August 31, 2025 • 26 mins
Christian ; Follower of GOD Servant of CHRIST
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Decorated Combat VeteranCorporate; U.S. Marine Corps Urban Warfare Instrictor;
S.R.T. Commander Active Shooter Response Team
Law Enforcement Los Angeles Police (L.A.P.D.) Police Officer / Fugitive Recovery
F.B.I. Instructor N.R.A Instructor
Competition Shooter; Multi Time State Rifle Pistol Champion
Hunting; Life Long Hunter Proffessional Hunter and Guide
Private Security Contractor; Several Agencies, Current.
GOD Provides / JESUS Saves
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gunfighter-life-survival-guns-tactical-hunting--4187306/support.
Have a Blessed Day
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Retro tactical.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
What was it like starting the global war on terror
back in the early two thousands. I'm gonna take you
back to two thousand and three today and shortly thereafter
talking about the uniforms, the kit, the gear, maybe even
(00:25):
some of the doctrine of the early.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
War on terror.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Of course, then we didn't know it was gonna be
the twenty year long global War on Terror, but it
turned out to be that. That's we're gonna talk about
today on Gunfighter Life, the podcast where we talk about guns,
gum fighting tactics, the right Way, with God at the center,
Judeo Christian values, and real world firsthand experience. Okay, the
(00:57):
year is two thousand and three. I had to look
up popular songs and movies as I was a little
busy going to war. But I saw that when I
looked it up, five o'clock somewhere a country music song
came out pretty popular. Also Terminator three, the one with
the little girl Terminator. Again, I don't know that I
(01:17):
saw any of those in two thousand and three, but
such was the world then if that makes you a
little nostalgic, So I mentioned, we didn't know it was
gonna be a twenty year war.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Something I remember as I was there waiting for the
war to start.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I had already been in the Marine Corps for some
time by two thousand and three when we were in
Kuwait waiting to declare war on Iraq. We fought in
that first campaign, crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq,
fought our way to the capitol, took Baghdad, sacked Bagdad,
liberated Baghdad, depending on whatever theology you wanted to subscribe to,
(02:01):
but we took Baghdad and we came back home. And
I don't remember the exact words of the speech, but
here's what I remember. The gest of it being, Hey,
good job, young marines, kicking button, taking names in Iraq,
go home, take.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
A little bit of leave, and get ready to go again.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And I don't know if it was everybody, but I
remember thinking, what do you mean, go again? We just
took the capital city. Historically, that's kind of the end
of a war. If you remember the war before that,
the war, the Golf War that lasted in a matter
of days.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That was over.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
We had just fought four months city by city and
then took the capital city of Baghdad. It was already
substantially a much larger scale.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
War, I think than the Golf War.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
We had no idea that it was going to turn
into a twenty year long or more than twenty year
long ordeal, but it would, and I would go back again.
But what were those early days like, Well, let me
talk a little bit about the uniform. When I joined,
we were still wearing the old tricolor Woodland uniform or
(03:20):
old woodland camis.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
This was back in the day.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
When you had to polish your boots. You were expected
to polish your boots, you were expected to iron your uniform,
probably use starch. Thus was the days in the uniform
and the culture of the time.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Even though I was.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Stationed in twenty nine Palms, arguably one of the worst
duty stations in the US military. Hot, nasty, dry, Mahave desert,
and even there, in that climate, in that environment, woodland camouflage,
black polished boots, And right before we shipped out, somebody
(04:00):
maybe realized that, hey, woodland camouflage probably not the best
thing to go fight in Iraq the desert sands. So
we got issued and I don't even know the name
of the camouflage pattern. Maybe it was left over from
Desert Storm. They were quite old. They weren't new uniforms
when we got them, but they were a desert They
kind of looked like the Woodland camouflage pattern, except not
(04:21):
Woodland but desert with some brown and some beige and
a boonie cap, and we were ready to rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I don't remember if they issued us.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Brown boots or we got our own, or I don't
honestly remember the deal with that, but that was a
uniform I came in when we got to our first unit,
before we shipped out to Iraq.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
What at that time was probably still.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Fairly new was the Mali system, which is pretty prevalent today,
but before that was the All system. We went to
Iraq with the Malli system and early generations of that
one piece plastic frame that was kind of known for breaking.
It was not uncommon for those things to break. The
(05:05):
pack frame likewise, those also were in Woodland. So we
got a giant what looked like a tire cover that
was in the same kind of camouflage pattern that we
covered our packs with. I was in the infantry. They
(05:25):
say every marine a rifleman, but especially the infantry. The
rifle in m sixteen A two, and this thing, I
don't know how long it had been an inventory when
I got it, but she been around the block. She
was a beat up old girl. And I'd like to
(05:45):
say I really liked that rifle, but I did not.
