Ep. 224 | Ben Fortier | Marine Infantry, Musician, and Poet - Former Action Guys Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was Welcome to the former GUS podcast. Before we
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(00:23):
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let's get to it. When you joined, did you, I mean,

(00:43):
what was your goal? Did you want to you know,
you joined as an infantryman, right, did you want to
get into combat right off the bat or anything? I mean,
did you even you're a musician. So before we started
we were talking that you know, you're a poet, you
play guitar, you're learning drums, you're playing drums, you all
these things. Did you consider trying to join the Marine
band or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
No. I guess the top prospect for me was the reserves,
because as I was growing up, I'd always kind of
been enthralled by like the local National Guard bases and stuff.
We have a lot of National Guard Air Guard bases
up here in the Northeast, and as a young Civil

(01:27):
Air Patrol cadet, I was kind of scoping out some
of those nic spots and that kind of led me
to finding out about the Marine Corps Reserve. And obviously
I was always like into like the military, really like
a military history aspect, and then getting into movies and
books and stuff like that really made me feel like

(01:54):
wanting to embody that warrior spirit would be like a
real calling for me as like a you know, as
a citizen of the United States and kind of taking
that extra step to perform service. And whether it's you know,

(02:15):
for the person of the left and right of me
in combat or a humanitarian kind of thing. I always
knew that the Marines excelled in both. So when I
found out about the Marine Reserves. I really locked in
on that because I'm not really like a super athletic dude,

(02:38):
Like I didn't really do like fucking sports and shit.
I played like soccer as a little kid, but then
I got into like boy scouts and karate, Civil Air
Patrol and it was more into like lifting weights at
home versus getting into like competitive sports and stuff. So
when I joined, it wasn't like I was completely out

(02:58):
of shape, but I had never really experience that sort
of tightly team, tightly knit, team oriented training. I was
kind of more of a you know, smaller groups or
by myself thing. So it was it was pretty eye
opening in that I had basically two options on my plate.

(03:25):
For me is combat camera was my first interest because
it's outside of being a musician. I had always been
very interested in a media film. So once I found
out that that was not an option because that was
active duty only and I was pretty locked in on

(03:46):
going reserves, I was like, all right, well, infantry sounds great, So.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I'm surprised that's active duty only. I would figure that
like there would be a reserve ner combat camera for
I mean, did you never have combat camera come out
in document? Training or anything like that when you're out.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh dude, we had a combat camera guy like attached
to our unit, but he was active. Yeah. So, and
so when I found out that that was the case,
I was like, well, I don't want to do that.
So so and it was basically like unit specific either you. Yeah,
so when you were signing the paperwork for you know,

(04:28):
being a reservist, it was like, all right, well, here
are the drill stations within the fifty mile radius of
you know, where you're going to be coming from. It's
either motor tea or infantry. And I was like, well,
that's my first choice as infantry at this point.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
That's an easy choice. Yeah. Yeah, that's the only I mean,
that's not the only good thing, but that is a
good thing about the reserves is that you can guarantee
an MLS. You can guarantee because like I was telling it,
I was on that other podcast and we were talking
about it, and I was like, you know, the marine recruiter,

(05:05):
for the most part, and people can correct this in
the comments if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm
right here. The marine recruiter can guarantee like a job
field like he can guarantee that your artillery, but he
can't guarantee that you can become a forward observer. You
have to hope that you get picked for that BYE
based on the needs of the Marine Corps and you're
scoring and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying,

(05:25):
And that's that's kind of that kind of sucks.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I think you're exactly right, because that happened to me.
I was originally when I went to MEPs, I remember
signing as an O three fifty one, which I think
is now a defunct MOS. It was assaultment at the time.
And then like right before I think, I think right
before I went to boot camp because I was in
the delayed enter program for a whiles. And when I

(05:49):
for like a year, because I signed at seventeen, I
had my parents sign me over. Those fools they the government.
Yeah they did, dude. They handed me right up, get
in that machine and so yeah. And then so then
I switched over to three forty one, which I was
not super thrilled about because I thought it was going

(06:11):
to be super lame, but it actually ended up being
pretty fun. It is an interesting MOS.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
You want to explain people what that is. People that
are outside the military and kind of maybe break down
the different aspects of the job.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, so the three forty one, it's directly comparable to
what the army calls the indirect fire support. So at
the level that we trained at, because I was going
into a weapons company, we trained with the I guess

(06:44):
like what the marine considered the heavier mortars, which at
the time were eighty one's. Eighty one millimeter mortars are
pretty big artillery pieces basically, and kind of old school
in that you would just drive the little artillery around
down this tube and it would hit the bottom of

(07:05):
the tube and this little firing pin would engage the
little part of the artillery round that would detonate it
and it would go off. And so it's a pretty
like archaic kind of weapon. But the way that we
had the usage of math and trigonometry and you alluded

(07:26):
to it like forward observers, and you know that I
got to spy a little bit behind the scenes of
how that all sets up, like how like somebody will
call over the radio the coordinates and then you know,
you adjust the sites on like these little stakes and
it's wild. Man, there's a whole like science behind it.

(07:48):
And so you know, part of what the indirect fire.
How you start basically is you start at the bottom
level in that you are part of the gun team.
And the gun team usually consists of three, four, maybe
five people depending on the you know, how many resources
you have or whatever. And you start as the person

(08:11):
dropping the rounds down the tube. It's very simple, and
then you kind of have more knowledge of the system
by becoming you know, the next spot. You can be
the one adjusting the site and making the corrections on
the site. And so there's this whole team of people
that are operating this this weapon that is very very

(08:38):
much used by the forward elements of the infantry units
to either you know, put the flares in the air
or put down smoke or you know, put down explosive
rounds on the enemy. So it's just it's it was

(09:00):
a really cool different part of the military that I
didn't really expect, you know, because I had been very
much read up on, like it's reading a lot of
like Navy seal books and like Doff books and stuff
like that. So I you know, to me, like the
infantry was like the O three eleven's maybe a guy's

(09:21):
got like an AT four and like a sniper like
that was the infantry to me. So to like see
these other parts with the indirect fire, with the forward observers,
with the fire direction center, with stuff like Jtach, you know,
stuff where there's lots of like coordinating elements, I was like,

(09:41):
holy shit, dude, this is this truly is a machine man,
this is the machine of war.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Fire support coordination is so cool to watch, like especially
when you start to understand what's actually happening. Like if
you walk in and you walk in and you look
at a map and you don't really know what they're doing,
it's like super confusing. It's like walking up to a
board game you've never played and then you know and
they're talking about it and you have no idea what's happening.
But if you know what's happening, you're looking at it

(10:11):
and you're like, oh, they're gonna use They've got this
whole timeline set up, so they're gonna use mortars from
this time to this time to let the infantry move up,
and at the same time, artillery is gonna be shooting
at this you know, indirect or anti aircraft asset, so
that right after that finishes. F eighteens are gonna come

(10:32):
in and drop five hundred pound bombs on this. And
while that's happening, the second you know, element of the
infantry is gonna push up to the objective and it's
like like when you see it all and you're watching
it happen in real time, it's like, this is crazy,
you know, it's it's a it's really interesting people. It's
hard to describe sometime, Like I always kind of put
it back to when as being a jatach was kind

(10:55):
of like being a the dude in charge of an orchestra.
You know, you're up there kind of like checking the timing.
It's like, all right, you you you're up, you're up, okay,
artillery shooting, okay, you over here mortars start shooting, okay,
bring in the air, you know, and it's all on
timing and stuff like that. It's such a I missed
that part of it.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, and I really got to experience it because over
here at Fort Devons, which is the main drill center
where I drilled at, shooting mortars was a very it
was it wasn't as fun as it was like out
in Mojave Viper basically out in twenty nine Palms because

(11:40):
you got to see that element of it. We got
to see, okay, you know, here's weapons companies set up
with their machine gun teams and their mortar teams, and
then you got the line companies moving through the valley
and we're shooting over them and so it's it's wild.
Whereas at Devon's it was like, all right, we put
the round down and then it goes off and that's it,

(12:02):
and there's just just trees everywhere. We don't get to
see any impacts or anything like that. So I feel
pretty lucky in that. My reserve experience was a pretty
hard and fast one in that went from the time
that I hit the Yellow footprints about nine months later

(12:26):
we were in Fallujah, so it was oh, it was yeah,
so I had I did have my you know leaves,
my two you know, my breaks between boot camp and
infantry school. But right after Infantry school, I signed into
the unit and they were like, hey, we have orders
like coming next week, and I was like, cool, man,

(12:49):
that's what I'm here for.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I guess it's probably easier to I guess accept that
when you when you're right out of school and stuff
and you're kind of like in it if you were
like a reservist that had been like taking the next
month or two off and then you roll into it
then and be like, oh, man, like I don't know, Yeah,
it seems like, uh, that's crazy. You don't hear about

(13:10):
that on the reserve side very often. It's usually the
active duty side where it's like, hey, welcome to the unit.
We had a PFC when I deployed with three six
in twenty eleven. I remember we got a PFC. Actually,
I think he might have been a private. He was
like brand new, straight out of MS school, literally in
the fleet for less than a month, and we're in Afghanistan.

