, we, we'd gone inand said, okay, look, if we get the
opportunity and it works out that wecan go get this guy and, and he's in
this compound and it works for us,great, but we are not going to get
ourselves decisively engaged to apoint where we've got stuff to that
is going to o overwhelm our ability

AJ (01:29:50):
to do that.
Right.
Or outpace our ability to do that.
It's high value target, but it'snot like the pinnacle, right?
Like, Hey, we're gonna do our best.
Right?
But not over commit.
Absolutely.

Ivan (01:29:58):
And we're lightly armed, certainly very skilled, but lightly armed, don't
have a lot of, uh, you know, the onlybackup you have is your own, unless you
get some more air support, et cetera.
But you're, you're kind ofself-contained and self-reliant.
Uh, but so my guys are now gettingshot at can't really flank.
They're not really meant toflank, but you know, they're

(01:30:19):
trying to get out this position.
They got 'em in a prettygood, pretty good fire sack.
And, and they're, and they're, they'reundercover, but ground force, uh,
I was a ground force commander, butthe, the assault leader was like, Hey
man, we need a bomb on this compound.
And I'm, I have the wherewithal, it'smy final decision as to whether or

(01:30:41):
not we drop a bump on that compound.
And I was like, Hey, can you, canyou get yourselves out of there?
Well.
Yeah.
Well, you knows now we'rehaving this discussion.
Right.
But,
um, we don't have any casualties yet.
Well, and luckily we didn't at thispoint throughout the mission, but I

(01:31:02):
was like, have we got any casualties?
Are we, no, we're, we're good,but the fire's pretty heavy.
It's like, all right, wellwe'll see what we can do.
But you know, I, I started talkingto my JA like, Hey, what, what?
Can you get a bomb?
Yeah.
We, we get a bomb about five minutes.
And I said, well, we mayneed it faster than that.
But again, you don't knowwhat's in that compound.

(01:31:23):
I mean, you'd love to assume thatit's an enemy, it's a barracks right.
Full of nothing but enemy fighters.
And they're all confirmed thatthey're just card carrying bag guys.
And you know, when you dropthat bomb, it's all good.
Two 500 pound bombs on a a compoundin Afghanistan will vaporize it.
Yeah.
And, and you'll be pickingthrough the rubble.
So, and this was at night, sothey're taking pretty good of fire.

(01:31:46):
But it's really more because of whatthese guys inside the compound could hear.
Our guys can actually see 'emand stuff with their lasers
and their, and using lasers.
And, and so there's, it, it does a pretty,I can see the engagement through my nods.
Like they're sitting Yeah.
This, it's pretty, it's pretty sticky.
'cause I'm up on this hill watchingthis thing and so, um, I, I just
told 'em like, look, I can't, I can'tgive you a bomb unless it's just so

(01:32:10):
overwhelming you can't get out of there.
And, and, and, and if we hadcasualties and you were, you
know, just totally pinned down.
Okay.
But.
We're right now, I need you to just getyourselves extricate as best you can.
So that was met with alittle bit of frustration.

AJ (01:32:27):
Sure.
Um, there's a natural andwhen he came back Yeah.
There's a natural, like, aggressivekind of like, let's bomb, let's blow it.
Right.
You know, and Oh yeah.
And, and in my

Ivan (01:32:35):
mind I was like, well, and nevermind.
You know, so you don't know every,everybody's inside of that compound.
Women, kids, whatever.
And Siv Cass is a huge concern,but, you know, we're aj we're
ostensibly the good guys.
Yeah.
And we're supposed to becircumspect in what we're doing.
And at that point in time, I could haveeasily come up with enough of a reason

(01:32:58):
that to put two bombs on ethic and, andbeen justified in doing it, or at least
would like, likely have been justified,you know, exonerated in doing so.
But that was not somethingthat I wanted to take on.
And, uh, they were able to eventually, youknow, kind of get themselves out of it.
We, we actually set up anothersupport, support by fire position.

(01:33:21):
We maneuvered some vehicles sothat we could put some more fire
on the compound itself to thenallow these guys to, to get back.
And, and then, soeverything was recovered.
But then they, he, he wanted to havea one-to-one conversation with me.
It was got very rhetorical, very quickly.
What it's, how, you know,what, what would've happened?
You know, I can't believe youdidn't, you didn't drop it.

(01:33:43):
Because our reputationwould be fairly aggressive.
And I think they expect, I don'tdo this, don't worry about.

AJ (01:33:49):
So, yeah, I mean that, so that challenges you.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I've got some followup questions on that.
Um, so first of all, I think it's hugethat you're able to allow the space.
One of the things that I've studiedand seen with leaders is that, uh,
oftentimes they don't allow for,um, one of the things I think is
really good about special operationscommunities is that we have a hot wash.

(01:34:10):
And, um, I struggled myself whencoming back to Big Marine Corps
after being a force reconnaissanceMarine for a number of years.
Was that in our culture?
Right?
The oh 3 21 or oh 3 72 or, youknow, the oh 3, 0 7, right?
That was what it's turned into now.
Like the, the recon in Marscommunity, when you go into a hot
wash, you take your rank off, right?

(01:34:31):
It's like, Hey, who did this?
Oh, yeah.
And that's not something that Iexperienced outside of those communities.
And I think that's very, um, very nuanced.
It's very unique to them because Iwould get back to the, you know, regular
infantry and we're like, okay, hot wash.
And I'm like, oh, I can't wait for whathappens here because this person did X.
And they're like, um, well sir,I think everything was great.

