Lima Charlie Episode 16 with Tyler Nelson

Ranger Veteran, AI enthusiast, and Dog rescuer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sh h, I've got no reason the teeth of a

(00:24):
killing the season with a need to blease you with
the light goes great.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Let's believe them in the zone to be from a
end of a yankdom a yange disease. But agree, I
must here when you call the beef, because all weird.
I'm a one of a kind, and I'll bring death
to the glacier about a week.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Another river of blood running under.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
My feet or as in the fire did long ago
stand next to me? You'll never stand alone, one lastingly,
but the first to go the Lord, make me dead
before you make me a feet.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
On the fear of the devil.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Inside of the enemy faces in my sight, being with
a hand or shoe, with a kill with a hard
light card.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Tame guys, Soldier Martin, I am a lorry.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
And this is my song, race to the ground of
an enemy.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Sure I read you, Lema Charlie loud and clear. Welcome
to Limit Charlie, Episode sixteen with Tyler Nelson.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
Welcome, Tyler, I appreciate it, Rob thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
So let's let's start off with with who you are
and uh kind of you know why we have you
here on the show.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
Yeah, Tyler Nelson join the Army in two thousand and six,
part of the delayed entry program with the College Loaner
Payment Program. I was in college at the time. Always
growing up, I mean junior senior year of high school,
I remember sneaking around my neighborhood which I grew up

(02:10):
a couple of blocks from Lake Michigan, and so there you're,
you know, some multimillion dollar houses on the lake, and
me and my best friend growing up, we always thought
it was fun to like sneak around and not get
caught by the security and stuff like that, and we'd
play army or I guess you could say, right, And
then yeah, I was in college. Weirdly enough, I was

(02:32):
a studio art major because yeah, because you know, when
you're a studio art major, your first thought in walking
into the recruiter's office after your freshman year of college,
realizing you're not really going to get too much with
that that degree, you walk in and you say, I
want to jump out of planes and shoot bad people.
So it was very very different mindset from where I

(02:54):
was in college, but something I always in my mind
always kind of wanted to do, and I guess finally
grew enough balls to walk into the recruiter's office and
he was like, hey, you're in college right.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
It's like yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:06):
He's like, don't sign this yet. Sign this one and
you can go to school for another three years and
we'll repay all your student loans. And I was like, what,
Like this is aweso. My experience with a recruiter is
not like most people's. He actually didn't lie to me.
He could have gotten me to sign up and gone
to basic training and ACTI duty right then and there,
but he was like, hey, dude, I'm going to help
you out. So very rare experience, I know for most

(03:27):
people with recruiters, but I was very happy with that.
Albeit it took the Army twelve years to repay those
student loans compared to the three that they were supposed to,
but it was eventually repaid.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Was that to come in as an officer or no.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
So the idea was that you got a certain amount
of credits during those three years and then you come
in as an E four okay, And so I was like, okay,
I mean I'm going to make more money starting off,
Like sign me up. This sounds like a great idea,
but I, uh, yeah, I lasted about three semesters after
that where I joined, so and I could say I

(04:03):
probably have like a semester and a half worth of
credits from that time period, because in the back of
my mind, I knew I was where I was supposed
to be. I was just kind of delaying it. And
I was playing soccer at the time. I grew up
playing really competitive soccer, and so I was like, I
want to play some soccer in college. It's like my thing.
And yeah, and so joined the Army was like, I

(04:23):
had a funny story. I had a rip contract option
forty contract because I played soccer. So it's in really
good shape. And they're like, yeah, this dude's gonna make it.
He'll be fine. We'll give it one. And my mom,
for whatever reason, I had a stigmatism and I was nearsighted.
So my mom was like deathly afraid that I was

(04:43):
gonna go to combat and my glasses were gonna fog
up and I was gonna get shot and killed. So
she's like, and I was just about to turn twenty one,
and so she's like, you're going to get lasick. I'm
paying for it. You're not wearing glasses. I was like,
all right, sweet, awesome, this sounds good. So I go
and get lasick and then I go to MEPs like
two weeks later. My eyes aren't even fully healed yet,

(05:04):
and so they're like doing the eye exam and they're like,
did you have eye surgery? I was like no, because
the recruiters like, don't tell them. I was like no,
and they were like are you sure, like because it
looks like you just had LASIK and I was like maybe,
and they're like, yeah, you're not going anywhere, like when
did it happen, Like it looks fresh, and I was
like like two weeks ago. They're like, yeah, you're not

(05:26):
going anywhere. So I got delayed like I would say,
like a month and a half or something like that,
and then they I finally went back through and they
were like, no Option forty contract for you. You lost that.
Here's your airborne contract. That's all. You're gonna get eleven
X ray and yes, and they were like, well, don't worry.

(05:47):
Once you get to Airborne school, you can always volunteer
to go to regiment. I was like, okay, so I
can still light up there, not a big deal, and then
basic training. They're like, you got orders to Italy. I
was like, I'm not going to regiment now, Like I'm
not going to pass up this opportunity, you know, to
be a part of one seventy third, and you know,
you hear about the historic you know, the history of
the one seventy third and everything, and you're like, this
is like the dream place to go. And so I didn't.

(06:09):
I didn't say no to it, and sure enough showed
up in Vincenzo with the second metality to a five
all third and shortly after got sent of my first appointment,
which became pretty historic after that.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
So you never had any thoughts of joining the Marine
Corps or or the Air Force or anything like that.
The Army was your first choice.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
The Army was my first choice.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
On airborne all the way.

Speaker 5 (06:36):
Yeah, like to jump out of planes and that was
the fastest way to get to airborne. My real goal
is to try and get the free fall, which after
getting out I've done a ton of s guy I
have since as a civilian, but you know, my goal
was to do that. Like that, that was the like
the carrot they could dangle in front of me to
keep me moving was like, we'll get you to free fall.

(06:56):
And I was like, all right, what do I gotta do?
Where do I sign? Like, let's do this? So yeah,
that was really my goal. And that was so I
knew Airborne had to be in there first, and I
knew the infantry was probably the fastest way to get there.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah. So the military is very good about dangling that carrot,
whether it's the next promotion, whether it's the next duty assignment,
whether it's the next school. They're very good at that.
And they're also very good in but not delivering it.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
Oh yeah yeah, and then as soon as you're about
to grab that carrot, it disappears and you're like, what happened?

Speaker 4 (07:27):
So you go to you go to Benning and your
first duty assignment is Italy. Yep, Wow, that's that's great.
I mean most a lot of guys, you know, they're
going to go to Fort Hood, they're going to go
to Fort Lewis, they're going to go to Fort Bragg,
you know all the big infantry bases.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
Yeah. Oh, I had in my mind I was going
to break, like I was going to get orders to break.
And when I got those orders, when I showed up
to Airborne, school and regiment shows up to pick up
the guys with their option forty contracts and they ask
who wants to volunteer to go? Like in my mind,
that's where I was going, Like I wasn't going to
go to break. I was going to go to rip
and just go that route. And the moment they were

(08:02):
like they're calling out orders and they're like Nelson, you
know one seventy third, I was like, that's Italy. I'm
not going to rip now. I'm not passing this opportunity up.
Like that's once in a lifetime, like and to get
it straight out of basic, you know, I know guys
spend their whole career never get that order.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
So how long were you in Italy? How long were
you stationed there?