(13:31):
And what's that like? You know, I mean, is it
easier because you're going through all this military training and
you're kind of in that environment and stuff like that.
Is it easier to roll into it or were you
kind of like damn, I thought I joined the reserve
so I didn't have to do all this.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, I guess I got lucky in that I caught
wind of the deployment probably about a month and a
half before it even became official. You know, the power
of the lance corporal underground. I did not. I always
kind of kept my ear to the ground for that
stuff and kind of had a smart enough filter to
be like, all right, well that's nonsense, but I think

(14:08):
there might be some truth to that. So yeah, I
had heard about it when I was down at the
Infantry Battalion Training Battalion Forms school, and when we checked in,
like I said, that, the orders were basically right there.
I think I would have rather had it been that way, really,

(14:29):
because like you said, I think it would have been
tougher to like, you know, kind of ease into the
whole reserve once a month thing and start getting fat
and lazy. You know, I was at tip top shape.
I was at peak physical shape. You know, I'd gone
through boot camp and Infantry School. I would say Infantry

(14:51):
school is a bit more physically demanding than boot camp was.
You know. We were one of the last classes, I think,
to do the hikes with the We did the twenty
k with the eighty ones, which was fucking brutal, But
that's that's that's how they like to do things. Not anymore,
I don't think, but either way, I'm sure they still

(15:14):
hike the shit out of those kids.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Did Knowing a deployment was on the horizon while you're
in school, make you pay attention more were you're like,
oh shit, this is about to be for real.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, I think I was trying. I think I was
about as locked on as I as I could have
been at that point, and it didn't really become real
until I checked in and it was like, hey, like
we are now working up to this deployment. And it

(15:49):
was funny because we knew we were going to the
Middle East, but here it was January in Massachusetts. There
was about, you know, eight inches of snow on the
ground and we're trying to do like combat shoots and
we're like freezing our asses off, and like what, I

(16:09):
know that we're supposed to be like a cold weather
unit or whatever, but this doesn't feel right. But eventually
we ended up in California. We ended up attaching with
first Marine Division under Regimental Combat Team five, so we
were technically based out of Camp Pendleton, So we spent

(16:32):
a couple weeks out of Camp Margarita doing just more
mortar shoots for us. That was kind of we were
still kind of in MOS mode, and then once we
got over to twenty nine Palms, we kind of switched
over to what was called then mobile assault platoons, which

(16:58):
was basically the equivalent of a combined action you know,
combined anti armor team. The platoon had vehicle assets, we
had humbies, and we basically acted as a roving kind
of I guess the army equivalent like a mechanized assault

(17:21):
unit kind of thing. So light assets and your vehicles,
light and medium assets in your in your machine guns.
You know, you had two forties, you had saws up
in the up in the trucks and you know, and
then everybody else was armed and stuff like that, so
a little heavier hitting. So we were kind of upset

(17:43):
to break away from our you know. Respective you know,
the mortar platoon got switched up with all the different
moss They wanted to combine them so that way you'd
have a little bit more of a broadened skill set.
So the machine gunners and the mortar was in the
you know, the assaultment and the tow gunners, they were

(18:05):
all mixed up into one platoon and it made sense.
You know. Obviously we were a little bit shaken up
because we didn't see it coming down the pike. But
when you're at the Mercy of the Marine Corps you're
just gonna take it in the ass.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Do what the man says. Do what the man says.
Did you guys have toe on your turts? Did you
guys put any tow guns up?

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Not undeployment, I don't think, but we definitely had. We
called them broken Arrow guys because there were a detachment
from an Oklahoma based unit that were specifically all toe guys.
They were all tow gunners. But when we deployed, I

(18:45):
don't think we had them. I think maybe the heaviest
thing we had was like a Mark nineteen.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Okay, yeah, I know some units would run a toe
gunner is it what is it a saber site or
something like that saber system because of the optics on it.
The optics on it would were really good, so they
could like, hey, if we need to see something that's
a little bit further out, the tow gunner can usually
spot it pretty well because of the optics that he's using.

(19:11):
I think it was tow I'm pretty sure it's a
toe missage.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you're right. That
was a little bit before our time, so like by
the time we got in there, it was they had
kind of locked down that sort of dude.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
After you bro, I joined in six, I didn't see
we were we had guys with tow missiles on vehicles
in Afghanistan in twenty eleven.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Okay, that makes sense for buildings.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
They would have buildings if they needed to.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, No that now that I'm thinking
about everybody that ran all the weapons on our trucks
were were just machine guns and maybe in Mark nineteen,
but even then, because I feel like at that time,
like Iraq had, you know, started out as like it's like,

(20:06):
let's get in there, guess you know kind of thing,
the normal invasion, yeah right, right right, and then they
were like so this was after Phantom Fury when we
got to Fallujah, and one of the reasons why they
put the brakes on the first push through Fallujah was
because it was getting to be too brutal. So, you know,

(20:27):
I feel like when while we were there, you couldn't
call in a main gun round from a tank. We
were rolling with tanks. We were one of the you know,
last units to roll with I think it was second tanks,
and but you had to get like like a fucking
colonel's permission to set that thing off. It was very
There were there were lots of restrictions in terms of

(20:50):
you know, how we were to be treating this city
and our you know, we were in contact act, a
lot of the units were in contact quite a bit,
but there were definitely a lot of rules of engagement
that we had to follow as well.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
You know, how'd the city look? This is what a
year and a half after Phantom Fury? Was it still
pretty trashed? Was it getting cleaned up?

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Like there were there were some spots that were still
like rubble. Yeah, it was. It was wild to see
just like buildings with like giant holes in them from
clearly you know, tank shooting through them or you know,
just bombed out buildings, collapse roofs. Even when we were

(21:39):
getting out of there, it was still like that. And
it was it was surreal, man, it was. It was
absolutely surreal.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah. It was like so I have had a similar
kind of experience going through the going through Singing. When
you get outside of the bizarre and you get into
like the kind of the farmland or the kind of
the village area, and then the farmland, you'd see some
of these huts that were bombed out there were collapsed

(22:09):
or whatever it was basically like if if a hut
is collapsed, if one of these mud huts is collapsed,
it's because we blew it up. Like there's no these
things don't collapse. Those things. Those things last literally forever
because they're made out of mud bricks and they have
mud coating over them, and they're just they withstand so much.
So if it's like if you saw one that's like
collapsed in, it's probably because it got bombed, you know.