I did not like that rifle. I came from a
shooting background prior to the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I really didn't like that rifle.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I did qualify expert with the M sixteen with iron sights,
but I was not a fan. I know what I
thought of it at the time, but it did catastrophically
fail me during the war, meaning like it wasn't a
double feed, it wasn't even a triple feed bol oliver ride.
It was a catastrophic malfunction that could not be fixed
except by an armorer. Thankfully, I was an assaultman MS
(06:17):
that no longer exists, Specialized infantry three point fifty one,
which again I think no longer exists. But I had
other weapons, let's just put it that way. But the
rifle M sixteen A two, and she had been around
the block. She was wore out. It was equipped, if
I remember correctly, we did have the night vision, either
(06:41):
to the sevens or the fourteens, and we had I
think Peck twos mounted on the top of our rifle
and some kind of cludgy thing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
This was pre.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Quadrail, pre rails being common or even seen that I'm
aware of, and it was kind of of I forget
how they mounted it some kind of way, not like
zip ties, but it wasn't a great way, and they
mounted the Pec two's on top of the of the
old school round the handguard some some weird way. Also,
(07:20):
when we got there for the invasion, we had grenades,
the just M sixty seven fragmentation grenades. Those were kind
of standard issue. I think everybody got one of those.
The Barretta M nine's, which at that point were already
pretty wore out, but I don't remember those giving any
of us any problems. The old Brettas, No, they were
(07:43):
in service biyonce holsters and if you were really high speed,
which I think may have inspired this episode.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Somebody brought it up in the Patreon chat. That was
in the.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Era when the drop leg holster was all the rage,
and thankfully we've since kind of gotten away from that trend.
It served a purpose then, when you had a ton
of kit and a pack and really big, thick, bulky
body armor. We're talking the big heavy sappy plates and
(08:15):
that giant I think point blank body armor. Kind of
The reasoning I think for the drop leg at the
time was you had so much junk around your upper
torso in mid section it was hard to carry it.
Other places you may carry it on a chest rig
or something. That wasn't uncommon to put it directly on
(08:35):
your mally on your body armor. I think there's a
picture of me doing that. But the drop leg holster
kind of served a purpose when you were walking around
kind of like a overheated ninja turtle with all this
junk hanging off you. There really wasn't a lot of
good ways to attach a side arm, but that's the
drop leg holster. I think I still have mine in
(08:55):
a bag somewhere because it wasn't government issued kit. It
was something you went out and bought on your own
for the M nine and not everybody, not mostly infantry,
didn't get M nine's, But again, I had a little
bit more of a specialized job in that, so I
did rock an M nine from time to time. Also,
the shoulder fired multi purpose assault weapon, the small rocket launcher,
(09:18):
which is kind of like in AT four. You might
know it as a Bazuka, but reusable, different kind of
charges HGDP, high explosive, dual purpose and some other specialty
rounds which is probably outside the scope of this.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Talking about zip ties. This is a real thing.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So this was still the era when you were issued
a two point web sling like a parade sling. If
you know what sling I'm talking about, it's a green
web sling. You had a sling attachment on the front
and the rear of that M sixteen to a two
and that's how you were issued the rifle with the sling,
with the cleaning kit, and we're talking like traditional over
(09:59):
the shoulder muzzle up carry. Well, we quickly realized again,
I think we take for granted how far we've come
during the Global War on Terror and how much it
did for tactics and training.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
That was the way we were issued it.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
So we somehow got a hold of a different, an
additional web sling.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
This is what we had.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
You know, this was long before Amazon and you were
in country anyway. It's not like you know there were
px's there at the time. We're talking the initial invasion.
You were literally digging holes most nights, digging a fighting
hole and sleeping in the fighting hole, maybe even going
to the bathroom in the fighting hole, because you didn't
want to get shot sticking your head up out of
the fighting hole. We could manage to get an additional
(10:42):
web sling, and we would take a pretty beefy zip
tie and put a zip tie around the stock, and
we would use two web slings together to make a
more tactical two point sling that we could carry across
our chest muzzle down.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
That's what we had. We made the best with what
we had.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Again, to show you the appreciation for how far we've
come on something as simple as a sling, the old
parade style web slang green O D green single point,
which are not bad slings for like precision shooting and
rifle qualifications, but for tactical scenarios and room clearing.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Oh just you know, not great.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's what we had. We put two of them together,
we attached them with zip ties, and by God's grace,
I survived it. Some men didn't, and not because I'm
any better, but because God had a purpose for me
and chose to have mercy on me. But that's what
we had, and we may do with it with those
old rifles. Another place we've come a long way on
(11:52):
we had the medical kits. I don't know what they
use now, but we had had like basically a small
pouch with some very basic medical equipment in it, just
a small, hard, plastic, square pouch, and then we had
a couple of big injection shots. You got to remember
(12:13):
we were expecting weapons of mass destruction and bio weapons,
and I forget what they were, but basically we had
giant syringes that if we got exposed to nerve agents
and things. Two PAM chloride stands out in my mind,
and I forget what the other one was.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You can probably go back and research out.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But there was these giant injection needles that if you
got exposed to nerve agents and stuff, you were supposed
to shove into your body to maybe keep you alive,
and basic medical equipment. This was back before we carried tourniquits.