Speaker 5 (08:24):
I think it was two and a half years. Yeah, yeah,
because it was April August, September. I showed up two
thousand and six and then I left January two thousand
and nine, so two and a half years.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
But I mean where you were at, that's that's an
airborne unit, right, like you said, so so you were
jumping there. You maintained your jump status the whole time. Yeah,
that's that's a dream there.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
I mean, yeah, I mean the amountain you jump there
is is minimal at best. I mean they signed all
kinds of waivers to get rid of the minimum requirement
because is it's it's not easy to jump there.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, what what makes it so difficult to jump here?

Speaker 5 (09:06):
I think it's just the to organize it with the
government and the resources, and you know, at the time,
you know, to get planes just to do that in
Europe was pretty rare. Most of those planes were dedicated
somewhere else, So I think just the logistics of it
and then organizing it through the governments was always a pain,

(09:27):
and getting the resources we needed from the Italians. I
did eventually get my Italian jump wings post deployment, which
was which is nice. But you know, usually you just
have to have like the Italian on the plane and
then you're blessed off and you get them. I was
fortunate enough to have them. Jmp I me and push
me out the door, so about as real as you
can get with it. That was definitely a little frightening me.

(09:50):
I'm like, uh, looking around, like familiar with this? Is
this legit? Like is there gonna be an American JMPI me?
After this, know, like you're good to go, buddy. I
was like, okay, so that was I mean, it was
it was. It's an amazing first duty station because you know,

(10:12):
especially being in second Battalion there. You know, at the
time we had Colonel Ossland, it's our Major Myers, and
they kind of set the tone. I mean, everyone knows
are most people are aware of, you know, the OE
F eight deployment in Afghanistan with US, because there's two
very big documentaries that were made about it, with Cornball

(10:34):
and Rastrepolo being the first one, then obviously the book
War written by Sebastian Junger that deployment, their leadership set
the tone for that deployment for us, and our ability
to carry out the deployment in the manner in which
we did, and the amazing things that don't get told
about that deployment at all. A lot of people see

(10:56):
cornngall and then they or they hear about what not,
and it looks pretty terrible. But the fact of the
matter is is we were actually successfully pushing back the
Taliban and disrupting everything that they were doing in that area,
which you know, obviously is quite famous for Marcus Latrell
and Loan survivor and what happened to the seals there

(11:18):
is in that AO and we were we were kind
of sticking it to him, you know.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
So let's back up, let's back up a little bit
on that. So your your first duty station is Vicenza, right,
your your infantry, you know what you signed up for, right.
How long were you in Italy before you got called
up the Good Iraq?

Speaker 5 (11:39):
I think it was almost a year, so you no,
September we deployed I think May September to May, and
then three months of that was spent in Germany training.
We did two Graphenvia rotations that were thirty days long
each and then we did a Hoenfell's j RTC for
thirty days. So really, I mean it was like the

(11:59):
small amounts we got in Italy leading up to it,
and even afterwards, it was every weekend was a three
or four day weekend. Go take a mileage pass if
you're not, you know, squad leaders knocking on the door
on the weekends like come on, let's get out of
the Perrock's room, let's go do something.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah. So, but I mean you're doing a lot of
a lot of training, a lot of tempo because they
knew you were going right.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
Yeah, when we would go to Germany and train, it
was you wouldn't just do the lane or the stick
or whatever you were doing for that day to the standard. No,
it was done until we basically couldn't get it wrong,
like okay, great, you met the standard. Dogs, so we

(12:46):
would meet the standard. And then after that it was
do it again and again and again and again, and
I mean that's all we did for thirty days. I
mean we didn't sleep much. I mean it was basically
like a mini deployment at that point. They were gonna
push us real hard and they had to because they
knew what was coming.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Right, So you're going into this the point you get,
you get where you're going, right, What's what's your mindset
at this point? What are you thinking?

Speaker 5 (13:11):
No clue, I'm going to the unknown. You know, you're
hearing the stories of these guys, right, and they're talking
about like the previous deployment to Afghanistan and they're like, oh, yeah,
you know, good buddy of mine. And you know, they're
talking about al and they're like, yeah, you ran some
guys over on a you know, on a motorcycle and
had like three confirmed kills because of it, and that

(13:31):
was like the one instance that anybody had of anything
like crazy cool or Doc Lemon or Sergeant Lorman, like
you hear about these like stories, they're like one offs, right,
They're very rare, And then we would and then we
went on that deployment. I just remember about a month
then looking over to uh. I was in a heavy

(13:53):
weapons company and a and destined company, and I remember
looking over at my section sergeant being like, are all
deployments like this? And he just goes, no, this is
this is not normal. And I was like, okay, because
this doesn't seem like everything you guys had told me before,
you know, like the one off stories of like a
crazy firefight. I'm like, we've got a dozen of them

(14:16):
and we're a month in, Like this seems different. And
but yeah, so I mean going into it, I mean
we didn't really know you'd hear the stories, and I think, God,
I don't even know what he is now. I think
it's General Kerne, you no, maybe, but it was Captain
Kearney at the time. And then when he was at regiment,
I knew him as major and I knew he got

(14:37):
promoted to the lieutenant colonel. But I don't know where
he's at now, but he said at best in Rostreppo
when he talks about it. In the beginning, it's like,
you know, you hear the stories like Tenth Mountain was
getting shot at every single day, and you're like, what
not way, you know, cause you hear the stories from
the other guys that were just there, you know, about
a year prior, and they weren't experiencing that, so you're like,

(14:58):
something's off, Like I think some people are just embellishing this,
like it's not real, it's not gonna be that bad.
They weren't lying. It's like you knew in the back
of your mind it was gonna be bad, but you
didn't really fully know how bad it was gonna be.
Because you get stories.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
So of this unit, the deploys, I'm assuming it's a
mixture of some who had already been before and a
lot of first timers for like yourself.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
Yeah, yeah, what was the good? I mean we even
had some guys that jumped into Iraq with the one
seventy third okay, yeah, yeah, and some funny stories there,
like the one guy you know they were he was
telling me the story Oaks. Everyone calls them dirty oaks.
Anybody that was in in Second Italian at that time
knows oaks. And he was telling me, he was like, yeah,

(15:46):
I brought like a couple of logs of Copenhagen because
you know, they were like, we're gonna be there. You're
gonna be there thirty days, You're gonna up into thirty days,
you're gonna be out. It was nine months. So for
like the first like six months, he was the only
one that had dip because I couldn't get her something
like that was the first three months. There's ninety days
or something like that. So just hearing stories like that
from some of those guys, you're like, oh man, that's crazy.

