Latest / Boots And Chutes Unfiltered / Episode 07: Erich Phillips, From OP Ranch House to Wanat: The Chosen Few.

Transcript

Episode 07: Erich Phillips, From OP Ranch House to Wanat: The Chosen Few. · Boots And Chutes Unfiltered

• 0:00
  Yeah, his morning, his afternoon, our morning to knock
• 0:03
  this out and and talk about some things, give us the our like the
• 0:07
  privilege to listen to a story. So this is incredible for me.
• 0:10
  This is incredible for Chris. I know he's he's got a a
• 0:13
  connection with Eric. So yeah, man, thank you so much
• 0:16
  for being here. Chris, you got anything?
• 0:19
  No man, like I said before, it is an absolute honor and
• 0:23
  pleasure. One I I always like when you and
• 0:26
  I get to catch up, but for you to take the time to come on our
• 0:30
  our small little podcast, I I appreciate it.
• 0:33
  We're we're Internet famous thanks to you so.
• 0:37
  Well, first and foremost, I want to thank you both for this
• 0:40
  opportunity. It's been a long time coming.
• 0:43
  I suppose I've I've never done 1 and I figured when I heard you
• 0:46
  guys were doing it, I was like, you know, why not?
• 0:48
  We're not doing with somebody who who I trust and I follow,
• 0:52
  why not? You know it's the best route to
• 0:54
  go about it. So I will lead off with that
• 0:58
  small brief intro. You guys are good with that.
• 1:03
  My name is Eric Phillips. Spent about 22 1/2 years in the
• 1:08
  military, started out in the 82nd, went on from the 82nd to
• 1:13
  the 173rd, from 173rd to 7th group, and then I ended up
• 1:17
  retiring out of 7th Special Forces group in 2023.
• 1:22
  My time in the 173rd is near and dear to my heart.
• 1:25
  So I, I love, I love going forth and, and talking about it.
• 1:30
  I won't, I won't hide that factor by far when people ask me
• 1:35
  to this date, like what was, what was the best time in your
• 1:37
  military career? You know, I don't, I don't
• 1:40
  attribute it to anything except for from 2006 to 2010.
• 1:45
  My time in the 173rd and chosen company is kind of like what I
• 1:49
  feel is the highlight of my career.
• 1:51
  I know a lot of people are like, oh, you've done different
• 1:53
  things, but for me that was that was the absolute pinnacle.
• 1:59
  So Chosen Company or Signal 5 O 3rd, 173rd, I actually ended up
• 2:04
  there. I'll jump straight to that
• 2:06
  portion. So I was actually getting out.
• 2:09
  I was about, I think it was like 90 or 120 days from getting out.
• 2:13
  At that point in time, I got a phone call from a buddy of mine
• 2:17
  who had just been in a pretty bad gunfight up in Arghandab.
• 2:20
  I think it was in 2005, 2006 time frame for Chosen Company.
• 2:25
  That's where they lost the Stark Schaefer, I believe.
• 2:29
  And so I get this phone call, which is funny.
• 2:32
  I had just gotten back from Arslik.
• 2:34
  So I'm like taking my bags off a bus.
• 2:36
  You know, the 82nd buses, everybody in their schools.
• 2:39
  It was kind of like a last a, here you go, you're getting out,
• 2:42
  you know, we'll give you the school.
• 2:44
  Why not type thing. We owed it to you.
• 2:47
  But anyway, so I get the phone calls, I'm pulling my bags off
• 2:49
  from under the bus and lo and behold, it's my buddy Stefan on
• 2:52
  the other side. And he's like, hey, man, how you
• 2:55
  doing? I just needed to talk to you.
• 2:58
  And so I sit there and I can tell in his voice a little bit,
• 3:01
  he's kind of distraught and whatnot.
• 3:02
  And so I'm sitting there and I'm listening to him and he's
• 3:05
  telling me about this big gunfight he got into and, you
• 3:08
  know, some hand grenades went off and messed him up a bit.
• 3:10
  And he's sitting in lawn store at the point in time.
• 3:12
  And so we get to talk in. And I told him I was like, yo,
• 3:15
  dude, like, hey man, don't worry about it.
• 3:17
  I'll be there for your next deployment.
• 3:19
  I was like, I I'm walking into the reenlistment office right
• 3:22
  now. I'm going to see if there's
• 3:23
  anything, you know, I'm going dude, I'm going.
• 3:26
  So I get into the retention office and lo and behold, man, I
• 3:30
  know the recruiting dude or retention office.
• 3:33
  NCO had been trying to get me a for a while, you know, cuz I'd,
• 3:36
  I'd been arslick and I'd been already mortar sex assort, I'd
• 3:39
  already been a scout team lead, you know, all that stuff.
• 3:45
  And so when I go in there, I was like, all right, here's the
• 3:48
  deal. I was like, I'll read a list
• 3:49
  right now if you can get me to Italy.
• 3:52
  So I was like, it's the only way I'll go.
• 3:54
  And he's like, oh, sit down, man.
• 3:55
  Let me look this up. Look it up.
• 3:57
  Jumps on the computer and he's like, lo and behold, brother, I
• 4:00
  got something for you. It's like I got 113 Victor slot
• 4:06
  for 11C and the 173rd It's yours if you want it.
• 4:10
  Now whether that's true or not, I don't know.
• 4:12
  You know what I mean? He was the.
• 4:13
  One behind the desk, but I jumped on it.
• 4:15
  I was like, oh, it's meant to be, which later on I'll get into
• 4:19
  a lot of my career is kind of like, oh, it's meant to be just
• 4:21
  fell in line, fell in place. But so with that being said, I
• 4:26
  reenlisted right away, went over to the 173rd and then that's
• 4:31
  that's when it hit me after I reenlisted and I was like, oh
• 4:33
  man, I'm I've just spent the last three years.
• 4:36
  I was 11B and I'm going over there to be an 11 Charlie and I
• 4:40
  don't remember how to be an 11 Charlie.
• 4:42
  So I started making phone calls with a quickness and I got very
• 4:47
  lucky because my former platoon sooner Mata, he happened to be
• 4:53
  my branch manager and he told me, you know, he was like, oh,
• 4:56
  absolutely. I'll do.
• 4:57
  Yeah, man, I got you covered. So he gave me M lock in route to
• 5:02
  the 173rd. So I was pretty, pretty
• 5:04
  fortunate and happy. So I got to learn my job again
• 5:07
  before stepping into battle, you know, then let's see.
• 5:13
  Then I show up. First night I was there happened
• 5:19
  to be that my sponsor that I was assigned was on staff duty.
• 5:24
  So that worked out. It was Jason Aldridge, good,
• 5:28
  good friend of mine. Yeah.
• 5:30
  Worked out to where he was on staff duty and he happened to be
• 5:33
  the guy who, you know, is my sponsor.
• 5:35
  And then he let me know, too, by the way.
• 5:37
  He's like, yeah, man, you know, by the way, I'm leaving for
• 5:39
  Ranger School next week. I was like.
• 5:41
  OK. I was like what?
• 5:43
  Is there somebody else I need to tag along with or something?
• 5:45
  He's like. Nah, you'll be good.
• 5:46
  You'll figure it out, man. You're good.
• 5:47
  And I was like, all right, cool. So then my time in the 173rd
• 5:52
  started. Right.
• 5:53
  So I show up Monday morning to do all the in processing piece
• 5:59
  and so forth. And I meet Sir Levy, who was the
• 6:04
  battalion mortar Sergeant. And he asked me, you know, what
• 6:08
  my history was, where I've been, what I've done.
• 6:11
  And I'd already known that Chosen Companies mortar section
• 6:14
  Sergeant was leaving. Stefan had already told me that,
• 6:18
  which was the company he was in. So I was trying to finagle my
• 6:21
  way in that door. So then I talked talked it over
• 6:24
  with sorry, Levy. I was like, hey, you know, I
• 6:26
  spent all my time in battalion mortars and then I was in
• 6:28
  battalion scouts, which is all HHC time, you know, let me go be
• 6:32
  a line line section somewhere. It's like it's something I
• 6:34
  haven't done. I need it for career
• 6:36
  progression. This that the other.
• 6:38
  I sold it to him fairly well. So he he gave me the job and I
• 6:43
  went over to chosen company and that's that was where I got my,
• 6:47
  my first in briefing was actually by the S 1.
• 6:54
  He was a African American dude, E7.
• 6:57
  When I got there, I was in S1 and I was signing in and I
• 7:01
  remember, I don't remember exactly what he told me, but I
• 7:06
  remember he told me something that stuck with me and he was
• 7:09
  like, oh, you're coming from the 82nd, huh?
• 7:11
  I was like, yes, Sir. And he's like, well, just so you
• 7:12
  know, or I told him, yes, Sergeant, it was an E7.
• 7:15
  I was like Roger Stone, I'm coming from the 80 deuce.
• 7:17
  And he's like, he's like, just so you know, we get a lot of you
• 7:20
  guys and you guys don't make it. So I hope you learned how to
• 7:23
  tighten up your shot group when you got here.
• 7:25
  And to me, at first I was like, you know, I was, I was one of
• 7:28
  those. I grew up in the 82nd, man,
• 7:30
  there ain't no, there's no better unit than the 82nd.
• 7:33
  You know, you got regiment, but that's that's different.
• 7:35
  That's different, you know. So when he said that to me, it
• 7:38
  kind of it kind of struck A chord a little bit different.
• 7:40
  I was like, hi, you know. We'll see what's up.
• 7:43
  And then I went on the first run, which was Mount Barico.
• 7:47
  Yeah. Oh my God, I have learned that
• 7:50
  that is the and I did it to the NC OS when they first showed up
• 7:54
  too. I had learned that when a new
• 7:56
  NCO shows up to the 173rd, first thing you do is you take him on
• 8:01
  a run to Mount Barico. You see what he's made out of.
• 8:04
  And that's, that's kind of like the initiation, if you would.
• 8:09
  So Jerry, real quick, that's like a four mile, five mile run.
• 8:13
  You can make it different routes like you can.
• 8:15
  Did you ever do Eric, the seven faces?
• 8:18
  Did you ever do the Seven Faces of Barico?
• 8:21
  No, I did not, and I never wanted to.
• 8:23
  I I'm not much of a runner, Sir. If you remember short distance
• 8:27
  all day long distance not my thing.
• 8:29
  Brother, I think that's, I think that's why you and I got along
• 8:32
  OK. You.
• 8:34
  Like to work out. A bitch though.
• 8:36
  We we, we like to work out and we rot.
• 8:39
  Yeah. That's it.
• 8:41
  But yeah, so, you know, that was that was the first kind of like
• 8:46
  awakening like where am I type scenario, you know, and it was
• 8:51
  good. And then, you know, I I got to
• 8:53
  working with the dudes. They were all studs.
• 8:54
  They were all PT studs. I didn't have a single one that
• 8:59
  was questionable. I had another dude who had
• 9:01
  showed up maybe six months to a year before me.
• 9:05
  And that was that was Jesse Quick.
• 9:08
  He came, he came from 10th Mountain.
• 9:10
  So he was a little bit and he's a bigger dude.
• 9:12
  He's one of those cornbread fat dudes, you know, I mean, he's
• 9:15
  just a mountain of a damn man. You.
• 9:18
  Know he's just. He's a big damn boy, but you
• 9:23
  know, he, he was all right in his being in shape and stuff
• 9:26
  like that. And so that was, that was kind
• 9:28
  of the beginning and that's, that was how it started.
• 9:31
  It was interesting. It was highly interesting, but
• 9:35
  they had a reputation. Damn did they have a reputation
• 9:38
  already from what they had already done in O5O6.
• 9:43
  I remember when I showed up first started Beeson.
• 9:46
  You know he he did. Actually, it wasn't Beeson.
• 9:49
  Beeson replaced Burzak. It was some major first started
• 9:57
  Burzak at the time. That's who it.
• 9:59
  Was that's yeah, that's that was who I did my first sit down
• 10:03
  with. And then Beeson had replaced
• 10:05
  Burzak. And then that's when when Beason
• 10:08
  took over. But yeah, I remember, man, that
• 10:11
  was that was different. That was different.
• 10:13
  It was a different conversation back then.
• 10:18
  And I'll tell you, man, like they had pulled, they had pulled
• 10:20
  my entire record and everything because, you know, like right
• 10:23
  there at the end, I was getting ready to get out.
• 10:26
  So I kind of turned it up a little bit and wasn't doing PT
• 10:28
  as much as I should and stuff like that.
• 10:32
  My initial PT test signing into the unit was, I think I ran like
• 10:37
  a, it was like a 1445 or something.
• 10:39
  Wasn't even that bad, you know, looking back now.
• 10:43
  But to start a major Burzak or first started Burzak, it was
• 10:46
  that was not NCO quality runtime, especially for a high
• 10:51
  speed tabbed E6 as he put it. So I was like, oh God.
• 10:55
  All right, yeah, I need to take my shot group like the S1 guy
• 10:59
  told me. Yep.
• 11:01
  But it was good that was that was kind of the start.
• 11:04
  And then after that it was all preparation for what we was
• 11:07
  going to Iraq at the time. So that's what we were gearing
• 11:12
  up for. A lot of VPB operations, vehicle
• 11:14
  patrol base maneuvering gun trucks and house to house
• 11:20
  scenario training, stuff like that.
• 11:24
  And then and then came the shift.
• 11:27
  Then came the shift, and I remember that Colonel Auslan had
• 11:32
  gotten back. I think we were in Owen's
• 11:35
  fellows at the time. I remember it was, oh, man,
• 11:38
  there was so much snow and it was so damn cold.
• 11:41
  Like it was, it was so cold and miserable.
• 11:44
  And he pulled the whole battalion into the tent and he
• 11:47
  gave us a brief of, hey, I just got back from the PDSS.
• 11:50
  There's been a shift. We're no longer going to Iraq,
• 11:52
  We're going to Afghanistan. Oh, and by the way, we're going
• 11:55
  for 15 months, too. It was all kind of like one big
• 11:59
  shift. It was like, whoa, what?
• 12:00
  What the hell just happened? But that wasn't the big thing.
• 12:04
  You know, I'd been to Iraq. I'd been to Afghanistan.
• 12:06
  So I was like, all right, that's cool.
• 12:08
  And then he started showing us the photos of the PDSS, and then
• 12:15
  everything was snow because it was winter.
• 12:17
  So it was all snow. And I remember when he got to
• 12:20
  the ranch house and he was like, oh, chose a company.
• 12:22
  You're going here, you got to the corn go.
• 12:24
  I was like battle company. You're going here, Bella.
• 12:27
  It was like chosen. You're going here.
• 12:29
  And I just remember like chosen. Oh shit, man, that's us.
• 12:31
  And there was one or two places. It was just off the off the
• 12:35
  photos that they had taken. And it was one.
• 12:38
  I'm in a fishbowl or #2 I'm on the side of a mountain.
• 12:40
  Neither 1 was my. Preferred choice.
• 12:43
  You know what? I.
• 12:44
  Mean this was this was going on my 4th combat rotation at this.
• 12:47
  Point in time. So I'm like, Oh my God, this is
• 12:50
  not what I'm looking for. But nonetheless, you know, we
• 12:54
  went into it, we went in, we dove in, we shifted our
• 12:57
  planning, shifted our priorities, started doubling
• 13:00
  down on rocking because we knew, hey, we're no longer doing
• 13:02
  vehicle shit. Now we're walking everywhere.
• 13:05
  So we made we made that shift in our, our training aspect and got
• 13:10
  things moving in the right direction.
• 13:13
  And then came the day May 22nd, 2007.
• 13:18
  I will never ever forget that exact gate because when I
• 13:23
  stepped off that UH-60 on to Ranch House LZ and then it it,
• 13:30
  it dusted off and it flew away. The dust finally cleared and I
• 13:35
  see all the nice pretty rocks. I got my nice heavy bag on my
• 13:38
  weapon and then I look up and I just see there's a switchbacks
• 13:43
  to go up the mountainside and I'm just like, Oh my God, where
• 13:49
  am I? Because I had I had been in
• 13:52
  Afghanistan before, but I had mainly been fought in the South.
• 13:56
  I mean, I was in a ruse gone Gardez organi, the skin area de
• 14:02
  Rau passing around through through those areas, you know,
• 14:06
  so I hadn't been in the the northeast prior.
• 14:09
  So seeing trees like the size of me and then seeing, you know,
• 14:15
  the foliage and, and the elevation, my God, the
• 14:19
  elevation. I just remember walking from the
• 14:22
  LZ up to the Med shed, which is where I ended up setting my bed
• 14:27
  down spot as cuz it was right across from the mortar pit and
• 14:31
  it was no more man. I'm, I won't lie, like straight
• 14:35
  line distance, we're maybe talking 25 meters, but it was
• 14:39
  switchbacks up and down the LZ, you know, And when I got up
• 14:42
  there and I stepped inside that, that Med hooch to drop my rock,
• 14:46
  like I felt like I had been stabbed in the lung.
• 14:49
  I had a gas mask on and somebody took my nuts and put a rubber
• 14:55
  band around. Them and I just could not.
• 14:57
  Breathe. It was like no matter what I
• 14:59
  did, I could not breathe. The altitude was just beating
• 15:03
  the living hell. Out of me.
• 15:05
  Yeah, I think a lot of people go ahead.
• 15:08
  Yeah, go ahead. I had.
• 15:10
  I had gotten myself back in fairly decent shape before that
• 15:13
  deployment too. Like I was, I was, I was
• 15:16
  rocking. I was rocking.
• 15:18
  It whooped me stepping off that bird was.
• 15:22
  I think a lot of people had that experience.
• 15:25
  So when when we first got there, right for me, I, I started off
• 15:29
  down in Jalalabad because I was still on the brigade
• 15:31
  headquarters staff. And so Jalalabad looked like,
• 15:36
  you know, it could have been Iraq, right?
• 15:39
  Relatively flat. You, you could see mountains
• 15:42
  kind of way, way, way off in the distance, but it was relatively
• 15:47
  flat, all that stuff. And as I'm getting closer and
• 15:50
  closer myself to, to coming to, to the, to the rock, the brigade
• 15:57
  commander's like, Hey, Chris, we're going to get you out on
• 16:00
  some, some missions. We're going to go, we're going
• 16:03
  to let you go see some of the, the areas where the the
• 16:07
  battalions are. And the first one I went to was
• 16:09
  up in one nine One's AO and God rest Tom Boggle.
• 16:16
  Yeah. God bless Tom Bostic.
• 16:19
  We went up there where where Tom Bostic was, and I can't remember
• 16:23
  the name of it, but we, we fly in and kind of like you said,
• 16:26
  you're everywhere up there. You were either in a fishbowl or
• 16:30
  you were literally on the side of the mountain.
• 16:31
  Well, this one, they were in a fishbowl and you fly down into
• 16:36
  the HLZ, get off. And it was that kind of like,
• 16:40
  oh, shit moment like you're talking about.
• 16:42
  I'm looking around. First and foremost, I'm like,
• 16:44
  this is fucking beautiful country number one, but #2I.
• 16:49
  Don't. Want to fight this shit?
• 16:52
  There's a mountain right there. Holy shit.
• 16:55
  Like if if they could just stand up there and lob grenades and
• 16:59
  we're not going to be able to do shit.
• 17:02
  I. Was like Oh my God.
• 17:04
  It. Was just is such AI wasn't ready
• 17:08
  for it mentally, right? I, I thought I was, but I was
• 17:12
  not ready for it mentally. And then that, that first moment
• 17:15
  when when you get there, it's it's almost undescribable.
• 17:19
  It really is. So you get the chosen.
• 17:22
  Taking. For sure.
• 17:24
  So you, you finally get your, your nuts out of a vise and
• 17:27
  your, your lungs back. What?
• 17:29
  What, What are you thinking when you get up to the ranch house?
• 17:33
  All right. So we're, we're there and we're
• 17:35
  kind of doing our, our left. Seat right Seat.
• 17:37
  At the time, First Platoon had gotten split amongst Bella Cop,
• 17:43
  Bella and then Ranch House, which was in Iran.
• 17:47
  It's about 7 1/2 seven and a half K difference, but about
• 17:51
  half a day's walk, even though it was only 7 1/2 K and that was
• 17:55
  due to the mountains, the ridgeline.
• 17:58
  There's only one Rd. in on one side that goes through a rawness
• 18:02
  or you're going up and down the other side walking the ridgeline
• 18:06
  to get in. It was the only two directions.
• 18:08
  Those were literally the only two pathways to get there
• 18:11
  though. So it was damned if you do
• 18:15
  damned if you don't all resupply.
• 18:17
  There was no driving in. All resupply was done via 47
• 18:22
  sling loads every once in a while if it was small enough.
• 18:27
  If if it was like just mail, we would get the 60s would kick off
• 18:31
  a bundle and just be some male. But the majority of everything
• 18:35
  was sling load in from the 40 sevens just because the
• 18:38
  altitude, even though we couldn't fly in on a 47 because
• 18:42
  the altitude was too high. I think the base camp sat around
• 18:45
  I think it was like 7800 feet roundabout.
• 18:49
  Pretty, pretty brutal. But what's interesting to me is
• 18:56
  prior prior to this deployment, I was I've always been kind of
• 19:03
  more so like the Gray guy, if that makes sense.
• 19:05
  Like I've never been a number one PT stud.
• 19:09
  I've never been the number one anything.
• 19:11
  I've always been kind of like the dependable dude who get shit
• 19:16
  done. Like needless say, you know what
• 19:19
  I mean? Like, you know, I'm not I'm not
• 19:22
  your go to board guy like some some officers and NC OS have.
• 19:27
  I'm the OK, we need to make shit happen.
• 19:31
  Who's going to bitch about it the least and just make it
• 19:33
  happen, All right, Go get Phillips.
• 19:35
  It's kind of like how my mentality was back then, you
• 19:37
  know, like, hey, this is what we signed up for.
• 19:39
  This is what we're going to do. We're fucking infantry.
• 19:41
  We're going to make it happen. You know, it was kind of like my
• 19:44
  mindset back then. So there was a lot of that.
• 19:50
  So people didn't really know who I was minus what Stefan had said
• 19:54
  about me with the other 'cause he had done 3 rotations with me
• 19:58
  in the 82nd. So he had talked to a couple
• 20:00
  people about me like, hey man, this is who this dude is.
• 20:04
  And kind of vouch for me. Which Stephen had already built
• 20:07
  up a reputation himself with the last deployment and going forth
• 20:11
  as far as being a squad leader, his being like one of the most
• 20:14
  solid dudes and chosen company. And so him speaking about me and
• 20:20
  then Burzak telling me how he respected Stephen and then
• 20:24
  Burzak giving me the. The introduction speech that he
• 20:27
  gave me and then Beeson giving me his takeover speech.
• 20:31
  Like Needless to say, I was threatened a few times and not
• 20:34
  in a good way. I was worried.
• 20:36
  I was worried I was going to screw this up and find myself on
• 20:40
  a plane flying back to Italy packing my bags to fly back to
• 20:44
  the States. Like.
• 20:45
  That's kind of the way things were verbalized.
• 20:49
  Which? So I had seen that happen before
• 20:53
  my first deployment to Afghanistan with the 82nd, my
• 20:57
  squad leader over a fire mission that took place in Oregon.
• 21:02
  E was relieved of command and flown out within 72 hours and
• 21:08
  sent back to the states. So I knew that was a
• 21:10
  possibility. Like I had seen it with my own
• 21:12
  damn eyes. So when people were like, I will
• 21:15
  get rid of you, I was like, Oh shit, I better make sure
• 21:17
  everything's wired tight, you know, but it, it worked out in
• 21:22
  my favor because it made me as, as the one NCO, but I have a
• 21:26
  horrible memory. I would love to attribute the
• 21:28
  saying to his name, but I, I just can't remember his name.
• 21:31
  But I attributed it all to him telling me, you know, like, Hey,
• 21:35
  there's a different breed of NC OS here and you need to tighten
• 21:37
  your shot group while you're here.
• 21:39
  I attributed all to that because I truly hammered down on all
• 21:43
  aspects and and I I made it work and it, it it came together.
• 21:48
  Yeah, they upped your game. It did.
• 21:50
  They did, man. And which was interesting
• 21:53
  because coming from the 82nd, I had already thought like I was
• 21:58
  each each unit that I went to. I got humbled a little bit each
• 22:01
  time to be honest, you know, like coming from the 80 deuce, I
• 22:06
  was what, a 19 year old E 519 year old tabbed, you know, E 521
• 22:13
  year old E6, spent my time in a mortar section, spent my time on
• 22:17
  a scout sniper team. Like I had thought I was like
• 22:21
  pretty pretty legit, pretty good to go.
• 22:23
  Then I show up over there and it's like, hey man, not only are
• 22:26
  you not up here, but you're somewhere down here.
• 22:29
  And. It was like, Oh my God.
• 22:32
  So it caused me to PT twice as hard, study the books and the
• 22:37
  FMS twice as much. It was good.
• 22:39
  It was good. I needed it, to be honest.
• 22:41
  It was nice. Reality check.
• 22:45
  So then while we're while we're at ranch house, right?
• 22:50
  Little good old ranch house. So we hit the ground 22 May
• 22:56
  2007. Got a lot of young dudes.
• 23:00
  It was half a first platoon. We had 22 dudes on the ground,
• 23:03
  counting myself and my 2 mortar dudes and then one medic.
• 23:10
  And so that that was all we had on the ground, 22 people.
• 23:12
  It was built on the side of a mountain.
• 23:14
  If I had to sum it up as far as like size, I would, I would say
• 23:19
  we're probably maybe 7075 meters by about 100 and 5200 meters.
• 23:30
  Like off top of my head kind of like on the side of on the
• 23:33
  literally side of a mountain, 45° angle side of a mountain.
• 23:38
  Yeah. So starting from the we'll say
• 23:44
  the East End if I do this right, No, it'll be the North End.
• 23:48
  Starting from the north was like post 3 and then you came
• 23:53
  straight down to the South and that's like where the AN as
• 23:59
  living quarters was. So from post 3 to post S
• 24:03
  straight line distance and then from east to West you had you
• 24:11
  had post one, then directly across from that was the ASG
• 24:16
  position on the opposite side. Then you had post 2.
• 24:21
  Basically like at your at your 9:00, we'll say no, probably
• 24:29
  around your your 10 is where post 2 is and post 4 would be
• 24:33
  down at your 5. Right and.
• 24:35
  Then in between those, in between those 3, you had the
• 24:39
  talk, the aid station, the mortar pit, and then the areas
• 24:42
  that we lived and housing and, you know, storage and stuff like
• 24:47
  that, right? Eric, is this a a house that's
• 24:51
  already is this like an Afghan house or is it something you
• 24:54
  guys, it's like B huts like sand.
• 24:57
  Yeah, You had to build that whole thing, right?
• 24:58
  Yeah, 10th. Mountain and build them.
• 25:01
  There was so where the ASG stayed out of, let me backtrack
• 25:04
  that a little bit. Where the ASG stayed out of was
• 25:07
  a former, as we call Bonde, right?
• 25:10
  It was like an old style facility that was there.
• 25:13
  They had rebuilt it and modernized it and stuff like
• 25:16
  that. But that's where they stayed.
• 25:18
  Everything on our side though, 10th Mountain that built up,
• 25:23
  they were the ones who built the the COP combat outpost.
• 25:30
  They are the ones who built the COP prior to us coming in and
• 25:33
  then we were refining it during the time frames that we were
• 25:35
  there. And for, for anybody, go ahead.
• 25:40
  No, I was just going to say for, for, for any of the families or
• 25:43
  non military people that are listening.
• 25:45
  So Eric mentioned the Ana, that's the Afghan National Army
• 25:49
  in the ASG. Those are the Afghan security
• 25:51
  guards. So the security guards are just,
• 25:54
  quite frankly, they're, they're randos, if you will.
• 25:58
  That we found militia. Yeah.
• 26:00
  We. We found, we vetted and we hired
• 26:04
  to to basically help us with security on some of our
• 26:08
  installations out there. But no, you're, you're good.
• 26:12
  Keep going all. Right, So what else?
• 26:19
  What else needs to paint that picture before we get into it?
• 26:24
  OK, that covers that. That covers that.
• 26:29
  All right. So starting out the morning of,
• 26:32
  right? So we had.
• 26:37
  We had. Done several.
• 26:39
  There was 2 E sixes on this, on this cop, it was staff starter
• 26:43
  Zwick myself. Zwick was the weapon squad
• 26:46
  leader of First Platoon. So he was a senior NCOI was NCO
• 26:50
  number 20. There was 3 and then Staffs
• 26:53
  aren't Begay, Conrad, begay my buddy, it's my buddy.
• 26:59
  So there was 3 sixes and then 2-3, I want to say 3 or 4 E
• 27:04
  fives that we had. And then the rest were were
• 27:06
  Joe's and then the one Lt. Lieutenant Matt Ferrara, which
• 27:09
  me and him on this on our time at ranch house, man, we became
• 27:12
  very, very close. It's a great fucking dude.
• 27:15
  He's an awesome guy. I love him.
• 27:17
  I love him to death. Yeah.
• 27:20
  So morning of we had, like I said, we had already done a
• 27:26
  couple rotations. Me and the other Staffs aren't
• 27:28
  done around done our perimeter walks.
• 27:30
  We've done PT around the perimeter.
• 27:32
  We knew kind of general areas that we're weaker, if you would
• 27:38
  other areas that we wanted to improve on that we never, never
• 27:41
  got the opportunity. I won't say that we never got
• 27:43
  the opportunity. We were there five months.
• 27:44
  It's kind of our own fault some of this, I mean some of it my
• 27:49
  opinion. But anyways so as we're going
• 27:54
  forward it's about we'll say 04550457 or something.
• 28:02
  I'm dead asleep, passed out on my cot, you know Z and getting
• 28:06
  the ZS, getting my beauty rest, loving life.
• 28:10
  And all of a sudden I wake up to machine gunfire and it was a
• 28:14
  very long extended burst. So I jump up and I'm like oh
• 28:20
  shit. Next thing I hear is RPG a row
• 28:23
  boom right into the side of the building I'm in.
• 28:26
  Like I see the walls shake and chilling the the FO jumps out of
• 28:31
  his bed, you know, because he was, he was, it hit that corner
• 28:34
  of his wall. Get up, start putting my kid on,
• 28:38
  you know. And I remember, I remember the
• 28:40
  time because at 005 every morning was when Begay would
• 28:47
  wake me up because I would relieve him and I would take
• 28:49
  radio talk watch AT05, right? That was like the time he came
• 28:53
  and woke me up with 05. I'd be in the office by 510,
• 28:57
  stuff like that. So we had our our routine, you
• 29:00
  know, And so I remember, I get up, I start putting my kid on, I
• 29:07
  put on my helmet, I start putting my nods on.
• 29:09
  And I remember I looked at my watch and it was 457.
• 29:14
  So I took my nods and I threw them under my blanket and I was
• 29:17
  like, all right, I don't fucking need these right now because I
• 29:19
  was fighting with them. I guess it was because I was in
• 29:21
  a hurry or whatever. I don't know man, but I'm
• 29:23
  fighting trying to like get them remounted on because I fell off
• 29:25
  while I was putting my helmet on.
• 29:27
  Check the time. I was like, oh shit, 457, I
• 29:30
  don't need them. Put my blanket down.
• 29:33
  Right about that time I go back to putting, Oh, I was putting on
• 29:36
  my LCE. I just finished putting my my
• 29:38
  plates on and I was putting on my LCE and specialist Baldwin
• 29:44
  and specialist White come running into my hooch like boom,
• 29:49
  kick open the door. They come running in there like
• 29:52
  Sternfield, Sternfield, we're under attack.
• 29:54
  And as I put my shit on, I, I just look up at him and I was
• 29:56
  like, yeah, no fucking shit, Sherlock.
• 29:58
  You know, I finished snapping all my stuff in and they're
• 30:01
  like, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to?
• 30:02
  I was like get the fuck? Back to your.
• 30:04
  Position, I'll be right there, you know, I'm putting my stuff
• 30:06
  on, getting situated. I kept all my stuff.
• 30:10
  I have a little bit of OCD, you know, if you can't tell.
• 30:14
  So I had all my stuff nice and piled each night.
• 30:16
  So, you know, I got my kit on, I put my helmet on, I sling my
• 30:20
  gun. I grabbed my, my LHMBC, my light
• 30:23
  handheld mortar ballistic computer.
