The Team House - Two, Three, Four Missions a Night: Ranger Regiment at War | Will Hutson

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

Retired Sergeant Major Will Hudson reflects on a 21-year Army career that took him from the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 2003 invasion of Iraq to years of combat deployments with 3rd Ranger Battalion, eventually becoming a RASP instructor, LRS company first sergeant, and operations sergeant major. He also opens up about the toll that years of war, injuries, alcohol, and retirement took on his mental health, and how faith and personal loss ultimately reshaped his life.Today's Sponsors:GhostBed ⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 10% off! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________GRAB JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featuredJack Murphy's book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 – Start00:58 – Will Hudson’s Childhood & Joining the Army05:20 – 9/11, the 173rd & the Road to War07:15 – Combat Jump Into Northern Iraq15:44 – Leaving the 173rd & Trying Out for Ranger Regiment21:35 – ROP, Selection & Earning a Spot in 3rd Ranger Battalion27:08 – Life in 3rd Ranger Battalion’s Mortar Platoon32:57 – Ramadi: Nonstop Ranger Raids & Heavy Combat38:17 – Balad, IEDs & Losing Jimmy Regan42:04 – Rangers and SEALs Fighting Together in Sadr City48:21 – The War Shifts From Iraq to Afghanistan54:35 – Mortars in Afghanistan & Supporting Tier One Units57:28 – Swimming Mortars Into Targets With SEALs1:06:23 – Becoming a Ranger Mortar Platoon Sergeant1:11:52 – Running RASP & Changing Ranger Selection1:23:24 – Leaving Regiment & Taking Over an LRS Company1:33:35 – Airborne School, Pathfinder & Sergeant Major Academy1:38:22 – The 101st Airborne, COVID & Losing the Passion for the Army1:41:34 – Retirement, Injuries & Hitting Rock Bottom1:47:47 – Alcohol, Mental Health & Searching for a Way Forward1:51:22 – Plant Medicine & a Life-Changing Experience2:04:25 – Refined by Fire, Losing His Son & Finding Faith2:15:21 – Closing ThoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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See Draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Please play responsibly. Number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data. We ended up, like, getting into it with, like, an Iraqi artillery, like, battalion. And, you know, in the mortar platoon, you know, like, I was in the 60 section at the time at the companies. And, you know, we were actually, like, shooting mortars at artillery pieces and, you know, shooting, which I felt like was pretty cool. You know, we're out there doing, like, directly missions with 60s and, you know, hitting vehicles with, you know, Willie P rounds. And I had a, I had a 105 round land, like, I don't know, four feet from me.

It didn't go off. It was a dud. I didn't vaporize, but the pucker factor was up for sure. That was probably the biggest, you know, I'd say for like a contact that I really remember being like, okay, now we're really in combat. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with today's guest, retired Sergeant Major, Will Hudson. Will served in the infantry in 173rd, jumped into Iraq during the invasion. and then he went over to Third Ranger Battalion, where he served for many years, becoming a Rasp instructor,

eventually, and then taking a worse company. And going on, as he made Sergeant Major, became the Op Sergeant Major at Airborne School and finished his career in the 101st. So,

I mean, you kind of had the infantry career, I guess. The only thing you didn't do was be a drill sergeant. You were a Rasp instructor. That's the only different. But, no, this is great. Thank you for joining us.

Will. Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. So start at the beginning, Will, tell us like, where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like? Okay. So I was born in Kentucky. I was from my dad's side of the family from outside of Lexington. We moved from there to Texas when I was about four years old, following my mom's family to Texas. I lived outside of Houston and Pearland for the majority of my life before I joined the army. I had a pretty rough growing up. We were super poor. and had a pretty, I don't know, kind of abusive growing up childhood with through my stepfather and stuff like that

and had a pretty pretty tough go of it initially. And it's kind of, I guess, what drove me to join the military is, I was really kind of a lost cause. I was running around in the streets. You know, I was on my own from that early teens. I got my first apartment when I was about 16 years old with a couple of buddies. and we were just, I don't know, what you would expect for somebody with no adult supervision, you know, for years and years on end.

We were just drinking and partying and getting in trouble constantly. I ended up before I joined the Army. I was working at a bar in Houston and bartending and just drinking nonstop, party nonstop. And I knew that if I didn't do something, I was going to end up in dead or in jail. And so I really was looking to do something different. One of my close friends I grew up with Josh Gamboa, he was in Second Range of Retireen. He joined Army about two years before I did. he would come home on leave and, you know, we do the usual, we go burn it down while he was home on leave.

And then I just kind of started getting more interested in what he was doing. He would tell me what it was like to be in range of time. So I kind of had more of an inside look to what it was actually like to be in battalion because, you know, my best friend growing up was there for a couple of years. And he's the one who actually kind of talked me in a joining the military. I joined the Army and my plan was just trying to get an option 40 contract to go straight to regiment, but it didn't work out because the slots weren't available. He told me that he was, you know, he was good friends with the liaison that worked at airborne school, which, you know, is usually you can just volunteer from airborne school with the great liaison back then at the time, and he can set you up.

And for me, that didn't work out because he was on TDIY when I was in airborne school. So I ended up going to the 173rd, which I wouldn't change, you know, for that time in my life, I had so much fun. You know, before the GY kicked off, being in Europe, you know, I can, you know, in Italy, I was, you know, four hours in any direction on a train. You can be in a different country. I was, you know, snowboarding in the Swiss Alps and doing all kinds of outdoor activities, rock climbing, riding bikes, doing all that stuff.

And I really enjoyed my time there. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. And kind of in that time, then there was a lot of guys from Ranger Battalion that were inside the organization. That was before the G-WBock kicked off, a lot of guys would kind of go out there to take a break. And so, you know, like you had squaliers, batonsons, you know, battalion commanders,

our major, a lot of people from regiment there. And so I always kind of emulated those guys. And I, you know, I really wanted to be in the Ranger Battalion from the get-go, but it just didn't work out. So I had them to look up to. And so the first chance I got, I wanted to still try to go out there. So, you know, I got to Ranger School and did all that and put in my packet.

it once I made it back to the States, you know, after, you know, went to Italy. I had awesome time there, too. We got to really do a lot of cool training. We were training in different countries, you know, going to Belgium and jumping out of hot air balloons and, you know, going, you know, I had probably five or six sets of foreign jumplings within my first year or two of being there, you know, just because we're always training with other countries and got a lot of opportunities to do a lot of really cool stuff and kind of, you know, we went to Africa, we went to Hungary, we went all over

Europe and all over the Eastern Block training in different places. Inside of Italy itself, there's not a lot of places you can really do live fires, except for the Italian base there. So you really have to go to Germany or other countries to really get into some of the more maneuver live fire stuff. And so we were just on the road a lot. And for me, that was great because I was single. I didn't have any dependence or anything going on.

So anytime we would go somewhere else. They would give us time off to go kind of, you know, like R&R for a few days and explore and go around. I try to take full advantage of that every chance I got. Yeah, it sounds like living the dream, especially, you know, 20-something-year-old airborne infantry men. Were you there when 9-11 happened and did you see things change afterwards? Yeah, it's funny. Actually, when 9-11 happened, I was in Graphen beer.

We were doing training. Second Ranger time was there at the same time as well. and so my buddy Josh was there and actually went over and was hanging out with him and he introduced me to the battalion CSM at the time and told him that I wanted to come to a range of retirement and this was

I might have been at PFC I can't remember I think I was probably private or specialist somewhere in there and he told me all that I'd do was good to range school and he would I think it was Sir Major Roberts at the time was the battalion CSM and so he introduced me to them had that link up and then

right as we were finished getting ready to go to Holmfels to a box rotation, that's when it happened. And I had gotten a car accident and the rental car that I had. So I'd stayed back and was meeting everybody in Holmills. And like that day, 9-11 happened. And, you know, we didn't have cell phones or anything that stuff. And I just started seeing tanks rolling out and parking on the corners of the bases for like Porsche Protection stuff.

I was like, what's going on? I ended up going into shop at somebody had AFN on. And it popped up that the towers were going out. I was like, oh, crap, what's going on? you know, and of course, everybody's like, we're going to war, you know. Yeah, like Starship Troopers. Box rotation. Yeah.

And so the box rotation got turned up a little bit, but we're like, man, I thought we were getting ready to go to war. We're out here training miles gear, you know. Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, the 173rd kind of didn't get spun up until Iraq happened the following year. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we didn't, we never went to Afghanistan. in, but I didn't go anywhere until we invaded Iraq. And we jumped into northern Iraq and we were there. We did a year-long deployment and came home. Can you tell us about kind of like getting ready for that deployment, preparing for it, and like what the mission was leading up to the actual combat jump? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we were just doing a lot of, you know, consolidated.

We spent a lot of time in Germany because that's where we could do all my new live fire stuff out in Graf and Beer. and so we were doing a lot of squad between company live fires, you know, going in and out of the box, just doing rotations. And then we ended up, you know, launching out of Aviano. So we had, I think, 15 C-17s out there. Wow. That we loaded up and we got the big, you know, steak, the surf and turf dinner steak and lobster tails and all the stuff. And we didn't, you know, I don't know, like looking back on it now, it's, I don't know, I didn't think it was that serious.

I was like, oh, sweet, we're getting steak and lobster on it. You know what I mean? Like I'm just ready to go do the thing, you know? And we all our, you know, our DCUs and all our plus up stuff that we were, we were going to go. And we were only probably, I want to say we're in Algiana for a couple days, but I can't really remember for sure. And, you know, we got all, all the people were out there. Our AFN was out there reporting on everything. We're all, you know, getting geared up, but I don't know what was released and what, you know, because I was, I think I was a, yeah, I was an E5 at the time. I was a jump master.

And so we're just trying to get everybody geared up and get every, you. everybody jam pied and all the birds and you know we're all camoed up and uh just ready it was the the jump itself was i really didn't know what to expect to be honest you know we got on the birds and you know we didn't know if we're gonna you know the only thing that's in the back of my head is what was going on in normandy war war two and i which clearly wasn't what we what we came into you know um but you know the the nerves were up all that stuff we were packed in everything that we had they were going to live off of was in a rucksacks and 1950s and all that stuff And so we got jocced up ready to go and we got in a flight and we, I'd say we hooked up like

probably 20 minutes out at cruising altitude. And then we went from like 30 grand all the way down to drop altitude and the doors open and we were out, you know. And there was, we didn't really get hitting any contact on the ground. There was a massive air campaign that night. They were dropping bombs everywhere, vast movers, escort us in. Honestly, we jumped into a massive mud pit. and we spent the majority of the time

just trying to consolidate everybody. You were just like low crawling through mud for what seemed like hours, you know, just trying to get everything together, trying to get everyone consolidated. You know, it was like a just a real kind of crap show on the ground.

Like just mud everywhere. It was like knee deep. If I understood you correctly, you guys flew from Aviano straight to Iraq. Yeah. That's so like, Such a crazy experience like you're describing eating surf and turf in Italy Getting on an airplane and the next time you touch ground you're at a in a muddy drop zone in Iraq like that's got to be like a very weird sensation

Oh for sure. Like I said, I didn't genuinely know what to expect we hit the ground and you know just in the back of my head We were getting a massive firefight. It was going to be out of control which really wasn't the case there might there might have been some small contact, but we didn't really get into the gun fights on the drop zone And I feel like it was several days later before we really got into any any type of mixing it up and ticks. So you guys were this was, if I recall correctly, it was designed as sort of like a classic, you know, flanking maneuver the way we use airborne forces to envelope the enemy. Like you were inserted into northern Iraq as the force's main body was coming up from the south from Kuwait. Yep. Yeah. So we jumped into Erbil on the north side. and secure the airfield there and then started bringing heavies in so i started landing equipment

and doing all that stuff and we spent several days that we kind of in that area before we started pushing out in the sector and uh you know started taking out you know we're taking over schools and stuff like that to try to find places for uh to live in you know but we left we slept in patrol bases for it seemed like you know i want to say we went like a good two or three months without you know like probably i had my first makeshift shower like 70 days in or something like that My uniform was rotten off my body. It'd stand up on its own. You don't really realize how bad everyone else stinks until you get that first.

Yeah. And then you cleanse. They're like, oh, man, I can smell it now. What was the mission that they had you guys doing during that time? We were just kind of in sector, setting up blocking positions and things of that nature. We were doing some presence patrolings and just trying to set up some sort of infrastructure. because like I said, we slept in patrol bases for at least a couple of months, you know, until we got into some hard structures. And we ended up taking over, you know, like a company would take over a school.

And we had set up security perimeter and kind of launch out and do patrols from there. But our biggest problem we had was logistics, you know, which is always what drives everything. I mean, we were living off of a liter of bottle of water a day for, I can't even tell you how many months, you know. And it's like really when the IEDs started kind of ramping up, you know, nobody was really ready for them. We were just cruising around the soft skin humbys. And, you know, once we started getting blown up in them, they're like, oh, we've got to do something about this. So we started putting sandbags on the floorboards. And then eventually we got some Kevlar blankets to kind of outfit them a little bit.

But we were really not at all prepared for that type of environment. That's interesting that the IEDs started up so quickly. Yeah. Yeah, I remember we get, you know, we were probably a few months in before we really started hitting some IEDs. and we lost a couple guys to that. And that's really what kind of one with that Kevar blankets and stuff started showing up. And we could kind of outfit the Humveesville because we really didn't have any protection outside of that in body armor, you know. And did you guys make your way down to Kirk Cook?

Was that sort of where you finished? We did. Yeah. Yeah, we made it down in that area. And I'm trying to remember, honestly, man, because it's been so many years now and so many people fast. but yeah I think I was saying around the Curricet area is kind of where we finished out and we you know

it's you know first you find out you think you're there for three months and six months and then you know it's going to be 15 months nobody really has any idea and you know so I think we ended up doing it doing a 12 13 months before we made it back any other memorable moments from that deployment before you guys redeployed

back home um for the most part it was you know we spent a lot of time training we spent a lot of time you know doing presence patrols a lot of long uh long haul patrols and vehicles uh we did a lot of foot dismounted patrols too just based off you know when we started getting hit with iED threats and stuff but i really honestly um outside of a few a handful of times we didn't really get into a lot of heavy combat you know there was initially in the push we you know we ended up like getting into it with like an iraqi uh archaqy uh archa

artillery, like battalion and, you know, in the mortar platoon, you know, like I was in the 60 section at the time at the companies and, you know, we were actually like shooting mortars at artillery pieces and, you know, shooting, which I felt like was pretty cool. You know, we're out there doing like directly missions with 60s and, you know, hitting vehicles with, you know, Willie P rounds and, you know, I had a 105 round land like, I don't know, four feet from me. it didn't go off it was a dud pride didn't vaporize but the pucker factor was up for sure

that's that was probably the the biggest you know I'd say for like a contact that I really remember being like okay now we're really in combat you know because up into that point it just really didn't feel that way you know what I mean we were I don't say it was

maybe a three to four weeks after we jumped in before we really got into that and that was the first time I was like, okay, now we're actually in combat. Blitz are flying, artillery rounds. You know, we're, you know, we shot all of our rounds out. And we're like, okay, now we've got to break contact and go replice on ammo.

