May 27, 2025 • 57 mins
John Kaiser Jr. is not just the founder of Tenacity Outdoors; he’s the heart and soul of our mission. John’s journey into the world of fishing began long before he cast his first line on the Columbia River. A native of the Pacific Northwest, John grew up surrounded by the rugged beauty of the region’s rivers and forests.
John’s military service took him far from home, but it was during his time in Iraq that his life would change forever. Wounded in action in 2006 while serving in the Army, John experienced the unimaginable loss of an eye. Despite this life-altering injury, John’s spirit remained unbroken.
John’s military service took him far from home, but it was during his time in Iraq that his life would change forever. Wounded in action in 2006 while serving in the Army, John experienced the unimaginable loss of an eye. Despite this life-altering injury, John’s spirit remained unbroken.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M m.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
M m. I'm not the reason the chief of a
killing the season with a need to blease you with
the light goest bring Let's believe him in the zone
to be from a end of a yankom aane.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
To see good.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Agree, I'm I say when you call the beef.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Because I'll weird.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm a one of a kind, and I'll bring death
to the glacier about a week and of the river
of blood running under my feet. Orsin a fire did
long ago stand next to me?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You'll never stand alone.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
One last to leave, but the first to go the Lord,
make me dead before you make me old a feet
on the fear of the devil.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Inside of the enemy faces in.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
My sight, being with a hand or shoe, with a mind,
kill with a heart like ARTI guys, I EPI soldier
and marting on. I am a warrior and this is
(01:18):
my song, my master the rising.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
They raced to the.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Ground of an enemy.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Sure I read you, Lema Charlie, loud and clear. Welcome
to Stuart the Unpresents Lema Charlie Episode fourteen with John
Kaiser Junior. Thank you John for coming on. Tell us
about yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
You know I joined the Army right out of high school,
went to Fort Benning Infantry School, Airborne School, went to
the eighty second Airborne Division for about three years, went
to Operation Southern Watch to go babysit Patriot missiles in
Quoit while I was there, and kind of thought I
(02:07):
would do more while I was there, But that was
in like ninety nine and that was about it. So
when my reenlistment window opened, I kind of wanted to
come back to Washington. So Fort Lewis was the place
to be. And the Striker Brigade was Shintiki's baby at
the time, so figured if anybody was going to go somewhere,
(02:28):
that would be a good place to go.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So did you grow up want want to join the
army or be in the military.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You know, when I was younger, like going to fairs
and stuff and seeing the recruiters, I kind of always
wanted to. I grew up listening to stories that three
great uncles that were all infantry in World War Two.
One of them was in the first first Special Service
Force and he's the one that did not come home
for World War Two. So it was pretty fitting that
(02:56):
I did some time in airborne infantry.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And so because of them you wanted you wanted to
be infantry. You didn't, you didn't think of any other.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, They're like, what do you want to do? And
I was like, airport infantry and they're like, are you sure?
And the station commander was infantry, so he was he
was like, come here, I got you all right.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
So obviously you're you're for brag and and uh Fort
Lewis you were active duty. So did you transfer to
the Guard or anything or no? I was.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I was gonna stay in the Army until the point
where the Army told me they no longer needed my services.
And once I got hurt on my second tour in Iraq,
they offered me a desk or home and it was
time to go home.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Okay, so you go to you go to uh anything
interesting and for brag I was. That was my last
duty station before I got out. But uh so anything
interesting it while you're at for brag.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Not I mean, we trained, and we trained, and I
mean you're running off of a very proud legacy, so
the disciplined and like it was a pretty good first
duty station for a private in the Army, right, Like.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I remember, I remember they had the sign I forget
what street it was on. It had the you know
how many days without a uh yeah, and and I
think in the time I was there, it got up
to eighty two one time, and you know that meant
you guys got a day off. I was. I was
at the thirty fifth Signal Brigate Brigade, and so I
(04:25):
was up the street at smoke Bomb Hill. But uh yeah,
it got to eighty two one time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I was in the I was in the third of
the five oh fifth, and I think we saw forty
weekends twice because we made it to eighty two.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's kind of sad to think about it,
that they couldn't reach eighty two days without a you know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So so you spent three years of BRAGG and then
you go to uh Fortlans, Washington, which you're you're from Washington, right,
you're from that area. Okay, so you go to where
were you at Washington? What U what unit? It was?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Uh? Game? This there, third Infantry Okay. I wasn't like,
you know, it was pretty cool. I was in the
same unit as Toby None. Yeah, I met. I met
Toby ten minutes before I got my first gun fight.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Were you were, So did you join as an eleven
X or did you join with a contract as an
eleven B.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I was airborne infantry by contract.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Okay, okay, so you didn't get to just kind of
thrown into eleven or whatever. So if you the Striker
is a little a little different it.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Uh. It was actually super easy because there was a
big push to get people from both mechanized and light
infantry into that unit. Okay, so that way because there
was no there was no book on how to use
them in combat, we had to create it.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
All right, Well, I guess the downside is Striker is
not an airborne unit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I was okay with it. I think I jumped, like
I'll guess low because I'd have to pull out my log,
but I want to say it was like forty six
times in two and a half years, and that's a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, yeah, I know. I remember when I was there.
You guys were jumping all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I was. I was ready to be done. When I
was young, I took every jump I could get my
hands on, and then halfway through I was like, I'm stupid.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Like, well, probably probably about two inches shorter because bones compressed,
So so how long were you at in the Striker
unit before your first employment.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Let's see, I showed up in two thousand, summer of
two thousand and we deployed in October of three to
Missoili employment.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Okay, so you had some time there. Yeah, did to
mess with the strikers before you?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Like? I? Yeah, well, a lot of our training at
first was like we were using hummers and like flashing
our lights to pretend it was the r WS, like
for training. Excuse me. Then we borrowed uh a lot
of labs from Canada and we use those and they're like,
forget about the turret. You're not getting a turret, Like,
(07:09):
don't touch it. But at least it gave us a
feel for how the vehicles reacted, like driving with the
weight and everything.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Did you do any time down there at Fort Polk training?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Or we we went we did a back to back.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I think we went NTC first and then to Fort Polk.
We literally jumped from one to the other.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
That's a that's a lot of a lot of railhead.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, Unfortunately I was the battalion guy for that detail too. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So so you're you're training up brand new unit, brand
new equipment, right, like you said, there was there's no manual,
there's no no tactics, no nothing. How are y'all developing tactics?
I mean we all just kind of taking tactics from
Brad or what were all doing?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I mean it was literally the higher ups were literally
brainstorming like, Okay, this works for mechanized, this works for light.
How do we combine the two? And then we also
had like we had tankers embedded with us and they
had the they would end up having the at GM
or the toe missile variant, and so like it was
(08:28):
literally just like how how do we do this? Like
we would do things like go to Camp Raylea down
at the Oregon Coast National Guard Base and they've got
a mount site for mainly two seven five there, And
it was literally a bunch of leaders that went down
with a few guys that knew how to drive the strikers.
And it was to the point where we're like, okay,
(08:51):
let's see if we can go from the air century
hatches through a second story window, like let's try all
the things and see what we think will work the best.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Right, So for striker, if I remember and I was signaled,
so but I had a lot of friends that were
in different like cab and stuff like that. So for
a striker is everybody trained on every position.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
When we deployed the first time, everybody all the way
up to the battalion commander had a driver's license for
the striker. So that way things went hairy in any
kind of way. Anybody could jump in and drive, okay,
or be a vehicle commander, right okay, And that way
the squad leaders knew how to better implement the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Right. So you so you two thousand and three, y'all
are deploying these first time in country, right, and this
is your first employment, right rather than the first combat,
first combat deployment. So you get there. What was the
tempo like in O three?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
You know it was it was a little flow at first,
and we were relieving the hundred and first and they
they had they had been worked pretty hard to push
all the way north to Mosel and so we did
our right seat left seat rides and every it seemed
(10:14):
like all the powers that be are like, oh, this,
this whole concept is going to fail, Like you're going
to replace a division with a brigade, Like how's that
gonna work? Or like a battalion is going to hold
what a brigade had held.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Right, So what was what was one hundred and first
usion were they were just using armored humbes and yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And well that early it was I mean if they were,
if they were up armored, it's because they went to
junk yards and pulled out steel, right, Yeah, like they
were stam bagged up right.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
So so you get you get there? How did these
how did these vehicles react to that environment?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
You know, I'm not gonna lie. Coming coming from an
airborne contry unit, I hated everything about it. I was like,
I hate this vehicle. Let me out of it, like
I want to if it's going to happen, I want
to see it coming. I don't want to be stuck
in an armored coffin.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you know, the first time we rolled through an
idea and nobody got hurt, and we had a couple
of flat tires, but we were able to just Charlie
Mike back to base, right, it was like, oh okay,
Like if we were in a hummer, that would have
been a lot worse.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, yeah, or almost anything else. Yeah, So how so
you get there, right, and you're taken over one hundred.
First was, uh, did the mission change from what they
were doing for uh to what you were doing? Because
you're you're you're basically a different unit, right, You're different tactics,
different you know, posture everything.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So you know, like I'm not bagging on them because
they went through a lot and God only knows what
was in their heads at the time, but it felt
like we had to mend some relationships local in order
to accomplish anything, right, And so once we were able
to do that, that helped a lot. And we spent
(12:10):
a lot of time out of the wire, like a
lot of time out of the wire, so they saw
us all the time, right.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So so that temp that's that's a pretty good tempo
if you're if you're outside all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
So what what was that time doing? I mean other
than just you know, hearts and minds? Did y'all did
y'all have any high value targets? Did y'all have any
you know? Or was it just basically be seen as
a force, you know, to.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Go And we always had a q RF ready to
go if things teed off, But like we would act,
we would do a lot of raids acting on intel
that were dry holes. Okay, Like I remember when that
American went over there and wanted to start a cell
phone company or something. We went looking for him because
(12:57):
we had him and they're like, no, you have to
let him go, and then he got captured. So then
we went looking for him, but it was too late,
all right, all right?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
So how how did your tactics change from excuse me,
from what y'all had been training in INTC and charity
c uh, from what you know, because you we all
know once once you get there, you know, the handboo
goes out the window.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Right, Oh, yeah, totally. I mean when we got there,
we we did not have a set roe until the
day we rolled out of Kuwait and we drove from
Kuwait all the way to Mosul. Oh wow, because we
don't have to put the bikers on trucks. You just
get in and go.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Right. What's a maximum speed of a striker?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
You know without the bird cage on, it probably roll
about seventy with the age you're probably looking at by fifties.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
All right, Still that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, yeah, especially, I mean it's like thirty three thousand pounds.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I remember that when before Bragg got those l mtvs first,
and they had major problems with them at the angle
of the drive chefs.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And couldn't go over thirty five miles.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Now, oh yeah, you want to talk about going going
to the field sucked?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
We did it on detail cycle DRF nine or whatever
it is, verse seven. We uh we got tasked to
here school and coming back from Camp McCall only being
able to go thirty I was like, man, I'd rather walk.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, it's miserable. It's miserable. And like I said, I
was in a commo unit, so we all of our
equipment is on trucks and so you know, there's there's
no there's no walking. Everything's got to go. So so
you're you're out there, You've got you know, the manuals
now out the window, tactics. You're probably just making it
(14:52):
up on the fly, right, I mean, because the enemy's
changing as well, right, so everything is adapting all the time,
especially early on.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
So what was that like, you know, it was interesting.