• 30:25
  I grabbed my, my clipboard that has my pre pre established
• 30:30
  targets on it. You know, 'cause like every good
• 30:33
  Charlie, we had marked pre preparatory fire positions all
• 30:38
  the way around the fire base and some inside the fire base.
• 30:42
  Thank God we did that. But we had set everything up the
• 30:45
  way we did. And so I had everything I
• 30:48
  needed. I was like, oh, we're golden,
• 30:50
  dude. So I come walking out my hooch.
• 30:52
  And as I come walking out the hooch, the ASG are sprinting by
• 30:57
  me. Like you hear the gunfire all
• 30:59
  over the damn place. It's, it's pure, pure fucking
• 31:02
  chaos, straight up. Plus these dudes are running
• 31:05
  past me. I got Americans over here
• 31:07
  yelling at me. Sorry, Phil, Sorry, Phil.
• 31:09
  And then I hear gunshots up at the top and I'm hearing
• 31:12
  explosions everywhere. And I'm just like, holy shit,
• 31:16
  this is really happening right now.
• 31:17
  You know what I mean? This is this.
• 31:19
  Is the initial time I've been in something of this scale.
• 31:21
  I've been in a couple gunfights here and there, but I had never
• 31:25
  been in anything close to the scale.
• 31:29
  So these dudes are running by me and the commander was going by
• 31:35
  at the same time. I'm standing there and I'm
• 31:36
  yelling at his dudes. You know, here's where things
• 31:39
  are going to get vulgar to paint the picture.
• 31:41
  I'm going to be closer to what I was stating, you know?
• 31:45
  And I told him I was like, hey. Where the fuck?
• 31:47
  Are you going? Get back to your position?
• 31:49
  Get the fuck back to your position.
• 31:52
  And he turns around and he's telling me he's like Taliban,
• 31:55
  Taliban, al Qaeda, Taliban. I was like, no shit, get up
• 31:59
  there and fucking fight. Get.
• 32:01
  Up there and fight and they're like, no, no, no, no Taliban.
• 32:05
  And they kept running, running right past me like commander and
• 32:08
  everybody. So at this point I'm like, what
• 32:10
  the fuck? So I turned back around to look
• 32:12
  back over in the direction that they're running from.
• 32:15
  And then that's when a machine gun burst right there, right up
• 32:18
  my ankles, man. Just shit starts kicking up.
• 32:22
  That's when I was like, oh shit, they're inside the base.
• 32:27
  That was when it registered to me that they're inside the base,
• 32:31
  not outside the perimeter. So the mortar firing point from
• 32:39
  my from the 8th station, I mean, we're looking at 15 meters.
• 32:45
  So I was like at the 7 1/2 meter mark when I stopped in the trail
• 32:48
  yelling at the ASG. So when that burst went off, I
• 32:52
  dove like there was no answer. But yeah.
• 32:56
  No, no, no thought process, no, nothing.
• 32:59
  Like my shit was in my hands. I'm yelling at these guys and I
• 33:02
  see that and it happened and I dove.
• 33:05
  Well it this had never ever happened to me before but I
• 33:09
  guess when I dove my LH embassy hit the ground pretty fucking
• 33:13
  hard and it ZED out. I lost all my data, I couldn't
• 33:18
  believe it. I mean like.
• 33:20
  It was like one in a million. Like, are you kidding me?
• 33:22
  This really just fucking happened all the times.
• 33:25
  You know, the first thing that went in the back of my head was,
• 33:29
  you know, the, the older, the older NC OS raising us up, us
• 33:34
  pre war babies raising us up and telling us, hey, don't rely on
• 33:37
  technology. The day you rely on, it's the
• 33:39
  day it's going to fucking fail. You and you know.
• 33:42
  Like, yeah, you guys are just old, man.
• 33:43
  You're not paying. Attention it makes.
• 33:45
  It. Easy, you know, make sure shit,
• 33:47
  the day I needed it, it failed me the the new LHMBC and it was
• 33:52
  the cream of the crop and the best of the best that time back
• 33:54
  in 07. So the date, I don't know if I
• 33:59
  went into that. It's August 22nd, 2007.
• 34:02
  Yeah, so that shit had kicked off.
• 34:05
  I dove over more ballistic computer everything Zed out.
• 34:11
  That's when we start taking rounds and I'm.
• 34:12
  I'm yelling over. Baldwin's there with me.
• 34:15
  I got White with me. I hear Chavez yelling from the
• 34:19
  guard post because he's over in the guard post position guard
• 34:22
  post one. He's yelling over at me and I'm
• 34:25
  like, oh, fuck. All right, stop, everybody.
• 34:28
  I was like, Baldwin, what do you got?
• 34:29
  He told me the initial onset, like, hey, you know, Chavez had
• 34:34
  just relieved me. I got inside, White just came
• 34:38
  off of fire guard. We were both inside.
• 34:41
  And then that's when everything erupted.
• 34:43
  Dudes came from here. We've get taking fire from here,
• 34:46
  from here, from there. So then my radio, of course, my
• 34:52
  radio and LHNBC had both shit to bed.
• 34:54
  Luckily I was there. I was within yelling distance of
• 34:57
  post one, which is where Chavez was.
• 34:59
  Yeah. So I yelled over to Chavez.
• 35:01
  I was like, hey dude, I do not have radio communications.
• 35:04
  I need you to relay everything that comes across.
• 35:07
  He's like, I don't give a shit what it is, Paint me a picture.
• 35:10
  I need to know everything. And Chavez was like, yeah, no
• 35:13
  problem, sorry, no problem. So things are continuing to go.
• 35:17
  We're we're fighting back and forth.
• 35:20
  I remember we're firing me Baldwin or firing over at the
• 35:25
  towards the excuse me ASG position and through the tree
• 35:29
  line. I kept seeing like shadows and
• 35:31
  dudes moving. So I would call them out like
• 35:34
  all right, dude, at my 1:00 I got 2 dudes in the opening of
• 35:37
  the tree line. It looks like 1/2 moon fire.
• 35:40
  I'm just calling out what I'm seeing.
• 35:42
  We're hitting shadows because you couldn't really see
• 35:44
  anything. Just shadows, man.
• 35:45
  It was like fucking ghost, you know.
• 35:49
  So we're we're going back and forth right there and then.
• 35:52
  I remember shilling came out now the as far as like timeline, I
• 35:57
  can't I can't say like I could be mixing events up, like how it
• 36:02
  unfolded, when it unfolded and stuff like that.
• 36:04
  You know, it's one of the things they.
• 36:05
  Always tell you like. 50 of us can be in a gunfight, and all
• 36:09
  fifty of us are going to recall something different at.
• 36:11
  Different points. And times or whatever it is.
• 36:14
  Yeah, it's just the way the brain works, right?
• 36:16
  So I know there's a lot of documented stuff that is out
• 36:19
  there that people have came out and told their stories.
• 36:23
  So if any of mine does not line with theirs, I'm not saying
• 36:26
  they're liars. I'm not saying anything like
• 36:28
  that. All this is from how I recall
• 36:30
  it. Yeah, just.
• 36:31
  Want to put that one? Caveat out there.
• 36:36
  So yeah, so Schilling comes out I tell him to pick up the
• 36:40
  position on on the corner of the aid station.
• 36:44
  I was like hey, start hammering fires up onto the hillside.
• 36:48
  I have Baldwin engaging over by the the Shedder that we built
• 36:55
  our burn barrel with a makeshift yeah outhouse that we built over
• 37:00
  it. Oh yeah, like legit, you know
• 37:02
  outhouse. We built an outhouse and there
• 37:04
  was a barrel under it that we burned shit in.
• 37:06
  After we used it, there was dudes already that had pushed up
• 37:10
  to that position, which was maybe 25 meters from the mortar
• 37:14
  firing point. So we were engaging with those
• 37:16
  guys chilling, moved forward like I told him he took up
• 37:20
  position on the corner of that aid station and as soon as he
• 37:26
  takes it over, man, he's lighting gunfire up and I'm like
• 37:28
  all right, cool. I'm starting to get better Essay
• 37:31
  of what's going on around me where dudes are.
• 37:35
  I'd already sent White back down to the talk because I didn't
• 37:39
  have a radio like I said, so I wanted him to relay to the talk
• 37:43
  what I'm getting from post one as far as the information that
• 37:47
  basically I took the battle battle picture that I had
• 37:50
  painted in my head, relate it to White, and told him to go brief
• 37:54
  Lieutenant Ferrara so that way he knew what was going on on the
• 37:57
  outside pieces since I didn't have comps.
• 38:00
  So White went back down there, shillings on the corner of the
• 38:02
  building, and then all of a sudden I see the corner of that
• 38:06
  building explode, man. And I'm sitting there and for a
• 38:12
  brief second it went to my head. I was like, holy fuck, I just
• 38:15
  lost shilling like damn it, like it it was, it did.
• 38:19
  It was an onset that hit me like fuck that kids gone.
• 38:24
  And then sure shit, man. Like all of a sudden you see
• 38:28
  this dude come back, shake his head like all this dust coming
• 38:33
  off of him and he's looking at me and his eyes are like this
• 38:36
  fucking big. And so I yell to him, get over
• 38:40
  here, get over here. So as he starts moving, I lay
• 38:42
  down some fire. He comes in, grab him, set him
• 38:47
  down. I was like all right let me
• 38:48
  check you out real quick. I couldn't see nothing but I
• 38:50
  could damn sure tell he was shell shocked as.
• 38:53
  Hell yeah. No doubt like he was.
• 38:57
  He was in another another zone at that point in time.
• 39:01
  You. Know what I mean?
• 39:02
  Yeah. So I took him, put them inside
• 39:06
  the bunker because like I said, we were at the mortar firing
• 39:09
  point. So I had my 62 sandbagged around
• 39:12
  and we had an actual bunker that we had.
• 39:14
  The mortar rounds were that were kept in there.
• 39:17
  But our other saving grace because it was the most
• 39:19
  fortified and and heavily protected position.
• 39:26
  It was also the ASP. So I had ammo for fucking days
• 39:32
  and every mortar round at my disposal, I had all 556 at my
• 39:36
  disposal. I had all the hand grenades at
• 39:39
  my disposal. So it, it kind of worked out in
• 39:43
  our favor, right? So I took shilling and I put
• 39:46
  them inside the bunker and I was like, hey dude, all I need you
• 39:51
  to do is reload magazines. I was like, I will fucking fire
• 39:55
  the Browns hand you an empty magazine.
• 39:58
  You just keep the magazines coming.
• 40:01
  Because at this point there was, it was me, Baldwin, and I think
• 40:08
  Der Kennett's the medic at the time with shilling and shilling
• 40:12
  was inside. So the three of us were there
• 40:15
  doing the engagement from there, trying to beat back the guys who
• 40:19
  had already pushed forward the the 25 meter distance that
• 40:24
  already closed that distance and probably about 1515 meters from
• 40:27
  us at this point. So we're just sitting there
• 40:29
  hammering away and chilling floating magazines and hit
• 40:34
  Sergeant. I throw one down, Sergeant.
• 40:42
  So we were, you know, it was. And then at the same time, like
• 40:46
  with every big ordeal that happens in the military, there's
• 40:49
  the funny moments, you know, like the things I recall the
• 40:52
  most fighting from the ASP, The ammo position, right, is I had
• 40:58
  gotten an engagement on and Baldwin was to the side of me
• 41:02
  and I had to change magazines. So I told Baldwin relieve me.
• 41:06
  And as I came in, I burned the shit out of him with my barrel.
• 41:11
  I will never get that. Yeah.
• 41:13
  Burned the piss out of him. He still has a scar that goes
• 41:16
  across right here. I felt bad, you know?
• 41:19
  I was like, oh. God.
• 41:20
  Sorry, he's. Like it's all right I'm.
• 41:21
  Good. Yeah.
• 41:23
  Just keep shooting. Yeah, so there was.
• 41:26
  There's that funny moment. Then there was, oh, dude, I
• 41:32
  could have killed him. All right.
• 41:33
  Same thing. Jason Baldwin was always my
• 41:36
  character. OK, he was.
• 41:37
  There's always youngest. He was the youngest of my mortar
• 41:41
  section. He was a little PT stud.
• 41:44
  He was, he was arrogant. He was an arrogant 2021 year old
• 41:49
  kid, you know what I mean? And and he had rights to be like
• 41:51
  the kid was squared away, but his fucking mouth I couldn't
• 41:54
  stand. But I love him.
• 41:55
  Lovely. Reminds me of somebody else I
• 41:57
  know. Right, crazy, crazy.
• 42:01
  But hell, I just talked to him 2 days ago.
• 42:03
  Like I, I still talk to those boys.
• 42:06
  I love those boys. But so all the funny stuff tends
• 42:11
  to happen with him. So you know, I burned him with
• 42:15
  the barrel accidentally. And then at at one point, one
• 42:20
  point something happened with my M4 and it it got it got jammed
• 42:24
  up, took some rounds, some shit, something went wrong.
• 42:28
  So I ended up passing the transition to a pistol and I was
• 42:33
  firing at the dude who was right behind the the porta John.
• 42:37
  Like I seen him take that position.
• 42:39
  And then I just I know I like unloaded a whole magazine, man.
• 42:42
  Like with the marksmanship abilities I have now looking
• 42:45
  back, I'm like, what the fuck were you doing, man?
• 42:47
  Like that was spraying and praying like no tomorrow.
• 42:51
  Looking back, I'm like, dude, I probably didn't even hit him.
• 42:55
  Like, looking back, he was just like, yeah.
• 42:58
  But anyways. Eric, you don't you?
• 43:01
  Don't know what you know? You didn't you?
• 43:03
  At this time, you didn't know what was still going on, right?
• 43:05
  Did you not have like the essay? Like, man, I don't know how many
• 43:08
  dudes are here. Like the fuck is going on?
• 43:10
  I knew, I knew based off of what Chavez was able to tell me from
• 43:17
  Post 3, two and four that we were taking contact 360°.
• 43:24
  I'd already put pieced together that dudes were inside the wire
• 43:27
  because the guys I seen trying to maneuver on us.
• 43:31
  Then I received the call that post three had fell, that
• 43:35
  there's no more communications with Post 3.
• 43:38
  Then I received the call that all men except for one from post
• 43:43
  3 was accounted for, that we had one dude who is Mia who was APFC
• 43:48
  Deloria. So like the, the picture and
• 43:54
  like I said, time, time wise, like I, I can't, I can't fathom
• 43:57
  to put it all together, man. But those were like the
• 44:00
  different calls that I kept receiving, like as the situation
• 44:03
  was developing. But as far as immediate essay on
• 44:07
  what, where everybody was and what exactly was happening, I
• 44:11
  did not. I absolutely did not.
• 44:13
  So like for this, anybody out there listening, you guys are
• 44:16
  pretty much on your own little islands within the base fighting
• 44:18
  off the enemy. Yes, like everybody's like, hey,
• 44:21
  we're on our own. We it's, it's all of us about
• 44:24
  fighting off. We don't know, but we're, we're
• 44:26
  sitting here in our own little positions, just fucking fighting
• 44:30
  it away, man, you know? Each one in their foxhole giving
• 44:33
  them hell. And who's who's the senior?
• 44:36
  Who's the senior on ground? Do you have an officer?
• 44:39
  Lieutenant Ferrara Lieutenant Matthew Ferrara was the senior
• 44:42
  on the ground. And so presumably he's trying to
• 44:45
  coordinate this, but you got you.
• 44:47
  You already said your, your radio shit the bed in seconds.
• 44:52
  Yeah. Within seconds.
• 44:54
  You got outpost 3 or, or guard post 3.
• 44:58
  That's down tower three. You lost communications somehow.
• 45:02
  You're you said Chavez is able to relay some information to
• 45:07
  you, but you're, I mean, it is literally a jury.
• 45:10
  That's a great way to to picture it, right?
• 45:12
  You've got separate islands of contact now that you're you're
• 45:17
  just. Fighting for survival, man.
• 45:19
  Yeah, that's, that's fucking crazy.
• 45:22
  That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:24
  So so there in the ASP. Yeah, so the guy, the guy behind
• 45:28
  the shooter, did he get away? So come to find out in my, my
• 45:35
  humble opinion is I think that that was that was the dude
• 45:38
  written up in in the the award. I think that was Hazrat Omar.
• 45:41
  I think that was him on his advance because he was found.
• 45:45
  His body was found not too far from the shitter.
• 45:48
  Yeah. So I like to attribute it to
• 45:52
  being alright, that was him and like I got something.
• 45:55
  Now, whether I'm the one that actually hit him, who the hell
• 45:57
  knows. Like there was there was a lot
• 45:59
  of gunfire, like we were saying. But so as we were sitting there,
• 46:03
  the the next thing that Baldwin does, Jason does is I'm sitting
• 46:07
  there. And like I said, I transitioned
• 46:09
  to the pistol by this point. So I emptied the mag.
• 46:13
  I turned down. I was like, hey, give me a hand
• 46:14
  grenade hands me a bag. I can't make this shit up, man.
• 46:20
  Hands me a bag of water balloon hand.
• 46:23
  Grenades. In the middle of our base being
• 46:27
  overran, this kid finds it funny and hands me a bag.
• 46:34
  Of water. Balloon and grenades.
• 46:38
  Like at the time I didn't find it so funny, you know, And I, I
• 46:41
  threw him back in his face and I said, what the fuck is wrong
• 46:44
  with you? But looking back now, it's like,
• 46:47
  dude, that's hilarious. You know, like, where does that
• 46:50
  happen? Give me a hand grenade and dude
• 46:52
  hand you a bag of water. Water balloon hand grenades.
• 46:56
  What? The hell did this come from?
• 46:59
  Exactly. Well, so leading up leading up
• 47:02
  to this, like I said, we hit ground May 22nd, right?
• 47:06
  And then all this went down August 22nd, there hadn't so
• 47:11
  much had been a single round fired at us or us at an enemy
• 47:18
  combatant. So.
• 47:19
  It is OK, I was going to ask. About that, yeah.
• 47:21
  Five months of nothing? No.
• 47:23
  Problem. Now when Joe gets bored, Joe
• 47:26
  referring to our junior enlisted soldiers, when Joe gets bored,
• 47:31
  he gets creative, You know, So they had, they had water
• 47:35
  balloons sent to them, they had water guns sent to them.
• 47:39
  There was a point in time where they built something called the
• 47:41
  Slight of Life to entertain themselves.
• 47:44
  Fucking heard of that, Yeah. Yeah, the slight of life was was
• 47:48
  pretty. It was a slight of life.
• 47:50
  You were lucky to be alive if you finished the damn thing.
• 47:52
  I I remember them calling me out there to look at it.
• 47:56
  Summerfield, come check out what we did.
• 47:57
  And, and I was like, Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with you
• 48:00
  guys? The first dude who wrote it was
• 48:03
  the medic while I was standing. I was like, hey, what are what
• 48:06
  are we doing? He goes down, it catches the
• 48:09
  end. He flips head over heels, cracks
• 48:11
  his head open on a rock. I was like, tear this shit down
• 48:15
  right now. Wait, no, we're not having this.
• 48:17
  I was like, tear it down. We're not.
• 48:18
  We're not doing this, dude. You know?
• 48:21
  So that's, that's how the water balloon hand grenades came to
• 48:24
  play. It was in one of the care
• 48:25
  packages. Hey, I'm bored.
• 48:27
  Send me this. Yeah.
• 48:29
  Did you guys have to what they ever there was never any like
• 48:31
  probing going on. Do you think there was anything
• 48:33
  that they were like? We never, never received
• 48:35
  anything. Nothing.
• 48:37
  Like damn, leading up to it, leading up to it, I would say 2
• 48:44
  weeks leading up to it, there had been guards who who had
• 48:49
  said, hey, you know, I'm kind of hearing something out by out by
• 48:52
  my guard post. I'm not sure what it is and I
• 48:56
  would tell them to fire warning shots straight UPS the middle of
• 48:59
  the night. We're on the side of a mountain.
• 49:00
  I don't know what it is. Shouldn't be nobody approaching
• 49:02
  the base. If it's an animal, we're going
• 49:04
  to scare them off. I I would tell them, hey, fire
• 49:06
  off 3 to 5 rounds no issues. You know, I mean, this is 2007
• 49:10
  in Afghanistan, my 4th, 4th rotation.
• 49:13
  I got no problem firing off a couple warning shots because
• 49:16
  you're only going to get the one chance that is that is me
• 49:20
  telling you, hey, next one, it's your ass and it's your own
• 49:23
  fault. I, I justify it like you got a
• 49:26
  warning four to five of them, to be honest, you got 4 to 5
• 49:30
  warnings, but nonetheless. So like there may have been, but
• 49:36
  even the, when I look back now, you know, now I have the more
• 49:41
  analytical, strategic mindset and planning aspects of things
• 49:45
  and I've done a lot more, seen a lot more.
• 49:48
  I don't think there was ever anything other than reporting
• 49:51
  that came out. I don't think there was ever
• 49:54
  really anything that gave it away that that shit was coming.
• 49:58
  I don't. I found out.
• 50:00
  Later on that there was reports that was being pushed in through
• 50:05
  different entities who were working in that northeast area
• 50:10
  as well from SF teams and some of the three letter agencies and
• 50:16
  stuff that there was a lot of reports that kept saying, hey,
• 50:19
  they're going to hit ranch house, they're going to hit him
• 50:20
  with like 200 dudes. They're going to overrun it.
• 50:23
  But we heard those same reports starting from like 4 weeks on
• 50:27
  the ground and it just kept going and going and going.
• 50:30
  And that's why I think kind of led to some of our complacency
• 50:34
  in my opinion, as a as an NCO looking back, I'm like, OK,
• 50:38
  yeah, there's things we could have done better.
• 50:40
  You. Know there was there was a lot
• 50:42
  of that going on. I remember from my time in the
• 50:45
  battalion and even before that, while, while ranch house is
• 50:48
  going on and before like you, you almost become numb to some
• 50:55
  of the reporting. I hate to say it, but you do.
• 50:58
  You're like, OK, Yep, Yep. They're, they're going to try to
• 51:00
  overrun it. And you know, you're, you're
• 51:03
  waking up earlier and earlier in order to try to offset that.
• 51:08
  And then it, it just, it never happens.
• 51:10
  It never happens. It never happens.
• 51:12
  One of the one of the questions I want to ask right now to, to
• 51:15
  kind of help paint a picture. So how long do you think you've
• 51:18
  been in this firefight at this point?
• 51:22
  All right, so because I've jumped all over, at which point
• 51:26
  are we talking about you're? Going to so so old boy tries to
• 51:30
  hand you some some water balloons.
• 51:32
  The water balloons. Yeah, the watermelon.
• 51:34
  So we're probably like, I'd say an hour into it by this point.
• 51:38
  You. Know, OK, that's, that's a great
• 51:39
  point. So Jerry, question for you,
• 51:42
  because you've been in several firefights yourself, right?
• 51:46
  How long does it usually take in the firefights that you've been
• 51:49
  in to get some sort of external support coming to you?
• 51:53
  Think age 60 fours maybe maybe even depending on the size of
• 51:59
  it, maybe a little gunship action with some AC130's or some
• 52:05
  a 10s. Any how long does that usually
• 52:07
  take you think? Depends.
• 52:08
  On where you're at, man, Yeah. But.
• 52:10
  And how close your nearest support asset is, right?
• 52:14
  So you're thinking like, on average, I think we wanted like
• 52:21
  20-30 minutes tops to be able to get stuff like that there.
• 52:26
  All right, now back to you, Eric.
• 52:28
  Has that stuff shown up yet? No.
• 52:31
  Yeah. Because they're so fucking
• 52:33
  remote right now that everything is is, you know, it's back there
• 52:39
  with me in Jalalabad, right? Unless we knew something was
• 52:44
  going on, IE chosen company, battle able, somebody was going
• 52:49
  to be doing something. And in that case we either pre
• 52:52
  stage it there it Oh my God, why am I drawing a blank Blessing,
• 52:58
  thank you blessing. We'd either pre stage it at
• 53:01
  blessing or we'd have it in the air already.
• 53:05
  Otherwise, you're talking from from notification to spin up
• 53:10
  travel time at least 45 minutes to an hour to to get anything
• 53:16
  anywhere. And that's not counting the
• 53:18
  ranch house, which is out in the middle of fucking BFE.
• 53:23
  OK, so you're, you're at this point now you're, you're about
• 53:27
  to toss your first water balloon hang grenade.
• 53:29
  You're like, motherfucker, come on.
• 53:32
  Yeah, so then after I throw him back, I hit him in the face.
• 53:37
  I mean, he, I kind of. Deserved it, I hit.
• 53:38
  Burn him with my barrel. I mean, that was kind of fucked
• 53:42
  up on my behalf. Burned him good.
• 53:47
  Yeah. So at that point, he gives me
• 53:51
  some hand grenades. We start chunking hand grenades
• 53:53
  back over the side. We had already tried, I want to
• 53:58
  say 3 separate times to get the 60 tube up right?
• 54:01
  Because that's, that's the big thing.
• 54:02
  Like, hey man, you guys are sitting at the mortar pit.
• 54:04
  Why are you not firing the tube? It was pinpointed.
• 54:07
  They knew exactly where the fuck it was.
• 54:10
  All three times. Baldwin made two maneuvers for
• 54:13
  it. I made one maneuver for it every
• 54:15
  single time. Like there was rounds bouncing
• 54:18
  off the damn tube. And so at that point, to me, it
• 54:22
  was like, all right, I can lose the dude trying to get the
• 54:24
  mortar tube up, or I keep an extra gun in a guaranteed fight
• 54:28
  to repel what's going on. So obviously I kept the kept the
• 54:31
  guns in the fight and continue to move forward.
• 54:37
  Yeah. So the decision came.
• 54:45
  I had gotten notification that, you know, Deloria was missing
• 54:51
  and all the dudes from post three had pushed down to post 2.
• 54:57
  So that meant right right of way in my head, you know, I already
• 55:00
  know like OK, ASG ran past me. So the bad guys own the see the
• 55:10
  southeast sector, that's theirs. We lost comms with post for
• 55:15
  who's down in the southwest. So I'm assuming they own they
• 55:20
  own that ground as well. I still hear gun fights going
• 55:25
  on, so I know the Ana must be holding ground down there
• 55:28
  because right after post for the next trail went right into the
• 55:31
  Ana. So post for post for we lost
• 55:35
  comms with them, but they never lost their posts.
• 55:37
  We found that out later. It's just when when Rimmel was
• 55:42
  up there opening up round came through, took out Rimmel from
• 55:46
  his side and cut the mic in half.
• 55:49
  It actually hit the mic too and cut the damn mic in half.
• 55:52
  So that's how we lost comms with them.
• 55:55
  But Son Johnson was down there. He was a phenomenal dude, always
• 55:58
  has been. And he he took care of shit and
• 56:01
  held, held it down down there all on his own because we didn't
• 56:04
  have any comms with him. So I don't know what the hell is
• 56:06
  going on down there, you know? So at this point I decide, Oh
• 56:13
  yeah, so I get a Chavez yells over to me and he's like a Sarn
• 56:17
  Gonzalez is at post 2 and he's fading in and out of
• 56:20
  consciousness. So at that point in time, I had
• 56:23
  the medic with me and I was like, all right, here's what
• 56:25
  we're going to do. Dude.
• 56:28
  Post 2 wasn't that far from me. Maybe maybe a 50 meter Sprint,
• 56:33
  you know, And there was some some things in between me and
• 56:35
  post too. It was opposed to living
• 56:37
  quarters. There was a a big rockledge wall
• 56:41
  type thing that was there. It's a boulder.
• 56:44
  It's not a wall. I call it a rockledge wall.
• 56:46
  It was a big ass boulder, massive boulder from
• 56:48
  Afghanistan. There was on the pathway.
• 56:51
  So I knew I had that for cover. I knew there was a couple things
• 56:54
  in between where I'd be able to get there and get the post too.
• 56:59
  So at that point I made the decision that that's where we
• 57:01
  were going. So I told the medic Deer
• 57:04
  Kennett. So I was like, hey dude, here's
• 57:06
  what's going to happen. I was like, we're going to throw
• 57:08
  two hand grenades on the explosion of the second.
• 57:11
  We're fucking hauling ass to post 2 living quarters was like,
• 57:15
  stay on my heels, don't slow down because I'm not stopping.
• 57:19
  I was like, I'm going there and I'm not stopping till I get
• 57:21
  there. And he's like, God, it's hard to
• 57:23
  understand. Good to go.
• 57:27
  So at that point you turned around, threw, threw one hand
• 57:34
  grenade. I prepped the second.
• 57:36
  I think it was Baldwin who threw the first one.
• 57:40
  It goes off. I prepped the second.
• 57:42
  I look at their Kennets and I was like, all right, dude, you
• 57:44
  ready? He's like, yeah, I'm ready.
• 57:46
  I was like, all right, if I move, you move.
• 57:48
  You got it. He's like, yeah, I got it.
• 57:50
  It's like, all right, throw the hand grenade.
• 57:53
  I don't even think twice, man. I take off running like a
• 57:55
  dumbass. It was like following the flash
• 58:00
  bang, man. It went, I went too.
• 58:03
  And you know, normally somebody else throws it and that's what
• 58:07
  causes the guy to run. For this one, it was my own, my
• 58:10
  own, like just running everything through my head so
• 58:12
  fast. And it's like, all right, it's
• 58:14
  gone now you're gone. And I took off running me and
• 58:16
  Dirk Kennett, and he was on my ass.
• 58:19
  I remember we made it probably about halfway to post 2 living
• 58:24
  quarters when that bitch went off.
• 58:28
  I probably, I probably tinkled my pants a little bit.
• 58:31
  I'm not. Going to lie, I was like, oh
• 58:33
  shit, you know. But then we got the post too and
• 58:38
  we were there and I think everybody and their brother saw
• 58:42
  us run there because holy shit the amount of barrage that came
• 58:48
  down on top of us was unfucking real.
• 58:52
  Jesus. Like it was, I mean, RPGs were
• 58:55
  coming, rounds were hitting like I was like, holy shit, they saw
• 59:01
  me. They saw me.
• 59:03
  So we only had the one, the one medic on on the base, which was
• 59:10
  their Kennett's. I told him to go inside of post
• 59:15
  to I mean, I we're, we're the position was getting lit up so
• 59:18
  bad. I was worried that I was going
• 59:20
  to lose him in the fight. And.
• 59:21
  He's the only. Medic I had so I told him to go
• 59:24
  inside like flat on his belly inside post 2 living quarters
• 59:28
  and I said you do not bring your fucking ass out here until I
• 59:31
  call for you. I I had told him I was like you,
• 59:35
  you don't move dude. I was like you don't hear me say
• 59:37
  your name anything that comes through that fucking door kill
• 59:40
  it. Because at this point I realized
• 59:43
  how how far in they were, you know, this B Hut, I mean, it's a
• 59:48
  normal size B Hut. So you figure they're what, 12
• 59:51
  feet long roundabout. I had dudes on the backside of
• 59:55
  the fucking B Hut like me and them are, are fucking gunning it
• 59:59
  out back and forth like that's how close they had gotten.
• 1:00:05
  So I'm hammering, I'm firing from the right side, I'm pushing
• 1:00:08
  to the left side, I'm firing up the hill.
• 1:00:11
  The tenants is inside, you know, doing what I told him.
• 1:00:14
  He's laying down post who's yelling down.
• 1:00:16
  We need the medic, we need the medic and I'm yelling to him
• 1:00:19
  like a man. I I can't move.
• 1:00:22
  I can't fucking move. Like if you guys, you guys can
• 1:00:25
  give me some Press of fire, I'll get up there like I'm talking to
• 1:00:28
  him case what not. I'm engaging and I moved back.
• 1:00:34
  To. The right side of the B Hut to
• 1:00:36
  engage back down towards where the ASG and the the shitter was
• 1:00:41
  to engage back down that way I moved to the right side and you
• 1:00:46
  know, it's it's like in the movies, you know, and.
• 1:00:48
  Those of us who. Who are out there and have been
• 1:00:51
  in fucking some, some good, some good firefights.
• 1:00:54
  You know, not everybody has the ability like doing research and
• 1:00:58
  shit like that. You know, you come to find out
• 1:01:00
  it's like 1% of the population has the ability to slow time
• 1:01:03
  down, think through what is actually occurring, how it's
• 1:01:06
  occurring, how it's unfolding, be able to make their next
• 1:01:09
  decision and continue to grow and move forth.
