The Team House - Ranger Regiment Platoon Sergeant in Syria and Afghanistan | Les Sandusky (throwback episode)

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

original air date 12/14/22Former Ranger Les Sandusky joins the show for a candid, four-hour deep dive into combat, leadership, and life after the Regiment. From firefights in Syria and Iraq to rebuilding purpose after injury and RFS, Les opens up about resilience, loss, and redemption. A raw, unfiltered conversation on what it means to serve — and to find yourself again once the mission ends.Subscribe to our Patreon & get ad free listening ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse00:00 – Early Ranger Life23:40 – Combat in Syria & Iraq1:05:00 – Mortar Tactics Explained1:32:30 – Inside Ranger Culture2:03:10 – The DUI & RFS Fallout2:45:00 – Injury & Isolation3:16:00 – Big Red One Transition3:25:00 – Rebuilding a Platoon3:34:00 – Live Q&A Segment3:43:00 – Transition Out3:54:00 – Restoring Rank & Honor3:55:30 – Contracting & ClosureBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

The Team House with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, folks, welcome to episode 180 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park, and our guest on the show tonight is Les Sandusky. Les served as a mortar platoon sergeant in Third Ranger Battalion, spent some time in First Ranger Battalion, had a lot of deployments to Afghanistan and Syria. You know, like I was saying the other day, I'm really glad to have. have you on the show because like Dave and I each represent like the Rangers of yesteryear like Dave was in the in Ranger battalion in the 90s I came in I got there 2003 um but then

there's this whole other generation of dudes that came after us and if you don't hear them talk I mean there's no books really out there about what you guys did yet and I think there's some incredible stories about what that what that whole era of like let's say 2010 to 22 what those guys have been up to. Yeah, definitely. And not only that, but I mean, Ranger Regiment has changed so much, especially since I was there.

Yeah. You know, we were just coming out of the, you know, the Premier Light Infantry of the world. Yeah. And moving into, you know, the CQB, J-Soc support element type of thing. Yeah, I want to say within like my first three years, we changed our kit and our helmet three times

and our uniform three times. And that's funny because when I was there, probably hadn't been changed since Vietnam. You know, yeah. Yeah. It's hard to explain that to, like, people on the outside, that, like, massive cultural shift that the unit went through. But let's talk about you. Let's talk about your origin story last kind of like. Yeah. What was your upbringing like? And what was it that kind of set you on the path towards the Army and towards the Ranger Regiment? Okay. So I grew up in Tacoma, Washington. Like, obviously, I got the rainier shirt at the time.

knew the Tacoma Tigers. But so when I was growing up in Tacoma, I was born on Fort Lewis at Madigan. I was on Army Brat. My mom was in the military. She was working at I-Corps and personnel. And my dad worked patient admin at Madigan. So that's where I was born. Basically, where both my parents worked, and I kind of grew up around the Army.

I grew up kind of watching Rambo films putting on and, you know, watching Predator. or watching all those films that everyone, you know, we quote when we get to the Army, you know. And so I was kind of like dead set and being in the Army because I grew up around the Army. And we tell my parents all the time, I'm going in the Army. Almost every year I was an Army guy for Halloween. I would play in the woods all day with my friends dressed up in fatigues, do bottle rocket wars, all types of playing army all day, right? So that's kind of how it was for a while.

And then I know that there's a lot of details in there with the dynamics on how my family was. Like, you know, military family, I think it's kind of common. Military families don't last. It's kind of divorce and stuff like that. It's kind of a common thing. So that sends up what happened a lot of back and forth between both parents, spending majority of my time in the Pacific Northwest. I even moved cross-country all the way to Florida before

and then back up to the Pacific Northwest. And the whole time, I'm just kind of dead set and joined the Army. That's kind of what I want to do. I don't even know exactly what I want to do. I do remember being out near Solo Point and seeing guys jump into the water at Solo Point or being out there on American Lake and seeing guys jump out of the back of 47s into the water

and seeing them, you know, green face paint and stuff with this like haircut I didn't like on top of their head, call it high and tight, you know, and be like, man, I want to be those guys, you know. We also used to have a, I guess, like, I don't remember what it was called, like, Armed Forces Day on the base where you could like mess around in the tanks and mess around with the night vision goggles,

which back then was like this huge freaking thing and like everything looked like Atari on the computer screens or something that they were messing with. And you're like, well, high tank. So all that stuff was always like very fascinating to me. I just never really knew exactly what I wanted to do. And I was like, want to join, want to join, want to join. And then 9-11 happened.

I was a freshman in high school. And, you know, so I couldn't jump right into the Army right there. but both my parents already, even though they were separating. It's like ESP, a light bulb goes off. Like, you're not doing it. You're not going. Don't do it. Whatever.

You got to go to college. You got to do this and that. And so I give it the old college try, pun intended. You know? And I was doing well in college. I was making the dean list and stuff over there in Washington State. And or not Washington stay up there in Seattle. so um

the u-dub so I'd be there doing school and everything and doing pretty well and then um I wasn't really liking it I felt like when I was there

I didn't feel like I was being educated I felt like I was being indoctrinated because when I was looking at the screens it was like like a lot of handholding like hey do a project but when you did the project it had to be exactly like there was no like very passive

yeah I was like in my head I was like Like, do college. I'm like, man, free thinking. There's no free thinking. I'm like, so why don't I go in the army? You know, what am I doing here? But I kept at it and then one day, and this is like the interesting story. Everyone wants to hear, right?

But so one day, I have some friends that are having a birthday party. We all work for the same company. So, you know, I'm basically a poor kid going to a college, can't afford, bury myself in debt. I'm already like $30,000 in debt by this point. Anyway, all these guys that I work with male and female, they have birthdays around the same time, which is in February. And I'm like, you know, like, so they say, we're going to have like a birthday party. Everybody's birthday party same time, you know, and there's some people that are like, it's my birthday week, you know, and they're having a birthday every day up and

until that point and all that ridiculous stuff. So anyways, like, I'm like, I guess, like, one of the last guys to show up at this thing. And when I get there, some goons outside, like graffitting the door and they're doing some, writing some slurs and stuff on there, some inappropriate stuff with a paint marker. And I step in, like, you know, I'm going to tell them not to do that thing because it's very bad to do that kind of thing. and kind of like an altercation. I'm getting an argument there. And there's a guy behind me that I didn't see.

And next to you know, man, all I don't even feel it. I hear glass shatter. And it just goes past my head. And somebody had broken a 40-ounce bottle on the back of my head and get to that minute how I found out it was 40 ounces. But so I immediately turn around. Like, you fucking kidding me? Take this guy to the ground.

start ground and pound immediately. I was a pretty good wrestler, like in high school. A lot of titles in the state of Washington. And so there's no problem getting this guy to the ground and just starting to beat his facing off the concrete. And there was a guy on my back, and he was like pummeling me. But I was like, man, this guy hits like so soft. Pillows, like whatever.

Subdu this guy and then get this guy off your back. So this guy was pretty much quick. on the ground like he was no longer a threat to me and so I stood up and I turned I stood in base and turned and faced the guy who was striking me and at that point he was coming down with another strike and I noticed that he wasn't striking me he was stabbing me the entire time oh shit and so I put my arm up and the knife went into my arm and they got stuck inside my arm here and I kind of grabbed him tripped them swept him got on top of them and I stabbed them a bunch of times in his stomach.

And then somebody I was with was being attacked by another person of the group. I jumped. I tackled that guy. And as I was tackling him and crawling up him to drive the knife that I now took from his friend into him, another guy came up and tried to kick me, like doing like a running soccer kick on me. And when he tried to run up and kick me, I had blocked it partially. It was like a big like, like a big sneaker that was like loosely on his foot.

So it like totally absorbed the blow. Like everything was just like, you know. And my knife went into his calf and I know I felt it slide up his calf. So I tore through it. And then I got back up and I saw these guys getting away. Like see, you know, there's this big dude in front of me and I'm like, crap, man. Like I feel gas like I stood up and I was like, wow. Like, you know, when you stand up,

too fast. And I was like, dang, man, like, I'm fading. I was like, but if you fade and you go to the ground, this is like, you know, YouTube was fairly new back then. And everything on YouTube was people getting curb stomped. Yeah. And I was like, that's not going to be me. They're like, I'm knocking my teeth out, you know?

Yeah. So I was like, kill me, motherfucker. Kill me. I'm not dead yet. Fucking kill me. Like, I was with everything, like, please be scary enough to get the fuck away from me. And then he's like, all right, screw this. Like, this guy's not dying.

Like, I'm out. And so him and his buddy took off. And I'm like, dude, I can't run. I can't chase this guys down. Nobody's going to know who these guys are. So some dude was in the guy. I look over and the dude was the guy that I stabbed. He was getting buddy carried by his friend.

He got loaded up in his car. And when he got put in his car, they started that car up. And then it's like a station wagon of some kind. Might have been a Volvo wagon. I don't remember. This happened a long time ago. But I pretty sure it was like a Volvo wagon. And, man, they smashed on the gas.

They didn't turn the steering wheel. They parallel park. Bam, they hit the car in front of it. And the car alarm went off. And the party opened. I saw outside. Holy shit. And my boy comes out there, sprints up to the car, and just smashes that window.

Single hit. And my boy was not a fighter. My boy, like, this friend of mine, he was always the guy. Like, he's one of my best friends. But it's like, he's one of those guys. It's like, oh, Les can fight so I could start shit. And I was like, dang, man, he's always getting in trouble. But now, finally, I'm in trouble.

And he's helping me. Like, all everything. Like, you know, like, you, like, you know, all those favors you owe me to come in. Yeah, right. So, you got, he smashed the window. And then, like, yeah, these guys backed up. They're smashing the car behind him, car alarms going off. And, like, all these people in these buildings, high rises,

looking down, calling the police while all this is happening. These guys jet off and hit the corner. And as soon as they hit like that corner, the cops come around this corner. And I'm like, dang, just missed them. Like, go, go after the guys, you know. And they come out weapons drawn because I'm holding a knife. And I look down at that point because now I have time to focus, like, really on myself and assess my damage. And I look down and then I have blood.

My whole shirt, which was I think like my shirt was like an apricot color or something. It was now blood red all the way down. into my jeans like completely soaked and my shirt was like stuck to my body like glued to my body and i was like remember being like like trying to breathe and then like feeling like nastiness like like come out of my neck because i got stab right here in my neck is where one of the stab wounds went and then i remember like opening my arm up and just seeing like this web of like blood and then seeing this like frothy stuff come through there and i'm like oh and then like my friend who's like helping me he's like amen like you know and i was like i remember like he says it because i don't remember

he says like dude you were you sitting there like so did you have attention to neurotic that's that's that's what it turns out to to a happen so the police realize okay this guy's probably not a threat i you know when they're saying drop your weapon like i'm probably doing something wrong where like the police were fully right to probably shoot me at that point because i you like hands up you know when i put my hands up like that I saw that and I was like, oh, hell no. I'm dying. Like, I'm already dead.

So I pulled out my phone. I called my dad. Yeah. And I said, dad, like, I don't know what to tell you. I fucked up, man. I fucked with the wrong people. And case I died, like, you know, I love you, man, and all this. And so, like, my dad's like freaking out.

Like, wow, wow, wow, wow. By the time the police officer gets to me, he's starting to ask me questions. Like, hey, buddy, sit on the curb. Sit on the curb. Like, what's going on? And I was like, I was like, dude, I'm fading. I'm now incoherent. I don't, I hear what he's saying.

I understand what he's saying, but I can't answer him. So all I could muster to say to him was like, this is my dad, he'll answer any questions about my identity, whatever. Yeah. Paramedic comes over, paramedic comes over and says, Hey, honey, hey, honey, like, is there anything you're allergic to? Go ahead and laid back. Is there anything you're allergic to?

And as I'm laying back, I say, yeah, morphine. Because I'm allergic to morphine. and I know that because that's another story maybe for another day, but I have nine toes. I had my foot look like a freaking hamburger meat when I was like six years old because my mom ran over my foot with a tractor

and think when my dad was in the Gulf War. So anyways, back to this story, as chaotic as my life is, she says, you allergic to anything? And I was like, yeah, morphine. She's like, he's in pain, he needs morphine. And I don't know if she gave me morphine. or what. But it is something, I felt something go through my veins at that point. And I was like, no.

No. And it was so embarrassing, man. They, like, they cut my clothes off. I'm naked. My genitals are out in the street. My co-workers are there, you know. I'm like, dang it, man. This is so bad. And it's February in Washington State. Right. Right. So I'm not really showing. I'm not showing. That's a story. That's a story. You're like, it's cold out. It's cold out. It's like, put me in the ambulance. And, you know, the lady starts going through, like, her Ave poo sequence, man. And she's like, hey, you know, like, talk to me. And I'm like, I can't say anything.

And then she, like, hey, follow my finger. I'm like, all right, that easy. The follow the finger thing? I crush this every time. Put the finger in front of my face. And I'm like, let's go. Throw that thing right or left. I'm going to follow it with my eyes.

And as soon as it went here, lights out. Couldn't see nothing. I could still hear her, but I couldn't see anything. So then she's like, oh, oh, uh, you know, can you squeeze my hand, you know? And I felt like I was deadlifting like 700 pounds. I'd squeeze her head. I'll give me everything. I was like, come on, come on.

And she was like, oh, no. Like, can you wiggle your toes? And this goes to the nine toe thing, right? In my head, I'm like, please, like, if I had one more toe, I would have more a higher probability of wiggling these things, you know? I'm sitting there like, oh, oh, like wiggling, wiggling, wiggle it, like, and they weren't wiggling. And then I heard the lady go, like, this is so sad. He's so young. I don't know if he's going to make it.

Jesus Christ. She was an EMT, though, right? Not a dramatic because I don't know what they were. But the other lady, though, there was two ladies. This is like, you know, this isn't one of those, wow, wow, wow story. They've got two ladies in the freaking. In the back of an ear. Here, playboy.

I never thought this would happen. were two females working on me. And, you know, one, one was of no hope. It almost sounded like. And one was like, we're not that far from the hospital. Like, we can, you know, we can get them there. And now the whole time I'm just like, oh, you know, wanted to say something.

It wasn't. And then later, when I was in the military and I first learned about, you know, RFR or anything, the attention to me up there. is like coming up. At this moment it was like the jugular distension

started happening and my heart started stopping and I didn't know that at the time I didn't know what the sensation was I felt like a steamroller was crushing my chest and I remember as it was crushing

I was like I'm going to die and I said I said I remember being like while I was in this like abyss being like I said

like in my mind I said God if you're real don't let me die like this because I was thinking like I was like dang man I'm going to die doing retail.

You know what I mean? It's like I'm folding T-shirts, man. Like, what am I doing? Like, working with these people, like, somehow I get stabbed for some crap. And anyways, next thing you know, I'm in the hospital. And they're using the defibrillator. And I wake up. And I'm in so much, there's so, I'm combative because now I'm like, I'm still in the fight.

Right. You know? Right. I'm fighting. So I get up. and I'm like, like, throwing people off me, like, incredible hold.

They're, like, restraining me. And I have a tube down my throat. I have a camera in my stomach where it's looking around for additional stab wounds. I have two chest tubes in the side of this lung, my left line right here.

And I have a tube of my freaking pisshole. And I'm just like, like, ugh. And the next thing you know, it's like, they did something where it's like, yeah, put them out. You know, we brought them back, but put them back. You know what you?

Like, this was a mistake. Send them back to the other side. So then anyway, then I had it like, you know, more peaceful, like awakening again later the next day in the hospital. And I have like a detective there, police officer, a doctor and all this. And then I remember the, the detective telling me something like, hey, man, like, it's a miracle that you pulled through. Like a lot of people, they don't survive this kind of attack.

and like it's good that you're with us and we have a lot of officers that go through something like this and they're just done, you know what I mean? So it was kind of cool to hear that from a guy in uniform that's like, wow, like I just woke up. I'm like, where am I? What am I doing? Am I in trouble? Like what's going on? And then he later informed me that like, I guess the guy

that was in a fight with was taken to some studio apartment that he owned and his friends just ditched him in the bathtub and he didn't make it. Oh, shit. And so I was like, man, I'm probably in trouble. You know, and luckily, you know, the amount of witnesses that were there were like, absolutely not. This guy was completely

like in self-defense. And anyways, I, uh, this is how I found out it was like a 40 ounce because the guy's like, hey, you know, you had a 40 ounce. You got hit over the,

the back of the head of a 40-ounce ball. You got stabbed about eight times in your long. You got stabbed in your back. You got stabbed in your arms. Tell me where all the stab wounds are. I was like, dang, man. I don't even remember getting stabbed that much. It happened so fast.

And then he's like, and, you know, the way that we found out, it's like a 40-ounce bottle. I was like, how did you know it was a 40-ounce? You know, why it wasn't matter? You know, because I had a shard of glass sticking out of the back of my head with the label still stuck to it, the 40-ounce label. So I had like this huge, like, it was a 40-ounce label. So I had like this huge like you know like a feather stick out back at but glass I was fighting these guys

So they did some real Sherlock Holmes work there I guess I would say Yeah Indubidly elementary all those words yeah So at that point I was like look man And I and I see some reasons why my parents wouldn't come to the hospital or visit me there necessarily I say see some reasons why my family hasn't. I have like an estranged brother who has certain issues.

And I understand why he wouldn't go there. So I don't really hold it against these folks. But at the time, I was like, dude, nobody's in this hospital. All these people tell me go to college. All these people, you have to do this. You have to do that. Where are they? Where's the money for college?

Where's the money for food? Where's the money for rent? Where's the money for notebooks, pencils, papers, you know, laptop, something. You know, it's not that like I expect that from people. But if people are going to try to maybe control your life or push you in that direction, you know, when your passion all your life was like, I'm going to join the military. This is like, when I sat in the bar very high, I joined the military, I don't think. But it is a very rewarding experience you can take.

pardon to be a member of the armed forces and it opens up a lot of doors on the other side and then you can go to college pretty much for free you know and get an education and so from that experience it's about it really taught me about trajectory like maybe i was on the wrong trajectory so it also taught me like not everything it almost taught me like nothing that happens is bad. Like you can think this is a bad thing that happens. This isn't advantageous to me for maybe that time period or something. But in the long run, everything works out, you know, no matter what, at the end of the game,

the king and the pond go in the same box. I mean, when you realize that you could check out at any moment, even at a very young age, kind of like your priorities change, right? Yeah, exactly. And I was like, well, I got to do what I want to do. And people are worried about it. You can die. You can die over there.

You can, I'm like, well, I could die over here. Right. But if I die over there, maybe it means something. Right. At least you're doing what you loved. Yeah. What you wanted. Yeah.

Yeah. So I already, like, going into the military, was thinking, like, man, this is in, I've already kind of accepted death. Mm-hmm. I've accepted to not form an attachment with life that don't be so attached to you're in. in fear of death to where you're not going to live the life you want. And the good thing about going through that experience is, like, whether you go through basic and go to everything and it feels like hell, because it's just a different experience, whatever you're going through in the military, you're like, if I did that, like, why can't

I do this? Why can't I walk 12 miles? Like, why can't I do that? I did that. That seems like harder. So around 2009, 2010, you get a shitload of waivers, presumably, for your gimp toe. Yep. And eight stab wounds.

Yeah. And every other damn thing. Yeah. Enjoy the army. Yeah. Yeah. So I had relatively high abs of ab score. You know, they're throwing everything at me.

And I was like, well, I want to go special forces. grew up on JBLM. We had first group there. A lot of my friend's dad were Special Forces guys. And a lot of guys like in and around the wrestling community were like ex-rangers. And a lot of the parents of the wrestlers I was wrestling with were Rangers at the time. Kids in my school Rangers. We had 2.75 and we had first group up there.

You have a bunch of guys. I was like, yeah, I want to go special operations. But honestly, in that time of my life, I was like, special forces seems easier. and like I don't want that haircut. I don't want that Ranger haircut. I didn't want it. I was, I'd never combed my hair growing up.

I hated it. I was like, like, I kind of look like a bag of shit, kind of like I do right now. But, um, like,

very Seattle vibes. Shark wrestling with lumberjacks over there where I'm from. Um, or Tacoma more like it. Uh, so, yeah, I,

I'm like, yeah, I want to be special. forces, this, that, and the other. And they're kind of like, nothing's caught really in the books yet about. I go to MAPS and all that. I go down to 30. I went to MEPS and Tampa.

Eventually where I made it to. Really? All the way from Tacoma? Yeah, because my mom was living down in, like, Kisimi. So I went and, like, stayed with her. And I stayed with her while I was going through the process. I'm trying to get the military. So I went through Meps in Tampa.

and from Tampa went to Fort Benning, Georgia. And I was like, okay, we'll do like this 18 X-ray thing because this is like a new thing. And I was over 21 years old, whatever. So I get there and they're kind of like, hey, you know, you have nine toes and you have this thing. And like this isn't, this is like enough to get in the military, but like you can't even be airborne. And as they said, we can't like send you back home. I was like, no, no, no, let me wait, like, what's going on here. Like, let me just do my basic training.

And I'll just be infantry because, like, you're 11X. Anyway, when you start. So I'm an 11 x-ray there at Osset, Fort Benning, Georgia. I go through the basic training and all that stuff. I remember, like, how. So some guys, like, was there's a question that kind of irked me from lying guys. Like, why did you pick 11 Charlie? I'm like, dude, you know I didn't pick this.

Right, right. Yeah, 11 X-Rle. Yeah, I think all 11-11 charlies are 11 x-rays who don't get that Bravo bill. Yeah. So I got a touch on this because it was like, I thought it was hilarious. I loved trolls. I loved people in leadership that control you and like totally psychologically mess with you. And as part of like the smoking that you're going to get.

So all day, we went through this like, very boring, like, you know, the agency were boring, but we went through this monotonous, very boring, very hard to understand no clear instruction of what is going on order that we're getting in. And we're doing a snake line. So, you know, snake line, you know, going up and down like a snake.

And they're just calling out names and it doesn't make sense because we're trying to figure it out. They put it in this one order by this and by this, and nobody can really figure it out. but we're in the snake line and they're like all right guys start moving that line to the buses start moving the line of the buses and then like the buses get all loaded up and the buses start driving away all right there's going to be another thing of buses and then the drill sirens pop out of the woodwork and they go hey man welcome to the army there's not another

line of buses i know that's where you're thinking there's not but the guys on the bus all 11 bravos you guys are 11 charlies the rivalry starts now follow the bus so we were walking behind the bravos like already like oh and then the whole way there

these guys are like you're going to hate your life you're going to be a mortar man it's going to suck you're never going to like it you're never going to do anything cool like everything right away was just like and I'm like laughing and I got this like like later we call them sea bags

but like duffel bag you know rage or reggie redger call them the sea bag or whatever the contingency back so we had this thing and I'm like I got one in front one back you know it's all that's got is like uniforms at this point we haven't done like the CIF with all like the stupid

helmets and stuff but we're following by and people are being dramatic and like I live a chaotic life I think like I've walked far I lived in the mountains I live by the sea I've you know been exposed to a lot growing up and like I'm seeing these guys like behaving like they're in a Hollywood film.

Yeah, it's like the first bad thing that's ever happened to them. Yeah, like, like, oh, this is point the hawk right now. Are we at point the hawk right now? Because guys were literally like falling on the ground. And another guy goes, brother, I have you. And the other guy's like, no, leave me. And I'm laughing because I find it so cringe. I find it like disgusting and appalling.

I'm just like, ugh. I'm like, get off my boot, you know? And I'm like stepping over. I'm like, ha, ha, ha. I'm like laughing and crying while I'm stepping over these bodies. And I'm like moving through the whole thing. Like, dude, this is hilarious. All we're doing is walking.