I mean there was always this like we're gonna we're
gonna try and like you can split sections, but you
want to try and stay within a block or two
of each other. That way of one half of your
platoon gets engaged the other to maneuver and then oh,
by the way, you got a QRF like five minutes
down the road if you need them, right, And that
(15:21):
worked out pretty well.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Okay, So, uh, what other what other things changed in that?
I mean from what you were, what you guys were,
and did you guys have to do in these changes
as you're changing tactics, were you guys having to Was
there any kind of documentation? Was there anybody you know
reporting this type of information back to higher ups going
you know, this doesn't work, This doesn't work, you know,
because as the military goes right, as you you try things,
(15:46):
somebody's gonna put it in a book somewhere, right, and
it's gonna end up in a school for training.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So it was kind of a NonStop evolution, honestly, okay.
And then we had like we would go through in
Moseell especially, we would go through these like it would
be quiet, but because of where it sat geographically the insurgents,
that was like their first stop coming into country, right,
So we kind of had this like plan where it's like, okay,
(16:14):
if things like really tee off, you guys are going
to go to this opie and you're gonna go to
this opie and it was all like one massive interlocking
sectors of fire from rooftops.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Right. Okay, so you said you met Toby. What you
said five minutes before you deployed?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Literally, well, not before we deployed. We were already in
country and I went from one company to Toby's and
ended up as an AG and his weapons squad. And
as he's like introducing me to the guys in the
squad and he's like, yeah, we're on QRF, a freaking
Chinese rocket goes off and he's like, welcome, welcome to
(16:54):
the company. Get your stuff on. We're gonna go get
shot at nice.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Nice. But what was it like? We're with Toby?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Uh, you know, like I knew him by reputation, but
I didn't know him at the time. And like sometimes
you meet a new leader and you're like, okay, does
this guy know his stuff? And then other times you
meet a new leader and you're like, okay, I will
follow you. Let's go right, And that was definitely Toby.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Definitely Toby. Okay, So how long was this first deployment?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
That one was pretty much right on a year.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Oh, Wow, that's that's pretty good amount.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
We hadn't started the eighteen month yet, Okay, so.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Any anything exciting go on? I mean, it's it's of course,
it's all you know. It's it's all all new to you.
Your first combat deployment. You're you're constantly you're probably running
into engagements on a regular basis. You have some down days,
some some not right, but anything you would stand out.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
It was almost like a like we we had I
can't remember if it was May night or April ninth,
but we got we got into a doozy and that
was the day that I met Tobi. Okay, but it
seemed like every three months the city would just go
nuts and then it would be quiet and like there'd
be little stuff here and there. But like it was,
(18:13):
it was almost a constant struggle to not get complacent
because you knew as soon as you did, it's like, oh, surprise,
we're gonna we're gonna play again.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
What do you think brought that about? You think it
was just you know, new bodies you know to the
line or would what do you think brought it about?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I almost part partly probably how we ran operations. It
would probably take that long for them to figure something out.
But I think they would almost like, I think the
insurgency would almost sit back and be like, maybe if
we wait long enough to let their guard down and
then we can be stupid again.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Right, Yeah, So were you so you're you'd mentioned something
I wanted to kind of talk about. You're talking about
the insurgents coming in. Were you going up again people
from other countries? Did you?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know? I would say after a few months of
us being with the one hundred and first already being there,
a few months of us being there doing raids and
looking for cachets and all that, I would say, after
a few months, almost everything we dealt with was insurgence
for the most part. Okay, Like we had one day
where they literally rolled up in a freaking great like
(19:24):
greyhound style bus and started off loading right in front
of a fifty cal tower at the airport in Mosul,
and we're just like, is this really happening right now?
Like is it this easy?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Did did you guys do any joint operations with other countries?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
You know, we did a lot of stuff with the uh,
let's see, the Fijians. When we one of the things
with the Striker when we were in Mosul is like
we had our area in mosl but the Striker you
could just drive and go, so like we would go
to tullaf Are. Hey, Like we bounced all over the
(20:02):
country when there was a need.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Right was it? What was it like working with some
of these other countries?
Speaker 1 (20:10):
You know, definitely different, they don't exactly operate the way
we do, but it always felt like everybody had the
same idea, like let's let's just do what we got
to do so we can get the hell out of here.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Right, And what were these what were the vehicles for
these other countries? I mean, you guys are running around
in these brand new you know, shiny, brand new to
the military equipment and what are these guys running around in?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Oh we saw b r DM BMPs driving around with discos?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Nice? So anything else on this this first apployment stand out?
And what was your you know, what what were you
thinking as your first appointment? You're like, hell, yeah, this
is what I signed up for.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I mean a little bit of that and a little
bit of like does really I wanted to do this?
Like am I stupid?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I think a lot of us probably said that is
as soon as we got the basic training, you got.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Consider like they're all gung ho before you go, and
I'm like, let's just see how it goes when.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You get there. Nice. Nice, So you go back to
Fort Lewis, right, and then then what are you doing?
I mean, infantry is not to be training all the
time anyway? Right?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Oh? Yeah? I had actually re enlisted in Iraq on
the first tour to stay. They they had offered a
really good incentive package if you re enlisted to stay
in the unit, that you would get like some serious stabilization.
I was like, Hey, I'm already in my home state.
This is great, this is pretty good unit. I want
(21:45):
to stay. So listed for six more years and I
knew that was the one that if I stayed beyond that,
it was indefinite time.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Right. What's what's your rank at this point.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
When we came back from the first tour sergeant sergeant.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Okay, so you get back to Fort Lewis and then
what's I mean, what are you guys doing? Is it
back to Jarity? Cee?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Is it back to you know, I mean fight back
to Jarity. See, we actually struggled to be able to
train when we first got back. We've got all these
new soldiers waiting for us, and we need to train them,
and we have some people leaving, but we actually we
maintained a lot of our combat experience, which was huge, right,
And the unit had already been together because of the
(22:29):
whole everybody's locked in because of the transformation, Like the
unit ae A Hole had been locked in longer than
probably any unit that deployed direct for the rest of
the the war. Because you're talking guys that have been
locked in with each other for eighteen months.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Right, Yeah, that's it. You can't replace that.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
And we retained I think around half of that, if
not better when it came to the second deployment.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, that's still pretty good.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Awesome. Yeah, but we're trying to train and that, Like
we had the like we're bottom of the list because
other units are getting ramped up to go before us.
So like we had to get created. We'd like go
to Yakama, or we'd go to a National Guard base
at the Oregon coast, like anywhere we could go to train.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Right, what's what's the performance on these on these strikers,
I mean, being brand new, I mean we're were there
a lot of a lot of bugs, to work out or.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
You know, I think we did pretty good working the
bugs out with the amount of training we did. Like
we took them up Yakama when we first got them,
and we worked out a lot of bugs. Yeah, and
I mean there were some issues and then there was
I mean even when we were in theater, they're like, Okay,
we're going to upgrade this or we're going to upgrade that.
(23:45):
And then we came back from the first tour and
they're like, we're gonna We're gonna upgrade a whole lot now.
And I mean I wouldn't even recognize the Strikers they're
running around in now because they have v holes, they
don't have boxes in the troop compartment, they have jump
seeds right right, And now they're getting to go back
to they're gonna put tourists with heavy guns on two
(24:08):
per platoon in an infantry unit.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Now, It's that's definitely changing any tactics right there. I mean,
that's that's combining a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, plus gunnery.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys for Strikers, do you do
you have any mortars? Any mortars go with that?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You know, there there was a mortar variant essentially, imagine
a skylight that could open up and they could shoot
a one twenty from inside the striker.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Wow, I can only imagine the concussion inside. So you're
you're back to for Lewis, You're you're training again, and
you said you were at the bottom of the list.
How many AMITY units were ahead of you?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Off the top of my head, I don't know, because
we had grown a lot. I mean, at one point
every unit within the twenty third was actually at Fort Lewis.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Okay, who replaced you guys at overseas?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Let's see, we were third brigade, first brigade, okay, second
invagery replaced us and we left our vehicles and they
fell in on our vehicles, and then we back to
Fort Lewis and took there just to avoid shipping more
good you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Mean common sense that doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Who knew?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, that makes all the sense of the world. So
so you're back in Fort Lewis, you're training. How long
were you back before you deployed again.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Let's see, we came back in October of four, and
we deployed again in late June of six.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Oh, okay, so you were back for a pretty good
amount of time. You're back as long as you were deployed.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, so okay, half of that was like right back
into an it c.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Right right, so you you get ready again. What was
it like the second time versus the first time?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Well, second time was quite a bit different. I I
ended up marrying the girl that lived next door to
me since we were eight years old until we graduated
high school. And that was like maybe five weeks before
we left, Like they gave me a day and to
go get married. And then uh, like I said, we
left in late June. Originally we were supposed to fall
(26:30):
in on the same footprint, like same platoon aos, like
we were loving life well, like this is awesome, like
we know where the checkpoints are and the phase lines.
And then right before we were gonna push north, they're like, frago,
you're going to Baghdad and we're like, ah, like has
anybody taken strikers to Bagdad? Yet They're like no, and
we're like, well that's gonna be interesting. And so they
(26:52):
do the what do they call it, the may Com Brief?
The threat brief, Like what's going on currently? And the
first slide is in abram with it's turned on the
ground and I'm looking at the kid beside me, and
I'm like, you know, those are a lot stronger than strikers.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, a lot heavier too. So what's what's the way
on the striker?
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Any idea about thirty three pounds depending on the variant?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, I think an M one is what seventy tons
something like this? Yeah, yeah, I think the M one
A two I think is a little heavier because it's
got the autoloader. So how was how was this second
deployment and your tactics? How was that different versus.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know, the second deployment, ros were a lot more strict.
