The Team House - 75th Ranger Regiment Recce Platoon Leader | Dustin Ward (throwback episode)

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

original airdate 4/7/23Dustin Ward served with the 75th Ranger Regiment with the Recce section and worked on special programs in Afghanistan.Grab Dustin's Lite Sleeping Bag!⬇️https://thelitesleeper.com/To help support the show and for all bonus content including:-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

The Team House with your host, Jack Murphy and David Park. Welcome to episode 201 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. And our guest on tonight's show is Dustin Ward. Dustin served in the infantry as a sniper and in the long range for connoissance teams. And then went over to the Ranger Regiment and served as a platoon sergeant in the battalion reccy section, amongst other positions that you had over there. Dustin, thank you for coming out here to godless New York City. I appreciate me. Thanks for the invite.

Fly it up here, man. It's awesome to have you here in person. Thank you. So, look, we're going to start at the beginning. So tell us about, you know, kind of like how you grew up and sort of like what it was the sort of like directed you towards the military. What's your origin story? My origin story. Yeah. So I was born to a military family. My dad was in the Air Force, so 22 years.

My mom was a typical stay-at-home mom, military spouse. I have a brother as well as five years younger. Moved around a lot. It was born in Mississippi. And then we pretty much ended up in North Dakota for the majority of my life. My dad worked on B-52s. So my not North Dakota. Great place.

There's no chance to go. Towards the end of that, moved down to Texas, and that's where I graduated high school and joined the Army and stuff. But growing up, I said, had an awesome household. My dad was gone a lot, TDI, taking care of the family. Mom took care of us at home, and I just had this outdoorsman military mentality growing up. I was always where my dad's BDUs were outside playing.

Instead of hide-and-seat, we called a man-hunt to make it more manly. But any time I went back to my grandparents' house in Missouri, I was out in the woods. I probably been shooting guns. I was six years old. Shooting 22s and hunting squirrels, hunting deer. I always knew I was going to join the military. I think one of my favorite movies still to this day is, dumb as it is, is The Rock. It's a great movie, actually.

It's a lot of fun. It's a good movie, and I just remember having it, little play MP5 and had this similar this little battery charger for a Gameboy that had a cord and I put in my ear like as an earpiece. My dad freaking out he thought I was going to shock myself with this battery charger.

But I don't know. I always had this war mentality. I think every able-bodied male should serve their country in some aspect. And that's the route I took. I did initially join the Air Force after high school. I was in the Depp program.

I was going to pass all the tree wrecks. I was going to be a PJ, but they told me, hey, we'll call you within six months to leave for Basic. And I was like, no, I mean, I quit my job yesterday. So I took a year off after high school. Just kind of enjoy after high school life. And, uh, they're like, well, that's not going to happen because there's only so many pipelines a year and you have to hit the pipeline at a certain time or go to Basic at a certain time, something like that. So I walked across saw all the army recruiter and walked in there's this big cardboard cut out of a green beret standing there and he's like what do you want to do i was like i'll jump out of planes and shoot people man

how do i do that and showed me the old cliche you know ranger recruiter view guy coming up out of the swamp oh yeah it's actually my friend now i know it's kind of funny we have that well we have the the documentary. The VHS state. His name's Mike Conn. But, show me that. And it's like I said,

cliche, he put his arm around me. He was like, that could be you, man. Yeah. I was like, you're right.

Got another one. Yeah. I was like, that could be me. He's like, yeah, sign here, you leave in two weeks

and here's $20,000. I was like, sweet. You got an enlistment bonus for that? Oh, yeah. That's fantastic. What year was this?

It was 05. Okay. Yeah. So the world was already kind of on fire in terms of like, Yeah, yeah. Military and, yeah.

Yeah, and I remember when the war kicked off in 03, not the Afghan War, obviously, the Iraq War. My buddy and I, at the time, I think it was AOL, I am, you know, AIM, so they were messing each other, like, oh, my God, when you hurry up, the war's going to be over by the time we get out of high school. Like, long ago, 20 years later, still going on. So, plenty of time to enjoy the war. But, yeah, they gave me a bonus.

was a special forces intent bonus just the intent didn't actually have to go oh really yeah um join the army 05 January 05 now did they have an x-ray program at that time they did i was an 11 x-ray okay dodged that bullet oh an 11 x-ray yeah i went in 11 x-ray too i meant an 18 x-ray though could you go could you enlist straight into it so you dodge that bullet what does les say about all this less awesome guy man that's why i'm here because of less he told me give a shout out so i'll give a shout out of us but um yeah did not become an 11 charlie can 11 Bravo i don't know if the 18 x-ray program was a thing at that yeah yeah i think it was around by

that was it okay so i went to i went to s vass and oh seven and there's some 18 x-rays there so yeah now so for people who are watching don't know uh in you know in the military jobs the mOSs the 11 series is the infantry series and the Charlie is well Bravo is riflemen Charlie is mortarmen they also used to have 11 mics which was motorized and that was still a thing

but when you go in X you're gambling you're rolling the dice I think I think all of us were 11 X-ray I don't think you can go in specifically for a bra Oh you can I don't think you can no Now did you know you were rolling the dice No I did not

Yeah. They did not explain that at MEPs. Yeah. So, so you go to Basic, do all that. And then where do you go from there? So I graduated basic training in May of 05. And you got 11 Bravo. Got 11 Bravo.

Went to Fort Lewis, Washington, kind of my basic training cohort. at that time, there's a unit standing up in Fort Lewis called a Second Cavalry Regiment, 2CR. They just moved up there from Fort Polk, I think. But they're standing there that unit up, so we were the first lower enlisted guys there besides senior leadership. When we showed up, the first question they asked was, hey, out of all you who qualified expert in basic training, kind of raised my hand, like a sniper section. I was like, hell yes, sweet. That worked out. Yeah.

And a funny backstory with that is, you know, my mom would tell the story and she'll laugh about it. But I was probably in fifth or sixth grade. We're at like a family reunion down in Missouri somewhere. And one of my relatives asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I said something about being an assassin. And my mom looked at me and looked at my relatives. It's like, Dustin, shut up.

Do not say that. I was like, sorry. But when I went to sniper section, I called my mom like next day, I was like, guess what? I made the same mistake when my high school guidance counselor asked me what I wanted to do with my life. And I said, I want to join the military and be a sniper. Yeah. This very nice woman. She said, well, follow your dreams.

I mean, if we're all going to embarrass ourselves, like when I went to the Army recruiter, and asked them about special forces, I asked them if there was a knife guy. I wanted to be the knife guy. The knife throwing expert. Yeah, yeah, because I thought there was a demo guy, there was a gun guy, there was a knife. That's what GI Joe let us to believe. That is where, GI Joe and the A team is where I got my knowledge on special forces. Nice.

So you became an assassin for the Army. Came an assassin for the Army. I did that from 05 to 0.8. in that time frame I did a well that unit I was then reflagged to second infantry division and then we deployed to Iraq for 15 months during the surge we spent three months in uh bagdad that was about three months in Baghdad and then went ripped out with a new unit or unit replacing and a Bakuba or Bakuba however anyone said and five war horse we spent the rest of the appointment there And that was, uh, that was a wild west.

That was a, now out of curiosity, uh, you know, you were one of the first guys to show up to the sniper section, that's newly formed unit. Um, did they send you to the army sniper school like immediately? No, I didn't go until, like March of 06. And then did they have anybody with experience come on to be like the, the, we all went together. So there was, team leader and all shooters went to sniper school together. So one of the challenges with snipers sometimes is having somebody who can teach young officers how to properly employ snipers, right?

How did you guys manage that, especially for your first appointment? So they had this course at the time called the sniper employment officer course. Okay. And I can't remember if our PL went to it or not. But, I mean, he was all about letting us do our thing. and he didn't micromanage us at all. He's like, hey, whatever ranges you want, whatever shooting you have to do,

you guys go do that, just be proficient at your task. And we got the M107 Barrett's. We got those, and they held a course kind of locally on Fort Lewis for that, just to kind of break them in and get into the weapon system.

So he came to that to kind of learn, learned the job a little bit. Yeah. But yeah. The squad leader I had at the time, one of my favorite squad leaders ever had. I look up to him to this day, kind of base my leadership skills off him. He had that SF mentality of everyone needs to know everybody's job and just kind of spread the knowledge. And he was prior service, got out, came back in.

So he had some experience. He already done a couple deployments. But he was out. He let's do everything. It was good. That was awesome. So what was the mission up at Bakuba? So it was funny.

We're in Baghdad. J-Soc was obviously operating in Iraq. And they were doing the, at the time, I think we called them TST missions, a time-scent target missions, and they would get a lock on a guy and launch. Well, there were so many targets, they didn't have enough personnel to get all these targets. So they came down and trained us how to do it.

The sniper team, or sniper team. Battalion Sniper's and Battalion Reky Paltoon, which I was in. Sniper was a part of Battalion Riqui in the big army. He trained us how to do it and how to use the assets and everything. So we tagged along on that mission. We were sharing targets with them, which was probably one of the better ways to spend 15 months. Sure, yeah. Because the rest of the line companies, they were out in a little outposts in the middle of the city,

just burning, poop in a barrel, you know. It felt so bad for those guys. Because we just got hit a target, come back and go sleep. Yeah. But that was our target set, our mission set. What we did for 15 months, go out almost every night. And we did, you know, it varied from based off the target and based off what happened when we got to the target. You know, doing silent entries and silent clears and waking them up in their sleep and, like, taking their guns from them while they're sleeping.

Legit, like, taking their guns from them while they're sleeping and then waking them up. Yeah. Like, hey, sorry. We're here. Yeah. Or it would be a, you know, court on a call-out. It's just depending on the situation. In about what year was this? That was 07-08.

Okay. Yeah. So people had kind of moved beyond the explosive breaching when they could do something else generally. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't do any explosive breaching. Yeah. We didn't have that capability in the big armor. Yeah.

Yeah. I think the most explosive breaching we did would drive a striker through the gate. Yeah. Yeah. That worked. So they kept you guys pretty busy. And, I mean, that was a busy time in Iraq to begin with. Like I said, Baca was the Wild West.

When we showed up, the sister unit we were replacing from third brigade to ID. We're fourth grade to ID. They were third brigade two ID. And I think they had like 12 working strikers at the time when we showed up because they were just getting blown up. There was like 70 CIG-Ax a week when we got there. And then after us being there for I don't know three or four weeks

it dropped to like 12 a Cigax a week and we put a hurting hurting on them so bad I mean the biggest ID is going off maybe pop it tire on the striker and there was some suicide bombers that you know hit us

hit personnel but as far as like vehicle IDs no we're doing much what did you guys do to change the tempo a strict curfew and then every military age male got pretty much rounded up and then put in the batheide system yeah um so biometrics yeah rounded them all up put them in batheide system and then yeah

strict curfew and then i don't say any names but uh i mean like an iED would go off somewhere and this wasn't my directing as another company but i mean an idea would go off and if he saw a dude on a phone anywhere near that you just shoot yeah and they learned like they don't mess around yeah these guys aren't playing and uh bagdad was uh that was uh that was hot at the time too before we went to bachama we were responsible for uh putting in all the tea walls i don't know if you guys remember that all the tea walls through bagdad door sector uh which was there's a lot of end fighting between sunni and shia they were just murdering each other left and right.

And I think it's like our second or third week during right-see rides for the entire deployment. I mean, we just pulled out and there's like five days hog-tied and executed outside the road. Jesus. I'm like, what the heck is going on? And you bang on the door and like, hey, what's up with the bodies in the road? They're like, what bodies? Yeah. This house's going to be, huh?

Yeah. And it was hot. Yeah. It's good time. So what were your, when you weren't working for, you know, doing the TSTs, what was sort of the conventional army? Were you guys doing a lot of presence patrols? Was there a lot of, were there a lot of targets that you were? They, uh, they did just clearance ops.

It was almost like a, it's just a vicious endless cycle. You start in this sector and start working your way around the city. And by the time you get back here, we're starting all over again. Because all the guys he pushed out of here are down here now, you know. So they just just kept doing that. We did a lot of Palm Grove clearing. Yeah. Just online walking through these barn groves and 120-degree heat, you know, trying to find cashies.

Yeah. IDs and stuff. Do you find a lot? Yeah, we did. Yeah. I remember distinctly one time we got handed over to us. We didn't find it specifically. We went out and took it over because I think the people that found it detained the personnel and then left with them.

We took over the site. but I mean there was over 500 anti-tank mines double-stacked like in rows like almost in a like a farmer's field they're just lined up you know like five or six 55-gallon drums filled with initiators and timers and god how many uh like 200 five-gallon jugs in nitric acid there's a suburban rigged with a vbID way ready to go I mean the funny thing is after we gathered all that and bipped it and whatever. The EOD guy, he's like, yeah, we probably knocked this cell out

for like two weeks. Oh, wait, that's it. Two weeks. Like all that for two weeks? It was crazy, man. You guys demo it in sight? EOD did. Yeah.

Did you, now, being in, like, the sniper, was it a section or a platoon? Yeah, we had, it was just a section. It was a team or a squad in the reccy platoon. Okay. So you fell under Rucky then? So how did you guys operate in that environment?