And it's not like we have to chase the bus. We're not even going to the same place the buses are. Just walk. I bet we're just going to like turn after like 800 feet. And it was like less than a mile that we walked. Yeah. But these guys are, see her Dustin

Yeah. Like, ah, you know, like, tell my wife I love her. She probably doesn't anymore.

Yeah, right. What was happening? What was your family was right over there? Unless I'm going to ask you about Rasp. I do got to give a quick shout out here

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It's awesome. Thank you to our friends of Presidious Watch. One more time, Presidiouswatch.com. And thank you guys for supporting the show. The sponsors that support the show. we love you. I just want to say that the 11 brabos, which are riflemen, they're the, when you hear infantry, that's what you think of. And the 11 Charlie's, which are Mortarman, so the 11 Brabos being on the bus and the 11 Charlie's walking, is kind of like a metaphor

for like the overall army experience when it comes to 11 bravos and 11 charlies. Yeah, yeah. It is like pretty interesting. And then like some reason, like I didn't really full. fully understand RASP. I really fully understand, like, because some of the drills aren't, like, because, so through basic training, getting to RAS and you're about to ask about it, I didn't have RIP or RASP or nothing like that in my contract anymore. I was like, okay, I'm going to go to the big army, and I started like, well, you know, there's some lineage in the big army.

I can think about it. There's some cool stuff. Some guys done some cool things. Maybe eventually I'll weasel my way in over there. But the whole time in basic, I was like, maybe if I just, you know, kick ass. here and take initiative. So I would literally be in the in the bay and grab like the level one book and be like, hey guys, I know it sucks reading these books all day, but you know, I've been reading

them and I understand how to do certain things. Mind me, I can do the class right now. And I'll be like, this is your M7 bandelier complete with M18 alpha one. Claymore mine, M57 firing advice on four zero test advice. Like I go through the whole thing. And then I know like the drill starts like, wait, but what the fuck is going in that kill zone? know. And then like over time they made me like the PG which doesn't really like mean anything, but it kind it could mean something if the right people are there that you're leading correctly

as like, you know, and the PG is basically a leader of that basic training platoon from like the candidate position, I guess you would call it. Right. So they like immediately made me that guy and I was crushing PT and I was like freakishly fast at running. Well, you're lighter. You only had nine toes. Yeah, exactly. It's actually, yeah. So I was, I was like really good at running.

And then by the end of it, they were like, hey, man, we have orders for you to go third ACR, which was in Fort Hood at the time. And I don't know. And I was like, okay, yeah, Roger Joe Sarin. And he was like, I'm not sending you third ACR, man. Like, he's like, when you came in first day, I noticed you were freaking laughing and smiling when we were smoking the dog shit. you guys you need to go to ranger regiment like right there he was like you can go to the ranger regiment and then he was like so we're going to send you to ranger school and i'm like okay ranger school all right yeah and i'm like like everybody was like saying ranger school and clearly

didn't know that they were sending me to rip so i'm thinking i'm like well and i started asking i like do i go to a unit first and they might show me how to get through ranger school because like i somewhat knew that there was a difference growing up on jbblm right I'm like, why am I going to Ranger School? Right. It's going to be hard. So I was going to go to the Ranger Battalions. And so I went to Airborne.

Then I went to RASP. And that's where I got to the RASP. All right. So the RASP story. What happened? What went awry? Okay. So RAS was kind of hilarious.

That was pretty funny because, like, we were one of the first RAS class. And they had this, like, because my paperwork did say rip. And they came in. they smoked us during the brief at rip for rip and then they came in like with like a fake dossier like the president just said you know the it's now called rasp oh no we got to give them a different brief guess you got to get smoked some more you know what I mean and so we we started it over go through RASP um so phase there's RAS was different because they they were like ha ha you thought it was going to be like three weeks you're going to be here for eight and we're

We're just like, oh no, because everybody's like mentally prepared. Like, we're going to knock out three. And then it's like, boom, we go through this. And it's an eight week course. So it's like, man, we're going to be here for two months. And this is going to be here for a month finest. So anyway, we go through like the first half of Rasp almost. I finished cold range.

And then the NCIC was, hey, man, fall out over here at the end of cold range. And I was like, what's up? He's like, I can't let you go. go on to the next, whatever, the next thing. Phase, yeah. Yeah. And I was like, why is that? And he's like, well, you have some outstanding debt for, I guess, a hospital bill.

And I was like, what? And it was me getting stabbed. So I had a hospital bill for that, $36,000 that I had to, like, pay off or make right. And so I contacted the hospital and I said, you know, like, hey, we're going to give you some time. but you're going to we're going to have to recycle you we won't let you move on correct me if I'm wrong but under the soldiers and sailors relief act can you not have

debt forgiven that you occurred before you joined the military I don't know the rules on that to be honest and I actually kind of looked into that but it didn't necessarily really apply to me because when I I was under the impression that I was under crime victim compensation in the state of Washington right right which was pay off your medical debt if you are a victim of violent crime. There's a buck coming, I take. Yeah. And it was pretty hilarious because I'll tell you what cost me a full, you know, week at

Cold Range, which both of you understand, like, what that can be like. And so I went at the end of Cold Range, you know, they sent me back and I contacted this hospital. I said, hey, I thought we were square. And they said, oh, you know what? We are. But somebody didn't close out the note. Oh, man.

So they reported you collections. I go, why didn't they close up the note? It's like, usually we keep the note open so we can get your survey back and add it into the file. So we have your survey. And I was like, you're going to make me do, I was like, you people are going to make me do RASP again because they didn't fill out a survey. You know, so, yeah, back to day one off of that. Wow. No shit.

Yeah. So then I went through Rasp again. Went through Cold Range again, went through Phase 2, got all the way to like the end of Phase 2. And it was like at the end, they gave you your beret. They said, shave this thing, you know, here's your scroll. Keep it in your pocket. Don't put it on yet. And then, you know, for the graduation, all that, you know, your folks, somebody comes out, puts it on, you put on your beret, et cetera.

And they said, also, we're going to give your cell phones back. And this is back in the day where you had cell phones, but at the beginning of the course, you would take your cell phone, put tape on the back, write your name on the bag, put it in the laundry bag, they would take it and you wouldn't see it again until the end or until you got dropped. So you could take your cell phones into the barracks,

and you could charge your phones in the barracks, but do not be on your phones in the barracks. It was like, okay, like, Roger that, you can charge our phones. Well, I was up there, people were shaving the berets. Some people were playing music on their phones and stuff like that, which I thought was like, hey, that's still like transferring data. You kind of, but then as I'm charging my phone, my phone is blowing up, man. Like, it's going crazy.

Like, nobody else's phones are blowing up. People stop talking to people because they're like, oh, I don't, he's, he went into the abyss. He's not coming out. You know, they already gave it up on them, you know? Nobody's calling everybody else. So I grabbed my phone and I start heading down the stairs because I know I got to be outside to make a phone call now. and as I'm like pushing on that door and I looked at my phone

and it was like this RAS cadre pops out like a referee throwing a penalty flap you and I was like dang dude like I did he's like he did not break the plane with the cell phone like you know so he's like snatched my phone from me and I was like dang man like all right I'm wrong

I'm wrong I was on my phone yeah I'm wrong I'm like you know private mode It's like, yeah, Roger Starr, I'm wrong. I looked at my phone when I was in the barracks. So he pulls me in the office. He goes, guess who I saw on his phone? I'm already a recycle. So now this guy's like probably gunning to get rid of me.

You know what I mean? Because I'm not a straight through guy. He's calling the NCIC of RAS 2 and says like, yeah, you got to get down here. He was on his phone. He paints this picture like I was on my phone. Right, right. You know? And I'm like, oh, no, I'm a bad, I'm a bad boy.

Like I'm sitting there like, I'm a bad. boy no you know and then so I don't hear nothing from the rest of the day but I have that anxiety all day like oh man I got my brain man and the funny thing was man I had a 275 school and I was going back home and I was like I fucked this up I was going home we go to the formation like the close-out formation because RASP would always have a early as hell formation at like sometimes three or four in the morning and another one at like 2,200 and like recall formation. Get everyone outside, pull it out what's going to happen tomorrow.

So about 2,200, we're all standing tall. Rast two guys. And then he, man, he berated me in front of everybody. And, you know, I sucked it up and I just accepted that, yeah, I'm wrong. I was on my phone, et cetera. He's like, why would you mess it up? Blah, blah, blah, blah. He's like, I should drop you right here and now.

It makes this big speech. He goes, but I'm going to give you. a chance. And I was like, dude, this is going to be impossible. It's where. And he's like,

I want you by first call tomorrow morning to present to me the blue book written five times. Holy shit. What? The entire blue book written five times. And I was like, he's like,

nobody can help him. Nobody. And if you do, I'll drop you. Like puts it out. And everyone's just like, I'm really sorry, man. It looks like you're fucked. You know, and I'm like, yeah, I guess I am.

But I go up there and I try. I go up in my own, like, little room and I keep the light on. Everyone's sleeping in, like, these other rooms in the barracks. And I'm up there and I had blisters on my freaking fingers from riding this thing over and over. And I'm like, I was literally like, dude, could I skip like one line? I skip one word. And he won't know. I'm like, no, dude, he'll know.

Like, I had these conversations with myself, like integrity. Dude, you're already in terms of your violation. Do it all the way through. So I did. And I got to three and a half copies of the blue book at one night by, I think it was like 0, 430 or something, 04, 0430 next morning. And he comes up and he goes, hey, let me see what you got. And he looks and he goes, you know what I think? I think you started knocking this out for 30 minutes and said, this is good enough.

He'll believe me. And then you racked out. And I was like, Sergeant, that's completely false. I wrote that all night. He's like, let me tell you something. When I was on the line, I was covered in camouflage. And they made me write 10 ranger creeds. And in my head, I'm like, creeds.

Right, right. The creed is in the blue book. Right. 18 standing orders is in the blue book, my friend. Right. I had to write five of the orders, five of the orders, five of the creed and that's before I get to all the AR 670-1 stuff

like I knew the standard to the letter by the time I was done with one of those things and I'm just sitting there like oh no but I was like you know maintain military bearing and I was like okay Roger Sergeant Roger Sergeant Roger Sergeant Roger Sergeant was like because maybe this is just a psychological test to see if like hey I'm gonna say ridiculous shit to this guy

and if he gives me any attitude that's the boot so I was like my whole thing was like air on the side of safety do whatever you can to not piss this guy off and just sit through it and try to make it to the next level. So anyway, he goes, I'll tell you what. One more chance. We have the combatives thing later, the tournament later. And if you do well, maybe I'll think about making you a Ranger.

And I was like, oh, combatives is like my bread and butter. I wasn't the best at shooting. I wasn't the best at lifting weights at the time because I wasn't like an Olympic lifter or nothing. I was like, but combatants, oh, I've tussled with these guys in the hallways and they don't stand a chance, I'm going to do this. And, dude, I cleaned house. I cleaned house at that combatant's tournament.

And the funny thing is, I didn't sleep. There was a lot on the line, so you were pulling no punches. Oh, yeah. And, you know, maybe some guys there were like, if I lose, he'll look good. Maybe. I don't know. Nobody ever told me they did.

You know, maybe they will now. He's like, yeah, he didn't really beat me. That's a good idea. That's what I did. But, you know, I cleaned house. And actually, the title. fight like it was me versus the other guy who was actually a pretty good fight um and uh i won and then i was like dude like how are you going to send me the needs of the army and knowing that there's a guy that

you know kicked all your rangers asses how can you do that there's no way he goes thought about it i was like well okay like i'm in maybe and you know and he's like no i'm sending you to the board oh jesus what the fuck so it sends me to the board to you know they can talk to me me. And I sit there in the board, I go through answering all these questions like, what does Embitter mean and all this like stuff that most Joe's across the Army don't know.

Yeah. You know, it's like a knowledge board first. Then it turns into an integrity board. So first they hit you with a bunch of Ranger knowledge, Ranger history, and all this stuff. Then they hit you with like integrity board stuff. And one of the questions they asked, I

it made like the hair stand on the back of my neck because it insinuated something happen. Because the major was sitting in front of me. He goes, what's more important, training or family? And I said, well, sir, if I choose family, that's selfish because everybody here has a family. But if I train really hard, I may increase the probability

and mitigate the risk. You know, I may increase the probability of these guys returning to their homes to see their family. and mitigate the risk of them not returning all in one piece to meet their family. So I would say training is more important, sir. As a private, I felt that was the safest answer to give this guy. He goes, okay. He's like, so based on that, I'm going to recommend a day one reset.

Oh my God. He goes, would you like to know why your phone was, you know, blowing up, you know, like why you were receiving so many notifications? I was like, yes, sir, I would like to know. He was like, your dad's in the hospital. He had a heart attack. Jesus Christ. And they were trying to get a hold of you.

And right there, I'm like, yes, sir. You know? And I was like, dude, like, that's pretty fucked up. You knew that? Like, I was like, you knew that? And you played this fucking game with you? Yeah. You know?

So I was like, you know, I'm not going to get angry. I'm like, I'm going to ride through this. And so I, he said, okay, I'll give you like a few days to go home and check on your dad. So my dad survives a heart attack. But this is when, like, the truth comes out about my dad, which is stuff he was hiding. Because even when I got stabbed, I went and hung out with my dad. I got out of the hospital my 21st birthday. They said, hey, we're going to let you, we're going to get good news and bad news.

I'm letting you out of the hospital. It's your birthday. But we also know it's your birthday. and you just turn 21, you can't drink. So that's what they told me, like, no booze. And I remember, like, being with my dad, and I have, like, eight holes in my lung and bandages in my neck and my lung

and walking with my dad. This is before the Army, back to the, you know, Quentin Tarantino. They just go back in time a little bit, right? And I was walking with my dad at my apartment in Seattle that I was living at, and him struggling more than I was to walk from the restaurant to my house

and be like, Yeah, something's something's off. So that's why, like, when that phone was going, I was like, something might be happening. You know, that's why when he said family or it, I was like, something might be happening, you know? So I was like, part of me is like, man, this is like the only real accomplishment

that I'm going to be able to do that, like, nobody in my family's ever done. They've been in the military. They always saw those guys on the other side of the fence. They always wondered. But I'm going to be the guy on the other side of the fence. I'm not going to screw this up over an emotional thing. I need to get to the objective.

This is not a subjective thing. This is not happening to me. This is just something that's happening. I need to look at this objectively. And so I did. And I went home. He survives that. I go back day one and go through the whole course.

And finish the course. At this point, they kind of have like a rasped holdover. So before you go to your unit, you're going to maybe chill a little bit. I got to organize some certain things that had to do with my credit report to not only, so I rectified the thing with the hospital, but I had to go through and rectify my clearance and everything too. So they gave me time now to do all that.

And what was really great about going through that last time I went through RASP is I think that all the cadre members there were like pulling for me by that point because they were like, that was wrong and they were like some of the things are like hey man you're already a ranger like you don't got to do that thing

you know like we're good because they started doing RAS and RAS was like pretty cool we started doing breaching and all that and like they were letting me stand in front of people and explain the mathematical equation to how to build a charge and I was a private

and at the time I didn't think anything of it I just kept my shit from every cycle that I went through phase two and kept studying and studying and study because I was what I have to know when I get to my platoon You know it's a mortar platoon. I probably have to know this.

You know what I mean? I think I have to know this. And so like, yeah, I get through that. And I remember the third time I went through was the future mortar platoon starting 375 was in the class with me. Because they had like a combination of Rasp 2, RASP 1. We do like a culminating event. And I think I won him over because I did the silliest thing to win our like RASP. 1, Rast2 competition they kind of had.

And this is the first time we did this event. Like every cycle, they would change the events on this like Rasp 1 Rast 2 thing. So one of the things was like there was always a at the time, every cycle had a jump. Like you both jumped onto Friar DZ with Rast 2, the Rass 2 guys. And you kind of like link up with your RAS2 compadres like one's an NCO, one's an officer. And you both might go do some land nav or something. but there's always a 10-mile ruck involved. So we go do this 10-mile ruck,

and there's a little brain teasers along the way every time. And this is a new brain teaser. There's a brain teaser on Decker Strip where you had to take, like, tough boxes. And they said, the only thing you can walk on top of is the tough box and your equipment. And you have to cross Decker strip

by only walking on the tough boxes and equipment. So I see all the other guys, because we're like one of the last guys to assemble and get to Decker Strip. And I see all the other guys like, all right thing, stand on it, hand it to me, boom. I'm like assessing what everyone's doing? Then our guys come up with a plan. Like, all right, what are we going to do? How are we going to negotiate this obstacle?

I say, can I, you know, I'm private and there's an officer there and an NCO. And I was like, can I ask the cadre member a question? Yeah. I was like, does everything in your... your ruck counted as equipment and they're like yes and i was like so anything on my packing list as long as i'm standing on an item on my packing list it counts as equipment he's like yes and i look over and i was like can i make a suggestion and then the nCO stuff was like oh yeah go ahead and i was like let's put our socks over our boots and run across the field and we did that we picked up the

tough boxes and we ran and all the other groups they were like no no no no no you can't do it and it's like hey says the pack and the cadre was like yep you can so we got the edge we got past everyone you know and then um so anyway that guy i didn't know who that guy was i was like who's this like jacked jean wilder looking dude he looks like willie wonka but jacked and it'll become in the mortar platoon sergeant and then i didn't go to two seven five he's like no you're talking about edwards no no no no edwards isn't look like you This is another guy, former 175 guy, that took the platoon at. I think he was, he did some time at as Rasp catar.

Yeah, he was like RIPC cadre, I guess, with a bunch of like guys that later became my peers, but like they weren't really my peers, but like they became my peers. They became before me, but I almost blended in because I fast tracked. So for for people who might not, you know, be aware of these terms, So RIP was the Ranger indoctrination program. RASP used to be the Ranger assessment and selection program. But RASP back in the day was only for imports. And that was NCOs who were officers also.

And officers. Okay. Oh, Rasp and Rope, right? Who were in conventional units. And they were coming, they were in, they were considered imports. They were coming to the range of battalion from outside units, which isn't highly smiled upon often. Right.

for us, at least for me, RIP was a three-week. It was just a grind. It was just a ballbuster. But we didn't do any breaching. We didn't do anything like that. It was just... Yeah, we didn't do anything like that.

So can you tell us, like, what RASP came when you were there? So while I was there, it was pretty interesting. I remember, oh, man, and that just hit a memory. We had actually a Cadre member die while I was in Rask. Holy shit. Yeah. So Pedro Lacerra was a black belt and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He was the combatives teacher, and we were out on Pied and field.

And, man, I had tremendous respect for this guy, especially as a grappler myself growing up doing that. And then we were doing PT out there and he pretty much went down and looked like he was having a, like a seizure. And we had to flag some people down and got him to the hospital where he later passed away. And then members of the class had to go and recite the creed at a ceremony for him. Man, a ceremony. How old was he, like 30? I don't even know. But yeah, he's very young guy.

Very young guy. And it was like weird because it's very strange for us in the class because you have these terminators. Like God's. Yeah, these guys that are like they don't bleed. And then this guy goes down. And then his, you know, Ranger buddy, who's also leading PT with him, automatically is an emotional response to this. like he's hysterical that his ranger buddy is obviously not in good condition and he pushes towards that and um and you could tell they had a history like these guys didn't just meet in rass right these guys

these guys are probably sawgunners in the same squad right at some point you know and it was like oh man that's that's that's really strange like that's like reality hit yeah you know like this is real like what we're doing is real and um so you know not to you know turn it down a little bit but rasps like there's a lot of guys i went to rip raspy another the rap is soft and especially like when i went through rasps i was like these guys are the same guys who did rip the the cadre were like already doing rip it's not like they go oh all right switch it off make it easy you know they were like still like hey putting hands on you a little bit throwing you around a little bit um get your hands on the blacktop type stuff you know what i mean like that stuff was still going on and um but that's like

phase one mostly and then like phase two because i know like phase one i think like the first day we had like over 10 heat cats and it's in the wintertime so dudes were like going down and then um we go to phase two phase two i believe we did a lot of mobility training which a lot of guys like oh, there's boys driving around the Humvee. But it turns out to be really helpful because you get into the recovery techniques. If you really delve into it, you kind of go, all right, this is really cool.

Like I can actually learn some different techniques and stuff. And I actually do it almost as a hobby. A lot of people nowadays, like, do overlanding and they almost get stuck on purpose. I mean, I got the, you know, I got the kinetic rope out. You know, like, so it's like pretty cool that you get to do that. A little bit of mobility, heavy marksmanship.

And there's a story about the freaking marksmanship. I never shot a gun before the Army. You know? And so I was very like, do not ND, do not ND, do not ND, do not indeed, do not ND. I'm not exactly like comfortable. Like with the guy, like, I'll be comfortable. I'll look comfortable.

Yeah. But in the back of my mind is like, do not ND, do not ND, do not ND. Like the whole time it's just burning a hole in me. If I concealed carry or anything, it's burning a hole in me like, I'm just going to ND, ain't I? Is it loaded? Is it not loaded? I don't know. I probably loaded it. Somebody probably snuck in and loaded one. You know, like, that's that's the anxiety, you know, like, don't get kicked out. But I remember, like, the Cadre guy, the marksmanship instructor, he was like, hey, man, like you seem real nervous around that gun. You don't need to be nervous around that gun. That gun's not going to hurt you unless you do something stupid. Like, hey, think about, like, some girlfriend that you had before. She had really nice nipples. Let's talk about her nipples. And then I was at parade rest. Like, oh no like this guy and i remember he shot at the ground like in front of me like between my legs

uh when i was at pre rest and i was like dude he's like are you scared of the gun now and i was like sergeant i'm a little worried when you have it yeah like just because we're in like phase two and it was kind of okay to like send a little back at the guy these guys were more laid back in face two and i was like yeah now with you there a little bit you know but i was kind of also at the time like to get like yeah this is like ranger stuff you know got shooting at the ground but you know it turns out that's not it's not the right yeah it's not exactly i can't imagine that was in the uh training no yeah i was surprised that you did it but um but i also thought about my nine toes when he did it i'm like i could probably lose another one

even it out hit the right hit the right i'll run even faster yeah um but uh yeah so we did marksmanship we did combative stuff we did mobility and we did breaching breaching covered like not everything you weren't going to be master breacher but you can be like you're going to be like maybe a low level breacher. That's why I think they stopped sending guys to the low level breacher course. Because everybody who went through RAS did some sort of breaching that was like above low level breaches. Like you were doing ECT charted, fleck linear, all this stuff. You were doing mechanical breaches, manual breaches, thermal breaches, ballistic breaches.

You're out there with a shotgun, which I was like, they're like, the shotgun is what gets like, it's like behind a DUI, this shotgun will RFS you. Because end these, like they would talk about ending. the shotguns like after the DUI this is the second most reason why guys get RFS the Remington 870 and yeah

and like you know that thing so when I was like having that I was like this thing's burning a hole in me hopefully I don't get selected like to breach with this but so that's essentially I know if I was probably all over the place but essentially marksmanship heavy mobility heavy

combatants wasn't super heavy but it was there and then they had, um, uh, was the other, the breaching. So it sounds like, because,

you know, I got there during a peace time military. So the idea was you get selected, you know, and then you go and you get hazed for a year while you're, while you're being trained to be a ranger.

Yeah. But it sounds like because there were active wars going on, wars going on, that they wanted you guys trained before you got there, at least to have a solid foundation. Yeah, you almost touched anything that you're going to, going to touch on the line.

You touched it there. And the cool dynamic about the Ranger Regiment is like there's a cook right there learning how to build an explosive charge next to you. You know what I mean? Like there's a parachute rigor right there learning to build charges next to you. And obviously we think there's bias like, hey, man, this guy's just going to skate through. He can almost mess this up and still go through. That was always like the thing.

