Lima Charlie Episode 30 with Larry Scott Teakell

Larry "Scott" Teakell, a native Texan, joined the U.S. Army in 1995. He served as a medic and had three tours in Iraq, one in Bosnia and Macedonia. In July 2007 in Iraq, SSgt Teakell put out a fuel fire that covered Spc. Heredia and was awarded the
Soldier's Medal, the highest medal you can earn for heroism in non-combat. Teakell talks about being a medic and the Strong Star Training Initiative program at Fort Hood. He retired as an SFC in 2015 and began forging knives, and became the founder of
Junkyard Tactical.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M h, God, don't reason the cheek of a killing

(00:24):
season with a need to blease you with the light
goest bring let's believe them in the zone to me
from a end of my tom as good agree, I
must here when you came to me, because I'll weird.
I'm a one of a kind and I'll bring death to.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
The glacier about to meet another river of blood running
under my feet for as you to fire it long ago,
stand next to me, You'll never stand alone.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm 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 3 (00:53):
Inside of the enemy.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Faces in my sight, being with a hand shoe, with
a mind, you with a heart like our jam.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Guys soldier, I'm marching on.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I am a warrior and this is my song mast
the goal of the rising w race to the ground
of an enemy.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Sure, I read you, Lema Charlie, loud and clear. Thank you,
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Lima
Charlie Episode thirty with Larry tekl Welcome, Larry, tell us
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Thanks, thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah tell us about.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, Larry, takel here I'm from Waco, Texas. I joined
the army in nineteen ninety five. I retired in twenty fifteen,
and I did one of years as a combat medic.
Retired as the SAR first class. Did three tours in Iraq.
I did one tour in Bosnia, I went toward Macedonian

(02:13):
and now I'm retired. Now I make knives and I
recently wrote a book about my experiences in Iraq and
getting the soldiers medal.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Right, so do you do you come from a military family,
being right there in Waco, so close to uh Well
formerly four classes now Ford Head.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, most of my grandfathers and great grandfathers and great
great grandfathers were all in a war.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
My dad was in Vietnam, grandfather was in Korea World
War two?

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Okay? Were they were the Army?

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Were the other branches or well, my dad's side was
all Army and my other side was all Navy and Marines.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Okay, So did your your dad service in the army
have any influence over you joining the army or did
you consider any other branch or what kind of made
you even even decided to join an military?

Speaker 3 (03:11):
So you know, my dad had serious issues with PTSD,
and I had never thought I was ever going to
join the Army because it's I just didn't want to
be part of that at the time. And I was
a young you know, being a young kid, and I
was an artist by trade. I was. I got I
graduated high school, and I went into the art field,

(03:33):
and I was in a punk rock band, and I
thought that was gonna be my life. I thought I
was gonna be a singer for a punk rock band
and do art and I went to college for that,
and then I couldn't get a job and I was
still doing the band and issues with the band, you know,
drugs and stuff, and I got out of that and

(03:55):
I had to pay child support. And I was like,
I was, I'm just going to join the army for
four years, get my college money, you know, get my
bachelor's degree or whatever, and continue on with life. But
when I joined the Army, they gave me PFC and

(04:17):
I loved it day one. Drill siens, everything, all that stuff.
I loved it. Like I said in the book, I
I swallowed the hookline sinker and I just stayed in
for the long haul.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
Nice. So what was the name of your punk rock
band and the Casket Kids Caske Kids.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, and I was also in a band called corn Pong.
I played a scarecrow and we did if you ever
heard of a band called Guar. It was like a
southern punk rock version of Guar. And we had a
cult following here in Waco and San Antonio and Austin.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Right, So you you gret What year did you graduate?

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Nineteen eighty eight?

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Nineteen eighty eight? Okay, so you were you were very close.
I got a friend who played in a band down
in San Antonio, h called Gollum. It was real kind
of heavy heavy metal.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
He was. He was in that scene for you know,
I think I heard it. I think I've heard of
that band. We opened up for Agony Column in San Antonio. Okay,
you know who Agony Column is? No? No, they are
a hardcore, hard heavy Texas band, or used to be
back in the in the nineties.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Okay, I'm I'm originally from Texas as well. I was.
I was born and raised around Houston, so I was.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Born in I was born in Galveston, but I lived
most of my life in Wacom.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Okay, do you know where Annawak, Texas is?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Had no clue.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Okay, it's just it's kind of close to Galveston. That's
that's where I'm from, little little bitty town, small. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
I lived in Range for a while, in El Campo,
Texas for a while.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
Okay, okay, so you you you decided to join the army, right, yes,
you obviously, you know, you take the ass fad. They
kind of decide, you know what you're going to go into.
How did you end up in the medical field? How
did you choose?

Speaker 3 (06:11):
I wanted to. I wanted to Uh, I wanted to
be a firefighter because I saw this video that they
had and they said that that was going toward a
contract to civilians. So I had to kick something else.
And I said, well, what's the next what's the next
best thing? And they're like, well, being a medic. You know,

(06:32):
he could either be on the line or he could
be in the hospital. And I'm like, and I heard
lots a lot of cool stories about medics in the army,
so I was like, give me that.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Okay, dude. Basically at Fort Lennarwood, Missouri.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Yeah, and then San Antonio for the.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
The I t yeah, I used to. I used to
run the help desk at bamse for for a while. So, uh, as,
so you go to basic training. You're had you ever
been outside of Texas? I mean with the band? Who
you travel out Texas or anything like that? You never
really left Texas.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
My first the first plane I've ever been almost the
trip to Missouri, okay, out of.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
All the places misery, I mean Missouri.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
For lost in the woods.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Yeah, yeah it was.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
It was frozen solid when I got there in January.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
So and so, so you get there and we're thinking, oh, ship,
did I make a mistake.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, I didn't think that at all. I thought, well,
we're gonna do next. You know what we're gonna do next.
Why are we stuck here? Let's get to the training.
I mean I was, I was, I was ahead of
the game. I guess.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Okay, any anything stand out and basic? I mean a
lot of a lot of us have, you know, just
the standard basic stories, but anything.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
So they gave me PFC when I joined because I
had college and you know, I've never kicked myself in
the butt for not being an officer. Uh because I
wanted to be with the Joes and I didn't really
care about being an officer for some reason. That just
didn't stick with me. But when I got there at

(08:10):
the PFC, they put me in charge of the squad.
Now I've never been in charge of anybody before. You know,
I didn't know how to do all that, but I
learned really quick, try by fire. Yeah exactly. But I
love that. I love being outside. I love being in
the woods and shooting guns and having the drill stars

(08:31):
teach us how to actually do it.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
And it just.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Something flip the switch at me, and it was like,
this is I'm gonna do. I love this.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
This is nice, nice, nice. So you leave, you leave
Missouri and you go to San Antonio. You're kind of
back in familiar territory, right.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Different world because the humidity was like you had to
slice it open first and then step through it.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, but I did.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
I got When I got there, people were talking mad
shit about this Fox Drot company. Don't get it. Don't
get in Fox Trot. Whatever you do. The drill stars
are just mean, right, They're mean for no reason. Well,
so they're already like playing a bad seed. So I

(09:21):
uh would get to the big auditorium and they're like,
is anybody here over twenty one?

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Well?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
I raised my hand, right, anybody here got a Texas
driver's license. And I raised my hand, Okay, you guys
come with me. And I just got off the bus,
you know. And so they made me the ard driver
for a sergeant major at AMN center in school.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
Wow, So my my.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Ai T was back three months. I was an ard
driver for like three months and then I went back
and started. They got tea. But for that that that
three months, I didn't have like I lived like a
regular Joe like permanent party.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
That's crazy. And it was not a bad place to
be in the grand scheme of things. There's way worse
places to be.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
It was really hard going back to a i T
where you had to live in a bay when I
have my own room for three months, you know. Yeah,
But it was a good experience, and that's started. Major
Kessler was my starty major. That I and I took
the vehicle to what's that place called camp? Oh yeah, anyway,

(10:42):
so you gotta drive. You gotta drive to the camp
or all the train like the actual training and the
courses I ran and stuff like that, and you take
it out there and get it dispatched and washed and
you come back and that's pretty much what you do
Is you just drive the third major to functions.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Camp bullets?

