536: Ramadi: Sacrifice, Brotherhood, and The Return. w/ William "Spanky" Gibson

This is Jocko podcast number 536 with echo Charles and me. Jocko. Well, good evening. I go good evening after the Fallujah offensive. The Americans tried to quell the insurgency in Ramadi with a combination of political maneuvers and the cooperation of tribal leaders to root out foreign Islamist fighters. But that plan has spectacularly fallen apart. The men who dared to ally themselves with the Americans quickly learned that the U.S. military couldn't protect them. Insurgents killed 70 of Ramadi's police police recruits in January and at least half a dozen high profile tribal leaders have been assassinated since then. Ramadi has become a town where anti-American guerrillas operate openly and city bureaucrats are afraid to acknowledge their job titles for fear of being killed. The government center in downtown Ramadi comes under gunfire or mortar attacks daily. And that right there is an article titled Fear of Big Battle Panics Iraqi City. It was dated 11 June 2006. It's from the Los Angeles Times written by Megan K. Stack and Louise Rouge. And we've heard from quite a few people on this podcast that fought in Ramadi in 2005 and 2006 and 2007. And there's one common theme that comes out of those conversations and that is the relationships that we formed on the battlefield. The incredible mutual support that was shared between the Army, Navy and Marine Corps units. And this happened at every level from the brigade commander working for the Marine Corps division commander and the good relationships there and that carried down through the entire chain of command and at the tactical level almost every operation that took place was a joint combined operation. And if you're not familiar with military terminology, what that means is joint means it was multiple services. So Army and or Navy and or Marine Corps all working together and then combined means you have different country involved and in this case the country was the soldiers from Iraq, the Jundies. And one of the real obvious examples of this was my task unit, task unit, bruiser and the relationship that we had with Marine Corps Anglico and on the on the west side of Ramadi, Laef's Charlie Patun work with Dave Burke's Anglico crew. Dave's been on this podcast a bunch of times lightning six and on the east side where Sestone was there was a detachment from Delta Platoon and they were working out a Camp Corregidor with the first the 506 and there was another Anglico there lightning four and we had a great relationship with them and a superb example of the camaraderie that existed in Ramadi is from one of their Marines, Gunny Gibson. Gunny Gibson, who I knew at the time was known more commonly by his nickname Spanky and Gunny Gibson Spanky was exactly what you'd expect from a United States Marine. He was professional, he was mission focused. At the same time, he was funny, approachable and likeable and everybody notes that he led from the front and he helped Seth, Stone and Delta Platoon learn the battle space, passed on lessons learned and Gunny Gibson was eventually wounded in Ramadi shot in the left knee was medically evacuated. Eventually lost his leg above the knee. But that did not stop Gunny Gibson. He attacked his physical therapy just like he attacked the enemy. He started off with walking and then running with his prosthetic and then swimming and then biking and then skiing and then running races and eventually in January of 2008 he became the first above the knee amputee in history to deploy back to a combat theater in the GWAT and is an absolute honor to have him with us here tonight. Retired Master Sergeant William Spanky Gibson. Good to see you. Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Quite an honor. Yeah, man. That's a long time coming. I know we've touched bases and we've high-fived at various times in the past 20 years, but to finally get you out here is just it's awesome. Great to see you and you're going strong and we were just saying you're one of the few people that is actually pulled off being full. You're a retired dude. You don't have any side hustles. You don't have any other things going on. You're a fully retired dude that's spending time with your family and your grandkids. What is it? Seven grandkids? Yep, seven grandkids. Epic. I love it. It's a totally different life. So having you out here, man, it's great. I know you're just flew out here for the day to come and do this and you know, I've had a bunch of guys from Ramadi on and it's so awesome to hear everyone's different perspective of what they saw and we've had everybody from guys that were you know, gunners in Humvees, you know, privates, you know, E2s all the way up to Brigade Commanders from both the 228 and the 11 AD. So Gronsky and McFarland have both come on and then a bunch of battalion commanders, just company commanders. We've tried to get a full spectrum of guys that were over there and it's really great to hear everybody's different perspective and it'll be awesome to hear years as well. I'm looking forward to it. It's good to be here. Let's get in a little bit. Give us a little bit of background of growing up. So you were Oklahoma guy. Yep, Northeast Oklahoma. I'm an only child. Yeah, no siblings. Part of my life was spent in the country running around the woods, you know, shooting things with 22 until I was old enough to do my hundred safety course and at 12 in Oklahoma and start hunting deer and my mom, my mom hated living so far out in the country and we moved back into town, which for me and my dad both was terrible. But so then it was just normal to start wrestling in fifth grade. I was always very, very small and you know, you when you're in fifth and sixth grade, I played football, played basketball or I'm sorry, baseball wrestled. Now it's about it. You know, and then as I got into junior high and realized that I'm, you know, weighing a haul of about 68 pounds and I'm getting hit by 130 or 150 pound guy. Like I don't like this. And here's this one of my friends missed a fly ball and broke his cheekbone and I'm like, well, I don't really like this. I love George bread. I always try to emulate him on the that was big in those years. Remember? So I stuck with wrestling and that was pretty much the gist of it. I would I've always been. I was never a great athlete. I was okay. I got better with time, but I was always a follower. I was always a small guy. Me and one other guy, Jason Burr, were the smallest kids in schooling our senior year. And I knew I had this desire. I wanted to go in the Marine Corps because my grandpa, dad and I were going to be in Navy. So that was what your dad doing the Navy. He was CB. Okay. Electrician. Hell yeah. Yeah. I joined 58 got out in 70 came back to Northeast Oklahoma and hence me 71. So but the would you know about your granddad being in the Marine Corps? Oh, World War II. Looking back. Yeah. He was World War II got out. He was from Salinas, California. So my mom was born out here in Redondo Beach. He got out in 46. Korea kicks off and 50 goes back in as a tech sergeant back then. They didn't call him gunnies and then he stayed from 50 till 76. Damn. Now I knew that part of it because I was definitely in his life, you know, a lot and even in my early career. But you know what not till after he passed away in 2000, I was on recruiting duty to diver. I should ask more questions because then I got all the photos. That's all I asked for when he passed away was I just want everything Marine Corps and which was weird because he had a picture of a battleship somewhere in the Pacific because he was in the Pacific and I had a picture back in 1990 of the Jersey doing a we're doing Liberty float going to Portland Oregon and I just got out of A or C and I've got this picture while when he died me being on recruiting. We put all the I love me stuff on the wall. I stacked that picture and it almost if it wouldn't have been for some of the equipment that was on the boat he was on. We didn't have those our days. But I regret not ask him or send my dad. My dad's been almost 10 years. I you know, I regret not ask him more questions and you know, I just got married to her to promote a staff sardine. Yeah, I've been selected for it right before my grandpa passed away and then they promoted me over the phone in Yuma at the beq with my mom to staff sardine over the phone. I could wear it for a ceremony. So I regret that he didn't get to see me go farther. I regret not asking those questions. But then again, my grandpa was a typical war to our Marine. The only thing not with the rest of his life is not worried about what I think it was all about just enjoy what you got left and not you know, neither woe is me or hey, I'm the hero. So so what was it like going to the Marine Corps? Did you just enlist right out of high school? Oh, yeah, I turned 18 in boot camp. The I there's a best friend of mine that we wrestled together from seventh grade up until I ended up blowing in ACL in high school, which almost DQ'd me the my buddy. His dad was still here at MCRD San Diego as a series gunnery sardine still active duty Marine. My buddy John catcher who looked just like Chesty puller back in those days. He was guaranteed and I wanted to emulate my grandpa. You know, just wrecked in my dad don't like the whites. I like the blues and so yeah, that that was going to be the number one thing that I want to do is go. Well, what sucked was we graduated around the 22nd of May in Oklahoma. He immediately the next day came out here to stay with his dad before he would check in my recruiter got him Johnny Matthews and I forget this guy. Great guy. He calls me, you know, landline my parents house. I'm just hanging out. He goes, I need you to ship and up shipping a week before my buddy John, we're buddy program. We didn't realize he didn't realize it. I didn't think tell his mom and get all your dad blah, blah, blah. We're sitting in church second week of boot camp and he's like, do what happened? I'm like, sorry, brother. S. R. Matthews said you got to go. I went. So I went a week after I graduated high school. My 18th birthday was shot day walking through all the electric guns and yeah, that started it. I knew that I wasn't going to go college. I'd taken Votek my junior and senior for precision machining. So I like I like doing anything with my hands. But I was going to go to Marine Corps. I was guaranteed almost winning army. Yeah, a year before I two friends of my German class that me and John ran. They were able to go to boot camp before their senior year. Yeah, that's a cool. That's a cool program. It was and I almost did. But I was only like 10 months out from that ACL reconstruction and it was the old school one Patellar transfer where they had big gnarly scar and yeah. So I guess that was God's way of telling me you're not going in the army and I didn't think I could get the Marine. I was in the house detention May May 5th of 1989 in house detention because I got in trouble home that class and Johnny Matthews comes in there. Well, let's try. I'm like they dequeued me. I can't. He goes, let's try and kiss and ship put me in a couple days later, got me out in house detention and then May 29th, 1989. I was at the hotel waiting to come to here. I got here May 30th. My dad's birthday is May 29th. I went to boot camp on my dad's birthday. How'd you like boot camp? All good. I had some I got the name. What's that all good? What you expected? It wouldn't matter. Like I was kind of saying before you tell me what to do because I wasn't a stud. You know, I was a little guy and I was overweight. Definitely my senior year because all I did was drink and eat what I want and not because of the ACL. What was me? I was I start shaving till I was 21. So my mindset at that year was I can never get in the military. I don't want to go to college. I don't want to stay at home, but I didn't have enough intestinal fortitude to say, well, you know, pull up your bootstraps and do something. So the best thing ever happened to me was go to boot camp. So when I got here to answer your question was I was happy as hell. It's how I got the name spanky. I got thrashed all time for smiling. I was so happy and not that I was a tough guy because that wasn't the case. I'm it's ironic when I look at my boot camp pictures have been a while because I graduated second squad leader from boot camp. Everybody else is tall and here's this just short kid that don't even shave you and but I guess I've always been very lucky and the factor that you tell me to do it. I'll do it. And I might push back a little bit as I got older, but I'm going to you know, I'm going to do what you tell me. I'll be a good Marine because I want to make the Marine Corps look bad and keep me on a leash because if you don't that spanky side comes out and it never to a much that you know, I should be hung for it, but I could I had a rambunctious side, but it was not a bad rambunctious side. It was just you better put me back on a leash because if I use my imagination, it's going to get a little questionable. So what'd you end up with for an m.o.s. Oh, three and I was open contract and I remember me and John after I came back from Meps and I said they let me in. Well, because it was only a few weeks to go to boot camp. I was you know, I was at good of the core. I wanted infantry because come on. I grew up in the country. My dad had me in sea cadets when I was in like fifth, sixth, seventh grade. I did National Guard Explorers. You know, I grew up watching all the really good San Siwa Jima and all the cool movies. And but I was such a little kid. I didn't think about, you know, everything that comes along with that. I just I just want to be like them and you know, get to think about it 1982 first blood, you know, all these things, all the Vietnam stories that were in movies back when we were in that impressionable age group. And so yeah, I mean, I answer a question. I love boot camp. I really did. I mean, it sucks. Yeah. But you just had to, you know, drill instructors like me, because they like thrashing me, I think. But it was always that fun thrash because they're like, this kid is just like 17 and happy and always smiling and, you know, not always, but if they would start roaring at somebody with their big boy voice, I would just be over there thinking it's awesome, you know, full metal jacket, early army stuff. But yeah, so I enjoyed it. And I think it came natural as long as I had guidance. So then what came next? Back then, so I graduated boot camp late August. The Marine Corps was testing out the Marine Combat Training School up at Pendleton. So it didn't matter if you're an 03 or not. Now I found out the end of boot camp I was going to be an 03 XX. They don't give your individual, but you have to go to four weeks of Marine Combat Training before you go on to your eight or 10 weeks of school of infantry. Well, fortunately, a bunch of my buddies from boot camp that I looked up to, we're all going infantry. Some are mortars, some machine gunners, some are 11s, a couple of them are 51 52s. Well, honest, I didn't care. 03 XX, I'm happy. We set it MC team Marine Combat Training in the old Quonset Huts for a month. Well, we get to the end of that and they're like, hey, Spank, we're going to go over an end doc. They were running the weekend before we're checking in staff Sergeant Gerdus end up being my platoon Sergeant for Desert Storm. They were running in dock. Now I could always in dock. Is that is that basically like a tryout? It is. It is, you know, it's a rock run. It's two days of, you know, Saturday till Sunday evening. You got to be back at S. Y. By 6 p.m. or 1800. It, you know, PFT swim, qual rock run a basic. Do you have the basic capability to go to reconnaissance? And I just followed my buddies. They taught me into it and I got lucky. I made it. And because if you told me to do it, I did it. Now I wasn't a stud. So I'm not going to be the fastest. I'm not going to be the slowest, but I grew up on lakes. You know, I wasn't lucky enough to grow up surfing on a coastline somewhere, but I was always in the water as a kid in the summers. Makes a difference. So water never. Now we don't have swim teams where I'm from in Oklahoma. So I didn't know side stroke, back stroke, you know, crawl, you know, breaststroke, all the proper strokes that are on the swim call. I didn't know any of that, but they would demonstrate and they would say, do it, you know, like the burning oil. Remember when that was all a big deal? You had to do the length of the Olympic pool, the pool, you only surface two or three times whatever it was. Well, you give me the task and you tell me the parameters of that task. I'll do my best to emulate it and achieve it. So I was lucky because I shouldn't have been there. I was a kid. So that was a kicker. So I end up go to school, then tree those same buddies when I'm Don Marasca, he's a full word Colonel. Now they got in line at school, you know, basically at school and then through West is what they call it now. They got in line. So I just followed them. Not knowing what line I was supposed to be. And when I get up there, they were machine gun. Oh, 331 machine gunner. And I'm like, nothing cooler than that. Yeah. Once again, first blood. I'm going to shoot up the sheriff's station. Well, get up to it and they're like, no, you need to go down there. You're going to be in 0352. And I don't know what that is. Tactical are tactically operated wire guided missiles system. So tow on a truck. I want to do that. I want to shoot machine guns for my friends. And then they notice I had 13 drive-by when violations in high school because I was a pizza delivery guy, my junior and senior. So those guys were like, no, you got to go over here. Oh, 351, which was the dragon dragon and small back in those days. Now javelin. Well, now I'm not even in my wife's thing. Now I kind of want to do this. I want to go there. Well, I was a little guy, but I had good test scores. I did pretty good on the ass fab and all that stuff to the D lab and all that and boot camp. So I've done pretty good on testing. So here I am. Oh, 351. But then by the time you get about the six week S. So why then you find out your duty station watch. I got first recon battalion, you know, eventually it disbanded 92 and then came back because of OIF. With my five other buddies. So we get there. Just luck that that happened. I'll always say it is because I should have never been there. My first team leader before I came down to Coronado for school because remember we used to come to LFTC back back in those days. Now it's all at Pendleton, the BRC, whatever. I just followed those guys. So we all go to Coronado together. You know, a couple of us on the same training team with my, my almost called him an R.I. I'm not my ranger instructor. Stassard and Steinhauer was my, we had, you know, the lot or we had some real animal recon guys that were instructors as Stassards and we get Steinhauer and you know, never, you know, that time between November and you know, I had to do a rip, I had to do a couple of beach weeks. So by the time we got here late, you know, late January to start school, you know, I understood what it was like to three mile fin and drag your ruck when you get on the boats or doing, you know, all the stuff we had to do back then, you know, especially hydrographic surveys of fun stuff. Yeah. Just hope I can get out the perimeter. Some not getting bashed in the surf. So this is January of 90. You're going through a con school. Yep. And then we graduated in April. And then after that, I was in Charlie company with Lou Gregory and I'm getting Silver Star and Desert Storm. But when I got back from school, they moved me over to Bravo company. So I went to Bravo to two second to second team and you know, John Benish and who was somehow before Corporal Moffitt was my TL. You know, it was, you know, just happy to be there. And then that's when the fun began. And so, so you're like right prime time for the first desert shield Desert Storm. Yeah. We so Charlie company, all my buddies I've been in Coronado with that were, they end up going late September because they're going to support seventh Marines and they're going to be on the ground during, you know, the shield portion and you know, bombing campaigns on it. We didn't get there on fifth meb supporting fifth Marine regiment because we had 13 ships on that meb. And we didn't get into country until first part of February. You know, we floated over. I think we got into long a poe, you know, early December, right for Christmas. And then we started pumping from, we didn't stop from a long a long a poe until we got in the golf. And then you would, did you get into Kuwait? Did you guys, where'd you go into? Yeah, that we, we were in a Wofford oil field. So everybody talks about Coffchy, you know, Coffchy being the big stuff for the Marines, pretty much on the coastline. We were what five, six miles inland because there was a Saddam had blown up a big oil field right there. And the village you're going to call it that call a village small town was a Wofford and that was a Wofford oil fields. So we punched through a Wofford, but when they said go after the bombing campaign. What were four, four days were passed all the awesome. What were you, what were you in? What were you in vehicles? What were you in? Yeah, we're just trucks, trucks in the whole two five segment time. Fifth Marines were all Amtrak's. Uh-huh. They had like 80 Amtrak's and they kept getting, you know, they had the Mickelik trucks up front. So they were blowing lanes to go through. I mean, it was interesting as a 19 year old kid. I was going to say it was a Ramadi. You were when you were going in there, were you guys thinking? Cause I remember seeing the big reports were on CNN and stuff that there's going to be 40,000 American casualties in the first 40. They had all kinds of crazy stuff. Is that what your mindset was going? Well, and it was, and you know, I kind of skipped over it, but we, you know, back then when he had Yemen, you know, a little different than Yemen and Oman. Now you had North Yemen, South Yemen, now North Yemen, so much. Well, that's where we trained for that big thing. So we were setting down on those beaches, doing the hydros. So the boat companies could come in and the, you know, all the LCACs and the LCUs and all that could bring all the grunts in. So we trained for four or five days on the beach there, you know, in North Yemen and not knowing, not knowing that was that faint to storm the beach head and Kuwait, you know, the traditional Marine Corps mission, which in an adfamary compatoon, our traditional is hydro, patrol in, be a little head of the stay guys and head of the infantry and just keep moving. Well, when I remember we're in, you know, on the Tripoli, we're on the Comdeck and we're going over the maps and I was an RTO. I was primary care 104 K was 65. Even though I was a grunt, we didn't have many calm guys. K why 65 was a big, oh, it was a beast. And my gosh, you jump that stinking thing and it dropped fill. So you had to care to kick 13 tape, read everything with it. Oh, you remember that memories on that one. But the we're looking at the, you know, with the old school 10 power, you know, like Joe, not Joe, but the map reading, looking at the sad images and our team leader is got us in there and we're going to try to plan that route after the hydro and it was just, you know, trench, trench, berm, trench, berm, trench, you know, on all those public beaches and we're like, Oh, let's go suck. Yeah. We got a snoop and poop, you know, by Pultunes, you know, three teams of six guys, we're going to have to do our 800 meter lane and then go in and gather some information. I said, this is going to be interesting. And then it went away. But, you know, not like we knew that didn't get passed down to the lowest level, but it was interesting. And then setting outside of a wafer with a bunch of Saudi, you know, there were Saudis and like a look like an old school, a little bitty castle right on the border. And we're out there and, you know, first time I ever seen anybody pray, you know, Muslims, you know, it was wild. I mean, it was just super cool to have that experience at that age. Oh yeah. For sure. But. And so how long were you, how long did you stay over there? We only stayed in country like a month and then they brought, they used the majority, you know, cause triply had gotten hit. They were trying to figure out what to do with our platoon with everybody trying to find divers to work the offshore, you know, the go-plats that have been blown up. Well, me and one other guy were the only non-divers in the platoon and they take us first of all, rain to the issue. And then we go into Dubai and they house us in these like little, I've called them Airbnb's now. So everybody else from our platoon could go out and work go-plats and figure that out. And the next thing you know, they're like, okay, you know, we're, we're heading to Bengal, a dash. And then, you know, we're heading that and that was Operation St. Angel. What was that? That's when that tsunami came through. Now this is in 91 March of 90 or, you know, early April, 91 Operation St. Angel, well, we're floating back to head to the Philippines, which we were all excited about that. And, um, we pull up into Bangal, a dash and that was, you know, the stuff we saw on Desert Storm from the air campaigns. I guess that's morbid to some people, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't saving private Ryan, getting off the Mike boat, you know, getting hammered down. It was just people that getting blown up because they didn't put up a fight that well, but Bengal, a dash, when you see a couple of hundred thousand people floating in the Bay of Bengal and we've got boats and ponchos. So we're going to help this. Well, we only spent three or four days for us. And then we started seeing back to the Philippines just before, you know, the volcano went because that volcano went up in June of 91. And then we got back to, you know, off the coast, Camp Pendleton. Oh, I guess it was right almost July 1st. That's not it. I didn't only didn't spend long in country in Desert Storm. That's