I feel like that was really the first time that throughout that lead in that we really felt like we're in combat. Yeah, that's pretty hardcore. So you guys, or you ended up getting sent to Fort Polk after the invasion. Yeah, so after we came back from the invasion, I was on PCS orders to go to Fort Polk, but I had to go to B-knock-and-Rout because I was, you know, I went to, I went to the, like, staff sergeant board while we were forward deployed to Iraq. And so, like, I was either, I can't remember if I, I was promotable for several months. I can't remember if I had pinned staff sergeant yet or if I was still a sergeant-promotable,

but anyways, I had to be-knock-and-rout. And I don't remember if we had to go to school back then. yet or not beforehand. But anyways, I went to B-K-Nock en route. When I was in B-K-K-K, I was started trying to put together a packet to go to regiment. You know, I got in contact with N-Service recruiter and started building a packet. As soon as I got to Fort Polk, the reason I was going to Fort Polk is,

originally I was supposed to be an O-C, which is kind of strange as a new staff sergeant. It's usually a more seasoned guy that's going to be an O-C, you know, so maybe you opt-for. But anyways, when I was heading there, they stood up the Fourth Brigade of the Tenth Mountain there. For listeners, an OC is what observer, controller, they're like the referees and training exercises. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's usually a more seasons guy.

So if you're a staff sergeant, you've already been a squad leader and done that time. So you can go out to evaluate squads. Or if you're a star in first class, you've already been up in a tuitant. So you can go out there and kind of show those other guys or observe them properly. And like I say, I was a new staff sergeant. So more than likely, I probably would end up, you know, going to a knot for a platoon. or something like that. But they stood up the Fourth Brigade of the Tenth Mountain there.

And so anybody who was an infantry person showing up to Fort Bolton just got following into that because they were trying to build a brigade, you know? And so I got there and they're like, oh, you're a Staff Sergeant Sweet. Here's 100 privates. You're just going to be in charge of these guys until more people show up. And I was like, sweet, I'm putting a packet in to go there. And it's funny, the guy who showed up, Joseph Montour, he was, he was one of the battalion CSM's coming in.

Well, he was my first sergeant in Italy, and he grew up in Ranger Battalion. And I went and saw him, and he pulled me in. He's like, oh, you're coming by Batayan. I was like, that's awesome. I'm major. I appreciate you pulling me in and all that stuff. And I had already submitted a packet to go to rope and all that stuff. And I told him, I was like, you know, I'm excited.

I'm trying to go to Ranger Battalion. He's like, that's awesome. He's like, well, you know, we'll see what we can do and get you there. And I was like, I already have a school date, but I didn't tell him that. I'm like, he'll figure it out, you know? And like a week later on his office He's like, hey man, what's going on? I see you got a school day.

I was like, yeah, I didn't want to tell you that I'd already got a slot and end up in a bad position there. You know, I don't want to tell you that you were wrong and that I was still going to go. Since you were an NCO, this was like part of the deal. Like you need to go to Ranger's school before you can go assess at Roeb. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I already had my Rangers have.

And so it wasn't a big deal. So I just really needed to get a packet. so I need to get some letters of recommendation. So I got a couple of those together and got my packet, submitted all that up as soon as I got approved and they gave me a school date. And I went to rope, not really knowing exactly what to expect,

to be honest, outside of, you know, I'd talk to my friend Josh, but, you know, he went through Rip and going through ropes another animal on itself, you know. So I just try to show up as ready as I could and got out there. And honestly, when I got to rope, I was really impressed by the professionalism

everything that was run by the course at the time. You know, I won't say it's more of a gentleman's course than Rip is, you know, you know, being the NTOSIA of RASP and kind of at the transition between Rip and RASP, but, you know, you know, back in the day, I mean, obviously you went through RIP, so like if you can get Hayes for three weeks, you'll be okay, you know.

That doesn't mean you're going to be a good ranger. You know, I mean, so the proof is in the pudding when looking at the stats, you know, I think probably 85% or so, of RIP students end up getting RFS. And I think we went to almost three years before we RFS the first RAS one graduate just because of... Oh, because they're better trained. Oh, yeah.

For one, you just weed those guys out throughout the course. Instead of it being three weeks, it's eight weeks. The first three weeks is kind of like the Common Core, small unit tactics, land navigation, weapons systems, all that stuff. When you get in the phase two, we give them time off, getting nights and weekends, and it's marksmanship, mobility, breaching, all that. and if they're going to mess something up, they're going to do it while they're there. And so we weed all that stuff happens while they're in the course still until we get rid of them before they ever make it to the battians.

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1-866-531-2-6-00-19 and over physically present in Ontario. Eligibility and restrictions apply. See draft kings.com slash sportsbook for details. Please play responsibly. Number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data. Yeah, I mean, given them nights and weekends off, it's almost like part of the selection course, I imagine. Because like you said, if they're going to screw up,

they're going to start screwing up there. Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, because when I do the embryo, as in the NCI, I'd always tell them, say, look, man, you guys look to your left, and right because at the end of the day when it comes down to last week and you're going to the commander's board the person to the left and right is going to be the one who sells you out because you know we're going to give we're going to give you the briefing like things you can do you're going to have your time off but you still can't drink alcohol you can't go party you can't

you know you can't go to office limits establishments and the person next you're going to be doing the right thing and you're not and they're going to get mad about it and they're going to sell you out and it's going to come up manager's board every single time same thing you guys were like no I wasn't doing anything like really and you pull up the computer you go to Facebook and you turn around it's them like partying down in Auburn like at Skybar you're like oh so this isn't you like oh this is awkward I'm like yep I try to tell you guys you know but it's always how it goes you know they always sell each other out you know because at the end of time we do we do courts critiques and all that and that's when all that stuff comes out so I mean back in the day what was rope like when you went through it so for me it was it was a it was a It's eye-opener, and honestly, it was just because I had never had any experience with regiment outside of guys in the 173rd. And so when I got there, I felt like it was a really professionally ran course. You know, the cadre were professional. They weren't yelling and screaming to all stuff.

You just like you kind of go to the dry race board, and it has time, location, uniform where you need to be and when. And so you show up that and you do that event. And then they're like, okay, go look at the board. It would be the next timeline, you know? So it's like, you know, I feel like most guys stress out about the critical events, you know, the APFT, the five-mile or the 12-mile or all that stuff. Like that first week is when you do all the critical events. But that's the easiest week of PT that you do there is as a week's, you're doing those critical events. You know, like, okay, now the critical events are knocked out.

Now we're doing PT with cadre every day. And, you know, like one day we did the gate-to-gate run. I think it was like a 12-mile run in uniform. We hit like six or seven obstacle courses and, you know, all the cadre. You know, still to this day, it's always been, like, the cadre who worked there are, like, genetically superior. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, the super athletes always working there, you know.

And guys are, you know, big and deadlift 400 pounds, but also run a five-minute mile for five miles, you know. And so trying to keep up with them. And it was really an eye-opener for me. Like, man, I don't know if I'm prepared enough to be ready for this, you know. Like, I've always had an issue being fast. I can run the same pace for 30 miles, but I can't get any faster. You know what I mean? And so speed's always been my biggest crux.

I can always meet the standard, but it's always been struggle for me to get faster. And so I never quit anything. And so I feel like that was a big part of the assessment is, you know, they bring the psych out there and they're watching you and how you're acting all the events and how you're responding to things. and you know because I don't I'm trying to remember if they did any of this but I know that when I was working at RASP we would we would work some you know like we would uh you know RAS T you would come out of a field and we got we kind of go out to Coal Range at the same time RASU is doing their FTX and RAS one is doing their you know land navigation and field training stuff at the same time and the way it usually works is based off of you know let's say there's 10 officers in the class then there will be 10 missions so each officer. gets an opportunity to be a platoon leader or company commander or whatever the case maybe and they're doing whatever mission maybe it's a you know down black hawk or whatever the case is but when they get out there we give them we give them like a squad of privates and we're like hey you have got to teach these guys how to read a map how to plot land navigation and they will take

to the points and they're finding the points and you know it's it's not necessarily like can they find them it's like just assessing them as a leader right you know and a lot of times what guys do is they just get mad. They take the map. Like, don't worry about it. I'm just going to do it. And they just take the dudes and lead them to the points and they come back and they fail. And they're like, I don't understand why. Like, well, because you missed the whole point. The point was to sit down with the soldiers, teach them how to read a map, how to plot the points. Let them lead to the land navsite. Even if you don't find the point, you can still recrack, you know,

reorient them, try to find another point, what stuff. And so we would do a lot of that. And so my point being is when they would come out. So for the field problem, at the end of the field problem, they're usually out there for, I don't know, you're up for about 24 or 26 hours like that, just running through all the missions. And we come out and we'll do something to just mess with them mentally. You know, we'll come out there and start reading APFT standards.

And they would, and have them do like a minute of push-ups and then a sit-ups and do like a half-mile run or something. Not because you're assessed, just to see if, they're going to be like, oh, what are we doing? Or you're like, okay, everybody, everybody pack up and walking back to the barracks. You know, from Colerange to back to the barracks is, I don't know, like 18, 20 miles. And just take off at like a, you know, really fast pace doing like 10-minute mile pace. And they don't know it, but when you get a mile down the road around the corner, the buses are there,

just to see who's going to, you know, overreact to what's happening. Like, oh, man, we're just going to see how you're going to react. The buses are right around the corner, you know. and you know we did some of that but that's always like the mental piece to it to like see are you going to quit and overreact you know like I was pretty beat up I was I went to the I went to the feed store and I got like horse litemates for race horses and it's like rubbing it in my skin I can taste metal I could taste metal I probably had too much just try to just try to just try to stay healthy through the course, but, you know, I made it through. I was somewhere in the middle of the road,

you know, I wasn't the best. I wasn't the worst, but somewhere in the middle. I got hammered in the board, just like, I don't think anybody ever leaves a rope or Rast two board feeling good, you know, even guys, you know, especially now, you know, guys, you can be a regiment for 16 years go to Rast two and still get fired, you know? And so, like, I know when I went to the board out, I was the very last guy, I was out in the hallway for hours just pacing back and forth. I'm like, I don't know what's going. They were calling down to 375. I didn't know this until later talked about

a team. So they called me like, you sure you want this guy? I was like, well, I'm glad you told them that you did because that's the only way you got here. So.

And you get assigned to Third Ranger Battalion right down the street. Did you go straight to mortar section? Yeah, I went straight to the mortar battalion. And at the time, you know, I can't, I don't know what year. I think it was around 0304.

somewhere around there is when they went to the consolidated concept where the mortar platoon is all at HACC and then you have sections that go out to the companies. Yep. Because we have all, you know, so the consolidated mortar platoon concept is we've got like 21 mortar systems, you know, we've got a 60 team for every platoon, and then we also have 481s and 4-120s, and we have to be able to be proficient on all the systems at all times, and we just hash out. So, like, at the time, coming as a staff sergeant, I was like,

originally I was going to BECO, so I was like the BECO mortar section leader, but we still stay consolidated at the battalion at HAC for all of our, you know, our more-tep events and stuff like that, but we've always done work. We do everything that a line platoon does during the training cycle, but then we do all the mortar stuff on top of it. So we kind of have to be a jack of all trades, you know. So we would go through squad, tune, you know, team squad,

platoon live fires, and then when the platoons are doing between, live fires, we'll put our hash our guys out there, so they're going to the platoon live fires with the battoons as well. But at the same time, we're still supporting all the between live fires at the battalion level. So we're having to do all of our mortar mission on top of all of the other missions as well. So it's just a lot to stay on top of, and it was a lot to manage. But one of the things I love more about anything in Ranger's Battalion is your ability to just do really anything that you can imagine. So if you have a good idea that's something smarter, a better way to do something,

you can just bring it to the table, and as long as the commanders go with it, you can go forward with it. When I was a mortar platoon sergeant, we had a lot of, you know, because when we were in Iraq, there wasn't a lot, there wasn't really mortar missions. You might have one occasionally, but you always had the 60 teams out, but there's still, we had so many assets and so many things. There wasn't really a mortar mission, so you've got to find a way to stay engaged in the fight. And so I started putting in climate, I started, you know, buying a,

equipment and putting in climbing teams and we had a guy's doing squirder interdiction and um that's where we really started to take off because the issues we were having is you know we would come back from you know i'd have 60 teams out with all the platoons and they come back from an appointment after getting after it with the platoons the whole time you know there's 60 teams but they're still just going out with the squads and doing the same thing right right they're putting them on home vs having them be like 50 cow gunners and all that good stuff yeah or they're just jumping in with the fire teams and running and gun with the platoons the whole time they come back and they're like hey

I'm gonna go to I'm re-classed 11 Bravo and I'm gonna go to the platoons and so we were just like losing guys left and right and trying to it's hard it's a hard sell you know it's like we all want to do that mission but somebody's got to do this one because we're all

infantry men you know the only difference between 11 Bravo and 11 Charlie is the letter at the end of your embelless you know I mean we all go through the same basic training AIT all that stuff we just at the end of the AIT they're like hey you're Charlie, you're like, sweet. When I came in Army, we had 11 Charlie's, Bravo's, mics, and hotels, you know? Yeah. And it was just like, whatever you landed it, you know? And, and so it was a hard sell. And so I had to

find a way to keep guys engaged. Like, look, man, we have a really good mission set here. We just have, we have to have the intellect to incorporate it properly. So like at the beginning of every training cycle, all the platoon leaders and battalion starts have an in brief with the battalion commander, just walking them through the training cycle and how you're going to get after what you're going to do all the way until you get out the door. And so I would sit down, me and my platoon leader said, on the battalion commander, and we're like, this is our plan. You know, we're going to meet all of your requirements for the mortar mission, but we're also

doing, you know, all the live fires up to the platoon at our platoon level. That way, if we need to go out in a unilateral mission to be up with another platoon for you, we can do that. We're also putting, you know, climbing teams together. And we're going to do, um, so we, our guys. can provide isolation for the patoons. And that's another problem that they don't have to worry about. So we'll do isolation.

We'll handle squirder and addiction, which, in my opinion, is we're all the fun in anyways. You know, it's, it's cool, we going in Clearhouse, but doing SSC is not any fun. You know what I mean? But sitting up on a ladder shooting people as they're running out the back door or just flying around in a helicopter landing

and smoking them as or running off the objective, it's way more fun than spending all night and trying to do SSC and lay everything out and take pictures and grab hard drives and all that good stuff. Was it difficult coming in as, you know, as they say, an import into Ranger Battalion? And there's a bit of a stigma, but it can be overcome, of course. I mean, was that kind of a challenge for you at all? Yeah, for sure.

