Latest / So There I Was / You Can Run, But You'll Just Die Tired Episode 148

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You Can Run, But You'll Just Die Tired Episode 148 · So There I Was

• 0:00
  Quiet, numbskulls. I'm broadcasting. Hello, you're listening to the podcast. So, there I was.
• 0:05
  It's how all great aviation tales begin.
• 0:08
  This is episode 148. You can run, but you're gonna die tired.
• 0:15
  So, don't run. Just die. Just die. For crying out loud, right?
• 0:20
  Just get it over with. Try not to be tired. Right.
• 0:23
  Special voice there. Who's that? Fig? Well, this is Fig, and I am I'm actually
• 0:30
  flying with a two-time guest on the podcast, Kimo.
• 0:36
  Welcome, Kimo. Thank you, sir. So happy to be here once again.
• 0:39
  I love you all, and this whole show is amazing, and I'm glad to be part of the trifecta hat trick.
• 0:45
  There you go. Well, that's a good one. Here's the thing.
• 0:49
  As you can tell, the sound is a little off on this because these two knuckleheads
• 0:54
  are out partying together.
• 0:55
  Apparently, work is interfering with you. We're out. Hold on a second.
• 1:00
  We're working. We're working.
• 1:05
  We're not in the studio, and we're recording this from a phone,
• 1:09
  and we're on a layover, and this is the best we can do.
• 1:12
  You're working the sandwich girls at the bar is what you're doing. Hold on a second.
• 1:18
  Improvise, adapt, and overcome, Marine. There you go. Right on.
• 1:22
  All right. So, yeah, apparently work is interfering with their ability to podcast
• 1:26
  and record an intro, which we need to thank a couple people in our intro, Fig.
• 1:32
  Do you have any recollection of who that may be?
• 1:35
  Actually, I do. Let's thank Chris Adams. That's Aircraft Chris.
• 1:40
  He's lost his mind and he's donated $250 to us. Cash donation.
• 1:47
  Thank you. First of all, very humbling. Thank you, Aircraft Chris.
• 1:51
  What is wrong with you? Yeah, right. Apparently, you make too much money in your current job.
• 1:57
  No, that is awesome. And then also, a previous guest, Sheriff. Holy cow.
• 2:05
  Sheriff. Sheriff. I think that was episode 12. We were on a mission from God.
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  So, yeah, that was a fun one. And another thing, we've got to thank this week
• 2:15
  our sponsor, HSI Wealth Strategies.
• 2:17
  So folks, if you're thinking about retirement planning or considering,
• 2:21
  consider reaching out to Robbie at HSI Wealth Strategies.
• 2:24
  Look, he sponsored a bunch of shows, but let him take a look at your current
• 2:28
  retirement plan. There's no obligation.
• 2:30
  And if he tells you what you like, you've made a great call.
• 2:33
  And if he doesn't tell you what you like, you don't lose anything.
• 2:36
  And by working with him, you help someone who supports the show and everybody
• 2:41
  wins. So, thanks to Robbie Wallen and HSI Well Strategies.
• 2:45
  That's 214-JET-7030.
• 2:50
  214-538-7030. So, back to this week's show.
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  A couple of hog drivers. Hog drivers. Never disappoint. Never disappoint.
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  Whee! Right? You look like a pig.
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  You know, the... Get ready to do some crunches, some core workout.
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  Oh, my gosh. When I got done with this, I felt like I'd done 600 crunches because,
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  you know, first of all, there are a couple single seat dudes we can totally relate to.
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  And they have great stories and they have a great sense of humor.
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  And sometimes you have to have a great sense of humor when you wield the kind
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  of death and destruction that they do. Right.
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  Otherwise, you just you just crumble under the stress.
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  Absolutely. To include the saying, you know, they actually felt that,
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  you know, you can run, but you're going to die tired.
• 3:40
  Yeah, but just don't run.
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  Some great call sign stories in there. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 3:48
  An opening story about crossing the pond.
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  Oh, my gosh. You know what? Don't ruin that because, yeah, let's just leave it at that.
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  Yeah, he just wanted to die tired.
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  Piddle packs aren't just for urine, ladies and gentlemen, as you'll find out.
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  No, no, they're not. Oh, man.
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  Well, Kimo, what are you up to? You going to come join us again soon? I hope to.
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  I love this show, and the minute you need me to be there, I'll gladly be there.
• 4:19
  Right now, enjoying our company with Fig, and I've just learned that there's
• 4:23
  more translucent content,
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  overcovers of women's bodies at the pool and beach where you can see through,
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  but they think that it's actually clothing?
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  I think it's a total mindfuck. I don't know what he's talking about.
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  We just left the orphanage. We were reading scriptures to the orphans.
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  And as I left, I saw all this and wondered what was being presented in front of me.
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  And I thought to the gods, why dost thou punish me so?
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  Right? I could tell you were upset about that. Yes.
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  Yes. He's very upset. And I'm going to have to deal with him for the next three
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  days. And I'm very upset about that. It's a wonderful time.
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  Three days. Three days later. No shadow.
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  Extra winner. All that good stuff. We'll have a debrief for you, boss.
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  It sounds good. And chemo, at 35,000 feet, don't roll inverted and shut off an engine.
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  It scares the passengers. Right? Just saying.
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  If you can keep the rated ascent kind of a constant and smooth transition,
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  even with one motor, they really don't have any idea of it. All right.
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  You know what? You guys go have fun on your layover. We'll get out of the way
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  and let these two hog drivers give you guys a core workout listening in the
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  audience. It's a great interview. It's a great interview.
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  I'm looking forward to hearing all about it. And thank you so much for them
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  to be a part of the group and share their stories. It's always a wonderful time.
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  All right, Lance. Stay safe and check six.
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  Music.
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  There I was crossing the pond and you could see that I wasn't exactly fine.
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  So there I was crossing the pond. Actually, it was daytime with T-Dub on my
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  wing. We're probably at flight level 240.
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  And I felt it coming. My breakfast just coming right back up.
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  And I had nowhere for it to go except into a couple empty piddle packs that
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  quickly filled up, overflowed.
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  And you know and the rest will
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  make for a very uh appetizing story but uh
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  thankfully t-dub make sure i didn't run into him or
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  anybody else during that flight while i was falling asleep and
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  and puking my guts out so thanks t-dub you're welcome saved your life again
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  again again that is just not awesome at all but that's uh how aviation stories
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  start sometimes welcome to so there i was This is Fig.
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  I am in God's Country, Kearney, Missouri. Where's my co-horsed today?
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  Just outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the mouth of ports, the old Pease Air
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  Base, where occasionally our guests from today wandered through.
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  A couple of combat vet hog drivers welcomed T-Dub and welcomed Quintana,
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  who opened that show with an appetizing story.
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  Save me the chunky parts.
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  There's more to that one. Thanks for having us.
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  None of those like, oh, there I was striefing the bad guy story. More of the bro story.
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  There's those two.
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  That's what this is all about. You guys at A10, hog drivers, I think.
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  This is number three and four, right? Because we had KC and then we had...
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  This is more than that, actually. Now, we didn't have any for the longest time.
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  And then our first hog relation was, just blank on his name,
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  I think it was episode 95, Professor from Oberlin College.
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  Yeah, he wrote the book. Oh, right. He wrote the book. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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  And then we had Bacchus, and then we've since had Casey, Killer Chick, and Soup, her husband.
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  So I think this is, what, five and six? Yeah.
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  Woo! All right. Yeah. All of them.
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  Right? Well, you guys are heroes to a lot of people because,
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  man, what a great cast bird.
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  I'm still shocked the Marine Corps never bought the hog.
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  Couldn't land it on a ship. That's why. That's it. That's the only reason.
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  It would have been awesome.
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  Yeah. No, it's not the fact you couldn't land it on a ship. You just couldn't fold the wings up.
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  Well, that's true. You just can't take it off from the ship.
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  That's the problem. Yeah.
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  Oh, I don't know. The ship would almost do the cruise speed of the hog,
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  wouldn't it? I mean, come on.
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  You just fold it in the hog. Just let the hog float up in the air,
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  right? It's my right next to it.
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  Just get a cable and just let it float up. You know, the only reason the hog
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  has survived so long is because every time the Air Force starts talking about
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  getting rid of it, the Army says, we'll buy it.
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  Right. And then the Air Force says, no, we'll keep it because there's a lot
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  of insecurity there. And you did. Right.
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  You know, just like every time the Army changes uniforms, the Air Force has
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  to change uniforms. Yeah. Right.
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  Always insecure of our former big brother. Well, I mean, it's awesome having
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  you guys here. I have nothing but respect for A-10 pilots because you repeat
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  and I know exactly how hard that mission is.
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  But let's back up a little bit and tell us, well, first of all,
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  did you guys meet before A-10s?
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  Like, did you meet in flight school or after?
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  No, we met at Moody Air Force Base.
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  Okay. Yeah. Quickly realized we were soulmates. Yeah. It was like a bond.
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  There you go. She can't pull this apart.
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  Well, T-Dub, when did you, how, we always ask all our guests,
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  how did you get bit by the aviation bug? How did it all start for you?
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  So I had a very, very lucky and fortunate upbringing. My old man was a hog driver
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  and flew from American Airlines.
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  So I grew up just dreaming of strafing tanks. That was just the bottom.
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  Fine for me that was just like i mean we had
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  you know we had the 30 mils in the house i heard
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  his buddies coming over singing fighter pilot songs and so
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  i was just i was hooked so that's that's what i knew i wanted to do and i was
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  lucky that i had that because not everybody gets that no so i had a mentor to
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  like i was listening to the podcast with wolfie the blue angel you know like
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  nobody like you know you gotta know how to do these things and my dad's like
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  here call these people, they'll help you do it.
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  So it was perfect. What about you, Quintana? How did it all start for you?
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  My father was a Marine. I mean, not my father, my grandfather was a Marine,
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  World War II and Korean War.
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  I had an uncle who was a Marine in Vietnam.
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  So the military ran pretty deep in my family.
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  And I knew pretty young I wanted to be in the military. I wanted to be an officer.
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  So I decided I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. I didn't even think I'd
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  be able to fly because I didn't have perfect vision when I went.
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  But thankfully, when I graduated, they didn't care. They needed pilots so badly
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  that they would rubber stamp anything.
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  But I know my second year at the Academy, I decided I wanted to fly the A-10.
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  That's the only thing I wanted to fly. When I went to pilot training,
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  I knew that's what I wanted.
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  I didn't really have a number two option. It was kind of the A-10 or bus just because of the mission.
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  So, uh, but before that I had no, I mean, I'd never done any flying or,
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  uh, really even knew anybody who was a pilot.
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  Wow. So we got both, we got, we got guys from both extremes there and I,
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  I fell into the same category you did Quintana.
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  I had no guidance, had figured all this shit out on my own.
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  Did you, did you fly gliders at, uh, at the Academy?
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  No, I did the jump program instead, but no, I did get to get my private,
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  my PPO. Academy, because you get that before you go off to pilot training.
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  They had started that at that point. But, yeah, now it's pretty robust there.
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  Now even the prep school cadets get to go get their PPL.
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  So they're really – Yeah, they're making it a – kind of swinging that pendulum
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  back, where I think for a long time a lot of cadets didn't want to fly.
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  They just wanted to do their five-and-dive and get a contracting job and go
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  make money in this corporate world.
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  But, you know, I figure if you're going to be in the military,
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  you might as well do something you can tell stories about.
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  Yeah, and if you're going to be in the Air Force, you might as well be on the
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  pointy end of the spear, you know? Right. Right.
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  What class were you at the Academy, Quintana? 03.
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  And where did you go to school, T-Dub? Oh, the great University of North Texas,
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  just north of me up in Denton.
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  Nice. All right. All right.
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  Did you start flying? did you start did
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  you get your uh ppl or anything oh yeah i started
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  i soloed an airplane on my 16th birthday what was your commissioning source
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  the air national guard so they did uh back then they had their own ots it was
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  awesome six weeks at knoxville yeah oh yeah so tough so tough yeah T-Dub's a guard baby.
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  He was a guard guy his whole life. I'm a guard baby. Guard baby. Yeah.
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  And so how did you, so was Moody joint guard reserve, guard,
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  guard, I mean, how'd you guys end up there? Moody was an active duty base.
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  I left the guard and joined the reserves at Moody and we were an active associate unit.