Speaker 3 (11:02):
Camp Bullets, Yeah, Doug, Doug.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Doug told us in the chat, so yeah, camp Bullis
so any any good words of wisdom from that or
made you while you were driving? I mean knowing you
were you were kind of you're not even a I
mean your trainee, yes.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
But I mean well he always told me just to
listen to your leadership. He always he also said, listen
to your leadership. They're going to tell you things that
you don't understand. What they're telling you for a reason.
So I took that to heart.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
Good good An. How long is AI T for? And
what was your This was back in the nineties, so that.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Was yeah, it was nine one probe.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
Yeah, it was a ninety one series. Didn't they change
that later to a different whiskey? Sixty eight? Okay, so
you're ninety ninety one brother. How How long was that
AI T?

Speaker 3 (11:52):
It was eight weeks? It was maybe it was mainly
long because you had to do the e MT qualification.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
Okay, I hear eight weeks for me, I was I
was signal. So I did seven months my first a
T and I did nine months my second. So I
eight weeks. I'm like that was short.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah. Then I went to Germany.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Oh Germany would so you you leave at eight weeks, right?
And what did you think of the training? Was pretty
easy for you? I mean.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
It was a different world. I mean I didn't know
anything about it, and E M. T is not anything
has a nothing to do with what you do in
the army as a medic. But I mean it's good training.
I'm not gonna kick that. You know, you're qualified to
help out on ambulance or drive an ambulance. Almost said ambulance.

(12:51):
That's because I'm from Texas. But anyway, so I got
to Germany and it was a different world. I was
kind of used to, you know, have my own room whenever.
I was married at the time. And so I got
over there by myself and I was in uh one
six infantry. Where where was that out in that bill

(13:15):
sick Germany? Right next to Graspen beer.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Okay, yes, And then like three or four.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Days after I got there, they switched to two two
infantry mechanized okay. And then I drove a one one
three as a medic. I was a driver slash medic
for a one one three ambolance.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Okay, we were the only medic in the I mean,
how do they how do they separate that at as
like one medic per platoon, one medic per so.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
You have like five medics per platoon, like if you're
in a mechanized infantry, So you got a driver, PC
and three medics and then you have medics that go
on the on the line, so you have like four
three or four medics that go to eat the platoons.
I mean one, so I have a squad leader. I

(14:02):
did not have a TC driver and medic in the back.
But the vehicle there's only one vehicle for per company.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
Okay, And no, I mean obviously you're medican. Did your
whole career No, no problems with blood nothing, none of that.
Had you ever, I mean, had any kind of medical
training before you went through any of this?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
I mean no, except for like fake blood, right, I.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
Mean Texas you probably hunt, right, you probably hunt and
fish and so.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah, I did, I did. But I mean the band
that was in was like we did a lot of
fake blood, and it was a lot of gore. We're
in the Gore movies and stuff like that, So I
mean it really didn't phase me now my own blood.
There's a different story.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
Okay, So so you're you're in Germany. What what year
is this at this point?

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Nineteen ninety five, nineteen ninety five going on ninety six, So.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
You and I were probably in Germany at the same time.
So I was in Heidelberg. I was stationed at NATO
assignment in Heidelberg, Germany.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Oh nice, Yeah, did you go to Bosnia or Massadena?

Speaker 4 (15:10):
Did I did? I spent a I spent a year
total in Bosnia. I went for six months. I came
back and then I, uh my, my whole uh office
had changed where I was at, my old platoon sergeant
was gone. I said, send me back down range. At
least I know what the fuck I'm doing down there.
So I went back for six months.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
I thought I was being smart, But that one six
y three Armor in Germany at Bill said was asking
for volunteers to go with them to Macedonia. And it
was during the spring, summertime, and everybody else is going
to get deployed to Bosnia in the wintertime, and in
the Europe the winters are harsh. So I was like,

(15:52):
I think, you know, I was going to be smart
I'm just going to volunteer for these, uh, miss assigmon
and go to Macedonia, and then I might have even
not have to go to Bosnia because I'm as soon
as I come back, you know, they're going to be leaving.
So I volunteered. I went over to Macedonia and had
a great time on Camp Amble Table Sentry and Unifour

(16:16):
five two. I lived on the side of the mountain
and I was like in charge of all the sanitation
and the water and the food and everything like that,
and rotating all the food because we got all the
food from the U went and it was nice. I

(16:37):
mean we did that for six months.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
Was any of that part of part of any of
your training? I mean food santation, you know, field tantation,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
The basic stuff, and then you have to expound on it.
So you're you're told what to do. Then you get
these books that you have to read and understand. Uh,
this is my first duty assigned in my first real
world deployment, and I just you know, CoA said, I
just do what I had to do. And it wasn't

(17:10):
really the scary thing was like the Serbian border is
where we were like you fur five two. You're looking
down at the Surbian border and it little till miss
little site thing and you're seeing putting in borders. Sometimes
you can't do nothing about it. You just got to
read over in the nerves at the checkpoints three zero

(17:30):
or putting in a mortar tube and they're like they
came back and say, okay, just monitor that.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
Roger. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
And then we would go on foul patrols and our
big blue hats and our blue flag and we would
walk out there a couple of miles and walk back
the presence patrols. Yeah, and then we would rotate. We
would rotate, you know, and go back home to Camp
Able Century and live in the barracks for two weeks

(18:01):
and don't do it and doing anything but training. I
was Amy.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
I just I didn't do any any foot patrols. Nothing.
Everywhere I went was either on a C one thirty
or I was in a vehicle somewhere, so some sort
of convoy.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
So we had so much time on our hands. We
we everything was white, you know for the U n oh, yeah, yeah,
And we had to One of our duties was changing
sand bags if the sand bag had a hole in it,
or it looked like it wasn't going to be white.
You had to change it out. And at the rocks
around your your vehicle weren't white enough, you had to

(18:36):
spray paint those white.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
So did did, because I know we did. Where I was, well,
I was kind of all over the place, but uh,
we saw a ton of locals driving still an UN vehicles.
They were everywhere because when the you know, the UN
had the mission first, right, and then NATO came in
and took over the missions from the U N and
I was part of that NATO that went in, and uh,

(19:00):
I remember just seeing the locals had UN vehicles everywhere.
So I don't know if you saw the same.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Or not, but I think we were Umper four. I
mean we were Umper four. Okay, I was ouricles a white.
My woman three was white. That's all I had was
that one, one, three, and then we were assigned. You know,
the tank was a tanker battalion, so everybody was a
tanker guy. And I didn't have that kind of like

(19:28):
uh history or lore like to be anything than a medic.
And medics can be anybody, you know, any any unit
can have a medic and then they're all the same.
But I wasn't like any loyalty too, you know, the
armor unit or infantry unit or anything like that, because

(19:49):
I just got there. Right.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
I've never understood why they sent uh first a D
an Armored division into a mountainous territory. That just never
made sense to me. And then and you know, if
you remember, right around some of that time, they sent
tenth Mountain Division into uh, you know, Mogadishue, right they
that kind of should have been reversed. They should have

(20:11):
sent tenth Mountain into Bosnia. It should have sent first
a D to Mogadi.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
Shoot. But when I was there ninety six to ninety six,
That's when I was.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
There, Okay, I got there in December of ninety five,
so and then six months and then back for three
and then went for another six. But so at at
what point do you pick up before in any of
this did were you deployed or.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Were you after after the Bosnia deployment?