still a hell of a freaking first deployment right there for 19 year old kid. Yes. I mean, but it's exciting. Oh yeah. Cause who doesn't join not to be tested. I wish we would have been tested, you know, a lot more just to see how you're going to react during that test. Well, in what 19 year old, 18, 19, 20 year old kid that's train, train, train, train, train, train, you want to be evaluated. Now being an R and S or an M Fimple tune, you know, cause first force had just stood up in 87, 88. So all we had at first recombinant time is we had the Charlie company was deserts, habitual relationship, seven Marines, fifth Marines. We could either go support them with amphib requirements. If they're going to raid or guess you can call it deeper econ. So most of our time spent was either doing beach weeks or long patrols, seven, 10 day patrols, you know, to cover that two to 50 mile barrier. Cause then the force DRP platoons would cover everything for the meth agenda. So I love patrolling cause I love being in the woods. Did not like carrying a radio, but you got to do what you got to do. I mean, I didn't become appointment until we got Somalia. I carried Perk 77 K Y 57. Then the 104 with K Y 65. And I carried that dude for about a year and a half. That was my, uh, that was, I was a radio mentor in the team. So I was in the same time period. So it was eventually we got the one 17 bravos. But for HF, the HF was the 104 and the 65. Oh yeah. That's a freaking. And then the DC, do you remember the deep? Did you guys get the digital communication terminal? Oh yeah. Yeah. The D was that thing called DMG. We called it the DCT. Okay. But that was a brick too. It was with that long skinny ass battery. And the fact that we would have to do our Comber reps or set reps, you know, all of our reporting process, you had to do it on there. And so you just had one more. Yeah. And back then for us, we called it the DMDG and it was basically Echo Charles, it was like a keyboard with a little LCD screen, your type and stuff into at least you could handle the brightness. Cause that was the problem. You got to think when you're in a reconnaissance platoon, you know, if you're going to get under the poncho per se to, to have a red light on or to have to turn a light on for whatever reason. Well, now you've got this screen about that big that's red, bright red. And it would just, if you didn't check the volume control on that thing, it would be loud and bright. But I thought it was cool cause I had to go through CW school. Oh yeah. I did too. Yeah. And did, did all my asses, I must have laid in the rack for you. Very good at it. Months. I was okay at it, but it went away quick. But I would let, I remember two weeks I was laying there. Did, did, did. Oh yeah. Did the dog. So I was like, if that'll get me that, that knee key out of, if I can get it out of my rock, we're good. All right. So what'd you do to get back? What do you mean? Get back in the core. No. So you got back to, uh, you got back to, from your first deployment and just get in a workup for another cycle. You just start going in the training pipelines and now there's a whole different mindset because the mindset prior to Desert Storm was all at Coronado, it was all IRA, spets, NAS, everything that we trained for was if it's going to be in an urban environment, it's going to be IRA techniques. And if it's going to be, you know, contiguous linear, it was going to be basically Russia, Cold War ideology. And now that's all changed. Yeah. No, when I went to a seer school, it was all like Eastern block for us. It was Eastern block, like they're speaking like Russians, but like, and then there's like Arabic mixed into it. It was really, you know, they're just trying to cover all the bases, I guess. But yeah, that was the mindset back then. Yeah. I was like, we hadn't quite, the Cold War was allegedly over, right? But they hadn't transitioned out of it yet. So that was still definitely a big focus. Yeah. And you're not going to train minus the cage parts or something like that. You're not doing the Vietnam era, you know, portion of it. So we get back, we ever leave package. And then it starts going in, cause you're not already went to jump school in October of 90 and we just start preparing, you know, alert contingency and got our beepers. If you remember that stuff and well, certain portion of Kent Pendleton units have to be on that every month. They rotated every month. Nothing sexy. You just had a beeper. Yeah. Well, I mean, when I got a beeper, I thought it was like very cool. Well, it is. Yeah. And a radio shack suitcase phone, you know, can't afford to pay. But the, um, so yeah, then it just kind of was one thing after another. And, you know, I got married in 91. We had her, I was actually on a JTF six op doing counter narcotics in New Mexico when my daughter was born, my oldest. So it was just, it's such a blur at this point, 35 years later, because it was just nonstop. If you weren't on the beach or out patrolling or going to Bridgeport or going to a school or whatever, it just, it's crazy. That's just life. Yeah. It was just so fast. Uh, looking back on it now. And then, uh, you know, we take off for Somalia. We were actually in our net, you know, a bunch of us were in our NS school. They're at SOTG. And well, yeah, I'll say that we're in our next school. LA rights 92 and they pulled us to go up to El Toro stage up. Well, yeah, we're getting ready going 15th, mew. So when the guys, the infantry's going up there were there attached reconnaissance. I said, what the hell are you going to do with, you know, 18 of us? You know, you, we can't get two on a row and a six man snatch team with two guys in the center that we were training at El Toro for. And, you know, I was carrying a saw at that point. And I just come off the radio and was getting ready to become an ATL, which changed and you know, I had turned it in, get a shotgun, can't have a saw up there. Well, then my gosh gets El Toro. And then the next day they're like, well, we don't need you 18 guys. So come back down. And then yeah, I didn't want to miss that. Yeah. Cause that was interesting to align training and yeah, that's a little contingency you weren't planning on. But you know, it was definitely interesting. Well, come back and then we start getting heavy on the Mew. You know, we, uh, I got in trouble. Do you ever remember a guy named Bob Hassel? No. Yeah. I'd been a team one, him and a guy named guy. I heard he got killed on the silver strand 10, 15 years ago, but Bob Hassel and a guy, what was Gaffney's first name? I know Gaffney. They got in trouble. So some, not a big surprise. They summoned us for, I guess your, you know, whatever you guys call it. They came to small, they were 15th meal. They came to be Corman for us. Oh, right on. Oh, cause they got in trouble. Got it. Yeah. And, uh, never asked, never cared. Yeah. I wish I remember Gaffney's first name, but the, uh, cause he was younger. Bob Hassel's bigger muscular guy and, uh, we're down and outside of Phoenix. I remember a base called Williams Air Force Base right next to the FBI training academy. It's where they were doing the aircraft ever went there. Okay. That's where the FBI cadets were doing their aircraft takedowns. So for our RNS mission for that Mew, they flew us down so we could gather intelligence on them while they were training. Well, me, Michael Madden Lee and Bob Hassel decided, uh, we're in for a few days, we're going to have Sark duty while the other teams are out doing the RNS mission. We were told not to drink. We go to the Air Force E club there on Williams Air Force there. And we went straight retarded. Thankfully Bob broke contact. He probably, I think it was second class. He should have mentored me in the other E three Lance corporal. Well, he was. He probably was. Well, we didn't, when Bob left to go back to the hooch, me and squeak, squeaky was his name. We decided we didn't want this party to stop. We ended up linking up with some young ladies and their boyfriends or whatever they were, and we moved on to a house party kind of thing going on on base housing. These are just great decision after great decision. Oh, terrible. Yeah. Like I said, you give me a good leash. I'm pretty decent, but you let me off leash. I'll do stupid stuff. Imature stuff. Well, you are what 20. Yeah. Just turned 20 that summer. Well, no, I was 21. I just turned 21. Nope. I was 20. There was no restriction when I turned 21. Well, when they kicked us out because we were, we were just going mad hatter on the Jack Daniels and their subway sandwiches for their party. Well, they basically kicked me and hit maddening out. Well, then now you got two drunk young Marines so that still want to keep going. And as we were meandering trying to figure out where we're at on this base to where our hooches are, we just see some blinking lights behind a building and it was golf carts later on end up being the med building. Well, then we get in the golf carts, we start deciding to play beat them up. We ended up as we're bumping golf carts running one in a big cul-de-sac. So he jumped in and next thing you know, we see some small cactuses in front of a building and we decided to slal them those, which mean we ran over every one of them. Didn't know they were endangered. Didn't know that was General's building. We get back at the hooch at 430 Air Force MPs are there because they know these have to be Marines. Well, my buddy Madden Lee was wearing a miss. He's wearing white Levi's and a misfit shirt. So not like he's not going to stand on like sore thumb. Well, we talk our way out of it when they're searching all our rooms or like, no, we just woke up. We've got a, you know, we got radio watch over at the Sark and, you know, which we did at six while the drinking. They weren't smart. We show up right as our staff sardons coming over there to say, you guys should have already been here. And lo and behold, they quasi arrested us. If you want to call it that, nothing in my record for that took us to that same medical building to do blood work. They're going to get us for DUI on golf carts on this base and then all this damage. And then we kind of get stupid in the med thing. They've got us locked to these four chair, you know, the chairs that are four of them together and we started getting stupid. Next time they caught it, he's dragging one on drag one and put an IV in his arm in one of the bedrooms. That didn't go over very well. Five hours later, we're on a chopper back to Pendleton Monday morning. We were in battalion level off showers so that they can't court my arsulas. It's like a reduced bulk of a stand kicked us off the Mew. Rightly so deserve that. And then put me in a different platoon and ended up going to alert and to go to Somalia. So yeah, I'm not proud of that, but I'm going to say it because I've heard you talk about decision making processes. And that's what I'm giving that as my bad example of if you don't keep me on a leash and it's not too rowdy, not like I'm being evil, but I'll just be stupid. Yeah. Yeah. And immature. It's sad. Golf carts can be real tempting, you know, I know I had guys, uh, we were at a place where they had golf carts and the golf carts. I didn't know about this. And, um, you know, the security contact would be in the morning like, Hey, uh, we think one of your guys like took, you know, golf carts and crashed one of them. And we found it in the ditch, you know, and I was like, well, we worked late. I don't think it was one of my guys. And he goes, well, is this one of your guys had the guys wallet and ID? Oh yeah. Yep. That's one of my guys. Yep. I guess it was one of my guys. We didn't work that late. We didn't work late enough. Start covering. And so when you, you went out with a Mew to go, did you guys know you were going straight to Somalia? Was that the deal? No, and I ended up not going on that Mew. That was 15. They're the ones that did the initial on the TV swimming. Oh, so you were hating life. Oh, well, but I deserved it. Yeah. You know, I did 45, 45 reduction rank, half months, paid for two months, spent my 21st birthday. My wife is pregnant. She's doing October and my parents come out. I'd never called them and said I'm on restriction up at San Mateo. We're fifth Marines because that's who technically we're attached to. And then what happens? First recombitant into spans. Well, I stay with fifth Marines and they made Bravo company, recon company, fifth Marines when they disband. So now I just stay there after I get off restriction, EPD. And we start going back into another training cycle, but now it's totally different. You know, we don't have the funding pool like we did. We don't have the space. We don't have the, all the support, you know, there is no parallel off, no more jump mission anymore, none of that stuff. And we're setting our training and they're like, they come in and they're like, you guys are going, you're flying over. So we flew into Mogadishu December 29th of 92 to support UN head chairman, support the infantry, and basically it was going to be to guard. UN vehicles that were delivering food and run security. So six man teams easy. We got two Humvees, one Martin 19, 150 Cal or back then a 16 depending. And three guys in one truck, three guys in the other. And we get to Mogadishu, our platoon after about a week, uh, after Bush left, Bush 41, he came in on New Year's to say, yeah, thank you guys. I'm going away. Clinton's going to take over and, um, went out to Bart, you know, Bardera first, then by Doa, and then we did a couple of flians in Gallahara on the Kenyan border. So for that three months, we were staying pretty busy patrolling. Yeah. Cause we were doing a true RNS mission. Yeah. That's again, like totally legit for 21 year old Marine that's now out there doing real combat operations. Well, and it was more action than Desert Storm. Yeah. You know, nothing, I'll always compare everything to Ramadi and I know we're going to get there, but Desert Storm is a combat action ribbon that don't really know we hit one anti-personnel mine below Tyro for truck. That's not combat. It was so fast and so aggressive and they were so weak. There was, you know, Kofchi, no Kofchi, they scrapped up, but for our area, clearing all the Yossalim and, you know, all the, the bases that we were going through after a Wafra, it was nothing. And it really wasn't. And what were these patrols like in Somalia then? You know, like North Texas, scrub brush, you know, Mesquite style trees, baboons. That was cool. We, because, you know, we're doing the typical RNS patrol at night, hide site during the day. And where do you, you know, like Desert Storm, we dig in the net, you know, have our painted nets and sand on them, you know, trying to hide site, but hide sites in Somalia, you find scrub and hopefully there's not a bamboo or a pig in there. And that was the problem because if it's going to be big enough to get all six of you in there and you can hide because there is no real, it's, you know, you still have Watties, but there's not a lot of high ground. It's pretty flat terrain. And you find a nasty spot big enough to get the team in. You know, sometimes we'd do three and three if we had to. And, um, oh yeah, I've crawled in a few of those little, because you know, it's an animal's cause of this in the briars to get in there. So you know, you're going in pistol out. This is going to suck. Try not to give away. You don't want to shoot. It's not our job to fire a weapon. It's gather information. So you don't want to, you know, give away your position as we all know what the E and E is like. And that sucks when you're way out somewhere. Well, yeah. What are you guys reconning for? Basically just gather an information because a big problem out in Bardera by Doa, Galehari was not only the trucks getting taken over, you know, come February, you know, those fractions, that's what I was calling me. Everybody thinks Black Hawk down. They think Muhammad, I did for ID, you know, everybody knows his name. They don't realize Mogadish had 13 of those same people. He was just strongest. And then you have the same thing in all those other small towns like Bardera, you know, by Doa, all those. And then those were right on the Juba River that runs down the center. And then so they would come in, they would snatch leaders in a village and then pull them out and kind of, you know, hold them hostage. Well, they were telling us, you know, we're no longer doing the food convoys. Now we're out there gathering information for the infantry to say, okay, we're watching them come down these lanes, these waddy, typically they would use waddies and cause no high ground. And that's what we were doing. You know, anybody that we got a handle on it's because they were coming in the village in early morning, went still purple, snatch up village leaders and then just try to make the village, give them whatever they wanted. And then once we started doing that, that started going away. And then by March, they were like, okay, 10th mountains coming in, taking your place for, you know, all Marine forces, you know, 15th Mu, my original platoon, they just did the initial. And then once we got there, they went back on their new duties and didn't really stay in country, but it was, it was, it was traditional, D or D pre-trial. No, that's awesome. Yeah. But not super deep cause it's not that big of a country. It was cool. And, and then did you guys just fly home when the mission was over? Yeah. I came through Shannon, like you always do. And then we come into Shannon and got back and that was late March of 93. I got on the Marine Corps in May of 93. And what was your plan when you got out of the Marine Corps? Going to school. The Corbin, that's why I'm, I know Hassel and Gaffney and the guys so well. We didn't have a Corbin on our team. Well, I took natural to all the eight classes and I loved it. Probably hindsight should have been a Corbin later on in life, but I really enjoyed all the classes. And you know, back then, if you remember, it's all MTTs. You know, we always had MTTs. We went like SF demo MTT, you get the 18 Delta guys come out for three weeks and do a class for a Corbin. And they would always let me, a matter of fact, in Bardera, I was wearing second class Pettia, I'm an E three, but so I can go to the major battalion class. My Corbin gave me his Chevrons in his caduceus and I went to the, the class because I was the team medic too. Yeah. Especially once I quit carrying the radio. And you know, it is. We always rotate point man, ATL, TL, they're not leaving their positions. Typically our TOs aren't either. But you know, when you're really doing long patrols, you're going to rotate that point man out and he's going to, you know, be an ammo bearer, not carrying a VHF or HF, but for me, I always had Aiden litter. I always had the classes. It came natural. I enjoyed it. Something like I'm going to go to med school. And did you, did you feel like you're, you know, like you had enough of the Marine Corps basically? No, I think it was. Or was your record a little bit jammed up and you're like, well, well, I could have, I could reenlist. I was RE one, they would have let me reenlist even though I had been burnt because rec, oh threes in the reconnaissance side was still not a whole, you know, not a big MOS. A lot of people weren't getting it. But, you know, I think part of it was stuff my grandpa had told me in 91 after I got married was weighing on me because my daughter's born on JTF. I see her for one few days at Williams when my parents and my, my ex and my brand new daughter come in. And then I go on restriction, you know, just all that whole timeframe. And then do a couple of classes and bam, you're flying to, you didn't do the Mew, but now you're going to Smolley anyway. I just thought I probably didn't have much ahead of me. And I think it's a typical Lance corporal mentality of FTS. You know, it was cool when we could jump and we could have fun and do a lot of schools now we're at the infantry and we can't do nothing. And then we're kind of the bastard chaps stepchildren at fifth Marines. And I'm like, yeah, I'll do it. And it didn't take long for me to realize I'd made a bad decision. So you get out, you went back home? Yep. Went back to back to my hometown, bought house next door to my mom and dad. Cause I have this young family. I work odd jobs during the summer, worked in a welding shop, dumping slag barrel. I just did whatever temp jobs before I started school in August. And then once I started school in the August of 93 and my buddy John Ketcher, some out, he's getting out, he's getting ready to go to school. Yeah, I'm good job. The ER has a ERT because I had all the EMT training certification. So I'm like, well, I'll get some clinical experience, which I did had none. So I got a job working nights in the ER, going to school five days a week during the day. And I thought that was kosher. And then what happens in 94? A lot of my friends went back over to Somalia and they come back and they're coming through and they're telling me how much different it was in our first time. I'm not really liking civilian life. I'm doing decent squaggot three, three GPA and 90 some hours. Yeah. Five semesters I knocked out 96 hours. I was doing 2022. I was going at it like a Marine would go at it. And, um, but then it was, I quit the hospital because I got rode up at the hospital for slamming a drunk Indian because I live in the middle of Cherokee nation, two Indians coming from the bar. One buddy stabs the other buddy. They get him in on a gurney. Nurse comes in after I do his vitals. He starts growing up in the nurse. She's screaming. I run in there slamming off the gurney and then I get in trouble for him. I'm like, if I heard him, he's in a hospital. But I'm thinking save her. I'm not thinking we get sued. Yeah. My brain doesn't think that away. I reacted and, um, which I was common back in those days, you know, you get rowdy and they bring her buddy in that they just stabbed, but saw the writing on the wall between the buddies work, not really happy being a civilian. I'm going to go back in. That's what I did. Was it hard to get back in? It was because of that, because they changed the rules in 95. Now, do you know what happened April 19th, 1995? No, I do. Oklahoma City bombing. Okay. The day before I was in there getting in the day before April 18th is when I went to get back in the Marine Corps. But because of my offsours, I had to get three personal letters so that they would waiver my infractions because you got to remember what Clinton did. Not talking about about him, but we all know that we're in that time. He was really chopping up the military downsides and everything. And so to P set prior service entry, I'm going to have to, yeah, I'm going to get lucky. Well, once again, now an ACL reconstruction is permanently disqualifying. So what do I do? I'm sitting out there. I can't take no for an answer. They gave me my package, you know, and this is the day before Oklahoma City bombing. So I did five months of work with Drew from school and I'm going to, and I was working like security at the industrial part we have, just to make money at night's home at school. And I just stormed into that, that meps doctor's hatch. I saw a kid come out, you know, and it was kind of like a psych office, you know, you come in one door, you leave the other and that's the way it was at meps then at the mural building. Well, so I can't, I was just, I was frothing. I said, I'm just reflecting over all the bad mistakes I made getting out and just being stupid. And I just stormed back in there and I said, you got to let me back in. And after five minute conversation, another guy standing there is underwearing me, not taking no for an answer. He, he overturned it. And I got back in and then I'm laying on the couch next morning. See the building blown in half. And then I call the recruiter. This recruiter was Jamie Nunez and Claremont. And he said, we don't know what's going on. But the captain, the Marine captain, the Marine sergeant that got killed in that bombing. Thank God every one of the Marines that worked in the staff were at training offsite. And the sergeant that got killed, my package was on his desk. And I'm like, Oh, you know, I had to get those letters. It's took me months. You know, what do I do? Been very selfish. And Jamie Nunez was like a Vionics guy. He's like, Hey, Spank, we got bigger problems here. And I'm like, well, I went to school. I need to be back in. So come June, I get approved. Yeah, they, they approved me. Get back on active duty. Go down there. They swear me in just like I'm a ran listing and major giving. I'll never forget this guy's name. I'm like, okay, yeah, what's going to be my job? I'm assuming at no less than 03. My 351 and less. You might not put me back as a recombination or 321, but you at least made me a grunt. He has a motor T driver. I'm like, I got pretty decent score. I got pretty decent scores. What's going on, sir? I said, well, good to go. And I turned into that same Lance Corporal driving a golf car. And I said, good, go sir. Whatever it takes. He goes, Marine, what do you mean by that? I said, because it's my naiveness. I said, well, when I get to Del Mar for motor T, because when I got out, first force, first angle, co and motor T school is at Del Mar. I said, when I get to Del Mar, I'm just going to walk over to first force and see whatever it takes to get me in. He goes, well, that's all fine and Danny, but the school's in Missouri. Fort Lernerwood. I'm like, well, that failed. And he goes, well, just wait, wait, wait. And he went back for hours and I'm sitting in the conference room and I'm like, this sucks, but it's more important for me to be a Marine. Stop thinking about the job, quit being selfish. Being a Marine is more important. And that's how I became an 0861. He goes, you already got your gold wings? Do you know what angleco is? I said, roughly, I never worked with them, but I said, I know who they are. He goes, we're making an 0861 forward observer and you're going to be destined for angleco. I'm like, okay, sounds good. They got jump mission. Hey, this, they still patrol, you know, all the things that I enjoy doing being being