Were there a lot of Sniper-specific missions? Were you working with Rucky a lot? Or were you just kind of folded in to the line units? Folded in. No, we didn't fold in with the line units. We did our own thing with the TST missions with Reky. Pretty much Overwatch as the Rake platoon was hitting a compound. Or if a line company was doing like a med cap,

we would go out there and do Overwatch while they were doing like a med cap or a hand out soccer balls at a school. We'd pull overwatch while they're doing that. Paltoon leadership changed out through deployment. We had one PL that he was an ex-SF guy, enlisted SF guy and went OCS.

But he was all about us doing what snipers do. And he's like, hey, I don't care where you guys go what you do as long as you follow ROE give me a 10 digit grid and have a radio so we would trunch off into the hinterlands with three or four guys in radio that's fantastic I mean just you know guys in place in IADs yeah I mean and the reason I said it's fantastic for people to know like and especially in conventionally but in any unit there's really a lot of there are a lot of rules there's a lot of control there's not a lot of freedom for you guys to do

But if you guys kind of do your own missions. A lot of younger PLs don't understand how to utilize any sort of like special unit or special team, be it mortars, snipers, reconnaissance. You know, so it's cool that. Yeah. I'd say they don't. Not to bash new PLs, but they don't understand. They don't want to get in trouble. Yeah.

They don't want to get in trouble either. They don't want to overstep. Right. Right. but that mission I wouldn't say mission but letting us go out and three or four guys to do our own thing was

you know we were sitting in this house one day and just an example sent us house over watching this river and this bridge and just waiting for something to happen but I'll be nice to us there was a big army I think it's first calf or something

like that whatever the big army is with the horse and the slash calf calf yeah they were doing this big clearing operation through the palm groves that we were in that they didn't know we were there and they we saw them coming we could hear him coming and they ended up hitting the house

that we were up in oh shit we're yelling down the stairs like hey eagle eagle eagle yeah you know and I remember this first one he kind of like stomped in like it's my house why aren't you wearing your patrol belt yeah it's pretty much what it seemed like but uh he's like hear you guys. I'm like, hey, we're sniper section with this unit. He's like, okay, what are you guys doing?

And we kind of told him. And it was towards the end of our mission time window anyways. We're getting ready to X-fil. And we're like, hey, you're going the direction. We're going, right? He was like, do you mind if we X-Fill with you guys? He's like, no, man, go ahead. Thank you. It's like middle of the day. It's like middle of the day. I'm going to walk around. Yeah. And I also just want to give a quick promo to the show. A shout out to us. A shout out to us.

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And it also pays for our legitimate Fios internet connection so we don't have inappropriate hiccups in the stream. And also keeps us in the booze. More of that, yeah. So, Dustin, you're after this deployment, at that point, you went over to worse, right? Yeah, towards the tail end of that deployment. the first iron came over and said they're standing up a core long-range surveillance unit at fort louis and if anybody was interested in going and kind of a military history buff like even when i was a kid i had like flash cards of you know fawker airplanes from world war i war two and everything

big military buff so i knew what lyrs was based off vietnam lurps books and everything so i raised my hand i was like yeah i'm interested because i always wanted to go and i'm go do something special. I looked at it as like the next step up the ladder. I wanted to do it right. And my eyes right was working your way up. I'm going to ask me, you just go to selection. Or just join as an 18x rate.

But, yeah, so I went to that October, 08 is when I went to Lerce, like tryouts. And it was, it wasn't anything crazy. Just road march, PT tests, swim test, stuff like that, land-f. and then yeah I went there October 08 and then January 2009 we went straight to pre-ranger

Ranger Ranger School, Airborne school everything and deployed that next summer in 2009 I was only home for like a year went for another year to Iraq now can you tell us the difference between

how a Rucky unit a Rucky element might be used an alert unit is there a functional difference between them compared to the reci like the wreck the you know you went from snipers you know kind of under reci to lurch oh yeah um so lirce reconnaissance detachment uh operates at a company level okay by itself the lurch company operates at a battalion level okay so at a platoon detachment level

we're doing mdmp instead of tlps right um So we're mission planning at a battalion level for a six-man operation or a platoon operation versus a big army in recaltoon just doing TLP's like a ranger school. Right. And our reporting criteria in CCIR is going much higher than a big army battalion, Riqui. It's going to a brigade battlefields surveillance brigade, which then reports to the Corps. And can really shape strategically, I wouldn't say strategically. but theater

right instead of tackling strategically in terms of theater and you in the the worst units are interesting in that they really are other than maybe RRC the closest to the Vietnam work teams

six man teams going out and if you'll pardon my little digression my little rant I have and I'd be interested to hear your opinion Dustin the army keeps disbanding worse units and then restanding them up and how many times have we seen them do that

just during the G-WAT era. You kind of lived through some of that. I mean, what's your feelings about how we keep seesawing between this and really the capabilities of worse and what you guys bring to the table as opposed to all the drones and the SIGA and Emmett and all these other technological capabilities that have been

great for the military, but is there still a relevancy to that six-man team on the ground? In my personal opinion, professional opinion, there will always be a relevance for boots on the ground intelligence. Yes, you know, Emmett and drones and SIGA

and all that is great. Technology is awesome. The stuff we do with technology is mind blowing. But can a drone see through the clouds? Bad weather. Yeah. Bad weather.

Inside a building. Can those vehicles drive through a muddy road? No. Can six guys walk through that muddy road? Yeah. Can six guys sit in a hide site for four to five days at a time and watch an objective,

you know, the entire time persistently. Yeah. Can a drone do that? No, it has to go refuel. Right. It's got to bring up another drone and, you know, hopefully have a good handoff on Emmett or Singit. And then,

you know, bad weather can force them out too. I would say the limiting factor for, you know, six guys on the ground is, depending on who the commander is, just MetaVac. Right. You know, bad weather obviously affects Metavac. Is that saying that nothing can stop the U.S. military, well, that's false. Lightning within five will stop it every time. Right, right, right.

Yeah, the whole disbanding and re-standing up and just, they just need to stand them up and keep them. Right. They're still National Guard Lurcy and it's. I think there's one in Indiana, maybe one in California. I don't know where they're all at. But they need to stand them up and they need to move them underneath special operations, honestly. if you look at all the other armies in the world their Pathfinder units their Lerce units are special operations Right They're Yager units

Why are we the only ones that don't have those guys Of special operations? Right It's a special task And they go to special schools To learn how to do that And they're You know, being asked to do

Extraordinary missions Well and it's funny And sad Funny sad There's probably a German move for that But the same time the conventional army is saying these LERS units, whatever, like there are other things that we can use to replace them. You have RRD, the Ranger Recki detachment, getting bigger and becoming a national level asset

where it doesn't even have anything much to do with, like, it's not a regimental level of asset anymore. It's a national level asset now. Because they're like, oh, shit, this is really good stuff. You know? And meanwhile, they're like, oh, Lers. But when you went over to Lerce, did you, as far as like the special training, did your team get to go to R-Slic or any of that? Yeah.

Yeah. Pretty much everybody went to RISC. We did send the first shot of guys going to Ranger School. I mean, I think we sent 12 to 16 guys at one time. It's unheard of. Yeah. Yeah. Ranger School from one company, you know, to Rainier School one time, you know, half past, half

recycled or whatever. And then while we're there, the rest of the guys went to Arslich. And then after that, first push, everybody just kind of trickled into Ranger School and Arsleck. Could you tell the squares out there who don't know the benefit of Arslic what that course is and what you were in there? Yeah. Arsick is the Reconstant Surveillance Leadership School or Leadership Course. It's called something else now, I believe, because it falls under a cavy unit now. Really?

I thought it was like a tradoc unit attached to Ranger School. They transitioned because Fort Knox shut down and moved all the armor to Fort Benning. Oh. So now Fort Benning is the maneuver center of excellence. Wow. So it's now part of the Cav schools, I think. Don't quote me on that. It's just what I remember, what I think I've heard.

Yeah, the Arslet course is an awesome course. It teaches you how to operate in a six-man element. teaches you how to do the MDMP process, not TLP's, communications, and then all your optics and observing equipment. I teach you how to do that and how to build a hide site and sit there and watch a target for four to five days at a time. And then how to possibly break contact as a six-man element, how to land nav as a six-man element.

Just everything that... Can you tell us a little bit, about the difference between a TLP as the troop leading procedures and the MDMP like why is that what's the difference in that and why is it meaningful? Troop leading procedures in a nutshell is company level and below

that's for smaller unit operations it's faster it doesn't take as much planning when you get to MDMP it's a battalion echelon planning so now you're looking at all the major backside support

that goes along with an operation it just takes a long time to plan that. Can I say something really sarcastic for a second? Just, I wanted to say that, you know, they got rid of Lersch units because they don't need them and they can't afford them. But there was enough officers that they wouldn't fire enough general, you know, general level officers to rename the R-Slick to something, you know, to get their, get their bennies. Yeah. Because we don't let go of general officers anymore.

Or, yeah, admirals and, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So second round in Iraq with worse. What was the mission this time around? So we were on the Iranian border and the Hawaza marshes kind of near Basra. Oh, wow. Yeah. I think our Cobb. We're at a Cobb, not a Fob. It was a Cobb Adder, I believe it was called.

And we would go out to the Iranian border for two weeks at a time, legit living in a patrol base. We're at a border fort. So the Iraqis and Iranians, they have a border fort system. So along the entire border, there's these forts. And it's legit,

like Saddam told his guys, he wants forts. And they just Googled Fort. And it's a square with like four turrets, like four turret towers. And that's it. So there's all these dotted up and down the border and the Iranians have the same thing.

Just mirror. that is so short almost like a DMZ it is there's I think it's like a 5 kilometer DMZ in between but yeah they just mirror show it I'll wait another board so we'd go out and link up with the border patrol our Ikey border patrol

um worth worthless but uh we'd go out there for two weeks at a time living out of our trucks you know MREs for two weeks no shower for two weeks uh shitting in a hole for two weeks we would take trailers

attach them to our humvees for enough fuel so we can get back. Because there's a three to six hour drive, depending on what happened on the way there to get to where we're going. So enough fuel, enough water, enough food. We did do a couple aerial resupplies while we're out there. But yeah, we'd go out there for two weeks with our trucks, and our main objective, our main mission, was to stop lethal aid from coming from Iran into Iraq.

So whether that would be money, weapons, explosives, whatever. But we'd sit in that patrol base for two weeks and we'd kick out a six-man team per night to go do a patrol. And we're pretty free to plan our missions however we wanted. I don't remember there'd be in any restrictions on how far we could go away from the patrol base. It was like, hey, as long as you got six guys and know where you're going,

I trust you in your training. How's the food and tear on? it was all right so were did you did you have it all any kind of interdiction mission with that or was it observation no that was our mission it was interdiction it was interdiction yeah did we interdict anybody no but did we stop them because they knew we're out there yeah they knew we're out there um so i remember it was the middle of the day and we were looking at something we're taking pictures and i was like man this would be a good good place for our hide side over here next time we come out.

And the Iranian guard tower is a good distance away. But they had this big giant drop a quarter in, binos like on Statue Liberty. And we can see them looking at us. So they knew we were out there. And they also lobbs and mortars at us and shot some

Piquet at us one time. I would say one of the coolest things from that. I was talking to Jack earlier about it. And I felt bad for the younger guys because they had not deployed yet, and this was towards the tail end of the war. There wasn't a lot of conflict,

you know, direct engagements going on, and they just wanted to go to war. Right. And we are doing this recie mission. Well, cool. Like, if you're getting shot at when you're doing recry, you're not doing recry properly. So we didn't get shot at it.

So did a good job. But they didn't see all the bigger picture stuff we were doing, or they didn't understand it. Maybe it was our fault as team leaders not telling them, you know, directly what we're doing. But Iran was flying drones over us. And our unit, our company, not Michael Toon,

but our company was responsible for, you know, creating the first like SOP for dealing with Iranian drones because we were seeing them and we were tracking them on Falcon View. Like drawing their routes back in Iran. And remember we scrambled some F-16s to come try to shoot it down. and these F-16s flew out and they radioed down like, hey, we can't fly slow enough to shoot these things. Sorry, you know. Yeah, it is what it is.

We're like, all right. But when we scramble those F-16s and they're flying up and down the border trying to find this drone, I ran scrambled the F-14s, and they're just going up and down again, marrying each other. And we're sitting there like, oh, shit. we're going to restart World War III we've got front row seats this is cool that's just one

one of the cool things that we did like one of the unspoken things that we did that no one really saw or heard about we did some other stuff you know me and

probably three other team leaders all we're all still really good friends probably the only 11 bravos that could get their basic aviator badge because we did some ISR missions where we flew in the aircraft.

Oh, cool. We actually got to fly there. Pilo was like, yeah, take over. What were you? What aircraft? It's a Cessna. It's like a Cessna 333 maybe. It's a pushpool.

It's like Bat 21. Think Bat 21 is that aircraft. Even their call sign was a bat and had emblems on it and stuff. It was just pilot us and then a sensor operator in the back. Really? and flew out to where we were operating.

So we'd go out there for two weeks, come back for two weeks. During that refit time, we would fly with ISR to go continue watching. That's cool. What we were supposed to be watching. Yeah. Again, it's like a throwback to like Vietnam era where you'd have whirps flying around with bird dog. Oh, it was a bird dog, right? The facts.