We did not carry tourniquits, which astounds me, but again
we've come a long way, and a lot of trauma
(12:54):
emergency medicine came out of the Global War on Terror.
That's what we had. We didn't have tourniquets. We weren't
issued tourniquets. I don't think we were ever even shown
an actual tourniquet. Are Corman the medics if you don't
know the Marine Jews, the Navy Corman medics, they may
have had tourniquets.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I was not a medic, I was not a Corman.
I was in the Marine Corps proper, and I don't
know that I ever saw a tourniquet.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
So you just dealt with it.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You had a pressure bandage, which you know, if you
have a few yearal bleeding, that's not really the right
tool for the job.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But those are the early days of the war. You
don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think the idea of the time and the thought
of the time was that if you put on a tourniquet,
you would lose the limb. So many people were afraid
to put on the tourniquet. Again, we've come a long way.
I think camelbacks were pretty new at the time, maybe
not new invention, but a new issue. You know, we
(13:55):
still had our canteens, and I really liked the big
the bigger square canteens.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I think the four court canteen.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I really liked that I actually think I liked that
better than the the camelback. But the candle back was
a basic od green square with two very thin straps
on it. A lot of times we would carry in
the pack, and that was that. Now we were infantry,
(14:24):
we walked a lot on foot. If we were mechanized,
we had the old amphibious vehicles, because again we wore
the marine corps and we were just getting started in
this desert warfare arena, you know. And when towards the
end of the initial invasion we started seeing hum v's,
I was actually our unit was actually attached to first tanks.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
We worked in conjunction with them.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Combined arms, first infantry, first tanks, and we had the
armored vehicles, and by armored, I mean like light armored vehicles.
We had not yet begin to up armored vehicles.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
In fact, if we did.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
See a hum V or a seven ton truck, it
was usually just the wooden panels on the side, like
the wooden plywood panels.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
That you rode around open in the back.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
The I don't know when the first ied was in Iraq,
but I don't remember that being a thing.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Until my second tour.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
In fact, the second tour in country when we went
back and then and went back home, got some R
and R, and then shipped back over to the sandbox.
I remember the first day we were in country, our
company commander was killed in action and it was a
(15:37):
some kind of IED or booby trap I don't remember
now it's been a while. That was set up under
an overpass and I and so that was a thing
that was a thing then. But when the initial invasion
first started, it was a lot of small arms fire RPGs, mortars,
things like that. The the you know, gorilla warfare. They
(15:59):
adapted their tacks as well. So they quickly realized they
could do quite a bit of damage with the IEDs
and vehicle borne IEDs. But I think most of that
came a little bit later than the initial invasion.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
But tactics adapted on both sides.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It wasn't just us that got better returniquits and you
know things like that. The adversary, the Iraqis, they adapted
as well. They were not sitting on their laurels. They
they adapted as well. I guess I should briefly mention
(16:37):
threat weapons. Quite a few of the main things that
concerned us in those days were the you know, very
common around the world and still very common AK forty sevens,
and I encountered a lot of AK forty sevens, and
I was not quite the gun connoisseur then that I
am now, and I honestly can't remember. I wish I
(16:59):
could were. This was even pre digital photo days. I
had disposable cameras, and I was a little busy fighting
a war and trying to not die. So I have
a few pictures from that time, not a lot, but
I don't remember exactly who made the aks, where they
came from. But the AK was by far the most
prolific weapon on the battlefield, and also very scary.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
The RPG.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
The RPG was especially early on one of their big
force multipliers. I remember seeing, you know, some of their
grenades and things like that. Talking about comms. You know,
back then, we were expected the radio communicator. We were
(17:46):
expected to carry the Prick nineteen, which if you've never encountered,
is just kind of a punishment.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think it's just so big.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And blocky and heavy, and you were if you were
stuck with that thing. You're required to carry that in
addition to a bunch of other stuff, and just what
a monstrosity. You talk about old technology. I don't know
when the prick nineteen, you know, became a thing, but
I know that we still had it for the initial invasion.
I'm not talking about the fox trot like the one
(18:17):
that's half the size. I'm talking about the giant cinder block.
Cinder block might be generous sized. Radio just a beast,
and I mean that in the worst way possible. You know,
you'd often have to clean the terminals just be able
to understand people.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
We had that.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We had the old field phones where you would roll
out actual commo wire and if you were stuck on
a post or something, you'd literally roll out the wire
and manually like transmit electricity to talk to people on
these old field phones. To give you an idea of
how far the technology came in such a short amount
of time.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
The knives that we had.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
US Marine Corps would expect no less than the K bar,
and I did have a K bar, And I don't
know if these K bars were from World War Two,
but looking at them, I would not be surprised if
they had been an inventory since.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
We also had the I think the M seven bayonet.