• 1:01:12
  And so like that, right? Well, this time it was like out
• 1:01:16
  of a damn movie, man. I came out on the right side.
• 1:01:19
  I start engaging and I just see it big.
• 1:01:22
  Smoke. Smoke and fucking RPG coming
• 1:01:27
  straight at me, man. And I was just like, I'm
• 1:01:30
  shooting and I'm looking at it and I was like, OK, this is it.
• 1:01:33
  This is the one that's going to end at all.
• 1:01:35
  And I just turned my head and I kind of kind of crunched down a
• 1:01:40
  little bit and it hit that Rockwall, the boulder I was
• 1:01:43
  talking about. Behind me.
• 1:01:45
  It hit that and it threw me forward and when it threw me
• 1:01:49
  forward, I slammed into the concrete post onto the ground,
• 1:01:54
  the concrete pad that was there, and I don't know what I said or
• 1:01:57
  what I yelled out, but it caused their kennets to come out.
• 1:02:01
  Yeah, post too. And when he came out, he see me
• 1:02:06
  picking myself up, and he's like, son, are you good?
• 1:02:09
  Are you hit? And I was like, I'm fucking
• 1:02:10
  fine, I'm fine. Take the left corner.
• 1:02:12
  So I pushed him to that corner where I was bouncing back and
• 1:02:15
  forth trying to make him think that there was more than just me
• 1:02:17
  there fighting, Right. Yeah, it's crazy when I think
• 1:02:21
  about it, man, Like some of the shit I'm saying, and I was 21 at
• 1:02:25
  the time. Yeah.
• 1:02:26
  I holy shit. Fucking kid, sorry.
• 1:02:31
  That that just hit me right now for some ungodly reason, I.
• 1:02:34
  Apologize. No, because I've been thinking
• 1:02:37
  about the whole time you've been telling this story, man.
• 1:02:39
  Just young guys, just young kids. 2121 year old.
• 1:02:44
  He's 6 at the time. Yeah, crazy. 2122 somewhere
• 1:02:49
  around there anyways, so he pushed over on that left side
• 1:02:55
  and to be honest, like I think I think that they had finally
• 1:02:58
  figured out that I was coming out there and engaging because
• 1:03:02
  within a second-half a second of him posting up on that corner,
• 1:03:07
  me telling him to engage the high ground, he gets hit like as
• 1:03:11
  soon as he come. I don't even think he got the
• 1:03:13
  fire a fucking round off and he got hit right away.
• 1:03:17
  So I see him, I see him fall as I'm engaging on the right side.
• 1:03:21
  And I'm telling him I'm like, hey, dude, get up.
• 1:03:24
  I need you to get up, move over here to me.
• 1:03:25
  Tell me what's wrong with you. Like, talk to me, talk to me.
• 1:03:28
  What you got going? What you got going, Doc, you're
• 1:03:30
  the only medic. I need you to talk to me.
• 1:03:32
  What you got going, man? What's happening?
• 1:03:34
  And he's not saying shit. I'm sitting there and I'm still
• 1:03:37
  engaging, you know, And I'm kind of like looking over and like I
• 1:03:41
  was posted up on the right side of the building and he was over
• 1:03:45
  on the left side. So when he got hit, he slumped
• 1:03:49
  down. But on the left side of that
• 1:03:53
  building, it was also built like along the side of a terrace.
• 1:03:57
  So half that building had cover. You know what?
• 1:04:00
  I mean. So it was it was pretty, pretty
• 1:04:03
  set right there. So it it was just like I said,
• 1:04:07
  they had to be waiting for me to come back.
• 1:04:09
  And I think that bullet was had my fucking name on it.
• 1:04:11
  But anyway, he goes down, I'm talking to him, I'm engaging and
• 1:04:17
  he's he's he's not getting up. You know, I watch him try to get
• 1:04:20
  up like once, then he just slumps back over.
• 1:04:23
  So I'm like, Hey, dude, get up, you know, And when you're when
• 1:04:26
  you're a high speed young infantry dude and you're, you're
• 1:04:28
  in the shit, you, you say things to people that you know, later
• 1:04:32
  looking back on, you're like, damn man.
• 1:04:33
  If somebody would say that to me, it would have been, I'd have
• 1:04:35
  been feeling Sir. But you know, I'm yelling shit
• 1:04:38
  to him like a man, you know, don't, don't be a fucking pussy.
• 1:04:40
  Get your ass up like hey man you you only got hit in the
• 1:04:43
  shoulder. I saw where you got hit.
• 1:04:45
  Don't be a baby. Get your ass up.
• 1:04:47
  Don't make me leave you here. Dudes are depending on us.
• 1:04:50
  Like I'm saying anything I can to try to.
• 1:04:53
  What I think at the point in time is motivation.
• 1:04:56
  Yeah, yeah. You know, looking back now, it's
• 1:04:58
  like, motherfucker, I was hitting the lung like.
• 1:05:00
  Yeah. Well, I didn't know that at the
• 1:05:02
  time. Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  But you know, so I'm like saying these things to him, trying to
• 1:05:07
  get him moving, get him up and then and he's not, you know, he
• 1:05:11
  tries, he tries to get up one more time.
• 1:05:13
  And then that's where I see him spit the bright red out of his
• 1:05:16
  out of inside of his mouth. And I was like, oh, shit.
• 1:05:19
  Like it's it's he's got internal bleeding.
• 1:05:21
  It's bad. That's when it hit me.
• 1:05:23
  It was bad. Post 2 is yelling for me.
• 1:05:28
  A we need the medic. We need the medic.
• 1:05:31
  I finally yell up the post 2. I'm like a medics down, medics
• 1:05:35
  hit. It's like medics hit.
• 1:05:36
  We don't have a fucking medic. So I'm yelling to them that I
• 1:05:41
  got to get him moving. I'm like, hey, I got to, I got
• 1:05:43
  to move them down to the position I need cover and fire.
• 1:05:46
  I need, I need you guys to, to open up to lay down some
• 1:05:52
  scunion, if you would. Sean Longevan was actually on
• 1:05:59
  top of posts too, and he was a saw gunner and he's actually who
• 1:06:04
  I named my son after, same spelling and everything I name.
• 1:06:07
  I named my son after Sean Laundry.
• 1:06:10
  He's up a post too. And he's like, when I tell you
• 1:06:13
  to run, run. And I was like, all right.
• 1:06:16
  And by this point I'm out of hand grenades.
• 1:06:19
  I've shot all my ammo. I shot Alder Kennett's ammo.
• 1:06:22
  Like I'm, I'm literally just sitting there, you know,
• 1:06:25
  getting, getting rounds pelted all around me.
• 1:06:27
  I I have nothing left, so I have to go back, refit, try again,
• 1:06:32
  right. Laundryman tells me he's like
• 1:06:37
  hey man, and he's like hey Sarn, when I tell you to go, go.
• 1:06:41
  I had one hand grenade left. I pulled it off of the medic.
• 1:06:46
  I was able to drag him to me by his boot.
• 1:06:49
  I was able to pull him by his boot, get him to me while I then
• 1:06:52
  that's how I was using his ammo because I drug him over and then
• 1:06:55
  as I was empty and mags, I was taking his and then I had the
• 1:07:00
  last hand grenade and then Londrans like when I tell you to
• 1:07:03
  go go and he just kind of like went up on a knee a little bit
• 1:07:07
  and just opened up full drum, full drum of the thought man,
• 1:07:11
  like just just like, Oh my God, he had to do a barrel change
• 1:07:16
  after that, like it was. Fucking.
• 1:07:17
  Insane. I take my last frag.
• 1:07:19
  I throw it over to the top of the building.
• 1:07:22
  I grabbed their kennets by the back of his LC and I take off
• 1:07:27
  running back down the mountain. And I'll tell you like, I'm not,
• 1:07:33
  I'm not a super religious dude, nothing like that.
• 1:07:36
  I do believe in a God, you know, I'm, there's, there's, we all
• 1:07:40
  got here some way somehow. That's my thought process.
• 1:07:44
  And I do feel that at times there is something out there
• 1:07:48
  that may intervene to to assist us along the way, you know,
• 1:07:52
  because we all have a purpose at some point in time.
• 1:07:56
  And as I was pulling him down the mountainside, you know, in
• 1:07:59
  my mind, I'm already thinking like, fuck, I got to go the same
• 1:08:01
  way I came up here like this. This was not going to be fun.
• 1:08:06
  This is going to suck ass big time.
• 1:08:10
  But as I as I threw the hand grenade, Sean Laundryman opens
• 1:08:14
  up with the 249. I take off the run and I just
• 1:08:18
  see at a corner of my eye because like I said it's built
• 1:08:22
  on the side of a mountain corner of my eye.
• 1:08:24
  I see a perfect little ravine that leads right down and swings
• 1:08:29
  around right beside the damn mortar pit.
• 1:08:32
  I have never seen this pathway ever in my fucking life in the 5
• 1:08:36
  1/2 months I've been in the space and I just saw it and it
• 1:08:39
  was beautiful. So I grabbed him and I only had
• 1:08:42
  to move maybe 5 meters across complete open ground at this
• 1:08:46
  point. You know I'm like this is great.
• 1:08:49
  So I grabbed him and I take off running.
• 1:08:51
  Well, he was a little bit heavier than I thought.
• 1:08:54
  So you know, the snag comes like, oh shit, start seeing the
• 1:08:59
  rounds kicking up around my boots and whatnot again.
• 1:09:02
  And I was like, all right, here we go.
• 1:09:03
  Here we go, here we go. And I just everything I got and
• 1:09:06
  I shoot down my feet come out from under me and me and him end
• 1:09:09
  up sliding through this ravine all the way down to the bottom.
• 1:09:14
  We come, we slid right out, but right in between the mortar
• 1:09:17
  firing pit and post one, we ended up sliding right in
• 1:09:21
  between them. Like I was like, holy shit.
• 1:09:23
  Like I'm telling you, I've never seen this before in my life, but
• 1:09:26
  it was there, so I took it. I get over there, I'm checking
• 1:09:31
  them out. I see the entrant entry wound,
• 1:09:33
  you know, I start stripping them off.
• 1:09:35
  I see the entry wound. I see it's going to require a
• 1:09:38
  little bit more. And at this point in time, maybe
• 1:09:40
  it's the wrong call. Maybe it's the right call.
• 1:09:42
  I'm not sure. But I decided that he's going to
• 1:09:45
  require more, more medical need than I have time to give.
• 1:09:51
  So I called over Chavez. At that point in time I told
• 1:09:57
  Chavez come over because there was now there was 2 dudes at at
• 1:10:01
  a post, ones guard physician, all fighting.
• 1:10:04
  I needed one to come over. I got Chavez over.
• 1:10:07
  I told him exactly the wound that I seen, let him know I
• 1:10:10
  didn't see an exit wound, let him know where he got hit, what
• 1:10:13
  I've seen as far as the blood splatter, so forth like that.
• 1:10:16
  Told him I'm pretty sure he needs a needle decompression.
• 1:10:19
  I'm pretty sure he's got a lung collapse by the way he's
• 1:10:21
  breathing. I need him to take over.
• 1:10:23
  Do you have him? You got him.
• 1:10:25
  You got him. Are you sure you got him?
• 1:10:26
  You got him. All right, I'm getting back in
• 1:10:28
  the fight. And then I that was my brief and
• 1:10:30
  I jumped back into the gunfight and once I get back in there at
• 1:10:38
  some point, no, it didn't happen yet.
• 1:10:42
  OK, so we get back up to post to the mortifying pit and we're
• 1:10:50
  back in, you know, we're throwing hand grenades, gunfire
• 1:10:52
  erupting, all that back back at the same same shit happening
• 1:10:56
  again. I remember, man, I remember
• 1:10:59
  these the RPGs coming in and you can see them like you can see
• 1:11:04
  the trails The entire time you'd see it coming, you'd be engaging
• 1:11:07
  like all right, RPG down and we'd go down.
• 1:11:10
  It would skip right off the top of the the mortar firing pit.
• 1:11:14
  You'd be sitting there watching. It goes off into the distance,
• 1:11:17
  it pops all right. It was like a battle drill, man.
• 1:11:19
  You got back up and you started shooting again.
• 1:11:21
  It's like all right, RPG. You'd get down, watch it skip
• 1:11:24
  off, you'd come back out, watch it explode, get back up there
• 1:11:28
  and do it again. It was like fucking battle
• 1:11:29
  drill. But so all this is going on
• 1:11:33
  different points, different times.
• 1:11:37
  I don't remember exactly when it happened.
• 1:11:42
  At some point in time, Lieutenant Ferrara.
• 1:11:46
  I think it might have been after the first gun run, I think, not
• 1:11:51
  positive, But the A 10s came in, we finally got got, got got
• 1:11:57
  aircraft on station. I think we're like 3 hours into
• 1:12:00
  it now by this point, somewhere around there.
• 1:12:02
  I don't know exactly. Like I said, all the timeline's
• 1:12:04
  a little fuzzy, but we finally got got a, A 10s on station and
• 1:12:12
  Lieutenant Ferrara, you know, he asked what I thought and I told
• 1:12:15
  him, you know, he asked me where, where do we need them?
• 1:12:18
  I said, look, man, down the center was like do One North to
• 1:12:21
  South, one east to West, right down the center of the fucking
• 1:12:24
  base. He's like, we don't we don't own
• 1:12:26
  anything right now. I was like, we own the guard
• 1:12:28
  positions. Then he made the calls and next
• 1:12:33
  thing I know, like he told me he's like, all right, here it
• 1:12:36
  comes, it's coming. I remember you hear it and then
• 1:12:40
  you see it. And that was that was another
• 1:12:44
  moment where I was like, holy fuck, this is real.
• 1:12:48
  Because I see this a 10 coming in and I'm like, Oh my God, Oh
• 1:12:52
  my God, Oh my God. So literally turn over and I'm
• 1:12:58
  like curled up because I know that it's it's coming.
• 1:13:01
  You know, I know the Earth is about to open up and I just
• 1:13:06
  feel, I just start feeling shit pelting off the helmet like.
• 1:13:10
  Just. Boom, boom, boom, as you hear,
• 1:13:13
  as we like to call it, the finger of God.
• 1:13:15
  Go off. You know.
• 1:13:19
  The first one went north to South.
• 1:13:21
  I see, I see the talk. I was like, holy shit, they hit
• 1:13:25
  the talk. I couldn't believe it.
• 1:13:27
  I was like we, we just lost the talk.
• 1:13:30
  Next one coming through, I started seeing it hit.
• 1:13:33
  Started at the ASG position and worked its way to Post 2 down
• 1:13:36
  through the the pathway that was there, through the living
• 1:13:40
  quarters and all that. That second run went right
• 1:13:42
  through there. That's the one where I felt shit
• 1:13:45
  pelting off the helmet and we were getting ready and shit.
• 1:13:49
  And then at some point, I think it was after the talk got hit or
• 1:13:53
  during the gun runs, I'm not positive, but that's when
• 1:13:56
  Lieutenant Ferrara ended up up there where I was at the mortar
• 1:13:59
  firing point. And then he that, that's when he
• 1:14:03
  told me he's like, hey, we still haven't found Deloria.
• 1:14:07
  I know you tried to go to Post 2.
• 1:14:09
  I need you to go to Post 3. I need you to get up there.
• 1:14:13
  Yeah. In my mind, you know, because
• 1:14:16
  like I said, me and Matt became very, very close.
• 1:14:19
  In my mind, it was like, yeah, dude, OK, cool.
• 1:14:22
  Let me reload with ammo, let me reload grenades, all this that,
• 1:14:25
  you know, in my mind, that's the way it went.
• 1:14:27
  Later on talking to Matt, I think it was like around I think
• 1:14:34
  it was like October 2nd or third because it was when I lost a
• 1:14:37
  good friend of mine from the 80 Deuce.
• 1:14:39
  Yeah, it's Gray. It was same day I got that
• 1:14:41
  notification. I was sitting in blessing, but.
• 1:14:46
  Yeah. So he we were sitting there BS
• 1:14:50
  ING me and Matt on out on the LZI got I got the picture.
• 1:14:53
  His brother gave it to me. Matt had it on his computer.
• 1:14:56
  I have the picture somewhere. But anyways, we're standing on
• 1:14:59
  the LZ and we're just sitting there and we're bullshit.
• 1:15:01
  And you know, and he told me he's like he's like, do you
• 1:15:05
  remember your reaction when I told you to go look for Deloria?
• 1:15:08
  And I was like, no, Sir. I was like, I just remember
• 1:15:10
  being like, all right, let's do it.
• 1:15:13
  And he starts laughing, right? And I was like, that's not how
• 1:15:16
  it went, is it, Sir? And he's like, no, man, that's
• 1:15:19
  not how it went. I was like, OK, how did it go?
• 1:15:25
  And he's like, brother, when I looked at you, he's like, I knew
• 1:15:28
  you were the guy. I knew I had to send you.
• 1:15:31
  He's like, but when I looked at you and I told you, hey, hey,
• 1:15:34
  sorry, Phillips, I need you to go to Post 3.
• 1:15:37
  He's like the look on your face. He's like, it was twofold.
• 1:15:41
  One, he's like the look on your face was, are you fucking
• 1:15:45
  kidding me right now? Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  He's like, And then the second look on your face was like, are
• 1:15:52
  you really going to make me do this, Sir, please.
• 1:15:56
  So in my head though, that's not how it went down, you know, in
• 1:16:00
  my head it was like, all right, got you Sir, let's do this.
• 1:16:02
  But yeah, talking, having the pleasure of talking to him about
• 1:16:06
  it later on, you know, it's kind of kind of cool.
• 1:16:09
  But so he told me, you know, after it was definitely after
• 1:16:12
  the 2 gun runs. I do remember that.
• 1:16:15
  So we had the base that already been straight north to South,
• 1:16:17
  east to West. And he had told me he needed me
• 1:16:21
  to go up. And so I started grabbing dudes.
• 1:16:23
  Anybody who was around me, I grabbed like 4 dudes.
• 1:16:26
  I was like, hey, it was Baldwin Chavez, I think it was white and
• 1:16:32
  then the S Pop kid. So we always had communication
• 1:16:40
  issues with our SDN, our satellite node, always because
• 1:16:44
  of where we were sitting. We always had fucking problems.
• 1:16:49
  So it just so happened that we are original medic, which was
• 1:16:54
  Roque had been pushed out to blessing with a couple other
• 1:16:57
  dudes to get refit and Dirk Kennett's had just came in for a
• 1:17:03
  couple days. You know, the medic they just
• 1:17:05
  got lit up just came in for a couple days.
• 1:17:08
  The S Pop or the SDN kid came in with him to fix our our
• 1:17:14
  communications, you know, get up our our Internet and our phone
• 1:17:17
  so we could call home. The morale aspect just came in.
• 1:17:22
  Like. 2 days. All.
• 1:17:24
  These two guys got here 2 days before the shit went down, yeah.
• 1:17:27
  Nuts. So we get them all.
• 1:17:30
  I grabbed a couple dudes and I'm like, all right, here's what's
• 1:17:33
  going to happen. Same thing I did before.
• 1:17:34
  We're going to haul ass up to post 2.
• 1:17:36
  We're going to take a quick breather or post 2 living
• 1:17:39
  quarters and then we're going to haul ass up to post 2 and we're
• 1:17:41
  going to get in there and we're going to pull out the wounded.
• 1:17:45
  Everybody was like all right, cool, cool, got it, got it.
• 1:17:47
  So. There was still some.
• 1:17:50
  Shots, random pop shots being fired off here and there.
• 1:17:53
  It wasn't as heavy, but there was still rounds being engaged
• 1:17:56
  going off. We move up the post 2 living
• 1:17:59
  quarters catch good breath. I look at everybody.
• 1:18:01
  I'm like you good, you good, you good, you good.
• 1:18:03
  Everybody's like, Yep, good, good, good.
• 1:18:04
  Boom. I took off since I got the last
• 1:18:06
  good make it inside of post 2's fighting position.
• 1:18:10
  Their their actual guard post was pretty good size built out.
• 1:18:13
  We had a 240 there, a 249 was there.
• 1:18:16
  We was good position. All the dudes from three and two
• 1:18:20
  and converge there. So it was a good size.
• 1:18:21
  You know, 2 squats, 1 1/2 get in there and I'm like, all right,
• 1:18:27
  what's the easiest way from here?
• 1:18:30
  You know, cuz I got the dudes from post three there.
• 1:18:32
  What's the easiest way to get the post 3 from this position?
• 1:18:35
  And one of the dudes tells me ace aren't, you know, like right
• 1:18:38
  behind post 2. If you go right around the
• 1:18:41
  Rockwall, you're going to see a cut out a little ravine to come
• 1:18:45
  up. Once you come up on top of that
• 1:18:46
  ravine though, you're going to have about a 10m of open ground.
• 1:18:50
  You got a cover to get 2 post twos or post threes, guard
• 1:18:56
  position slash living position because they're living quarters
• 1:19:00
  was right underneath their guard, their guard quarters.
• 1:19:02
  It was the only one we had like that because of where it was
• 1:19:05
  built and where it was, you know.
• 1:19:07
  What I mean? So that way they could reinforce
• 1:19:09
  themselves quickly if needed based off of how it was set up.
• 1:19:13
  Anyways, so I started telling the dudes, I'm like, you ready?
• 1:19:17
  You ready? You ready?
• 1:19:18
  And then this high speed dude, Burton, the SSDN dude, he looks
• 1:19:23
  at me and he's like, son, I'm not cut out for this shit.
• 1:19:25
  This, this isn't what I do. This isn't what.
• 1:19:28
  I do, I'm not. Doing well you are now bud.
• 1:19:33
  I was like, OK, so I look at him and I was like, I'm like, Are
• 1:19:38
  you sure you can't do this? And he's like, son, I, I can't
• 1:19:41
  fucking do this. I was like.
• 1:19:42
  Cool. So I put him to the side.
• 1:19:45
  You know, I I'd already dealt with 1 shell shock dude.
• 1:19:48
  I didn't. I didn't want to take.
• 1:19:49
  Anybody. With me not knowing, knowing
• 1:19:51
  damn well I'm about to go take the high ground on a fucking
• 1:19:54
  post that we lost, you know what I mean?
• 1:19:56
  So I didn't want any maybes. Yeah, it was.
• 1:19:59
  I needed. I needed fucking pipe hitters.
• 1:20:01
  You know what? I mean.
• 1:20:03
  So I was like, all right, this is happening.
• 1:20:06
  So I think it was the Langevin, Baldwin, Chavez, a couple dudes.
• 1:20:12
  I think I ended up with like 5 or 6 guys that that was the fire
• 1:20:17
  team size element that I went up there to take post with.
• 1:20:20
  We went up the ravine, we popped up the side, you know, there was
• 1:20:24
  nothing. It was, it was nice and quiet
• 1:20:26
  for a bit. You'd still heard shots being
• 1:20:28
  fired around, but we didn't see anything where where we were
• 1:20:31
  where we came up on post 3. So I get the 249 up.
• 1:20:36
  I'm like, hey man, you cover, you cover us so we can move into
• 1:20:40
  the post, post threes living quarters and get up on top of
• 1:20:44
  post 3 and see if we can find Deloria, You know, see where
• 1:20:47
  he's at Because we still, we haven't heard nothing from him.
• 1:20:50
  We don't know where he's at. We don't know shit about him.
• 1:20:54
  So the saw comes up, he's covering the ground.
• 1:20:59
  We make way around the backside. This point in time, I have an M4
• 1:21:04
  again. I had reloaded the pistol.
• 1:21:07
  I'm coming up to back to post 3. I see the the ladder there.
• 1:21:11
  You see somebody sitting on top of post 3 as we're making our
• 1:21:14
  way up. I'd already set into position.
• 1:21:16
  Basically my my Overwatch is already set in with the 249.
• 1:21:21
  So I got a three man position there.
• 1:21:23
  And then two to three of us are making our maneuver up to hit
• 1:21:26
  the, the guard post and living quarters to see what's remaining
• 1:21:30
  up there. As we're making our approach,
• 1:21:35
  you could see somebody's up on top.
• 1:21:37
  You don't you can't see what it is.
• 1:21:39
  Deloria is a a Filipino, so he love him to death.
• 1:21:47
  But when you're covered in mud, blood and sweat and everything
• 1:21:50
  else, you kind of look like one of the other guys over there in
• 1:21:54
  that position as well. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:21:56
  Like, so I like got my gun trained on him.
• 1:21:59
  You know, dudes are asking me do I shoot?
• 1:22:01
  Do I shoot? And I'm like, don't shoot.
• 1:22:02
  I can't tell. You know, we don't know who it
• 1:22:04
  is. It might be him.
• 1:22:07
  So then we start making approach and I'm like, all right, so I
• 1:22:10
  was like, I'll be the guy to go up.
• 1:22:11
  This dude clacks himself off. Fuck it.
• 1:22:13
  It's going to be me. It's not going to be somebody
• 1:22:15
  else. I'll be the guy to go up.
• 1:22:17
  So I start approaching the ladder.
• 1:22:19
  At the same time, I tell the other dude, I think it was
• 1:22:22
  Baldwin, Baldwin and White maybe.
• 1:22:26
  I tell those two, I was like, you clear the building, you
• 1:22:28
  clear the bunker underneath. I'm going to come up on top,
• 1:22:32
  transition from my M4 to my pistol.
• 1:22:34
  I come up this ladder and I come up over the top of the ladder,
• 1:22:37
  boom. And it's PSC Deloria.
• 1:22:40
  And he just smiles. Like.
• 1:22:43
  This big shit eating grin man. For anybody who knows him, that
• 1:22:47
  is like his signature. He's always smiling like this
• 1:22:50
  kid. He always made me happy when I
• 1:22:53
  seen him because he always fucking smiles.
• 1:22:56
  He's great. I I still talk to him sometimes
• 1:22:58
  to this day. It's a great dude, but he told
• 1:23:02
  me he's like, Sergeant, I'm happy to see you.
• 1:23:04
  And I said motherfucker, not as happy as I am to.
• 1:23:06
  See you. Yeah, I'll remember that, you
• 1:23:08
  know, and so then as I'm I'm sitting there with him and I'm
• 1:23:12
  checking him out, I'm telling the guys, hey, advance up, lock
• 1:23:15
  down this position, make sure I got a saw on the front of the
• 1:23:18
  guard post, get the 240 back up, check the mark 19 where, you
• 1:23:22
  know, getting everything repositioned while I'm checking
• 1:23:24
  him out. And he's he's fucking dude's
• 1:23:27
  blown out of his shoes. He's he's bleeding all over his
• 1:23:30
  back, his legs, like he's been, he's been lit up pretty good.
• 1:23:35
  So I helped get him down the ladder.
• 1:23:37
  You know, security set positions in this point in time.
• 1:23:40
  I hear Blackhawks arriving. So I'm like, cool, you know,
• 1:23:42
  more people are showing up. Things, things are kind of dying
• 1:23:46
  out. Thank God, you know, it's a good
• 1:23:48
  day. It's a good day.
• 1:23:51
  So I get him to the bottom of the ladder and I was like, all
• 1:23:54
  right, dude, I'm going to carry you down, bro.
• 1:23:56
  I was like, come here. I'm going to pop you over my
• 1:23:57
  shoulder, you know, because like I said, you ain't got no shoes
• 1:24:00
  on. Like on the side of a mountain.
• 1:24:03
  The ground's uneven. There's spurs everywhere,
• 1:24:05
  there's rocks everywhere, you know, and.
• 1:24:09
  Deloria. Looks me dead in my face.
• 1:24:12
  And he tells me he's like, Sergeant, if it's OK with you,
• 1:24:16
  I'd like to walk. And I told him I looked at him.
• 1:24:19
  Oh, dude chokes me up whenever I think about it.
• 1:24:21
  It was a fucking proud ass moment, you know what I mean?
• 1:24:23
  Yeah, I look him dead in his face.
• 1:24:26
  And I said, son, if you want to walk in a motherfucker on this
• 1:24:28
  mountain going to stop you from walking, let's walk.
• 1:24:31
  And I walked him. I walked him down.
• 1:24:34
  I walked him down to the LZ. Then when I got down there,
• 1:24:41
  people were coming in, you know, let's see.
• 1:24:46
  See, we had already established CCP.
• 1:24:48
  Like I said, there's there's little things that I recall, I
• 1:24:51
  don't remember, like when exactly they all went off
• 1:24:55
  Baldwin that I would love to. I should have, I should have
• 1:24:59
  reached out to him, try to get him on, but I'd like to get him
• 1:25:02
  on, to get him to tell the story from the way things were
• 1:25:05
  unfolding at the mortar firing. Point.
• 1:25:07
  Yeah. Interesting.
• 1:25:08
  He he talks about it best man. Like at that mortar firing
• 1:25:10
  point, he's like, dude, he starts talking about how he
• 1:25:14
  started dropping those rounds when I took off.
• 1:25:16
  He's like, yeah, when you took off all everything just started
• 1:25:18
  shooting at you. So I was able to get the tube
• 1:25:20
  up. He's.
• 1:25:21
  Like I just remember aiming the tube straight up dropping
• 1:25:25
  rounds, watching it go and say oh fuck.
• 1:25:28
  Yeah. I can let.
• 1:25:30
  Him tell that perspective is is pretty pretty gnarly.
• 1:25:34
  So was this young kid I'm in the tower?
• 1:25:36
  Was he just fighting the whole time?
• 1:25:37
  Like just by himself? The tower collapsed on top of
• 1:25:40
  him. Oh, it did.
• 1:25:41
  Oh shit, yeah. So they had hit him, they had
• 1:25:44
  hit him with so much over. He was the one on guard.
• 1:25:47
  He was up there on the Mark 19 at the time.
• 1:25:49
  When it kicked off, they they had hit him with so much
• 1:25:54
  overwhelming fire that the guard post itself had just collapsed
• 1:25:58
  on top of. They took out all four beams and
• 1:26:01
  it just collapsed on top of them.
• 1:26:03
  Holy crap. Yeah, so he was trapped
• 1:26:05
  underneath and throughout time, like talking to him, you know
• 1:26:09
  now like you know that that that kid, that kid dealt with a lot
• 1:26:15
  him Brian Ryan went with his stuff from whatnot.
• 1:26:17
  But you know, when you hear, when you hear this kid talking
• 1:26:20
  to you, telling you about how he could hear them talking around
• 1:26:24
  him and he could hear them going in the building that he lived in
• 1:26:27
  underneath of and walk shuffling around searching for shit.
• 1:26:30
  Like, yeah, it puts a it puts a, a different perspective in, in
• 1:26:35
  my head of like what we actually did and what we walked away
• 1:26:39
  from. You know what?
• 1:26:40
  I mean. Yeah, man, it was, it was crazy.
• 1:26:46
  It was crazy. Yeah.
• 1:26:51
  That's that's kind of the ranch, the ranch house unfolding.
• 1:26:57
  So you're looking at. Part.
• 1:26:58
  Go ahead. You're looking at what, 20/20/20
• 1:27:01
  Some paratroopers against? What's the total you think?
• 1:27:05
  So it was estimated there's there's different reports,
• 1:27:09
  anything from 100 to 260 to 80. Like I can, I can say based off
• 1:27:15
  the video, because there is the video, there's the video.
• 1:27:18
  They were able to recover a a camera that has right Omar had
• 1:27:24
  on him and they got some footage and a propaganda video that came
• 1:27:28
  out after the fact of them. They did it was it was a full on
• 1:27:31
  attack. They they ran the attack the way
• 1:27:33
  we would have. There was an OP order given like
• 1:27:36
  you see them giving an op order. It's a solid layout of the base
• 1:27:40
  that we were on. Like it was, it was insane.
• 1:27:46
  It was insane. You see the whole infill like
• 1:27:48
  them filming from the original village that they're moving
• 1:27:51
  through as they're coming all the way through the mountain
• 1:27:54
  passes. They're recording it, playing
• 1:27:56
  their music. You see the, the post up in the
• 1:27:59
  massive cave the night before the, the, the attack, which that
• 1:28:04
  position that they're posted up at.
• 1:28:06
  I have photos in that position, you know, from one of our
• 1:28:08
  patrols that we did. And like, we had searched it out
• 1:28:11
  and like, hey, you know, if we ever come back through here,
• 1:28:13
  this is a fighting position. We had marked it.