Yeah. That's exactly. Yeah. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. Yeah, we liked it. We like the jokes. We're like, we're probably the only 11 bravos that can say that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. So that was a good mission. that's awesome now when you guys because you I assume you were pretty far from the nearest air base how long would it take

like F-16s to get to you when you guys called them or scrambled them I couldn't even give you a guesment on that yeah I don't remember did you have air assets if if the Iranians or we did we had Apache's on call F-16s obviously

it's funny you bring that up because I remember the I remember this guy's name, General Cohn. I won't say bad things. But I'm not a fan. He flew out one time to visit us. He was like our MNCI South General. Gotcha, yeah.

He came out to visit us, and he was just, he was flabry acid. He's like, you guys have this support and this support? I'm like, yeah. He's like, I don't even have that. Well, you're a general. You're in a jock. You're not 30 guys out here sitting by yourselves. Yeah.

But yeah, we did have that support. So that deployment winds down. And when does the Ranger Regiment start to enter into your peripheral vision? Towards the end of that deployment, probably the year after we kind of gotten that training mindset, you know, war pretty much over in Iraq. I was still trying to keep my guys in shape and ready to go for Afghanistan. So we were doing a lot of rucking and a lot of hill climbs and stuff like that. But the Lerce unit at Fort Lewis was the only other airborne unit besides first group in 275. So a lot of guys that got RFS from 275 came to the Lurts unit because it's the only other airborne unit.

They don't want to lose their jump pay and then we keep doing, you know, Ranger things. So I'd say, you know, 75% of our leadership, senior leadership at the Lourcy Unit was 275. My Opportunity Star was a 275 guy and so-and-so. And they pushed that Ranger mentality, you know, which I loved the discipline mentality and the respect and everything that you don't see in other units, honestly. You don't. And then I had a Plutonisart, Zach. who was a reckey guy at 275 super awesome mentor he just texted me the other day talking about you know just how proud he is in me and everything and he's a he's a good guy and he

talked about 275 rec. Recrecy and rec. Recre this and rec. Forced us to have an SOP book and just all the little things that people don't think about, you know. And then RC came around and gave a recruiting brief for RSC. And I set in on it. I was like, I'm going to go do that. Because that's like the next step in my reccy path, you know. So I went to RSC selection and went to spring selection in 2012.

Did not make it. And then I went to the fall selection that same year and got picked up. And then immediately following RFC selection, you go to RASP to get selected for regiment. So, what is RSC like rope? Is it the new rope? RASP 2 is what replaced rope. Okay. And I'd like to just talk about this for a moment because I think it's really interesting that, again, another little digression.

But RRD was the regimental reconnaissance detachment, then became the regimental reconnaissance company. And for the longest time, from when did it stand up like 1984? It was the 1980s. It was like 84, I think. And their job was really just to do reconnaissance for airfield seizures. So there were three teams. Each team was for each battalion, each of the three battalions. And then they kind of grew, especially as the war kicked off, they grew into something else.

But those guys were always drawn from within the regiment. And then you were, I think, about probably the first generation of guys that they started recruiting from the conventional military. Yeah, I think I'm not trying to put wars in anybody's mouths. or anything, but I think they realize, like, there's some good dudes in the big army that could be beneficial. Right, right, right. Just like any unit. I mean, just like Cag.

I mean, they recruit from everybody. Right, yeah, right. So why weren't they doing the same thing? I think that's what they realized. And maybe because some guys went from big army to regiment and then R.D. That might be a reason. I don't know why specifically. I'm not going to put words in anybody's mouth.

Yeah, I mean, back then it was just, because it was, It was regimental. Like it was it was someplace you went from battalion. Like you know what I mean? Then I think it got bigger and then they also. Yeah. So it was a RRD was a detachment from regimental headquarters. Right.

And then they became a company. Right. Under RSTB special troops battalion and went from, you know, the three teams to eight, eight teams. Might be six now, I don't know. What was, I'm interested in, you know, your experience. What was it like going to select? for that course or for that unit. I won't get into the specifics of selection because I don't want to run it for

other people going. It's like a spoiler. It's part of the fun. Yeah. I probably sign an NDA too. I don't know. No, it was fun. It's your typical army selection.

A lot of rucking. A lot of rucking. I would say total, if you don't get lost, you're probably looking at 200 miles. You're walking total for the three weeks. But I mean, it's the typical, you know, your 12-mile roadmars, your PT test, your Ranger PT test, not Army PT test. Some psychological testing and IQ tests and stuff like that. And then you have, you know, a practice week where, you know, you learn how to land nav because I'm pretty sure CAG does it the same way.

It's they're going under the assumption that nobody knows how to land now. Right. So they want to make sure everyone's on the same playing field. and they teach you, it's like two or three days of land nav classes. They teach you land have and you go out and do some cadre lead. And there's another road march in there that's disguised as, you know, another training event. It's a timed event.

And then you move on to stress phase and you're doing land nav every day and sleeping out in the woods. With the culmination event that I won't spoil. And after you, on the second time around getting selected, and then you go, and then you had to go to RASP. So that's an interesting thing, too. You had to go to two selection courses, essentially, to get picked up for the regiment. Yeah, so the RRD selection, RRC selection was for the company. And then RASP is for the regiment. And, yeah, RASP sucked.

You know it was RAST too. It sucked, man. It was not fun. What can you tell us about it? Because it wasn't a gentleman's course at all. I mean, it was. There's no yelling and screaming. Yeah.

But it's just, it's physical, physically and mentally draining at the time. What I went through, I don't know what it's like now. Yeah. But a lot of class learning about the regiment and the history of the regiment and how the regiment operates because you're a,

you know, non-commission officer or officer. Right. You're an import. So you're learning how the regiment operates. And then, you know, again, you're going out and doing landf.

The landf piece is interesting because you, they parry you up with the Rasp 1 guys, so Rip guys. They pair you up with one of them or two of them. And it's your job as an NCO to teach them out of land. Oh, you're doing LNAF with RAS one guys. Yeah. So they suck.

I was just like, it's a nightmare. But I was good. And we got all our points. And I was like, all right, guys, sit down. Sit down, eat and worry. Let's hang out. There's a couple other physical events. FTX.

You do an FTX as a class. And there's some stressful events during that. And you really kind of see who can handle being an NCO in the regiment or an officer under a stressful situation, you know? Yeah, because the, so it's RASP 2. It used to be rope, which was different than RRIP. because so for people who don't know for a lot the way regiment works is you're a private 18 years old or 27 however old you are when you go in and and you know you go to your infantry basic you go to the ranger indoctrination program or now it is rope one right ranger orientation program ranger assessment selection program rangers okay and then you go to ranger battalion and you grow up in ranger battalion you go through private and you know to specialists and you know whatnot in radio battalion but they also have opportunities for people who did not grow up in battalion to come to battalion well the interesting

thing is the really the regiment's really strict about making guys go back through selection to get back into the regiment so even if you were an enlisted ranger you go green to gold become an officer and now you go do your pl time in the 80 second wherever you're at and now you want to come back to the Ranger Regiment and take a Ranger platoon, you've got to go back through Rasp. Yeah, so that's a thing. They don't mess around. So that's the thing now, too, with NCOs.

Started by 2014-2015, Abrams Charter, which is why officers went out and came back, went out and came back. Now NCOs also have to go out. Oh, do they really? They're bringing that back. Yeah, so every time you go from my platoon sergeant to first iron or first horn to ops or whatever. you're taking the next leadership position as an NCO.

You've got to go out for a year and come back. Oh, you have to go out to the big army. I say big army. Going to sit on a desk with Socon was still. Abrams. Abrams charter was, you know, when they stood up the Ranger Regiment in the 80s, or no, I'm sorry, in the 70s, it was supposed to be like a role model for the rest of the post-Vietnam Army. Exactly. Yeah.

And so the idea, I'm not trying to lecture you, Dustin. And I'm trying to just tell folks out there who maybe don't know what we're talking about. That the idea was that you would grow this nucleus of highly skilled trained soldiers. And then they would go out into the larger army and spread that knowledge and those skills around. And that's, yeah, that's why they brought back NCOs going out was to do that. Right. Two problems, though, is some guys were going out to the big army and be like, oh, it's not that bad. Right.

I can kick it. I can just sit back and chill. One, I'm kind of a legend here. Exactly. Yeah, I'm kind of a legend. And it's easy street. Yeah. Guys would go out and not come back.

Yeah. I'm a big fish in a little pond. Yeah. Instead of a little fish. Even if they're chilling down at McDill in Tampa, they're like, ah, beach is pretty nice. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And the other problem was Regiment realized that. Guys weren't coming back by choice. And numbers started kind of getting depleted. So instead of sending guys, out to the regular army to spread the knowledge guys would go to socom or jaysock or usa sock and do an ops job for a year instead of doing what they're supposed to do you're going to make them miserable on staff they'll come right back yeah right so that's what happened to that um i love regiment death i will always love regimen as best time of life but regiment is a snake eating its own tail

yeah like just you know it keeps moving and keeps getting really good guys, keeps moving, keeps getting really good guys. Because you have a guy that gave his whole life to the regiment from private to E6, E7. He steps on his dick one time. Yeah. A minor thing.

Yeah. And then gone. Yeah. I was actually going to bring that up because you mentioned that when you were at, like, the Lerst unit, that you had, I think a Lerst unit or RECA,

but you would have guys who would RFS. Now, in Ranger Battalion and the regiment, RFS is released for standards. And what that means is you did something, and it may have been something heinous, but generally something heinous will get you kicked out of the military. Subjective. Yeah.

But generally is something that, that, you know, you might get RFS for getting... It could be got into a bar fight down there. A bar fight, and you had a drink, even if the fight wasn't your fault, it was an alcohol-related incident. Like, and it really depends on what your chain of command feels about you and feels about covering their ass at that point in time, whether or not you get released for standards. And so when you get released for standards, it's not you don't get kicked out of the military.

You're just like, you can't be arranging more. You've got to go down the road. And in second, or like in Fort Lewis, down the road is lers. Lerce. Or hopefully, hopefully it's lers because they could be condemned to like, Korea of fate. worst. Korea is always the threat. Exactly.

Exactly. I mean, like another, another example of the whole go to Rasp thing, you know, one of my guys I worked with at the Lersse unit, they go RFS. He spent 12 years at 275. Yeah. And then he had to go to Rasp again because he made E-7. He's going to already take up a two-star job. And the board, they said no.

And the reason was he's not aggressive enough. His mentality wasn't aggressive enough to be. be in regiment. I was like, what? Because he's, he's, he's like us. Like, he's just laid back, man. Yeah. You don't need to be a chest beaten grueling all the time. Right. Well, when you say it's a snake eating its tail, it's exactly what you're alluding to there is that you recruit and select and breed a generation of soldiers that are really tightly wound and really intense. And then it's like you cut them loose on a three-day weekend. It's like, no shit, they got a DUI. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you stress these guys the hell out.

They got in a bar fight in Seattle. I'm shocked. I am shocked. How did that happen? Yeah. The thing of being a regiment too is it's, there's only so many positions available. Right. Someone's always trying to get your job.

Right. But no matter what position you're in, someone's waiting for you to mess up or for you to leave. So it's almost like you're always kind of walking on eggshells all the time too. Like it's a stressful place to work. Yeah. Honestly, especially when I was there, the position I had, you know, I was. we haven't got there yet, but I was the

youngest platoon sergeant in the most senior platoon sergeant in the most senior platoon sergeant position, and it was just every day I felt like I was going to just mess up and get sound. Let's, yeah, let's walk towards that. You make it through Rasp

and then the next step is there's the RRC has its own sort of like operator training course, right? Yeah, they call it RTC, the reconnaissance training course. Roughly 10 months long. I think it's the most all. I started that in January of 13.

It's broke up into three phases. Phase one ended in May. I'm not going to get into what the training is for their training course, but arts look on steroids and a bunch of shooting programs and free fall school and all that stuff. Yeah, I made it through phase one and the phase one board. I got the thanks but no thanks. Not really, they don't give you a reason why. They don't tell you why.

It's just, hey, you're not a good fit. I think I know why. But, yeah, so I left there. Went to the three shop at RSTB. I was an air NCO for a couple weeks. And then the summer major came over and was like, hey, I think I got a job for you. Very interested.

I was like, yeah, what did he got? And he said, 375 Reki. And that's where I went. And so what are you, what rank are you right now? No, master. A retired master. No, not right now, but at this point in time. Yeah, he's six.

E6. And what year is this? 13. Okay. So things are still hot. Relatively hot. Like, things are still happening. And you get offered this job for Rucky.

Your N. Is that a, is that a TL in Rucky? Yeah, it's a TL, Joe. Okay. I showed up to 375 Recky. The platoon started at the time, my buddy Matt, he was a prior RRC guy too, except he got out of the Army, went National Guard, realized the real world sucks, came back in the Army, and was it at 375 Recky now. But I showed up, he kind of knew my background, didn't interview with me, got to know me, and then I was like, hey man, I need your help. like I need you help shaping this platoon and what it should be into a Rekke

platoon not I call it a senior squalader hangoutle tune a lot of guys did their squalater time and their reward was to go to Rekke and go do the Omega thing and stuff like that grow out go out of beard yeah how old was Rekie at this point in time in Rensum and you're there and they stood up was it O3 yeah the battalion Rekie was 2004 Yeah, so I was on, I was a sniper, but I was on the first deployment with the battalion reckey guys. Yeah. So just about 10 years old? Okay.

