Unsubscribe Podcast - 188 - ATF Director, Medal Of Honor Recipient And Also Clint Romesha | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 188

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

This week for Veteran's month we went BIG! Medal Of Honor recipient Clint Romesha is here to tell his insane story and also make Brandon super uncomfortable. Veteran's month charity shirts: https://www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast Pre-order your shoes & flip flops! https://www.bunkerbranding.com/collections/unsub-shoes Watch this episode ad-free and uncensored on Pepperbox! https://www.pepperbox.tv/ WATCH THE AFTERSHOW & BTS ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/UnsubscribePodcast ------------------------------ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! PDS DEBT Get a free debt analysis right now at https://PDSDebt.com/unsub MANSCAPED Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code UNSUB at https://manscaped.com ------------------------------ UNSUB MERCH: https://www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast BUY US A DRINK! https://paypal.me/UnsubscribePodcast FREE TO USE MEDIA (Please tag Unsubscribe Podcast) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uppmQHMGf8uI2OuOatp932e3S2VGy0PE?usp=sharing ------------------------------ FOLLOW THE HOSTS: Eli_Doubletap https://www.instagram.com/eli_doubletap/ https://www.twitch.tv/Eli_Doubletap https://x.com/Eli_Doubletap https://www.youtube.com/c/EliDoubletap Brandon Herrera https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonHerrera https://x.com/TheAKGuy https://www.instagram.com/realbrandonherrera Donut Operator https://www.youtube.com/@DonutOperator https://x.com/DonutOperator https://www.instagram.com/donutoperator The Fat Electrician https://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician https://thefatelectrician.com/ https://www.instagram.com/the_fat_electrician https://www.tiktok.com/@the_fat_electrician ------------------------------ unsubscribe pod podcast episode ep unsub funny comedy military army comedian texas podcasts #podcast #comedy #funnypodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge then mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with i-gaming ontario oh damn no no i just remember calling back to gregory and i'm like you guys have got to move and you got to move now i cannot hold this position sand you're kind of really strong i would love to see what kind of you got to do to get a medal of honor in the space force you alien do you want to pull it out real quick you want them to whip it out on a podcast didn't see this podcast going this direction man if i'm being perfectly honest what's up everyone holy freaking mother of god we are at uh we'll just say $72,000 in money raised for veteran nonprofits.

I'm just truly thankful for being able to do this. And that is because of this amazing community. We are $72,000 to go to three amazing nonprofits, veteran nonprofits. And it's all thanks to you all. So thank you so freaking much. And that is from the entire team. It is a blessing to be able to do something like this or for autism or for anything that we want to make a difference in.

And that is such an impactful, amazing thing. So thank you from the bottom of all our hearts. Let's blow this out of the water. Let's just keep kicking ass. Let's keep these sales going for Veterans Month. And again, 100% of this one, which y'all love that shirt, and undiagnosed 100% of proceeds are going towards those veteran nonprofits. And then a percentage of everything on store will also be going towards those amazing nonprofits. And we have Turkey Day coming up for some amazing sales, which will be automatically applied for this stuff. So thank you all. Thank you so freaking much. I hope each and every one of you know how amazing you are and that difference you guys and gals make in individuals' lives through just that community-based aspect of hanging out, talking, interacting with each other,

being able to see that in person is one of the greatest gifts you guys could have given us. So thank you so freaking much. And now for one of the big episodes with Mr. Clint Romesha. Love y'all. Dude. Oh, I'm so happy you're here. We haven't got to hang out in so long so long i forget you existed we've told many of stories about you angry cops wearing wearing your met oh god i forgot about that yeah oh jack we didn't break on him uh probably i threw it i threw it at someone well it was already broken but i didn't tell him that and i hum chucked it at him we made fun of him so much you fucking broke it you broke that one that was basically my introduction to you was chucking the metal at me i'm like oh god oh god

i think i physically started sweating i don't know if you can emotionally sweat, can you? I was going to figure out a way. Oh, I'm so excited. We're so excited. Cody, you want to kick this bitch off? Oh, wait. We got to do this first.

Ready? Everyone, get your can. You got to pop it. Three, two, one. Ready? Hold it up to the mic. Three, two, one. two one ready hold it up to the mic up to the mic three two one hi everyone welcome to the unsubscribed podcast i'm joined today by eli double tap clint romacher brandon herrera myself donut operator we love you and we're happy you're here

what's up well this is my that was one of the last episodes for the veterans day month so fucking the way to do this one our boy our boy and brandon thank you i love how you brandon every you're embarrassing me in front of the wizard i know this is an episode where it's like fuck do it oh god uh it's an honor and then a nightmare at the same time it's like oh this is gonna be a really cool podcast also eli he's gonna make this awful started as a joke and it took you two minutes full circle here we are. We're going to close this chapter after this amazing episode on this joke for you. The Forced Valor Saga. Dude, our live tour is called Forced Valor

or Stolen Valor. Sorry. I thought it was one of the same. Forced or Stolen? Stolen. Next. That's the third. We'll do Forced, the third. Man, how? Introduce yourself. So all the beautiful people out there that might not know who you are i'm clint i drink bush light oh name one interesting

name one interesting fact about yourself do you what instrument do you play um bush light the bush yeah bush light the bush light it kind of goes like this all right thank god nick is back in town geez i haven't had a bush light in so long all right then 48 hours since my last bush light but that's because i was out in philadelphia and i they don't really have them out there oh i'm sorry what you are right now onto i don't even know where to start this is okay so long long i met you how long ago 2018 2017 would it have been i'm trying to remember the first time we did meet official was it on range 15 maybe actually that might have actually been yeah that's what i still didn't realize what all this interweb stuff was and still to this day you know you are a true you literally just live out in uh north dakota still my not

north dakota went up there got out of the army chasing oil fields thinking this is gonna be my life um because i was out for two you know like i was out for two years before i even got that call and i'm sitting there in the oil field one day minding my own business and i get this call on my cell phone look down and it's like oh it looks like a telemarketer number i'm a field safety specialist at the time so i'm like i got time to kill i'm gonna around with this guy and i answer it and all of a sudden it's this is colonel davis g1 of the pentagon it's like oh fuck what'd they do? What did I do? She's lying. It's like statue limitation should be up. No.

You have the wrong number. He switches to that voice. Mr. Clint Noisy. No, you get the Windex. No, no lemon patch. no you get the windex no no colonel's just looking at his phone like the fuck what is this stuff um no i mean i you know did 12 years in the army um joined in 99 just like a lot of guys did back then. And in the course of that, did three deployments, two to Iraq, one to Afghanistan, Afghanistan 09.

October 3rd, Battle of Kop Keating. From there, we had a little bit of a hectic day that day, to say the least. But with the help of the 50 other Americans, the two Lafayette soldiers, and 15-hour firefight after getting almost overran, pushed out. And for the actions of that day, I got, I don't know if it's nominated or recommended, but for the Medal of Honor, which is, again, something you don't ever wake up thinking you're going to try to achieve, go do. It's just, I'll be honest, that day was one of the worst but yet best days of my life because I got to see so much awesome shit from the guys to my left and right,

so much love and just so much dedication for something more than yourself. So I might have got selected to wear it, but I'll tell you time and time again, it's for those not not for me and i'm always humbled to kind of state that that's what i think you truly go above and beyond and you exemplify what that means is you still to this day even on the call you're like you were like i didn's not, no. And it was your guys that told you like, Hey, like, Hey, you did something.

You're like, no, man. Well, I mean, what was really cool though, like the recommendation came not initially. The recommendation initially came because my commander put me in for a DSC.

And at that time, like I said, we were string. You're a service. Yeah. Distinguished service cross. And at that time, like I said, we were distinguished service cross. And at that time, we were three months into a 12-month deployment. And I remember just kind of looking at Stoney Portis and I'm like, hey, sir, we got nine more months left. Let's get these boys home and worry about awards later. And we got through that next nine months. So proud of those guys because not a single guy from Red Platoon said this was too tough for me. I couldn't do it.

They pulled up their big boy pants and they pushed through. Got home. I'd already made the decision to get out of the Army. Used the last 12 months. Made that transition. I said I hadn't heard anything. Like I said, back of my mind, I was just trying to get on with life. So then I went chasing oil fields in North Dakota.

And then, like I said, two years later, get this random phone call. Dude, two years later, they call you up. I don't know if you've ever been around military process. The most expedited thing. Well, unless you owe them money. Where the fuck is that? They show you a gun point. You're like, what the fuck?

Where are those pants that you left? It's the only thing the government's good at. Dude, what's the first thing you said to them? Like, after all that, when they called you up. Well, the first thing, talking on the phone to Colonel Davis, he's like, hey, we need you to come out to D.C. We got something to tell you. Like I said, in the back of my mind, I'm like, statute of limitations should be up. They had taken two years to track me down here in North Dakota.

No, no. should be up they had taken two years to track me down here in north dakota no no but like i said initially in the back of my mind i'm thinking okay that dsc the distinguished service cross my commander said he was going to put me in for it's probably got downgraded to maybe a silver star or something i'll probably have to go to dc shake a few hands probably get a free freaking dessertsicking desserts for the defect for life award or something like that. Yeah. Um, um, but I, but I told Colonel Davis, I'm like, Hey, you know, just tell me over the phone. He's like, no, you got to do it in person.

I'm like, well, I'm working six to seven days a week in the oil fields at that time, making some awesome money. I was like, let me talk to my boss and I'll get back to you. Hung up the phone immediately called. I can't remember if it was Raz or Lars, one of the guys and I called them up. I'm like, Hey, I just got this really weird phone call. You guys know what's going on? And they're like, No, hadn't heard anything. Haven't you ever gotten an award for that day? And I'm like, Nope, nothing yet. But maybe something's coming down the

pipe. I went and I talked to my boss. It was about two weeks later. It was kind of process and everything. And I finally went and talked to my boss. I'm like, hey, I need kind of a weekend off. I got to go to DC for this thing. So cool. What thing is it? I'm like, I don't really know. Hopefully I'll be back on Monday. But if I can have a couple of days off, the army is going to set travel up and I'll go out. So it wasn't until I got out to D.C., show up. First thing I do when I come off the plane, I'm looking around before I clear security to see if there's MPs hiding. Oh, I'm still thinking. You're like, these motherfuckers are trying to trick me.

And all of a sudden I see this full bird colonel in freaking Class A uniform. And I'm like, oh, okay. So this is real. This is serious. Don't see the empties. Well, I go up and I introduce myself. And he said, all right, well, we got to head to the Pentagon. I've never been on the Metro before in my life.

That's scary shit. Like, I don't like being underground, but we got on the Metro and headed straight to the Pentagon, the DC Metro, too. I know. From Dulles? Or Dulles? Reagan. Reagan. Oh, I got it.