• 1:28:16
  So it was, it was, it was kind of disturbing to go back and
• 1:28:19
  watch all that. And it was also like it was the
• 1:28:24
  first time, even with all the all the different gunfights I've
• 1:28:28
  been in and everything like that, my time in the 82nd, all
• 1:28:32
  the training and everything, all the stories you hear, like I
• 1:28:35
  was, I was a big Vietnam style dude.
• 1:28:37
  So I've read a lot of Vietnam books, you know, growing up and
• 1:28:40
  stuff in my teenage years and as a as a young NCO, like that was
• 1:28:44
  my fascination, you know, like, oh, what would I have done was
• 1:28:47
  always my thought process, you know, like, you know, those are
• 1:28:50
  moments to define people. What would I have done?
• 1:28:52
  What, what would my what would my reaction be?
• 1:28:55
  You know, So it's always that that younger, that younger Eric
• 1:28:58
  Phillips questioning things. But yeah, it was, it's crazy.
• 1:29:05
  It's crazy. Looking back, but.
• 1:29:09
  So my my part that I like so I'm going to jump forward to post
• 1:29:16
  deployment real quick. Yeah, OK.
• 1:29:18
  So, so we all know that I was awarded the Distinguished
• 1:29:21
  Service Cross for, for the actions at Ranch House, right?
• 1:29:27
  So as you guys heard me talk about before, I'm kind of, I
• 1:29:30
  was, I was the Gray guy beforehand, wasn't super squared
• 1:29:35
  away. I wasn't the NCO you sent to the
• 1:29:37
  boards and shit like that. I was the NCO.
• 1:29:39
  If you had a discipline issue, you brought him in a square way,
• 1:29:42
  a squad, a platoon, whatever case is, I was, I was kind of
• 1:29:45
  that guy, you know, So I wasn't super spun up knowledge wise on
• 1:29:51
  what awards or what and all this shit, you know.
• 1:29:56
  So one random day we were post deployment, we're on leave.
• 1:30:01
  I'm sitting in a hotel and I'm checking my AKO for whatever
• 1:30:07
  reason. And there's an e-mail in there
• 1:30:10
  and it says that it's from human resources command or some shit
• 1:30:16
  like that. And I'm like, wait, what the
• 1:30:17
  fuck? And it's from this chick
• 1:30:21
  civilian, not even not even signed with a rank or anything,
• 1:30:24
  straight civilian. And it says, hey, I have an
• 1:30:27
  award here for you. I need an address to mail it to.
• 1:30:32
  Wow, I'm like. I'm like, OK, you know?
• 1:30:35
  Sure. So I I figured like it was Apcs
• 1:30:38
  or you know, it always takes that shit forever to catch up to
• 1:30:40
  you, your R coms, all your shit. You know, they never they never
• 1:30:43
  make it to you. You just it doesn't happen.
• 1:30:47
  You end up getting a photo of it from somewhere and making your
• 1:30:50
  own copy and all that. Not that we would ever do that
• 1:30:53
  right, but. No, not at all.
• 1:30:56
  So I I reply to the e-mail, I give her my APO.
• 1:31:00
  I was like, hey, you know, this is this is my address back in
• 1:31:02
  Vicenza, Italy. Yeah, go ahead and send it here.
• 1:31:05
  And then, you know, as a side note, I reply and I'm like, if
• 1:31:09
  you don't mind me asking, like, what is this award?
• 1:31:13
  You know, I don't hear nothing for a couple days.
• 1:31:15
  I don't hear nothing for a couple days.
• 1:31:18
  Still doing my my post 15 month euro trip.
• 1:31:22
  And then my buddy who's the Jag guy who was going with me.
• 1:31:26
  There's actually Stefan and De Leon who are with me.
• 1:31:28
  So Simmons and. De Leon.
• 1:31:31
  The three of us were doing this, this euro trip, right?
• 1:31:34
  I was going through a divorce, De Leon was going through a
• 1:31:38
  divorce, Stefan was getting out. So we were doing a 10 day euro
• 1:31:41
  trip and we were burning it down.
• 1:31:45
  There was a lot of things that we had to relieve as far as
• 1:31:49
  stress and pressures. Yep.
• 1:31:52
  So finally, yeah, finally I get this e-mail back.
• 1:31:57
  And I told the dudes I was like, guys, you're not going to
• 1:32:02
  believe this. And they're like, well, what's
• 1:32:03
  up, man? And I was like, so I got a reply
• 1:32:07
  back. I never even told them that I
• 1:32:09
  had the e-mail in the 1st place. So I started telling them the
• 1:32:11
  story. I'm like, hey, man, like this is
• 1:32:13
  crazy, right? Just hear me out.
• 1:32:16
  So I was like, I got the initial e-mail.
• 1:32:18
  I replied to it, said, hey, here's my APO.
• 1:32:21
  And then I had asked the question with the rebuttal.
• 1:32:23
  Hey, by the way, what is this? You know, and she tells me in
• 1:32:28
  the e-mail and I ended up calling the boys.
• 1:32:30
  I was like, you got to come read this and, like, make sure my my
• 1:32:32
  eyes are right. And in the reply to her e-mail,
• 1:32:36
  she said, oh, yeah, well, you're being, you were awarded the
• 1:32:40
  Distinguished Service Cross. Congratulations.
• 1:32:42
  I already sent it off. It's in the mail.
• 1:32:44
  Wow. I was like, OK, thank you.
• 1:32:49
  I send it back. All right, So we're all still on
• 1:32:53
  leave, you know, and that was kind of the end of it for me,
• 1:32:55
  right? We're all still on leave.
• 1:32:57
  We have a good time. Fast forward again, it ended up
• 1:33:01
  showing up, my APO and me being me.
• 1:33:03
  I don't, I don't think nothing of it.
• 1:33:05
  I just throw it in the back of my beater car and I'm at the
• 1:33:08
  gym. One day I was getting out of my
• 1:33:11
  car and going into the gym and my battalion commander, Colonel
• 1:33:15
  Oslin, was coming out of the gym.
• 1:33:16
  We're still on leave. And I walked past him.
• 1:33:19
  I was like, oh, good morning, Sir.
• 1:33:20
  And he's like, hey, good morning, Sir.
• 1:33:21
  Phillips and I kept walking and I was like, you know, maybe I
• 1:33:24
  should ask him about this. Yeah, I was like, hey, Sir.
• 1:33:28
  Yeah, so I'm like, hey, Sir, can I can I bother you for a second?
• 1:33:32
  And he's like, yeah, what you got, Sir?
• 1:33:33
  Phillips, he was always real approachable.
• 1:33:35
  Great dude. You know I love Wild Bill Osler.
• 1:33:38
  Man. I fucking do.
• 1:33:40
  I do. I really, really do.
• 1:33:42
  Anyways, But so I was like, hey, Sir, you know, I got this award
• 1:33:47
  that was mailed to me. I didn't know.
• 1:33:50
  I know like we normally do like award presentations, but I
• 1:33:53
  didn't, I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it.
• 1:33:55
  If we, I was like, but I have this, I wanted to present it to
• 1:33:59
  you. So that way you, you can do
• 1:34:01
  something whether if you want or, or if not, it's cool.
• 1:34:04
  I'm not worried about it. And he's like, OK, what, what
• 1:34:06
  did they send you? What do you got?
• 1:34:09
  I told him I was like, Oh well, I got to just sing with Service
• 1:34:11
  Cross in my car. His eyes that damn big.
• 1:34:17
  Like. You could he was shocked.
• 1:34:20
  Like I, I still remember the look on his face, the
• 1:34:23
  visualization of the fuck did you just say, you know, and, you
• 1:34:30
  know, calm and collective, you know, like he's just like, he's
• 1:34:34
  like, yeah, Sir Phillips, why don't you go ahead and give that
• 1:34:36
  to me and I'll make some phone calls and, and we'll, we'll get
• 1:34:40
  this taken care of properly, you know, and I was like, OK, Sir.
• 1:34:43
  Yeah, no problem. So he walks with me over to my
• 1:34:45
  car and he tells the story so much better than I do, but he
• 1:34:49
  walks with me over to my car. You know, I open the car and
• 1:34:51
  it's a 2 seater of BMW 318I. Open up the car, flip the seat
• 1:34:56
  forward. I'm like tossing shit.
• 1:34:58
  Everywhere. I pull it out and, you know, I
• 1:35:02
  got the, the green binder and then the the little damn, the
• 1:35:07
  ward case. Yeah, the award case and the
• 1:35:10
  green, the green binder. It comes in, you know, and I
• 1:35:14
  hand it to him and he's just looking at me like you really
• 1:35:16
  just had this buried. In your.
• 1:35:18
  Fucking. Car.
• 1:35:21
  So hearing him tell it is always way better because he he puts
• 1:35:25
  the emphasis of how his thoughts were going like this
• 1:35:28
  motherfucker really do this. It's just buried in the back.
• 1:35:32
  But like I said, like I didn't really realize what it was the
• 1:35:37
  the weight that was behind. Like I had no idea.
• 1:35:40
  Yeah, no idea man. I was never a dude, Chase.
• 1:35:43
  Promotion. I was never a dude who, Yeah,
• 1:35:46
  you know, I just, I did my job and I, I, I love doing.
• 1:35:50
  My job. So, you know, that was that was
• 1:35:52
  just me. So I end up giving it to him.
• 1:35:56
  That's so army though man. Yeah.
• 1:35:58
  Dude, it's, it's hilarious. So that's, that's how that's how
• 1:36:05
  Ranch House ended up unfolding and how I had received the the
• 1:36:09
  PSC. Oh dude.
• 1:36:13
  So I so I got to ask before we we move past the ranch house.
• 1:36:16
  I don't know if you got anything else for it, but like like that?
• 1:36:21
  That's what, 4 hours worth of fighting?
• 1:36:26
  Yeah, it's it's estimated and it was anywhere between 3:00 and
• 1:36:31
  4:00 hours when the when the A 10S came on station and then
• 1:36:36
  total time between 6:00 and 8:00 hours before the tick was closed
• 1:36:40
  out because of all the shots that were still going off and
• 1:36:43
  people who were being pursued and shit.
• 1:36:45
  Not to make light of it, but, you know, that's my personality.
• 1:36:48
  So a good day's work, right? You put it in a solid 6 to 8
• 1:36:51
  hours. Yeah, I.
• 1:36:53
  Slept like a baby that night too.
• 1:36:54
  Yeah, right. But but on that point, like, how
• 1:36:59
  do you like what, what is going on mentally with everybody after
• 1:37:04
  this, right? You, you, you finally.
• 1:37:06
  Yeah, like can, can you walk us through that So.
• 1:37:09
  The outcome, right, the outcome man All right, that's actually a
• 1:37:15
  solid question, Sir. That's a really good question.
• 1:37:18
  I was pondering on this yesterday.
• 1:37:20
  I was pondering on this yesterday because this is
• 1:37:22
  something that I I wanted to capture and I think I wrote a
• 1:37:25
  side note on it. Let me just grab this real
• 1:37:29
  quick. I don't can't believe I missed
• 1:37:31
  that. OK, so there was there was a
• 1:37:34
  couple different mindsets going on, right?
• 1:37:36
  We had gotten information sent up to us from the village
• 1:37:39
  saying, hey, some of the guys that you guys fought, they're
• 1:37:42
  treating themselves down at the school.
• 1:37:44
  So the Lt. Lieutenant Ferrara, he wanted to
• 1:37:48
  pursue. We want to go get them.
• 1:37:51
  We want to go get them. The way I was viewing it at this
• 1:37:56
  point in time, we took 11 out of 22 casualties.
• 1:37:59
  Yeah. Yes, we had 22, UH, 60s that
• 1:38:04
  came in. We got plus back up.
• 1:38:06
  We're probably sitting around 30 dudes on this small ass base.
• 1:38:09
  There was housing 22. So now we're really doubled up.
• 1:38:14
  And then the second portion of it was like I said, this wasn't
• 1:38:18
  my first rodeo, you know, So I, I talked to Matt, Lieutenant
• 1:38:23
  Ferrara and I told him I was like, look, Sir, I'm going to be
• 1:38:26
  1000% honest with you. I was like, you want to chase
• 1:38:29
  him? I'll fucking chase him.
• 1:38:31
  I don't care. I was like, I'm just as pissed
• 1:38:33
  off as you are. I was like, but in this given
• 1:38:36
  situation, due to the amount of casualties in which we've taken,
• 1:38:39
  due to the information that's being fed to us, due to the fact
• 1:38:43
  that the size of element in which we got hit by and the
• 1:38:46
  village did not warn us prior to.
• 1:38:49
  I'm going to advise against us moving down into the village to
• 1:38:53
  the schoolhouse to chase these guys who just hit us from 360°.
• 1:38:57
  Yeah, I was like. Air, Air's.
• 1:39:00
  Not dependable. We can't call it back.
• 1:39:02
  I mean, we, we just medevacked 11 dudes off this fucking base.
• 1:39:06
  So I advised against it. And one thing I loved about Matt
• 1:39:09
  Ferrara is he would listen. One of the reasons we got so
• 1:39:16
  close on that, on that 4 1/2, five months at Ranch House is.
• 1:39:25
  I don't I. I'm not one to talk bad about
• 1:39:29
  people I love. I love all my brothers and
• 1:39:31
  sisters, but some stand out more than others, You know what I
• 1:39:35
  mean? And some have certain
• 1:39:37
  reputations over others. At to my core, to my heart, I
• 1:39:43
  was always an 11B. Even though I had been put as a
• 1:39:48
  Chuck in the beginning, I was always 11B.
• 1:39:50
  That's why I went to the scout team for three years.
• 1:39:52
  And so when other people were whining about going on patrols
• 1:39:57
  or throwing bitch fits about it, Matt would come to me and he'd
• 1:40:00
  be like, hey, Phil, That's what they used to call me as Phil.
• 1:40:03
  He's like, hey, Phil, you want to go on patrol with me?
• 1:40:05
  And I was always, Yep, let's do it, Sir, I got your back.
• 1:40:07
  Let's roll, let's roll, let's roll.
• 1:40:09
  So me and him build up some pretty good relationships as far
• 1:40:14
  as that went. And so he he took a lot from
• 1:40:17
  things that I would say to him. So when I advised him not to.
• 1:40:23
  Pursue He looked me dead in my face.
• 1:40:27
  I could tell 1000% he wanted to and and that I had my feelings
• 1:40:33
  that we were going to I was about 80% positive he was going
• 1:40:36
  to say, yeah, all right, gotcha. But this is what we're doing
• 1:40:39
  because he's done that to me before.
• 1:40:42
  And I ran with it. You know what I mean?
• 1:40:43
  Like, hey, at the end of the day, you're the boss.
• 1:40:45
  If it ain't going to cost lives and I can't prove it's going to
• 1:40:48
  cost lives, it ain't dangerous. And we're going to execute, you
• 1:40:50
  know, But yeah, so I, I, I had talked him out of it.
• 1:40:56
  So there was that side, right? Like there was people pissed off
• 1:40:59
  that wanted, wanted to get the, the revenge aspect.
• 1:41:04
  There were the younger guys who had never so much as had a
• 1:41:07
  bullet fired at them. They just had their base over
• 1:41:10
  ran who were having issues right now kind of letting that sink
• 1:41:14
  in. You know, there were some of the
• 1:41:17
  younger dudes who was helping, helping treat casualties, who
• 1:41:21
  saw their NCO fucking wigging out, who took around and I had
• 1:41:25
  to put an E on his chest and tell him, hey, shut the fuck up.
• 1:41:28
  You're a goddamn role model and you're scaring the fuck out of
• 1:41:30
  these kids. Let him give you his IV and
• 1:41:32
  you'll be OK. You know, there was, there was
• 1:41:35
  just different points, all kinds of different things that
• 1:41:38
  unfolded at different points in time.
• 1:41:40
  And then for me to be honest, like I don't think, I don't
• 1:41:46
  think I ever truly accepted or processed what I actually went
• 1:41:54
  through at that point in time until many, many, many, many,
• 1:41:59
  many years later. Like one of the things that, you
• 1:42:04
  know, like we were talking about the funny moments and shit like
• 1:42:07
  that, that it occurred. There was two other moments,
• 1:42:09
  both of them with Baldwin. Baldwin was my clown man.
• 1:42:12
  But when Matt told me to to make my way up the post too, when I,
• 1:42:22
  when I was like, all right, all right, this is what I'm doing.
• 1:42:24
  I, I took a knee and I took my helmet off and I set it down
• 1:42:27
  beside me. You know, I'm getting ready.
• 1:42:28
  There's still a gunfight going on.
• 1:42:29
  I'm getting ready to run up the side of a fucking I'm charging a
• 1:42:31
  mountain, let's call it what it is.
• 1:42:33
  Getting ready to charge a mountain.
• 1:42:34
  I'm taking my helmet off, sitting beside me, laying my gun
• 1:42:37
  on top of it, leaning back. Pull a can of Copenhagen out of
• 1:42:40
  my pocket and I start packing it.
• 1:42:42
  Hell yeah. And Matt's like, Matt's like,
• 1:42:47
  or, or, you know, he kind of like stuttered through it.
• 1:42:49
  He's like, are you about to put a dip in?
• 1:42:51
  I was like Sarah, this might be my last dip and I'm going to
• 1:42:53
  fucking enjoy it before I go up. And he's like, OK, OK.
• 1:42:57
  You know, so there was that moment which I did.
• 1:42:59
  I ended up doing the same thing again and whatnot.
• 1:43:01
  So it ended up being like a trend I guess.
• 1:43:03
  With me, I did the same shit when I.
• 1:43:06
  Was your ritual that was your ritual?
• 1:43:07
  Yeah, it. Became a ritual, I guess, but
• 1:43:11
  and then the other piece was for whatever reason, and it was
• 1:43:15
  before the the water balloons shit, whatever reason why we
• 1:43:20
  were while we were up there at the mortar pit and we were
• 1:43:22
  getting our gun on. I remember Jason asking me, he's
• 1:43:25
  like, hey, son field, do you know what day it is?
• 1:43:27
  I just remember looking at him and I'm like, dude, it doesn't
• 1:43:31
  matter what fucking day it is, but it's a good fucking day to
• 1:43:33
  die, you know? And it was, I don't know why,
• 1:43:38
  but it just kind of like flowed out and then back to getting the
• 1:43:42
  gun on, you know, it's just. Like.
• 1:43:44
  Little shit like that, but so like there was moments that we
• 1:43:48
  were laughing about and then there was a moments of revenge
• 1:43:51
  and there was some of licking the wounds, trying to process
• 1:43:54
  what was going on. And then second platoon had come
• 1:43:58
  in as a part of that QRF and, and those guys, you know, them
• 1:44:02
  talking to us, seeing how things are going and shit and having
• 1:44:08
  having right, not Ryan zones and not zones.
• 1:44:14
  God. Dude, what can I remember these
• 1:44:16
  dudes names man he was the OPS dude for a while hilarious guy
• 1:44:22
  Oh God, trying to think of his name.
• 1:44:27
  I can picture him, but I, I just can't they anyways, they were
• 1:44:31
  doing like an episode of cribs ranch house style.
• 1:44:34
  And there's videos of, you know, like wearing APT belt, making
• 1:44:38
  sure that you're safe in the wilderness and like, and they
• 1:44:41
  were making us laugh and we were having a good time.
• 1:44:44
  And then we shut, we shut it down October 2nd or 3rd.
• 1:44:48
  We we shut it down and burned it to the ground.
• 1:44:50
  And that was probably one of the most happiest days of my life
• 1:44:53
  watching that bitch burn to the ground.
• 1:44:54
  I was happy. It was like they are getting
• 1:44:57
  nothing out of this. Eric, how did how did you triage
• 1:45:00
  that many casualties, man, like with a medic that was down like
• 1:45:03
  how did you guys figure that out?
• 1:45:05
  Like how did I know that the other the other two probably
• 1:45:07
  brought in a medic, right? Or was?
• 1:45:09
  Yeah, they did. They, they brought in, they
• 1:45:11
  brought in the, the basically the whole aid station from Camp
• 1:45:15
  Blessing. Came out shit and.
• 1:45:17
  They when that initial QRF came in, because what I found out
• 1:45:22
  later is Matt was phenomenal on the radio.
• 1:45:25
  Like he was calm collective. He ended up getting a silver
• 1:45:28
  star for, for ranch house for controlling things, the way he
• 1:45:33
  controlled maintaining compose. He earned it 1000%.
• 1:45:37
  Like, hey, man, you know, straight up like he earned it.
• 1:45:41
  He, he, he did his thing and he, he executed the best, best he
• 1:45:47
  could with what he had on the ground.
• 1:45:48
  It was awesome. So I mean, I, I get a little, I
• 1:45:52
  get a little messed up when I talk about Matt.
• 1:45:55
  It's still one of those things I I find a hard time dealing with.
• 1:45:58
  Like, I really fucking liked him.
• 1:46:01
  What were we? Yeah.
• 1:46:05
  So we, we were talking about like just the, the how, how do
• 1:46:10
  you reset? So you know, a day, two days
• 1:46:15
  later, right. We, we haven't, we, the
• 1:46:17
  battalion, the brigade, we haven't made the decision at
• 1:46:20
  this point that, hey, we're, we're going to, we're going to
• 1:46:24
  shut down the ranch house, right.
• 1:46:27
  So, so how do you reset mentally?
• 1:46:30
  Because you've got soldiers that, that is the first time
• 1:46:34
  that they have ever been shot at in anger and somebody has tried
• 1:46:38
  to kill them. They've seen Ncos go down,
• 1:46:41
  they've seen their buddies go down.
• 1:46:45
  Like I, I, I know I've seen it. Jerry's seen it, but but you
• 1:46:48
  know, not to that scale, quite frankly, like, yeah, what what
• 1:46:53
  are you telling guys? Or, or is it the is it the tough
• 1:46:57
  love of hey, just shut the fuck up, let's go.
• 1:47:01
  You're just. So let's.
• 1:47:04
  Be honest, it, it was a mixture. It was a mixture based off of
• 1:47:07
  the dudes that I had on the ground, right?
• 1:47:09
  Because when you're with people four or five months and you've
• 1:47:14
  gotten to know, you've gotten to know them very well, right?
• 1:47:17
  So you know who, who needs tough love?
• 1:47:19
  You know, who needs a softer approach, stuff like that.
• 1:47:23
  Because some of the issues that we had was we, we as in
• 1:47:28
  Lieutenant Ferrara Zwick and myself, we had made the the
• 1:47:32
  decision to rotate certain dudes back because second tune was
• 1:47:36
  there on the ground now, right? So it's like, hey, certain dudes
• 1:47:39
  we got to get out of here. You can kind of see the right
• 1:47:43
  known, excuse me, the writing on the wall with some guys, you
• 1:47:47
  know what I mean? Like signs are there and you're
• 1:47:48
  like, OK, if I get him taken care of now, he's going to be
• 1:47:50
  fine. If I let it fester, it's going
• 1:47:53
  to be bad. We're never good about that shit
• 1:47:55
  with ourselves. But he can see it with your
• 1:47:58
  guys. So most of the dudes had rotated
• 1:48:03
  out. So it was mainly second platoon
• 1:48:06
  dudes there. My mortar guys were there, me
• 1:48:10
  and Matt were there. So a lot of it was just talking,
• 1:48:15
  talking to the guys who came back who had like, what's what's
• 1:48:26
  the term guilt, guilty remorse or.
• 1:48:31
  Survivor's guilt. Yeah, survivor's guilt, you
• 1:48:34
  know, because we had, like I said, we had just rotated dudes
• 1:48:38
  to camp Blessing. And during that rotation time
• 1:48:42
  frame was when we got hit. So you had 10 and you had Roque,
• 1:48:50
  which was the medic who who felt like chicks.
• 1:48:52
  He's like, that was my platoon. And so a lot of it was when I
• 1:48:56
  when I did pair up with these guys and talking to him, a lot
• 1:48:59
  of it was having the conversation of Amen.
• 1:49:05
  One thing that's the bright side is that we didn't lose anybody
• 1:49:09
  that day by, by the grace of God, some fucking insane
• 1:49:14
  miracle, like 11 dudes wounded, some pretty severe, but we
• 1:49:18
  didn't lose anybody that day. We were, we were very fortunate.
• 1:49:22
  We, we fucking fought our asses off and we were able to keep
• 1:49:24
  everybody. So I, I would remind them of
• 1:49:30
  that and I'm like, you know, and I would tell them, you know, I'm
• 1:49:33
  like, hey, man, this is, this is my 4th deployment, bro.
• 1:49:36
  I was like, that is the closest I'd, I'd ever come.
• 1:49:39
  I was like, I'll, I'll be honest with you guys.
• 1:49:40
  At that point in time, I fucking accepted death.
• 1:49:43
  I was like, yeah, this is, this is the motherfucker knocking on
• 1:49:45
  my door. And he's come to Take Me Home,
• 1:49:48
  you know, like I had and I was, I was, I was like, this is done,
• 1:49:51
  you know, And so explaining that to them and letting them know,
• 1:49:56
  like maybe there's, there's a whole reason and a purpose that
• 1:49:59
  you weren't here and maybe you weren't supposed to be here, you
• 1:50:02
  know, so I would, I would work that over and trying to, I mean,
• 1:50:06
  we, we were real big into the PSPTSD shit back then.
• 1:50:09
  And, you know, and, but I, I cared about my dudes and I, I
• 1:50:14
  knew that. I mean, I come from a busted
• 1:50:16
  childhood, you know what I mean? So I knew that positive
• 1:50:19
  reinforcement and having them speak about certain things would
• 1:50:23
  help them wasn't going to make it better.
• 1:50:25
  There is no making it better. You know, it's learning to cope
• 1:50:28
  and deal. But I knew that saying, saying
• 1:50:31
  certain things would assist them.
• 1:50:33
  And so that's the route I went. And then with the guys who were
• 1:50:36
  there, I reminded them, like, again, hey, man, nobody died
• 1:50:40
  because of the way you guys fought.
• 1:50:43
  Like, you did exactly what you're supposed to do, what
• 1:50:45
  you're fucking trained to do. The enemy came knocking at your
• 1:50:48
  door and told you, hey, get the fuck out.
• 1:50:51
  And you said, hey, suck a nut, this is my home.
• 1:50:54
  And you said, you know, our way back, you know, fuck you.
• 1:50:57
  Like I would capitalize on that aspect with those guys and.
• 1:51:02
  That that's that's. Kind of how how I.
• 1:51:06
  I kept kept. People motivated and kept kept
• 1:51:09
  them going. Because of the because of the
• 1:51:12
  end of the day. Yeah, I know you're about to get
• 1:51:15
  to it here in a minute, but and you already kind of mentioned
• 1:51:17
  it, you know the day you're only four and a half, five months
• 1:51:21
  deep to. A 15 month deployment.
• 1:51:24
  You still got 10 months left and a whole nother fighting season.
• 1:51:30
  Yeah, yeah. So you, they, we we finally make
• 1:51:33
  the decision. I remember I was up on brigade
• 1:51:36
  staff getting ready to come down to, to Dustin Company when we
• 1:51:42
  got the word through. I think it was CJTF 82 at the
• 1:51:48
  time. I think 82 was still in charge.
• 1:51:51
  OK, let's let's get him out of ranch house.
• 1:51:54
  And so we we move you out of ranch house and you end up
• 1:51:57
  where? So at that point ranch house got
• 1:52:01
  shut down so I ended up staging out of blessing for a bit.
• 1:52:10
  I had a two man mortar crew out at COP Michigan at that point in
• 1:52:15
  time. Yeah, that's where my boys were.
• 1:52:18
  Yeah, Yep, Yep, yeah. With Kemp.
• 1:52:21
  Kemp and the Lt. starts with an O No Tate Tatum, Tatum, Tatum,
• 1:52:29
  Tatum, Tatum. Cool dudes, man.
• 1:52:31
  Love them both. Great, phenomenal guys.
• 1:52:36
  So I ended up out at Blessing and I had two dudes forward at
• 1:52:40
  COP Michigan and I was at Blessing for a bit and Blessing
• 1:52:45
  was making me crazy, man. It was where the battalion
• 1:52:47
  headquarters was. It was where the company
• 1:52:49
  headquarters was. It was like, for for a guy like
• 1:52:54
  me who does not tote a line and and shit like that, like it's,
• 1:52:59
  you know, I'm getting yelled at for wearing certain shit to the
• 1:53:01
  gym and oh, sorry Phillips, you need a haircut and not like, Oh
• 1:53:05
  my God, dude. And I'm like, this is not me.
• 1:53:09
  All my deployments, I had never been.
• 1:53:13
  I was always on the move. Yeah, You know, like, yes, this
• 1:53:16
  is my 4th rotation, but we were always going.
• 1:53:20
  So like there was nowhere that was like really a home, I guess
• 1:53:23
  you would say. I can't say that when we when we
• 1:53:25
  did my first Iraq deployment, we were stuck out of al-Assad for a
• 1:53:29
  bit, but we were busy. So at the same time it was
• 1:53:32
  different, you know, so sitting out at blessing, I mean, I was
• 1:53:36
  losing my damn mind. Like it was not.
• 1:53:41
  I mean, great gym. I loved working out.
• 1:53:43
  Like good that was. That was phenomenal.
• 1:53:45
  I probably got 2 workouts in a day.
• 1:53:47
  It was great. Then I finally convinced.
• 1:53:52
  I convinced Captain Meyer to let me go to Cop Michigan.
• 1:53:57
  Best decision ever. Get me away from the damn
• 1:54:00
  flagpole it. Was.
• 1:54:01
  Awesome. So I get pushed out to cop
• 1:54:05
  Michigan and there there wasn't a whole bunch that happened
• 1:54:08
  there. There was like two or three
• 1:54:10
  nights, some ticks went off, but nothing crazy, you know?
• 1:54:14
  And there was always this talk about doing 1 not building a
• 1:54:18
  base and one not building a base and one not building a base and
• 1:54:20
  one not. We've been hearing this shit for
• 1:54:22
  the last year. Nothing has happened, you know.
• 1:54:25
  Like. Oh, we.
• 1:54:26
  Found the place and this that and the other and it's going to
• 1:54:28
  go and it's not going to go for a fucking year.
• 1:54:32
  On and off, on and off, on and off.
• 1:54:34
  It was like whatever. So I had talked with Captain
• 1:54:37
  Meyer and I'd outlined the plan that because at this point, my
• 1:54:42
  mortar section, there was six of us.
• 1:54:44
  It was Stanowski, Gilmore, Abad, Jesse, Quick.
• 1:54:53
  Me. I don't know, I guess there was
• 1:54:57
  five of us. Unless I'm missing somebody.
• 1:54:59
  I hope I'm not missing anybody. I'm not being one shitty leader.
• 1:55:02
  TDI is a bitch guys. Yeah.
• 1:55:05
  DTE is real. Yeah, he's real.
• 1:55:09
  So anyways, Jesse Quick, Stanoski and Abad we're supposed
• 1:55:16
  to go to Will not and stand that up, right?
• 1:55:21
  He was going to run the 1:20. I was going to stay out at FOB
• 1:55:23
  Michigan. I had already promoted him E5D6
• 1:55:27
  he was in lock qualified. He was competent squared away.
• 1:55:30
  Dude. I love Jesse Quick squared away
• 1:55:32
  fucking. I still contact him and ask him
• 1:55:35
  for advice on things like dudes super smart, great guy, love him
• 1:55:40
  to death. So I had told Captain Meyer I
• 1:55:42
  was like Jesse, Jesse's going to go out there.
• 1:55:45
  He's going to run the show. I have full confidence.
• 1:55:47
  I told, I even told him I was like, I'll be honest with you,
• 1:55:48
  Sir, he's a better 11C than I am.
• 1:55:51
  Like I was like, he's the guy you want.
• 1:55:55
  You want a mortar man, he is your guy.
• 1:55:57
  It is. Not me.
• 1:55:58
  You know, I was like, I'm a, I'm a damn war fighter.
• 1:56:00
  That's that's all I do. But so it it, it ended up coming
• 1:56:08
  down and then sure shit, the plan was set in stone.
• 1:56:12
  Everything was good to go the night before.
• 1:56:15
  All the planning is happening. Everything's going it's good,
• 1:56:18
  It's good. Like I'm double tapping Jesse,
• 1:56:21
  you know, I'm talking to him on the radio.
• 1:56:23
  All this, all these weeks leading up to it, making sure
• 1:56:25
  that he's thinking about this, thinking about that.
• 1:56:27
  And, you know, let him know the the different things, putting
• 1:56:31
  both of our heads together and let him know a train analysis
• 1:56:34
  from time I did go out there, all that shit.