in the woods, I'm like, I'll take it. And yeah, that's. Did you have to go to these schools? Yeah. Did you have to go to these schools? Yeah. I had to go to Fort Silver, uh, Fort observer's course, which I, you know, stupid for me going there. Honor graded it. And then I came here for an able gunfire at LFT, LFTC. They didn't give me honor grad there. They gave a reserve, uh, Delavalle. They gave him honor grad because I got the shooter award there. Come on, recon. We still do that kind of stuff. So it was super easy for me. And, uh, and because I was a peace separator, they're like, we don't want you to have both of them. I'm like, I don't give a crap. You can give me anything. You know, I just want to get back in the fleet. And, uh, but we had a real lucky class naval gunfire with six of us Marines. One was a staff sergeant, two sardines. Me is technically a Lance corporal and one PFC and three SF staff sardines. That was our whole naval gunfire class, nine guys. And, uh, and it was good cause it was giving me time to get back into shape too. Yeah. Fort sale. I'm, I'm slowly getting back into active duty shape after a couple of years and not being on active duty and not doing anything. Well, you two years, you were out. Yeah. It was a little over two years. Over two years. Yeah. And what's your first duty station when you get done with school? Okinawa, Japan, their battalion, 12th Marines. I don't go to Anglico. Me and JT Linnhart, the other younger kid, cause that kid that honor grad cracked out of college from New York city, he was a reservist. So me and JT, we go to Thurbatown, 12th Marines. So we check in there and at that time it was down in Camp Foster. I don't know if you've ever been over there. In Okinawa? Yeah. I've been there, but I don't remember. It was like in the early nineties or mid nineties when I was in Okinawa. It's when this was 95, 96. We're down at Camp Foster, the big base. And, uh, I get there, I'm there a month and the mass sardine are, you know, we had, uh, the shorefire control party. Do you remember those? So basically he said, you're, you're an E3, but I picked up corporal right at that six month mark. And while I was there when I first got there and, uh, he had me take shorefire control party to 31st Mu. So we're going to go to Camp Hanson and do that. So I spent six months at Hanson. By the time I got back, you know, I had a few months. We went climb Fuji, went to, you know, a couple training ops at Camp Fuji. And then it's a one year rotation. I mean, in JT, we get our first angle go. So that's when I got to first. And, and then you check in there, what's your role there when you show up? Uh, yeah, I'm going to be on a FIC, firepower control team. And what year is this? This is 96. Okay. Yeah. September 96. But the odd thing was Gunny Nelson, opportune sardine. You know, typically angle code didn't very similar to recon. When you got through, you're kind of like a roper again. You know, that's how I look at it. And then you go through the angle code basic course, ABC, because they don't have a formal MOS school like recon does or other schools. Excuse me. So I check in, well, I would, a lot of times I don't wear my wings on my camis, you know, just didn't wear it. So I check in, I'm a corporal. And fresh me, all the NCOs and all the people that have been around there. Fresh me. You know how that goes. And, you know, start checking in, kind of minding my P's and Q's, getting to know my platoon sardine or my, uh, my salt sergeant, my Salto, I see my FICO, I see, and Gunny Nelson, our platoon sardine, he's looking at my records. Oh, damn. You got Des Storms, Somalia, you already got your gold wings. You know, you, you've already, you've been to air sea, you've been to all these different smaller schools for when we're younger. He's like, you don't need to go to ABC. He was, we're not going to teach you anything that you don't already know. And I said, well, I appreciate that. So, and it was kind of like some of the fellow NCOs were, Oh, you just think, you're not going to have to earn it. You're not going to have to earn it. I'm like, send me through it. I'll do it. I don't give a crap. Well, then we immediately, like going salt alpha thick one. Well, I mean, within six, nine months, they sent me to jump master school as a corporal, you know, they're already just, I mean, we're going straight into music supports. So 96, 97, um, we fly over for 31st, me, we're just going over six weeks. Do one op with the rocks. You know, we stayed a week on a rock LST and then, uh, you know, just basically do the old school assault when I'm talking the war or two ones, ones that had the anchors that would pull you off the beach. And but the, it doesn't do like the old LSTs. It just opens like this. They ground that dude and then they jack it back off there. So we do an insert with the, the rock recon guys. And I'm going to tell you those guys, no joke. When they say we're going to move from here to there, cause they travel light. We've got long rucks on. We're carrying a little bit of weight and a lot of radios and batteries. You know the deal. And, but it was great. I mean, we had a great time, six weeks come back. And then you know, you just, some guys rotate, you get ready. Well, what happens? 98. I think I just, I was, I was actually, I came back from Ranger school. I went to range school. May of 98. How was Ranger school for you? Uh, well, it was definitely a good weight control process. Knowledge base. How much weight? 50. I went at 200 and came out at 150. Yeah. My, my, my team didn't even recognize me when I, before I went on leave. They thought I was a new guy. I was emaciated. Look like I did when I was in the hospital after get wounded. But the, and that was me as I, no, I won't say it that way. Cause that would just be terrible cause she's a good woman. I would do anything to just go away for a while. And found out my oldest son, she was pregnant with my oldest son, Colton. And answered your question. It was knowledge wise, because in Coronado, we, I had a Ranger handbook from a PFC. Even, you know, even A or C, we use a Ranger handbook. So not like the Ranger handbook. I was not naive. I wasn't like a young kid from a battalion somewhere. I was sergeant. I was 27 years old. And yeah, I did well. I mean, sleep, no food, sucks. Got, I don't want to boast. Got an undergraduate position. Got the USA leadership award, but that's just because I was an older Marine. And one, I wasn't going to fail. There's no way we had a captain in the class before me, before I even left to go out for rap that dropped during rap. Cat and oh, wait, captain, we were getting lots of billets because this is about time they found out they're disbanding first angle. So first I was at first recombinant. I went to disbanded. Now I'm in another unit disbanding first angle. And they're going to spend us summer of 90 or sorry, 99. So summer, you know, I go, you know, two months and change for Ranger school. Yeah, it was good. Used to be on my left calf. That's why I put it on my arm. My jack and my dad used to be on my left leg. I'm like, but the, um, constant reminder, I shake a soldier's hand. But, you know, I come back, they gave me three weeks to leave because I was bad. Well, in that time, a lot of us team, you know, team chiefs is what they call us in a thick team. Leaders, an officer, Lieutenant or captain team chief is a corporal sergeant. Normally sergeant. So I'm a team chief. Well, all of us team chiefs because companies disbanding were all going to be billets. So when I'm back and I just started leave to heal, you know, cause my bottom, my feet look like dive booties that we were in Okinawa. It was like horse hair. You know, I had to heal a little bit and put some weight back on. Cause it does, it tests your body. It's a good school. I'm not knocking that it's a gut check. It's going to teach you intestinal fortitude all day long on what you can accomplish. Um, you know, good on anybody goes to school. Well, they call me up at the house and I'm like, I come in and see my Sergeant Major, Sergeant Major Westrup. And I'm like, I don't want to be, I got her to drill field. I'm not a drill instructor type guy. I don't look the part. I don't sound the part. I want nothing to do. And because I'm way behind my peers that I joined with an 89 and the troubles I'd had my first enlistment, I was like, I want to go recruiting duty. He's like, Spank, why do you want to go recruiting duty? Sergeant Major ain't no way in hell I'm getting promoted on the drill field. It ain't happening. I'm not that typical. So is it like if you're, if you're, you know, you're out there on the drill field, you're going to be against these front running people, but recruiting duty is like a little bit on performance. Got it. Drill field. Now I can't speak for it. I didn't do it. Drill field is all it's like being in boot camp again. Yeah. And it's all like a promotion board. It's your, your look. I was never that stereotypical looking Marine. I could always PT not to take a look and guy. So I'm like, right there, I'm going to fail. Now I might outrun them out, whatever on some of most of them, I would imagine back in those days, but you know, chance they're going to look at me and I'm just, you know, doesn't matter what's on your chest. I don't look the part and I can't live the facade. Yeah. I've heard you talk about decentralized control and that, you know, the deal when you're in small type of units, even as a Marine, you always have bearing in professionalism, but it's, you know, I'm not going to blast my boots, grow my hair a little bit longer. I'm going to, you know, you're going to push the Marine Corps standards as the way we do it, you know, recon and debt one and now Raider battalions. But so you got told Sergeant Major, he goes, well, go down to the bowling alley on the main side. All the monitors are down there. And when you get up there, tell them I allowed you to come because I'm just a Sergeant, I'm not staff and CEO. So I go down. Well, the special duty monitors, you got MSG, you got drone structure, you got recruiters, they're always together. And you got all the MOS's that are there. We got to remember when I've been back from Rachel, two weeks, I've got my, my Charlie's on, you know, those short sleeve shirt and the green pants. I'm not 200 pounds. I'm at best 155. So I look like I got cancer and I did. I got in the line kind of like back in SLI, I get up there and I tell the drill instructor monitors, I'm like, Hey, I want to see if I can switch motors. When you got orders that summer, you know, next summer, he goes, you want to be in the drill field or you want to move forward in drill class. I said, no, I don't want to be a drill instructor. He goes, well, it's your command. No, my Sergeant Major sent me here. So our major was our first saying, I'll go and give him a call. And they're like, okay, well, he just talks to the gunny and mass sardin from the recruiting station sitting right there. And they're like, Hey, this, well, one of those two, I don't remember, there's a mass sardine or the gunny from recruiting. They're like, are you okay? Well, I'm thinking everybody wants to be a drill instructor. Nobody wants to be a recruiter in the Marine Corps. You almost have to force them. So few elect. That's my mindset. So no, I'm fine. You know, I just don't want to be a drill instructor. And they're like, no, are you okay? Do you have like cancer or something? So no, I just graduated from a Ranger school a couple of weeks ago. And that's foreign to them too. Yeah, they don't know anything about that. They're all admin people. And I'm like, I lost 50 pounds in two months. I'll put it back on. And then, uh, so they did. I got right across street here, right next to drill instructor schools, recruiting school. And I, uh, yeah. And then did you go back home? Did you go back to Oklahoma? Claremont, the town right back to your, yeah. Well, because, and this is the irony. When I got my orders, which was a couple of months, I went to, you know, right after that, after a month, I went to Sardin's course. So then they were sending us just school, school, school, school, training, training, leadership, training, whatever. Well, I'd been back from Ranger school for a month and they sent me to Sardin's course, my leadership school for six weeks, which, yeah, I blew that out of the water. I mean, that was, I should not have had to go, but Marine Corps makes you go to those. Um, it was way more senior anybody. It was real easy for me. And I was already back in pretty good shape. And then I get out of that. I go to mountain structures course. And then I take leave for Christmas. And, uh, Gunnery Sergeant Steve Bell was working in that office in Oklahoma, Oklahoma, and he's a local boy. Still friends days, retired, star major lives same town as me. I walk into that office, cocky as come be. And I'm like, Hey, I got orders in June to go to recruiting school. I want to know what I need to do to get here to this office. He was, you don't want to come to this office. Why not? He was where the, I think Oklahoma, RS Oklahoma, recruiting station, Oklahoma was like third from the bottom of the whole country. They were doing terrible. And I said, no, I want to come here. I'm from prior. And he is, uh, you don't want to come here. I said, no, Gunny, I do. I want to be right here. And since I had switched to become a recruiter voluntarily, and I did pretty good in recruiting school, they gave me RS. But because I'd grease the skids with Steve, when I checked into RS Oklahoma city in July, they let me come to his office. His boss had left. He was taken over. Best decision ever made greasing the skids with him. And, um, so yeah, check into recruiting. I'm happy close to my family. Yeah. My dad just two years before that had quad bypass. And, uh, you know, at this point, I had two kids and my son's young. You know, he was born right before I went to recruiting school. My daughter's born in 92. So, okay, you know, come out for three years, do my best. Well, it worked out great. Yeah. I got recruited the year. I got my tour staff starting that first year. And then, uh, I almost became a career recruiter. They tried to talk me into it and go 8412 and, but what happens September 11th? You know, I came off recruiting in 02 summer of 02. Okay. But when September 11th happened, I had been this time we're already getting divorced. Life moves back out here to California. I jump in my Jeep, take a week and a half sleeve. I just cruise across country, see my kids. I'm back, uh, I'm on my way back on the 40. You know, to kind of break off and do small roads on my way back. Yeah. I'd carry my ranger roll, my baby sack, and I just, you know, pull my Jeep over forever and heat up some food. And I was pulled into a gas station, getting gas into Mexico along 40. And that's when the second plane, I saw it on the gas station TV. And I just assumed that I'd be lucky enough to be brought back in to the job, angle core or something, which didn't happen. So what did happen? Where'd you go? I stayed. They, they kept me on recruiting till summer of 02. You just finished out your term of that. Yep. But in that same time, my sort of Dillard, we had an opening at Dev group, uh, McNeil, my sir, McNeil, he was going to retire and stay there. Cause you know, we have those marine billets there and that one standing up. F at here at Pendleton, Holbert Field was having an opening that master guns are retiring. Well, John Dillard, I was staff sardin. All the billets were gunny, minimum or master. I went to John master, I had Ranger school had, you know, I'd done real well on the job. So big John Dillard was like, what would you like? And I'm like, well, I don't know. You tell me what you think, which do you prefer? And he goes, well, I've got somebody slotted Freddie Fowler. Big guy was telling you about, he's going to debt one to be the fireshrop there in the sport element. He goes, you can take Holbert or Dev group. And I'm like, well, I'm not an East coast guy. Never did any time on the East coast, all West coast. I'm like, but that'd be cool. Yeah. We're not doing anything sexy. Maybe come out a little bit, but we're not doing the team stuff. I'm like, that'd be cool. Well, my second wife's a marine. She got a word, okay. Is that this point we're dating. And I'm going to chase her to Okinawa. So I call him up. I'm like, hey, can you get me a worst Okinawa in Japan? He's like, Spank, you're going to go out and interview me. I've already greased skids. You're going out there and I greased skids because you're a staff surgeon. They want a gunny mass sword. He is, I sold you. I was like, no, can you give me a place that's sort of G anywhere in Okinawa? Oh, right then I burnt the bridge. I burn it. And, but it's what we do. Some, some of us, I'll say, I won't impose that on either one of y'all. So they find me a spot, 12th Marine Regiment. Okinawa, Japan. Oh, sorry. Well, I get to Camp Hansen. I don't care. I thought I could get an SOTG spot. Yeah, nothing for me there. They don't care. Yeah. I'm probably got a bad name at this point in the little community of Anglico, which is gone. And, but I'd done real well on recruiting, marriage tours promoted all that good stuff. I was, I don't care. You know, put me where you want me. At this point, I'm thinking her and yeah. So just beat myself with a hammer or something. But, you know, still young, even though I'm not that young, you know, almost 30. Well, okay. Y'all get into it, but it opened up an amazing opportunity for me. And that's where I'm going to get to where we're going to be going here pretty quick. I assume I'm there for about a year and a half. They bring me down to 312. Now I know nothing about the artillery. They fated and advanced field artillery attack, dental system, all the computer systems they use for regiment, Marine Regiment level, battalion fires. I know nothing about this. Good at patrolling, good at communicating, good at dropping bombs or sea admissions. That's all I did at Anglico. That's our bread and butter. So send me down to 312 and then the master guns at the math goes, hey, we got authority to build a new Anglico. And he goes, you're about the only guy on the island that has Anglico experience. So I got to build fifth Anglico. And you think Dave Burke, Caesar, Janale, those guys, that was me and Major Krebs, Krebs going once a month from Okinawa to Quantico, talking to all the monitors, asking for them to give us bodies. So you got to think, oh, four to our platoon deployment that we're getting platoon. We had not even been in unit a year and a half and we deployed with Second Anglico. So I think for me, even though we didn't get the jump mission, which is actually better because jumping in Okinawa is a pain in the butt. Tiny island often or go to Guam at best. So jumping there, I'm glad they didn't bring airborne operations back. Hard enough starting a unit, bringing in Marines to build a unit, especially when you got one, two or three year tours. And you're going to rotate up a year and a half for a full, two and a half years. The unit has to do a full deployment. So that was amazing learning curve. You know, I was the staff in COIC and Major Krebs was the CEO until we would get a SAR major and a Lieutenant Colonel because it's a company, but it's battalion command equivalent. So you're a command. And yeah, I got to build a unit. You know, got to implement the TO&E. He's got to go, me and the Major get to do so. Did you build the TO&E's yourself? I used the old First Anglico ones. Okay, got it. Now at this point, Second Anglico and First Anglico had stood up about eight months prior. You know, they didn't stand them up till around that 03 moment because as we're transitioned from Afghanistan to OIF and they knew that was a pusher, like we need to bring these guys back. It's so purple. Think about it. I mean, just like with all of our guys. So, you know, that's one of those dirt to dirt moments at headquarters Marine Corps when you save money during the 90s to chop up all the little units. You know, and then find out that the more and more purple we get, the more and more you need some of those units. But it is what it is. But it was an opportunity. It was amazing. You know, and at that point, I'd just picked up Gunny and I went to TASP school back here and I'm going to be running, you know, Ops. I was Ops Chief, technically. Once we got all the pertinent people in, I was going to be in charge of the JTACs, the training. You know, what I know about, you know, I won't say I was dumb at that when it comes to operations. You know, for that type of environment, I'm pretty good at it. It's just the artillery side computerized. I don't know it. Never wanted to know it. Just like having a ruck on and walking around the woods. I mean, she only do that so long. But it was cool, you know, bring a bunch of our artillery officers out here. You know, I remember the day Caesar and Dave came in, you know, they were super good dudes, you know, both being 18 drivers. You know, Burke was a major and Caesar was a captain. We're getting all types of the pilots. Because as you know, all two of them now, Anglico is very aviation heavy on the salts, sporting arms, liaison teams. But to build it traditionally, but then when it came into play, they gave us the authorization to attach the second Anglico for that deployment. You know, we got to come back in from Okinawa in September of 05, start the work up. You know, get all the 400 quals for all the, you know, JTACs. And, you know, we had 32 JTACs, so non-aviation guys. Well, Colonel Campbell, being an old force guy who owns Second Anglico, he totally deviated from the traditional Anglico mission, where you have salt, thick, maybe too thick, if you're lucky, under assault, attached into a battalion or a company from a foreign element or the army. You know, that traditional role. He said, I want four men JTAC teams spread all over Anbar. Well, of course I, you know, I talked my Colonel in Okinawa and let me go on the deployment as the ops chief. I sold him, Colonel Schrader, I was like, let me go over and work an Al-Assad in the ops. I'll left seat, right seat, the second Anglico ops chief. And then when we come back over in a year, I can do that five month training package with our guys in Okinawa and then bring the whole company over. And we're going to a bunch of new guys that rotated off Island. So I sold him on it. Well, what's Colonel Campbell doing? You're a gunny, you're a JTAC, you're one of the most seasoned shooters, you know, bomb droppers. He goes, why don't you take a team? So what's he do? He gives me the three junior guys in our Brigade Platoon. Bravo, Huerta and Mitchell. You know, they're both Lance Corporals and Mitchell. They're all physical studs. And here I am. 34 at that time. I didn't even tell you after that deployment, they were telling me I'd done a total knee reconstruction on my left knee from that ACL reconstruction at 85, 86. So I'm like, I'm doing everything I can to at least get in theater. Because I hate setting an Okinawan when these guys been deploying for three or four years at this point. Well, Colonel Campbell gives me that luck and I'm like, but I'll, like I said at the beginning, you tell me what to do. I'll do it. You know, they're the best my ability. I'm like, sir, if that's where you want me. And you're not like I don't know Caesar, but he's going to get a salt, which wasn't a traditional salt. He was a JTAC, as you know, all too well. He was a fictine just like I was. He was my OAC at that level. But, you know, I'm definitely the more seasoned guy in, you know, at that point in my life. But man, I was always concerned those young boys were going to run my, you know what, in the dirt, because all three of those guys are studs. They just didn't have much time because they hadn't been with us long before we deployed. So what point, how far out did you know you were going to Romano? Not till we, they never, Colonel Campbell, because of that audible. Now, when we did our work up prior to taking off in January, it wasn't our whole team. It was basically just JTACs because we were going down to the proving grounds. You know, we're staying in Tucson and the Colonel treated us like we were so calm. I mean, Per Cleave. I mean, he spent a lot of money on equipment training all that for that few months. We, when we got to Alasad, he was four days, maybe, but it was all of us at the headquarters and camp. But you showed up to Alasad not knowing exactly where you were going? No, because he was in, he was in that manipulation of we're breaking all these 30-some teams down. Dave could tell you better than I could. But, you know, when I first got there, I've got personal videos of, you know, me and the staff, Sergeant, that worked for him for the technically of the platoon. You know, in our troops, you know, at our hooch there, I don't know if you ever went over our little compound, that old para building they were in. Well, we probably weren't in there four days. And they got a little Caesar and he called me up and we went into the meeting. He said, hey, we're going to go over and we're attaching our equipment. I said, well, good. That's a traditional angle commission right there. So first IA for those of you who don't know, say Iraqi Army. So it's like a, what is it? First Brigade of the Iraqi Army? Yes. Who is stationed over with the first of the 506, just above Camp Corregidor and there, I forget what that was called, the place above North of Route Michigan. Yeah, you had Combat Outpost, you had Camp Tiger, Camp Ranger, and then I forget that other one where they were in those three and the Alpha Company was in Combat Outpost with the tanks. So you're going to go over there and just basically embed with the IA? Yes. Yeah, do a traditional angle commission except not in a traditional TONE, but a very robust equipment package. See, Spot 3's were brand new. I mean, Colonel Campbell pulled all his strings in from his background and force. Do you guys have two hummers? Yep. Just decked out with the gear that you needed? Yeah, Caesar had, well, one hummer for all four guys. So Caesar had one, I had one. And then we had a 240 on each of our trucks. You