Like they need the soft skill guys like push and push and push them. The paralegal? Come on. Right. You know? But that's just like a part of that like military occupation and specialty prejudice that you have. Yeah. So you do end up graduating from RANS.

Yeah, finally. After this odyssey. Yeah. Tell us about showing up at your platoon. You're a mortar platoon 375? Motor platoon 375. That's correct. So it's 375 because you had orders 275.

Yep. And then they decided to punish you and send you to 375. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then it was like I thought it was a punishment. And then later. I was like, this is awesome.

This is great. So the funny thing is, like, all I had to do is walk across street. I didn't have to be like, oh, where am I? But then I found it weird because then you had an in-processed post, and I'm like, I've been on this post for almost a year. Why am I in-processing? They're like, let me tell you about Fort Benning. I'm like, I already know about Fort Benning.

Please be quiet. Wait for the end of the class. Hold all questions to the end. I'm like, I have no questions. Please let me out of here. Kind of just, you know, collect me out of here. I'll take a test on Fort Benning and push me on it. Like, no.

Still had to sit through the same stuff. Everyone was brand new to Fort Benny. So I get to 375, and it was very strange. Because my first interaction with the first person you meet in your company is the first sergeant. And we had a very, like, cartoon character kind of first sergeant, as many people did. And they're like, hey, first sergeant's in there. Knock on the door and wait for him to say enter. And I was like, okay, Roger Sergeant to whoever the headquarters platoon sergeant was at the time.

I said, okay, Roger Sarant. And then knock on the door, I hear enter from this like grumbling voice on the other side. I step in, close the door behind me, go to pray, rest. Immediately in shock and said, don't, don't show shock. Just like, you know, a thousand yards there. Don't look at him. And don't look at the man, a full grown man on his hands and knees next to the first sergeant. Like, ever the first sergeant's petting him with a dog.

And this guy was like an FO. And he looked like a weasel. He was disgusting. And I was like, how's that guy a Ranger? And it was very weird. And I was like, if I fuck this up, am I going to have to be the dog? You know? So he's like, hey, standard test.

What's your PT? How do you run? How fast do you run? And I was like, well, usually I'm a sub 30 minute five mile. And he's like, I can run fast than that. I'm like, man, my first aren't kind of big old gut too. And he's like, you know, I was like, I don't know for a first. I'm like, okay, Roger first, sorry, and I'll get better at running.

And I remember he's like, hey, what's your favorite stand is the creed? All right, say it. I say the creed. He's like, that's my favorite too. He's like, then he says, so Sandusky, got one last question for you. I'm like, oh, man, what's it going to be? And he's like, what is best in life? And I was like, is this guy for real?

Yeah. And I was like, dude, send it. I was like, to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women. in first sergeant and he was like gah get the fuck out of here and I got out of there and I was like dude what was that what was happening

and they're like hey we'll take you your section every private has to know that yeah so I get I go I go to my section leader they take me my section leader and you know kind of introduced to him and I remember like my first week there was EIB and the cool thing about RASP

is you do all the EIB tasks and RAS as you go through so it's like dude I did RAS three times I'm upset. So we went through the EIB and I, that first week there and I got the EIB, it didn't really fully integrate the platoon yet. And then I think towards the end of the expert infantry badge, once I earned my expert infantry badge,

I basically entered the platoon with the EIB, which was pretty good. And then on that Ruck March, I was like, I have to win first place. And I got like second place out of the battalion on the EIB Ruck March for the 12 mile earth because I was like, I want to make a good impression on my place. platoon.

So then I finally integrate with my platoon and being like, oh, yeah, I saw you, you got second place. Like, you freaking like, I was like being mocked for almost like being like an overachiever or something like that. And I was like, dang it, man. Like I'm, this is not very good start. And they, I remember they told me to like, hey, like, we don't need you today. Go home and meet us at downtown at the tap at 7 p.m.

We're doing a go away party for the alcohol. one platoon sergeant because the other platoon sergeant that did Rasset, he's coming. And so, I'm like, all right, and I went downtown and I think everybody in the platoon punched me while I was there. They said, make sure you punch that guy. He's a new guy. I got punched by everybody while I was there.

They would buy me a drink. And I was like, all right. And then like, they would be like, buy me a drink because I killed someone, you have it. And then the section leader would be like, well, no, he's killed someone. And they're like, wait, what? And then, because they were like, they brought me in the cage. Like, I think the day after that part, there was like a mascal down town.

I didn't drink at all because I was like, dude, I don't know what's going on. Don't drink. Just, you know, maintain homeostasis and get out of this, you know. And there was a mask out. And I was the guy, like, loading people in vans and being like, all right, let me just help people out. And then anyway, I get to work, whatever, the next day or sometime that week. And they try to pull that again, like, everybody. It was like being taken to a prison cell.

But like a prison cell is like, you go in a prison cell. It's like, what are you in for? I'm in for armed robbery. Hey, man, I did this. I did that. And then like the guy in the back corner is like, what's up with that guy? He killed someone. You know, it's like, when I got to my platoon in the cage,

like, everybody in this cage has killed someone. And you're just like, all right. Got it. You know, like, that's where you were in that aspect. You're like, oh, that's real. That's not even a joke. everybody in this cage has killed somebody whether with the direct fire or indirect fire weapon systems whether it was with the 50 Cal and RWS where it was with any type of tool that

the regiment gives you to take one's life and I was like all right you know and I was kind of in that mode like man like the way that I went about my life is I didn't feel like it was for anything. I wasn't proud. Like people like even when I got stabbed, people were like, you won that fight man. That's badass. What did I win? I didn't wake up that day. I was like, I don't want to win the lottery. I want to take someone's life. Right. Like you don't win nothing. You know, so I was kind of like, all right, well, like, I have more respect for these guys because they weren't just like caught up in some stupid thing. There's like a purpose behind kind of like what they're doing in a way, you know. So yeah, there was a lot of stuff going on there. I started like,

getting really introduced to the culture there kind of already kind of had a feel for it like the mortars are going to be crazy and you know the mortars are going to be crazy because you just sense basic training it's already ingrained in you you already know how the culture outside the army influences the culture inside your organization and then your organization within the organization and you're just this niche crew there's no other mortar platoon there might be like a you know like nine to 12 line platoon like rifle platoons, you know. But there's only one mortar platoon per battalion. And, yeah, so I was there, and I remember, like, I don't know, talking about the barracks.

I remember I told you about the barracks. Yeah, the Joe stories, the board of the flash shit. Yeah. So it's like, the barracks was like, oh, that's the C-Co barracks. That's the A-co-barrics. And then you point at this barracks. It's got like a halo of bats and lightning and a dragon. Just, like, soaring around it.

You're like, what's that? It's like, that's the mortar barracks do not, you know, it's like anything the light touches symbol. You may never go there. It's the elephant graveyard, you know? And so I was like, you know, I went, I was in those barracks. And I remember all types of crazy stuff shenanigans happening in the barracks. And it wasn't like just like little fun and games and stuff.

I remember there was this guy who was a partner to a very famous sniper, wrote a lot of books, named Nicholas Irving. This guy's a partner to like, name. irving um he's in the books i think as p and uh so there's a guy uh old sergeant p he's there aka p murder uh he's there and i guess the story what i heard was that he had attempted buds before the army or something like washed out or something he was definitely an older guy than anybody else that we saw is this like the silver fox type guy so like 27 28 yeah there you go yeah maybe even older I don't know.

But he, he, uh, he, uh, I remember somebody apparently was walking around with like a broom handle or something was smashing all the lights in the barracks.

Like, push. Push. It was like a mortar guy. You know. And, uh, old,

old Sergeant P. comes out and he's like, what's going on? You know, I, I thought this was the Ranger Regiment, man. What's happening?

What is? is this? And this dude who's smashing lights just goes, shut up, bitch. Just keep smashing lights. Like, wow. Like, that is like the level of like zero fucks given, no morale. Yeah. Like, clearly this guy, I mean, this is a guy who's like involved in like an

Osprey crash, broke his back and like had safe lives in there and lost like one of his friends. And, you know, there's like, at surface level, you're like, that's a psychopath. Like, why is that guy belong there? Whatever. It's like, man, you kind of look at like, something. I learned that. I'm like, man, that guy he even told me like,

man, I was screaming in that. I heard screaming in Osprey and I didn't realize it was me screaming. Like, while I was rolling and shit and he had to pull people out of there. But there's like, there's that level of like, wow, man, these are incredible people in my

platoon that done incredible things and you know, they're not really getting the recognition they should because he was in an Osprey crash in Rooster 73 over in Afghanistan and he pulled a bunch of folks out of there and he got soldiers metal.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. But whoever was back at the jock commanding, got a silver star. Yeah. You know what I mean? Brothar with valor or Silver Star.

Yeah, that's like, like sometimes like I see guys like on certain podcasts and stuff and they're like reading off the thing of all these awards and I'm like, dude. not awards that people are just like oh yeah let's put them for award 11 Charlie throw it away you know and just feeling that

like dang man I could have that rap sheet but then it was like hey man the awards don't matter right like they don't matter why they always say them right in front of everyone else you know but I didn't really I seen a lot of people like no matter like the MOS get kind of bypassed on awards what I noticed but

what are you going to say well before we move into some of the combat stuff and deployment stuff. I would like to take a couple minutes to hear you lay out, you know, what is a mortar section for the people out there? What is a Ranger Regiment motor section? Okay. The Navy SEALs have a motor section? No. Does the Delta Force have a motor section? I think not. Yeah. Well, we're their mortar section. Yeah. So tell people... Where the Navy SEAL motor section, we're the Delta Force mortar section, where everybody's mortar section. Tell people about your platoon. So the responsibility of a Ranger mortar platoon

essentially is you are the all-weathered J-Soc asset, the only all-weathered J-Soc asset. And we used to make a joke about it. I was like, what if we're stood down due to weather? You know, we can't get the bird, we can't get the striker, whatever. Whatever it is, lift package that we're trying to roll out with.

And so essentially, there's so many ways to skin this cat on what is. And the thing is about my mortar platoon in 375 is like, when I showed up there, I saw some really hard men that were combat hardened, but really didn't have an identity. They didn't really know exactly what their purpose was. And our mortar platoon had been there

at Haditha Dam. But you know, all Haditha Dam is like, Beko, 375. Haditha Dam. It's like, but what about those enablers, man, that were dropping 120s on like in and one canoe, as it says in the BDA, you know. Like, it's funny, but it's like, did that generation go away? What's happening? Where are these guys? What are they doing? Now they just forgot about those guys. And now you have these guys that are like, dude, what do we do?

We're like treated like, you're nothing. You don't have anything. No lineage. But I'm sitting there looking at the history and I'm thinking like, okay. So at face value, a mortar platoon is at the top, you're going to have your mortar PL, which is usually some sort of lieutenant or captain.

then you have your platoon sergeant, which is a master sergeant position within the Ranger Regiment. The mortar platoon sergeant is a master sergeant position. So it's supposed to be a Zulu in charge of a mortar platoon. Most of the time, you're going to have a seven there because they're not finding Zulus around, nor are they finding Zulus that want to be mortal platoon sergeant.

Right. Hell no, you're not saying, I've been on the line, man. Right. It's not a sexy position. I want to take the company. Right. And if I'm not going to get a company, I'm going to go long walk.

I'm going to go do something else. Right. They don't want to come to mortar platoon. And so under him, you have two section leaders. And I believe that first Ranger Battalion and second Ranger Patelian and third range of battalion all did differently. Like even our call signs are like a little different. We were so decentralized and organized as far as like a platoon.

We never came together holistically. We were too attached for so long to the identity of our battalion. Even though our battalion almost didn't seemingly didn't care about. about our own identity and passing on our identity. I mean, one time we had a cam officer as our PO. And it was like a smack in the face. Yeah, it's clear they're just like sticking people. Right.

Yeah. So they punch their thing. Yeah, here you go, you know. So the way that we ran it for a while was like, you know, we had a first section and second section and FDC section. And the way that that ran was kind of like, you know, hey, first section, you roll through, you know, we're like working. shifts like hey you do this exercise you do this exercise but what really put a constraint on you

was like the line would be looking at you like man you're really dragging an ass out here and it's like they don't realize that mortar guy just got off supporting battalion ops now he's coming down to support delta company now he's going to go from delta company go support alpha company and we're like so we stretch ourselves thin with this makeup that we're doing that like now you're like and each time you're carrying like maybe 10 rounds maybe plus your cannon because you don't have a you don't have an AB with you so you have a cannon and 10 rounds in your back right each one of those 60 rounds weighs three and a half pounds you know what I mean so and then all your other gear right up of it so can you I just want to

make sure we break it down a little Barney level yeah people out there who really have no idea about the 60s yeah yeah one's the 120s that's right what the fire direction center like if you just explain to yeah so that was kind of actually an interesting dynamic that kind of fed into my well-roundedness. So I would say the mortar platoons are jack of all trade, almost mastering none. So we had a 120-millimeter mortar, which it's in the name. The projectile is 120 millimeters around, a 70-meter blast radius. And it's about a 30-pound projectile. It could be fired up to 7.2 kilometers out of the American 120-millimeter system. And, you know, the components of the system are like the base plate's like 136 pounds.

The cannon itself is 110. You know, like all the components are heavy. Like, you know you're busting that thing out. You're like, it's going to be a bad day. Getting to work sucks. Yeah. Leaving work sucks. Working is awesome.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And then you have the 81, which is a lot more mobile, a lot more lightweight, you know, a total of like 93 pounds altogether. and, you know, then you have your ammo and all that other stuff, which actually adds the weight. And, you know, you're only firing like a little over 5.5K with that one, but it's a little bit more mobile. It's kind of like the happy medium. A lot of guys, they favor it the 81, and then you have the 60s, 60 millimeters.

And those are more like for close-in fight. You're attached to that platoon. You're attached to that company. Your direct line of sight fighting with the 60. and so because usually each um i know we had like four 120 canons but we usually ran during up like like before syria for a while that whole generation like my earlier part of my career we usually only ran like two 120s at a time sometimes we ran four but usually only two at a time because you're so understaffed like you can't staff four of them um because nobody wants to be

Rangers. Nobody wants to be 11 Charlie's. Right. And nobody wants to be 11 Charlie Rangers. Right. So, and quality life is bad. So people leave. Like, yeah, very quickly. Very doggy dog. So, you know, you would shift. Okay, today we're doing 120s. Today we're doing 80s. All right. All right. We're going to do 60s. Hey, these guys need you over there. Pick up the 60. And you had to be expected to be an expert every one of those systems. And you also had to be able to integrate with the lines to put by fire because you usually work in very close proximity. with a support by fire to pick up that 240 to pick up that goose off to be able to engage enemy forces while you're usually on isolation or support by fire and do it to almost like the

same level that the line guys that or those AT guys are executing all those procedures that's kind of like the way that we went about it so it was very decentralized and disorganized to begin with so I mean mortars like a 120 you can use for base defense yep I'm for in the defense. And a 60, I mean, it's small enough that, you know, guys would carry down a sling, wing it off their shoulder and put rounds down the tube, like, within like, what, 50 meters, if need be, right? Yeah, within 70 meters, yeah.

Yeah. Within 70 meters, you could put it within 50 meters. It's like, you know, arming distance and all that. You could just punch a hole through somebody, and it's pretty good. Like, you know, like, it's still a good effect. It's an interesting. Bill and I, the science guy, experiment, you could try. I mean, we definitely did.

We used to fire mortars off of our thighs with the 60s. And, you know, we try to go beyond the max effective range and shoot things beyond max effective range. And it was kind of cool. It was almost like that master breacher type stuff where you get to shoot things with a mortar and then analyze the effects of that mortar system and be like, this is good in this, not just out of the book. Like the guy in the book that's at MCOE said this would be a good idea. So you don't know until you're there. Right. Now, does the 60 have a basement?

plate? Yes. It does. Yes. They have two different kinds of base plate. But you can fire it without the base plate. No. Well, you could. It just wouldn't be a good idea. It'd be a bad day. And how much is like the 60 base plate? Uh, so you have, man, it's been so long. I don't remember how what the base plate is, but I remember

it was like there's one that's like 3.6 pounds and then there is another one because they changed it. They changed that base plate like three times because you have your auxiliary base plate and then you have your conventional base plate. your auxiliary base plate goes with the 60 when it's in handheld mode. Okay. And then you have conventional mode.

Handheld mode means that you are trigger firing because the 60 millimeter mortar, the M224 alpha 1 that the United States military uses is fired in two different positions. Either drop fired or trigger fired. Okay. And both muzzle loaded. And so when you're in handheld, you usually use a scale that's on the back of the 60 that has a, Tridium illumination, and it has one side that has a zero at the top, which stands for charge zero, and another side is charge one at the top. And you, down the scale, it tells you

the range. That has a little floating ball in there. A little floating ball, yep, and you move it, and then you kind of line it up, and then that's to the range that you desire, and you make sure the cannon is on target, and you hit things. And this is something I used to mess with the sniper platoon about, because obviously being a sniper and stuff, I'd be like, hey, you You guys, you always talk about, you new night force scope or something like that. I'm like, my guys are engaging targets at 1,200 meters with their thumb. You know what?

It's kind of funny, right? Real quick, you said a lot of guys prefer the 80. Like, what is the 81 way? What is the 81 way, like the base plate and the two? So I remember the base plate weigh like 35 pounds. I don't remember what like the next generation, because we went to M252 Alpha 1 and used to just be M2. 252.

But it went, they did like a whole weight reduction on it. And I don't really remember how much it weighs. I remember used to telling guys after a while ago, it don't matter what it weighs. The battalion is still going to tell you to carry it. And that's why I asked, because I think one of the things that Mortarman do not, I think from the line guys, like they get the appreciation

when the line guys see them hump and that stuff. Yeah. We don't realize you're carrying everything that every line guy is carrying. Yeah. In addition to a base plate, a tube, the rounds. Like, I remember doing fast rope operations where you never wanted to be, you never wanted to go before the mortar guys. Because those guys were screaming down the line. And that was kind of the cool thing about being a mortar too is like, you're like, we're the first boots on the ground.

Yeah. Like EMLAT. So, you know, anytime you do an airfield seizure, it's like, who's going to be first boots on the ground? I'm the heavy dude. I'm jumping out the door first. I'm getting on the ground first. As I got older, I was like, what is the direction of flight? Where is my MFP?

I want to put myself in the stack so I ran closer to the MFP. You know, I started that kind of like, hey, man, screw the scatter pattern. I want to get next to where I need to go, you know, instead of, because if you're heavy, if you're way down, you've got to jump first so you don't, you know, come burning in somebody else. So tell us about hitting the ground in Afghanistan in 2010. Okay, so 2010, this is like towards the end. I think it was like December or something like that. I end up in this area called Collot,

and it was very interesting because right away, you kind of knew what you were up against when you're in Collot. Because you looked out from your fob, and we were in a tiny fob at a ride of 47 to get there, very small. And you look out from your little fob, and you see Alexander the Great's Castle there. And you're like, dude, this has been going. went on. It was almost like, like a morale kind of like, your morale kind of went away a little bit.

Like, dude, like, this doesn't look good. That guy trying it? He's in a book. I'm not in a book. He's in lots of books. And he's great, apparently. He's like, he's the one Alexander that was pretty great. You know? So, like, you see that. And I remember, like, I go in there and a man, I'm out and uh he's insane because the company I was attached to was like right away you kind of you're like you almost felt like you're in the locker room of like some hall of fame team when you're overseas you're like whoa the the first sergeant was in mogadishu that's the son of a medal honor recipient that was killed in mogadishu dude sergeant came in he was in panama like what

because i remember the sarah major gave his speech and i think at the time i was like 24 by this time my first appointment he was like i've been a ranger for 24 years and i was like oh that guy's been a ranger as long as i've been alive and i mean you can probably tell from that voice who i'm talking about but um

yeah i was i was like dang man this guy has been around for a while and he looks like he's been around. Yeah. A little battle tool, man. Oh, I know you're talking to the CSN. Yeah. And so, he's a good guy.

Yeah. And that, you know, that guy ran into me in Korea one time. Yeah. He was in charge of, like, 9th Army out there and we were doing some training.

We're talking about Sergeant Major Merit, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I was in civilian clothes in the PX or something, getting some more stuff. to grab to go back up to

Warrior base or what we're training at and somebody hits me on the back like smacks me in the back and I turn around and there's Sergeant Major Mayor with his hand out he's like, how you doing Ranger?

And I was like oh yeah Rush Sarameter a million civilians that go to pray rest and all these people like regular Army dude conventional and career are looking at me like why are you pray rest for you know and I'm like dude, I don't care if this guy tells me not to go to pray.

I'm a manchurian candidate when this guy's around. You know what I mean? Oh, level quit. You know, like seriously, you know. I remember a shark in his air once on an airfield seizure. I came down below him. Yeah. And he burned in right behind me.

I hear, boom. And I went, I didn't know who it was. I thought it might have been my buddy in AT. And I ran over. And I was like, oh, dude, are you okay? you okay and this guy rolls over like roh it's this he was the op sergeant major at 375 at the time yeah he broke all the pens in his pockets like everything was destroyed i felt so fucking bad about it yeah but i i stayed

with them and helped them up and like we ran to the assembly area together yeah but i felt oh my god the next day we're doing the next generation of yeah and i'm there all kidded up and everything with you know 150 pounds of shit weighing there waiting for the plane to take off and merits there on the ramp pointing to me and laughing with the other guys like oh that fucking over there sky shark he's the ringleader he's the ringleader he was nice about it he was like he's like roller jumper has the right away yeah it is what it is but yeah good good dude

yeah no he hit me on the back and he's like how are you doing ranger and i was like hey sarah major like how'd you know and he was like he's like devil recognized his own What the heck, man? Awesome. Great. It's like a morale boost anytime that guy was around somehow. And, you know, he's a thing of legend. He's still.

He's a CSM. He'd love to go be a sawgunner on a fire team. Yeah. Right then and there. Like, go do it. Oh, yeah. There are still whispers in the cages of him probably to this day. You know, I haven't been interacting with, you know, the organization a couple years.

But, you know, that's pretty incredible. Yeah. But that was the guy. That was the whole thing, man, like these interesting people. To me, I'm like, dude, I am in the Hall of Fame locker room. There's, like, these incredible people like, oh, man, that guy was an R or D when they jumped into, when they jumped in, like, you know, I guess like before Rhino or whatever. Yeah. I was like, that guy was that, well, that was a guy.

Like, wow. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't, like, you know, and then any time my guys would be like, you don't belong here, you don't belong here. I was like, yeah, Roger, so I don't belong here. You say you don't want to be here? I'm like, no, I'm looking around and you're telling me I don't belong here. Yeah, I don't belong here. I want to belong here. Like, how do I belong here?

Tell me. Teach me how to belong here. Because, man, I got the dog shit smoked every every single day. And it was not an isolated incident from mortars. Like, I might be up here and people watching at home be like, oh, you know, you a woe is me guy? Like, you know, I'm like, no, I'm just talking about the event as it was objective, not subject. What is this happening to me? It happened to every mortar guy there, and it probably happened a lot worse. So they say to guys before me, you know, and I respect that they say that.

I wasn't there for those generations. but, you know, I saw something ugly in the past, like a very brutal way of breaking in soldiers. And I can see a lot of, like, young guys in their early 20s just dead in their eyes. Like, they almost had no will to live. They didn't care. And it almost made them the most dangerous person on the battlefield.

Because you're like, that guy is going to send it on any enemy or not enemy, opposing force, I would say. You know what I mean? Because it's like, it's so kind of. complex. War is so complex. I started getting away from calling people the enemy and be like the opposing force. Because sometimes they're the opposing force and sometimes they're like, oh, you're doing a

joint operation with this force that was like this group of people that was somewhat questionable the other day. Right. You know what I mean? It's like so unknown, I think. But yeah. Back to Afghanistan. Yeah.