(01:34:53):
And I was like, were you watchingthe same attack that I was watching?
'cause I don't, you know.
And so to the, as a leader, having thatspace, opening that dialogue up, what was
that like in that kind of conversation,if you're willing to share that?
Going back to what you were saying, um,

Ivan (01:35:08):
early on we, we established that that's how we did our hot washes.
And some, some people took a little bitmore of offense to that than others.
Uh, even in the staff, NCO ranks,uh, particularly if the, you know, we
had guys who'd come from the regularMarine Corps to come into Marsoc when
they stood it up and, you know, maybeculturally not quite used to that.
And somebody, some first sergeants seena, a gunny poking me in the chest, in the

(01:35:31):
desert, yelling at me, calling me Ivan.
Ivan, I can't believe youdidn't, you know, in the heat
of the moment, he would've losthis, he would've lost his mind.
And I'm like, back, back tohim, Hey, first name, don't
forget what we're doing here.
And oh, by the way, like, don't accuse me.
You know?
So then we got ourselves calmeddown and never got any emotion out.
But when you get home, you're right.

(01:35:52):
There's no friends in a hot washing.
We, my my unit had spent, um, quite abit of time working with other special
operations force, in particular, theSpecial Air Service, and their hot
watchers are absolutely just merciless.

AJ (01:36:05):
I've been through one of those and, uh, I don't want to do it again.
Yeah, I just,

Ivan (01:36:08):
yeah, I mean, but we, we were working with them and we thought
like, oh man, we really nailed this.
We're doing special economiesfor one, for one of their groups.
And like, we, we thoughtlike, hold man, we hit it.
Oh man.
At the end I was like,I need, I need a beer.
This is, this is awful.
I quit.
I I'm not good at this job.
Yeah, no, it was, it was really bad.
And, you know, and, and they, I thinkthey, they really are, in my opinion,

(01:36:28):
you know, with, with a few others,they like the gold standard of, of
how you should be doing this shit.

AJ (01:36:32):
And,

Ivan (01:36:33):
um, yeah, it was so that was in, that was built into the culture for sure.
Um, but.
It is one thing, you're in hot washingtraining, another one, it's in combat.
And now you're just talk.
And now it just is.
You, you've got no, hey, let's redo this.
Mm-hmm.
Hey, next time, like now it's like,well this is what you did and yeah, it

(01:36:58):
worked, but end not if, but, but, andand, and what are we learning from this?
And then, you know, you cango all the way back, well, is
this guy really that important?
Like if he's really that important thatwe, we we kill him, then why do we send
him ground assault force against it?
Anyone?
Let's just blow up the compound.
Right?
Well we can't do that 'causethere could be civilians there.
So

AJ (01:37:18):
what's the difference between, I just did, you know, I struggled as an enlisted
guy and later on as an officer of beingable to see different perspectives.
I do really appreciate the perspectivethat the officer corps has.
They purposefully, uh, train and educatethe officers to try to remain above the
fray at times to see the whole picture.
Right.
To understand.
So, I mean, I've been the enlistedguy poking the chest of an officer.

(01:37:42):
Why didn't you do this?
We should have, 'cause I'mlike, I want blood, right?
I'm trying to, I'm likea dog with a bone, right?
And I want to end this situation asfast as possible to protect my team.
And then I've had the argumentswith the officers before that
are like, Hey, there's a lotother of other things going on.
One of the things that I wrotespecifically in my book was, um, I wrote.

(01:38:04):
The line that Afghanistan wasfought with rifles in our hands
and rule books in our pockets.
Um, and it was such a very hard, um,it was a different war for me than
it was in Iraq, because at pointsin Iraq, like Fallujah and stuff,
it's like, Hey, bad guys that way.
So, and like you said, you're operatingin the green zone, you know, having

(01:38:26):
to be able to have the wherewithal tosay like, I don't, I can't use speed
and violence of action everywhere Igo, and I can't just blow everything
up because what are we doing Right.
You know?

Ivan (01:38:36):
Yeah.
Well I think, I think at thatpoint in Afghanistan, you could
almost call it, we're still inphase one, which is just, like you
said, very much violence of action.
Very much.
I mean, we're on level two conops.
We could just go out anddo whatever we wanted.
I mean, it was blanket, we could justget, get into fights all over the place.
And you get into the second phase,which is really kind of the VSO

(01:38:56):
period where we're trying todo a lot more nation building.
We're really trying to be more, uh,focused, or at least that was the intent.
Uh, I've, I've argued before that thereprobably wasn't much of a, of a plan.
They thought there was, but really wasn't.
But the second, you know, the secondphase was, you know, try to do that.
And then the third is obviously wherejust comes to a point of just almost

(01:39:18):
like throwing your hands in the air andgo, like, at what point are you going
to take interest in your own fate?
I've got, so question.
Uh, and, and that's not to diminish.
Yeah, well that's not to diminish, youknow, any, anyone in any one place that
they served and how, but I kind of got tosee Afghanistan in its phases as it went.
Nevermind that I was working in, inSo Carmen Joint Special Operations
Command and other worldwide, uh, youknow, venues or missions in different

(01:39:40):
venues, uh, that, you know, essentialBureau supposed to be nested in.
I can tell you that.
It, it in a lot of

AJ (01:39:44):
ways it wasn't.
That's frustrating, I'm sure.
Um, especially to Oh yeah.
So much to it.
And just to kind of watch that.
So how many deployments did you doto, uh, Afghanistan specifically?
Uh, uh, five.
Oh geez, Luis.
Oh God.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
That's a lot.
Okay.
Um, so you spent, I mean, a good,were these, if you can say, were

(01:40:07):
these longer deployments, like atypical Marine seven month deployment,
or were they shorter stints?
Um,

Ivan (01:40:14):
some of 'em were shorter.
Um, it kind of depended onwho I was working for and what
the, what the mission was.
Um, what I did, my two longestones were, were with marsoc.
Once, uh, the, the Daer PLA commanderonce as a company, I was Fox
Company's commander in 20 12, 20 13.