But the guy I was talking about Matt when he was in the National Guard, he was in a Lursey in it. Yeah. So I went from RSC to National Guard Lurz and then came back to 375 RECI. So he knew what LurS is and what RECD is and had a very good understanding of what it should be. And me and him kind of molded this platoon into what it should. should be. And I'd say about three to six months later, I was just beep bopping down the hallway going to my office. And he stopped me and he was like, hey man, did, uh, did, uh, first earned talk to you yet? I was like, no, why? He's like, well, him and sir, Major talked and he

needs to talk to you. I was like, fuck. I just got here, man. What's going on now? So I go to first iron's office and I walked in. He's like, hey, what do you think about being on aren't you want to take over reckey and i was like oh shit yeah absolutely like i'm not going to turn it down you know and that's that's when i became the betweensart for 375 reci and i was betweens aren't for three and a half three and a half years so so reci wasn't new it was 10 years old um but you guys sort of created this thing is it because at that time or during that time there wasn't that Lurse experience that nobody knew what Rucky should actually look like. I think that's exactly what the problem was.

Okay. They didn't have a good Rookie background, as you said. And there just wasn't a mission for them. Yeah. You know, overseas. There was a strike force that's going out and hitting targets. Like, what's Riky going to do? Right.

You know, you got the Prids. Right. Yeah, every ISR asset you can think of for, you know, all the task force is over your target. Why do you need rec you out there? That was the mentality. They didn't have a mission. When, when, I mean, this is like ancient history, you know, taking baby steps.

But that first deployment, I remember the guys doing some CTRs, doing some, you know, on foot kind of reconnaissance stuff. And then when we did get some strike operations, I remember the guys going out and like doing like, because actually we started doing fit too with a SWAT team. mountain in uh... cows and so taking those guys out and doing like bps and you know black side security and so that that was sort but it was all very like a nascent sort of form right yeah yeah and i mean like if you're doing cTR so ctr is coast hargard reconnaissance and in that environment if you're doing ctr you're either like in a vehicle or you're tasking indage to do it like it's very hard sometimes to do it and that was that was our c's mission was the ctars yeah like an airfield yeah they would drive by in vehicles and film

or do whatever. Like, RECI wouldn't do that. But now we're at the point where RRC is out doing secret squirrel stuff. And so you're saying that when you got there, sort of the battalion reckey teams were sort of in limbo, that's not quite sure. They were in limbo. We had the interagency mission program.

And then also had guys tasked to RSC to help them with their program as well. So they were filling billets for R.C. as well. Okay. And that was a funny story, too. When I left RRC, I went over 375. When I showed it to 375, I mean, like the next day, he's like, hey, you need to go over REC to talk to them about this deployment coming up.

I was like, what the fuck? So go back over there knocking the door and a guy that was on my board, Terry, he answered the door and he's like, what's up, man? I was like, I was told to come over here. I guess I'm working with you now. And he's like, huh. He was like, that worked out, didn't it? Yeah.

I guess so. Yeah. So was there a formal? And Jack, you can answer to this too. Was there a formal? Because like in the sniper section, you went to SOTIC, right? You know, at least SOTC 2, if not SOTIC 1, but you'd go to SOTIC, the Special Operations Target Interdiction course. For RECI, when they stood them up, was there a formal training program for them?

I don't know when they stood up. Well, back when they stood up, it was like, again, they were all, you know, building an airplane and flight, but they did have a training program that they were standing up, yeah. But it was an in-house training? Yes. Okay. And I can't remember if they went to R-Slick or not. I mean, I would have to hit up some of those guys from back in the day and talk to them.

But, I mean, what was it like when you got there? When I got there, when I was in between Sarant, I didn't send anybody to R-Slick because I could teach R-Slick. Yeah. And that's what I did with my guys. Yeah. taught the squad leaders how to, or team leaders how to do it, and then they taught their guys how to do it,

the way the Army should work. In my mind at the time, all Arsleck would do for me is, yeah, cool, gave them an identifier. Right. But I also lost, I just lost that guy for three or four weeks. Right.

You know, so I would rather, instead of top-down training, I'd go bottom up. Like, you know, go to my team leaders. What does your team need to learn? what do you guys need you know you have the manuals what do you not know in the manual and then we would go over and that was arsick taught like a trade-out school or was it taught like a

soft school trade-doc school okay it was a trade-ox school okay and again that's another reason like we don't want to go do that right not saying we're better than that but but you are and and and the so when we talk about trade-doc and soft we're talking about uh training and doctrine Training and doctrine Which is all the schools All the Army schools are under that So yeah so it's very formalized process It's been put together by an officer

Who may or may not know what they're doing And like it's very formalized training That teaches To standard not to or whatever it is Like but they don't necessarily always teach things The way they need to be taught So you're sending somebody to a school that is an army taught school,

which means it's a bureaucrat taught school. Exactly. And not saying that they are slick instructors aren't great at their job or anything like that, but the curriculum itself has been laid out by the bureaucracy. Yeah, that's true. It's been laid out by the bureaucracy, and 75% of the stuff they're teaching is from Vietnam.

Yeah. Which, I mean, it's still applicable, you know. But I would rather teach my guys what I know and what has worked. Right. And what does work. Right. Versus what Trade doc is telling me to teach me.

So when you guys turn this or when you sort of, you know, develop this recie element, this reccy section, how do you impress upon the command what your new improved capabilities are or get sort of operational OKs? So that was. well, you have a couple different avenues. You've got your TFTs, your Task Force trainer missions, and you got M-LAT, multilateral training missions. TFT is just kind of a smaller M-LAT, per se, minus the airfield.

We're not seizing an airfield during TFT. But the real big kind of kicker for us, we went to NTC. And it was like the first time Regiment's gone to NTC and who knows how long. Uh-huh. and we were supporting a big army unit that was going through their rotation as a soft capability enabler. So we were separated from them, but we knew what their mission was.

We had, I think our BC and a small staff was in their job with them. And then they tasked us. I think we had one or two line platoons there and then Reki platoon. And the BC called us in, or called me in. And he was like, Dustin, check it out. He's like, I don't care what we have to do. We're here to win. He's like, so, do what you got to win.

I was like, Roger, that's her. We did our thing. We went and got our four-wheelers and our M-razers and drove out, climbed up a mountain. The biggest mountain we could find, the thing is Teefurt Mountain. in NTC. I don't know why I'm under the name, but breakers was big.

We climbed up there, and we climbed up there knowing Op 4 is not coming up there. No one's climbed this mountain to come find us. Like, it's a pain in the ass. It took us all night to get up there and set up our hide site, and we're observing the battlefield.

And the battlefield we could see, the battle space we could see, was the staging area for the Op 4 before they moved into the engagement area. with the rotational unit to start off before the the war,

a simulated war even kicked off, we could see something way off in the distance and me and my JTacker sitting up there and I'm like looking through a spotting scope and looking at a map and just looking, we probably spent 30 minutes or an hour

just kind of, you know, just gestimating where it was at. And finally we just fat finger on map was like, whatever that is is right here. And it's not friendly because the friendly is over there. And he tells a big development. And so we called up a simulated high mars strike.

And it ended up being the enemy brigade. Like their talk, they're staging area. And did the simulator high mar strike, wiped out their brigade talk. Task force launched a strike force in Osprey's to go clear through. And I remember the NTC general, whatever general is in charge of NTC, came storming the talk. I was like, no, no, no. Like, they're still alive. Send them back. Like, brought

the strike force back. Like, they didn't even get to land and clear. It's sort of like when you're playing war when you're a kid. I was like, no, I shot you. Do overs. Yeah. I was like, we just won. Like, hour 12 of this war. Like, what's, what's the problem? Anyway, so they, they came back alive,

whatever. And then they were staging in that little court, the corridor where I was talking about and they just had all their armor Abrams, Paladins, Bradley's, everything just in a line. And we took pictures of it all and sent it up via HPW,

sat to the talk with reports and everything, Intel reports. And then they struck that. Alive again. Anyways, I said all that to say we Exville got back to our talk.

And as soon as I walked in my office, the phone rang. is the BC who's at the rotational units talk and he's like Ward he's like that was awesome he's like this unit is eating up everything you're giving us

can you go back out in 24 hours I was like oh my god that's what you get for me a good yeah we just spent four days out there you're like you know freezing our butts off so yeah we went back out 24 hours later to the other side of that corridor I was talking about and did some more

stuff back there I think that was a real proving point for us because they saw what we were capable of doing. Yeah. On top of that,

when he said, you know, I'm here to win, do what you got to do for us to win. I sent my guys to go do a, you know,

low-vis aFO type operation. I was like, you know, go put your civilian clothes on, take one of our beacons, go into the enemy motor pool, and tag their

AAA pieces. which they did. I was like, give me a plan. Don't just go out there and wing it. Right, right. So they gave me a plan and they went out there and tagged their AAA pieces, their anti-air. And we just tracked them all through the box at NTC.

As soon as they stopped, we struck those. The E4 Mafia strikes again. So we eliminated their anti-air, like, right off the rip. And it was pretty awesome. What was even better is when the war was over. And the Op. was back in their motor pool, you know, downgrading or whatever they're doing. And, uh, some of my guys back over to recover the beakers.

Right, right. And they didn't put on civvies. They just walked in. It was like, hey, there's something on that vehicle I need to get. And the guy's like, who are you? Like, what are you getting? He's like, don't worry about it. Just like, pull this Pelican box off the under from.

I mean, when you guys did the AAR for NTC, I mean, they must have been fairly pissed. Overall of this. I didn't sit in on it, but I'm sure it was. Yeah. Yeah. So to catch people up, so NTC and it's JRTC, right? In Louisiana? Yeah.

So they're basically war games. And I never went to either of them. But they're basically war games. And the opt for the people who are actually stationed on those bases are good. And it doesn't necessarily mean they're great combatants. I don't know, but they're good at war gaming. It's like going, it's like a SWAT team going up against professional paintballers. I mean, those guys are probably the most well-trained.

unit in the army. Realistically, because they're doing it all the time. All the time, right? And they know the train. They know everything else like that. So like said, I don't know about combatants because I don't know, but they're good at what they do there. And it's very hard to beat those units in these war games.

So, and you guys basically beat them three times. They weren't used to fighting a special operations unit. Right. Because we had ISR, which big army units typically don't have all the time. Right. We had Haimars. We had Cass. We had everything.

And we just, I mean, we just sat there and called it in all day. And I remember watching, there was one of you knew that was close enough to us when I called in a strike on him. I remember watching him through just binoes, like, look up in the sky and, like, throw his hands up. Yeah. And like, a guy who gave him a casualty card. Like, you're dead. And they packed up and drove off. And I was like, yeah.

So meanwhile, back at Battalion, your, your platoon's getting deployed now. So walk us through some of that Like what's going on in the war at this point In 2013 or 2014 You tell me you start where you want to start 2013 I did not deploy as a platoon start I was in Jock NCO And then I went out to

Coast to do the interagency thing for a little bit 2014 The strike force was still going out I don't remember how many platoons we had over there or companies. Wasn't really involved in that. The Reky platoon was

tasked with an interagency mission and we supported that by sending five guys to five different locations. So as the platoons aren't not only did I have a platoon to manage but now I had to manage

four to five different teams right at four to five different out stations and what those outstations were doing granted those guys that I sent out there they were their

their own team leader out there which is cool I was very hands off as a leader like only hit me up if you need something bro you know like I'm not going to micromanage you

you're a big boy do your thing right but the recal tune did the inter agency mission for that deployment or every deployment I did and I mean we're going out every night just about hitting targets

could you describe that mission as far as you're able to like what it entailed what what you guys were tasked with yeah with the inter-agency mission again I say interagency it's a conglomerate of agencies right you got any three-letter acronym you can think of or a three-letter agency you can think of that we're working with it's just a it is a task force and as the big not big army but as the army

representative of that task force our team was responsible for being enablers to provide capabilities to those civilian agencies because civilian agencies don't have Apaches they don't have F-16s they don't have

ISR as much as we do they have ISR but not as much as we do. And we provide further Intel support, more targeting abilities. You know, it's, you always want as many tools in a tool bag as you can have. And that's what we did. And the team leaders, including myself at each out station was, we're the eyes and ears and voice of the task force commander for that interagency commander. So like if you're going out with, for instance, maybe, maybe like the FBI is there because there's a poppy field they want to investigate. They can't talk to the military, they don't have air support, they don't have whatever.

Yeah, I'll just say I talked to somebody who is part of a other governmental agency and he was describing me how when they tried to call, the only thing they really could call, he said, was ECAS, like emergency close air support, which takes, you know, who knows how long that's going to take. But when you have Rangers out there on target with you, close air support, medevac, all this sort of like good army stuff, support stuff that comes along with you guys is suddenly available and drastically shortens the amount of time that all these things take. Yeah, because our teams that we had at each outstation was comprised of.

You had the team leader, an assistant team leader, and then he had a JTAC, a medic, an RTO, and an EOD guy. So you have pretty much every capability you think of in one team. Not everyone, you know, not everyone's 11 Bravo, not everyone's a trigger puller, but everyone's either a ranger or better. and can really bring some hurt to the battlefield than needed. And now we're also getting into another sort of like interesting role change in that, yeah, there's a reckey component, but also like you guys are going out on like strike operations, right? Yeah, we were going out more than the strike force. Right.

