The Team House - 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Commander Clay Hutmacher, Ep. 72

Episode Date: December 12, 2020

MG Hutmacher became the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation in September 2018. He was a career United States Army Officer and retired in 2018 having served over 40 years in uniform. As an Army Special Operations Aviator, he commanded at every level during his three tours with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, where he served as the MH-60 Direct Action Penetrator platoon leader, company operations officer, executive officer and commander of 1st Battalion, Regimental Commander, and the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation Command. MG Hutmacher’s last active duty assignment was the Director of Operations in the U.S. Special Operation Command, Tampa, FL. His previous assignment was as the deputy Commanding General of the United States Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, NC. A native of Wenatchee, Washington, he was awarded a Bachelor’s Degree in Aerospace Management from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, a Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States Naval Command and Staff College, and a Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College. Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse NEW! Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things

to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Hey, good evening, everyone. Welcome to episode 72 of the team house.

I'm Jack Murphy, here with co-host Dave Park. We are here tonight with our guest, Clay Hutmacher. Clay served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment at pretty much every level, ended up commanding the unit. Had many, many different assignments there. We were just talking before we got started here about his career. Lots and lots to talk about. Had an amazing experience in the military.

And today you are, is the title of the president? President, CEO of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, yeah. Which we'll talk about the foundation as well. It's done a lot of great work for, you know, the families of special operations soldiers over the years. So we're looking forward to talking about all that. So Clay, thank you so much for joining the show tonight. Appreciate your time. And you get to be the first 160th member on the show.

So we're really happy to have you here. I'm honored. Hey, thanks for the opportunity, gentlemen, to spend some time with you tonight in your audience. So thanks. I appreciate it. So Clay, just to kind of kick it off, we usually ask our guests about their origin story. If you were to have a superhero origin story, were you bit by a radioactive spider, was it some sort of mutagen that lead from a nuclear power plant?

What was the journey? What was the path that led you into the military? Well, I can tell you right up front, it did involve an insect or a spider. So actually, I have a very unusual and circumspect career. So I joined the Marine Corps when I was 17 years old. After dropping out of high school, believe it or not, I was living in a foster home. So I joined the Corps. I just knew I needed a kick in the ass.

I wasn't, you know, and I figured the Corps were the guys to give that to me. And they did not disappoint. I will tell you that. I shipped out to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego from Washington State where I was raised. And it wasn't the big warm hug that I was hoping for when I got off the bus down there. Let's just put it that way. But I spent six and a half years in the Marine Corps, you know, went back to school at night in college and all that kind of stuff.

Obviously got my diploma and then started working on my undergrad degree. Went to Okinawa for two tours. I was an amphibious assault vehicle crewman for the Marines out there. It was an Amtrakker. And did two tours, one tour in Camp Lejeune, two tours in Okinawa, Japan, with third Marine Division up at beautiful Kam Schwab. And then I re-enlisted, went to Marine Barracks, Whidbey Island, Washington, which is no longer, you know, is closed long ago. But while I was there, I heard about this deal to go to Army Flight School as a warrant officer. And, you know, frankly, I didn't even know what a warrant officer was.

I mean, I was like, I know I got to salute those guys, but I don't really know much about them. So I decided to look into it and I applied and I kept going down to Fort Lewis to get my flight physicals and take all my tests and do all that. And was picked up and signed out of the Marine Corps after my last tour at Okinawa at the Separation Center at Camp Hamilton and caught a flight to Fort Rucker, Alabama. And then I went through flag school and got checked out in Blackhawks, UH60s, went to the 101st, did a tour. And I didn't, I didn't, like I said, I didn't understand what a warrant officer was. You know, and I had an NCO background. And I wanted, you know, I wanted to do more in the leadership department. So I applied to Officer Canada school and it was funny.

You had to be commissioned by the beginning or by your 10th year of service, the end of your 10th year of service, because you had to be able to do 10 years of commission time by 20 to retire 20. That was the rule. So I slid in under the wire. I graduated with nine years, 10 months, and two weeks of time and service as a second lieutenant. And because I was already rated as a Black Hawk pilot, I had, I had applied while I was a warrant to go to the 160th, and they laughed me, laughed me out of the joint, said, you don't have any experience. You're not ready for us. And I applied back right before, I was on my way to the 82nd. And I applied again, or I called them again, and they gave me a shot. So I, and I made past the initial assessment. So I went there as a second lieutenant. And timing was perfect. We were in the Persian Gulf at the time. So I got to do a couple of tours, flying. off some barges in the flying blackhawks over and the operation was called prime chance and then we

rolled right into Operation Just Cause in Panama so I was a platoon leader down there and then into Desert Storm which was you know so I mean I my timing was was perfect as far as getting into some good operations and then I after Desert Storm I had to go back to the captain's course captain's career course was called the advanced course back then and then General Downing was the J-Soc commander at the time and I flew Daps and Desert Storm we were going after the Scuds being shot into Israel out

flying out of western Saudi Arabia up into Iraq and and so I got when I say I got to know General Downing lie lie lie lie lie two stars but he knew who I was and so I got

he wanted me to go fly with Air Force Special Ops Command, AFSOC. So I went down there and flew with them from 92 to 96 as an exchange pilot, had a blast. Met my wife there. She was my squadron Intel officer. And so the Army remains a subordinate service to the Air Force here in Tampa. And then from there, I went back to the soft. I went back to Army Soft and ended up back into 160th eventually.

and was the XO of First Battalion. And then I went out and commanded a conventional battalion over in Germany, a Black Hawk Battalion 5158. In 1-160, the rules are you have to command another battalion first before you can get considered for that. So I went in front of a special board and got selected to command first of the 160th. And then there was a change in the personnel plan, and I ended up going straight from my second battalion

straight into regimental command and commanded the one six I commanded the first battalion from six to eight and then eight to ten I was a regimental commander and it was awesome you know here you got a guy who was a private 17 years old next thing you know I'm uh you know next thing you know I mean a few years

an overnight success I uh yeah I ended up you know commanding the one six it I mean it was a dream and then due to some flaw in the system they selected me to be a one-star general. So I got selected to one-star, and that was really good. I went over to Afghanistan, stood up the Afghan Special Mission Wing, which is over there right now, which is doing really good stuff.

They're flying nods, and they got fixed-wing ISR and some rotary wing, and did that. Then I went and commanded Army Special Ops Aviation Command from 2012 to 2004. And then I went to Korea for a year. It was the DCG of 2nd Infantry Division over in Korea, loved it, and came back and I was a deputy at U.S. Army Special Operations Command, YS. Sok. And then I came down to Socom here in Tampa, where I live now, and I was the J3, the Director of Operations for U.S. Socom. And my wife reminded me I was over 40 years of service now. So, you know, as you said, under the retirement rules, you realize you're working for free. Basically, everything you're doing right now, you already got coming to you.

And so I said, yeah, you know, it's probably time. So I retired out of there. And then this job came open at the Special Ops Warrior Foundation. And I wasn't looking for a job like that. I just really hadn't considered it. But I applied and was selected and been there for now, almost two and a half years. And I love it. Clay, I was just going to say, for a soldier that's able to go from private to make colonel,

to go from private, maybe around E5, E6, go to OCS, do the whole officer thing, make it up to colonel. I mean, that's like a huge, huge accomplishment. Not too many people are that lucky. You went from Marine Corps private to two-star. I mean, that's pretty incredible. Yeah, no one more surprised than me. so what what was it like for you rewining going back to your time in the Marine Corps

being an amphibious assault vehicle driver what sort of what did that entail did you enjoy it was it mostly training at that point in time yeah you know we I think we got spun up for one or two things you know of course you know I'm like I was an E3 or below for a lot of that time. So spun up is a relative term, you know. Yeah, I liked it okay.