Speaker 4 (20:42):
I picked up before the sham shield. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
I never really liked that whole thing. And when everybody
talks about them shaman or something like that, it gets
under my fucking skin because that I've never been that way.
So I get I don't know if it's trouble because
nobody can. Nobody's gonna fuck with me about it. But
I got into the army to be in the army

(21:08):
and to do my job. So that's just been my
whole month of the whole entire time I've been in
the military.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Sure, so you make four. You're back in Germany at
this point, right.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
I'm in Germany.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
I did.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
I got back from Bosnia, and Bosnia is what happened.
My first head wound that I had to treat. I
was in Bosnia and what was what?

Speaker 4 (21:32):
What was that?

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Like?

Speaker 3 (21:37):
We're at the checkpoint between the Bosnian village, I mean
the Surbian village and the the Muslim village, and there's
like four Bradley's. I'm I'm there with two to infantry
right now, and I'm in the vehicle, the humvy with
the lieutenant and the interpreter and myself for where they're
sitting at the checkpoint. Because the Bradleys go off and

(21:59):
do their little figure eight and come back or whatever.
And I see often down the road there's this guy
running for his life and he's being chased by all
these people, and I don't I don't know who these
people are. But he's bleeding. So I tell I yell
at him to come come to me, and I'm like,
get the interpreters start talking for me and stuff. He

(22:21):
gets to me, he's bloody, his head's all bloody, his
necks all bloody, and I realized that he has a
piece of brick stuck in the back of his skull,
like they were trying to kill this guy, you know.
And so they're surrounded me and the interpreter, and they
all had pitchforks and axes and two by fours and

(22:43):
big old walls and stuff like they were just going
to kill this guy. And I know that was my concern.
I told that the interpreter they all needed to back up,
and they weren't backing up. I told him that all
they either back up, leave or you know, go away,
because this is my my patient now he's under my protection.
And they didn't, and I pulled out my nine I

(23:06):
am nine and cocked it and I said, y'all need
to get the fuck back. And they still stayed there
for a little bit, but then they started to like
back away, and then in the in the distance you
could hear the Bradleys coming back so I hosted my
weapon and they dispersed because the Bradleys were coming in,
so I didn't have to worry about anything else or

(23:27):
other than treating that guy. And I treated him. I
didn't want to take that piece of brick out. It
looked like, I don't know how deep it was, but
it wasn't like it wasn't just going to fall out.
It was stuck in his skull and it was like
a corner piece of a brick, you know. And I
just did it like a bandage, dressing around it and

(23:48):
banded up his head. He had some some slashes on
his throat like they were trying to slid his throat,
and I cleaned those up. They weren't believing that bad
I put our bands around that and then told the
lieutenant was just oh my god, this is going on.
And I was like, hey, call the commander and had
him call a burden so we can get this guy
to the hospital. And the commander said no, So I

(24:10):
told the interpreter to go get the mulah from the
village to get him in a car. It came to
the hospital so he'd get treated, because you know, he's
a bad off. Sat and they did it, and everything
was nothing happened after that. I got a lot of impact.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
Was this an ethnic thing? Was this, you know, Serb
crow ad versus So.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
The interpreter said that this was the Muslim guy who
was not really a Muslim. I understand that. But he
lived in that village, the Muslim village, and he was
down in the Serbian village drinking and getting drunk and
causing a scene. So the Serbs wanted to kill him.

(24:56):
So I can't believe he made it. He ran down
the road like that.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
The fight or flight, I mean, that's a real thing.
So and anything else going on to that during that deployment,
I mean, any other.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
The birchgolle Bridge riot happened, but I was on I
was on leave. They the Bradley's had shot the warning
rounds into the empty building, and then the people rioted
and tore down the constantina wire and started fighting with
the people that were there. But I mean I was
on leave. I ain't see none of that.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Okay, see you go back to Germany. Did you do
just that one deployment to Bosnia or just.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
That one one deployment? And then we were like I
rode out the rest of my time in Germany, got
my for and it became time to re enlist, and
I wanted to stay in the army, and I re
enlisted for nursing school.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
Okay, how long was that deployment by the way that.

Speaker 5 (25:58):
I think it was eight months? Okay, it was like
eight months? Okay, I was on camp. Get my golfn Okay,
try to remember where that was. So you get back
to Germany and an you want to apply to a
nursing school.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
You're nee for it this time? How much? So at
this point you're probably what a year and a half
into this Germany slash Bosnia, this whole europe European vacation, right,
So so because this was an unaccompanied tour, was this
just a two year No?

Speaker 3 (26:31):
I was a company, so it was like three years.
My wife came over before I left for.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Uh Macedonian Okay, okay, so you were going to do
three years? Are anywhere? So you're about half yeah?

Speaker 3 (26:45):
And I had a kid there, My daughter, Dagne was
born in Germany and then we went to San Antonio.
I got I got accepted into the nursing program for
like LVN for enlisted m HM and you had to
go there for like like eight weeks of training, and
then you had to do your internship. You got to

(27:09):
select three and then they gave you one of the three,
and I selected Fort Lewis, Washington Madigan Army Medical Hospital.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
Right, So does that change from ninety ninety one Bravo
to a ninety one something else? What did you stay
on just with a designator.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Stay as a Bravo until you get like gone with
your school and you get awarded in os And I
don't remember what that one was because I didn't stay
in there. I got I got done with my like
the practical exercises and eight weeks of like pre training,
and then you get to go do your internship where

(27:48):
you act like one you do the job. You take
a bunch of tests, but you do the job. And
then I didn't really like being a nurse for and
in the Army. Wise of the nurse is just an
ass whopper and a pill pusher, right, And it wasn't
very stimulating and it was sad, like the doing the

(28:11):
cancer ward rotation, doing the old Soldier old Soldiers home rotation.
Now the er rotation was fun and exciting, I mean
not for the people involved but for me as a
professional medic, yes it was, and I just didn't like it.
So I had to get out my failing three three

(28:34):
tests in a row, like three math tests in a room.
But I was a four and I did that, and
you get pulled up put into this holdover status. And
the company first started. The company commander liked me for
some reason, and the first art I was like, Hey,
this is what I want you to do. I want

(28:55):
you to be my training in CEO. And I was like, okay,
I can do that. So I got found out what
a training and c O is all about. And then
the commander is like, hey, this guy's doing a great job.
I want to see him to the board. Let's go.
Let's getting ready for the board. So I go to
the five board and I get it, and then I
go into pod C and then I have massive points.

(29:19):
So I get my E five.

Speaker 5 (29:20):
Pretty quick and you're to Fort Lewis, Washington at this
point in Fort Louis, Washington, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:25):
Okay, okay, And it was at back and forth, Sam right,
p ond C.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
What was in Fort Lewis? Oh okay, it was called
PODC back in the day. Yeah, it's called w ol C.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Now I think.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
It wasn't. I don't remember how long it was, but
it wasn't that long. And I got com announced list
and the commander first, aren't We're happy? So I just can.
I got my E five and I was like the
actual training and CEO, and I think I worked there
from US to until nineteen ninety nine, two thousand ninety nine,

(30:06):
and then I got orders to go to Korea. My
family was already in Fort Lewis, and I got orders
to go to Korea for a year, so I had
to do what I had to do. I went to
Korea on a company tour un a company for one
year and I ran in eight station Camp Humphrey's Camp Humphreys, Korea,