You may want to go back and verify that we
also had those, and you might get issued both or
one or the other. But the k bar certainly a
Marine Corps staple. I remember, kind of the cool guy knife.
If you wanted to upgrade to the cool guy knife,
(19:36):
you would have the seal pup. The sog seal pup
was the cool guy knife to have on deployment. Back
in three I did not have one of those. I
had a gerber that I bought at Walmart, which was
a decent size three and a half to four inch blade.
I gave it to somebody after the war. I no
longer have it, but a Walmart fixed blade gerber that
(19:57):
I carried when I did not want to carry that
full size I would often carry the k bar or
that on my body armor on my chest in case
I needed it. So, I guess, in going over some
of the old kit, I don't want this episode so
much to be about the kit. I want to I
(20:18):
want it to be a reminder of how far we've
come in twenty something years, and I want you to
appreciate that a lot of those lessons were literally learned
in blood, the blood of American Marines soldiers, you know,
(20:41):
and other branches of service that died in those desert sands,
many at such a young age. I lost a very
good friend who was looking back on it. So young,
so young, purple heart's getting handed out like can So
(21:03):
we have come a long way in twenty years, especially
in the tactical world. If you think about tourniquits and
Picatinny rail or nineteen thirteen rail and lpvos and a
cogs and tritium and so many advancements, and you should
absolutely take advantage of those, but remember and appreciate that
(21:28):
they were paid for. They came at the price of
the blood of American servicemen and women and other countries too.
I fought with the other armed services over there. I
remember training some Australians when later on when I was
an urban warfare instructor, I remember.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
The Al Salvadorians fighting there.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I remember Koreans, I remember the British. So not just Americans,
but a lot of American young men died in those
desert sands, both there in Afghanistan, and a lot that
we learned came at a price.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Remember the next time maybe you get on Amazon to
order a tactical piece of kit where those lessons learned
came from and just appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's not my job.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I'm trying to fight back the urge to talk about
what that wore costs.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
But it was not my job as a young marine, as.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
A infantryman to question the theology and the politics and
weigh the cost. Our job put simply in doctrine to locate,
close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver
or repel an enemy assault by fire and close combat,
(22:56):
and a lot of young men did that. I guess
I'll have a hard time putting that into words. So,
to use a quote by doctor Oliver Tierley, you may
have heard theirs not to reason why theirs, but to
(23:18):
do and die. I wish I had a better culmination
for this episode for you, but I just wanted a
reminder of how far we've come and how different it
was back then than it is today. Anyway, with that,
I guess I'll start wrapping up. If you want to
(23:39):
support the show, please consider becoming a patron.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Gunfighter.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Life started as a thing I would just do on
the side, and then people wanted to step in and support,
and it's supported by viewers like you. The reason you
get so many episodes, not you know, a couple of
episodes a year, but you get them regularly is the
people step up and support. If you want to support
this podcast and the message, consider becoming a patron. There
(24:06):
should be a Patreon link in the show notes or
go to Good Shepherd Training dot com if you have
it in your heart to give given. If not, don't
and don't feel guilty about it.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
With that, the tactical tip of the day.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Tactical tip of the day.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I don't remember if we learned this and g water
for it was already common doctrine. But if you got
your thirty round mag, it's often advisable to load it
to let's say, around twenty eight rounds and know you're
a gun and know you're mags, And that's often misunderstood. Generally,
if you have a thirty round mag and your gun
and mag reliable, you absolutely can load thirty rounds and
(24:49):
it will function in the gun, especially if you run
the gun empty and you do an emergency reload and
insert a mag on an open bolt. The issue comes
in if you do something like a tack reload and
shove that magazine in on a closed bolt system, you
may find that you shove that magazine and go to
take off running to your next position. I'm up, they
(25:09):
see me, I'm down, and your magazine is gone because
it didn't seat properly. Because there's so much tension on
those rounds, I would rather have the more liability of
inserting a magazine whether I had an open oor closed bolt,
and forego that one or two rounds. In general, I
think I loaded mine to twenty eight, but you still
(25:30):
may want to do that today for that exact reason.
If you want to load them up to thirty and
you are just sure that you are gonna seat it
improperly and just mash it in there, then go ahead.
Another tactical tip on top of that that I learned later.
Instead of just shoving the magazine and like you would
do a competition, it's often good to tap and tug
(25:53):
is kind of the thing that we used.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
So you shove the.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Magazine and and then you try to pull it out.
If you can pull it out, then it's not seed properly.