Amphibs, the only thing I didn't like is I didn't like being on the amphib fleet for extended period of time. I mean, it's not, we're not talking to Love Boat here, you know. I mean, it's not a great gig on those shifts. So it's sort of interesting for about the first day as you're exploring around and figuring things out. But after that, you know, I was, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, looking for land. But yeah, I like the Marine Corps. And I still am very proud of my service there. And I think the self-discipline that I learned in the Marine Corps, you know, and as an NCO, you know, I was on the E-6 list. The Marine Corps does centralize the East do. I don't know if they still do, but, you know, centralized selection for promotion to E-6.

you know, the Army doesn't start until E7, but the Marine Corps starts at E6. So I was on the E6 list, and, you know, those things I learned as an NCO, the leadership lessons I learned really served me well for the rest of my career. You know, I've never, never forgotten it, and it even serves me well now in the surveying the world, right, as a leadership position, as a CEO.

of the foundation. And to be able to go from that to the special operations world and fly with the 160th and supporting the world's, the best special operators on the planet was a dream come true. And, you know, I wouldn't change anything. I mean, I really loved it and was involved in some great

operations. And, you know, it's just a great outfit. And it's completely 100% focused, you know, plus or mind of it. 30 seconds, putting the operator no matter what service they're in. Right. I know that your time is significantly different in the sense of when you're in the Marine Corps, you were a NUG and a low-level NCO.

And then you were in office or warrant and then an officer in the Army. But from your perspective, are there things that the Marines do better or that they get right that the Army doesn't and things that the Army gets right that the Marines don't? Well, you know, I'm a big believer that your greatest strength carries over to be your greatest weakness, right? And so what I would say is there are two distinctly different cultures between the Marine Corps and the Army. And an example, you know, the Marines, Marines don't identify as a first, second, or third division Marine. They identify as a Marine, right? There's one Marine Corps, and that's their culture.

And there is no elite formations in the Marine Corps. You know, they don't believe in that. The Army's different. The Army's more divisional-centric. You know, you're an 82nd guy or 101st guy or one-ID guy. And so it's different. I think the thing, if I had to say one thing that I think the Marine Corps really does very, very well, is they drill Marine Corps history into you from a very, from the very,

very beginning. I remember as a 17-year-old kid and sitting in these endless classes, you know, Tum Tavern, you know, 10 November, 1775, Philadelphia, Captain Samuel Nicholas, first, you know, commandant of the Marine Corps, you know, I mean, all of these, this history. The Army, I think, would be well served by doing a better job of instilling the history and the great things that the Army's done throughout their history and we just don't do it that well. And again, it's part of our culture.

But I've enjoyed being in both. I don't think there is a better or worse. I know the Marines especially would disagree with that. But I think the Army's culture is different and it lends itself to special ops a little more. I mean, it's thinking outside the box that produces a different type of individual. And, you know, I You know, the Marine Corps is very regimented. I mean, and the Ranger Regiment, you know, is the same way.

There's a lot of similarities between the Ranger Regiment and the Marine Corps. In the discipline area. But I don't know that I would say one is better. Like I said, the history definitely, I think the Marine Corps does better. But, you know, we got the greatest Army on the planet. We got the greatest Marine Corps on the planet, you know. and I think they both complement each other. And you said that going into Army Aviation,

you didn't know what a warrant officer was. For our viewers who also aren't that familiar with the idea of a warrant officer, can you tell us what a warrant officer is? Yeah, I mean, I knew, I guess I knew what the rank was, right? I mean, you know, I knew that what warrant officers were in the rank structure. I guess what I meant to say that, is that I didn't understand what their responsibilities were.

And I will tell you that, I think the warrant officers in the Army, the aviator, and there's more than aviation warrant officers, but the Army's cracked the code on that by, you know, the majority of the pilots in the Army are warrants. You know, as a commissioned officer, you have to do different things to get promoted, right? You have to command a company.

You've got to go work on a staff somewhere. You've got to get joint qualified at some point. And all those things take you out of the cockpit. And it's, you know, the Marines of their aviators, they're all commissioned officers, aviators. But the Army warrant officer doesn't have to do that. They can stay in the cockpit the entire time. So think about the proficiency and the competency level that you develop.

Because, you know, flying is a lot of muscle memory and seeing different things and, you know, rolling in on a target and then, you know, all of a sudden something happens on the ground and it's, you got to go 180 out and how you make those decisions and all those kind of things. I'll give you example of that. So I went through the initial training in the 160th, you know, back in 87, 87, 88. That's like I started in 88, I guess. and there was a warrant in my class and we're still friends of this day. In fact, I just got a Christmas card from the guy. And he was in Somalia. And you remember that the, so you think, this is 88.

We started Green Platoon. Somalia is October 3, 1993. He was in that, he was flying a little bird that landed in the street and picked up the two wounded operators. If you remember that was in the movie, Black Hawk Down and all that. So he'd been in the organization for what six years already, right, 87-ish to 93. He just retired like three years ago and he was in the same company flying the same airplane. And, you know, we're friends and I mean, I have the greatest amount of respect for him. And he's seen it all, you know, and he's let, you know, and there's a whole army full of guys like that.

Now the 160th is an extreme of that. Right. Once a warrant goes there, I mean, as long as they perform and meet the standards of the organization, they don't have to lead, which I think is a great strength that gives us great continuity. And the other thing that does for us is allows us to accept more risk in the execution of a mission. And Special Ops, you know, fly to 15 aircraft, you know, under nods going on to a hot target. I mean, that's risky stuff and that's, you know, very complicated. And, you know, our warrants are really the reason we can do that because we're able to keep that talent and we need it.

I mean, when you do these extremely complex, high-risk missions, we've got to have that level of proficiency. And I would tell you, I think you're hard pressed to find any special operator in the United States for sure and even some of our five-eyed partners that we fly with. that we're not their first choice to fly no matter what. So a warrant officer is almost in a way like a tab spec four who can stay there forever. They're not competing for leadership positions. They can stay in their job and whether it's in aviation or intelligence or whatever,

they can stay in that job and do it and not have to worry about moving up the command. I like the tab spec for comparison. That's pretty that's pretty in the ballpark. Yeah, yes. I don't know. You know, I mean, yeah, I think, you know, they are completely focused on a technical, a highly technical task, whether they're in the military intelligence or in special forces as a 180 or in aviation. And again, that gives you that focus without having to do all those other career things.

Now, the Army has been updating and maturing their war and officer promotion system. So eventually, when you're a senior W4 at W5, you've got to. to take leadership positions within the within a battalion or a regiment or a brigade, but they're still in the cockpit the whole time. I think that's a great strength. And I think the Army's been well served by it. And I think Army Aviation's performance in combat is certainly since 9-11, when I've really seen it, has been pretty damn good.

Clay, before we kind of move a little bit deeper into it, I just want to talk to talk about 160th broadly in a sense for a moment. Because I think something that I'd like to hear you explain to, you know, John Q Public to the American taxpayer out there is that we can have these high speed operators, these guys who can, you know, repel through skylights, wearing ski masks with MP5s and shoot bad guys and do all kinds of cool stuff. But if they can't get to the target, if they can't get to the objective area, I mean, it's pointless. And so I mean, I think the real, a real game changer for special operations

and what makes American special operations so different is the unique capabilities of 160th and what they're able to bring to the table. We're saying a little bit, or I was saying a little bit earlier, every country in the world pretty much has a unit that's sort of like the Rangers or sort of like, you know,

counterterrorism unit. Nobody else in the world has a unit like 160th. And I'd just like to hear from, you know, of course, from your point of view as the expert about this. Well, so I think probably the best way I can describe that is going into the history

and why it was started, the 160th was established in the first place, right? So the 160th was started in the aftermath of the failed Iranian rescue attempt known as Operation Eagle Claw in 1980. And we failed into most remarkable. ways. We're in our first desert refueling stop or point in the desert. Helicopters were linking up with the 130s. They were going to get gas and then they were

going to go to an ID site, spend the R.O.N. out there in the desert remain overnight and then hit the embassy in the morning. They never made it out of that site. They had helicopters breakdown en route and they were already down to min force, minimum force required on aviation, you hit the target when they had another aircraft go down for a bad hydraulic pump. So they were below men force. Charlie Beckwith made the decision to scrub as, you know, as was appropriate based on the, you know, the criteria they had set prior to the mission. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network,

focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. And then, of course, tragedy happened where the helicopter moving to refuel off the 130 to go back to the Nimitz crashed and killed eight Americans, five Air Force and three Marines. which coincidentally is why the foundation was started in the first place. But anyway, so we failed.