So first deployment. Yep. Up on this mountain top that you had to take a 47 to. Which, I don't know. I'm not first appointment to Afghanistan. Yeah. You were telling me it was a small fob. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, we had a, it wasn't really like a mountain top per se. It was like, like we could see Alexander the Great's Castle from there. We took, it very tiny. It was like there's, you can see some urban areas around. We land there, very small. I don't want to say, man, this thing was like, if you ran around it in a circle less than a mile, probably like a, maybe like a third of a mile, if you ran a lap around it, one lap around it.

I don't really remember exactly. He was tiny. So, yeah, we get there and it was a blackout flob, and I've heard about blackout fobs, and I was like, man, my first deployment, I'm a blackout fob, oh, no, like, all these guys are at CAF and they're at Bath, and, you know, like, they're all these places.

Like, I want to be, but I was kind of glad I wasn't in those, like, near the flagpole. You grew up in 375, you're at the flagpole. So when you're deployed, it's like your vacation time. You know, you're away from everything. So yeah We deployed there to this area It was like kind of wintertime

It snowed Got smoked a lot Went out on target Not as much as I would have liked Because I was new We kind of had this section With us, the second section Is who I was

A part of Near a line platoon And we kind of conducted operations with the Lion platoon and we also conducted operations supporting the Lion Platoon. Because I remember one day we had we pushed out like a high lux

which I was like well this is cool my friends are in like in a high looks I mean pushed out a Hilux with a 120 and we're going to go support these guys as they move through an AO and I was like wow we're actually going to use the 120 after like these guys invasively like you will never

use the mortar you'll just be stuck on a fob and all this like you know stuff that maybe they were exposed to. Yeah. And we rolled out on a little high lux and then I remember like the section leader being like hang it. And I was the A-B.

And I had a 120 round in there. And he's like, he just sits there and I see my section leader just go. And I'm like, dude. And he's like, no, I just keep it there. And how much is that round way? 30 pounds. But 30 pounds up here. Right.

It's like this awkward thing. And if you drop it. Right. It's going. It's going. And it's cold. Right. And you're not allowed to wear gloves as a mortar. Like it's like written in there like you don't wear gloves because if you drop it.

Yeah. If you drop the mortar round, your glove can get caught inside the cannon. And then when that happens like, you know, something could ignite. It could go down. If your gloves are stuck, like you can you can rip your hands off, your fingers off, anything. Like the list goes on. Explore the studio space. I don't want to find out, you know?

Like, you know, cool, but I don't really want to find out if I lose my fingers. So you had me sitting there for a while. And then we pulled it out and we didn't fire it. And I was kind of like, bummed, like, dang it, man. And then they were like, all right, pack up the ammo. And I'm like, man, I was the new guy. And I think I was so cherry that even the next private was like maybe had two or three deployments on me. And this is my first.

Yeah. So it was like, and a lot of mortar guys just didn't go to rain. injury school during that day. They're like, why am I going to go range or even more bitter? Yeah, I just, I'm just going to go kill dudes. Yeah. Like, why miss the deployment? You know, because mortar guys were on BP sometimes with a saw or a 240. Like, they didn't care about the mortar. You're like, I don't, I need to get away from this and go do that. And then I can be, I'll carry an extra, you know, Mark 48 on target. You know, I'll do what I'll carry a ladder, do anything. And that's kind of the way our guys were, a lot of guys would read class and become

an F-O go do something else. Right. Or become 11 Bravo. And so, yeah, that's just kind of how it was. Like, I remember my first appointment. And then, yeah, our strike force actually ended up killing a lot of people, a lot of opposing forces and people that obviously stood against the interest of U.S. foreign policy. And so they were removed from the...

from being alive, I guess. And yeah, so that was a very fairly successful strike force, I think, and it was pretty cool to be around. Was that Afghan strike force? Yeah, we were, or our, it was a ranger platoon. We did have Afghan partnership unit. It was called Afghan Partnership Unit at the time. We did have them co-located with this along with some other, like, glowing entities that would partner with us on target that seemed like they had nothing to do with the DOD.

So, yeah, we would go on to these objectives and it was interesting because I got to see a lot of guys who had like, and you could really pick their brains without picking their brains. You'd like, this is the place to be. You knew it's the place to be, but you know it's like, it's probably my duty to tough this out and try to make this better. It can be better than this. We need, like, this mortar platoon where fate has led me to, needs to be a lot of, it needs to be at the level of prestige and lineage that I see in this line company that I see in these guys

that I see. Like we need to be like the enemy needs to or the anybody who opposes us needs to be in fear that, you know, that there is this element out there such as us. What was objective Ares? So objective Aries was something I wasn't directly a part of. But a lot of people, because I had gone through RAS three times, they were a lot of people that I knew were affected. One guy in particular that I went through RAS with was killed.

And four, you know, members of the strike force were killed. Many people were wounded, very seriously wounded, where they either lost, you know, some appendage or eyesight. Was this the Mass Cal event? Yeah. Okay, I remember when this happened. Yeah. So that was like a very, like, hard hitting thing. There was a lot of lessons to be learned from that.

I did see a lot of guys across the battalion trajectory change. I see a lot of guys after that, you know, hang it up. Yeah. I'm getting out of here. You want to describe briefly, like, what happened on Target? I don't really fully know or understand everything that happened on Target, as I understood. And I don't know exactly how everything started. I just know that there was a lot of IEDs there.

There was a call out maybe being conducted. I know that somebody squirted, maybe HBI. When I say squirted, I mean, took off from the objective, kind of trying to flee coalition forces, but it was like a pre-planned route right. I guess he might have had some indicator on the ground showing him the safe passing across the IED belt. And what you call the interdiction team, try to interdict the assailant. and started producing casualties from that and also, I guess, somebody on call out. I guess it might have been a female holding an explosive device,

initiated that explosive device somewhere outside breach, injuring people. And then a QRF was called. Members of the QRF were also injured. Many, many people were injured on that objective. and it was it hit really close to home and I remember we had a ceremony when we got back for the Rangers that we lost and I remember seeing some friends of mine in the front front row missing their eye missing the legs and like I broke down crying you know like and I know I have like nothing to like be sorry for but I remember telling me I'm sorry I'm sorry sorry is that we're putting their names up on the rock yeah out there in the field

than the parents yeah it's stuff yeah so like um but you know that's something that every guy you kind of make peace with that when when you step every time you set foot in the direction of the objective you've you've already signed like um that contract of life and that is something that even if i'm like oh that guy's a douchebag. I don't know. I want to talk to him again. If I see him at the bar, I might be like, all right, man. Like, you know, because you have that common bond. Right. All right. Like, and even if that guy maybe screwed you over, you know, you might be like, all right, man. Like, I at least know that maybe, you know, you sign that, you know, contract, that nonverbal contract to get on the bird. Like, you're going to, you're going to. And that's, and that's something I used to ask my guys because of that. Because of that. Because of that. event I used to ask my guys and they come in and I was like hey say the creed you know and uh uh you know fully understanding the hazardous my chosen profession I was like what does that mean of you he's I could die sergeant I go no that's not what that means that's like probably like if something

does happen to you it's probably like a very easy thing that could happen to you I was like but you could be maimed and disfigured and live the rest of your life disabled right and You don't know if anybody around here cares about you. You don't know that because there's so many people they leave the army. And like, you're like, oh, hey, like, you know, he left the army. It's like he's dead to us now. Right. And then sometimes those guys, they're just isolated.

They do kill themselves. And I've known plenty of people to do that. Yeah. And I've known plenty of people that, you know, you're just thinking like, oh, happily ever after because you're so excited to leave. And then, you know, maybe he leaves. He gets out from under the Army and he's like, oh, there's some things I miss about. Sometimes you see guys come back.

Guys come back to RAS. And, whoa, you're in the Army again. Like, what? You know, now you're like an E6 and he's still like an E4 or something. And I'm like, wow, how did that? You came back here? You know, like, I'm trying to leave. You know, they should call me first.

Yeah. Things are getting bad. You know, no, that not necessarily. Like life working at Chili's just wasn't what I thought it was. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And it's not just that.

I mean, even for people who find, like, successful careers afterwards, it doesn't offer the same stuff that that camaraderie and that mission, it just, there's nothing that compares to it on the outside. Yeah. And you're probably sitting there like, man, I miss my friends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, me personally, I mean, I only got out of the Army in January.

So I'm still going through it. Still, like, you know, going through the whole transition process and figuring out everything I want to do. You know what I mean? And, you know, and the cool thing is, like, I'm still somehow loosely in contact with these guys. Yeah. And I made somewhat of impression where guys were still in, call me for advice. Guys, like, I'm not even in the Army. I'm like, am I the shadow governor of this border platoon?

What's happening? Right. Get it together. You know what I mean? Right. But because of that, you know, um, um, uh, that's, you know, um, uh, that's, it's a good segue because I kind of started this thing with a couple buddies in the Morpatoon where we kind of started calling like what we were doing Task Force Verman.

So task force Verman was kind of like, I remember this one guy got like a Banksy tattoo where it's like the mortar rats with the, I got a Bengsy tattoo. Yeah, man, we're the vermin. I was in the street art and stuff. So I was like mad because he bit on this like famous artist. Yeah. I was like, dude, we can't use that as the lobe. I was like, screw it.

Everyone's already doing it. Just go with it. So we got like this Banksy Street Art mortar rats thing inside of an orange diamond. And we're just like, hey, you know, let's just be this decentralized mortar company. We got guys at 175 and 275 and 275 and 375. Let's stop competing and all the BS. Like, let's just share AARs with each other and be like, hey, man, we're the only guys like us. Right.

Let's bring it in and be like, hey, what are you having problems with? What are you having successes with? And that kind of became a thing. And then once we really started kind of that thing, I think, there's a lot of, like, a lot of good cross-talking people coming into their own off of that. But that's, I mean, that's a little bit later on. That really hit. That's pretty cool. Got to prove that in Syria.

What was it like then as, you know, time progresses? Like, you're getting exposed to the special ops task. force, all these like OGA partners, all these things that you're learning being exposed to. You deployed several more times to Afghanistan. Yeah. What were these deployments like? What was your impression of the war as the years ground on? I mean, I remember my first deployment being like the strike force was being very kinetic.

And I remember my second deployment being like, we didn't do anything. I think somebody like rifle butted somebody in the head really hard. And that's it. And then, like, my third deployment, I was a team leader because I went to ranger school. And I got to, I do have a ranger school story. We can get back to that. But I was a team leader in my third deployment. And, yeah, we went out all the time.

And, you know, you might have been out in country for like 90 days or more. He did like over 100 missions. And that was pretty crazy. We got to do a lot of stuff that was like really, really interesting, too. Like we had some Taliban facilitator that was also running the A&A checkpoint. And we knew that if we would have rolled in with helicopters, he would have known, they're here for me. Right. So we just got inside a Marine convoy and rolled out and bawled them up under the guys that we were Marines.

That's cool. And so, like, you know, we had, I remember, like, I think the guy who actually made contact and actually blasted this dude in the face, like, overhand right. It was like this big behemoth of a medic that we had. It was the big dude. Just ran up there. It was like, bap, cracked that dude, took him, put him in the bird. And also on that deployment, I got in a fight with a detainee. It was a part of a near-peer intelligence.

agency. We just had like some guy switch out on mid-rotator. So I had sent one guy home because he was having a baby. And so I got a new assistant Gunner who had just graduated at Ranger School. And 100% offense to the Navy SEALs out there, this kid probably should have been a SEAL. He was like, Turrell Surfer, bro. Like, oh, yeah, Roger. are. Yeah. Yeah. Nice hair.

Yeah. Crokeys. Yeah. And I told them, I go, hey, man. So what I've been doing every time we load on this bird, now they're not the Afghan partnership unit. They're the KTAEAS. Yeah, the KCA.

Yeah. I was like, so the KCA have been cutting the flex cuffs to a lot of detainees. And the detainees complain about the flex cuffs. I was like, hey, man, so keep an eye on them because I don't know. been telling these line guys that this has been happening and they've been kind of writing me off, not caring that I'm, you know, doing spot checks. And I was like, so hey, help me keep an eye on them, you know? And so while I'm clipping in, just pay attention. And then like, while you're clipping in, I'll pay attention. And so I'm clipping in. The next thing I know, I have hands

around my shoulder straps. And I'm thinking, like, oh, this is probably like a squad leader Or like one of the crew chief guys Go, hey man, move, move over, I need to get to it, you know Because that's usually what happens I look up is the detainee And he's pulling on my kit Like I'm gonna pick you up and pull you off this like bird Holy shit

So I was like, you just fucked up Because I'm a very good wrestler You know, I'm a grappler, I'm a fighter A fought like a majority of my time in the army And so I hit him with a blast double shove these hips up against the top of the bird of the 47. 47's taking off and now I'm like this. I got mortar gear on me, man. So I'm heavy and my mortar cannon is going like, whoa, like this. And I'm like, crap, man, I'm going to fall over. So I immediately like power bomb this dude onto the floor.

And all the line guys are like, what's happening? Because they don't get it. Like, they just think I'm just like crushing this detainee, you know? And I get mad at my, my partner, you know, because he's space case. over there like, whoa. I was like, get his legs, you dumb motherfucker. And he grabbed his legs. Because I used to train my guys. I was like, when you go to detain to somebody, one of the best things is if you see a guy

fighting with the other guy and we're working upper body, take his legs off the ground. Now you're going to take off his center of gravity. You're taking up. Like, don't help me up top. Grab the legs. So he actually paid attention to that. I was like, grab his legs.

We grabbed his legs. We flipped him over. And I remember I was like dropping elbows on this dude too. Because he and another scary thing is like I also knew just by growing up that Iranians or sorry. Yeah. Who's your Aetola now? They're very good at wrestling. And yeah, people from this country are very good at wrestling.

And I respect that. We used to have one come over to wrestling camps from that country. And yeah. So when he rotated his hips when we're on the ground, I go, this guy knows how to. us. And I was like, finish him. Just get him. And so violence of action until he stopped. Dropping elbows. Donkey Kong punching the crap at his head. And I was like, flex cuffs and his ankles. So my guy's back there,

flex cuffs his ankles together. I get his feet together. I flex cuff his hands to his feet. And then I turn around and I have the base plate on my back. And it's like touching my ass. Like teenage mutant ninja turtle. Yeah. So I have a, well, not the base plate like full, but it's a cannon with the base, the auxiliary base plate is underneath the 60s. So it's like 3.6, but this thing has little spikes on it. Yeah. And it's durable enough to take, you know, charge one. You know, so it's we flip them over and, well, he's already flipped over. I already said that. But we flex cuff his hands that are now already flex cuff together. We take those hands and flex cuff from the neck. Flex cuffs on his feet, essentially hog tying him. then I sit my butt with the base plate on the back of his head

and I just ride like with holding onto him all way back to the fob and the platoon starts like hey what's going on and this that and the other and I said over the radio I was like I'm gonna have to fill out a sworn statement that's all I said over the radio and so like I was like grabbing by his feed and we dragged this guy out of the bird and we gave him to the T-Haw guys in the van And then later on they had some, you know, the AAR and stuff like that. And the AAR showed the picture of the guy on target.

And they show the picture of him at the T-Haw. And I busted his orbital socket open, his eyeball was hanging out of his head. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And I did my sworn statement. Nothing came of it. But it was like a crazy experience because I was like, dude, is this guy trying to like rip a grenade pin off of me? me? Is he trying to grab my weapon and shoot? And that was my explanation

because I was like, look, there was no way to I couldn't like draw a nine mill and put it to his head. It's going to go through him maybe or a slight and miss and hit somebody on the bird. So you have to do it all with your hands and combatives

using martial arts like hand-to-hand combat to be able to detain and restrain this person. And yeah, I was totally inferior for my life and I was like oh man this bird I'm just waiting for like a pin to go up I was waiting for a pin a flash and then the lights go right right that's what I was waiting yeah and so yeah that was like probably the big takeaway there and then like going to the five board

was another sweaty situation there like you know my first actual NCO board but I already had that board in Rasp but I was like hey man I went too sketchy ones and whatever um yeah and I think that was like my third and then like a few other deployments down the line. It just became Groundhog's Day. Like over and over again, I go to Afghanistan and I would just look at Afghanistan like sometimes go back to the same outstation that I was at the year before or that, you know, you deploy every few months sometimes or extend even further than you were before. It wasn't always very consistent.

But you go back to the United States and then you go back to almost the same bunk that you're sleeping in. Right. And like the first day I wake up in that bunk, I'm like, Was that all a dream? Yeah. You know? And it's very strange because it's like, was Afghanistan a dream up until that point?

Because, like, I wasn't really doing any day operations. All my operations at night, it was just green people. You're fighting green people. Living in a green world. Yeah, green world. You're living in a green world. Yeah. It's like stranger things, you upside down.

Yeah. You go ahead. Everything's green. Like, something like that. Yeah. So it was like very surreal. Yeah. And like to, when you're constantly in this revolving,

door yeah going back in forth to the united states afghanistan and if you were doing like a hundred ops in 90 days you were doing back-to-backs where like you were going out yeah you know coming back doing it somebody was doing a strapped debrief and you're going right back out yeah doing a follow-on act debrief yeah yeah yeah uh rest over day rest overnight different things um you know luckily i didn't have to do too many of those like movement to contact things but they were like the the regiment at the time they got really into offsets for no reason. Like I went from like, hey, we're landing on the Y, we landed on the X to for no reason at all, we bring you the 30K offset.

Right. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like the battalion commander came out and was like, prior to the assault force conducting call out, no banger was thrown. That is a 5K offset penalty repeat wheels down. Right. You know, and you're just like, dude, what the heck? So we have to do this.

For the people who might not be familiar with, like, the technical jargon, landing on the X, when you're flying into an objective, landing on the X is landing right on the target. When you're doing an offset, it's generally at least weighing terrain, terrain feature away. Which in Afghanistan can be a long, and they're doing it, or they say they're doing it to decrease the profile of the assault force. So you're landing behind a mountain so they don't hear you. and then you're walking in.

Yeah. But like you say, it can be a long fucking walk. Yeah, exactly. Well, on that note, let's hear about the Nangahar offensive. Okay. I mean, like we were talking before the show, I wrote about it. Yeah. You know, I obviously know way less than you or anyone else out there did.

Yeah. I wrote about it at the time and pissed some people off because I kind of called out some of the leadership that planned that thing. Yeah. It sounded like a mess. that was a very frustrating thing and just going into it just being a mortar so 375 mortars have already been conducting cross-border operations

into an area controlled by the Islamic State in a different country by this point so they were on their way home and they diverted that aircraft to Bagram those men would be like if you're a mortar get off holy shit so they were just finish the rotation. Now they're going to roll into this thing. Now when they get there, they have

like all this knowledge and this stuff that they could like add to help, you know, like, hey, this is what I learned over here that's very successful from a mortar standpoint. And then you had like some leadership there that maybe we're a little cocky or maybe, you know, they sleep at night with their West Point certificate or something like that, you know, and they go, West Point certificate says don't listen to the motor man. You know what I mean? I mean, you look at a guy like me i don't look very educated obviously so like clearly and like you know like they're incompetent you know but whatever it is what it is listed swine yeah exactly you know i i don't look like i belong in the country club you know what i mean are the certain barbecues but so

this guy this you know these guys like you know what about what about this can we do that I'm like, no motor, no, go away. Like, you know, and so. I studied the Civil War in depth. Yeah, yeah. We don't need this. So what was the concept of the operation? What were you guys even attempting to do here?

So the concept operation put it very generally is like kind of like a movement to contact, clearance of an area where they have set, like the number that they sent out was like, guess what, man, there's over 9,000 fighters in this valley, you're going to die. 100% you're going to die. Like, that was almost like what was being put out. And then like all these like guys were doing ridiculous stuff like shaving high and tights in their head like for Motto. And they were they were doing high. And this is like a little bit more relaxed standard.

Right. Crew of dudes and our mortar guys had just come from an area where they were definitely relaxed standard with beards and like, you know, wearing marpats. And now they're coming into this like, okay, let's get your haircut, you know. And so like we were kind of like, hey, man. It makes sense to have like, you know, maybe two M-raisers and 281 so we can like walk the guns and do bounding overwatch and be all cool. Because our guys at this point were really into this like not defensive off-mortars, this guerrilla warfare. Mujah Hadin, like hit and run mortars. That's like what we were training in the maneuver warfare.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like we want to be in a hide site. Send this move to the next hide site. They go back to the height site. We were going, ha, ha, I tricked you. Now we're shooting our old high sight, you know, stuff like that.

Just trolling people in the battlefield. It's kind of where our guys were. We were shaping. And then I don't think they had any idea of that at the staff level. Pins on a map, man. Yeah. Yeah. On a map.

So they go, oh, oh, cool, cool, cool, cool. But how about this? All right? Hear me out. Hear me out. You walk, right? Sound good? Am I right?

No, no, no, no. I don't get a vehicle? No, no, no. man, you get a whopping, dude. It's awesome, right? All right. Instead of an 81, we'll triple the weight and give you a 120. And you've got to carry all the...

Bigger bang, man. Yeah, bigger bang. Goes further, dude. It's safer. Everyone's safe. It's cool, man. Yeah, they'll hate it when they get it with the 120. And we're going to want, like, your MFP to be, like, over here in this compound or something, man.

They're like, all right. And it's like, if Chevy Chase made, like, a mortar vacation, this is what it would be. You know what I mean? So it's like, manna-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-da. The third Ranger Battalion water platoon goes to Nangah. What kind of crazy mix-up will they get involved? You know what I mean? It's just like, man, it was a complete shit show.

And I remember, like, we get out there and, man, we set up, and I'm looking around at this thing. And the compound that we took over was riddled with holes from Dishka. And I go, I wonder where these holes came from. and I looked up all around and we're down in a bowl. We're surrounded by Ridge Line and there's DFPs all along the Ridge Line DFPs and we're just like

this is where we do the Custer's last stand you know and we infilled before any line platoon and we're like first ones in last to leave that's what we were. We were out there flapping in the wind with less than 20 guys definitely because I know we had like a small group of ODA guys with a very small

and our mortar team was very small and a lot of our guys like our senior level was pretty okay like our staff sergeants on the ground were pretty experienced but it was like such a gap like we had our staff sergeants and then hello private

this is your first appointment yeah and we had some guys that didn't want to be there like I don't want to kill anyone sergeant like that type of mentality really and we're like you're gonna have to yeah if you want to make it out here wait and that guys were in Ranger Battalion

and they came on what Why did they go to a Ranger Battalion? That's a question that I try to ask, and it doesn't make any sense to me. And, I mean, obviously, the officers who plan this off, you know, because as the NBNFew showed us and many other operations, that fighting out of a bowl is very successful. Works every time. Yeah. It was like, let's kill those guys off. I'm really tired of them, put them over there, kill them off.

You know, so, like, you feel disrespectful. You feel real. Because they're using you as canon files. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not even listening to you like as as a direct support or as a support element. Yeah. I can not accept in the consultation

of their NGOs. That you know your capabilities. You know, you have combat experience. And for these officers who don't understand your capability to not listen to your input in the implementation of

you as an asset. I can see. how you felt insulted. I felt insulted because, but I also kind of understood because, like, you could have like a real bonehead sniper, right? And I'm sure you met some that are like, wow, dude, how's this guy a sniper? But like, the chain of command,

like, you'd be like, excuse me, sir, here's an expert plan. He goes, you're a mortar. Get out of here. Sniper goes, I think this will be like, they act like every sniper's Bubba Fed. And they go, oh, wow, show me that gun again. You know, ooh, it's so

long you know what I mean I'm like well you know uh anyways like that's what it seems like right like they give the benefit doubt on people as if their occupation or whatever their op-con task is is a steroid that suddenly makes them good and then if you are a subject matter expert if you're like the actual chief of smoke there and they're like we don't care right you're a gun grape yeah that's it and you know part of that I also understood it was like maybe this is because of like the generation before me. And I'm just going to have to break some tackles and get through this and keep doing my job and stay in my lane and do what I need to do to prove them wrong. So how did this op and fold as, you know, the rest of the element, you know, hit the ground?