know, like most time where it was on the gun. But we went on one QRF from Camp Romadi proper and did one dagger mission. I pulled, I pulled a rotation then day after the dagger missions when we went over to Kregador. I mean, initially not Kregador. Was your first dagger mission like one of the just nighttime route clearance? Yeah, I was just running an aircraft over looking for lollipops. Yeah, I just pulled it. They were kind of, you know, the way they were doing it over there is they just kind of put us in a rotation. It's kind of interesting that the first time I went out on a dagger mission, it was at night and you're like, they're using white lights. And you're all comfortable in the, in the, were you in the Buffalo? No, I was following in an M-Rap behind it. I did run in the Buffalo. That's impressive. Just the like, the fact that you can, that you feel safe. I mean, I felt like, because you never felt safe in a Hummer. You know what I mean? You're like, you're just waiting to get blown up. But in a M-Rap, you just like get to look around and it's kind of like the air, the air conditions kicking. You're kind of like, man, this is, this is kind of awesome. And then they're like, stop. They stop and you go, oh, and you start hearing them on the radio like, yeah, we're prosecuting. And you're like, oh, so we're, now we might get blown up anyways, but. Start digging. Yeah, yeah. Those guys are freaking heroes, man. Yeah, that first, you only did two dagger missions total. You know, one at the beginning and one was a follow on when they brought them to Full Metal Jacket. We got a lot of good pictures out there about the time your guys got there, I think. And that one, I got to ride in a Buffalo. So I only did one in a Buffalo, one in an M-Rap behind the Buffalo, but yes, you're right. When they turn all that Christmas tree of lights on and they start digging, I'm like, this is retarded. And, you know, the one, the, the second one I went on out of Krigador, it blew the bucket off. Yeah, it detonated. You know, it was manual. But yeah, so it wasn't long at Camp Romani before me and Caesar came over, you know, we initially checked in with the mid team that was attached to them. And we were, we had a couple of rooms set up that was going to be in the headquarters for the IA. Caesar didn't like that idea. And he said, I'm not comfortable with this. I said, well, whatever you want to do, sir, you know, so we drove across the road to Krigador, check in with first 506. And that's when they gave us, you know, a couple of rooms in Full Metal Jacket. And, you know, so that's, yeah, that's February. Well, we drive across there. You know, we drive around for their, their COC, if you remember, it was just kind of that bigger building facing all the runoff. We drive around that little spot there where we had our shower tent at one point and we come around on the backside where the palm grove was and the generators are sitting right there. And that's where that little courtyard was kind of in the middle of, you know, and as soon as we get out of the vehicle, boom, right next to the generator. And that was the best wake up call any of those guys could get. And so right out the gate, everybody was like, OK, this is realistic because we would hear the alarms a few days were in Ramadi, at Camp Ramadi. But, you know, what, Krigador's tiny engine all too loud. Yeah, I was going to say, Ramadi's such a much bigger camp. You can get hit and you wouldn't even know it. It's laundry service and all kinds of crazy stuff there. But at Krigador. No. You'd know it. Small arms fire go all the way across the camp, especially when we sunbathe and up on top full metal jacket up there. So what were your first misses? Were you were you going out with? Were you? You go out with just like the whoever was going out. You said he started out like in northeast up in the more rural areas. Yes. That's where you guys started kicking it off. Yeah. So we started out from, I'm correct. It was either Jaleba or Sophia, whichever the most eastern was right on the Euphrates, which I thought that's super cool. Yeah, I'm walking around the Euphrates River. This is neat. And it's traditional supporting. You know, sometimes you get a company of first five was say, I don't think it was first off. Yeah, I guess it was, you know, company Armageddon. Well, then we're just doing their typical clear and palm groves going through. It wasn't like you're knocking talks and all that. You're just kind of moved to contacting as best way I can put it and draw them out. And which most of the time I do a show for show force fly by, you know, maybe pop a gun around, maybe dump something small. But to me, that always seems pretty wasteful in those more rural environments because three guys with a gun, why am I going to spend all that money with a five hour pounder? You know, let's just go up there and do the traditional infantry locate clothes when destroy the enemy by fire maneuver. To me, that saves more money. But of course that would change. Yeah. As you know, too well. So then what at what point did you start moving back more into the mallab? That was probably March. Okay. I would guess March, not long. We probably spent three or four weeks kind of working our way back because we did have some patrols by that amusement park. And then matter of fact, later on as we'll get to with your guys to up there. But. Yeah, maybe a month. And then sort of this point, it's got to be March. And then late March, the focus of effort was going to be start clearing. You know, those different parts. Yeah. And your guys had to come in about that same time. We came in in April. Yeah, I came in in April. That's when we got over to Corregidor pretty quickly. I don't remember the exact dates, but we when we initially went to Corregidor, we spent a little bit of time. A little bit of time in Corregidor. And then we went back and then we kind of formulated the guys that were going to go over to Corregidor permanently, you know, in a permanent way. It was ended up being maybe maybe eight guys total of Seth's guys. Yeah. Yeah, because you guys changed it up after the 13th of April. Yeah. Yeah. I'll never forget that day. Yeah. So that I'm trying to think. No, you know what? So we when we went over for that mission that we were all going to do that big giant clearance of the mallop. Right. So this is when the boo-lum-boo happened. Yeah. And when we went over there, I took a big bunch of guys. So we had we had a pretty good group of guys. It wasn't until after that happened, then we all went back to the camper, Mottie, and then we assembled a smaller group of guys that were going to go over and basically be embedded with the first to 506 and the 118 I.A. So yeah, we went up when we went over for that big clearance in the blob where we ended up having the blue on blue. That was a pretty, we had a pretty big chunk of guys. I remember you had more people then because that's when Tony was downstairs. Yeah. And after the 13th that next day when I went down talk to him and talk to the guys, that's when it was like, well, okay, not seeing these guys around. Yeah. And then Seth comes back and it's like, hey, let's work together. Yeah. And then we're going to be in the area together. Let's kind of, yeah, which could call. Yeah, of course. Of course. And I don't know. Did you listen when I had Joe Claiborne on? Yeah. Oh yeah. I had to watch that. See him again. Of course. Of course. Yeah, you're the you're the gunny that I talk about. So when, you know, we just real quick brief, I had, I had four little elements out in the field. I had an element with C2. I had an element with the Iraqi soldiers that were doing the clearance, which is I think where you started off your day because you're doing frontline. Trace the whole line yards. I had, then I had two sniper overwatch elements out there. Real quick, just giving people the lay of land. We start, everyone's pretty much in a gunfight pretty early in the morning. And my guys, one of my sniper elements had moved across the road, just on the other side of the, of the limit of advance and a group of Iraqis that no one really knows why they did this, but they had the idea that they were going to be in the front. They were going to go set their own perimeter on the area that was being cleared. They started running down. And from what I understand, you were like, where are they going? But you got to, you got to follow the frontline. Trace, you just follow. Oh yeah. Run down there with them. Yeah. Held my guys up, said, Hey, you just stop where they stomping that last building for that open court. If you remember that open thing. And I'm just running with them because it's dark. You know, it's just now getting purple. Just getting purple. And by the time I got to that metal gate, the driveway gate, not the personal gate is when he took it. Yeah. Right there at the door. And yeah. Yeah. So that's when I changed. So your Iraqis went in to get control of this building or set up an overwatch position. My guys were already in there. And when my guys saw a guy sneaking through the courtyard of a bill of a door that they had zip tied shut, one of my guys saw a guy with an AK-47. He looked at his Iraqis because we had my guys had Iraqis with them too. Yeah. Oh, this is enemy shot him. Then now you got to doubt you got a down guy in the courtyard. You don't know who's in the building. You're assuming it's bad guys. You guys start engaging that building. What do my guys do? Return fire. This is just a classic horrible blue on blue. Yeah. Insane. Yeah. You, your guys or you called the QRF. The light QRF shows up. It's Humvees. The Humvees start dumping rounds into the building. My guys are inside receiving those rounds. And again, I mentioned some of these details. Like the fact that Matt Hasby, who is like 11 hours earlier had been shot out of a sniper tower with a Dishka. So now he's on the rooftop getting shot out with a 50, but he's knows a 50. He thinks it's a Dishka. He's literally going, I can't believe these bastards found me again with their Dishka. Because if you're thinking, if you could start, start getting shot out with a 50 cal, you're going to like, no, you know, oh, this is Americans, but he's thinking it's the Dishka. Yeah. Again, one of these horrible situations. So now my guys call the heavy QRF. When I hear the heavy QRF call, I say to Joe Claiborne, Hey, those are my guys. Let's go. So when we round the corner, the tanks are in front of us. The tank stops, starts like, I see red smoke. That was one of my indicators. I was like, why are we seeing red smoke? Me and him both pop smokes in that courtyard at the same time. So I get out. I think I said to you, I was like, Hey, what's going on? And you go, there's motion at building right there. Yeah. And I go, it's the first time we ever met. Yep. That was the first time we ever met. And then we got a briefing. We might have like glanced exchange. But I go, Hey, what's going on? Gunny and you go, Hey, there's, there's motion at building right now. And they're bringing it. And I was like, and something didn't add up in my head. And I looked at Zee, my SES like on me and he followed me over. I kicked open the door and I see Tony inside and he goes, and I said, what happened? And he said, I killed the guy in the courtyard and then they brought it. And I was like, Hey, it was a blue on blue. He gave me the look of, you know, what the hell? And then I came back out. I was like, Hey, where's, where's Claiborne? And he was up on the roof and I got to him and I said, Hey, man, it was a blue on blue. He was like, what? And I said, Yep. So that's, you know, the quick dump from my perspective. I don't know, whatever other detail you want to add. Well, that was, you know, when he, when I got it, it was right when I got to the gate. When I heard the round go off. And then that the guy that was right behind him, he just started screaming. And I tried to stop him at the gate and then I run back because remember the bill, they were going to go firm in that last building. And then there was that empty lot that had that big Dipsy dumpster. And then you had that road, long axis and then your guys run that house. And I, you know, inside that big old place there. So I kind of run back and forth. I'm going to call one of the guys to give me some more men. And then my guy might, you know, Mitchell, where Tim Bravo, they come up and gun me where he wants. So you get up on the roof, get calm, get me in aircraft, call the battalion command, tell them what we got. I want to run back down here. So I grabbed two of the Junetees. We come back over, we go just inside that gate. They had a toilet out that outdoor toilet right there. So we pop into there. Now I might add this whole time I'm suppressing. Every time I get close to the building, I'm, yeah. So I got the Junetees shooting. I'm waiting for the army to come up and it wasn't the gun trap. I didn't call the QRF until my air was denied. And that's when I call cure F and requested a tank. Yep. And I'm pretty sure you got your air denied. Thank God. Because I, my SEA and me were like, Hey, we don't, we don't know exactly where our guys are. Like do not drop right now. No, thank God. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you guys were there like you and Joe talked about. So glad because being them being on the ground and running it all, all my focus of effort. And this is bad on me, but my focus of effort, because you remember Caesar's independent. I'm talking, my guys are straight to the town, you know, the town command. I'm thinking get air. They killed it. And I don't care if it's. Of course. Who it is that gets killed when I'm working with them. I'm going to treat them no different than anybody else. So in that mindset, I'm going to treat whoever killed them the same way. And that's the hardest part of that day. You know, when it came to when I saw him coming out of the building, when you were there, that, that's the worst. You know, I know for you guys, it's big. Marine Corps has always been huge. That's the worst. Because it was such a big thing throughout our warfare of it happening. But so come back in, I'm surprised and I'm waiting to get the truck come up. I'm, you know, I'm on my. Inviter and I'm coming back over to Mitchell and I'm like, Hey, where's my where's my where's my. And he's denied. So I come back over and I'm like, okay, I'm kind of running back and forth. Well, me and those two, we cyborg, I can go grab the body yet. And we start running back and saying, Oh, I see a grenade roll right by that. Right by that. Dipsy Duster. So not that they're going to understand their Junetees. Most of them, they didn't speak English. Most of those guys. I just grenade drop. One's gun front kills guy behind. And then, you know, that's where in that one video that Steven knows. I remember they gave it to me. It was an hospital. You see the one guy run at me throws the belt, you know, for the, you know, his belt, whatever it was throws that belt down. You hear him going off and then you hear me go bang on that. Cause at this point I'm with I'm Winchester. I fired 13 magazines. So once that gun truck, that first gun truck waiting for the tank to get up there, you see it in the video. I write as I'm banging on it and I do that proverbial follow me because I want that 50. I want to walk that 50 right where I want them until that tank gets there. But right before he started that video, that loop, that army lieutenant was in the front seat. I'm like, give me all your mags. Now thinking back, I should never do that. Give me two. But I'm like, give me every, well, they had just gotten the 35 rounders. So I was excited. Several standard thirties. And yeah. So once I got the truck up there, I started suppressing and that's when I saw the movement on the rooftop by that big satellite dish. When I, you know, the old school six foot satellite dishes when I saw, cause now it's, you know, right before that tank came up before I bought the smoke, it was just getting good enough light. Yeah, that's another thing that was, there's so many little holes in the Swiss cheese. That crypto changed at two o'clock in the morning. I don't know if you remember that. Like it was, there was just thing upon thing upon thing. It's, it's, it's terrible. It was that is probably my worst experience ever. I mean, also true. That's way worse than what happened to me because if, you know, when I saw the movement on the rooftop through the mouse holes, I, cause you know, I carried him four, two or three. Now I carried a couple of smokes. I always had a tube for a Hilo, but you know, I carry 10 hand grenades and 10 HE rounds and my now gene, you know, put now gene bottles in those. It was for that timeframe, hand grenades and 40 mic, mic, HGs. So I remember I took my smoke out, low name, and I'm like, that dish or those holes were, I did. I sent, I sent one over that dish. Oh, that didn't kill nobody. And then I hit that dish and my intent was hit that dish and that frag pattern would get the two guys. So glad I didn't work out that way. I didn't. Yeah. So glad. And by the way, Matt Hasby, he was like, cause he, there's, he was the guy that was stuck on the roof. Okay. So another guy was, I think one more guy was with him who just like was able to very quickly like get down the stairs, but Matt couldn't move. And he, you know, when he tells the story now, you know, of course, you know, 20 years later, but he's like, oh yeah, I was just like waiting to die. He got his pistol out and he was like, Hey, when these guys come up here, I'm going to get a couple of them, but like, I'm going to die now. And yeah, freaking absolutely horrible. And it's one of the, it's one of the biggest focuses that I had when I came back and I took over training was to cause enough chaos and confusion that the seals that were getting ready to go on deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Every single troop that I put through for three years of training all had blue on blues because because we put them in situations that was going to be really, really challenging because it wasn't emphasized as much as it should have been. And the way it was emphasized during training for us was like, Oh, you know, this would never happen. Number one, you have all seals. I'll tell you what the percentage of it happening. If you only have seals goes down a lot. Just like if you only have Marines, just like if you only have Iraqi army, you put all those elements together, you throw the language barrier. Like there's so many things that roll into it. And those those, you know, the Pat Tillman case is another one. Oh yeah. But yeah, it's a bad one. And one of the things that bothers me is there was a there was a case of blue on blue in Vietnam with seals. It was X-ray platoon. And I knew it had happened. But they never debriefed it to where like to explain it to young leaders like, Hey, this is way more. This is this. This happens a lot easier than you think it does. And I think that's one of the one of the biggest things that I try to emphasize afterwards when I went when I got home and started running training was like, you need to understand how what a guy when a guy is getting shot at what their what their viewpoint is the chaos, the fog war, like all these things really come into play. And, you know, Joe Claiborne highly experienced at that time, you highly experienced at that time. By the way, with the seals, we had we had Iraqi soldiers with them with the sole purpose of like making sure that they can de-conflict. They had, you know, they cared like the little icon radios like we wanted to make sure that our interpreter could talk to the Iraqis on their icon radios, you know, just given the communication. So even with all those protocols put in place, like that was like an absolutely freaking awful day. Yeah. And, you know, to the battalion commander, I went back and, you know, he I went with Joe Claiborne. I don't know if you were with us, but we walked right up to his office and he was like, what happened? And I like just, I was like, hey, I pointed out went through it on the map. Like this is what happened. He was in he was such a great guy and he understood, you know, he understood the chaos and the confusion that occurred. He was like, OK, guys, make sure it doesn't happen again. Get your gear back on because we have whatever it was. I think we had four more operations to do that day. But what carries on. Yeah. Yeah. Work carries on. And I guess you had to go reload your mags. Yeah. And that wasn't that's the honest God truth. When you told me that that did it floored me. You know, because one at this point in my life, I'm going to thank God for that. Not getting any worse than it did. But that mindset to me at that point was, you know, initial instinct. I'm going to kill everybody in that building. You know, I'm going to drop a bomb on it. I'm going to they're shooting at me now and throwing grenades. There's all this other stuff going on. Yeah, I'm going to lay waste to it. And I think the whole effect you all you and Joe being in the positions that you were in, maintain that that's important thing that I think most people don't even realize when it comes to what you just described is having that command and control ability from the outside. Visual no visual being able to determine common sense. The fifth principle of patrolling something. I ain't right. Okay, my guys are there. His guys are there. You guys want to far this hat, you know, just a bad situation. And but thank God you guys saw enough to deny the air. Yeah, I was pissed at the point that I went right to my training and said, okay, no air, get a tank. Okay, got away from the tank, get here, get a gun truck because we were walking. We had no vehicles that day. We're doing walking patrols like we had been doing for a while at that point. But yeah, April 13th, right? If I remember correctly. Yeah, I don't remember the exact day. But yeah, just a few days from now. Yeah. Yeah. So after that, so we got put like stand down investigation the whole nine yards change uniforms. Yep. I remember that. Well, yeah, that's right. Like even that afternoon guys were the Iraqis were putting like arm bands on like with like just some kind of arm band that in. I think it had like a blue stick or something was like trying to make the PID easier for everybody. Well, they were dead. Imagine guys were worried. Oh, yeah, retribution might happen. I think, you know, one thing I will say is it seemed like everyone understood that like that was that was there was there wasn't like hostility between, you know, like all my my my all my guys, but guys weren't. The dudes funeral because by the way, an Iraqi soldier got killed and a couple more got wounded and, you know, you know, we paid money to the family. We did our best, you know, like they understood. And that's that's one thing, you know, there was a there was a seal captain who had been who'd who'd been the Marine Corps and he'd been the tail end of Way City. So when he showed up to like the tail of the city. Yeah. And he's a guy that said to me. He goes and I knew him beforehand and he said, Hey, John, go way city. He goes and I forget the percentage. A big percentage of casualties in Way City were friendly fire. And again, I wish I would have studied that more and known that more and been more aware of how easily it can happen. But you know, he's a guy that said, Hey, man, and and pretty much all the conventional commanders in Ramadi were like, Hey, man, we're in Ramadi. We're like, Oh yeah, you had a blue on blue kind of like no one ever said like that's acceptable. But everyone understands that bound to happen. Yeah, it can happen. And I always one of the one of the points that I always like to make is like there was blue on blues with Humvees versus Humvees. And if you think about that, there's no vehicle in the world that looks like a Humvee and there's only one, you know, we drive them, you know, friendlies drive Humvee. And you shoot it another Humvee. Think of the mindset that someone has to have that shows you how easily and how foggy things get if you're in a Humvee and you shoot at another Humvee. Like that's wild. But that happens. And so, hey, that's another good layfro it about an extreme ownership where same thing like we had army guys. Chris Kyle sees a guy with a scoped weapon in a building. And Chris is like, Hey, is there friendlies in that building? Life starts asking the company commander, Hey, are you guys got friendlies in building whatever it is 28 army guys like, No, we don't have any friendlies in there. He's like, Well, we got a guy with a scope weapon army's like, Hey, kill him because we lost guys from snipers. You know, I mean, Chris Leon, you know, it's like, Hey, we got we got a guy with a scope weapon. Kill him. And Chris is Chris kind of like, I see him. He's kind of behind this curtain. And they say, Hey, confirm you don't have any guys and again, building 28 or whatever it was. And the guy's like, No, we don't. And you know, life's like, Hey, they, they say they don't have any guys in there in between Chris and life. They just didn't feel comfortable taking the shot. And again, part of the reason they didn't feel comfortable is because of this blue on blue. It happened. Yeah. So they finally goes a, we're not taking the shot. And the army guy who we know is like, Bro, okay. And he goes, we're going to have to assault the building then. And life is like, Hey, we're covering your movement, you know, like best we can do to support. And here goes the army to go to assault the building and guess what? Guess what building they leave the building that Chris is looking at. And it's like, you know, one tiny decision of, you know, Chris putting a sniper round into an American soldier, you know, but again, because we had had that blue on blue, everyone was so much more aware of the possibility of it happening. So that's a bad situation leads to good SOP and TTP changes. Yup. As bad as it. Yeah. Well, you hope so. If it gets debriefed properly and we definitely debriefed it properly, like we went through every part. And I continue, by the way, when I was running training, I briefed that mission to every single team and