(16:07):
And uh so we had a good mix of guys,
several I mean higher leadership. I'd say, I want to
say seven and above. The majority of them had been
around since they were in Iraq in two thousand and three,
and then uh so there was there's some guys been

(16:28):
around for a little while and been in that unit.
How whatever drug deal they worked to stay there that long.
Congratulations to them, But we didn't have a ton from
somewhere else. But I will say whatever Colonel Prysler Colonel
Austlin worked up that every platoon sergeant above was tabbed

(16:49):
every platoon sergeant pl and above was tabbed that was
on the line. So that'll give you an idea of
the mindset. I don't know how they work that, but
that will show you, like the level of leadership that
we had and why they were able to push us
so hard, why things worked out so well when they
did work out well. Now, obviously we know the things
that didn't work out well, but the fact of the

(17:11):
matter is, and something I'd try and get to people
to realize, is those events that occurred like we're not
and that was always that was like could have happened
to anybody any day for fifteen months, and we all
knew it. We all went into it like once we
got there and we got an idea of what was

(17:32):
going on. And you know, you're talking eleven dudes in
a firebase that's an hour and a half drive from
the closest fob, right, I mean, you just knew like
there's a very good chance a hundred dudes could come
over this hill tomorrow morning and we're outnumbered, and let's
hope for the best. But you kind of you kind
of welcomed it in a weird way. You were like,

(17:53):
let's go, like, let's see this Mongolian horde, like bring
it on. And it was great because you had great
leaders that would motivate you to like if that were
to occur, no one was super freaked out by it,
and obviously you'd have your onesies and twosies where they
they were. Eventually, I think the amount of combat eventually
got to some of them, but for the majority, they

(18:15):
they had found ways to keep us engaged, to keep
us motivated, to keep us like, yeah, let's all right,
another firefight. Lets bring it on, let's do it, like,
let's go, and you get pumped up for it.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Which so you guys, you guys, you know, you get
your orders, you're and you're you're going into country. Who
were you were leaving? Who was who was kind of
out tenth Mountain? Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:35):
I felt bad for him because some of the stories
we heard, like these dudes were literally on the way
out of the country and they got turned around and
got extended like ninety days, and then they got shoved
in the cornball, they got shoved in chow k they
got shoved in narrang they got shoved in.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
Water poor.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
Uh I think anybody was in water poor, but in
the Pesh Valley, you know, can't blessing like they got
shoved there. And I mean like imagine being like, yeah, babe,
I'm on my way home. Can't wait to see you
in like a month, you know, you know whatever, however
long it takes to get out of country too. Yeah,
I'm going to see you in like one hundred and
twenty days.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Right, Yeah, So you you get into country, what's what's
your your first mission out of the gate? I mean,
are you, you know, be seen, are you going for
high value targets? What what's your what's your initial push?
You landing country and you're hitting the ground.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
I mean, we got to Bogram. It was like two
weeks of classes, you know, like we need to introduce
you to Afghanistan. What's going on? What's going over here?
You know, what's the current you know, s ops and
the way things are working, which all of us were
jet legged and everyone's falling asleep through the power point
you know, death by power point.

Speaker 4 (19:53):
Contract rules of engagement because yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (19:57):
Can I just go? Can we just get to the
fob already? Like but really we were like waiting for
flights and stuff like that because you had to take
a chinook out there. Finally we get our day, we
show up to the fob. I want to say. We
spent two or three days just getting acclimated to the fob,
and then we replaced. Chosen Company had a platoon with us,

(20:17):
and then we ate Destined Company. We had two platoons,
so we went and replaced, uh, two of the squads.
I think Chosen Company split their platoon into two squads,
so we went and replaced one half out in chow
k and uh, like the morning, we're gonna go right
up there. They got rocketed out there, so they like

(20:39):
shatka nus, Like we were supposed to leave like that
afternoon or something like that. But they're like, no, you're
leaving now, like they just got rocketed. You gotta go.
And so driving up there, you're like all right, like
here we go, Like this is we're gonna show up
like guns of blazing and it's gonna be wild. And
you know, show up and dudes are just standing around
rocking and landed like one hundred and fifty meters from
the fire or something like that, and it was just

(21:01):
like one or two rockets. You're like, oh, I was
very anticlimatic showing up here. So we go out there
and uh, those guys left we had, you know, we
did the left seat, right seat right at that point,
and we had one of the I think it was
the Mountains Platoon Saran or something like that. This guy

(21:21):
may have been former SF or something or but I
just like it's burnt in the back of my mind,
like seeing this guy and that, and that was like
the first clue, like it really was as bad as
we were hearing. Dude's hair was long, looked like he
had like a I don't know, twelve o'clock shadow, like
of like a midnight shadow, not five o'clock, like he

(21:42):
hadn't shaved in like three days, boots, untied, not wearing
a blouse, just T shirt. They just dude looks like
a bum pretty much, and like Acus And I was like,
who is this guy? Like what is this? And then
I was like, Okay, if that dude's looking like that
and he's looking pretty rough, this might not be a

(22:03):
good sign. This might not be good.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
And then you said you're doing you're doing left seat,
right seat, what are you up? Armored? Humbes. What are
you in, Yeah, just.

Speaker 5 (22:10):
Up armored humbes, varying different degrees of up armor depending
on the truck. And so we get to the firebase
and you know, the other the other half a chosen
platoon leaves and like, all right, we're gonna go on
a patrol. We're just gonna take an easy patrol. There's
like it's a little hilltop right over here, it's called

(22:31):
gator Back. We're just gonna walk up there and you know,
just go for a quick patrol, kind of show our presence.
You know, we're we're gonna be walking around, we're gonna
be doing stuff. And first patrol, we we make it.
I mean you're talking like it's I want to say,
maybe a kilometer and a half two kilometers straight line

(22:52):
at all. Oh, it took us a long time because
none of us were ready for it, Like nobody was
ready for that terrain. Like you don't realize how bad
that terrain is until you get there in all the
shell rock, and every foot you every step you take
it you're damn you're sliding down the mountain. I'm not
a little guy by any stretch of the imagination. So

(23:14):
leading up to the deployment, Like I took pride in
how much weight I could carry during our rock marches
and stuff like that. And I was in the dismount
squad so I volunteered to carry this the saw how
you know, like I legit. Like I asked my squadors
like can I carry the saw? And he's like, you
gotta go askitoons aren't. And I was like okay, So
I go up to the toons are I'm like, sorry, Rob,

(23:35):
can I carry the saw when we get to Afghanistan.
He's like, well, you're gonna get it anyways. But I'm
glad you're volunteering. And I was like, oh, okay, all
this makes it easy. Oh so stoked. I remember, I
was just like so happy about that. I wasn't so
happy about it, you know, two thirds into the deployment
volunteering for that. But uh, at the time, you know,
I'm carrying that carrying up the mountain, I'm like, man,

(23:56):
this really sucks. Like this is just some bullshit and Oaks.
The guy I was telling you about before, he ended
up getting a little hefty after a couple of deployments
and getting kind of comfortable lifelong. E four kind of guy.
He uh he started going down as a heat casualty.
I mean first patrol and uh was like, are you

(24:20):
serious right now? You can't make it up this this
fucking hill. He goes oaks if if you're telling me
you're a heat casualty and you can't make it any further,
you're getting an IV in the ass. And he's like,
I can't make it any further. I go to our doc, like, Doc,
he needs an IV in the ass, Like that's where
he's getting it. So, first patrol in Afghanistan, this dude

(24:42):
that jumped into Iraq is bent over, pants down getting flushed.
I mean it was hilarious. I was like, you gotta
be kidding me. This this is it, Like this is
this is a deployment, this is common Okay, this is
gonna be a good time. Like it's gonna be hilarious. Yeah,
that was That was my first patrol was seeing that.