It was always in the back of my head. But, you know, just like as we were talking earlier, you know, we were in 375 at the same time together. You know, it's like you're all so busy going so many different directions. You can be in the same battalion with somebody for eight years and not know them because every company, every platoon is, you know, because we're fighting as platoons and we're all moving in different directions. It's different times and it's just hard to keep track. So I just try to show up and be humble and try to learn as much as I could and just try to outwork everybody the best way that I had in my ability to.

And my experience was within a training cycle and a deployment, nobody remembers that you're an import outside of, you know, the guys in my platoon, obviously, knew. But when all the companies you're working with, everyone just kind of assumes that you've always been there. Yeah, unless you're jacked up. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say, I mean, that means you were doing a good job that you weren't like on the radar. Yeah, for sure. What was your first deployment with 375?

To Ramadi. I went with, uh, with B-Co Romadi. I think it was, uh, Rob Phipps was, it was Rob Phipps and I'm trying to remember who the old betweens, sir. It's, um, Ray Barrett were the two-bo-tunes aren't. Yeah, Rob Phipps was one of my rip cadre. Yeah. Yeah, I love Rob. We're still good friends today. And he was actually my first iron at the selection train company, too, when I was running a rasp. But, and, you know, I had a,

that was an awesome deployment because we were just, I think there was three days that entire deployment where we didn't do anything. And that was because we got stood down when the AMZ hit happened. And we lost all assets to me. Oh, yeah. Because they were doing that. And so we spent, you know, a couple of days just kind of hanging out and watching movies or whatever. But the rest of the time, we were just getting after it every single day. I mean, I think we were hitting two to three, four missions a night, you know, coming back, restocking ammo, everything running back out. We never stopped that entire rotation, just get through the whole time.

This is when they had you guys doing time-sensitive targets just back-to-back-to-back. Yeah, it was just nonstop, go, go, go the whole time, which was awesome. You know, like it's one, it was just like, in my, experience. Like I really enjoyed my time outside of regiment and I had a phenomenal time. The ones in me there was a lot of great leaders. But combat related, like, what was the first time I really felt like I was in combat. I was like, this is what combat's like. We're, you know, we're just getting out here and getting after it every single night. You know, we're getting in ticks every night. We're getting, you know, but we didn't have a lot of,

you know, friendly casualties, you know, so we were doing it the right way. Yeah. And we were still getting training in. between me, you know, we were at at Shark Base using the range down the road. So if we were not on target, we're out of the range shooting. Um, you know, I had my guys incorporated with, with the platoons and doing everything. And we had a lot of trust with them. And, uh, we really, I don't know, it was a phenomenal rotation with me. And, you know, I'd still have a great relationship for Rob Phipps. And, you know, he took us in and kind of took under his wing and really held me out a lot there. And I made a lot of really good close friends on that first rotation.

Are there any memorable combat missions you were on from that rotation? Well, there's, I mean, there was a lot of them. Actually, the only Valorice Award I have came from that rotation, and it was, we were, I don't remember everything on all the specifics on it, but we were going to hit a target. We spent, I mean, we were doing everything out of strikers for the most part. We got Helos a few times, but for the most part, we were launching strikers, We were getting blown up every time we went out the door.

I mean, we blew up so many strikers that we had started getting there for a while. We had some Bradley's coming in. I can't remember if it was an old guy D or somebody who was in there. They just brought those Bradley's in. I rode the back of the thing. I was like, man, this is the last thing. Like, you just feel like, I don't even know how to explain it. I was like, I don't know how people do this every day because, you know, when you're in the back of a striker, it's pretty smooth sailing.

You can still see what's going on. You have a feel. bit like when you're in the back of that Bradley I was like man I feel like I'm gonna die every second that I'm in here I don't know what's going on it's loud or bouncing I don't you know I can't see anything I don't know what's going on but yeah we we hits we were just getting blown up nonstop going out the gates blowing you know hitting roadside bombs blowing the wheels off strikers and then going into recovery operations and so we're doing a lot in strikers and we went on the on this one this one target and there was uh at the time me and my PL

Tony Keller were at the time we were we were kind of doing running the mobility for them so me and him were kind of heading the heading up the kind of route clearance stuff and and running the vehicles manning the you know all the RWSs and drivers and gunners and TCs to just get more guys guns in the fight and so we we went on target one of the squads had gotten pinned down and they were trying to break contact, but they couldn't because we were getting a lot of heavy gunfire. So I jumped on the striker. I went and took my striker to basically block them off. And both mine and my peels, RWS, has went down.

So we're on top of their like free gunning. These free gunners 50 cow, I've got a 240 running off the side. And we're just trying to lay down suppress a fire in order to get the guys so they can break contact to get out of there. And so I just basically put myself in front of them and was trying to let the strike read all those rounds and just laying down as much machine gun fire as I could to help them break contact to get away. And once we were get them in safe position, load them up and start working our X-go plan, we were able to get out of there without anybody really getting hurt. So I imagine that, you know, you're kind of off to the races at this point. You're that that generation of guys that you probably deployed like every six months going forward for the next, you know, eight years or whatever it was.

Yeah. What was the next rotation for you? Went to Blod, I think for the next two rotations, if I remember correctly. So it was Ramadi, then two back-to-back blots. So I was with Biko and Ramadi and then Charlie Company for the blad rotations. I was only in Balad once, so I have very little experience. But there was a, what was the big like super jock that was down there? Yeah, I don't remember the name of it, but yeah, that's where the main jock was, was there in Balad.

And what were you guys doing there? I mean, was it more time sensitive target strikes? Yeah, and it was a combination. We got a decent amount of air assets. So we would, it was a combination. I'd say 50-50 between using strikers and using their assets, you know. Obviously, if we were, we were more strikers, things were a little more slow going. You know, obviously when you get that, you can get out to the X or do an offset.

And so we stayed pretty busy doing that. Yeah, so it was, I'm sorry, with the blot and then it was bio. Yeah, sorry. Okay. We didn't get into a whole lot. I mean, we got it in a decent amount of ticks, that rotation. That's actually, if I remember correctly, that's the rotation that we lost Jimmy Regan on from Charlie Company. And that was really, I'd say my first where I was like right there in the middle of it when it happened that I really, you know, had lost somebody for the first time.

And honestly, we didn't really know what was going on. We were driving down the road in strikers. We had an ID. We knew that there was, so basically what happened, the explosion happened, and it kind of breached the back tailgate, and Regan had taken some shrapnel basically, like, up underneath of his body armor, and he was having labored breathing, all that stuff. Doc Melvin was taken care of them.

They got them all packaged up. We set up HLZE, Brose game, got them, they evacked them, and then we just continued on the target because we were on our way to target. We did the whole mission, came back. Still nobody knew what was going on. we're coming back and then we came back and I think I want to say uh merit was there you know as a battalion CSM he was there at the lot and he had like had everybody in formation when we pulled back in the gates we're like well I guess we know what happened you know we came back in and and we

had lost Regan that's terrible yeah and then you know from there it's like you know the next day or so everybody just kind of working through that and then just getting back on target I was going to ask, was it tough for the platoon to kind of maintain their focus in the aftermath? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, because Jim Regan, he was a team leader at the time and he was loved by all the guys and they were

all super close, you know? I mean, you know how tight-knit is inside the platoons and I, like I knew him, but I didn't know him the way they did, obviously. And so they were pretty beat up about it for sure. They were struggling. And how did you kind of see that evolve throughout the rest of the remainder of that deployment?

for the most part you know it's like you kind of just put your nose back to the grindstone and you don't you know we do everything we don't ever do anything mental health related and you know how to how to deal with stuff properly just shove it down and deal with it later when you come home and and you don't still deal with it then and just comes out in the wrong time when everybody's you know three quarters away through ball of jameson and then it all just falls apart then you know yeah yeah yeah um you know we'll have to circle back around on that one. But then the next one was biop.

Buy op, yeah. And that was a pretty interesting rotation because at that deployment we had split the strike force was half seals, half rangers. And when we got there for that rotation, we had basically spent

I want to say like a week, maybe almost two weeks where we were just doing static operations, just doing rehearsals nonstop, just trying to get everybody on the same sheet of music because we didn't, we didn't have an opportunity to do that prior to the rotation until we got on the ground. So we're just working through TTPs and the way we kind of mitigated stuff is they would do isolation.

We would do assault and we would flip-flop on the next target. So we didn't have, you know, guys running through buildings at the same time. Yep. And there was some, man, a lot of egos getting in the way, obviously. And then, you know, we had like one of the unit guys came down as L&O to kind of rid of gap and and try to help with that situation and, you know, just a lot of, I don't know, like, because it wasn't still team six guys. It was like their vanilla seals or, I don't know, what are term we going to use for the regular seals. And there was a lot of guys who have been seals for a really

long time, but, you know, one of the guys was, you know, one of the main team leads is, like, I've been a seal for 13 years. It's my first appointment. Wow. You're like, okay. And you're like, well, we got privates over at five deployments. Was the conflict on the leadership side or on like the enlisted side? I think more on the enlisted side. And it's just more, you know, it's, you always got to get past the egos. Is it Rangers or is it Seals?

Who's better? Who's not? And at the end of the day, it's just like, hey, man, we got a job to do. We just need to get out there and do it and put all the BS aside. And then, you know, it takes after the first week or so, I think we were running pretty smooth. and things are going well and we're going on target and we weren't having any issues

and like I say I think flip-flop and isolation assault is really would help us out there so we got into some we got into some pretty bad some bad ticks we got in a really bad one one night when we were in Sauter City

and at that time we had we had to take two tanks and two Bradleys just to go into Sauter City because the EFP threat was so bad that they just were there to EDFPs. And so we would forward stage in the green zone, pick up Bradley and tank escorts to move to target. And we got in the green zone,

and we were waiting for escorts, and they got in there. And then, you know, like we were having, one of them were having transmission issues, and they couldn't take off, you know, because you have to have two tanks because one's got to recover the other if something happens.

And same thing with the Bradley's. And we sat there and were just burning hours and hours and hours. And we were getting ready to come up on daylight. and finally we just took off. We're like, we're rolling without the tanks. And we got out and then like, I don't know, 10 minutes and that movement, one of the Bradleys went down. So then we were down with the Bradley's like,

all right, man, so you guys, we got to go. And we were, we kind of burned the target on the way in, and we just started, we started taking gunfire before we ever got to the target building. And so we were pretty heavy gunfire the whole way out there. And like I said, we were at that time working, half the strike force with seals, the other half of the Rangers.

and we got noticed some pretty you know in solder city it's just like any major city there's like really tall buildings everywhere it's it's very chaotic and it's just really difficult to figure out where everything is coming from you have what guys were doing is they were had had kind of weapons stashed on top of all these buildings

and they would run up there with agro weapons start shooting from the top of the buildings and they would just go across streetwalk with no guns and then go to the next building run up to the top so you're not shooting shooting an unarmed civilian as they're crossing from building to building, you know, and kind of playing that game. And, yeah, I don't, I mean, we were just, we were in heavy gunfire for a really long time.

And we were, we were, all of, like, my RWS got completely shut up. All the placards on the vehicles were shot off. Like, we were just in it the whole time. Yeah. And, like, you could see, you could see friendly helo's coming in, like, adapts who'd come in to try to support us. and you see just like tracer fire just tracing it through the sky. And it's, you know, so they were, you know, because we're a little off.

Yeah. At the daytime at that point, not at night, like what we should have been. But we got stuck in the green zone waiting for the vehicles to get fixed. I never did. And so we ended up hitting the target around daybreak or a little bit after. And so we were just in the middle of day fighting inside our city, which is like worst case scenario. And going back and looking at the ISR footage after the fact, it just looks like the entire city just erupted on us. and we ended up getting what we were going for the target got what we were supposed to get there

and then we ex-filled and made it out of there without anyone getting shot or hurt which is a god's sense itself you know but we we were I don't think that's just a testament to like regiment and the adaptability and being able to to to come together and work teams that quickly and learn share TTPs all its stuff and then just keep going because we actually got a really good tight working relationship. You know, it's just like anything. By the end of the appointment, yeah. Yeah, you get past everyone's egos, like,

biscuits, hands down, best skits I've ever seen in my whole career for that rotation. And it was just like, Ranger privates make fun of seals. Seals make a front of Rangers. It was awesome. I'm surprised they let you guys do them. I know the commander's got a weary of platoon skits as the deployment's ground on. Oh, yeah. That was great.

the guys go and made a bunch of big fake mustaches and put them on and they run around like guns flagging each other in the face pretending to be seals and you know the guys were like pretending like oh i'm going to shoot the light out like go through like five magazines and just kind of shoot one light and throw rocks so like we can't get it to go i don't know what to do now yeah just like uh let ranger privates be privates and do cool things that they do i and as you know these deployments are going on are you noticing any difference in how the conflict in Iraq is evolving? Oh, yeah, for sure. I definitely realized that, you know, like for all the, you know, the years that I was there and then, and busy, you know, it's like, I want to say from probably 05 to about 2009 or so, it was all Iraq heavy, you know, and then it shifted. And then everybody was getting after in Afghanistan because, you know, it used to be just one company would deploy to Afghanistan.

And they sit in Bogrom, and plan a mission for two months that they would never go on. And, you know, everybody's just like hitting the gym, comes back 40 pounds heavier. Super Jack, like, oh, you guys just get back from Afghanistan. You know, and then it's shifted to Afghanistan. And then it was crazy in Afghanistan from like, I don't know, like 09 to 11 or so. And then it started shipping back to Iraq. And then we closed Iraq out. And so I filled the years that we were in Iraq.

over there, because I had the majority of my deployments. I did in Iraq. I did a couple of Afghanistan rotations towards a back end when things kind of shifted over that way or were getting heavier in Afghanistan. But Iraq was awesome because we were just going out constantly and going after targets constantly, and we got so good at doing, you know, time-sensitive targets. And, you know, just the ability and the trust that, like, squad leaders had. And, you know, like the whole ground force commander concept, you know, we were doing things. things in regiment with lieutenants and captains that you know they were doing with

battalion commanders in the regular army and it's just because the trust was there and we had so many repetitions doing it and we had so much you know going into 2007 2008 guys are you know they're already like 10 11 deployments in you know um they've got a wealth of knowledge and we never lose anything the other part of that is like as we're rotating through battians you know if i'm in 375 175's forward i'm a platoon taking this you know the same going to the same mount station. I'm in my office on the red line talking to the batons who's on the ground there. I know everything that's happening. I'm reading their con ops. We have access to the portal. We can see everything that's happening. So there's no loss and fidelity.