Beautiful. It's great people. I'm not known for a French ride. I was more terrified of that frickin' Metro ride than anything, because it's just not natural. That's how you got your second medal yeah well so we show up to the pentagon that poor michael jackson impersonator why is that so funny eli nothing so we we show up at the pentagon um and i realized okay maybe it's not so bad because we didn't even go through security like they had a secret door for us to kind of just breeze on through so didn't go through metal detectors and like oh this is interesting and in the back of my mind i'm still

sitting there thinking it's like okay they're gonna hand me maybe a broad star with the years silver something got downgraded they're just gonna do a quick ceremony shake my hand send me on my way um and they pull me into this room and there's all these colonels all these freaking generals and stuff and they're just like congratulations sir romo shea awesome and i'm like still have no idea what's going on until i sat down and as i look across the way they got the powerpoint presentation going on because the army's never gonna do nothing without PowerPoint. And right in front of me. Just like you still hate the military.

God damn it. Sitting in front of me are these three posters. And one is of Sal Junta, the first living recipient since Vietnam. The next one's Leroy Petrie. And then the third one was Sergeant Sabo Possumis Lee. And it's all Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor. And I just remember kind of sitting down and looking and they're giving their brief and the PowerPoint's going on and I'm not hearing a word they're saying. And I don't know if I was looking down for maybe two minutes or

20 minutes. I finally look up and I'm like, hey, time out, boys. And the room gets quiet. And I go, what is all this medal of honor stuff and one of the colonels kind of looks over and he's like oh you don't know sarah roma shea and i'm like wouldn't be asking a question i knew the fucking answer to like what is this i got i know you said that too which is my favorite thing about you i'm like i got told i got put in for like a dsc or something by uh stony portis so what's all this medal of honor stuff and they're like well you've been recommended for upgrade short of the president signing the award you'll be receiving the medal of honor and i just remember kind of looking back

at the guy and i'm like for what i didn't do anything special um and like i said i made that trend i'd been out for two years i thought i'd put all that stuff in a little box and i put it in the back of my mind and i remember just as I was talking to the guys almost every day, driving to the oil fields, the guys they served with, they would bring kind of that stuff up. And that was kind of my processing where I thought I had it all, all kind of behind me. And, and then all of a sudden it was the next fricking day I had a Wikipedia page and then everybody knew. I mean, when I got back to work, I was overseeing the pipeline crews at the time.

And one of the pipeline guys comes up to me, a Hispanic fellow. Um, he comes up and he's Mexican comes up and he's like, Hey, why did you want me to take that higher? You look straight at me. Are you going to say, I wasn't going to say he comes up and he's like, hey, why did you want me to take that higher? You look straight at me. Are you going to say ****?

I wasn't going to say it. He comes up to me and he's like, hey, I heard what you did in the army. My uncle has been kidnapped by the cartel in Mexico. They want $250,000 for his, now I'm spacing words. You think you were **** John Ram rambo like you were just gonna take a boat down to he's like he's like my uncle cartel kidnapped him and it was holding this ransom yeah 250 000 ransom for his uncle because the cartel knew a lot of the the mexicans were coming up working the oil fields in north dakota making that good money so they would kidnap their

families that they were leaving back there and so they literally came up and he's like, Hey, we'll pay you the money. If you want to get your guys together and go down to Mexico to go get my alcohol. I just like to see you on the news and like the white boy at work. Well, he's a bad ass.

Bring him a nine. No, it's a culture. It's what we call a culture barrier. I called up, I called up Raz and a couple of buddies i'm like hey do we got contacts in mexico like we got a quick way to make it well the problem was and i know avalos is gonna hate me for saying this but avalos was our fister uh and he's like the one mex Mexican that can't speak Mexican. Me and Brandon. Sorry, Brandon and I. We're like, man, if we could get Avalos.

Oh, no, he's not going to be an interpreter for us. We don't have a solid team together. What's up, bitches? Most of us Americanized Mexicans are barely monolingual. Yeah, struggle bussing. I just like the first idea was like, I bet he can save he's a hero we'll just send him down there well half well we just they're whittling like just like I don't do that life anymore that's behind me don't want to turn that back on. You don't want to see that. It wasn't my war. Our sponsor for this video is PDS Debt because everything is really expensive right now.

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i'm going so when you were so fast forward you get that and then everyone else what is that experience like afterwards because we'll rewind to the story um i want to hear more of like some of the other stuff you've done because you you were in 2id initially and then and that was we were i didn't realize i i was 2id so i never knew we were part of like we just you were in korea and then i was in Lewis. Yep. Yeah, that was... Because you were up in Lewis in 05. Yeah, 05. Just standing up. They stood up in 06.

So it was 2CR, then they stood up to... Then we switched to infantry. And then it was like, okay, 2CR to infantry from 06 to 08, and then whatever they did afterwards. But that's... I was like, oh, shit, I didn't realize that. And then you came aboard as a tanker initially. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Initially I joined the army as a tanker because, um, here's how motivated I was. Like I said, I, when I joined the army, I grew up in a tiny town in Northern California. I was tired of just milking cows and digging fence posts. Like that was my motivation to go in. Like I'm tired of smelling milking cows and digging fence posts. That was my motivation to go in. I'm tired of smelling like freaking bag bomb. I grew up in this town of 100 people, went to school in a town of like 500. I graduated in the top 15 of the 14 kids in my senior class.

Holy shit. So you grew up like actual like small, small town. Small, small town. Farmer. In California out of all places too uh but when i came in like i said i was 17 when i graduated not because i was super smart just because my birthday was in august and i went to my dad who was one of vietnam then he did two tours over in vietnam as the infantryman my granddad world war ii combat engineer um he served you know he made it through normandy beach landing

battle of the bulge like he had an impressive kind of resume himself my oldest brother um he started off in the army had a break in service air force he actually just retired down here two years ago out of the air force no shit uh second oldest brother which yeah my wife reminded me he's like if you're gonna be down there maybe you go see your older brother. I'm like, I seen him two years ago when he retired. That's how I think a lot of us are. We're like, why? I FaceTimed him like three months ago.

That's like the same thing. Yeah, no news is good news when it comes to family sometimes. And my second oldest brother, he joined the Marines. So there was always kind of this lineage of military service in the family. Three generations. But really for me, I was just like, it's 99. I want to go see the world and I'll get that GI Bill. Maybe I'll grow up and finally get educated enough to actually want to go to college.

I hope nothing bad happens in two years. Yeah. So hold a foresight. Well, and that's my dad, because I was 17. I went up to dad, and I'm like, hey, you got me luggage for my graduation present. Like, I understand the task here. And that's actually, that's a real story. Yeah.

That was my graduation present from my parents. It was freaking Samsonite freaking luggage, which I think they spent like three or four hundred bucks they were they were pretty impressed on that stuff they were i thought that was an expression at first that's a that's an old farm town they're like son son i'm so proud of you i get the fuck out of my house you're gonna pay rent or go to college join the military join the military so when i i yeah i went to my dad at 17 and i'm like hey dad hey got my plan i'm, join the military, join the military. So when I, yeah, I went to my dad at 17 and I'm like, Hey dad, I got my plan. I'm going to join the army. You just got to sign for me.

You got the recruiter already ready to sign or, you know, have all the paperwork set up. And dad looked at me and he's like, Hey, not going to do it. Back of my mind. I'm like this son of a bitch. He went on the youngest of the three boys. He wants me around for one more summer of free fricking labor. And he very quickly followed it up with, Hey, it's Clint.

It's 1999. There's not a lot going on in the world. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in 20 years, but if you put that uniform on, you might have to go and do and see things that no one should have to go do and see said growing up. I knew my dad had served in Vietnam.

I knew my granddad had served in World War II, but all of the stories they told us, none of them had to do with combat, not a single one about combat or any of the things they seen over overseas and stuff like that. It was always the stories of the shenanigans that got in with their buddies. And in my mind, I'm like, dad, you had a great time in the army from all the stories you were telling me. I didn't really realize what he was actually trying to say then. And then of course, join that August ship off, get to my first duty station, Germany. Well, I'll get a backtrack a little bit. When I, when I did turn 18 and said, Hey, I'm going to go

down and sign. The only advice my dad gave me was like, don't go infantry, go find a job in the army that you can do afterwards, be a welder, be a plumber, be something like that. And I'm like, no, I want to go combat arms. And he's like, well, just please son, don't go infantry. So I decided to sign up for tanks cause I'm lazy and I don't like to walk. So I can't come back. And I told my dad, I'm like, Hey, didn't go infantry. I'm going to be on tanks.

And he just looks at me. He's like, why the hell would you do that? You're just the biggest target on the battlefield, you idiot. I like your, like, don't join combat. It's like, do something that will help you outside the military, like tanks. Yeah. Those are just up and down the street all the time. I mean, if we had more killdozers, that'd be a popular thing.

That's what's holding me back. We don't, but we should. That's why he's starting a new group. His new nonprofit. It builds killdozers for vets. The AR-500 plate donated. The He-Meyer Relief Fund. Why is this working so well?

We're just shipping them out. So many stool plates today. We've taught 95 veterans how to weld. Do you need to learn how to hook up cameras? Eliminate your blind spots. You've been been really cool don't go to the library today where did it go wrong i think it's a great idea oh i love it so that i mean that was kind of my my introduction to the army and my pathway in was through all that so i said i never

honestly when i came in i was like if i can do four years maybe make corporal and not go to leavenworth that would be the high achievement of my life i like that was your goal it's like you got to set them low achievable things i don't want to break big rocks into little rocks you get past that a okay and then your college is paid for you're like hey then 9 11 kicks off you fat you do that what was that experience because we've talked to a couple people but everyone's experience is different you're in you're in your unit now yeah a year two years at that point just over two years like i said um was on tanks. 9-11 kicks off, and of course, right away, it's like, oh, we're going after bin Laden in Afghanistan. It's like, oh, shit, I'm on tanks.

The one place we learn from the Russians that tanks don't mix is Afghanistan. So kind of knew right away, it's like, fuck, I'm going to miss it. We'd gotten, you know, shortly after 9-11, we were already scheduled to go back to Kosovo for another Kosovo deployment back then and in my mind I was like well shoot I'll ride my time out here in Germany probably get out but we just had 9-11 but that's what you joined up for you want to go to war you know being young and naive at the time you know it sounds so cool on paper oh man it looks awesome in those Rambo movies. I can't stress

enough. We've talked about it a couple of times. It is the idea. It's like war sounds so cool until one bullet. Oh man, that is... It's like paintball, but that kills me. Way worse. Not walking that one off. I love you. Eli did yeah there you go this is way worse about you know you like this is about you let's talk about you yeah we go on to your you're the real right now we're just pushing it back and forth

Cody's like what the fuck's going on I'm just having a great time all these amazing veterans I'm surrounded by that's two donuts I will say the running joke is for the year. Brandon, you explain it because it's done to you. It was a fine Veterans Day.

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. So last year, for Veterans Day, Eli was like, hey, do you want to jump on a podcast real quick? We're going to record an extra podcast with, I believe it was Crispy and Jack Mandeville. Jack Mandeville, yep. Yeah, sure, I'd love to.