• 1:56:37
  And then I'm in bed night before everything kicks out 24 hours
• 1:56:42
  prior. Real quick in bed.
• 1:56:44
  At Michigan. Real quick, so paint the
• 1:56:48
  timeline for me, right for our for our listeners.
• 1:56:51
  So you and I know this is July of of of. 2000.
• 1:56:56
  Eight sorry the CT is real so I can so again you you have now
• 1:57:06
  ranch house happens in August 2000 years yeah almost the year
• 1:57:13
  so in the battalion you know that's a whole different story A
• 1:57:17
  lot of shit's going on in the battalion some some other major
• 1:57:21
  firefights quite frankly for chosen company that.
• 1:57:25
  In the same area has ironic. Too Exactly.
• 1:57:29
  And so the we are, and I know over in Destin Company at this
• 1:57:34
  point, it's not every day, but you know, I got guys in the, in
• 1:57:42
  the Chow Cay which is connected, yeah, which is connected to the
• 1:57:47
  corngal. And oh, by the way, that's used
• 1:57:50
  to be primarily third platoon chosen company, but I'm rotating
• 1:57:54
  platoons through there because I can't keep just one platoon
• 1:57:57
  there the whole time. I mean, we, we're getting enemy
• 1:58:01
  contact at least probing daily and it's, it's over, yes, over a
• 1:58:08
  year. And this is, this is across the
• 1:58:10
  entire battalion's footprint to include Michigan Battle Company
• 1:58:15
  and the Corngal Able Company all along the Petro River Valley,
• 1:58:19
  which is where Michigan is. And, and we're still trying to
• 1:58:23
  figure out how do we secure all the lines of communication.
• 1:58:28
  So that is one of the reasons why, and correct me if I'm
• 1:58:31
  wrong, Eric, that is one of the reasons why we're trying.
• 1:58:34
  We keep looking at the way goal, right?
• 1:58:36
  Because we're trying to extend the, the, the lines of
• 1:58:39
  communication. We're trying to protect the Pesh
• 1:58:43
  River Valley because we've spent all this money putting in this
• 1:58:46
  nice paved road to try to protect ourselves from IE D's
• 1:58:52
  and all that stuff. And to be able to to get to Cop
• 1:58:54
  Blessing or Bob Blessing out there where the battalion
• 1:58:59
  headquarters is and so. You.
• 1:59:01
  You. You're a battle hardened
• 1:59:05
  motherfucker at this point, right?
• 1:59:06
  You you've seen it now for an entire year and and Jesse and
• 1:59:12
  Stanowski, great fuckers, by the way, I I love those guys have I
• 1:59:17
  mean, they've they've been through the shit.
• 1:59:19
  They are battle tested, they are hardened and and they know
• 1:59:23
  what's going on. So the night before all of this
• 1:59:27
  unfolds, please. Yeah, so it's, I want to say
• 1:59:32
  it's around July 8th, July 9th, I'm out at Cop Michigan.
• 1:59:36
  I'm in bed. When I say I'm in bed, I
• 1:59:39
  literally mean I'm in bed. I'm in my Ranger panties.
• 1:59:43
  I have my little small DVD player sitting on my chest, no
• 1:59:47
  T-shirt, and I'm watching the DVD to fall asleep.
• 1:59:50
  You know. Then all of a sudden the radio
• 1:59:54
  goes off the the little Motorola and it was like, hey, Pocket
• 1:59:58
  Rocket 96, you're needed up here at the top.
• 2:00:01
  What the hell? God bless, man.
• 2:00:03
  Are we getting hit again? Like there's movement,
• 2:00:05
  something, something's happening, right?
• 2:00:07
  Yeah. What was your?
• 2:00:08
  What was your call sign again? I called that too.
• 2:00:10
  That was a good one. I like pocket rocket.
• 2:00:13
  Oh yeah. Yep.
• 2:00:15
  Sure was. So we all right, I got to get, I
• 2:00:19
  got to bring it in all right. So prior to deployment, part of
• 2:00:22
  deployment previously it was just chosen 96, right?
• 2:00:26
  Chosen 9, Chosen 9 being the physio, 96 being the mortar
• 2:00:31
  sections aren't 95 being, you know, the squad.
• 2:00:34
  Leader. So forth.
• 2:00:36
  But Battle Company had already had a history and already had a
• 2:00:40
  call sign and their call sign was money shot and it was the
• 2:00:44
  62, you know, like they had, they had earned it.
• 2:00:47
  They had earned it the previous year in and the O seven O 6
• 2:00:51
  deployment because their mortar team was always spot on like
• 2:00:55
  they were. They were glorious.
• 2:00:57
  They called a money. Shot right.
• 2:01:00
  Well, battalion kept hitting us up.
• 2:01:02
  This is the build up going to Afghanistan kept hitting us up
• 2:01:05
  and like, what's what's your call sign?
• 2:01:06
  What's your call sign? What's your call sign?
• 2:01:08
  So finally I pulled the boys together and I was like look
• 2:01:10
  man, I was like we can stick with the chosen.
• 2:01:15
  Or because you guys envy Battle Company so much, I will allow
• 2:01:19
  you guys to come up with your own call sign.
• 2:01:21
  Yeah. It's like, I'll let you do it,
• 2:01:23
  man. I was like, I'll fall in on.
• 2:01:25
  It's going to be team effort. You guys come up with call sign.
• 2:01:28
  So in great infantry and paratrooper tradition, Dirty
• 2:01:36
  Boys, Dirty Mike and the Boys came up with Pocket Rocket.
• 2:01:41
  You know, because it's a 60 tube, it's small, so it's the
• 2:01:44
  pocket. Rocket, Yeah.
• 2:01:49
  So that's what we ended up sticking with.
• 2:01:50
  And at first they, I'll tell you man, Battalion tried fighting
• 2:01:53
  that shit hard at first. Like they were like, no, this
• 2:01:55
  ain't going to work. It ain't going to be it.
• 2:01:57
  No, no, no, no. I kept pushing back, kept
• 2:01:59
  pushing it to the side. Lo and behold, we got it.
• 2:02:03
  And now it is forever gone down and history has a call sign.
• 2:02:08
  Nobody can take that away, man. And I love that.
• 2:02:11
  I love that pocket Rocket 96. Forever there.
• 2:02:17
  You go. All right, so I get the call and
• 2:02:20
  it was like, hey, you know, you're, you're wanted up at the
• 2:02:23
  talk. I think it was Kemp who was who
• 2:02:25
  was sitting in the talk and who had called me at the time.
• 2:02:29
  And you know how he is. He's like all wiry.
• 2:02:30
  He's like, hey, yeah, real man. They're on the radio for you.
• 2:02:33
  It's chosen, Chosen 6 months. I was like, all right, dude,
• 2:02:36
  calm down. Buddy, calm down.
• 2:02:39
  Let me let me answer this. So I get on the rain, I get on
• 2:02:42
  the horn and I was like, hey, chose 6 is pocket rocket 96
• 2:02:46
  under traffic. And that's what he tells me.
• 2:02:49
  He's like, hey, I've made the decision that I want you to pack
• 2:02:55
  up you and here 2 mortar men pack up from there.
• 2:02:59
  I'm taking you guys whip me to why not?
• 2:03:03
  And I was like, wait, what? You guys, you guys are like
• 2:03:06
  leaving tomorrow night. And he's like, yeah, he's like,
• 2:03:09
  pack your shit. You're going.
• 2:03:11
  And you know, I sat there and I I was on the radio.
• 2:03:13
  I was like, Sir, we've built this plan out for the last, you
• 2:03:16
  know, 4 weeks that the manifest is set.
• 2:03:20
  There's no reason, all the analysis we don't, there's no
• 2:03:23
  reason to collapse all the mortars and take them all out
• 2:03:27
  and set them up into what not. I was like, we're we're pulling
• 2:03:30
  all of our firepower. We're going to leave, you know,
• 2:03:33
  Michigan, Michigan hanging out. But towards the end of this
• 2:03:37
  deployment, like a lot of it had kind of died down some as far as
• 2:03:41
  COP Michigan and Fortress. They weren't taking as much
• 2:03:46
  lickings even out in the corn gall.
• 2:03:48
  It had kind of died back a little bit, you know, So for
• 2:03:53
  whatever reason, the, the decision was made like, hey,
• 2:03:55
  you're going out there. It's like, all right, fuck
• 2:03:57
  whatever. It is what it is.
• 2:03:58
  Got it, boss. We'll pack up.
• 2:04:02
  So then, you know, we, we pack up and Destin, Destin had heard
• 2:04:07
  the calls on the radio. So they put together the convoy
• 2:04:10
  and everything. So then I'm pissed off that now
• 2:04:13
  we have to put dudes on on the line to drive us all the way to
• 2:04:16
  Camp Blessing just to drop us off so that we could take off on
• 2:04:20
  this other mission that we weren't supposed to be on in the
• 2:04:22
  1st place, You know? So I, I got a little resentment
• 2:04:24
  going on right there. You know, I'm already pissed off
• 2:04:27
  at the world over it. So lo and behold, you know what
• 2:04:32
  happens goes without a hitch. Next night we spend the next day
• 2:04:37
  prepping and mission brief after mission brief and making sure
• 2:04:40
  everything's straight PCI's and PCC's and doing everything that
• 2:04:45
  we're supposed to do before we punch out.
• 2:04:47
  Get some sleep in. You know, there was different
• 2:04:50
  talks of different shit, but nothing was concrete.
• 2:04:53
  It was same thing like, oh man, they're waiting for you guys to
• 2:04:55
  get out there. So after we had shut down
• 2:04:58
  Aranis, right? Cuz you had Camp Blessing and
• 2:05:02
  then pushing into Weigel. Yeah, Camp Blessing.
• 2:05:06
  Why not Bella Aranis? And then you got further north
• 2:05:11
  up it to where 191 was COP Keating.
• 2:05:13
  That was the name of it. Cop Keating.
• 2:05:16
  Further north, right, So we had shut down Iranis, then we shut
• 2:05:20
  down Bella and now we're at Blessing.
• 2:05:24
  So they wanted to go. We had given up everything
• 2:05:26
  between Blessing and COP Keating, everything in between.
• 2:05:30
  There was now no man's land. They wanted to go back in there
• 2:05:34
  until what not and re establish A foothold, which would was to
• 2:05:37
  provide that the lines of communication that Chris was
• 2:05:40
  talking about to close in that gap between the north and the
• 2:05:43
  South. So that was that was the game
• 2:05:48
  plan, right? Cool.
• 2:05:51
  So we go in there, we set up, come in overnight.
• 2:05:54
  And I remember as we were driving in like looking out the
• 2:05:56
  Humvee windows and I was like, Oh my God, if this fucking
• 2:06:00
  driver slides one inch to the left, I'm gone.
• 2:06:04
  We're going to be tumbling down the side of this mountain
• 2:06:07
  because I had never driven out there before.
• 2:06:10
  I had always, we did 1 foot patrol I think it was.
• 2:06:14
  And I'd I'd flown by it a couple times, but I'd never driven out
• 2:06:17
  there. Yeah, that was.
• 2:06:20
  Some asshole. Puckering, let me tell you,
• 2:06:22
  looking out that window, I was like, all right, so we get out
• 2:06:27
  there, we set up the VPB at night, we get everything
• 2:06:30
  somewhat situated and then the sun comes up and we're at stand
• 2:06:35
  to. And then you know that that
• 2:06:38
  morning twilight starts creeping in and I just remember looking
• 2:06:43
  around, looking around, looking around 360 fucking degrees of
• 2:06:50
  mountain ranges. Above us.
• 2:06:53
  And not like at a distance to where it's like, oh, cool, you
• 2:06:57
  got to walk a click and there's a mountain range right there.
• 2:07:00
  No, I'm talking a couple 100 meters and there's a mountain
• 2:07:03
  range. Couple 100 meters, there's a
• 2:07:04
  mountain range. There's the river that flows
• 2:07:06
  through the center of the Wygo Valley police stations on the
• 2:07:11
  other side of a massive hillside, hill or ridgeline.
• 2:07:17
  I'm sorry, Spur, that we were going to establish the OP on
• 2:07:22
  like it was. It was just, it was a shit show.
• 2:07:26
  So real quick, because I, I know you're, you're about to get knee
• 2:07:29
  deep in the story and I don't want to interrupt you there.
• 2:07:33
  So a lot of people I know that I've talked to have always had
• 2:07:37
  this question and some of our listeners may as well.
• 2:07:41
  It's like you, you don't have to be patent.
• 2:07:47
  You don't have to be Robert E Lee or or name your or son Zhu.
• 2:07:51
  I know where you're going. To to figure out that this is
• 2:07:54
  not the the location that you pick as defensible training.
• 2:08:01
  And I'll I'll tell everybody my rebuttal always is from from my
• 2:08:05
  perspective over in Destin company.
• 2:08:09
  OK, great. So what what do you want as the
• 2:08:12
  tactical leader? You always want the high ground.
• 2:08:15
  Well, guess what? That that is high ground.
• 2:08:18
  It, it, it, it almost never stops, right?
• 2:08:22
  And so you find one piece of high ground and then you realize
• 2:08:25
  once you get there, there's still more high ground further
• 2:08:29
  back. And the further back you go,
• 2:08:31
  when you finally get to the tippy top of the fucking highest
• 2:08:34
  piece of ground, you're so far removed from anything and
• 2:08:39
  everything that you actually need to do that you're
• 2:08:43
  pointless. It is absolutely pointless.
• 2:08:46
  So as leaders and and as soldiers on the ground, we're
• 2:08:50
  put in this awkward position, this indefensible position of
• 2:08:56
  OK, we have to be near the, the piece of terrain that we
• 2:09:00
  actually want to own. We have to be near the village
• 2:09:04
  that we're trying to get to help us or that we're trying to help.
• 2:09:09
  And you end up in these these awkward places, these positions
• 2:09:14
  that that suck like Chalky, one of the worst positions out
• 2:09:21
  there. But again, it's either all the
• 2:09:23
  way down in the bottom of the valley where all the people are.
• 2:09:25
  And then much like you're talking about with Wiggle,
• 2:09:28
  you're just surrounded 360 by high ground, or you keep kind of
• 2:09:32
  moving up and moving up and moving up.
• 2:09:33
  And you end up in in quite frankly, the no man's land of,
• 2:09:37
  OK, this is this is as good as it's going to get in order to be
• 2:09:41
  able to meet the mission. And so, yeah, all of these
• 2:09:45
  places that we're talking about Blessing a little bit better.
• 2:09:49
  You did have some open terrain there, but at least 180°, it was
• 2:09:54
  right next to the base of the mountains, right.
• 2:09:58
  And that's a battalion. You're talking about a battalion
• 2:10:01
  size FOB. It it's it was a no win
• 2:10:04
  situation is I guess what I'm trying to get at. 100% And like
• 2:10:10
  looking back, you know, because we can always quarterback shit,
• 2:10:14
  right? That's what we do.
• 2:10:15
  We, we take and we, we take the situations that we've been in
• 2:10:20
  and we analyze them, tear them apart, RIP them 1000 different
• 2:10:23
  ways and then put it back together and see like we would
• 2:10:26
  have done the same thing, same outcome, so forth, right?
• 2:10:29
  Like this. That's what we do.
• 2:10:31
  Looking back, to be 1000% honest, like, I don't think
• 2:10:36
  there was really anywhere else that it could have been put the
• 2:10:39
  thought process behind where it was being established, given
• 2:10:43
  what we knew and and shit like that.
• 2:10:45
  Like, I won't take it from anybody, man.
• 2:10:47
  They were working with the best that we were given.
• 2:10:49
  Bottom line like that. That's that's just a fact.
• 2:10:54
  Yeah, it was, it was just shitty.
• 2:10:59
  All right, so day off, right? The meat and potatoes.
• 2:11:06
  OK, so morning of when all the shit kicked off, we had just
• 2:11:14
  gotten up. We were at stand to like the
• 2:11:18
  whole base we're all at stand to all lessons learned, everything
• 2:11:22
  like that. Everything has been applied.
• 2:11:23
  We've been doing this shit for 15 months now.
• 2:11:26
  We got it. You know what I mean.
• 2:11:29
  I after ranch house, I thought I understood what what this
• 2:11:33
  deployment can take from us. And when I told me that I didn't
• 2:11:37
  know Jack shit, right. So sitting there, man, I wish I
• 2:11:45
  would have thought this through more because I would have had
• 2:11:48
  like diagrams. I could have drawn and pointed
• 2:11:50
  the shit. Yeah.
• 2:11:53
  So real quick, like when I was kind of established in a a
• 2:11:59
  circular formation, right. All right.
• 2:12:02
  So on that circular formation, the town, the town of when I
• 2:12:07
  kind of was 180 portion of it, all right, and we were in an
• 2:12:13
  open field which provided us an LZ and so forth.
• 2:12:17
  You had a hotel and A and a bizarre section that was in
• 2:12:20
  there as well. And then going up the mountains,
• 2:12:23
  up the terraces, you had a couple bond days, but they were
• 2:12:26
  abandoned, you know, like we had, we had checked them out and
• 2:12:28
  so forth. So like I said, we infilled in
• 2:12:31
  the night of the 9th. So now it's the morning of the
• 2:12:34
  10th, right? The morning of the 10th.
• 2:12:39
  So we're looking at what we got and we're like, all right, whoa,
• 2:12:41
  now we got a now we got to build a fucking firebase.
• 2:12:45
  Let's let's do this. So my focus, of course, is the
• 2:12:50
  mortar firing pit. I have a 60 and a 120 with me.
• 2:12:54
  So we walk the perimeter mean quick, we look at some different
• 2:12:59
  things, some different areas and we figure out where we're going
• 2:13:03
  to establish this mortar, mortar firing pit, right, the 120 pit.
• 2:13:11
  So based off of what we had found and identified, we
• 2:13:17
  selected the best location for it, or at least what we thought
• 2:13:22
  was the best location. And it was across from the
• 2:13:28
  command truck and across from one of the gun trucks.
• 2:13:38
  I'm doing this real quick to kind of provide a better idea.
• 2:13:47
  Ask Bizarre. OK, this is kind of so little
• 2:13:55
  breakdown. So this was the mortar firing
• 2:13:57
  pit. This is the ball.
• 2:13:59
  Bizarre Aronis, or I'm sorry we're not, was all the way
• 2:14:02
  around us. This is where the command truck
• 2:14:05
  was. And this was where Sonic
• 2:14:07
  Benton's gun truck was set up the O PS over here on the other
• 2:14:11
  side of the bazaar. We have another gun truck that's
• 2:14:14
  set up over here. And then your tow, one of your
• 2:14:17
  tow trucks from Destin Company was set up up here to block this
• 2:14:21
  main Ave. of approach. That's kind of like a a little
• 2:14:25
  rundown to give you guys a general idea and for the
• 2:14:28
  listeners to get a better idea of what that looked like.
• 2:14:33
  And then as I hit certain points, I'll bring it back up
• 2:14:36
  and point it out. All right, so I was at the
• 2:14:40
  mortar pit. We were at stand to we were at
• 2:14:44
  stand to Abad was actually going to be flying out that day.
• 2:14:49
  He was going home early. He had he had gotten gotten some
• 2:14:58
  gotten his girl that he was dating at the time pregnant and
• 2:15:01
  we went through hell and high water to a system to try to get
• 2:15:05
  married while in Afghanistan. This that and the other so that
• 2:15:08
  way she could have medical coverage and everything she
• 2:15:10
  needed for the baby while he was on this 15 month deployment.
• 2:15:15
  So when it came time to give up names for guys that I wanted to
• 2:15:19
  rotate out on the first lift, well, I wanted him to go home
• 2:15:22
  and be with his new wife and it's soon to be baby right.
• 2:15:26
  So he was my number one guy to go.
• 2:15:32
  Yeah, he was my number one guy to go out.
• 2:15:35
  So we're standing there. We're in the mortar pit.
• 2:15:38
  I remember I'm standing because we had Hesco's, 2L's built on
• 2:15:46
  the front of my mortar pit and then the back wall.
• 2:15:50
  They were full of Hesco's. So we had, I think they were 5
• 2:15:56
  footers that were the front and the side walls, the main entry
• 2:16:01
  and then my back one was one of the 10 footers.
• 2:16:05
  And so we we did have a Bobcat that was there.
• 2:16:10
  We did have an engineer team that was dropped off as well
• 2:16:13
  that helped us. So they were using the Bobcat to
• 2:16:16
  fill the Hesco's as much as they could.
• 2:16:18
  We ended up running the, so the squiggly line was the
• 2:16:22
  Constantino wire. We ended up running around the
• 2:16:24
  perimeter. It was triple strand is what we
• 2:16:26
  ended up running around the gun, the gun trucks and the mortar
• 2:16:30
  firing point and so forth. Up at the OP.
• 2:16:34
  They built the OP, they dug it in, filled sandbags, the whole
• 2:16:37
  shebang. All right, so now it's 13 July,
• 2:16:44
  we're up, we're standing there. I remember standing at the
• 2:16:49
  entrance entryway, a bod was standing beside me smoking a
• 2:16:53
  cigarette. I think it was a Chavez next to
• 2:16:56
  him, Gilmore and Jesse where we're inside the the mortar pit
• 2:17:06
  and his WIC had just walked up. He had taken over Second Platoon
• 2:17:10
  because Second Platoon lost their platoon back in January
• 2:17:15
  due to a, the Ana guy ended up ended up killing.
• 2:17:26
  So Zwick, who I was working with again is is the platoon star and
• 2:17:32
  the second platoon now. So last firefight ranch house
• 2:17:36
  was with first platoon by the way.
• 2:17:38
  Now because I'm mortar section start right, I end up working
• 2:17:40
  with all these now I'm with second platoon.
• 2:17:43
  So ranch house was with first platoon, the 9N ambush was first
• 2:17:48
  platoon and then 13 July was second so and then 26th January
• 2:17:55
  was when they lost their platoon son.
• 2:17:59
  So. We're sitting there and standing
• 2:18:01
  there and, you know, typical stuff.
• 2:18:03
  I got my, my arms on my IBA, my kit and I'm holding my plates
• 2:18:06
  and I'm standing there and I'm talking to the boys and I'm
• 2:18:09
  giving a bot a bunch of shit. You know, you turd, you're going
• 2:18:12
  home. The rest of us are going to sit
• 2:18:13
  out here and, and suck turds and yadda, yadda, yadda, you know,
• 2:18:16
  just basic infantry shit talk and whatnot.
• 2:18:20
  Some calls start coming across the radio that hey, they've
• 2:18:23
  identified some movement up at a bond day because like I said, it
• 2:18:26
  was we're, we're at stand to. So, you know, everybody's up on
• 2:18:31
  guard. People are doing their piece,
• 2:18:34
  you know, I'm prepping my dues because we're the mortifying
• 2:18:38
  point. I got a dude standing by the the
• 2:18:41
  LHNBC and then I got a dude standing by on the gun.
• 2:18:44
  The rest of us are ready to hang rounds, you know, like there's
• 2:18:47
  not a big peace force tune start walked in because he was doing
• 2:18:52
  his rounds, checking on everybody make sure they're
• 2:18:54
  doing the right thing. So he just walks up as the calls
• 2:18:57
  are coming across the radio that they've identified what appears
• 2:19:01
  to be 4 to 5 military age males with backpacks and weapons on
• 2:19:09
  the north Ridge inside the Bonde.
• 2:19:12
  Like that's very specific, like. Oh.
• 2:19:15
  Shit, all right, So I turned to my gunner and I was like hey
• 2:19:19
  man, go ahead shift the tube lay in on that target cuz I had it
• 2:19:22
  laid in as a target already. I was like late lay in on that
• 2:19:25
  building. That's that's target such and
• 2:19:27
  such. I had to lay in on it, Captain,
• 2:19:31
  Captain Myers was like, hey, you know, just laying on it.
• 2:19:35
  Don't fire anything. Going to reposition the tow
• 2:19:38
  truck because we, we are getting PID on the personnel and the
• 2:19:42
  weapons. Let's, let's hit it with a
• 2:19:43
  single shot. It's like, all right, cool.
• 2:19:46
  So we stood down tow trucks repositioning everything.
• 2:19:51
  You know, we're still at the entryway.
• 2:19:53
  Tow trucks repositioning. And then, like in a fucking
• 2:19:59
  moment's notice, all hell broke loose.
• 2:20:01
  Like it was, holy fuck, man. It was like, like legitimately,
• 2:20:11
  I can't fuck. I can't describe it.
• 2:20:14
  Like. It was just all hell erupting
• 2:20:18
  again. Initial bursts, or what I recall
• 2:20:21
  is the initial burst coming through went right down the
• 2:20:24
  center of the mortar pit. A bod was hit right off the RIP.
• 2:20:28
  He collapsed right there in front of us.
• 2:20:31
  The rest of us had pulled off to the inside.
• 2:20:33
  Chavez grabbed the bod, pulled him back behind the cover.
• 2:20:37
  Chavez immediately started working with him.
• 2:20:39
  And immediately we started, I started getting to sit right,
• 2:20:42
  like, what do we got? What's going on?
• 2:20:45
  The tow truck was getting hammered.
• 2:20:47
  I mean, I was watching RPG after RPG after RPG come in at that
• 2:20:51
  damn damn thing. RPG after RPG was coming in at
• 2:20:54
  the fucking mortar pit. Like it was insane.
• 2:20:58
  There was like from where I was sitting from the mortar pit,
• 2:21:02
  like I was talking about like as I was up and around these
• 2:21:06
  Hesco's, I could see all this shit going on over here.
• 2:21:09
  I see explosions happening at the OPI, see the tow truck shit
• 2:21:14
  being lit up, which was over here.
• 2:21:16
  I see them getting lit up. I see Benton's truck shit
• 2:21:19
  kicking all over the place. I see from the mosque, I see
• 2:21:23
  contact muzzle flashes coming out from the bazaar.
• 2:21:26
  There's people inside of it like it was they were on top of us,
• 2:21:32
  like right fucking on top of us. Couldn't believe it.
• 2:21:38
  So this first few minutes I just remember it was like, fuck, here
• 2:21:45
  we go again. That that honestly, that's,
• 2:21:48
  that's what hit me in the head like right in the face was like,
• 2:21:51
  here we go again. So at that point in time, I, I
• 2:21:56
  just started telling dudes it's like return fire.
• 2:21:58
  Because one of the shitty portions is that because we only
• 2:22:03
  had a bobcat and we had 10 foot Hesco's for my back wall, those
• 2:22:08
  10 foot Hesco's were not full. And I knew that.
• 2:22:13
  So there was rounds coming through the Hesco's impacting
• 2:22:17
  into my fucking mortar rounds and you could hear them.
• 2:22:20
  You can hear it ping. Ping ping, ping ping.
• 2:22:21
  And I was like, fuck my life. So it was.
• 2:22:25
  It was knowing that it was only a matter of time before we were
• 2:22:28
  fucked. You know what I mean?
• 2:22:30
  Lack of better terms. So I remember we were able to
• 2:22:36
  get a couple rounds off, I think like two or three.
• 2:22:41
  I want to say it was Quack and and Chavez or Quack and Gilmore.
• 2:22:45
  There wasn't a lot that we could do for, for a bod at the point
• 2:22:49
  in time where we were because we were getting hit so hard that
• 2:22:53
  nobody could specifically be handed off to, to evaluate,
• 2:22:59
  assess and treat. We, we couldn't even find a
• 2:23:03
  fucking wound. We didn't even know where he was
• 2:23:04
  hit. Like we just knew he was
• 2:23:06
  expiring. We didn't know shit.
• 2:23:11
  So we were there. We were fighting for a bit.
• 2:23:17
  I think it was Quack quack or Gilmore one or two.
• 2:23:25
  I, I, I I mix it up sometimes, but we were always making jokes
• 2:23:29
  because of the shit we went through ranch house and again,
• 2:23:31
  the reports that were coming that why not was going to be
• 2:23:34
  over ran and this that the other, you know, same shit I had
• 2:23:37
  faced at ranch house for five fucking months.
• 2:23:40
  But difference was is we took it serious, right?
• 2:23:42
  So it was like, Hey, we know how to plan for this shit.
• 2:23:44
  It's happened before. So yeah, we within that first 24
• 2:23:49
  hours, we had triple strand constantina wire.
• 2:23:50
  Within the 1st 72 hours we had fighting positions dug
• 2:23:53
  sandbagged in. Like we, we had established
• 2:23:57
  ourselves fairly well for the, you know, 96 hours that we had
• 2:24:00
  been on the ground for this shit to open up where there are some
• 2:24:04
  shortcomings. Absolutely.
• 2:24:05
  Supplies, supplies were still a bitch getting them out to us.
• 2:24:08
  We found out we weren't the priority.
• 2:24:10
  And you know, it was, it was what it was.
• 2:24:12
  It's basic infantry shit. You know you get handed a a 5
• 2:24:16
  gallon bucket and you're told here's 30 lbs of shit make it.
• 2:24:19
  Work and. That's what we do, you know,
• 2:24:21
  That's why. That's why we have the greatest
• 2:24:22
  military in the in the fucking world.
• 2:24:24
  It is what it is. We make it work.
• 2:24:28
  So yeah, there was, there was things that could have been done
• 2:24:30
  better and shit like that as we talk about it.
• 2:24:32
  But. So.
• 2:24:34
  I'm watching the tow truck get lit the hell up.
• 2:24:36
  Shit's coming in from all around us.
• 2:24:38
  Oh yeah, So Gilmore or Quack. I don't remember which one it
• 2:24:41
  was, but because of what had happened previously and as close
• 2:24:45
  as the village was on top of US, one of them had an AT4 and kept
• 2:24:51
  making a joke like, Oh yeah, when they hit us, I'm sending
• 2:24:53
  this AT 40. That house right there, that's
• 2:24:55
  the one that's getting it, You know what I mean?
• 2:24:57
  Kept kept making this joke, whatever.
• 2:24:59
  And I'm like, motherfucker, you'll never get the round off.
• 2:25:01
  And you know, we were just BS. And whatnot.
• 2:25:03
  Just funny moments again. Well, I don't remember which one
• 2:25:06
  it was, right? It was either Quick or Gilmore.
• 2:25:09
  One of the two. One of them fires off the AT4
• 2:25:12
  and he lets us know like AT-40. Boom sets that bitch off.
• 2:25:17
  The other one was pissed because he was the one who had brought
• 2:25:22
  the AT4 all the way from Blessing, packed it in, made
• 2:25:26
  sure it was fit, brought it into the mortar firing point and.
• 2:25:29
  That whole. Purpose was he wanted to fire
• 2:25:31
  the AT4 so when the one fired the AT4 the other one went off
• 2:25:35
  on his ass. That was fucking mine.
• 2:25:37
  They sounded like 2, 2 little hinges going off and I'm just
• 2:25:41
  like, shut the fuck up and throw grenades.
• 2:25:43
  Like I was like, I don't give a fuck about the AT4.
• 2:25:46
  The AT4IS nothing to me right now.
• 2:25:49
  But it was, you know, one of those funny moments.
• 2:25:51
  So. You know, they were, they were
• 2:25:52
  going off. So we're throwing hand grenades
• 2:25:56
  over the backside of the mortar firing pit.
• 2:25:59
  You know, I can, I can hear the dudes running back there.
• 2:26:01
  I can hear the way the, the AKS are going off.
• 2:26:04
  I can hear that motherfuckers close like they're they're on
• 2:26:06
  top of us again. Finally we get we get pinpointed
• 2:26:11
  pretty good. Two RPGs came in into the mortar
• 2:26:14
  firing pit. One of them hit and when it hit,
• 2:26:20
  I had I was watching it come and I turned to tell the guys the
• 2:26:25
  RPG hit the ammo cans in front of me, put me back on my ass.
• 2:26:31
  And then that was the one that peppered my face, my hands, and
• 2:26:33
  put my M4 in a. Like the?
• 2:26:36
  Fucking blast just folded my M4 over so that point in time I, I
• 2:26:41
  didn't, I didn't have a gun either.
• 2:26:44
  And has I as I come to and I sit back up, I see that the fucking
• 2:26:48
  mortar firing point is on fire. So the RPG, when it impacted,
• 2:26:53
  impacted into the rounds and it lit some cheese charges on fire
• 2:26:57
  because it went right into a case.
• 2:27:00
  And when the explode, I don't know how rounds didn't cook off.
• 2:27:03
  I, I, I don't understand physics.