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  So I flew day to day. I flew with the 75th fighter squadron,
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  even though I was in the 76th day to day. I flew with the sharks.
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  I went to war with the sharks.
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  I did all the TDYs with sharks. sat up
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  soup when they lost an airplane with the sharks all that stuff
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  you know it was just you're just integrated into the active duty
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  it was a great it was great being
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  paired with those reserve guys because they had a different mindset you get
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  an active duty fighter squadron and you sprint marathons for three years you
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  sprint you know as if there's a finish line somewhere and you're going to be
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  able to pull it back but you never
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  do but then you you pair it with these reserve guys who are, you know,
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  you're, you're lucky if you can get them to jog sometimes.
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  So it really balances it out. They, they bring some, some real balance and perspective
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  to the, to the profession. Yeah.
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  Right. Oh, that's, that may be a show title there. You sprint marathons.
• 15:13
  Yeah. Right. So true though, isn't it? I mean, it's so true. Different mindset.
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  Yeah. Which is why guys, they get out after their 10 year commitment,
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  go to the airlines because they're done sprinting. Yeah. Can't take it anymore.
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  No kidding. All right. And so, uh, T-Dub actually flew some with Bacchus.
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  You flew with him, right? With Bacchus?
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  Yeah. So I went to OIF with Bacchus. so when i
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  was started out at barnes guard base and barnes and
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  bradley teamed up to do oif so in
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  what was it february of 03 march
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  of 03 we were we were in iraq flying together so yeah good man how about that
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  yeah suddenly the the world got a little smaller didn't it repeat yeah it really
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  did it always does in aviation it's always is a small world and so we for those
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  wondering we You had Bacchus on episode 118,
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  put the thing on the thing. Yeah, you put the thing on the thing.
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  That's all you do. Easy as that. Yeah.
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  Yeah, simple. Yeah. Well, speaking of— Yeah, that was really great.
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  We paired up two squadrons, and, man, it was just an awesome brotherhood,
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  so it was great. Couldn't complain.
• 16:22
  Well, speaking of putting the thing on the thing, I'm looking through some of
• 16:26
  the show notes, and I think I know what you're talking about here,
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  but can you— So I got a non-combat story for you, and it says something about black mark. Black?
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  Dreaded black one. So what is that?
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  Dreaded black one. So I don't know what Marine Corps grade sheets are like,
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  but in the fighter squadron, you can pass a ride if, you know,
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  it's one through five, right?
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  Is it five or four? I think four. One through four, yeah. One through four.
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  So the four is like a unicorn. You've heard of them, but you never see them.
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  And then and then you know so we normally live in three and two one is you fail
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  but you can do it again or zero which is you're dangerous and we need to really
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  evaluate but there's a way to get,
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  almost worse than either of those which is you passed but you passed to the
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  lowest standard possible and that's the black one so instead of writing the
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  one in a red do it again black one you're not going to repeat this ride you're
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  certified but you're the worst we've ever certified.
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  So it's a black number one, a black one.
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  Yeah. Like it's, yeah, you write the number one on the grade sheet and it's black.
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  And I had the one time in my life, I did, I give this black one to one of our
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  best bros, one of the founding members of what we call ourselves, the shark Bible club.
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  And he was doing a forward air controller instructor upgrade.
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  So he's on his back upgrade. Yeah.
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  I had every letter of X all maxed out. So I'm his instructor of record.
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  And he just about runs into me. And I tell him, scream at him,
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  knock it off, and blah, blah, blah. And I get back, and I'm talking to the commander.
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  Because I'm like, dude, Steamer, I don't know what to do. The whole ride was
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  great until he almost killed me.
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  He's like, well, everything else was good? I go, yeah. Until he killed me part.
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  Until he almost killed me part. He's like, have you ever thought about giving a black one?
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  And I'm like, no. but we had to consult you know
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  the legends of the hog to find out if this was didn't even
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  know that was an option yeah we're like this is an option and so
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  so the story goes i gave him a black one and
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  we never let him live it down do we quintana yeah so
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  so a black one a one is qualified right but just like just well a one is almost
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  always a fail like one okay you hook the ride you do it again but it's a red
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  one red you write it in red because you failed yeah right in red but But if
• 18:45
  you write a one in black, you don't have to do it again.
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  You qualified, but you are like, there's nothing lower.
• 18:53
  No one wants to fly with you. But other than that, it's almost like one of those,
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  hey, you're never going to do this mission for real.
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  So let's go ahead and just give you the credit and move on. And that may or
• 19:04
  may not have gone into steamers thinking because he was going off to teach at the FTU at the time.
• 19:09
  So his next flight at Moody was his last flight at Moody.
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  And he was going to go off and teach new new baby hog
• 19:16
  drivers out in tucson so i think it was like
• 19:18
  ah he's got some time before he'll ever do this again so just go ahead and give
• 19:23
  him the black one that'll send a message and yeah we've never let him live it
• 19:26
  down and and now it's recorded for youtube and he'll hate me for it he'll still
• 19:31
  be my bro there you go is that the is that the one you pranked him on that yeah
• 19:35
  that's yeah yeah the next flight his finney flight.
• 19:40
  So same guys, just my daughter calls him the angel without hair.
• 19:45
  Cause he's the nicest fighter pilot you've ever met in your life.
• 19:48
  And for the Finney flight, I did the frozen flight suit, the frozen spare flight
• 19:53
  suit. I found a spare flight suit. I froze both of them.
• 19:56
  There's the picture covered. He got him with a shaving cream bomb at the end.
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  I put a parking cone in his jet before he started.
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  But the the best part of the prank was moments before we stepped i took the
• 20:12
  mask off of his helmet and i unzipped the lower portion of my flight suit i
• 20:17
  placed it the mask in there,
• 20:20
  just let it hang out like an elephant's trunk and then once i saw him neatly
• 20:26
  strapped in his yeah well no the the hose from the helmet's long quintana not me,
• 20:33
  then moments before before he's when he's
• 20:36
  strapped in but i know he can't get out of the jet but i knew he still had his cell
• 20:38
  phone on i texted him the picture so he had to fly the
• 20:41
  whole time knowing that that is rich yeah hey uh can i can i back up and ask
• 20:49
  you real quick you uh you went by this real fast but you said shark bite club
• 20:56
  or shark bible a shark bible club shark bible so.
• 21:03
  It's our texting thread okay so
• 21:06
  hopefully you know if somebody ever audits our text messages
• 21:09
  they go through and they see oh it just says shark bible club
• 21:12
  nothing to see here let's move on shark bible club yeah
• 21:15
  right nice yeah yeah we got
• 21:22
  to rename it a little tactical deception
• 21:25
  i like that yeah but it's just five bros that are just i mean you know everybody
• 21:30
  in this fighter squadron finds their friends and man i mean we couldn't be tighter
• 21:34
  could we kia yeah we've been to what we've had three retirements so far that
• 21:40
  we've all gone to everybody came up for my wedding I got my retirement coming up,
• 21:45
  everybody's going to come out for, so yeah.
• 21:50
  Text on a daily basis pretty much
• 21:53
  yeah and you can't you can't forget my
• 21:56
  my dad's funeral you guys all made it down to that yeah we
• 21:58
  went down for a funeral stuff just tight you know just
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  just stuff that like i mean the the text threads never
• 22:04
  dry it's texting every day and it's just
• 22:07
  five bros that we just got it it's
• 22:10
  kind of funny how like the whole thing really began but as
• 22:13
  we kind of hung out together and then i think we really
• 22:16
  solidified it the night that the the
• 22:19
  guy who got the black one whoa decided to smack
• 22:22
  me in the face with a dirty plunger and so so i tackled him burned my face burned
• 22:28
  his his prized beloved asante samuel philly eagles jersey so i've got a cigar
• 22:33
  burn on my face he's got a burnt back with a in this and quintana and fifa and
• 22:38
  balls are just over there laughing their asses off.
• 22:41
  And we went around and drove with Chalk Rock, drew phallic-shaped symbols,
• 22:48
  should we say, on a War Heroes driveway.
• 22:53
  Nice. Yep, we just knock on doors, randomly show up and ask for beer.
• 22:59
  Ask for beer and invade people's homes. Yeah, invade people.
• 23:01
  Yeah, that was the fun part about living in a community with guys from the squadron.
• 23:07
  Now, if I did that in my neighborhood, I'd get somebody call the cops on me. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 23:12
  Some neighborhoods, you get shot, knock on the door. That's great.
• 23:16
  That's great. Green light.
• 23:17
  We used to call that green light. We just show up. Everybody shows up at somebody's house.
• 23:22
  Yeah. Guess what? You're having a party. Yeah. You didn't know it. Yeah.
• 23:28
  No host social. Yeah, exactly.
• 23:32
  Oh, fantastic. I guess. so well let excuse me let's back up a little bit quia
• 23:40
  we didn't get your flight school when so you finished the academy and went to
• 23:43
  flight school where'd you go to basic and then the ftu,
• 23:48
  So I went to pilot training at Shepard. So I was with all the Euro-NATO guys.
• 23:53
  I got exposed to Germans and Italians and all those fun characters. Wichita Falls, Texas.
• 24:00
  Which is called Wichita Falls. Yeah. So Texoma.
• 24:03
  So I spent two years there, did IFF there, and then went on to Tucson,
• 24:08
  which is where the A-10 schoolhouse is.
• 24:10
  Okay. Yep. And finished that in 05, early 06, then went out to Korea.
• 24:18
  For a year man talk about a fun place
• 24:21
  for uh as a lieutenant getting to do your
• 24:24
  first year in a fighter squadron in south korea yeah
• 24:28
  that right there is damn and as soon as you said that fig we
• 24:31
  we we overlooked g that was our other oh
• 24:35
  that's right yeah osan yeah you're
• 24:38
  an osan you guys know g spot tammy barlett
• 24:41
  no okay the
• 24:45
  name is familiar i don't think i've ever found the call sign
• 24:47
  but i don't know yeah i would have to go
• 24:50
  back and look at my notes which i can't find at the moment
• 24:53
  but i i would remember i would have written down
• 24:56
  when she was there and i don't remember off the top of my head yeah that's
• 24:59
  okay yeah but we actually got to go back to korea we spent some
• 25:02
  time in korea again okay when we were in the sharks because they
• 25:05
  were doing what was it called a force tsp tsp
• 25:09
  support package theater support package so they needed some a10s
• 25:12
  over there turned out the f-16s from osan went to
• 25:15
  alaska for a red flag and they're like well
• 25:18
  we need more iron on on the peninsula so
• 25:21
  they brought over a-10s nice and we we lived in the wild west how many weeks
• 25:25
  did that flight take man that was not quite as long as it takes to get to bagram
• 25:32
  i think because we went the opposite direction oh yeah we started in georgia
• 25:35
  went through arizona and then went out to hawaii and then we went to wake island.
• 25:40
  Wake island was an experience right yeah we've been
• 25:43
  repeating i've been through you were you there we've been
• 25:46
  through no i wasn't there oh you didn't do the wake island trip yeah
• 25:49
  no i didn't do the wake it's like an island that exists to run an air you know
• 25:54
  an airfield it's an airfield that's the only reason it's there yeah it's a fuel
• 25:57
  stop in the middle of the pacific we met some weirdos there some some some contractors
• 26:02
  that just live there indefinitely yeah when you If you can't get any farther away,
• 26:07
  you end up at Wake Island. Yeah.
• 26:12
  Man, that's just out in the middle of the ocean. Wow. 2,000 miles from the nearest land. Yeah.
• 26:18
  Where America's Day really begins. Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:22
  So, hey, wait, let's back up a second. When you were in Korea the second time
• 26:27
  for that theater beef up, were you in Osan or were you down at Kunsan?
• 26:35
  We're at Osan. That's the only place they've had the hogs. Okay,
• 26:39
  that's where all the support was. Okay, cool. Yeah. Although I've been down to Kunsan.
• 26:43
  Man, that place, I thought Osan was the Wild West. Then you go down to Kunsan,
• 26:46
  and those guys live like animals down there. At least they did in 2006.
• 26:51
  It was dangerous. Repeat and I made a few passes through Kunsan in 1992,
• 26:57
  and we called it the Kunsan Triangle.
• 27:00
  Because whenever somebody went there, they were lost for three or four days.
• 27:03
  Somebody always broke, and you were in a transient.
• 27:07
  You lost contact with them. Of course, this was before cell phones.