And the nation, rightfully so, wanted to have answers. So they stood up the Holloway Commission to look at what went wrong. And what they determined was that you can't do missions. And this was a very complex, difficult mission, going over a thousand miles off of a ship into the desert, refuel. and then hit a target is that you can't do that with a pickup team. Right.

You just can't, it can't be a come-as-you-ar-a-party. And so, you know, from that, the 160th, along with many other things, was created, other organizations. And so, you know, the 160 was created to give the nation that capability because helicopters were,

according to the realm back then, that's what failed. It was helicopters that caused that whole mission to fail. you know, let's be honest. And they were great Americans doing it, but again, they were, you know, technology wasn't there. We didn't train like that then. But so that all happened. The 160th stood up and we had some, we had some tough times, Grenada and things like that.

We lost a lot of aircraft. We had a lot of accidents in the early days experimenting and pioneering with night vision goggles. But let's go now to October of 2001 right after 9-11. So in 1980 we launched off of an aircraft carrier, the Nimitz, to go in and hit targets. And I ran and we failed. 2001, we launched off of a different aircraft carrier, the Kitty Hawk. We go farther, requiring multiple air refuelings going in, going out into Iraq, and we took the fight right into Afghanistan, sorry, not Iraq. Afghanistan's backyard.

One of the targets was Omar's home. And no other country in the world could have done that. So when people would ask me as a 160th guy, was all that blood and treasure worth it, I'd say, well, you know, we couldn't do it in 1980,

and we did it in 2001, and we did it multiple times, and we did what no other country in the world could do, and we put some scunion on our enemies, very, very quickly and certainly rock their world when all of a sudden were running around in their backyard. And that capability that the 160th has is unmatched. And we see it executing every night.

You know, I tell people is, when you see something bad happening to somebody bad in the world and there's helicopters involved, it's the 160th. I mean, that's who's doing. If it's US helicopters. I'm sure you saw, Clay, the footage from the bad. Daddy Raid adapts just zapping up some bad guys on the ground that was publicly released and played on the house.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, again, you know, you know, the rules. I can't really comment on anything operation or would I. But like I said, you know, you can turn on, you can Google and turn on the TV and see what's going on out there. But it is a national asset and it is the gold standard for ordering aviation. Not only within the United States, but around the world.

How did that happen from Eagle Claw to 2001 in terms of leadership and the acquisition of those skills? Because, you know, we went through the Clinton era of no defect military, where it was either up or out and officers were afraid of any more on their record and not getting promoted. and but in order to create a unit like the 160, you have to push that envelope, right? There have to be a lot of failures. There have to be a lot of dinged up birds. It's got to cost a lot of money. How did the 160 manage to do something that many other units and places couldn't do?

Well, I mean, we learn by doing, right? It all comes down to training, repetitive, you know, it's reps doing these, missions, these complex missions, and these different and demanding environments. So the 160 had invested in a very arduous training regimen for new pilots coming in, right? You know, you got to operate in the desert. You got to operate over water. You know, let me tell you, flying night vision goggles over water in the Persian Gulf was not a lot of fun. I mean, it was some tough flying.

And so we train in those environments routinely. Listen, in the early years, we had some tough times. Just before Derneda, a lot of accidents, you know, we were taking the first generation of night vision goggles that were full-faced nods and cutting away the bottom of them. And I don't even think it was authorized. And they just did it so they could see their instruments because, you know, that wasn't, it was designed for truck drivers. So you're flying in these really tough conditions and you're pushing the envelope to see

what's possible. But with that, you're going to have, you know, you're going to have accidents. And we've paid a heavy price since 9-11 still. I mean, it's just, I mean, I'm not saying it's an acceptable cost at all. No life is acceptable.

But the enemy gets a vote. Right. And when you go to the X night after night, you're going after these tough targets, you know, we've learned some hard lessons. And I will tell you, when I've looked at the development, of our skills and our tactics over the years.

I mean, it's really been impressive. And I'll give you an example. So when I was a young lieutenant in the 160th, we were, you know, we were, there was a lot of, a lot of magazine articles and Army publications. And we, and I remember there was a couple of 160th guys that were at JRTC

at Fort Polk had written an article. And it was a 72, hour planning cycle. So you receive the mission, you plan it, you brief it, you rehearse it, then you adjust it and rebief it and execute in a 72 hour window.

If we were on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan for 72 minutes after we got the order, that was a lifetime. We got to the point where you know what we were waiting on to launch was the printer to print out the imagery.

That's ridiculous. We were running, you know, one of the pilots is sitting there waiting for the stuff that could come out of the printer while the other guy is out. The other crew members are out cranking and getting their nav systems up to speed and ready to go. I mean, we, and we needed that kind of agility against the adversaries over there because, you know, they were just, they disappear in a second. So you look at how we've evolved. The other thing is, the 160th made Army aviation and the aviation. and the Marines and the Air Force and the Navy much better. The Night Vision Goggle technology that we have today came from them.

The cockpit that the Army has in their U-860 mics and their CH47S came from the 160. It's not exact same software, but it's the same system. And the other services in many different ways have benefited from that technology. And the fact is you can't find an infantry money, any kit that an infantryman's wearing today that wasn't, I think that wasn't developed by special ops. Yeah. I think it's important for our viewers and our listeners

who think that, you know, a helicopter is a mode of transport, picks up a bunch of people, takes them someplace, and puts them down, and you wonder, well, how different can the 160th be than any other helicopter unit? But we're talking about things like flying and putting a skid, one of the skids onto a ledge, like the retaining wall around the roof of the building so people can get it. Like we're talking about flying a helicopter into war missions, whatever comes to mine. Like, yeah. Yeah, well, I would say, you know, I flew DAPs, which are an armed 60. expect there's only the only unit that has them is the 160th

and then later in my career I flew the age 6 little bird guns the accuracy of the pilots flying and I'll use the age 6 for an example first is incredible the way they're able to shoot do you know what the sighting system is for rockets and mini guns in the comment section too

there it goes okay we're back sorry about that right no worries so anyway I think you know you ask what are the most the feet I think the other thing that I

really think is impressive about the 160th is their unwavering commitment to that operator on the ground and their ability you know we it was routine for us to fly with Rangers one day green berets the next day

seals the next day Mars operators after that and the strength of our SOPs and our relationship with all those different units was incredible. I mean, that, you know, to be able to operate across different service lines like that, and nothing seamless but damn near seamless. And with that came a very keen and unwavering focus on the ground force.

And when I was the 160th commander, I made a conscious effort to actively recruit former Rangers, former SF, we had former SEALs, we had former SEALs. We had several Marines that crossed over and came in to fly with us. And I remember walking into 2nd Battalion 160th one day into the pilots' lounge, and every single pilot sitting in there had a ranger scroll on his right sleep. Yeah. Because, you know, that empathy with the ground, with the ground force commander and that understanding, you can't replicate that.