(30:30):
and it was a blast. I really loved the Korean people.
I really loved being over in Korea and working in
the emergency room.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
So in in relation to like where the DMZ is
and everything, because everybody always they always ask the question,
I've never been to Korea where Camp Humphrees down Low.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
It's way down low. It's close to Soul, but it's
not near it. I mean it takes like an hour
or something to drive there. It's nowhere near to the
DMZ IT Camp Humphreys is like an air calf base.
It's all helicopters and stuff.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
Okay, so you work in an age station, working at.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
A little bit of it was actually it wasn't really
an eight station. It was an emergency room. Okay, there
was a clinic. There was a true medical clinic there.
It's all everybody on post, family members and everything. And
I worked in the emergency room.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Well, just just young soldiers in Korea is enough to
keep any emergency room.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
Every every Friday Saturday night, if you're on duty, you're
gonna take care of somebody who was drunk driving or
down in the video, right, yeah, getting getting beat up.
And you know, I'm my fair share of stupid.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
Shit happened, So any anything stand out. I mean, you're
working in this emergency room, you're pretty busy probably, uh,
you know, every week.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
I just enjoyed it. H enjoyed living on on the
well because I was a five. The barracks are full,
so they gave me bah to live off post, and
I lived in an apartment, uh about four or five
blocks from the gate.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
And.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
It was like party central because I was.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Five living geographical bachelor at this point.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, geographical bachelor And just like in my landlord who
lived below me, and then at the top the roof
was was his two and he did the Korean chili's
he would drive, he would lay him out and it
would smell really good. And his wife did the Kim

(32:44):
chee pots and on the ceiling and it was awesome.
I learned. I learned about living in another country right
right there, because there was like you had to buy
heating oil for your floor and for heating oil for
your bathroom, for your hot water. Okay, nice, I mean

(33:05):
it was nice money conversion and stuff like that. I
enjoyed the food too.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
Oh yeah, maybe maybe a little sodu here there.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 4 (33:19):
So you do anything else stand out in Grea anything.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
So pineapple juice, Yeah, straw. Bring this big bowl and
it's got like a hunter's draws in it for everybody
at the table, and you put like four or five
of them in your mouth. Everybody just sucks it down
so it gets done and then you order another one. Nice.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Yeah, it goes down pretty smooth, but man, you pay
for it the next day.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah. And sometimes you know, like the the that was
the girl that that was trying to give me the
buyer drinks that I puked on her lap.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, h.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
It was funny when you think about it. Back in
the branch.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
You get done there and you go back to Fort Lewis, Washington.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
So get back to Fort Lewis because I did orders
to go.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
To one two three Infantry, Okay, and that's out.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
That's out of for Lewis. It's second id or Tebergay
second I.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
D and that the Tomahawks.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
The Tomahawks. Yeah, that's where I met Toby, and we
was a lot of intense training going on there. We
were just now getting fielded the striker and we were
using those German four wheel a PC tank things, and
I mean, I still have my f l A. I

(34:50):
had my f l A until UH the four line ambulance,
the hump the ambulance until I got my striker. And
then once we got the striker, you know, went to
j R t C MTC and got fielded and got
UH certified to go to Iraq. I actually went to

(35:13):
Detroit to help UH rewrite the dash ten for the
striker EMTV. So we were there. We we were doing
all these like tests and stuff, and it may be
met evacuing the meta fact the medical evacuation vehicle. Yeah,

(35:36):
for the Striker, right, and yeah, I do like a
DASH ten like operator level tasks and they had time
home and we did that a couple of times. But
I mean it was it was nice, and they gave
you a nice little coin, said the Striker certified, a
little certificate.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
So what what's the big difference in obviously other than
medical equipment, right and set up for from evac between
that and a standard Striker.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Right, So the configuration in the back is a little
bit bigger, and you have four motorized berths and they
go up and down and you get really nice to
everything's new, Well, everything was new when I got it.
So everything's new. You got these NBC type UH stretchers

(36:25):
and all the most current medical stuff that you can
use in combat. And we had these life packs where
you had to like you can hook up leads and
stuff and monitor all that stuff, which we never used
because you didn't have time to put it on people.
Sure it was nice having the MTV because you could

(36:48):
live out of it like a camper trailer.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
You got a nice stretcher to sleep.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
On, You've got yeah, yeah, and four of them. So
you got three people living in a vehicle for four
and I did. We lived for thirty days when we
first got there, and we went all the way up
to Solder City from Mossoul and we pretty much lived
out of our vehicles for thirty days.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
It was for your MTV and are you are you
a medical team or are you just a single medical
person with infantry guys around.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah. I was a squad leader and I ran the vehicle,
and I had a medic whoever relied on, and then
I had a driver.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
Okay, all.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Three of us are medics, and we could rotate out.
But I had like one guy that was my driver
and one guy that was my second in command kind
of guy, and then it was me. I was a
squad leader. I had other medics and other platoons that
would come by and check in or once in a while,
but we were with the squad leader and the squad

(37:55):
leader's vehicles always with the first argument. So we were
in the HC company.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
Okay, okay, all right, so you're you get these fielded
at and you probably did some time down in Louisiana too, right,
did you do any time.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Down there with them, yes for Poke. Yeah, very human
arm Pit of.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
The United States get a lot of that day, I bet.
I mean, what was what was it like being down
at four Poke? I mean it was worse.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
The worst of being in Texas was the worse humidity,
worse mosquito mosquitoes were they were were taking chickens off, yeah,
grabbing them taking them up is a state bird black hawks. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
So what was that like down Other than the humidity
and everything? It was?

Speaker 3 (38:50):
I mean, it was a good training. We got to
like really operate our when when you're the infantry and
you're a medic, you can choose to be like them
or you can choose to be a dick and not
be like them. But all of us were like, we
want to do some of the stuff too, Like we
want to learn how to operate our weapons in the
squad mentality. We want to operate. We want to be

(39:12):
able to be shooter first instead of just being medics.
And they let us train with them and do things
and just be like because if the ship goes down,
I don't want to be not knowing what to do. Sure, yeah,
you know what I'm saying. So that's my that was
my focus of just knowing everybody else's role too and

(39:33):
how they do it, and just keeping an eye on things.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
Okay, now, now we always we all know, you know
the way you train. You always say train and train
how you fight, right, but we always know that there's
going to be something different. What was the first thing
that went out the window when you deployed with those strikers?
As you know these mevs, you're like, oh man, that's
screw that. This is out of here.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
So they had this FBC me too, uh type a
palm pilot, and you were supposed to be able to,
like if you had a casualty, you're supposed to be
able to use your little pen and touch all these
things like a field medical card, like a digital field

(40:19):
medical card. Right, and then when you get back, like
you put all the information in, like you commute the casually,
you put all this information in, and when you take
your casualty back to the hospital, whatever hospital, you're supposed
to be able to beam it or bluetooth it to
the next guy. But they never had their shit up,

(40:39):
So why why why am I doing this? We stopped
using that. I didn't use some of that. I didn't
even use paper verbal the casuis that we had. I
just handed them over. They didn't really they didn't care.
The doctors and the surgeons who are you know, need

(41:00):
even blood, don't care about your story. Like I got
three casualties, one of you know, ones not breathing very well,
blah blah blah blah. They're like, they don't get shipped.
They want the casualties so they can assess them. Sure,
so that guy, So that guy kind of like, even
you got a casually, if they want you to give

(41:21):
a report, then you've got to be ready to give it.
But normally they don't take they're not taking a report,
they're just taking the casualty. And then you it's your
responsibility to keep up with that casualty, right, Yeah, So
you want the PA and the medical lieutenant that that's

(41:41):
over us at the tracker for all that and all
we just got we put the name, we got a casually.
His name is so, and so this is where he's
at right now, and then he'll track them and then
they'll they the officers do all that tracking.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
Right, So any anything else get tossed out from you know,
like hey, we trained this way, or we use this equipment,
any anything else kind of just like, well that's useless.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Well anything with they had to do with U E. M.
T skills and being proficient at O two and transport
they got. I mean you don't. That's I never gave
anybody oxygen, so I had to keep them filled, but
I never did. I never put it. I never gave
an IV to anybody because we were always like five

(42:30):
to seven minutes out. If we took a casualty, we
drove right to Marez on the airfield.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Okay, probably ivs for dehydration.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
That was about it, right, Yeah, Like if people wanted
an IV, I would always give them one, like it's
there and nobody's using it. So as well, training at
down time, training for for for real world and learning
those mistakes that were previous to us coming down there.