(01:40:35):
Wow.
So, and that was nine months long.
Wow.
So I, I, I did, you know, the majorityof my deployments in Afghanistan, at
least the longest, you know, time inAfghanistan, I was a, as a Mars guy,
so I was in MARSOC the whole time.
But work, working for marsoc, right?
Yeah.
Okay.

AJ (01:40:48):
So that's cool.
You got to stay.
So when you crossed overto the dark side, right?
When you crossed over, uh, you gotto a chance to stay, or is that, is
that, is that, uh, accurate that youstayed for the end of your career?
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
I, I went

Ivan (01:41:02):
from, I went from signing that letter with, with my monitor,
you know, him telling me, look,you're, you're pretty much finished.
And then people told me like, Hey, if youstick around MARSOC for too long, 'cause
I was still in oh 3 0 2 slash oh 3 0 7,this will not be good for your career.
And I managed to make a careeroutta something that wasn't
supposed to be good for me.
So anybody who's, you know,looking at what should I do?

(01:41:26):
How should I take my career, man, ifyou get an opportunity that is, you
know, valuable to you, take it, go.
There is no guarantee.
And honestly, like the MarineCorps is a giant corporation.
It needs people, it will find the people,it needs to put where it needs to go.
And if you're not sitting in exactlywhere you, you know, you're supposed
to, according to some sort of, uh, youknow, org chart or, or progression.

(01:41:51):
Don't worry about it.
Go, go do the thing that you, youbelieve, you, you, you want to do.
I really appreciate that respect.
I think, I think a lot of times I thinkthe rest of it will take care of itself.

AJ (01:42:00):
Yeah.
A lot of times we almost live to thisidea of a script, uh, and what you
should do, what the next right action is.
Um, and I really, I, I really,uh, I resonate with that, right?
All your dreams.

Ivan (01:42:11):
And remember, I was only gonna do this four or five years and do,
you know, go be a cop, a federal cop.
And so then I was, but then when I gotinto it, I found I really liked it.
I was like, well, how canI just keep doing, yes.
Like, I really like being in a recon.
I really like being a part of this.
I like the energy, I like the people.
I like all the, I like the gear andthe gadgets and you know, I like
the training and okay, so how canI can, how can I keep doing this?

(01:42:34):
And that's what I set out to do.
And, but it also came at a, a costand, you know, so, you know, I had to
take very, um, calculated, consideredrisk, and I weighed those and, and.
That's it.
That's

AJ (01:42:50):
fantastic.

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And now back to this episode.

AJ (01:44:18):
So I'd really like to transition here to a point, um, about, so reading
through your substack, one of thethings that really, really popped
out to me was, um, the short story.
I dunno how to, I dunnohow to describe it.
You know, um, it's called what if.
Um, and I think that this is somethingthat people who exist in the Combat Arms
specialties, um, we share something verysimilar, that this is not something that

(01:44:40):
necessarily resonates with, uh, peoplewho don't live this kind of lifestyle.
Um, so I, I read it andit like was visceral.
I like brought tears.
I have written my own, you know,version of something like this.
Can you describe a little bit, I'm sorry,this is a little off of what I'm sure
you were ready to talk about, but I,

Ivan (01:44:57):
I, I called it and, and it was developed with a group of people that
I knew who, um, they work in some verycovered activities and they asked me
one time if I had a, a what if packet.
And I said, what's that?
They said, well, in blunt terms it'swhat to do if something happens to you.

(01:45:24):
And it, it is not just your will.
It's like, what do you want usto do with all of your stuff?
What do you, are there, is therestuff you don't want people to find?
Do you have items that youwanna see certain people get?
Uh, not only that, but you know,have you, have you considered.

(01:45:45):
If somebody were to like, open thispacket that you've written letters or put
something together so that they know howyou felt and you, and they said, look,
this is, this is not something easy todo because you'll fill out a will and
you'll fill out all these other things.
But have you thought about whoyour Paul bearers are going to be?
Have you thought aboutthe music at your funeral?

(01:46:07):
Have you thought about the things thatyour wife will have to, uh, take care of?
How about your finances?
Like, there was this huge, it'snot like it was a checklist,
but there's this litany of stuffthat they, they asked about.
And I, they said, the reason I tellyou this is because, um, you're
not gonna get to choose and thepeople who are left behind are gonna
have to clean all this shit up.

(01:46:28):
And you probably need to name someonehere with whom you're working, uh,
to kind of be an executor of sorts.
Not so much of your will and stuff, butwhat, what, what your family's gonna have
questions and all kinds of stuff, and youneed, you need to like, have somebody.
And so I, I named him and I told himexactly what was in that package.

(01:46:49):
Um, and it remained in my, you know, sortof my holding, you don't deploy with it.
It, it remains, you know, at home base.
Uh, and I kept it with me for a long time.
Um, and in fact, uh, every once ina while I'd go, go in and update
the letters to different peoplejust because of things had changed.

(01:47:11):
Sure.
Or they've gotten older,kicking my children.
Um.
I not getting rid of the otherletters, I just kind of, then, then
you had more letters for them toread as, as you were going along.
So it's kinda like this time capsuleof, of, of preparing for really bad
stuff in, in a way to sort of blunt

AJ (01:47:27):
that possibility.
Right.
I, I think what, um, what I see is,um, that we have an experience, I
don't know if it's a luxury, but wehave the experience, um, of having,
understanding whether or not we wantto or not the, uh, finality of death.
Um, and so we are constantly, we'represently rich, always around it.
Right.
You know, whether or not it's enemies orfriendlies, civilians, there's just death.