(25:03):
I mean, nothing happened that. You know, they didn't gauge us.
They you know, they did their normal. They're going to
see how we operate or a new unit. Let's see
these guys and see what they do. They're gonna observe us,
figure out what our s ops are and how they
can exploit our weaknesses, and yeah, it was it was
pretty funny the first time.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah, we've we've talked on the show before with the
guests about how how the how the responses changed, right,
and how the tactics evolve on both sides during the
entire thing. Right. So initially it's just you know, very
primitive I DS too. You know, now we're we're doing
a little bit more advanced now remote detonation remote you know,

(25:44):
what was it like when you first got there? What
was what was kind of their tactics were they? For example,
one of them we talked I talked to it was
a striker unit and they would place I d s
just strong enough to get you to disable and dismount
and then they would attack. Right, Yeah, what was the
tactic when you were there?

Speaker 5 (26:05):
They don't have proof, but we have good intel because
eventually the intel came out that there was this is
like I want to say a few weeks later after
this occurred, so you're talking about a month and a
half in we we got credible intel that there was

(26:26):
chechens operating within our valley. Uh, and potentially they had
been there for a while. So, like I mentioned, you
know that we're driving up there and they're like, hey,
they just got rocketed. We got to get up there now,
you know, hop in the truck and go. They were
slowly walking in one o sevens to the firebase and
they were launching them from about four and a half

(26:48):
clicks out and it was a very slow tactic. So
they knew that they were that they were getting replaced,
and so they they knew we didn't know the lay
of the land very well, and so they picked this
spot far off in a far ridge line where it
was very well wooded, big tall pines or whatever. They

(27:10):
were there. So you know, if they launched one or
two one o seven's, it would eat the smoke from
the launch, so we couldn't pick up the signature from
the launch. And so they would launch one or two
adjust and wait days or a week or more. And yeah,

(27:34):
that was their tactic. They wanted to see how we
responded to it because we were m towed and we
were given a toe missiles because we're heavy weapons company.
We were actually supposed to go to Iraq up until
both our graph trainings were for Iraq and then we
went to Home Fells with you. Now you're going to Afghanistan.
You got switched. So they did that for about a

(27:56):
month and a half and then there was one rotate.
For whatever reason, the tow truck didn't come up with us.
We brought a fifty cow instead, an additional fifty cowl
truck with us the truck, and they knew that was
their moment of opportunity and they had it close enough

(28:17):
dialed in. The last rocket that they launched, I want
to say it was like two and a half weeks prior,
and it missed the firebase by about fifty meters. It
landed between the firebase and the ASG position that we
had just slightly. It was kind of like this very
it was uphill, but it wasn't very steep, and then

(28:38):
we had like a little ASG position right there because
it dipped off on both sides and kind of came
to a point where they were at so they had
a good vantage point. So it was like a weird like
op kind of deal. But I mean you're talking hundred
meters maybe from between those two and it was at
night that they launched it. I mean they would do

(28:59):
it all at random times, and that was their that
was their tactic. They slowly walked this in and they
they didn't engage us directly. It was all one o seven's,
all one o sevens for like the first month. There
was one firefight, but there was no one oh seven
shot during that firefight, and I think they were just

(29:20):
testing to see how we would respond. And then the
second one that Arplatune got in was big and they landed.
I think they shot twenty four twenty six one O
seven's that day. More than half of them landed within
the firebase. And when I say firebase, I'm talking like

(29:42):
maybe an acre's worth of land. Right, it was tiny.
We had one hooch, We pulled guard out of our trucks.
We slept on the ground and that was it. I mean,
we had a one to twenty milimeter mortar pit and unfortunately,
one of the first rockets it landed, giant piece of

(30:03):
it landed right next to our platoon leader trapnel h
entered his side and out the out his shoulder killed instantly.
You know that was that was a big blow because
I mean that was that was our leader, right, great
guy still talk to his parents occasionally. His dad's military

(30:25):
is his younger brother's military. I mean, he was just
family was all military. Wasn't going to take the normal
career path. He was talking about after doing after you know,
getting his captain and doing his minimum time. He was
talking about like doing some time over and like I
think like New Zealand had a deal where you could
go and like transfer over to them and do some
work there and their military and stuff like that. Who

(30:46):
he wasn't going to take the normal path. But it
was just a There was one patrol we went on
where the two forty gunner again just decided he was
you know, it was still early on in the deployment,
people are still getting used to that rain. He basically
fell out, and the platoon leanner just grabbed the two
forty and he was like, I got it. Let's go,
Like we need to get this two forty up to

(31:08):
this position as fast as possible. Give it. I'm gonna
get it up there, and then we'll put somebody somebody
else behind it. So that's kind of the leader he
was was just like if I got to carry the rope,
throw it in my bag, let's go. But that that day,
they I mean I shot almost everything at us. We

(31:30):
we launched a javelin missile, which was the best we
had at the time because we didn't have the tow truck.
It was the only thing I could eat that far.
A piece of shrapnel took out the bipod for the
one twenty. The mortar section sergeant that was up there,
uh saar Our Major Up retired, Tart Major Up just
recently retired. I mean he was literally holding the one

(31:53):
twenty by like the bipod with both hands and having
the guys hanging the rounds wow onto it, keeping it
like stable so we could launch rounds still that I
think he got a he got a silver star for it,
Bronzetar maybe bronze at least with with VAW device. The

(32:17):
Tablin messil didn't work out so well. It wasn't very
well taken care of. It malfunctioned, but came out the
two and uh just decided to and like land into
a cornfield or whatever field I think it was a cornfield,
landed a field lower in the valley and yeah, Mark

(32:40):
nineteen's you could get one can of am out of
them and then they jam every single time like it
would it would watch forty rounds and that was it.
It would jam. After the next next belt you'd feed in,
it would jam. You could never get more than one round.
So I was on the fifty truck of the time,
and my sector was watching what you called the knuckles,
which was the ridgeline looked like, you know, somebody's knuckles
on them. And I was watching that and they're like, hey,

(33:01):
you need to traverse your turret over here to cover
Geftfort with the javelin. So I'm like, okay, traverse over.
But it was one of those electrical ones and it
was shorting at the time, so the right, but I
can't get to the left, and then I'd let go
and then it would automatically rotate to the right. And
it was just a big mass. It was. Equipment was ship.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Now when when you when you go on on this deployment,
did you take over somebody else's equipment or did y'all
ship in your own?