• 2:27:05
  I'm just happy to God that it didn't because we had, we had
• 2:27:08
  red phosphorus there. I had AG there, I had every, it
• 2:27:11
  was all separated the way it's supposed to be and all that
• 2:27:13
  shit. There was nowhere else to put
• 2:27:15
  put stuff. So I had it all.
• 2:27:17
  If it would have went, that would have definitely made the
• 2:27:20
  news. Anyways.
• 2:27:24
  So then I had to make the call that we had to pull out of the
• 2:27:27
  mortar fire and point. And I was like, hey, guys, we,
• 2:27:31
  we need to move. We need to move now.
• 2:27:32
  Yeah, I made a call to. So when I had when we
• 2:27:37
  established the 120 pit, I went with the concept of a hide and
• 2:27:41
  shoot right as a as a mortar section Sergeant.
• 2:27:45
  I had the 60 get placed off separately.
• 2:27:49
  We had settled the base plate, everything, got the tube in and
• 2:27:53
  then we removed the tube and just left the sit, left the base
• 2:27:57
  plate there. And we had a couple aiming
• 2:28:01
  stakes that were out that all we had to do was level up and we'd
• 2:28:04
  be good to go to use it in the event that we lost the 120 pit,
• 2:28:08
  right. So due to the shit we had faced
• 2:28:10
  previously, I did come up with a plan for.
• 2:28:12
  Yeah. Didn't fucking work.
• 2:28:15
  But. It was a plan.
• 2:28:17
  It was a fucking plan. But for for anybody who comes in
• 2:28:22
  later and they're like, well, you pulled the 60, why didn't
• 2:28:25
  you go to the 60? Yeah, Well, yeah, that it was a
• 2:28:28
  plan that wasn't completely thought out.
• 2:28:31
  I'll leave that one later too. So we end up having in to
• 2:28:37
  abandon the the 120 pit and push back to the closest covered
• 2:28:43
  position was the command truck, which was on the opposite side
• 2:28:49
  where the mortar firing pit is. The command truck was on the
• 2:28:51
  opposite side by this. This busted down building is
• 2:28:55
  only partially constructed. That's where the command truck
• 2:28:59
  and the tow truck at this point in time is parked.
• 2:29:01
  Right about here. OK, so it's about right here
• 2:29:05
  getting lit the fuck up repeatedly.
• 2:29:07
  My, my position's on fire and we have to move across this open
• 2:29:11
  ground to get over here and we're probably looking at 1520
• 2:29:16
  meters. Not that far, right?
• 2:29:20
  A completely open ground while you're getting barrage from
• 2:29:23
  360°. So.
• 2:29:26
  Seemed like a goddamn lifetime trying to run across there for
• 2:29:29
  the second time. I was like, Oh my God, here we
• 2:29:32
  go again. So Chavez, Chavez was my bigger
• 2:29:39
  dude. He got real heavy in the lifting
• 2:29:41
  during that rotation. So he he was, he was pretty
• 2:29:44
  stout. And I told him I was like, all
• 2:29:46
  right, man, you pull a bod, you're the, you're the bigger
• 2:29:49
  dude, you're the stronger dude. Throw him over your shoulders.
• 2:29:52
  When we go, we go. We got ready, everybody was
• 2:29:57
  ready and then I made the call. I was like, all right, are we
• 2:30:00
  set? We set, set.
• 2:30:01
  And I was like, go again. I don't know if I if I got too
• 2:30:07
  excited or what the case is, but I remember counting and then it
• 2:30:11
  was like, Yep, Yep, Yep, boom, go.
• 2:30:13
  And somehow I beat everybody into the other position and
• 2:30:17
  started counting them back in. I don't, I don't fucking know.
• 2:30:23
  They didn't move fast enough for my ass on round two, I guess.
• 2:30:26
  But so I started counting people back in and I was shy.
• 2:30:34
  Sarnos was on the receiving end and he helped me count people
• 2:30:37
  in. And I was like, we're missing
• 2:30:38
  to, we're missing to, we're missing to.
• 2:30:40
  And somebody came through, I don't remember who it was, but
• 2:30:43
  they said that Chavez got hit while he was carrying a bod.
• 2:30:47
  I was like. Fuck.
• 2:30:50
  Because now not only do I have two out there, but one of them
• 2:30:53
  is the big guy that I chose because I wanted him.
• 2:30:57
  To go die. So Oz runs out, me and Oscar
• 2:31:01
  sitting there at the edge of the the command truck is like, all
• 2:31:04
  right, man, you ready? We're going to get him.
• 2:31:05
  We're going to get him. We're going to get him ready.
• 2:31:06
  Ready. Fucking go.
• 2:31:07
  So he ran and grabbed the pod and I grabbed Chavez.
• 2:31:11
  Well, because Chavez had put on weight and he had gotten nice
• 2:31:15
  and stocky, I took off the run with him.
• 2:31:18
  My legs came out from under me. I came down on my neck, holding
• 2:31:23
  on to his plate carrier. Wow.
• 2:31:25
  I was like, Oh my God. Dude.
• 2:31:28
  What did you eat? So.
• 2:31:32
  So then I turn and I have to double leg drag him backwards as
• 2:31:36
  fast as I can with the duck pedal.
• 2:31:38
  You know what I mean? The duck.
• 2:31:39
  Pedal. You know, his shit's impacting
• 2:31:42
  all around us. I finally get him over over to
• 2:31:46
  the command position and we're we're sitting down.
• 2:31:50
  I got him down and we're we're talking.
• 2:31:52
  I'm like, all right, man, where you hit what you got going?
• 2:31:55
  He got a through and through on from his right side.
• 2:31:59
  RPK went right through his right thigh, right through his left
• 2:32:02
  thigh, hit both of his legs. He collapsed.
• 2:32:04
  The bod collapsed off, brought in a bod.
• 2:32:07
  I brought in Chavez. We're sitting there.
• 2:32:09
  We're talking to him. We're treating them, you know,
• 2:32:13
  talking, fighting the fight, doing what we're doing.
• 2:32:18
  I remember I was sitting there and I'm hearing everything
• 2:32:24
  that's going on on the radio and I'm hearing what's happening up
• 2:32:27
  at post 2 or I mean, OP topside with Ryan.
• 2:32:33
  So something that I haven't talked about is prior to the
• 2:32:37
  deployment, there were certain dudes that Stefan was close
• 2:32:40
  with, right? Like I said, Stephen, Stephen
• 2:32:43
  was, he was my buddy. He's the reason I ended up in
• 2:32:45
  the 173rd. He knew the type person I was
• 2:32:48
  because he worked for me for five years before he went over
• 2:32:51
  there. So if he told me a dude was
• 2:32:53
  good, then a dude was good, you know what I mean?
• 2:32:56
  Like I took it, took it at face value.
• 2:33:00
  So there were certain dudes in second Platoon because that's
• 2:33:03
  where Stephen was it with Second Platoon before he went to 3rd
• 2:33:06
  Platoon. Once he made E6, they moved him
• 2:33:09
  to 3rd Platoon and then he was out at Child.
• 2:33:10
  OK, so prior to that, once he went to 3rd Platoon, then he
• 2:33:14
  could officially hang out with the dudes from second platoon,
• 2:33:16
  right? So some of his drinking buddies
• 2:33:18
  were from second platoon. So prior to the deployment, I
• 2:33:21
  got in really close with a lot of second Platoon dudes because
• 2:33:24
  Stefan was the only dude I knew. So I hung out with all his
• 2:33:27
  friends. So I'm pretty close to, to Ryan
• 2:33:31
  and he's the guy I'm hearing on the other side of the radio
• 2:33:34
  talking to the commander, right? So that it's my friend that I'm
• 2:33:40
  listening to on the other side and he's talking about how, you
• 2:33:43
  know, they're losing the position and, and shit's bad.
• 2:33:46
  And this that the other, and he's talking about a few things
• 2:33:48
  and he's giving sit reps And I'm, I'm sitting here trying to
• 2:33:51
  treat a bod while all this is going on.
• 2:33:54
  And I'm, I'm hearing what's going on.
• 2:33:56
  And I think it was Gantlin who came in, who was a he was going
• 2:34:02
  through the 18 Delta program, got into it with one of his
• 2:34:05
  instructors, got relieved from the Q course.
• 2:34:08
  And you know when you get these kids, when you're when you're in
• 2:34:10
  the 80 Deuce and 173rd and you hear their stories and you're
• 2:34:13
  like, yeah, yeah, you and every other sorry son of a bitch we
• 2:34:16
  get from the Q course. You know what I mean?
• 2:34:18
  Yeah. But scantling was squared the
• 2:34:21
  fuck away. And.
• 2:34:22
  Thank. God, that he did make it all the
• 2:34:26
  way to fucking sock them at the end of it and he mailed off to
• 2:34:29
  somebody because his skill sets that he acquired in the 18 Delta
• 2:34:34
  course is what saved a lot of fucking lives that day.
• 2:34:36
  And I, I will attribute that to him.
• 2:34:38
  And especially after working with, with special forces medics
• 2:34:42
  now and, and seeing the things that I've seen and knowing what
• 2:34:44
  I know, yeah, he probably did get booted out for his mouth.
• 2:34:48
  I know him, you know, like looking back now, I know his
• 2:34:51
  story. Looking back, I'm like, yeah,
• 2:34:53
  probably happened just as he said.
• 2:34:55
  He's a ^2 away dude. And he knew his shit.
• 2:34:58
  He was, he would have been a Green Beret.
• 2:34:59
  I have no doubts in my mind he would have been, but so I hand
• 2:35:03
  off a bod to Scantlin because I I couldn't find an exit wound.
• 2:35:06
  I couldn't find shit. There was nothing I could do.
• 2:35:08
  I'm doing CPRII just I, I couldn't no more.
• 2:35:12
  You know what I mean? I just, I fucking couldn't.
• 2:35:15
  So I, I handed them off to Scantlin and I was like, hey,
• 2:35:17
  man, see, see what you can do and, and what you got going.
• 2:35:20
  I go over to Chavez and you know, I'm talking to Chavez.
• 2:35:23
  Like what you got, man? What's happening?
• 2:35:25
  And he starts, you know, telling me about his round and and this
• 2:35:28
  is this is going to kind of go like ranch house, like all the
• 2:35:30
  timeline and all this shit is. Like.
• 2:35:33
  Fuck and I don't know. So Chavez is like he's like, oh,
• 2:35:39
  just just tell me something. Just tell me that I apologies
• 2:35:43
  again, just tell me something. Just tell me they didn't shoot
• 2:35:46
  my Dick off. Just tell me they didn't shoot
• 2:35:47
  my dog. And this is written about in the
• 2:35:49
  book. So he talked about this in the
• 2:35:51
  book the the chosen few. It's it's outlined in there like
• 2:35:54
  it's again, another one of those moments captured in history,
• 2:35:58
  right? Yeah.
• 2:35:59
  So I'm sitting there and I'm like, all right, dude, just
• 2:36:01
  don't move. I got a knife.
• 2:36:02
  I pull out my knife. I was like, I'm going to cut
• 2:36:04
  your pants open. I'm I'll check your Dick, man.
• 2:36:06
  Just don't. Move, don't move.
• 2:36:08
  Because I don't want to stab you.
• 2:36:10
  That's a real friend right there.
• 2:36:11
  Don't move. So sure.
• 2:36:15
  Shit, you know, I take my knife, I stab it through his pants, I
• 2:36:17
  fly open his pants, I RIP it open.
• 2:36:19
  And I'm like, and then I look down and I was like, I was like,
• 2:36:23
  all right, dude. So good news.
• 2:36:26
  You're you still got your Dick. You still got your balls.
• 2:36:28
  You're not shut off. I was like, bad news.
• 2:36:30
  You need to fucking trim your jungle, man.
• 2:36:33
  Like it became another laughing moment, right?
• 2:36:35
  Yeah, another one of those moments.
• 2:36:37
  He's like, dude, all I see is a turtle head poking out of the
• 2:36:40
  swamp and it ain't working bro. Yeah, he starts laughing.
• 2:36:43
  Too. He starts laughing and he's
• 2:36:45
  like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
• 2:36:47
  I was like, Nah, you don't need to be sorry, man.
• 2:36:49
  Just dude, the women ain't going to like that.
• 2:36:51
  And, you know, we're talking and whatnot.
• 2:36:53
  So, you know, another one of those funny moments come
• 2:36:55
  through. And then Captain Meyer tells me
• 2:37:01
  he's like, hey, I I think, I think the tow trucks in trouble.
• 2:37:05
  Yeah. And so where, where we were
• 2:37:07
  sitting, like I said, with with a tow truck is kind of like off
• 2:37:11
  to this side. And then the Half Moon, the
• 2:37:15
  squiggly Half Moon, right? So the tow truck was over here.
• 2:37:19
  There was firing over here on this mountain Ridge.
• 2:37:22
  This Half Moon was like sandbag walls.
• 2:37:25
  And then we had put a camouflage canopy across top there.
• 2:37:27
  So this sandbag wall kind of connected to the front of the
• 2:37:31
  command truck and the back of this wall.
• 2:37:33
  So the tow truck was here. Those guys, the plan was I had
• 2:37:39
  somehow communicated to them that they were going to come out
• 2:37:42
  of their truck and jump over this fucking wall and I would
• 2:37:46
  receive them there and I would count them in like that was the
• 2:37:49
  game plan, right? Because they they just like the
• 2:37:55
  mortar pit, but they were pinned inside of this truck.
• 2:37:58
  The truck was already on fire by this point in time.
• 2:38:00
  So I was yelling to him like a truck's on fire, just get the
• 2:38:03
  fuck out. I'm like hand and arm signals.
• 2:38:04
  Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.
• 2:38:07
  So they start coming out 1 by 1. They're running, I'm snatching
• 2:38:10
  them through, snatching them through.
• 2:38:13
  And I think the last one to come at me was May.
• 2:38:17
  I think it was May. I grabbed May.
• 2:38:20
  It was either May or Davis, one of the two, I don't know, but I
• 2:38:24
  pull them through. And just as I did that, and it
• 2:38:27
  was the last man to come through, that fucking truck
• 2:38:30
  exploded. Shit, boom.
• 2:38:33
  Yeah, all the tow missiles in there, they weren't able to get
• 2:38:35
  a single tow off it. It just, it happened like Eric
• 2:38:39
  was saying it was. It was like that they
• 2:38:42
  immediately started targeting Eric at the mortar pill,
• 2:38:45
  simultaneously targeting the tow truck at the same time.
• 2:38:50
  And the open. Yeah, and they just, they were
• 2:38:52
  never able to get a single TOW missile off.
• 2:38:55
  So you had what, 3 TOW missiles I think in the back?
• 2:38:59
  Yep. Yeah, 3 in the back and one in
• 2:39:01
  the tube, Yeah. So.
• 2:39:03
  Yeah, so 44 tow missiles go off, explode in this fucking truck.
• 2:39:09
  I oh, honestly, I, I truly attribute that explosion to my
• 2:39:13
  TBI. Like I've never been the same
• 2:39:15
  since then. Yeah.
• 2:39:16
  And then you add in all the door kicking and door charges.
• 2:39:19
  I I just didn't, you know, I just.
• 2:39:21
  Never. It just got worse from there.
• 2:39:25
  But when that truck, that truck exploded right after I pulled
• 2:39:28
  the last dude in and I just remember when it went.
• 2:39:33
  I just remember like I, I had still, I pulled him in, he was
• 2:39:38
  sitting in, I'd still had my hands on the back of this kit
• 2:39:40
  and I was leaning over him. And I just remember when it
• 2:39:43
  exploded, just looking over at the truck and it just being
• 2:39:47
  engulfed in flames and my head just being like, oh man, you
• 2:39:50
  know, it's like when you stand up too fast, stand up too fast
• 2:39:54
  and you get light headed and you're like, oh, let me hold on
• 2:39:56
  to something real quick. Like it's a good sensation, but
• 2:39:59
  an odd sensation. You know what I mean?
• 2:40:01
  And that's kind of what happened.
• 2:40:02
  Like, I was like, holy fuck, what just happened?
• 2:40:06
  And then, you know, it just, you know, I will say it's similar to
• 2:40:10
  what they show in the movies. And it just all comes back
• 2:40:12
  together and everything's fucking roughing again.
• 2:40:15
  Is like oh shit. Yeah, this is still happening.
• 2:40:19
  So we have gotten those dudes in by that point.
• 2:40:27
  Yeah, there. We had taken a couple injured
• 2:40:30
  from those dudes as well. I don't think anybody got hit
• 2:40:34
  coming through. I think maybe their their
• 2:40:35
  injuries might have been assaulting up the hill with me.
• 2:40:40
  But so at that point that that's when I I heard, I heard Ryan's
• 2:40:46
  last call on the radio. I was sitting right there.
• 2:40:50
  Oh, the big piece, the one that everybody wants to hear about.
• 2:40:53
  OK, so the tow truck explodes, right.
• 2:40:59
  So I was like I said, I was still sitting over the one dude.
• 2:41:03
  Then all of a sudden, you know, you hear this tumbling through
• 2:41:07
  the air. Like, you know, I'm thinking
• 2:41:10
  it's a 107 coming in something like that.
• 2:41:12
  Like, oh fuck, here we go again. And it just comes through the
• 2:41:16
  top of the canopy. It almost lands in my lap.
• 2:41:21
  It's a fucking TOW missile. Damn.
• 2:41:24
  Holy. Shit.
• 2:41:27
  Well, for anybody who's ever fired a TOW missile, you know
• 2:41:31
  when you get in there, you're in your system, you get it all spun
• 2:41:34
  up, it's ready to go. You click fire.
• 2:41:37
  And it's not like a regular gun where it goes and it goes.
• 2:41:40
  You click fire and then you start hearing this nice little
• 2:41:43
  spin up that's off to your right hand side and it lets you know
• 2:41:47
  that missile's about to go. Well when this fucker landed in
• 2:41:51
  the center, I start hearing this and I was like oh fuck my life.
• 2:41:56
  Jesus, dude. So at that point in time, I
• 2:42:01
  mean, it's, it's, it's hot metal and everybody, this is the only
• 2:42:05
  spot we have for a CCP. Dudes were like, oh, we got to
• 2:42:10
  go. It's going to blow.
• 2:42:10
  It's going to blow. And I was like, you know what,
• 2:42:12
  fuck it. I just grabbed it.
• 2:42:14
  I picked it up and I fucking ran.
• 2:42:18
  I ran out into the the center of the center of the base.
• 2:42:23
  So I came out from there and I ran all the way halfway to the
• 2:42:26
  mortar firing pit and I just fucking threw it.
• 2:42:29
  And then I turned around and ran back and God damn.
• 2:42:33
  Yeah. I don't know what the fuck I was
• 2:42:35
  thinking. I don't know, like a lot of
• 2:42:37
  times people are like, dude, like what?
• 2:42:39
  What the hell went through your head?
• 2:42:41
  And all I remember like no bullshit, man.
• 2:42:44
  It was it was instinct. It was a reaction, whatever,
• 2:42:46
  whatever people want to say. But all I remember is it
• 2:42:49
  landing. I look at a bod who's who's
• 2:42:55
  already expiring. I look at Chavez who's through
• 2:42:58
  and through on his leg. I got 2 medics here.
• 2:43:02
  I just received all these dudes from the other truck and I'm
• 2:43:06
  like, there's the nowhere for these guys to go.
• 2:43:08
  There's fucking nowhere. So it's it's one or the many,
• 2:43:12
  right? At least that was my thought
• 2:43:13
  process. It's like it's going to fucking
• 2:43:15
  go. It's going to go baby.
• 2:43:17
  So I picked it up and I ran with it and then once I threw it and
• 2:43:20
  I got back like that, that I guess that's where the
• 2:43:25
  realization hit me because everybody was like.
• 2:43:28
  What the fuck did you? Did you just grab that and run?
• 2:43:30
  I was. Like.
• 2:43:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go.
• 2:43:34
  What's next What's next Yeah. And then getting bored.
• 2:43:39
  That's so that's what the Silver Star write ups for is grabbing a
• 2:43:44
  arm TOW missile and tossing out in the.
• 2:43:47
  Fucking open and then doing. Dumb shit, right?
• 2:43:50
  Yeah. So then then that's when the
• 2:43:54
  radio radio call come come across and chosen 6 is being
• 2:43:59
  talked to by by 9/3, which was Ryan?
• 2:44:05
  Was it Ryan or 92? I'm sorry, 9292 was Ryan and I
• 2:44:09
  don't know the exact wording, but you know it, it haunts me to
• 2:44:13
  these to this day, but it sounded very similar to hey,
• 2:44:17
  this is a 2009 two. I'm I'm signing off the radio.
• 2:44:21
  They're all around me. I can hear him talking.
• 2:44:23
  I can hear him moving. I don't know how much longer I'm
• 2:44:26
  going to be here before I'm discovered.
• 2:44:29
  I'm going to maintain radio, radio calm silence.
• 2:44:32
  Everybody's gone, everybody's gone.
• 2:44:34
  It's just me. And when I heard that, my heart
• 2:44:39
  sink, you know what I mean? It was like, oh, fuck, like
• 2:44:43
  that. That's that's my buddy.
• 2:44:45
  That's my friend. And that's that's when that was
• 2:44:51
  when Captain Meyer looked at me and he's like, I need you to go
• 2:44:57
  up top. I was like, OK, how do I get
• 2:44:59
  there? Because we'd only been on the
• 2:45:02
  ground 72 hours. Yeah.
• 2:45:05
  No, this is the fourth day, 4th morning.
• 2:45:07
  This is the 4th morning, so my priority has been establishing
• 2:45:12
  the mortifying pit, getting that set up, getting the outer
• 2:45:15
  perimeter established. I never got to see where the
• 2:45:18
  fucking OP was Mistake of mine looking back, you know what I
• 2:45:22
  mean? It's like, hey, you know, it's
• 2:45:24
  what like we were saying before we can quarterback shit all day,
• 2:45:27
  you know what I mean? But I never, I never got to see
• 2:45:30
  where the OP was. So I was like, I need, I need
• 2:45:33
  somebody to tell me where it is. And I didn't have a weapon
• 2:45:37
  because my M4 was dead. So kept Meyer and he says I
• 2:45:42
  don't have an M4 either. Here's my pistol.
• 2:45:45
  So yet again, here I am with a fucking.
• 2:45:47
  M9. Beretta.
• 2:45:49
  It's incredible bro I was like, did anybody ever use pistols in
• 2:45:54
  combat? Yeah.
• 2:45:55
  You. Can't make this.
• 2:45:56
  Get up, bro. All right, I forgot about that
• 2:46:00
  until just now. Like telling these two stories
• 2:46:02
  back-to-back. It's like holy shit, that
• 2:46:03
  happened twice. All right, so so we develop a
• 2:46:09
  quick game plan. I was like, all right, dude, you
• 2:46:12
  were able to move from from that position.
• 2:46:17
  We're going to make, make make movement over to Benton's truck,
• 2:46:22
  grab a couple more, push over to Gobbles truck, get a quick brief
• 2:46:32
  from them and then grab what guys I could from them and then
• 2:46:37
  going from gobbles truck straight into the OP.
• 2:46:42
  So we got everybody ready. I think I had like I, I ended up
• 2:46:46
  charging up there with like 9 or 10 dudes all together.
• 2:46:50
  Like it was, it was a full on squad that I ended up going up
• 2:46:52
  there with. We ended up going up there.
• 2:46:54
  I won't say I we went up there, but another, another funny
• 2:47:01
  moment, right? So we, we push from we push from
• 2:47:06
  the command Victoria to Benton's truck, right?
• 2:47:09
  We get to, to his truck and I'm sitting there and we know
• 2:47:14
  they're inside the bazaar because they're we're fucking
• 2:47:16
  getting asses handed to us from there.
• 2:47:18
  We know they're inside the village because we're getting
• 2:47:20
  our asses handed to us there. And I was like, OK, now I have
• 2:47:24
  to cross this fucking Rd. You know, I got to cross this
• 2:47:27
  open space again and I'm running right into this damn village.
• 2:47:33
  I know I'm going to get little. I was like, this is this is the
• 2:47:37
  one boys. This is the one that's going to
• 2:47:38
  get me. So I grabbed smoke.
• 2:47:41
  I was like, boom, cover here, conceal minute.
• 2:47:44
  I'm going to conceal us. Grab smoke, pull the pin.
• 2:47:48
  I'll never forget this, man. I look at my watch and I was
• 2:47:51
  like, all right, I'm going to pop the smoke 15 seconds after
• 2:47:54
  it goes. Then we go give it time to
• 2:47:57
  billow. Give it time to billow.
• 2:48:00
  I throw the smoke towards the bazaar.
• 2:48:02
  So that way, because the way the winds were blowing, it would
• 2:48:03
  push it all the way across the village from the bazaar clear
• 2:48:07
  across to the mosque. So it was like the wind.
• 2:48:09
  The wind was perfect. There were certain things that
• 2:48:11
  aligned for us. I won't lie, you know, it wasn't
• 2:48:13
  a complete shit show. So the wind was blowing perfect.
• 2:48:17
  So as the the smoke cans going and whatnot, it's coming across
• 2:48:21
  and the guys were like, all right, look at that.
• 2:48:22
  And I was like no, stop, I'm watching my watch man, for no
• 2:48:26
  shit, 1520 seconds. Like I'm watching second by
• 2:48:29
  second by second. And.
• 2:48:32
  Then finally we hit the time and I'm like, all right, go, go, go.
• 2:48:35
  So we haul ass over there and that's when we moved over to the
• 2:48:41
  backside of the bazaar, which is where there was another
• 2:48:45
  position. This is where Gobble had ended
• 2:48:48
  up pushing to, and this position is what supported OP topside the
• 2:48:52
  majority. Of the way they air it real
• 2:48:55
  quick if I can. Yes, Sir.
• 2:48:56
  Hey, Jerry, I know you're you're going to have to jump out at
• 2:48:59
  some point. I think it's coming up here
• 2:49:01
  soon. So whenever you need to jump
• 2:49:04
  out, just jump out. I'll.
• 2:49:05
  Just slide off, man. Yeah.
• 2:49:06
  I'll just slide off. We'll be good.
• 2:49:07
  Sorry, Eric, go ahead. No, you're good.
• 2:49:12
  So then at that point of we, the smoke billowed and I was like,
• 2:49:17
  all right, go, go, go, go, go. So then we run over to that
• 2:49:19
  corner, right? And then as we're approaching
• 2:49:22
  that corner, I see Gobble and his dudes are sitting inside
• 2:49:27
  that fighting position. Mckeg is there, he's hitting the
• 2:49:30
  leg. I see Stafford.
• 2:49:33
  I can see, I can see most of the guys right there, right there as
• 2:49:36
  I come up to him. But they're in a position like
• 2:49:39
  45 from me because I'm up against the wall from the
• 2:49:41
  bazaar. Right, so.
• 2:49:43
  Like my back's up against this building over here to my right.
• 2:49:47
  At this point in time, to my right is the command vehicle and
• 2:49:50
  the position I just left on my left hand side is the the
• 2:49:56
  village and the OP just slightly up the hill, right.
• 2:50:00
  Yeah. So shit's coming from every
• 2:50:02
  fucking direction the way the way it's coming in.
• 2:50:06
  I'm talking to these guys because they're sitting across
• 2:50:08
  the 45 from me with my back against the wall.
• 2:50:10
  I got dudes all lined up right here.
• 2:50:12
  I'm asking where's the OP? Where's the OP?
• 2:50:14
  And they're like telling me they're like, Oh yeah, I think
• 2:50:18
  it was MC KEGG. MCG's like, it's right over
• 2:50:20
  there. So it's right over there.
• 2:50:22
  So I get up to the edge of the wall so that I can take a peek
• 2:50:25
  and see where this OP is, right. So I think it was Gilmore was
• 2:50:31
  posted there. So I tell him I'm like, hey,
• 2:50:32
  pull back a little bit. You know, I got my rifle and I'm
• 2:50:35
  kind of like poking around the side.
• 2:50:36
  I'm trying to see where the OP is.
• 2:50:38
  And all of a sudden that fucking wall gets lit up.
• 2:50:41
  Dust kicks over and I'm like, oh, OK, not going there, not
• 2:50:45
  going that way. Then there was I'm going to keep
• 2:50:51
  this nice. I'll keep it nice and
• 2:50:53
  professional. Keep it nice and professional.
• 2:50:54
  Really, you're going to keep it professional now all?
• 2:50:57
  Right. Fuck it, I want it.
• 2:50:58
  All right. So we had part, part of the
• 2:51:01
  entity that was with us were these two Marines, right?
• 2:51:06
  They were, they were, they were. They seem like little studs.
• 2:51:09
  It was E6 and E5. They did.
• 2:51:11
  They seem like they were in shape, little studs.
• 2:51:14
  They had a 240 that was free, so they were.
• 2:51:17
  They're a part of the crew that I grabbed.
• 2:51:20
  When I got to Benton's position, they had a 240.
• 2:51:23
  I wanted that 240 to maneuver with me so I had firepower when
• 2:51:25
  we got up to the OP topside. Yeah.
• 2:51:27
  Well, it was there 2:40, so I said, hey, you're the machine
• 2:51:30
  gun crew, you fucking carry your 2:40.
• 2:51:33
  When we got up to the wall, there was some whining.
• 2:51:43
  Is the best way to put it. Debate the.
• 2:51:45
  Best way to put it. Oh yeah, we'll say debate.
• 2:51:47
  A little bit of a debate. Of if this high speed person
• 2:51:55
  could continue to carry the 240 under the conditions in which we
• 2:52:00
  had to maneuver. Yeah.
• 2:52:02
  And those were those were the words coming out of his mouth,
• 2:52:05
  not mine. Gotcha.
• 2:52:06
  So I was like, OK, I looked around real quick.
• 2:52:10
  Oh, Gilmore, grab that 240. I don't want this motherfucker
• 2:52:13
  to have it somewhere along those lines.
• 2:52:16
  And so Gilmore grabbed it. And Gilmore was like, I'll
• 2:52:18
  gladly take it. And then my keg, my keg was the
• 2:52:22
  one who was telling me, giving me directions to where OP
• 2:52:25
  topside was. And he was hitting the leg.
• 2:52:28
  And I was like, look, man, I can't get over there.
• 2:52:30
  You know, I can't even take a look.
• 2:52:31
  I was like, do you know a route? And he's like, yes, I can get
• 2:52:34
  you there. I was like, can you get us there
• 2:52:36
  safely? Can we get everybody there?
• 2:52:38
  And he's like, yeah, so and I can get everybody there and get
• 2:52:40
  everybody there. And then that's when I saw he
• 2:52:42
  was hit in the thigh. Like beforehand he was inside of
• 2:52:45
  the fighting position. So I didn't know he was hit.
• 2:52:47
  I just knew he was talking to me.
• 2:52:48
  And then when he starts coming out, I was like no, you're not
• 2:52:50
  fucking taking me. You're hitting the leg dude.
• 2:52:52
  Like you can't take me. I don't remember.
• 2:52:57
  He might have ended up being the one to take me at the end.
• 2:52:59
  I don't remember because there was some spit spatter back, but
• 2:53:02
  I could do it. And I was like fuck it, let's go
• 2:53:04
  type thing. So anyways, so I start making
• 2:53:09
  making way towards Opie topside. He did, man.
• 2:53:13
  He found he found a perfect little spot to to maneuver the
• 2:53:17
  way the terraces were outlined and built in the way OP Topside
• 2:53:21
  was set up and the rock ledges that was built around it.
• 2:53:24
  We used a lot of the natural terrain and then it was just
• 2:53:27
  perfect how we could get there. Like the walls and the terraces
• 2:53:31
  were just high enough to give us cover to where we could see that
• 2:53:34
  they're impacting where they are shooting at us.
• 2:53:37
  Right. But they couldn't.
• 2:53:38
  Yeah, you're still good. I think I lost you.
• 2:53:44
  No, you're good. Oh.
• 2:53:48
  Sound. Can you hear me though?
• 2:53:50
  Yeah, I got. Yes, yes.
• 2:53:52
  I'll keep going then. So the terraces were high enough
• 2:53:57
  to where we could see the rounds impacting across as we were
• 2:54:00
  crawling. We could see them hitting here
• 2:54:02
  on the dirt. Then as I approached OP topside,
• 2:54:06
  you could see the guys on the far side.