Honestly, I felt bad for the strike force and the line companies that would deploy for regiment. because you had squad leaders on the tunes harness that grew up through the early 2000s. I mean, getting after it. Right. With Team Merrill, team Derby and all these things. And then you get to the mid-2010s and it slows down drastically. Right. And like Taliban wasn't allowed to be targeted because we're in peace talks with them.

Right. Right. Right, right, right. But the Interagency Task Force was allowed to target him. So we were going out after him because we were part of that task force. But strike force, yeah, I mean, five to ten times the entire deployment. They're going out. And that's got to be a frustrating thing, especially for a young ranger.

Oh, my God. Who came in to get at it. They did do, and we were referencing, like, Les's, when he was talking, when Les was talking about doing the Nangahar clearing operation. And I've talked to other folks where, like, the range. Ranger Regiment sounds like they were involved in some like a couple really substantial large scale combat operations in Afghanistan. Yeah, that, uh, that Nangahar clearance operation, um, happened multiple times. Uh, the first time was in, it was in 2016 towards the tail

end of our deployment. We actually extended for like 30 days for that operation to happen. And, uh, it sucked for us as at J-bad during that time. And, and, it sucked for us because task force was saturating that Nangahar Valley and J-Bad's right there in Nangar if not, you know, next to Nanghar. They're saturating that valley with

fires. There's a high mar strike, you know, two to three times a day every day. And then just ISR. And so they took all of my assets as inter-agency team leader. I'm like, I can't do anything. Give my assets back.

But, yeah, they flexed over, man, I think we pushed over the rest, like, the rest of the battalion. So almost all of 375 was there for the Operation LES was talking about. And before that operation kicked off,

the Sarm Major and some other first sergeants came down to J-Bad to kind of do a PDSS, because that's where the warm base was that they were going to launch out of. Ask my opinion, he's like, hey, he's like, Warden, you know, what do you think about this? And I looked at it and I was like, I think you're going to die, man.

And he was like, what? It is hot. This is middle of July. And you're going to send an entire Ranger Battalion, quote unquote, online. Right. Through event. Like, we are not built for that. Right.

We are a direct action. Hit a target and leave. Yeah. Not get online and walk. Right. For a valley, you know, and while we'll be old, guess what happened. You know, guys had, right. I mean, there's multiple heat cats.

Yeah. I think one dude had kidney failure because this heat cat was. so bad. Oh my gosh. And it was just terrible. Personal, professional opinion. They can chalk it up as a success because we killed some ISIS guys. But like in the grand scheme of thing, it was a failure.

Like, it was just an utter failure. The fact that we had to do it, you know, version one, version two, version three, version four. It should just be version one, you know. And if you guys go back and watch the episode with Les Sandalsky, you'll hear the sort of like boots on the ground account of it. We tried to get boots on the ground from where I was at as the interagency task force that we had there at JABAD because we could provide with our task force, you know, all the stuff that we talked about earlier providing as far as fires and medevac. But with the indigenous personnel that we had, we would be able to provide, you know, should.

a hundred trucks and Dishkas and RPGs and mortars anything on a son you think of

and we can just drive there is right down the road instead of flying guys in and not be able to leave

unless the birds came back that was a big problem but we got shut down we couldn't go because

of interagency higher said no so could you talk a little bit about the indigenous

forest that you worked with I will say it is a conglomerate of Afghans from the entire country and it's really awesome to watch them work together

that was one of the coolest things I've seen in country because there's a lot of infighting. There's tribes and Pashtun and Dari and Uzbeks and Tajiks and just everybody hates everybody. But those guys that I worked with

genuinely wanted Afghanistan to be better. and they genuinely liked each other and they worked together and sounds bad to say but they hated the typical Afghan almost more than we did

like they would put boots to the head and mess these guys up you know the Taliban and ISIS and everybody and they would rough them up good and make it a point like hey quit you know quit fucking our country out man yeah you told me you know as sort of a point of reference that

it reminded you of like the American military in the sense that it's like some dude from North Dakota and some cat from New York working together. That's exactly what it was like. So they worked so well together. They're paid very good. I'll say a Afghan in that unit, a private in that unit made about $900 a month. Good money.

Yeah, in Afghanistan, yeah. Yeah. if you compare that to Afghan National Army General, he got $900 a month. So we paid them very well. We treated them very well. They had good food,

had air conditioning, good barracks. And worked on the referral program. So I vouched for you, you vouched for me. I'm like, hey, Jack's a good guy. He should come work here. But if you mess up, I'm gone too. Yeah.

And that's how you keep them oil along with the money. Yeah. and unfortunately, you know, some of those guys didn't make it out. A lot of them did, thank goodness. Yeah. Don't know where they're at. They might be sitting in some other country right now waiting to get their visas or a lot of them made it out. Some didn't.

It's terrible. What was, was there a minimum rank to go to RECI at the time? I tried to put E5 on it. E5. Yeah. So they at least had to be tabbed. Yeah. They had to have time in.

You had to be tabbed. So is that why, I was trying to figure out why RECI got this essential, essentially LNO job basically, right? Or this liaison job. Was it because of the overall maturity of the RECI elements? I think it was the maturity and mentality because those interagency jobs, you've got to have the right personality and the right person. in those positions. If you know anything about Ranger Regiment, you're from private on up,

you know, it's... Ranger, Ranger, Ranger. I'm just trying to think of the words without, like, offending somebody, but... Ranger Smash. Just chest beaten, you know, fire breathing team leader. Right. You know, you don't want that in those positions.

You need somebody that can... It's kind of mellow, can read the room. Mm-hmm. speak intelligently and know when to talk and when to listen. Not embarrass the regiment or the army. Right. You know, because you never know. When you're working with a bunch of civilians, you never know who's it.

Right. Right. So I think that's why we got that job. And what works great as a TL or a, you know, a squad leader or whatever on the line, like get, you know, flight and a fire under people's asses like getting them especially when you're dealing with you know 18 year old's fresh off the street like there's nothing wrong with that their is great for that job they need it right but sometimes it takes a different sensibility to work in each other in these other positions yeah then we're not when i when i was abutts aren't like

i i pride myself when i was buttoons aren't to not have a single incident not a single incident alcohol related or other and i think a big part of that was treating them like men yeah and then also i don't think i yelled one time yeah i don't think i smoked anybody one time um i did more of the the disappointed dad leader right right right you know what i mean yeah well you treat you treat a boy like a man and they man up right yeah yeah also the i think one of the keys to avoiding alcohol related incidents incidents is like a tight team and a hasty x-fill like like combat part yeah get out for you prior planning, right?

I mean, it was like two weeks after I left. There's a DUI. You know, two weeks after, and they're like, why did you leave us? Yeah. It's not my choice. I'm sorry. So as you're going on these deployments,

I mean, and I mean, it's really cool to hear about this because I think that the cliche about Rangers, even to this day with some folks is that Rangers are like a blocking force for, you know, Delta Force operations. And it's like, well, yeah, the boys. have gone off and done all sorts of interesting, unique things,

be it direct action or otherwise. Yeah, that was the Arkansas National Guard. Like the Rangers became, yeah. So, you know, as you were going off on these sorts of unique missions, I mean, are there any of them that kind of like stand out in your mind that, you know, you'd like to talk about? I'd say one of the most impressive ones we did was kind of proof of concept. a national strike, proof of concept, you know.

For that deployment, I was stationed just outside Kabul, and we wanted to see, we wanted to prove that we could go as far as we can go. Mez, which is, you know, northern Afghanistan. So we came up with a plan, found a target that was still active up there. And we, you know, we sent some guys in civilian, vehicles they drove all the way up there afghans our indigenous force and then we flew some guys commercial there up there undercover yeah and then the rest of us took a private jet which i thought was ridiculous super baller i was like i was like we were really in a private jet right now and the the pilot was like

that's a that's a 93 model i was like it's still a private jet dude like are you're kidding me right now you guys are i mean that's that's about as ballers it gets man you're like uh probably four of us yeah ranger hunter killer team it's like it's like crews around in a private jet. It's like riding in a 2005 limousine. It's like, I don't care it's 2005. It's still a limo, I mean. Yeah.

You got a booze cart. And then we sent the, it's like a civilian C130. It's called L100. So we loaded up some, we called them Scooby vans. Looks like a mystery machine. Scooby do. Loaded those on there and flew those up there. And we all linked up up there.

me and one of my inter-agency partners, we walked up to the gate guard. There was a big army, like probably a National Guard guy or something, and here I am, or here we are, looking like this. I was like, hey, man, and, you know, like 15 minutes are going to have, you know, about 20 Afghans show up in civilian vehicles with weapons. He can't stop them, don't search them. They're with us, just let them through. They're coming over here.

And he's just like, yes, sir. I was like, thank you. That was easier I thought it was going to be. It doesn't have to go talk to somebody else. But we all link up and get our vans, vehicles, guns, and everything together.

We go out and hit this target out in MES that, I mean, no one's operated in MES in probably five years-ish. So he had no idea when we were there. We'd show up and, you know, banged out his door, scoop him up.

And he just looked at us like, who the hell are you? Where did you guys come from? I haven't been bad. Like, I stopped being bad, you know? And detain him, take him back to the hangar, and kind of felt bad for the guy because he honestly hadn't done anything bad in a couple years.

And I don't know what he did before that. You know, he was still a target, so whatever. And, uh, but he sat in the corner of that hangar, you know, ear muffed, blindfolded, and handcuffed for probably about 12 hours. Like, it was kind of, I felt bad. I was like, man, this guy has no idea what's going on right now.

And then we load him up on the L-100, a 45-minute flight back to Cobble. And he's peeing himself and pooping himself and throwing up the entire time because he has no idea where he's going. Probably the first time he's ever been on a plane ever. Land and Cobble take him off that. We get on an MI-17 helicopter flight of our base. again he has no idea what's going on where he's going he just lost in the sauce and then take him back there and debrief him and i think they just put him on a commercial bear and flew back

gave him a few hundred bucks yeah he's like thanks for the proof of concepts sorry bro yeah but uh that was pretty cool to be a part of that it shows uh you know i think we're talking a little bit before we started the show i mean it kind of shows like what could have been um and you know like in full disclosure i was like definitely in favor of us pulling out of Afghanistan. But on the flip side to it, what you guys were doing shows I think that there could have been a very light footprint American presence in Afghanistan maintaining that sort of residual counterterrorism force large or really almost entirely working through Afghan partners. And that operation shows, yeah, it could have been a national

asset, not just regional. Yeah, absolutely. Another mission that comes to mind is you know my my J-Tack he got shot up one night he was shot four times and uh we were going after this S-FS facility

so we hit hit the suspected S facility and there's like a legit family in there and he's like yeah not us you might want to talk to the guys across street though yeah so we go across street and uh as we were maneuvering

they squirted out the back and took off running we had a Caches overhead already. We collapsed, collapsed in them in overhead. So they had eyes on. We were kind of chasing after these guys. And in the farm fields in Afghanistan, you have a field and then there's like an irrigation dish that runs through them.

Or it's raised for a walkway. So either one is either sunken down or raised up. And we were getting ready to come up to a cross section or intersection where these irrigation ditches and walkways crossed. And my J-TAC was standing up on the race section and he's talking to birds and he's like, hey, do you have eyes on hot spot?

Like, yeah, it's about 25 meters in front of you. And as soon as he said that, they just started ripping rounds at us. And he was the first person they could hear and see because he was probably a full moon for all now. But he was lit up.

You could see him playing his day, standing on this berm. He took it in the thigh, the abdomen, the ribs, and his helmet. And he didn't have his chin strap buffled, which I think saved his life,

honestly, because that round was sticking through the inside of his helmet. So if it was tight, it would have had something to, some type of, I was what I'm looking for. Some type of resistance. Yeah,

it would have been stabilized. Yeah. But his helmet was unbuckled, so it knocked it off. And, uh, you know, I was about 50 meters to his left, a couple guys down from him. So he got a full burst. Yeah. I mean, straight up. Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, I said, knocked his helmet off. He's yelling, I'm hit. And I'm shooting back and yelling him to put a tourniquet on it. The rest of the team is shooting back. I'm yelling for the medic, shooting back. Yawning for the medic again, because he's shooting, so he can't hear me. Like come over here, you know, medic.

Because he was probably about 25 meters to my left. So he's running across all this fire to get to him. Meanwhile, my JTAC had the wherewithal to scoop his helmet back up, put it on his head, key up to the birds, you know, while he's bleeding out, and tell them that he's hit, take all commands from 2-1, who's me, the GFC. and I thought that was pretty cool he had the yeah

he was able to do that he could think through things he wouldn't freaking out but as he's yelling I'm I'm hit I'm yelling at him to put a tourniquet on him I'm like shooting like I can't help you right now man trying to kill these guys first

um started trading grenades back and forth it was like playing hot potato with grenades yeah I mean legit like a grenade landed from me to you and you know the entire time You've grown up in the Army when a grenade comes at you. What do you say?

You're supposed to jump away. You say grenade. You know, you go grenade. Right, right, right. When you throw one, you say, frag out. One comes in, a yo grenade. My buddy, I don't know if it was like the stress of the moment or something, but he was like, frag in.