Just jump on real quick. I live right down the road, so, you know, jump on the podcast. And Eli didn't tell me the opening bit of the podcast is going to be him attempting to pin his purple heart on me for veterans day and i am of course i have lived my entire life avoiding any claims of stolen valor like plague because i never i was never in the military i didn't do any of that stuff you didn't want to be a tim waltz yeah exactly i didn't want to you know claim like when i was overseas oh i never said that asshole but he could think we'll never have to hear his name again but and then eli comes over and attempts to pin his purple heart on me i'm like no no no no no

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no like became the running bit and then the internet took off with it because of course the fucking internet did. And now I think I have three Medals of Honor, 42 Purple Hearts, pretty sure a couple of Iron Crosses. I'm searching Brandon Pereira

Military. Imagine never serving. Oh my goodness. That is Google Images. Everything in the world what's funny is it's mixed in with real photos though which is really bad brain's like no no no dude is the joke that went way too far. It's all Eli's fucking fault. One year this joke has been a thing. So we were like, we'll close it out with a proper closeout.

This is the episode. There's only one. If you're going to kill a joke, you have to kill it, in my opinion anyway, within the universe that it exists. So the only way possible that I think would be fitting would be in as eli has proclaimed it veterans day month uh with a an actual medal of honor recipient so i think that's the only appropriate way full circle full circle and it's as embarrassing as it is it's still something like it's friends like these and it it's what's best. It did bring a lot of good light and negative light in the election.

But past that, it was really good light. Everyone's a good sport about it. Even on social media. He has so much people. We did a Veterans Day post. It's like us in service. And it is now Unsub's best performing post ever. Which is something to say about.

It's, hey, like, all the hosts. My favorite is that's Eli's face there. And all the comments are just talking about Brandon's. Like, is this his? Dude, one of them got me. The one that got me the most was most was Brandon has Oak Leafs on his Medal of Honor. I was like, bro, you go hard if you have

two or three Oak Leafs on that medal. I was like, our boy has earned his rep. As you can tell, he despises this. It almost went away. Then Rich brought it back. That fucking

fucking dickhead. And then it's up there. Someone sent their Purple Heart in for it. And I just can't... I feel like the only way to do it is to lean into it for the live shows and just be like General Zukav from the death of Stalin. Just throw off the cloak.

Just have like a North Korean general uniform full of fake medals. When your grandkids start going through some of your stuff to learn about you later, though, you think they're going to open that trunk up? When all they have is the internet? Your grandpa was a badass! Grandpa's dead bodies!

If I keep that in the attic... That's attic i never talked about a service i think it was connor was saying like if i keep that in the fucking attic i need to i need to keep it with a post-it note explaining to my kids the joke like by the way if you google this you're gonna get some conflicting information they'll probably reply with. What's Google? Never bring it up. Just have an actual trunk hidden for your Great Garen kids. It's like a uniform, a fake Medal of Honor, and some random ribbons in there.

And they'll be like, yo, Grandpa used to own it. Go rent a safety deposit box for the next 300 years. Wow, Grandpa really liked Wolfenstein. Look at this. Fusion of the cosplay scene. Yeah, wow. He's got the armbands and everything. That's kind of crazy.

He's got a cheat book. It's about the final solution. Dude, this dad looks crazy. I didn't know Dad spoke German. All alone, time to trim the old pubes. Hey there, Beach Babe. I didn't know dad spoke German. All alone? Time to trim the old pubes. Hey there, beach babe! Are you ready to soak up those summer vibes and get the perfect beach bod? I don't have pants on. Yeah, I noticed.

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5.0 ultra groin and body hair trimmer got a summer makeover it's waterproof now for all those times you need to shave your groin or body hair at a pool party so get 20 off plus free shipping using code on some at manscape.com the summer sun is here to stay so trust manscape to keep those pubes at bay welcome to the podcast clay show guppy's like ah he's because we've asked for a while to have you on yeah but you're you are not a big social media guy you're like oh fuck that yeah you can tell it's my social media just look at the picture and you're like what the hell is this random stuff it's like no that's probably clint and it there's been no activity in nine months that's how you know it's me you are now you're are you still doing oil field stuff or

the military stuff with it uh powered away from the oil field quite a few years ago um before doing the book and then getting more involved with uh because well that was the other thing with receiving the medal. I said at first I was super embarrassed. Just blatantly honest, it was super embarrassing because everyone's sitting there calling you a hero, saying, oh, what amazing things you did. And back of my mind, I'm sitting there, I'm like, didn't bring eight guys back.

Like, those dudes are the heroes. Like, I was a warrior. I was fighting alongside other great warriors. But to be called a hero and then all the all of a sudden have that be the the center of attention just was was super awkward to deal with and process um that's something that i'd love to go back to a little bit if we can kind of reverse back to where you were saying that you were in that you were watching that that powerpoint uh government issued powerpoint and uh you were basically you were

informed that that's that's what they put you in for what was your reaction to it in the moment in the moment i just shut down i just like everything just i turned everything off and just got to stop there set their thinking internalizing it's just like mace isn't here gallegos isn't here kirk isn't here like those fricking bad asses and they gave up more than anything I ever did. Um, so why am I getting acknowledged? And that's just kind of what I gravitated back toward was why, you know, those guys literally gave up their life for me to be here. So why the hell am I getting the acknowledgement and the attention because I made it through. I got to come back home. I got to continue to live my life. And I know, you know, the nation does need heroes and things to look up to,

but as I continue to kind of gravitate back to, I still hate being called a hero because, for me, those are the guys that don't come home. Like, I was a warrior. I'll tell you, like I said, it was bittersweet that day because as nasty as things were it was also one of the best days of my life because i felt like i went through the most ultimate man test with some of the coolest guys i've ever been around and we made it out on top um and that's also what i'd reflect back to it's like we used to talk um kind of that last nine months country, the year getting out when we would talk about the awards process and stuff like that of guys getting silver stars and certain other guys talking about how cool or how badass they were that day. But the rest of us kind of like, were you though?

And we'd sit there and I remember, you know, talking to Larson and Raz and they're like, hey, yeah, we know what you did. Yeah, well, I know what you did. And that was just all we had to say sometimes would be sitting there, Colorado Springs, hanging out, drinking at Hooters or something like that. You just kind of share those quick moments where you just look over it or over at one of your buddies, and you just knew, I know what you did that day, and I don't need any public attention. There's no medal that you'd pin on our chest that would that would equate to what the same meaning was of that look between each other um so when that all like i said came to kind of the the limelight i wanted to just put my head in the sand and turn away but i also realized i've also been given something that so many veterans never get that's a platform and that's the ability that when i

for whatever reasons i keep going back to dc to go up on the the hill i get doors open and i get to go get in front of congressmen and senators and it's like hey look fucktards here's that's you know not getting taken care of for please tell me you use that exact language. That's what goes on in the inner monologue. Normally there's a filter process sometimes. I think more of them need the internal monologue to become the external monologue. Sorry, I meant retarded. You retard. Politicians don't go to heaven sorry so i was like you guys are all gonna get along so good with with clint oh boy loves the government

so much oh the big flex i had is when john bainer was still a speaker of the house. Boy, you know, fucking smoking in his office. I was used to smoked. Yeah, yeah. Because John Boehner smoke like a frickin chimney too. So I got to go smoke in the golf. He had already just gotten done smoking or something. But yeah, I got to smoke in the speaker of the house's office one day. That's kind of cool. That doesn't fly anymore i don't think anymore like this is dope going through that it is uh going back to like your feelings towards it because it is

that is one of the hardest things to put into words for a general person it's like not wanting to accept something because it is like no i i i did nothing for that especially you you yourself is a very like selfless individual and to have that where all the lights aren't you they fly you out and then come to find out your battle buddies are the ones that also put in word for it right so the so that's what I didn't realize till years later it's like when I would talk to some of the guys going to and from the oil fields, catching up with them, we would talk about everything under the sun. And not once did they ever mention that they'd been approached or talked about an upgrade. And so after I'd gotten notified, I'm sitting there calling Raz and Larson and them up.

And they're like, I'm like, hey, did raz and larson and them up and they're like i'm like hey did the army call you and and tell you guys anything and they're like oh yeah they called like well about a year ago or something they just asked they believe you did something good that should be uh should be awarded they never said for what or what award and we just said yes well that was kind of part of that i didn't think you'd mention that all of a sudden I'm getting recommended for upgrade. And you've got someone to call you from the Pentagon eight months ago that said, hey, you think Sergeant Romachet should be recognized for what he did on October 3rd? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he should be.

That was like their whole conversation. I'm like, that would have been nice to know. Those are good. Cool. And forget to tell you. They didn't say, well, do you think Senator Omishay should be recommended for the Medal of Honor? No. They just said, do you think he should just be recognized for his actions?

I was like, well, that's semantics right there on what they're really asking or not. But that was also part of the humbling thing was to find out that the upgrade recommendation came from the guys that were actually there beside me. Like I said, it was very tough to accept it in the first place, but it was kind of really smoothed it over hearing that it was because of their recommendations, their firsthand accounts that kind of kicked it up over the edge. I mean, I still set back to this day.

And I think, honestly, the two guys that deserved the medal from that battle was Hart. Because when he left out the back of those barracks to try to go get Gallegos, that was the last time I'd ever see that dude. And unfortunately, with the awards process system, is you've got to have, especially for the Medal of Honor, you've got to have two living eyewitnesses that see you do what you did and have to be able to read and write English to write that firsthand sworn statement account. And when Hart pushed up there to go get Mason Larson and them and his Humvee got hit with that RPG. The only guy that survived that was Faulkner. But Faulkner came back, immediately got medevaced, came back to the States. And Faulkner was dealing with some demons prior to that deployment after getting shot in Iraq previous. And he ended up overdosing.

So there was no eyewitness account. And it sucked because Hart, all we could get him was a bronze star that day just by army regulation since we didn't have those two eyewitness accounts and i'd already always kind of argued no him leaving out the back door finding that 50 cal ammo taking those guys over there like that was the action right there um i said i i don't know how the whole awards process goes but that was my kind of argument with it. And the other one for sure was Brad Larson. Larson, I truly believe, deserved the other Medal of Honor that day. He was stuck up at that Humvee with Gallegos and Mace and Ty Carter

and Sergeant Martin. When those guys pushed out, he was trying to provide cover. Him and Ty were trying to provide cover for him. Wasn't able to do it. When Carter goes up and brings Mace a little farther back to cover and puts the tourniquets on him, Larson's providing cover for Ty, and then him and Ty bring Mace back to the aid station. But then Larson comes back to me

for the fight Larson gets checked out he shows back up at the front gate area and he's the one that tells us hey Griffin's just outside the door here last I seen Martin was here last I seen Gallegos was here had no idea where Hart was and Larson then came back out in the fight recovered uh Griffin helped recover Martin Gallegos brought him back and then when we couldn't find when we couldn't find Hart's body Larson was the dude that three times that day left his weapon left his body armor and left his Kevlar to run and do the freaking bullet dance around that outpost to try and find Hart's body. And three times he, he just wasn't able to find him. Um, and on the fourth time I finally told him he couldn't. Um, so that was the other thing that's always been in the back of my mind. It's

like, you know, me and Ty Carter's the other living recipient from that fight, but I've always looked at it. I've always thought that, that thought that Larson and Hart should have been the two guys right there. And that's just like going through that. It is something humbling to hear because, again, like anything I've done will never equate to that. And I never want to be put in that position. And you were lucky to be here because you stood up and then overcame crazy odds to i mean even save as many people as you do i know you're it is that hard mindset to break it's like hey this sucks because i lost this many people instead of looking at it's like hey i

saved this many people because it was through your actions and your because you i just i just thought i had i had i just had a stupid idea though it was like man we're getting our asses kicked let's we can do something it's like oh here's an idea let's go counter-attack these guys got us outgunned they've got us outnumbered they've got the high ground and honestly when i came up with that idea it was just like well if we're gonna die let's let's kind of dictate it on our own terms and again that's what truly impressed me was I had those five guys that volunteered like, Hey, we're going to go do this thing. And, and Raz Delaney, Danley, uh, Miller and Jones, like those five guys are like, well, we're going and don't have to. And they're like, we'll follow you anywhere. And it's like, well, why don't those five guys get acknowledged for?