• 27:10
  It was kind of a shit show. Did you guys ever drive in Korea?
• 27:15
  No. So when we would drive, we would drive, but there was a lane just for Americans.
• 27:22
  It was called the superpower lane, and it was the shoulder of the highway because Korea, it's packed.
• 27:29
  Traffic does not move freely. It's just bumper to bumper. So we just jump on the shoulder and drive.
• 27:36
  It's the superpower lane. So that's how we got everywhere.
• 27:40
  No shit. I mean, that was standard. Oh, my gosh. That's a true story.
• 27:45
  Okay. And sometimes the cops would even flash their lights, but they were stuck
• 27:50
  in traffic. They couldn't get out to chase us.
• 27:54
  Hey, you slow down, throw down.
• 27:59
  Oh, that's great. Yeah. It's fun being a superpower. Yeah.
• 28:05
  Let's see. I'll go to the, I'll look. Oh.
• 28:10
  Well, if we're doing that, T-Dub, where'd you go to primary?
• 28:16
  So I went to Vance. Started out at Vance, yeah.
• 28:20
  Then from Vance, same thing as Quintana out to Tucson. For a while,
• 28:24
  there was another RTU at Barksdale, a reserve.
• 28:27
  Oh, that's way up north in Shreveport.
• 28:30
  Yeah, yeah. And then started at Vance. Then, like I said, went to it.
• 28:33
  Started as McGard Baby up at Barnes. And then Brack happened.
• 28:38
  So I left Barnes, went and joined the Arkansas Guard for a little while,
• 28:42
  and then that's when I jumped in the reserves and enjoyed the hell out of my
• 28:47
  time at Moody. It was a blast.
• 28:49
  What was it like going through flight school knowing you were going to get a
• 28:51
  tactical single-seat jet, though?
• 28:53
  I mean, you're not having to compete for jets. Was that entertaining?
• 28:57
  So you would think that would be easy, but I told you my old man was a hog driver.
• 29:01
  So literally the day I left for pilot training, I'm packing up in my truck,
• 29:05
  and I leave. My dad says, well, son, if you don't come back number one in your
• 29:09
  class, don't come back at all.
• 29:12
  So I think I had more pressure than than everybody fighting for a spot,
• 29:16
  you know, and he'd always call me and be like, hey, yeah, you know,
• 29:20
  I never failed that ride.
• 29:21
  You know, I always I had that, you know, excellence on every test and also.
• 29:25
  So he was, you know, and I'm sure he was totally full of shit. Same thing I did my son.
• 29:30
  But, you know, just just kept the pressure on. But, yeah, you knew that if I
• 29:35
  didn't screw up too bad, I would end up back at Barnes.
• 29:39
  But, you know, we had a lot of really amazing hog drivers at Barnes,
• 29:43
  like a lot of legends in the A-10 community.
• 29:45
  We had, like, almost half of our squadron was weapons school graduates.
• 29:49
  So you kind of knew, like, I had to be ready.
• 29:51
  So as much as I would have loved to have just slacked off and played golf more
• 29:55
  pilot training between my dad and knowing where I was going.
• 29:59
  I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not known for my work ethic.
• 30:02
  But you know this is true i can verify that i'm moving ideas man right quintana you know i can.
• 30:10
  Yeah yeah,
• 30:13
  fair enough so all right uh when was
• 30:16
  your dad active so he was he
• 30:19
  was active but not in the hog he got out of active duty
• 30:22
  in like 78 time frame so i
• 30:25
  was born at willie when he was an ip out there
• 30:28
  where he taught the first class of women and then
• 30:31
  we left left willie he joined the reserves
• 30:35
  out of barksdale flying a37s and flew hogs for
• 30:38
  so he did a37s for about two or three years and then hogs
• 30:41
  for about 12 years and then he retired just
• 30:44
  after the gulf war because he missed it he missed it
• 30:47
  he was very jealous that as a lieutenant i was shooting tanks
• 30:50
  in iraq and he had never got to go to combat so yeah right we uh we thinking
• 30:55
  i don't know what that's like yeah we wouldn't know what that's like yeah well
• 31:00
  he he was like vietnam era so he had applied you know he was trying to get into
• 31:03
  vietnam but it was right at the end you know so then you know like He goes and teaches 38s,
• 31:08
  and yeah, the rest is history.
• 31:10
  And then they were supposed to, they had them all mobilized,
• 31:13
  but never went to Desert Storm, because that ended too fast.
• 31:17
  Gee, I know what that's like.
• 31:19
  Yeah, we know exactly what that is. Yeah, I heard you guys on the Wolfie podcast, yeah. Good golly.
• 31:25
  But, you know, what was his name? This is Bernard reporting to you live from
• 31:30
  underneath a bed on the ninth floor of the Al Rashida Hotel.
• 31:35
  What was his name? bernard something on cnn oh well
• 31:38
  we saw a lot of that we didn't see any
• 31:41
  combat yeah yeah i'll repeat
• 31:44
  it again what are two things you'll never see in saudi arabia of a
• 31:47
  ham sandwich and a bulldog so boy that
• 31:51
  sucked that's all right we we uh it's all
• 31:55
  right it's character builder right character builder yeah
• 31:58
  we took a guy in afghanistan in
• 32:02
  2010 his first sortie without a grade
• 32:04
  sheet he winchester'd the jet yeah yeah yeah
• 32:08
  lieutenant the first lieutenant first sortie without a grade sheet he was mqt
• 32:13
  and we went out the door and the first time he wasn't being graded he winchester'd
• 32:17
  the jet okay so we know what that means but tell us what mqt and winchester
• 32:23
  is for the non-aviation listeners.
• 32:26
  So MQT mission qualification training, that's what he does when he gets back
• 32:31
  from his A-10 school to make sure he's a combat mission ready hog driver.
• 32:35
  And then Winchester the jet was he cleared everything off.
• 32:39
  Quintana, did he clear everything off, including all the rockets? I think so.
• 32:43
  I think so. They probably just emptied the rockets for fun just to say.
• 32:45
  Yeah, probably for fun. Yeah.
• 32:47
  Because we were carrying Rolly Pete's at the time. So they didn't really need
• 32:50
  to shoot those off, but they're like, yeah, we got to get them all off.
• 32:53
  Those are fun to shoot too. Yeah.
• 32:55
  Okay. Can you explain what Willie Pete's are? They are fun. Go ahead.
• 32:59
  Willie Pete, white phosphorus rockets. They're usually used for marking.
• 33:03
  So, you know, the FACA roll and then the A-10s marking targets.
• 33:07
  We usually carried, what, 2014?
• 33:10
  Maybe 14 rockets? Yeah. On a combat load. So you could mark it,
• 33:14
  and then it throws up a cloud of white smoke, and then you talk off from that
• 33:19
  to your wingman or to the JTACs on the ground, which you guys recently had a JTAC on the podcast.
• 33:26
  So you use that and they say, Hey, 50 meters east of the smoke.
• 33:29
  And it's a lot easier to pinpoint where the bad guys are. Perfect. Thank you.
• 33:34
  So white fosters, man, that stuff will light magnesium on fire. It's hot.
• 33:38
  You know, I think the laws of war don't allow you to target humans with Willie P. Rockets.
• 33:44
  Yeah, right. Yeah. They're not supposed to do that. Well, they never get close.
• 33:48
  Yeah, right. How would they know? You know?
• 33:51
  Yeah, it's not like you have precision control over them. Over a rocket especially, right?
• 33:56
  Yeah. Were those the two-and-a-half or five-inch rockets? Yeah,
• 34:00
  the 275, two-and-three-quarters.
• 34:02
  275, yeah. Yeah, that's what we shot those like.
• 34:04
  So, you know, there's nothing funner than shooting forward-firing ordnance,
• 34:07
  but, you know, every once in a while one of those rockets would come off and
• 34:10
  one of the fins wouldn't be right, and it would do some crazy stuff. Yeah.
• 34:17
  All right. I saw a Maverick. I saw an AGM-65 go stupid. We were in Korea shooting at some big rocks.
• 34:25
  You would go down to the ocean just off the peninsula.
• 34:29
  There's a big rock there, and you'd have to circle to make sure there's no fishermen around.
• 34:33
  Or if they were there, maybe, I don't know, throw out some flares,
• 34:36
  scare them off. You hear that turnip? Yeah. Oh, sorry.
• 34:39
  But then we were loaded with these B-model AGMs.
• 34:45
  And I think they were like $80,000 to $100,000 a piece. but we got to fire him off in training.
• 34:51
  So I was recording. It was shooter recorder, you know, so I could get the video in front of me.
• 34:58
  Yeah. So I shot my own, and he was recording mine, but then I was shooting his,
• 35:02
  and it fires off, and then it just hooks a left 180.
• 35:06
  Oh, shit. I just move out of the way, and I call stupid Maverick,
• 35:11
  and I have no idea where that thing is.
• 35:13
  Not a piece of ordinance you want to be on the business end of.
• 35:16
  There's one coming off. There's one right there. Coming off the rail.
• 35:19
  Yeah. So hit you, Sticks. That's a jet I used to fly. No way.
• 35:24
  That was a Barnes Guard jet. Yeah, 632.
• 35:27
  All right. Well, Bagover Sticks, one of those guys just threw that picture.
• 35:30
  Those guys are amazing. Yeah, man.
• 35:33
  They like read your mind, and then they put photos up on the YouTube stream
• 35:37
  of what you're going to say next.
• 35:40
  Yeah. Hey, you can tell I wasn't wearing my readers. I had to,
• 35:43
  like, zoom in to look at it.
• 35:45
  Yeah, impressive. I know. Nice.
• 35:48
  I'll be 50 soon, buddy. I'm the oldest of the Shark Bible Club,
• 35:51
  but the real oldest is Balls. It's Balls.
• 35:54
  He's like Grandpa Balls, man. He's at least like 65. His body is only 65.
• 35:57
  Yeah, his body is just worn out.
• 35:59
  Well, now that we're there, then we've got to do call signs.
• 36:03
  How did Balls get his? And then we've got to get you, Quintana, and you, TW.
• 36:09
  How did Balls get his? I don't know,
• 36:11
  because I think it was one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. Yeah.
• 36:16
  I don't want to get too many details but just recently the
• 36:19
  last couple no he's had the call sign for decade and a
• 36:22
  half or so decades yeah and then uh in the last
• 36:25
  couple years a couple years ago he had a i don't know what the medical term
• 36:28
  is but it was elephantitis of the left testicle oh gee and this thing you'd
• 36:34
  have to get a needle in there and just drain it every so often there's nothing
• 36:37
  they had no idea what was going on yeah oh yeah don't worry he showed it to me too,
• 36:44
  don't get him drunk in the pool because I think he looks to the top man it's
• 36:47
  like a freaking life preserver floating on the top of the pool,
• 36:52
  a little men's health discussion here on so there i was today folks uh glad you could join us.
• 36:59
  You need a chair nope i got my own
• 37:02
  exactly that's like a portable bean
• 37:05
  bag you know oh my gosh that's so
• 37:07
  that's balls okay t-dub t-dub i
• 37:11
  guess you can just say it out loud you could just read his yeah he
• 37:14
  puts his full name on there yeah yeah so you but
• 37:17
  you said you got it uh you were playing crud yeah so
• 37:20
  it started out i was playing crud when i before i went
• 37:23
  to pilot training i was a guard baby up at barns and they i look
• 37:26
  up at the cred board and it's got twi and i just thought that was the greatest
• 37:29
  thing because it really felt like i already belonged to the club that i had
• 37:33
  dreamed for my whole life to get home tell my wife i'm like hey they called
• 37:37
  me twat it's the greatest thing ever and she's like oh that's terrible well
• 37:41
  then i ended up with a couple other interim call signs.
• 37:44
  I had a penis, you know, and, and Ritalin and Ritalin kind of makes sense if
• 37:50
  you spend any time with me.
• 37:51
  And then we did a real renaming. And my wife thought that, you know,
• 37:55
  the, at the time the commander and his wife and, and my wife were really good
• 37:59
  buddies and we were hanging out at their house and she thought that she could
• 38:02
  trust him, that she, he was in the trust tree and the twat had gone away.
• 38:07
  Like it had just kind of gone away, but they're going to do renaming so
• 38:10
  i was probably going to get riddle and just official and again well
• 38:13
  she tells tells tom chuck that you know the worst thing you guys could do would
• 38:17
  be if you brought that twat call sign back so when they the naming was almost
• 38:21
  finished and it's like okay we're just going to vote on riddle and he revealed
• 38:24
  the information from the trust tree that she thought she could include him in
• 38:28
  and and then it stuck and then there it was after that so yep so.