You shove it in, you try to pull it out,
and it doesn't move, then you're good to go. So
you tap it in and then you try and tug
it and make sure it doesn't come out anyway. There's
some tactical tips for you on that. There are many
good tactical verses.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
For the war fighter. Tactical verse that is one of
my favorites.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands
for war and my fingers for battle Psalm one. I'll
keep it short and sweet today. Man, there's a time
for peace and a time for war. For everything, there
is a season. You'll find that an additional verse there
and Ecclesiastes with that. Thanks for listening, and have a
(26:47):
blessed day.
Retro tactical.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
What was it like starting the global war on terror
back in the early two thousands. I'm gonna take you
back to two thousand and three today and shortly thereafter
talking about the uniforms, the kit, the gear, maybe even
(00:25):
some of the doctrine of the early.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
War on terror.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Of course, then we didn't know it was gonna be
the twenty year long global War on Terror, but it
turned out to be that. That's we're gonna talk about
today on Gunfighter Life, the podcast where we talk about guns,
gum fighting tactics, the right Way, with God at the center,
Judeo Christian values, and real world firsthand experience. Okay, the
(00:57):
year is two thousand and three. I had to look
up popular songs and movies as I was a little
busy going to war. But I saw that when I
looked it up, five o'clock somewhere a country music song
came out pretty popular. Also Terminator three, the one with
the little girl Terminator. Again, I don't know that I
(01:17):
saw any of those in two thousand and three, but
such was the world then if that makes you a
little nostalgic, So I mentioned, we didn't know it was
gonna be a twenty year war.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Something I remember as I was there waiting for the
war to start.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I had already been in the Marine Corps for some
time by two thousand and three when we were in
Kuwait waiting to declare war on Iraq. We fought in
that first campaign, crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq,
fought our way to the capitol, took Baghdad, sacked Bagdad,
liberated Baghdad, depending on whatever theology you wanted to subscribe to,
(02:01):
but we took Baghdad and we came back home. And
I don't remember the exact words of the speech, but
here's what I remember. The gest of it being, Hey,
good job, young marines, kicking button, taking names in Iraq,
go home, take.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
A little bit of leave, and get ready to go again.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And I don't know if it was everybody, but I
remember thinking, what do you mean, go again? We just
took the capital city. Historically, that's kind of the end
of a war. If you remember the war before that,
the war, the Golf War that lasted in a matter
of days.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
That was over.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
We had just fought four months city by city and
then took the capital city of Baghdad. It was already
substantially a much larger scale.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
War, I think than the Golf War.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
We had no idea that it was going to turn
into a twenty year long or more than twenty year
long ordeal, but it would, and I would go back again.
But what were those early days like, Well, let me
talk a little bit about the uniform. When I joined,
we were still wearing the old tricolor Woodland uniform or
(03:20):
old woodland camis.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
This was back in the day.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
When you had to polish your boots. You were expected
to polish your boots, you were expected to iron your uniform,
probably use starch. Thus was the days in the uniform
and the culture of the time.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Even though I was.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Stationed in twenty nine Palms, arguably one of the worst
duty stations in the US military. Hot, nasty, dry, Mahave desert,
and even there, in that climate, in that environment, woodland camouflage,
black polished boots, And right before we shipped out, somebody
(04:00):
maybe realized that, hey, woodland camouflage probably not the best
thing to go fight in Iraq the desert sands. So
we got issued and I don't even know the name
of the camouflage pattern. Maybe it was left over from
Desert Storm. They were quite old. They weren't new uniforms
when we got them, but they were a desert They
kind of looked like the Woodland camouflage pattern, except not
(04:21):
Woodland but desert with some brown and some beige and
a boonie cap, and we were ready to rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I don't remember if they issued us.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Brown boots or we got our own, or I don't
honestly remember the deal with that, but that was a
uniform I came in when we got to our first unit,
before we shipped out to Iraq.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
What at that time was probably still.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Fairly new was the Mali system, which is pretty prevalent today,
but before that was the All system. We went to
Iraq with the Malli system and early generations of that
one piece plastic frame that was kind of known for breaking.
It was not uncommon for those things to break. The
(05:05):
pack frame likewise, those also were in Woodland. So we
got a giant what looked like a tire cover that
was in the same kind of camouflage pattern that we
covered our packs with. I was in the infantry. They
(05:25):
say every marine a rifleman, but especially the infantry. The
rifle in m sixteen A two, and this thing, I
don't know how long it had been an inventory when
I got it, but she been around the block. She
was a beat up old girl. And I'd like to
(05:45):
say I really liked that rifle, but I did not.
I did not like that rifle. I came from a
shooting background prior to the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I really didn't like that rifle.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I did qualify expert with the M sixteen with iron sights,
but I was not a fan. I know what I
thought of it at the time, but it did catastrophically
fail me during the war, meaning like it wasn't a
double feed, it wasn't even a triple feed bol oliver ride.