(22:32):
And that was because of just the brutality of the
area kind of required it.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
The fighting was that like I don't know. And then
and then once you get through the main part of
the fighting kind of like what fifth Marines seventh Marines
was there, Fifth Marines. Once you get through that, then
you have what we had where it was like the
rules of engagement are scaled way back because now we're
trying to rebuild. We don't want to we're not trying

(22:57):
to decimate this area. We don't want to kill local,
we don't want to do anything like that. We're just
trying to root out the bad guys. Let's rebuild the
area and get the bizarre going.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
That was one thing and saying, and when we were
there is that the bazaar was really busy all the time,
which it never was before that because and then it
wasn't after that because not long after we left we
were the last advisor team Isis came in and fucking
took it over. So that was kind of the whole goal.
When you were in Fallujah, it was the city. Did

(23:28):
it seem like it was recovering? Were people out and about? Like,
how how was the like atmospherics in the city. Yeah,
it was.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
It was very active. And that was kind of one
of the clues that we utilized when we knew bad
guys were about is you would the people would leave
and the did the typical foot traffic would disappear, and
because they either saw something or they heard something coming

(23:59):
down the line. It was wild. Man. I had never
been to a bigger city. Well, I'd been to New
York and London before, right, and those are probably two
of the biggest cities on the planet, But I had
never been to a city that was basically like in
ruins and yet to see the resilience of the people

(24:24):
was just astonishing. And you know, these people were just
trying to live their fucking lives, whether it was slinging
cell phones and cigarettes or you know, they had a
little bakery or something like that. So it was wild
to kind of see that sort of mix of, yeah,

(24:47):
this is an active war zone and there's bad guys
crawling about for sure, but we don't know like who
they are, what they're up to. You know. We got
a little bit into we can raid here and there,
but it was very much like a time where the

(25:09):
city was starting to come back to life and we
were trying to one secure it and to help them
rebuild that infrastructure. But obviously that was very difficult with
the politics the Sunni and the Shia, something that I
don't think anybody had a fucking clue on how to

(25:30):
deal with, even at the higher levels. It took a
long time, it seems like, for them to finally realize
actually after we left, they basically just started throwing money
into the problem. That's when you had the Sunni Awakening
and things like that. So it was it was just
kind of an interesting time in terms of, like I said,
I love like military history, and I look back at
that time and I've watched a lot of things that

(25:54):
kind of go over that time. And I've sat in
on classes and stuff budies that talk about that time
period in Iraq, and you know, to think of my
own part, and it is pretty interesting. But to just
see it from sort of an objective standpoint, it's like, damn,

(26:18):
that was like I don't think anybody really had expected
that situation to go down like that, that sort of
time frame between like two thousand and four and two
thousand and like seven ish in Iraq, it was just
the wild West, but with some sort of you know,

(26:41):
bureaucratic oversight and like state oversight in terms of you know,
whoever wanted to get their you know, their hands on
stuff and make sure that the Marines weren't over there
just slaughtering people. It was an interesting time to be

(27:03):
over there, for sure.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, I mean, I bet man. And it's it's tough
when you're in a war zone like that where there's
an active population because you, I mean, you definitely feel
bad for them. You're like, dude, we're not It's like
I'm not here because of you. I'm not here to
harm you. I'm not here. We're looking for the dudes
that are planning IDEs. We're looking for the guys that
are shooting at us. It's like and we had the

(27:26):
same thing in saying too. When what you were talking about,
like if there was gonna something was gonna happen, you'd
see like everything kind of clear out. You're like, what
the hell? Like we would see I've been on many
a rooftop and be, well, yeah, I've been sitting there
looking for whatever. You know, we're stopped for whatever reason.
I'm sitting on a rooftop doing my fo thing. And

(27:47):
then suddenly I see like women, kids and like goats.
You know, they're getting the women and the kids, and
they just start and you see them all like moving
towards the main road you're getting out of the village area,
and you see kites start popping up and stuff, and
that's how the Taliban would signal each other's with kites.
And and then we'd see all these people start moving out,
and you're like, oh shit, something's about to happen, you know,

(28:08):
like like not these people leaving, you know mean something.
So it's a weird. It's weird when that happens because
you're like, oh, here we go, Like what's about to happen?
I start me. I would start like requesting error. I'm like, hey,
something's about to happen. Can I just get an aircraft
on station so we can start looking around? But right, yeah, man,
what I mean, what was your guys's mission at that

(28:28):
point just to hold the city and make sure that
you know, they can rebuild or were you actively I mean,
were you being more reactive or or were you guys
me you know, how was it?

Speaker 2 (28:43):
It was? It was a mixed bag. There were definitely
opportunities that we were utilized to uh be part of,
and like you know, major regimen level operations and stuff.
I can remember one particular operation and we would get word,

(29:07):
you know, a couple of days ahead of time, Hey
something big is about to go down. We're gonna stop
our typical schedule, you know, just get ready for the unusual.
And uh, there was you know, so, like I said,
we were kind of we were associated with second tanks.
So I remember one kind of like battalion regimental level operation.

(29:31):
They had us up and they had a secure like
a flower factory or something like that. It was like
part of like the industrial area, and like it was
several stories and I was up on the up on
the rooftop with a saw just kind of do an
overwatch and stuff, and I was very outside of what
I was typically doing. I was a driver for basically
the entire seven months. So I got to do some

(29:56):
O three eleven stuff and run up on the in
a building and in man a saw for a little bit.
Nothing happened. I think there's a video of me up
on the roof with the saw, and I think somebody
like shoots like a like a pen flare or something,
and I like fucking fart, and I like pretty sure
I like shit my pants or something. So but yeah,

(30:19):
it's just so we did get to do some stuff
like that. There was another operation, uh it was Operations Startlight,
I think it was called, but that was another lots
of assets, lots of uh moving parts, And what we
had basically done is a someone in Intel found that

(30:43):
there was a hostage situation happening and some insurgents had
taken some people and were like they had like these
underground tunnels and stuff like that. So we basically kind
of surrounded the area slowly pushed in on uh where
the suspected insurgents were. We ended up finding them. We

(31:04):
ended up rescuing a couple hostages blew up a bunch
of ordnance. I found a car bomb that was not
being used, thankfully. I mean it was probably about to
be used. But my friend went to go take a
piss and he he runs back to me. He's like,
he's like, hey, I see something over there. And it

(31:25):
was like a like a little opal you know, like
which is I don't know, comparable to like a little
like a nineties early nineties like Honda's Civic, you know,
Toyota camer little four door car kind of thing. And
it was like covered with like reeds, and so we
pulled the reeds out of the way and it was
like the whole back seat had like fucking like acetylene

(31:45):
tanks and propane tanks and shit. And we're like, okay,
we're fucking leaving there.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, no shit damn.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
So yeah, it was it was like a hideout for
probably a whole little squad of dudes too. And I
think we only found two or three bad guys. I
don't know where the rest of them were. Who cares.
But there wasn't even a I don't even think there
was a shot fired. But as we were cleaning up

(32:14):
and like rounding up all the ordinance they started to
shoot IDF and hit us with some mortars, but nobody
got hurt or anything. It was just pretty blind fire.
But yeah, so that was Those were two events that
kind of stand out in my mind as being atypical.
But the standard stuff for US was patrols QRF reactions.

(32:37):
If the rifle companies were out and about, we would
usually be on standby in case something happened. It was
nice for them because we could the Not all of
them had vehicle assets. A lot of them were out
on foot. Maybe they would have one or two trucks available.

(33:00):
We would typically be a reaction for us for the
rifle companies if they got hit. We had at least
one truck that we could throw somebody in the back
of and rush them off to the medcenter, which was
you know, a mile and a half away or whatever.
You know. We weren't pulling in, we were not calling
in nine lines for choppers, for metavacts or anything like that.

(33:24):
We would basically load people up and rush them right
to Fallujah Surgical. It was just easier that way.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think when I was there
in two thousand and nine, we had a team. It
was an advisor team, and they had a guy, their
corman actually got hit by a what is that called
the RKG three I believe it is. It's like a
it looks like a hand grenade kind of but it's

(33:54):
a shape charge and they threw it against the vehicle
and it blew through the humb and kind of like
shot the shit charged through I think the corman's wrist
and knee or something like that. But they said the
same thing. They're like, they drove straight from Fallujah to TQ,
to the out to the medical center on TQ. I
don't know if Camp Fallujah was a thing still in

(34:16):
nine and I think that's why they drove all the
way to TQ. But I don't think they could have
brought in a helo in the city in Fallujah itself.
I don't think that was really practical or safe, you know, yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
I mean, you might be able to land one like
somewhere on the outskirts, but at that point you're spending
all this time and energy and you know, setting up
a fucking landing zone and securing it. It's like, Nope,
just zip over the closest battalion level, you know, surgical
center or whatever.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, let it go from there. Yeah, that's I mean,
how are the IEDs at that time, you know, were
they pravel at all occasional? I mean you're in home
V's this is did you guys not have m raps yet?
So this is pre m RAP timeframe.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, like EOD had m raps at that point, kind
of like the specialized units, the I d s were
very prevalent, uh, And that was kind of what we
had expected. I would say daily IED hits on any

(35:30):
one that was out patrolling small arms ambushes were pretty infrequent.
The battlefield started to change though, towards the end of
the deployment. I think it was you'd be I think

(35:52):
it was August there was a massive expulsion of prisoners
from Abu Grabe, and it was a few weeks after
that time where we start to see the violence increase
in the tactics change. I wonder why, Yeah, because these