Speaker 5 (33:30):
We shipped in a bunch. But like that saw was
was theaters.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
So some of this equipment was was well used.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
Oh yeah, very well loved. Yeah. I had seven deltas
for nods. You know, this is two thousand and twosand
and seven, yeah, two them seven, So I had Seven
Deltas and uh, they made a high pitched wine when
they were on and that's what I listened to every
night for fifteen months because they didn't have another pair

(34:02):
for me. Like that was it. It was just all
night long. It was rudal. I probably have literally, probably
some of the tonight as I have probably comes from
that alone. It's like Chinese water torture. Every night it
was brutally. I mean, we'd go on patrols and the
loom was good enough, like I would just turn them
off because I could see just as well with the

(34:23):
loom from the Seven Deltas, and they're absolutely horrendous compared
to some of the nods that are available now.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
I mean, right, yeah, we're typically you know, anytime we
go to war, and it's not just us, but we
go to war, we're always fighting with the previous wars tactics,
in the previous wars equipment, right, and it was no
I mean they as we talked about the tactics evolved,
so did the equipment, right, And by the by the
end of the g Watt era, the equipment was actually

(34:50):
getting really good.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
Oh yeah, I mean eventually when I made it to regiment,
you know, and going up you know, I was in
the S six shop. Obviously, I transitioned from it inventry
to uh I T and I worked at r h
Q my entire time there in the R S six shop.
But you know, looking at some of the equipment that
the R. S eight shop had upstairs that they were

(35:12):
you know, doing all their R and D stuff with, man,
that stuff was awesome, right, And you know, looking back,
you know, from being on that first deployment with those
whiny seven deltas and a what was it, M sixty
eight was the red dot, you got the name of
the actual optic I know, the nomenclature for some reason.

Speaker 4 (35:35):
So so you get you get into that, you get
in this. You know this one pretty bad, right, you lose,
lose betoon leader. Well, what was the next big fight
after that? And you know, I mean we're was it
more going out after people or was it more just
sit back and wait and wait for them to coome
to you?

Speaker 5 (35:52):
We actually eventually we tried to relocate that base at
one point like shortly after that. The next I mean
the next firefight after that, we were crazy enough we
air assaulted in a tow missile a fifty cal and
a Mark nineteen on top of a mountain trying to
look for like a place to We're doing some overwatch too,

(36:16):
but yeah, they decided to uh open fire in the
direction of the Mark nineteen, and that was a big
mistake on that guy's part. Yeah, he met an entire
can of Mark nineteen. But luckily, you know, you get
their first forty and then after that it's done. So
luckily they didn't know that I couldn't shoot any more

(36:38):
than those forty. Otherwise I think they probably would have
re engaged. But yeah, that's scared that. Probably they weren't.
They were probably thinking like a tow forty was going
to open up on them or something like that, not
a not a Mark nineteen. We we we got pretty proactive,
and again I think it was because of our leadership,
so so much so that it got to the point

(36:59):
where everything all time we went out to chow k
to the firebase. We would leave at night and go
on a patrol, and then we would come back during
the day. And they stopped shooting at us after like
a couple of weeks of that, they they stopped shooting
at us like completely, as long as we kept doing that,
the firefights were minimal, I mean, because they were so afraid.

(37:23):
And then they got a little ballsy one day where
it was Thanksgiving, they where we set up for the night.
They attacked us from that position that afternoon. So they
waited until we walked back and then set up right
where we were. So there's a potential how we stayed
a little bit longer or not. Just we were starting

(37:43):
to get in the habit of like as soon as
day broke, we'd get up and leave. And so that
we took that as kind of them being like, Okay,
you have a pattern, We've picked up on it, and
we're going to attack you from where you were. And
they again walked in mortar rounds more two was right there.

(38:05):
It was an interesting time. A couple of guys were
like just standing outside drinking their their anw uber, just
watching the rounds come in because they were way off
at first, and they're like, oh man, these guys suck.
It's terrible. Look at this. This is absolutely just you
guys suck. You know. They're yelling at him and stuff
like that. And then one round landed about twenty meters
outside the water. That changed everything pretty quick. Oh, shit.

(38:28):
You know, they're scrambled to get all their their gear
on and people are starting opening up fire at that
point because they opened up fire on us at that
point with other things.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
So you finished this deployment and you go back to Vicenza.
Did you deploy again from Vicenza back or what? What
was your.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
Im A buddy of mine and I during that deployment,
we were like, man, you know, the army is gonna
get what it wants out of us. And we were
looking at our squad leaders who some of them got
stopped lost and they were trying to get contractor jobs
and they were getting turned down. They were getting hung
up on because they hadn't even gone to ranger school.
They hadn't even they were never a part of soft
or part of regimen or a staff or anything like

(39:09):
when you know swick or nothing like. They weren't. They
didn't make anywhere in the soft communities and they were
just getting turned down. They no one was would answer
the phone for them, and if they did, they hung up.
So we were like, okay, now what do I now?
What's the plan? Right?

Speaker 4 (39:25):
You know?

Speaker 5 (39:25):
What do I do after this? So we got a
bright idea. We're like, let's do intel because of the
security clearance. Were like, yeah, I get a really good
security clients, that'll be a good idea. And I was like, yeah,
but then you're still like stuck working for like NSA
or something like your You're pigeonholed into one career path.
What's something that we can branch out and do a
bunch of different stuff with And we figured out it.

(39:46):
Ting to find out, well, that my buddy that I
was doing that with end up getting shot and med boarded.
The story of that him getting shot was a h
legit and discharge from a faulty pistol MM so again
overseas equipment. Come to find out, the seer on the

(40:09):
Libretta had worn down enough where occasionally and we knew this,
and we had been saying this, like occasionally sometimes when
you'd cock it, the cocking lever would go and the
firing pin would would hammer forward. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
So never never liked the biretta. Never.

Speaker 5 (40:25):
One day he went loaded it and sure enough to
cocking lever, firing pin and round went right into his elbow.
And so he didn't get to re enlist for that
For that job, I did, fortunately, and so I switched
over to twenty five brobl So your your I T
specialists or your your computer nerds what most people would

(40:49):
refer to it as, which I think was a looking back,
probably one of the smartest things I could have done.
I wouldn't have done it any other way. I'm very
lad that I went in as infantry and got some
trigger time and got a deployment as infantry under my belt.
And was that deployment of all deployments to go on

(41:11):
because at the end of the day, you know, I
would hate to have the regret of like I could
have done more. And that's actually how I ended up
at regiment and going to Ranger school was fear of regret,
fear of not knowing whether or not I could have
made it through ranger school.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
So you you re enlisted and were allowed to change
your MOS as part of the enlistment, right, so you
choose twenty five problems. You go to Fort Gordon. I'm
assuming for a how long is that at?