It was a catastrophic malfunction that could not be fixed
except by an armorer. Thankfully, I was an assaultman MS
(06:17):
that no longer exists, Specialized infantry three point fifty one,
which again I think no longer exists. But I had
other weapons, let's just put it that way. But the
rifle M sixteen A two, and she had been around
the block. She was wore out. It was equipped, if
I remember correctly, we did have the night vision, either
(06:41):
to the sevens or the fourteens, and we had I
think Peck twos mounted on the top of our rifle
and some kind of cludgy thing.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
This was pre.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Quadrail, pre rails being common or even seen that I'm
aware of, and it was kind of of I forget
how they mounted it some kind of way, not like
zip ties, but it wasn't a great way, and they
mounted the Pec two's on top of the of the
old school round the handguard some some weird way. Also,
(07:20):
when we got there for the invasion, we had grenades,
the just M sixty seven fragmentation grenades. Those were kind
of standard issue. I think everybody got one of those.
The Barretta M nine's, which at that point were already
pretty wore out, but I don't remember those giving any
of us any problems. The old Brettas, No, they were
(07:43):
in service biyonce holsters and if you were really high speed,
which I think may have inspired this episode.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Somebody brought it up in the Patreon chat. That was
in the.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Era when the drop leg holster was all the rage,
and thankfully we've since kind of gotten away from that trend.
It served a purpose then, when you had a ton
of kit and a pack and really big, thick, bulky
body armor. We're talking the big heavy sappy plates and
(08:15):
that giant I think point blank body armor. Kind of
The reasoning I think for the drop leg at the
time was you had so much junk around your upper
torso in mid section it was hard to carry it.
Other places you may carry it on a chest rig
or something. That wasn't uncommon to put it directly on
(08:35):
your mally on your body armor. I think there's a
picture of me doing that. But the drop leg holster
kind of served a purpose when you were walking around
kind of like a overheated ninja turtle with all this
junk hanging off you. There really wasn't a lot of
good ways to attach a side arm, but that's the
drop leg holster. I think I still have mine in
(08:55):
a bag somewhere because it wasn't government issued kit. It
was something you went out and bought on your own
for the M nine and not everybody, not mostly infantry,
didn't get M nine's, But again, I had a little
bit more of a specialized job in that, so I
did rock an M nine from time to time. Also,
the shoulder fired multi purpose assault weapon, the small rocket launcher,
(09:18):
which is kind of like in AT four. You might
know it as a Bazuka, but reusable, different kind of
charges HGDP, high explosive, dual purpose and some other specialty
rounds which is probably outside the scope of this.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Talking about zip ties. This is a real thing.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So this was still the era when you were issued
a two point web sling like a parade sling. If
you know what sling I'm talking about, it's a green
web sling. You had a sling attachment on the front
and the rear of that M sixteen to a two
and that's how you were issued the rifle with the sling,
with the cleaning kit, and we're talking like traditional over
(09:59):
the shoulder muzzle up carry. Well, we quickly realized again,
I think we take for granted how far we've come
during the Global War on Terror and how much it
did for tactics and training.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
That was the way we were issued it.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
So we somehow got a hold of a different, an
additional web sling.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
This is what we had.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
You know, this was long before Amazon and you were
in country anyway. It's not like you know there were
px's there at the time. We're talking the initial invasion.
You were literally digging holes most nights, digging a fighting
hole and sleeping in the fighting hole, maybe even going
to the bathroom in the fighting hole, because you didn't
want to get shot sticking your head up out of
the fighting hole. We could manage to get an additional
(10:42):
web sling, and we would take a pretty beefy zip
tie and put a zip tie around the stock, and
we would use two web slings together to make a
more tactical two point sling that we could carry across
our chest muzzle down.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
That's what we had. We made the best with what
we had.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Again, to show you the appreciation for how far we've
come on something as simple as a sling, the old
parade style web slang green O D green single point,
which are not bad slings for like precision shooting and
rifle qualifications, but for tactical scenarios and room clearing.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Oh just you know, not great.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
That's what we had. We put two of them together,
we attached them with zip ties, and by God's grace,
I survived it. Some men didn't, and not because I'm
any better, but because God had a purpose for me
and chose to have mercy on me. But that's what
we had, and we may do with it with those
old rifles. Another place we've come a long way on
(11:52):
we had the medical kits. I don't know what they
use now, but we had had like basically a small
pouch with some very basic medical equipment in it, just
a small, hard, plastic, square pouch, and then we had
a couple of big injection shots. You got to remember
(12:13):
we were expecting weapons of mass destruction and bio weapons,
and I forget what they were, but basically we had
giant syringes that if we got exposed to nerve agents
and things. Two PAM chloride stands out in my mind,
and I forget what the other one was.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You can probably go back and research out.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But there was these giant injection needles that if you
got exposed to nerve agents and stuff, you were supposed
to shove into your body to maybe keep you alive,
and basic medical equipment. This was back before we carried tourniquits.