Yeah, so one of the companies hit the ground finally while we were there sweating her asses off. I want to say the real feel was like 136 degrees is what we were told by weather. I mean, you squish on your helmet and water would come out of there. We were wearing tantees and shorts at the MFP. Like, just say screw it, man. We're not going down for heat kit. We'll take a gig for uniform, but not heat cat. And so first group of guys go through and they're clearing through.

And it's like, man, I don't even think they could clear everything. There was so much to do. And, you know, the pace is like, go forward, go forward, go forward. They're getting paced out. And it just, there wasn't like established foothold, established flight. hold flat, flop maintenance, flat clearance,

established, like there was no bounding overwatch. There was bounding overwatch intermittently of like, maybe like a company minus, but that's it.

It didn't seem reasonable, even from our standpoint. So then like another group of guys, another element from the Ranger Battalion gets on the ground, switches out with the other, the previous element. They start clearing through.

And at some point in the operation, they start taking contact. And everything is, from what I understood is going pretty good. And mind you, there are Ranger Mortarman also attached to these guys. A lot of them Winchestering 60s. One of my teams only fired two rounds.

And the discipline in that heat to be like, we're going to fire two rounds. All right, that's good. And not Winchestering your rounds. That much Ranger discipline. I put those guys in for a war, being like, did you brought back ammo? Like, good job.

Yeah. Because they had to carry guys out of there. you know, guys that were passing out. Yeah. Record numbers of people he'd get. And you're saying that you would expect it to a spend X because... Yeah. Just get rid of...

Just a lot of it. Yeah. Just dump it out and get out. Exactly. And get out of the woodline. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, so they went through... Before that all happened, there wasn't incident, which, you know, you might have written your paper, and they probably, you know, snuck out the way, because of one key incident which said, well, everything would have went well if this didn't happen. Oh, the heat casualty where they got overrun and they had to leave the equipment behind. No, no. The plan was good. This is like, almost like, I guess what the narrative is. The PR. The plan was good. What happened was is that an Apache pilot, you know, Apache gunship had stray support by fireline. Nobody was injured from that. Like, there were wounded rangers from enemy contact, but nobody was actually like,

directly wounded other than what from what i understand and i'm not a guy who knows exactly every single detail about this stuff but there was guys who probably experienced some type of traumatic brain injury from being lit up by gunship um and so once that happened that guy was in the vicinity apparently where the kit got laid behind gotcha i remember yeah and and and and and so that what became the narrative like this is why the operation wasn't successful and so it was kind of like a pawning off of I guess responsibility. Responsibility. I think there's like a number of things that could have gone wrong even with when the plan is right.

Right. You know, that's a difficult terrain and environment to fight it, especially as small of an element you are. You think a company or something, a company minus is like a big group of dues. It really is not, not in a valley that size when you assess that, you know, you have, you know, large. Yeah, 9,000. Nine thousand, however many they said.

Yeah, I was told that, like, everyone was, like, a heat casualty at that point in operation, pretty much. Pretty much. There's people on the QRF to them that were actually supposed to backfill them. They weren't even QRF at first, I guess. They were heat catting on the bird. Jesus. That's crazy. Yeah.

That's wild. And then, so we're out there while these guys are in the valley. And they finally, like, their commander was on that radio center defeated. And I kind of really blame him. But he was on there going, like, we just need to get out of here. And then the battalion commander going, you have every AFSet at your available. Drop it. Drop that building.

I guess they were taking fire from some heavily fortified position like a castle or something like that. That was very structurally sound. They were hitting it with everything except for 120s. And while all this gunfire was going on, we started taking indirect fire at the MFP. And I heard a. boom like a quick little pop from like i can't remember which valley they were in and we were in but i know like let's say west and east and this salt force was in an east valley and i heard the pop in the west valley and we're like on the corner of both valleys here pop i'm like i started like

getting down low and slow and i look at the joys and it's like their first appointment and i've always explained this to them i'm like all that incoming that's for ranger's school that's a ranger school thing because if you yell incoming in combat that's recomb by fire I fire a mortar going I think the enemy's over here then I hear incoming

I know the enemies over there and I know roughly how many that sounds like a company you know it sounds like a platoon all right cool and that's like using observation audible observation to detect

where your enemy is so I'm getting down slow and I look at this kid and he looks at me with a smile on his face and I start laughing at him hysterically because I'm laughing at this shit eating grin he has because I'm like this kid's about to turn in a pink mist or I am

and I'm trying to decide which one's more funny is it more funny if I explode into pieces and my body parts go on top of them I was like I hope my freaking genitals fly right in his face and I get blown apart and wipe that shit off of his head and it just scars him for life like that was like me at that time like you know just my angsty like

like a crusty mortar NCO in me and I was like yeah man like I was like look at him like get down and then so anyways he he he we hear a mortar fucking around coming in

and that kid goes finally he puckers and gets down jumps in this hole we dug some holes around there our MFP was disgusting by the way what they decided there was mounds of shit there was mounds of ball hair that the Afghans have been shaving off and putting in piles there's razor blades

The Afghans shave ball hair and keep it in piles. I guess so. There was ball hair everywhere. Piles of shit everywhere. There was bees. So many bees. Not the bees. But yeah.

So there's a really bad MFPs and ball hair. Bees and ball hair and piles of shit. That's like lions, tigers, bears on my. But try to put that in a sense. I say that three times as fast. But yeah, it was pretty disgusting. because they had like a little shower area there and then like there was a drain

and all the ball here would come out of the drain and like pile up. It's disgusting. So that's where our MFP was and I was like, dang man, like a mortar is just going to blow all these razor blades everywhere. But so he took some mortar fire and luckily that first round was a duds, some dirt kind of flew over the compound wall.

Got on the radio and we're like, hey, we're taking an effective mortar fire from West Valley or whatever. And like the only thing was like dead air. are like, Roger. So anyways, line company, what's going on with you? You know what I mean?

We're like, fuck, dude. So my first year at West Point, let me tell you this story. So while we're out there, then they make a call to get all the line guys out of there and start bounding out of that valley.

And that's when we search and traverse that valley with a bunch of ordinance. Like we just dropped everything on there. That was what I was going to ask is they said they, you said they were taking effect of fire from, you know, a fortified structure and it had been hit with everything but one-twenties. Were you guys within range? Were they just not calling you for that? They just weren't calling us. It's like we were just another forgotten thing. Like, why did you put us out here? Why have we been out here for multiple days? And, and all that. And, you know, people might get mad about me saying anything like that, but it's like, maybe it's a lesson learned that you haven't heard yet. And it's probably pissing you off because you know it to be true. And it's a change. that you can make when you reach that position in the planning to actually go to those subject matter

experts that handle that weapon system and say, hey, we're thinking about placing you here. Is, are you okay with that? Or do you have any RFIs regarding this location that we have selected for you? You know what I mean? So, yeah, anyway, they were getting out of the valley. And I had some buddies that told me, like, dude, we were just, like, look over our shoulders and just see, like, scorched earth because we were just, like, dropping rounds on everything, I guess, and didn't actually get to see it.

So you guys were covering their movement with the 120s? Yeah, we're covering their egress. Did you guys have F-O's call on that in, or were you just kind of like, this is the FLO-O-T, this is a flat and where we're we're using the eyes of an error asset. Okay. We had air acid go over and put us on a grid. And we started prosecuting those targets from there and decided the length, width, and depth of the target area and just searching traverse to give ample enough fire suppression,

fire superiority to ensure that our guys could safely and quickly exit the combat area. Do you know about how many rounds you guys went through with the 120s? at least for that particular moment, at least a one kicker box pool. So kicker box full of 120 million rounds. I don't remember exactly how many. I thought my head. I know we had dropped the speedball and then shot some more. But yeah, we said, I thought like, yeah, man, at the time it was a decent amount of ordinance.

But later on in my career, just the amount of ordinance I ended up firing became, made that look like child's play. what was the AAR for this mission like? I don't know. I didn't think I got a piece of it. It was almost like, so the thing for us is like we were left there. And the BCO and the Brabara company got out of there. We were left there. And they were kind of like, oh, hey, weather's rolling in.

You guys are going to have to like, you know, defend in place. And we're like, what? And they're like, or, you know, pack up the mortar stuff, whatever you have. And we're like, dude, we don't have a forklift and we're expanding all this. And you guys were like a mortar section plus? Probably less than a real mortar section. Like we were, it's kind of hard to say because we were not a real motor section. We were like a hodgepodge.

You guys like grab what we have. You're coming from this country. You're coming from this country. Meet in the middle. Get on the objective. And we're going to tell you what to do. And so we had, and then we had like a bunch of junior, junior guys that they pull from the states. Right.

they're brand new. Like, these guys don't know what they're doing. And the leadership left you there to defend the place while weather rules in. That's what they said. Right. And then we were kind of like, are you in a little bit? ODA dudes? Are you in a little bit?

And then we got an aircraft to come in and get us. And they gave us like, I think like 147 to get us on and get out of there. And then what was weird is like, it was like, I think we were like leaving the, like, we were leaving the valley and it was like almost like, 3 a.m. by the time we got out of there. Everything else is daytime. Everybody's he gets. Now it's like 3 a.m. We're finally getting out of there. And as we're, it's like 3 a.m.

And we're like, that's not the time that's supposed to have. And then we saw an illum around go over where our old, where we were earlier. And I'm like, dude, that just has to be on their target list worksheet because they've shot up that compound. They have to, they're like the only place these. the U.S. guys can be is in this compound. So they probably go, go back to no unlikely and suspect. And, you know, they probably had a guy on that loudspeaker calling something in or something. I don't really know.

But it was like a thing that everyone's like, can we just forget about that? Can we forget that happen? And then a lot of guys, a lot of guys did end up like, I'm going to SFAS. And they did. Yeah. Right after that. Well, it's interesting that you say you weren't part of it after action review. Yeah. And, makes me wonder if one ever happened. Yeah.

Because the Army has a habit of when operations go really bad, they don't do an AAR. No data, no problem. Right. Right. We didn't collect that data, so it didn't happen. The opposite is classified. We can't have an AAR. There may be like platoon internal AARs about the operation that they initiate on their own,

but did the unit, did the task force itself AAR the mission? I would be interested to know the answer. to that question. Yeah. I don't know. I'm sure that there was something that was like a very small crowd. I think like if they would have had like the whole crowd there, it'd been like a town hall meeting. Well, how come I had a dude? You know. Some guys just standing up randomly yelling stuff that, you know, couldn't articulate it very professionally. Some motherfuckers thrown out. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it probably happened in the small meeting. You know what I mean? I'm sure something happened. I mean, they had to do their own little investigation

and everything like that. I mean, well, it hit the press here at stateside. I mean, not just for me, but also writing about this mission. Yeah, it was a very interesting time. But it seemed like a shift for the mortars from there. 2016, this happens. Yep.

You get back home, 2017. What are you hearing about Syria? Well, it was a lot of, like our guys are our mortar guys over there doing very good work because we have like a lot of good guys in the Morpatoon that were just like you know like a fork is not just a eating utensil you know like it can close a circuit you can kill somebody with the fork you know there's like i can look at that device and turn it into multi-use and that's a good thing about not having an identity for a while you start having these guys who are just like i'm cracking open

and every manual. I'm becoming the page master, you know, and learning this stuff. So we're learning back now. We just switched out with another battalion. We're getting like some information from them. We're staying on them.

And we're starting to go, okay. Now this time it wasn't like, we didn't have a small team of guys jumped the chain in command and then go with a prestigious J-Soc unit and cross-border operations. Now we're starting to conduct a training cycle

with a J-Soc unit. Based around that mission profile. Based around that mission profile. And yeah, so we started doing that, working that in, and then getting information from them kind of things that we face. You made it sound a little earlier, like, almost like these mortar teams were, like, becoming like the VAC Kong the way they were operating. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was kind of like that, except for instead of, like. Conical hats. Yeah, we just kind of like, we're sitting in lawn chairs and shooting. And it was kind of cool. So, and then what we had to train for was like, hey, we're going to, this is kind of like what we're going to be doing. We're going to be operating, taking over safe house. Safehouse, most likely, going to be overrun. This is their most likely course of action.

This is the most dangerous course of action. Let's train to the most likely. Let's train for the most dangerous. Let's have all of our TTPs in place, all of our contingencies in place in order to facilitate success based on these courses of action that the enemy may take in this. environment, this like heavily non-permissive environment. And so certain things that we were doing were getting like extensive training on javelins. We were getting extensive training on other types of weapons systems that would be advantageous to us, things to disabled drones, things to like other weapon systems that we might not have been very familiar with.

To us and our partner, like, you know, sister unit that we were working with that was at a higher tier. And it was kind of funny because, you know, I was like heavy weapons, qualified guy and the guys from that particular element were asking me like, hey man, do you know how to do this? I was like, you don't know how to do this? I was like, all right.

Yeah, this is how you do it, man. And I would like, you know, give a fam on how to run through the procedures to fire certain weapons systems. And it was kind of fun. It was kind of neat to be up there. And it was a good kind of like learning experience. And, you know, then we went forward. Yeah.

And so. Going forward with those guys, were they different in the sense of they respected your experience and familiar with the weapon systems? So you would be actually a part of the mission planning process? Yes. And the crazy thing was, is like, I'm talking to this guy. Like, I know, I don't know what your rank is, but like, you won't tell me your rank. you're just telling me to call you your first name and like so I'm calling you your first name and like I'm just like yeah so man you do this and you do this and he's like man like that's really good

I'm like wow I've been in this abusive relationship right right right right right right what's going on here right my hair back yeah you're kind of flinching like do I look is it coming yeah like where's it going to come you know like day man like he's a positive reinforcement He's listening. Hey, hey, hey, hey, Les, what do you think we should do here? What? You know, okay, fine. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. It's like, is there a problem? No, I just, no one's ever asked me that. Right, right. I've always wanted to do this. Right. Yeah. So that's kind of what it was. It was like there would be some type of operation that we were heading to.

Like, hey, this is the objective that we want to go take care of. And they kind of be like, hey, what do you? you see what position does this position work for you it was a very mutual like it wasn't like hey you're going to be here right it was like hey man does this look good i don't know i don't know that thing does you know and then you're like okay yeah i could do that and then then i would talk to them about hey man like what if you know we wrangled all the cattle and put them in the pen right and then to get more bang for the big bang like more buck for the big bang you know Now we can strike it. I was like, let's fix them.

Stop trying to get me to shoot guys in the open. I just want to corral. And then we started developing these certain ways and systems to really increase the effectiveness of our lethality. Effectiveness is a lothality and effectiveness. Because the thing was, it's like what ended up happening is I believe during that run out of all teams, my team was probably the most successful in conducting. those operas. And that was largely because the team that we were involved with, as you guys know, there's personality differences across all the teams in certain J-Soc units.

And luckily, the team that I was with had a personality very similar to mine. They actually almost, the team members called me like the team whisper, the team leader whisper. There's the name of the team leader. And it's like, you're the so-and-so whisper because he only listens to you. you know what I mean? Right. This guy was like, I'm kind of known for kind of being a bit of a wild card kind of guy,

you know, where I'm kind of like, I joke and I can be like kind of playful, but like also switched on, you know. And so I remember one time I was instructed to destroy bridges along the Ephrates River. So I demolished several bridges. And then the SDF goes,

oh, no, we need the bridge to cross. And I was like, All right, we'll get you another bridge. So we, like, built these, like, whatever stupid bridges that cross this river and a certain point or stream. And I was out there, and this is before I got pushed to the other team. When that guy's like, that guy's on my team. And then we had our good personality thing.

I was like, I was like, you tell me take out a bridge or take out the bridge. I put a new bridge in, forget about it, whatever you want. You know, I was just saying, he was like, dude, you're funny. I want you on my team because, like, I'm in combat doing this type of stuff. Right. having a good time. I'm usually the guy, I guess, when things were really bad, like, I could say things and act in a way to uplift the rest of the guy, whereas this, the morale, I would elevate the morale.

It's really all about morale. And that's why I take more pride and not like, do you know how many people I killed or, oh, no shit there I was. And I steady's my aim. And I racked the runtime right there. It's like, I don't really care about that. I cared more about like, right. You know, hey, this is a tough job. And I want this place to be more of enjoyable place to work.

And I want it to be a place where guys can be proud that they work instead of miserable and just dead inside when they leave this place. You know what I mean? Like, and so, yeah, it's pretty interesting experience there. And then, you know, you're probably going to ask me about. Well, I mean, just sort of a big picture. The scheme and maneuver over there at the time was, I mean, you guys were running in sort of an unconventional warfare camp. If I understand it, right? J-Soc guys, you guys do an indirect fire in the SDF.

And this is just part of the overall campaign. You guys are pushing ISIS back towards the river. Yeah. So the SDF dudes, like it was pretty cool. It was like, anytime I met an SDF element, I would like almost like joke and act like a stereotypical Hollywood American on purpose. And they knew I was doing a bit. And I'd be like, toe the line, maggots. You know?

And they'd be like, and I go, what's your name, son? And, you know, but I'd be like, you know, I'd be like, Navi mean less, Navitacea. Like, I would then say it to, like, translate so they know that, like, okay, this is what I'm actually asking you. And I get the name of all the guys. And then I'd be like, you know, to, they don't like patent, motivate them almost in a way to where I would, like, just kind of jokingly. And then I'd go out and then conduct these operations. And a lot of times, it'd be, like, our security or escort through the A.O. they would clear out areas to make sure that there were no minds.

Obviously, we had our multi-purpose canines and our EOD guys that also facilitated that. But they were a very good partner for us in comparison to what I was used to seeing. And it was just funny that after a while of engaging with these guys and kind of interacting them with them on a human level, like these guys, like I would walk up in a group of guys who was like drinking chai. They love chai on the flot. and I'd walk up and he would like stand up at the position of attention and like like whoa hey you know like I was like well that's kind of cool though like I haven't even met these guys before but now they're like standing up a position attention like you know now there's like whispers going on like hey that's the guy who's like pretty cool you know like so it was like pretty interesting to go through that and then eventually I would say that

so there's this thing called like syria.orgia.com where you could track day my day what was happening and I was using that when I was there I would go on open source like that and it would almost collect open source for me and I would look and I would like shoot mortars and I would see like a Twitter post or something from an ISIS gun and it would be like oh yeah they missed they were like this far off and I was like to the east yeah got you now you know and then you know or something like that but like you would see like the map has different colors like this is the SDF, this is ISIS, this is whatever. And then you would just see us

Roll Tide. Move down all the way across and see. It's funny because, like, you know, we were at a Fort Benning, so all that roll tide and war damn eagles like a thing. So we were just saying all this stupid stuff, Ward damn eagle, roll tide, like all this stuff the whole way.

Because I'm from the Pacific Northwest, so none of that stuff really jive with me. So I thought it was comical. Right, you were looking for a latte everywhere. Yeah, yeah. I was listening to, I was listening to, to death. I was listening to Kirk Cobain, riding a kayak because it rains so much, sipping a freaking Frappuccino on my way to work down there as a longshoreman.

And a librarian. You know? Yeah. So like, yeah, I mean, we push, push, push, push, push. And then I think, like, this very decisive moment that I was, like, really proud of, like, operationally was when Topka Air Base and Topka Dam. Yeah, so walk us through that. Yeah. So there were, there came in, night where we were posturing to conduct operations south of the Euphrates behind enemy lives. Right, right. You know, we're going into the hornets nest.

And it was almost like a, we're going to draw straws, man, and who's going to do this, pull off this little operation, you know? And I was like, no, no drawing straws. If it's ridiculous and you're going to die, I'm going to do it. Like, so I always had the mentality of like if the sergeant major was standing right there and say, stack on that door. And I'm not the first one through that door. I'm going to feel real bad for anybody who gets injured inside.

So I think we had like multiple, we had multiple aircraft. Maybe like five aircraft spread across, and we had about five lifts. And our... Those were Ospreys? Nope. They were 47s. There was a report that said Ospreys, but they were definitely 47s because you can't fit a high-lux on an Osprey.

Sorry. So, yeah, so we had these, they were going to tell us like, hey, man, you're going to take all these SDF dudes and you're going to load them on the aircraft. And then you're going to go behind Topka, a very populated city with skyscrapers and like thousands of people living there and they're armed to the teeth. And they're very angry and they're very desperate. And there's a lot of foreign fighters there too. You know, and you're going to go across this and we're going to fly you. And, you know, they might have anti-aircraft guns and we're going to go over the Euphrates. man and um and uh you're going to be inside this high lux that's like ratchet strap down to

it you know and let me tell you like okay before i don't even know where to start talking okay i'll start talking about how the highlux is kind of organized in this aircraft so you can only have one highlux in there per 47 per 47 as we're flying across you might be able to fit too we didn't we didn't chance it right um uh so we had one in there and they said okay you got to load all these uh sdf guys in there with you now i had some rfis i said we'll have any of these guys ridden in aircraft had any of these guys been in blacked-out conditions i was like well i have a problem with them being armed and they're like well how do you suppose that i was like we either put the guns there first or put them there

first and get the guns over there because i don't want an ind while i'm inside there right um especially with as many people as there are or we have them like locked up and we break the lock once we get to where we're going they went with the option of at the end of the day at the end of the lifts now they'll have weapons which is like dang man we're going to leave these guys out in the win we have to conceal them so this is a very difficult operation and to this day when I think about it I was like I'll wake up I'll wake up in the morning like not in like sweats like I'm having like a PTSD like fever dream I'll wake up like anxiety I'll wake up like this, like, dude, that was such a bad idea.

Yeah. It was like a what that I do last night? Like to this day, randomly, I'll be like, what? I'm not against it, but like, dude, what was that? So, you know, and I'm not the only guy, but while I'm doing this, I'm by myself, essentially. So what my job was was to sit inside the high lux. The highlux would be ratcheted down to the floor of the 47. which is this big bus of a helicopter.

Some people call it a Chinook, but it was a very special Chinook. So we would be in there. There would be the SDF guys in the back and the bed, and there would be some SDF guys in the vehicle with me. And now all the Hyluxes were manual shift. And that's a very important thing, that they're manual instead of automatic,

and you're in blacked out conditions. So one thing was These are up-armored high luxes too And when you're on the 47, the skin of the aircraft Is not enough to open the door The window, since it's up-armored, might only go down an inch or two And you're not, you're probably not going to kick out that glass So I'm like, we're going over the Euphrates

If this thing goes down, I'm drowning, I'm dying If we get shot out of the sky and somehow we survive, at least going to die inside the Euphrates or Lake Asad. So I guess it crosses the mind of like one of the crew chiefs is like, hey, you might need this. He gives me a bottle of spare air. He's like, what's this? He's like, that's 10 minutes of air in case you go down. I'm like, so suffer for 10 more minutes?

Right, right. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not getting out of this if we go down, man. And so, and the difficulty is there's a number of difficult points, right? Because now I'm getting up in the sky and there's a guy next to me trying to flip the lights on the whole time.

Like, whoa, whoa, what's happening? He has no idea we're in the sky. He has no idea we're airborne. This is a guy who's never flown in a plane, never flown in a helicopter ever in his life and doesn't speak the same language I am. And I have to be like the rude American, the brute that's like, get your hands off, you know,

don't touch my radio, you know? Like, I'm like, dude, like, don't touch that because you're going to flick on these lights and we're going to be, you know, compromised. Yeah. And shot out of the sky. And then all those, like, revelations and it might come true, you know, or anyways, we get to, we'll get to the other side. And what people don't understand is, like, some people don't even know how to drive stick, especially from my generation. You know what I mean?