Speaker 5 (41:42):
Just under five months?

Speaker 4 (41:43):
Just enter five months? Okay, So you come out of Gordon.
Where was your first assignment after that?

Speaker 5 (41:49):
Fort Carson?

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (41:52):
Well they were moving forth. I d from Fort Hood
to Fort Carson. So it's part of that move, and
that was yeah, I was. I was ready to get
out of there day one.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
So how did you get how did you get from
Carson into regiment? What was that path.

Speaker 5 (42:10):
I wanted out of Fourth I d it was a
terrible unit, not Fourth Ida as a whole, but just
specifically that brigade that I think it was first Brigade
combat Team. It was really bad. It was not good,
So I was looking for ways out. I put in
a package to go to an SMU, got turned down,
and was literally looking anywhere. At that point in time,

(42:34):
former roommate of mine from Italy ended up getting killed,
And for whatever reason, my mind was, Okay, I am
physically capable to do a whole lot more than sit
behind this desk and create computer accounts for people. And
you know, I got trigger time and stuff like that,
and I'm more than physically capable of handling a ton.

(42:56):
I don't want to be forty years old where I'm
at now life looking back, going could I have passed
ranger school? If I'm gonna take this career path of
doing it, I can do more, and I don't want
to regret later on not doing more and not seeing
if I was capable of doing more so, my former
battalion commander at the time, Colonel Austlin was the deputy

(43:18):
commander at Regiment send him an email, Hey, sir, yeah,
I'm Sergeant Nelson. You know it's with you in Italy
twenty five Bravo. I got an email from your recruiting
office stating that you guys need twenty five bravos. What
do I gotta do to get there? And he's like,
I got you, send me your ARB sign of my ARB.
I had, I don't know three different people reach out

(43:39):
and I was like in the field at that point
in time at Fort Carson too, sending him this email.
And within hours I had three different people calling me,
emailing me, asking me for information, filling out like all
the paperwork and everything, and we're gonna get you a
RASP date. We're gonna You're like, this is what you're
gonna have to go do, and then you're gonna have
to go to RASP, Then you're gonna go to CERT,
then you're gonna go to Ranger scho before you even

(44:00):
show up to your unit, and is how it's going
to be. And I was like, all right, let's do
it like let's go not really knowing what RASP was
because it was so new at that point in time,
like how bad it was going to be? And uh yeah,
I mean that's that's how that ended up. I put
in my paperwork and then they go, oh, you only
have a year left. You have to reenlist to go

(44:21):
to RASP. Oh yeah, by the way, the rate, Yeah
you're reenlist, we'll send you to RASP. Little did I
realize that the pass rate of RASP in like the
first class that went through, that had just gone through,
was like ten pasted. I didn't know that. No one, like,

(44:42):
no one was taling me that, and so I was like, oh,
it's like RIP, Like you know, at that point it's
like what like forty fifty percent, six percent whatever whatever
The attrition rate was of guys passing I think was
like I'd say, it's probably somewhere similar to Ranger School
I think RIP was. So I was like, okay, like
it's going to be tough, but I'll make it, you know,
I'm tough enough, like mentally, I'll make it. And so

(45:03):
I started training a little bit for it, and yeah,
I had to I had to re enlist just to
go to RASP. If I didn't make it, if I quit,
I was going right back forth ID for three more years,
not one more year, three more years. You want to
talk about like the ultimate, like you want to quit,
Like just remember where you're gonna go to if you

(45:23):
don't make this. Yeah, So in my mind, like there
was never through RASP. There was never a moment I
was like I'm gonna quit this, like I I'm not
going back to that. I'm not I'm gonna end up here.
So much so that like I didn't go into it
in the shape that I should have been. I'll put
it that way. I got my ass handed to me
a lot, I mean bad, but you passed. Yeah, I

(45:46):
got selected. I mean there was one run I was
falling out of, I'll put it that way. I was
falling out of that run and I was a good
bit behind everybody, and there was a cadre with me
and it was just him and I else around. So
perfect moment for him to like get in my head. Right,
He's running next to me and he goes, just quit, Man,

(46:08):
we're not gonna select you anyways. You're wasting the Army's time,
You're wasting regiments time. We're not gonna select you. Just
save everybody the time, save yourself, the embarrassment. Just fucking quit.
You ain't gonna make it. You didn't come here ready
for this. Just fucking quit and just kept on going,
just kept on going. And I just I didn't say word,

(46:29):
just all right, if you really, if you're gonna drop me,
you're gonna drop me. This isn't gonna be the way
you do it. And I just knew. I was like,
if you really wanted me out of here, you would
cut me. You would just that would be it. You
would just tell me, hey, stop running, we're not gonna select, like,
we're not gonna select you. You've you're unselected, like you're
no longer in rasp when you've done right. And he

(46:51):
wouldn't say it, So in my mind, I was like, okay,
I just need to make it back to the formation.
Formation circles back around, picks me up. I just got
to keep pushing. I can't quit. Eventually, Yeah, I was
fortunate enough that they selected me, and uh, you know,
it was very different. I thought I was gonna go
to cert right away, and like you know, in my head,
that's what was gonna happen. I showed up and they're like, no,

(47:14):
actually there's an E seven billet as an E five,
there's an E seven billet. We need you to go
fill it r h Q more than we need to
send you to Ranger school right now. So we're gonna
send you into that billet. Oh yeah, by the way,
here's the fire hose breathe and uh yeah, we'll uh,
we'll figure out a date for you later to go
to ranger school.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Right.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
So, you're you're down a regiment down this is uh
Savannah Georgia right, Benning, Yeah, oh you're betting, okay.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
Right at the flag hole. Man put me right at
r h Q. I mean you're you're gonna be downstairs
from the commander and yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
So what was that like?

Speaker 5 (47:53):
Uh not the normal regiment story or experience that most
people have. Unfortunately, you know, I didn't. I didn't do
any line time, you know, so I didn't at the
When you work at r h Q, you're you're with
a lot of higher you know E six and aboves
and stuff like that, that are all working in in
S three or you know, really high you know, higher

(48:15):
ranking guys, guys that are literally there for a break
to get get them away from the line, or they're
waiting for their next promotion to become a first sergeant
or a sarm major or whatever their next move in
life or in their career was. In regiment, you know,
they'd kind of set them there for a little bit.
They they'd run whatever that they're running, and then they
would go on to doing the next thing on the line.
So there wasn't a lot of like lower enlisted development

(48:40):
or lower NCO development whatsoever. Which it's just part of
the beast being there because you have so many guys
that are really only there for a year or two
and then they're back off the line. But I sat
in a basement with a bunch of contractors that made
a ton of money that we're doing some really cool
I T stuff right, some very like nerdy computer stuff.