• 38:34
  So T-Dub.
• 38:35
  Yep. So T-Dub for short because you can't say twat in the squadron.
• 38:40
  Sure. Yeah, on the radio. Yeah. Well, that's pretty awesome.
• 38:43
  I like that story. That is fantastic. That reminds me of the Pester one, though. Ritalin?
• 38:49
  Yes. How'd you get the call sign Pester? You ever spend any time with me? Yeah. Okay.
• 38:55
  Like anybody named Alf? Yeah, Alf. Yeah.
• 39:00
  We love him, but he's Alf. Yeah. There you go. All right. We'll be back with Quintana.
• 39:06
  So have you guys ever seen The Big Lebowski? Yeah. So you know the Jesus?
• 39:11
  His name is Quintana. He's in the movie. You know, there's that scene of him.
• 39:17
  I don't know which part of the story to tell first, but I'll just tell that who Quintana is.
• 39:22
  But they're bowling, you know, and Donnie is talking about Quintana,
• 39:30
  And one of the other guys says, well, you know, he's he's a petter ass.
• 39:36
  Like, what do you mean? He's like, he spent six months in Chino for exposing
• 39:38
  himself to an eight year old.
• 39:41
  So that, now let's clarify.
• 39:45
  She wasn't eight, but she was young. She wasn't eight. She was 18.
• 39:49
  Oh, boy. When I got married right out of the academy.
• 39:53
  That's your story, and you're stuck with it. Yeah, my reputation preceded me.
• 39:57
  There you go. That's Quintana. Just do it this way.
• 40:00
  My wife loves Quintana, but I don't let him near my daughters.
• 40:04
  Oh, my gosh. That's great. No, I'm just kidding. They love him,
• 40:08
  too. Yeah. So that, you know, and then audiovisual.
• 40:11
  Audiovisual always wins. So if you show a video during a roll call,
• 40:15
  that usually takes the cake and it's going to win the name.
• 40:18
  I think my call sign in pilot, not pilot training, my call sign in A10 RTU was Whitley.
• 40:27
  Wife isn't totally legal yet.
• 40:32
  Yeah. Yeah. She was like 19, 18. Well, in Texas. So here's the cool thing about,
• 40:38
  you know, we got married, moved to Texas.
• 40:41
  In Texas, if you're 18, you can legally drink with your guardian, your legal guardian.
• 40:48
  So we would – Oh, that's fantastic. I would carry a copy, a photocopy of our
• 40:54
  marriage license in my wallet, and we'd go to the bars and show them the marriage license they let us in.
• 41:00
  No way. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, Texas. Texas is pretty cool.
• 41:06
  Old enough to be married, not old enough to drink on your own.
• 41:08
  Oh, that's – Well, that's good.
• 41:11
  That's good. I like both of those stories.
• 41:16
  That's fabulous. Oh, man.
• 41:20
  Oh, I got to catch my breath. I knew this was going to be good. Holy shit.
• 41:25
  We haven't even gotten to the flying stories and the combat stories yet, really. You know, so.
• 41:31
  All right. Man. How about, let's go to this one you have in the notes.
• 41:36
  Flying home from Afghanistan and you're in Sicily and your canopy was broke?
• 41:43
  Yeah, well, so it wasn't. So we were from Sicily, but we landed at... Not working.
• 41:48
  Yeah, so we got it to work getting out of the Azores and then we landed in.
• 41:55
  In massachusetts at westover after quintana had
• 41:58
  a really terrible flight we landed and the
• 42:01
  canopy's broken and one thing that when you
• 42:03
  grow up a guard baby you don't really understand how valuable
• 42:07
  the relationships are with your maintainers that
• 42:10
  we had that active duty guys didn't always
• 42:13
  get right and so this canopy's broke if i
• 42:15
  call if i call the base at moody and say hey i got a
• 42:18
  broke canopy you're we're talking you
• 42:21
  know days weeks i'm going to be left there by myself the other
• 42:24
  guys are going to go on home and you know get to get to
• 42:27
  kiss mom and the kids and and do all the other fun stuff
• 42:30
  that happens after you and you didn't want the guys going home and kissing your wife
• 42:33
  and my wife and kids because i know
• 42:35
  not again age doesn't
• 42:41
  matter so why should marital status i mean come on listen i
• 42:46
  mean he has his needs it's fine like everybody needs things
• 42:49
  his needs are different you know so yeah so
• 42:52
  no the best part about that was that i i was able to just pick
• 42:54
  up the phone and call one of my crew chief buddies from barns 20
• 42:57
  minutes from west over and say hey man you want
• 43:00
  to climb back in a hog because i need my canopy fixed and so
• 43:03
  he said hell yeah gets a couple other crew chief
• 43:06
  buddies and mikey drives out and shows up at
• 43:09
  west over and i'm like dude i think you can fix this he's
• 43:12
  like oh yeah i know exactly what this is and they.
• 43:15
  Fix it buttoned me up in the cockpit and they they launched
• 43:18
  me out and i you know got launched out by two of
• 43:21
  my best friends again that i hadn't seen in years and like just
• 43:24
  having that that relationship that you can't get anywhere else that was a that
• 43:28
  was a guard maintenance relationship highly illegal i'm sure the air force would
• 43:31
  have freaked out if they knew he a norm no longer certified crew chief was working
• 43:36
  on the jet but a guy who had worked on that jet since it was brand new you know
• 43:40
  so it It was pretty cool. That's true. That's spot on.
• 43:44
  Yeah, guard's awesome for stuff like that. Spot on. That's fantastic.
• 43:50
  Quick question. Do you go through or does the canopy come off?
• 43:54
  Oh, it comes off. Yeah, it comes off. Yeah. Okay. So did he lock you in?
• 43:58
  Yeah. Was it going to come off if you needed it? Yeah, it should have come off
• 44:02
  if I needed it. Okay. Yeah.
• 44:06
  I want to know about the unicorn of Kandahar, or the Kandahar unicorn.
• 44:14
  Kandahar was such a sketchy place. Well, first of all, give me a timestamp.
• 44:19
  What year are we talking here?
• 44:22
  2010. Okay. T-Dub's got the story on the unicorn.
• 44:26
  But you should probably start with the rating scale that you use when you're
• 44:31
  deployed, right? Oh, yeah. You know the rating scale, right?
• 44:34
  It's binary. One or zero. You're either in or out with her.
• 44:39
  She's a yes or a no. There's no maybe. It depends how many drinks you are deployed and so one or zero.
• 44:46
  Then there's always the random. Everybody talks about the hot chick that they've seen in the base.
• 44:52
  And they're like, BS, I've never seen her. Oh, everybody talks about it.
• 44:55
  So just like the unicorn, everybody talks about it, but nobody's ever seen it.
• 45:00
  And we had this very Mormon, very family man start talking about the unicorn
• 45:05
  of Kandahar and a chick that lived in the Canadian compound.
• 45:10
  She's Canadian. A Canadian girlfriend, even better.
• 45:14
  Yeah, which by the way, they had Hortons at the Canadian compound over there and Tim Hortons.
• 45:20
  So now we're going to Tim Horton's all the time trying to find the Canadian compound hot shit.
• 45:25
  Yeah. So he finds out, like he starts, he finds her, he stalks her.
• 45:30
  He's like, she eats at this chow hall at this time and all this stuff.
• 45:35
  And so like it kind of becomes this like, you know, little mini like squadron
• 45:38
  like thing of who's looking for her.
• 45:41
  And if you find a picture with her, then you prove that the unicorn's real and
• 45:44
  you were going to get a free beer when you got back to the States.
• 45:46
  So, uh, so we finally went to the chow hall that he said, and at whatever time,
• 45:51
  and, and I'm sitting there and my buddy's trying to take a picture of me across
• 45:55
  the table, but you know, the camera's doing this. It's not looking at me.
• 45:58
  It's just, you know, it's over my shoulder and this, here comes this,
• 46:01
  you know, I mean, relatively cute, I, you know, girl, and she's looking at us
• 46:05
  like, why is he taking a picture of me? I'm like, little does she know you're the unicorn.
• 46:13
  So we got back early. a Canadian
• 46:17
  unicorn even better well done well played
• 46:20
  that's that's AI somebody's playing with AI right there yeah
• 46:23
  yeah exactly yeah so I got back early
• 46:26
  because we went from like 18 to 12 dead so that's when Quintana and I flew back
• 46:30
  that goes back to the there I was story and when I got home my wife and I were
• 46:34
  filling up stuff with Pringles cans with Coors Lights apple juice bottles with
• 46:38
  Jim Beam and a stuffed unicorn to send back so that they had their own unicorns so Yeah.
• 46:44
  Well, we had a little overlap in Afghanistan. I was there for a little time
• 46:52
  in nine and then again, man, 10 and 11, fall of 10 to spring of 11.
• 46:57
  Awesome. Yeah, that's why the sharks were there. Did not know there was a unicorn there.
• 47:03
  Or sharks. You weren't the sharks yet, though, I guess.
• 47:07
  No, it was the sharks. Well, the sharks is the squadron, yeah.
• 47:10
  That's why we call it the Bible. Oh, okay, I'm thinking the Bible shark.
• 47:13
  Yeah, the Bible club, yeah.
• 47:16
  Different sharks. That's where that comes from. We were the tiger sharks.
• 47:18
  Gotcha. Yeah, the squadron.
• 47:21
  All right. Well, how about we circle back to the opening tease a little bit
• 47:26
  there? So you're trying to transit the pond and you're puking your guts out. Why were you sick?
• 47:33
  So I have no idea. We all ate breakfast at the same place.
• 47:36
  So there's six of us slated to go home. And we're flying from the Azores back to Westover.
• 47:43
  Westover. Westover, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Westover to T-Dub's old squadron.
• 47:47
  And it's an eight-hour flight over the pond. And you just hang on the back of
• 47:51
  a tanker for eight hours and you refill. I don't know, you refuel,
• 47:55
  what, 10 or 12 times during that sortie.
• 47:58
  But we go out to breakfast early that morning at whatever eatery they have there.
• 48:03
  And then we go to the jets, start firing them up.
• 48:07
  And I started feeling a little, I only ate half my breakfast because I didn't feel quite right.
• 48:13
  Then I get in the jet and I'm still not feeling quite right.
• 48:15
  But I'm like, it's go home day. I'm going.
• 48:18
  And then one of the guys, he couldn't get his APU started.
• 48:22
  And there's no spare APU there's no spare jet
• 48:25
  it's gonna take a few days to get one there so his
• 48:29
  wingman has to stay behind with him because we never leave
• 48:32
  just one right we'll have two there to hang
• 48:35
  out until that thing gets fixed and I almost keyed the mic and was
• 48:37
  like I'll take it I'll stay back with him because I'm not feeling good but I
• 48:41
  caught myself I was like nope there's no way I'm going home so we get airborne
• 48:46
  and about an hour into the flight I it's coming you know when that's coming
• 48:53
  back up, you know, when it's going to happen.
• 48:55
  So I take, you know, we got a stack of piddle packs and I grab one and I open it up.
• 49:00
  For those who don't know what a piddle pack is, you know, it's a plastic bag
• 49:03
  with some granular substance in it that solidifies whatever liquid you may need
• 49:10
  to relieve yourself of while you're flying.
• 49:14
  So that's the only thing I have to throw up into except for like a helmet bag.
• 49:18
  I'm not going to do that. So I throw up into this thing and
• 49:21
  then i throw up again it starts to overflow so i
• 49:25
  got one full piddle back here i'm unfolding another one or
• 49:28
  i'm like laying it up against the oh the canopy
• 49:31
  while i'm unfolding another one to start throwing up in that one
• 49:34
  and then i start taking the full one i start folding it
• 49:37
  over and it's like oozing out everyone so now
• 49:41
  i've got a full one and a half full one i start pouring the
• 49:44
  full one into the half full one to even it out so
• 49:47
  i can close them and that you know the smell will hopefully dissipate
• 49:50
  it doesn't and then i i key the
• 49:53
  mic and tell flight lead hey hey i just threw up man so just keep an eye on
• 49:57
  me i'm not feeling good i'm fine let's press but just just so you know one keep
• 50:02
  an eye on maybe i was three or four and about five minutes later t-dub gets
• 50:07
  on the mic he's like man boys that breakfast was good that french toast and scrambled.