And you're able to keep track of everything that's going on and try to stay on top of everything that's happening at the same time. So it's a smooth transition. Usually you'll send your weapons squad leaders forward to go do an inventory and everything. And then you're high-fiving on the ramp. You're leaving there coming in. You go load up on ammo and you're going on target. You already know what's going on because your platoon has been in communication of the platoon that's there for the whole last month leading up. So you're tracking everything that's happening. You're looking at the con ops. You know everything that's going on.

So that's another thing that, you know, regiment has over the, you know, the quote unquote, the regular army. Because, you know, if I'm in the 173rd and you're in the 101st and I'm back filling you, it's this whole big thing to change over and equipment and vehicles. And we're just falling on forward equipment. And we're talking to the people every day that we're going to. walk out with. So we just have a lot more insight to what's happening. Yeah, I mean, I remember that they knew well ahead of time where every single platoon in the battalion was going and we're preparing for that specific mission. Yeah, for sure. Like I say, like if you're the, you're the patune in 175 that I'm, I'm relieving. I'm on the phone with you and we're talking on a daily

basis. We're on communicator chat and I'm looking at your con ops. We know what's happening. So there's really no loss of information there. And then what came after a biop? I think I ended up going back to Balot again. And then I want to say, then we kind of started shifting towards Afghanistan. And I did a few rotations in Afghanistan. Did a Bogram.

I did Bastion. Bastion was, that was one of the crappy rotations just because the sustainability wasn't necessarily there. and really have a QRF. Kandahars kind of were, all the magic was having. They were kind of the main effort for that rotation, which is weird because I was with Charlie company.

I was with three Charlie and Bastion, and one and two Charlie were in Kandahar, and they were kind of the main effort. So I had my platoon split. You know, I had all the 60 teams out, but I had, you know, my two big gun sections. So I had one with my platoon leader in Kandahar and the other one with me in Bastion.

And my guys in Kanahar were getting after it, man. They were just doing squirder addiction and isolation. and climbing teams and doing all that stuff. And we were all just kind of sitting around and bashing. We couldn't really launch because we didn't have a QRF. And I actually got into it pretty bad with the first iron on the ground there because he wanted me to bring my whole platoon to just be QRF for that rotation. And I was like, I'm not doing that.

And he's like, yeah, you are. You work for me. I'm like, I don't work for you. I work for the Italian commander. I'm sure he loved hearing that. Yeah, old Craig Bishop, down on him. But yeah. So we had, yes, we got, we got into it.

And it was just like a professional thing. Like at the end of the day, I get what you're trying to do. You're trying to get your guys out on target. But I also have to look out for my guys too. If I spend the entire rotation of guys down here just doing QRF, we're all going to get out of the Army when we get back, you know? And so I've got to look out for their well-being. But also, I still have a mission, you know.

Like it wouldn't be the first time that we would be four deployed and something happens. You know, we still have platoons in Iraq. If something happens in Iraq, and I got to send a big gun section on a C-130, you go to our rack to rack something there, I have to be prepared to do that. And I can't do that if I'm stuck doing QRF for a company. And so we got into it. And, you know, I was like, well, if you really feel this strongly about it, you know,

we can do a VTC with the boss. And my P.L was in Kandahar and we got in, had a BTC with the battalion commander. And I laid out the reasons why I didn't think it was a good idea. And he laid out the reasons why he thought was a good eye. And he decided with us. He's like, yeah, it's dumb. I'll just send another one of the Charlie County of the Toons down there if we're going to do that. and you know that went over about like you would expect it like a lit balloon yeah didn't like that at all

like I said it wasn't like an ego thing I was just genuinely like hey man we have a mission the same as you guys do and I'm just doing my part so that's what it is when you started doing these afghan rotations were the motor section able to kind of get after it and do their you know mortar job a little bit more often than they were before yeah for sure and we were always trying to find more ways to get the mortars on the target because a lot you know a lot of times it just comes down to like carrying you know you can always you move easily with 60s but with 81 to 120 it's a whole other animal we're trying to figure out ways so we're out fitting the ATVs with 120s and trying to figure out how to get them out you know and but you know because you can you can get a get a two or

three ATVs and set a 120 up on them and ammunition and put them on the back on 47 to roll out that way we were using the fast rope the senders the freds devices you know that the canine use and we were taking 81 systems and put them inside of skedcos and using fred's devices so we could fast roll with the 81s trying to figure out a way to get in those and that was working well and always just trying to find new unique ways to try to get to target with the system so we get support in the way we do you know but it always comes down to like wait who can carry it sure how you're getting it there you know because without trucks it's it's it's it's it's it's it's pretty tough to get the big guns out with you know the equipment all the ammunition requirement you with 60s it's fine you know you can carry 60s you know the batons every can get everybody around they can consolidate the rounds to you you know that stuff but it's a lot different you're dealing with the big guns i was going to ask and were you guys ever able to slam some targets with the 120s yeah for sure there was a few times we got got this stuff with the

120s out in Afghanistan. And, man, we just, I would say we were really, really proficient just because we did a lot, a lot of, we did like a lot of, I'd say just our platoon

would shoot, like, what a regular, we'd do in one training, like one training event with like a brigades and while location would be for like an entire cycle, you know, we would completely shoot the guns out which is a lot of problems well i have swimming tbis you know i mean

yeah but we had you know because there's i think they've got it figured out now and i i know this happened kind of after my time but back then we didn't you know like the bop for a carl g you're only supposed to shoot what like eight rounds a day or something like that yeah we never followed that yeah well like you know i shot like 500 120 rounds in the day you know i mean and you talk about like i mean bleeding out of your nose and your ears and trying to put sentences together at the end of the day, you know? Yeah, yeah. Doing those J.8 thunders and all that stuff, you know,

because we'd support all the J-Soc, and that's the other part of it is we have to be ready to go support anyone at all times, you know. The mortar platoons really got leveraged a lot during my time and after to go and support the tier 1 organizations with that stuff. We got spun up more than once, you know, when I was there to go, to go do stuff like we ended up going doing underways with still team six guys and, you know, planning for permissions to go out and do things with them. And that was another thing that, you know, we kind of had to figure out on the fly. I got, I got, we had just finished doing

a platoon live fires. I got a phone call from my first sergeant. I hadn't slept, you know, Jim Anderson calls me and I hadn't slept in three days because I've been out supporting between my fires. And I'm like, almost home. And I'm like, he's like, I need you to come back to work. I'm like, man, I barely made it home. Like, I don't know if I'm going to make it back to work. He's like, you got to come in. I was like, all right, man, I'm going to stop. And I'm a slam monster and if when I get to work we're going to have a real conversation you're going to have to go fight in the courtyard you know and so I get out there and I get back to work and he's like hey he tells me like hey I need you to get two teams together

there's going to be some guys flying in here tomorrow to pick you up and you're going to get right on to what you're doing when you get there I'm like okay so then I do the start calling guys I'm like hey man just meet me at the closest place you can I don't expect you to come into work and I'll just kind of give you heads up so you can go take care of your family, get your stuff together, and we're bugging out of here tomorrow. And, you know, we get our stuff backed up. You know, come home, tell my life, like, hey, I'm leaving. I'll let you know.

I don't know when I'm going to call you. I don't know, you know, the usual. Like, I'll be in touch. I don't know when, but I'll figure out what I'm doing and I'm getting there, and I still won't be able to tell you what's going on. So it's just the usual. And so we got some team guys flying to the airfield there on Fort Benning, pick us up. We fly up in Damnick.

and then when we get there, then we get right on to what we're doing. And then we start trying to figure out, like, okay, so we got to figure out how to, how to swim in with mortar systems. And so we're going to have to do a beach assault, you know, bending in with these guys. And the plan was we're taking H-Sacks, there's big cigar boats to a certain distance out. Then we're getting in the zodiacs. We're taking that to certain distance out.

Then we're about a click or so off. Then we're finning the rest of the way in. And, like, okay, so I start going down. just take me to your warehouse and let me see what I can get my hands on. And so, like, I got, okay, we can, they had dive bags and we can put the tubes in so that work. And I was like, I'm like, what are you guys doing for your body armor? They're like, we're not taking body armor. I'm like, weird.

What can I do to put my body armor in and say, give us bags? And I got a bunch of Alice packs from them. We cut all the pouches off, can't dry the crap out of them, waterproofed them, then put dive bags. We took our body armor put inside the dive bags. and you can zip them up. You can, you know, you can let air in or out to make them buoyant. So basically the idea is your body armor goes inside your rucksack. You can fin behind it.

It gives you ballistic cover to the front. They have the dive bags with you can put your guns that you can shoot through. So we can patrol with ballistic covers to the front with the dive bags and fin in that way. And then as soon as we hit the beach, then we can pull out, throw your kit on, put your helmet on, you know, start moving. And you're like, that's going to take too much time to like, look, man. If we can't keep up, then we can have this conversation. We're not going anywhere without body armor. That's just how it's going to be.

And I'm like, okay, whatever. And then we go out in the water and they try to, they try to drown this for like a week. That was the other part is I had no idea what we were, what we were doing until we didn't get run on until we got there. And they told us what was going on. I was like, well, this is some information that would have been known. Like, I don't know what it takes to be a strong swimmer in still 26,

but I can tell you what it takes to be a strong swimmer at their end of time. You got to swim across this pool like 50 meters and we're good, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'm feeling the swimming A little higher level here I think so I ended up having to bench a guy Because like you know again

He was a strong swimmer for the Army But not for the Navy you know I was going to ask Was this part of the like contingency planning For the hostages down in Columbia Is that what this was about This is actually in Africa Oh okay

We were plan for targets In Somalia And we ended up Doing all the train up it but not actually executing because that's kind of around the time that the captain phillips stuff kicked off and that's when they kind of redirected to going after all the pirates off offshore but we're planning on really going into somalian hitting the target and uh so that's what everything we were trained up for and we've spent you know a week out there and they're just out in the pool

trying to drown us every day and uh we we managed to get through that then we started doing underways with them and you know it was middle of winter and we're out in virginia beach and dry sea and HACs and doing all this stuff and just going out and doing training missions every day. We went up capsizes and boats and doing all that good fun stuff. And we actually had a pretty good training rotation with those guys spent.

It was actually the only time that when I was in 375 that they went to NTC it was while I was at Virginia Beach. And so we definitely got over on that. The guys were out at NTC and I was like hanging out at Virginia Beach eating to stay every night, you know. But

we did our train up. I want to say we were there for roughly about a month and then it transitioned between the QRF mission went to 175 and Charlie Harp was the Morton between Sarna at the time so I just gave me my package everything that I had built and what we were doing and gave it to them and they picked the permission and just kind of ran with it from there but we were able to we we were able to kind of circling back to the whole the original conversation is how adaptable everybody is yeah we were able to go and incorporate and just you know know, hit the ground running and figure out, like, how do we make this mission work?

They'll think, okay, so now we got to get, you know, get rucksacks and cut the pockets off of and streamline them and make them waterproof and get a dive bag to put a body armor in and, you know, get, you know, bags to put the mortar systems in and be able to patrol in and out and do those. And the whole time, we're keeping up with all these other guys and they're just out there, you know, basically with their weapons and fins and we're dragging all this other stuff. We're still able to keep up with them in the water, you know. that's wild to me that you were swimming in with the 120s. No, we were 60s.

Oh, it was the 60s. I was going to say, I thought you said 120s. I was like, that's pretty crazy. Still with the 60s, I mean, the tube, the base plate, the bipod, all the rounds for it. I mean, that's a lot of weight. Yeah, and so that's the other part of it is we had to figure out a way to get that stuff in the bags with body armor and everything to get it out there. So everybody had a rucksack.

We kind of maxed out with everything that we could carry. Wow. And so it was good, man. It was a great training event. I would just call it that because we ended up, you know, not going out and executing the mission. But it was a really great cross-training event. We had to do underways with the guys for, you know, basically a month.

And we had a lot of really cool experiences. And, you know, it was like one of the guys, you know, one of the guys who was like my swim buddy was like he'd been on the teams i don't know for like 20 years old salty you know like we were on we were on the boat and uh i think i need to switch this microphone i think it's about to die uh it may have switched automatically actually yeah okay i was just still picking okay yeah we can we can we can hear you okay yeah so we uh you know he was he was in the old salty guy and we you know it's funny i was you know busting chops because we get we get back to the team rooms after training all day because we went head on to a wave and capsize

a zodiac and I'm you know I'm talking trash I'm like you guys are supposed to be the most elite seals in the Navy and I don't know a lot but I know you go head on to head on into a wave with the zodiac it's going to flip it's so we're trash talking going back and forth and had a good time you know I've always had good experience with with the guys when we worked them in the past and I always kept that going forward I feel like And then you did a bag room rotation. Was that like pretty much just a training rotation? Or did you guys actually get shot out a bit?

Yeah, it was. We didn't really do much of anything. We just trained, trained and trained. And that's kind of like where we worked out all those TTPs with the 120s. We were just trying to find stuff to keep us busy. And so we were outfitting them with a, you know, taking the ATVs and setting up the 120s and working with the Fred's devices. and tower training them and getting them on birds

and trying to fast rope with them. So like in the event that we do go out, you know, we're going out and hitting a ridge line somewhere like we can take some big guns with us out there to do the mortar support. You know, it ended up not launching or doing anything,

but that's where we were able to work a lot of stuff out. And during this time, you worked your way up to mortar platoon sergeant? Yeah, I was a squad leader in Patoon, right? And the mortar platoon there. Can you tell us about that? What's that? Can you tell us about that kind of stepping up?

And I mean, that's a big promotion for NCO. Yeah, for me, it was, it was awesome. I love, I love being a squalier section leader, whatever term you want to use. But I really enjoyed it. I really, I like the flexibility of just being able to work with all the companies. Because I really did. I got to deploy with, you know, I deploy with half company with Charlie Company with Bravo Company. You know, there's different personality.

and all those different companies. But it gave me a bigger picture of everything that was going on. Because, you know, when you're in a platoon, you just kind of see what's happening. You don't necessarily even see what's happening in your company. You really just see what's happening in your battalion. So it gave me the ability to see all that stuff. And Chris Cassivoy was my platoon starting at the time. And when he left, he ended up actually going to the unit and retiring from there.

But when he was getting ready to leave, you know, I was the senior. I was the senior guy in the platoon left there to take over. And there was a few times where I ended up taking over the platoon kind of inadvertently, like, you know, casket mono one time. Yeah, yeah, acting, acting platoon sergeant. Yeah, like I came to work one day and he had end up, he got sick out at the range. And like, I thought he was going to die. I'm like, dude, you need to like see a medic.

We were just doing live fires out there. And he just looked like he was dying and turned out he had mono. And so like we were in the middle of a live fire. He left and he couldn't get him back to work for like a month because he had, you know, he had mono and is contagious and all that stuff. So I immediately took over and ran the platoon for a month. And so like I kind of got that under my belt beforehand to kind of, I don't know, it's a little nerve wracking.