I was like, what? Like, blew up right there in front of us. I was like, oh, my God. And we started throwing him back. I watched some guy just like limp-rest one, had to, you know, kind of die from that. But we ended up, you know, taking care of that problem. But those guys actually had, like, a defended, fortified sandbag position. Yeah.

Like, they ran to it waiting for us to come to that. Yeah. And it was a near ambush. We were within 25 meters. I mean, we were, you could see him. They had a fallback position. Yeah. We ended up smoking them.

Worked on the J-Tag. He, uh, remember him, like, laying on the stretcher. He, like, passed out. I was like, oh, shit. He just died. And he was like, like, you know my best friend I was like fuck I kind of look at him I look at the medic I'm like medic's not freaking out I'm like what the hell man I kind of slap him in the face my

Trevor come back to me man and he uh stayed passed out the medic was like hey dude he's in uh he's in that khole yeah ketamine yeah he's like just let him go he's in a good place right he's happy I was like all right you say so but uh he had popped back up he like woke up and like pop back up and he's like Dustin I was like, what's up? Stop yelling, man. What's up? He's like, hey, man.

Make sure you eat big, lift big, get big. And you're like, pass back out. I was like, seriously? They woke back up again and called out to our RTO, Jeremy. He's like, Jeremy. He's like, yeah, what's up? He's like, give me a dip. He's like, I looked at him.

I was like, you're not getting a dip right now. You're not getting a dip. Sorry. He's like, all right. Passed back out. Doc Bowman at that time did a freaking phenomenal job saving that guy's life, man. I mean, from Tartic hits to freeze-dried plasma. I don't know if anybody knows what freeze-dried plasma is.

At the time, we were the only ones using it. It was kind of experimental. We're the guinea pigs. It's French. It comes in two glass bottles. one's powdered plasma one's the solution to mix it and you got to like suck it out of the syringe it's vacuum seal and I was pulling on that syringe as harder as I could trying to get as much solution as I could and shoot it into the powder mix and the other glass bottle so Doc always had this

it was like a CLS bag with these two glass bottles and you think carrying glass bottles on like emission like they're going to break yeah but they're like bubble wrapped and everything but then you swirl you can't shake it you got swirl it so I'm sitting here like swirl the solution like you're mixing a drink yeah I'm like sitting here swirle on the solution like waiting like is it good yet he's like yeah give it to me gave him the freeze dried plasma um like I said turnicates the dressings

freeze dried plasma uh fentanyl pop ketamine just everything was awesome doc did a phenomenal job so you guys did like uh I mean I know there's a difference between blood and plasma but essentially you kind of gave them like a blood transfusion so it's like a plasma it's like an infusion So it can it, so it can carry oxygen unlike an IV?

Exactly. Fascinating. That's amazing. Really, when you give somebody an IV, all you're doing is increasing their blood pressure. Right, right, right. Right. But the plasma actually carries the oxygen. Right.

So bird came in, which pissed me off because the LZ we were lasing. They said they couldn't land at. They said it was too small. They're like, hey, we got to push over some LZ you lays it too small. So this was a conventional bird then? Yeah, it was just regular dust off. Yeah. and they landed like two fields over,

which was the exact same size of the fields out right ways. But what pissed me off about it was is like that field wasn't cleared. Right. They could have landed on an IED or something. Right, right. You know. So they land and we, you know, come walking over there to like try to clear a path

as best as we could visually to bring the casualty over. Load him up. The doors are off the, the, uh, the black hawk, the pilot and co-pilot doors, The cockpit doors they had off. And the pallet sitting there, you know, looking down and just screaming, just waiting. And I kind of walked up and I slapped him on the shoulder and I scared the shit out.

He's like, what the fool? I was like, hey. I was like, thank you. I shook his hand and they took off. So got back to, uh, got back to Jabad Base. And, uh, yeah, he's alive today. It's awesome, man. That's amazing.

He's a really good dude, really good for him. It was exciting at the time. time because I said he was shot and he said take all commands from two one I'm not a J-TAC yeah but when you call up to task force you say Eagles wounded they're pushing everything they have to you yeah luckily me and him and worked together for three years he's he had been my personal J-TAC for three years and we had this bond and we are always kind of cross-training like he'd please me on things and I just listen just listen to him talk to aircraft you learn, you know, what to do and how to talk to him.

And once he gave me control the assets and task force pushed me every asset. So, like, I was in control of like three ISR birds, two Apaches, two F-16s, two 8-10s, an AC-130. I just had all this stuff. And I was like, instead of stressing out. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I knew what to do. Yeah.

It was cool. And at that point, you're like, let's go for him. And I was thinking, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we blown up today. Yeah. It fell on you then to like smoke check that position, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Smoke check it. And then the Apache's left with the dust off. I'll let them escort them. Yeah. Because they were pretty much bingo anyways. Yeah.

But then just controlling all the sensors, like watching us on the way back. And if something happened on the way back, how to control them as well. And it was, uh, yeah, I'll say cool. It was just cool to be able to do, like, know how to do that from paying attention to him. Yeah, because the first time me and him worked together and got into an engagement. I think I was in E6 of the time. Yeah, I was in E6 of the time. We had some guys maneuvering on us, and he came over, and he's like, hey, we got guys, you know, coming up.

Can I shoot? I was like, yeah, man, tell the Apaches, tell him to shoot. And he walked away. He came back like a minute later. He's like, hey, are you sure? I was like, yeah, dude. like as long as you don't hit any civilians or blow up any civilian buildings like I don't care shoot him and he's like okay I just I just never had an E6 clear me hot before I was like you have now yeah

it was at that point like our synchronicity right we just kind of we just kind of mind melded yeah and worked together very well after that because he knew what my expectations were and I knew he wouldn't get to anything stupid and And we just, I mean, half the time we use fires, I'm just like, have it. You know what I want, man. Yeah. I just do it. And those guys, and we've talked about on the show before, whether there are J-TCs or T-C-Ts or T-P's or.

Those guys were so good at their job. Here's the interesting thing. Tell them who this J-TAC was, though. He was an Army J-TAC. He's a Ranger. He's a Fister 13 Fox. Oh, really? Yeah. To get to that level, like calling an artillery and calling a naval gunfire, I mean, it's one thing.

Calling an air in an engagement like that, you've just got to be cool as a cucumber to be able to do that and quick. And they're just... He was awesome. And I said he was an Army J-TAC, which for people out there, far and few in between. Yeah. Like, it's usually an Air Force job. But Regiment has their own. he's 13 Fox.

So he's an artillery. Yeah. Artillery men. So he was a fister in the regiment. He wasn't an attached JTAC. No, he's a fister in the regiment. That's amazing. But we don't have artillery assets.

Right. So that's their job. They're JTACs. Which kind of screws him, talking to him, you know, throughout our time together. Kind of screws them career-wise. Right. Because they don't have artillery time. Exactly.

Right. You're going to like E-78 boards. Right. And the start a major insurer boards is like, I don't give a shit about your J-T-T-Tax. stuff like that has nothing to do with being an artilleryman right which is stupid because it's better than being an artillery man yeah they're they're actually more like they sound more like they're Anglico guys you know the more like the Marine Anglico they're in a gunfire liaison yeah it's interesting

because I had a similar experience early on in Afghanistan nobody got injured fortunately but it made me realize that there are no like squatters their only maneuver elements I like your style Yeah, his, I was saying, I showed him a picture earlier today. He took a round to the helmet and there's a PK round. And if it wasn't for his helmet being unmuckled, I probably would punch it all the way through because in the picture, you can, it's sticking through his helmet.

It scratched his head. There's a scratch. Really? Yeah. And what's crazy is the Ops Corps helmet is only rated to 9mm. And that's a PK round. Yeah, it's a lightweight home. Yeah.

Yeah. 54. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it punched through and stopped when it touched his head. But, I mean, it was right here in his temple. Like, it went through where the rail is on the helmet.

Yeah. If anybody knows what I'm talking about? And, I mean, if he would have been looking to the left, to the right or up, he would have taken to the thing. It's amazing. It looked like either the bullet came at, like, maybe an upward angle or the round keyhold through the helmet. I wasn't there. I have no idea which it was.

But it was interesting, the hole in the side of the helmet. I think what happened was because obviously he got hit here first, second, third, four. Yeah, it was a zip. Yeah. I think it zipped up. As that one hit, he, you know, flinched or whatever and it was right in the head. Yeah, that makes sense. It was just a fraction of a second that saved his life.

What did, you said that the, that the, um, the, the Afghans that you worked with, that they got along. How were they in terms of combat? Um, I would say I trusted them with my life. I still do. I mean, I did. I had to trust them all the life because there's five of us and five interagency people.

And then, you know, 100 Afghans or however many we had. And sitting, they're the ones that are hitting the targets. Their primary breach, their primary everything. We are technically advisors. And to kind of sit back a couple times, You know, every now and then and just watch them, put a ladder on the wall, climb up the ladder, pull security, go over, open the gate from the inside. Everybody flow in and secure everything. It was awesome.

It was like watching us hit a target. They are well trained. They know what they're doing. And they need to be utilized still to this day. Like, we need to be utilizing those guys. They're very well trained. I'll caveat it with if one of those Afghans

has been carrying a ladder for 10 years it doesn't matter if you're going to go hit a tent in the middle of the desert he's still going to carry a ladder because if you take that ladder away

he doesn't know what to do yeah if that makes sense they were very good at what they were trained on but if there was a complex problem or something was out of the ordinary that they might Yeah. Something I would also like to point out is to, as far as I'm aware, that program that you guys were working on, pretty large, a lot of Afghans throughout 20, you know, essentially 20 years of war.

I'm not aware of any green on blue incidents. Zero. At all. Zero. Yeah. Which I think speaks a lot to the efficacy of the program. And whatever you guys were doing, it was working in that regard. There's zero green on blue.

we thought we might have had one one not an actual green on blue like a developing green on blue we were able to nip it in the bud and fired both those guys and got them out here because the referral program yeah so they were gone but uh yeah not a single green on blue incident and even you know some of those outstations that we had shut down like the one in assadabad shut down however those guys stayed there and operated on the road. Oh, really? Those Afghans stay there and operated on their own with no American help. They finally did get some American help towards the end of 2016 through just some funding and weapons here and there. But they stay there and police their own

community and they would come down to Jabad like once a month and kind of give us a debriefing of what they've been doing. And they're still getting after it on their own. Did they ever get to the point where they were able to have their own JTax and, like, talk to Afghan helicopters? No. Not our guys. Hale to the night. No, I mean, even talking to Afghan Air Force. I'm sure that KCA probably did in regular Afghan Army.

But our guys weren't Afghan Army, so they wouldn't talk to them anyways. Gotcha. Oh, yeah. I see what you're saying. So as your three. years as recqie platoon sergeant are winding down what's sort of the next step for you got finished those platoon sergeant got moved to the three shop you know glorious three shop spent about a year there as the aops ncio and i was just miserable at the guys deployed again

without me and i even emailed summer major i was like hey i'll go just as a trigger puller. Yeah. I won't be in charge of anything. I'll be a sawgunner. Just let me go. Yeah. And he's like,

no, we need you back here. And I was like, oh, that sucks. Like, working an office job is my nightmare. Like, that is my nightmare. And I like working with my hands.

I like being in the field. I like teaching. I like, you know, being with the guys. I was just miserable. My job performance was probably not great. Like,

I tried to go to work as less as possible. Like, I just, sometimes I wouldn't even show up. Whatever. And, it's, showed not a shame to say it and i finally got the uh got the invite to leave

judgment like the uh the officer major pulled me in he's like hey man like yeah i think it might be time for you to find somewhere else to go thank you for your service yeah yeah i asked him i was like am i being r f s he's like no no no he's like you're not being r fess don't take it that way he's like you you personally need to find somewhere else yeah he's like you're miserable i was like all right so i kind of went and uh hundred around, I went to Ranger Training Brigade, what Ranger School is, and

the sergeant major of the brigade was my previous sergeant major of Italian. Awesome guy. Vic is one of the best armators you could ever work for. And, you know, just cold knocked his office. Actually, I knocked on his office. He wasn't there.

I waited in the park lot until he got there. Watched him walk in, and I walked in behind him. And I was like, hey, what's up? But I told him what was going on, and if he can give a job because the retention guy at battalion was like hey man you're either going to go to the s fab which screw that and or go to fort pulp jr tc and i was like i will go awl right before i go to jr tc i was like there's always another way i was like i refuse to let the army tell me what i'm going to do and uh someone talked to vick and he was like hey what do you what do you what's

do you want to do i was like i'll be a ranger and structure man like i don't care he'll be on the woods and he kind of looked at me and he's like he's like he's like you don't want to do that i was like what he's like he's like you're going to be out there rain shine snow heat holidays away from your family 24 on like 48 off like it he's like it's not fun i was like all right well never mind then then he goes but we just took over jump master airborne and pathfinder okay so that all funds are falls under ARTB now. Oh, really? Airborne Ranger training.

Oh, interesting. And I was like, well, I'll do job master or pathfinder. That's a nice badge if you haven't had it before. So I went to be a, I already had Pathfinder. You did. Well, can you tell us about the Pathfinder school? Because it's not, it's a coveted school and not a lot of people get it. This still exists.