(01:47:51):
Right?
And so there's this tough, uh, anotherpiece that resonated with some of your
writing was the conversation or thewriting around losing your father, um,
and losing someone suddenly, um, and,um, conversations that just couldn't, you
know, closure, that just couldn't happen.
I, I like the idea of done with thewhat if packet, because I think that

(01:48:11):
even if you're a civilian, I think thatthere's value in, um, trying to speak
from beyond the grave, almost puttingdown letters and, and, and words.
It also says here that youburned your what if packet.
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah.
Uh,

Ivan (01:48:28):
I, I think it's, first, I, I gotta tell you, I'm, I'm, I'm, thank
you for reading that and thank you.
I mean, I, I've got like 16.
Five articles written now, and youknow that, that someone went back and,
and took, took a look at that catalog.
I really appreciate.
So thank you.
Um, the, I, I think the burningof it was kind of closing out.

(01:48:51):
I, I've had a, a difficulty, uh, evennow, three years after retiring, my
transition is still just kind of ongoing.
I've had a, this is somethingI did for all of my adult life.
Um, you live in a, we lived in a, ina very closed society, um, a private
one, um, a lonely one, particularly forbeing a leader inside of this stuff.

(01:49:15):
Despite, um, perhaps some limitedpopularity with my own people, I
certainly unpopular with others.
So, I mean, you're notgonna please everybody.
Um, oh, well, I mean,it's, it's the truth.
But I think for me, in the, in theWhat If packet and getting rid of it,
it was time for me to just, you know,accept that this portion of my, my life

(01:49:36):
ha needs to gently be put in the past.
And, and that part of that has to me, recdeal with me reconciling certain things.
But the other was that the What ifPacket was a snapshot of who I was at the
point in time and all of those pieces.
And I think to your point of finaleof death and the thought that
you can be killed at any moment,whether it's a helicopter or

(01:49:58):
Hershey crash or, or a accident orget shot, blown up, what have you?
Um, that that was done out of a necessity.
And then I no longer had to keep that.
Now I could still write down, Hey,much, you really do want these,
him selling that kind of thing.
But it doesn't have to be as sort oflike, I, I haven't wanted you to have

(01:50:22):
this and then this, you know, that'sthe only thing of me either holding

AJ (01:50:29):
anymore.

Ivan (01:50:30):
And I, I guess I think I wanted to say to myself, you know,
you, you, you've earned a leaseon the next portion of your life.
And not maybe that's an anchor,but it is something that in order
to actually be able to appreciatethat you, you can't be hanging on
to the way that you were living.

AJ (01:50:50):
It resonates a ton.
We are, I actually, when I readit, like there's a, when I've
read the burn portion, I was like,you know what, to me that says is
we're a very recon marsoc, right?
The Marine Corps we're very ritualisticin a lot of the things that we do.
Almost cult-like actually notalmost cult-like in a lot of ways,
in a lot of things that we do.

(01:51:10):
And I saw as Kim Philby said,if you wanted defect, you have

Ivan (01:51:13):
to belong.
That's exactly correct.
No, I'm, I'm not Kim Philby.
I'm walking outta hereto go to the Russian.
Just say it's like.

AJ (01:51:21):
That felt like that was a closing of a chapter.
Right.
And and you're saying mm-hmm.
I recently, when kind of going through,you know, like the storage unit that
is your life when you move around anddeploy a whole bunch is I found my
letters, like my letters as a 21-year-oldLance Corporal going into Fallujah.
Right.

(01:51:41):
Like this, like the same kind of thing.
And you, and it's a snapshot towho you were at that point in time.
And I think that's really valuable.
And so for any of the listeners outthere, um, you know, or viewers, I
think that that's something, it'san exercise that I would recommend.
I don't know that you would, but it'san exercise that I would recommend is
it's a consolidation of your life atthat point in time and what you want to
give to the next generation of peoplethat would follow you inside of that.

(01:52:04):
I really do appreciate yousharing that story specifically.
It's pretty vulnerable to do that.
Well, I think that, you know,

Ivan (01:52:10):
just in light of being now a day after nine 11, I mean, 3000 people went
to work that day and didn't come home.
And I've suffered combat losses throughmy own people and having to inventory
somebody's equipment and their, theirlife and all their stuff and they're

(01:52:36):
not there, is it, it just reallyweighs on you and, and you still have a
mission to complete that kind of thing.
So.
Yeah, I think it is worthyou, you know, just at least

AJ (01:52:51):
exploring, uh, where, where you are.
Yeah.
You also write about compartmentalizationas a leader, which I think I, if I could
implore people to read your writing,uh, at like, and just devour it.
I think that you, in my opinion,like I said, total fanboy.
I never met you.
Right.
But, um, if you want to figureout, if you're out there and

(01:53:12):
you wanna figure out what right.
Looks like, what a full spectrumand I, and I believe warrior
looks like, I think that you havethis in your writings, right?
This feels very, um, meditations, right.
Marcus Aurelius is kind of meditations.
It really does.
Uh, and I know you said ittook you 10 years to write the
book and 53 years to create it.
Um, you know, uh, Ithink that's fantastic.

(01:53:33):
So I do have some, some that one.
Yes, yes.
Absolutely.
I, I, I, I have some questions.
So you mentioned family.
So you have three children.
Is it two sons and onedaughter, if I'm not mistaken?
Two.
Two daughters and sons.
Two daughters and a sons.
Excuse me.
Um, you deployed a lot, like a lot.
A lot.
Uh, how did your family,how did that work?