And I mean, and I'm not saying they never got their awards or anything, but I mean, that was just so impressive to see that you could get guys that would, I mean, that was truly a token of, on a personal level, I felt like I was a good leader. When you get five guys that will say, I'll follow you anywhere, and that did it. That came up, recaptured the ammo supply point, was able to push the enemy out of the front gate, the Shura building area.

You know, that's truly special as, like I said, as a leader. That's, like I said, in the back of your mind, you're like, you're always thinking, I call it like that Braveheart moment. Like, could I ever be tied to that board? Is there a fricking ripping my guts out? And will that, would I sit there and scream freedom into the face of those fuckers

like for me that was those moments that day um where i look back and it's like man that was that was going through the ultimate man test that to say i could kind of check that block even leading to it for the people out there that don't realize even how shitty that fighting position was and then you guys ran drills in your head where you're like ah if we did this this is how we would do this like which probably led to a for those who don't know because we were just talking about this earlier at brunch like just how bad that fighting position was no for people who don't dude you were in a bowl well yeah i mean it was so bad like i said my granddad had passed away by then.

But like I said, I'm old school. I don't do social media, but I'll still write. I still pay all my bills by check and mail them. My times have changed. Anyway, about a strategic fighting position. So I wrote my grandma a letter home when we first got there and it was just a simple quick letter of hey grandma we're here we're settled in the guy's morale is high everyone's looking good we got 12 months here and we'll be home soon this place is so gorgeous it reminds me of growing up in the sierra nevada mountains

every morning i get to look up and see these beautiful mountains. And I sent that letter off. And a couple of weeks later, grandma sent me a letter back that just said, what the hell are you doing looking up? Everybody knows you take the high ground. Grandma even knew. Your gram gram knew. Like that was not the most ideal location. I mean, you just sat at the very bottom of that valley surrounded by mountains on all sides.

Every time we'd go out and do patrols and stuff, you'd get just 100 meters up on the hillside. And you'd look down and you're like, man, I can see everything. I can see LRAS too. I can see the front gate. This is a badass fighting position. I can just bail over the back here. You'd never be able to shoot me. You'd go freaking 20 feet the next direction

It's like oh, this is even better. So that's how Graham Graham got a consulting job at the Pentagon Way better than that strategic fighting point What was the what was their mindset? Did they just pick up? I don't know how that came to be So initially from what i understand um like i said i i was a staff sergeant that i didn't make foreign policy like i just we got told where we needed to be right yeah um but the research i've done since then was it was just supposed to be this kind of stopping area in the natural terrain where they could get uh refuel refit and stuff going to the forces that were supposed to be continuing to attack north and nuristan but so that happened

about right before 2003 they were pushing up in the nuristan and what ended up being known as cop keating was just really a a grid spot coordinate that they could drop supplies in. Well, we kick off 2003 with shock and awe in Iraq. Now we're fighting a two-front war, and there's not enough beans and bullets and everything to fight two-front war. So they pause the attack in the north in Afghanistan, Nuristan area, and instead of giving up that terrain, they decided, well, we'll just hold on to this we'll get back to this eventually well eventually was six years down the road

where we found ourselves there so they didn't want to give up that stuff that was already fought for and what year did they say hey we don't want to fight for this is it 2003 you're saying yeah it was shortly after it was like 2003 2004 six years later is when it was like oh yeah and you're still there and like man man that is the u.s military or government in a in a nutshell he's well i mean even my dad would when he kind of found out he's like oh i see we haven't learned anything from vietnam hamburger i was telling the guys about hamburger hill i was like like we will take a we will have a 90 casualty rate to take something that has no significance on the battlefield just to say we did it and then

leave it after a week you're like yep we did it you're like at night there's like everyone's hurt right now they're like man we got it though yeah i, you've seen that with the pullout. I mean, that's exactly what the pullout ended up being. Should never pull out. The only thing that you pull out is the couch. There we go. I'm glad all of us feel the same way.

No one at this table pulls out. I've got six kids. Holy shit. Bro table pulls out. He's got six kids. Holy shit. Bro, pull out. He's like, bro, you didn't learn either? Motherfucker can't pull out of his own driveway. That's why I back in.

Oh, fuck. So, strategic 2009, right? so strategic at 2009 not yeah i mean we were we were two weeks away from closing that place down and getting out of there like like uh for bring it up jamie bring it up right here on the screen thanks jamie jamie thanks jamie thanks jamie this is how ridiculous this fighting position is that you're looking at right now they did not consult Obi-Wan Kenobi it's over Anakin I have the high ground

take the high ground come on they were Anakin he was Anakin you underestimate my power episode 3 had come out by then that was no excuse it worked the first time for Obi-Wan though when he was fighting Darth maul he didn't have the high ground oh that's true oh my god my guy's a nerd for not internetting but you still got some nerd knowledge my guy get them dv dvds don't lie

it's vhs laser desk you're still rewinding it after watch it so bad fucking literally the worst positioning possible imagine a fishbowl and the bottom of that fishbowl is where you guys are based out of and it's a cob right yep so the only way in and out was by helicopter at that point and oh by the way i what i did not know that holy yeah what the road well that's how the outpost got named was by uh lieutenant ben keating they were trying to move uh i believe it was the lmtv back to faubostik rolled over and killed uh lieutenant ben keating giving the name to the outpost um and that road was no longer serviceable logistic logistically for the u.s army taliban had taken it over it had been too narrow it was just too treacherous so helicopter was the only way in

and out and oh by the way our landing zone was outside of our perimeter and it was in between two rivers that converged together and so you kind of had to land in this peninsula. It kind of reminds me of like a less advantageous Harper's Ferry if you ever seen that area. Not to oversimplify too much. I don't even know. Harper's Ferry, Virginia. Like that area where there was like a military

arsenal there during the Civil War. Oh, okay. I was like, are you just... I was just not naming just a random place. It was a strategic point in a war. Crawfordsville, Indiana? Alabama? Mexico? Gary, Indiana?

I was like, I don't know. Not Gary. Not to oversimplify it, but with what you just said earlier, wasn't the whole point of that location being chosen that it was a convenient middle ground for running supplies and things? Yes. That's initially how it started.

With no way to get in or out except for helicopters. Yep. Just making sure I'm up to speed. And that is the military. Like, this is. Yeah. Logistics. This seems like a lot of logistics to get in and out of that.

So it's funny because like I said, the Chinook pilots and we're at elevation too. So we could only really get Chinooks and, uh, Apaches only had enough kind of power to fly at that elevation. You know how much cargo you could lift with an Apache. Well, enough to bring 25 Mike, Mike and hellfires. We don't need you for your cargo boys. So when they'd resupply us though, those pilots knew that was a crappy spot to be.

And at elevation, not having the power, a lot of times they would make every excuse not to resupply us and we were pissed like we would not get resupplied for ammo ammo well would normally get ammo and fuel and stuff but any of the creature comforts like they would make every excuse not to drop them and would go weeks on end without getting resupplied um with freaking care packages or razors or hot meals you're probably like literally every what three weeks uh we got a hot meal kind of once we got one meal once every three days and it'd be either a breakfast or maybe a dinner uh we got a shower

once a week um because our water supply issues were yeah not not the most ideal um but we were like i said we were always so mad at those shit up pilots like oh you freaking weenies don't you don't want to come here you guys aren't hard and say other things than weenies if you i'm trying to be nice brandon use a nice word i don't feel like i'm in any place to call them anything but like well back in the day there was a website called uh poopcenter.com was a website called poopcenter.com. So we got on poopcenter.com, and we sent them elephant dung. Oh, shit.

Yeah. Because they're like, you guys, you're not bringing us supplies. So we thought, hey, what better thing? Now we fast forward, and Brad Larson gets direct selected by, I believe it was McChrystal to go OCS. And Brad ended up being a chinook pilot and so once he graduated chinook school went on his first afghan deployment uh flying helicopters i got to ask him like come on dude tell me the truth you're at cop kidding were those guys little bitches and he's like i went through cop kidding and i'd tell you guys to go off i would not fly a chinook into that valley he's like those guys were-ass to even show up the times they did to resupply

us. Cause what is your sea level? Like we were at, now you got me thinking, I think we were like at 9,000 feet. Jesus. And you're talking like for the people that do not know this, like helicopters,

they're not like planes where they can just kind of, you're looking at less air movement they become unstable as fuck it's the old saying it's like engineers hate helicopters because like okay planes use the air helicopters beat it into submission it's like that it makes no sense like it theoretically helicopters should not work but somehow they do and everybody's too afraid to ask questions as to why. Ever feel like your WordPress site is moving in slow motion? Switch to Kinsta's managed hosting for WordPress and watch it fly. Host your site on Google Cloud's fastest servers with worldwide data centers

so your pages load instantly. Need help? WordPress experts respond in under two minutes and will migrate to your site for free. Try it yourself first month free at kinsta.com that's k-i-n-s-t-a.com kinsta simply better hosting it's a gas air like all those little things even think when you're a two-stroke engine when you're like dialing in like how much air is taking in to not run too rich or anything. All that goes into account.

Just the engine. And then the blades have, don't have enough air density to push the, to keep the lift. And then with, like I said, with that Valley and those two rivers, like any sort of wind gust that would knock them left or right.

They're putting their blades into the side of a mountain. And also think anyone will say you do not, if you're camping overnight or anything in the wilderness, and does not camp in the valley because that's the coldest. That's where air travels through. That is the issue for everything. So helicopter, the least favorite place is right there at 9,000 feet of elevation and trying to fight that and deliver one warm mill yeah yeah that was like i said wait and in hindsight like it was so amazing to see what they did at the time it was like fuck you guys you're getting elephant dung so they're they're doing

they're dealing with that you're dealing with that and then're dealing with that. And then you're like, okay, well, here we are looking up at this beautiful countryside. They were beautiful mountains. I mean, if Afghanistan could ever get their shit together, that would be some of the best whitewater rafting, the best snowboarding. Like, those mountains still to this day are one of my favorite kind of memories to look at those mountains and think think about them mr mr you'll be fine go down right right after mr well we did we might have had an incident where one of the local villagers were uh bathing their kids and they lost it in the river and all we could do is just call down to faubostik 30 kilometers away and it's like hey if you find a baby floating through they bait wait

they were bathing and come you know the big water rush time like you might accidentally if you lose yes and that well that was part of larson's plan when they were stuck at that humvee and they thought all of us were dead their whole plan was they were hoping for night to hit and they were going to try to sneak to the river and just float back to Fobostik. No shit. Yeah. So leading up to, like, everything, you were getting popped off, like, once a day? Yeah, about once a day.