Nope, it's gone. It's gone. No longer coveted. Well, now it's doubly coveted. You should go back in just to wear that badge. Right. They still have them for the National Guard. It's like a glider badge.

Not so many people are that. I want the Army Space badge. Have you seen that thing? They have that? Yeah, it's like space ghosts. Holy shit. Looks awesome. But yeah, so I went to be a Pathfinder.

A Pathfinder instructor. Okay. That's where I went. After a Regiment, be a Pathfinder instructor. I was a Drop Zones instructor. So Pathfinder school teaches sling loads. Okay. HLZ operations and Drop Zone operations.

teaches all three of those. you don't have to be airborne to go. You can get slingload certified from the singloid certification course. It's called SLC. You can get AirSalt HLZ certified from AirSalt School, but Pathfinder is the only one that teaches all three in one shot. The only one that teaches drop zone operations. Basically, you're learning the history of Pathfinder School comes from World War II.

When the Pathfinder's went into Europe before the invasion, and set up drop zones for the paratroopers from 82nd, 100 first to jump in. And that's why everybody goes to Pathfinder schools to learn drop zone operations. They're not going there for sling loads or HLZs because, like I said, you can go to other schools for those. You're going there to learn drop zones, and that's what we're known for. And you learn how to calculate width and length of drop zones. and green light time and drop zones how many jumpers and equipment

you can put on a drop zone what type of aircraft a drop zone can accommodate everything along those lines what is it the L the L shaped with the flares that you put out when they they're talking about bundle drops talking about like a GMRS drop

this might be more high tech than even what we were doing back in that time yeah there's a I think what you're talking about it's a ground marked release system Right. So you pretty much make an L with VS17 panels for the daytime or strobes or fliers at nighttime. But you make an L shape, and as the aircraft flies over, that jump master is looking out the door. You know, the L is this way.

This is the long axis of the drop zone. So they're flying up this way. As soon as these lights get online and they're in line, that's his green light. That's when he's pushing everything. So he didn't have to talk to anybody on the radio. So for special forces or reccy teams, GMRS is very enticing because I can go out and set up a GMRS drop zone to receive my resupply of food, ammo, equipment, whatever I need. I can set that up and not even have to be there. I can go back off into my hide site or my patrol base and hear the plane fly over.

Don't have to talk to anybody. They're just going to line those panels or strobes up or flares up. kick out where they're kicking out and then I'm going to go out and pick it up break everything down do they do any adjustments for like the wind at the time or anything like that or oh during the

drop yeah the aircraft is not no that's that's on you on the ground okay so so you just have to beat the villagers yeah yeah I kind of wing it they're also like 500 feet off the ground too right you can be yeah 300 to 500 yeah yeah

no that's fascinating And like I said, they don't talk, like you don't hear much about what happens at the course. It's just, it was always one of the most coveted badge. It's a beautiful badge. And, you know, the Army is all about it. They still have, they still have the National Guard Warrior Training Center at Fort Benning. Yeah. They still run their Pathfinder School.

Fort Campbell still has their Pathfinder school. but the regular army deemed it necessary to shut down the Pathfinder School. Sure. The proponent for all Pathfinder operations. Because we were at that schoolhouse, we were responsible for the trainings. We're the National Guard. We're a training center and responsible for Fort Campbell. We'd go up and audit them, you know, but then you're going to shut down the schoolhouse.

Like the worst teams, it'll be back one day. They will. Okay. they'll reinvent it. I mean, I get guys, you know, guys that came through Pathfinder when I was an instructor there at regiment. I mean, I had a guy hit me up like three or four weeks ago. He's like, hey, I'm doing this and this.

Like on this drop zone, can I do this or this? I sat there and explained it to him like, yeah, you can do this, but think about this and whatever. And he was like, can I get you to come out here and like go over the stuff? He's like, I feel like this is a dying art and it needs to be taught. I was like, yeah, man. So if they didn't have a specific school for the drop zone, they had it for the other things, but they don't have it. Where do people learn those DZ skills now? Warrior Trains.

National Guard or Campbell. They tried a pilot program. I don't know. Well, so Jumpmaster teaches a little bit. Jumpmaster teaches carp drop zones, which is Air Force drop zones. So there's Army Drop zones and Air Force Drop zones. Army Drop zones. is GMRS and VIRS.

GMRS is ground marked release system and VIRS is verbally initiated release system. So you're talking on the radio, telling them when they drop. So those are Army. Air Force is carp, computed air release points, which means the computer on the aircraft,

that C-17 or C-130 is calculating everything. Oh, interesting. Give them a grid, and it does everything. And that's the green light. So the green light in the aircraft, and the C-130 or C-17, we can jump. That's all ran by a computer. Jumpmaster teaches that.

So Jumpmaster still teaches carp. Not sure if they started teaching beers or GMRS at all. There was a pilot program where they were just going to do, I think Pathfinder is just going to do drop zones, which I could see be a viable option. Because you can get those other certifications at other schools. So why not just teach drop zones? But we fall back in what we talked about at the beginning of the interview was Pathfinders and Lurse are not viewed as special in the American Army.

Right. For whatever reason, I don't know. Right. I don't know why they don't. I think it's honestly senior people, this is my personal opinion. Senior people went to these schools or tried out of these units and didn't make it. And they're like, no, no, no, no. They're never going to be special.

I didn't make it. No one can make it. You know, so they don't want them to be special or elevated to something higher than them. Yeah. If that makes sense. No, I mean, look, it's sort of like giving, I mean, if Rangers are special, it obviously is the Black Beret that makes them so, so let's give you the whole army, and the whole army will be special.

Exactly. I mean, I get it. But it just seems like a real lack of foresight in that, you know, we're moving to this near-peer-reroon. we don't know at any given time what combat will look like. And, you know, we can say that we have, you know, drones and ISR platforms and all these things. But as signal warfare, electronic warfare, cyber warfare, come online, all of those things may be countered. I think just looking at what we are planning for right now, what DOD is looking at is potential expeditionary warfare, in the Pacific looking at exactly right

right. Very long range like it's not going to be these like a 30 minute helicopter trip these new vertical takeoff and landing helicopters we're going to adapt. They're looking at like much longer insertions having people way out there

so I think that yeah having DZs and these sorts of skills are going to be imperative to it's like when you have this in the Indo-Pacific paycom area an island hopping campaign Right. Who's on the ground setting up?

Right. These HLZs and D's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. You got to have somebody there. Absolutely. And, you know, and we throw all the electronics in the world out there. But again, there are countermations that.

And even if they're just setting up, like, you know, isolated random EMP bursts to, like, to clear areas. There are so many countermeasures that even when we start talking about augmented reality and, you know, Blue Force trackers and what people might see. in their headsets. If somebody hacks into that, you have a lot of blue-on-blue. Like, we still need to have the old techniques. Well,

like, people still need to be able to navigate via compass and map. They still need to be able to set up, you know, a non-computer, you know, assisted drop, you know,

these things. Because the other thing is, you can encrypt your signal so that nobody knows what you're saying, but they still know somebody's saying it. If you're blasting out, you know, it might be able to jam it. Not only do they know that you're saying something,

they can direction. They can figure it out. They can get a clock direction. And with AI, like, they're going to be able to try and go so quickly once that comes online and is like set up that, you know, it's,

it amazes me that we have to relearn these lessons every single after World War II, after Vietnam. Like, we, you know, we have to relearn them every time. Because I'm a mega nerd, I read, like, the publications from Fort Benning and stuff like that. And they talk about how, you know,

the electronic warfare environment may become so intense that, you know, sniper teams using these old school techniques being bolt action rifles, glass scopes, making field sketches with pencil and paper, that they can actually penetrate

into that EW bubble and do their eyes. operations and maybe take out the jammer's or whatever else needs to be done out there, you know, without having their equipment interfered with. Yeah, without having a signature. Right, right. So, yeah, it's very interesting. So after you do your time at Pathfinder, working as an instructor there, and what's the next

assignment for you? I was a Pathfinder instructor for two years, and I moved on to, so if you're Ranger Branch called. I was like, hey, you're tired of Fort Benning? I was like,

kind of. He's like, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? I was like, man, like I would, uh,

wouldn't mind an RTC if you got it. And he's like, all right, what, uh, what region? And I said southeast. He's like, all right,

I'll call you tomorrow. Calls back and he's like, hey, how does a university of Alabama sound? I was like, dude, that sounds great. Like,

roll tide, man. He's like, like, all right, you'll have orders in like 30 minutes. And I was like, cool. I get these orders. And I look at them and it says, University of Alabama at Birmingham. I was like, what is this?

University at Birmingham. So I had to like Google it. It's a whole other university. I don't even know existed. It's called UAB. University of Alabama at Birmingham. So not the roll tide I was thinking. Right.

But it was only two hours away. and it actually worked out better, I think, than going to University of Alabama. A smaller program. I was the MS3 instructor. So I taught the juniors and got them ready for their summer camp they go to. One of the most rewarding assignments I've ever been to. All the other stuff was cool and you can write books and movies and stuff about. but teaching those young future army officers what right is and showing them the ways

and just kind of making that first impression on them before they come in and be an army officer and to have them still contact me almost daily like hey this is an update like hey i'm an ex-o now you know are you proud of me yeah i'm probably but um just kind of guide you guys them through their college career and their life. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've had a cadet on my couch, my office, just break down crying because something's going on in their life. Yeah. So here I am again.

Dad. Yeah. Being a, being a mental. Yeah. Yeah. They looked at me as like a big brother. You know, there was still an NCO in charge of me. He was like the dad figure.

And he was an awesome guy who fucking love working with him. Travis is one of the best enceos I've ever worked with. But he's very professional. He's very, I told him what I left. I was like, you're so professional, it pisses me off. Why do you have a hind tight? We've had a couple guys on here who their final assuctions who their final assignment was ROTC.

Javier Mackie and Paul Howe both come to mind. And they had similar things to say that. It was a very rewarding experience. It was very rewarding. And it was also, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to get out of the Army, too. Because I, you know, the ones that I enjoyed teaching and the ones that were receptive, awesome. But there's always ones that slip through the cracks. Right.

You know, and you see that caliber of people coming in the Army. And then also, and they're going to be leading the Army. Right. And then the direction the Army was going to. at the time to is not what we're used to right I was like this is going to be my last assignment like I'm I'm done after this but RTC was fun it was a good I think I think the best last assignments I think Paul had something similar to say and I don't want to put words in in Paul Howe's mouth because I'm a little afraid of him but uh but I think I think he had a similar impression that he loved

working with the soldiers and mentoring those guys but it was like also like not totally happy with the direction the army was going in. Because that was my last assignment. I medically retired at 17 years. And I made that decision. It wasn't a light decision to make, you know, three years to go. Yeah. But I looked at it and I was like, can I do three more years?

Because if I was going to do three more years, that was not going to be my last assignment. Right. Like, where was I going after that? Right. And to that point in my career, the Army had never told me where to go. Right. I had always chosen or volunteered. Like, they never told me, hey, you're going here, you're going here.

So I didn't want the Army to tell me to go somewhere that I didn't want to go. And I don't want to spend three more years unhappy in a assignment that possibly sucks. Or don't want to medically retire now and get the same benefits I would as if I retired. Right. Actually, even better benefits. and go out on high note like go out on high note and go off and be happy

and make more money and do my own thing yeah not be told what to do every day for out of curiosity for the ones you say that were like slipping through the cracks like what was their motivation for going into the most

like why did they want to put themselves through it money money yeah not really the right reason to be there that kind of job money or just you know to get out of where they were. Well, that I can sort of get. Well, I don't mean like that, but like the Army paid for their school.

They couldn't pay for their school, so the Army paid for the school. Which is, I guess, money. Right. Same thing. Yeah. Do, Dee, do we have any questions for, uh, okay. Questions for Dustin from the chat? Why are you so monotone?

It's from Jackson. How much cross-pollination is there between BN, Recki and RRC? also are BN Recky guys more likely to undertake CACC selection than line rangers? Much cross-pollination between what? Battalion Rookie and RRC? I'd say cross-pollination is, or was decent when I was there. Like I said, we filled some of their billets because they didn't have enough people to fill all their teams. So a natural.

A lot of those guys go to selection too for RRC? Uh, my time there. I maybe had two guys go. Okay. Do, does, I mean, a lot of line rangers go to, well, not a lot, but, you know, it's, it's a thing to go to Cag selection. Is that also with RSC or do they more, I mean, not RACC, but RECI? Yeah. Or do they?

Because you still, you still have that mentality. Sure. You still have that, I want to go kill shit mentality. Right, right. I want to go be the best of the best. Right. You know, um, I had a couple guys go. a couple peers go as well while I was there.

I had another guy. He was on the fence of, you know, should I go to R.C. selection or should I go to CAG selection? Yeah. And one of my buddies that's the RSC guy told him, like, go to CAG selection, dude. Like, why not go varsity if you can go varsity? Right. Go try out for varsity.

And I think that's one of the biggest issues in today's society as a whole. civilian and military is it's so easy to be a rock star because mediocrisy is just rampant. Like, God's honest truth. Like, people are so mediocre, they will self-select. And like, oh, I'm not good enough. Right. They'll never select me. Right.