I got sidetracked somehow earlier. But on the first deployment
we didn't have an ROE at all until the night
before we left to go to Iraq.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Well, life is a little easier in some some respects
that way. Yeah, when you get too restrictive an ROE,
you're like your hands are tied.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
We're we're like chomping at the battalion commander. We're like, hey,
like we gotta have an r OE, Like what are
we telling these kids? And finally he's like, look, use
if you feel threatened, use use whatever means necessary to
eliminate the threat, and we're like, okay, that works.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Right, So you get there the second time, and now
you've got to establish o OE right.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Oh yeah, And it was more like CSI Bagdad, Like
we would literally like if you couldn't, if you couldn't
knock them down in time, and they surrendered and you
knew better, so you had to take them in and
then you take them to the detainee holding facility and
they'd be like, oh, you don't have enough evidence, and
(28:43):
they'd let them go and you'd see the same guys
again in the next skirmish, and it's like, what are we.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Doing so so logistically? How how are you when when
they surrender? How are you? How you transporting these people
in the striker with us in the striker? Okay? It
just interesting. So was there was there any difference? Had
had you seen any difference in the equipment? Was there
any upgrades? Was there any?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Oh? Yeah, Like the second we had blash shields on
the squad leater hatches and the air hatches and netting,
like there was a lot more. Let's try and protect
people more from blasts, and let's try to protect people
more from sniper fire.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Right, So was that what was the tempo like that
second time? Was it a little little more action?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You know it like we we dealt more with I
ds and they were more like E fps. That that
was the new toy and we uh, we definitely took
some more casualties. And when towards the end of my deployment,
(29:51):
because I wasn't there very long. On the second one,
we were basically doing a pre surge to see if
the idea of a surge in Baghdad would work. Okay,
and later down the road ultimately they decided yes, it
would work, and that's that's the way it went, and
it worked well.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But right, yeah, that the I E. D's from you know,
from the beginning until even you know, right at the end.
I mean, that was a whole complete change, you know,
across the board on how they were you know, very
very simplified and crude, you know, almost like just you know,
pressure to now you're getting into remote detonation and and
(30:34):
things like that. As you know, as we talked about briefly,
the tactics change. So what where were you what were
you seeing as far as the techniques used in the
I D.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
S Oh, one secondaries targeting those coming to help that
that was a huge thing with secondary explosions. And then,
like I said earlier, the e fps.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
All right, so you you get an idea, do you dismount,
you dismount, set a perimeter?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I mean is that what you It depends if the
vehicle that gets hit is able to keep driving, you
want to get out of that kill zone, right, and
so you you'll push through. But if it's disabled, then
then you've got to set up security evac. Do you
do you torch the vehicle, get all the sensitive stuff
(31:23):
out or what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
So is that where you were also seeing some of
these secondary IDs, I mean if you waiting for people
to dismount yep, yeah, yeah, that's that's it's crazy that
you know that how those tactics just continued to evolve.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
You know, they were if nothing else, they were adaptive
as all hell.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Right, But I mean it gets combat on both sides
is always adaptive, right, I mean, initial initial deployments for
any you're always you're always fighting with the previous wars tactics,
in the previous Wars equipment, right, and then as you
continue to go on, you develop and you you know,
new equipment and new tactics. So so you mentioned you
(32:07):
weren't there that long, so let's get into that a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
So, like I said, we deployed in late June of six.
On the sixteenth of October. In six we were doing
fixed site security at checkpoint one oh five across from
RPG Ali, and basically we had gotten tired. It was
almost like a bad scene from the Green Zone. We
(32:31):
had gotten tired of going back out and pulling guards.
So the engineers could rebuild this checkpoint because the Iraqis
abandoned it that night and then they just kept torch
it and there was an abandoned house and all the
houses looked like compounds. So they're like, hey, let's turn
this into like their guard check. They're going to stay here.
We're tired of this. One of the first things they
(32:53):
tell you in your threat brief is don't sit in
one spot too long. You become a mortar magnet. Alpha
Company had been there all night without incident, so we
roll out to relieve them, and we set up our
four corners of security. We got some guys on the
roof and the lieutenants inside, and the lieutenant calls me
up on the radio and he's like, hey, I want
(33:13):
you to move your truck to where you're pretty much
gonna back up to the opening of the gate for
the compound, so if anything tease off, everybody inside's protected.
And I'm like, okay, that makes sense. And no sooner
than we put it in park, we hear the most
insane explosion. And we've heard like their equivalent to like
(33:35):
sixty milimeter mortars, and this wasn't that. It was like
shake your bones out of your skin explosion, and with
the vehicle spun up and running, you couldn't tell that
it was a mortar round. And we immediately start taking
small arms and RPGs. So we nose into it and
we're calling it up. We just assume it since it's
(33:57):
in the middle of the MSR. We're like, oh, it's
premature ad debt. And so I'm talking to the lieutenant
on the radio and the next thing i know, because
I'm standing exposed out of the squad that your hatch
on the striker, I see the mortar around that gets
me land in front of the nose of the striker
and I'm like uh oh, And so then I'm inside
(34:19):
and It's only a split second, but it's that moment
of like what just happened? And my my rounds from
all my magazines are everywhere, and I'm like, oh, cheap
freaking magazines and I'm like spinning out part of my
jaw and stuff, and I'm like, oh, like this this
isn't good. And my Gunnar didn't even want to look over.
He's like, you came down so fast, like I thought
(34:41):
you got decapitated.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
He heard me complain and he's like, oh, he's gonna
be okay. And he looks at me and I feel
stuff running down the side of my face and I'm
like trying to wipe it off, and he grabs my hand.
He's like you don't want to do that. And I'm
like what, Like, what the hell's going on? And he
puts his hand on my shoulder and he's like you're
gonna be okay. So and I'm like, okay, step one,
check step two? How bad is it? And he's like,
(35:06):
your your eyes hanging out of your head and I'm like, oh,
I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
So concussion, oh, any concussion from that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, they like they couldn't they didn't have a baseline
or anything. So they're like, look, there's there's and they
later the crater analysis said it was a one twenty.
So they're like, look, there's there's no way you can
be that close and not have some sort of TBI. Sure,
like not possible.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
So how how close is the closest medic at this point.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Inside that compound? But we're getting just rate with small arms,
machine gun fire RPD, and the lieutenants like, I'm sending
you the medic and he's like, you need to get
their heads down before before you send the medic because
the one thing we don't need is a shot up medic.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So how long was it until the
medic shows up?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, just a few minutes. And it sounds bad, but
like you, you couldn't ask for a better set of
injuries as far as being stable after the fact. Like
somehow I got clipped with a ricochet in the shoulder
and it just cauterized right through. Okay, that wasn't bleeding
in because of the tear ducks and all that stuff,
(36:23):
and the saliva because of the jaw stuff, Like there
was a whole lot of blood, but it was real
bright red and like thin. So it was like, okay,
like there's there's not a whole lot to panic about here.
It's not ideal, but it's not bad.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Okay. So what was going through your mind?
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Oh? Pretty much that well, I'm not going to die today,
Like that was all I was. I was going to
focus on that, and I'm like taking my radio off
and grabbing my keys to the squad box like night
vision goggles wet, like all my stuff laid out. So
when the senior team leader, who was also, by the way,
a very young E five that was about to become
(37:02):
a very young E six, comes back, I'm like, squad's yours, buddy,
here's everything you need.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Toby on this deployment with you?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
No, No, Toby was God, who is he with at
that point? Fourth id?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Maybe okay?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
He uh he was with us on the first tour
and then went to another unit. I think he might
have been like deployed in the guard at that point,
because I think he was going cool.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
So you start dumping equipment, Maddic comes over, starts patching
you up. Where do they send you after that?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
You know, we went back because we were within eyesight
of FOB Liberty, So we went first to the AID
station and I'm like, lifelimer, I say it, why aren't
we going to the cash But whatever, right, so we go.
We go to the unit aid station and the PA
is like, all right, take it to the green zone,
and I'm like, I feel like we could have just
went there. But the cool thing is my platoons are
(37:59):
and didn't mess around. And he had already, like I
had been wounded previous, like superficially wounded previously and had
to be evact and my platoons are basically got colded
scolded for splitting section. So what he did is he
took what was left of my squad and parted us
out on two vehicles and left two vehicles as overwatch
(38:22):
and the rest of the platoon on site. And they're like, no,
you can't do that, and he's like, okay, well, once
I really really got hurt, he didn't hesitate to do
it again. So, like we could hear the platoon in
a gunfight as they're taking me into the aid station.
Then they take me to the green zone and they're like,
all right, we gotta go by.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
So they fight in Germany or where did you go?
You know?
Speaker 1 (38:50):
I stayed at the green zone, Like they removed bone fragment,
metal fragment, basically just stabilized, removed what was left in
my eye and uh that was like eight hour surgery
right out the gate. And then I stayed the next night.
Then they took me and you know, not not sleeping,
(39:11):
being pretty drugged up, a lot of pain. They take
me to fab Anaconda and I'm like, wait a minute,
I just survived a freaking mortar attack, and you send
me to the one place that gets bordered the most bullshit,
sent me somewhere else. They like, I don't. I don't
think you realize you don't have to say so in
this well.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
I mean, yeah, you're your captive audience at this point.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
And then I was there for one night. Then I
went to uh Germany. There I was at Germany for
one night. I mean I was at Walter reed the
next day. Like I got hurt on the sixth of October,
and I landed at Portland Airport with my wife and
my dad on the sixteenth of October. That's pretty quick,
(39:54):
like really fat brown.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I mean you're almost landing in Romstein, Germany just to
refuel and.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
The pretty much once they took bone fragment out, the
metal fragment out, removed what was left in my eye.
There was nothing they could really do until that all
healed to start the reconstructive process anyway, Right.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
So how much how much did you lose? And that
they had to I'm assuming it's titanium now.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, the cheekbone is titanium plate. The temple was shattered,
but that's superficial, so they just clean out bone bone
fragment and leave it. Fracture on the skull behind the
eyebrow fractured the mandible joint. I lost a horizontal portion
of my jaw and a couple of teeth on the
opposite side. And I think that was from the Duke
Antanna because that turned into its own little spores of
(40:41):
shrap mel right, and then the ricochet through the shoulder.
Cool about that as it cauterized. So yeah, other than
other than my poor wife having to pack both sides
of that every day for a month.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
You gotta you gotta give it to military wives, man,
and they you know that, unsung heroes. So yeah, I've
got I've got two titanium plates above and below my
left eye from a car accident that I was flung
out of a vehicle.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I could literally I could feel my pulse where my
cheek one was supposed to be. I was like, okay,
my cheekbone past.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
So you wanted Walter read very long and they just
sent you.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, they couldn't even do anything. Now, my primary doctor
wanted to keep me there, and that was before they
started farming people the different major medical facilities. And my
primary doctor was very adamant about wanting me to stay there,
and I'm like, look, my family's in Washington. There's a
major medical facility at Fort Lewis. Like, here's the deal.
(41:44):
You can either give me orders and plane tickets or
you're going to be explaining to the freaking media why
I bottomed myself. And I'm a staff startedt guess what
I can afford.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
To do that?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Right, and I know my rights. I'm going to fuse
medical treatment and I'm going to sign in to my
root attachment within twenty four hours and you can't do
anything about it.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I was like, those are your choices. And he's getting
really mad because now now you've got an officer with
a staff startant telling him how it's going to go,
not one about as well as you'd think it would.