Right. And it's part of the culture in the 160. If we have a fault, I think that we push the, if the ground force commander needs it, we're going to do everything in our power to get it done. And so as far as, you know, the unit in those feats, that's it. I mean, these lip landings is what you're talking about, you know, skid only landings on a cupola or on these retaining walls or on the top, you know, which are very common.

That's a routine event for them. I mean, you can go to Google right now and see them doing those rooftop landings. And they make it look easy. And I've done rooftop landings like that. And it's not easy, especially if your skids are on that point. And these guys, you know, and these are some corn-fed boys out there. When they're hopping off that thing, your center of gravity keeps shifting. So you're like making a cake up in the front there.

Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, trying to keep it balanced while these guys are hopping off. I mean, it's a skill. I mean, it's a real skill and it's perishable. And those guys, like I said, they make it look easy. It's incredible. That's amazing. So tell us then a little bit about your career 160th. I mean, as far as just to get into the unit, you mentioned Green Platoon.

Yeah. Are you allowed to say like, or what are you allowed to say about what does it take? How do you get into 160th? So, and I'm going to, I'll talk for officers and warrant officers. okay primarily. You have to get some experience flying in a conventional unit first in 99% of the cases, and especially on the aviation side. And then you put together a packet and volunteer,

and they look at you, just like other special ops units do. And they call through those packets, and then they select those that they think will be successful to come to the assessment process, up and for Camel and it's a it's much more than just a

flying assessment that you know there's other aspects to a physical intellectual they're pushing you hard and it's not an easy week for sure and it culminates in a very thorough

board session to see if you're the right material for that for the unit and so you know that gets you in the door but you're still not in the unit. So while you're going through your training and your training, depending on what aircraft

you're flying, can be damn near a year. You know, if you do your ground portion up front, there's a lot of physical training and part of that. And then you start your flying phase, and it starts in the basics. I mean, you're flying in a little bird with a compass, a map, and a clock. And you're expecting a co-pilot.

and that'll be a co-pilot for another two years before he goes through the evaluation to become a what we call a fully mission qualified pilot and command. And then it's another three or four or maybe longer years before he can become a flight lead and lead our flight into combat. So you think of the investment in those. That's why the warrant officer is so critical. Because you put that much time in him to get that product. You can't have that.

The turnover will kill you. And so, I mean, it's incredible their proficiency. That's amazing. Do you have to start off flying a UH-60 or MH-60 or UH-60 on the conventional side in order to go fly those airframes on the special ops side? How does that work? No, I mean, you know, I think a third, if I got the number right, a third of the 47s in the Army are in the 168. So they'll take a Black Hawk guy or a 58 guy or an Apache guy and transition them over to the 47. There are no little birds anywhere except for the 160th.

So there's Black Hawk guys flying little birds. There's Apache guys flying little birds. And so we frequently transition them. It's more common if you're in the learning began. So I flew in different environments over water, mountains. jungle, desert, honing my skills and trying to, you know, get ready to take my pilot and command check ride,

that FMQ check ride, which I was fortunate enough to take and pass. And so it's just a lot of training. Now that was back before 9-11. The world changed after 9-11. You know, our operational tempo, especially from about 2002 through about 2007, we pulled out of Iraq,

was insane how often we were deployed. I mean, the number of hours, our pilots were flying in combat, and especially the Littlebird guys. I mean, I was genuinely concerned about safety from chronic fatigue. So it's a very arduous schedule. And when you're deployed,

you go to Iraq or Afghanistan, you come back, you've got to, you still got to leave home station to go get recurrent on ships or in different environments and training ops. And so it's a pretty demanding schedule. We do a good job of sort of pacing these guys as much as they can.

But for a while there, like I said, 0304, we went into Iraq and 03 to about 07. It was some tough sled in there with regards to operational tempo for sure. So if you want to stay home and not deploy the 160 that is not for you. Now, when you are deployed into like a combat zone or whatever, I know that one of the issues that comes up when getting support from conventional units is crew rest. Because the crews need the rest. Airframes are important. Generals don't want to lose airframes.

So like operations get shut down because of mandatory crew rest or things like that. How did you guys deal with that? Because obviously the soft mission, especially at a higher tier level, is driven by things that often, you know, can't be controlled. Well, we're subject to the same crew rest rules that the Army has. I mean, we fly under, you know, the regulation is Army regulation 95-1, you know. And we're subject to all those same rules. What I would say is I had waiver authority.

to extend crews, you know, beyond 18 hours, which, you know, as a, when I was a regimental commander and even to a lesser degree as a battalion commander. And if the ground, you know, if a mission went long on the ground and it was required that we do that, I wouldn't hesitate to do it.

But I also knew when I did extend them like that and push their crew duty day, but if they had an accident, I bought that accident, right? I'm the one who told them to extend past their normal duty day and we had that happen not any fatalities from it but you know

clipping the side of a building or something like that with a rotor system and uh and so I and I think the proficiency of our aviators let us you know obviously it's increased risk but allowed us to do it

at a risk level that was acceptable you know and again that's those guys doing the same you know the same type missions over and over and over again. Now, you know, you bring up an interesting thing about accidents when, not only in terms of crew rest, but in terms of just the high performance risky types of endeavors that these pilots did.

And a lot of times they flew into a situation where they may not know the exact layout of what was going on and then have to improvise and get in. What was the relationship with command and accidents, you know, rotor strikes, things like that? It's like, we want you guys to push it. We want you guys to succeed. But if you have an accident, you're fired or was? No, I don't think that.

No, I'm definitely not fired. I mean, if we saw a trend, and this, I'm talking my personal philosophy here, right? Every commander, every leader has their own philosophy. But for me, I looked at the circumstances. If that individual had an accident and they were trying to do the right thing, we're going to critique it, we're going to learn from it. And I certainly wasn't a zero defect guy. Now, if I had an aviator and I didn't have one,

but what I told them is I said, hey, these aircraft and you are a national asset. And so if there's a breach of flight discipline, I mean, I'm going to be brutal on that. And what do I mean by that? You're traveling cross country and you fly under a bridge or you land in your neighbor's house or in their backyard or do something

ass mine. Yeah, do not pass go year out. Because we are a standards-based organization and you have to maintain the standard. So there was very few cases of that. But I'll give you an example. I extended a crew in Iraq

and well past 18 hours because that's what the ground force went long on a target and they had squirters and things like that. So, you know, that makes for a long night. And we were at about the 19 hour mark and they were taxing the flight of 60s. We were taxing down a taxiway. And a guy got too close to a side of a hanger and hit the side of the hangar with a rotor system and, I don't know, took out a bunch of rotor blades and damaged the building.

and we did the investigation and I distinctly remember we're out briefing the chain of command on it and I said I own that one. I extended them that's what the ground force needed. They were tired and they hit the side of a building

and I'm the one to put them in that position they should have been in the Fartzac a long time before that. So I think as a leader the folks you work with need to understand not that they get a free pass, but that you will back them up. And that was certainly my, you know, my philosophy when I was there. Now, that was your philosophy and kind of the sort of the, how the 160th operated. Did you see a

different story when you're in the conventional army, either before that or after that in terms of leadership looking for a scapegoat? Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. As parents, there's enough to worry about and plenty to figure out alone. So isn't it

to find answers, to worry less with people who get it. Saving for college is a journey made better when guided by experience. At collegewell.com, we have expert guidance to get you on the right path. From financial planners to financial aid advisors at colleges nationwide, visit collegewell.com. We're changing the way families feel about and approach college savings. I think it varies, you know. I think it just varies on the commander. I used to, you know, talk a lot about risk. I go brief these pre-command courses and things like that when I was a general officer and even as a post- Brigade regimental commander.