(36:13):
guys were in Terrace University basically, right. So come September
we hit. We started seeing very very different tactics. They
started instead of doing side shots with like artillery rounds
or mortars, they would use mines or pressure plates to
blow up underneath the vehicle. That's when we started taking

(36:36):
catastrophic kills. We were out on a patrol one day
and two platoons were patrolling to do kind of disruption
activity in the south part of the city and we
were just driving around and fucking, you know, fucking you
could hear that stuff when they go off, and we

(36:59):
came up up on our sister platoon. They had hit
an I basically a mine basically, you know, and three
of the guys in that truck were killed instantly, and
one of the guys was very badly burned. And then
that same evening, our platoon hit a similar type of

(37:21):
ID was I think it was like the third to
last truck in our We were just kind of moving
across the city the city and my friend's truck hit
the mine and my friend Cheane lost his leg, my
friend pat lost his leg, my friend John was blown
out of the turret, and then we were engaged in

(37:42):
an ambush. So it got really interesting. About a month
before we had to leave, and we warned the incoming unit.
We were like, hey, guys, like the first few months
here we're you know, it was touch and go oh
kind of you know, an ID hit there, kind of

(38:04):
maybe hit a chain of IDs somewhere else, maybe a
the vehicle born explosive or something. But by the time
we started getting ready to Leaven turn the city over,
it was another reserve unit one twenty four out of Michigan,

(38:24):
I believe it is. I think it's out of Michigan.
We handed over a very deadly AO to them and
they lost a lot of marines. I think it was
like twenty two casualties and like hundreds injured at that point.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
But yeah, that had a I think it was an
Amtrak or some kind of vehicle get hit that had
a bunch of guys in it.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
That was so that was three twenty five, and they
were before us, and they had they were in like
I think they were in that AO. I don't think
they were working out a fallusive specifically, but they were
definitely in the anbar. And I remember before we were deployed,
a couple guys from that unit talked to us and
they put the they put the fear of God into us. Dude.

(39:12):
All all I remember for that conversation is leaving there
being like, oh God, I hope I don't die.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, yeah, which is probably a good thing, you know,
Like you gotta have a realistic understanding of what you're
about to get into. That sucks, man. So many of
your dudes, some of your buddies lost their legs and
stuff like that, like god man getting killed and getting
losing limbs. And I was never present when a marine

(39:39):
got something like that happened. I was there when it
happened to our Afghans when I was an Afghan advisor.
I remember a guy getting his foot blown off. I
remember a guy getting shot in the stomach, like these
different things. It's like another guy I think lost his leg,
blow his knee, and it's just so I don't know,

(40:02):
it's horrible to see obviously, and it feels like such
a waste and it's crazy like before, like if it's
your first deployment, you're like, eh, I'll be good, you know,
or I don't know. Everyone has a little bit of
fear at them. But I think most of the time
it's like what are the odds, you know kind of deal,
and then it happens to somebody and you're like, oh fuck,

(40:22):
you know, then the odds feel significantly higher than it
could happen. Yeah, I don't know, I mean, how did
how did you and your guys react to that, to
these injuries occurring, like you know, and you're on your
way home or you're you're wanting to be on your
way home in the next month, right, So it's like
that sucks, especially at the very end, and you're like
almost made it back with nothing happening.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, it was. I mean, I gotta say there was
that time period. I don't I don't really remember a
lot of it in the sense that I was just
so dissociated and just kind of survival mode because I
was fucking traumatized, you know, by just that one particular

(41:06):
that one particular day within the span of about you know,
fourteen hours, I saw several people get injured. I was
shot at and had to return fire, and you know,
all this crazy shit happened. And while you know, the
part of you that trains to you know, be that warrior,

(41:29):
that marine, that infantry fucking killer or whatever like that
is like turned on, of course, but like I could
feel my humanity just completely turn off. Like I was
in just utter survival mode and hoping that I'm not
the next guy. And from there, I think it was

(41:54):
I felt this need to try and pass on the
sense of urgency and danger to the next unit. And
I think I wrote about it in in Phantoms, there's
a line in there. But I remember kind of just

(42:16):
kind of standing around at like the the base that
we would operate out of, which was like about a
mile a mile and a half outside of the city,
just kind of staying around, shooting the shit with one
of the new guys who was coming in, and you know,
once again and fucking like a big, dark, dark plume

(42:37):
of smoke comes out of the horizon and I was like,
welcome to Fallujah, man, You're gonna do great and fucking
you know, like all I could do was just like
try to pass on, like I said, that sense of
urgency and just the idea that your training is going

(43:03):
to kick in. But there were also certain things that
you need to be aware of in this type of environment,
and there was no real good one to one. I mean,
they tried during the work up. They they did some
like simulated like mount towns, you know, urban operations, little

(43:26):
fake towns made out of shipping containers and might have
had like some kind of shitty replica of a mosque
or something like that to make it feel like you're,
you know, in the Middle East, but there was no
real good one to one because it was just such
a fucking disaster zone really like it was. It was
a war zone and it felt like a war zone.

(43:49):
And you know, so at that point, all I could
really do was try to just warn these kids, like
and a lot of them were. They were fucking kids,
you know, but I was too, so I guess, you know,
just give it another other kid's advice.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
So yeah, well you grow up fast, right, I mean,
the you know, you tell people the I always tell people,
like a lot of the rules and being a jatak
and stuff are written in blood, is what we say.
And it's because we don't do certain things because it
could end up in your own dudes getting killed and
stuff like that. And that's how the lessons learned should be,

(44:24):
and that's why you should be passing on to people.
And it's no good to sugarcoat something or downplay something,
you know, like if someone was like, hey, you know,
id's are kind of bad, but they're not that big
of a deal. And then you get to like Afghanistan
and suddenly you're getting multiple guys get killed with IDs

(44:45):
really quickly. They'll be like, what the fuck man like
we should have We should have known it was just bad.
We should have done more like tournique training. We should
have So I think it's important to push those lessons
down to people and try to I think when you've
never deployed some people, when you get there, you're kind
of in a state of denial. It's kind of like

(45:08):
it doesn't feel real yet until something real happens. Till
something actually happens, you're just kind of like whatever. It's
almost like training, you know, because it's our training is
so pretty good that you do in what you're doing
in country and training a lot of times. And I
remember I've told this story before on the podcast, but

(45:29):
I think it was one of our calm officers. I
can't remember one of the officers on my advisor team.
We landed in Leatherneck, which is like the main base
in Afghanistan. From there you go out to your different bases.
We went to Singing, and I remember we landed in
Leatherneck and we're pulling our bags off our aircraft and
we're sitting there for a second. Wait, you know, you're
waiting to check in and all that stuff, and three
METAVAC birds took off and I was like, oh man,

(45:50):
that's not good. And this is my third deployment and
this lieutenant this is first deployment. He's like, well, maybe
they're maybe they're doing a training run or something. And
I'm like, dude, we're in country, man, the training's over.
Like this is something happened, you know, this is the
training's done. Now we're you know, And it was just
like I think that was a real And then like

(46:11):
an hour later, the base got hit with a couple
of rockets, and I would think that kind of woke
a few people up, like, oh, Okay, the training is over,
Like we're here.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
For real, there's just training rockets. Don't worry about it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
But it's like and that's not a dig on that guy.
It's just like one of those things like until you
realize the situation you're in. I remember my first day
in Marja with three six A dude tried to set
off a suicide vest and it malfunctioned. He caught on
fire and the Afghan shot him and killed him. And
that was like day one. I was like, Oh, it's

(46:45):
gonna be that kind of deployment, you know, Like I
don't know, it's it's a crazy concept, man, when you
try to explain these lessons. I was like that on
my way out of the military, you know, I wanted to.
I remember my last time on the OP. I sat
down with the junior Marines. They were all in the
OP and I was like, hey, guys, this is my

(47:08):
last field OP. Like, what questions do you have? Like
ask me anything, you know, Like this is it? Because now,
if you look at the Marine Corps today, a sergeant
probably's never deployed or never definitely hasn't deployed to combat,
most likely hasn't employed combat. You know what I'm saying.
It's been so long. The wars are ending, and that's
not a bad thing, but now that experience is starting