But the ophthalmologist at Walter Reed looks at him and
he's like, hey, sir, I'm not trying to tell you
what to do in this situation. But the guy that
trained me is at Madigan. Maybe you should let him go. Yeah,
(42:31):
because my whole mind, my whole mindset was, look, my
family's life doesn't stop because of this, sure, like I'm
not gonna expect them to uproot and be here for
the next two to three years.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Well, and your your mental wellness, you know, leads to
your physical wellness.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Right, Yeah, I am there.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, if you're where your family is and you're surrounded
by family, you know, that's that's better for you mentally
and physically.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Like here have my parents, an extended family, my wife's
parents and extended family, people that I went like I've
known since I was a kid. It's like, you know,
home is better, let's let's do that.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah. Madigan's a pretty big, pretty big facility too.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
It was great.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah. So how long how long were you I mean,
how long were we down for before they said, okay,
now we've got to make a decision.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I would say, I mean, I was on convalescently from
coming home from Walter reed and went straight to Madigan
and was like, all right, how do we get this
started right? And unfortunately that sent me straight to the
way or transitional Battalion. Then like you can't be doing
a med board. Not go here. But uh. It took
(43:45):
about two two and a half years of reconstructive surgery
because after all the scandals of people getting pushed out
of the guard before they were put back together, they
not let me leave until I was done. Okay, so
prosthetic eye, everything, oral surgery to try and fix everything
with the jaw.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, and you said they gave you an option. They
could put you out to put your blind a desk
and you weren't interested to be a bud a desk.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Inture you getting my first look for E seven, I
knew better, Like I had this made when I went
through the med boorg process. And he's like, I can't
legally tell you what to do. I'm just gonna tell
you what I would do in your situation. He's like,
if you get out now, you're gonna make more money
than if you stay in for ten more years. Yeah,
And I might have made seven, but I never would
(44:32):
have been promoted again.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean if you're stuck byd a desk,
I mean who knows.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I mean, well changes it would be a lot like
being a lieutenant, Like my privates would know more than
I would about the job, like I'd know it on paper,
but experience.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Okay, so you get out and then then what do
you do?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
So honestly, I didn't know what to do with myself.
I threw myself into volunteering with local organization Northwest Battle
budd He's doing service dogs for veterans couple like the VFW. Locally,
I had a battle of the bold survivor scoot me
up and take me out to the BFW and sign
(45:19):
me up and get me involved. That that helped a lot.
And then one of the guys I served with, I
was roommates with himt one point he uh, he started
doing a nonprofit for veterans based off of something he
loved before the army, and it was MMA okay, and
so he got into it, saw the benefit. Then he
started exposing other veterans to it, and uh, I kind
(45:44):
of used that and went back to salmon fishing because
that's what I loved. That's what I loved. Sorry, I
gotta let the dog out. Ye that's right, That's what
I loved before the army. So I was like why not?
And it was it was an instant hit.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
And then one of my buddies that I served with
wasn't doing well. Cash he wasn't doing well. So I'm like, okay,
let me let me take you fishing. And after a
weekend I could like the lighter. And so then I
just tried to start doing it on my own. And
at a certain point I decided I was going to
start my own nonprofit. Picked out to Toby and he's like, hey,
(46:27):
do you want to uh do you want to run
a business or do you want to just take veterans fishing?
And I'm like, I just want to take veterans fishing.
And he's like, hey, you know, I volunteer with this
nonprofit in Texas and we don't have salmon fishing, so
let us help you just take veterans fishing. We got you, right,
And so I was the Northwest outreach coordinator for Veteran
(46:49):
Outdoors for five or seven years, all right. And then
when Toby left Veteran Outdoors to pursue UH Red Rum sport,
fishing and cabo. That was kind of the point for
me and Toby. I tell my wife to blame Toby.
(47:09):
I was like, so, what do you think I should
do next? And he's like, I think you should get
your guide license and start a business. And that that's
what I ended up doing. And the cool thing is
there's a place in Tacoma, Washington called Flagship Maritime and
they take a g I built benefits and so I
(47:29):
was like, awesome, I'm actually going to use this for something.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Okay, So so running running a business, I mean, how's that?
You know? You go from being an infantry splitting skulls
to fishing for a living. I mean, that's the story.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
The beauty is being a fishing guide. Let's just say
the army, especially the infantry, gave me a lot of
endurance that I needed. So, you know, priorities of work, Oh,
you're tired, I want to go to bed. Oh I
got to tie leaders for tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yeah, and getting up but sometimes two in the morning,
sometimes four in the morning. Just I have no patience
for shenanigans at boat ramps. So I want to be
like the first two or three people to launch my boat.
And get my stuff ready and then just sit there
and relax for a while until clients show up.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Boat Boat ramps are infamous for shenanigans. It doesn't matter what,
what state, what where you're at, there's always something that
it's you can sit there and just watch people watching
a boat ramp.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Well, and the more they regulate our salmon seasons and
less opportunity we have, the worse it gets. So it's
it's like the powers that be in Washington and Oregon
are piling a bunch of people up in one spot
and that makes it all worse. Yeah, because I have
(48:56):
no patience to sit in line for an hour to
launch my right.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, So do you pretty much go to the same
launch point or do you I mean, do you branch out?
And is there no?
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I I mean I've got a fishery up at Baker
Lake on the northern border of Washington, for sake, and
that's a seven hour drive. Oh wow, So needless to say,
I stay there, Yeah, or when I fish the coast
at the mouth of the Columbia where it meets the Pacific,
all stay down there for about forty five days because
(49:32):
that's a two hour drive from the house.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
But if it's a fishery that's within an hour of
my house, I come home every night.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Nice. So do you have any downtime any any part
of the season that's you can't fish for anything? You know.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Most of what I do is trolling for salmon, and
that gives me about seven months out of the year, okay.
And then I do catch and release sturgeon for the
two okay, and then that gives me the winner off.
And all I do in the winner is maybe jump
on a buddy that's a guide, jump on his boat
(50:10):
to go steal head vision or my uh, I don't
know if you saw pictures of the boat dog on
the website. Yeah, I have a freakishly large black lab
that he likes to be on the boat, but he
loves to chase ducks.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Okay, so you know what you do any duck huntings?
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Yeah, that's that's that's if I'm doing anything in the winter,
that's I'm taking a dog and I'm sitting in a
blind and it's great when there's birds. But I don't
care if there's birds or not, Like I'm nothing else matters.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
You say, a freakishly large dog, I've got one hundred
and thirty pound Great Pyrenees on the floor behind me.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, mine's Mine's a lab and we we think there
may be a little great day in there. But he
is six pounds.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
It's pretty big.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
That's a big lab and he's freakishly tall.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
So let's let's kind of back up a little bit
and and talk about you know, i'd mentioned at the
beginning your your thoughts going in. I mean, you're you're
at airborne Infantry. You knew what you got you were
getting into, yeah, versus you know, you're you just got
sent home from your second deployment. What what is your
take on, you know, everything that happened over there. It
(51:32):
to include, you know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, because I
know that's kind of a sore point for a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
You know, I actually never went to Afghanistan, but I
felt like there was a whole lot of parallels to
Vietnam and lessons that weren't learned, or lessons that should
have been learned that were forgotten. Right, Hey, let's tell
him we're leaving. Let's tell him exactly when we're leaving.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Right, andthing else? I mean, what's what's your thought on
just the Iraq and that whole thing.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
I'm not gonna lie. It stung a little watching Mosl fall. Yeah,
And I was super happy when the eighty second sent
a brigade in there to kick the snot out of
Isis because Pat Work was the brigade commander and he
was actually my first company commander at Fort Lewis, Okay.
(52:25):
And they also dropped like a five thousand pounder on
the Asher Hotel, So no soldier will ever have to
run up fourteen flights of stairs again, because you know,
we'll go back.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean the Middle East has been
a hot spot for a long time. So all right, Well,
any anything else about any of your deployments, any you know,
anything you want I want people to know, I mean,
anything you saw, you know, did any engagements, any anything.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
I mean in the grand scheme of things. They they
felt unevented, full Like I've never wanted to be the
guy to oversell what I did, right. It always kind
of felt like it was like, Okay, what's going on?
And then something would happen, and then it would be
quiet again, and then something would happened.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Right, I Mean you'd mentioned before about you know some
of the people, were you know, happy you were there?
You know, I was that? Was that the same on
your second deployment? I mean we was it kind of
the same same response or had things changed? No?
Speaker 1 (53:33):
It always felt like we made the area better. Okay,
for the most part, the response was as receptive as
it could be.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Okay, your second deppointment, did you have to you have
to go? Because you said, you know that, not not
to knock on one hundred first, but they were just
kind of there and maybe you know, didn't make things
as good as they could have been. Was that the
same because you're you're kind of replacing your previous unit
or one of your other sister units. Was is it
saying the second time or was it a little easier the.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Second tour we replaced fourth ID and it it felt
like a little there, There was less like it didn't
seem like we had to fix some things.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Was fourth IDs and Strikers at this point?
Speaker 1 (54:22):
No, Bradley's okay, So so again you're going back with
the Strikers.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
You know, still fairly new equipment, I mean relatives compared
to some of the stuff in the military. No, no issues,
but tactics probably changed a little bit. You know, you
said that the worst upgrades, Yeah, would How how how
were the tactics changing a little bit in that second?
Speaker 1 (54:49):
How how we would necessarily roll into like an objective okay,
like not necessarily ducks in a row, like maybe offset
like one section going down one one street and then
another section another street a block away.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
How different was Bagdad the city versus Mosyl.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Oh it was insane, just this the soide difference. But
it was also easier to maneuver Mozel because you're talking
about old town Nevana m If you weren't careful, you
would end up going down some crazy maze and get
like stuck, like either the striker wouldn't fit through it
(55:31):
or it would just dead end like it You would
feel like a mouse in a freaking science experiment maze.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
And bag Dad's a little more laid out, a little
easier layout.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
A little more maneuverable, okay, Like they would try to
push up cars like block the entry to Mahullas with
cars and we got to go straight monster trucking over them.
It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
Oh that sounds like a lot of fun. So any
anything else about any either of these just you want
people to know no. I mean.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
Like I've had people be like, oh, you're you're a hero,
and I'm like, I just didn't duck when I should have.
I should have ducked.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
I had a guy by the name of J. P.