And like I said, every day was a little bit different, but typically it would be about 6 o'clock in the morning. We ended up calling that kind of our Taliban alarm clock. Some days it would just be a couple of rounds of ak fire just like brands like that terms for everything and it's a great phrase yeah and then called something else over there and then i mean some sometimes they'd hit you with a little sporadic ak fire on the east and then all of a sudden rpgs mortars b10 hitting you on the west like every day was something not every day was too intense but it could be and in fact we found out right away it was actually better to be outside the wire on the patrol than it was to be down in the in the outpost we only took two engagements direct fire engagements outside of the wire the three months

we were there. They didn't want to fuck with us if we were actually out on patrol moving around and stuff. So we always loved being on patrol week because then you could kind of set the tempo and try to go after them. But yet when you're only sitting there with 18 guys, we were very limited on how far they would let us patrol. And it was everything was straight up up to fricking mountainside. So even though like the, the, the village of Camdesh as a crow flew on the map was like a kilometer and a half to actually navigate the terrain ended up being almost nine kilometers. because uh there was one time they went after uh son kirk and um gallegos and then went after that b10 recoilless rifle they kept pounding us with and of course i'm a seasoned staff sergeant i know better i've got a mark 19 position that i'd set up to help support them and i'm like

i'll sit here on this and you boys go you guys are still clear so i gotta ask you because i ask everybody who's ever operated one did you love or hate the mark 19 it was always a love hate relationship over in every time you just had to you just had to know how to treat her and then when you didn't, she let you know. You never knew what it was going to be like. Like my bitch ex-wife.

Dumb. Thank you, Catherine. If I ever buy a Mark 19, that's what I'm going to engrave on it. Bitch ex-wife. That's interesting because I've never had anybody who's ever said like it was okay they always say they either love it or they hate it yep i'll depend it on the day i know you can shoot 64 consecutive rounds out of it before you get yelled at that's that's the real that's a very short reel

i know this much wisdom from clint rummage 2024 that's fucking funny just like it reminds me that's the sort of wisdom like the the ron white bit of uh like i know i've learned two things in my career one you can't unf the babysitter and two anything's a dui checkpoint when you crash your car into it that's solid life advice. Oh, I'm having so much fun right now. Just peak. So you're looking around. You're like, okay, here's all this shit.

And again, what was the elevation change from your point to the top of the mountain size? Just for reference for the people up there. Because this is insane i mean there was there was part of the mountain where you could look at and trees were no longer growing you hit the the tree growth line you're like two thousand like three thousand feet like true i thought tree growth was like a what was it sixteen thousand or so five thousand feet you're looking at elevation you cannot you're like oh this can look down at us well and sometimes it would be a little ambitious when we first got there and like oh we'll go to the top oh we can see the top right there and four hours later you're like i'm not even halfway to that but now that i can, that is not even the top. That is not even halfway to the top of the top.

Like, they just went forever. And in fact, when they're doing some Overwatch stuff, we have the spot and scope out. And we're looking where the trees aren't growing. And there was a family that was raising goats up there. It's like, how do you raise goats? There's no vegetation. How the hell do you get water up there? I bet they hadn't seen human contact in a generation. Imagine that.

I was watching a classic film last night about warfare, Lord of the Rings. True warfare. There's a lot of mountains, like large mountains in that. I mean, literally, what? They were at Helm's Deep? Helm's Deep was in a shittier bowl? And then it was drawers on every side?

They're in Helm's Deeper. Helm's Deeper. Oh, no. Helm's Deeper. Dude, Helm's Deeper. The Battle of Helm's Deeper Dude Helms Deeper The Battle of Helms Deeper Well that's on Wikipedia now Those Uruk-hai are everywhere

It'll be in your Wikipedia Shooting the Mark 19 You fucking Uruk-hai You dirty fucking Uruk-hai The sand Uruk-ik are really strong. I told you you'd have fun. Not that I do sit-ups, but I'm definitely not going to have to do sit-ups after this. Oh, my God.

Well, that's the, what, 43rd slur we've invented on the podcast. Sand Uruk-hai. We're alarmingly good at that. That's a great new shirt it's a picture of a Tuscan Raider with an AK Clint's like I don't know if I regret this Clint's like I was on Fox News yesterday. Oh, my God. I love this so much.

Right back at home, right? Right back at home. All right. Not to press on the MOH thing too much. I had one serious question for you. I didn't get to ask it to you last time we were together so eli he has a purple heart he gets his little gay ass parking space right all right what do you what benefits do you get with moh um it it's state to state like i know here uh in texas like you can get a license plate um but it's your number is based off what recipient you are in the state of

Texas. Really? Yeah. What's yours? I have no, I don't live in Texas. I don't know. Damn it. Yeah.

So I can't remember. If it's 69, you need to move. Yeah. I would do it. I do it just to register and then leave. Thank you. Be hanging on the wall afterwards. So, well, we get invited to inaugurations.

So that's a, well, the last time wasn't a cool perk, but this time it's going to be. This is going to be pretty rad. This time it's going to be this is going to be pretty rad do you get a plus three? he's my service support Eli he clearly is wearing a vest that says don't pet

he's working my service you get a priority on space available flights but it's another i guess perk i guess thanks delta spirit would you always like you know if there's space you get first class no no no i mean for like uh military flights we're all jumping aboard on those ones. And then other than that, you get you get

TRICARE for life. So you get retirement. The bare minimum medical care. You got to pay for your own dental invention. Wait, for real? It's just like being retired. Retired insurance.

Get the fuck out of here. You have janky-ass teeth. You just save the world. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. And they slide it out. Out the tail over. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Start taking the teeth back. Okay.

Yeah, and if this is the best country on the planet, I can't imagine how bad the rest are man i always make that joke where i'm like man i just know all the gripes and the failed logistics of the american military and all the things that we just suck at imagine having to rely on the Indian military. Jesus. No. S. S. One.

Customer support. Sorry, sir. We lost your lead form. I need fire on this grid coordinate. Sir, yelling at me is not going to make this going faster. You get a medal for calling it service. I need an 810 on the... Hello, my name is John with 810. I'll call for fire for five hours.

Jesus. Do not redeem. Why do you hit? Didn't see this podcast going this direction, man, if I'm being perfectly honest. Oh, I kind of want to go in bed with the Indian Army and I want to get on a radio. They're asking you for help and you're like, oh, like oh uno reverse try turning it off and i'm gone again have you unplugged it

oh so perks yeah all the perks. Flights and shit. College. Jesus Christ. So a lot of it's actually driven from the states, depending on what state you live in. Kind of depends on what kind of additional benefits you get. Honestly, so that's one of the weird things. When you meet someone that has no clue what the Medal of Honor is, the first thing they come back with is, oh, is that like a Purple Heart? Kind of.

That's what you reply with. It's a little different. But I mean that a lot of the benefits that it's given out either by the federal government or the states are all kind of tied to the Purple Heart stuff. So I can see definitely the confusion on, I mean, it's such a rare award. And, you know, we go out and we talk about ourselves all the time and totally brag about. I got to burp.

Bless you. Oh, that's got some hang time. So like we just whipped it away real quick. So we don't do a good job of really kind of explaining to the average, I think, civilian that doesn't have kind of a direct connection to the military of what really the Medal of Honor is. They've got this idea, but since I said everything they think about is, you know, Purple Heart or Navy SEALs or,ALs or Green Berets, stuff like that. It's hard for the average, I think, civilian sometimes to wrap their head around what the Medal of Honor truly is. As you look at the numbers, and I'm giving general numbers here. Don't go off Clint's actual thinking ability and statistical points, I think there's been about 26 million that have worn the uniform of the U.S.

Out of the 26 million, it's what, 30, just under 3,600 have received the medal. 3,600. And out of that, 60% have been awarded it posthumously. Yeah. So it's such a-

You're looking at 40% that's alive. 36. And right now, I think we've got- 1,400 living. Like, that were issued. From Civil War till now that ever lived. In the last 200 years. Yeah.

You've had 1,440 people actually alive receive that. To put that in perspective of how rare that is. Again, out of how many? 30 million, you were saying? 26 million? Yeah, it was like 26, 28 million, I think. You were saying that the Medal of Honor was first created in the Civil War? Yes.

It came out of the Civil War after the Andrew Raiders. They stole a locomotive from the south, ran it up north, destroying the rail lines. Was that the great locomotive chase? Yeah. Okay. And that was, I want to say, I think the Navy was the first awarded or developed it. Then the Army came. Because each branch of service has their own. I did not know that. Yep.

Still to this day. Yep. So each, each of the three brain or not three branches, but the army army Marines and Navy have their own and their designs are, are a little different. Of course, Navy Marine Coast Guard fall under that um air force now i

think can incorporate the space force and then the army's had theirs um i would love to see what kind of shit you got to do to get a medal of honor in the space force oh that's gonna be rad you an alien you're ripley yeah exactly oh wait the alien fucks you oh i think you downloaded the wrong alien movie damn it not again again no i know the navy's medal of honor is a giant penis so other than that i don't know what the other branches would be i'm actually i'm learning a lot uh i didn't know that about uh each branch their own Medal of Honor. It would help me learn it a lot better though if you put this into a concise PowerPoint

projected in the back. I would really absorb that information a lot more. If we could just get our PowerPoint behind a C-line. We could all learn everything. We're going to charge a lot of money for that. Overcharge for that Next slide Overcharge There's lots of money dumped into that Okay

So we'll get so much viewership once we turn to power slides This is what I don't know Where was that going You don't want to know what the internal monologue was saying. Oh, I would love to. Moving on. The audience out there would also love that.

Just thinking of a Tuscan raider with an AK. The sand people. Those fucking sand Yurikai. That's so harsh. My thing is, anything can be a slur if you put you f***ing in front of it I'm just saying oh god that Tosh skit

oh yeah oh my god you fucking spoon faces who's saying that to me he's just making up slurs and he's got like a panel who finds this up raise your hand if you find this offensive made-up slurs dirty the sand you're a guy anybody find offensive raise the hands sand uruk-hai. Anybody find that offensive? Raise a hand. Spoon face does sound very rich.