There's a lot more. OJT. Yeah, well, there's a lot more to be in a mortar platoon sergeant. There is the being a regular between sarm because, you know, you're managing, you know, 1260 teams that are going to 12 different outstations. You've got two big gun sections you have to worry about. You have AMA allocations in all these places. You got, you know, 15 out stations you're worrying about, like what everybody has, what they need.

I'm also running C-SAR teams and doing all this other stuff. And so I feel like it's more akin to being a first arm or even a CSM than it was to be in a PITN'sAR because I just have so many people in so many different places doing so many different things. and so it was a little nerve-wracking, but luckily for me, like I will say, like Jim Anderson, I learned so much from him as he was my first time, and he was really like when it came to administrative stuff, he was wired tight, man. I learned a lot from him being able to track and manage and do a lot of that stuff thanks to him. But I was excited. I really wanted to take over the platoon, and when I got the opportunity, I definitely jumped at it. And I think that I always tried to leave things better than the way I found them. And Cass did a great job, but I just felt

like I needed to carry the ball and do something different. You know, so when I took over the between, that's kind of like when we started really incorporating the other stuff or we were getting into the squirder interdiction and isolation and trying to find different ways to get the mortar systems on target and going and working with the other tier one units. And that wasn't like, because I set that up, obviously just happened to be the right place, the right time when we got spun up to go do that stuff. And we were always really successful. And I feel like the platoons, it just kept getting better even after I left.

You know, when I went over to assessment selection. And then, you know, like I, you know, like when Sandusky was on here, he talked about a lot of that stuff on your podcast, the stuff they were doing in Syria. And at the end of the day, the line platoons were running log pack for the mortar platoon. And the mortar platoon was just after it with your one guys. And so like, I think it's, it's hilarious looking at it from this vantage point now. because, you know, it's like everyone always wants to talk trash about the mortars, but they were the ones out there getting after it.

Yeah, Will, you'll like the interview we did just prior to yours with Eduardo, who's a 275 mortar guy in Syria, tells a lot of those stories. It was pretty cool. Yeah. And like I say, I love that, man, that made me so happy to hear all that. You know, I'm just glad someone kept the ball moving forward after we left. You know, it's always about innovation and how can you best support the team? How can you best support the community? you know because you mentioned that uh earlier you told me that uh mike edwards came and took took over after you left yeah i think he continued that track too from what i recall yeah that's great because we were trying to figure out because the the net so obstacle was like how do we get guys to free fall and i don't know that he did but you know mike edwards you know he was a he was a he was a free fall guy tanum did all that stuff and so he was definitely the perfect guy to try to figure out that package because, you know, when you start thinking about how are we going to incorporate these guys with the

tier one units if they're doing a, doing a, doing a hay-ho to get a target, you know, like, how are you going to get guys with mortars, you know, on a hayho if you don't have anybody feeling those slots? It's the same issue you had working with the seals. Like how do we get mortars to a seal target? Yeah, for sure. And so, you know, I was really happy to hear that people were carrying the ball forward and continue to innovate. And so the next stop for you is. So a RASP instructor? Yeah, I took over as the RAS one NCIC right after the transition from RIP to RASP. Tyson Crosby was running rip and the transition to RASP and I took over shortly after him.

And that was a really a really great job, but also probably the hardest job I've ever had. Just because as the NCIC, I'm just always there. you know like with the cadres you know i have you know i've got uh phase one cadry and phase two cadre phase one is all all the small unit tactics uh you know weapon systems land navigation and all that stuff and then in phase two we got marshalmanship mobility reaching um and so like when you're in phase one and you're working your butt off constantly and when that hands over to phase two then you're off you're taking it easy taking time off same thing phase two and they're handing back off the next class.

You know, there's a lot of time off. Well, as I into, I see, I'm just always there. I think the two years while I worked there, the only time I really got off was Christmas because we got Christmas X-S. We put everybody out on Christmas X-S for the rest of time. I'm just there always. And, you know,

that's the, the RCO's number one state-side priority is RAS because he needs people, you know? And it was really awesome working there. When Merritt was the RSM, it was really terrible when Beelick was the RSA, you know, when I was, you know, because Beelick was my first sergeant. He was my, yeah, he was our first sergeant, yeah. You know, it's like, I can't get away from this guy, you know.

Once I'm five, everybody's like, finally, and then he came to be the RSN. We're like, no, he's back. You know, but he came down, he would fire me constantly. Like, he would come out there in front of the whole formation and nuke me. I'm like, oh, I'm fired guys. I'll see you all later. And I'll come back two hours later. They were like, okay, I'm hired back, then everybody else do the job, so I'm here again, you know?

And, you know, because that's just how Beelick rolls. But it was, it was a really, it was a really great experience. I really enjoyed it. Just the, my biggest, my biggest obstacle there was probably trying to, trying to change the culture. Because we were again, kind of coming from Rip and going into Rasp. And guys were used to, I don't want to say it, but, you know, at the end of the day, there was just a lot of hazing going on. And at the end of the day, if you could survive three weeks of getting hazed,

then you could graduate. And when we were going to RASP, like, we're trying to make this, like, an assessment and selection that, you know, will really give us what we need. We're trying to get guys better trained. You know, it's not just about can you do hard things, but can you do it the right way, you know, and getting it more into advanced marshalship. And we want to get a guy. So when he shows up to your squad in the line battalion, you can deploy with him.

And you can go forward. Obviously, he's going to have to incorporate in the team. Elyce, he knows how to, you know, he knows how to at least handle his weapon, you know, because at the end of the day in basic training, you don't really learn anything. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like going through marksmanship at RAS, they really learned how to shoot. You know, they're actually learning how to zero their optics during the day, during night,

how to shoot with lasers, how to, you know, move in teams and doing all that stuff. And we did a lot of really good, you know, our ammo allocation for RAS one class was 100,000 rounds of 5-5-6 and 50,000 rounds on IML for two weeks of shooting, you know. And so we put a lot of rounds downrange for those guys. And same thing with the breaching course, all assault breaching, we did all of it, you know, mechanical, explosive, like everything you would do or assault on target outside of like master breacher, doing like wall shots and that kind of stuff. But all your assault breaching, they got a really good grasp on it. Same thing with mobility. They can drive home bees. They get licensed. They know how to learn how to break modulate, how to recover vehicles,

do all that stuff before they ever get to the battalions, you know? And so we were putting a lot of effort and emphasis into making, you want the guys to be strong and hard and do all that stuff, but you also want them to be able to, you know, make decisions at the right time, be able to do things the right way, you know, be safe, you know, when you're handling the weapons, when you're handling explosives, all that stuff. Like I say, we work all that out while they're at the course.

So, like I say, I think we went three years before we RFS, the first RASP one graduate. Oh, really? That's just, like, everything that we were doing, because we weed those guys out while they're in the course, you know, the battalion CSMs didn't necessarily like it because they just want bodies. You know, my biggest problem there is, you know, I was a sergeant first class promotable, just getting, you know,

get screamed at every day by battalion CSMs, by the RSM. Like, I have a company commander and first sergeant. I have my own battalion CSM. You guys can talk about no-k they're coming straight to me and just nuking me every chance they get, you know, especially you come down for the RAS boards, you know, because it rotates through the battalion, change the commands, coming for the Rast two boards, and they always make sure to swing by my office, let me know how they feel about me and what I'm doing right or wrong every case they get, you know? And so it was hard, but it was also well worth it.

I mean, I had a really good chain command too, but. I was going to ask, what was your biggest leadership challenge running that big machine? The biggest thing there was just trying to make sure that the cadre got what they, they need, you know, because it's also, you know, part of it is making sure guys get what they need as they're coming in and when they're leaving. And the amount of football is back. Every game, every weekend, Draft King's Sportsbook has you covered. Every snap matters.

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See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Please play responsibly. Number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data. Out of a cadre that had coming to me that had been in battalion for like seven to ten years that never received a PCS award, didn't get in an NCOER, never got a plaque, never received anything from their battians. I'm like, man, we were really missing the mark here. You know, and I fought through that as a platoon starting in the line battalion as well. you know, like we never put guys in for service awards, you know, you can be in the same company from private to first sergeant and never PCS.

But everyone else in the Army is getting a PCS award every two to three years. We don't think Rangers need that. It's not important, right? You can still do service awards for those guys every three years, but people just aren't doing it. You know, it's just taking the time to take care of their people. And so, like, I get a, you know, staff sergeant and start first class company who's been in battalion for, you know, seven to ten years. He's never gotten a service award. He's never gotten, you know, didn't get an entity.

I'm like, you haven't had an NCR in two years? Like, what's going on? So like that kind of stuff, you know, so I started working, you know, we started doing dog X's and stuff like that at Colrange just to try to generate some funds. And I made sure guys left, they had a really good plaque. They got a good PCS award, you know. If they never got one before, they got one for me when they left. And, you know, the plaques we were getting made were really good. You know, I was going to make it Stanley's framing. But when I took them to like minning awards and that's I'm like, what would you charge for me to make this pack for $1,200? I'm like, okay, well, Stanley's make them for $250.

It just takes them six months to get them done, you know? But he was an old 375 guy, too, so he took care of us. But I made sure that they got what they needed. But we also use, like, you buy boots with them. We'd take care of the cadre and make sure that they're getting that family. You know, because the other part of that is that's your break. You're getting a break from the line by going to work of cadre. But it doesn't matter if you're working 16-hour days, six days a week for two years.

for two years, you know? Like, thanks for the break. I mean, you hear that from the special forces guys that get assigned to SWIC. And they'll pretty much all of them will tell you, like, I have less time at home here than I did when I was on an ODA. I think that kind of like gets lost. A lot of people don't realize how difficult it is to work one of those training jobs, whether it's RASP or being a drill sergeant or, you know, Q-Course guy or whatever it is. Yeah, it's, it's tough to manage, man.

And it's because at the end of the day, you still have to produce. You still have to get everything done. But you just have to be smart about how you rotate people in and out, make sure people are getting taken care. Because the other part of that is, you know, this might be the first time these guys have been around their wives every day for eight years, you know? And so, you know, that has its own things you have to navigate there, you know? Like it's, it's, you know, you guys have kind of been dating a lot over the years.

Right. You know? Right. Like we're married for the first time. Yeah. And so then you start having, you know, kind of family issues that we're not used to dealing with because you're never home. And so, like, you're always kind of making up and breaking up, you know, in between rotations. And so

being home every day brings its own challenges. And then, you know, guys start getting into the alcohol and started having issues there. And, you know, it's the same problems that I've had in my, you know, I was going through it too, you know. But it's definitely unique problems that you don't really think about. And I don't, man, I've always kind of had imposter syndrome in every every stage of my life, everything I'm going through, you know, I never, I never felt like I really belonged. I was just like, I felt blessed to be around giants that I never really felt like I fit in, you know, and part of that was maybe because I was an import and whatever, but it's hard to feel like you belong to an organization when it's never okay to leave until you're told to

leave, you know? And so like if you want to go to another selection or you want to do something different. It's like you can you can stay until your RFS or you get told you have to go find a job. But if you try to do anything outside of that, it's difficult. Yeah, I also notice too, like just how transient it all seems because the personnel rotate so quickly in Ranger Battalion that you can be in a platoon and it's like, oh, a band of brothers and all this. Everything's great. And, you know, I want to stay here forever. But in reality, two years down the road, that platoon is almost unrecognizable because the personnel took changed over.

One of the other unique pressure cooker of the Ranger Regiment is it's the only organization in all special operations where you have to go back through assessment and selection every single time you take a new duty position. So like if you go from private to Sergeant Major, you can maybe go through assessment selection four times, you know, and it doesn't matter like how good you are. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to your board performance, it's the personalities in the room because everybody looks the same on paper you know everybody looks exactly the same um and at the end of the day it comes down to the personalities in the room and your board performance and it doesn't matter

like what you've done for the last 10 years and how good you are and how amazing you are if you have a bad foreperformance then it's all for nothing you know and that brings its own special pressure cooker and you know i can speak to my personally when i when i made the eight list there was it was as i was leaving leaving 375, finished them up between time, going to RASP, I made the list. There was, I want to say, like, 86 guys that were competing for, you know, 16 companies. And this is over like two or three lists, but I'm saying there was that many promotable sergeant first classes assigned a regiment, you know, and be like, okay, well, we only got, there's only 16 companies, so what are we going to do with the 86 guys?

And it puts a whole other pressure cooker to, like, you know, you have to be better than everyone. And you have to, you know, people start being cutthroat and start doing things, you know. So it's like its own level of, you know, there's only so many patoons. There's only so many companies. There's only so many battalions, you know. And it's, yeah, it brings its own level of stress to an organization that's already a pressure cooker as it is. And you and, I mean, it ended up working out for you, right? You were first sergeant at a worst company.

Yeah. And so it was good for me. It's not after I finished my time as in two, I see. I talked to all the battalion CSMs, and there were no companies opening up for at least two years. And I had already been a promotable start first class for like 22 months. And I was getting ready to pin E8. And I was like, dude, I can't plan platoon live fires and airfield seizures for another two years and just try to survive and then get a company, you know. And so I just started shopping around.

I talked to the RSM. I talked to the S&M. I was like, hey, I'm going to look for a job. Are we good? And they're like, yeah, you're okay. You can look. And so I think Sean Curry was the branch manager at the time. So I called him and the LERS company was available.

And it was actually my P.L. When I was a platoon Turner, 375, was the company commander for that Lurts company. Oh, wow. And he was ready to leave. And he's like, yeah, they're looking for somebody. And I was like, awesome. And so he put me in touch with the battalion CSM. And Colonel Cogbill was the battalion commander.

The way the Lurst Company were then is you were in ERISA squadron, which is a cab squadron under an MI brigade that fell under the Corps headquarters. just kind of the whole intel piece there so we were under m i brigades initially before we went directly to h hbn core but so colonel cog bill was the rsaint when he left and uh he was the squadron commander for there so and the brigade commander for the m i brigade was in uh was it an old regiment guy to uh i think he was a company commander i can't remember but anyways my my point being that I had a they were very interested in bringing me out there and and so I had the ability to go take there and I was like man this is awesome so I can go take the Lurz company and so I went

out there and as soon as I got to the Lurge company you know Colonel Cogbill was like all right you get you to free fall school I was like awesome so I finally I was like I re-enlisted for this a regiment twice I finally left and now I get to go to free fall school and free fall J.M you know outside in the army so I got to That's pretty cool as a very senior E7 or, yeah. Yeah, it was funny when I was going through the basic course as a first sergeant. And then same thing going through the free ball jam courses. And they're like, well, you've been sending a first sign out here?