(01:53:55):
What was that conversation like?
What was that lifestyle, that tempo?
Because you were effectively being whatyour dad was to you, you were gone a lot.
You were a big professionalsoldier, right?
Um.
Did that take a toll on your family?
Did it have any kind of, um, are there,are there regrets, things that you wish
that you could have done differently asa, as a husband, as a father, as a man?

Ivan (01:54:19):
I, I think it's something they grew up with.
I, I, I'm going to definitely putwords in, in, in people's mouths
and, and, and, and talk aboutthoughts, um, that they may have had.
But I'll also say that we're very closein being able to talk about that together.
And that doesn't mean that, you know,I came home and just broke down about

(01:54:39):
all the shit that happened to me infront of my, my, all of my family.
But as they came of age, uh, havingthose discussions, you know, my, my
daughter, my youngest daughter, uh,attended West Point, she had a lot of
questions about just being a leader.
And, and, you know, anytime we couldhave a discussion, I could give something
anecdotally or, you know, real worldexample, um, of just something that

(01:55:00):
would help her with, with that journey.
Um, and my son's a Marine Corps officer,so he certainly had questions as well,
and things that he, he wanted to do,uh, and ways of approaching things.
But, you know, people have to learnhow to, to exist, um, in, in the
world with someone like us, me.

(01:55:21):
Um, and it just became something,this is what their father did.
Um, and they understood itand they understood that.
But, you know, there aredefinitely some tensions there.
Uh, but I will say that I, Idid, I believe the best I could
in balancing things out in thatwhen I was home, I tried to be
home and present and available.

(01:55:42):
Uh, there were also some times whereI was just like, this is strange
and weird and I don't get it.
Like,

AJ (01:55:52):
there's like handbooks on how to be a marine officer.
There are not handbooks, howto be a marine officer coming
home after combat deployments.
Uh, and how to be,

Ivan (01:55:59):
yeah, and, and, and not, and not being, and being a special
operations officer and beingsaddled with all kinds of stuff.
Nevermind, you know, your, your,your own personal feelings.
But like, I came home from deploymentand almost immediately got on a
plane, uh, to go to a wedding.
And I remember sitting in theairport drinking a beer as

(01:56:22):
just the world's going by me.
And I was like, I don'tknow what's going on here.

AJ (01:56:29):
I wrote about that a lot.
That was something that I struggledwith was like, for us it was
deploy, deploy, super kinetic, andthen like done off You're home.
Yeah.
Traffic dogs, barkingkids, whatever it is.
Right?
And, and you're kind of like, I mean, aweek ago I was, you know, doing whatever.
Right.
It's a. That was a lot, Ithink, uh, and a lot for us to

(01:56:50):
continually cycle back through that.

Ivan (01:56:53):
Yeah.
I, I think that's one of the issuesthat people don't necessarily grasp.
And I, and I, I do write about this, um,in several different platforms that, you
know, we were, you talk about the greatestgeneration and, and others, and I'm
not diminishing people's service acrossanything, but, you know, any war or what
they did, you know, the United States, asI've come to find its currency is warfare.

(01:57:14):
Whether it's supportingit or it's exporting it.
It's what it does.
I hadn't told that.
And there is, there's a lot of thingsI'm wrestling with as a result of that.
Um, because as I said, I'm avery, I'm proud of my service.
I'm proud of my, my children's service.
I'm proud of the thingsthat we have, we have done.
I'm proud of the peopleI served alongside.
I do believe that what we are doingin its, in its nacient stages was

(01:57:35):
indeed righteous in some capacity.
And I think we've also lost trackof what, you know, what we, we, the
reasons we go do this stuff anymore,it's become so ingrained that it just
isn't, is, won't get too deep into that.
But ultimately too, toomuch deeper than that.
But, but ultimately there's a, there'sa disconnect because we deployed so much

(01:57:55):
and did this so often that it was justsort of like, well, I was deployed again.
Their dad's deployed again.
Oh, anywhere you live where it wasLajeune, Peleton, what have you.
Oh, they're just, they're deployed.
They're not just deployed.
They're a war.
People get killed.
People are dying.
People lose their legs.
People are getting paralyzed.
People have all kinds of other issues.
They're coming back Un not whole.
Yeah.

(01:58:16):
And so we did this.
Perennially a a j. We, us,you and I collectively.
And people just assumed it was just theway things go, going out for credit.
And there's one thing where youcan say, yeah, well, you know,
hey, you signed up for this.
Well, sure, I guess I did.
And as you said, I'm a militaryprofessional, but, um, don't begrudge

(01:58:37):
me my benefits or any of the otherstuff that is sort of promised to
me, nevermind that what you got to doon the backs of what we were doing.
I, uh, thank you for yourservice or thank you for serving.
So I didn't have to, wasthat what, what you say?
That's, and that probably makesme sound like a real dick, so
I'll just, no, I was at the gym

AJ (01:58:57):
yesterday, uh, like, and I was talking to, you know, guys in
the locker rooms have like random,tough guy conversations, I guess.
I don't know.
And you know, this, he asked meabout a tattoo that I had, right.
And I won't go into super big detail, butI have a tattoo that's a, um, uh, this
constellation of stars that was above myhead when something significant happened.
Um, sure.

(01:59:18):
And I explained it and I, and I was kindof cagey with it 'cause it's not his
business, but I was being nice, right?
And I said, yeah, it's the thing.
And he says, well, thankyou for your service.
And the thing that I came to mind was,I said, my, my only regret is that I
have but one life to give to my country.
And the look on his face was like, what?
Like he had, I, I, I don'tremember who said that.
I know it was like a colonialkind of thing, right?