• 50:16
  And then it comes again. Ah, it was your buddy. Yeah. Buddy's half a word.
• 50:21
  That was the word. And then I started falling asleep. So I popped two go pills, nothing.
• 50:27
  An hour later, I'm still falling asleep. So I pop a third go pill,
• 50:30
  nothing. I'm still falling asleep. So I'm like, well, that's not going to work.
• 50:34
  So I tell him, Hey, keep an eye on me. Cause I'm falling asleep here.
• 50:38
  So I just put it on autopilot.
• 50:40
  I'd close my eyes for a while, you know, and then I'd wake him up and see how
• 50:45
  close I am to anybody. But I'm figuring, hey, they're going to tell me if I'm
• 50:47
  too close or too far away. Too far away. Yeah.
• 50:51
  But yeah, that was absolutely awful. Then we get to Westover.
• 50:57
  We land and we go to Wendy's and I get the biggest strawberry milkshake I can
• 51:01
  find. Like something to fill my stomach back up.
• 51:03
  I'm so dehydrated. I didn't even relieve myself the entire flight because there was nothing in me.
• 51:11
  Well, dairy is going to help. Yeah, dairy is going to help. That was a great
• 51:15
  call. I immediately regret this decision. That's a good place to start. Yeah.
• 51:20
  So I drink that full thing. We get to the hotel after hours of hanging out in
• 51:24
  the squadron with T-Dubs old buddies, and I'm just sitting there in the corner miserable.
• 51:28
  We get to the hotel, and I'm feeling okay. I'm like, I'll order a little clam
• 51:32
  chowder and some crackers.
• 51:33
  So I eat that, and I immediately throw up again. Oh, no.
• 51:36
  Then I go to bed, and I wake up the next day, and I feel 100%.
• 51:40
  That's perfect. So we get in the jets with T-dubs, you know,
• 51:44
  fixed canopy, and we fly down the Hudson River, you know, look over the Statue
• 51:49
  of Liberty, ground zero, all the way down, and get home to Georgia.
• 51:54
  And, you know, it was worth the trip, but man, that eight hours was like 24 hours. It was terrible.
• 52:02
  That's fun going down the Hudson, huh? That was cool. Yeah, we used to do that
• 52:05
  all the time. As a big flight, eight tens, or like two at a time? We had four.
• 52:10
  Oh, nice. Yeah, because we ditched two. We usually travel on six across the
• 52:14
  pond for tanker purposes. Okay.
• 52:17
  Yeah, you left two of them. You can get six with one tanker. Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:20
  And, you know, I'd say we left the right two behind.
• 52:27
  Yeah, I'm not going to argue that one for sure. Well, they're coming on next week. Yeah.
• 52:33
  Until their side of it. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah.
• 52:38
  But that was the most miserable experience. but oh, plenty of other fun ones.
• 52:43
  And I should have been more supportive. I apologize truly for making fun of
• 52:47
  you. This is the first time you've ever apologized for that.
• 52:52
  You are growing. I'm probably not serious. I am growing. Just kidding. No, I'm not.
• 52:58
  So do they do a running of the bulls in Azores? Because I see a note here.
• 53:02
  It says running of the bulls. Well, who?
• 53:04
  Okay. Tell us about that. So I did that. So that was fun.
• 53:08
  We had a few days there before we were traveling on into country.
• 53:12
  So we would go from there to Siginella but we
• 53:15
  had a couple days so we just went out I mean
• 53:18
  that island you can drive around the island in a couple hours right but
• 53:21
  we stopped in this little town there's a big crowd we're like what's going on
• 53:25
  here and then there's a big cage about 20 yards away they open this cage and
• 53:30
  this giant bull just steps out and everybody jumps back and so we're oh,
• 53:36
  wow, this is, I've never done this before.
• 53:39
  So we, you know, we get as close as, it's unbelievable how scary it is to get
• 53:44
  close to that thing. You're like, oh, that's not too scary.
• 53:46
  And then you get about 15 yards away and you're like, okay, that's close enough.
• 53:52
  But we do that and then we get back. Oh, go ahead. No, no, keep going.
• 53:57
  We get back to, you know, the chow hall on the base when we get back and there's
• 54:04
  AFN commercials playing. You know, the Armed Forces Network playing their stupid
• 54:07
  commercials. Yeah. And one of them is...
• 54:10
  Hey, don't run with the bulls. No, of course.
• 54:15
  DOD, UCMJ code or whatever, regulation. Now they tell me. You're not allowed to run with the bulls.
• 54:21
  Oops. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad I did that before I found out I couldn't.
• 54:26
  Right. Hey, you got plausible. You're a good academy grad. Yeah.
• 54:29
  You probably would have followed the rules, right?
• 54:31
  I'm a pretty, I was a pretty good rule follower. Yeah, you were.
• 54:34
  Was it you, Quintana, that hitchhiked out to the Persian Gulf to get a night
• 54:41
  on the aircraft carrier? What was that about?
• 54:45
  And what carrier was it? The USS Abe Lincoln. All right. Lincoln. Yeah.
• 54:51
  Hitchhiked, huh? If I'm not mistaken, that's the one in Top Gun 2,
• 54:54
  right? Because they had a little Lincoln doll on the... I think you're right. That's right.
• 54:59
  They should have put you in the movie, dude. Dude.
• 55:02
  You didn't know I was? Yeah. with that hair i mean i'm just i know it's gonna
• 55:07
  be real good after i retire just wait,
• 55:10
  but no we had you know the f-18s were out there and we
• 55:13
  would do they they do cast in theater and
• 55:15
  we would check in with them every once in a while and share an ao and
• 55:19
  one of the guys in the squad or nike was like hey q
• 55:23
  quintana why don't we just uh ask woody if we
• 55:26
  can go out to the carrier and and talk cast integration with
• 55:30
  these guys that's a good excuse yeah so
• 55:33
  we told woody it was like hey can we go out to uh
• 55:35
  the carrier and and discuss cast integration he's
• 55:38
  like yep go so we hitched hike
• 55:41
  i think we just found flights we went
• 55:44
  to al-udid we went to bahrain caught
• 55:48
  a cod onto the abe lincoln spent 24
• 55:52
  hours there which is way more than than i ever want to spend on
• 55:55
  a carrier again i don't know how you guys do that i mean that is well you you
• 56:00
  guys weren't a transient thing you know normally when you're living on a carrier
• 56:03
  you have a stateroom but still it's not it's not as romantic as yeah it's as
• 56:09
  big as a as a nissan frontier you know you're the state.
• 56:13
  Only four of you only four yeah well and if you're over i'm 510 if you're over
• 56:20
  510 that's miserable being on a a carrier oh yeah banging your head on the overhead
• 56:25
  all the time and uh And then,
• 56:27
  of course, the company grade officers all sleep right under the steam cat.
• 56:31
  And they exercise that thing at pre-sunrise every morning. Boom.
• 56:36
  Boom. What is the steam cat? The catapult.
• 56:40
  The catapult. Okay. Well, I was standing on the other end of the,
• 56:43
  in like some master chief's room on the top bunk right under the cable.
• 56:49
  Oh, nice. Yeah, resting cable. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, so I heard that one
• 56:53
  going off all night long. Yeah.
• 56:56
  But somehow I slept, but yeah, the next day I was ready. So when we,
• 56:59
  we get on the car to leave, to get catapulted off the next day and they say,
• 57:03
  Hey, tighten your seatbelts, cross your arms and cross your legs.
• 57:08
  Me and Nike looked at each other and we're like, nah.
• 57:14
  So we loosened our seatbelts and we just kept our arms out like this.
• 57:19
  Our legs just flat on the floor and they shot off. And, man,
• 57:23
  we flew forward on the seats.
• 57:26
  Our arms and legs went straight out like Frankenstein.
• 57:29
  And it was an exciting ride. Yeah, because you're facing backwards.
• 57:33
  You're facing backwards.
• 57:35
  You're facing aft on the cod. Yeah. Which helps when you're landing,
• 57:38
  but when you're getting shot off, you have that experience. It's a lot of fun.
• 57:42
  Yeah. Yay! We've had a couple of cod guys on our podcast. Yeah.
• 57:47
  Yeah. So you mentioned Woody.
• 57:50
  In your notes you talk about a marine with a call sign halo
• 57:53
  but you said woody was that another marine no woody was our our squadron commander
• 57:58
  squadron commander okay all right yeah yeah because we had a we had a marine
• 58:03
  we served with woody oh yeah we're kind of looking for him still actually trying
• 58:08
  to catch up with him but he's out he's loose he's loose somewhere right yeah Yeah,
• 58:13
  I understand he's like a, he's a CEO or something of some company.
• 58:20
  I think it was, Bart was telling us that. All right, well, Woody, we're looking for you.
• 58:26
  Come on, Woody. I have your head on a swivel. The challenge is up.
• 58:29
  You know what, while we're looking, we ought to take just a minute or so.
• 58:33
  And thank Robbie Walling for helping bring this show to you.
• 58:37
  And then we'll continue with some more hijinks and fun.
• 58:44
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• 59:11
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• 1:02:21
  So, one of the coolest things you can do in an A-10 is strafe.
• 1:02:29
  I mean, the cannon on that thing, that just turns me on thinking about it.
• 1:02:36
  There you go. There you go. There's another one. Mine is bigger than yours, Tito.
• 1:02:44
  It's shinier. You must use yours a lot more than mine because it's shiny.
• 1:02:48
  It's very shiny. Polishing your bullet, right? Right.
• 1:02:54
  So, well, Patana, you've got a note about having a lone mover wandering around
• 1:03:00
  and you got cleared hot on him while everyone else was going off to the tanker.
• 1:03:04
  And tell us about that, would you? yeah that was one of the most it was it was
• 1:03:10
  exciting yet very disappointing.
• 1:03:13
  You know i'm i'm out there with he was
• 1:03:16
  like the group commander or something just a two ship
• 1:03:19
  flying in shoot did
• 1:03:22
  i even write down where we were flying i forget i think
• 1:03:25
  i think it was uh helman hard hang on yeah
• 1:03:28
  well can't say oh sangen valley yeah sangen valley okay
• 1:03:31
  yeah you know we're we're wheeling up over there
• 1:03:33
  probably working with halo the the marine guys and
• 1:03:38
  you know he's they're tracking somebody and they
• 1:03:41
  see this this lone mover down there's guy just walking through the field and
• 1:03:46
  apparently they had been tracking him for a while and he had done something
• 1:03:49
  nefarious before that so they had their eye on him and now he was in the clear
• 1:03:53
  well my flight lead was at the tanker and typically we don't like to employ
• 1:03:58
  solo you know You want somebody.
• 1:04:01
  Yeah, mutual support. Yeah, mutual support.
• 1:04:03
  But this case, I called him up, said, hey, they want me to employ.
• 1:04:08
  Is that okay? He gave me clearance. It was a flight lead, and I told the guys, hey, let's do it.
• 1:04:14
  So they cleared me for 30 Mike Mike guns on this guy.
• 1:04:20
  That's the best thing to use. So it took a while because the A-10 today,
• 1:04:27
  finding a target, And T-Dub could speak to this better than me because I never
• 1:04:32
  got to fly with the Hemmix and the helmet mounted cueing and how easy that can,
• 1:04:37
  you can throw a target, you know, a spot down on the ground and pick it up instantly.
• 1:04:42
  Well, when we were doing this, I've got my targeting pod, you know,
• 1:04:46
  we're a single seat fighter.
• 1:04:48
  So I'm looking out the window where one of those jets that you got to see what
• 1:04:51
  you're killing with your eyeballs, right?
• 1:04:53
  You can't, you know, you're not just picking a point on the ground or coordinates
• 1:04:57
  unless it's a J dam or something,
• 1:04:58
  but so I'm finding him a targeting pod and put my HUD down there so I can get
• 1:05:03
  that spot and pick him up and then pull off and try to keep him in sight while
• 1:05:06
  I'm working around on my ingress angle.