I'm like, yeah, man, I'm for a Lerz company. I'm just happy to be here trying to build a program. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about, was this the Rista company at Bragg? Like, where were you guys at? I was at Fort Hood. So the Lurts companies were at Fort Bragg. Fort Hood. I can't remember where the other would, but we got, oh, at, uh, in Washington. And so it was a three core headquarters where they're all at. And, um, so we were in contact with the other companies,

just trying to figure stuff out. And that was a whole other animal that I had to try to tackle and figure out. And when I talked to the battalion CSM, he's like, as soon as he found out I was coming, he's like, there's an E8 running company who was terrible. He's like, I'm walking across the street and I'm firing this guy right now and I'm putting one of the Patoons in charge of the company because you're inbound. I was like, okay. And so he went and fire the guy. I showed up, but there's a one of the Patoon sergeants was running the company. And my handover consisted of, I got an alpha roster with names on it and social security numbers. And so I basically had to build everything from the ground up. And there's a lot of,

when you really start digging into the mission set and the metal tasks and everything that has to be done with the LERS company, it's pretty overwhelming, you know. You have got just the insertion and instruction platforms alone requires a ton of training. You know, you've got, you know, you got to think about mountaineering, you have to think about waterborne stuff. You have to think about, you know, static line of free fall operations. And so the way we had three platoons at the time and the best way we were able to get after is I just kind of said up like one detachment was an air detachment. One was a mountaineering and the other was water. And you guys will be the SMEs at everything. And then inside of each detachment,

there was like basically three teams and then you know you have an air team a mountaineering team and a waterborne team and they just base off the mission set do what they need to do with the platoons kind of managing the SME for each of those and you know because just just managing your free fall program in itself is a lot more difficult than most people realize if you haven't been a part of that you know and know what it needs to be like true a pro level one train up and what it takes and then once you're even once you go through a train up you're you're only good for six months and you're really only good for like four months where you really start trying to have you go amber and start trying to do another jump trip and do all that stuff to do a full mission profile hey-ho it really takes a lot to get there especially as you're still trying to figure out we were just trying to figure out guys at school you know like we can't even talk to you about a full mission profile i only have people can jump out of airplanes yet you know and so we built that whole program and uh started getting guys into free fall school and then i made friends with the uh the guy who managed all all the free fall billets for all the guys in the pipeline because you know

usa sock was kind of doing free fall for all at the time and a lot of guys were getting hurt on the way in and like one week out they would just drop off and so I got a contact I was like look I've got 15 people ready to send any day I was like so I could contact him a week out and he's like all right I got three slots are good yep and I would send like two to three people every single class because they were just people that were falling out of the pipeline that couldn't make it and started sending those and started getting some jams. And then we were actually started actually getting some jump trips in and started getting guys ready to where we could actually do like, you know, full mission profile, hey-ho jumps. And then at the same time, we're also

managing people, getting guys to as many like small boat courses and anything we can do, any mountaineering courses we could get guys to and just trying to figure out how to get after all the insertion and extraction platforms. And then you have to go through all the communication stuff, you know, which was great because we had an entire platoon full of communicators, which was amazing. And my platoon sergeant, he was like a super salty, like staff sergeant, but he was like the, you suck commanders RTO. So he knew all the systems inside and out. And he was really smart on everything communications.

I mean, he was the kind of guy that could just, McIrver stuff. You're like, all right, man, I got this radio, a pack of cigarettes and a battery. And he's like, all right, we'll get up here in a minute, you know. He'd have Netflix playing somehow. like, I don't know what you did, but it's amazing. And he did a really a lot of good stuff and really helped the platoons how to train them up on all the communication platforms. You also have a mobility detachment. So I actually have 88 mics in the company for like large truck movements.

And then have my own rigor detachment, which was amazing. My own rigor detachment. And we were the only unit on Fort Hood that was jumping, obviously, because it's a mechanized installation. So it was awesome. I had had my own rigors shed and my own rigors to so the rigors could you know, they can make pouches for us. It's all the stuff that you want a rigor to do when you're not jumping. But they are also like all they had to do is support our company. There was not like, you know, they're getting pulled for, you know, like the rigors are dealing with the battalion worth of dudes. You're only dealing with one company, you know, like 130 people. And so it was great. We really were able to get a lot of cool stuff done. And we did, we actually deployed, we deployed, too, but we did, like, I deployed to Kosovo for, like, a peacekeeping operation for just under a year.

But what we did get to do while we were there was training. Like, we got to go out and do our Lerz mission, like we were, like we would do overseas. But if you get compromises, like, by a dude on a bicycle, there's not, like, worried about somebody actually getting shot up. I was like, we're going to Kosovo. There's still, I didn't even know we were still in Kosovo, to be honest. because everything that had been happening in Koso would have been over for like 15 years. And so it was great. We got to go over there and we would do everything like we would do like we're going to do a real world Lerce mission and briefing up to two star way than Italian two star general.

And so we would do the MDMP process and everything like we were going to do an actual mission and just brief all the way up to two star level and then just go do it. But, you know, if you get compromised, you don't have to worry about anybody. getting taken. So you kind of, you used it as like a training event, essentially. For sure. And we came back better trained from that rotation than ever before because that's all we had to do is focus on training all day, every day. And so for folks listening to this who don't know, worse is long range reconnaissance and surveillance, were these operations you guys were training for, were they sort of like the traditional six to eight man worst team digging out hide sites and keeping overwatch on targets and that sort of thing.

Yep. And we were just go out, set up, you know, set up on the borders and stuff and just send Intel back and, you know, doing, you know, working on guys' abilities to take pictures and send that back through a tough book, through the radio and get imagery back, real world, you know, like ground assets, providing, you know, pictures and videos and things like that, just working through all that stuff. Because, you know, there's a whole lot of technical stuff that you have to be good at with the communication side on that and

field expedient antennas and how you're carrying it and replacing it and you know, work through all the logistics of trying to keep guys out there for a certain amount of time. Because you know in the real world mission you're supposed to be like 50 to 100 Ks in front of the flot for a real true Lurst

mission, you know, which I don't think anybody would ever buy the risk on. That's why the LERS companies always go down because really the only way to really get guys out that is to do a hay-ho Yeah. Because partisan link up, no one's ever going to buy off on that. And the only one's doing those kind of,

Hey-ho missions are going to be with the tier one units, you know. So I appreciate that I got to hold that position and train up for it. But I also in the back of my mind knew that we would never actually launch out on the real world side of it. And then you got promoted to Sergeant Major, and that was that the next assignment? Airborne school. Yeah, I did three years as Lurks County first. and then I went to airborne school and I was filling the billet because the opsar major position at airborne school was actually an E8 position.

It's just like a post for sergeant job. And I made the, honestly, I didn't want to, I didn't want to go to the Sergeant Major Academy. And I don't know if you know Roy Young, but he was, he was the battalion CSM. And me and him are really good friends. But he was, he spent the majority, he grew up and he was an ACO, 375 as well, but he'd probably gone to RRC by the time you got there. He spent the majority of his career at RRC, and he left RRC after being the first SART there

and took the Opsar Major at STB. But he was the battalion CSM when I got there, and he's the one who talked me in it to go in the Star Major Academy. Because I had, you had, when, I don't know how it works now, but when I was getting looked at, you had to actually opt in to go, to be eligible to go to the academy. me and I just denied it every year. And he talked me into doing it.

And so I put my packet in. I got selected and I went to USASMA from there. But I worked as the Opsar major for a little bit. And then I took over as the master trainer for Jump Master and Pathfinder branch and was just kind of going TDIWI with those guys and helping fill the billets all throughout the services for all those jobs. And then I went to the USASMA from there and did the Sarve Major Academy and then end up going to the 101st being an ops arm major.

But my time at Airborne school was actually really good. I got through a lot of cool stuff. The downside of it was, you know, to be an instructor at Gemmaster and Pathfinder, you have to go back through the course and then you have to get 80% or better on everything. And the last time you got GMPI on the clock like you were going through as a student, but, you know, I had been a Jumpmaster for 10 years and it was a humbling experience to go back to, you know. And then you have to learn all the classes and be able to, like, you know, be able to give JMPI procedures verbatim.

You know, you have to, you know, teach drop zones and do all that stuff. And so I really had to buckle down and get, you know, re-blood on all that stuff, learn it, and then really have to go out and kind of as the NCIC there, you have to, we also validate everyone else's courses from that school, you know, because, you know, Eustasaalk has a Jumpmaster course and we have to go out and validate their courses, you know, and so that the other Pathfinder schools and stuff like that, we'd have to go out there and make sure they were doing things right. And so I spent a lot of my time doing that kind of stuff before I went out to the academy.

You know, on that note, you know, the Army, just like the Army mistakenly shuts down worse elements and then stands them back up, the Army stood down the Pathfinder course out there at Benning. Do you think that was a good idea or a bad idea was something lost in doing that? I definitely do. I feel like the Pathfinder course was really good. I mean, there's so much learned there. I don't, you know, I've done some real world sling loads.

And the training that I got at Pathfinder course is what really, like, sent me up for success for that. Because they teach a sling load, a sling load course, I think, at the Rigger Schoolhouse. And it's not anywhere near the end up. Same thing as the air assault school. I had the luxury of going to air salt school as a 40-year-old sergeant major because I went to the 101st. And that was a complete waste of my time. But, you know, I was going through. the course, just trying to do the right thing, you know.

But my point being is it like you, you learn how to do sling loads in a assault school, but you don't really learn how to do sling loads. You know, you learn how to build a bundle, but you don't really understand the, to the level that you really need to. Did you guys do bundle drops and Pathfinder also? Yes. Yeah, yeah, I thought so. Yeah, like DZ operations and all that stuff.

Yep. And so like it. man, it's, there's a lot of information. And, you know, I think a big problem with why they want to get rid of Pathfinder schools, because honestly, the graduation rate's not great, but it's because it's a really tough course. You know, it's not physical, physically tough. If you go out and do some stuff, but it's mental, you know, like drop zones,

Pathfinder is hard. You get into a lot of, like, really complicated math and get into the weeds on some stuff. I was like, man, I don't know if I'm ready for, like, calculus and trigonometry and all stuff we're getting into for you know i had to i work you know we were all burning the midnight old you know uh staying up till two in the morning studying doing flashcards i had no i took no time off when i was there you know so you uh go to the sergeant major academy and get assigned to hundred and first uh what was that job i was good i was in third brigade uh the battalion i was in it was one one eight seven um and i was the op sergeant major there

So I took that job and it was good. I enjoyed it. I had a really good relationship with the battalion commander was really great. We got long grade, the two field grades for the S3 and the battalion XO. We all had a, you know, the whole top five battalion CSM. We all got long grade. And it was a good job, but it was my first time ever being on staff. And to be honest, I completely hated it, you know.

Being inside of an office with no windows, staring at a. computer screen all day, just dreaming about what it was like to go out and train again, you know, and just managing military, you know, borrowed military manpower and taskings and, you know, all the stuff that nobody wants to do. And, but I had a lot, like I said, I had a really good chain of command. My commander was really leaning on me for like trying to build a marksmanship program for them and, you know, just because of my background and stuff I had done and trying, trying to make things better. And everything was going really good up in. until COVID happened. And that was about, I don't know, about a year after I had been in position

and COVID happened and then everything changed, you know, all the deployments, training cycle, everything came off, came off the table and it's like COVID's the new enemy and we're fighting that. And we were turning the post into like an NBC environment, setting up decontamination stations and worried about stuff that we didn't need to be worried about that had absolutely nothing to do with Army. And the other side of it is I just was like, like, you know, I got, you know, I'm getting the military, the BMM tracker for borrowed military manpower. And I'm pulling the first aunt in. I'm like, hey, man, do you know that you've had a guy that's been out on the gate for two and a half years? And he's ETSing. And he's never done anything

but work on the gate. I'm like, it's rhetorical. I know that you don't know that that person is in your company, but that's what we're doing here is. We're going to sit down and talk about this because we have people that have joined the army to be an infantryman. And they, they, came to Fort Campbell and they checked ID cards for two and a half years and they got out of the army and that's how that's our calling card from you know that's how we're getting people back in the army and you know it's like all that kind of stuff it just I don't I it broke me to the point where I just didn't want to like it took like set the life out of me I just was not it was like feeling so far removed from the men I guess after everything you did yeah for sure and you know

it was funny when we finally got to go do some platoon line fires. I was like, sweet, at least I can go out there and walk the lane and set the talk up and do that kind of stuff. And, you know, you get a little, a little glimpse of like what it used to be like. And then you're back in the office, stuck to the computer all day. And it just was kind of not for me for sure. And then, you know, you guys get schwacked with COVID, which kind of upsets and ruins everything that you guys had planned. Tell us about the lead up to retirement. You are getting towards your 20 now. Yeah, for sure. So when basically COVID happened and I had had, I was having a lot of issues with like,

I had seven surgeries, two bone grafts from like a motorcycle accident I had gotten into. And I was having issues with my nerves. And so I went to get a nerve study done. And the doc was telling me that he's like, hey, I want to initiate a med board on you. He's like, if you keep doing what you're doing right now, year from now, you might lose the use of your hand. And I was like, well, I've never been more miserable than I am in my entire life than I am right now. And there's nothing to look forward to. So I was at 21 years.

I'm like, let's do it. M.E.B. Let's go. And I went back and I told the boss, I'm like, hey, just heads up. They're initiated an MEP. I'm not fighting it. Like, I was just not happy. I was in a terrible place. My mental health was in the trash.

I was drinking every day. Like, I was completely miserable. I felt like I had. nothing to look forward to the stuff that I was going through like I would go to the brigade S3 shop and there was a there was a dude in there who was transitioning to a female that was like 6 4 280 looked like preigno with a boob job and it was like this is not the army that I joined he's around telling everybody you're going to call me ma'am I'm like there's no amount of plastic surgery known a man that will ever make you look like a woman I'm sorry just because you're

crazy doesn't mean that I am and I can't work in this kind of environment and I'm was just like ready to be done. And so when he initiated the med board on me, I just, I was like, let's go. You know, my wife got a little nervous, you know, as to be expected. Like, because the other side of it is going through an MEPB as a starter major. Like, you know, going, they put private still drag it out over 18 months. Like I was like out of the army in 90 days from the time they initiated the board. Which I, you know, I was fine with.

I'm like, let's get it over with. I'm ready to get out of here, you know. So I just went hardcore as soon as soon as I found out I was going to go to MEP, I went straight. to the TBI clinic and did the full work up there because they have the Intrepid Center there because fifth group's there. And so I went to the Intrepid Center and that was awesome. That's really what helped me out the most probably on the back end as I went to the Intrepid Center and they do like an intake with you where they have doctors from every specialty. You know, they have like eight different doctors in there and they bring your wife in there for the intake because

they know you're going to ask questions. You're not going to be honest, but they know she will be. And so they ask her the hard questions that they're not going to get the right answer from you. Like, what's going on? How are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? You know, headaches, all the stuff that you're going to lie about. She's there to keep it straight. And they really helped me out a lot because I had basically nothing documented in my records, anything, from TBIs, from me and this stuff.