Hands, hands. Show me those hands. Not you, Anakin. Hand. Jesus Christ. I never knew. I'm like like where do we go i was like i put it back on the story passes like here we've had our nice fun breaks it's always funny seeing the graph of like where a conversation goes and unsubscribed it's like where you think it's going where it goes

it's my favorite quote i think from his book he's like advantages of having uh Michael J. Fox draw that line? It's my favorite quote, I think, from his book. He's like, advantages of having Parkinson's. He's like, I don't have to buy an electric toothbrush. He's like, I just put toothpaste on the motherfucker and let it go. Gotta look at the positive. Always look on the bright side of life you know oh he's living his best life fuck okay we'll go back on to wait okay i know you um like how we can you kind of talked about it you're telling a story you've told many times you've gave

a different accounts of it even here like hey at the end of it this is my buddies this is where they were placed and then you because your actions throughout that is going into a leadership position you were how much of a leadership role were you before that event? So I had been the senior scout in that scout platoon and section sergeant for four years. I was not an overachiever. I'm fine here, brother. They would ask you to, like, you want to go up? Well, and so that day I was the acting platoon sergeant because our platoon sergeant had already rotated back on mid-tour leave. No shit. Oh, wow.

Okay, for people in the military that deployed, that is fucking wild to have that happen during mid-tour leave for a NCO in that position. And well, the, the double entendre of that, I hope I'm using that correctly was my Lieutenant dropped out of high school. My Lieutenant was the on the scene commander that day because our troop commander, Stoney Portis got taken away the night before. And he was a brand new Lieutenant first time over overseas. He ended up being the on-the-scene commander. So for anyone out there, this is a mad Cody for you guys here. Imagine.

Fuck, how do I put this in terms? What the fuck? You put in the backup quarterback. It's like if we had Shane Gillis on the podcast and none of the core hosts were here. Yeah, almost. I mean, yeah, you're having these individuals that have... You're stepping up. We've been here forever.

We have Chase. Actually, good example. Chase is just editing for a day. He comes to the podcast. We're like, hey, we're tapping out. And then all of a sudden it's like, we need a podcast done. And then also we just hired a brand new person that no one's ever heard of. And then they also have to then step into a leadership position and be like, uh, hi, hello. You all have to record a podcast. This is your manager stepping away for two weeks.

It's a preconceived two weeks, but then a new manager that is secondary is stepping up also at the same time that you just met that day. That is how that works. It is brand new bosses are in this role. One, you kind of know. You being that one. But it is somebody not meant for that to stand up and be like hey now you're in control of everyone plus this new dude is also standing up in control of everyone your analogy makes me angry it should this is i mean it is i don't it's probably because i did

it bad but also it's new people just standing up no i'm talking about the analogy in general makes me angry that you didn't explain that better to me because I'm a retard. He's just... No, I understand. He's just mad you're talking. I know. I would be too. He's like, you f***ing d***. You only stop. I got hit with a beer. No, that's... Brandon and the Browns

are talking again. Jesus Christ, dude. I'm surrounded by f***ing d*** again. Why do they talk so You wonder why I don't talk All these fucking brown people I can speak English God damn it

You can speak American that'd be really cool Guess who's in office now Gonna load you up in that Trebuchet over the wall. You deborahed me and Brandon. I'm like, T-minus two months, you fucking brah-y. I'm so happy.

Anyways, officers suck no matter what branch they're in. That's a synopsisis it is putting people in charge there's like one kind of nose but it's not to that level and the other is a brand new guy that's just like thrown into the they just they just fucked off and left you they don't have a chance it's it's it's actually man no it's yeah it's not um like i said it's one of those things when things go bad, it's not just because one or two things happen. It's a multitude of things. And Butterman, who was my lieutenant, so he was a senior officer for us on combat outpost Keating at the time. And because we had leave and stuff and guys rotating through, it's just the way it happened to be.

And the day before stony portis our new commander had just gotten there he was taking over the the the troop he was doing sensitive item inventories goes up to uh op fritchie helicopter gets shot at they won't bring him back to us he calls up bunderman the night before and he's like hey you've got you've got the outpost until i get back in about a day or so. And then 06 o'clock in the morning, the next day, that's when Bunderman all of a sudden is, he's the commander. Like I said, he had been in for, well, we had the advantage that we worked together in that train up going to Afghanistan for almost a year, which was pretty rare to have an officer that long, especially in a platoon leader position.

But, you know, it's one of those things you just don't think you're going to be that guy until you're that guy, and Bunderman ended up being our guy. And I'll tell you to this day, I wouldn't have anybody else in that tactical operations center besides him. I mean, it came to the point at one time, I remember going in, and he's sitting there, and he's got this book. He's reading this book, and of course, I'm like, Hey, sir, what the fuck are you doing reading a book? We're kind of getting shot at right now, you dumb lieutenant. And as he looks up, I can see he's reading the Army's call for fire manual.

And he's like, Hey, I'm about to start bringing 500 pounders, a hundred meters away from our position. There's like a good 90% chance because of sitting in that, that bowl, it'll probably land on us. And I just remember looking at it and I'm like, I'd rather it be, uh, our bombs and theirs. And he's like, okay. And he started, him and Schroed started calling in 500 pounders, dropping them 100 meters away. Because they also knew that the Taliban was trying to get in tight on us. And typically coalition forces wouldn't call for artillery or indirect fire on yourself. But because of them doing that, it gave us just enough breathing room they couldn't continue to kind of tighten that noose around us and it was at risk versus reward and i know

like what a freaking what a pair of balls you got to do to do something like that and and bunnerman had those balls big brass ones that bang them together in stormy weather and make that sound that is again that is a good and it's a butter bar at that time or no he's been promoted to uh first lieutenant by then first lieutenant so in in the military for a year so this is for reference you have been in college for four years and then you are in service one year and now you are doing that kind of level of call where you're like hey you're when your ncos are telling you it's like what the fuck are you doing because a lot of officers even captains you're listening to your nco you're listening to your higher enlisted and you're like hey like uh what should

i do right now and for him to be like i'm calling for fire and for j j dams i'm assuming yeah yeah on my foot in a hundred at a hundred yards yeah yep is wild those we've talked about in the podcast like we'd be in the strikers like call for fire we'd call j dams in to drop bombs on like bridges or or houses and we'd all stand up like 500 yards away but oh wow feel that yeah yeah and you guys are like yo don't worry you don't have to look it's gonna you're gonna see wherever this bitch lands so he he was so ballsy that he might have because that you know we'd gotten our radios taken out uh they knocked knocked out our generators, so our FM comms didn't exist anymore. So we were talking most of the day on TACSAT.

And, of course, anybody in the world that's tuned into TACSAT can listen in. And, in fact, a lot of our former buddies and rear detachment guys back at Fort Carson were hearing all the radio transmissions live and in real time back at Fort Carson. Because the only link we had for help was on the Afghanistan's tactical satellite frequency. No shit. Yeah. So Bunderman's talking on that. And he might have said, allegedly, shake and bake the village of Arnul. And he brought in a B-1 bomber.

As we discovered that Larson and Carter were still alive with Mace, he brought in a B-1 bomber to give some bomb support and coverage as they grabbed Mace to bring him back to the aid station with a B-1 that went winchester 800 meters away from our position and i think a b1 the bone carries like 26 000 pounds of munition they just dumped it they just dumped it on that village and and i'm gonna caveat that village was cleared out the taliban had kicked all the civilians out of there, taken that town over that morning. There were no civilians in that village.

It was all enemy, but he dropped literally 26,000 pounds of bombs in the village of Armul to give Larson and Carter that freedom of maneuver to get Mace back to the aid station. Because you got a call saying like hey because you thought you lost both like two individuals and then you got a call it's like hey we have them still and you're like what the fuck yeah we'd been cut off like i said things went from bad to worse and at that point when we started the counter-assault we'd been cut off from larson gallegos and that those guys out to the west

for like six seven hours at that point thought they were all gone thought the enemy had had either taken their bodies or you know the worst was happening um and as we pushed up got to the ammo supply point kicked the enemy off that um opened that up to feed everybody else ammo and then got up to the uh front gate area we're sitting there kind of in a holding pattern waiting to make our next push um when we get the call thinking that larson who i'd served with on my second iraq deployment like i said me and him were i mean boys actually i just seen him last week in omaha uh what's up bro actually i'm gonna i'm gonna give a highlight story uh so that was october 3rd larson just had his youngest son um solomon

october 3rd of this year nice to tie back in you know great things still happen coming into the future so when he gets a look at october 3rd now he gets to look at his son solomon and think look at look at the great things that are happening um but to caveat back thought larson had long been dead i said love that brother to death thought he was just over and done with hadn't heard from him in hours and hours and hours and then i get the call on the radio bunderman's like you won't believe this but larson and hours and hours. And then I get the call on the radio. Bunderman's like, you won't believe this, but Larson and Carter are still alive. Mace is badly wounded. If you can provide covering fire to the north,

I'm going to bring in a B-1 bomber to the village of Barmul to the west. And as soon as the bombs, as soon as you hear the bombs drop when they call a shot over the radio, push out, provide covering fire to the north, and they'll bring Mace back. And sure as shit, we hear a shot over, waiting for splash. We push out, start engaging off to the north, and bombs start hitting.

I mean, it was like being the in the freaking bass drum at a metallica concert like it was lifting all those bombs hit and was just lifting that rooftop off that building we were trying to take take us kind of some cover and then larson and carter come running through with mace on a stretcher larson gets back to the aid station calls me up a few minutes later and he's like hey medics have checked me out they say i'm good to go where you're at and what do you need i said this is what am i i just i remember this moment so vividly after i said all the other stuff that's gone on is larson calling me up and saying hey where you at what do you need and i'm like it's been a long day i'm kind of thirsty and I haven't had a cigarette yet. And like five minutes later, here comes fucking Larson with a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper under one arm and a carton of Camelites.

And he shows up, and we give each other just a big-ass hug, open up the Dr. Peppers, crack one of those, start drinking, spark up a smoke. And it was like, like okay this is going to be we're going to make it out of there um like that moment just sitting there in that sure building i mean there's still shit going on it's just like it's just gonna be all right i don't think people understand like the average person understands the level of ordinance you're talking about 26 000 pounds of bombs for one but the other that i'm still hung up on is you're talking about dropping a 500 pounder of high explosives a football field away from you yeah that's insane to me like that's that is there's danger close and then there's whatever the fuck that is yeah well

so danger close i mean is you think about it for every pound of explosive you want a yard of distance that's kind of the rule of thumb so you're well beyond danger close you are well beyond danger close holy shit these are like that's like eat an avocado at the end of the day distance like it's a very distinct taste yeah i just like it is so military in that midst of everything you're just like oh man it's dr pepper and it's just a lot of smoke dope dog that cherry just burning bright and you don't give a smoke. Dope dog. That cherry?