(01:59:40):
But like, right, likeAaron Burr or something.
Right.
You know, like, so.
Yeah, but that's just not somethingthat was in his wheelhouse.
And so you and I, if I said thatin our space, I struggle and I
have my own consternation, um,about our journey, where we've
ended up, uh, and what that is.
Uh, you know, I often have toquestion myself and say, you

(02:00:01):
know, were we the good guys?
You know, and good guys to us was amatter of perspective in my own way.
But to that like, oh yeah, Icould say that statement to you.
And you go, yeah, no, I get it.
I get it.
Right.
It's a service.
It's like this thing,uh, any moments like,

Ivan (02:00:14):
yeah.
And I don't, I, I'm not rude.
I don't say that to people.
I just thank you.
Okay, no worries.
And it's not, everything'smeant to be a knife fight.
That's

AJ (02:00:24):
a

Ivan (02:00:24):
good way to look at it.
And I think, I think people are sincere.
I do.
I mean, I think they, but they also,just as I said, there's this, the other
thing, and I, and I've, and I've saidthis also as well, um, you know, we,
as you know, g wat modern war combatveterans, we don't look old by comparison.
Like, you look at World War II Vet,you look at a, a Korean War or Vietnam

(02:00:44):
veteran, you, you know, that's whata veteran quote unquote looks like.
But as I was growing up, the, the Vietnamera veterans, that, that would come
to my house as my father's colleaguesand the people that, that I grew up
knowing, they were just people too.
Right.
So there's, there's a, this idea,I think that you, you kind of have,

(02:01:05):
you, you fit this sort of mold as to,you know, when you were serving and
then afterward, you know, by, by all.
By all means right now.
Uh, I should be in a ball cap withmy beard grown out appropriately
sleeve tattoos and be a soft bro.
Talks like this, man.
Nobody talks like that.
So I love that.

(02:01:25):
For me, I guess I, I like being, I,I like being more of a, a counter
culturalist to my own culture.
Like being a writer, like being a thinker.
Like let's talk about things and, and,and it wasn't that I wasn't this when
I was on active duty, but you talkabout the compartmentalized station,
my family had to compartmentalize to.
We all had to find ways to coto cope with, with that absence

(02:01:46):
and be very real possibilitythat something bad could happen.
It kind of nests your question aboutwhat if, and you know how my family, you
know, worked with stuff, but I rememberspecifically one time I was just not doing
well in a very crowded area and my sonwas like, do you wanna get outta here?
There was no, like,

AJ (02:02:06):
there was no, no other question.
It was just no major fan.
Didn't make a big production out of it.
Nope.
Just recognized.

Ivan (02:02:14):
Yeah.
We, where's a place that we, we spentsome time and effort to try and get
to and some money and like, you know,we can be surfing in seven hours.
I said, done out here.
I like that.

AJ (02:02:25):
I like that.
So my, as we start to kind of wind thisthing down, I've got a few more, you
know, questions for you, um, more in line.
Sure.
With, uh, transition, um,and then where you are now.
Um.
So, okay.
I did 21 years, uh, Iretired two years ago.
You did 24 years.
You retired three years ago.
Um, after 24 years in uniform.

(02:02:46):
What is the hardest part aboutfiguring out who Ivan was, uh, without
being, you know, Lieutenant ColonelIngram without the Marine Corps?
How do you, how have yougone through that process?

Ivan (02:02:58):
Well, I had a, the advantage in that when I was leaving service, I had a very
good transition program called the HonorFoundation, uh, which specifically, um,
works with primarily special operationspeople, uh, as they transition from
service and they try and match you with,uh, not only your interests, but your

(02:03:22):
appropriate skill sets and things thatwill help you not only get a job, but
work your way out of service in such away that it's, it's more comfortable.
It's not going to be amazing, but you'regonna, you're, you'll have a better
way of getting out than just kind ofthe tap tams TRS and see you later.
So it's a pretty involved program.

(02:03:42):
Um, but what I found with it was that Iwas a lot of expectations for me as an
officer to be a certain thing, whetherthat was corporate or some sort of project
manager or working in a hierarchicalenvironment or becoming a, a consultant
with another larger consultant company.
But they were sort of like, theseare jobs that are commensurate to.

(02:04:07):
Your station, where you have come from.
Um, the money will be excellentand you will have no problem
transitioning into these.
Um, you know, just gottaget you in the right place.
And I think we can find you ajob that you'll really enjoyed.
Early on aging, none of that felt right.

(02:04:28):
And I have learned not to ignore that.
'cause I've also found that if youget into a place that it doesn't work,
it's not going to get any better.
I believe that the best part of THF wasthat I found out what I didn't want to do.
Hmm.
And that was a hard thing forme to acknowledge and say,

(02:04:52):
okay, something's wrong here.
I don't want this.
And it's actually was theimpetus for my book Dream Job.
Um, 'cause people told me like, oh man,you're gonna get ag energy job, dude.
You're, and so I found thatretiring allowed me to actually
get a lease, you know, a reset onmy life in such a way that I could

(02:05:14):
design it and do anything I want.
And I said, I really want to be a writer.
And if somebody wants me to consultand work with them, I want to do that
because they feel like they wanna solvesomething and get through a problem,
not just me be a consultant and show upand do a bunch of PowerPoints and tap.
Garbage about what have you orgive you leadership platitudes.

(02:05:35):
It's all been written.
It's all been done.
Thank you.
Go find Tony Robbins' book orwhatever the fuck else you wanna
read and do that, that's fine.
But I'm, that's not how I do this.
And so I, I said, okay, I'm,well what is, what do I want?
What does it look like to Ivan?
Mm. And that's where itbecame very uncomfortable.