You know, because you know how it is overseas. And, you know, you get knocked out. Something happens. It's like, we didn't even have digital records back then. Sometimes it makes any of your record. Sometimes it doesn't. But at the end of the day, you don't want it to be because you just want to keep doing your job. Yeah.

Yeah. So basically they helped me get everything documented and to get everything set up. And it's really what helped me on the VA side when I went to do my VA physical. You know, I had no issues. I got straight through, you know, got 100% no problems. And the guy actually doing my actually worked out because the guy who did my physical was, he was an old 275 medic from like the 80s. It became a PA and got out, that stuff.

But the Intrepid Center was great. everything they thought they could do um they you know they try to do art therapy and all that stuff and that really really worked what i most of the what i got of it was uh i got an alpha stem machine because i you know i got set up with the care coalition through uh you sock while i was there in my care coalition rep actually i was using an alpha stem machine at at the tbi clinic and that was the only thing that was helping my migraines because they gave me all kinds of migraine medication how does how does that machine work so it's it's it's it's it's It's got leads that clip onto your ears and it also has probes that you can use.

And it clips onto your ears and it uses different wave functions that come through and it works with different frequencies. And it will if I had a, if I felt a migraine coming on or something coming on, if I put it on initially, it would completely neutralize it if I caught it beforehand. But it also will help you sleep. It help you calm down, relax, a lot of the same stuff. and it just works the frequencies that it's basically running through your head, through your earlobes. And it was, it was awesome. It was the only thing it was working because all the medication, you're only supposed to take the medication like once a week, twice a week, something like that. Right.

But I was having like every single day. And the migraines are related to the traumatic brain injuries. Yeah. And I didn't, you know, I didn't realize how many I was having until they maybe like keep a log. And you think you're like, I don't know, I'll have a couple of weeks and you know, a couple, maybe three or four a day. And then you're like, you know, because it's all the same stuff. You know, like you're drinking all the time and you're also dehydrated. And is it the migraine or is it the alcohol?

Is it the, you know, like it's, you know, your system's so jacked up. You know, you're also been a human pincush in your whole life. And you've had, you know, like how many, you know, got smogpox. And what's the, what's the one with all the boosters? Anthrax. Yeah, like five, six anthrax boosters. I don't know. Like all that stuff definitely played played a key role on it.

I had dysentery a couple times, you know, had dysentery in Iraq and Africa. My system was all jacked up and that combined with the TBIs and all the other stuff. I was just trying to find a way to, like, like I couldn't, I could not get to sleep at all without either taking meds or drinking. It was the only way. Even if I only got a few hours of sleep, it was better than no hours of stuff. And so, like, they helped me with the Alfa stem machine. And I couldn't get one through Garmin Channel. So I talked to my use of Sock Rep, and he was actually got used to Caracola.

paid for one and got me for it. And the TBI clinic, like I say, they really do, they do a, they try to help, but there's a lot of stuff that they just, you know, there's only so much medicine can, can do for you until you really take the holistic approach, which is more kind of like after retirement as where I really started figuring that stuff out. So after I retired, then I started going to seeing a function of medicine doctor. And when I started seeing a functional medicine doctor and getting all my blood work done and getting, And, you know, I got like my testosterone level had been down in the two to three hundreds for over a decade.

And, you know, a lot of it was from the TBIs had jacked my whole system up. And the doctor, I was like, I will literally do anything. Y'all try anything. Just help me feel better, you know. And she's like, yeah, she's like, I have a plan. She put me all these crazy diets. I did everything she asked me to do for a year and still couldn't get my testosterone levels up above like 230, 240. And she's like, you're a good candidate for TRT.

So then she put me on TRT just to get me to the normal range is like five, six hundred. Like normalcy. And then also got all my vitamins and minerals test done and got all my vitamins and minerals where they needed to be got my hormones imbalance and balance. And then I was like, after about a month, I was like, oh, man, I'm sleeping. I'm feeling better like all these things, you know, because your hormones affect, your sleep, your immune system, you know, your sense of the testosterone is off. It throws off everything else.

it's weird and there's just so many things that like you know the army won't have any they won't touch it the VA won't touch it you know so it's just have to got to figure this stuff out on your own you know and so I started seeing function medicine doctor and she helped me start figuring all that out but that only helped part of it you know that helped that helped me to get my systems running and doing what it didn't help what was going on between my ears you know and so like I started uh I just I was spiraling hard honestly like I had been I I've been drinking a lot. And that happened all the, all the whole back into my career after I left regiment.

You know, it's like it's easy when you're in regiment because, you know, you're, your home where you can actually be home and do stuff like a couple months a year. You know, you have block leave on the front and back end. But even in the training cycle, you're gone. You're doing stuff all the time. So if you're burning it down for a couple months out of the year, it's not a big deal, you know, like you're, but, you know, when you stop deploying and then you're home every day and then, you know, like weekends.

and nights turns into daytimes and 40 weekends and then before you know you're cracking a beer at lunch and then before you know it's breakfast and then you're just drinking all the time and that's exactly what happened to me and after I retired and got away from it uh I was just drinking every single day and it was happened earlier and earlier and I went over uh but you were in cybers you know Pete Vichini yes so like Pete uh I bought a house in Pete's neighborhood and I was over at Pete's hanging out and we were hanging out over there and I ran into a ranger buddy of mine and it was visiting and he asked me how I was doing and not like really how I was doing not like the just trying to be nice how I was doing I was like I'm doing terrible man like I'm like I'm having suicidal ideations

I'm drinking every single day I feel terrible like I don't I don't I will do literally anything to feel better and I just don't know how to shake you know I try to shake an alcohol my wife would give me ultimate them more than once. and like I'm like look I had to sit down with her and I was like look I don't I'm not drinking because I want to be drunk I'm like I just want to sleep I'll do anything just to get a couple hours even if it's three hours it's better than no hours and I'm like I don't know another way to sleep outside of taking sleep meds every day and ambience not any better than alcohol you know and so I saw I was talking to him and he's like dude he's like you need to go do we need to get you down to do plant medicine and I was like well what's plant medicine and he's like he's like well you know you got to you know he tried to start breaking it down to me and i was like well let me stop you right there because you know my wife's been a nurse you know for 20 years and she's have a lot more questions that i'm not going to be answered i was like we'd be willing to come over the house and talk to lindsay for a couple hours he's like yeah so we went back

to the house and he gave her the whole spiel and everything with the plant medicine stuff he put me in contact with a guy named dr polonko who was a neurologist who've been working with just soft guys for the last 15 years, using Ibogaine and 5MEODMT to help with TVIs and PTSD. And I talked to him on the phone and kind of told him everything that I was going through, and he's like, you're a perfect candidate. So I'll put you in touch with Special Operations Care Fund. They're the non-for-profit that I'll pay for your trip. The SOCF, the Special Operative Care Fund rep got a hold of me.

They basically just sent me a check. I deposit check in my account and then I just paid Dr. Polanco's organizations, the mission within is the name of the non-for-profit that they used. And then within a couple weeks, I was down in Mexico. It was me and five other guys. And there was two unit guys who were on seven, five guys before that, and I think three seals and me. And it was the same for all of us. We get there, we fly into like we fly into california we get we get linked up and then we drive across uh close to tijuana and go to the go to the house you're inside of a it's basically a big house inside of a gated community and there's a retry there's a retired uh still team six guy who like

lives in the house and handles the security and does all that stuff and you go in there and uh it's the same story everyone's just like angry all the time no one can sleep everyone just wants to feel better we're all losing our families It's just like the same story. We sit around. We kind of share a little bit about what we're going through, not really what we're going through, but like all of our symptoms,

like I can't sleep. I've gotten migraines, all this stuff. And when we got there, they said something, we did a urinalysis. We did an EKG to make sure that we're having any heart issues, make sure we're not anything that was going to interact with it.

You know, because some guys are, you know, they're really strong with some dudes around ketamine and cocaine and drugs and all kinds of stuff, just trying to make it through the day. Yeah, yeah. And so that you can't just,

just to clear all that, make sure you're not on anything. And the other thing was because Ival gains a really strong stimulant. And if you have heart conditions or you're already on stimulants, it could be bad. And so basically it's, it's, you know, it's part of a root of a tree that grows in Africa and the Boitie tribe uses it. They use it for kind of, those people use it for like becoming a man ceremonies and like to go to speak with our elders. And we're just trying to figure out to live our lives and that's what we're using it for and then they grind it up and put it in jail caps. You take the jail caps and, you know, the place that I went, we're hooked up, you're hooked up to an EKG, you can IV port. There's a neurologist and two nurses there. You're basically in a hospital bed

inside of a house and the doctor and the nurses are there with you all night. If you need your bed change, if you need fluids, you know, they're there to respond to everything. So it's really a clinical environment inside of a house. And I took the, I took the plant medicine and I was, you know, I was kind of freaking out, to be honest, because I was the last one that it really, it really started to work on. So like everyone starts just kind of going under and they're breathing heavy and going crazy and one hour goes by and then two hours goes by and then three hours goes by. I'm like, oh, man, I'm freaking out because like I took the same dose as everybody else, but I'm just like, I'm like, I could go drive a car right now. And I, you know, I bring them

back in, they're talking to me and they ended up redosing me. And then within like five minutes, I was out. Whoa. And I was out for probably 18 hours I was under. Holy shit. Yeah. And so like I, the other part of it is like I start hearing the next day, people are getting up moving around. I'm like they redos me. I'm never coming out of this, you know, I'm going to be in it forever, which is just, you know, it's all part of being in, it's all part of being in your own head. But part of the plant medicine, as I say, you get, you get the experience that you need, not the one that you want. And for me, it takes you directly to the trauma that causes all the issues that you're

dealing with. And for me, that took me directly back to my childhood. And I don't have any issues talking about this stuff because, you know, I wrote a book. It's actually in the process of getting edited right now. I'm going to be publishing it all. So everyone would be out there to hear about it. But for me, it took me straight to my childhood. And, you know, when I was a kid, my stepdad used to get drunk.

I beat the brakes off of me like every single day. And I remembered all that, but he was also molested me, and I didn't remember any of that. And it was also getting my sister. And I didn't remember any. I'd block all that part out. So, like, no amount of therapy or anything ever would help me because I didn't know it happened. I had completely blocked it out of my head.

And for me, what I had to do is go back and re-experience it and make peace with it. And the way the medicine works, it takes you directly to that point. And you have to make peace with it. And if you don't, it just starts twisting you inside and out. You'll start throwing up. You'll start crapping your pants. You're just little turning you inside out until you finally submit. And then like peace kind of just like washes over you and you feel safe and clean.

The best way I can explain is it's like 30 years of therapy and one night with yourself. You know, because like you can you can go to any place, any, any, any taste, smell, thought, anything you've ever seen in your entire life. It's all in your brain. It's just whether you have access to it. But it's all there. everything in utero like you can remember it it's just whether your brain gives you access well when you plan medicine it just removes the veil and then you can go directly like go to any point in your life and it's like watching a movie in 4k and i had to go back to those things and re-experience it and

you know i hadn't cried in 30 years and then i cried for like 24 hours straight like deep body shaking soul shaking like release of just trauma just coming out and pouring out and pouring out and you know like i the other part of it is when you come out of it the next a day um there's a therapist there and she's also done the plant medicine so she kind of helps you deal with the things that you're going through and you know i told her what's going on with me and she's like you're probably not she's like you may or may not like to hear this but you know if it gives you any piece 85% of the guys who come through this program all had the exact same experience as you you you know and so when you realize that like you know the majority of guys is especially

operations are just like hurt kids you know we learn how to compartmentalize stuff when our grade school so watching your buddy die on target and garrone right back out the next night it's way easier and so that I don't know good or bad but it did make me feel a little better that was that alone going on that there's a documentary on Netflix about the seals going down there and doing this and there's a guy they interview in the documentary and he was actually a ranger as I recall and he he says something during it, he says, without child abuse, there wouldn't be special operations. And that's like a very shocking thing even for me to hear. But there's a very, there's a very hard

truth in that, I think. Yeah, for sure. Because like I say, it's, it's, you learn a compartmentalize when you're in grade school. Yeah. And the resiliency and yeah. And so doing it as an adult just comes second nature. It's not a big deal. You know, you're like, I, you know, I was compartmentalizing. stuff just to show up to class, you know, in elementary school. So like doing it to go on target is like it's a teacher by then, you know. And so that that's really what gave me my life back that moment. And that was like January, uh, 2021 because I retired about six months before that, like July. And, uh, I went down to Mexico. I did that experience. Um, you know, it's, it's the same thing for all the guys. We all went through it. And, you know, Everybody shows up. They're angry. They got scowls on their face.

And by the time we leave, everybody's just hugging. I love you, man. It's so great. You know, you just feel like you get your life back in like one night, you know. So IboGain makes you deal with the problems. And then the 5MEO DMT on the back end was kind of like a warm hug. You know, it's like the next, you go through the whole next day you process. And then the following next day, you do the ceremony for that. And for me, it's just I had to, I had to like experience. the first thing I saw was like my stepdad's face and then like it I felt like complete terror and then

nothing and then warm it felt like a best way I can explain it is felt like a warm hug from God that came across my entire body that made me just feel at peace and finally safe for the first time in my whole life and I came away from that experience just a completely total changed person Wow. And then I came back and, you know, my family, you know, my wife's a God sent. She stuck with me through all of it. She, she, it's really what gave me my relationship back with God, you know. Like I grew up in the church, but I had a really bad experience because, you know, my dad and my grandfather were both ministers.

But in my opinion, they were both false prophets and doing one thing around the pulpit and do another thing in real life. And so I had a lot of church hurt. And it really opened me back. up to where I was able to reestablish that relationship of God. And I really like just started reading the Bible on my own and really understanding it. And like, okay, so I just had a bad experience. It wasn't that, you know, because I curse God a lot over the years going through all that stuff, all the things I went through.

I was just like, you know, if there was God, how could this stuff happen to me? And I got my life back. You know, it took me all that time and I finally got my life back. And I get home and I was a completely different person overnight. The other thing with Ivagan is it takes away all your addictive qualities. So if you're addicted to drug, if you're a heroin addict, you never want heroin again. If you're an alcoholic, you don't want alcohol. If sugar, all of it, you don't want any of it.

As long as you come back and you do reintegration properly and you establish new habits, you know, like for me personally, when I would start getting amped up, wife could see it. And she'd be like, hey, calm down, just go sit in your room, put your headphones on. I put like spa music on and just relax, do some breathwork for a few minutes. and then I would be good to go. Where before I would just be like it amped up, like time to go hit the bottle, you know, so I can calm back down. But you establish those new habits.