Just burning bright and you don't give a f***. It's the middle of the day. Snipers can see me. I don't think I don't give a f***. They haven't hit me yet. This lung cancer is going to get me. Same mindset across everything. When you're in that situation like i

don't give a this shit it's like oh this sucks so bad they're gonna have to drag my body back i'm too tired to walk to shoot me right now holy fuck dude that is i mean and then is, how long was that actual full engagement for everything to be done before they were like, hey? Because they were inside the camp at this point. They were inside basically within the first hour. They are inside the cob at this point. That's what's crazy is it's not like they're pushing in. They are already inside

having these battles inside the cob and you're how big is the cob in total you're talking the whole cop was um east to west was the longest uh maybe about 200 meters and then north to south was maybe about 125 to 150 meters so not a very big not a very big space and they're already inside the wire at that and like i said within that first hour they'd breached with by kind of that two hours they had started burning down most of the buildings we only owned red platoon barracks the tactical operation center and the uh aid station for most of the day you said it was like 30 or 40 percent was under your control the rest was yep under enemy enemy control they cut us off from uh like i said the the mortar position out to the the west we had

we'd lost contact with sergeant brading and his guys out there cut us off from Gallegos, breached that whole front gate. And then toward the east was where we had about 35 Afghan army guys. And that was kind of their side of the base. First contact, most of those guys just dropped their weapons and walked away. So left that whole east. And that's where the first breach came through, was the whole eastern side. They just walked on through because there was no one there to defend it other than we had Kopis, who was one of our young specialists. He ended up being the only gun left in the fight that day on a Mark 19, holding off that whole eastern side of the camp. Damn. eastern side of the camp damn um he sat in that humvee for 14 15 hours and most of the time by himself just because we couldn't really put normally would put someone kind of out there

by him to help provide like um some covering fire when he was reloading but in the position you had to normally kind of you could get away with putting them in was so triangulated and surrounded anybody outside of that up armored humvee was going to get blasted um copas at least had the advantage of and i use that term loosely advantage of being in that up armored humvee set down low enough they just couldn't quite shoot over the kind of side rails of the turret to to kind of finish him off if they they had the chance um and like i said he sat there for 14 hours lost radio comms three or four times he thought he was the only person still alive on the outpost for a few hours and jesus but and i like i said no one would ever blamed him for being like, well, fuck you guys. I'm going home. Let me, let me sneak back to go find someone else still alive or someone to talk to me or anything.

He's, he literally sat there just slinging rounds. Yeah. All day. God, just, just like, let me load this bitch again. She's being a dirty whore today. Tong, tong, tong, tong. Tong, tong, tong, tong. I haven't made it to the 64 round mark where they yell at me. 63, I'm good.

That fourth one, that comes with the yelling. That's the son of a bitch. I don't want to get in trouble now. Holy shit. And then at what point, because you also took a it was the rpg shrapnel or what hit you and then it was in your arm i do yeah the right side so we um it came to a point like i said things were going from bad to worse um still had contact with gallegos and larson and them out toward the west on that lraz2 they'd already larson had already gotten the 50 cal blown out of his hands um by an rpg um no longer operable the 240 that was out

there that supported two had long ran out of ammo and basically those five guys were just in that holding on so myself and uh specialist gregory had a machine gun um uh mark 48 and we were able to sneak sneak over and look out toward the west and we only had about 200 rounds because like i said we'd already been cut off in the ammo supply point this was kind of the last of the ammo we had left for that gun and threw that up on the like the 60k generator and had guy uh had a gregory feeding the gun for me and i remember just looking out and this is like this is probably like the first 30 to 45 minutes into the fight at this point and looking out toward the west and i mean you you could just see, they're like ants coming down the hill. I mean, every direction you're looking, there's... It's a rat guy. Yuck.

They don't run fast. They weren't sending the best. They're shitting at our pod racers little nanny great guy sorry i feel like that needed a little levity so open up and like coming coming like ants down the hill and it's just going from target to target to target um just there was there's so much going on it's like i'll just start aiming that way and gonna hit something um and that time i'm sitting there and trying to call guy

abeos and them still got fm comms and it's like hey you guys need to move you can move move now providing covering fire and guy goes to just coming back and he's like brother you can't bring enough fire like we need close air support we need mortar rounds We need more than just one machine gun. If just for reference, sorry to interrupt, but if like, what's the rough, like the, the, the count of enemies at that point? Like how many, how many dudes are you guys going up against versus yourself at that point? I mean, the ratio, I guess it would have have been, just thinking of the targets, I mean, there had to have been over 50 on that west side going against our one machine gun, but they got the high ground, they got cover. I know after everything was all said and done,

they said it was probably about 400 fighters that hit us that day. And then what was your total capacity on the base uh we were sitting at 50 americans and two latvians that's what's insane you have like that many and it's not this is this is firearms and people that are used to fighting in that terrain well and i and I mean, those guys, they're, those weren't like, you're just, Hey, let me grab an AK and show up today and squatters. They're not squatters. Yeah, they are.

They're sitting there and they're fixing you and you can see them try to flank your left. They're flank because that's what ended up happening is we're engaging out toward the West, trying to get Gallegos and them to move. Didn't realize that they'd breached that front gate just off to our right. And they snuck in an RPG, them to move didn't realize that they'd breached that front gate just off to our right and they snuck in an rpg uh rpg team just to our right maybe 30 yards away holy shit um and luckily that rpg was made on a friday or something at the end of work

because they touch it off and it it comes in just a little low and the generator takes most of the blast. So blows me over onto Gregory. We kind of fall down. Remember grabbing him, kind of picking him up, dusting him off. Hey, are you good? You know, he can still move and stuff. And told him just take off, run it, bud. And I grabbed the machine gun, threw it back up on what was left of the generator,

took care of the problem to the north out by the front gate. He takes off. I throw in the last 100 rounds we got. I just remember calling back to Gregory, and I'm like, brother, you guys have got to move, and you've got to move now. I cannot hold this position. I'm almost out of ammo, and I'm sitting there just trying to lay it down as hard as i can and and guy he goes just call it back and he's like brother we can't go anywhere they got us pinned too hard i mean they were just getting pounded from every

which way like i said i just remember his last little little bit of ammo comes through that feed tray cover and give him the last call it's like if you don't leave now if you don't move now you've got to move now and he just calls back and he just gives a simple well be here when you get here brother like he just kind of knew that that was going to be what it was and it was just shitty because it's like man these roles were reversed i knew this this mother was coming to get me and i just felt like i abandoned him at that point because it's like i always had a good mindset of you know i used to tell my guys like dead bodies attract more dead bodies i don't want you coming out and try to save someone kill the enemy first because if you don't kill them and eliminate the threat if you go out there in

a blaze of glory well let me go help my buddy that's down you're just going to eliminate the threat. If you go out there in a blaze of glory, oh, let me go help my buddy that's down. You're just going to be the next guy down. So kill the enemy first. As much as it sucks to sit there and listen to your buddy say, hey, help me, come save me, it makes no tactical sense to do that until you've eliminated the threat. And at that point, I knew I wasn't going to go run across 200 meters to go or 150 meters to go find Gallegos and try to drag them back. It was just like, I don't have a machine gun anymore.

My position's compromised, and I'm going to go displace back and figure something else out. But just to hear him say, we'll be here when you get know, gave me that reassurance that he knew I would eventually, if I could still do it, come back to get him. That's the hard part of leadership. It is. It's that making the right call because you have to say it is. It is the hardest part of leadership is that single moment where, thank God, a lot of people do not have to go through it is the hard choice.

It's like, hey, you want to, no matter what. It's like, hey, I want to do this. It's just strategically the worst option. And that's where you have to bite that bullet and live with it. But understand it is the right choice at the end of the day. As I used to say, there's no right choices sometimes but even a bad choice is a better better than no choice like to make no decision to make no kind of decisive movement will get you killed every time or at least a bad choice or a bad decision you can

hopefully learn from that but at least you're doing something to make a difference. And I mean, Butterman, again, going back to him, when he had to make that call of Alamo position, he knew he was going to be isolating like nine guys. When he made that call, it's like anybody that can hear this, you get back to these three buildings and we'll hold these. But if you don't get back, I'm sorry, we can can't send anybody out we're literally cutting off the mortar position we're cutting off oh we're as to like you've got to get back and if he wouldn't have made that call and i know that that weighs heavily like you said on a leader to sit there and be like do i continue to try to try to fight this kind of broken shamble of stuff or do i make that

call to say hey if you can make it back you make it back if you don't you don't but at least the guys i get back i can figure out where to go with them next where the right call is still objectively shitty yeah i mean yeah there's no there's no right call but you got to make a call yeah there's the hardest part in any of that stuff. And being able to do that, even for him. Like, that means he was in for a year at that point? You were in six years? No, I was in.

Oh, you were a decade at that point. Yeah, I was the old guy. I was a whole 28 years old back then. Which is wild, making those decisions at that age. Yeah, Bunderman, he had been in headquarters troop before coming to us. So he did have a little more time than the average lieutenant did. But, I mean, yeah, he'd probably only been in it maybe three years from the time he got done with ROTC to Bullock and all his officer training stuff. I mean,

three years to make those kinds of decisions. It's a lot. And then not, especially officer side, you don't know what you're getting attached to. You're just thrown to the winds of the military. And then was he, did he even have his Ranger tab yet?

Perhaps or no. Butterman was not a i love that guy to death but you're like my homeboy made some right choices ranger school was not one of the ones he was gonna make he was one of the greatest lieutenants i ever had because when he showed up he showed up and he's like i got a history i've got a a major in history um i like to party and have fun if you guys don't make me look like an asshole i'll make sure all the paperwork's taken care of a good officer right there great officer right there like he was not going to be the next general patent or he came in for to do his time, to get his college paid for, and then move on. That's wild.

And then closing that up, how bad was your personal wound? Because you took shrapnel from the RPG, and then you were still fighting with that afterwards, and just like, hey, next time. It was just kind of a peppering on the right side. The major thing was just kind of a hole in on the right side um the major thing was just kind of a hole in the forearm i wasn't a through and through it just kind of was there um that was that was shrapnel yeah okay shrapnel from the rpg and then of course just a lingering of they

still come out every now and again in the shower it's like what the hell is this it's a little you know yeah sorry it's funny what's up it's funny i crispy all the dudes it's like they like if they've been blown up by an id or something it is like oh yeah it's still it slowly pops out and you're like fuck as more time has gone on less has came out and it's like oh i'm glad most of that generator cowling though was freaking aluminum because that's don ferris and it doesn't oh i'm glad most of that generator cowling though was freaking aluminum because that's non-ferrous and it doesn't detect in a metal detector but yeah you just get stopped by tsa like look it is a long story so you just fought on right after that you're like okay slight pad up and then push it through.

Well, when I came back, like I said, finished up that 100 rounds last we had, and I started displacing back to the barracks. And that's where my other buddy Raz, like this 6'5 Minnesotan, he's kind of standing there kind of by the 6'5". Jesus. He's a big fucker. That's why I would put him as number one guy on the stack team. So he could absorb all the bullets.

These are the tactics. These are the tactics. He was the one that when I came down, um, displacing back, sitting there just trying to get a quick sit rep. And he's like, looks down at me and he's like, you got a hole in your arm, dude.

And I look and I'm like, oh, shit. So then he pulls out my Israeli dressing, stops the bleeding, gets it all wrapped up. And then we fast forward. It's like an hour or two later. And I'm sitting there in the tactical operations center center still trying to figure out what's going on next and all of a sudden I can't feel my hand anymore so I'm sitting there trying to manipulate my fingers to get them working again and uh first sergeant Burton comes over and he's like hey are you all right I'm like I don't know my fucking I don't think my hand's working anymore

and he goes let me look at it and he pulls my hand to the side and he starts unwrapping my israeli dressing and he goes who the fuck put this on you i'm like well raz did he's like he knows this is a dressing not a tourniquet he'd put it on so tight that i was losing the use of my hand because of circulation not because of the injury he's looking at thank god it's all aluminum otherwise Otherwise, the MRI would be real awkward. You make him do push-ups. No. Smoke the shit out of him.