• 1:05:09
  So I call in from the West, they clear
• 1:05:12
  me hot and and i i i've got
• 1:05:15
  him in sight but he's running now towards this
• 1:05:19
  you know it's not brick of course it's like mud but
• 1:05:22
  this gigantic thick wall yeah several feet
• 1:05:25
  thick and i laid down about 150
• 1:05:29
  rounds on him and when you do that you pull the trigger
• 1:05:32
  it's loud the hud shakes so you can't see anything at that point it's like it's
• 1:05:37
  like watching you know squiggly porn when you're a little kid so that you know
• 1:05:41
  it's just squiggles it all blurs out and then until you release the trigger
• 1:05:46
  then you can see and then but at that point you got to pull off target.
• 1:05:51
  So i i laid down the rounds.
• 1:05:54
  And let off pulled off target and then i was
• 1:05:57
  looking at my my targeting pod screen the
• 1:06:00
  video from it and you can see the rounds
• 1:06:03
  impact in the targeting pod because it was still locked on
• 1:06:06
  that area that i was shooting and right before the
• 1:06:08
  rounds impacted that dude disappeared behind a wall and then
• 1:06:11
  all this 30 millimeter hei going off that high
• 1:06:14
  explosive incendiary oh boy so apparently
• 1:06:18
  he started staggering out from behind that
• 1:06:20
  wall trying to go to the other side of the field for some stupid reason so
• 1:06:24
  they cleared me back around but I could
• 1:06:27
  not I couldn't find him on that that next
• 1:06:30
  time around and by time you know
• 1:06:33
  I did a pass coming back around couldn't find and couldn't pick
• 1:06:36
  him out in that in the ground down there because there's
• 1:06:39
  you know there's green there's brown there's all sorts of
• 1:06:41
  colors down there and I lost him
• 1:06:44
  and by time I came off target the second time without
• 1:06:47
  seeing him i think he had i my my
• 1:06:51
  suspicions is that he collapsed in a ditch and and expired but that was i'll
• 1:06:58
  give you that i'll give you that yeah yeah i'm gonna give you kill eventually
• 1:07:04
  he died he probably just died tired because he was running yeah yeah.
• 1:07:10
  That's one of my patches that that a10 patch
• 1:07:13
  you know we would always wear those fun different or patches you
• 1:07:17
  can run but you'll die tired right so why
• 1:07:21
  run go yeah fantastic and
• 1:07:24
  you got to do some strafing too of tanks uh t-dub yeah so like i said earlier
• 1:07:31
  i was lucky enough to go to oif as a lieutenant and it was it was a really really
• 1:07:38
  great time it was a really great time to go to war because everyone was still really happy and proud,
• 1:07:44
  and everyone was all behind us. That was pretty cool, too.
• 1:07:48
  So that was 03, and...
• 1:07:51
  We were in the western part of Iraq and the Haditha Dam up around there.
• 1:07:58
  We were just south and west of the Haditha Dam.
• 1:08:01
  And there had been bad weather coming in. And we were below the weather trying
• 1:08:05
  to shoot Mavericks at tanks.
• 1:08:07
  But I'm such a terrible Maverick pilot that I got to strafe it instead.
• 1:08:11
  So I couldn't get a lock with the Maverick.
• 1:08:13
  And so I said, well, my nose is already pointing at the target.
• 1:08:18
  So we'll just start shooting. And that was pretty common, you know, for us.
• 1:08:21
  If, hey, you know, two slews with a Maverick, if I can't get it to lock and
• 1:08:25
  I've got a good gunshot on it, then I'll strafe it.
• 1:08:29
  And, yeah. So I strafed that tank.
• 1:08:31
  I came back. I took the shells from that sortie.
• 1:08:35
  And I made a set of shot glasses for my dad. Nice.
• 1:08:39
  Yeah, just because, you know, I got to do something he never got to do.
• 1:08:43
  So, yeah. He sweared that the depleted uranium shells always made the whiskey get warm.
• 1:08:48
  But well you
• 1:08:52
  know this that's why they call it a hot toddy you you
• 1:08:56
  know you you would envision doing that when you were
• 1:08:58
  a kid and then yeah look at that i grew up
• 1:09:01
  you know i mean kid of the 80s right you know we're 80s kids
• 1:09:04
  we hated russians i hated him even more because my
• 1:09:07
  dad used to go to germany every summer you know before the
• 1:09:09
  wall fell to do their you know do their two weeks out there at
• 1:09:12
  alhorn to train to to kill to kill ruskies
• 1:09:15
  and here i was getting a straight for t62 so it was the coolest thing i mean
• 1:09:20
  the coolest thing ever you know i mean probably you know having my kids maybe
• 1:09:24
  slightly cooler i don't know depends on the day how they're acting but you know
• 1:09:28
  right whatever they're doing yeah they're getting old now so the best part about
• 1:09:32
  that shooting that the gun is.
• 1:09:35
  The cockpit smells fills with the
• 1:09:38
  smell of gunpowder you can see you
• 1:09:41
  can smell your mask oh yeah oh you just drop
• 1:09:44
  the mask go just take it's just like the best smell i
• 1:09:47
  mean yeah like the toast we have you know we definitely
• 1:09:50
  have a toast about the you know the couple great things
• 1:09:53
  that smell well yeah lives and we love them both you
• 1:09:56
  know but gunpowder is definitely a great smell yes there's
• 1:10:00
  no no denying that yeah well you
• 1:10:03
  want to tell the toast we are explicit we are
• 1:10:07
  yeah oh toast now here's a toast to gunpowder and pussy live by one die by the
• 1:10:12
  other love the smell of both oh i love that yeah i love that cheers here here here,
• 1:10:24
  crap yeah that's a
• 1:10:27
  good sound my kids are
• 1:10:30
  all older so they you know they still get to see this so they'll they'll
• 1:10:34
  dad oh yeah all right well they all finally figured out what my call sign meant
• 1:10:40
  so you know that was a big hurdle in life yeah had to hide that for a long time
• 1:10:45
  yeah yeah yeah all right g g was talking about not telling her kids yet so yeah.
• 1:10:52
  For sure oh man fig i cut you
• 1:10:55
  off earlier i'm sorry i was gonna ask q
• 1:10:58
  about him and elmer lighting up about 200 barrels
• 1:11:01
  of oil oh man that was that
• 1:11:04
  was fun i've never seen an explosion so
• 1:11:07
  big but we were he elmer and
• 1:11:11
  i i think i was leading the flight but we were out there flying
• 1:11:14
  around one of those boring days where you check into the fob and
• 1:11:17
  hey anything going on no okay well
• 1:11:20
  you got us for the next 90 minutes so what do
• 1:11:23
  you want us to look at and they usually give you a little area to look at
• 1:11:26
  and just say hey you know we've had activity over there go slew
• 1:11:30
  your pods over there and look so you just do that and
• 1:11:32
  you know pass the time but in in this scenario those guys i think were just
• 1:11:38
  as bored as we were and they wanted to see some action so they these were like
• 1:11:43
  it was like a navy seal compound and you know their jtax were like hey we've got,
• 1:11:50
  these these old oil barrels so they get these like 100 gallon barrels of oil
• 1:11:55
  delivered to their fob yeah they use the oil and then they throw them all into
• 1:12:00
  a gigantic like football size field ditch,
• 1:12:03
  that's that's dug and then they they just fill it up with these barrels so i
• 1:12:07
  don't know how many hundreds of barrels were in there but they said you know
• 1:12:11
  they talked us on to this and yeah no kidding it looked like a football field
• 1:12:15
  rectangular area filled with you know black barrels and they said.
• 1:12:20
  Hey, we need you to take care of those so that, you know, the,
• 1:12:23
  uh, the Taliban doesn't get them and, and make IEDs.
• 1:12:28
  So I'm sure that wasn't going to be the case, but they wanted to see something go boom.
• 1:12:32
  So, uh, so we, we set up over the target.
• 1:12:36
  They cleared us hot, or I think it might've been even like type three control
• 1:12:39
  where they just let me, uh, continue shooting.
• 1:12:43
  They basically said, Hey, you're cleared hot until further notice.
• 1:12:47
  So we came back around, we did like three or four passes each.
• 1:12:50
  But the very first one I did, and I've got the targeting, I've got like this
• 1:12:54
  on video too, the targeting pod footage.
• 1:12:57
  I threw down about 150 rounds of 30 mic mic HEI, high explosive incendiary.
• 1:13:02
  You know, it hits the ground and it explodes, the round does.
• 1:13:05
  And then you match that with oil residue inside of steel barrels.
• 1:13:10
  And it's like a mushroom cloud. Oh, boy. Explosion. It was the greatest thing I've ever seen.
• 1:13:16
  Yeah. I don't suppose there's any chance you can share that with us and let
• 1:13:19
  us. I do. I might be able to.
• 1:13:22
  I don't know if I can send it from my phone to you, but I've got it.
• 1:13:26
  It would be great if we could put it up now. But otherwise, we'll put it in
• 1:13:28
  the, we'll embed it into the blog post for the audio portion of the show. It's a thereiwas.us.
• 1:13:34
  Yeah. slash episode slash 148.
• 1:13:39
  That's what this will be. But those guys. I guess they're almost 150.
• 1:13:43
  Jeez. Yeah. How often do you do these? Once a week.
• 1:13:48
  One a week. Yeah. One a week. Yeah. Getting going 150 weeks.
• 1:13:51
  We've taken, I think, a total of six weeks off. We took off two weeks last summer
• 1:13:56
  and two weeks on both Christmases. And that's it. Nice. Yeah.
• 1:14:00
  Was there more to this? Was there more to this? Oh, yeah.
• 1:14:03
  Sorry. uh i digress was there was there a big explosion or or uh because yeah
• 1:14:09
  we rooms in these tanks i guess it was the biggest explosion i've ever seen
• 1:14:14
  uh and we did it you know we we went we almost,
• 1:14:18
  ran out of a 30 millimeter during they have lids on the tanks i don't know they
• 1:14:23
  were like solid you know what i mean that's what like that would have caused
• 1:14:26
  that yeah more yeah i don't know but I've got the video.
• 1:14:29
  I will, I will find out how to send this because the guys on the ground,
• 1:14:33
  they sent, they recorded it from the ground point of view.
• 1:14:36
  And then they sent us a video put to top gun music, but not like cool top gun music.
• 1:14:43
  It was that, that, that love song from top gun and, you know,
• 1:14:48
  just showing us roll in and showing the explosion from their angle.
• 1:14:51
  So we took our targeting pot footage, created a video and sent it to them to the boys are back.
• 1:14:59
  In town which is from that navy seal movie with charlie
• 1:15:01
  sheen yep oh yeah we we made them a
• 1:15:04
  video and i've got both videos the call sign was oxblood oh yeah that's right
• 1:15:09
  nice all right yeah they were cool i'll see if i can you were a day guy you
• 1:15:14
  got all the action i was a day guy yeah i was lucky yeah night guys didn't get
• 1:15:20
  a little less day guy d-a-y.
• 1:15:26
  Just clear things up,
• 1:15:30
  podcast to talk about the you know the other right on you know,
• 1:15:36
  So in the notes here, Q, you were with Elmer on another sortie.
• 1:15:42
  I'm assuming it was a different sortie than this one when you were watching
• 1:15:46
  a convoy that had contact.
• 1:15:51
  Yeah. Yeah. Helpless feeling. Helpless feeling.
• 1:15:55
  It was. so it's you know
• 1:15:58
  when you can do something and when
• 1:16:01
  you're out there providing like overwatch or convoy
• 1:16:04
  escort or something it's usually fairly benign not much going on but at least
• 1:16:09
  you feel like you're you're providing safety for those guys they're usually
• 1:16:13
  pretty safe when you're doing that so we were we were doing that three su humvees
• 1:16:18
  just going through a town i remember before they got up to that town,
• 1:16:23
  I'd saw, had seen a motorcycle with two guys on it, go over to the road,
• 1:16:28
  spend a couple of minutes there and then leave.
• 1:16:30
  And I let the convoy leader know that I said, Hey, here's what I saw.
• 1:16:34
  You know, two military age males on a motorcycle.
• 1:16:36
  They stopped right here and I gave him the exact coordinates.
• 1:16:40
  I don't know what they were doing. I couldn't see that clearly,
• 1:16:43
  but they stopped there. So watch that area.
• 1:16:46
  So he copied it. They, they drive through this town, they get to that spot.
• 1:16:50
  And the first Humvee goes and he gets through it just fine.
• 1:16:54
  The second Humvee follows, you know, and I don't know how much distance they
• 1:16:58
  have between each other, maybe 20 feet.
• 1:17:00
  I mean, they're not too spaced out, but the second Humvee passes that exact spot and he's fine.