And it's what really fixed me, you know. And then I, you know, it's been six years and I don't drink at all. I still don't crave alcohol. And it's what really, I went from drinking every single day to, you know, I haven't touched it really in six years. And I don't crave it. I don't want it.

Like, but it really just helped me get my life back, help me get my family back. my you and my boys were young and really get to experience them because I was retired and then you know went through all that I got my relationship back to God got into church started getting my life back together and then at some point me and my wife both decided we're going to sell everything by an RV and just travel across the country and that's what we did and we sold everything and we just lived our best life and we traveled across the country with our it was me and my wife my two sons and

our two dogs. We bought an RV and we just cruised and we went to, you know, all the national parks and held our bucket list places and spent every single moment with each other, every single day, just being present, experiencing everything. I feel like all the time I had lost, I was making back, you know, from all the deployments and all the time. And, you know, all the time in my life, I had just lost just from not being present, just being drunk or being passed out or, you know, causing problems at home. I was trying to get all those. moments back and it gave me memories that I'll never forget. And then through that, we went on our RV trip for almost a year and we ended up selling what we're at now. We're in,

you know, just outside of Huntsville and Somerville, Alabama. And we found this place. We're on an eight and a half acre, a little homestead here. We've got chickens and ducks and pigs and goats and, you know, just trying to live our best life here. But, hey, man, you're in Huntsville and you're a jiu-jitsu guy. Do you know Michael Case? Michael Case, I don't. He's a 375 guy. Okay.

And I'll have to talk to Mike, but I think he might be involved or even own a Jiu-Jitsu dojo out there. Okay, right on. Yeah, for sure. I'll pull up his info for you. Yeah, no, please. So you mentioned that you have a book that's on the way. What's the title can people pre-year?

you order it? Yeah, it's called Refined by Fire. I've got the first six chapters back from the editor. We're working through it. I just started establishing social media pages. I can send that to you. But once the book's three, I did it. Football is back. Every game, every weekend, Draft King's sportsbook has you covered. Every snap matters. Every comeback can shift the game. And every fourth quarter moment can change everything. Follow the action with Draft Kings, the number one sports book for live betting. Built to keep up with the speed of sports, built with Canadian sports fans in mind. Draft Kings brings the action together in one easy-to-use app. Follow the biggest matchups,

build your parlays, and explore live betting markets as the game develops. So you can focus on the football and enjoy the action with confidence. Download the Draft Kings app today and see what everyone is talking about. Draft Kings, the number one sports book for live betting in partnership with Draft Kings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call connect. Ontario, 1866-531-260-90, 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility and restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Please play responsibly.

Number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data. We'll start pre-orders as we start the process, but it's called Refined by Fire. And it's really about my entire, my entire member from childhood through present day. I lost my seven-year-old son eight months ago to cancer. And part of our, like we came, we settled back here in Alabama. We started living our best life here. We found a great church. We started doing everything, really, everything was going perfectly.

And then one day my son came to the breakfast table. And I trained both my boys in jiu-jitsu and everything. And the night before we were at training, he was kind of, he had rolled his ankle. and was kind of dragging his foot around, but around the house and I was like, hey, what's going on is your foot, are you dragging it because you heard it, you know, at Jiu-Too, or is it just because, you know, you're having issues? And he's like, oh, I don't know, it's fine. He went back to pretending to be a dinosaur or whatever.

And then the next morning at breakfast, he reached for his glass with his right hand. Like, always does take a drink out and he put his hand down and switched to his other hand and started around. I was like, can you not grab your glass? He was having issues with it. So my wife took him out in the garage and started doing, like, some mobility stuff with him. He couldn't keep his balance. His grip strength was off. He was definitely having some neurological something going on. And so my wife took him to the ER. And she called me

and they did like a, what they called like a dirty MRI, just a quick one for a couple of minutes just to see if there's something going on. Because he was presenting like he had a stroke, basically. And they found a mass in his head. And then so they told us we needed to do a sedated MRI. And we left for St. Jude like the next day and did a sedate. MRI and found out that he had a DIPG brain stem tumor, which is like a fast-growing, fast-acting brain tumor that there's no known cure for. And they gave us a prognosis in nine to 12 months, and we got six. And we did, man, we went through everything with him to try to do things the right way.

And we completely changed everything. We did everything holistically. You know, we went through radiation at St. Jude for three months. I did so many, as a family, we did so many things to try to, to try to help his health. We hired functional medicine practitioners that were helping us that way. We did a lot of fundraising. I got with some donors that helped us. You know, I've got a hyperbaric chamber in my house that we were using for a treatment.

We were in hydrogen therapy, PymphMAT, we put him on a strict keto diet. We were using cannabis. We were like a deuterium deplete of water and chlorine dioxide solution. It's like every everything that we were doing independently can cure cancer on its own. And we were doing like eight or nine things all combined together at once. And we brought him back to almost a complete and total for recovery. And then he contracted RSV. And then he crashed.

And within like a week or two, we lost him. and then uh what what is rsv uh it's uh what's rsv it's uh it's a it's a it's a respiratory virus um like but it's a respiratory virus that he got and he has a uh he had a uh a gene deletion of body that didn't allow him to detox properly so he was unable to detox it and his uh basically he just kept he would uh he would kept getting snotty and would end up getting phlegm and he couldn't generate enough power to cough the flim up and we were having to suction him and he just just kept crash from there then he stopped eating and then you know he was getting calories in and he had already lost a lot of weight from all the treatments that he'd been through and we had a really really hard

six months but he almost like I say he almost made a full complete recovery and then we ended up for his seventh birthday we took him and we took him down in Florida and had an awesome weekend on the beach with his brother and we went to Alligator Alley because he loved reptiles and spent the day there. And we went and did a Komodo Dragon experience at the Birmingham Zoo and had awesome time there and his cousins and grandparents came up. And we had that whole week of just the best week of his life. And then he crashed after that. And we lost him.

And really the book is about my whole experience from all of the things that I went through, childhood trauma and abandonment issues. And, you know, really about my walk with God from the time I was a kid till present day and how he was there with me the entire time. And I just, I didn't realize it. I had to walk through all that stuff to really find out. And honestly, I feel like my son, he was just like my own little guardian angel here. He was the one that really brought me back to God because he would, he asked me all the hard questions constantly. He, you know, he was six years old and prayed like a seasoned preacher.

He asked me all the questions that I'd have to get into the, to the, to the, into scripture and really dig in and to get him the answers on, he would tell me when we were going to radiation, he had to go under anesthesia every single day. So he, five days a week for six weeks, he was under anesthesia doing radiation. And every time he would go under, he would tell us it. He's like, he was good to go. He saw Jesus on the other end when he was under that and he was fine. And, you know, it broke my heart hearing that because, like, I'm glad you're seeing that. But at the same time, I'm not ready to let you go. And I do feel like as we get closer to the end, kind of the veil gets lifted.

And we get to see more and no more. But, you know, he saved my life. He brought me back to God. And he is, I'll never know the side of heaven, the amount of people he's brought back to Christ, you know, like Ranger buddies that I've had phone conversations with and talked to him about the gospel. And I can remember when we were at St. Jude going through the worst of it,

one of my Ranger buddies called me up and asked me how I was going. him it's terrible man he was like i was like i wake up before everybody wakes up and i cry for hours and then i'd deal with the day and then once everybody goes asleep i'm crying again and like i'm doing everything i can i'm praying to god every day just just to give me what i need just to get through today and he's like well i don't know how you do it man i'd be i'd be gone i'd be drunk passed out and he did somewhere and i was like yeah i would be too man uh if it wasn't for my faith and and that's what really keeps me going every single day. And he's like, well, I don't even believe in God, but I pray for your little boy every day. And I was like, well, you're halfway there. I get you across the finish line.

I'm sorry, man. I mean, that's that's as bad as it gets. But it sounded like your son made his peace with it and understood what was happening. Absolutely. Yeah. Did. And, hey, you know, he, you know, there was multiple times through that process before we went to St. Jude, our church had a big thing together were they brought everybody into the church and we anointed him with a will and prayed over him. But Wyatt thought everybody was coming in so he could pray over them. And so he got up on stage and started praying over the congregation. And so like he's just, that was just him. You know, he was always a firecracker, always, you know, he knew way more than he should have at his age. And I genuinely believe it's just because, you know, like I say, I think as you get closer to

bail gets lifted and he just had more knowledge than I could ever retain in a lifetime. Wow. And so you guys are still down in Huntsville and now you are a jujitsu instructor? Yeah. So I coach jujitsu pretty much full time. I do it every day, but Friday and Sunday at Gracie Baja in Huntsville. So one of the main coaches up there and teach about, you know, about 15 classes a week plus, you know, my training days. see I'm up there 18 to 20 classes a week or so. And then when I'm not there, I'm here during the day. So that's usually most days. I teach a couple during the day, but the majority of them are afternoon and tonight because that's, you know, most people are, you know, the kids' classes

start around 3 o'clock and they go up through the evening with adult classes. And so I teach then. And during the day, I'm doing stuff here on the homestead. I'm homeschooling my other son Cole. And so I do homeschool with him. And there's always, you know, like say, we got a ton of I spent all day to day building the chicken coop, you know, for our animals out here. So there's plenty to keep me busy around here. That's great. And we will put some links down the description of this podcast for all the people who are listening and are interested in following up on that. And interested in pre-watering your book when it's available.

Yeah, that would be amazing. I appreciate that. Will, thank you so much for sharing your story with us from front to back. I mean, it's amazing. Thank you. And I really appreciate the opportunity. And I hope that the message I get across here more than anything is, you know, all of my experiences, I'm just humbled to be to be able to walk amongst giants for the times. I don't want anybody to think that I was in, you know, in here by any means trying to to to moat and horn about anything because I don't ever felt like, you know, like I said, imposter syndrome the whole time I was a ranger. I never felt like I really belonged there. there's so many amazing men there I was just really humbled and honored to be a part of the organization

while I was there I really I really hope that you know my story can help other people there's you know because it's not just Rangers it's not special operations guys everybody we're all stressed to the max like across the country you know whether you're a doctor or a nurse

you know a high level executive we're all facing the same struggles, you know, we all have imposter syndrome. We're all just trying to do our best to just make it through the day. And that's really why I wrote the book is just, you know, whether you're a veteran who can't sleep or you're a high-level executive just trying to make it through the day or you're an ER nurse coming off shift, you know, there's always an answer. Like, you don't have to take your own life. You don't have to drown yourself in booze. You don't have to turn to alcohol and drugs. Like, you know, God's there. You just have to take your own life. You don't

there. You just have to let them into your life. Thank you, Will. And please stay in touch. Anything before we get going? That's it. I just want to really say I really appreciate the time. I really appreciate the opportunity. I really hope that everyone gets something out of this. And I really hope that once my book should be available pretty soon. I'll see the links to try to follow up there and hope that I can help people with that. That's that. That's, that's, that's, That's really my only goal is to try to share my son's story because, you know, his life was short but very large and to try to share the gospel as many people as possible. And thank you so much for the opportunity.

Yeah, thank you, Will. Thank you for reaching out and doing this. And for everyone else out there, like I said, there'll be some links down in the description. And thank you for joining us tonight. Awesome. Thanks, brother. Hello, everyone. If you're hearing this, you are not a member of the Patreon.

you can get your hands on ad-free episodes that come out early and you can ask us questions. Maybe we'll answer them. You can also watch the Teamhouse podcast completely ad-free and early. And you can also watch it live as we interview our guests. And it's the best way to support the channel. So if you can, if you're open to it, you can go to patreon.com slash the team house. That link is in the description. We appreciate the supporters and we hope you would consider being one.

So it's patreon.com slash the team house. Thanks, guys. Football is back. Every game, every weekend, Draft King's Sportsbook has you covered. Every snap matters. Every comeback can shift the game. And every fourth quarter moment can change everything.

Follow the action with Draft Kings, the number one sports book for live betting. Built to keep up with a speed of sports. Built with Canadian sports fans in mind. Draft Kings brings the action together in one easy-to-use app. Follow the biggest matchups, build your parlays and explore live betting markets as the game develops. So you can focus on the football and enjoy the action with confidence.

Download the Draft Kings app today and see what everyone is talking about. Draft Kings, the number one sportsbook for live betting. In partnership with Draft Kings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call connects Ontario. 1866-531-260. 19 and over. Physically present in Ontario.

Eligibility and restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com slash Sportsbook. for details. Please play responsibly. Number one sportsbook for live betting based on available live market data. Football is back. Every game, every weekend, Draft King's sportsbook has you covered. Every snap matters. Every comeback can shift the game and every fourth quarter moment can change everything. Follow the action with Draft Kings, the number one sports book for live betting, built to keep up with the speed of sports, built with Canadian sports fans in mind. Draft Kings brings the action together in one easy-to-use app.

Follow the biggest matchups, build your parlays, and explore live betting markets as the game develops. So you can focus on the football and enjoy the action with confidence. Download the Draft Kings app today and see what everyone is talking about.

Draft Kings, the number one sportsbook for live betting. In partnership with Draft Kings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call connects Ontario. 1866-531-260. 19 and over.

Physically present in Ontario. eligibility and restrictions apply see draft kings.com slash sportsbook for details please play responsibly number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data football is back every game every weekend draft king's sports book has you covered every snap matters every comeback can shift the game and every fourth quarter moment can change everything follow the action with draft kings the number one sports book for live betting built to keep up with the speed of sports built with canadian sports fans in mind draft Kings brings the action together in one easy-to-use app. Follow the biggest matchups, build your parlays, and explore live betting markets as the game develops. So you can focus on the football and enjoy the action with confidence. Download the Draft Kings app today and see what everyone is talking about. Draft Kings, the number one sports book for live betting.

In partnership with Draft Kings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call connects Ontario. 1866-531-260-19 and over. physically present in Ontario. Eligibility and restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Please play responsibly.

Number one sports book for live betting based on available live market data. Football is back. Every game, every weekend, draft king's sports book has you covered. Every snap matters. Every comeback can shift the game. And every fourth quarter moment can change everything. Follow the action with draft kings, the number one sports book for live betting. Built to keep up with the speed of sports.

Built with Canadian sports. fans in mind. Draft Kings brings the action together in one easy-to-use app. Follow the biggest matchups, build your parlays, and explore live betting markets as the game develops. So you can focus on the football and enjoy the action with confidence. Download the Draft Kings app today and see what everyone is talking about. Draft Kings, the number one sports book for live betting. In partnership with Draft Kings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call connects Ontario. 1866-531-2-6-00. and over physically present in Ontario. Eligibility and restrictions apply.

See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Please play responsibly. Number one sportsbook for live betting based on available live market data. Football is back. Every game, every weekend, draft king's sportsbook has you covered. Every snap matters. Every comeback can shift the game. And every fourth quarter moment can change everything.

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