(43:02):
You have to listen to those briefs and you need
to add to your tools, your roughstuck and keep going.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
So who did who did y'all replace when you went
in that first time?

Speaker 3 (43:11):
It was an airborne unit. I'm not good at remembering
anybody other than what my ship was going on, So
I think it was eighty second airborne or it could
have been a hundred first I don't know whoever has
those black ace of Spades on the sides of their helmets.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
I think that's I want to say it's hundred first.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
That's that's who we did right slee ride with and
we took over when we got to Mares and I
was on Cop Blick Okay.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
My last dud station was for Bragg and I don't
ever remember seeing any black spades.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
And totally both around around Cop Blick okay.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
So any anything else stand out other than you know,
tossing the pond pilot when I'm doing this ship. Anything
else stand out on that deployment.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Uh, there's other things to stand out than gear. Like
I lost a good friend of mine starting Jacob Demand.
I talk about it in my book. It's It's hard, right.
We so we before we went to our rack together,

(44:23):
we were roommates because we were both going through a divorce, okay,
and we both had kids, and we both traded off
weekends where I would bring my kids into the barracks
and watch them because that's the only place I had,
you know, and we just we did that. He brought
his kids one weekend and I brought my kids, and

(44:44):
we didn't, you know, training together and when three of
our guys got killed in Iraq, we we had to
we were in a detail to go get their bodies
and bring them back from Dover. Right, which is the
name Cop Blickenstaff is named after Blinking Staff. He passed

(45:05):
away before we even got to o Wreck, so they
named the Cop Blicking Staff.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Okay, hey, any anything else during that deployment. Not really,
So you go back to you go back to Fort Lewis, right,
and uh.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
I mean getting ambushed and and blown up and stuff.
You want to hear about it?

Speaker 4 (45:29):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah, yeah. So we took an I E. D to
our front wheels one day and it melted our front wheels.
They were all fire, but we just kept rolling forward
because we could still have mobility. And the whole platoon
that was out was just rolled back to Mores. Nobody

(45:52):
got hurt, and they met us kind of at the gate.
We turned into the gate of Mores, drilled up the
road and the mechanics medas and we're putting out the
fire as we rolled into the bay.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
You got six other tires. It's fine, exactly.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, I'm just glad nobody got hurt.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Yeah, that's good. So you go back to Fort Lewis, right.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Go back to Fort Lewis. I'm still at one fourteen
Calf and I mean I'm still Let me let me
back up, because I'm gonna tell a story about Jacob first. Okay,
So Jacob and I were roommates, right, and we were
both in one two three infor twy were trained to
go to Iraq with our unit, and because I was

(46:40):
at Banock and that's why I got stuck three months
behind them. I didn't mention that, but I was in
Bnock and I was going through a divorce and me
and him had gotten to become friends. And then when
we get to ourraq, they asked for n c o's
like rifleman sergeant instead were you know, could go to

(47:04):
one fourteen calve. And he got selected and he had
to go to one fourteen calve and that's when he
got killed. He got killed in an ambush. And we
didn't like one fourteen calf for some reason. We just
like we lost our friend from one two three Infantry

(47:25):
who was trying to you know, was going over there
and help it out, and we were pretty upset about it.
We didn't know everything that went on, We didn't know
everything was going on we were I was upset and
then we himed and had and whatever. We finished our unit.
We finished our duty, and we came back home and
I got promoted to staff sergeant and they moved me

(47:49):
to one fourteen calve and we're going back to our WRAQ. Yeah.
So I took over the instant I see of the
age station duties for one fourteen caps on my second
tour to Iraq in two thousand and six, I wasn't
like running and gun and with the boys. I was,

(48:12):
you know, at the age station, treating sit called kids
and you know, profiles and dealing with people's appointments and stuff.
And it was monotonous and it was fun and nothing
was going on except you know, the occasional rocket or
mortar round and then you know, fop Falcon blew up.

(48:35):
It's in the news, in the news two thousand and six.
Fop Falcon almost an entire bass blue was on fire
like rockets and they hit the mortarund hit the AMMO
dump and blew up all the ammo H and the
new the scene is said, we were, uh, we had

(48:55):
to vacu evacuate and we're all like watching, We're watching
the TV we're watching AFN, you know, and they're coming
on telling us that we evacuated, Like look at the general,
Like what the fuck? You know, we're here playing. We're
playing Ghost recon.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
You know. Uh.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
We get the questioned into our our rooms and they're
like stay there, you know, put put to him and
and kevlar and stuff. So we're still playing, Like the
electricity still lost, so we're still playing Ghost recond and
well not everybody, but it was all in my room.
Two guys were playing because you're going to play too clear,
and we were just kind of waiting and watching or whatever,

(49:38):
and like them, the sky fell on and it was
like so many rockets, so many they thought they I
guess they got to get hit and they just kept
launching rockets and stuff. But you know, Outgoing was taking
care of those people, and finally he just stopped and
we had to do like hands across the FI picking

(50:00):
up while the unexplored the ordinance are putting a little
flag on it. Well, some people's eye liked some Indian
uh what do you call them, m w R. They
worked for the twe Hall MH and m w R.

(50:22):
And they were like they had their own little like area,
and they got some of those people got killed, and
I want people got injured, and that pretty much happened
to us. But we just kept on doing on a mission.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
I know you said you weren't you weren't running gun
and did did you? But did you notice any difference
between your first employment and your second deployment in the
tactics bye by you know the enemy because the tactics change, right,
and and we watched it, you know, from from the outside.
If you watch that in the entire twenty years right hotel,
and you can see the tactics changing.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
And I didn't see their tactics change. But are R
O E changed?

Speaker 4 (51:00):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (51:01):
So two thousand and three, I mean we were killing everybody,
sure you know. It's like if you didn't read our
sign that was in Arabic to stay away from our vehicle,
you were considered a threat, you know, and you die
if you if you ran our checkpoint, he died and
right raised the weapon at us and got killed. Sure

(51:24):
you know, and we didn't ask questions about it. Now
the second tour, everybody was like they're allowed to have
one weapon, they can't point it at us and if
they shoot us, if you shoot at us, you know,
then you can shoot them type shit, right, But there
were still id's going off, a lot of pressure play,
a lot of the cell phone detonations and stuff like that.