We did not carry tourniquits, which astounds me, but again
we've come a long way, and a lot of trauma
(12:54):
emergency medicine came out of the Global War on Terror.
That's what we had. We didn't have tourniquets. We weren't
issued tourniquets. I don't think we were ever even shown
an actual tourniquet. Are Corman the medics if you don't
know the Marine Jews, the Navy Corman medics, they may
have had tourniquets.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I was not a medic, I was not a Corman.
I was in the Marine Corps proper, and I don't
know that I ever saw a tourniquet.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
So you just dealt with it.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You had a pressure bandage, which you know, if you
have a few yearal bleeding, that's not really the right
tool for the job.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But those are the early days of the war. You
don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think the idea of the time and the thought
of the time was that if you put on a tourniquet,
you would lose the limb. So many people were afraid
to put on the tourniquet. Again, we've come a long way.
I think camelbacks were pretty new at the time, maybe
not new invention, but a new issue. You know, we
(13:55):
still had our canteens, and I really liked the big
the bigger square canteens.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I think the four court canteen.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I really liked that I actually think I liked that
better than the the camelback. But the candle back was
a basic od green square with two very thin straps
on it. A lot of times we would carry in
the pack, and that was that. Now we were infantry,
(14:24):
we walked a lot on foot. If we were mechanized,
we had the old amphibious vehicles, because again we wore
the marine corps and we were just getting started in
this desert warfare arena, you know. And when towards the
end of the initial invasion we started seeing hum v's,
I was actually our unit was actually attached to first tanks.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
We worked in conjunction with them.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Combined arms, first infantry, first tanks, and we had the
armored vehicles, and by armored, I mean like light armored vehicles.
We had not yet begin to up armored vehicles.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
In fact, if we did.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
See a hum V or a seven ton truck, it
was usually just the wooden panels on the side, like
the wooden plywood panels.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
That you rode around open in the back.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
The I don't know when the first ied was in Iraq,
but I don't remember that being a thing.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Until my second tour.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
In fact, the second tour in country when we went
back and then and went back home, got some R
and R, and then shipped back over to the sandbox.
I remember the first day we were in country, our
company commander was killed in action and it was a
(15:37):
some kind of IED or booby trap I don't remember
now it's been a while. That was set up under
an overpass and I and so that was a thing
that was a thing then. But when the initial invasion
first started, it was a lot of small arms fire RPGs, mortars,
things like that. The the you know, gorilla warfare. They
(15:59):
adapted their tacks as well. So they quickly realized they
could do quite a bit of damage with the IEDs
and vehicle borne IEDs. But I think most of that
came a little bit later than the initial invasion.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
But tactics adapted on both sides.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It wasn't just us that got better returniquits and you
know things like that. The adversary, the Iraqis, they adapted
as well. They were not sitting on their laurels. They
they adapted as well. I guess I should briefly mention
(16:37):
threat weapons. Quite a few of the main things that
concerned us in those days were the you know, very
common around the world and still very common AK forty sevens,
and I encountered a lot of AK forty sevens, and
I was not quite the gun connoisseur then that I
am now, and I honestly can't remember. I wish I
(16:59):
could were. This was even pre digital photo days. I
had disposable cameras, and I was a little busy fighting
a war and trying to not die. So I have
a few pictures from that time, not a lot, but
I don't remember exactly who made the aks, where they
came from. But the AK was by far the most
prolific weapon on the battlefield, and also very scary.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
The RPG.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
The RPG was especially early on one of their big
force multipliers. I remember seeing, you know, some of their
grenades and things like that. Talking about comms. You know,
back then, we were expected the radio communicator. We were
(17:46):
expected to carry the Prick nineteen, which if you've never encountered,
is just kind of a punishment.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think it's just so big.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And blocky and heavy, and you were if you were
stuck with that thing. You're required to carry that in
addition to a bunch of other stuff, and just what
a monstrosity. You talk about old technology. I don't know
when the prick nineteen, you know, became a thing, but
I know that we still had it for the initial invasion.
I'm not talking about the fox trot like the one
(18:17):
that's half the size. I'm talking about the giant cinder block.
Cinder block might be generous sized. Radio just a beast,
and I mean that in the worst way possible. You know,
you'd often have to clean the terminals just be able
to understand people.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
We had that.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
We had the old field phones where you would roll
out actual commo wire and if you were stuck on
a post or something, you'd literally roll out the wire
and manually like transmit electricity to talk to people on
these old field phones. To give you an idea of
how far the technology came in such a short amount
of time.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
The knives that we had.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
US Marine Corps would expect no less than the K bar,
and I did have a K bar, And I don't
know if these K bars were from World War Two,
but looking at them, I would not be surprised if
they had been an inventory since.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
We also had the I think the M seven bayonet.
You may want to go back and verify that we
also had those, and you might get issued both or
one or the other. But the k bar certainly a
Marine Corps staple. I remember, kind of the cool guy knife.