And I think it varies. I think a lot of it starts at the top. You know, if you're a battalion commander in the 101st, you know, and I'm just using them as an example and you think your division commander will fire if you have an accident, or nobody wants to get fired. So you're going to assess risk a lot differently. And, you know, these are precious asset. These aircraft are extremely expensive.

There's, you know, and obviously the human life piece of that is, you know, whole families are disruptive, which is a business I'm in right now, dealing with the aftermath of that. So, I mean, I think you need to be prudent. You're going to take risk, but it's got to be calculated. Is it a different level of risk, I think acceptance overall in a general state? between the conventional force and the soft aviation force? Yes.

But I think it's appropriately so. Again, they don't get to keep those pilots for 20 years flying the same missions over and over again. We do. And with that, I think allows us to accept a bit higher level of risk when necessary. That makes sense. Not, you know, it's not, we're not being frivolous here, you know. So, Clay, I just wind in back the clock a little bit here. you started your career off, you said, Panama and then into the Gulf War.

I mean, I would love to hear some stories about old school 160 at flying those operations into Panama and in the Gulf War. If you have any recollections that really stick out in your mind or moments that really, you know, you felt defined your career back in your days as a young pilot. Yeah, Panama, you know, we thought it was a huge deal at the time, you know, but it was looking in the rearview mirror. It wasn't. There was much ado about nothing.

You know, I mean, you know, I mean, it was pretty exciting for about 24 hours. And then after that, you know, things sort of slowed down. Desert Storm, I would say. You know, we were flying from a small base in the western part of Saudi Arabia. We're going all the way up to near Al-Qaeda, if you're familiar with Iran. and that's on, you know, that borders with Syria. And I got to tell you, every time I went up there, because we were looking for those scuds being shot into Israel,

because the big fear that Israel would come into war, and then that would break up the coalition. And I don't know this to be 100% true, but I believe the Israelis were putting a lot of pressure on the U.S. to stop those scuds. And so we were up there hunting scuds. I mean, you know, I joke about it now. it was the best live fire range complex

I've ever been on. I mean, you cross the border and I mean, if they meet the ROE, man, they are a fair game. So you know, we took out some radars, shot some scuds. You know, later I heard they were probably decoys.

And that could be true. I don't know. We didn't get a lot of secondaries off of them, which is probably a good indication. In fact, I'll tell you a story. One time I was diving in, we were shooting at the scud. They parked it under some power lines up near Al-Qaim. And so we were told to shoot the back end of the scut

because that's where the control boxes were, that the thing would elevate the missile straight up. And then the launch guy would crawl in between the wheels and get into a little box in there and actually put the button. But all the electronics were at the back end of the vehicle. So we were always trying to shoot all those electronics and take out the tell.

You know, the transporter erector launch is I think what that stands for. And so one day I'm shooting and we had a Marine captain that was from the DIA was in the was in our joc we're in this air terminal on this airport

and we're showing our videos up, you know, from the, we're looking at him from the after the mission. And he asked me, of course I'm a lieutenant, you know, and he says, you know, what's your magnification on this Fleer, forward looking infrared system? I go,

there's no magnification. Well, how far are you from there? I said, I don't know, 150 meters, 200 meters, something like that when we're breaking. And he looks at me and he says, do you know how much fuels in the back of that rocket? I mean, like, we can see that thing from space when it blows up. And I was like, note to self, you know, let's break a little bit farther out on that one, you know. And, you know, so that was pretty funny. One time there was a radar

that would come up several hours in advance before a scud was shot and it was a meteorological type thing. It would take data samples of the atmosphere and I guess they'd plug all that into the missile to give it the right ballistic calculations to get it accurate though wasn't very accurate.

So this radar came up and some Air Force airplane detected it and gave us grid. And so sure enough, you know, we were flying. I was actually flying on the wing of Cliff Walcott. It was killed Super 6-1 in Somalia in 93.

And he shot that thing. We did get a secondary off that truck. And it shattered the front windshield on the right seat or pilot side. And I remember, you know, we came back and they said every time they flew over 100 knots, the pilot in the right seat had to put his foot up on the windshield. The glass was concave. in as we were coming back.

We had another incident. We were shooting in on a mini gun. We have mini guns that are fixed forward, and they're right next to the pilots. I mean, it's right there. The barrels are right there. And there's a lateral arm that is there to keep it from rotating this way. And over time, this thing, back then we didn't safety wire them.

And this thing came loose and that arm dropped off. So they're shooting the mini guns. and this pilot Donovan Briley was killed later with Cliff and Somalia and Super 6-1. He was the other pilot killed. He said he's flying and all of a sudden there's like dust in the cockpit

because we fly with doors off so he can see better. And he said he looks under his nod and his whole windshield or his whole dash was shot out that minigun had rotated in and while he's pulling the trigger he's shooting himself down. So he took out his whole

dash, yeah. When you say, Would you say safety wire? Is this because it's a mechanically fired gun to stop the cylinder from rotating if somebody grabs on? No, it's safety wire to hold the bolt in place. Because what happens that minigun shoots at such a high rate of fire. There's two rates of fire on a minigone, 2,000 or 4,000 rounds per minute. And that creates a high-pitched vibration, a high-frequency vibration, and that can back off those bolts over time.

Gotcha. So the safety wire is on the bolts holding that. crossbar to keep that thing from, you know, to keep it facing in the right direction. Oh, my God. That's insane. Yeah, that was, I was like, dude, really? I mean, come on, you know. So, yeah, that was Donovan Bull Riley.

But it was on part of that. So, yeah, we've had some, we've had some pretty exciting times there. We did an op. I'll tell you, you know, I guess we're in war story time. here. In June 11th, 2003, we were doing an op in a place called Rawa, Western Iraq. So it was funny, I had gotten over there in May of 2003, in my boss, my battalion commander in the 160, that was the X-O of First Battalion. He said, hey, I want you to come over here, XO, and make sure we got all of our stuff. We're going to be out of Iraq in the next couple weeks, and I want you to close

us out. This is 2003 so we're still not out of Iraq so it's, you know, but then we started getting really busy and Intel discovered this terrorist training camp up up in Rawa.

And I remember I was, we were flying missions into downtown Baghdad every night and, you know, hitting folk, hitting targets. And the commanding general over there was an Air Force one star said, hey, I don't think you're going to do this mission, but just check out this video feed from an airborne platform.

And I'm looking at this overhead feed and these guys are doing rifle PT. And I mean, I'm like, and there's no sheep. There's no women. There's no nothing. I mean, these guys are bad actors. And I said, man, it looks like a good one. You know, we got to go after those dudes for sure. And we were personality based.

And we're focused on the cards. Remember the deck of cards and all that? And so he said, just, you know, take a look at it and tell me what you think. And it was a long way away. It was 175 miles away from where we were. So I looked at it for a few minutes. I walked back. I got some of the flight leads together and just said, hey, don't spend a lot of time on this thing.

I don't think we're going to do it, but give me a straw man plan. If we got to execute this thing out, we'd do it. And so they did. They spent an hour or two just, you know, throwing together some numbers, how much gas we'd need, how much ordinance we'd need, blah, blah, blah. And then we went off and flew. I didn't think anything else about it. So the next, we were flying, you know, reverse cycle.