• 2:54:08
  They couldn't see us good enough because they couldn't hit around
• 2:54:10
  the rocks, right? So they're pounding into the
• 2:54:12
  rocks. And so we make it up to OP
• 2:54:16
  topside. And like I was making my
• 2:54:19
  approach. I was #1 dude, to come up.
• 2:54:21
  I remember OP Topside was set up in a circular position.
• 2:54:26
  They had the rock walls. Then they had all the sandbags
• 2:54:29
  that was built and stacked up around the side using a lot of
• 2:54:32
  the rock walls as as a part of their portion.
• 2:54:35
  And then the only thing that was really open was down on the
• 2:54:39
  terrace to the back of the bazaar.
• 2:54:42
  So it was easy to cover. With one man 1 gun right like it
• 2:54:46
  was easy to cover because the way the natural foliage or rock
• 2:54:50
  ledges were. So as I come running up again, I
• 2:54:55
  see. A a little.
• 2:54:57
  Hole from where the sandbags had made right where they had a A1
• 2:55:00
  by 6 across and they had made their little firing hole, their
• 2:55:03
  sandbags all around and 1 by 6 and then sandbags on the top.
• 2:55:07
  So I come running up with this pistol and I dive through this
• 2:55:09
  hole. I laugh about it because Ryan
• 2:55:14
  Pitts, he, he always tells me, him and Sean Samaroo, they're
• 2:55:18
  always like, dude, all I remember is hearing you say I'm
• 2:55:23
  coming in, I'm coming in. And then all of a sudden this
• 2:55:25
  guy dives through this little hole with a pistol.
• 2:55:28
  He comes out, looks around like, all right, what's going on?
• 2:55:32
  So hearing those guys talk about it, it's hilarious.
• 2:55:35
  But yeah, so then I got up there and then that's when evaluating
• 2:55:41
  the situation is like, holy shit, holy shit, it's bad.
• 2:55:48
  It's real bad. I didn't, I didn't realize at
• 2:55:52
  the time, you know, but it was probably not in the mental
• 2:55:58
  aspect. But as far as shit that I've
• 2:56:00
  been through, it was by far the worst event that I'd gone
• 2:56:03
  through in my life. You know, took me a long time to
• 2:56:06
  realize that for the longest time I fought myself and I was
• 2:56:09
  always like, Nah, ranch house was the worst, even though we
• 2:56:12
  didn't lose anybody, but we're not, we're not with shitty man.
• 2:56:16
  I remember getting up there and there was there was just either
• 2:56:21
  dudes wounded and laid up or dudes, dudes gone.
• 2:56:28
  Dudes of it already passed away. I wasn't the first wave to go up
• 2:56:32
  there and get the OP topside. I was actually the third wave of
• 2:56:36
  people who went up there. Yeah.
• 2:56:39
  The first wave, if I'm not mistaken, was Ho, Vader and
• 2:56:44
  Brostrom. Yes, I believe that's that's the
• 2:56:47
  way it. Out there at some point.
• 2:56:50
  And. Then at some other point both of
• 2:56:53
  them were taken away, were killed in combat and then came
• 2:56:59
  Sam Roos team and his squad that went up.
• 2:57:02
  There was wave 2 and then wave 3 was me and the guys that I was
• 2:57:06
  able to grab to get up there. So immediately we start, I start
• 2:57:12
  repositioning people, you know, just same, rinse and repeat,
• 2:57:15
  just like I did at Ranch house. Reposition people for security,
• 2:57:18
  make sure they got ammo, putting, putting the 249240
• 2:57:22
  where they could best support what we got going on as far as
• 2:57:26
  engagements. I remember laying next to
• 2:57:30
  Gilmore and just having him let that 240 RIP all into that hotel
• 2:57:34
  because you just kept seeing flash after flash after flash
• 2:57:37
  like they were in every room of that damn hotel firing out and
• 2:57:40
  engaging at us. And then finally we got air
• 2:57:48
  supports in air assets came in. About what time?
• 2:57:52
  Gun runs came. Through.
• 2:57:55
  How long is this going on I. Got nothing, Sir.
• 2:58:03
  So at some point it was, it was actually before I went up to OP
• 2:58:07
  topside, the first gun run came through because I remember
• 2:58:11
  thinking, holy shit, they just hit OP topside just like they
• 2:58:13
  had to hit ranch house. And then I remember once I got
• 2:58:17
  up there, it was when I seen they didn't hit OP topside.
• 2:58:20
  They were hitting on the other side of it.
• 2:58:21
  But there's just every, everything the way the way it
• 2:58:24
  was. So now we're in, we're mid
• 2:58:28
  engagement, you know, things kind of got a little, little
• 2:58:31
  quiet after we made it up there. It was like it started to die
• 2:58:34
  down. I was like, oh shit, it's over.
• 2:58:36
  So all. Right.
• 2:58:37
  Cool. So we started making calls to
• 2:58:41
  get medevacs in because then we started all right, this dude's
• 2:58:46
  gone, that dude's gone. Brostrom's gone, Ho Vader's
• 2:58:49
  gone, Ranny's gone, Willing's gone, Phillips gone, 8 years
• 2:58:53
  gone. It was like, holy shit, having
• 2:58:57
  to having to move them all to the side.
• 2:59:02
  I spoke with with Garcia for a bit.
• 2:59:06
  When I got to him, he was, he was still still good.
• 2:59:11
  I won't go into all the complete details for for personal
• 2:59:17
  reasons, but spoke to him. He he wanted me to, to let her
• 2:59:23
  to tell his wife to let her know, you know, hey, I love her,
• 2:59:26
  to let her know I miss her, all that good stuff.
• 2:59:29
  I don't mean that in a disrespectful manner, but you
• 2:59:32
  know, so then you know, as things continued on, we and the
• 2:59:39
  fire died down, we got some medevac birds in.
• 2:59:41
  So we were able to start medevac in people.
• 2:59:45
  We got some of the dudes in. No.
• 2:59:47
  So the first QRF came through, the 1st QRF came through and it
• 2:59:50
  was kind of a low on fire like everything just kind of died
• 2:59:52
  down a little bit and it was first two were coming in and it
• 2:59:56
  was start Stockard and and his guys who who had arrived.
• 3:00:01
  With their gun trucks like I was like Oh yeah sweet cuz you got
• 3:00:04
  to hear them coming down the road man you know all the.
• 3:00:07
  Guns, yeah. It's like, yes, yes, more big
• 3:00:11
  guns. I love it.
• 3:00:12
  So everything kind of died down a bit and it was awesome.
• 3:00:15
  Then some other additional people got pushed up to OP
• 3:00:18
  topside to reinforce me. So once those guys started
• 3:00:21
  coming in, I started repositioning those guys and
• 3:00:23
  then we had the OP locked in. Good.
• 3:00:26
  Next thing I know I got STALKER up there and a couple other
• 3:00:29
  dudes and then all of a sudden it erupted again.
• 3:00:32
  You know, it was like half time was over and everything just
• 3:00:35
  started coming in again, like just as hard as it came in the
• 3:00:38
  first time. Shit impacting off the rocks
• 3:00:40
  around us, RP GS going off left and right hand grenades coming
• 3:00:45
  over and fucking there was a hand grenade inside and Captain
• 3:00:49
  Meyer grabbed it and throw it right the fuck back.
• 3:00:51
  Like it was just, it was game on again.
• 3:00:55
  You know, I remember we were sitting there and RPG came in.
• 3:01:00
  It was Stockard and Beeson sitting across from me.
• 3:01:04
  You know, shit was coming in real heavy.
• 3:01:05
  So we were like posted up, letting it come in for a second
• 3:01:09
  before we could find positions to engage from.
• 3:01:13
  We're leaning back and all of a sudden boom, another RPG hits
• 3:01:16
  the wall and I see Stockard and Beeson just fall over.
• 3:01:19
  And I was like, oh, shit, we just lost the first arm because
• 3:01:23
  our soccer sat up real quick. So I was like, OK, cool, he's
• 3:01:27
  good. But first start, Beeson didn't
• 3:01:29
  didn't really move for a second. Yeah, took an extra second.
• 3:01:33
  Now when he sat up, he was like, oh, God, He just had to look on
• 3:01:37
  his face like, oh, shit, that just happened.
• 3:01:40
  Yeah. And I was just like first start
• 3:01:42
  still with us and you know, things kept going and it was
• 3:01:46
  going and it seemed like we were up there for an eternity just
• 3:01:49
  still fighting, you know, not gaining any ground, but just
• 3:01:51
  holding them off, holding them off.
• 3:01:55
  Then I remember at one point in time, start stalker.
• 3:01:59
  He was smiling and as he's throwing hand grenades, I was
• 3:02:02
  like, start stalking. What are you smiling about?
• 3:02:03
  And he's looking at me. He pulls the pin, releases the
• 3:02:06
  spoon and he's like, where the fucks the re enlistment NCO when
• 3:02:09
  you need him? And I just you know, I was, I
• 3:02:15
  was dying laughing. I was like, yeah, where is he?
• 3:02:18
  I don't know that I'd sign up again right now, but.
• 3:02:22
  I definitely take. It so you know, there and it
• 3:02:25
  just kept going and going and then finally the the age 60
• 3:02:31
  fours came in and off and then we got some some 40 sevens that
• 3:02:35
  came in and then we got casualties out and we were able
• 3:02:38
  to get the dead out and every everything kind of like slowly
• 3:02:45
  started started to die down, you know.
• 3:02:48
  And. Then then it came out.
• 3:02:51
  That's that's when, when at the end of it was like, hey, you
• 3:02:56
  know, we, we lost a total of 9. And that's, that's when, when my
• 3:03:00
  fucking heart sank, you know, like I didn't, I didn't realize
• 3:03:05
  that a bod had expired. I knew he was going, but I had
• 3:03:08
  hoped that something would have been able to be done.
• 3:03:12
  So we had lost him. It was Ho Vader Brostrom on that
• 3:03:15
  first wave that went in. You know, Garcia right there
• 3:03:18
  talking to me and Bogar Rainey's, William Phillips,
• 3:03:22
  Ayers, they all, they all fought their asses off until they
• 3:03:25
  couldn't no more. So that point in time, you know,
• 3:03:31
  like battalion came in and everybody wanted to come in and
• 3:03:34
  check on us and talk to us and whatnot.
• 3:03:37
  And I remember some Major Myers coming up to me and he come up
• 3:03:43
  to me and he put his put his hand around, around me on, on my
• 3:03:46
  shoulder, you know, And it was him standing here.
• 3:03:49
  And then Colonel Osland was right next to him talking to
• 3:03:53
  Captain Meyer. And son, mate, son, Major Meyers
• 3:03:56
  was like, he's like, how you doing, son?
• 3:03:59
  Phillips? And I, I didn't really know what
• 3:04:03
  he meant. You know what I mean?
• 3:04:05
  I didn't like, so I started, I started telling him I was like,
• 3:04:09
  it's like, well, the boys, the boys took a hard one, son Major.
• 3:04:12
  I was like ranch house was one thing, but but that's one the
• 3:04:14
  boys took a hard one. I was like, but they fought
• 3:04:16
  their asses off. They did, they did really well.
• 3:04:19
  I was like, we all, we all took some losses.
• 3:04:22
  And he, he just kind of gave me that, you know, that senior
• 3:04:25
  mentorship squeeze that only an older man can give.
• 3:04:29
  You know, he gives gives me that little squeeze and he's like, no
• 3:04:34
  son, how are you doing? Yeah.
• 3:04:38
  And you know, up to that point, I had never had anybody truly
• 3:04:46
  looked down and and care enough to ask me that.
• 3:04:51
  Yeah, so at this point I'm I'm destined 6.
• 3:04:58
  I'm over across the, the Kunar River in at, at Camp Joyce now.
• 3:05:05
  But kind of one of our side missions for the battalion is
• 3:05:09
  we're, you know, we're the ground QRF for just about
• 3:05:12
  anybody because we're, we're the heavy weapons company.
• 3:05:15
  We got the vehicles, we got the most vehicles, all that.
• 3:05:18
  And I just, I remember, I'll never forget that day.
• 3:05:20
  I, I was never, I was not in your position by any means, But
• 3:05:24
  it, it will always be a day that, that I will always
• 3:05:27
  remember as well. Because the entire time, you
• 3:05:30
  know, I'm, I'm trying my best talking with, with, I wasn't
• 3:05:35
  talking with Roc 6. I think it may have been Roc 3
• 3:05:38
  or Roc 5, the, the S3 or the XO saying, Hey, I'm, I'm ready to,
• 3:05:44
  we're, we're fucking ready to go.
• 3:05:46
  Like I, you got to let us go over there.
• 3:05:50
  You got to let us go. You got to let us go.
• 3:05:53
  And they, they kept holding us at Bay and it was, it was
• 3:05:57
  probably the right call. This is not me trying to Monday
• 3:06:00
  morning quarterbacking anything that was going on or, or
• 3:06:03
  anything like that. I just I like, I've we, we all
• 3:06:09
  felt helpless because we could, we could hear all of this going
• 3:06:14
  on and, and it, it seemed like our, our hands were just tied
• 3:06:19
  and we could not do anything to get anything there to, to try to
• 3:06:24
  help. I cannot imagine.
• 3:06:27
  I cannot even begin to imagine what what you felt, what Matt
• 3:06:33
  Meyer felt, what what first sardon beast Beeson felt, all
• 3:06:38
  those people that were there with you quick on the ground.
• 3:06:45
  Yeah. I mean, just the, the the
• 3:06:47
  helplessness, the anger, all of the emotions that are going on
• 3:06:51
  there. And and we, we just, we just
• 3:06:55
  wanted to fucking get there and get you guys out.
• 3:06:59
  And then to, you know, again, not to, I don't necessarily want
• 3:07:03
  to go down this route, but it is part of it, right?
• 3:07:05
  It's like you mentioned with Abad, like we're fucking, we're
• 3:07:10
  redeploying at the same time. Yep, we're we're you.
• 3:07:16
  We're trying. That morning, yeah, straight
• 3:07:19
  out. Yeah, we're, we're, we're trying
• 3:07:21
  to get the fuck out of there. But at the same time, we also
• 3:07:27
  knew that we had a mission. We knew that we were the right
• 3:07:30
  ones to do the mission, that there were no if ands or buts
• 3:07:34
  about that fuck, man. Yeah.
• 3:07:40
  I could, I couldn't even picture like I, I don't even want to
• 3:07:43
  picture like if that unit that replaced us had been the ones
• 3:07:47
  trying to stand that up. I mean, that was that was a unit
• 3:07:51
  that had been in the ship for 15 months.
• 3:07:54
  And we still. Lost 9.
• 3:07:55
  Yeah, it would have been catastrophic, even more
• 3:08:01
  catastrophic, right, More than like I agree.
• 3:08:07
  Talk, man. So, yeah, I mean, how do you
• 3:08:11
  come back from that, you know? Yeah, that was and you know,
• 3:08:17
  talking, talking about that like how, how do we come back from
• 3:08:20
  that? You know, so we, we rotated, we
• 3:08:23
  rotated back to Vicenza and. Prior prior to that.
• 3:08:28
  Deployment like you know, you hear of people saying you know
• 3:08:33
  back back then you. You heard of?
• 3:08:35
  PTSD. But she doesn't really, unless
• 3:08:38
  you had been around dudes who had truly gave signs and
• 3:08:42
  symptoms and and you wanted to understand.
• 3:08:45
  Like, yeah man, we were around it all the time and we never
• 3:08:47
  realized it. You know what I mean?
• 3:08:52
  But what shifted me drastically as a leader wasn't so much the
• 3:09:00
  the leading of those guys in combat, but having to take care
• 3:09:05
  of them when they came home. If that makes.
• 3:09:08
  Sense. Like I remember, actually, I'm
• 3:09:12
  pretty sure you were the company commander already.
• 3:09:15
  I remember like what happened with sounds we.
• 3:09:19
  Were at the. Baffle range.
• 3:09:21
  We're at the baffle range 0 in our weapons because I had
• 3:09:23
  already taken over third platoon and we had, we had moved around
• 3:09:27
  the, the company a little bit and I was there as the NCOICA.
• 3:09:31
  It was a platoon storm running the baffle range.
• 3:09:35
  And I remember, I think it was Lopez, Lieutenant Lopez, who was
• 3:09:40
  like, hey, it was Lopez and Jensen.
• 3:09:44
  They were like, hey, you know, we're having problems with
• 3:09:45
  stones. Well, you worked with them.
• 3:09:47
  Can you, can you go, can you go check them out?
• 3:09:50
  I was like, yeah, I fucking got him.
• 3:09:51
  I, I go in there and I, I lay down beside him and I was like,
• 3:09:54
  what's going on, buddy? And he's like, son, I don't know
• 3:09:57
  what you know, I busted his chops a little bit in the.
• 3:09:59
  Game he's like. Yeah, what the fuck, man?
• 3:10:01
  I hear you're on your second magazine.
• 3:10:02
  Like, you're zeroing, dude. Like, what are you doing?
• 3:10:05
  He's like, I don't know, son. I just can't.
• 3:10:08
  I can't seem to shoot right. And I was like, all right, let's
• 3:10:11
  check this out. And I lay down beside him and I
• 3:10:14
  was like, I'm going to watch you go through your trigger squeeze,
• 3:10:17
  your body posture, your breathing, your positioning.
• 3:10:19
  I was like, I'll see what I can see.
• 3:10:21
  I was like, if you're doing everything right, maybe your gun
• 3:10:23
  shot out, bro. I was like, you know, that's the
• 3:10:24
  point. We put him through hell.
• 3:10:26
  Maybe your shot out, you know, making jokes of the situation.
• 3:10:31
  But when I was sitting there watching him and his body
• 3:10:34
  posture and everything as as he started engaging I I noticed
• 3:10:39
  like every time there was a twitch his eyes would close like
• 3:10:44
  he was fucking shell shocked. Still.
• 3:10:46
  You know, from what he experienced at OP topside and
• 3:10:50
  for the longest time, because I know because of the way I wrote
• 3:10:54
  it up and and when I came to the command with that situation,
• 3:10:57
  what was going on. I know that that's a part of why
• 3:10:59
  he got moved out for the longest time.
• 3:11:02
  Like I carried that weight on me heavy until I think it was, I
• 3:11:07
  think it was the year I retired in 2023.
• 3:11:10
  I had the the fortunate luck to go on a a veteran hunt that some
• 3:11:20
  some nonprofit puts together and it was 173rd guys who I did it
• 3:11:24
  with. So it was Jesse.
• 3:11:25
  Quake was. There Sones was there.
• 3:11:29
  Who else? There was like 2, two or three
• 3:11:31
  others. There were the Jacob Keating was
• 3:11:34
  there. There.
• 3:11:35
  Was a couple, couple others. Yeah, it was.
• 3:11:37
  And Jacob Keating is the one who actually pulled me into it was
• 3:11:39
  pretty awesome. But anyways, so, you know, I got
• 3:11:45
  to see Stones and that was the first time I got to see him
• 3:11:48
  since the baffle range like he had, he hadn't been moved out so
• 3:11:53
  quick because of the way things were going on.
• 3:11:55
  That was the first time I got to see him since the baffle range.
• 3:11:59
  And I had the conversation with him and I told him and I was
• 3:12:02
  like, look, dude, you know, I, I, to this day, I feel
• 3:12:05
  absolutely fucking horrible that what I, what I brought up and
• 3:12:09
  the way I described it and talked about it led to you being
• 3:12:12
  out of the military. You know, I was like, I'm, I'm
• 3:12:14
  sorry. And he let, he let me know like,
• 3:12:18
  and it was, it was good, man, because it was, it was something
• 3:12:21
  I, I carried hard for a long time, but he let me know like,
• 3:12:25
  no, sorry. Like what you did for me was the
• 3:12:28
  greatest thing anybody could have done.
• 3:12:30
  He's like, I was so, so fucking gone and, and shit like that.
• 3:12:33
  And we had a long conversation in a heart to heart and it was
• 3:12:37
  pretty cool, you know, But it was almost 20 years later that
• 3:12:40
  I've been that's just been eating me up that I finally got
• 3:12:43
  to have that conversation, you know, And it's like, look, the
• 3:12:46
  small stuff like that is what what we carried with us.
• 3:12:49
  And then, you know, then then became the discipline issues of
• 3:12:53
  the dudes who returned, who felt like, you know, the world owed
• 3:12:56
  the world owed them everything because they went down range and
• 3:13:00
  they fought for their country and trying, trying to rope those
• 3:13:03
  guys in. And, and I think, I think maybe
• 3:13:07
  that's what helped me for the longest time and not dealing
• 3:13:11
  with my own shit is that I was always, I was always worried
• 3:13:17
  about how those dudes were doing, you know, like who, who's
• 3:13:22
  the next guy? I'm going to get a phone call
• 3:13:24
  and I have to go to his house because he just attempted
• 3:13:27
  whatever in front of his wife and kids.
• 3:13:29
  And you know. Who's the next guy?
• 3:13:30
  I got to go down to the MP station and pick up and you
• 3:13:34
  know, how do, how do I keep these guys with the right
• 3:13:36
  mindset, letting them know like, hey, man, this, this is this is
• 3:13:40
  who we are. This is what we do.
• 3:13:42
  You know, don't don't piss away everything that you've done and
• 3:13:45
  you've accomplished with this. Well, at the same time I was.
• 3:13:49
  You know. Dealing with my own shit,
• 3:13:51
  drinking, drinking my problems away at the bottom of a bottle.
• 3:13:53
  I never even realized it. Yeah, it's a, it's a double
• 3:13:57
  edged sword, man, right? Because as, as, as soldiers and
• 3:14:03
  especially as leaders, because you as a leader, you, you see
• 3:14:08
  more, right? And it, it's not to take away
• 3:14:11
  from that soldier on the ground who was physically in whatever
• 3:14:16
  situation they were in, but you as a leader, you were, you were
• 3:14:21
  not only part of that soldier situation, you were part of the
• 3:14:23
  other soldier situation, right? So, and why not you, you were
• 3:14:28
  part of the OP topside you, you, you saw that you were part of
• 3:14:32
  the mortar pit when it kicked off.
• 3:14:34
  You were part of, you know, the, the CP when, when that kicked
• 3:14:38
  off, when the, the gun truck. So, so you, you experience maybe
• 3:14:43
  not as acutely, I guess is the right way to say it.
• 3:14:47
  Sometimes, sometimes you do in your case, but as a leader, you,
• 3:14:53
  you, you get more of it, right? And so as a leader, you're,
• 3:14:58
  you're trained and, and the best leaders are able to
• 3:15:02
  compartmentalize what goes on. And they just, they shove that
• 3:15:06
  shit in the back because as a leader, you, you've got to snap
• 3:15:10
  back so quick and, and you've got to be able to move Chavez
• 3:15:15
  and Abad from the mortar position over to cover because
• 3:15:19
  you know that that position is no longer tenable.
• 3:15:22
  And then you've got to now take care of, you know, my guys over
• 3:15:26
  in in the gun truck and get them out.
• 3:15:28
  And then you got to go back up the top side.
• 3:15:31
  And and if you're if you get stuck in in one moment, then you
• 3:15:36
  as a leader are no longer good. And so you.
• 3:15:40
  Yeah. And So what ends up happening
• 3:15:42
  is, is you carry that past the broader engagement of whatnot
• 3:15:48
  and you carry that later into life and you find your coping
• 3:15:51
  mechanisms and, you know, whether that's alcohol or, you
• 3:15:57
  know, some drugs or, or whatever it is.
• 3:16:01
  I know I'm, I'm not trying to make this about me and I'm not
• 3:16:04
  going to, but you know, I've had my own issues where I, I thought
• 3:16:07
  I was really good. I, I really, really did.
• 3:16:10
  I thought, I've, I've got this figured out because in the
• 3:16:15
  moment I get angry and I get pissed.
• 3:16:18
  But then afterwards, like I'm, I'm talking.
• 3:16:21
  Yeah, exactly. And I'm, I'm talking about in
• 3:16:23
  the moment in combat and things like that, right.
• 3:16:25
  But afterwards I'm like, OK, guys, like that fucking
• 3:16:28
  happened. We got to fucking dust ourselves
• 3:16:30
  off because it's not over and and we got to keep going.
• 3:16:35
  But what we don't realize is we, we think we've processed it, we
• 3:16:40
  think we've dealt with it, but it's still there.
• 3:16:44
  It's, it's just hidden now in, in whatever compartment that,
• 3:16:47
  that we utilize. And it's just buried.
• 3:16:50
  And it's, it's just waiting for that trigger.
• 3:16:54
  And unfortunately, a lot of times it's alcohol or, or
• 3:16:56
  something like that that brings it right back out.
• 3:17:00
  And then at that point you're not ready for it and and you
• 3:17:03
  can't handle it because now your inhibitions have been dampened
• 3:17:06
  because you're drunk. I mean it's.
• 3:17:11
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 3:17:12
  And and so for you, like I can only imagine, right.
• 3:17:16
  And I know you and I have talked some off off this and you know,
• 3:17:21
  if if you want to go into it, by all means, I'd love to hear your
• 3:17:24
  story. But it it's, it's, it's amazing.
• 3:17:30
  There's, there's a lot because like the other part is that was,
• 3:17:35
  that was the combat side, right? So that was a professional side.
• 3:17:38
  The other parts of my life that I was going through at the time
• 3:17:41
  that people, people don't know, right, is that I was going
• 3:17:49
  through a divorce because my wife cheated on me while I was
• 3:17:51
  on that deployment. So I'd filed for divorce on that
• 3:17:55
  deployment. My little sister had gotten
• 3:18:00
  stabbed and a drug deal gone wrong.
• 3:18:02
  So she was cut from here to here.
• 3:18:05
  So she was laid up in a hospital.
• 3:18:07
  My mom had just got diagnosed with cancer.
• 3:18:11
  So all that shit was happening in that 115 months to to little
• 3:18:18
  old, what, 2324 year old Eric at the time, you know?
• 3:18:22
  And it was like, looking back, I'm like, how the hell did I not
• 3:18:28
  lose it? Earlier.
• 3:18:30
  You know, because I did it, It took a long time for, for all
• 3:18:35
  those things to surface. And it was, it was hard.
• 3:18:40
  It was very hard because I did like as I was young.
• 3:18:43
  You figure 2000. 8 the 20. Yeah, I was, I was 2324 years
• 3:18:54
  old at that point in time, 2525 I think it was 252526.
• 3:18:59
  Yeah, Anyways, but you know, coming back from that
• 3:19:04
  deployment, because like I said before, I was always was always
• 3:19:06
  the great guy. Nobody really knew who I was.
• 3:19:09
  It was just the dude that made shit happen.
• 3:19:12
  So then coming back from that deployment now, you know, I got
• 3:19:15
  awarded the DSC and then I got awarded the Silver Star and
• 3:19:19
  everybody, everybody knew who the hell I was.
• 3:19:23
  Like there was no hiding from it at that point in time.
• 3:19:27
  So then a part of me kind of like took on that persona, I
• 3:19:32
  think, and it, it kind of ruined me for a while.
• 3:19:35
  But looking back, it, it it did, it did it, it ruined me for a
• 3:19:41
  bit because I thought I was on top of the fucking world.
• 3:19:44
  I thought nothing could touch me, you know, because that's the
• 3:19:47
  way I was treated. And you know, and I, I know like
• 3:19:52
  it was, it was a running joke back then, but now I see how
• 3:19:57
  much of A running joke it wasn't.
• 3:19:59
  It was everybody treated me the way they treated me because they
• 3:20:02
  didn't know when I was going to. Snap and that's what.
• 3:20:04
  Everybody was afraid of, you know, but I didn't, I didn't
• 3:20:08
  realize it at the time is. That's what people were waiting
• 3:20:11
  on. Little little did we know it
• 3:20:13
  wouldn't happen until almost 20 years later.
• 3:20:15
  You. Know but yeah you know I, I,
• 3:20:19
  I've ran into my piece I, I when it got bad it was it was in
• 3:20:27
  20/20/21 was when ship really went downhill for me for for for
• 3:20:34
  the shutdown of Afghanistan as you know you.
• 3:20:36
  Know. You were, you were there, but I
• 3:20:41
  was, I was sitting in Mexico in the embassy watching, watching
• 3:20:47
  the whole thing unfold on, on, on the TV.
• 3:20:51
  And, you know, it just, it just hit me different people were
• 3:20:54
  asking me all the time, you know, because I worked with a
• 3:20:57
  couple agency letter places and stuff.
• 3:20:59
  And they would ask me like, you know, how do you feel about it
• 3:21:03
  and what do you think and everything.
• 3:21:04
  And I never, I never really gave my piece because it was like,
• 3:21:07
  you know, I'm, I'm still in uniform.
• 3:21:08
  I'm still this, I don't really have a say.
• 3:21:10
  So, you know, looking back and knowing everything that unfolded
• 3:21:18
  after that, because you know, that happened in August and in
• 3:21:23
  August of 21 and January 22, I was an in, I was an inpatient.
• 3:21:31
  So it it had a much larger effect on me than I thought it
• 3:21:35
  did. You know, and that's, that's.
• 3:21:39
  While I was in an inpatient, it was when I got to find out of
• 3:21:43
  this new lovely term that that they were tossing around called
• 3:21:47
  a moral injury. I got to find out about that,
• 3:21:50
  you know, and I learned about that and was diagnosed with
• 3:21:52
  that, with the stuff that I was dealing with at the point in
• 3:21:56
  time. And I, you know, is I, I ended
• 3:22:02
  up, I was supposed to be there for for inpatient for four
• 3:22:05
  weeks. What led to it is I rolled my
• 3:22:07
  car. I got pissed ass drunk.
• 3:22:10
  I rolled my car three times going down the highway.
• 3:22:14
  Not, not my proudest moment. Yeah, a lot of things went
• 3:22:17
  through my head. You know, it's like cuz at the
• 3:22:19
  time I had my dog Luna, Luna, she's a nut case, but I love
• 3:22:24
  her. At the time I had her and I was
• 3:22:27
  taking her everywhere with me because there was, there was
• 3:22:29
  thing I was, I was kind of on a downward trend, you know, and my
• 3:22:32
  wife's seen it and, and she, I guess she had identified it.
• 3:22:35
  And so Luna we kind of used the Luna has like a emotional,
• 3:22:40
  emotional support animal. And it worked.
• 3:22:43
  It worked well, like she, she was awesome.
• 3:22:45
  She's, she's part Mallinwa, so she's real intelligent and she
• 3:22:49
  can pick up when things aren't, aren't going so well with me and
• 3:22:51
  she'll come over and lay her head in my lap and all that good
• 3:22:53
  stuff. Like she, she does great.
• 3:22:56
  But normally she was with me and that day she wasn't.
• 3:22:59
  And I, I again, I think the heavens above that she wasn't
• 3:23:03
  because she would have got killed.
• 3:23:04
  You know, I flipped that car and it rolled through the air 3
• 3:23:07
  fucking times. I remember counting every single
• 3:23:09
  circle, boom boom boom I remember.
• 3:23:13
  And you know, cuz we're so used to chaos.
• 3:23:15
  You know. The car comes and it levels out.
• 3:23:18
  Boom, you know, it stops. I'm sitting there.
• 3:23:20
  I was like fuck, hit the dashboard, call my wife and she
• 3:23:26
  answers the phone. She's like, what's up?
• 3:23:27
  I said, hey, don't flip out, everything's OK.
• 3:23:30
  I just flipped my car. I got some phone calls to make.
• 3:23:34
  I'll call you at the end of it and I'll let you know how
• 3:23:36
  everything works out. But I'm perfectly fine and I
• 3:23:38
  hung up on her. Then I call my detachment
• 3:23:40
  commander and I was like, hey boss, I got bad news.
• 3:23:45
  I was like, I just, I just rolled my car.
• 3:23:47
  I'm right over here off of 85. So I was only like 6 miles
• 3:23:51
  outside of the front gate to 7th group compound.
• 3:23:55
  Not good, not good. So, you know, but I had good
• 3:24:01
  dudes and good dudes came, showed up, helped me out, ended
• 3:24:06
  up saving my career, obviously, because I was over, I was over
• 3:24:10
  21 years in at that point in time.
• 3:24:12
  So I was watching everything just wash away and, and
• 3:24:16
  disappear from front of my face little by little.
• 3:24:21
  But I ended up going to to rehab and PTSD facility and, and I
• 3:24:27
  went and, and I got myself better and it worked.