• 1:17:06
  So I'm thinking, okay, maybe we're okay.
• 1:17:09
  Well, that third Humvee gets to that spot and all I see is dust. Just an explosion.
• 1:17:14
  The next thing I see when the dust clears is doors open on that Humvee and guys
• 1:17:21
  just falling out like piling out like on their face and crawling around on their
• 1:17:26
  their arms doing that army crawl and then see guys stand up and try to walk and then collapse again.
• 1:17:32
  And i remember because i kept a i kept a combat journal and i had written in
• 1:17:38
  there that that was the helpless most helpless i'd ever felt because all i could
• 1:17:43
  do was call you know and somebody else had already started calling,
• 1:17:47
  you know, one of the other Humvees on station started calling for an evac and calling for help.
• 1:17:52
  So there's really nothing I can do.
• 1:17:55
  And, you know, when you're in that situation, the whole reason we do this mission
• 1:17:59
  is to keep those guys on the ground safe. That's it.
• 1:18:03
  You know, it's the 18 year old with the gun. Right. Yep.
• 1:18:06
  You know, thankfully I did find out, you know,
• 1:18:09
  a lot, they all went to the hospital with some broken bones and things
• 1:18:12
  like that but but they all survived so that
• 1:18:15
  was good news yeah right that's kind of stuff you see it and man we see it from
• 1:18:20
  10 15 000 feet up and those guys live it yeah it's different it's different
• 1:18:25
  war for pilots yeah to us those guys are the heroes because yeah it's it's pretty
• 1:18:31
  bad for them right yeah and.
• 1:18:34
  Do I have it right in the notes that TW, was it you?
• 1:18:38
  Or which one of you went to the hospital and met up with those lads that you?
• 1:18:43
  Oh, I did that in Iraqi Freedom, yeah. We had some guys that got hit pretty
• 1:18:48
  hard on the head of the dam.
• 1:18:50
  And matter of fact, I was texting my buddy on Memorial Day.
• 1:18:53
  And matter of fact, his wife is your governor there, repeat.
• 1:18:57
  Yeah. And we were talking about that this time.
• 1:19:01
  Yeah, yeah. Great man, great American. and she's
• 1:19:04
  she's awesome but uh yeah yeah we
• 1:19:08
  were we had got it this is this is the best you know back
• 1:19:10
  in the day like when you know the internet so
• 1:19:13
  i mean that's like oh three right so he brought this big clunky
• 1:19:17
  laptop but we went to go see these guys who had all been shot up
• 1:19:19
  and were trying to bring some cheer to their face and
• 1:19:22
  so mayor walks in with his laptop because he's got some pictures of some girls
• 1:19:28
  not wearing enough clothes but eating sundaes and so we've been showing them
• 1:19:32
  to them to cheer him up and we all had some fun and laughs but then you know
• 1:19:36
  you get to the hard part of like hey man like we you know they lost a friend
• 1:19:40
  matter of fact long story is that the
• 1:19:42
  friend this guy that that i met that we saved you know saved his life that day
• 1:19:48
  he was friends with one of my best friends from growing up like a town over
• 1:19:52
  from where i grew up you know and like,
• 1:19:55
  so like we probably hung out together didn't know it when we were you know teenagers
• 1:19:58
  world Yeah, small world, right?
• 1:20:01
  But, you know, he looks at you and is like, man, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't
• 1:20:04
  for you. That's kind of a humbling experience, and I'm not good at being humbled.
• 1:20:09
  I generally like to believe that I'm better than everybody. So,
• 1:20:12
  you know, having that kind of experience is challenging to me.
• 1:20:16
  So I usually run away from them pretty fast.
• 1:20:19
  Right. There you go.
• 1:20:22
  So. Repeat, I texted you. Did you get that text? Oh, let me look for it right
• 1:20:26
  now. Check. See if that video came through. Yeah.
• 1:20:29
  Well, I look for that. We just got a question that came in.
• 1:20:35
  Yeah i so he's asking if we were ever in afghanistan
• 1:20:38
  in 06 i was not my first time there was 08 i
• 1:20:41
  was not yeah 10 and then and then
• 1:20:44
  iraq before that right because he says he flew uh flew
• 1:20:47
  apaches there oh well we we
• 1:20:50
  did a lot of work with apaches in 10 matter of
• 1:20:53
  fact that's probably one another good afghanistan story
• 1:20:56
  so we all went out to meet the apache pilots and you
• 1:20:59
  know we all so 2010 you know people had
• 1:21:02
  facebook and cameras and internet so we go and take
• 1:21:05
  we go out to the apaches we all take some bro pictures
• 1:21:08
  well we get the patch you gotta take a picture of all
• 1:21:11
  of us next to the apache and i couldn't i couldn't not
• 1:21:14
  take a picture of all of us without without the brain showing
• 1:21:17
  below the flight suit so i i i popped
• 1:21:20
  something out to you know to keep the memory alive and
• 1:21:23
  then my buddy sends it to his wife without knowing
• 1:21:26
  oh geez and then it ends up on facebook and
• 1:21:30
  then it has to get edited from facebook oh boy that's great yeah a little afghanistan
• 1:21:37
  ball walking yeah that's right man classic those bad you guys are great man
• 1:21:41
  yeah yeah i love fun doing those joint attacks with those guys i think i did
• 1:21:46
  some with the blackhawks.
• 1:21:50
  Where we were this is funny we were at night you know we're wearing night vision goggles,
• 1:21:56
  and these these Taliban fighters
• 1:22:00
  on the ground think that they can if they
• 1:22:02
  just stop and lie down we can't see
• 1:22:05
  him anymore yeah so we're chasing there's no
• 1:22:08
  wire he yeah he just stops and lays down in a
• 1:22:11
  field I'm like oh buddy at least
• 1:22:14
  you ain't gonna die tired so I laid down
• 1:22:17
  the sparkle and you know the the 60 just lights them up so you know that ir
• 1:22:23
  ir sparkle so they were wearing night vision goggles that's the easiest easiest
• 1:22:28
  target in the world to hit is you just see this bright flash out there and you
• 1:22:31
  just they just light it up and uh it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
• 1:22:38
  Uh hey so i think this is one of t-dub stories about the whisper about whispering on the radio,
• 1:22:45
  yeah well you tell that story will you yeah so
• 1:22:50
  yeah so i check into the ao and i
• 1:22:52
  was texting balls the other day i can't remember who our wingmen were but i
• 1:22:56
  check in the ao he's working with british sas and and
• 1:22:59
  they're they're british dudes are right outside the freaking compound
• 1:23:02
  so they're whispering for a reason because they're about to bust
• 1:23:05
  into this compound and all sorts of bad dudes
• 1:23:08
  around and so they're whispering so then ball starts whispering
• 1:23:11
  and so we check in and he's like hey hawk
• 1:23:15
  5-1 hawk 7-1 this
• 1:23:19
  is hawk 7-3 we got these guys and
• 1:23:22
  i'm like so we're talking and i agree i start whispering
• 1:23:25
  and then i'm whispering to my wingman on our inner flight and
• 1:23:28
  our so our common freak we're whispering our attack freak because you know three
• 1:23:32
  radios in the we're whispering on all three radios and finally i'm like why
• 1:23:36
  the fuck are we whispering they can't hear us yeah good point tw yeah yeah we
• 1:23:42
  can talk now talk normal like the world deaf anyway yeah,
• 1:23:47
  but the best one of the best things about that story i did put in the show notes
• 1:23:50
  is finally the dudes breached the compound and we're just doing the mutual support
• 1:23:54
  target pod in case something goes bad yeah and and they breached the compound
• 1:23:58
  and some taliban dude tries to go at their dog.
• 1:24:03
  I've never seen more rounds go into a man's chest than I did the day that they
• 1:24:08
  tried to shoot the British Special Forces dog, man.
• 1:24:12
  They are like, dude, you don't mess with Fido, man. Right.
• 1:24:17
  This dude gets just... He grows to grab his AK and he just gets lit up.
• 1:24:23
  Ridiculous lit up. It was... That's fantastic. Why are we whispering?
• 1:24:29
  We still laugh about that.
• 1:24:31
  All right that's good yeah that's like you know so you know that's so that's the thing,
• 1:24:37
  there is a you know you're in the middle of
• 1:24:40
  combat and there is uh there's opportunities
• 1:24:44
  to have humor and we use
• 1:24:47
  it all the time as probably a stress
• 1:24:50
  reliever but i mean how about that yeah i
• 1:24:53
  mean i think that's why i like why fighter pilots are such
• 1:24:56
  notorious drunks you know my grandfather was flew in world war
• 1:24:59
  ii and those guys were just freaking boozing right
• 1:25:02
  but they were losing a bro a day or more yeah you
• 1:25:05
  know oh yeah you'd come back to the bar and booze and everything else and i
• 1:25:09
  mean i think you know humor for us especially humor became you know because
• 1:25:13
  because we weren't supposed to have booze some of us were you know snuck it
• 1:25:17
  in there but you know we're not supposed to have booze in kandahar or you know
• 1:25:20
  whatever so everybody did yeah yeah General order number one.
• 1:25:24
  We didn't have that for Iraq, matter of fact.
• 1:25:27
  And, yeah, so I used to drink scotch with Bacchus and OIF.
• 1:25:32
  We had a little club and built a deck. Yeah, we actually could bring – we had
• 1:25:37
  booze in Iraq. That was pretty cool.
• 1:25:39
  Other countries got to drink in Afghanistan. I remember just popping to different
• 1:25:43
  fobs. Yeah, the Frenchies drink, yeah.
• 1:25:45
  The Germans had beer up in Maziar Sharif.
• 1:25:49
  You could go out to the west side. They had a great set up there.
• 1:25:52
  Yeah yeah and they got to wear they get to wear facial hair i mean they get
• 1:25:56
  beards yeah you know this whole oh the the oxygen mask won't seal what a bunch
• 1:26:01
  of baloney or the gas mask you know yeah right.
• 1:26:04
  Hey i wish if i could change anything it'd
• 1:26:07
  be let us have beards nice all right well i'll
• 1:26:10
  tell you what let's let's talk about the piss bottle
• 1:26:13
  collection we've been going at this quite quite
• 1:26:16
  a bit here about an hour 25 or so i got how did the time go so fast so let me
• 1:26:22
  let's ask about the piss bottle collection after we stop recording i'll play
• 1:26:26
  i got the video i'll play the video so those watching live on youtube can get
• 1:26:30
  it there's hey that was piddle packs right there Yeah, those are pedal packs.
• 1:26:33
  Yeah, that's how it kind of throws up. You can fill those up quickly.
• 1:26:37
  Yeah. And then I will also include this video at sodherowose.us slash episode slash 148.
• 1:26:44
  So you'll get to see the video either if you're watching live now or watching on YouTube.
• 1:26:48
  And then you'll get to see it on our website.
• 1:26:51
  So either way, you'll get to see it. But I won't spend three and a half minutes
• 1:26:54
  now while we're chatting running that video. But that'll be cool.
• 1:26:58
  I can't wait to see this. so yeah so uh the piss bottle collection because you
• 1:27:04
  didn't want to get your ass dude.
• 1:27:06
  So man the combat is
• 1:27:09
  is a kind of a funny thing you go to
• 1:27:12
  combat you think you're there to to kill
• 1:27:15
  people and break things yeah and then you find out oh
• 1:27:19
  there's all these chiefs on base and their number one job is
• 1:27:22
  to make sure your uniform looks perfect you're wearing
• 1:27:25
  your reflective belt at all times so the enemy has a clear shot
• 1:27:28
  at you that's right after dark and and
• 1:27:32
  yeah and you got your pt shirt
• 1:27:35
  tucked in right so we in the
• 1:27:38
  first time i was deployed oh eight in bagram we lived in b huts so
• 1:27:41
  they're just plywood shacks that the yep red horse
• 1:27:44
  comes in and puts up you know 20 minutes probably put
• 1:27:47
  them up and you you sector it off into eight rooms so
• 1:27:50
  you got the six foot seven foot high plywood walls you
• 1:27:53
  know you could see over the walls to each other's rooms but
• 1:27:56
  it's just plywood with a bunk bed and like
• 1:27:59
  a cabinet to keep stuff in dirt floor basically
• 1:28:03
  and it's dark 24 7 because
• 1:28:06
  everybody's on a different schedule so you never
• 1:28:09
  have the lights on because there's no windows hey
• 1:28:11
  there's no windows there there's no windows their boys boarded up.