(02:05:58):
And so that's been the hardest partof transitioning, is actually giving
me myself the grace of saying,you get to do whatever you want.
Again, you gotta do some analysis.
There are some calculations andrisk that's associated with it,
but ultimately, you know what youwant to do and where you want to go.
And I've always been ableto find a way, and I will.

(02:06:20):
And so I, I am a writer.
I become a writer.
That's what I do.
I do.
'cause I'm consulting stuff.
I also do some work, uh, uh, particularlywith, with a, a group of people former,
uh, most special operations guys overseas.
Uh, not, this is allboardroom mercenary stuff.
It's not wanna run around Polandor Ukraine or something like that.

(02:06:43):
Um, but yeah, I just try, I I just said,okay, like that's been the embrace.
And, and so you shed a little bit ofthat Lieutenant Colonel c, if you will.
But it's also beingcomfortable in that space.
And that is, you know, I'd say becomfortable with being uncomfortable.
Well, what does that mean?
Who's uncomfortable?
You and I can both likebeing cold weather.

(02:07:04):
Sure.
But you might like cold weather.
Or you might, you know, my, mytolerance might be, you know, better
or worse, you know, nobody likes havinghair down the back of their shirt.
I think that's sort of universal.
Um, but, but ultimately somebodylike, well the money's so good.
I just put up with it.
I've had people say that.
Yeah.
Like, I hate this job,but the money's so good.
I just keep doing it.
And I'm like, none of that is

AJ (02:07:25):
ever worth it to me.
I 100% agree.
That challenge, I think, becauseI have to say, like, people
are like, what do you do now?
I'm like, uh, I'm a writer.
Right.
And it feels like it's just likekinda artsy and nebulous, right?
When it's like, oh, totally.
I feel like it's like, oh, cool.
You know?

Ivan (02:07:42):
Have I read any of your stuff?
Well, well, if you'reasking me, probably not.
Yeah.
Are you any good?
Um, I think I'm terrible.
I'm really, I I, I, I know.
I think I'm fucking great.
Yeah.
And you should too, right?
Alright, well, yeah.
I mean, well, if you haven't read mystuff, then well, you have no idea.
That's big of you to say,well, how would you know?
I, I love that.

(02:08:02):
Yeah.
I'm true.
But it's, but it's true.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, there is a bit ofa leap of faith towards going towards
that, but having the competency Yeah.
Writer, what do you write?
You know, and then you getinto some discussion stuff.
But I mean, I like, I like all kinds ofdifferent writing and, and I think that.
That it, it's a great space.

(02:08:23):
That is another thing that's helped meto really unpack, um, a lot of this, the
books that I write and the articles thatI have in my substack is substack is
actually a lot like playing the guitar,which is something I do like to do.
Nobody really likes to practice, butyou get better when you practice.
And that's, that's kind of what, whatwriting with Substack is, is it's,
it's my, my weekly scales, if you will.
And sometimes it's great, and othertimes I'm just shredding around.

(02:08:45):
I've had people say, eh,this week is kind of boring.
I'm like, well, I don't know.
Everybody wants sensationalismor whatever, but you can't meet
everybody's requirement, so.
Right, right,

AJ (02:08:54):
right.
I completely agree.
I, I love the idea that you'vebeen able to anchor truth
and story kind of together.
Can you explain some of the processbehind some of the, I would say
almost like parables or allegories,right, that you're able to write?
Uh, can you explain some of that process?

Ivan (02:09:09):
I, I think I'm looking for, you know, I'll just
shamelessly in, in my book, right?
So once We pledge forever, uh,it's out with, by the Seger Group.
You can get it on Amazon.
Um, it's, I, I think it'spretty big book, so take a look.
But one of the things, you know,I, I tried to write a book that has
actually more, um, yes, it is, itis a military action book in, in

(02:09:33):
some ways, uh, there are plenty ofbang, bang, shoot 'em up in there.
Uh, so everybody canscratch their itch on that.
But it is not a piece of airport fiction.
Um, I wrote, saw, wrote it so that it's.
Appeals to sort of universal themesthat people can identify with whether
or not they were in the military.
And that's sense of isolationand a sense of, uh, having to

(02:09:59):
do things that you question.
I think everybody does that in, intheir, their daily lives, uh, with
their jobs or in relationships.
And the, ultimately thebook is a love story.
It is about relationships andit's about reconciliation.
Um, it has a thriller aspect to it.
I think it scratches a lot of itches.

(02:10:21):
Um, and the story is meant to besomething that someone can read and
actually think about psychologically,not just how to consume.
At least that's the wayI've, I've, I approached it.

AJ (02:10:33):
That absolutely resonates.
I, I think that we've per, I mean,listen, I've read my share of all
the books you're supposed to read,read, you're a military, you know,
enlisted, senior enlisted officer.
I am not interested anymore in reading,like you said, like the three Cs of
leadership or whatever, like that, thosebooks have been written, and I think that.

(02:10:53):
Anytime.
Like this was the struggle thatI faced when I was reading, uh,
and looking for leadership advice.
Uh, you know, I found that there was adifference between a practitioner and
an academic, and a lot of academicswere writing books about leadership
that would fall very, very flatwhen a practitioner, specifically
a practitioner in combat arms.

(02:11:14):
Uh, I think that business, I think thatbooks about com leadership in combat
arms can transcend into business.
I do not believe that businessleadership books have much, in my own
personal opinion, much of a space totranscend into, uh, combat leadership.
Mostly because I believe thatbusiness leadership books are written

(02:11:34):
under the general generalizationof the creation of capital.
Where in leadership books or thingslike an our scenarios of where we've
led and where we fought is, uh,the currency is sacrifice, right?
So we're not here to makea better bottom line.
We're here to be able to do a job wherewe are just trying to, to, to make
through some pretty tough situations.