Like, you don't know that, man. Just go try. Yeah. Like, go. I can't tell you how many selections I've been to. Right. I've tried out for everything under the sun. I've been told numerous times.

you throw enough shit of the wall eventually something will stick right you know so it works out yeah and you got to do some of the coolest stuff that the army had going on in my humble opinion yeah for sure and you know and that's one of the things that we've talked about on the show before is like we've had some people from the conventional side on before but like the conventional army and the marine corps like they were out there hooking and jabbing like non-stop on these long ass deployments. I've been there. And they do not get, they don't, right?

Like, they don't get the credit that they deserve at all. And I have a lot of guys that I did the long 15 month or year long deployment with. And then they got out afterwards. Yeah. And, you know, that's what they have. They have that 15 months ago. Yeah. And that no one gives them enough credit for that.

Yeah. And some of the best dudes. I mean, I have a group chat on my phone. It's like six of us from my very first platoon. And we talk every day. Yeah. You know, bullshit. That's cool.

And that's what they have. And they deserve the credit. Yeah. And, uh, because they went through some shit, man. Yeah. You spend 15 months somewhere. You get to know someone. You, you learn somebody.

And also in that environment, you kind of lose your humanity a little bit, man. Yeah. And it takes a little bit to get it back. Yeah. And some of them didn't get it back. Yeah. How was it for you when you went, uh, when you went to regiment? it because like I was in Rangers during a peacetime military and it's very different but there was

always this stigma until a guy earned his like it earned his way right like until he showed that he was a good leader and and you know was a good I don't say operator because at the time like the Rangers were still you know like CQB and stuff like that were just coming on board like it was still the premier light infantry and you know we still did patrol bases and and shit like that But there was that stigma of being an import, right? How was it for you when you first showed up? I never had that impressed on me. Yeah.

I'm sure it was there. The only time I ever saw it happen is our very first, it was like the first month or so I was at the platoon, and we're doing team live fire exercises. And there is just a hot mess. and the platoon sergeant that I was talking about earlier that was like I need your help yeah I was like hey man can you go grab those guys and like teach them how to really break contact as a team I was like yeah man sure so I kind of had to you know kind of nut up and overstep the other team leaders are already there right and pull all their teams in it's like hey guys like bring it in let me let me show you guys how to do this you know and those team leaders they kind of stepped off to the side and like like you know I was like, Yeah, they're fueling you out.

Yeah, who the fuck is this guy that he is, you know? But I think it was like, you know, the week after that, I was sitting in the team room in the cages. And I was back there and had my big old SOP binder that my platoon center forced me to make as a team leader in Lurce. And it went everything from individual movement techniques to platoon operations. I was just sitting there flipping through it.

Just kind of refreshing myself because it's been a minute. and a squad leader and one of the Reky team leaders came over for people I don't know a squad leader in Reki is a team leader It's the same same It's a E6

But he came over He kind of stood around my shoulder I was like what are you looking at I was like My SOP book He was like Can I see that? I was like just take it dude

I was like you need it I was like just take it You can have it copy it You know whatever Because every team should have Their own SOP Because everyone operates

independently Or teams operate independently but I said as an import like I mean no one was walking into the hallway hit me in the nuts right right like nothing bad happened I was kind of intimidated to be honest because I didn't have a scroll on my right shoulder right I had my lurch patch or my two ID patch until I did that first appointment and I put a scroll on never took it off and people got my respect it was interesting because I didn't grow up in regiment. Yeah.

So a lot of the E6s in below had no idea who I was. Because I didn't go to rip with them. I didn't do platoon operations with them. I wasn't in the line with them. But everybody from like platoons aren't above or firs aren't above knew who I was and respected me. And it was an interesting dynamic for a little bit. Any more questions for Dustin?

Job here. Thank you. Hey, all, Dustin. You talked about your conventional leaders. But what was your experience with officers at regiment? As I understand, operating is really the role of enlisted. So how are they at employing your guys' enhanced skill sets? So officers in regiment.

I'll talk about regiment as a whole. We can talk about Reki PL if we want. Officers as a whole in regiment are very good at managing tasks and shielding their potential. Toons, for lack of a better word bullshit. Their main job is, you know, be a politician with battalion, especially company level and platoon level. The PLs I had at regiment, I mean, I was there for three years. I think I went through five PLs as a platoon serge.

And that PLU, he was in charge of not only the recidatoon, but also the wrist-up platoon, which is the reconnaissance surveillance target acquisition. They do a lot of tech stuff. So he kind of had, he was in charge of two platoons, but each platoon had their own platoons aren't. It was a weird dynamic. Simultaneously, K-9 and snipers had one PLU but two platooserns. That's kind of how that was set up as far as special two platoons are.

Interesting. But every PL I had was rock solid. They all, actually, they all left and went to SF. Yeah. questions for Dustin one from Chris Ward I have a question

what was your favorite moment out of your entire career outside of retirement obviously Chris Ward that's my brother graduating graduate and render school

like that is I would think yeah graduating range school was probably the not the highlight of my career but one of the proudest moments because it is

the premier leadership school of the Army me one of the hardest schools anybody could ever go to you never been to buds but i've ventures say it's harder than buds sorry navy seals spicy take yeah spicy take i mean navy seals get to go home every night no buds you get you have a barrace room bro or you can go to your house don't do that at ranger school um but yeah because once you're a ranger You're always a Ranger, man. That's the way I look at it.

I was super proud to graduate Ranger School. Anything else? Yeah, there's one last one from a Stacey Ward. Oh, boy. My favorite moment was being able to present him with a flag that had been flown on a B-52 that had a target he called for. Yeah. So that's my dad, the Stacey Ward.

He's talking about the operation. We're talking about the big push. So my dad was in the Air Force. He's a B-52 guy. Still has friends in the B-52 community. He's an electronic warfare officer. or electronic warfare technician guy. B-52s during that time,

they were flying over and dropping bombs, the Moab, which wasn't from B-52, but it was that time Madison was in charge, and shit was just raining, you know. But my dad caught wind that we were also there in Nangar and talked to the pilots, and they flew a flag for me and gave me a certificate.

That's pretty cool. Oh, that's amazing. Got some pull pins from like the arming pins from the bombs. Yeah. And like the little leaflets they dropped to. And he brought it to me on my birthday and stuff. It was pretty cool. So how has post-military service life been treating you?

What are you up to nowadays? Oh, man. Retirement's awesome. Don't have to shave anymore. Yeah, I want to first get out. So my actual job. job job. I'm a contractor for Department of State right now. He's doing stuff overseas.

We're on stateside. I've started a company called The Light Sleeper, and we make an ultra-light. It's basically a Wobie. I'll explain it. It's a wubby with a sleeve to put a sleeping pad in and a pillow attachment. It's just a light sleeping system for light backpackers. It weighs two pounds, so you don't got to take a whole sleep system or a stuff sack, and all that, you know, bivisack.

Start that company is doing very well. We just started shipping last week. Oh, congrats. Yeah, you started shipping last week? You were showing me on your website earlier. And it's inexpensive. It's like, what, 70 bucks? Yeah, 70 bucks.

And I mean, yeah, I looked at it. I was like, I want one. Yeah, absolutely. What's the website where people can get it? Thelightsleeper.com? The light sleeper.com. The light sleeper.com. It's going to be down in the video description.

description. Buy yourself a woeby with a sleeping pad. That's the most amazing. That's the Taj Mahoche. It is. Caviya, it doesn't come with a sleeping pad. Okay. It comes with a pocket to put your own sleeping pad in.

Because everyone has their own preferences, so I'm not going to throw it in. Look, you had me at Wooby. You had me a Whobie. Like, the only piece of Army gear that ever did what it's meant to do. I came up with the idea because I was sitting there packing my son. son's nap mat for school. I don't know if you know what nap mat is. Yeah, yeah.

So I was rolling his up, got out of the dryer. I was like rolling up, putting his backpack for school in kindergarten. And I looked at it. And I looked at my wife. I was like, why is this not a thing for adults? She's like, what? I was like, I love taking naps. Yeah.

And I kind of like just sat there and thought about it from that. I was like, why did not have this in the field? And I hit up some buddies like a buddy on Marsock, Andy. And I was like, you think this is a good idea? He's like, dude, yeah. Why is that not a thing already? I don't know. I'm going to go.

I'm buying one. Hey, everybody, make sure buy the light sleeper. The light sleeper.com. You owe it to yourself. I got a scouts field trip coming up, camping trip with my daughter. Actually, I just had a guy. He just bought three for his scouts. All right.

All right. Yeah, we shipped over 100 orders this past week. That's amazing. We just started shipping this last week and over 100 orders already. That's fantastic. Awesome. Awesome. Off to the races, man. Other than that, though, I wouldn't got certified as a bounty hunter.

Just keep things spicy at home. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to do that. So you go and knock on people's doors, unpaid parking tickets, bitch, you're coming with me. Haven't done it yet. Yeah, I just got certified last October, November. Okay.

Me and my buddy from RFC that retired also. Yeah. We went got certified together. I was like, dude, we should do this. I was talking to a guy overseas that used to do it. It sounded really easy. I was like, why are we not doing this? Yeah.

Yeah, like I talked to a dude who did bounty hunting at one point, and he had some wild stories. But, yeah, suffice to say, if, like, a dude that looks like Dustin comes and knocks on my door and it's like, yeah, yeah, you're going to jail now. It's like, how much of a fight am I going to put up? Like, I'm probably just going to go along. That's kind of what the guy was talking to said. Because I asked him, I was like, you know, what's the, you know, is it kind of like a brocode? Like, you don't know me, so you're not going to hire me type thing. Yeah.

He was like, no, no, no. He's like, if you and your buddy asked to work for me with your resumes and looking the way you do, he's like, I'm getting every bounty I got. Oh, nice. But we just got our company certified back in March. So we haven't had the ability to go out and get anybody yet. Looking forward to it. This dude, I remember him telling me a story about how he got on a flight to Honolulu, and they had like 48 hours to find this guy or they were going to eat like a $50,000 bounty. I was like, holy shit.

But then at the same time, the same guy told me, he's like, if I knock on a guy, guy's door and it's like over unpaid parking tickets or something and the bounty is you know $2,000 and he offers me $3,000 I'm taking the money they do yeah that's perfectly legal too oh is it really it's not it's not like you're bribing a public official or they're paying their bounty it's it's perfectly legal oh interesting as long as they pay their contractual fee you're good you don't have to take them to jail every time if they can pay it right there on the spot you don't got to take them to jail yeah nope to sell I I I I knew a guy who did it, and he said it's just, it's a lot of detective work.

It's like, find out who their girlfriends were, stuff like, like, where are they holding up, you know? And that's why we, yeah, why we haven't done anything yet, because there's federal databases you can get access to. Yeah. But you have to have a company that they give those accesses to a company, not a person. So we had to wait for a company to get certified. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I can wrestle a 300 pound felon, but I'll be the guy with the paintball pepper pellet.

No, the beanbag. I'll do that for you. Exactly. I was thinking about buying a taser. Yeah. And I said, no, I was going to be a bag shotgun.

No, I think there's a big bag shotgun. I can do that for you. I'll be your backup. Would you rather? Yeah. I don't know. I think I would be more rebellious against a taser than a shotgun

racking. No, but I'm telling you, man, you just go and knock on the door like, hey, come on, man. Like, let's go.

And like, you know, if you talk to a lot about any hunters, that's, that's the process. Yeah, just treating them like a man. Like,

It's a business thing. Yeah, yeah. Dude, like, you messed up. Right. Come on. Right. And they've already been to court. It's not like, yeah, they're going to go spend like a day or two.

Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So bounty hunting. We got some Dustin the Bounty Hunter, a live TV coming. And anything else you want to throw out there that you're working on? Nothing to think of it.

Okay. That's about it. Shit, man. I mean, it's been a hell of an interesting military career. in post-service life. It's a ride. Yeah, it's a ride. Dee, was there anything on Patreon?

Oh, I'm not that I saw it. Okay. Well, dude, thank you so much for flying in and doing this interview. It's been super cool, man. Appreciate you guys having me, man. Yeah, it's awesome. Absolutely. And thank you

Les for... Yeah, thanks, Les. Putting the shout out for us. Next week, I cannot... So after this whole interview, I cannot for the life with me remember who's on next week.

I'm so sorry. But I promise it's going to be cool. Every episode of the Teentown is pretty cool. It's going to be a thing. Yeah. It's going to be an event. Jack will be there. I'll be there.

Dave will be there. Dee will probably be there if he doesn't quit on us. I'll be there. He's somewhere else. Back doesn't go out again. Yeah. Gary knows her. Yes, Gary.

So Gary was an FBI negotiator. He was recently on the Netflix documentary. Waco American Apocalypse He was in that documentary because he was one of the FBI negotiators early on and then they kicked him at it. There's a whole thing there

that we will no doubt talk about. So yeah, I'm excited to talk to Gary and I'm sorry that I couldn't remember initially. So we'll see you guys next Friday. Episode, we're in the 200s now, so episode 2002. And also go to the light sleeper.com. If you don't,

The commies win. Exactly. The terrorists win. If you don't get yourself a high-speed would-be stuff sack. And also check out our Patreon. Again, I'm going to plug it. Go down there, get ad-free episodes, man.

For less than a cup of coffee a month. Exactly. You can support our alcohol have it. So we will see all of you next Friday. Thank you for joining us. Thank you again, Dustin. And thank you.