Constant Combat
This veteran-led podcast highlights the experiences of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, starting with their harrowing 2004 deployment to Ramadi; a 9 month combat tour which resulted in the highest casualties in a single deployment - a deployment that most Americans have never heard about. Through candid conversations surrounding these events, the series also explores earlier experiences that shaped the Marines, emphasizing their grit, humor, and humanity while aiming to honor their stories authentically.
Episodes
We sit down with Kirk Morris to remember his son, PFC Geoffrey Morris, and he recounts the moments that carried him from a Lake Michigan fishing boat on 9/11 to the gunner’s seat in Iraq. We talk about the phone calls, the knock at the door, the diary entry he left behind, challenges from a clueless public, and what it takes for families to keep a life from being reduced to a name.
• Geoff’s...
We sit down with Mama Savage to trace her son Jeremiah’s path from a wild kid who always wanted to be a Marine to the moment the casualty notification team arrived at her door. We talk honestly about war, family, Arlington, survivor guilt, and how the Marine brotherhood keeps showing up long after the headlines fade.
• Jeremiah’s childhood drive to become a Marine and how that shaped everyth...
Everything sounds simple until you’re the one in the turret. This time, we talk to Jarred Monroe about the long ramp from training to war, from call signs and gear choices to the moment Ramadi turns real. He walks us through near disasters, hard fixes, and the first major firefights where training takes over and memory comes back in snapshots.
• Monroe’s role as a heavy machine gunner
•...
Part 2 goes through Jarred Monroe’s most intense memories, from inspecting a Humvee that somehow comes back unmarked to the prayer-filled letter that makes that moment hit differently. We also confront a terrifying friendly fire near-miss, the mental toll that builds across deployments, and what faith, purpose, and time change 22 years later.
• inspecting the truck after heavy contact and finding ...
MAP3's Marcel Williams gives us the path from machine gun instructor to Weapons Company in 2/4, where early confidence collapses under a real ambush and the reality of unarmored convoy warfare. We walk through the April 6th thru 10th, the hard lesson to be mentally locked in, and the moments of courage and humanity that still don’t sit neatly in memory.
• Marcel’s background, MOS, and why he chose W...
Part 2 with Marcel Williams revisits the moments that still feel raw: an IED on Route Michigan, and the anger, guilt, and brotherhood that follow. He also talks honestly about how that deployment shapes a 28-year Marine Corps career, from leadership lessons to the feeling that history sometimes forgets the people who wrote the playbook.
• IED sweeps, observation posts, and rotating armored vehicles ...
We talk with Matt Kuroda, known by most as KK, about what it really feels like to be a driver and 'Guardian Angel' overwatch in Ramadi, from night convoy chaos to the quiet pressure of making decisions with bad gear and incomplete plans. We trade the stories that still stand out, including a 21st birthday under fire, raids that blur together, and how IEDs turned every routine movement into a gamble.
• switching...
We pick up part two with Matt Kuroda where an IED detonates, a friend is hit, and there’s no clean pause to process it. We’re right back into decisions, movement, and clearing buildings while trying to understand what just happened. From Ramadi firefights to mortar rounds on base, we talk through what sticks after 22 years and what it takes to ask for help later.
• Savage IED aftermath ...
General Rob Weiler talks through his view in Ramadi 2004 and why the hard, specific details still matter, from old after action reports to the leadership culture that kept young Marines steady. We trace how counterinsurgency forced constant adaptation, how April shattered assumptions, and what practical lessons still apply to urban combat and command.
• why Unremitting resonates beyond one unit and one ...
We continue with part 2 with General Rob Weiler and he paints a vivid picture that the most dangerous moments are not always the firefight itself. Sometimes it is the handover, the quiet planning period, or the instant after contact when you realize you had to decide and live with it forever. We talk about what leadership looks like when there is almost no downtime, only orders, rehearsals, and the constant effort t...
For this one, we catch up with Clayton Hall, a Marine radio operator attached to Weapons Company in Ramadi 2004. He recalls memories through the lens of near misses, hard leadership, and the brotherhood that carried us through. We talk through the moments that kept us alive, from comms discipline to the strange little economy of batteries and snacks.
• Clayton’s path into the unit
• First arriv...
We reconnect with Jesse Stephens from MAP 1 and trace how a motivated teenage Marine arrives in Iraq ready to win trust, then watches that belief burn away as the fight in Ramadi changes shape. The conversation moves from funny early memories to the lasting cost of IED shock, grief, and the moral complexity of fighting an insurgency filled with outsiders and coerced locals.
• first impressions, seeking ...
Part 2, Jesse Stephens speaks about the way war can split your identity, erase your sense of home, and still leave you missing the brotherhood you had in the hooches. He shares the memories that still cling, some moments that changed his beliefs, and what helps him find the old version of himself again.
• dissociation in combat
• forgetting what family looks like and using photos to cope
• h...
Part one with Anthony Trujillo from Headquarters platoon about getting hurt, refusing to stay behind, and sliding from 81s into the company office. Its a vivid picture he paints how leadership, logistics, and pure chaos collide in 2004 Iraq, from burn barrels and headcounts to detainee runs and medevac calls.
• choosing to deploy with a knee injury
• barracks culture and early unit stories ...
In part two, Anthony Trujillo talks about what it feels like to hear life and death unfold over the radio while still being responsible for the paperwork that records it. We walk through Ramadi memories that range from night raids and mission briefings to the unspoken costs of loss, leadership, and coming home.
• remembering Conde’s drive to stay with his Marines
• hearing casualty calls over t...
A 19th birthday on a bridge in Ramadi is the kind of detail that never leaves you, and Trevor Wolf tells it the way most veterans actually remember war: in sharp, disconnected snapshots that only make sense when you step back. He recalls the small jokes that kept the platoon moving in those snapshots. We also dig into interpreters, language, and how those relationships reshaped his life after the Marine Corps. ...
Part two with Trevor Wolfe walking us through the split-second choices that can end in catastrophe, plus the leadership feedback that follows you long after the shots stop. He also talks moral injury, the civilian cost of war, and what it means to push for conflict when someone else will pay for it.
• navigating wildly different NCO personalities
• a convoy firefight that turns into a “fo...
Part one with MAP 2's Navy Corpsman Mark “Navi” Natividad about getting sent back to Iraq so fast he never had time to process the invasion. We trace the jump from early expectations in Ramadi to brutal April firefights, the strange comfort of hooch life, and the first steps he takes toward asking for help.
• Getting reassigned from 3/5 to 2/4 with almost no downtime
• First deployment memories...
Part two with Navy Corpsman Natividad, moving from everyday base life in Ramadi to the moments that still feel like a blur years later. We get into a VBIED mass-casualty response, a bridge post incident that led to a field court martial, and how Mark turns those hard lessons into a career helping veterans at the VA.
• Junction City and Blue Diamond as different worlds
• TQ with a PX, MWR tent, and the weird ...
We welcome guest Jesse Jordan to podcast cohost recording Shane Nylin’s path from signing Marine Corps papers in a peacetime world to realizing, almost overnight, that he is heading into Iraq with a thin platoon and even thinner margins. We talk through the training, injuries, leadership clashes, and dark humor moments that shaped how Weapons Company Marines got ready for Ramadi long before the first shots wer...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.