(02:11:55):
And that really resonates in yourwriting with me and, and things that
I've been able to take away as wellas a, as a hopeful future leader.

Ivan (02:12:02):
No, I appreciate that.
I, I will say that hasn't stopped theMarine Corps from adopting, you know,
Stephen Covey seven habits, uh, the LeanSigma, six, all the other corporate stuff.
And I think there is a danger,especially when you're, and that's
what sets people up, you know,very well to go into corporate type
of transitions for the military.
The hardest part they have is thatthe people corporate are not military
for the most part, and they, youcan't talk to them certain ways and

(02:12:24):
they, or understand that, you know,and so, you know, that's one part.
But the other part is we, you haveto be very careful, particularly
when you're dealing with, you know,human endeavors, um, that you, that
you don't look at your people ascapital or some sort of commodity
that's easily traded or gotten yes.
You know, done away with.
And you, you, you know, the leadershipthing is very simple, aj, and this
is just, just observation, right?

(02:12:47):
People, people wanna know that theirleaders give a shit about them, and they
don't want to have their time wasted.
And they also want to be treatedwith dignity and respect.
They'll treat your people withdignity and respect, and don't waste
their fucking time and you'll get

AJ (02:12:59):
what you need.
I, I completely agree.
Fair.
That leads us into mythree closing questions.
You just answered one ofthem, which is fantastic.
Alright, so these are my lightning roundsthat we're kind of playing around with.
Right.
But they're lightning round questionsthat are 32nd answers or less.
I need bite-sized chunks oftrying to, you know, summarize 24
years of fantastic, uh, service.

(02:13:22):
Um, alright.
So, okay.
First question is, uh, if you couldmeet anyone in history, who would it
be and what would you say to them ifyou had 30 seconds to talk to them?
Not, what questions would you ask?
What would you say to this personif you had 30 seconds or less?
Oh gosh.

Ivan (02:13:43):
I think if you got an opportunity to talk to Abraham Lincoln and just
say, how did, how did you do it?
I love that.
And that's, I mean, you wanna talkabout being assailed from all sides.

AJ (02:14:02):
The idea that I look at with, uh.
The similarities between, I'm sure what,what he had to deal with and where we
are at now is, is uh, um, I, we could,we could definitely use his leadership.

Ivan (02:14:14):
They may have, you know what, as you're saying, that they may have
subconsciously just 'cause you know, gaveme 30 seconds and it's not like I wander.
I mean, I probably wander around thinkingall the time if people, I wouldn't mind
me, you're gonna think of it after this.
Like, I shoulda said this, oh,possibly I'll, I'll call you and
be like, we gotta reshoot this.
No, I, nobody but po possibly.
Yeah, I think, I think maybetranscendentally it might

(02:14:36):
have come in then I was like,you know what, I appreciate

AJ (02:14:39):
that.
So you, you kind ofcovered it a little bit.
Um, if you have 30 seconds todistill for the next generation
of leaders, what do you say?
Slow down

Ivan (02:14:52):
and seek to understand.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that We'removing way too fast.
I call it getting outahead of your skis or Yeah.
Moving faster in your headlightsor all the, all the anti, you know,

AJ (02:15:10):
anecdotes, cliches apply.
And then my final question, you'vekind of covered a little bit.
We've had some chats on and off air,um, about the state of what veterans
and what the space looks like.
Can you describe for me what yourvision of, as a father Right, as a,
you know, special operations Marinefor 24 years as a husband, as a man.

(02:15:35):
What does masculinity look like to you?
Grace,

Ivan (02:15:40):
you have to have some grace for opinions that you don't like.
You have to be able to understand that.
You may not agree with everythingout there, but you are in control
of who you are and how you react.
And you have to giveyourself some grace for that.
But it's too easy.

(02:16:01):
All, all the other stuff's out therebeing tough, being a man, et cetera.
But
could you walk away from something and,you know, knowing you were right, even if
you were the way you were gonna act wasrighteous and be comfortable with that.
I think it's a harder thing to do,you know, if you really talk about the

(02:16:23):
Warrior's journey, it's a, it's onethat's one I've learning and I think,
I think maybe that's what I'm trying todo now is, is learn how to give myself
and others, you know, grace, slow down,think about what, what's out there.
Wow, I really appreciate that.
Um, I really, really, Godknows, you wouldn't want have

(02:16:45):
known me as a lieutenant.

AJ (02:16:49):
Well, uh, Ivan, uh, I cannot thank you enough.
Uh, so once again for anyone that's,uh, uh, listening, uh, or watching,
uh, once we pledged forever, uh, IvanIngram, uh, retired Lieutenant Colonel
from marsoc, uh, storied career.
We will put, uh, the book, uh,as well as his link for his
substack in the description.

(02:17:09):
Uh, please, please, please.
I, I, I implore you totake a look at this.
I think that his writing, whothis man is, um, is life changing.
Uh, and nothing short ofthat, uh, has been for me.
Um, and with that, I'll give you theparting shot, uh, uh, Mr. Ingram,
if you'd like to say anythingto the audience before we go.

Ivan (02:17:29):
Yep.
I really appreciate the time today, aj.
Definitely.
Um, you know, I'm, I never thought I'dsay this before, but you can Google me.
I got a website and everythingelse and all those pluggables.
But, uh, it's, it's been my pleasureto come on and, and chat with you and.

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The RPG That Changed Everything – Ivan Ingraham’s Wildest Day in Combat | Marine Raider

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The RPG That Changed Everything – Ivan Ingraham’s Wildest Day in Combat | Marine Raider