platoon that I put through training. Like exactly what happened. Here's the mistakes I made. Here's what I should have done better. Like we'll just write down the list. When we got done with that, though, we got done with the investigation. Now is when I put together a crew of guys to go back out to Corregidor. And this is this is when you kind of built your relationship with the boys and JP and the guys. And then how. So you guys now are out there starting run missions. What was your off temple like with those guys? Well, it the way I would talk with Seth, it'd be me Caesar, because sometimes it'd be Caesar and Seth, sometimes it'd be me and Seth. And it would be sometimes start off together. Sometimes let's just link up at this point to kind of overlap because we know it's going to get heavy. And that was the biggest part of it. And I know it stemmed off of that previous blue and blue and always joked with Seth and say, you just you don't want to get in a scrap with me again. Do you? And, you know, just good fun. Of course. You know, true respect. But the yeah, it depended because there were stays we did three foot patrols. And I'm glad we were doing it that way because after Kai, a cowie, cowie, cowie didn't know him super well had many men over times. But when he got shot that day, I was doing overwatch. And that's one of the Caesar would normally go to the meetings. I don't care to be in those stinking command meetings because a few that I went like the day after he got shot when they were doing that extract, because I think it's what they were doing. They were extracting your guys had went up with some steak or snipers from the army and wanted to hide the extract by bringing those 1113's up. I got I got pretty angry. I went to that meeting with Caesar and you know, Caesar did give me the hey spank, you just mind your piece and keys because I was frothing. Because the other problem I had was, you know, some of the senior staff in CEOs because the admin sir major, not the command sir major, the admin sir major. We didn't see I died a lot of things because he didn't like the fact that I shared the hooch with my guys. Me being a seven, they'll be into a threes and any for and he always came after me about that. And I'm like, this is my team. This is our equipment. We got a ton of equipment. I'm like, I thought to respect Sir Major. I don't work for you. And, and then I went told see I went downstairs because Caesar hooched up with all the Air Force major Francis and those guys that were supporting first folks. We were with two different rooms upstairs. I don't work for you. Usually doesn't land there. No, it doesn't. But I was just FYI. But we had a sign in our door that said lightning four to and all four of our name and ring sonnet that one of the guys had printed up. So not like you don't know that's our room, but you know, we're upstairs. Caesar and his guys are downstairs with all the attacks and major Francis and those guys. Well, we're kind of the, you know, I kind of wanted to be away because nobody was on the second deck at that time. They had a blow over for some CBs that came in to build a helo pattern or something. And the other problem was those were technically all their overflow when they would bring people in. You know, especially right before your guys got there. And, you know, at that point there was two soldiers in that whole building. And then, you know, we come in, Marine EOD comes in and you guys come in. Well, total caveat. And our first room was around that whole corner kind of back towards the generators a little bit bigger, but we came back off patrol one day. And then our NERP mortar came right through the ceiling and made it through the rebar was laying on Bravo's rack. And, you know, we had the way we built those racks. We kind of had your send pit with the poncho. You know, poncho up to give you some privacy and gear on the top and just four of us in the hooch and pretty good sized room. So, and, yeah, Bravo pulls back his poncho to get in the rack, take his boots off. And here's this. A NERP mortar had made it through that roof reinforced, went through that top plywood and landed and sat on this pillow. And he's like, God, I'm over there, sent my tough book back up, you know, plugging in the printer to print everything out from the patrol one. And I'm like, you guys get out of here. So you get out of here, go downstairs, go on the other side of the courtyard. I'm gonna go down. Well, thank God we had the 2ED right there down in the bottom. Actually, they were right next to where Tony had hooched up there for a little bit. So I grabbed them and they're like, okay, yeah, I just failed. Well, one, we were on patrol, thankfully. So we move around the corner and they give us a building. So that made that major bad. But then the fact I was hooching, he goes, no, you need to be. And I'm like, that's my team. We go out together, we come back together. I don't need to be separated from them. That'll just slow down the process. We're living together. I can sit there and we, I brought a proxma so I can pull up Intel stuff and stuff that gets her. Yeah. And we could go over any planning we need to do as a team. But yeah. So let's get to 16 May 2006. Yeah, let's get away from 13 April. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys are out. I actually, I got, I talked to Wes, West Baldwin and he gave me, he gave me his, I'll start off with his little, his perspective. He says that was an interesting day, which is a very West waves kicking this thing off. He says the decision was made that we were to leave our courtyard and foot patrol assault towards a shooter on a nearby rooftop. We very quickly got engaged by a talented shooter, all single shots. Four of us were shot in the firefight. And I was hitting the hip, but fortunately was just superficial. Gunny took a round to the knee. Looked like he was stabbed in the kneecap with a pencil, very small entrance wound, but the entire back of his knee was hamburger, venous and arterial bleating. I told where to, to hold pressure on gunnies from oral artery to slow the bleeding, which he did very effectively. I tried to get a cat tourniquet out on as quickly as possible, but the blood on my mechanics gloves was very slick. I used my teeth to remove my gloves so I could grip the tourniquet better. Spanky's legs were huge and the stitching on the tourniquet was breaking with the force I was putting into it, trying to stop his bleeding. I had to put a second tourniquet on just above the first to completely stop the arterial bleeding. Then I put two dressings over the wound on the knee to try and keep everything clean and protected. Where to was shot in the bottom edge of his chest plate. I saw JP puke after the exertion of dragging Gunny and then run up to our overhead rooftop and engage the shooter while we were working on Gunny. Later that night, I was replenishing my med gear when I realized that I had a round had passed through my med gear and camel back. An exciting daytime patrol in the Malab was his final statement again. That's Wes. And so Wes was the seal medic out there with Stoner and with you guys. And that was kind of his take on it. But I don't think he's ever debriefed you on that, so I figured I'd give you a little debrief from his perspective. No, I appreciate that. It is good because I have very glimpses of the memory. You know those pictures of that? Yeah, they sent them to me. So the only thing that those two Navy, the videographer and the still photographer, they cut out. So when I pull back over and cross straight, because I want to say JP, it was where to JP and I don't know who was behind JP. And we kind of broke across to do that road. And we came up to that team where I think that's where I ended up getting hit. It's right there in the middle of that intersection. You know, I never let the guys walk in front of me. Never. You know, I was like, if something bad, I don't know how you thought about it, but for me, life, death, everything may meant wound. You know, everything in the middle was never a concern, I guess. And the guys will tell you that about me. I'm not saying I'll have fear. I've got fear because I'll go back to what I initially tell them. I'm not Billy Badass. I'm not anybody like that. But I guess mission always overtakes the fear aspect to me. But I definitely didn't want, early on, didn't want the guys up front. I'll take point. I'll walk up there and look. So in that retrospect, when you see photos or videos of me, except technically shooting, I, on my coat of strap, I'll be using my hands. I'd be talking to people. I'd leave it down. You see where it's in the background. It's got the saw up and the other guys are all up. And I'm just nonchalantly walking around there. But it was almost like when it gets ready to happen. That's why that day, because I think it was our third patrol that day. It was like right around six o'clock in the evening, if I remember correctly. I'm surprised he didn't tell you about the laughter we were having while I was trying to give myself my morphine. I'll get to that. I like telling that story about myself. But the, yeah, it's like we're gearing up. That Iraqi got shot first. I'm pulling the guys across. We're going to cross over and we're going to kind of bound to our immediate action to get to that house that was on the corner where we believed, not realizing. I think Seth later on told me, you know, we had the guys that were shooting up in the building and then the sniper in the overwatch. I think it's what it was. They were telling me, well, I'm doing what I always do. I'm just focusing on gunfire. Let's get to that. Get up here, you know, not to enter the house just to try to contain that until enough of the people come up or, you know, we make a decision on what we're going to do. And yeah, one minute I'm moving. Next minute. Yeah. Earth kind of goes dirty. Yeah, I don't know. I'm confused why, you know, what the hell just happened because it didn't hurt at all. It was not painful at all. It's like my waist down went numb like you're when you're sewing your feet and they start tingling. You go to sleep. So there was no pain, but you know, all the gunfire is going on, you know, everything is getting passed back and forth. But I was more confused. So because as they didn't say when I fell forward because of all the gear, when I came forward, you know, it pushed my boot on top of my magazines. So that first time when I find and then I was trying to push myself up confused gunfights going on, I'm hearing movement yelling, you know, just all the sights and sounds of that. I go to push myself up and I can't lift up and I'm just confused. That's the best way to put it from what I can remember. And I finally realized that my paraclete or not all my paraclete vest, but my Kodi strap, I disconnected the quick clip on it. And it was pulling my rifle because my only instinct at this point is get your weapon in front of you. You know, get back to business because, you know, you're definitely not moving at this point because my whole lower body is just numb and tingling. And it wasn't until, and this is what I didn't get. It was JP and Huerta because they were the closest two to me. And this is the dome telling me after the fact, you know, grabbed my toe handle and my paraclete and those two cock strong kids. Because I was, you know, 200 body weight in those days and, you know, the gear would carry. So good 270 to 300 pounds. So we're in that ballpark. And they grabbed that and they ass ended me all the way over because I was at that point I'd got the weapon in front. I was just going to shoot whatever. I don't give a crap what's in front. Kind of berserker mode, I guess. Not professional, but I said, I'm just going to kill everything in front of me. If it flags, I'm going to aim at it. And then when they flip me over, I almost shot myself in the right foot. But back then I shot both eyes open. And so I'd look ACOG in the one, but you know, I'd aim over it, you know, especially in those situations. But they flip me back over and that's when I got, you know, after I took my finger off the trigger when I saw my foot with my left eye. But then I immediately noticed that my left leg was just bouncing. You know, it's just, you know, kind of keep the same as hamburger on the whole back. I don't know how bad it is. I'm just, it's just bouncing back and forth. And then there's a lull. So I take that opportunity to reload and still kind of confused. You know, but not fearful, just I'm more surprised, not confused, surprised. And then especially when I'm watching my leg just bounces or drag and then it stops and then it goes again. That's when we're at the gunshot. Didn't know that to last thing. That's what I think is a Tom. Yeah. When Tom came out to help JP. And, but then when they got me to the courtyard and in those pictures, you know, it's a pig trail. Mitchell's got blood all over it. Just a pig. I'm, I'm, it was thank God, Western those guys. Yeah. But that metal framing on the gate, they were bringing me through the personal gate. My gear was stuck on it. So he and JP are just jerking. And I remember and I'm like, they gave me a chance to clear the two or three round out of my tube. I just had that building. I'm like, I'm going to aim at the window and I'm sending in that building because that's, we had thought that's where all the fire was coming from. But yeah. And then, yeah, what's moves over to me and they start the minute courtyard and Bravo, Steve Bravo Stevens or Stevens Bravo. He's, you know, he's really gunning down hard helping Wes, Wes astralomy my leg. He's trying to cut everything free. I remember Bravo is really pushing down on my femoral bridge on my head trying to help slow the bleeding because I was, I'm lucky. Yeah. You don't have much time with the memorial. Yeah. It's like three, four minutes. Total popliteal bridge. All that was gone. Well, he's doing that. Well, then I started getting shocky at this point. I start recognizing signs of shock and and I asked Wes, you know, cause we had those big auto injectors of morphine. I'm like, if I'm going down, I'm going down high. You know, kind of get it. No, gunny or not ready yet. Gunny or not ready. I can't, you're not stable. Gunny, you know, and I, you know, you kind of feel that, you know, I never, I never lost lucidity, but you could just tell your body's revolting at that point. You see where it's kind of cutting stuff off and, you know, your mind starts getting a little cloudy and because it's doing what a body's meant to do in a traumatic situation. It's trying to shut down systems to keep you alive. I get why it was doing, but then one of those memories I've got is Wes got me, got both of me. He's kind of wrapping me together or waiting for that truck to get up there to throw me in there. And I'm like, can I, you know, can I go and get my morphine now? He goes, you're good, gunny, you're good. And this is, I know this is after six o'clock, because sun's not directly up. You know, I'm looking at that blue sky. We're laying in that courtyard in the middle of those people's driveway and he's done a bang up job on me for however long it took. And of all the times I've practiced this over and over and over, I pull it out because, you know, I kept it on my embiter case and my chest. I kept it on the outside. And I don't know how I did it, but when I pulled it out, you know, you can pull it out, pop the cap, and it just slamming the, you know, in a thigh or something like that for someone. You practice it over and over, you pop that cap off and then you just come around. Sometimes you've got to reinforce the back with your pinky so that it gets a good push into the meat. Don't know how I did it. Boom! That needle went right through my pinky and just squirted against that brick wall. And I'm like, what the hell? We started laughing and I just rip it out of my pinky and I just started jabbing in west, west and where to, because at this point where it came up, Tony, I got shot. And not knowing dragging me, not dragging me, that good stuff. And I just, Janney, he's, you're not going to get nothing. I was like, I'm getting it. I was just going off. I was so angry with myself. Not only am I laying here, got him working on me to keep me alive and, you know, I'm looking at this blue sky thinking I can tell my body's going into revolt. And I want to do it high if it's going to happen. And I can't even be high. And then they, about that time that gun truck come up, because I remember Major Francis, Mitchell and all those guys were there. They got me stabilized and they threw me across a lap of those soldiers in that gun truck. They threw me in that door, both back doors. Get me in there. West had strapped my legs together basically. And, you know, I'm holding my helmet. I don't even know where my rifle is. One of those guys kept my rifle. So I, and I quit carrying a pistol at that point. It took up space. And so my pistol was under my pillow. But I've got my helmet in my hand. They throw me in that gun truck to take me to the end of Malab and Camelhump. You remember that? To have an 11-13 pick me up. They didn't want to bring it all the way down. So they, you know, they want to take me all the way down, meet at the intersection. I'm listening to them, but I remember that gunner. It's one of those memories I have. They get me across a lap of these two soldiers. Yeah, I got blood all over the place. He stopped the bleeding thing on. And that gunner. So fun. That gunner looks down out of the toilet, the turret. I'm laying in the lap of these two young soldiers. And he goes, weren't you that gunny we're always getting in firefights with? And I'm like, yeah, I'm that gunny. No crap, finally bit me in the ass. Get me the end of the block. Well, now I'm stuck. You got the gunner. You got the guys, you know, you got the other four soldiers inside. But I'm laying across their lap. They can't get out from under me to, you know, get me out of the end, get me 1113. But I remember that medic that was in the back of the 1113 comes over, opens that door and asks if I can walk. I throw my helmet at him because I was already holding it. And I'm like, you know, it just started to be retarded. But that was the most sickening feeling that in the chopper ride. Once they got the IVs and made it take me to, because, you know, they cut my leg off and take you or wherever that hospital was over by TQ. But the back of the 1113, because I've never liked being in those things, any armor vehicle. I don't prefer it. But then in that chopper ride out of the combat uppost, that's probably the most uncomfortable feelings I've ever had. The most bare. Don't have a weapon. Don't know a way of protecting myself. Don't have any control whatsoever. And that whole time I lower body is still numb. It's I never had any pain up to the point, you know, when they put me under and cut it off. So, but yeah, I remember just asking that command center major over the combat outpost. I'm watching them write my name on the board when they're putting two IVs, Amy and I, it's just kind of a cigarette. It's like, no, you can't give me a cigarette. Who cares? Give me a cigarette. Give me a cigarette. I smoke the falling rain Iraqi smokes with them back then. But yeah, that was that was that day. Yeah, I think they cut it off for eight o'clock at night. Yeah. And it's, you know, just sitting here thinking about this story as you're talking through it. You know, here it is. I talked about in the beginning of the podcast, like the the teamwork between all these different suit and here. Here, sure enough, you have seals, Marines, you know, seals are doing medical on you, but they're getting help from. The Marines, Marines and seals dragging you out of the street, a Marine and then who comes to pick you up army. Like that's you just can't. It's really hard for people to understand the the bonds that was formed there. And then of course, you know, I always want to mention this to you know, the guys that are out there training as medics. It's really hard training. The the medic school for the seals is extremely hard to special for. We used to go to, I don't know if I'm pretty sure that the medics are trained. I'm pretty sure that West went to the army, the 18 delta school package for you guys. But we have but now we do our own, but they're all they're all just outstanding schools. And the fact that, you know, I tell people all the time, like if I needed to get shot, I would rather have a special operations medic there instead of some like doctor, you know, whatever normal physician, because that's they're just trained so well. And you know, same thing like when Kaui got shot, guys were on him immediately. And even the even the package that we put guys through for T triple C, right, where, hey, I don't know how to. I don't know how to operate on anything, but I can definitely stop the bleeding like that's what and guys had to do that and did that. So props to those guys. And then again, you know, just the teamwork of the guys being out there working together to to get you out of there. And that's another amazing thing. You know, an advantage that we have these days is like, you know, you are off the battlefield in a matter of minutes, you know, and in a chopper in a matter of minutes and just to have all that coordination, that golden hour of time, you know, just to get guys off the battlefield. And is is the modern military, you know, we just kind of witnessed that over in over in Iran with the guys that got shot down and getting those guys out, you know, from the giant country of Iran, shot down and. The efforts that went into getting those guys back is like incredible, but that's that's the way America rolls. So especially that whizzo. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. I can't wait to hear the stories and get the debrief on what happened over there. You know, it's going to be it's going to be epic. So you were conscious the whole way until I never lost consciousness until just for the last memory I have. When I say I've got mixed time drugs from in the hospital kind of clouded some of the in between stuff. I never lost consciousness. And when they did, when they got me that combat surgical or wherever it was over by TQ, I don't know chopper lands. They put me on a big willed gurney thing and rolled me in like a male and a female. The females weren't scuby do scrub tops. And I'm looking down there doing capillary refill on my left big toe and one or the other don't really remember clearly. One or the other looked easier and just shook their head. But I remember she had scuby do scrubs. Don't know who was senior, who was who don't know. That's the last memory I have the next memory I have on my NSC 17 on my way to Lawnstool and I woke up in excruciating pain. And I have no clue on I have no memory of Lawnstool. Now I was shot the night of the 16th cut my leg off. I was in Bethesda the morning of the 19th. So we're looking at less than 72 hours from the moment of wound initial amputation to check it into Bethesda. So very quick process. So much so that my mom and my ex and my soon to be second ex at that point or all get notified that the Marine Corps is flying into Germany because he is not looking good. And I think that's that spell I had somewhere in between there that I vaguely remember the pain. But I was VSI. You know I do know that at this point I was able and I owe a to look at my own. You know working at the MEP I was able to look at my own call where they were doing the notifications and from commands. So I was VSI so I guess I got what's a VSI very seriously injured. OK. And I think it was the blood loss. I think that's why they said they want to get him to Germany. It wasn't the injury it was the blood loss by far. I'm looking at the pictures later on in this hospital. Yeah I get that was a big drill. But I'm lucky. And that when you remember being in TQ and that you see the Scooby nurse do they even do they even consult you at all about your leg. That's the only member I have to they might have and I don't know. You don't know all I remember is get me off the chopper and those gurneys have those big oh huge skinny wheels and they roll me into that. Whatever it was. And I remember. Don't even remember their faces. I just remember one was a female one was a male and Scooby do scrub top. And I remember the capillary fill and beyond that and on a seven care. You know at this point I mean next thing I know. You know. Got part of a leg going. And so you know big deal you you woke up or your first memory is pain on the flight the C 17 C 17. Oh yeah. Did they immediately put you back under. Yes. I that so I just recently talked to God about. So I was. You know somewhere in the middle of it but I remember I was about midway up on the center gurney racks and the jump seats are there. You know from overseas and teams obviously we all been on them. Well. I woke up and I was in really really bad pain. I can't even tell you the level of pain at this point. I just know it wasn't bad pain and I was smelling Fritos. And what's weird is I have this. I know I was in pain. I know I was hungry and I smell Fritos. And I'm assuming it's one of those Air Force box box. Yeah somebody's eat one on there. So that's the only emotion in the feeling I have in that point pain hunger help. And it seemed like within whatever time frame I don't know. As soon as I motion that I'm hungry. I'm hurting. I was out and I don't I don't remember from there. And. Yeah. I don't really remember very well that first two weeks in the hospital because I went through 10 surgeries in two weeks. You know debriefments and revisions and all that stuff they did to me was surgery every other day. And so you're so medicated that. You know I have glimpses. I don't remember getting my purple heart from General Hagee. That guy talked about earlier Steve Bell. He's our major one 12 in Hawaii at Coni O'Hoy that I've worked with on recruiting duty. He flew in from Hawaii with his wife and spent the first week and a half almost two weeks with me. Gave him a haircut the day I got my purple heart. I look at pictures. I look at videos. I don't remember. I don't remember. That's why we went to the evening parade. I