So we're flying all night and we sleep all day. Around new or about 11 o'clock, some guy from the jock wakes me up in my tent and says, hey, the CG wants to see you. You know, so walking there and he says, hey, we're going to, we want you to hit that target tonight. And I'm like, holy crap. all right. So we start spinning up for it. So it was what we call a half-gaff assault is what, you know,

driven by Second Ranger Battalion Bravo Company 275. So the half stands for helicopter assault force. The GAF stands for ground assault force. So the plan is they were in the, these guys were in a Wadi, you know, which was about, I don't know, five, six hundred feet long, you know, maybe 60, 70 feet wide. the sheer cliff walls on each side of it that were about a 35-foot drop because one ranger didn't think it was that far and he said he jumped in there and he said that was self-criticking for sure but he

so we were going to hit this target the ground assault force of gaff had to leave like three hours before we ever did the air mission brief right you know we did the rock drill and the hanger floor and I'll never forget the ground force commander he's still a good friend of he's a two-star general. Well, he gives up and he gets his commander's intent. When I stood up and gave, I was the Air Mission commander, he's the ground force commander.

My only intent was, well, these gentlemen want to be martyrs. And that's what they did. You know, they were calling home doing their, you know, they're going away videos. There's buy videos or whatever. And phone calls, which was a stupid thing for them to do. So I said, well, they want to be martyrs. and 160th, we pride ourselves on supporting the customer's desire, so we're going to help them with that.

And so, you know, our job is to make sure we, you know, if they choose poorly, that, you know, they don't leave that wadi and go, because they were going to go out and attack U.S. basis in team suicide teams. So we flew up to Al-Assad, refueled in Al-Assad, and then it was about an hour flight from there, north, north, north-north-west. to this town. And we hit, and I remember again, we're coming in in this 47. And I'm in the jump seat of the 47 as the Air Mission Commander.

And there's tracer fire coming out of that wadi. And I took my chest plate and loosened it up and slid it to the side because it was all coming out to the left side. And occasionally hear stories about guys taking around and that side plate there. And that wasn't going to happen to me. So I moved my thing over there. and it was an incredible operation. The A86s were diving in on this one piece of terrain.

One got hit by an RPG but didn't blow up, took out his windshield. Every aircraft was shot to hell. And we got the ground force in. They were on the target. So the 60s had to go back and get gas at Al-Assad, the 47s. We were orbiting in a two-minute hold, two of us. We had one Kazavak bird with a medic in there. And I got to call one Ranger, Sergeant Matt Waters.

Later, I learned his name. I didn't know what it's time, obviously. He took an RPG below the knee. As he went down, he killed the guy, emptied his magazine into the guy and still directed his team. But, you know, I got to sit rep to what was wrong with this guy. And I said, hey, we've got to get him into the aircraft and get him to the cash and Alassad, the Combat Support Hospital. And the medic's on the ground did a great job. But it seemed to me like it was taken too long.

I was worried this guy was going to bleed out. Finally, they called us, and there's an article called Flash to Bang Time, 22 hours. It's written by Army Special Ops. That's the only reason I'm talking to about this. They wrote an article about it. And it's a great article. And Matt said when he brought him to the LZ within like a few seconds, that 47 came in, landed. The guy working on him told me later he thought he was going to lose him two or three times.

But saved his life, lost his leg. He's a cop in Tacoma this day. He's got a kid's son, his servant in the 82nd. And we're still friends at this day. We keep in touch. Every time I go to JBLM, I take him to dinner. I mean, he's just a good man. And, you know, it was a great op.

We got him out of there. and we took out about 100, 100 bad guys. I think the article says somewhere north of 70. I remember it to be more than that. But it was funny. The next morning, the 101st was going to come in and do a relief in place with the Rangers. So after they secured the objective,

the helicopter assault force took our guys, went back to Baghdad. It was dawn. We've been up a long time. And we landed well after daylight. well the ground assault force guys stayed there to do the handoff target handoff well what we didn't know is in the town of rawa which we were right down the road from there were six of those guys were sleeping in a mosque in the town they weren't in

some of them were sleeping in a mill van and if you read that article they got imagery in there it's all that you can see everything and so these six guys come in from the north right when they're doing the handoff and they should they volley fire and Apache with RPG, shoot it down, and then they get into this gunfight with these six guys. And in fact, there was this Ranger who was in a Humvee, and the two crew members in the Apache were alive. And these six guys were maneuvering on them,

and they wanted to kill those two. And this Ranger was like, if you ever really have the old show, I date myself, Rap Patrol. This Humvee comes over the top of this ridge, and this specialist from second-ranked, B-275, his man in this M-250 and he's laying some scunnion on the enemy, so they back off. He rolls up on the aviators, these two Apache pilots, throws them in the back, goes back over the ridge. And according to another ranger was there, he looks at these two aviators, he said,

are you guys okay? And they said, yeah, we're fine. He said, get the hell out of my Humvee. I'm going back after those guys, and they drove back over and went after him. and then ended up chasing them through the desert with hangar naves, and one NCO who remains a very good friend of mine, did not have a positive critique about the M67 frag after that. He said, I threw them and threw them and threw them and nothing.

They never heard him. I had to shoot them all to get them out of the equation. But great op to save a lot of lives, probably the most memorable operation I've been on in my career. And it was just, it was absolutely fantastic. loved it, you know, and just knowing what, you know, knowing what could have happened if those guys, and we got the mission I learned later because they were getting ready to disperse out

within the next few hours to hit their targets. Yeah. When you are the Air Mission Commander, like what, can you tell us a little bit about, like, what types of planning considerations there are in terms of like landing on the X, landing on the Y, what determines that, all the different things fuel fuel weights fuel consumption

yeah all the different things you have to a lot of math and science that goes into this that's way beyond you know a knuckle dragger like me more Dave right well yeah all of that right but when you do it repetitively those are all routine performance

planning things that we have to do before every flight whether you know on way to the aircraft hover height you know elevation of the HLZ you're going to That's, I mean, it's critically important, but repetitive. I think, you know, with regards to, are we going to go to the X, the Y are we going to offset, I think the target drives that.

What I saw the most effective was probably the offset, because you can sneak up on them and get the drop on them. If you're going to the X, I mean, you're on top of them, so the risk is up there. You've got to have, we are, you know, we always wanted to have, organic rotary wing fire support if we were doing that to suppress targets as necessary. We're going in there. But it depends on the target.

It depends what you want to do. But generally, you know, if you offset, you know, depending on the environment, sometimes that could be as little as, you know, two or three miles away if it's an urban environment because there's a lot of background noise. Right. But if they're out in the middle of desert, you know, and there's nothing out there out. and Al Ambar, once you start going west, and he may have to put him in five, six miles away.

Right. So they, you know, depending on the wind and all of that, so they don't hear you. Right. And then, of course, we pick them up on the X after the target was, you know, or have them walk out just a little bit. So that all really varied. And again, that goes back to, you know,

what's one of the soft truths, number one, right? Humans are more important than hardware. I mean, you got some pretty high-speed air-refuelable aircraft that are with a lot of great systems on there and great capabilities, but they're worthless without the right individuals up front making decisions in a very dynamic environment. And so, yeah, I, you know, it was those warrant pilots. And I mean, I harangued warrant officers routinely when I was a commander.

But it was because I was a former warrant, and I would tell them that. I completely empowered to make fun of you anytime I want to, you know. so, which I did mercilessly. In fact, I will share one quick story with you. So I used to do set aside two hours a week when I was a commander to walk around

and I never told anybody where I was going. It was just to walk the line, talk to troops and see how things were going. Very low threat, right? I never shoot anybody out or anything. One day I was walking down in the Little Birdhangers at the 1st, or First Battalion.

And they had this, they had a row of these pilots in A86s and they called a grandfather row. Every single one of them, like six of them in a row, they were all workstations. They were all grandfathers. And so I was walking, I was walking down there and I was chatting with them.