(49:01):
And you know, at the time, I knew a little
bit to be dangerous, but I didn't know a ton
And so I took that as an opportunity because my
whole idea in switching jobs was to have a job
post army, and I looked at that as like the
perfect opportunity to learn some invaluable skills. I can mark
myself when I left the Army, and that's exactly what

(49:22):
I did. I Sean, a previous guest of yours. I
sat right next to him there he is, sat next
to him for a good bit and you know, would
just pick his brain and try and learn from him,
from Matt Hoag and from from Nick, and just absorbed

(49:42):
as much as I could. So shout out to Sean that, uh, yeah,
they kind of taught me the contractor game, how to
play it, how to do it, and then taught me
a ton of stuff, some technical stuff that allowed me
to have a really good contracting career post my time
in the Army and allow me to get hired some
pretty unique and pretty incredible jobs from there. So shout

(50:07):
out to them, but that that was my experience. I
did much love Sean. I did was fortunate enough. I
kind of proved myself. Eventually they gave me a slot
for Ranger School, got the uh, probably the best pep
talk you could ever get from somebody, and Star Major
Ferguson called me into into his office and he's like,

(50:30):
you're leaving tomorrow. I can't roger that starm Major And
he's like, all right, come back with your tab or
your bags packed, because if you don't pass them, I'm
kicking you out a regiment and I'm gonna send you
over to Kelly Hill for the rest of your time
in the.

Speaker 4 (50:41):
Army, which is almost a death sentence.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
Yeah. Yeah, at that point is I mean, every every
terrible stereotype that you've ever heard about an Army unit
exists on Kelly Hill, like the worst of the worst.
I can't say that for sure. I never really spent
any time there, but that's essentially what you get from everyone,
is like the worst of the worst exists there.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Having spent some time in other units, I'm sure they
leak out because.

Speaker 5 (51:07):
Yeah, and it's it's so, I mean, that's and he
said that, and I'm like okay, and he's like, all right,
get out here, and I was like, that's it, that's
my PEPs. Okay, I'm I'm not quitting, all right, I'm
coming back with it. And it was fortunate enough to
go straight through Rangers School. Was very fortunate. My uh,

(51:30):
my platoon sergeant from Italy was one of the first
ergists in Florida, So there's a I saw some familiar
faces when I got to uh Florida, which was nice.
They didn't completely hook me up. I still had to
earn it. The I still really actually had to earn it,
which was really nice. Is my last patrol in Florida

(51:53):
that ri I had no idea who I was. I
had no idea that I was connected with those guys whatsoever.
He only found out afterwards because they made me the
first sergeant for our company for graduation and so on
the bus on the way back from Florida to Benning
where we were just kind of because I had to
sit up front, and he's just asking me some questions.

(52:13):
He's like, you know, so what units were you in?
You know, blah blah blah. And I told him and
I was like, you didn't You didn't know that first
armed rob was my opportuneness are And he's like, I
had no idea. I was like, all right, cool, sweet,
I guess I actually earned it. So it made me
feel good because when you get there and you see
some familiar faces, they pull you off to the side
and they kind of give you the low down of like,
don't get peered, don't do something stupid, We're gonna take

(52:35):
care of the rest for you. And that was the
speech I got from them and was like, oh, like
I knew my first ri at my first patrol in Florida,
I knew him very well.

Speaker 4 (52:45):
Well, I mean it's it's a small world as it is,
but the military makes.

Speaker 5 (52:48):
It smaller, right, Yeah, mean extremely run into You.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Stay in long enough and you're going to run into
people you know at your different stations that you you've
served with.

Speaker 5 (52:55):
So yeah, even as a contractor overseas, I ran into
guys that I was in the Army with and I'm like, dude,
what's up? You know, what are you doing here? And
you know it was it was I mean granted I
was in k I was in Kuwait, so it's very
transient place. Sure you see a ton of people walk
through there, but still like see you guys that like

(53:15):
I was on that first deployment with walking through you know, like, dude,
what's up?

Speaker 4 (53:20):
So you passed rad in school, you go back to
you go back to Benning. How long until you're out?
At that point.

Speaker 5 (53:29):
A little over a year. One more deployment, my last
one with regiment. They wanted a twenty five series TAB
twenty five series to be the Commander's aid and rt O,
which was actually pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
Where was that deployment.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
Twenty twelve where what Afghania? Okay, so we're the you know,
the task force commander at the time, regiment was the
task force command for go capture assets in country. But
then kind of hanging out with the commander, you kind
of see it was kind of cool. Like that was
how I went out with the military, was seeing the

(54:11):
full picture of what was going on over there because
I was seeing it from you know what, or what
I could see from the from the commander's point of
view of everything he had available and all the operations
that were going on at that point in time. And
going from my first apployment being, you know, the conventional
force that's securing a road and living out and the

(54:33):
sticks in the wild wild West, to seeing all the
assets that we were, uh we would do cover what
do you call it? They would basically switch out with
each other or infills or x fils, you know, they
would have us do an airssault somewhere and there would
just be dudes on the on the helicopter with beards

(54:55):
and long hair and very different uniforms and weapons. And
then they weren't on the bird with us. On the
way back, and now all of that started making sense
to me when you got to see it from that
level of like, oh, we were just the decoy. Gotcha cool?
That's cool, like awesome.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
So that that's a good segue into one of the
one of the things I always ask, and this, this
is a little difficult for some people. Your thoughts now
with a little bit of hindsight versus your thoughts going
in to the operations and everything in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I know you were in Afghanistan, but your thoughts and

(55:35):
I don't want to get political, but I want, you know,
I want to make sure we capture you know, because
I've seen a lot of people, especially with the way
we withdrew from Afghanistan and the way that went down,
there's been a lot of people who have felt, you know,
I don't want to use the word betrayed, but that
that's probably a good word for it. Right. They almost

(55:56):
feel like they had the rug pulled out from underneath them.
And some of them are know, still kind of dealing
with that. And so I wanted to capture what are
your thoughts on that.