was in a wheelchair. We were all there together. Him and now common on. You know everybody's there. And. I see the videos. I'm lucid. I'm communicating just like I normally would communicate but I'm no memory. About that third week I. You know started getting memory back. What was the what was kind of the emotional state when you realized you got no leg. Yeah I don't. This guy Jack Shee. Lord I met up like a month ago. He finally hunting me down after all these years to give me a coin from long still. Met me in in a while. So we had dinner. He's been doing this on his own thing ever including him. And this is new you know fresh after 20 years of time. Just month and a half ago. Everybody said during that time that all I cared about was getting back to work. Now cognitive ability on my part third week at best. It never once bothered me. I don't. I think it goes back to the my initial instinct of death life. Anything in the middle is just react to it. You know get past it find a new norm do whatever you're going to do. It never bothered me. Does it suck. Of course it sucks. You know I wouldn't wish it on anybody. You know I tell that to kids all the time that want to play with my cool robot leg. I'm like you know I normally tell them yeah don't ride sharks. You know I got all these scars from all the other upper body surgery. I'll be like don't ride bulls don't ride sharks they like to bite and they like to break your arm off. And kids get a kick out. You don't want to say if I got shot that's boring to them. They just think the robot legs cool. But yeah I don't. I don't. It never once was affected me in that way. Never. Yeah I'm happy to have life. Life is way more important on a leg. And I take it as luck. I had a lot of really close calls in that time frame. So now as a different type of person I look back on that was God's way of telling me to grow up. You know you're older you're higher rank you should be out playing with the boys. You know time to get back to real work big boy. It's kind of what I look at it. But it never once the only fear I had was I would have to get out. That is on Scott's truth. You know when I was waiting on the bed board to come back that gave me that feeling of 1995 again. You know and so when they came back on Permanent Limit to do or as I could stay I'm like well that's the first step. So yeah never bothered me. And then it goes into the recovery. It sounds like relatively clean situation. In other words like above the knee it's horrible you know it's terrible but above the knee it sounds like there wasn't any major infections. It moved pretty quick as far as and by the way it's one leg instead of two. That's a huge difference. You know that gunshot wound and live explosive. Oh yeah that's another that's what a surgical above the knee amputation based off the damage to the lower femur from the gunshot. So it's a it's all there's no blast injury the elective to go above the fracture of the femur not to cut you off. No no no you're that's that's the kicker the healing process is much better because Dan can awesome who I know Dan very well. Yeah like that's I meant toward I met him and Bob Jones blast Travis don't know him that well but I know like all those guys those blast amputations are brutal and then you have all the secondary damage from the explosives in the rest of their body soft tissue organ damage all that stuff they have. So yeah this is that's what I didn't make that connection of why this because you know you're like you know I wasn't hurt too bad and even the fact that you're conscious because these guys get blown up it's like you know so much more trouble. Yeah it's traumatic in in so many other parts of their body as well. I mean Dan can awesome was like you know just just deficit Dan came to my retirement. That's amazing. I mean I spent a lot of time with him when he got there in 10 you know I was still out there then we won't say we came friends we were very good acquaintances we travel a number of times together on trips before he started doing the. You know by a full on stuff. Yeah good dude. So but so you're your recovery you don't have to worry about these other blast injuries and all this stuff. It's a quick you know from May 16th till mid December and that shot started my med board in December ran my first five can November. You know I initially weeks get out of the hospital and move me over to Walter Reed on my 35th birthday was that day. Then about a week in patient then release me for therapy but I still have you know I still have a number of weeks about a month before they'll take the staples out. You know so I can do I can do physical not patient therapy but it's on crutches or wheelchair you know initially it's a wheelchair that didn't last long because I in order to not go to the Malone House and get in the Fisher House at Walter Reed the old Walter Reed. I had to be on crutches well in order to be clear to do that I had to be able to go up downstairs because there's no elevator in the Fisher House and all they had was upstairs rooms. So I proved that I can go up and down you know stairs on crutches you know you I'll keep saying it give me a task tell me what the requirements of the task are I'm going to do it. And because I don't want to be in the Malone House and for people on the Malone House is the old Walter Reed it was basically a 1012 story hotel and it was Wild Wild West for winded warriors and their families. I mean you there was constant stuff I want him to talk about sad sad things of people doing there. I'm like I've got a young daughter you know a second. I do not want to be in the Malone House. I didn't really want to be in DC. Not like I didn't choice in a manner but fortunately proved very quickly before even got my first leg my tent socket and we got in the Malone House much more family orientating only got like eight or 10 families in there. You mean the Fisher Fisher houses. Yeah Walter Reed had three of them. And so you're in a family environment you can have your own space and store food you know Malone House. Is basically a hotel with a restaurant at the bottom. You know you don't have that opportunity to cook in the rooms or any of that stuff. And I didn't want no part of that plus all that other extra curricular crap I don't be around. My focus of effort was get back to work. That was my number one focus. So now get away to your staples are out. Okay when you're taking a step outside. Oh let's prove you can go up and down the stairs on your crutches. Okay I'll prove it. You know because I'm thinking I'm 35 I've been in the Marine Corps for 17 plus years. I'm you know I'm on a timeline here. You know not fully knowing if they're going to kick me out medically because I don't know yet what's going to happen with that. But my thing was get back as quickly as possible. And I don't care what I get back to first task get back on active duty from patient status. And then I'm going to ask where's the Marine Corps need me. You know and then so on. That was the beginning. And so then when how long did the process take? Is nine months until your med board? No my med board was in less than six months and I was back on active duty in 11 months. Bang. That's the problem. It took five men five months for the Marine Corps to accept the med process. rehab wasn't even five months. I mean that's the weird thing. It took longer for them to figure out yeah you stay on active duty. So at the 11 month mark I was released from patient status and able to stay on active duty. And then where'd they put you? Fort still Oklahoma. Oh this is you did some instructor time on there? They because at this point I only got almost two years left. I'm gonna hit 20. So I don't knock them for it. I've got the MOS. You know I've been through piss off and all those training for you know and built fifth thing. Co understood you know I didn't realize how bad I would hate it. You know I mean I didn't stay there for a long you know. How long how long did you stay there for? I got there technically checked in mid-May and checked into one math for the 08 deployment in September. Long enough to teach one class go through curriculum development course and be checked off for the instructor. You just didn't want to be in a classroom teaching. This is not your seat. No. But I thought get out of the hospital. He goes back to everything I've told you before. Okay you just let me back. I'll manipulate where I go from there. So that's that still is even at that time is still my mindset. And your goal did you have it at what point did you decide your goal was to go back on deployment? Okay so we were doing Alcatraz challenge in San Francisco. And Colonel Clark Lethey is there as he ate the General Mattis. General Mattis is getting ready to leave because he's getting close to picking up four stars. So that 08 deployment General Kelly takes over. We're doing the Alcatraz challenge. Did pretty good. You know swimming I've always been pretty decent at swimming. And then once I learned the strokes and learned the proper and did it enough. I've always been a decent swimmer. You know I've just gotten better and better. But the you know I came out of the water pretty fast. I mean there's only five six of us amputees there out of what six to nine hundred people whatever it was six hundred something. Have you ever been up there for it? I have not been up there for it but I've been up there before. Yeah you ferry over right off the island you jump off the platform and then you swim back. Me my aiming point was the golden dome at Chrissy Field. You know depending on the current. How far of a swim is it? A mile and a half. Nothing nothing stupid. I did it in forty some minutes. It's current as you know up there. Current is depending on what you're getting that day which it's a morning swim. Do they plan it around a good current? No I think. A beneficial current? No I don't know that I can't answer but they have safety kayaks in the water to kind of keep you from going. There was only one time I'd get nudge by a kayak because I went hundreds of strokes before I really looked up. And I'm aimed right at the Golden Gate Bridge. They nudge me and I'm like yeah there's golden domes my aiming point. I'm heading out into the Pacific Ocean. We don't want that. So they can say because that current when it's got that you know lateral currents you know all about that. That current when it comes in across where the old Presidio was it's too. It's got to be a two-knot lateral. I mean it's fast. And so yeah a little bit of this. You know going back a little bit because I know this must have landed on you but Corporal Chris Leon gets killed. There you go. June 20th. June 20th. So you've been back in the States for like a month and now one of your the first Anglico guy killed since Vietnam. Sergeant Major called me. Gets killed in Ramadi and Sergeant Major called you. Yeah and our Sergeant Major called me that was from 2nd Anglico and let me know. And yeah because then we had him and then we had Pate. Captain Pate was one of the 2nd Anglico from there. He was our intel officer. They got killed I think in August. He was out of TQ I believe. But yeah when I heard about Chris you know it's and that sucks you know I'm sure Dave's talked to you a lot about Major Burke. The O'Leary and Chris were best friends. Where to? Both from the same area in California. You know when they got to the unit both communicators during that initial build up when me and Major Krebs are getting the unit build up. And it sucked. And then to hear the way it happened you know I'm glad it was this sounds bad but I don't mean it this way quick death. That's all I wish for anybody if you're gonna be put in that position not bleeding out on the road. I know the guys told me Sir Major told me that Werthe took it super hard because that was a month after me. And that probably bothered me more was what was gonna be the you know obviously family you know Leon was a great kid. Cock strong kid just like Werthe funny those two together back in Okinawa. Studs. Oh yeah just good guys. That's all hard to sing for me was that and I'm not saying what ifs because I don't think what ifs matter. You know should I push so hard to get get us over there as a platoon. But then also got everything you know I don't know it sucks. But what death doesn't suck you know that all too well. And but you know they named the when my son was in Okinawa with fifth Marines on UDP. You know he went by the fifth angle co-headquarters there in Camp Hanson. You know they've got its named after Chris. You know and then they've got a little memorial for the three of us in there. You know what do you I don't know what do you say. Yeah but that had to well not had to but I would imagine like going when you're when you have the goal what made me think of that was having the goal of going back over on deployment again. You know knowing knowing the cost better than anybody you know not only with losing Chris and yourself being wounded and now you're like cool you know what I'm going to do go back over. No sure. I mean but that's OK. So my thing just like the initial part of it in the whole career every time all the stories I've told at this point one thing has always resonated for as long as I can and the best way I can I'm going to serve. I already know what it feels like to have it taken away. So the leg portion of it I just wanted to be able to get back to a new normal for myself and but more importantly to prove to everybody. It was never an agenda to go back to Iraq or or Afghanistan. It was it was never a personal aspiration. It was I want to shut everybody up. I'm no I'm normal limited. You know there's limitations now that are blatant novice but I will not do anything. I promise that to you know I promise that to General Mattis back then I promised General Kelly when we got over there as I will never put him right in harm's way. That will not happen. I won't say I'll never put myself in harm's way but I can only handle my you know I can take care of myself. I know what I will won't do. I'll never do that. But then there was that you know that the hospital. You know I left Walter Reed in September of 06 and went down Center for Intrepid and San Antonio. I just left. You know they kept telling me 18 minimum 18 months minimum. That's what Walter Reed kept telling me and I'm like give me my task. Tell me what I need to accomplish to get out of here to get my med board signed off on and see if I can stay on active duty and they kept don't worry about that just be healthy. Don't worry about that. Get healthy. And I was just like no I want to know what I can do to get out of here as fast as possible because I've got that ticking timeline. I only have so many years left to me in the Marine Corps and if I'm going to wait for the next few months I'm going to wait for the next few months. I'm going to waste them here just to make 20. Yeah I'll hate myself for it. I will. I'll hate myself because you know I want to go on my terms and that was my whole principle. My whole principle. I don't want to go early. I want to go out of my terms. I want to do as much as I possibly can prove who can do it and who can't do it because that's the tertiary agenda for me. Let's push the boundaries. Let's get you know six months after me we got that single above the knee corporal back over to Okinawa. And after I was in D.C. we got Corporal Bradford bilateral above the knee amputee. Coley Blind got him to stay on active duty and work through the winter warrior regiment. You know that became my goal after that deployment but I'll get back to the hospital stay. I did. I told you know Staff Sergeant John Sepinowski who worked at the Walter Reed liaison. I went into him and I said listen I'm leaving. I want to hate D.C. We just had a triple amputee get mugged at the little mall area. In Maryland. Oh my gosh I can't remember the name of it. It doesn't matter. Pretty close to Walter Reed. And they had a big courtyard. You watch movies. They rolled this kid in the parking garage. You know no respect in that factor. That kid can't defend himself. I'm like and plus I hate D.C. at that point. I said I want out of here. And finally I just told my ex's dad was there visiting. And I said you guys go down and get a rental car warm-up therapy. Because they kept telling me 18 months and then they would tell me I missed this factor. It's pretty important. One hour. You can do one hour physical therapy, one hour of occupational therapy. I'm like I have nothing else to do in the day. I'm going to go back over to the Fisher house. I'm going to twiddle my thumbs and sit there and look at this thing I've got missing. You know I don't have a leg on. You won't let me get it. So it's just one thing after another. Just piss me off. And so finally I had enough. I really did. I said go get a rental car. And I told the staff sergeant skiing at the Marine Land Zone. He was like dude you can't do that. You got no orders. And I don't give a crap. We're going to kick me out. And I wasn't trying to be the old guy. You know the old spanky. But I was pissed. I didn't agree with anything I was hearing. Because I kept saying that's how I could give you that answer while I go so quickly. I'm a gunshot wound. I have no other ancillary problems here. And I think they built a task based off of blast injury. And I think their natural conditioned instinct for us as a patient was the highest probability of these blast injuries will re-injure themselves throughout the physical therapy process this many times if they do too much. And I think they just they bought into that based off experience. I get it. But didn't plan for outliers. Yeah. Yeah. And what like 70% of the casualties in Iraq were IEDs. So that means they're looking at 70% of them. They're going oh yeah this guy has a bunch of ancillary issues. And the ones coming in from Afghanistan. Yep. Yep. Both. Yep. So that was the biggest kicker. They you know I'm sure you guys both understand this. I've never liked I get cookie cutter when you need cookie cutter. I don't like cookie cutter when it's individually based. Okay. Yes. I know the times and for that you know depending but for me looking at it from a training perspective I'm like don't put me inside the cookie cutter that I don't form in. And that was my problem. And so I just we got that rental car we left. Went to Oklahoma picked up our truck dropped in the rental car at Tulsa airport and showed up a couple days later at Brooke Army Medical Center of San Antonio. I put my camis on walked in there because at this point I got a leg you know and I was still limping pretty good using a cane. Walk in and they don't know what to do with me. But John Sepinowski called the little corporal went got the Lieutenant Colonel and they came out and I'm standing the front desk. They don't know I'm coming. And they're like you know Gunny what can we do for you. So I'm here checking his patient. What are you talking about we don't have you on the roster to be checking in with us. I was like well I was at Walter Reed and I left. I'm here. And you know long story short they made it happen. Skied called the other staff and see how I told them. Can I ask you a little bit about that that officer for not being a good Gunny at this point. But at that point I really didn't think anything to lose. I didn't and I didn't mean it to be bad. But if I didn't get out of that environment I'd go back to the golf cart incident. I'm serious but probably in a very bad way. Yeah. So you do the swim at Alcatraz and how does that lead to you going on deployment again. Well because of Colonel Clark Lathine being the aide to General Mattis his wife Wendy Lathine being on Semper Fi fund. We had started that triathlon team team Semper Fi and 06 John Siponowski. At that point we missed all that. We had been doing all kinds of races adventure races sprints you know all these different triathlons and endurance runs endurance. And you were doing this for the Semper Fi fund. Yes. And you were doing this was it all wounded athletes. Yeah we John Siponowski was and he was liaison. He built the team. There was about six of us Dan Lascavitz Eric Santiana me. We did it to raise money for Semper Fi fund with the secondary approach of getting to the hospital. Because this is still during my med board process during my you know it started in late 06 and it fit perfectly because that that early January of 07 up till May when I got back I continued to compete with them. You know it was a one way to get me out because I'm not physical therapy I'm not occupational therapy I've got a rental house in San Antonio. I'm like I need something to do and ski got a hold of me from Walter Reed and said hey I'm thinking about this. No you guys got these guys down there I'm going to come down. And so it raised money for engine runes Semper Fi fund what they were called then. One shore appreciation for everything they were doing for all of us to raise that money and awareness. And it was awesome because like the Alcatraz challenge that time in 07. You got 600 plus people and you've got seven of us I think they were amputees one hand amputee in the rest of our lower limb amputees. I was the only above the knee empty on the team most from BK below the knees. And but you know what better way to figure out your if you want to call it new personal best whatever you want to call it your limitation. Where's the boundary of my limitation is that. I didn't detrath on sports swim because of the job. You know I could run pretty decent back in the day but you know I'd gotten to the point for the amputation that's kind of doing me a favor. I might run a 1935 you know three mile run on the PFT but definitely not 1718s anymore. The knee was just done. But it could teach me and that led General Mattis General Gray and all these big heavy hitters down down there for that. Mike Thornton's there you know for the dinner the fundraiser. Well my ex is not actually yet but she was a corporal in the Marine Corps. She's down there talking to Colonel Clark Lathine Joe Mass his aide and smoking a cigarette and going because I got passed over. My patient you can get promoted as a patient. So I got passed over for my sword and she's venting about that she's venting about just everything and that's my fault. And I come out there and because I knew Colonel Lathine from his wife for the fund. I was like babe stop it. Leave him alone. And he did the proverbial. If I can do anything for you what would you know what would you want. And I know I'm on the back end of you know I'm already at Fort Silt this point. I'm still doing this competing though I've checked in and I hate I've done that one class. I've done that stupid curriculum development class and that that's like that's like business when you're doing life of FIFO and all that crap just wants to beat your head against the wall. I'm like yeah I'm not writing curriculum and I'm not teaching classes and it was like for staff level. So definitely could do it and I'd be a good proof source for it. I just hated it. So that was my sir I'll take advantage of that. Can I go with General Mattis Tyrac in January. He was well you know he's not going to be going to General Kelly I said I I sir can I. If you can make it happen I'm going to go back to Fort Sillam I'm going to ask to an individual augmentation request or an administrative action form. Nice. Because Colonel Campbell and Sir Major Booker at the schoolhouse he's an old force guy Silver Star from you know he's very well decorated force recondering. Colonel Campbell had been my CEO on the 12th Marines trip when I went off recruiting duty. So I knew them both from Okinawa and other things and I got back and you know they were more wanting to see the medal and hear how the race went. And I was like well you know what would you think about this. They both supported they said hey you you get it in so I mean I fast track you know through the command fast track the administrative action form. They supported it and Sir Major Booker got a headcourt's Marine Corps pretty quickly and then it just said it was just setting. And I don't know what you know I was getting angry because now I'm building my mind up. You know I care what I'm doing but I'm going to go back I'm going back it's one of those hurdles I wanted to accomplish. Definitely not teaching a class. And if I ask Sir Major Booker I'm like hey can you find out what the hell's going on my package been like two months now and they're going to start. You know I got to be there by September and you know if I don't get that then this is out and then I'll have to be an instructor. So he calls out there was this Sir Major that was in manpower there at Quantico who had sat on it. He was sitting on the package because he didn't he didn't give a crap what people wrote. He didn't think it was appropriate that I would put the Marine Corps in that position to go back over and possibly get injured. So I did what I've done a few times in the past I called Sir Major Marine Corps Sir Major Carlton Kent. The 95 Okinawa trip he was he's an old rigger parachute rigger but he was our brand new Sir Major working for a Colonel named Colonel Ben Saylor. Saunders Saylor is on injured Marines and for Fife fun. So I email Sir Major Kent and I'm like yeah this sucks you know you don't Sir Major want to go back. It's like two days later Sir Major called me said you're approved and I'm like OK I got it you know and that's supposed to be a 15 month a 12 month in theater three month worth work up. And you know I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to take away but the mass sordid and I was going to replace he still had a good solid year and some change so they were cool with it. And then that's how I get on the 08 deployment. You know get out late September really October to panel up here and stand a hotel and do the work up. Not much of a work up for G3. I'm kind of just the token gimp. I was saying earlier I really am. There's no reason the world should be me to have that those kind of opportunities. It really isn't. That's why I say I'm token gimp. I mean thank you. I do. I appreciate you. Pretty awesome and pretty inspiring though. And you know what I mean. I mean that's definitely for a lot of people