(47:30):
to age out, right, Guys are getting out, Guys are
starting to retire, And it's like, that's why I like
doing these podcasts and stuff like that, because it's like
we can take some of these lessons, learn and record
them so that we don't have to relearn them, you know,
and everybody benefits from sharing the knowledge of this is

(47:52):
what happened, this is the tactics that we did to
counter it, or you know, you know what I'm saying,
Like it's just important because it's hard to con that
seriousness to a guy that's never done it, you know,
And if I'm a junior guy and I'm looking at
my sergeanty, I'm like, you've never deployed either, What the
are you talking about? You know, it's hard to take Now.
I'm not saying it's hard to take him serious. It
kind of is. But you know, if a guy that

(48:13):
has been like, if you come to me and you're like,
I was in Phantom Fury, this is what happened, this
is why we did this, you'd be like, Okay, I'm
listening because I know for sure, you know you were tested,
and you're telling me things that actually worked. You know,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah, No, I got really lucky in that. My my
vehicle commander was in Fantom Fury. He was with dark
Horse in Phantom Fury, and he heard that we were
going to Felujah and he raised his hand because he's
a fucking maniac.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
He wanted to go.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah no, I guess he had some unsettled debt and yeah, no,
he was awesome. He is now a police officer out
and Decatur. He actually gotten a really gnarly shootout situation.
I think a couple of years ago. He like, yeah,
he had to. He pulled somebody over, they pulled the
gun on him, then tried to shoot him in the head,

(49:10):
and he gave him the room. He gave him the
room temperature challenge. Man. It was I watched the video
once and I was like, Okay, don't need to see
that again.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Man, you saw the video of his shooting.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's body cam footage of it and shit,
and yeah, like, yeah, that's tough.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
That's a tough gig.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Man.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
People hate our cops, but that's a top that's a
There are cops that should be hated on, for sure,
that are douchebags and like dickheads, you know when they
don't need to be. But the average I think the
average guys, guy and girl are just trying to do
their job and trying to make their community better. And
people forget that that could happen anytime they're walking up

(49:48):
to a car window and someone can already have a
gun out ready to just pull the trigger as soon
as they walk up.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
It's that's like people, I don't think cops get enough credit.
We talk about combat veterans, all the time and stuff
like that. But combat veterans go to combat for seven
months and come back, you know, and you know, as
well as I do, a lot of that can be downtime.
There's a lot of like boredom and combat and stuff.
And cops go out every day. There's like, there's the training,

(50:14):
is the job, you're out there doing it every day.
It's like, that's such a that's such an early gig.
I can imagine the stress for something like that is
just off the charts.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, and I think that's why I didn't want to
do it. And I was like, I was like, yeah,
I got out of the Marine Corps because it was
fucking stressful and why would I want to do that.
So so yeah, I know, I definitely give those people credit.
My mom is a police officer, and give her tons
of credit. And uh, you know, all my friends at

(50:46):
her cops or for the most part, they're not shitty,
So you know, it's it's yeah, most of them are fine.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
And there are reflection of society. Just like the military,
there's gonna be bad people in there. Every job has
bad people.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that there are when you
have bureaucratic elements. There's gonna be levels of corruption, right.
I think it's just to kind of go hand in hand.
And I'm not like a poly side person or anything
like that. I'm speaking anecdotally in that I think that

(51:24):
there is corruption that's going to happen, that there's going
to be people that fall through the cracks and take
advantage of things. And you know, when you I think
I said this the other day in a writing group
that I was in. Of course violence is going to
be exacerbated, and there's going to be more bad people

(51:44):
in the world because there's just a billion people in
the world. So it's one of those things you start
adding the numbers in and it's like, yeah, of course
you're gonna have some bad folks in there. And is
the system perfect in terms of policing. No, I don't
think it is. But how do you change that. I
think that's a long, arduous sort of process that isn't

(52:08):
going to happen overnight. And is the answer to like
rip all their funding away? No? But is it that
you know, is the system like working? No? I don't
think that it is either. So it's kind of a weird,
weird thing.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
I don't know I think it works decently well. I
think we under credit. We don't give enough credit to
the law. Certain areas are better than others, obviously, right.
And my take on it is like people complain about
cops where they are like, oh, they're uneducated. It takes

(52:47):
more time to become a barber than it does to
become a police officer. You know, it takes more of this.
And it's like, well you can't. Then you can't require
them to have more skills and no more things and
have more abilities, while also saying you're gonna pay them less,
like it's skilled labor or it's not. You know what

(53:07):
I'm saying. If you're if you want to pay them
almost nothing, then you're gonna get what you pay for. Now,
do you want to have a police department that is
well funded, well staffed, everyone has time to do training.
That's the other thing too, is if you you don't
have enough people, how can you expect these police officers
to go and do extra training to learn new things,
learn new skills when they don't even have enough people

(53:30):
to cover you know, patrols and stuff like that. So
it's it's a weird. The problem is, like you said,
when you look at the numbers game of it. You know,
if point one percent of them are bad, well we're
look at that point one percent compared to three hundred
thousand police officers or whatever the number is in the

(53:50):
United States. That's still a bunch of people that are bad,
you know, within the system. And it's unfortunate because the
thing with a police officer is they can They are
like the only people that can violate your constitutional rights,
you know what I'm saying. And they can detain you.
And that's what I mean by that, not that they
can make you do something that you're not allowed to do,
but they can detain a person, which is a violation

(54:12):
of your constitutional rights. But they have a real they
you know, they're allowed to do it because the law
says they can. You don't want people with bad intentions
to have that kind of power. Unfortunately it happens. I
think the institution of body cams and a lot of
places has done the opposite of what activists said they
would do, where they said that it would reveal cop
corruption and all this, and I think in some cases

(54:33):
it has. We have seen correct police officers, we have
seen negative things. But I think in the most part.
We've seen how professional a lot of police officers are.
You know what I'm saying, You don't those videos don't
go viral the normal interaction where the you know, the
police officer is very professional and have a good interaction
with the public. The only ones that go viral are

(54:56):
the ones where it's like a meltdown or someone screaming
at them, and there's a ton of those. Like it's
That's the other thing. We see how people treat police officers,
you know, and if you walk up and they're just
immediately like shith heads to them, It's like, well, what'd
you expect? What was gonna happen? You know, like you
this whole situation was completely overblown. So it's a weird
game for sure. It's kind of like military funding. People

(55:19):
argue for and against. I'm generally I'm for both increasing
the funding for the military and increasing the funding for
police only because if you want high quality individuals, then
you should be giving them high quality salaries, you know
what I'm saying. And they're out risking their lives every day,
they should be paid in a manner that kind of

(55:43):
reflects what they're doing. But I also think that there
should be requirements that make it hard so that not
everybody just gets into it. You know, Like, if I'm
gonna pay you one hundred thousand dollars a year to
be a cop, well, then I want you to know
some jiu jitsu. I want you you got to have
you know, jiu jitsu training, you to have some kind
of understanding of the law itself, Like taking law classes,

(56:05):
not just how to arrest somebody in policing, but actual
law theory and things so you understand the law better.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
You know.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
There's like those are the kind of things. Just like
if we increase the funding for the military, I'd be
totally fine with shedding that ten percent just to have
high quality, more high quality people. You know what I'm saying,
Because I think that's a better I don't know. I
think that's overall. I think that would be better for us.
But what do I know.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
I'm just a regular guy, a former action guy.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
I'm a former action guy with an opinion.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Well, they're giving do you see they're giving a pay
raise to junior Marines or junior troops like fifteen percent
this year. Wow, this next year they're getting fifteen percent.
Then I think the E five and above crowd is
getting like a ten percent raise. Nice, So that's cool,
and I think that should be. You know, I don't
like that the military is seen as am no other

(57:01):
choice kind of profession when there's so many people, you
know as well as I do. There's so many people
that join not because they had to, but because they
wanted to, not because that they're in a position where
they had to. You know, my first one of my
not my first, one of my first platoon sergeants was
a infantry guy and he had a bachelor's degree. He
was a sergeant. He was had a bachelor's degree in

(57:23):
electrical engineering. You know, he got bored working at a
cubicle or whatever it was he was doing, and was like, Hey,
I'm going to join the Marine Corps for an enlistment
and then you know, use the benefits to go back
and get my master's degree. And I was like, you know,
that guy didn't have to do it, so.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yeah, And I met people like that in the reserves
who walked away from you know, six figure jobs to
go under deployment and possibly not make it back to
their six figure job or whatever. And it's wild. You know,
the reserves had this very diverse group of people from