Serventis on former Green Beret, and and he said that
he heard someone say this that when you know, they say,
you know, thank you for your service. And the response
he now uses is you were worth it, you know,
to to the person saying that to you, you're the
simple responses you were worth it, and you hear that
(56:42):
you're kind of the band of brothers and everything you know,
or not band of brothers, the one of Tom Hanks,
you know, be the person you know that that you want.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Everybody to know, you know, sacrificed.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well all right, sir, well, I thank
you for your evening, you know, thank you for you know,
sharing sharing your stories with us, and uh yeah, I
appreciate it. Thank you, thanks for having me, absolutely ex
give me one minute
M m.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
M m. I'm not the reason the chief of a
killing the season with a need to blease you with
the light goest bring Let's believe him in the zone
to be from a end of a yankom aane.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
To see good.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Agree, I'm I say when you call the beef.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Because I'll weird.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I'm a one of a kind, and I'll bring death
to the glacier about a week and of the river
of blood running under my feet. Orsin a fire did
long ago stand next to me?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You'll never stand alone.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
One last to leave, but the first to go the Lord,
make me dead before you make me old a feet
on the fear of the devil.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Inside of the enemy faces in.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
My sight, being with a hand or shoe, with a mind,
kill with a heart like ARTI guys, I EPI soldier
and marting on. I am a warrior and this is
(01:18):
my song, my master the rising.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
They raced to the.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Ground of an enemy.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Sure I read you, Lema Charlie, loud and clear. Welcome
to Stuart the Unpresents Lema Charlie Episode fourteen with John
Kaiser Junior. Thank you John for coming on. Tell us
about yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
You know I joined the Army right out of high school,
went to Fort Benning Infantry School, Airborne School, went to
the eighty second Airborne Division for about three years, went
to Operation Southern Watch to go babysit Patriot missiles in
Quoit while I was there, and kind of thought I
(02:07):
would do more while I was there, But that was
in like ninety nine and that was about it. So
when my reenlistment window opened, I kind of wanted to
come back to Washington. So Fort Lewis was the place
to be. And the Striker Brigade was Shintiki's baby at
the time, so figured if anybody was going to go somewhere,
(02:28):
that would be a good place to go.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So did you grow up want want to join the
army or be in the military.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You know, when I was younger, like going to fairs
and stuff and seeing the recruiters, I kind of always
wanted to. I grew up listening to stories that three
great uncles that were all infantry in World War Two.
One of them was in the first first Special Service
Force and he's the one that did not come home
for World War Two. So it was pretty fitting that
(02:56):
I did some time in airborne infantry.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And so because of them you wanted you wanted to
be infantry. You didn't, you didn't think of any other.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, They're like, what do you want to do? And
I was like, airport infantry and they're like, are you sure?
And the station commander was infantry, so he was he
was like, come here, I got you all right.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
So obviously you're you're for brag and and uh Fort
Lewis you were active duty. So did you transfer to
the Guard or anything or no? I was.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I was gonna stay in the Army until the point
where the Army told me they no longer needed my services.
And once I got hurt on my second tour in Iraq,
they offered me a desk or home and it was
time to go home.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Okay, so you go to you go to uh anything
interesting and for brag I was. That was my last
duty station before I got out. But uh so anything
interesting it while you're at for brag.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Not I mean, we trained, and we trained, and I
mean you're running off of a very proud legacy, so
the disciplined and like it was a pretty good first
duty station for a private in the Army, right, Like.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I remember, I remember they had the sign I forget
what street it was on. It had the you know
how many days without a uh yeah, and and I
think in the time I was there, it got up
to eighty two one time, and you know that meant
you guys got a day off. I was. I was
at the thirty fifth Signal Brigate Brigade, and so I
(04:25):
was up the street at smoke Bomb Hill. But uh yeah,
it got to eighty two one time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I was in the I was in the third of
the five oh fifth, and I think we saw forty
weekends twice because we made it to eighty two.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah. Yeah, that's that's kind of sad to think about it,
that they couldn't reach eighty two days without a you know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So so you spent three years of BRAGG and then
you go to uh Fortlans, Washington, which you're you're from Washington, right,
you're from that area. Okay, so you go to where
were you at Washington? What U what unit? It was?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Uh? Game? This there, third Infantry Okay. I wasn't like,
you know, it was pretty cool. I was in the
same unit as Toby None. Yeah, I met. I met
Toby ten minutes before I got my first gun fight.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Were you were, So did you join as an eleven
X or did you join with a contract as an
eleven B.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I was airborne infantry by contract.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Okay, okay, so you didn't get to just kind of
thrown into eleven or whatever. So if you the Striker
is a little a little different it.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Uh. It was actually super easy because there was a
big push to get people from both mechanized and light
infantry into that unit. Okay, so that way because there
was no there was no book on how to use
them in combat, we had to create it.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
All right, Well, I guess the downside is Striker is
not an airborne unit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I was okay with it. I think I jumped, like
I'll guess low because I'd have to pull out my log,
but I want to say it was like forty six
times in two and a half years, and that's a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, yeah, I know. I remember when I was there.
You guys were jumping all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I was. I was ready to be done. When I
was young, I took every jump I could get my
hands on, and then halfway through I was like, I'm stupid.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Like, well, probably probably about two inches shorter because bones compressed,
So so how long were you at in the Striker
unit before your first employment.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Let's see, I showed up in two thousand, summer of
two thousand and we deployed in October of three to
Missoili employment.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Okay, so you had some time there. Yeah, did to
mess with the strikers before you?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Like? I? Yeah, well, a lot of our training at
first was like we were using hummers and like flashing
our lights to pretend it was the r WS, like
for training. Excuse me. Then we borrowed uh a lot
of labs from Canada and we use those and they're like,
forget about the turret. You're not getting a turret, Like,
(07:09):
don't touch it. But at least it gave us a
feel for how the vehicles reacted, like driving with the
weight and everything.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Did you do any time down there at Fort Polk training?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Or we we went we did a back to back.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I think we went NTC first and then to Fort Polk.
We literally jumped from one to the other.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
That's a that's a lot of a lot of railhead.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, Unfortunately I was the battalion guy for that detail too. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So so you're you're training up brand new unit, brand
new equipment, right, like you said, there was there's no manual,
there's no no tactics, no nothing. How are y'all developing tactics?
I mean we all just kind of taking tactics from
Brad or what were all doing?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I mean it was literally the higher ups were literally
brainstorming like, Okay, this works for mechanized, this works for light.
How do we combine the two? And then we also
had like we had tankers embedded with us and they
had the they would end up having the at GM
or the toe missile variant, and so like it was
(08:28):
literally just like how how do we do this? Like
we would do things like go to Camp Raylea down
at the Oregon Coast National Guard Base and they've got
a mount site for mainly two seven five there, And
it was literally a bunch of leaders that went down
with a few guys that knew how to drive the strikers.
And it was to the point where we're like, okay,
(08:51):
let's see if we can go from the air century
hatches through a second story window, like let's try all
the things and see what we think will work the best.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Right, So for striker, if I remember and I was signaled,
so but I had a lot of friends that were
in different like cab and stuff like that. So for
a striker is everybody trained on every position.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
When we deployed the first time, everybody all the way
up to the battalion commander had a driver's license for
the striker. So that way things went hairy in any
kind of way. Anybody could jump in and drive, okay,
or be a vehicle commander, right okay, And that way
the squad leaders knew how to better implement the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Right. So you so you two thousand and three, y'all
are deploying these first time in country, right, and this
is your first employment, right rather than the first combat,
first combat deployment. So you get there. What was the
tempo like in O three?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
You know it was it was a little flow at first,
and we were relieving the hundred and first and they
they had they had been worked pretty hard to push
all the way north to Mosel and so we did
our right seat left seat rides and every it seemed
(10:14):
like all the powers that be are like, oh, this,
this whole concept is going to fail, Like you're going
to replace a division with a brigade, Like how's that
gonna work? Or like a battalion is going to hold
what a brigade had held.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Right, So what was what was one hundred and first
usion were they were just using armored humbes and yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And well that early it was I mean if they were,
if they were up armored, it's because they went to
junk yards and pulled out steel, right, Yeah, like they
were stam bagged up right.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
So so you get you get there? How did these
how did these vehicles react to that environment?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
You know, I'm not gonna lie. Coming coming from an
airborne contry unit, I hated everything about it. I was like,
I hate this vehicle. Let me out of it, like
I want to if it's going to happen, I want
to see it coming. I don't want to be stuck
in an armored coffin.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you know, the first time we rolled through an
idea and nobody got hurt, and we had a couple
of flat tires, but we were able to just Charlie
Mike back to base, right, it was like, oh okay,
Like if we were in a hummer, that would have
been a lot worse.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, yeah, or almost anything else. Yeah, So how so
you get there, right, and you're taken over one hundred.
First was, uh, did the mission change from what they
were doing for uh to what you were doing? Because
you're you're you're basically a different unit, right, You're different tactics,
different you know, posture everything.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So you know, like I'm not bagging on them because
they went through a lot and God only knows what
was in their heads at the time, but it felt
like we had to mend some relationships local in order
to accomplish anything, right, And so once we were able
to do that, that helped a lot. And we spent
(12:10):
a lot of time out of the wire, like a
lot of time out of the wire, so they saw
us all the time, right.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So so that temp that's that's a pretty good tempo
if you're if you're outside all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
So what what was that time doing? I mean other
than just you know, hearts and minds? Did y'all did
y'all have any high value targets? Did y'all have any
you know? Or was it just basically be seen as
a force, you know, to.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Go And we always had a q RF ready to
go if things teed off, But like we would act,
we would do a lot of raids acting on intel
that were dry holes. Okay, Like I remember when that
American went over there and wanted to start a cell
phone company or something. We went looking for him because
(12:57):
we had him and they're like, no, you have to
let him go, and then he got captured. So then
we went looking for him, but it was too late,
all right, all right?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
So how how did your tactics change from excuse me,
from what y'all had been training in INTC and charity
c uh, from what you know, because you we all
know once once you get there, you know, the handboo
goes out the window.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Right, Oh, yeah, totally. I mean when we got there,
we we did not have a set roe until the
day we rolled out of Kuwait and we drove from
Kuwait all the way to Mosul. Oh wow, because we
don't have to put the bikers on trucks. You just
get in and go.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Right. What's a maximum speed of a striker?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
You know without the bird cage on, it probably roll
about seventy with the age you're probably looking at by fifties.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
All right, Still that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, yeah, especially, I mean it's like thirty three thousand pounds.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I remember that when before Bragg got those l mtvs first,
and they had major problems with them at the angle
of the drive chefs.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And couldn't go over thirty five miles.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Now, oh yeah, you want to talk about going going
to the field sucked?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
We did it on detail cycle DRF nine or whatever
it is, verse seven. We uh we got tasked to
here school and coming back from Camp McCall only being
able to go thirty I was like, man, I'd rather walk.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, it's miserable. It's miserable. And like I said, I
was in a commo unit, so we all of our
equipment is on trucks and so you know, there's there's
no there's no walking. Everything's got to go. So so
you're you're out there, You've got you know, the manuals
now out the window, tactics. You're probably just making it
(14:52):
up on the fly, right, I mean, because the enemy's
changing as well, right, so everything is adapting all the time,
especially early on.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
So what was that like, you know, it was interesting.