(51:51):
But I didn't, I mean, I wasn't out outside the
wire a lot. And tell me what the dwine now
dwe was a special mission inside our mission and we
went to when he to help the There was a
Polish base there with a bunch of other entities that
were there, and we got to a conflict with the

(52:12):
jay Sharmadi the j l M. I don't, I don't
really pay attention to who they were calling themselves. But
a lot of them died and I had to treat
a couple of them because like they got shot in
the head and it like I went through the teeth
and out the side of their neck, and the medics

(52:34):
were out were out there. They had to treat him
and then they brought him back to the age station
and I had to continue treating them with the Polish surgeons.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
You know.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
We saved that guy and he was yelling at me,
uh we like don't to not kill him, and I'm
like I'm trying to tell the interpreter, like tell him.
I'm trying to save this fucking ass. Why would I
be trying to kill him, man? I could you mean already?
I'm not trying to kill you, man, I'm trying to

(53:03):
trying to save you. And so I ended up getting saved.
And and then we had some rockets blew up some
chow hall and a lot of casuals from that. And
then we had a the NWR facility where you take
your laundry, the laundry facility, and that got vaporized and

(53:28):
killed the little you know, the girl, and injured a
few other people that we treated. And my buddy and
I were sitting on the front we had this little
smoking area and this rocket came over our heads and
I thought a plane was crashing, you know, it was

(53:49):
coming like right over our heads. And we're just like,
oh funk, we're dead, you know, and we're right over
our heads. And that's when it blew up the chow hall. Yeah,
and uh so we survived that. But then we had
to go, you know, grab guys bas and going back
to the ASA treat the water cart and was to
appointment with you, I believe, so Okay, yeah, he might

(54:13):
not have I don't know. I never I don't remember.
I don't remember having any interaction with him. Yeah, when
I was in the A station. That was a part
of that was he was one two three infantry and
I was one fourteen TAB right, And uh, I think

(54:35):
we kind of lost touch after I left one one
two to the infantry because we didn't reconnect till like
I came back home and retired in twenty fifteen. But
the U we the eight saction got hit by a
rocket and it was a dud and it went through

(54:58):
two walls. It missed a like I really one of
those tall oxygen tanks about two inches and went through
the wall and hit the went through the floor and
hit the steel girder underneath it and bounce back up
and laying it right in front of the guy on
the M O M W R phone And then we
had to call E O D and get it removed.

(55:21):
And it's like, oh, it's not armed, and you just
threw it over shoulder and walked out.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
I bet that scared the ship out of the guy
on the phone.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Scared the ship out of all of us. We're standing
in line and you the fucking phone, Chad, right, if Chad,
if you see this. You know you're much respect man.
You do what you had to do. You stood your
ground and you didn't move, and you do you supposed
to do me.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
Awesome, nice? Nice? Uh? Anything else out of that deployment.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Yeah, something really big? This what uh? I go we
go back and we're getting ready to leave, right, And
that's when the fire happened. The generator blew up by
my age station. And that was this poor girl with
generator feel like they get diesel basically, and she was

(56:15):
on fire from her feet to her toe, from her
head to her toes. And you know, as a medic,
I'm screaming for a fire extings, draw on a blanket
or something like that. I ran to her and I
jumped on her and I smashed the flames out of
my body and my forearms, my hands, and it would

(56:39):
read night. And then I wrote it. That's what the
book's about. The books about that story, and it goes
into more detail. But I've never been more pissed off
in my life. I've never had that much adrenaline in
my life. It was an experience on and of itself.

(57:00):
It's like, man, you just gotta buy the book and
read more about that one.

Speaker 4 (57:07):
Right, Yeah, so when when did you complete this book?

Speaker 3 (57:13):
Four days ago?

Speaker 4 (57:15):
Four days ago? And so it's it's on sale on Amazon.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
It's on Amazon. It's already the number one and uh
biographies in the region. Awesome, awesome, I mean I thought
that was awesome too.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
Yeah, that is that is really awesome. That is really awesome.
Does that how what span does that book cover my
entire career?

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Okay, it covers my entire career up until the point
where I retire and start Junkyard tax Call. Okay, but
the reason, the reason I started it, Like in the book,
I explained that I'm having a PTSD. I have it.
I'm having a rough time. I'm not talking about it.
I'm not telling anybody about I lost a another wife

(58:00):
because of it. I'm pretty sure. And I I was
gonna say, I I just threw myself into my work
and I just I went back. I know, I got
I just got back early. So I was there recuperating

(58:22):
while everybody else was still in Iraq. And then life
is kind of you know, I had missions to do,
so I just kept going forward and they put me
in from the Soldier's medal. And at the time, I
was like yeah, A cool, all right, thank you, you know,

(58:43):
I'll accept that. And then she died. She died three
months later, and that sent me into a depression, right yeah,
And I had to deal with that and a lot

(59:03):
of crime, a lot of anger, a lot of it's
a lot of bullshit that I had to deal with
and I just did it. And then I got I
got to go to Fort Sill to be an instructor

(59:25):
for uh seal, a CLS instructor for basic trainings. Pretty
much as the staffs are okay and uh Fort Sell,
I mean nothing about it's nothing about the people. It's
not about the people. Well, it's about some of the people.

(59:45):
So we're about from the way the way that that
unit was ran with having to teach CLS pretty much
seven days a week, and in between classes you had
to do like uh on call, like grenade range or
you know, METABAC training. I'm not training, but you had

(01:00:06):
to be the guy, the medic on the range and
then Saturday and Sundays. So on Saturdays, if Saturdays went
well and everybody tested out for CLS, then you didn't
have to come in on Sunday, so you might get
Sunday off. So yeah, I think they're basic trainees. They
get the full shebang, and it was a little more

(01:00:27):
in depth than what you get in your unit from
from a medic. You know, it's this is like the
full blong everything it's in that book, it's taught to you.
You have to take this long written test, then you
have to do the IV test, and then you have
to do the practical exercise on the ground on a
trauma lane like E, F and B type stuff. And

(01:00:49):
if you know, if well, if everything went well, everybody
you know went through and passed or whatever, and it
was all good, then you have to come in on Sunday,
what has never happened? You know?

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
It was like I was.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
I was at work twenty four to seven, seven days
a week, and I did it for nine months. And
the only reason I did it for that length of
time is because I saw this requisition for East six
and above medic for a tin Man mid team to

(01:01:24):
go to Iraq and live with the Iraqis, and I said,
I selected yes and volunteered to go back to Iraq
because I hated it so much. And you know that's oh,
it was a really good deployment. Let's put it that way.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
The trip, the last trip to Iraq.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
The last the last diployment in Iraq was very I
felt it was upscale, you know, it was it's a
special Forces mission that these ten man mid teams were
taking over. You lived with the Iraqis and he trained them,
so you have like your I was the medic, the
soul medic, and they had a Komo guy was sole

(01:02:07):
como guy. They had an infantry guy, they had a
weapons expert guy. They had a vehicle and logistics guy.
And then they have these officers or what S two,
S S one, S three in the colonel And we
went to Iraq and we lived with the Iraqi Army
and the Special Forces compound is connected to the very

(01:02:30):
back gate into the Iraqi soldiers compound. So I would
go out that back gate and it's going to where
my soldiers were and trained them as to be medics.
I trained about two thousand medics that year.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
I had like thirty thirty I don't know, thirty guys
per class. And I was just teaching them everything. I mean,
it wasn't really what was.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
That like teaching them I mean versus you know, there's
a language barrier obviously, and then we had.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
We had really good interpreters and a lot of them
spoke English right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
Well, there's also a large portion of the population that
doesn't read it right right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
Right, I mean so, I mean I didn't have any
issues teaching them. They were like sponges man, especially when
the if I talked through the interpreter, interpreter told them,
it's like at what I was saying, they were like,
they soaked it up. They became those guys. You know,

(01:03:37):
I trained them. I trained them with what they needed
to know, not a bunch of bullshit. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
And how long was this deployment.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
It was almost thirteen months.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Wow, it's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
And I had I had a really big bank account
and I could like ask for stuff. Also, half our
mission was with the army and the other half was
with the police force and Dalla. And we would go
to the Dalla police station and I had a counterpart

(01:04:09):
that I had to talk to and I taught him
how to build an AID station, you know, how to
stock it, what to stuck it with, what's necessities, and
then how to run an AID station and the logistics
and they ordering and all that stuff. I taught him
how to do that too. That worked out in the beginning,

(01:04:33):
but then one day I showed up to talk to
my counterpart and I'll ask him how it was going
and stuff, and he's like, I'm sorry, I don't have
any of the equipment you gave me. And I was like, well,
what happened, Well, we traded it for the ball for
something else? What Like all this badass equipment I'm giving them,

(01:04:55):
and then they because their culture, you know, it's like
if they if you want on something and you have
something that they want and you make a trade. Yeah,
and it's very big, the bar system that trading back
and forth and all that stuff. I mean, of course
they didn't give a ship. They came from the US military. Yeah,
So what I started doing is instead of spending my money,