Speaker 5 (56:06):
We could have we could have done that same pull
out in two thousand and seven during my first appointment
or the day we killed Bin Laden. We could have
done the same thing and we would have gotten the
same effects. I mean, we could have pulled out super
early along long you know, saved how many how many
Americans not just in combat death and combat or KIA,

(56:29):
but like, how many lives have been impacted negatively because
of PTSD or mental health or this, that and the
other because of it? Right? Or the guys that, like
you mentioned that are still having a hard time with
that pull out? You know, like I mean that alone,
how many lives are that? What is that butterfly effect
of that? How's how's that trickle down for through generations

(56:50):
of people? I think we could have done that a
long time ago. But I mean I wouldn't say I
struggled with it, but I definitely was confused and I
was a little pissed off. But then I realized that
And the biggest thing that that powers me today is

(57:14):
the guys that that did sacrifice in girls. But those
that sacrifice their lives over there and cash that blank check,
they didn't do that for us to come back here
and get pissed off or take our own lives or
you know, find our way in the bottom of a

(57:36):
bottle on a regular basis. That's not that's not why
they they made that sacrifice. They made that sacrifice so
that we could come back and level life worth their sacrifice.
And so when I started reframing it like that in
my brain and realizing that everything I do for the
rest of my life, you know the phrase never forgotten, Well,

(58:00):
if I live the best life that I can possibly live,
and I can create a legacy with myself and the
life that I live and what I build within my life,
those names of those people like my platoon leader, you know,
Lieutenant Hall, my roommate that was killed, Sergeant Beachenaw, like
their names continue through through that and so yeah, that

(58:24):
was that was big for me. I mean that changed
everything for me. And seeing it that way because it's
you can get pissed off about how it happened or
when it happened, but you had no control over that.
What you do have control over is the life that
you choose to live and how you the impact that
you leave on people's lives and carrying on and living

(58:45):
a life that's worth that sacrifice that they had, whether
it was could have been prevented or avoided that wasn't
on you. There, there's nothing you could have done about that,
but you can you can allow other people to remember
them and remember their sacrifice. And you know, like I said,
live a life that was worth their sacrifice. Live live
a life and create something that was worth that. You know,

(59:09):
there tomorrow is being sacrificed.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
All right, We've been going about an hour. Is there
is there any additional stories anything you want? You know,
something you saw some you know, maybe a heroic act
by somebody, maybe you know you they gave a child
an MRI and it was the best day of their
life or something, any anything like that you want future

(59:34):
generations to know.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
Yeah, we're not that different from them, from anybody else
on the planet. They're all humans. We have our differences,
we have different cultures, we have different beliefs, different systems. Now,
there's some things that I don't agree with. There's some
things that that parts of certain cultures that bother me

(59:56):
to the bone. But at the end of the day,
you know, they're they were still humans, you know, kids
asking for pens, you know, and doing stuff like that,
like you mentioned, handing them some food or something like that.
You know, and watching the impact that that had on
them or kind of the impact the overall impact we had.

(01:00:19):
You know, we're I'm not like the biggest proponent of
you know, certain political ideologies and stuff like that, but
the fact that women were able to go to school there,
you know, people people in general were given opportunities to
better their their life. I think because of what we

(01:00:40):
were doing there. I think that gets lost a lot
of times. And so really it's it's I do a
lot with data on a daily basis, and you can
tell any story you want with data. You know, you
can twist it however you want to say whatever you want.
But you know, from my standpoint, you know, I really

(01:01:01):
think there was a potential for us to do some
good there. I can't say it was all good. I
know it was very difficult a lot of times, and
it's a culture that was very different from ours. But
once you figure out kind of how to how they
speak and how that culture works, and I think some
of the leadership that we had during that first deployment

(01:01:22):
and in my time in regiment, they understood that and
they were able to utilize that to the advantage. And
I think there was a lot of things that way
above their heads that kind of hindered their abilities to
do that at times. And but I think, man, there's
there are some When I was in college, I had

(01:01:45):
to write a paper about what a hero is, And
to me, the definition of what a hero is it's not,
you know, a superhero like Batman, or I guess Batman's
maybe a good version of it, but it's not like
Superman or somebody who was born with this innate ability.
It's just a regular person that decides to do something.
So really, what I'd like younger generations to realize is

(01:02:08):
that the country that you live in and the society
that we have, whether you like it or you dislike it,
or however you feel about it, but the fact that
you have the opportunities you do have is because people
raise their right hand and volunteered to go to when
all this was going on. Like myself, you know, I
volunteered to join the army when Iraq and Afghanistan we're

(01:02:32):
in full swing, and people like that that that did
that on a daily basis and then went to these
places and not knowing what it was going to be like,
not knowing what Afghanistan was going to be like, fully.
I mean, you have an idea, but you don't really
know until you get there or how irack is. People
were willing to do that, and they're willing to sign
a blank check that could cost them everything just to

(01:02:57):
try and whatever they're since where. But I mean at
the end of the day, you really end up there
because of the people that are standing next to you,
and the guys here in those firefights with more than
anything else, you're fighting for them. And I mean that
was probably talk about heroism on a daily basis. I
mean seeing dudes just do things on a regular basis,

(01:03:18):
I mean just wild stuff like I if I explained
it to you, most people would just be like, yeah,
as bullshit because it is just I mean, you know,
dudes running through carrying AMMO and around misses them by millimeters,
you know. I mean there was there was one instance
where a guy, I mean he had the hole in

(01:03:38):
his pants from the round that was like probably burnt
the hairs on his balls because it was so close.
Oh wow, you know what I mean. And you see
that sort of stuff, or you hear stories about guys
getting shot and then keep fighting. I mean Ranch House.
I don't know most people don't know about it, but
ranch House was pretty big. It's that we had to

(01:04:00):
deal with. Everybody there was injured. Not a single guy
got killed. I'm talking like twenty some guys. All of
them got shot shrapnel some way, shape or form. Not
a single one of them got killed. I mean I
wasn't there for that. I didn't see it, but I
know those guys, every single one of the guys that
I was with, you know, every single guy that was
in the corn gall that was there for whe not.

(01:04:22):
I mean, you want to talk about heroism, you just
have to look at those and the fact that more
people weren't more severely injured or killed is I mean,
it's all there. It's it's all there because it was.
It was it felt like it was just normal to
see guys do things that were, you know, very heroic

(01:04:44):
or unworldly kind of type stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:04:49):
All right, So where can people find you?

Speaker 5 (01:04:53):
You can find me on LinkedIn if you look up
Tyran Nelson. I do want an AI Automations a agency.
We build AI systems and solutions for businesses to help
you scale, spend less money, spend less time, and make
more money. And the company's name is all set it's
a L S E. T SO spell Tesla Backwards Technologies.

(01:05:15):
If you look us up, you'll find us. I'm pretty
I'm on I'm on LinkedIn a lot. That's where you're
gonna find me the most. Occasionally hop on Facebook or Instagram,
but you're not going to see much there. LinkedIn is
where you can get at me. Very very active there,
and uh yeah, just I love connecting with other veterans

(01:05:35):
that are doing anything in business or in their transition.
I'm starting to do a lot with the Strategic Veteran
and helping Adam Peters and helping them, uh with that process.
He's doing a lot for veterans that are transitioning out
and helping them kind of what that feels like, what

(01:05:56):
it looks like. I'll get involved there as well.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
Great, great, all right, well I appreciate you coming on,
hang on for a bit. Thank you to our sponsors.
Mar Vita you go to for sport fishing and Gobble,
San Lucas Gear for grants, Rabbit Access Magazine, Pods for
air style devices, Alpha Lead Performance take your workout to
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for veterans and first responders and bohemmer dot com. Thank

(01:06:23):
you everybody for your evening. Thank you Tyler for coming
on my pleasure.

Speaker 5 (01:06:26):
Rob appreciate its