I mean there was always this like we're gonna we're
gonna try and like you can split sections, but you
want to try and stay within a block or two
of each other. That way of one half of your
platoon gets engaged the other to maneuver and then oh,
by the way, you got a QRF like five minutes
down the road if you need them, right, And that
(15:21):
worked out pretty well.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Okay, So, uh, what other what other things changed in that?
I mean from what you were, what you guys were,
and did you guys have to do in these changes
as you're changing tactics, were you guys having to Was
there any kind of documentation? Was there anybody you know
reporting this type of information back to higher ups going
you know, this doesn't work, This doesn't work, you know,
because as the military goes right, as you you try things,
(15:46):
somebody's gonna put it in a book somewhere, right, and
it's gonna end up in a school for training.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So it was kind of a NonStop evolution, honestly, okay.
And then we had like we would go through in
Moseell especially, we would go through these like it would
be quiet, but because of where it sat geographically the insurgents,
that was like their first stop coming into country, right,
So we kind of had this like plan where it's like, okay,
(16:14):
if things like really tee off, you guys are going
to go to this opie and you're gonna go to
this opie and it was all like one massive interlocking
sectors of fire from rooftops.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Right. Okay, so you said you met Toby. What you
said five minutes before you deployed?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Literally, well, not before we deployed. We were already in
country and I went from one company to Toby's and
ended up as an AG and his weapons squad. And
as he's like introducing me to the guys in the
squad and he's like, yeah, we're on QRF, a freaking
Chinese rocket goes off and he's like, welcome, welcome to
(16:54):
the company. Get your stuff on. We're gonna go get
shot at nice.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Nice. But what was it like? We're with Toby?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Uh, you know, like I knew him by reputation, but
I didn't know him at the time. And like sometimes
you meet a new leader and you're like, okay, does
this guy know his stuff? And then other times you
meet a new leader and you're like, okay, I will
follow you. Let's go right, And that was definitely Toby.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Definitely Toby. Okay, So how long was this first deployment?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
That one was pretty much right on a year.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Oh, Wow, that's that's pretty good amount.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
We hadn't started the eighteen month yet, Okay, so.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Any anything exciting go on? I mean, it's it's of course,
it's all you know. It's it's all all new to you.
Your first combat deployment. You're you're constantly you're probably running
into engagements on a regular basis. You have some down days,
some some not right, but anything you would stand out.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
It was almost like a like we we had I
can't remember if it was May night or April ninth,
but we got we got into a doozy and that
was the day that I met Tobi. Okay, but it
seemed like every three months the city would just go
nuts and then it would be quiet and like there'd
be little stuff here and there. But like it was,
(18:13):
it was almost a constant struggle to not get complacent
because you knew as soon as you did, it's like, oh, surprise,
we're gonna we're gonna play again.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
What do you think brought that about? You think it
was just you know, new bodies you know to the
line or would what do you think brought it about?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I almost part partly probably how we ran operations. It
would probably take that long for them to figure something out.
But I think they would almost like, I think the
insurgency would almost sit back and be like, maybe if
we wait long enough to let their guard down and
then we can be stupid again.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Right, Yeah, So were you so you're you'd mentioned something
I wanted to kind of talk about. You're talking about
the insurgents coming in. Were you going up again people
from other countries? Did you?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know? I would say after a few months of
us being with the one hundred and first already being there,
a few months of us being there doing raids and
looking for cachets and all that, I would say, after
a few months, almost everything we dealt with was insurgence
for the most part. Okay, Like we had one day
where they literally rolled up in a freaking great like
(19:24):
greyhound style bus and started off loading right in front
of a fifty cal tower at the airport in Mosul,
and we're just like, is this really happening right now?
Like is it this easy?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Did did you guys do any joint operations with other countries?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
You know, we did a lot of stuff with the uh,
let's see, the Fijians. When we one of the things
with the Striker when we were in Mosul is like
we had our area in mosl but the Striker you
could just drive and go, so like we would go
to tullaf Are. Hey, Like we bounced all over the
(20:02):
country when there was a need.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Right was it? What was it like working with some
of these other countries?
Speaker 1 (20:10):
You know, definitely different, they don't exactly operate the way
we do, but it always felt like everybody had the
same idea, like let's let's just do what we got
to do so we can get the hell out of here.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Right, And what were these what were the vehicles for
these other countries? I mean, you guys are running around
in these brand new you know, shiny, brand new to
the military equipment and what are these guys running around in?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Oh we saw b r DM BMPs driving around with discos?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Nice? So anything else on this this first apployment stand out?
And what was your you know, what what were you
thinking as your first appointment? You're like, hell, yeah, this
is what I signed up for.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I mean a little bit of that and a little
bit of like does really I wanted to do this?
Like am I stupid?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I think a lot of us probably said that is
as soon as we got the basic training, you got.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Consider like they're all gung ho before you go, and
I'm like, let's just see how it goes when.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You get there. Nice. Nice, So you go back to
Fort Lewis, right, and then then what are you doing?
I mean, infantry is not to be training all the
time anyway? Right?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Oh? Yeah? I had actually re enlisted in Iraq on
the first tour to stay. They they had offered a
really good incentive package if you re enlisted to stay
in the unit, that you would get like some serious stabilization.
I was like, Hey, I'm already in my home state.
This is great, this is pretty good unit. I want
(21:45):
to stay. So listed for six more years and I
knew that was the one that if I stayed beyond that,
it was indefinite time.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Right. What's what's your rank at this point.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
When we came back from the first tour sergeant sergeant.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Okay, so you get back to Fort Lewis and then
what's I mean, what are you guys doing? Is it
back to Jarity? Cee?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Is it back to you know, I mean fight back
to Jarity. See, we actually struggled to be able to
train when we first got back. We've got all these
new soldiers waiting for us, and we need to train them,
and we have some people leaving, but we actually we
maintained a lot of our combat experience, which was huge, right,
And the unit had already been together because of the
(22:29):
whole everybody's locked in because of the transformation, Like the
unit ae A Hole had been locked in longer than
probably any unit that deployed direct for the rest of
the the war. Because you're talking guys that have been
locked in with each other for eighteen months.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Right, Yeah, that's it. You can't replace that.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
And we retained I think around half of that, if
not better when it came to the second deployment.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, that's still pretty good.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Awesome. Yeah, but we're trying to train and that, Like
we had the like we're bottom of the list because
other units are getting ramped up to go before us.
So like we had to get created. We'd like go
to Yakama, or we'd go to a National Guard base
at the Oregon coast, like anywhere we could go to train.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Right, what's what's the performance on these on these strikers,
I mean, being brand new, I mean we're were there
a lot of a lot of bugs, to work out or.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
You know, I think we did pretty good working the
bugs out with the amount of training we did. Like
we took them up Yakama when we first got them,
and we worked out a lot of bugs. Yeah, and
I mean there were some issues and then there was
I mean even when we were in theater, they're like, Okay,
we're going to upgrade this or we're going to upgrade that.
(23:45):
And then we came back from the first tour and
they're like, we're gonna We're gonna upgrade a whole lot now.
And I mean I wouldn't even recognize the Strikers they're
running around in now because they have v holes, they
don't have boxes in the troop compartment, they have jump
seeds right right, And now they're getting to go back
to they're gonna put tourists with heavy guns on two
(24:08):
per platoon in an infantry unit.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Now, It's that's definitely changing any tactics right there. I mean,
that's that's combining a lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, plus gunnery.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys for Strikers, do you do
you have any mortars? Any mortars go with that?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You know, there there was a mortar variant essentially, imagine
a skylight that could open up and they could shoot
a one twenty from inside the striker.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Wow, I can only imagine the concussion inside. So you're
you're back to for Lewis, You're you're training again, and
you said you were at the bottom of the list.
How many AMITY units were ahead of you?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Off the top of my head, I don't know, because
we had grown a lot. I mean, at one point
every unit within the twenty third was actually at Fort Lewis.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Okay, who replaced you guys at overseas?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Let's see, we were third brigade, first brigade, okay, second
invagery replaced us and we left our vehicles and they
fell in on our vehicles, and then we back to
Fort Lewis and took there just to avoid shipping more
good you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Mean common sense that doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Who knew?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, that makes all the sense of the world. So
so you're back in Fort Lewis, you're training. How long
were you back before you deployed again.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Let's see, we came back in October of four, and
we deployed again in late June of six.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Oh, okay, so you were back for a pretty good
amount of time. You're back as long as you were deployed.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, so okay, half of that was like right back
into an it c.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Right right, so you you get ready again. What was
it like the second time versus the first time?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Well, second time was quite a bit different. I I
ended up marrying the girl that lived next door to
me since we were eight years old until we graduated
high school. And that was like maybe five weeks before
we left, Like they gave me a day and to
go get married. And then uh, like I said, we
left in late June. Originally we were supposed to fall
(26:30):
in on the same footprint, like same platoon aos, like
we were loving life well, like this is awesome, like
we know where the checkpoints are and the phase lines.
And then right before we were gonna push north, they're like, frago,
you're going to Baghdad and we're like, ah, like has
anybody taken strikers to Bagdad? Yet They're like no, and
we're like, well that's gonna be interesting. And so they
(26:52):
do the what do they call it, the may Com Brief?
The threat brief, Like what's going on currently? And the
first slide is in abram with it's turned on the
ground and I'm looking at the kid beside me, and
I'm like, you know, those are a lot stronger than strikers.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, a lot heavier too. So what's what's the way
on the striker?
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Any idea about thirty three pounds depending on the variant?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yeah, I think an M one is what seventy tons
something like this? Yeah, yeah, I think the M one
A two I think is a little heavier because it's
got the autoloader. So how was how was this second
deployment and your tactics? How was that different versus.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know, the second deployment, ros were a lot more strict.