(01:05:18):
the taxpayer's money, there's stuff that's already been bought and
sold in units that are leaving. So there might be
a medical unit that's leaving and they can't take, you know,
getting createsive crutches back home with them. So I'll go

(01:05:41):
to these A stations and just grab stuff that they
were gonna leave behind and utilize that and that and that,
including medications and stuff that they were gonna throw away.
And I would take all that stuff, and I'd be like,
instead of spending the money, I would just use stuff
you were gonna throw away in the first place. It's

(01:06:01):
still good. It's still good. And I didn't understand why,
I mean, America spends all this money on it like
a functional bead, like at a hospital operating room table,
and then just leave it, right, Yeah, well, I mean
I took it, and then I gave it to the.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Iraqis, and then it got traded for something else later.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
Maybe they did, maybe they did, I don't know, right,
but that was a really good, really good I only
got blown up once, okay, and I didn't actually get
blown up. The vehicle in front of me, we had
I saw the explosion. It was everybody was looking at
this pyramid of rocks on the right hand side of

(01:06:47):
the road, and we're all like, why is there a
pyramid of rocks on the side of the road, what
what is that? There's people standing around it, and then boom,
it just blows up, takes out the vehicle in front
of us, and it stops, and then they're calling for
me to come uh assess the cassidy, and so the

(01:07:08):
Iraqi police officers are around. They're just shooting. They're just
shooting in the air and stuff. And people are running
around and Humbl's looking for people that you know, may
have been hurt on the you know, the Rakis that
were hurt. I didn't see anybody, but I went. I
duck walked, and I was duck walking fast, and I
had my weapon forward and I had my grab my

(01:07:30):
a bag and I just got down low and walked
really fast to the next vehicle and I got inside
and it was over pressure here beer beer drums busted, right, yeah,
there's two of them, two guys.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
And what about the Iraqis were standing around the pile.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
We we could move, so we moved. Oh, we moved out.
It took out the air conditioner and it did a
late a lace job on the gunner's threat. Okay, put
holes in it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Oh wow, it was pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
It was a ball. It was a ball bearing c
form ball bearings in rocks, right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
M hm. So any anything else stand down during that deployment.
I mean that that was your third and final deployment, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
It was like, uh, I really got big into the
being resourceful mhm and just being able to use my
surroundings to make things that I needed, you know, And
I mean, I've always been good at being resourceful throughout
my military career because you know, sometimes you'll have enough

(01:08:51):
money and you're gonna make do what you got. Instead
of like having to buy a bunch of stuff, you
can just make that stuff with stuff you have. Right,
One thing I did, I needed a dummy, And I
asked for a dummy. I said, I want one of
those one of those dummies that I can like do
trauma with and like show him how to stop leading.

(01:09:14):
And it's like that something I could get my fingers
in and show them, like, you know, how to do
all that. And I got told no. So I took
the poam out of our weapons cases and I made
a dummy out of pham, and and I put uh,
I put a uniform on the foam dummy, and then

(01:09:38):
I started teaching him how to you know, pack bullet
wounds and tertiary wounds and how to wrap them and
how to you know, right big stuff with that. That
was pretty cool. Commander, Our commander, Colonel Mets was like,
I think he was pretty satisfied. I think you liked that. Nice.

Speaker 4 (01:09:58):
Nice, So he anything else stand out from that that deployment.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
No, not really. I'll started talking to my current wife, right,
we reconnected after being apart for so long. We dated
as teenagers, and she just asked me how I was
doing one day, and I was like, I'm not out rack,

(01:10:24):
and you know, one thing left to another and I
come back home from Oh let me let me back up.
So I didn't just go on this deployment. I had
to do three months at Fort Riley of special training,
cross training and like defensive training and escaping evasion training

(01:10:46):
and tip built training and defensive driving and all that
cool high speed stuff and cross training on every weapon
known the man. And the was like high speed, uh
movie tech. You throw this thing out there and it
transformed like a robot into a disc sat phone and

(01:11:11):
all that cool shit.

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
Yeah, that's pretty high speed.

Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
Oh. And while I was on that diployment, I had
this special laptop and all I need was Internet access
and I could talk to any surgeon in Basta.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Yeah. So so the medics had to go to a
additional like three weeks of training at UH. It's called
Advanced Trauma Course. And one of my buddies taught that
it was pretty cool, started Buford. He's a really good guy.
He's really awesome medic. And it's the aggressive trauma, bleeding loss,

(01:11:50):
stopping the bleeding loss and how to pack your a
your a vague certain way. And sure it was good
training and very very good training. And then you had
to go through the goat lab again, and which is
always good. It's always good training.

Speaker 4 (01:12:09):
Is that is that the building right next to BAMSA
that the research and development is that where the goat
lab is.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
It's well it used to be.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
Is that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
No, it's not on the ground, it's it's like a
clinic right there behind this old c I f okay,
And so the thing underground is that like the uh
the body farm, I don't want to say body farmed.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Well, they had they had right next to right next
to bams They had a building and it was even
more secure than BAMSA was and you would go down
the floor and so you were down below. And that's
where when I was there, when I was working there,
that's where the animals were.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Because what I did, what did the goat lab? It
was building okay, in between like the old CIF or
like the currency I don't know, I haven't been there
a long time, but it was the CIF. Then there
was a goat lab and then it would like go
down a little further than there would be the p

(01:13:16):
X right there.

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
Okay, I think I remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
It's kind of the same line as like where that
bird king was that they the new burg King put
put in in nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 4 (01:13:27):
I think it was, right, okay, Yeah, and anything else
stand out. I mean at this point when you when
you get done with this deployment, where did you Where
did you go back to? Where were you calling home
at this point?

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
So I had chosen to come back to Fort Hood
Okay it was called for Hood at the time, right
because I know I was nearing my twenty years and
I thought, I'll just do the rest of my time
in Fort Hood and retire. And I made East seven
and I wasn't charge of Thomas More Health Clinic and

(01:14:02):
the n c u C of Thomas More Health Clinic,
and I was the n c u C a bid
At Health Clinic, which is the family clinic. And that's
when I got introduced to having to deal with the civilians. Yeah,
you know the people that not the I guess they're
called they're not ce and as they're the people that

(01:14:27):
are on the computer when you you're in line and
you're like to call you up next, and then they
see what your appointment is and all that stuff. Those
ladies I had to control them. And it's the enlisted
personnel that worked there. And then all the equipment, like
thirty million dollars worth of equipment. Okay we had like

(01:14:52):
what we had ears nose and eyes throat and immunizations
and X ray oh wow, and I eye doctor, you know,
and all that good stuff. So all that equipment, all
that equipment just right, Wow, it's crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
Okay, So you retire, right, No, I.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
Still got I still get sent to Uh I can't
I make when I make you seven, I think I'm
doing great and then I have I had some issues
and I stepped on my golf, my dick with my
golf Cleatson Center on fire and got in trouble, and

(01:15:38):
uh I got to put it into because I was
on the fast track to be like the first star
star major all that stuff, right, and that's if I
stayed in past my twenty But uh I need I had.
I was having some mental health issues and I sought
help wow. While I was in and I didn't care

(01:16:01):
if there was a stigma or not. I just went
because I had to get it. I had to. And
I went through this thing called strong Star and it
helped me out and sent me on the path to
form a Junkyard tactical. And I talked about it in
depth in the book, but basically that the Strong Star

(01:16:24):
program was the machtick for Junkyard tactical. Okay, the one I.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
Got out That's where I was going next was you know,
what what is junk Yard tactical and what what made
you start that?