looking at that going man here's a guy that you know have been through so much and he's going out on deployment. That's pretty awesome. Well I get that part and I've heard it before. And what about that. Personal you know personal agenda talked about already. More importantly let's push the boundaries for these these Marines. I can't speak for Navy Safe Harbor. I can't speak for Army Windy Warrior Program. I can't speak for the other branches. But I can speak for Marine Corps. Windy Warrior Battalion. It was brand new then. I guess that's what I mean like like token gimp. I know you're saying it humorously but it is a huge step. You know. I don't want to take away from that. Thank you. That's the pathway for other people to be able to do it. And like you said push the envelope which is awesome. So and you are you working in ops on that deployment. Yes. G3 force fires. This is what 2008. Yeah it was January of 08 until I left early November of 08. So things are still going. Did you see Seth. Yeah that's what I was kind of telling you ahead of time. I was ahead of time sitting in the cell home Fallujah me and Freddie Fowler and we were 12 on 12 off. Yeah he would be my opposite because it's seven days away 12 on 12 off. Nothing sexy. And I see the look on his face and he just gets out look like what the hell's this guy walking up or something I can tell. And I just not shortly turned around and kind of like you and Joe were talking about the bar in Europe. And I just saying big old cheesy grin on his face. I don't know how he knows me. I really don't because that was that initial interaction before Mikey stuff. And I just turned around or hugging like a couple of old boyfriends or something. And right in the middle of the show hall in Fallujah which is a big show hall. And yeah we're sitting there and yeah I wish I could have taken up the opportunity I was talking about before when you know I tell him he was like dude here's the code you got to come over. Man so good to see is so awesome and all this stuff and we're going to go back to our money. I'm going to drive you down the street you got shot on and then which I say that that wasn't even the only cool thing. Some of my recon buddies from back in the day who are now senior we were I was going to jump at Alasad first above the knee amp to jump sandstorm washed it out and they found my name but they saw my name on the manifest W. E. Gibson. Nobody knows me as William E. Gibson. Everybody knows spanky. So put my W. E. Gibson to my last four I'll get on the jump. Yeah that sand sandstormed out and then they caught caught it. Don't know how somebody threw me under the bus some but yeah the same with Seth just sitting there hugging at y'all so cool to see him. He gave me a coin he was like I meant to give you this. That's the first time I've seen him since those days and then you know have that surface warfare officer the commander on the watch floor come over and say you know go and talk to general Kelly they're asking for you to come over Mikey stuff Mike Suraley and then yeah see that stuff so cool. Yeah. I just I think just all of it falling into place away it does naturally. Setting that child hugging him. The last time I seen him was me laid up. You know bleeding in the middle of the street. Yeah that's wild. You know we were talking a little bit about the 11 AD reunion that took place down in Texas and like cowie you know you're talking about cow when he got shot. He linked up with the army soldier that picked him that he was a driver he's a Humvee driver who pulled up to like you know what you know the chaos is going on and they need a Kazovac and who shows up an army Humvee shows up. There's no one there's no like dismount troops to get cowie loaded so this guy jumps out of the driver's seat and throws cowie in the back and brings him back to base and like that was the only time they ever met and that was the last time they ever met and here they were at at the reunion you know like you said hug you. You know I think it was Joe yeah Joe Claver comes up he's like hey I he goes is is cowie here and I go yeah and he goes I got the guy that put him in the vehicle on Kaz back and I was like yeah I'll go get him so that's pretty pretty amazing. Well on that note did he ever say if a guy named. Chat as a Chad Ramsey got Chad Ramsey that was in Joe's unit he got hit the week before me. And good kid I mean not a kid same ages you know we are you know back then he was just one of those troops that stepped up I'm setting in center for Intrepid. And. There you want to you want to be in there four hours a day being a four hours a day you know we see something we're going to tell you to stop you just stop but other than that will let you go. Well I'm sorry it was Walter Reed I stand corrected because the same time I ran into Joe after he had his injury. He's got the you know screaming chickens. This kid well he's got the shorts on got the shirt on and I'm like hey where are you at in theater. And we're in physical therapy. Yeah it was Walter Reed. He's like yeah I was in Ramadi. I was like. Did you get hit in a vehicle down off the main road in Malab. He goes yeah. He's like man I was cure for your he was in the vehicle that the tank got flipped over on its top in late March early April. But the ID was so big it flipped the tank on top of its turret. He was cure F when they came out in their vehicles had EMPs or yeah EFPs or and coordinated ambush for him and hammered them then they called all of us out to coordinate off and until they could get the tanker turned off. And we were ready to drag out that tank and so we sit there for a couple he was in that incident in one of the vehicles and then you know run into him therapy. And then find out he's in their unit. That's cool. So then what came after that deployment. So after that deployment I got I put in remember I got a whole star major Ken again while in theater. We were moving we were closing Fallujah down. So me and the British major Major McDonald we went advanced party from the G3 to Al-Assad to build the new command. And then so it's just me and the British major down there doing all the G3 portions of it. So I put in and we got to swim every day because I had that big pull at Al-Assad. I put in for a congressional fellowship and it's the first time that the the military allowed enlisted congressional fellows. It's typically 90 to 92 officers a year about 80 from the branches and about 10 to 12 from other brand you know non government or other government agencies. Well the infinite wisdom of someone up in D.C. they said we're going to allow the Marine Corps to have the first two enlisted fellows one for the House one for the Senate. So I put in for the program thought you know because I've been in Iraq for nine months or so at that time or me and Major McDonald are up at Al-Assad getting everything squared away. Yeah I know my role. I don't need to be here. I am sexy for camera. I'm not sexy but the you know I'm a good news story for Jennifer Griffin or netcult or all the other goofy people that interviewed me over there. So it's good news for the Marine Corps that I'm better served probably using this time and my experience to help out you know Marine's stay on active duty if they want to give them the same opportunity at that point I had. If I'm going to leave I'll leave them on sword or shield not on someone else's. So where else better do that than go work on Capitol Hill. So I put in token gift. They approved me. Brad Simmons gets Senate. I get House got to be at Georgetown Government Affairs Institute in December first week of December. So I had to leave in mid November get out of Iraq early and then check into the GI course which is first two weeks of December and then you get your your placement for Capitol Hill. You know which office you're going to work in whatever. So everybody and it's predominantly there was about 40 Air Force officers. 10 Marine I think total there was 10 Marine officers and then Brad so 12 Marines total Navy had about 20 and the Army had about the equivalent somewhere in that ballpark. You know maybe a little less than 20 on there's biggest chunk of it was Air Force. They break you down into two classes. So you got about half and half because pretty detailed class and basically it's you know I'm not a bill I'm just a bill you know go back to the old cartoons from back in the day tell us about Congress. Not like any of us especially me and Brad. He better than me I'm like I don't sing the Mr. Bill song. Yeah there might be three understandings of co-equal branches of government back then I didn't give a crap. But the yeah they all interview. I keep talking Colonel Furness who is off Sledge Slave Fairs at the House lays on like when do I get my interviews because if you don't interview by Christmas they're going on Christmas break you're starting 1st January 3rd or 4th. I don't know where I'm going. Well little did I know I didn't have to interview. Marine Corps already worked it out. Yeah they put me in the House Veterans Affairs Committee check which was a great opportunity because I got to work all four subcommittees for three months each. I got to do the amendment to the Affordable Care Act on the priority one three eight status for the Department of Veterans Affairs because the first Affordable Care Act is we only do well was terrible for veterans is either zero to hero. You're either 100 percent or zero percent anything in between doesn't matter. And that was my problem with that. So we start working priority statuses get that amendment to the legislation and not just me it was the whole team between Senate and the House. I learned a lot with that but also learned how bad legislation can be when it's rushed through and that was Affordable Care Act the first time you know first session 111. Well after you know basically in the middle of that year I was training to do the Marine Corps marathon you know come about August July August timeframe blew off my quadriceps my odysse to what's left of my femur. So in 09 I have during that I have another couple inches removed of my femur go through I spent a week in the new wall or the old Walter Reed and then basically kind of starting over and thank God that Congressman Booyer who is a ranking member House Veterans Affairs Committee he was a colonel Jag. I spent about six weeks away on the back end of my fellowship and yeah came back last couple months worked on one of the committees and then you know then they had to figure out what to do with me. Brad Simmons got selected first Sergeant he's got to go back to fleet I'm a mass sergeant Kelly general Kelly promoted me and I rack and away. So I'm like now I had a bachelor's degree but I don't you know it's his only ever been officers. Brad was easy you get first Sergeant you got to go back to the fleet you're leading Marines on the fleet but a Marine mass sergeant one legged that you know what do we do with him. So yeah took a little while and they figured out put me in Secretary Garcia he was assistant secretary manpower reserve fairs reserve F-18 driver down in Corpus. I got to be a special assistant to the assistant secretary. Special assistant to the assistant. Yeah exactly. Well he had that Veronica Valdez the political appointment because you know he's political appointee he had a political appointee assistant. Once again I'm the token gift. I'm a floater. He can do anything he wants with me I work directly for him. That's weird when you got a Navy three star Marine three star report to you a bunch of SES's kind of wild when you got a Marine mass sergeant at the table with a bunch of people. Marine side they like Nadler the Marine side knew knew me pretty well at that point Navy side not necessarily. So because you know Navy yard fault fell under my boss you know all the but it was a good position because I was a proof source for Navy safe harbor window warrior regiment. Yeah it's solid and a proof source it redeployed so I can you know better recommend yes or no on whatever injuries you know Marine has if they want to stay or if they want to redeploy. And is that the job you retired out of. Yes my payback for that was my to you know you got to do that utilization tour. I came in zone for master guns in 2010 and I did a letter do not promote. I just said you know because my contract was good till 13. You know I but you just decided going to call it. Everything came to fruition. Everything did I wanted to go to grad school. I knew I was getting my sons. They were still you know up around slow Templeton area. I knew they were going to be moving in with me. I was finishing up my second divorce. You know living in Springfield Virginia rent a house. Dad's health was bad. Mom's freaking out about dad's health being bad. And it just aligned everything aligned. And I'm like why in the 08 6 1 and Western's basically 5 6 master gun billets in the whole Marine Corps. Now if I keep pulling the token get card if I think that's going to be influential like obviously had been to redeploy obviously been for my initial promotion over there. Obviously had been for me to get on the Capitol Hill. I did not want that. I did not want that effect to take away an operational seat because you got things one MF 2 MF 3 MF first day of second if third Marine division that master guns. Then you have that floater that might stay in it like Holbert Field or depth group or you know after they get promoted so I'm like. No it's stars aligned. I mean it's made common sense to me. I've achieved every at that point achieved everything I wanted and I achieved a couple things I didn't expect. The fellowship and the connections. So I'm like yeah it's time. So put on your uniform for the last time retirement ceremony. Well technically my dress suite my dress blues it was a little until I squeezed myself into my deltas for my son's graduation. That was like I've lost about 40 pounds. That's about 40 pounds it's in. But no it was because we did the Marine you know when you work for an assistant SACNAV and you have a full bird colonel that is planning your retirement ceremony. Solid retirement ceremony. Yeah it was cool. Is that the Marine Corps Museum there in Quantico. All kinds of cool people there. So yeah it was pretty neat way more. All I cared about was going to the stairs during the beer afterwards. Get back my Hawaiian shirt my shorts. But it was better it was better see my parents can be there. They couldn't travel. My kids are two different directions at that point. Because now I'm on the back end of the second and divorce. That kind of sucked. That sucked. I wish I would have been more proactive on at least having my sons more importantly. It should be all it sounds bad not sale but definitely my sons. Yeah so then what was the plan when you retired. I know you're like I said like I kicked this thing off you're actually fully retired now. But you did a couple gigs after you got done. Yes so intent grad school. That was the number one is I actually intended to get my PhD in clinical psychology work for the Vietas psychologists. I've got street credit you know when I've been pre-med before I got my degree in psych and business law. When I was still active. Makes sense. You know who should the VA want working with you know. PTS and other veterans. Somebody just got street credit thing trust because that's the biggest common denominator I saw in the VA and from friends I was mentoring was I got some 27 year old girl that knows nothing about my life. So I'm like OK makes sense. So I do go to school. Plus I'm getting used to having two sons. My transition was pretty quick and pretty you know it was my personal transition was pretty tough. You know where the bark orders were not the bark orders. Now I've got I'm feeding myself to now I'm feeding to a 10 11 year old that are just straight turds and I'm being a turd at the same time. So you know pulling my boat paddle off the walls. You know give them one of them wax in the living floor or the other one watches and you know I just it was such a good thing. It was such a difficult transition as I went from a single newly single man in DC that was just worried about education and helping people to now I've got two little turds and don't eat at the dinner table. And I might add that second check it's going out every month to another X Y and you know it just it was just such a tough point and you know and it's four hours from where I grew up where I live now. And so I take a star school Colonel Ben Saylor Sander Saylor's wife Semper fi fun been my Colonel in Okinawa in the 90s with Sir Major Kent is our major that story. He's working for a company called Tandis and Eva Tandis at the time he gets a hold of me because he knows that I'm pretty I think he was just looking out for me because I didn't see him in years but his wife sees me all time with teams and profile. He brings me on to be a consultant for that company to work in between the new build facilities are like West Point when they were adding on doing flooring advisement and like in the hospitals rollability some is so far out of my norm but I took to it I understood the law I understood the V regulations for purchasing. So kind of boring but he hooked me up and it was actually pretty pretty good money but then it started on my second year when I renewed the contract. It went from one to two jobs a month to two to three jobs a month to OK just an overnight or two two overnight or two nights on this one. My dad's driving four hours in that first year before I moved back to prior dad's driving down his health was terrible. Mom can't she work. Why did I get out. I got out not to burden any of my family and to pay them back now I'm just back to burden them because I got a little greed on some money. You know nothing on Colonel Saylor Colonel Saylor is amazing. He's hooked me up. And so did some public speaking on PPI. You know that worked into a thing in Dearborn where they asked me to keep coming back and speaking once a month up there for a leadership and training seminar. It just all weighed on me that second year combined. It's like dad's health's getting bad which I'm super glad I did because this is 12 13. My dad dies in 16. You know my sons are now in junior high. They require a lot more guidance on my part. But I got to learn that guidance in that first year. No go-karts or golf carts. No exactly or not just get down 12 count bodybuilders you know beat them with a paddle. You know just all that wrong motion that I couldn't control. And that's that's on me. But once that all planed out. Got the job with the VA. Did that for 14 months. That went haywire. And I was doing claims and benefits. Yeah I mean perfect role for me. I know the law or I knew the law more than. So it was easy for me to write up claims at five offices. I work in each office once a week. I did 1400 claims in less than 12 months. And no one in Oklahoma out of the 16 of us that did it there for ODVA Oklahoma Department of Interim Affairs. 16 20. Maybe 800 700. But I didn't give a crap. I'm still in the same philosophy I had back in DC. I want to help I want to help veterans. Problem was when I would pick up on the BS portion of their story. I would call them out. And then when I call them out I'd spend my leg around bang my knee on the table and I'd be like dude don't want to me. I'm 90 percent. See I wasn't 100 percent on the Marine Corps. I was 90 percent after 20 plus years of service and above the imputation. But it was I understood why I don't have PTS. I have no mental health problems. At least that's achievable through a combat litmus test. The other factory might be a little goofy bipolar. But and I would spend my leg around banging on the table and I'd be like hey. Bitch me you didn't get 100 percent man. I'm 90. And and part of me just want to shut up and get out because you got mad somebody say to help pecker and get out. Bootcamp or something and now you're 67 years old and you're trying to claim that some micro problem you had back then is affected your whole life. But you sent in front of me clean shaven. That's the other problem. They it's like ever everybody wanted to jump on the PTS bandwagon and you can tell who really has it and who doesn't have it. And then there's levels of having it as we all know too well anniversary days. You know sites and smells and sounds can affect some. But the biggest ones was anniversary days. Those emotions are and that's our brain being natural. If we didn't have that emotion I think that we're insane or pathological. But when you get somebody come in and complain in about 1978 bootcamp that started weighing on me too. And then that was the deputy director position. When they were putting in you got PTSD from treating PTSD. And then you got a bunch of people that were faking it. Yeah. Not all of them. I don't mean it that way. But everybody then 2013 14 everybody was claiming PTS combat. No combat. It didn't matter. I mean I'm looking at their DD two four teams or their discharge papers before Vietnam. And I'm pretty good at feeling it out. I've had a lot of friends have serious problems. And you know friends that have went all the way with that promise we all have I'm sure. And then the ones that just self medicate to the point of incapability. And it's sad. But man because of that sadness don't fake it. Don't come in and lie because you want to stink and paycheck. Because I'm not doing it for it took three shoulder surgeries and elbow reconstruction. Finally bumped me over a hundred percent. You know well after I left the VA. So it's kind of like that just that part really got to me. And I know I got to not judge and take each your own and that's our own problem. And you know late late God's hands and you know I'm not to judge but it did weigh on me. And then what came after the VA MC petroleum. Maze County petroleum buddy mind said come in and start training be the general manager. How'd you like that. Job was great. I was technically marketing manager in training. Learned a lot about fuel a lot about mobile products because we're a mobile distributor. All of Oklahoma part of Arkansas Texas and Kansas. So we did about 18 million a year. You know as a small petroleum company. You know at one point I think it got closer to 20 30 maybe a little bit more before the price started going down during Obama. I came on board but it was a learning curve. It was interesting but it was just a job. You know because I want a hundred percent and because of my. I don't know if you understand how it works is the since I have a I took a disability retirement. The Marine Corps put me on a 60 percent more than 55 for 22. But because I'm a disability retirement PDRL and I'm whatever level of the compensation. I have to have an offset because they're both on taxable incomes. So I have to subtract from the you know from my retirement to equal the VA. So it's kind of long winded but but it's a quagmire so I was still working because I'm still paying Charles Port on one daughter at this point got the boys. You know how teenagers are. That gets expensive real quick because the food bill is freaking out of control with two teenage boys. Go on and two totally different directions on sports. So that was always fun being a single parent. But then but yeah it pretty much. Yeah I made it through it got pretty easy on dad died in December 16 and you know that caused some you know gunner went in the Marine Corps the next year. And then Colt you know now they're just getting married having kids and you know like it's beautiful. I'm to go from I know you guys have a different look at it because of the fighting experience that the jujitsu the discipline and all the stuff that because you love it. And I guess with me when I decided that I was no longer going to work for anybody. You know nine ten years nine eight nine years ago. Something switched something switched in me that went. You know still do a little travel but I want to be a grandparent. I had grandkids at that point small just granddaughters 14 and then her little sisters 11 and then my grandson my oldest grandson is nine. All of it came into fruition of the fact that I wanted to be kind of like a stay at home person. And just enjoy something that I had not gotten to enjoy. But what I will say with my wife Nadine most wonderful in the world she's wrestling me down she's amazing domesticated me pretty well. I never don't have anything to do. I'm constantly working my house is almost 120 years old I'm constantly working projects I'm using my planer I'm using my joiner. I'm working with cool woods I'm building cab I mean I've constantly got something to do and so I'm not bored. But it amazes me now how did I ever get through back in those days because I have all the time in the world between grandkids and projects. How in the world did I ever get anything done when I was focused on the military Marine Corps alive. I don't know how I got anything done even mowing the lawn I don't get it. But that so retirements not I don't look at it as retirement I look at it as I'm paying back my family. Yeah that's awesome. No it's it's it's outstanding and when you know when I was talking about the fact that you're just like completely fully retired. I know that that doesn't mean you're sitting around watching free TV all day especially when you got what seven grandkids. Yeah. Outstanding. No there's always something to do. And now we're into softball T-ball. We're all kind of it's yeah. You might be the chauffeur service you end up chauffeuring a lot. No it's normally me. But the biggest part is which ones we're going to go to when we separate her go to one me. Yeah because everything just never works in alignment. If I was showing my calendar I filled it out yesterday updated all the way through the end of May and I'm like I caramba. You know when you have to create a calendar for your kids sporting events you know it's getting crazy. Yeah it's where I could look back a few months ago my calendar might have you know watch grandkids watch grandkids. Nating massage. Nating massage. You know maybe something to remind me but nothing except what I want to make up doing. And now it's like I actually have to do something so it's kind of wild. Yeah that's awesome. It's cool. It's awesome. So does that get us up to speed that's where we're at now. Yeah pretty much. So people can find you on you're on Twitter Twitter X Spanky Gibson 71. Yes. You're on Instagram. No Instagram. Yeah I quit Facebook. Well I guess I'm still on there but I quit it five years ago. Okay. Almost six. We'll leave that one off so your primary is because you're pretty fairly active on Twitter. You get on that. Yeah I kind of jumped in there. I've been on there a little over a year and I don't know why. I bet I am. It's an interesting platform because it's just like one liners you know it's just like you're just writing one liners all day. It can be a little bit addictive you know. You start chiming in on stuff. And then I noticed you have a YouTube channel at Spanky Gibson Produces. Is that right? I just started it right. Two weeks ago I've done two videos and three shorts off the second video. I much like saying yes come here. I don't know what's going on. But I don't know if it's discernment. The anniversary. It's got to be this window of time. My brain is doing something where it just said I bought a I think it's sexy like these but I bought like a little Osmo Action 6 camera. You know a decent deal. I bought some extra lenses. And I'm like because I know like you or so many people that really have the leadership market are so amazing at it. I don't know. I just feel this call to communicate. Yeah and share your lessons man. Well and that's I don't know. I don't know. It's something was calling me in my in my noodle. Really was. And I told my wife Nadine I was like yeah I think about doing this and it's been going on for like six months. It's been going on for a while. And I've you know it's kind of writing a book. You know a guy teacher of mine wanted to write a book when I first retired. And I always said no no yeah I don't I don't need to do things like this. I don't. But all of a sudden this 20 year anniversary thought process I think is changing. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Yeah my brain is wanting to do something. And I know I'm going to suck. I have a I have a hockey smile. Yeah and I'm I don't and if nobody listens I'm going to do it no matter what. Yeah you know I try I was actually wanting to shoot a video yesterday but we got surprised with Sutton again. And I like I'll go in the garage and shoot it out there. And just because I was so angry about all the rhetoric on the ceasefire the other night. Just just the blatant lying from different directions. And I was kind of feeling that pull to talk about it. You know just get in front of a camera like everybody always says just get in front of the camera and let it go you'll get better. Yeah I downloaded all these different programming apps and one of ten for thumbnails and downloaded that. Oh that that ages me to the Da Vinci. Yeah down everybody was talking about that on the entry level. Yeah I got that down and I'm like started like yeah I'm out of my wheelhouse on this one. What do you say. But yeah well the cool thing is like you know like people are going to want to number one hear your lessons learned. Number two like your family you know like your kids you're going to be able to talk about things that your kids your grandkids your great kids grandkids will be able to listen to. Yeah wouldn't you love it if you had some you know you talk you mentioned the fact that you wish you would have asked your dad more questions you wish you had it would ask your granddad more questions. You had your dad serve in Vietnam you had your granddad serve in three wars. The other one served in one war like imagine if you could have those those those testimonials you know it's the same thing I always say you know with this podcast like. This perspective that you're given is like someone's going to listen to some Anglico guy is going to listen to this in 10 years or 12 years or three years and learn something from it and be able to take away from it. And also you know like wouldn't it be awesome to have you know John Basil on talk for three hours about his experiences in the in the Pacific campaign. But you know we didn't we didn't get it. So I think there's a lot of guys that are doing this now and I think it's it's awesome that people are doing this get captured in these stories because it's it's historical content and its perspectives that people aren't going to have. I mean the you know the Battle of Ramadi was you know look does it compare to the big campaigns in World War Two. Of course it doesn't we I've never heard anyone make that you know claim but for our generation it was you know it was pretty important and for us guys that were there. And it left a mark and so to be able to pass on those lessons is just awesome. I'm sure the the Spanky Gibson produces YouTube channel will will will capture some of those lessons as well man. That's awesome. I hope so. Echo Charles you got any questions. Yeah quick question. Yeah. You mentioned something kind of real quick. I think when you were patrolling or some of the ladies you said looking for lollipops. Yes. What's a lollipop. So the lollipop basically when you get the lightning pod or a pod off an aircraft that's looking on the road. So say you've got a diagram mission or you've got a mobile patrol or foot patrols you want to use your aircraft pods to scan the road to look for IDs. Wait what's an aircraft pod. OK so a lightning pod is basically a camera system at 15000 10000 feet on that airplane that they can lock on and then when you give them guidance for a bomb. They just put the 10 gauge grid in the altitude and they can send it. So that lightning pod is like a zoom in camera then go down to Dave Birkenau better. Oh yeah couple meters. Yeah you can be at 15000 feet and looking at one two meter spread. So they can well ask them to slew the pod and look down the road and the lollipop is when you put an ID when they would dig it in and then they would take the hot concrete to fill in the hole above the ID. It's round and then it cracks a surface so you get this lollipop signature that you can see. And yeah it's just one of those techniques you learn going on. So it looks like a lollipop down there straight up like it's like a stick in a circle on the end and then meaning. That's so stuff that lollipop. Yeah yeah yeah. Cool man. They were hardcore you know they'd burn tires melt the tar, dig the tar away, dig the dirt bury the ID, put the dirt back in, put the tar back on, put dust on it sweep it broom it and then throw dirt on it and I mean hard to see. Yeah hard to see. Or like when they would do them in the curbs on the main roads. Cut a curb out and just replace the curb with the ID. You never know. Yeah. I mean that got to give it up. They were reactive, innovative. Yeah they were working. But hey got to give it up. I mean I never had any lack of respect for them. Even when we would enter some of the buildings, some of the houses, I would take my boots off. I'd be in full battle rattle and I had my boots set at the door with the guys setting out bringing one of the turps and taking notes and but I often wonder then if the respect level is given naturally somehow on the battlefield. That was one thing I wondered. I never struggled with the imputation but it was why through the knee? Why not Leon? Why not in the forehead? Why, yeah. That's about the only thing I ever struggled with. Why didn't just, you know, because if I had got put out on my misery I would have had no choice. I would have been accepted for me. But I would have went back to the life or death. It doesn't matter I'm dead. So, yeah. Yeah, that's the eternal question. Yes, Echo Charles, any more questions from you? Nope, I've heard the story many times from JP. He's been a good person. Tell him, hey, I haven't talked to him in a while. Yeah, it's always good man, JP. You know, because he was, you know, he was 22, I think. All those guys, I mean including Seth, what was Seth? Maybe 20s. Yeah, maybe 20, yeah, maybe 25, 26, something like that. Somewhere in that ballpark. You know, you had to think of me being the old guy in the whole group in full metal jacket at 34. Yeah, that's what's wild. And still running and gunning down the street back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. But I went traded for nothing. It was an awesome opportunity to know those guys. And you know, life situations talk about it like with Seth. But yeah, you know, like my boys meet in West in Bozeman, Montana. Yeah, just, you know, Seth in the middle of the Chaldeau Hall in Fallujah in LA. These funny little ironies that, and I truly believe that, that God puts in front of me. And you know, to catch your attention, bring you in. That's my life now, other than grandkids, it's faith. You know, that's, my wife is the one, Nadine, is the one that set the example for me to accept Christ. Because up to four and a half years ago, almost five years ago, you know, I was a heathen center. And you just happened to come out to that event within months of me, you know, coming down this new life. That's wild, isn't it? It is. That's what I mean. I don't know. Yeah, I'll never say karma because I don't believe in karma. Yeah, I don't go down that. But I do believe God pulls us at some, raising some direction, whether we want it or not. Because I've looked at those videos from 08 when I went back over, and I see the videos of me saying stuff like, well, if God wants me, he'll take me. When they would ask me, are you not afraid to come back over here after getting one, did no sex? I'm like, no, God wants me, he'll take me. Well, I wasn't a Christian. I didn't read the Bible then. I didn't look at life that way. I was just going with the flow and doing what people told me to do and reacting to life. Now it all comes into this different mindset. You know, I realize it more, you know, based off of her. Just by her sitting there reading the Bible next to me in bed at night, and it just finally pulled me in. And then I start seeing these things that I must have been naturally releasing, but not recognizing way back then. So that happened after you guys got married? Yes. So she married to Heathen? Yes. Center. Straight center. No one that I had been, because she'd been married 19 years, until her kid is dead. And then, you know, she called me in the hospital bed in 06. Just friends, because we know each other forever. Yeah, I don't remember it, but I had them keep a notepad for me. Everybody that called to write down their numbers, so I could call them back. So this little green cheap notepad, she was in there. She says, I remember talking to you? I don't remember talking to you, but it's in my notepad. I know. There you go. That's what I mean. It's funny how that goes. Because I'm a completely different man. I'm a completely different person when it comes to kids. My kids see it in me on how I'm with the grandkids, compared to how I was with them. Less taken paddles off the wall. Bingo. You know, a little less anger. But my friends see the difference, because I don't, you know, I already quit drinking before that. You know, I mean, it's just this natural progression in my body, because I was on a lot of meds. Four years, three and a half years ago, four years ago, I was, you know, 40, 50 metformin, 20 units, Lantus, Jaxon, Jardians. Well, Centipere LH, CTC. What was your pain? What were those for? I was type 2 diabetic. You know, when you saw me that time, I was 232 pounds. So now I'm 185. Were you drinking back then? I was starting to stop drinking. And ironic, I was still working out and swimming and eating the diet the VA told me to. And so I could get off all these meds that are going to kill me. Well, two and a half years ago, I started eating animal base only. I'd already well quit drinking, because I knew as a diabetic that's terrible. But, you know, I was eating the fruits and the vegetables and the turkey bacon and the lean proteins and all that good stuff. And yeah, I'm still blowing an 8.181C. I'm still severe diabetic. Then all of a sudden I just start eating nothing but steak and drinking water and a little bit of coffee in the day and drop 40 some pounds and go back to a 5A1C. I do exactly opposite what the VA tells me. But that's me. I know that's not everybody. It works for me and I enjoy it. So you're just on the, are you still on the strict like carnivore type? Yeah, I cheat a little bit when the grandbaby brings the gummy bear to me. Or little kitty gummy bears or something. I can't help myself. Happened yesterday. A little sudden coming over. Did you go cold turkey? Did you just say, all right, I'm just going to go carnivore right now? Yeah, two and a half years ago was, yeah, two and a half years, over two and a half years, August, two plus years ago. I quit the meds. Didn't tell my doctor at the VA. I just straight up said I'm not doing the meds. I'm going to, I tracked all my food intake for 12 months. I tracked protein, fats, obviously no carbs coming in, carbs. So it was mainly my protein to fat ratio. Am I overall at that beginning, caloric intake? Then I realized at a point that I wanted to have a two to one ratio fat to protein ratio. So two fat per per one protein. Is that in grams or in calories? Yeah, basically in grams. I quit even messing with the calorie portion of it because I realized that it really doesn't. The biggest part was the two gram to one grams, you want to call it that. Two gram to one gram fat to protein ratio, which goes against everything we're told at the VA. Low fat, lean proteins, all that stuff. I ate a ribeye yesterday. You know, having eight cents in. And I don't, you know, my satiety is always pretty strong. My energy level is crazy. Now I quit working out about a year ago. I got back in the gym to, you know, that first six months, you know, the certain things that come to us when our body starts going back to normal, you know, the pup tent. And then hadn't had one of those in years, you know, because of diabetes and the meds, you know, tracidone. I was on just like 18 pills a day. My body was revolting. Get on this. And within six months, I dropped like 30 some pounds. My body, I had an energy level I didn't understand. I hadn't felt it since my 30s. And then, you know, the first year strict first year, my doctor was like, yeah, I don't agree with this. You're not eating any fruits, any vegetables. No, I'm not eating any fruits. Any fruits are, I mean, animal based only. And matter of fact, it's gotten down to hamburger, bacon, steak, eggs, cheese. One meal a day within the first, you know, six, seven months. But when my A1C went from an eight point something to a five even in the first year, he was like, you just keep doing what you do. Don't agree with you. Isn't that crazy that they can't say like, well, maybe we should spread the word on this. You know, it's kind of wild. Well, it's out there. I think it's just all the, you know, up until probably the last six, seven months on the new food triangle or pyramid. They flipped it. Yeah, that's back in our kiddie days when they came out with the, you know, crazy food pyramid that but I'd done it in pre-med. I'd taken the nutrition in school. I'd lived through the classes with the VA and everything was telling me even being on the triathlon team. The coach going, I want you 60, 30, 10, 60, 30, 10. What was the 10? Fat? Yeah. So it was protein, carbohydrates, fat. And I'm like, okay, I remember something about this. But then I go completely against the norm for me. It works tremendously. And here you are feeling awesome. Yeah. Oh, no, it's amazing. And I haven't, I quit working out and swimming over a year ago because I was so busy doing other things that I wasn't going. And I should go, you know, not having the discipline to go because I'm putting a new roof on my garage or I'm totally redoing my garage or rewiring this or building these cabinets or doing stuff for other people. Finally, I got the point where I'm like, why am I paying 46 bucks a month for something I'm not even using? Well, we strongly recommend the home gym around these points. Well, I've heard you guys talk about it. Yeah, man. People don't realize what a game changer it is, especially 46 bucks a month. Like that thing pays for itself in a year, for sure. You get a squad rack and some some barbells and like, you're kind of good to go. Well, it kind of goes back to that too, because I remember back in the early mid 90s, I bought one of those kind of all in ones to put in the garage. Yeah. And then, but it was always get back to the, because I was never a big weightlifter in my early years. And there's the reality that I don't know what the percentage is, but there's a lot of exercise equipment that ends up with, you know, hangers on it and, you know, whatever. Sell as a garage sale for a hundred bucks. People sell that stuff on offer up in Facebook marketplace, like because they just don't use it. But if you get like the goods, like just a solid thing and you have like a simple, that's a good thing now. It's like you can come up with just a simple workout, you know, just and all of a sudden you look up, you know, feel good every feel even better every day. Because going to the gym, especially get the grandkids like, yeah, all these things get in the way, you know, removes a lot of excuses. The home gym does. Well, and yeah, because I've heard you guys talk about that and that same one, I was out when I was mowing the other day. I really only want to go for the pole. I just stacked it and added the wife to it because I'll just lift light because I, you know, when I blew my elbow out, you know, and then the shoulders, I was like, yeah, I'll just lift light. I'm not going to get soon. And crunch or the Smith machine or the squat rack for me is hilarious because I'll just take my leg off and lean it on the bar because I don't want to chance hurt my hip. Yeah. And then and I can center up that one leg. I'm not going to do much weight. But I used to have a lot of fun in the gym and then, but mainly was the pole when my shoulders healed up and I was able to get back in there and swim two or 3000 meters. I just that to me is running because I quit running a long time ago. And the pole is that way. But yeah, I probably should because I've got lots of energy. You do that or get some kind of ergue, you know, like the rowing machine, but like you could get a ski ergue where you're basically using your upper body to pull down. And it's, but it's a cardio. It's more cardio. It's not strength based, but something that's, that's more important. Yeah. For me, it's having the cardio or having a natural get away from, you know, trying to stack up weight and get bigger. Yeah. Cause I'm just retired. I ain't rolling around on a mat or getting hooked up with somebody in the. We still over here getting after it, man. Yeah, that's awesome. You guys impressed me. Any other, any other closing thoughts, bro? No, sir. Well, man, such such an absolute honor to have you out here. Have you on this thing. Thank you for coming out. Thank you. I appreciate it. I think there's a lot of people that are going to take some more precaution around golf carts and alcohol. Those are known. Those are known bad mixing. Also, thank you for, you know, JP and Seth definitely told me this. West pointed it out as well. You know, the, the mentorship that you gave them on how to do combat in Ramadi, like that stuff kept my guys alive. So I never got a chance to thank you for that. So thank you for that. And I know, you know, thankfully you trained them up enough that when you needed them, they were there for you as well. And, you know, again, like I said, it was you guys, your Marines, you know, our relationship with Anglico was just awesome. And it was an honor to serve alongside you guys. And thanks for coming out and your service and sacrifice and your example for the next generation. We won't forget it, brother. Thank you. I appreciate it. And with that, William Spanky Gibson has left the building. Just kind of chatted on the way out. So awesome to see him. So many memories come back. And it's just great to see that he's here and he's getting after it, obviously. Before, during, and after. What was your mental state when you lost your leg? Oh, I just had to do a new normal. Let's go. And the last part when you're talking about just the shift in his life in the last five years, just on the path, as we like to say, on the path. So it's never too late, you know, you can make adjustments to your life right now. And you can be in a completely different area of operations, different area, a different level of capability in a matter of months. Are you going to see a change tomorrow? Most likely not. But you look up in a month, a matter of months and then a matter of years, you're in a totally different spot. What do you say? Lost 50 pounds. Yeah. Legit. So that's what we're doing. We're getting after it. We recommend getting after it. I say, do you get to I say left sprint run. Swim. Just get after it. And when you do that, you need some fuel. We strongly recommend jockel fuel protein. You need protein to maintain your strength to build strength. That's what we're doing. Jockel fuel.com. You can get ready to drink protein. You can get powdered protein. You can get muscle drive, maintain your muscles, even in periods of suboptimal nutrition. We have energy drinks. I've had one today. I don't think I'm having another one today because my energy is up as they say. Solid. You have hydration. We have joint warfare. We have creatine. How's your creatine intake right now? Solid. Where are you at? Where are you at? Two scoops. Two scoops. Two big scoops a day. How many grams per scoop? Well, you figure it's like five, so it's probably like eight or nine per. Oh, you mean big scoop, meaning you're heaping scoop. You thought heaping scoop is what they call that one. Two of those a day. Two of those a day. So you're probably taking at least eight, you think per eight grams per? So you're at 16. Okay. All right. I'm up there solid 20. Solid 20. Okay. Like topped off. Yeah. Yeah, five and five. Morning dry scoop. No, no, no. What do you do? I put it in the water with hydrate. Oh, that's a good. The mix. That morning mix, bro. It's a tactical move. Uh, jockelfield.com, go get some. You can also get it in a bunch of retail stores around the country. I think we're in like 40,000 different retail locations right now. No, right on. So go get some. It's clean and it tastes good. Also check out originusa.com. We have American made goods, jeans, boots, jiu-jitsu, geez. I was just talking to Pete yesterday. We got some sneakers on the way. Yes. Finally. It's been a while, but we got them. We got t-shirts, hoodies, jiu-jitsu, geez. We got everything that you need. And it's all made 100% in America, not made by Chinese communists, not made by slave labor, but made 100% America with American made materials. Check out originusa.com. It's true. Also don't forget about jockel store. Discipline equals freedom. If we have this mindset, we will be representing on the path. That's what we're doing. Discipline equals freedom. Good. Get after it. A lot of cool merch on there. Also the shirt locker, which is the new design every month. Is that a subscription scenario? It is. In fact, a subscription scenario. So yeah. You can check that out. It's all on there. So yeah, some cool stuff on there if you like something. Right on. We got a bunch of books. We got, well, we got put your legs on by Rob Jones speaking of blast injuries, losing both your legs above the knee. That's Rob Jones. Very interesting. The fact that when, when Spanky brought up the fact that he was a gunshot wound as opposed to a blast injury and just how much cleaner that engine. And of course, I mean, like they're all horrible, but the gunshot injury, like he's in there like pretty quick. That stuff is on track. Remember what Rob Jones had to go through? It's awful infections, blast injuries, you know, everything is messed up. But he wrote a book about it. Rob Jones. It's called put your legs on. Also, Dave Burke, you heard his name get mentioned a few times today. He was the part of that Anglico team. One of the Anglico leaders as a matter of fact, in fact, he was the leader. Nevermind part of, he was the leader of that crew. And he wrote a book called need to lead. So you might want to check that one out and you can learn to lead. You can go to extreme ownership.com and take online leadership classes. And if you need leadership inside your organization, which you likely do, you can go to echelonfront.com and you can, well, you can bring echelonfront into your organization or your organization can visit with echelonfront and we can help you with your leadership, which will help you square away all aspects of your business and your life. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, the amazing mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americasmightywarriors.org. Also check out heroesandhorses.org. And finally, Jimmy May's organization beyond thebrotherhood.org. If you want to connect with Spanky Gibson, he's on Twitter X. It's at Spanky Gibson 71 and he also has his own YouTube channel, Putting Out Knowledge at Spanky Gibson Produces. And then for us, check out jockel.com and then on social media, I'm at jockelwilling.com. Just don't spend too much time on there. Thanks once again to retired master sergeant William Spanky Gibson. Awesome to see you, brother. So glad you made it home. So glad you carried on. Thanks for what you did for my guys. Thanks for what you did for the Marine Corps. Thanks for what you did for our great nation. And thanks to all of the personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines that are currently on watch around the world holding the line for freedom. Also thanks to our police law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for holding the line here at home and keeping us safe. And everyone else out there, this what you got right now? It's a gift. Every day is a gift. Every day is an opportunity. And we are blessed every day with the sunrise, but we only get so many of them. So don't waste them. And instead, go out there every day like William Spanky Gibson and get after it. And that's all I've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.