And I said, hey, what can I fix? You know, what can I do to make the unit better? You got anything that you need me to look at? And one warrant said, well, hey, history, you know, you can fix the parking. because we had a parking problem at the time

and I said okay I can do that and I walked out of there and I told my driver I said I want you to go get a sign made that says A HMH6 grandfather parking only

so you know I went there like I don't know a week later right up front of the hangar I went early in the morning when no one was there put the sign in there you know and I mean it became a big joke

the crew chiefs got in on i painted the lines blue you know so it was like a handicapped slide and all of that and uh you know it was it was awesome and uh you know they of course you know i harassed the hell out of them about it like you guys are like the blue hairs going to the early bird special here you know i actually think it made him come to work early as an incentive which you know it was completely out of their character to do that on their own free will so anyway i harassed like that when I could. It was a lot of fun. That's awesome. What, for a, for a pilot of that caliber, when they retire from the military, what is there for them?

I mean, you know, they can easily, if they want to continue flying, some of them have had enough from it at that time. That's easy. You know, I mean, a lot of guys go overseas and fly overseas. There was a bunch of them in UAE flying over there for a while, training, you, Emirati pilots and different skills, gunnery, assault type of stuff.

So I don't think there's any, I mean, that's a normal thing. Some of them go on to fly fixed-wing aircraft for the airlines. You know, a 160th pilot's got instant credibility in the civilian world, clearly, for what they've experienced. And they generally do very well. I know several of them are flying police helicopters

and things like that. So, you know, there's no problem getting a job for those guys. It's really what they want to do. Do they want to keep rowing the boat like that and doing that kind of work? I mean, you know, flying an 8-6 in the winter at Fort Campbell with no doors,

I mean, that is, that's some tough sledding right there. I mean, you are, I mean, it took me like eight hours to get warm after some of those nights, you know? Yeah. I mean, it was just brutally, brutally cold. Yeah. You get to your destination, your camelback is frozen solid. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. My wife was like, you can't come into this bed when you're flying all night. You're shivering so much. I can't get any sleep. I was like, okay, we had little kids then. So I was like, yeah. On the couch. One of our viewers had this question.

He wanted to talk about how 160 has evolved in recent years and how things. things may change for the unit as our country tries to switch over to facing, you know, more pure-focused global challenges? Yeah, you know, the 160 that I think at the end of the day, and, you know, there's the three things that matter most for our unit is range, speed, and payload. You know, how far we can go, how fast we can go, and how much stuff we can carry. You know, our air and our capabilities in our aircraft, really those requirements should be driven by the ground force commander. You know, we, like, what's the basic fighting unit? Is it a 12-man ODA for Green Berets, you know, a ranger squad?

And we've got to be able, or, you know, we've got to be able to support that basic fighting unit. And so I think with great power competition, you know, that range speed and payload applies. So, you know, we need to be able to go farther, faster, and create problems for our enemy to defend against. And the best way you can do that is go into their backyard. If you go back to what happened in Afghanistan in 01, you know, all of a sudden we're landed, you know, right outside of Kandahar, you know, from thousands of miles away. Now, that is a problem for the enemy. Yeah. So I think, you know, with great power competition, we need.

to be able to provide that kind of mobility to the ground force commander. But the other thing is, when you think about great power competition, I think people default to a force-on-force fight, right, where we're going against, you know, a peer-near peer adversary. I think you can compete with our adversaries in different ways. And what I would call, you know, their presence in Africa or in other continents, South America, wherever. And I don't mean necessarily going kinetic on them,

but build a partner capacity. So, you know, the 160th in the Army Special Office of Aviation community has been developing ability to train other nations in aviation on how to get better and better support their ground force. So you can compete that way. But our aircraft, you know, our aircraft have the latest, greatest defensive systems. They have air refueling, the exception of little birds,

and so they have long legs. So I think we're well-postered to be relevant in great power competition. Yeah. Another question, there tends to be a lot of focus on deployments by ground units, rightfully so, but SOAR also deploys a lot. Oh, well, I guess we already talked about this,

But he's just asking any cool stories or thoughts on deployments from over the years. Plenty of them, some that I shouldn't share due to threat of prosecution. But, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, reindeer obviously was a great op. I do think that there is, you know, they say ground units deploy. And I say our op tempo, operational tempo was higher because aviation is, is a low density, high demand asset. So we were, you know, we were getting the bare minimum of time back before we could, you know, because there's just not enough of us to support all the ground forces that were out there.

In fact, we relied on the conventional aviation brigades to pick up some of the load because we just couldn't do it all. So, yeah, I mean, you know, we're always going to be in demand. And I think we, like I said, we're the aviation force of choice. and I just had this conversation today with someone. I said, but, you know, that reputation is fragile and fleeting. And, you know, every time you support a ground force, that reputation's on the line and you've got to do everything you can to earn it.

Yeah, I mean, you don't have time for all my stories. I will tell you that. I wish we did. And we'll definitely have to have you on again sometime to hear some more of these stories. But before we've run out of time with you, I do want to talk to you about your retirement. 40 years, 40, was it 40 years of service? 30 years, 11 months, and a few days.

Okay, we'll call it 41. We'll call it a nice one. And you get out of the military and then transitioning. I mean, the military was your whole life. How did you transition out of the Army and then find your way into the Special Operations Warrior Foundation? Well, like I said, I think I mentioned this at the beginning. it wasn't part of the plan, right? Part of the plan was not that I was going to,

I didn't realize there was an opening in the Special Ops Warrior Foundation. I replaced Vice Admiral, retired Joe McGuire, Navy Seale, who was the CEO. He went back up to Washington and was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. And so that opened up the position. And he had done a great job

and set me up for success. And they have one of the first. one of my mentors called me and asked me if I would consider it. And I said, sure. You know, I mean, I'll consider it. And I had other options. And when I thought about it, you know, they presented it to me. And there was several others that competed.

And I was fortunate enough to get selected. And I got to tell you, that made the, I made all the difference in the world on the transition. we provide a great service to the families that have lost a soldier, sailor, air, and their service to the country and in a very impactful way. You know, we have really, if you don't mind, I'll tell you a little bit about the foundation. Everything. So, you know, it was started in 1980.

I talked about Operation Eagle Claw earlier. And at that desert refueling site, Desert 1, when the helicopter in the, 130 collided and left it killed eight americans the three marines and the five airmen and they left behind 17 kids and the survivors of the mission immediately thereafter made a personal commitment to take care of those 17 kids and that was the start over 40 years ago the special ops water it wasn't called that back then but that's what it was and so that was how we got started And today we have over 900 kids that we are committed to funding the education for. Some are a few months old and some are seniors in college right now.

So we have really two basic things that we do. So we provide immediate financial assistance to severely wounded, injured, or ill special operations personnel, not just operators, but anybody assigned to the special ops, whether you're a logistician, Intel, and any conventional force that's working for special ops, as you know, OpCon or operational control of special ops. So we do that. We wrote a check today for $5,000 to a individual,

a green beret that was in a bad way. It was severely ill and with a long-term hospitalization. I signed the check before I left the office, and we overnighted to them. So that's one program. The other program that we do in our main effort, and it requires the most effort for sure, is the education of the children of fallen special ops personnel

and the children of all, not just special ops, but all Medal of Honor recipients. And so our education program, most people think, well, you guys are a college scholarship program. Well, that's part of it. That's a big part of what we do,

but not nearly all we do. So we fund a pre-executive. preschool up to $8,000 per year per child because studies show that a quality preschool greatly increases the chances that that child or that kid is going to go pursue post-secondary education. So we pay for preschool. We pay for unlimited tutoring from elementary school through college graduation, unlimited. And that includes SAT, A-C-T-P. prep everything.

We pay for their college visits. We bring them to Tampa for a college prep course that's run by our staff which is in credit. We help them write their college essays. We teach them financial management, time management study skills. And the

mentors for that college prep course are other gold star kids that have graduated from our program and volunteer to give back. And certainly they have a shared experience, which is very unique to them. Sure. We fully fund their college. If they decide to go to a technical school or pursue a technical field, that's fine.