Like, I drove stick, but I don't drive stick all the time. So I'm like, yep. Luckily, I've been driving manual inside of Syria to this. point. So I was like back to being used to driving. But the thing is, is like, you have these big twin turbine engines over 47. So you can't hear your RPMs. And you can't see your RPMs because you're blacked out like completely. And, you know, maybe down the line we had a better solution. But like, think on the feet. We didn't have a solution to how do we illuminate this dash and get to where we need to be. So you have to turn that car on and then you can't even tell if it's on.

And then you have to like, okay, am I shifting into, you know, first gear, second gear? What, what's that? I've got to go off the ramp. I have to look at this guy to tell me, hey, you're clear, shackles clear, go, go, go. You drive off. And now, now you're off on your own with a bunch of, you know, Kurdish guys in your vehicle. And you're driving through Topka to, towards Topka Air Base. And drive off and park the car, leave it, you know, leave it neutral car running.

and just say, you're on your own. We'll be back. And the way that I cleared minds was I would just run down my tire tracks back to the bird. And so I'm like by myself in a very like crazy environment where there's still a very large ISIS flag visible from where I'm running from, like running past like this huge like. That ISIS flag was like what you would see it at a football game. Like that's how big it was. Like the open source intel has not updated quite yet. that you're there.

Yeah, exactly. And we're running back and forth, and we do this a few times. And then the last time that we do it, I did it with a forklift. So I infilled with a forklift. So this is like, what's the force of the forklift for? To bring the kickers full of ammo and weapons to them. So I'm driving a forklift back and forth to the same bird that's just sitting there while there's J-Soc guys on the bird watching me with their rifles, like hanging out like, like,

like hurry up, you know. And the good thing is, and then I left the forklift there. The good thing was I was a very fast runner. So some of the guys were like, dude, you run really fast. Because the guys I was like hauling ass back to the barrel. And that was probably faster than I ever ran in my life because I was like, just get the hell out of here. Because I'm all by myself, really. I brought the weapons to those guys and dropped them off.

Then we headed back. And then so I'm thinking like we headed back to, you know, our staging area. And where all our motor stuff is and everything. and then my team leader that was in you know with that j-sock element that he comes over he's like well that's we're gonna hit it now and i was like we're doing the dam now like i thought i was gonna be able to take a nap or something he's like nope we're hit it now so that was like an all-night affair that's like you're tired you're kind of sleepy by doing all that and all that and then i get back to um wherever and we we drive out to the dam so we're simo hitting

the airfield and the dam the same thing. Holy shit. And on our way to the dam, man, it was like one of the most epic things I've ever seen. And maybe guys seen it in Iraq, like in the start of the Iraq stuff. But it was all out war. It was like you're seeing bullets flying everywhere

all over that city, trying to shoot things out of the sky, trying to shoot across the river, trying to shoot from the dam towards our position as we're driving in. We're seeing high Mars. like, oh, buildings, it's goos,

goes, goes, goos, cars, boom, bombs from, and then marine artillery going on, doze, do's,

doos, explosions everywhere, gunfire everywhere, vehicles, crashing. You're like, dude, this is pure chaos.

And we get to, like, our MFP area, and he's like, this dude who was a sergeant major was like Les it's your show go inside that vehicle

talk to the guys in there tell them what you want and dude who was like a rainbow six video game I walk in there there's French dudes in there there's Brits in there and then I got my dudes

with me and then there's some Air Force dudes I trained on how to use a mortar and I say guys this is the game plan I said okay let's go let's put it in effect you put the game plan in effect

and it was very successful We were dropping rounds on everything. There was like, and this is like my joke with the seals is because there was a river crossing with Zodiacs similar to that other. Yeah, we've talked about it here. Yeah. There's like two seals or something that come into country just to do this, fill these Zodiacs up.

And they had all these like SDF special like commandos with them that were crossing the river. And then I remember being on like a radio or something. something and like talking and being like hey man like what's going on like you guys stop crossing they're kind of like stop in the middle and the guys it said something like hey like the water level's like really low like we're having trouble moving the boat and I was like can you get out and walk he's like yeah I was like yeah get on and walk like that's how funny it was like the guy was just like right fight the plan you know like the plan was the plan was

get across on a boat it's like no dude fight the fight like if you can walk just walk across and so at whatever portion that they were at where they did make it and it got shaller there was still water but they were able to walk which sucks too because it was very cold the water and those guys got across and i remember um what people don't realize is like the level of like technical proficiency that was undermined about the mortar platoon like i go back and i'm like i cannot be that smart again I cannot be that much of a multitasker. Because what I was doing was I had my controls on a drone. I was flying a drone, controlling at least four different guns,

giving fire commands to four different locations, tracking four different locations of enemy movements, while also keeping an eye on like this other element that's like crossing the river. I'm like, okay, I need to support them with fire at this time. Hey, you know, number three gun lay on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Take two gun, eight, at my command, three gun, stand by. two gun. All right. Hey, target of opportunity. We have an armored vehicle moving into this intersection. Lay onto this intersection located at, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah, Roger, one, two, five, says, let me know when gun is laid.

All right, okay, that vehicle's moving at 45 miles per an hour from a south to northeast, uh, azmuth. He's going to be at that intersection about this time. I have a 56 second time of flight. I need to fire roughly about this time. Two gun, go high at zero one, or like, you know, zero six, 45. And then like boom, he five. He five. and I slew back my camera over here to the SDF commandos that are moving up the beach trying to go hit some to secure like some Causeway thing. I don't really know all the terms of everything, but they were going to secure their objective. And I had to make sure they were safe.

And like, you know, it was almost, the funny thing is like, we were like the snipers going like, hey, man, like, I got your six, you know, like in the movies. But instead we're shooting borders while these guys are bounding through. Yeah. And unlike in, you know, past conflicts, you're watching it in real time on the drone feed. Yeah. Watching in real time.

And I'm seeing rounds impact across the river from where I'm standing. So then like, I'm like, fire, boom, boom. I'm like, oh, this is going to be sweet. Does he hit the tank? And dude, there was like one shot that definitely went through whoever the tank commander was and went through his body. And then whatever ammo he had in there went off. So it was like secondaries and a rooster tail went through. And then the turret of the tank just pop.

off like, just went off the side. And we were just, I was just like, I radioed another mortar team. I was like, hey, you assholes, that one's mine. Like I just said that shit, like, fucking with them on the thing. And they were like, yeah, yeah, you're good, man. That's some crazy, accurate mortar fire. Yeah, it was, it was, it was very accurate, very lucky. And that mortar was a newer system that, I'm kind of like against the newer systems because

I'm like, they put me on the. John Henry on that. I'm faster, more accurate, more lethal. Henry had a very specific way to lay in the guns to make sure they were more accurate. Right. Yeah. I don't need those new fangle sites. I can Kentucky wind it. Again, for people out there who don't understand anything about motor systems, it's an area weapon system. It's not a sniper system that is designed to, like, almost never do you directly hit the target? Yeah, like, steel and steel is a great thing. But if you keyhole something with a mortar. It's like, oh my God.

Our guys were getting pretty, pretty Johnny Roger on the spot with this system, especially doing it in real time in combat. And like, every day, we would come back at the end and be like, hey, man, like, what is the smallest thing that we can fix in terms of like how we're doing this? Like, do we need to put sandbag here? Does the guy need to stand on top of the base plate? Do we need to put sandbags on top of the base plate? Do we need to dig this out, dig this in, whatever it is? Like we were very proactive in like mastering the things.

I mean, we even had a vehicle that the regiment had procured for us to carry the motor system. We said, this thing's a piece of shit because it doesn't drive fast enough. So we went in there a bunch of us and what we would do is remove the hydraulic lift system and place them on the backs of like pickup trucks and put them on other vehicles, trailers and things like that. Other teams out there had like various things that they did. And it was like a really cool, like to see like, hey, this is what we came up with. This is what we were doing.

And just seeing like the success, like, spread across all. It's a little view into perhaps the future of war. Yeah. And you're seeing it in Ukraine now, like two guys with anti-tank weapons scooting around on an ATV, hopping off, blowing up a tank and rolling out. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was like, like during that time period when we were out there, it was kind of like, yeah, dude, this is, this is like the new thing. And it was always something I always read in the books because something I always like read in the book.

There was always like you go into these manuals and a lot of people don't read the manuals. I'd be like the guy's like I'm going to read the manual. And it'll be like, you know, the mortar is actually used as a reconnaissance element. And I'm like, really? How? Tell me more. This is how you use the mortar for recon. And I was like, now we're looking at RF signature.

We're looking at all of this other stuff. And I'm like. Oh, so you pop up. and then you see who comes up on coms. Yeah, stuff like that. A little bit of recomb by fire. Yeah, recomb by fire, exactly like we were talking about earlier. And then I would be like, hey, there's a high concentration of signature from here.

We need to start soaking that or something like that. You know what I mean? So it was like very interesting how we would take it into the 21st century there, I guess. I'm out of curiosity, like, what was the mortar section? What was their trajectory in regard? to battalion at that time because again, like when I was there during a peace time,

mortars, you know, they were, people respected them a lot because even on the old systems, like when they in a tactical situation, when they were supported by fire, like they could, they'd get that mortar position and they would be on target like that, right? And maybe

it's because it was more sort of light infantry operations at the time. And then in a CQB world, mortars aren't really like, seen as needed. Yeah. But now you're back into this open terrain fighting. Yeah.

Like, what was your trajectory at Battalion? And were you guys getting more respect? Yeah, we were getting a lot more respect and a lot more like, hey, so we have this near-peer-fight thing. Like, you know anything about this? Like, how are we going to use mortars in a near-peer fight? And we started discussing that we already had a strategy for that. Because I was always training my men. I was like, hey, man, the enemy, they may have.

a capability of some type of aerial reconnaissance and maybe some type of aerial asset. So we need to figure out a way to disguise our movements from these aerial assets at the MFP. And we came up with some good strategies to hide from them. Which is funny because you would see some of these strategies pop up on Instagrams by like, hey, be the gray man or survivalist people. And you're like, dude, like we already had that like, you know, five years ago. And now this is like, hey, man, I got an umbrella with some stuff in it. You know?

So this, the TAPCA Dam and airfield, I mean, how many rounds do you think you guys fired that night? I have absolutely no idea. I know that we continued to adjust fire for about 36 hours. And this is starting, like after I already did the air assault. I hate saying air assault. Aerosolk. Screaming chicken stuff. A half mission.

Yeah. We halved into there. So I think the news. called it an airborne operation. There was, it was, it was, I know what website it was. They said that you guys jumped in. Yeah, and I was like, all right, whatever. Did you get a mustard stain on an aerosol badge?

I got a mustard stain on an aerosol badge, but because I was eating some glizzies. But that's it. For the young generation there, these are hot dogs. Let me explain to you, Jack Murphy. Jesus Christ. By the way, I was joking with Jack Murphy the other day that he has like this action hero name Jack Murphy. And now he wears this like 1980s like service uniform sweater in here like he's Mac Boland. A little Sean Con reaction.

It's a Chad Thundercock name. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Well, I told you my guy I know he calls him Mac Bowen novels Chad Thundercock. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about the Mambige offense. of them.

I'm not very like up to speed on that, but that was that was while I was in country. And we had, we were, like I was saying, we were roll tied down there towards, towards the Euphrates, towards Topka and Raqa. We were moving pretty fast, steamrolling ISIS. And that was largely just because of the SDF. It's not like I was out there like Captain Morgan with my leg up in an M-16. I single-hally defeated ISIS. I'm only talking about my contribution to the fight

and how I'm proud of all the people I serve with that continue to contribute. But during this time frame, I think that the country of Turkey found it advantageous to start to impose their will on the northern sector that was under the control of the SDF. Now Turkey has a history with Kurdish, forces and militants. So they,

they had their reasons to conduct operations there, whether we agreed with them, those reasons or not. And we obviously did not agree with those reasons. So we had sent a contingent, I guess you could say, of strikers with these

like badass American flags on the tops of them. U.S.A. U.S. Yeah, like born in the U.S. U.S. A lot of Manbizian.

And, you know, I think honestly Turkey could have really made an incident there. Oh, it almost happened. Yeah. It almost happened where you had Americans fighting Americans because remember, weren't met it on both sides.

Yeah, definitely. It was a very politically sensitive situation. And luckily, something occurred where we got to a point where we were able to draw the SDF back and, you know, let them stay the course. But luckily, no crazy violence had occurred in that area in terms of USA on USA, blue on blue,

blue on green, green on blue. And that's something to take note of is that it has a very complex environment that we were fighting in. We had points of time where we were actually, a couple mortar missions where we were supporting FSA. We had a couple more missions we were supporting SDF. Well, most of them were SDF. Then we had missions where we were fighting and combating the FSA. We had near peer threats, near peer elements within our AOs that got lost.

We had partner country like soft that would get lost. and luckily they were very cordial over the radio while they were getting almost punished by the enemy like pretty badly um you know there was so many lines drawn it was like it's like a lebanon mosaic almost yeah yeah yeah yeah an incredibly complex environment and it's amazing that you guys navigated it as well as you did um don't envy any of the people who had to manage that shit show yeah it's it's like much respect to a lot of people who could like i don't even know who does that kind of thing what was that um i don't know if you were involved in the the the sort of end game i guess you could say but racing towards raka um and moving along with those j sock elements what was it like as

you kind of closed that distance towards that that final battle uh i know the iED threat became enormously high it was ridiculous and they even had um they would have some very creative solutions to problems that we were causing them. So I know like they had like a DISHka on a hydraulic lift that they could operate from an adjacent room. And they could operate it with like a PlayStation controller or something like that. Really? Yeah. And so they were in a fortified position.

Yeah. This hydraulic lift could be able to peek that weapon system up and out a window and fire. Did they have optics on that dish? Yeah, they had some sort of like camera system or something like that. They would also have a laser initiated AK-47. That was basically like a drone gun that'd be down an alleyway. You cross, you break the laser, the IR laser, and this gun would just start shooting at you down the alleyway in cyclic.

Now, could you see that IR laser if you're wearing nods? I don't know. I never saw myself. I never encountered them while they were operational. But they had a lot of directional fragmentation charges. They had these crush wire and it would almost be like a fishing net of crush wire. And crush wire is essentially like a plastic tube with two wires and you step on the plastic tube. The wire is so thin, it's hard to find it with a metal detector, you know, and they would like put spray adhesive, roll it in sand.

And now it's almost like running perfectly in to wherever you're walking. And I used to just tell guys like, look, you know, you do zero fives and 25s. I would say, don't just do five and 25. Do zero five and 25. Look straight down. Look out. Then look out again. And I said, I don't care if you just took a leak over there five minutes ago.

Somebody crawled in there and put another IED while you weren't looking. Yeah. And it's honestly because you weren't even looking there. And they would have those things that's like, you know, like those Alexa things that like are like a home thing that would like detect. like your body temperature and it would like raise the temperature in your home well they would have that like attached to it uh improvised explosive vice yeah so you walk in a room it could tell that there's a human somewhere in the room and then they would initiate um the explosive chain to destroy you with an explosive the diffusion of technology when when i was in iraq 2005 and then later 2009

the enemy had basically no access to night vision or thermals yeah and see how much it had changed by what 2017 we're talking yeah well it's be i mean technology has gotten cheaper you can get it all off the shelf yeah you know i mean if you buy you know a motion sensor yeah right send it to uh amazon dot s y or whatever series and and you know what i mean and and and get a ring motion sensor or whatever you know it's that you could that completes the loop yeah i mean they would have like a dump the hydraulic lift of a dump truck to increase the elevation on a cannon that shot cannonballs. They try to shoot cannonballs at people.

They would like have like a bunch of Mad Max stuff, like these Mad Max vehicles that were weighted down with a bunch of armor. They would have like Ewan Abrams that you would see that I guess maybe they possessed from Fallujah that they stole from the Iraqi military. They would have Russian series armored vehicles. Some of the vehicles would have like an extra bird cage on it with a bunch of sandbags put place in the bird cage for added armor. And that was like a funny thing.

I was always told that a mortar can't destroy like a T80 or something like that. And then I realized that if you smack the shit out of a Russian tank enough, or once or twice, the armor's pretty strong, but like the brackets are not good enough for how heavy it is.

The armor is. And then like the armor would just fall off. And then you can just smack it again. Unless you keyhole that thing, it was like pretty much a sure shot. But yeah, there was all kinds of cool. So I got to be used some ingenuity. Like I built a trigger for a spig nine out of a nine-volt battery. And to make it more consistent, I attached the wires that went to the nine-bolt battery to a light switch. So now I could

like take like a little light switch you have in your house to fire a rocket from a recoiless rifle. Yeah. So that was like pretty cool. You know, I started thinking, like, you know, I could probably put this on the roof, run the wire. Yeah. Be in the basement. And they're like, fire it. And they think I'm up there. I started thinking of all types of stuff that I never got to do with it.

But, you know, I got to shoot many vehicles with it. And it was pretty interesting to have, like, this full-fledged, like, plethora of different ways to go about warfare. And to me, it was not necessarily like, I'm going to kill the bad guys. It was like, man, this is like a chess game. Yeah. It was like a really good chess game. I was becoming really into the tacticians and the tactical side and the maneuver piece and not just like, because I was like, dude, I'm the quarterback. I'm in the seat right now.

I'm running this gun line in real time and destroying a bunch of enemy guy. And I know my comrades that are on other teams are doing the same thing because we train together and I, you know, trust that they're able to engage it, a level of efficiency that I am. And, you know, that's not isolated to the third bed. That's sharing information across the battalion. It's not withholding information. No competitiveness. Looking at it holistically, like, we need to come together and get a good plan. Because any one of us can screw this up where they say, we don't like those guys.

Because it doesn't matter what battalion come from. You're just rangers. And if one of our mortar platoons screws it up, you know, it's like, dude, we can't screw it up. get it so we held each other accountable less i mean you came af off of a pretty like epic deployment to syria i mean got to do i mean living the dream from everything you're telling me i mean pretty badass exactly what every guy hopes they get to do especially dude in the ranger regiment yeah came home got in some trouble yeah you know you did 11 years in the army yeah didn't really leave on the terms you'd like to uh you know the the term we use in in the ranger

Regiment RFS or release for standards. Yeah. So you were open to talking about that. Yeah. You'd like to talk about that a little bit. Okay. And what happened? Yeah.

So I had one more deployment to Syria after that one. And then I was just to bring it up to speed to the point. Sure. Sure. I, then I went after my next deployment to Syria came home, I went through divorce. And so that was like definitely not a good vibe. And then I went and we did our,

em lat and on the M-Lat 3rd battalion I jumped out of the bird and we went into the trees like our whole chalk went in the trees and I hurt my back it was a tree landing I I tried to climb down I ended up falling off the reserve parachute

I fell like from a very very high distance like hit the ground hit the ground so hard I broke I jumped my radios um I had a 152 and a 148 and I broke them both on impact And then I had also, my leg head went backwards, and I tore my PCL in that. And so, Charlie Mites, completed that operation, training mission.

And then I was like, man, like, my back hurts. I got all these bruises all over my back. Like, I don't know. And I'm, like, toughing it out. And, like, while I'm going through that, I get a phone call from the Sergeant major at First Battalion to my personal phone. He says, hey, we just lost our mortar platoon sergeant. And I needed to come to 175.

And so I agreed to go there because you couldn't tell him no, but I was also injured. And I was like, whatever, I'm just going to. And like going through like the rest of their training cycle and then getting all the way over to 175 from 375, with that torn PCL was very hard. So anyway, like, while I was there, at 1-7-5, finally get there. And while I was there for, like, a short period of time, I'd only been there for four or five months.

And in 2019. And I got pulled over by a police officer. He immediately came up to my car, asked me exit the vehicle, everything like that. Immediately put me in cuffs, everything. Went through this whole or deal that, like, hey, you have a DUI or DUI less safe because the state of Georgia, if you blow a .01, you still get a DUI less safe because they deem you like, hey, you didn't turn on your blinker,

so you're too drunk, even though you're a point O'1, you know. But that wasn't the case with me. The guy kind of sat in an area where he could kind of fabricate things. And so the painful process of all this is, Like me sitting there going like, dude, I didn't do anything wrong. I had to sit in jail for an extended period of time. When I say extended period of time, it was like well over 12 hours, almost 18 hours. Now, what was the promise that he arrested for, a DUI less safe?

A DUI less safe. So in the state of Georgia, like most states, it's like a 0.08 limit for alcohol. In Georgia, a less safe, and I'm not a lawyer, you know. But from what I understood it as I went through this process was like, even if you blew a point oh one and they just said well you swerved out of the lane so even though you're 0.01 point oh one point oh one is enough to make you not say to draw and and what was his reason for like pulling you over to begin with uh he said that i did not stop at the stop sign before executing a left turn which uh wasn't true especially according to the video footage and every all the other

evidence that came to light because there was actual um intersection footage as well as well and um Anyway, I got sent. And I like, I'm totally cool talking about this because I know there's a story like this across every generation Ranger. Yeah, like two or three. There's like some legit like RFSs that go down. And don't get me wrong. Like you can RFS. You don't want me in the organization?

Fine. Release me for standard or ask me to leave politely. But there was nothing polite about this, to be honest. So let's preface this real quick. that RFS is released for standards at Ranger Battalion or Ranger Regiment. And there are reasons if a guy has a negligent discharge, there are reasons that people get RFS. But one of the really weird things the regiment has always had

because of the no hooligans, no brigands type of clause with the leadership, is that if you are in a drinking-related incident, which means that if you've had a drop of alcohol and something happens, You get in a fight. It didn't even have to be your fault if it started. But if you had a drop of alcohol and you get pulled over or you get in a fight or whatever else, you will be released for. Well, even then, though, it doesn't, like, release for standards unless you're like an E7 or an E. Right, right.

It's right. It's for the Joe's. It's not for, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was the exception to rule because I was an E7. And the thing is, it's like, so I get put in this scenario where I get put in a suitability board. You got QMP'd, right?

Yeah, I got a permanent GOMAR for this. And I felt really frustrated because I noticed that there were several other members within my organization that received DUIs roughly around the same time I did. And they actually, you know, pled to a lesser charge, went to court. And they would get like these like no RFS, RFS, no GOMAR, RFS, no GOMAR, RFS, no GOMAR, or RFS locally filed GOMAR. me it was like RFS permanent they threw the book at you now it might not have been a personal thing it might have been because this platoon when I arrived there was like in pretty bad shape they were already investigation for hazing and half the platoon was liquidated as a part of that investigation and correct me if I misunderstood were you brought in because the previous platoon sergeant was fired or he was killed he was killed an action he's killed an action he's a metal honor recipient oh my God okay yeah so definitely there's guys that highly revered this guy and respected. And the crazy thing about this guy

I was saying, you know, Chrysalees wasn't even a more guy. He was a 12 Bravo. And so they come in and like as a non-11 series and gain the respect. I never met Chris Salis, but it's like obviously this guy touched a lot of lives here.

And he's very respected. So like me, I'm like, I don't want to let this guy down. So it's like another kick in the teeth for me is being like, man, I really screwed up. coming over here because I you know I failed it what I thought I was going to do and so I went through this process and I got my knee surgery I was like dude I have to get the knees I can't just range wrong I'm just like screw it I don't know how to here like okay I can't operate with the rest of the guys are kind of excluding me you're becoming the this diseased thing now in the battalion

where now people like almost pretending not to know you right and um you're malignant Yeah, and what sucked was, you know, I'm the RFS guy. I'm the guy who's only been in this battalion for a few months. How many people know me there at 1-7-5? 375, but they're going to walk in any room. Right. This one, it's like, you know, they see me come and it's like, shut the shutters because he's the RFS disease guy. And I'm not the exception to the rule.