• 3:24:29
  That was that was the, the first step in a very, very long
• 3:24:35
  journey that I've been on as far as recovering, coping and
• 3:24:43
  working through all the adverse effects that nobody likes to
• 3:24:49
  talk about when we're down in in the trenches.
• 3:24:53
  You know, like we all talk about it.
• 3:24:55
  You know, I was watching a movie The other day with Sonia.
• 3:25:00
  And as I'm sitting there and I'm watching it, this was like
• 3:25:01
  yesterday, I think yesterday or the day before, but I'm sitting
• 3:25:05
  there and I'm watching it and it's it's called Badland or Land
• 3:25:09
  bad or something like that. It's about the PJ who gets gets
• 3:25:12
  attached to the tier one and then he's out there on his.
• 3:25:14
  Own. OK, I I know which one you're
• 3:25:16
  talking about. Yeah.
• 3:25:17
  Yeah. It's so ridiculous.
• 3:25:18
  It's about it's mainly about the drone pilot and shit like that.
• 3:25:21
  But the PJS out there and it's a big part of him too.
• 3:25:24
  Like I'm just sitting there on the couch and I'm watching all
• 3:25:26
  this unfold and it's me and the wife and I don't know, at the
• 3:25:29
  kids were downstairs or something.
• 3:25:31
  And I look at it and I'm just watching it and I got this big
• 3:25:33
  shit, shit eating grin on my face.
• 3:25:35
  And she she nudges me and she's like, what are you smiling
• 3:25:37
  about? And I was like, this is going to
• 3:25:39
  sound absolutely absurd. And she's like, what is it?
• 3:25:43
  And I was like, I was like, you see all that?
• 3:25:45
  She's like, yeah, I was like, I fucking miss it.
• 3:25:48
  She's like, what is wrong? With you?
• 3:25:49
  Like what? Is.
• 3:25:50
  Wrong with. You, you know, but it's just,
• 3:25:53
  it's, it's something about it. And even though looking back and
• 3:25:58
  knowing all the shit I'm dealing with and all the things I've,
• 3:26:01
  I've put my family through, man, like I'm, I'm very fortunate
• 3:26:05
  and, and you know what I'm talking about, Like there's,
• 3:26:08
  we've had a lot of people who, who have had wife after wife and
• 3:26:12
  you know, different situations that they've had to go through.
• 3:26:15
  Everybody's got their one. But I was, I was very fortunate
• 3:26:20
  that Sonia has has stuck by. She's been with me through the
• 3:26:24
  absolute worst of it. She I attribute all of it to her
• 3:26:31
  because she will not let go of me.
• 3:26:34
  I don't get it. I don't get it.
• 3:26:36
  The woman is crazy. The amount of shit I put.
• 3:26:39
  Her through. But she refuses to let go.
• 3:26:42
  And I am very grateful, you know, I keep.
• 3:26:45
  Pictures. Of her right here by where I'm
• 3:26:48
  sitting in the family. You know it's.
• 3:26:50
  Always on the desk. The background but.
• 3:26:54
  No, you're you're, you're, you're extremely lucky in that
• 3:26:56
  regard, but. But I am, yeah.
• 3:26:59
  I want to. So for me, it was, it was the
• 3:27:07
  first like real firefight that I was in back in Iraq that when
• 3:27:13
  when that happened and, and, and.
• 3:27:18
  You. It was crazy.
• 3:27:20
  It was there in Fallujah in, in fall of 2004 and afterwards,
• 3:27:27
  like I'd was like, yeah, yeah, this, this is, this is what I'm
• 3:27:33
  supposed to do, right? This is what I was born for.
• 3:27:37
  Yeah, and and I, I got it that so all of our buddies that are
• 3:27:42
  going to listen to this, they're they're going to, they're going
• 3:27:44
  to remember their stories and they're going to be fuck yeah,
• 3:27:47
  fuck yeah. Right.
• 3:27:49
  But it's it's all those other, it's that 99% of the other
• 3:27:53
  population of the US that is going to hear this and they're
• 3:27:56
  going to what the fuck is wrong with you guys?
• 3:28:01
  Somebody is trying to kill you and you're like, fuck yeah,
• 3:28:04
  let's do this. Yeah, but man.
• 3:28:06
  I mean, you can't, you can't. Like, I don't know how to
• 3:28:10
  verbalize that. And I, I've thought about it
• 3:28:12
  time and time again and I'm, I'm with you.
• 3:28:15
  I I watch some of those movies and, you know, I read some of
• 3:28:18
  the books or I listen to some of the podcasts and all I can think
• 3:28:22
  about. Yeah.
• 3:28:24
  I mean, I there are times where it brings back the demons.
• 3:28:28
  But most of the times I Remember Me and Mitch Rucker fucking
• 3:28:33
  were, were asleep in our. We're over at Camp Joyce at this
• 3:28:36
  point. I think we had.
• 3:28:38
  Yeah, we had just moved into Camp Joyce and we thought it was
• 3:28:42
  fucking hot shit there. We had built a barracks and so
• 3:28:47
  like the our soldiers were going to have a hard stand, fucking
• 3:28:52
  concrete building to sleep in for the first time in like 10
• 3:28:57
  months. And we were over the fucking
• 3:28:59
  moon. And all of a sudden it's like,
• 3:29:04
  you know, probably 2:00 in the morning and we hear the first
• 3:29:07
  blast and it's off in the distance.
• 3:29:09
  And Mitch and I were were sleeping in a bunk bed together.
• 3:29:13
  He's on top, I'm on bottom. And neither one of us are
• 3:29:18
  asleep. And I just remember both of us
• 3:29:21
  thinking, how far away is that? Like do is that us have to?
• 3:29:27
  Get up for that. Yeah.
• 3:29:28
  Do we have to get up? And then finally, either he
• 3:29:31
  verbalized it or I did and I was like, is that that we're good,
• 3:29:36
  right? He's like, yeah, I think so.
• 3:29:39
  But then the next one came and it was a little bit closer.
• 3:29:43
  And then the next one came. We're like, oh fuck, OK, it's
• 3:29:46
  on. And so, you know, we grab our
• 3:29:49
  shit real quick. And at this point, our, our
• 3:29:51
  hooch is probably 100 meters down the hill from where our,
• 3:29:56
  our CP was. So we got, we got a little bit
• 3:29:58
  of a run. The, the upside is like, we've
• 3:30:01
  got Hesco's, unlike you guys, we've got Hesco's set up.
• 3:30:04
  So we've got cover and concealment along the way, but I
• 3:30:07
  mean, we fucking take off running.
• 3:30:09
  And I kid you not, 510 seconds after we leave our hooch, our
• 3:30:15
  hooch is just, yeah, our hooch is destroyed shortly after that.
• 3:30:21
  Like we're running. And all of a sudden I, I don't
• 3:30:23
  know why he did it at the time. I do now, but Mitch just fucking
• 3:30:28
  tackles my ass out of the middle of nowhere and I'm, I'm like,
• 3:30:32
  what the fuck? I get all kind of scraped up
• 3:30:34
  because there's gravel all over the place.
• 3:30:36
  And then bam, fucking RPG. Or actually, I think it was one
• 3:30:41
  of sevens coming in one of seven hits, like, OK, thanks.
• 3:30:45
  And so we fucking get up, right? But when whenever Mitch and I
• 3:30:49
  get back together, we can't help but fucking laugh at that and
• 3:30:53
  the absurdity of it and the fact that we laid in our bunks
• 3:30:56
  thinking, yeah, we we're probably, we don't really, this
• 3:31:00
  isn't close enough that we need to worry about this, right?
• 3:31:04
  And then the fucking yeah. I mean, it's there's there's no
• 3:31:08
  other. I'm no, obviously I've never,
• 3:31:12
  well, maybe not obviously, but I've, I've never done drugs,
• 3:31:16
  drink my more than my fair share of alcohol.
• 3:31:20
  But there is no other hit in the world that I can imagine that
• 3:31:24
  would give you that kind of feeling that, that high that
• 3:31:27
  that adrenaline rush of OK, it's, it's our time.
• 3:31:32
  Let's fucking go in, you know, grabbing the, the, the toe
• 3:31:38
  missile. You're like, no, it's, it's
• 3:31:40
  either all of us or me. Don't even have to think about
• 3:31:44
  it. You just fucking go now.
• 3:31:46
  I I can only hope and pray that it's some, you know, if if me or
• 3:31:52
  or one of my buddies that were able to do that, that takes a
• 3:31:55
  whole different level, man. But it's, yeah, there's nothing
• 3:32:01
  like it. It's it's like I said, man, it
• 3:32:04
  was, you know, that's one of people's favorite things to ask
• 3:32:07
  me. Like what what the fuck would
• 3:32:09
  you thinking? Like what, what went through
• 3:32:11
  your head? In all honesty, man, it was, it
• 3:32:14
  was literally that just just the way I, I explained it, like the
• 3:32:18
  missile comes through, it lands, I'm looking and I'm like, these
• 3:32:22
  motherfuckers got nowhere to run.
• 3:32:24
  There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go.
• 3:32:28
  So it's like, fuck it. And I grabbed it and yeah.
• 3:32:33
  Yeah. My favorite thing?
• 3:32:34
  To say when people ask me, what were you thinking, motherfucker,
• 3:32:37
  I wasn't. You don't have.
• 3:32:40
  Time to think. I wouldn't have done it, but you
• 3:32:44
  know. It's yeah, that's that's a good
• 3:32:49
  point as well. Right.
• 3:32:50
  So one of the broader lessons is, you know, all the training
• 3:32:52
  we do it there is a there is a very distinct purpose behind
• 3:32:57
  that training and and the hard times that we put ourselves
• 3:33:00
  through. It's so that when you're in a
• 3:33:02
  position like that that you don't you don't think you react
• 3:33:08
  and the whole thousand. Yeah, no, go ahead.
• 3:33:13
  I, I 1000% attribute all my actions to the units that I had
• 3:33:18
  been in, the leaders that I had had, because most of it, like
• 3:33:23
  all honesty, like 90% of it was just that it was a reaction.
• 3:33:30
  Muscle memory training kicked in and I executed every one of
• 3:33:35
  those scenarios. I did nothing more than 7-8
• 3:33:39
  battle drill 1A That was it. I was maneuvering a fire team or
• 3:33:43
  a squad. I, I didn't do anything crazy in
• 3:33:47
  my eyes. I didn't do you know it was, it
• 3:33:49
  was just the basics. Yeah, it wasn't.
• 3:33:52
  It wasn't heroic in your mind. It was what had to be done and
• 3:33:55
  it was what you were training. Yeah, 100%.
• 3:33:58
  That's the that's the best way to put it.
• 3:33:59
  Yeah, yeah. And so it's that what I was
• 3:34:02
  going to say is, you know, that is the hope.
• 3:34:04
  And I remember as battalion commander and, and his chosen 6,
• 3:34:11
  doing the training, setting up the training, but more really as
• 3:34:15
  a battalion commander, because, you know, back then we were so
• 3:34:17
  young mentally that it, it definitely didn't dawn on me
• 3:34:24
  what we were the, the gravity of what we were training for,
• 3:34:29
  right? I knew what we were training
• 3:34:32
  for, but the gravity had not really set in.
• 3:34:35
  And so it wasn't until as a battalion commander that I
• 3:34:39
  remember with, with Jerry and setting up the training that we
• 3:34:43
  were doing and, and finally being told by the brigade
• 3:34:46
  commander, hey, no, Chris, like regardless of what size the
• 3:34:51
  deployment is going to be, 431 is going to be on the
• 3:34:54
  deployment. OK, that got it, Sir.
• 3:34:57
  I know what this means now. And setting up that training.
• 3:35:00
  So that the hope is that when, if we are put in that situation
• 3:35:06
  that I've, I've trained these soldiers well enough that the
• 3:35:11
  instinct kicks in because you don't know.
• 3:35:13
  And it, it, and I can't stress this enough that I don't fault,
• 3:35:19
  I don't blame anybody that is not able to immediately react
• 3:35:25
  like that because it's, you don't know until you're in the
• 3:35:29
  situation which way it's going to go the, the, the fight or
• 3:35:33
  flight, right? You're going to have invariably
• 3:35:37
  at least one that I that looks at you and says Sergeant
• 3:35:42
  Phillips, I, I just, I can't do this.
• 3:35:45
  Right. Yeah.
• 3:35:47
  And I know from from my point of my point of view, I will never
• 3:35:50
  look at that person differently. I won't.
• 3:35:53
  I agree. I agree.
• 3:35:55
  So one, one of the things that I've, I've learned through
• 3:36:00
  inpatient, outpatient and, and getting better is so like I used
• 3:36:08
  to, I used to be the guy of, oh, you don't have PTSD, you don't
• 3:36:12
  have this. And if you ain't in the
• 3:36:13
  infantry, you ain't shit all that.
• 3:36:15
  Like I, I was that guy, you know what I mean?
• 3:36:17
  I was, I was, I was the epitome of a paratrooper.
• 3:36:21
  If you would like, I, I talked to talk and walk the walk.
• 3:36:25
  That was, that was who I was. But what I learned in outpatient
• 3:36:31
  and inpatient, you know, is because you're, you're in there
• 3:36:34
  with all kinds of people. You're in there with supply
• 3:36:36
  clerks, you're in there with sailors are in there with, you
• 3:36:39
  know, whoever, whoever was dealing with their own problem
• 3:36:42
  because it is a veteran heavy place where I went to, which I'd
• 3:36:45
  recommend for anybody who can get in there, get in there.
• 3:36:48
  It's called a Laurel Ridge Treatment Center.
• 3:36:50
  I highly recommend it. And it was great for me.
• 3:36:53
  Something to be all honest, I wish I could do once a year.
• 3:36:56
  I really do. It's kind of like a recent.
• 3:36:59
  Laurel Ridge. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:37:03
  But so one of the things I learned there from, from going
• 3:37:09
  through the group therapies and stuff like that was that, you
• 3:37:13
  know, and I, I, I explained this, I just had a phone call
• 3:37:16
  with a buddy of mine who's just going into rehab.
• 3:37:20
  This guy, he operates at the, at the top of the top right.
• 3:37:24
  If you can read between that, that's that's.
• 3:37:26
  Where he works. You know what I mean?
• 3:37:28
  Like day in, day out, that is what he deals with.
• 3:37:30
  That is who he is. And so when he called me and he
• 3:37:34
  told me that, you know, and he, he told me flat out like, hey,
• 3:37:38
  you know, I'm calling you because even though I'm where I
• 3:37:42
  am and I do what I do, like the level of respect I have for you,
• 3:37:47
  yadda, yadda, yadda. I won't go into the whole
• 3:37:48
  conversation, right. He's like, you know, I want to
• 3:37:50
  hear your thoughts on this. And I told him flat out, I was
• 3:37:54
  like, look, dude, I was like 1. I couldn't be more fucking proud
• 3:37:58
  of you. It's like you're going to be a
• 3:37:59
  better man. You're going to be a better
• 3:38:01
  husband, You're going to be a better fucking father.
• 3:38:03
  I was like, you will, you know, I was like, it's, it's not an
• 3:38:06
  easy thing for, for I'm not saying that everybody, it's not
• 3:38:12
  easy for anybody. But at the end of the day, there
• 3:38:16
  are certain caliber of men, certain caliber of people.
• 3:38:19
  It is we're just made differently.
• 3:38:21
  Some of us were born and bred for this shit.
• 3:38:24
  Other people, you just walk the walk and you did what you had to
• 3:38:27
  do. You know what I mean?
• 3:38:28
  And I don't I'm not taking from anybody.
• 3:38:30
  Those are my own thoughts, my own beliefs, but you know, he's
• 3:38:34
  sitting here telling me, you know how how he fucking respects
• 3:38:37
  me this that and the other. And I told him I was like, look
• 3:38:38
  man, it's like the hardest part about going there was 1
• 3:38:41
  swallowing the pride to be able to do it.
• 3:38:45
  I was like, cuz people like us, we don't, we don't do that shit.
• 3:38:48
  I was like, I was like, but I have 0 regrets having done it,
• 3:38:51
  not fucking one. I was like, it only made me a
• 3:38:54
  better person. And I told him if I could, I'd,
• 3:38:56
  I'd go back every year just like I just stated I like I wouldn't.
• 3:38:59
  I literally am that guy that needs that complete separation.
• 3:39:03
  Locked me down for four to six weeks and then released me back
• 3:39:07
  into the wild. Let me do a complete reset
• 3:39:10
  reshuffle, you know, And I told him I was like, but one of the
• 3:39:14
  biggest takeaways, I went there being already kind of negative
• 3:39:22
  in the aspect of, OK, I'm going to come here with all these
• 3:39:24
  people and they don't know me. They don't know what I've been
• 3:39:27
  through. They're going to sit here and
• 3:39:28
  whine and cry and complain about the shit they went through and
• 3:39:32
  how they're traumatized and all that, you know?
• 3:39:34
  And I was playing all this shit in my head.
• 3:39:36
  So I went into it with a negative negative side in the.
• 3:39:39
  Beginning right? And it took about 2-3 weeks to
• 3:39:43
  work that shit out of me, to be honest, sitting there and
• 3:39:46
  actually getting to know the people and the the brothers and
• 3:39:49
  sisters who have served along in some shape or form in a uniform,
• 3:39:52
  just like we did, you know? But one of the biggest takeaways
• 3:39:56
  I learned and one of the biggest things I told my buddy to, to
• 3:39:59
  check yourself, check your ego showing up there.
• 3:40:03
  And the reason being is because what I learned for me was hey,
• 3:40:08
  so the S one person who showed up and joined the military to
• 3:40:13
  and I say S1 because it was a female S1 who who?
• 3:40:17
  Made me open my eyes that's why I I use that.
• 3:40:20
  Specifically right? I won't say her name, but I know
• 3:40:24
  she'll watch this at some point in time.
• 3:40:26
  And yes, I'm talking about you. You, you made a change on me.
• 3:40:31
  You know, they, they sign up to, to do that, to, to be human
• 3:40:36
  resources. And that's.
• 3:40:37
  That's what they think they're doing.
• 3:40:39
  We signed up and continue to sign up and re enlist and redo
• 3:40:43
  it again to be in the infantry. Like hey, you know, I'm putting
• 3:40:47
  my ass on the line. This is what I want to do.
• 3:40:49
  I'm bringing the fight to the enemy.
• 3:40:51
  So our mentality and our thought process is already different.
• 3:40:55
  You know, like coming, coming right out the RIP.
• 3:40:57
  We're already in a different mindset, so then you add in the
• 3:41:02
  background of how. People are raised.
• 3:41:04
  You know, she come, she come in a nice decent family, no issues,
• 3:41:08
  everything was good. You know, you know, kind of like
• 3:41:11
  what I do for my kids. She grew up like my kids are
• 3:41:14
  growing up. My kids, you know, they get,
• 3:41:16
  they get a little bit of secondary PTSD, but they see the
• 3:41:18
  dad's working. On this shit.
• 3:41:20
  They know I'm working on it, you know, but they, for the most
• 3:41:23
  part, they have a good life. You know what I mean?
• 3:41:25
  So then you add in the background of those people, you
• 3:41:28
  know, guys like me and and my friend that I'm talking about,
• 3:41:31
  we had it rough, man. We can't, we came all fucking
• 3:41:33
  shitty. You know, it was, it wasn't
• 3:41:36
  great, alcohol, parents and beatings and all that stuff.
• 3:41:39
  So you add in that side, but then you get to the nitty gritty
• 3:41:45
  of it. Like I was explaining to him and
• 3:41:47
  that person sitting in an office doing their thing in Iraq,
• 3:41:51
  Afghanistan, typing away, taking care of whatever soldiers and
• 3:41:55
  that rocket that comes in, they literally think they're going to
• 3:41:59
  fucking die. That is their traumatic event.
• 3:42:02
  You know what I mean? And I never wrapping my head
• 3:42:07
  around that, how different people can have PTSD and and
• 3:42:12
  dealing with those traumatic outcomes so differently.
• 3:42:14
  Never sat in until being there and explaining that to him.
• 3:42:20
  And then I could hear, I think it was because he, we're so much
• 3:42:23
  alike, me and him, that the way I explained it to him, he was
• 3:42:27
  like, oh shit, you're right. Because I was already thinking
• 3:42:31
  like, what the fuck am I going to have to listen to going into
• 3:42:34
  this? You know?
• 3:42:37
  And so that's one of the biggest things I, I have to, I, I
• 3:42:40
  explained to people is just hear the other person out, listen to
• 3:42:43
  their voice, listen, watch their body cues.
• 3:42:46
  You're going to know if somebody's bullshit.
• 3:42:48
  And because you have your own signs and symptoms that you've
• 3:42:50
  dealt with, you know, and I could see the sincerity in, in
• 3:42:55
  my female counterparts or, you know, my 88 mics or whoever else
• 3:43:00
  was sharing, sharing their piece and helping me get through my
• 3:43:02
  events, like hearing them go through it.
• 3:43:05
  And it, it opened, it opened up another side of me.
• 3:43:07
  You know, it chisels, chisels away a little bit more, more of
• 3:43:11
  that stone around that heart. So but you know, it's it's it
• 3:43:16
  was big. Who's big?
• 3:43:19
  That's that's, that's a great point as well, right?
• 3:43:22
  Everybody's, everybody's got their own story.
• 3:43:24
  Everybody's got their own trauma.
• 3:43:28
  And yeah, I mean, you, you, you don't know again, what, what's
• 3:43:35
  going to happen until it happens and what the trigger is going to
• 3:43:37
  be for that person. Right.
• 3:43:39
  That that 88 Mike, the the fucking fueler on Bob Fortress
• 3:43:45
  that that's making sure we can burn our shit and fuel our
• 3:43:49
  trucks. They didn't necessarily sign up
• 3:43:53
  to get mortared every other day and and shot at every day.
• 3:43:57
  But guess what? Sure you are and and your truck
• 3:44:02
  that nobody's trauma is exactly the same.
• 3:44:07
  And the, the, the biggest thing that that I hope all of the
• 3:44:10
  people that listen to this, aside from the fucking
• 3:44:14
  hellaciously great stories that you've told, the biggest thing
• 3:44:18
  that I hope, the biggest thing that I hope they take away is
• 3:44:25
  you. You got to take the first step
• 3:44:26
  to recovery. And and that's got to be on you.
• 3:44:30
  Somebody else can't make you do it, much like yourself.
• 3:44:35
  And I mentioned this briefly when you were talking about
• 3:44:37
  Sonia. It, it was my wife, you know it
• 3:44:42
  was, it was post. It was 2011.
• 3:44:49
  I was in the old guard. I had just left the 173rd and
• 3:44:56
  Bradley Falls. If you remember certain Falls,
• 3:45:00
  it was one of my squad leaders or section sergeants, I guess
• 3:45:03
  technically in Delta Company when I was destined 6.
• 3:45:09
  He was in the old Guard and we had, we were doing a, a, you
• 3:45:14
  know, a regimental ball, a brigade ball.
• 3:45:17
  And we had gotten together and we were having drinks and, and
• 3:45:20
  next thing I know, he and I started doing shots, shot, shot
• 3:45:23
  shots, right. And that's the last thing I
• 3:45:26
  remember. And it was not a good night.
• 3:45:29
  I'm not going to go into details, quite frankly, because
• 3:45:31
  I'm still in the military. But yeah, it was, it was bad.
• 3:45:38
  And that next morning, I remember waking up my wife and I
• 3:45:42
  had got in a hotel there in DC where the ball was, and I was
• 3:45:47
  sleeping and I woke up on the couch.
• 3:45:49
  And I knew, you know, me sleeping on the couch was not a
• 3:45:52
  good sign. So it's like it's, you know, I
• 3:45:57
  find my wife and she's like, So what do you remember?
• 3:46:01
  I was like, you know, I told her, yeah, I remember doing some
• 3:46:04
  shots there at the ball or whatever.
• 3:46:07
  OK, She laid it all out for me and at this point in in my time
• 3:46:13
  at the old guard, I knew I was getting ready to PCs to go out
• 3:46:17
  to Leavenworth. So we were there literally for
• 3:46:20
  one year. I'd I'd gotten picked up early
• 3:46:22
  to go to school out at Leavenworth.
• 3:46:25
  And so I was going to be a Geo bachelor.
• 3:46:27
  I was going to leave the family there and let them stay because
• 3:46:30
  we had bought a house thinking we would be there for three
• 3:46:32
  years. She's like, look, you've got one
• 3:46:37
  year to get this figured out because I've seen it for a
• 3:46:40
  while. I saw it when you got back from
• 3:46:42
  Afghanistan in 08. And I see it now and I know that
• 3:46:47
  you don't see it and you won't talk to me about it, whatever it
• 3:46:52
  is. So either you figure this out in
• 3:46:55
  the next year or we may not be leaving with you whenever you
• 3:46:59
  PCs from level 1. I was just like, oh, shit.
• 3:47:04
  Oh, OK. And it was just for me, it was
• 3:47:08
  kind of that divine intervention kind of like you were talking
• 3:47:10
  about, because I show up there to, I show up there to
• 3:47:12
  Leavenworth and of course everybody, you know, I got the
• 3:47:15
  173rd combat patch on and we'd just done really 3 back-to-back
• 3:47:21
  deployments. Not you and me, but the, the
• 3:47:23
  brigade had just done 3 back-to-back deployments.
• 3:47:27
  And I show up day one in my, my little small group there and I
• 3:47:30
  got this old retired, I think he was a 05 artilleryman.
• 3:47:37
  And he saw the combat patch. And he immediately was like,
• 3:47:42
  were you in the 173rd when what not happened?
• 3:47:46
  And I was like, yeah, he's like, oh, that's perfect.
• 3:47:51
  We're we're we want to do this like virtual battlefield
• 3:47:57
  discussion on it and you know, talk about the deployment and
• 3:48:02
  all this stuff. And I looked at him and I was
• 3:48:06
  like, I don't want to do that. Like, what do you mean?
• 3:48:09
  I was like, I'm, I'm not going to be part of that, but I don't
• 3:48:12
  want to talk about that because I knew that like that's the
• 3:48:15
  stuff that was not that I was involved in whatnot, but like I,
• 3:48:20
  I didn't want to talk about it. Larry for me is one of the
• 3:48:23
  bigger ones that fucked me up. When Larry Rule was killed, he
• 3:48:28
  was the. First person I met when I got to
• 3:48:30
  Italy. Yeah, well, he, he was my Ranger
• 3:48:33
  buddy for five months in in Ranger School.
• 3:48:35
  Oh shit I didn't. Know that.
• 3:48:38
  Yeah. And so, yeah, So he was one of
• 3:48:41
  the first guys you met. He was one of the first guys
• 3:48:44
  that I met again in the 173rd. So I'm walking down the the road
• 3:48:48
  there in between the PX and where Brigade headquarters was,
• 3:48:52
  right. All of a sudden I hear somebody,
• 3:48:55
  Chris. Chris.
• 3:48:57
  Chris. I fucking turn around and
• 3:49:00
  there's now Staff Sergeant Rugel.
• 3:49:03
  Like Larry. He's like.
• 3:49:05
  Yeah, what's up, man? Yeah.
• 3:49:09
  And so that, that one, that's one of the ones that that
• 3:49:13
  probably hit me the hardest. But the the divine interface
• 3:49:17
  intervention piece was there in the small group.
• 3:49:21
  They kind of, they kind of give you a battle buddy, right.
• 3:49:25
  Unofficially. And I sit down next to this
• 3:49:27
  older gentleman. He's a major, like I'm a major.
• 3:49:30
  And I looked over at him and I can't remember, I don't think
• 3:49:36
  he's got a Ranger tab. I know that.
• 3:49:39
  I can't remember if he's got a, a long tab or not.
• 3:49:42
  I think he had a long tab. But he's a fucking chaplain and
• 3:49:49
  he likes the golf. And so we, we start talking and
• 3:49:55
  me and Rick Winchester, Richard Winchester, he's retired now.
• 3:50:00
  We started, we started going golfing just about every
• 3:50:03
  afternoon on the little golf course there at Leavenworth.
• 3:50:06
  And you know, he, he, he could tell and he just, he kind of
• 3:50:11
  started, you know, scratching a little bit, scratch a little
• 3:50:14
  bit, scratch a little bit. And I, I eventually started
• 3:50:17
  opening up. And that was for that particular
• 3:50:21
  piece anyways, that that's for me how I was able to thank God
• 3:50:27
  start to unburden some of that. That's awesome.
• 3:50:31
  Yeah, that's that's, that's the biggest piece that I always try
• 3:50:35
  to throw out to people too, man, is because that's that's what
• 3:50:38
  happens, right? Is all honesty is people start
• 3:50:41
  feeling alone, they start self isolating and and it's like, you
• 3:50:45
  know, you, you start to, you start to lose hope and, and
• 3:50:49
  stop, stop caring. Like there's, there's signs, you
• 3:50:55
  know, like literally I've, I've caught myself doing it again to
• 3:50:59
  where, you know, since I've, I've retired, where I've been, I
• 3:51:04
  find myself starting to go down certain rabbit holes and I'm
• 3:51:07
  like, all right, you're, you're start starting to go down a spot
• 3:51:11
  you don't need to go. And I have to branch out and
• 3:51:13
  find something else and redirect focus because it's a never
• 3:51:18
  ending process man. Like.
• 3:51:20
  And that's, that's, that's the biggest thing I always want to
• 3:51:24
  tell people is. It it gets.
• 3:51:29
  Better, but it doesn't go away, you know, like it is something
• 3:51:34
  you have to live with the rest of your life.
• 3:51:36
  It's just a matter of how you want to live with it.
• 3:51:40
  And I mean that in a proper way. You know, like for me, I use I
• 3:51:43
  focus all my time and into trying to be a better dad.
• 3:51:48
  Like that's, that's my number one thing, you know, like after
• 3:51:51
  I went SF, when Sean was born, his first five years, that boy
• 3:51:55
  had no idea who the hell I was. He had no clue the first five
• 3:51:59
  years, you know, But I, I know I can't make up for that time, but
• 3:52:04
  I try to replace that with good memories now.
• 3:52:06
  And that's. That's.
• 3:52:07
  Becomes a big. Big part of my focus, you know?
• 3:52:11
  But. Yeah.
• 3:52:13
  Well, brother, we've we've, we've got a good one here, I
• 3:52:16
  think. I think so too.
• 3:52:20
  Yeah. But I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking
• 3:52:24
  we probably leave this as Part 1 because I do, I think the the
• 3:52:29
  other piece of this, I don't want to gloss over your time in
• 3:52:31
  the 82nd as much as you know, I poo poo on the 82nd.
• 3:52:36
  It's, it's a, it's a hell of a unit and, and storied and got
• 3:52:41
  its traditions. But I also want to talk about
• 3:52:43
  your, your, your soft time a little bit and, and really about
• 3:52:48
  your transition and how you handle that.
• 3:52:50
  So I think we'll, we'll catch up again later.
• 3:52:53
  We'll give this some time to marinate and I can't thank
• 3:52:56
  enough for coming on. And so I'm going to leave the
• 3:52:59
  kind of the final word with you. I, I, I appreciate it.
• 3:53:03
  I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come in here and,
• 3:53:08
  and talk about this and, and bring it out because it is one
• 3:53:11
  of the things that no shit helps me the most.
• 3:53:15
  You know, I've, I've always, I'm huge, even now in my consulting
• 3:53:22
  slash contracting life and the big coach, teach mentor.
• 3:53:26
  You know, it's, it's the army I grew up in.
• 3:53:29
  And so like being able to coach, teach a mentor people under
• 3:53:33
  their their path to recovery and, and coping and dealing with
• 3:53:36
  things and becoming better than they were yesterday is it's near
• 3:53:40
  and dear to my heart. So I, I greatly appreciate the
• 3:53:44
  opportunity and being able to come on and and talk about these
• 3:53:47
  these things with you guys. I appreciate it.
• 3:53:51
  Yeah, hey, so for for everybody out there, you can find us on
• 3:53:55
  YouTube. You see the boots and shoots
• 3:53:58
  unfiltered up there at the the top of the screen.
• 3:54:02
  We're on Spotify. Give us a like, give us a
• 3:54:04
  listen, Instagram, Twitter X, whatever you want to call it
• 3:54:10
  these days. We're out there.
• 3:54:11
  So please come like subscribe. It's been a hell of a ride here.
• 3:54:16
  I appreciate it, Eric. All right, guys.
• 3:54:18
  Appreciate you, Chris. Did it stop recording?
• 3:54:28
  Fuck no. OK, that's.
• 3:54:30
  Fine.