(58:04):
different backgrounds. Yeah, bachelor's degrees, lots of firefighters, lots of
police officers, HVAC repair people. So you know we would
have our you know, our tents, air conditioner go down,
and you know, here's Chris fucking running over using his
years of HVAC repair knowledge to get us back up

(58:28):
and comfortable, and so we could sleep between patrols. So
it was it was pretty cool to kind of see
how the backgrounds of the reservists were.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Yeah, the only issue. So my first appointment, I deployed
as a mechanic to Iraq to Alta Cottam. And the
way it worked when I was with Maintenance Battalion was
that we would they would take like a group of
us from Maintenance Battalion, like a small group to'd be like, hey,
twenty or thirty guys, Hey, you're going on this next
Iraq rotation, and then they would attach us to a

(59:00):
group of reservists that were all put together, you know,
multiple reserve units put up guys and built a unit,
and then we would all together deploy. And it was
there was like a big difference between some of the
reserve units, like some of the guys were really good
and squared away and like knew their job and kind
of you know, they just did their thing, and then
there were other guys that didn't know anything. Like it

(59:22):
was like and I understand, and you can kind of
talk to this. There's only so much time to actually
do your job in the reserves because you got to
do all your annual training. You meet one weekend a month, right,
one week a year, and you're doing annual training, You're
doing you know, all these other things that are required
of you, plus your MOS. So what's your take on

(59:42):
interacting with other reserve units? You kind of feel like
that's the same way, like some are better than others.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Obviously, Yeah, I think it's that way too between active
Duny units, right, So for sure, probably you know, more
honed away, and they probably even within those units, there's
probably some companies and platoons and squads that are more
squared away and stuff. My I didn't really interact with

(01:00:08):
any other reserve units other than the one twenty four
who came and relieved us, but there was definitely sort
of a mixed bag of professionalism and in within one
twenty five, And I think particularly within Weapons Company, there

(01:00:30):
was a lot of you know, it's kind of loudmouth,
troublemaker types, and uh, I think that that it bode
well for for where they were at, you know, But
I mean, as far as knowledge goes, there were definitely

(01:00:52):
Marines who had their shit together, and I think I
was pretty lucky I was, you know, a private, a
PFC or whatever. I don't even think actually, I don't
think I got PFC until I was in Iraq. But
you know, so when we did our work up, we
did a division level school using mortars out in California.

(01:01:18):
This was prior to Iraq, and I had the real
privilege of working with one of our NCOs who was
really hot shit at his job, and so I was
able to kind of take my knowledge just coming out
of itb and you know, he and I worked well together.

(01:01:39):
We had a couple other guys on our team, so
we ended up getting like the best gun team or
whatever in that two week training evolution or whatever it was.
And he unfortunately ended up getting killed by a sniper.
And it was just kind of one of those things where, yeah,
for sure, there were people who knew their job more

(01:02:01):
than others. I think at one point after I had
gotten out, somebody told me they were like, yeah, all
that stuff that our platoon sergeant was telling us, like
about like laying down, like fucking some kind of thing
or whatever. He was like he didn't know what he

(01:02:21):
was talking about. And I was like, Okay, that makes sense.
But you know, I think that that the Marines do
a pretty good job of making sure that if you're
going to be deployed to a forward area like we were,
that we had a lot of active duty experience in

(01:02:41):
our ranks. Like I said that my vehicle commander was
a phantom Fury VET. We had other kind of NCOs
with combat experience scattered throughout the battalion. I think we
had a couple officers that had at least one or
two deployments under their belt, kind of scattered throughout the battalion.
So we had a big budget from what I heard

(01:03:03):
after the fact, and we had real luck in terms
of being able to either attract or recruit guys who
wanted to go to Iraq, maybe for the first or
the second time, and so was that was utterly valuable

(01:03:24):
because I would imagine that if you had taken all
of us green dudes who had never done a combat deployment.
I think it would have been a little different. I
think it would have been much different.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Actually, yeah, you're relearning some lessons learned, you know, the
little things. It's like the little things that can make
life a little bit more comfortable or easier when you're
in a situation like that. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense though.
I mean, you get a lot of guys that are
active duty that decide to get out and we're like, hey,
I don't want to hang up completely out go in
the reserves. I'll do that. And then the reserves are

(01:03:59):
interesting because you do get a good mix of stuff.
I think it's kind of weird. I think one issue
we had with some of our reservists were, like you said,
some of these guys are they work for the government.
Some of them are like lawyer, some of them are
the police officers. Like there's a little bit of everything,
and it was always kind of weird for some of

(01:04:20):
them when we would all be together and some of
these guys, like if you're a junior marine, some of
these guys were used to like hanging out with like
the corporals and sergeants because they're all reservists together. They
stay in the same hotel. When they're going, you know,
for their weekend drill and all that stuff. They're like
all buddies and everything, whereas on the act of duty side,
like that's not really happening. And when we were all

(01:04:42):
together and then you see them doing that, you see
them like going to their start like a PFC or
lance corporal, like hanging out with a sergeant or something
like that, or it was just the way they would
interact or like what are you guys doing? Like what
the hell?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
What is this?

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
And there was some like we butted heads because we
just didn't do that. You know what I'm saying, Like
a lance corporal is not gonna go talk to a
staff sergeant. You know what I'm saying, You're gonna talk.
You're gonna go through the chain of command. You're gonna
talk to your corporal or your sergeant and then and
then the world will get passed along. It was just
like a weird I remember being a corporal and I
told this lance corporal to take the trash out. He's like,
you fucking take the trash out. I was like what, Like,

(01:05:19):
what the fuck did you just say to me?

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Dude?

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
And it was just like, it's not necessarily their fault
because that's how they were, you know, came up. But
you see that in different units, how different units would
interact like that, and how comfortable they were with each other.
It was varying, so it was always fun, you know.
But I considered the Reserves, But when I got out,

(01:05:42):
I was like, you know what, I just don't want
to do. I feel like, I feel like if I
do the Reserves, it's gonna be more of the things
I just don't I just want to get away from,
you know, the stupid annual training, the nonsense, the leadership
that may be inept, you know, having you do stupid
stuff just because that's the way it is, or you

(01:06:02):
know or whatever. I was just like, I just don't
want to be And I was gonna go to college,
and I was like, what are the odds that I
get activated and I can't finish school, you know, or
I have to delay school. So I don't know, but
I think it's a good option for a lot of people.
I actually recently told my son about it specifically because
I was like, if you wanted to join the Marines

(01:06:24):
and you wanted a specific job, you'd have to join
the reserves, you know, m yeah, right, yeah, man, So
you get back from that first apployment. You know what
when you guys come back from a deployment like a
reserve U and it comes back and then are you
guys still active? Do you guys? How does that work?
Because we're all, you know, on the active duty side.

(01:06:46):
Even if you get part of a BLT, become part
of a BLT like a Italian Landing team or like us,
we were attachments with three six. We come back from deployment,
we're still attached to three six. We still go into
work every day until for like a month or so,
and then we get sent back to our other units
and everything. You guys are coming back as one whole unit.

(01:07:07):
But it's not like active duty where you're all there
centrally located anyways. Everyone lives in all kinds of different places.
So how does that work post deployment?

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yeah, we demobilized out at Pendleton, so we basically came
out of Iraq into Pendleton, kind of spent some time
doing like workdown off boarding kind of training and stuff
like that, and then we all came back to Massachusetts.

(01:07:44):
And because Fort Devns is kind of the centrally located.
That's where the headquarters in weapons is. They basically we
went from Cali to our respective drill centers, which with
mostly everybody was Devans, so yeah, and then from there

(01:08:05):
it was like Christmas time. Uh So we you know,
got a couple of weeks off and I think we
even had a couple those of us who had just
come off the deployment, we had a couple months off.
We didn't have to drill for a couple months, and
then we basically kind of picked up the drill schedule,
which was typically like a Friday through Sunday kind of thing.

(01:08:30):
So the demobilization was it was pretty straightforward. It didn't
feel like it was anything unusual in that, you know,
we all basically kind of got on our flights, all
landed in Pendleton, spent a few weeks there doing you know,
VA training and don't kill yourself training and don't do

(01:08:52):
your family?