There's a lot of people that walk that same path. Oh, yeah. So I'm only explaining what I went through, and I'm not saying, woe, is me. Because, in fact, I actually found the, at the end of the end of the way, the road where I was is a very empowering experience of what I ended up going through because I got my knee surgery. After my knee surgery, they took away my driving privileges. So I had to park my car off post at a grocery store. Many times I was able to get somebody to give me a lift onto the base, but many times I would have to crutch from the grocery store to the front gate,

hand my ID card to the guard, put it back in my pocket, and then continue to crunch all the way to our AEO. And it was roughly, I don't know, maybe out three miles. So like one mile to the gate from the grocery store, maybe, and then another two miles. Like, give or take, I don't really know. So the police didn't take your drivers on it. They just your base driving privileges. Yeah, the U.S. Army took my base driving. I never saw a day in court.

The people in, like, the state court said, dude, you don't have a DUI. And they screwed this up. Like, there was no even probable cause. What was the Army's rationale? What did they tell you? They said, you did not submit to a breathalyzer. And I said, here's why I didn't. And explain to me how that's against UCMJ.

Because, well, I never got UCMJ action. That's what I'm saying. They never gave me UCMJ action, but they gave me a permanent go mar. Which is funny because usually you get both. Right. And when people don't know, a permanent, a gomart is a general officer memorandum of reprimand. It's a career killer. It's a career killer. It goes in your permanent file, a permanent. And if you're like an E7 or whatever, it's just like, sorry, you're done. You're getting out. And not only that, there's no due process for writing Gomore. You don't get a stand and be like, sir, it's their choice if they want to read your piece of paper that an aid will give to the general. And the aid is probably not even hinted to them. Just stamp, stamp. It's like, hey, make five of them permanent. Make the rest non-permanent. You never know what they're choosing. I don't know how the

processes. I've never sat on the other side of that desk. But, you know, I was frustrated. I was like, dude, this guy's an able, man. Like, I sacrifice. I go back in time. I'm like, man, my, you know, like, do you want, do I name the general that? I don't want to. I don't want to. Because we can, like,

well, it's, well, it ends up happening later. It's like, interesting. But, like, I, you know, I didn't cover this earlier. Like, my dad died later on. And I go, man, I sacrificed that. I could have gone up to 275, spent some time in my dad, but, like, selfish platoon sergeant made me come over to his platoon to 375 and like you know

I recycle because of that and I still stuck with it and stuck with the Rangers even though that's a very disrespectful thing I think that they did I didn't hold a grudge against them but now the grudge comes back yeah yeah like now I regret that decision because you're doing this to me and you're like you don't realize what I sacrifice

and you're taking this from me and part of it was I had this attachment with being a ranger and being like I got the laser I got the knots I got the helmet it's like dude that's not who you are. That's something that you did. It's great and you can be proud of it and everything. But that's not like, it's almost like they killed you. They took your soul from you when you did that because you put your soul into it. And that's kind of like the bad thing about that is you put everything into it. And so I had to like take this freaking vision quest, man. And a part of like what I did to try to like tread water what I was there at 175 was like I started to kind of get a little bit better with my knee where I could kind of rehab it and stuff while I.

I was there and I was there almost like another six months after they RFS to you yeah after the decision down came down to RFS really yeah until I got my orders and then acted on those orders because another thing they cheat sheet if you're getting RFS and you don't want to report don't report as early as possible report late collect all your special deal all your special pay before you go to the next step because that's that's my I was like well I'm going to get all my special pay I'm going to keep getting my demo pay. I'm keeping it. That was like my thing. So I'm going to wait until last minute to report to my next duty station. And also, in order to hunt the good stuff, you know, I was like, dude, I am worthless. And everybody is, I feel like everyone's against me

and everyone's telling me I'm worthless. I'm going to go where I'm appreciated. So I coached a high school wrestling team in Savannah. And I coached a wrestling program that was from kindergarten on up to 12, to middle schoolers. So I basically, was doing kindergarten all the way up to seniors in high school and um and i remember like at one of the one of the points like um my team versus the battalion commander's kids team and my guy just smoked the battalion commander's kid and i was like yes yes you know like but like at the end of the season you know like like i mean there's a lot of good moments there i was like man i'm getting a lot like in this moment where I'm like regretting service to the ranger regiment because at the time like I don't regret it anymore but at the time like yeah I'm very jaded like well can they do this to me you know that's my whole identity whatever and I was I might have said some inappropriate things the guys I know guys probably thought I was being like a sour person I'm very sorry if I said inappropriate things to people I'm sure I did I for the most part I did handle every situation quite professionally or at least held my tongue and I would just die

into these like you know going in after work like 1900 to wrestling practice and you know wrestling with these dudes and be like yeah I can't bend my knee but I can show you this thing and like mentor you and get you to where you need to be and um you know by the I mean I mean I I got a blind kid to win his first tournament wow and his parents were like hugging me and like crying like I can't believe it you know that this is he's never been able to do this you know and like uh there's like a little girl on the little kids team that was like you know everybody like you know they ignore me because I'm a girl but you didn't care you just saw me as a wrestler and you taught me how to wrestle with you know my body type my physique and how to beat people and she was winning you know

and you know I went through this whole thing and by the end of the season like I remember there being like a couple guys from the battalion there that have kids that are in the wrestling tournament And it was my last tournament of the season because these guys knew my, you know, other guys on the team, other coaches on the team, they knew. And I didn't have any kids. They knew I'm just toll selfless act, you know. And they're like, oh, he's getting our fest. He's got to go over to this other unit. And so, like, kids that weren't even on my team at the end of the season, like coach less, coach less, coach less, like cheering, you know.

And it was like, it's pretty cool because, like, I don't know, I felt like. like, felt like shit. Yeah. And it was like, you kids think that like, I'm doing you a favor. But like at the time I was like,

you guys are keeping me like helping me keep it together. Right. You know? And it was pretty intense moment. Obviously, like I'm showing emotion right now regarding that because it still resonates with me. It has a very powerful moment. And then,

um, yeah, I got, I got RFS and it was a long drive. It was like, like, like driving and just leaving um leaving um

leaving um savannah in like i'm like dude i hope i never have to come back to savannah again and it's like i can't even live in savannah because i'll see that freaking parade you know i think there's like 175 guys in the parade like i'll be mad you know that's all since changed but that's the way i felt at that moment like dude i hope i never had to see this place because it was like i felt betrayed you know i felt like they they took a future that was promised.

Yeah. Yeah, that you showed up there, that you went down there. And then because you didn't have the report, because you didn't have the history there that you had a 3-7-5, that you just got thrown under the bus without consideration, it seems like.

Yeah. So I drove all the way to Kansas, and it was snowing, and it was crazy because it was like, here I am, like, this depressed mess, driving through the snow and I'm driving through the

Super Bowl parade of the Kansas City Chiefs and everyone's like yeah and I'm like I hate my life you know what I mean and I'm like should have known I'm a mortar this is supposed to happen you know like that's kind of like all these random

conversations I was having with myself all the way in processing my unit and man I get over to at first infantry division and I'm going to an armored brigade combat team I'm going to be in tanks and Bradley's

and stuff supporting them with a mortar and I'm like this is way out of my wheelhouse and while I'm in processing another buddy of mine that I went through Raswith is killed as an attachment to an ODA and I'm like losing it while I'm going through because I'm already depressed for me like everything was like chain reaction in my life at that point.

It's like, oh look, I have a career ending injury that I try to, you know, muscle through him. By muscling through it, nobody cared about like that willpower that I had to muscle through that. I went through a divorce. I went through getting RFFST and like, well, hey, you know, like, you're disposed of. And now like another one of my buddies is killed. And I'm not a part of any special operations unit. I'm like, and then you're almost like, feel like, man, if I didn't.

screw that up and I'm you know I'm trying to be accountable for myself like how can I be accountable for myself and like the the answer keeps rising like dude there was nothing you could do in that situation right there was nothing you do like you didn't drink you didn't drive right someone pulled you

over and they placed you in handcuffs because they're trying to meet a quota yeah they place you in handcuffs put you in the back of the car and then your unit fucks you because they're just because it's like yeah well he says the company commander says this is a zero tolerance policy.

I was like, there's no zero tolerance policy. And in fact, in the blue book, because I wrote it like three and a half times, it says, it says, maybe RFS, not must. Yeah. May. Yeah. Doesn't say must.

The wording is very clear inside of this blue book. And it is up to you. You may RFS me. That's 100% up to you. But I would like you to give me the benefit of doubt and see how this plays out and allow me to continue as a non-commission officer, senior non-commissioned sovereign in this organization. I think I can make it a better place. You know what I mean? And ultimately, that company commander, his words pretty much verbatim,

were the decisions of the court of Georgia had no impact on my human resources decision. Wow. And so, wow. So after they asked you to be there, they acted like they didn't want you there. I felt like it was like, man, I'm always like never here. Now, I did, I felt like it did make a small impact while I was there. I did a couple of training events. I did show some guys, like some things. And, you know, a lot of things that you teach, a lot of things that you do, they don't last. They don't. Like a new guy comes in, he doesn't like the way you do it. Hey, that's stupid, whatever, that's fine. But I felt like I was making an impact. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I felt like I was making some headway there. And I was a very positive leader

understanding the situation that was coming into and understanding that it wasn't the most ideal situation for a platoon sergeant to walk into her senior non-commission officer so um yeah i get over there kansas and um man it's like almost immediately after you know my buddy dies and covid 19 lockdown happens and the military response was super difficult to navigate as a nCO as an nCO that has already gone through, you know, as an NCO who has no idea what an armored brigade combat team is or does. And being like, dude, I don't know what a Bradley is. You know, I don't know what a 1064 is. Like, I don't know what any of this stuff is.

You know, I don't know how your mortars are comprised of. Like, I walked into the wrong building trying to imp process my squadron. And I was like, you know, I didn't even know it was a squadron. I was like, this is called a squadron? Okay. This is the company? No, it's a troop. You know, it's like stuff like that.

I was like, dude, I don't know what any of this means. Really, I wasn't, I had tunnel vision. I was a ranger and that was my future and that's everything I dedicated to. And so then it became like this thing like, I mean, this is actually kind of pretty interesting because now, like I know when I was in processing that squadron, all senior non-commissioned officers have to stand before the squadron commander and have a conversation. I'm standing there, pre-rests.

I look down. I see etched on the desk and like a plaque kind of thing on the desk. It's like this is the same desk. General Patton sat at when he was at this unit is on the desk. It's like, hey, it could be BS, but at the time I believed it. But you go out in the hallway where it says like previous commanders, like Robert Lee was like the first commander of that unit. I was like, all right, there's lineage here.

You don't have to think like this is trash. Right. The brainwashing that we get that like, there's like stages to the brainwash and all right. And all those, like, every other unit is trash and insignificant. Every unit should be a Ranger unit and do it like us. Right. And then like every company is trash. Our company's the best.

Every platoon is trash. And all the way down to squad and team, right? That's kind of how it is. And it's like, hey, man, get rid of that. This is where you are now. I'm like, how do I make this kind of cool? And it was kind of funny because like, you know, like Fury didn't come out that much. Like before that, before that incident, you know, this whole.

event that happened and I'm like oh you know like there's cool stuff like stories about let me look at what this unit has done over the years and it kind of delved into that and I was kind of getting into um um and what sucked is like you didn't really get a train that much because of COVID-19 and yeah yeah stuff like hey the answers were always ridiculous like hey you you have half half the troop come in and then the other half at home and then you guys switch but sanitize before the other guys come because you don't want to give your germs to them okay now we got to go down eight people. Okay, only three people can do PT at a time. So you need to come into work and PT one soldier at a time in your platoon and make sure he's doing a PT. And then,

wait, guys, go do the, go do the PT test. So go do a piece of, bring one guy at a time to run around the track. But if you're with each soldier, yeah, you're spreading the germs between him and him and then to the next guy and the next guy and then. Yeah, pretty much. And it was ridiculous. Like, I didn't realize in like the regular army, I would go and take like a platoon and i'd be like okay i'm gonna have like some e sixes i don't have some like e5s i was like no the gap was sergeant first class mr ranger badass and sandusky you know and that's not what i'm like calling myself it was like kind of disgusting how some of these guys would like look at you there like hey man like what did you do for pt can you show me what how to get through s f as and i'll tell us

what it's like to be in the shit soon yeah so then like but then you would have like private just graduated basic, maybe one or two guys that came from a different unit. One guy who had limited, one, like maybe like an E4 who had very limited, uh, experience overseas.

Like he was like, I've deployed before Sergeant, but like, I don't know. I don't know any of this stuff. And you see like, these guys have gone through generations of dereliction of duty. Yeah.

Not by them. Not that they, and a lot of them, I was like, This is my platoon. In the Ranger Regiment, these defeated souls are me. And my peer group, when I showed up the, I showed up to my platoon by myself. But I would see, like, the peer group that came before me, they almost absorbed me into their peer group.

But those guys, I would, like, see, like, the dead souls in their eyes and be like, dude, you hate the Army. But I'm going to tell you, there's better places than this place. You can go to a different unit. You know, you can go up. I was like, you could, like, word can make this unit real fun and real cool. You can go to another, you can go 10th Mountain, you know, and not be, you know, and maybe ABCT, you know, you can go up to fourth. Like, you can do all types of stuff.

And so, you know, I sat there and I took every moment I could to improve. And that was like helping me keep myself together. And so one of the things I did was I was like, I noticed a lot of these. E4s were like E4 mafia guys that were like dodging NCOES schools. So I was like, you might be dodging NCOS schools, but I'm going to make you do the NCO job. You just won't have the NCO pay because I was like, here's what's going to happen. You're going to be like, well, if I'm doing the NCO job, I should be getting paid as NCOES. It's really not that bad.

So maybe I should get my ass to NCOES school. Maybe I should start bettering myself and proving myself. And I remember like one day when I really initiated, like, Like, because at first I was like really laid back. I was still kind of depressed and like, like, I was defanged and declawed when I got there. There's no fire breather in me. I was like, yeah, you guys are probably right. It's all hopeless.

Yeah. Don't be like me. Don't write it out. It never changes. You think it's getting better. It doesn't just quit. Go away wall. You know?

Nickel. Yeah. Like I always smoking a sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like.

I'm like, all right. One day I was sitting there and I'm like, no disrespect to like cab scouts, but yeah, all disrespect to cab scouts. So, you know, we're working with a lot of scouts nearby and tankers. They're basically special forces from what I hear. They're better than the Rangers. Yeah, yeah. There were the Rangers before the Ranger. Why do you think Abrams charter?

Right. So you can't even say it with a straight face. Yeah. Like, I remember like. something happened. I was like, I just had a buddy that got killed. And I did like the PTSD NCO freak out on these guys. I was like, all right, guys, we're going to talk about like something very basic. How to set up a litter. How to prepare a litter. How to, we're not going to go too far into the, you know, combat lifesaver. We're just going to talk about litters. And I'm sitting there and I remember like I kept seeing this kid like while I was explaining the litter stuff. Like how to assemble. He kept doing one of these. And I was like, are you feeling? fucking kidding me, man.

I was like, you looking at those guys over there? You're checking out guys? Is that what you're doing? You're looking at them over there? You should be looking at me. I'm the stud. You know? And I was like, I almost like went off. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

And before I like snap completely, I was like, I want you guys. Dress right dress, full battle rattle, all your combat gear, maintain social distance. information in this kill zone. So we were like in the whole troop operating facility. So all the other platoons, like scout platoons, were like watching this happen.

And I was like, I'm trying to hold it together, man. I'm really trying. I was like, when I come back, I'm going to come back when I let this demon out. And I'm going to let it out on all of you. It's like, be ready. And then so I left. I put on all my gear because I know they're going to be in their gear

and I came out there like screaming and hollering I haven't done this in a while like I haven't probably done that since I was a corporal in terms of like going off of people like Stats started at E7 I was kind of chill guy I kind of got into more of that operator mindset but it was like infectious

from the guys I was working with that JSON to like learn how they operate and they don't know to smash everyone with a hammer you know so I go in there smashing these guys And I at the same time I was kind of giving like a motivational speech while also I was like you guys are supposed to be the infantry you're the poster boys in the United States Army I was like George Washington was a member of the infantry you know I was like he ate leather shoes with wooden teeth you're made it you're I was like you're cut from the same fucking cloth and I know because you volunteered for this shitty ass job and they made you mortar men They made you mortar me

Because they looked you up and down And they said you're harder than them fucking 11 bravos You can probably put up with it We can abuse you We'll make you mortar me I was like so stop soaking around Because when you join the United States Army And you went in there and you swore with your right hand

Or you asked the recruiter for a job You didn't say them Can you make me a bitch? Because if you had you would have been a fucking Cavs Scout You know And I was like you're better than that And then I went from there And then, like, you know, we went on this very physical kind of event.

Like, we were doing physical stuff. And, I mean, like, I was hurt still. I was recovering from a knee reconstruction. And I was picking up, like, the biggest, fattest guy and running up and down with him. And we're like, you can't do that. My knee doesn't work. You can't do that. You have to be able to do that.

Like, we're just, you know, getting in their heads. Like, I'm the old man and I'm cripple, but I have more heart than any of you. even though like you're these young guys, but I want to say, it's not a fucking steroid. I say, you see this scroll? Let me put it on you. Are you strong?

It's not a fucking steroid. I earned it. It wasn't given. Nobody put that on me and I became a magical fucking unicorn. You know, you can be exactly like me. It doesn't matter what unit you were in.

It's like, it's a fucking mindset. That's how you're selected. So you need to start acting accordingly. You can stop being a defeated piece of shit. It's like what I was telling these guys. And so I got on them. I got into that thing.

I was talking about, hey, you don't want to be an NGO. You're going to get private pay. You know, we call specialists. Yeah. For with privates. You know, they call them specialists. And those kids like, I'm a specialist. I'm like, you're a fucking private.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you're an untapped. Yeah. You know? And so I would be like, you know, this is what you're going to do. You're going to do this job. And the cool thing was, I was like, I might not be able to sit down and teach me.

these guys ranger school classes every single day but I could make every single day a ranger school lesson so instead of getting ranger school classes I just indoctrinated him with ranger's shit in their life so what I did was I went down to like home depot and I bought chalkboard paint and I took all my desks and computers and shit out of my office and I painted and I made them paint the fucking uh walls And I did help a little bit. And by saying help, it's almost laughable. I almost didn't help at all. But I did put some paint on some shit.

I said, paint all this. So they painted the whole office, wall to wall, 360 degrees with chalkboard paint. And I made it like a ranger school planning bay. And I was like, all right, you, every day you're in charge of the timeline. You will do the timeline. You will learn reverse planning.

Every single day, I want that up there. Every single day, you, I want weather and light data up here. You're going to be the situation paragraph, blah, blah. And once I see that you guys get a hold of that, we're going to keep rotating guys. And we're going to keep, you know, continue to do different paragraphs of this op order, which will be rewritten almost daily on the wall. Now, when you brief your part, if there's no change, all you have to say is no change. But don't try to pull one over and be like, no change.

You know, like, you're going to do the work. And so I had these guys, like, not even NCOs. Like basically every day was like, you're going to live in. Ranger School while you're while I'm in charge because that's the impact I'm going to make while I'm here. And I mean, I did even other things where I was like there's going to be an American flag in my, in my office. So you walk in and you know where you are.

You know why you're lacing up your boots every day. And, you know, I put some camo netting on like one of the walls to kind of make, you know, you're getting in like the, hey, you know, it's like, wow. it's like a little, we're in a bunker here, you know? Right. Right. And I remember I put like a map over the top of that camo netting. So the Cammonetting's background map is on a cork board and I have different positions. I'm like, yeah, brief off that map.

This is our a, let me orient you. This is going to be our route to the range today. Well, blah. And these are like privates in the regular army that I was. So you're basically teaching them like five paragraph op order or mission planning process. Yeah, without telling them, hey, guys, this is Ranger stuff. Right. This is an op order.

going all day. I'm just, I'm literally like letting these guys like, do we have any questions for less? Yeah. Let me refresh this real quick and see. Sorry, guys. No, no problem. So, uh, we have a couple questions. Um, Dr. Mad Respect. Thank you very much for the Canadian donation. Uh, he said, uh, this should equate to about 47 cents U.S. Merry Christmas and happy new year. You know, Canadian money. It's like monopoly money, right?

DJ Sneed, thank you very much for the donation. Oh, let me see here. In a conventional war, how does the role of the 75th vary from that, the 82nd and the big red one based on where the enemy is engaged? Interesting question. I've never served inside the 82nd. and really I would say that what I've noticed is that armor brigade combat teams they were very well trained in the defensive ops because like so like a defensive op is like you might have a layered defense where you're putting in your mortar teams to kind of intersect and deny enemy ingress into the perimeter or flat line. that you're kind of defending.

And the way that our Armour Brigade Combat Team was set up at Big Red One was we would have different mortar sections or platoons at each troop, which we would call a company and Ranger Regiment. Now, what a Ranger really is at the core, in my own words, anyway, is a partisan force that performs harassment operations behind enemy lines, whether that's disruptive. enemy logistics, kind of like taking out enemy morale or even area denial on the enemy. And so that's kind of like you're more, the mortars and the Ranger Regiment are mostly employed in offensive operations where you have to do, your training is more focused on doing what we call

hip shoots, which are, you know, you drop that gun down on the ground, you shoot, you pick the gun back up and you move. Supporting the assault element. Yes. And yeah, you could be supporting the assault element. You could be doing a special mission with your reconnaissance and sniper observation teams where they're utilizing you in a reconnaissance aspect. Like there's, it's like super multifaceted.

Also, when you're in a brigade combat team, armor brigade combat team, you're primarily dealing with just 120s. And when you're in the Ranger Regiment, you have all three organ. U.S. motor systems. And like myself and others, you get exposure to working with foreign mortar systems a lot where maybe if you showed up in the country and you're like a smaller element and didn't have an 81 or a 120 with you because you're a 60 team, you're able to have the knowledge to plug in with like an 82 millimeter

system or some type of Eastern block variant of a 120 millimeter or whatever they have. With the way the systems are becoming where you said they're becoming, even though you prefer the old system, but if they're becoming more and more accurate, you know, one of the sniper missions is anti-material, right? That they sneak in and with their 50 cows, they destroy, you know, critical, you know, material. So do you ever see that being like, do you ever see mortar having sort of that, that surreptitious recon mission that's antimaterial because the systems become that accurate? Yeah. So there are some missions that we've trained for in the mortars that would allow for a corridor to take out ADA. So we could either take out or displace ADA.

So maybe the ADA is heavily armored in a maybe a mortar system wouldn't necessarily damage it. could cause injury to the crew. I don't know if it ever came online, but they were developing at one point. It was like a rocket-assisted motor that you could fire. It would travel 12 kilometers. Yeah, there's a lot of countries that actually employ.

I know Yugoslavians have something like that as well. It increases the range of the motor system out to, I think, like, 9,800 meters specifically for the 120, which is crazy. And I think they call it a RAMs rocket-assisted mortar. Right. And the funny thing about that, those are. are things with rocket boosters, like, whether they're RPG7, Spignines, or, um, those type of things with RAM, they're very dirty.