If they go to Harvard, that's fine. We have mentorship programs that start in the eighth grade. We help place them in internships. We pay for study abroad. We pay a stipend for internships if it requires relocation. And it's incredible. And we call it cradle to career. we also have a program designed specifically for special needs children that will not go to school

and I'll give you a quick example of that we had one child who was severely autistic and I'm certainly not an expert in this but you know change is difficult for for a child that's for an autistic child and so when COVID hit he couldn't go to school anymore so his mother called us and we paid to convert his basement to a classroom, and we paid for the tutor to come in. So he goes out, they sent me a picture. He goes out his front door with his backpack, walks along the sidewalk, and goes to school.

That's great. Through the back door down into the basement. Yeah. I mean, that's what it's all about for us. You know, and this year we had 41 kids graduate from high school. 38 went immediately into college or post-secondary education. Two joined the military, and one decided to take a year break and then go to college. So 38 out of 41 went right to school.

That's about 20% above the national average on attending college, or greater than that. 93% of our kids graduated college this year on time. 30% above the national average. That's not an accident. That is the hard work, and I'll brag on our counselors here in a minute. But think of that's their hard work and their enduring relationship with these families. So you think about that. These are kids that are most likely, not always, but most likely in a single parent home

and that have had been through a very traumatic event in their life, you know, certainly at high risk. But they achieve this level of success. And I will tell you that what I tell people, if you're going to walk away from anything about the Special Offs Warrior Foundation, it's more than a check. It's a personal relationship. We reach out proactively to those families. And once they fill out an information sheet so we can get a hold of them, we know when their birthdays are,

they don't fill out another application. I got three kids in college, and believe me, I have filled out a ton of scholarship applications. They don't have to do that. There is no quality, they are already qualified. And, I mean, it really, you know,

if something happened to me, what I would want more than anything as someone to give my kids not a hand out but a hand up and help them help them reach their full potential and we are we're really committed to stewardship

if you're familiar with Charity Navigator it's a watchdog group that looks at charities and the highest rating you can get on Charity Navigator is a four star rating we've got a four star rating for the last 15 years consecutively We're ranked in the top 1% of charities.

You can check it yourself on charity online. And if you go to specialops.org, which is our website, all of our financials there, all of our programs are there, testimonials are there, about what we do. I mean, it's a great program. It's having a profound impact on the lives of so many people. And I'm not a professional fundraiser. I mean, I'm a soldier that's doing this because I was a customer.

When I commanded the 160th, both at the battalion and regimental level, at that time of an 06 unit, level unit, regimental size unit, we had the most casualties in soft. Special ops is what two to three percent of the total force right now. We account for 75 percent of the combat casualties. And, you know, we all, all of our units, the Rangers, green berets, the seals, the Marsock Raiders, Air Commandos at Apsok and the 160th my tribe, we all have memorials to our fallen. And in my particular unit, it's a black granite wall.

And we engrave in that black granite wall, the names of our fallen, the date. They fell in the aircraft. They were flying in the tail member. And every memorial day, we honor them. And what I learned as a commander, and I can tell you in spades now, is that name we engrave on that wall? That's just the tip of the iceberg. What's behind that name is a family whose life was changed.

When they opened that door and there's a chaplain and the unit reps standing there, telling them they've lost one of their parents, I mean, nothing is the same ever for them ever again. And so for us to be able to help those families, you know, going through that, that have sacrificed for their country, which they didn't sign up to do, right? They were kids born into it. To me, we should do nothing less. And I'm proud to be a part of it. And it's a great organization.

And I invite you to check it out. But specialops.org is it. And we are transparent. So that's where people should go if they want to get involved, specialops.org. Yeah, specialops. check it out. I mean, you know, there's great, there's a lot of great organizations out there doing great things and we're one of them. Just check it out and see. We have a profound impact and we're changing lives every day. That's fantastic. We got a viewer question here. This is way out

of my wheelhouse, but I'm sure it's in yours, Clay. Thoughts on NavSPEC-WRs, H-C-S-E-F-E-5 in particular? Yeah So 84 and 85 or two Navy Helicot There's only one now I think one of them was

one of them was deactivated So they're a Navy They fly in MH60 It's a Navy version And I think the The ones that are left I'm not sure if they're on

It's 85 But I think it's on the West Coast So they're great Americans Doing great things the type of work that we do is a little bit out of the wheelhouse of a standard naval aviator right I mean they're more

you know their 60 fleet is more pilot recovery anti-submarine warfare and some other things and I'm not you know disparaging them it's just a different they have their helicopters for different reasons than the Army has theirs they provide a service and I said earlier you know we can't do it all

so they pick up on a lot of the training requirements and things like that. So they're good Americans doing good things. I, you know, like I said, I think they got downsized significantly a few years ago. So I don't think 84 is around anymore. But when you, you know, I will tell you that the challenge in, in their particular case, I suspect, is having a bench of pilots that have that same that can maintain proficiency in that skill set. I mean, you know, I know it was a challenge for me as a 160th commander, and I had warrant officers that never had to leave.

And that's a reserve active mix, that squadron. So they benefit from that because reserve pilots get a little more stability than, but they're good guys. They flew with our guys in Iraq when I was over there, and they did a fine job. BPA-Z here. He just wanted to make a comment, I think. He says, I was stationed in Panama and there's a 160th detachment at Howard Air Force Base. Then 160th in 2016, they'd fly around South Florida and Little Birds and Chinooks over my house.

I felt like a villager. It was cool and impressive. Yeah, that was that debt down in Panama, I think it was a 617th. And they got brought back up out of Panama. And they ultimately ended up in Savannah with third of the 160th. And they still are focused on the Southcom. of responsibility down there. But, yep, they were there.

I was in Panama when the 6th, 17th was there. Yeah, I remember them very clearly. All right. I mean, I think, Clay, can I get you to stick around for like just another like 10 minutes if that's okay? Sure. Okay.

So I think we'll wrap up the episode. Yeah. I know we could probably talk for another hour with you, Clay, but I'll try not to totally capitalize on your time and get you in trouble with your wife. I know we've been talking about 160. I just want to give a shout out to every helicopter pilot out there who's ever flown a Pogie bird. Because, uh, because, uh, you say Pony Bird?

Pogie. Pony Bird. Oh, okay. So in Ranger's School, the hell, when the helicopter pilots like stock up. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, crap. Snickers bars. Snickers bar and stuff, like you're growing your short hops, but they're like throwing you food and news are like scarfing it down.

Yeah, we throw the, we throw the food. into the back, I said, don't put your hand back there. Yeah, exactly. To lose it. So thank you, everyone who joined us tonight. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe to the channel and spread these videos around.

And there is also a link in the description to our Patreon page if you want to get access to the bonus segments where we film. Like, we're going to do one with Clay in just a moment. And next week,

we are going to have Alana Duffy. She's going to be in studio. She was a counterintelligence NCO. I believe she was an NCO, not an officer, but she's a counterintelligence in the Army. She's going to be here in studio. She's also an amputee. We're going to be talking to her. And we're very excited we're fine going to have someone in studio ever since COVID shut everything down and screwed all of us. So that's where we're at. We'll see everyone again next Friday.

And Clay, thank you, man, so much. And for spending some of your time with us tonight. This has been awesome. And I really hope we can do it again with you sometime because I know we're just sort of scratching the surface of your career and also the history of 160th. Yeah. And please check out Special Oversed Warriors Foundation.

If you've got some spare change lying around, they're an amazing cause. Well, hey, thanks, Jens. I appreciate the opportunity and to spend an evening with you. and I'll absolutely dial up with you. You know, like Mike, my wife has told me many times, I have perfected the art of making the short story long. That's okay. That's what we're here for.

We like that. All right, guys. We'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody. Take care.