I got sidetracked somehow earlier. But on the first deployment
we didn't have an ROE at all until the night
before we left to go to Iraq.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Well, life is a little easier in some some respects
that way. Yeah, when you get too restrictive an ROE,
you're like your hands are tied.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
We're we're like chomping at the battalion commander. We're like, hey,
like we gotta have an r OE, Like what are
we telling these kids? And finally he's like, look, use
if you feel threatened, use use whatever means necessary to
eliminate the threat, and we're like, okay, that works.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Right, So you get there the second time, and now
you've got to establish o OE right.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Oh yeah, And it was more like CSI Bagdad, Like
we would literally like if you couldn't, if you couldn't
knock them down in time, and they surrendered and you
knew better, so you had to take them in and
then you take them to the detainee holding facility and
they'd be like, oh, you don't have enough evidence, and
(28:43):
they'd let them go and you'd see the same guys
again in the next skirmish, and it's like, what are we.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Doing so so logistically? How how are you when when
they surrender? How are you? How you transporting these people
in the striker with us in the striker? Okay? It
just interesting. So was there was there any difference? Had
had you seen any difference in the equipment? Was there
any upgrades? Was there any?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Oh? Yeah, Like the second we had blash shields on
the squad leater hatches and the air hatches and netting,
like there was a lot more. Let's try and protect
people more from blasts, and let's try to protect people
more from sniper fire.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Right, So was that what was the tempo like that
second time? Was it a little little more action?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You know it like we we dealt more with I
ds and they were more like E fps. That that
was the new toy and we uh, we definitely took
some more casualties. And when towards the end of my deployment,
(29:51):
because I wasn't there very long. On the second one,
we were basically doing a pre surge to see if
the idea of a surge in Baghdad would work. Okay,
and later down the road ultimately they decided yes, it
would work, and that's that's the way it went, and
it worked well.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But right, yeah, that the I E. D's from you know,
from the beginning until even you know, right at the end.
I mean, that was a whole complete change, you know,
across the board on how they were you know, very
very simplified and crude, you know, almost like just you know,
pressure to now you're getting into remote detonation and and
(30:34):
things like that. As you know, as we talked about briefly,
the tactics change. So what where were you what were
you seeing as far as the techniques used in the
I D.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
S Oh, one secondaries targeting those coming to help that
that was a huge thing with secondary explosions. And then,
like I said earlier, the e fps.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
All right, so you you get an idea, do you dismount,
you dismount, set a perimeter?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I mean is that what you It depends if the
vehicle that gets hit is able to keep driving, you
want to get out of that kill zone, right, and
so you you'll push through. But if it's disabled, then
then you've got to set up security evac. Do you
do you torch the vehicle, get all the sensitive stuff
(31:23):
out or what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
So is that where you were also seeing some of
these secondary IDs, I mean if you waiting for people
to dismount yep, yeah, yeah, that's that's it's crazy that
you know that how those tactics just continued to evolve.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
You know, they were if nothing else, they were adaptive
as all hell.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Right, But I mean it gets combat on both sides
is always adaptive, right, I mean, initial initial deployments for
any you're always you're always fighting with the previous wars tactics,
in the previous Wars equipment, right, and then as you
continue to go on, you develop and you you know,
new equipment and new tactics. So so you mentioned you
(32:07):
weren't there that long, so let's get into that a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
So, like I said, we deployed in late June of six.
On the sixteenth of October. In six we were doing
fixed site security at checkpoint one oh five across from
RPG Ali, and basically we had gotten tired. It was
almost like a bad scene from the Green Zone. We
(32:31):
had gotten tired of going back out and pulling guards.
So the engineers could rebuild this checkpoint because the Iraqis
abandoned it that night and then they just kept torch
it and there was an abandoned house and all the
houses looked like compounds. So they're like, hey, let's turn
this into like their guard check. They're going to stay here.
We're tired of this. One of the first things they
(32:53):
tell you in your threat brief is don't sit in
one spot too long. You become a mortar magnet. Alpha
Company had been there all night without incident, so we
roll out to relieve them, and we set up our
four corners of security. We got some guys on the
roof and the lieutenants inside, and the lieutenant calls me
up on the radio and he's like, hey, I want
(33:13):
you to move your truck to where you're pretty much
gonna back up to the opening of the gate for
the compound, so if anything tease off, everybody inside's protected.
And I'm like, okay, that makes sense. And no sooner
than we put it in park, we hear the most
insane explosion. And we've heard like their equivalent to like
(33:35):
sixty milimeter mortars, and this wasn't that. It was like
shake your bones out of your skin explosion, and with
the vehicle spun up and running, you couldn't tell that
it was a mortar round. And we immediately start taking
small arms and RPGs. So we nose into it and
we're calling it up. We just assume it since it's
(33:57):
in the middle of the MSR. We're like, oh, it's
premature ad debt. And so I'm talking to the lieutenant
on the radio and the next thing i know, because
I'm standing exposed out of the squad that your hatch
on the striker, I see the mortar around that gets
me land in front of the nose of the striker
and I'm like uh oh, And so then I'm inside
(34:19):
and It's only a split second, but it's that moment
of like what just happened? And my my rounds from
all my magazines are everywhere, and I'm like, oh, cheap
freaking magazines and I'm like spinning out part of my
jaw and stuff, and I'm like, oh, like this this
isn't good. And my Gunnar didn't even want to look over.
He's like, you came down so fast, like I thought
(34:41):
you got decapitated.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
He heard me complain and he's like, oh, he's gonna
be okay. And he looks at me and I feel
stuff running down the side of my face and I'm
like trying to wipe it off, and he grabs my hand.
He's like you don't want to do that. And I'm
like what, Like, what the hell's going on? And he
puts his hand on my shoulder and he's like you're
gonna be okay. So and I'm like, okay, step one,
check step two? How bad is it? And he's like,
(35:06):
your your eyes hanging out of your head and I'm like, oh,
I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
So concussion, oh, any concussion from that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, they like they couldn't they didn't have a baseline
or anything. So they're like, look, there's there's and they
later the crater analysis said it was a one twenty.
So they're like, look, there's there's no way you can
be that close and not have some sort of TBI. Sure,
like not possible.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
So how how close is the closest medic at this point.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Inside that compound? But we're getting just rate with small arms,
machine gun fire RPD, and the lieutenants like, I'm sending
you the medic and he's like, you need to get
their heads down before before you send the medic because
the one thing we don't need is a shot up medic.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So how long was it until the
medic shows up?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, just a few minutes. And it sounds bad, but
like you, you couldn't ask for a better set of
injuries as far as being stable after the fact. Like
somehow I got clipped with a ricochet in the shoulder
and it just cauterized right through. Okay, that wasn't bleeding
in because of the tear ducks and all that stuff,
(36:23):
and the saliva because of the jaw stuff, Like there
was a whole lot of blood, but it was real
bright red and like thin. So it was like, okay,
like there's there's not a whole lot to panic about here.
It's not ideal, but it's not bad.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Okay. So what was going through your mind?
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Oh? Pretty much that well, I'm not going to die today,
Like that was all I was. I was going to
focus on that, and I'm like taking my radio off
and grabbing my keys to the squad box like night
vision goggles wet, like all my stuff laid out. So
when the senior team leader, who was also, by the way,
a very young E five that was about to become
(37:02):
a very young E six, comes back, I'm like, squad's yours, buddy,
here's everything you need.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Toby on this deployment with you?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
No, No, Toby was God, who is he with at
that point? Fourth id?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Maybe okay?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
He uh he was with us on the first tour
and then went to another unit. I think he might
have been like deployed in the guard at that point,
because I think he was going cool.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
So you start dumping equipment, Maddic comes over, starts patching
you up. Where do they send you after that?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
You know, we went back because we were within eyesight
of FOB Liberty, So we went first to the AID
station and I'm like, lifelimer, I say it, why aren't
we going to the cash But whatever, right, so we go.
We go to the unit aid station and the PA
is like, all right, take it to the green zone,
and I'm like, I feel like we could have just
went there. But the cool thing is my platoons are
(37:59):
and didn't mess around. And he had already, like I
had been wounded previous, like superficially wounded previously and had
to be evact and my platoons are basically got colded
scolded for splitting section. So what he did is he
took what was left of my squad and parted us
out on two vehicles and left two vehicles as overwatch
(38:22):
and the rest of the platoon on site. And they're like, no,
you can't do that, and he's like, okay, well, once
I really really got hurt, he didn't hesitate to do
it again. So, like we could hear the platoon in
a gunfight as they're taking me into the aid station.
Then they take me to the green zone and they're like,
all right, we gotta go by.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
So they fight in Germany or where did you go?
You know?
Speaker 1 (38:50):
I stayed at the green zone, Like they removed bone fragment,
metal fragment, basically just stabilized, removed what was left in
my eye and uh that was like eight hour surgery
right out the gate. And then I stayed the next night.
Then they took me and you know, not not sleeping,
(39:11):
being pretty drugged up, a lot of pain. They take
me to fab Anaconda and I'm like, wait a minute,
I just survived a freaking mortar attack, and you send
me to the one place that gets bordered the most bullshit,
sent me somewhere else. They like, I don't. I don't
think you realize you don't have to say so in
this well.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
I mean, yeah, you're your captive audience at this point.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
And then I was there for one night. Then I
went to uh Germany. There I was at Germany for
one night. I mean I was at Walter reed the
next day. Like I got hurt on the sixth of October,
and I landed at Portland Airport with my wife and
my dad on the sixteenth of October. That's pretty quick,
(39:54):
like really fat brown.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
I mean you're almost landing in Romstein, Germany just to
refuel and.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
The pretty much once they took bone fragment out, the
metal fragment out, removed what was left in my eye.
There was nothing they could really do until that all
healed to start the reconstructive process anyway, Right.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
So how much how much did you lose? And that
they had to I'm assuming it's titanium now.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, the cheekbone is titanium plate. The temple was shattered,
but that's superficial, so they just clean out bone bone
fragment and leave it. Fracture on the skull behind the
eyebrow fractured the mandible joint. I lost a horizontal portion
of my jaw and a couple of teeth on the
opposite side. And I think that was from the Duke
Antanna because that turned into its own little spores of
(40:41):
shrap mel right, and then the ricochet through the shoulder.
Cool about that as it cauterized. So yeah, other than
other than my poor wife having to pack both sides
of that every day for a month.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
You gotta you gotta give it to military wives, man,
and they you know that, unsung heroes. So yeah, I've
got I've got two titanium plates above and below my
left eye from a car accident that I was flung
out of a vehicle.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I could literally I could feel my pulse where my
cheek one was supposed to be. I was like, okay,
my cheekbone past.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
So you wanted Walter read very long and they just
sent you.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, they couldn't even do anything. Now, my primary doctor
wanted to keep me there, and that was before they
started farming people the different major medical facilities. And my
primary doctor was very adamant about wanting me to stay there,
and I'm like, look, my family's in Washington. There's a
major medical facility at Fort Lewis. Like, here's the deal.
(41:44):
You can either give me orders and plane tickets or
you're going to be explaining to the freaking media why
I bottomed myself. And I'm a staff startedt guess what
I can afford.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
To do that?
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Right, and I know my rights. I'm going to fuse
medical treatment and I'm going to sign in to my
root attachment within twenty four hours and you can't do
anything about it.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I was like, those are your choices. And he's getting
really mad because now now you've got an officer with
a staff startant telling him how it's going to go,
not one about as well as you'd think it would.