Like, so they really cause, like, they cake those systems and like black soot. Ah. I've noticed about rocket boosters. Um, I've also noticed that a lot of the manufacturing regarding those type of ammunition, that type of ammunition. So what it is is like the way that a mortar works, for example, is at the bottom of the mortar in the fin assembly, where you see the fins. The fins are canted in most mortars that are a non-rifle, smoothbore mortar, has the projectiles have a fin assembly. Those fins are canted to mimic

rifling to stabilize the round as it travels through the air. Inside that fin assembly is a primer. That primer when struck, you know, gravity brings it down the mortar tube. The firing pin at the bottom, the mortar tube strikes, that primer sets off a small explosive. That small explosive can set off these charges that are wrapped around the bottom. And those charges can be anything from some type of magnesium composite, other chemical composites, nitroglycerin T&T, just depends on what type of ammunition that you have and what type of propellant. So small charge primer, small charge, propellant. Now, in just the grand scheme of things,

Like just general physics as pressure increases, volume decreases. Okay, so on most U.S. mortar rounds and mortars in the freaking world, any of them that are worth a shit, we're going to have what's called the arbitrator ring. We call that the gas ring. So what that does is when the mortar goes down and that small explosion goes off, that gas ring, arbitrator ring expands and creates a seal. That makes the volume decrease. So then the pressure increases.

and you start to lose volume. And then as that pressure builds up enough, that sends the projectile pretty far. Now, what I noticed with like rocket-assisted munitions, and I'm not well-versed with the rocket-assisted munitions, it's like that whole chain of events becomes more unreliable because you're adding another chain to it and it makes it less accurate.

You know what I mean? Especially when you're... One mill, I'm sure it's like you guys been behind long guns and you know like one mil at 1,000 meters. that's like one meter, you know what I mean? And then you talk about nine grand with a 30-pound freaking bowling ball. Right. That's going over 13,000 feet into the sky.

Right. And so it's going to go 13,000 feet up into the clouds, travel freaking nine grand down. You know what I mean? So, you know, there are some very good engineers out there. And I would never say, hey, stop what you do it and don't go that route. I think it's a very valuable asset to have. So, yeah, more power to him.

But I just know that it's difficult thing to design. Is there talk or imagining imagination of like smart mortar rounds? There kind of is already. There's like, so some of the more, there's already like these systems that are, the cannon itself has some type of GPS guidance that assists the gunner. some of these systems are automatic where the gunner doesn't have to do anything you just type it in the computer and the gun

aims at where it's supposed to aim and you just, it's pretty much dummy proof for the most part and then you have ammunition that also can be guided but the ammunition what I remember is it's like you do all the work

and then the ammunition's like hey we did the word because it's like as long as you're within you know 10 mils right you know you'll hit it It'll work as long as it's within 10 mils. As long as you get that round within 10 meters of the target, you're going to kill it. Yeah, you're going to kill it with this round. Yeah, that's kind of like the way about any other questions for us. We have one last one.

Baker Hitch, thank you very much. Do you think you have any inherent advantages over your near pure enemies like VDV or PLA Marine mortar units? And 100% not a North Korean spy. Do I have any advantages over them? Well, I'm not in the military, so I think that's it, I'm not fighting in any of those militaries. It looks like it sucks. Yeah, it does. It doesn't look like a good time.

So, Les, you had this experience trying to, like, flip this platoon around in the conventional military. What was it like getting out of the military? Tell us a little bit about transitioning in the civilian world, which, I mean, it's only pretty recent for you. Yeah. So I just, you know, kind of made a decision while I was like, hey, you know, you know, you know, you know what, I'm trying to flip this platoon around. And I was like, you know what, I might be getting kicked out of the army because I'm getting Q&P. I'm getting kicked out of here.

So I decided, hey, I need to focus on myself and my recovery. And so I went through the proper channels to get myself into the SRU, which is formerly known as the WTO. So it used to be the Warrior Transition Unit and they changed it to the soldier recovery unit. And I really, I would advocate for more Rangers and special operators to use that avenue to exit the military because you shouldn't, 18 months to get out of the military and start your transition plan is generally for guys who, it's just for the whole military. And it's like if you're a guy who did like 10 years in special operations, there's probably a lot of stuff that's not going to come to light until like a year after you're done. Yeah. You're like, whoa, that hurts. So when I went to the SRU, the cool thing was, it's like, as stupid as it sounds like maybe I was explaining it's to other people.

Like, my, I'm like, I'm an E7 Ranger guy, you know, decked out in the pins and patches or whatever. I never felt that way. I didn't get too egotistical. But that's literally how people see you. You're like a unicorn out there, especially when you're in this type of unit. Right. A lot of the people in those units are like, I'm fresh out of AIT. And I went right into the SRU.

And I was like, what? You know? And so anyway, I was there and like, it was kind of cool. Like, you do, they kind of like force you to like, hey, man, you just got to go to like three events in the week. And it's not that hard. Some of the people complain, but it's like, you know, just go play wheelchair basketball. Go, go shoot the air rifle. Do an air rifle shoot.

Go, you know, all these, like go do like a gardening class. Like, these are all things that's like, you know what I used to do with this E tool when I was in gardening? Yeah. Like, you've pulled out as PTSD freak out. Like, y'all don't know. Like, hey, I could dig a hole. Like, you know, like, I was making jokes while I was in there trying to make, because there's some depressed kids in there, you know.

COVID was happening. And, you know, they signed up for the military. Helicopters over Saigon shit. Yeah. And so, yeah, I worked with, I worked there. And it was kind of cool. They kind of set me with the VA. And they put me on the right appointments.

And they sent me, like, behavioral health. They sent me, like, caseworker. And then from there, I was kind of like, you know like what else can I do as I'm getting out and they put me on this thing where I could ride horses and then I started working at this ranch while I was like working in the DOD I was getting paid but I was out there riding horses and learning how to take care of horses

and just kind of using that therapy with the horses because I was like I was an angry soul man and I was just like whatever man and it was cool that I was disgruntled and I was angry at the military I was like I'm gonna take you off of whatever you got and it actually advocated for me

me. I was like, dude, I do have these injuries. And, you know, like, I had a torn shoulder that I had not gotten surgery or looked at. And they were like, yeah, that thing is completely torn. Like, how is it hanging on your arm? And they did a surgery on my shoulder. Did a couple more surgeries in my knees. Surgery on my face. They corrected my broken face. Because actually, I was like, dude, I keep throwing up randomly. And they're like, yeah, because your orbital socket is broken. Holy shit. And you can't see past over here. And then they, like, fixed everything.

thing and then like now I could see good and I stopped throwing up and I stop having vertigo and I started sleeping better and there were things I didn't really notice you know and and part of that is because I didn't really have family I didn't only have like that support unit because I went so low to Kansas and I was COVID and it was just like you know like I was I was like Leon the professional you just sleeping alone and you think like all I do is go to Army finish army go back to sleep in chair you know a brooding man yeah yeah it's like what it was it was very very depressing looking from the outside I'm sure and there's a lot of guys that try to tell me stuff like reach out I'm like I did asshole and you know what they told me and that was like a big joke to the whole reach out crap that people would say

and I know that their heart was in the right place but like when you have a hundred people a day telling you that shit when you're like your life is in flames and you're like dude you think I'm not reaching out I think I'm not trying I've been ostracized. I've been banished to the wasteland. There's so many of those. I mean, the commander's open door policy is like open door and I'll see you in 90 days, maybe. Yeah. You know, it causes, I know, a lot of anger with the enlisted ranks.

A lot of these like colonels and generals who get out and they turn themselves into the poster boys for PTSD. Yeah. And they go on the news and they're like, we need to get our boys help and everything. It's like, well, hold on. You were my commander. You didn't give off. fuck about any of these guys. Yeah.

You know, if somebody came to you said they needed help, you'd fuck them. Yeah. I just want to put it out there because they're probably not watching this show. But if the officer that told you that they didn't care about the court for their HR decision, I really hope you have bad dreams. I really hope you don't sleep well at night. Like, you know, it's just a really shitty thing to do. So the thing was a lot of people, I've done something like an impossible task.

I did an impossible task in the military. And it was because I was angry and I advocated. I used that inner anger in a positive life. And I never turned to substance abuse or anything. I never did anything that would make them seem right and anything I said unfound. And I felt like that's what they were trying to do, even though they might have just forgot about me. And the way I went about it was, you know, I did the impossible, which was I reversed a permanent go-in. They reinstated my rank to E7 and the chief of staff wrote to that general and said,

all of your allegations against Sergeant First Class Sandusky were untrue and unjust. And I, and all of like punishable action is hereby reverse effective immediately with back pay. Wow. Yeah. So they had to like back pay me all the way to 2019. What was that repudiation process like that? Did you have to fight it or did you have an advocate? I had to fight it and I had an advocate because I was too depressed.

Like if I was like, if he was like, hey, Les, can you type up something? I was like, can I just give you the notes because I keep trying to type this and every other word is motherfucker. And I can't like type this without being calm. Yeah. Because at that time, like, dude, they made me a killer. They made me a war. I mean, I killed somebody before the Army or whatever. But, like, I was like, you know, that was the tool that I was.

Right. Like, I was the conduit for foreign policy when diplomacy failed. You know, they said, hey, this is our solution to that problem. Right. And this means, you know, we need to armed force to maybe change the hearts and minds of those individuals that are not in compliance with U.S. foreign policy. And I'm sitting there like, if you're a direct representative of the president of United States, States as a general in this sitting army and you can't see what I am.

Right. And what I've done for this country and to not even take a look at my paperwork. Like, it's a complete slap in the face. Yeah. So I fought it and it did cost me $25,000. Wow. Of paying my lawyer over and over again to draft every paper. And for the human resources command to kick me back and kick me back and say, no, we're still

going to kick you out. No, we're still going to kick you out. Now, it's not like they were kicking me out. It was like it's worse than getting kicked out. almost at the time. They're putting you into the corner where you have to quit. They're saying, you're fired, but a year from now. You still have to do all this stuff.

And then the thing that sucks is you have like the market cane, you know, where everyone in your unit is like, make him do the stuff, do you. Make him do. And if he pipes up, we can just ride it to the little board. Right. Tell them he's not being good boy. And now everybody's just dangling on it. It was like, oh, you're not so hot now, Ranger.

You know what I mean? So that's like stuff. I'm like shielding my men from in my new platoon, you know? And then I was like, dude, I can't fight this battle. I'm going to probably end up offing myself. So I'm going to go to the SRU, not for my peace of mind. And because I see that's where it's going to go. Right.

And that's the only way I'm going to seek help. And I've had, and it really was a Ranger buddy that I called one time. I was like, dude, I was like crying on the phone to another girl. own ass man who used to like you know smote the dog shit out of me you know and he ended up in the sniper purple team too but he's he's telling me like dude it's all right like I can call somebody and make sure you can get into that SRU because my unit wasn't kind of trying to let me go and I got into it and you know I have him to thank for that and it was um you know you were with these guys I was like maybe this is my purpose too it's like be a leader among these people who are you know

there's some people in the SRU they're like gaming the system. Yeah, yeah. And I'm, maybe I can be something like, hey, you don't have to game the system. You can do the right thing,

you know, and yeah, so I finished up there. And, man, it was like, I had one of the happiest days of my life when I saw that,

he was like, hey, dude, they reversed it. My lawyer said that over the phone. And he sent me, like, the letter from that chief of staff that said,

being untrue and unjust from such like a renowned like I wrote I wrote to the office of the president which office of the president was Donald Trump at the same time luckily my military lawyer was a guy who is related to the religious advisor to Donald Trump and he was like we can we can go nuclear on this if you want I was like no I don't want to you I want to just you know I want to get my reputation back they're destroying everything I work right right I'm not going to get kicked out of here without my benefits without ABC XYZ and that was like my biggest fear is like going out with this you know and then what ended up happening through all that it's like they medically retired me because they actually went through all my injuries and it was enough

to more a retirement yeah and it was just nice to be like all right man I I restored my honor yeah I don't care about the money and a lot of people are like you won man you won you won. And at first I was bitter. I was like, you think I won? I just gave me back what I deserve. You know what I mean? But then I'm like, you know, they're right. I did win. In the grand scheme of things I won. So when did you, what year did you end up getting out of the military, getting boarded out earlier this year? Early this year. January, January 13th, 2020. What has post service life been like for you so far? I immediately walked out of that onto a contract and I went right back to Syria.

So as soon as I got out, I went back to Syria and I was in Syria and Iraq and freaking in Iraq. We had the Fatay-1 missiles from Iran come in while we were there. And then I was in Syria and we had a couple green-on-green events, a couple blue-on-blue events, insider threat events that weren't widely published. And then, yeah, and then a couple of events with kind of insurgent ISIS elements that were there. And that wasn't even my job. Like, I had nothing to do with shooting bad guys or opposing force. What should I say? Force pro guys.

Yeah. Yeah. In a sense. It's not fair to say. Yeah. And I would be like, and, um, and, um, you know, we got, like, and it was really cool experience because I, even as like a civilian, I got to walk around the streets of Iraq with no gun and like go to a coffee shop or something.

And like nobody's like, and it's like, whoa, like, this used to be like a place where like, you know, we'd be like, hey, what's on that corner? And I'm in the middle of the night walking around, like, whatever. And getting some buffalo wings and stuff at a place. doing all sorts of stuff and doing touristy stuff, going to see in the Citadel there, going over there to go around in Syria and hang out in different places. And I was riding around on French birds and I was riding around on British birds. And I was like, these guys are so cool.

Like the guys are like, you want to manifest? I'm like, no. And it's like, all right, what's your name? Just like scribble me in real quick. I was like, what? Like, you know. And here's your pint. Yeah, right.

What, I mean, so do you like it? I mean, do you see yourself staying in contracting? What do you see is like your future now that, you know? Yeah, I do enjoy contracting. I think like contracting is another bit of like a vision quest thing. It's like me. I'm doing the forest gump. I think I'll go home now.

But like, like what I'm doing is like, I was kind of like, yeah, I'll take that contract because I want to go back. Like I wanted to go back to Syria and Iraq and stuff. It would be like, you guys can stop me from. going to the front. And I saw guys from my battalion there, 175 in Syria and Iraq. And I was like, you know, I'm here.

Like, I'm back, you know, like messing with them. But I was like, yeah, you know, I can get out of here if I want. And then from there it was like, all right, maybe I need to try something else because like, I've been doing this, rowo, these same areas. And so I'm like, man, let's go cool places. Let's go places to have history. So like another place I went was Rwanda. Went to Rwanda because I was like, man, that's a Rwanda genocide.

That happened when I was alive. 500,000 to 600,000 people murdered in a three-month period. Let's go check that out. Let's see how they're doing. So I went over there and I worked with the RDF for about six weeks and learned a little bit of their language, ate the same food as they did. I would like hang out with the troops all day and just get really embedded with these guys. And then these guys who were there during the genocide would tell me stories.

And these are guys who are on both sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there were guys who were like, yeah, I came down across the border from Uganda. And I didn't even live here. And I did it. And I was like, man, and you hear some real stuff?

Like a guy was like, I was hiding in the water over there. And there used to be a bunch of hippopotamus in there. And I was, I, and you know, hippos are very dangerous to kill a lot of people. I was hiding in the water close to the hippos while the genociders like hacked his family to pieces. Wow. And he watched from the water and would be like like this, like barely out of the water. Like I'm with the hippos. I'd rather have the hippos kill me than those guys.

And these are guys that would tell me. And these guys are like, I'm like, man, I thought what I went through was hard in my life. Yeah. Yeah. And I would see somebody's guy. I'm like, dude, you were like eight years old hiding near the hippos. You know what I mean? And all these people were getting murdered.

And it's, and it's, you have to hate a person to kill 500,000 people because they didn't have just line, hey, face the wall and shoot them. They got hacked up with machetes. That is hard labor. Yeah. You're out there and you're going to get tired swinging a machete that much all day, especially in a manner that's going to kill that many people. And so that was another, like, decent thing to like, wow. And then look at this guy. He still gives.

He's all the money he makes, which isn't much. He gives to an orphanage. He's starting an orphanage. And, you know, he's, you know, he's. He's like this religious guy. He's like, you know, he's taking what he knows to help him through a tough time, which to him was religion. And he's like at this orphanage, like taking care of kids and whatever money that he would make, he would give it towards these kids. I'm like, dang, man, you have like nothing.

And you're giving everything. I was like, we're all these selfless people like all over the world. And it's really like, so that's kind of where I'm at. I'm like, man, I can. What? What? Okay, apart from the money, because contracts, they can pay decent price, you know. What else is happening there that I can, you know, look at and be like, hey, that's pretty cool.

I went there and not only did I do my job, but I got this extra. Like, I went on a safari. I went into it. They had this, like, big ceremony where, like, it's like a gorilla naming ceremony. It was a national event. And, you know, I went and checked that out. and you get to see like the guerrillas in the wild and how they react and you're like, this thing is scary.

You could kill me. And it's like right here. But yeah. So, yeah, contracting is pretty interesting. Home my own house now too. Homeowner. Becoming a big boy, you know. And it's so like working on my backyard.

It's a lot of like put down, put down the weapon, pick up the plow type stuff going. And, you know, doing a lot. of free dive. I find free diving very therapeutic because that's something I learned in dive school is like all breath holds and going down and it really is like a good anger management stress relief thing because if you panic

if you do all these things like you're going to you're going to hurt yourself so you have to be really in control of your emotions while you're doing those breathes. Real quick let me pick up on that thread like 11 charleys don't usually go to dive school. Yeah and that was

the funny thing because like at the time The mortar platoon was in HHC, so all these guys were there were like, what company? You said you were an RRC, right? I'm like, no, I'm a mortar guy. You know, and they were like, what the fuck of this guy doing here? You know, and I was a wild guy. I remember we were doing jocop.

I was like the craziest motivated guy. The sergeant major of Sifuo was a 275 guy. And he was like, y'all need to fucking get on the motivation. This guy's on. because everybody was Sears school in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Passive resistance. Yeah, yeah.

And I was just like, Sierra! You know, like I was doing like Ranger. And I was like so incompetent. A lot of those guys had the edge on me. They had better, I think like my pre-dive that I went through was at fourth RTB. So the physical aspect was very good.

But was not very good. It was the academic prep. So a lot of these guys had good academic prep prior to going there. And I think like the academics, I was like blade running through that whole course. And then I was just like, hey, Ranger here. What was that big word you said? And then like, you know, they would have Ranger Cadre in the school that would like laugh along.

And be like, yeah, okay. Like we're like we're playing the joke. Like we're the dumb guys. Right. And SF guys are the smart guys kind of thing, you know. Like we're, you know, it is like a playful thing. But I looked at it as an area management course. and when I finished up there and moved on,

it's like, I never touched any scuba tanks ever again. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, but I stuck with free diving. I was like, that's what I actually liked. I was like, I was getting tortured and, like, groundproofed. And then I'd be like, when are we going to put on tanks?

And I was like, dude, like, the real fun is the torture. Yeah. Like, I like to swim down into the cave and, like, pull my, like, this. stuff that I do. I mean, people, if they go to my Instagram, I have some videos of me with like a helmet on with some lights on it and I'm like crawling through little caves inside

some Florida Springs and stuff, going through tight spaces, holding my breath. But for me, it's like just mastering myself while I'm down there and like flowing. It's like, hey, don't burn too much oxygen. It's so calm. It's so cool and like none of my joints hurt while I'm down here. And I can do

this for hours. I'm going up and down, up and down. I just feel like you're almost floating with the water so clear you'll have over 300 feet of visibility it's just like wow it's so beautiful it's so calm it's so relaxing down here but also it can kill me i can die yeah but you try to let those intrusive thoughts go and see yourself through the objective because anything you know that you produce from within that doesn't come from within like you you're there's an outside thing and if i'm i'm in man versus nature right now now if i have man versus nature over here and I also make man versus man over here that's two fights I

now split myself in half right so I don't really have my full self even a one-to-one odd and I'm going to lose both right so I need to know hey man and this is like one way I talked to myself I'm on my side I'm on my own side right now so I just need to agree with myself that I'm going to go and I'm going to complete this and I'm going to get through this obstacle and I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm going to come out to the other side and then, oh, man, it feels good to be like, I've controlled my emotions. Right. And if you start panicking, not only are you burning oxygen faster, but you might make a move or you might do something that screws you. Yeah. Yeah. Or somebody else, like if you're with your buddy, because now your buddy has to come and get you. Yeah. And he doesn't

want to do that. Yeah. Now you have to negotiate a problem. Les, thank you so much for coming on the show and doing this, man. We've gone for four hours. All right. Taking up your time here, man. But it's been awesome. Yeah. It's been a marathon run. But, I mean, this was like a ton of information and a ton of your experiences and a lot of unique experiences too. Yeah.

Really appreciate you sharing all these insights with us. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's like it's good to be with my kind, you know, from a different generation and be able to speak with you. And maybe connect with some people out there that might have gone through some. of the same. Absolutely, yeah.

Maybe it resonates with that. Maybe something I say can resonate with them. So I really appreciate it. I really appreciate everyone tuning in, supporting the podcast. And, you know, I hope it all works out. It was great, man. I mean, thank you. You came out here, came to the Christmas party the other day, and you had me laughing my

ass off telling some of these barracks stories about the Joe's. But, I mean, yeah, all your combat experience and interactions and going through this terrible experience on your way out of all me and honestly even though you know you feel that you may have acted out ways like you handled it better than i would yeah better than i ever would have and and and not just from a professional viewpoint from but from it's very easy to burn in you know and and that's not just like when when with an rFS i mean that's just when that's just when you leave the life in general, right? It's very easy to burn in.

And I think a lot of us burn in to a degree. Yeah. And, you know, something, you know, something helps us somewhere along the way. But for you to have such a, really a situation with these people that you know that almost

like take away everything that you've accomplished and still be able to go on to a unit and still take care of the troops underneath you and still rod's up still ranger up you know that's a hell of a lot more of being a ranger

you know the idea of taking that out to you know the idea of a ranger is luring it and taking it out to the conventional army that's a that's being a hell of a lot more of ranger then some asshole sitting behind of a desk, you know, looking at all of your combat experience,

everything you've contributed, and then not even giving you the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. That dude should have his tab, his scroll. He should have it all taken away. Well, when you see a lot of these disciplinary issues, a lot of the post-service issues that guys have psychological issues, I think a lot of the things that you've talked about today,

I mean, they speak to that. You know, why do we release guys on a three-day weekend and we have like 10 DUIs in the unit? Why could that be? Does it have something to do with how we treat these soldiers? Is that possible? Yeah. Is that within the realm of possibility? Well, and the simple fact is, is like, I don't agree with the RFS, you know, with a lot of the stuff.

But for you to get RFS and not even having been drinking, to have to, for them not to even wait for a court. Like, that's the kind of bullshit in regimen that tears me up because I've seen it happen to other guys. Yeah, you're supposed to. I've seen other guys who are out. Yeah, they're having a beer, but they're minding their own fucking business. Yeah. And, you know. You're supposed to drive your car into the Chattahoochee to get, you know, before that happened.

You know, the way I looked at it was it happened the way it did because it's the only way it could have happened. The only way I would have left that organization is kicking and screaming. Yeah. and that's what happened. Yeah. You know what I mean? And at first I regretted what I gave. And then I was like, you know, I'm proud of what I gave.

Right. And it didn't really turn out too bad because that's probably the only way I would have left. Like what I would have been like sitting there until like I'm a sergeant major, maybe. And then like, which is difficult to pull off. And then what I'm going to look at a computer and like, these guys are red, make them green. They're red on the tracker. Right. Right.

You wouldn't have enjoyed that. Yeah. Well, last, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your story with us. Yeah. I hope to see you again, man. I hope next time you come through the city. I hope we'll see you next December. Yeah.

And hear about some more shenanigans. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, we deeply appreciate it. We appreciate you, man. Yeah. I appreciate you guys.

And I appreciate the community and everybody who's tuning in. Right on, man. Yeah. Shout out, Tats. And we will see all you guys on Friday with Jeff Stein, editor of Spy Talk, and he was a Army case officer in the Vietnam War. So we'll see you guys then. Until then, take care, everyone.