If you wanted to upgrade to the cool guy knife,
(19:36):
you would have the seal pup. The sog seal pup
was the cool guy knife to have on deployment. Back
in three I did not have one of those. I
had a gerber that I bought at Walmart, which was
a decent size three and a half to four inch blade.
I gave it to somebody after the war. I no
longer have it, but a Walmart fixed blade gerber that
(19:57):
I carried when I did not want to carry that
full size I would often carry the k bar or
that on my body armor on my chest in case
I needed it. So, I guess, in going over some
of the old kit, I don't want this episode so
much to be about the kit. I want to I
(20:18):
want it to be a reminder of how far we've
come in twenty something years, and I want you to
appreciate that a lot of those lessons were literally learned
in blood, the blood of American Marines soldiers, you know,
(20:41):
and other branches of service that died in those desert sands,
many at such a young age. I lost a very
good friend who was looking back on it. So young,
so young, purple heart's getting handed out like can So
(21:03):
we have come a long way in twenty years, especially
in the tactical world. If you think about tourniquits and
Picatinny rail or nineteen thirteen rail and lpvos and a
cogs and tritium and so many advancements, and you should
absolutely take advantage of those, but remember and appreciate that
(21:28):
they were paid for. They came at the price of
the blood of American servicemen and women and other countries too.
I fought with the other armed services over there. I
remember training some Australians when later on when I was
an urban warfare instructor, I remember.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
The Al Salvadorians fighting there.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I remember Koreans, I remember the British. So not just Americans,
but a lot of American young men died in those
desert sands, both there in Afghanistan, and a lot that
we learned came at a price.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Remember the next time maybe you get on Amazon to
order a tactical piece of kit where those lessons learned
came from and just appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It's not my job.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I'm trying to fight back the urge to talk about
what that wore costs.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
But it was not my job as a young marine, as.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
A infantryman to question the theology and the politics and
weigh the cost. Our job put simply in doctrine to locate,
close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver
or repel an enemy assault by fire and close combat,
(22:56):
and a lot of young men did that. I guess
I'll have a hard time putting that into words. So,
to use a quote by doctor Oliver Tierley, you may
have heard theirs not to reason why theirs, but to
(23:18):
do and die. I wish I had a better culmination
for this episode for you, but I just wanted a
reminder of how far we've come and how different it
was back then than it is today. Anyway, with that,
I guess I'll start wrapping up. If you want to
(23:39):
support the show, please consider becoming a patron.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Gunfighter.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Life started as a thing I would just do on
the side, and then people wanted to step in and support,
and it's supported by viewers like you. The reason you
get so many episodes, not you know, a couple of
episodes a year, but you get them regularly is the
people step up and support. If you want to support
this podcast and the message, consider becoming a patron. There
(24:06):
should be a Patreon link in the show notes or
go to Good Shepherd Training dot com if you have
it in your heart to give given. If not, don't
and don't feel guilty about it.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
With that, the tactical tip of the day.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Tactical tip of the day.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I don't remember if we learned this and g water
for it was already common doctrine. But if you got
your thirty round mag, it's often advisable to load it
to let's say, around twenty eight rounds and know you're
a gun and know you're mags, And that's often misunderstood. Generally,
if you have a thirty round mag and your gun
and mag reliable, you absolutely can load thirty rounds and
(24:49):
it will function in the gun, especially if you run
the gun empty and you do an emergency reload and
insert a mag on an open bolt. The issue comes
in if you do something like a tack reload and
shove that magazine in on a closed bolt system, you
may find that you shove that magazine and go to
take off running to your next position. I'm up, they
(25:09):
see me, I'm down, and your magazine is gone because
it didn't seat properly. Because there's so much tension on
those rounds, I would rather have the more liability of
inserting a magazine whether I had an open oor closed bolt,
and forego that one or two rounds. In general, I
think I loaded mine to twenty eight, but you still
(25:30):
may want to do that today for that exact reason.
If you want to load them up to thirty and
you are just sure that you are gonna seat it
improperly and just mash it in there, then go ahead.
Another tactical tip on top of that that I learned later.
Instead of just shoving the magazine and like you would
do a competition, it's often good to tap and tug
(25:53):
is kind of the thing that we used.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
So you shove the.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Magazine and and then you try to pull it out.
If you can pull it out, then it's not seed properly.
You shove it in, you try to pull it out,
and it doesn't move, then you're good to go. So
you tap it in and then you try and tug
it and make sure it doesn't come out anyway. There's
some tactical tips for you on that. There are many
good tactical verses.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
For the war fighter. Tactical verse that is one of
my favorites.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands
for war and my fingers for battle Psalm one. I'll
keep it short and sweet today. Man, there's a time
for peace and a time for war. For everything, there
is a season. You'll find that an additional verse there
and Ecclesiastes with that. Thanks for listening, and have a
(26:47):
blessed day.
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