But the ophthalmologist at Walter Reed looks at him and
he's like, hey, sir, I'm not trying to tell you
what to do in this situation. But the guy that
trained me is at Madigan. Maybe you should let him go. Yeah,
(42:31):
because my whole mind, my whole mindset was, look, my
family's life doesn't stop because of this, sure, like I'm
not gonna expect them to uproot and be here for
the next two to three years.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Well, and your your mental wellness, you know, leads to
your physical wellness.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Right, Yeah, I am there.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, if you're where your family is and you're surrounded
by family, you know, that's that's better for you mentally
and physically.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Like here have my parents, an extended family, my wife's
parents and extended family, people that I went like I've
known since I was a kid. It's like, you know,
home is better, let's let's do that.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah. Madigan's a pretty big, pretty big facility too.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
It was great.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah. So how long how long were you I mean,
how long were we down for before they said, okay,
now we've got to make a decision.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I would say, I mean, I was on convalescently from
coming home from Walter reed and went straight to Madigan
and was like, all right, how do we get this
started right? And unfortunately that sent me straight to the
way or transitional Battalion. Then like you can't be doing
a med board. Not go here. But uh. It took
(43:45):
about two two and a half years of reconstructive surgery
because after all the scandals of people getting pushed out
of the guard before they were put back together, they
not let me leave until I was done. Okay, so
prosthetic eye, everything, oral surgery to try and fix everything
with the jaw.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, and you said they gave you an option. They
could put you out to put your blind a desk
and you weren't interested to be a bud a desk.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Inture you getting my first look for E seven, I
knew better, Like I had this made when I went
through the med boorg process. And he's like, I can't
legally tell you what to do. I'm just gonna tell
you what I would do in your situation. He's like,
if you get out now, you're gonna make more money
than if you stay in for ten more years. Yeah,
And I might have made seven, but I never would
(44:32):
have been promoted again.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean if you're stuck byd a desk,
I mean who knows.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I mean, well changes it would be a lot like
being a lieutenant, Like my privates would know more than
I would about the job, like I'd know it on paper,
but experience.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Okay, so you get out and then then what do
you do?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
So honestly, I didn't know what to do with myself.
I threw myself into volunteering with local organization Northwest Battle
budd He's doing service dogs for veterans couple like the VFW. Locally,
I had a battle of the bold survivor scoot me
up and take me out to the BFW and sign
(45:19):
me up and get me involved. That that helped a lot.
And then one of the guys I served with, I
was roommates with himt one point he uh, he started
doing a nonprofit for veterans based off of something he
loved before the army, and it was MMA okay, and
so he got into it, saw the benefit. Then he
started exposing other veterans to it, and uh, I kind
(45:44):
of used that and went back to salmon fishing because
that's what I loved. That's what I loved. Sorry, I
gotta let the dog out. Ye that's right, That's what
I loved before the army. So I was like why not?
And it was it was an instant hit.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
And then one of my buddies that I served with
wasn't doing well. Cash he wasn't doing well. So I'm like, okay,
let me let me take you fishing. And after a
weekend I could like the lighter. And so then I
just tried to start doing it on my own. And
at a certain point I decided I was going to
start my own nonprofit. Picked out to Toby and he's like, hey,
(46:27):
do you want to uh do you want to run
a business or do you want to just take veterans fishing?
And I'm like, I just want to take veterans fishing.
And he's like, hey, you know, I volunteer with this
nonprofit in Texas and we don't have salmon fishing, so
let us help you just take veterans fishing. We got you, right,
And so I was the Northwest outreach coordinator for Veteran
(46:49):
Outdoors for five or seven years, all right. And then
when Toby left Veteran Outdoors to pursue UH Red Rum sport,
fishing and cabo. That was kind of the point for
me and Toby. I tell my wife to blame Toby.
(47:09):
I was like, so, what do you think I should
do next? And he's like, I think you should get
your guide license and start a business. And that that's
what I ended up doing. And the cool thing is
there's a place in Tacoma, Washington called Flagship Maritime and
they take a g I built benefits and so I
(47:29):
was like, awesome, I'm actually going to use this for something.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Okay, So so running running a business, I mean, how's that?
You know? You go from being an infantry splitting skulls
to fishing for a living. I mean, that's the story.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
The beauty is being a fishing guide. Let's just say
the army, especially the infantry, gave me a lot of
endurance that I needed. So, you know, priorities of work, Oh,
you're tired, I want to go to bed. Oh I
got to tie leaders for tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yeah, and getting up but sometimes two in the morning,
sometimes four in the morning. Just I have no patience
for shenanigans at boat ramps. So I want to be
like the first two or three people to launch my boat.
And get my stuff ready and then just sit there
and relax for a while until clients show up.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Boat Boat ramps are infamous for shenanigans. It doesn't matter what,
what state, what where you're at, there's always something that
it's you can sit there and just watch people watching
a boat ramp.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Well, and the more they regulate our salmon seasons and
less opportunity we have, the worse it gets. So it's
it's like the powers that be in Washington and Oregon
are piling a bunch of people up in one spot
and that makes it all worse. Yeah, because I have
(48:56):
no patience to sit in line for an hour to
launch my right.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, So do you pretty much go to the same
launch point or do you I mean, do you branch out?
And is there no?
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I I mean I've got a fishery up at Baker
Lake on the northern border of Washington, for sake, and
that's a seven hour drive. Oh wow, So needless to say,
I stay there, Yeah, or when I fish the coast
at the mouth of the Columbia where it meets the Pacific,
all stay down there for about forty five days because
(49:32):
that's a two hour drive from the house.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
But if it's a fishery that's within an hour of
my house, I come home every night.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Nice. So do you have any downtime any any part
of the season that's you can't fish for anything? You know.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Most of what I do is trolling for salmon, and
that gives me about seven months out of the year, okay.
And then I do catch and release sturgeon for the
two okay, and then that gives me the winner off.
And all I do in the winner is maybe jump
on a buddy that's a guide, jump on his boat
(50:10):
to go steal head vision or my uh, I don't
know if you saw pictures of the boat dog on
the website. Yeah, I have a freakishly large black lab
that he likes to be on the boat, but he
loves to chase ducks.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Okay, so you know what you do any duck huntings?
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Yeah, that's that's that's if I'm doing anything in the winter,
that's I'm taking a dog and I'm sitting in a
blind and it's great when there's birds. But I don't
care if there's birds or not, Like I'm nothing else matters.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
You say, a freakishly large dog, I've got one hundred
and thirty pound Great Pyrenees on the floor behind me.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, mine's Mine's a lab and we we think there
may be a little great day in there. But he
is six pounds.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
It's pretty big.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
That's a big lab and he's freakishly tall.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
So let's let's kind of back up a little bit
and and talk about you know, i'd mentioned at the
beginning your your thoughts going in. I mean, you're you're
at airborne Infantry. You knew what you got you were
getting into, yeah, versus you know, you're you just got
sent home from your second deployment. What what is your
take on, you know, everything that happened over there. It
(51:32):
to include, you know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, because I
know that's kind of a sore point for a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
You know, I actually never went to Afghanistan, but I
felt like there was a whole lot of parallels to
Vietnam and lessons that weren't learned, or lessons that should
have been learned that were forgotten. Right, Hey, let's tell
him we're leaving. Let's tell him exactly when we're leaving.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Right, andthing else? I mean, what's what's your thought on
just the Iraq and that whole thing.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
I'm not gonna lie. It stung a little watching Mosl fall. Yeah,
And I was super happy when the eighty second sent
a brigade in there to kick the snot out of
Isis because Pat Work was the brigade commander and he
was actually my first company commander at Fort Lewis, Okay.
(52:25):
And they also dropped like a five thousand pounder on
the Asher Hotel, So no soldier will ever have to
run up fourteen flights of stairs again, because you know,
we'll go back.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean the Middle East has been
a hot spot for a long time. So all right, Well,
any anything else about any of your deployments, any you know,
anything you want I want people to know, I mean,
anything you saw, you know, did any engagements, any anything.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
I mean in the grand scheme of things. They they
felt unevented, full Like I've never wanted to be the
guy to oversell what I did, right. It always kind
of felt like it was like, Okay, what's going on?
And then something would happen, and then it would be
quiet again, and then something would happened.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Right, I Mean you'd mentioned before about you know some
of the people, were you know, happy you were there?
You know, I was that? Was that the same on
your second deployment? I mean we was it kind of
the same same response or had things changed? No?
Speaker 1 (53:33):
It always felt like we made the area better. Okay,
for the most part, the response was as receptive as
it could be.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Okay, your second deppointment, did you have to you have
to go? Because you said, you know that, not not
to knock on one hundred first, but they were just
kind of there and maybe you know, didn't make things
as good as they could have been. Was that the
same because you're you're kind of replacing your previous unit
or one of your other sister units. Was is it
saying the second time or was it a little easier the.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Second tour we replaced fourth ID and it it felt
like a little there, There was less like it didn't
seem like we had to fix some things.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Was fourth IDs and Strikers at this point?
Speaker 1 (54:22):
No, Bradley's okay, So so again you're going back with
the Strikers.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
You know, still fairly new equipment, I mean relatives compared
to some of the stuff in the military. No, no issues,
but tactics probably changed a little bit. You know, you
said that the worst upgrades, Yeah, would How how how
were the tactics changing a little bit in that second?
Speaker 1 (54:49):
How how we would necessarily roll into like an objective okay,
like not necessarily ducks in a row, like maybe offset
like one section going down one one street and then
another section another street a block away.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
How different was Bagdad the city versus Mosyl.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Oh it was insane, just this the soide difference. But
it was also easier to maneuver Mozel because you're talking
about old town Nevana m If you weren't careful, you
would end up going down some crazy maze and get
like stuck, like either the striker wouldn't fit through it
(55:31):
or it would just dead end like it You would
feel like a mouse in a freaking science experiment maze.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
And bag Dad's a little more laid out, a little
easier layout.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
A little more maneuverable, okay, Like they would try to
push up cars like block the entry to Mahullas with
cars and we got to go straight monster trucking over them.
It was awesome.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
Oh that sounds like a lot of fun. So any
anything else about any either of these just you want
people to know no. I mean.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
Like I've had people be like, oh, you're you're a hero,
and I'm like, I just didn't duck when I should have.
I should have ducked.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
I had a guy by the name of J. P.
Serventis on former Green Beret, and and he said that
he heard someone say this that when you know, they say,
you know, thank you for your service. And the response
he now uses is you were worth it, you know,
to to the person saying that to you, you're the
simple responses you were worth it, and you hear that
(56:42):
you're kind of the band of brothers and everything you know,
or not band of brothers, the one of Tom Hanks,
you know, be the person you know that that you want.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
Everybody to know, you know, sacrificed.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well all right, sir, well, I thank
you for your evening, you know, thank you for you know,
sharing sharing your stories with us, and uh yeah, I
appreciate it. Thank you, thanks for having me, absolutely ex
give me one minute
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