• 1:28:14
  It's tight so it's great as far as sleeping conditions it's
• 1:28:17
  really dark and and you just you know have a fan on for
• 1:28:20
  that white noise but it was
• 1:28:23
  freezing we got there in january in oh eight and afghanistan's cold
• 1:28:26
  bagram's cold colder than kandahar you know
• 1:28:30
  it would snow there so it's winter time and you
• 1:28:33
  know we drink water like crazy because i don't know well bagram's at bagram's
• 1:28:39
  at 50 it's it's denver it's like 5300 feet so you get thirsty right yes yeah
• 1:28:45
  so you And there's pallets of bottled water everywhere, so there's always plenty.
• 1:28:50
  So we're drinking, and then in the middle of the night, you got to piss.
• 1:28:54
  Well, I'm not going to put on a uniform and lace up my shoes and walk 50 yards
• 1:29:01
  to get to the nearest latrine.
• 1:29:04
  It's cold out, so I'm just going to pull out one of these little bottles.
• 1:29:08
  They're the normal water bottle with the tiny little opening,
• 1:29:11
  so you just do your best. Perfect size for you, buddy.
• 1:29:14
  Perfect size, yeah. I don't know why everybody else had such an issue.
• 1:29:20
  But you're in the dark, and you're doing your best to aim, and you fill it up.
• 1:29:25
  Sometimes you've got to change it out with another one, kind of like Dumb and
• 1:29:28
  Dumber when he's peeing in those bottles in the car.
• 1:29:31
  And and then so what we do once every
• 1:29:35
  two weeks somebody would would rotate out and go to LUD to
• 1:29:37
  sit in the chaotic and do the tanker planning and so
• 1:29:41
  one guy was always gone so when that guy came back to
• 1:29:44
  his room guess where all the bottles were yeah they were all in his room I mean
• 1:29:49
  I would be leaving I would be leaving the B-Hut and to go to the bathroom and
• 1:29:55
  another guy would stop me uh he would stop me and be like where you going I
• 1:29:58
  was like I'm going to the bathroom he's like no you're not, you're using a bottle.
• 1:30:02
  So I'd use a bottle just to add to the collection.
• 1:30:06
  And, and then, you know, I went to the Kayok, of course I came back and there's
• 1:30:10
  187 bottles in my room that I then have to step over, step around to get to
• 1:30:16
  my bed and wait till the next guy leaves. Someone's been drinking.
• 1:30:22
  Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Oh man.
• 1:30:27
  It's funny how you devolve when you're deployed. I can so relate,
• 1:30:33
  brother. Yeah. That's awesome.
• 1:30:35
  Fantastic. Well, thank you for that. Indeed.
• 1:30:39
  Fig, let's say we land this airplane, man. Okay.
• 1:30:43
  Well, so let me say this, gents. I can't even express, you know,
• 1:30:47
  words don't do it justice, but, you know, it's all I got.
• 1:30:51
  So thank you for your service to our country.
• 1:30:55
  It sounds hollow, but it's telling you that's all I can say.
• 1:30:59
  And I mean it from the bottom of my heart because I know what you guys have been through.
• 1:31:05
  Yeah. Well, I'm glad we served together. Ah, yeah. Look at those studs.
• 1:31:10
  Legends. Legends right there. Legends in your own mind.
• 1:31:14
  I actually look more like a pedophile than he does. I look like the one who
• 1:31:20
  should have married my sponsor.
• 1:31:22
  I think it was the mustache that did that. Yeah.
• 1:31:25
  There you go. All right. Thank you to your family. I appreciate what you guys are doing too.
• 1:31:31
  I mean, keeping these stories alive. It's awesome keeping these stories.
• 1:31:34
  I never get tired of hearing stories.
• 1:31:37
  Everybody's got stories. All this stuff gets lost. It's amazing how similar
• 1:31:41
  and different they all are at the same time. Yeah, right.
• 1:31:45
  I think the coolest part about the fighter pilot stuff, and what will take for
• 1:31:51
  us forever, is more the bond that fighter pilots have.
• 1:31:55
  We'll laugh, cry, whatever, about the stories. But, man, that brotherhood is something.
• 1:32:01
  Yeah i mean second maybe only to our special
• 1:32:04
  forces you know right i mean really it
• 1:32:07
  did brotherhood we all share and when you you know when you
• 1:32:10
  when you're flying around you know you run into other guys you find single seat
• 1:32:13
  guys you just like you know you just kind of like yeah we all did that same
• 1:32:18
  thing yeah it's awesome it's it it's an instant bond because you you already
• 1:32:23
  know yeah you know you already know how it is it's not exactly yeah you know
• 1:32:27
  what you've been through Yeah.
• 1:32:30
  There's no amount of dick measuring going on. It's like, nope,
• 1:32:33
  you're good. We're good. Right? Bingo. Bingo.
• 1:32:38
  That was pretty harsh. That was pretty harsh. Sorry about that. Pretty harsh.
• 1:32:43
  You should tell us a longer story. Yeah. A couple other quick thank yous we need to get out there.
• 1:32:49
  First of all, Dave Hamilton over at BackbeatMedia.com.
• 1:32:53
  Dave handles our advertising.
• 1:32:55
  And Dave has a couple other shows of his own. the gig gab, the Mac geek gab,
• 1:33:00
  and the business brain for entrepreneurs.
• 1:33:03
  So give some of Dave's shows, Dave's shows a listen. You won't be disappointed. Good stuff.
• 1:33:10
  Thanks, Dave. And hey, we got to thank Bago and Sticks who are in the background right now.
• 1:33:16
  Yeah, those guys are awesome. Those guys are awesome. They are the actual brains
• 1:33:20
  of the whole damn operation.
• 1:33:21
  So thanks. The shit they're able to put up before you even think of saying it.
• 1:33:25
  They've already got an unicorn. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:33:31
  How did he do that? I do not know.
• 1:33:35
  The fact that she probably looked a lot like that. well yeah i wish i had that
• 1:33:40
  picture i don't remember who took it i think such a long face.
• 1:33:45
  So you know a desert a desert 10 is probably
• 1:33:48
  a five everywhere else right yeah well we
• 1:33:51
  know that we had a med tech who
• 1:33:55
  she wanted to extend her deployment because oh she
• 1:33:58
  was a fan favorite out there oh yeah yeah yep yeah
• 1:34:01
  yeah funny how that was out there
• 1:34:04
  and i i hate to end and we'll interrupt
• 1:34:07
  we'll abort this landing here real quick and ask if either you
• 1:34:10
  guys ever heard of uh six gun sally oh yeah
• 1:34:14
  six gun sally no okay so
• 1:34:18
  yeah so that was one she where was she at the
• 1:34:21
  she was down in cutter wasn't she it was
• 1:34:24
  how you did yeah or all you did yeah okay because that's
• 1:34:27
  where law man was and she was legendary yeah
• 1:34:30
  in afghanistan apparently she
• 1:34:33
  was a smoking hot air force captain that wore a
• 1:34:36
  white bikini to the pool and had uh six guns tattooed oh wow going into the
• 1:34:42
  into the hips yeah i don't know what they were thinking put in a pool at al-ud-deed
• 1:34:46
  man right yeah that's oh my god yeah you put enough chlorine club deed yeah
• 1:34:52
  so six gun sally if you're out there you got to come on with us, dear.
• 1:34:56
  Got to find your... No, don't come on. Just send a picture. Yeah, just send pictures.
• 1:35:02
  Yeah, it's good. Great quote. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:35:06
  All right. We also need to thank Badass over at BDS, aviationphotography.com.
• 1:35:12
  He usually joins us. I don't see him here today.
• 1:35:14
  He's probably working for a living. He's taking pictures.
• 1:35:18
  Yeah. Yeah, taking pictures. Some amazing photography. His photography is not pictures.
• 1:35:24
  It's art i mean the guy takes some amazing shots so there's one right there
• 1:35:29
  nice yeah thanks thanks also to our sponsor hsi wealth strategies and the fighting through podcast,
• 1:35:39
  Okay. What happened there? I have no idea. Somebody's fingers got fast while
• 1:35:44
  they were pulling down a picture.
• 1:35:47
  But, okay, we withdraw our thank you to Stix and Bagel.
• 1:35:55
  Oh, man. You know what? That was just an attention getter. That's all that was.
• 1:36:00
  Hey, thanks to our Patreon and direct supporters.
• 1:36:05
  Boom. I don't know if you saw the email today, Fig, or not. I did. I did. Yeah.
• 1:36:10
  Air Cav Chris. God bless you, man. He dropped two and a quarter,
• 1:36:14
  two and a half on us. Air Cav Chris.
• 1:36:17
  Obviously, his brain's been shaken too much by being in a helicopter.
• 1:36:20
  He's lost all judgment. But thank you for doing that. That's very humbling.
• 1:36:27
  And we are questioning your judgment, but thank you.
• 1:36:30
  Yeah. Yeah. It clearly has shaken your brain, but we're appreciative of it anyway.
• 1:36:38
  So, hey, Fig, how about getting us some ratings? See if you can work on that for us.
• 1:36:44
  How would you do that? Well, so there I was, .us slash rate.
• 1:36:50
  Five stars, baby. If you can't give us five, tell us what would make it five,
• 1:36:54
  because Repeat and I are trainable.
• 1:36:56
  Right. And if you insist on giving three stars, go find another show and give them.
• 1:37:02
  Send it to one of those other aviation podcasts.
• 1:37:04
  You just got another five-star rating just now. All right. Fantastic.
• 1:37:10
  You're welcome. I appreciate that. Come on. You got 173 five-star ratings now.
• 1:37:16
  Q, you're awesome. Thanks. I'm on Apple.
• 1:37:18
  Woo! Yeah, an Apple podcast. Yeah, man. I did that the other day, bro. It's on there.
• 1:37:23
  Nice. All right. I got a lift, so while I was lifting, I was listening,
• 1:37:27
  you know? Nice. There you go. Thanks, bro.
• 1:37:31
  So, well, lifting and getting that body in shape, then you should wander over
• 1:37:36
  T-Dub to siderowoofs.us slash merch. Get yourself a bikini.
• 1:37:41
  You need a bikini, bro. Dude. Yeah.
• 1:37:45
  I'm actually known for wearing Speedos and wrestling singlets to parties.
• 1:37:49
  Well, you could rock that. I could probably bring a bikini into it now, too.
• 1:37:53
  He always brings an extra, too, and forces somebody else to put a singlet on
• 1:37:56
  so they can Greco-woman wrestle.
• 1:38:00
  He likes to feel the hot breath on the back of his neck.
• 1:38:07
  I don't have the years to go with it, but I grew up wrestling. That's rich.
• 1:38:11
  That's awesome. Thank you. I don't need a core workout today. I've done it.
• 1:38:17
  Done. Nice. Been there, done that today. Uh-oh.
• 1:38:21
  That's that noise. Oh.
• 1:38:24
  I know what that is. That's the Air Force F-16 pilots make the Air Force sound good.
• 1:38:30
  That's the Dos Gringos. Count them two. Thank you, Dos Gringos.
• 1:38:36
  Four albums and a bad song on India. Yeah, we've got to have them back on.
• 1:38:39
  Yeah. And we've got to have you two back on. This is fantastic.
• 1:38:43
  Thank you so much for doing this. You know what's going to happen.
• 1:38:46
  This is always going to happen. I'm telling you right now.
• 1:38:49
  Ten minutes from now, when we're all done, you're going to go,
• 1:38:51
  oh, I should have told them that story.
• 1:38:53
  Oh, I should have told them that story. So write a little, write some bullets down.
• 1:38:57
  Okay? We'll do it. We'll have you back. All right. We'll do it. All right. I'll be back.
• 1:39:03
  But in the meantime, everybody stay safe and check six.
• 1:39:07
  Music.
• 1:39:15
  There I was crossing the pond and you could say that I wasn't exactly fond of
• 1:39:21
  all the shit I was wearing on that day.
• 1:39:26
  Now an F-16 is cramped enough but it's even worse with all that stuff supposed to save your life.
• 1:39:34
  But we knew There was no way.
• 1:39:38
  Because when you're going down the North Atlantic, man, it's over.
• 1:39:43
  Hold on. What? He said it's over.
• 1:39:49
  Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
• 1:39:56
  I never know what's coming. Me neither.