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Do your family see you in California? Can they come
out to California or did they do you wait until
you guys got back to your actual reserve centers.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Yeah, no, they met us at the on the East coast. Yeah,
so they they had to wait until we got to
to Devin's or wherever. Yeah. So but that was really bittersweet,
you know, it was it was really nice to have
that kind of you know, we're back at home, we're
seeing our families, so it was that was really nice.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's cool man. Yeah, it's always it's always
fun coming back.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
I don't know how you guys did it, but like,
I don't know, it's just a whole, the whole event,
like you don't want to you're ready to be.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Done with it though.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
You're like, I'm ready to just get away from everything,
Like I don't know. Our our battalions are in major
with three six had us march back. We formed up
as a battalion and parked the buses one place and
then marched and I was like, come on, man, let's
can we just just release this to the families. But
then we did it, and I was like, Okay, that
was probably pretty cool for the families. I bet the

(01:09:53):
families thought that was super cool that we all marched
up and then got released to them that way, rather
than just running off the bus kind of deal. But yeah, yeah, man,
those feelings of leaving and coming home are crazy it's
like an emotional roller coaster. I bet it's kind of
It kind of sucks that if you're in California and
you can't see your family yet, you're like fuck man.

(01:10:13):
Like I'm sure some of the families are frustrated, like
why can't we see you? You know, like we're already
you know, you're in country or you're in the US,
blah blah blah kind of deal. Because people obviously want
to get back together. But I think it is important
for guys to have a decompression period where they can
kind of just you know, kind of talk about stuff
and everything like that. You know, I think that's more important.
Like you mentioned all those classes that you have to take,

(01:10:35):
the VA classes you have to do, like the little
cognitive tests and all these different things. Those are important,
But I think the biggest thing is just being able
to like decompress for a little bit and kind of
bs with your dudes. Because for you guys, as specifically,
when you go back, you're getting released to your families
and stuff, and there's really no other military around right

(01:10:55):
at least active duty guys. We get released to my family. Well,
I'm going to be back in on Tuesday, and see
all the same guys again, you know, right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Yeah, No, I was back living with my parents. Dude,
I was nineteen years old. Like, I did not go
back to the bricks. I went back to my parents'
house and I was sleeping in the same room that
I grew up.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
And did that feel weird? Was that weird? Like just
coming back now?

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Like what is like? Yeah, it was like I walked
through like a portal or something like that. It was.
It was very bizarre. But yeah, no, I actually I'm
glad that you mentioned, you know, spending some time with
the boys or whatever, because that's why I did. You know.
We we demoged in Pendleton and we spent a few
days down in San Diego. We went to the zoo,

(01:11:40):
and I think that that was really the point that
I realized. I was like, damn, it feels good to
be back, Like it feels good to be back in
our society and hanging out with friends. And that was
kind of one of the first times to where I
realized that, Like I think I was that we were
all at like a restaurant, you know, I was like
thirty of us or whatever, and like they started bringing

(01:12:03):
up some memories and talking about stuff, and I just
like broke down in the middle of the restaurant, like
had to like walk out, you know. One of my
friends came outside like consoled me and stuff, and that's
when I started to realize. I was like, I'm taking
a lot of the shit back with me and pretty
much immediately started to see some counseling and things like

(01:12:27):
that when I got home and kind of settled into
the the VA system and stuff like that too. So yeah,
it was it was. It was wild man to like
be like sleeping in the barracks out at you know,
Fifth Marines, and then like two weeks later, I'm like

(01:12:47):
sleeping in the little twin sized bed in the my
childhood bedroom. I was like, what the fuck, dude, what is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
That is crazy? Dude, That's like what I kind of
That's the extreme version of what I always tell people.
It's like getting out for a lot of people. You know,
one day you're you're at work and you're in the military,
and then the next day you're back home in your
hometown and there's no one to talk to. That's like
the extreme version of that. It's a little bit more manageable.
I think if you're just coming from like garrison life

(01:13:16):
working normal to that, but going from like literal combat
situation where what within two months before that, dudes were
actually dying in front of you or getting shot or
injured or you know, like that's a lot to it's
for people that haven't been there, it's kind of hard
to like things that you don't worry about here at

(01:13:39):
all over there, you're like hyper sensitive too, like noises
and stuff. I used to be super jumpy when I
came back, and it was not because it was mostly
because our fucking Afghans would shoot this no I said,
RKG three year earlier. This it was this recoil less
rifle and you never knew when they were gonna and

(01:14:00):
they were super sketchy with it when they were doing it,
handling the munitions and stuff. And it was always like
and that was what I think made me most jumpy.
When I first came back, I'd hear a loud noise,
I'd be like, oh, you know, and for a while
it was pretty bad, you know, when I got back
from saying it, it was pretty bad for a little while.
I would jump at everything. I was just constantly kind
of like that. But it's just like those little things

(01:14:24):
like that, like it didn't actually bother me like that.
I was like kind of jumpy. It was just like
a more annoying than anything. It was like I wish
I would stop, you know, going from something like that
straight and like sleeping in my home down bed, you know,
my childhood bed would be that would be a mind fuck.
For sure. That's good that you that's good that you
saw that. You're like, hey, maybe I should talk to somebody,

(01:14:45):
and you got counseling. You know, how is that for
How does the VA system work for reservist? Do you
think it's robust enough and that you think it's like,
how's it working out for you?

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
I've had a really good experience in that the systems
around here pretty highly rated. Between I live closer to
the Providence Rhode Island system, so that's the one that
I've basically been out of, but even the ones up
in Boston are pretty well received. So yeah, I think

(01:15:17):
I've been pretty lucky in that. And I was talking
to my mother too. My grandfather is a Navy CD
veteran Korean War era. He never deployed to Korea, but
you know he was deploying while that war was going on,
but he never stepped foot in Korea regardless, like they are.

(01:15:39):
We've just now kind of started to get him into
the system. And that's the VA. The healthcare system is
the only one I've ever known, basically, like I've signed
up when I was twenty and they've you know, I've
gotten all my treatments and stuff there. Like I said,
very ninety good experiences. You know, there have been a

(01:16:00):
couple times here and there where communicationing get through, or
I showed up to an appointment I didn't know where
the hell I was going, or you know, just kind
of you know, we weren't on the same page in
terms of like booking an appointment or something. But I've never,
like nobody's ever like left me for dead in the
middle of of an operating room or something like that.

(01:16:23):
So I've had very very good experiences and that's good. Yeah. Yeah,
And honestly, like the mental health care for me has
been it's been a journey, and I think that that's
kind of part of what you have to look at
it as it's a long road. It's not going to

(01:16:47):
be this sort of a good fu two years of
CBT and it'll be squared away. It's like, no, you
should probably invest more time into probably unpacking, not only
like your military stuff, of probably also like childhood stuff
and other kinds of just kind of the knots that
we kind of weave in our life in that we

(01:17:10):
may not even realize are kind of holding us back
until do you talk about it or your journal about it,
or you you know, have some wild epiphany or something.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
So I think journaling is a good outlet for a
lot of people because a lot of people don't want
to talk to a counselor or a psychiatrist or something
like that, you know, but they need to get get
things out. I think getting a book and just writing
some stuff down every once in a while is definitely
a good idea for me. The podcast is a good
outlet for mainly military stuff obviously, but I can talk
about sometimes we'll talk about current events or something. But

(01:17:45):
it's like a good way to like just talk to
other people and kind of understand perspectives, and honestly it
helps me. It helps me like realize how lucky I am,
you know, because some guys had it way worse than I.
You know, you're you're talking about guys losing legs and

(01:18:05):
you know, getting killed and stuff like that. Like I said,
I was never in the presence. I've had friends that
have gotten killed. I've never been there when someone a
marine was shot blown up or something like that. Again,
I've been there in the Afghans, but it's a little
different when it's like one of your dudes you know
that you know and you hung out with and everything.
I don't know, I just yeah, having an outlet is important,

(01:18:27):
and that's why we talked. We were talking before we
started recording about how I think it's cool that you're
into the arts. You know, you use music, you know,
you do like guitar drumming, you do poetry. That kind
of thing is that's a good outlet, you know. And
I I try to reinforce to guys that are getting out,