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
So I still had like two more years left in
the army or three I think it was three. I
went to five six six a s MC and became
a platoon star and for amc UH Area Medicals the
Poorhouse Hospital. It's one of those up at deployment hospitals

(01:17:01):
like anywhere in the United States. Within nineties six hours,
we can deploy to treat casualties of like nuclear, biological, chemical.

Speaker 4 (01:17:11):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
And I ended up being the first art for like
six months.

Speaker 4 (01:17:17):
And then I retired, okay, And then how did you
get to Junkyard Tactical?

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
So I had homework to do in my Strong Star program.
And because I was a I was averted. I didn't
like fire. I just avoided it, you know. And they're like, well,
just go home and and do a cook on the grill,

(01:17:47):
you know, uh, watch fireworks or do do something that's
related to you know, like fire. You have a fireplace,
a lot of fire, and just look at it, you know.
And I did. I did, And so I've been watching

(01:18:09):
fortune fire.

Speaker 6 (01:18:12):
And I was like, my dad taught me how to
do this, and I never cared, you know, I never cared,
but I never really thought about me actually doing it,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
And I always thought it'd be cool to make, you know,
with my Norwegian heritage, I make a Barbarian sword or
make a Norwegian like Viking sword, you know. I always
wanted to do that. And uh, that was one of
the first thing that I made, was the Viking sword,
and I gave it to my son. But I just like,

(01:18:47):
because I have an art thing going on in my head,
and then I have my dad's knowledge of making knives
and having to thrust myself into like making a fire.
I just built myself of a forge one day out
of a hole in the ground and some bricks and
I used the hair dryer too, you know, get it,

(01:19:08):
get it hot enough for me to hit the hang
on some steel, and I made a knife and it's
in the book. The first knafe I made is in
the book. I don't have a picture of it, Evel
right now. But people liked it. They thought this, this
is a crazy idea. And I started adding my own
artwork to it, and then I just I just kept

(01:19:32):
getting better and better. And then I, you know, with
the book, I talk about how part of my healing
is is I make something beautiful out of the fire.
The fire is chaos. I control that chaos. It's mine,
it's my bitch, and I can make it do what
I want, and I'll make something beautiful to honor hurt.

(01:19:54):
That's what I did.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Very nice, very nice.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
I have a knife. If you want to see it,
I just did. You've got time for me to run
off set. I'll right back, Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
So if you want to check out his book, it
is available on Amazon from Fire to Forge walk Through
the Flames. You can check out that book. I said
it is on Amazon. He just released it this last month,
and please go ahead and check that out. I'll put
the link in the in the bottom.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
So all right, I'm back. Okay, So this this is
not I made for my buddy.

Speaker 4 (01:21:17):
Oh awesome Texas.

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
So you can see I'm getting really good at the leatherwork.
But and so the handle is as acrylic clear okay,
and then a knife.

Speaker 4 (01:21:34):
Wow, that's awesome. Oh I like the Texas eighteen thirty six.
That's really awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
So this tiple work that I do, plus the artwork
is all acid edged, okay. And I do like a
painted with like black model paint. I said an acid,
then I washed it off, and I said acid again.
And then I stand it with like fifteen or a
thousand great sandpaper and all these little deep till kind
of pop out. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
Yeah, that looks pretty awesome. Awesome, So let's let's kind
of let's see if we can kind of wrap this up.
Is there is there anything that you can think of
that you want, you know, want the world to know,
want future generations to know. That's kind of kind of
the purpose of this this series is to kind of,
you know, document, you know, everything that we can. So,

(01:22:23):
is there is there anything you can think of that
you want everybody to know? Whether it was a deployment,
whether it was somebody. You know, you saw somebody to
do something that was fantastic. Maybe you saw something that
wasn't so fantastic, But is there is there anything that
you want want people to know.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
Future soldiers need to understand that if they volunteer to
be in the United States Army, then it's it's not
a democracy. They shouldn't be a democracy. We are a
political We need to listen to our leaders. Our first
line leaders are our squad leaders are ours are first arms,

(01:23:02):
it's our majors. Those people are telling you to do
things for a reason, and that reason is for your
safety and security while you're in the army. You may
not like it, but they don't give a ship if
you like it. You volunteered to be in the army

(01:23:25):
with all the orders. You go into combat with that knowledge,
that training, that you need to listen to your patussar
who's a squad leader, and it just becomes a flowing
action of violence that destroys the enemy and then you
go home. That's what we're that's what we're there for.

(01:23:46):
We're not This is not a socialist experiment.

Speaker 4 (01:23:49):
Mhmm.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
You're you're there to do a job to your job
and do it to the best of your ability. Sure,
if you're if you're a if you're a medic, don't
get you know, don't think that you're going to be
working at a hospital your own entire career. You're probably
going to be on the line at some point, right
and when you're on the line, you didn't know your ship.

(01:24:12):
If you don't know your ship, you need to learn
it because you will get called out by the infantry.
I don't know about anybody else, but you will get
called out by the infantry, right.

Speaker 4 (01:24:23):
I always I always used any you know, if if
I had a leader or something that I worked for that,
you know, if I didn't agree with whatever whatever orders,
you know, I still follow the orders. But I always
use that as motivation to get myself promoted to the
next so that I could be the one giving the orders.
And I think that was that was one of the
things that I always strived for, was if you don't

(01:24:44):
like the situation you're in, work yourself into that position
so that you're the one given the orders. So that
that's the prenny thing about the meritocracy in the military,
is you get that ability to proceed.

Speaker 3 (01:24:54):
Yeah, I understand that point of view. But if you
there's differen between bad leader and good leader and not
liking something a good leader says. So, if a good
leader is telling you what to do and you don't
like it, and you think you can do it better,
you really need to understand why he's telling you to
do that, because there may be circumstances beyond his control

(01:25:16):
that he has no control over that he has to
do this right. And you're like, if I was a five,
I could I could do it better than him, blah blah.
And then as soon as you get in today five position,
you understand that he had to do those things. He
was told, you know, by a sar major or first
armed to do it exactly this way, and he was

(01:25:39):
doing it exactly that way. Would you have done it better?
Maybe you might end up being doing it just like
he did, you know, or chief you know. Yeah, I
always try to tell about people like, you know, if
you don't know exactly what's going on now you enough
to give you a order. If I had time enough
to explain it to you, I will, But I don't

(01:25:59):
have to sure. I just needs you to do what
I'm telling you to do, and do it right. No,
timely matter.

Speaker 4 (01:26:07):
Awesome, awesome, all right, well I appreciate you coming on.
I said, we'll have you back on on a Thursday
series and we'll talk, we'll talk into the best of
the book and uh and you know, like I said,
we'll go in and we'll have some more visuals and
stuff like that. So any any last words you want
to leave us with.

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):
Is Toby going to be on the next one?

Speaker 4 (01:26:28):
Uh, we can try to get him on. Yeah, he's
Toby stays pretty busy. You know, Toby's running his uh
his fishing business down in Cabo.

Speaker 3 (01:26:35):
Yeah, he's always wet, he's always got Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:26:39):
So he's he stays pretty busy. But I'll reach out
to him and I'll see if we can get him
on and have him do the interview. I think that'd
be perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
I think it'd be fun. I haven't seen him in
a while.

Speaker 4 (01:26:49):
Yeah, yeah, I've known him for about ten years, almost
ten years. I guess he hadn't changed since I've known him,
so yeah, yeah, he got shaved head, a head full
of hair, So he's got a head full of hair
last time. So I'm in and a nice, a nice
kind of red reddish tan. I don't know if it's
really tan. He's kind of white like me.

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
So I'll watch the videos. I watch his videos all
the time. Yeah, yeah, right, I'll come back. I appreciate
you having me on.

Speaker 4 (01:27:16):
All right, hang on, I'm gonna play the outro and
uh and I'll talk to you on the on the
back side.

Speaker 3 (01:27:20):
All right. Thanks m