(01:18:49):
like telling them, like, you got to find something that
you are passionate about, you know, because when you're in
the military, especially if you're in like combat arms, it
becomes it becomes your identity. It becomes like you are
because you don't want to be bad at it, and
you understand how serious it is, you know, how people
these actual lives can be on the line.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Here.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
You get fully engulfed in it, and you know, you
gotta find something when you get out that you probably
won't ever find anything that you'll be that involved in,
like the military is, because it's you know, every part
of your day, going to work out, going to lunch,
going to you know, going to work, going to you
know everything, You're hanging out with the guys and stuff

(01:19:30):
like that. But you gotta find something that drives you,
you know, something to have a passion about. And I
think that's great these I like doing photography, I like
doing the podcast, I like doing I do graphic design
work for some people, and I think it's a good
way to like, I don't know, man, you know, cope
with the real world. I guess you know, this is

(01:19:51):
how normal people act.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Yeah. No. A Dead Reckoning Collective has done this thing
for the last few years where every January they have
a handwritten challenge and it's basically on their Instagram page.
They post a prompt every day for those of us
are interested in just journaling and just handwriting that based

(01:20:14):
on that prompt. And I've always done journaling. That's always
kind of been part of my own sort of introspection
that coupled with the professional objectivity of a counselor somebody
who knows how to kind of navigate those spaces and

(01:20:36):
knows the sort of right questions to ask, the sort
of things that are going to get you to have
those aha moments, to have those those doors kind of unlocked.
That's been super helpful for me. So I think, like
anything else, you know, we talked about like coordinated fire
and stuff earlier, like you need to have that kind

(01:20:56):
of toolbox. You need to have that that mac taff
of you know, healing and and I don't even think
you have to be somebody who is like in our situation,
you know, marines or you know, combat vets or whatever.
Like everybody's going to have their own hang ups in life.

(01:21:18):
Life is challenging and it's full of adversity, and I think,
especially now, you know, people need to be really resilient,
and there's this idea of having the sorts of that
toolbox of things that are just going to kind of

(01:21:38):
keep you at peace and just kind of keep you
focused on the things that you're passionate about. And for
me it is writing and music and art and stuff
like that. And so yeah, no, I think that there's
all kinds of ways that folks can kind of take

(01:21:59):
their you know, their monkey chatter and their nonsense and
the stuff that's keeping them down and hurting them, and
just kind of channeling that in a way that's going
to be not only productive for them, but maybe also
productive for society.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Yeah. No, I agree. I think it's good. And I've
also had pretty good I don't really ask a lot
from the VA. I think the most I've had is
when I've had a back issue, I've gone in and
almost immediately recommended someone out in town for me, you know,
and then obviously paid for it because they didn't have
like physical therapy available or something like that. I'm in

(01:22:37):
San Diego, so there's it's pretty robust here as well.
My biggest complaint has been every time I go in
for an annual checkup, I have a different doctor. You know,
like in the real world, you have a family doctor
or something like that, you see that same dude or
that person or woman or whatever every year and they
kind of get to know you. And in the VA,
it's like every time I've gone in it's been I've

(01:22:59):
got a been to sign a different doctor and it's like,
oh okay, and I don't know if it's something where
they're moving up in the system or how it works
or but I'm like, that's kind of I'm a bummer.
But I'm lucky enough where I don't have you know,
I have my own issues, like I said, my back,
my shoulders and stuff like that, but I haven't had
to have like ongoing you know, therapy or rehabilitative things

(01:23:24):
like you know, some guys get out that are injured
and they end up having surgeries for years after they
get out because just ongoing issues with the injury that
they had. Luckily, I've never had to deal with anything
like that, So I understand how if you live in
a more rural area, you know, it's a little bit
more difficult because you have to travel to a VA

(01:23:45):
center and stuff like that. But from my understanding, the
same program that allowed them to recommend a physical therapy
place out in town for me is available as what
they're using now. Where you're like in a rural area,
they will recommend like services at a local hospital and
pay for it, which I think that's smart, you know

(01:24:07):
what I'm saying, Like, because if you're an elderly person,
you know, you're talking about these Korean War veterans, Vietnam
War veterans, you know, they can't travel an hour hour
and a half to go get a check up or
something like that. You know, a lot of times it's just, uh,
it's not possible. So there are ways that it needs
to be improved. But there are ways that I you know,
when I got out, I worked an advertising agency and

(01:24:30):
we were talking about medical insurance. I was like, I
go through the VA. I don't need to worry about it.
But that was the first time it kind of made
me see how much people are paying for medical coverage.
And I was like, holy shit, Like you're paying like
four hundred bucks a month, five hundred bucks a month,
you know, or or way more depending on how big
your family is in your coverage. But I was just like, damn, man,

(01:24:52):
I'm glad I don't have to I don't have to
worry about that. Like I've never even really having gone
from the military, where obviously it's medical coverage free, to
uh having VA coverage. After I got out, I'm like, damn,
that's something. It's it was hard to relate for a while.
I'm like, what are they complaining about? You know, But
then when I saw the actual costs that some of

(01:25:12):
my fellow workers were paying. I was like, damn, that's crazy, man.
How does here's a question? How does that work in
the reserves? You know, do you have you have trycare
while you're in the reserve so that you can go
to any facilities? How does that work?

Speaker 2 (01:25:27):
Yeah? I didn't really, I can't even remember. It's been
so long now that I really was only like an
active reservist for like a couple of years.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
And then I got out, like, if you're sick, who
do you go see? Do you have your like hometown
doctor and it's covered by the military insurance or do
you have to find a base or a VA place
or something like that to get coverage.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you would have. I would have
gone to the VA.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
Interesting. Yeah, well this has been interesting. I really I
want to say, I appreciate you coming on. Where can
people find your stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
At? Best way for people to find out you know
what I'm up to probably www dot Benjamin Fortier dot com.
Fairly active on Instagram, but at the BENFO creates. I
get a couple pages on social media, but I think
that's probably the best one. Uh yeah, I think really

(01:26:30):
any time that I get to be involved with something
like this is a just a great opportunity for me
to just chat with other folks. And like you said,
it's always a just an opportunity to get some of
those spots mass massage that we don't always have the

(01:26:50):
ability to because I mean, when people get out, they
don't always kind of have that community that they're able
to lean into a little bit. So you know, it's
always good to have this kind of outlet and to
just chat about this kind of stuff. And I appreciate

(01:27:10):
you having me on today. It's been great.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Yeah, man. And you're also part of the one twenty
five Association, correct, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
I'm a board member of the one twenty five Association.
I basically kind of run the website, do some of
the tech stuff behind the scenes. That's a very small
group of one twenty five veterans, some Gulf War veterans,
some Afghanistan veterans, but majority of us are the Fallujah vets.

(01:27:43):
And we have a long, well not long though, but
a short history of helping out with the reunions. We've
done that since twenty sixteen. We had our ten year
reunion in twenty sixteen for the ten year Fallujah Reunion,
and then kind of from there we've had the opportunities
to host other smaller reunions. Our last big reunion was

(01:28:06):
up in Maine and Portland, Maine had the opportunity to
meet Rudy Reyes. He came out. He was one of
our guests of honor, along with a Major General Jerry Humble,
who's other guests of honor. So it's been part of
our mission to help marines by reuniting, throwing small reunions,

(01:28:28):
big reunions together because we started to see the unfortunate
side effect of not having that. Like I said, you know,
we were just talking about community and not having the
outlets for marines to be marines and FMF sailors to

(01:28:49):
be FMF sailors and just kind of to gather and
talk and eat, drink, be merry, kind of share those memories.
And we've had a lot of really great assistance from
simperi Fi Fund, which I now believe is Simplify America's

(01:29:09):
Fund because they're branching out and helping other branches. Yeah. No,
they're not just not just marine based anymore, which is cool,
which is good for them, but they've been a huge Yeah,
it's actually America's Fund here, so.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
Oh okay, so changed the name completely. You know, I've
only heard good things about Simple five Fund, so I
guess now America's Fun. So, I mean, if that's something
people are interested in checking out, they should do that.
That's awesome though. Man, getting people together is very important
because we all speak a different language, right, and it's
easier to kind of relate and stuff. So that's good stuff. Yeah,
I guess that's really it, man. I really appreciate it.

(01:29:48):
People check out my stuff. Jcramergraphics dot com is my website.
Former Action News and Former Action Guys is my Instagram,
and that's it. Dude, really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
At

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Ep. 224 | Ben Fortier | Marine Infantry, Musician, and Poet

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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;}Ep. 224 | Ben Fortier | Marine Infantry, Musician, and Poet