How many times have we... Did you put two feet on that as you're tugging it? Oh, that feels way better. Thank God it's my right arm that i use for everything we call that the finisher the left is a sustainer you've unlocked the mysterious stranger perk oh holy shit uh this is where i want to transition to uh you you actually brought this you actually introduced it by throwing it brandon before you even shook his hand hell of an introduction by the way that's pleasure to

meet you um would you would you get tossed at brandon i don't know it just came at me so fast i uh no it's like a legitimate uh well a replica so you get two right yeah we'll go into that after because yeah you you get the what is the real one what what occasions would you use that just like if you're actually in a formal event or uh no um so the original one's the one that the president gives you and then you get the the duplicate as a backup right for me my original i donated it back to fourth id so it's setting at fourth id uh division headquarters oh shit that's why i rocked the duplicate because i don't i don't have the original anymore

if you could send that to the unsubscribed podcast we put it back there now it's ours that little guy don't worry about it that's Brandon fuck off that's actually really cool

I didn't know what the protocol was like what what people did with it yeah that's like i said you only get you only get issued a total of two um and like i said the the first one that's issued has your your name your rank your uh location of action and then the date it was issued um and that's the one that i keep hitting this damn microphone um that's the one the uh president actually puts around you and then the duke gets as a backup are you able to buy more duplicates later like if you lost it you can get more ribbons um but the actual award itself no got it no shit like you're bad at you um now I feel really good that I caught it.

He was surprised he caught it. He's like, wow, you caught it. But they do have an FBI task force, though, if it gets lost or stolen. That will go trackable. No shit. Yep. What? Nope.

No shit. So if you're mad at someone, you'll just leave it in their car? Just leave it in their car? It's not an Apple AirTag. Well, it is. It's not a fucking Apple AirTag. Well, it is. It's not. So last year that might have happened where I'd met a National Guard first sergeant. We were at the Masters, and we'd met after going to the Masters,

having a great time, hanging out, and I decided to drop it into his gift bag, thinking he was coming back to where we were having this after-party out. I didn't realize he was driving 45 minutes in a different direction. I love how much you don't give a fuck. Where we might have had to call him and was like, hey, I can't remember the kid's name i'm i'm so terrible space and i'm like hey where's first our night i thought he was gonna be here like oh no he had to go back home at the i was like oh well he might have my medal of honor in

his gift bag so needless to say he had to drive two hours out of his way. Asshole. No first person is going to question you. Hey, where's your gift bag? That's even the better part. No first person. You call. It's going to be like, you shitbag. They'll be like, whoo, whoo, big. Whoo, Clint.

It'll be like, mother fucker. Where's your gift bag? Oh, I threw it away, man. Why? Why are you asking? I don't know. Left it a, man. Why are you asking? I don't know. Left it a while ago. Needless to say, we didn't have to call the FBI on that one.

That's wild. You could have, though. Yeah. Self-inflicted. This man stole it. This man. He was a real... Holy shit. He was stolen, Valor. this man stole holy shit he was stolen Valor he wasn't one of those force Valor guys

fuck fuck those guys man he was stolen I wanted him for a true American hero he did literally for a period of two hours, steal Valor. Well, is it really stealing if it's unbeknownst? Then it's forced. No.

He got you. Yeah. He got you. And that's why. Forced Valor once again. I just like, you're like, i got this motherfucker and you dropped it and they're like yo where's that dude at it's like where's first arnett and they're like oh you went back home where does he live oh like an hour north of augusta it's like oh

we're not even close to there we're south hey bro now one of my favorite things is you bring it everywhere wadded up in your pocket it has gone to the wash more times than it should have i love it you guys wonder why i love this man it's moments like that ever since i've met you you've just like you've been who you are, which is an amazing human. And you brought it today. You tossed it to Brandon. Brandon caught it.

Thank God. Yeah, I would have felt like the biggest asshole in the world, which I'm pretty sure is why you threw it. Well, and I tried to hum-chuck it. I tried to ear-hole you like a hockey goalie to get that glove side up, but you're surprisingly got quick hands.

Little nimble. Quick hands is what they used to call me in high school for sure. When did you actually get it awarded? Like what year was that? It was February of 2013. Okay. Gotcha. Okay.

So you've managed to keep up with this one for 11 years. Yep. Same one. Had to do quick math there. It's plastic. He 3D printed it. He's like, lost that bitch years ago. Oh, that's just the one I got on eBay. Do you want to pull it out real quick?

You want him to whip it out on a podcast? Oh, yeah, whip that bitch out. YouTube blur this. I love that bitch out. YouTube, blur this. I love that it was in your pocket. God damn. Pass it around? We'll pass it around. Brandon, you're going to wear this.

Thumbnail. For the thumbnail. He's painting this on you. And we got to double salute you hey you guys man do you want this joke to die or not this is how the i know what i have to do i just don't know if i have the strength to do it oh god dude i just need one it is so wild compared to every other military even the distinguished service cross which is like the second highest one and you're like oh they're downgrading it and then

you're like why oh they're supposed to downgrade it i thought it was gonna silver star and then you walk in you're like what the fuck kids in basic don't lie basic training you looked and you're like that's crazy yeah like coming up through the ranks you're always thinking like oh metal that's an oddy murphy that's i mean just bigger than life these these heroes and warriors that you think about that you know the desmond dosses and i mean the links and the it's hard to conceptualize like any of those stories and to be part of that story for eternity. Cause it's not something it's like, as you were saying, like what you said, 1600, how many people have it? 1440 living 3600 total period have ever had that.

And that, and that's the thing too, though. It's also, it's also not a popularity contest and it's not a lifetime achievement award no like that was one of the kind of reassuring coolest things when i'd met some of the other uh recipients they talked about you know just because you've received the medal doesn't mean that is your life learn how to say no but you're still who you are and that's what's crazy about it we put it right there i just need one clip for myself wearing it saying I got this fight in the sand you're a guy Helms deeper

Even on the microphone it makes me so uncomfortable. Gosh, Tyler. I got this at Homes Deeper. Homes Deeper. Your helmet's crooked. At Homes Deeper. Now, Homes Deeper is where I found the guys who are remodeling my kitchen. I told you.

I was like, I hope he knows what he's getting into on this podcast. Because I pictured the military and that's it. Call him a border year guy. A border year guy. They should put up a wall for them guys. Brandon's your third one.

I got nothing, man. I mean, you're going to have to go to clothing and sales to get a third Oakley cluster. I'm walking up. I've never seen a silver Oakley cluster for a Medal of Honor before. Shh. All the military people are dying. Do you know how hard it is to make me speechless?

I got something for everything, man. That's the forest highest of valor ever. I mean, how many promotion points do you need? Cody, please send me that picture. Oh, this is what would be the best way for the thumbnail because the thumbnail is definitely going to be you doing this.

We want to recreate your photo but he is now you. So this is immortalized in all of podcast history. You guys are having such a good time with this, man. I think I might actually be physically blushing. How much did he tell you about this? Right now you look like my ex-wife

trying to give me a blowjob. You don't even want to get close to that microphone. Holy shit. I'm so happy so eli on one throwaway bit a year ago it peaked this is officially peaked this is how we close this chapter and all of this is going to be what would be the most respectful

way from your end to put it on him or do we put it on him you let me know on the respect program because I have zero I gave him my it's just like this and he's like stop push it away from me I was like why are you being gay

and then in that moment eli sensed weakness oh i know how to ruin your next year and then crispy and jack who got shot but didn't get a purple heart oh they're trying to give you a purple heart this man that hates veterans over here apparently oh by the way that was i hate veterans so much that uh you know all of my friends are veterans you know that's it's one of those do you know how what they used against him for his uh congressman oh wasn't it he you're talking about you hate veterans that commit suicide or i see you watch the news it was i, I literally, I quoted a joke that Eli was like, oh, you need to make this joke. Because earlier that day, we had just done a veteran suicide prevention panel.

And Eli's like, hey, you need to make this joke. And I'm like, nah, it's a little too far. And then I said the joke on the podcast that I didn't make while we were doing a veterans charity benefit that morning. And they clipped that one seven seconds. They're like, look at this guy. He thinks veteran suicide is funny. I'm like, all the shit I've done? Really? No? Okay. That's the one. That's the

clip you're going to use? I was laughing. They cut that out. It's just Brandon hates veterans. When you've got $ million dollars to spend it you can make anything look like anything politics it's so fun it's amazing when are you getting back into it hopefully never man hopefully hopefully they just vote right wait what are we doing are we doing no are we saying no what to what are you not getting back into them what

are we doing brandon are we allowed to talk about this on the podcast? Chase is right there, so we can tell him to edit this out. Well, the funny part is, the most recent thing, by the time this comes out, either is going to be a thing or it really won't be. So we'll see. The ATF director thing? Which, if we had an ATF director number one it started very tongue-in-cheek and then turned very serious very quickly which is kind of wild I started getting a lot of calls from DC oh like if if the Trump camp if the Trump administration

is based enough to even consider this I am so excited for our incoming administration and our tax stamps 200 so dope it might be cheaper I'll just say I've got some ideas I got plans you're like I can't wait metal how would we do this for a, what would be the most respectful rate to do that and then do branded service and also for the lols? I'm trying to think. What would be? This is why you're in the position and not me, because I would just put it on. But I want to do everyone the actual respect. Brent's like, he's sweating. He's like, I was more comfortable when he was throwing it at me.

Hey, then get him another drink. It was straight whiskey or a little whiskey. Oh, man. Welcome to the podcast. Join my podcast, he said. It'll be fun, they said. Clint's like, why is this?

Like you're bearing the weight of responsibility. They'll have like a flavor-flavored chain. We can then hang it like super low. Oh, my God. Do we have a chain? We have to have a chain of some type. We've got this. Jake, shut the fuck up.

No, we don't. No, no. We take off the cross and then we put it around the cross. Where's the fucking thing? Here it is. Dude, the rosary. And then we take off the cross. And then it's very Mexican because you've got rosary and then we take off the cross and then it's very Mexican

cause you got rosary beads and the metal hanging right here or it's way more offensive it's one or the other you're either gonna piss off a lot of Mexicans or a lot of veterans you know there's like five or six moments where you just have that You're either going to piss off a lot of Mexicans or a lot of veterans.

You know, there's like five or six moments where you just have that realization in life. You're like, I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. This is one of those. Thank you. Dear God. Well, we could compromise and redo it where we present it to your microphone which you've been talking in for the last 12 months

we turn it around for the microphone we're going to do the ceremony for it we're making the joke right yeah we're making a joke so that's why I want to respect because I know you're going to be big on respecting that and why I want to respect, because I know you're going to be big on respecting that, and I just want to respect that.

So we will figure this out. And if we just put it on Brandon's mic, which will always forever be the Medal of Honor microphone. It's got the Medal of Honor for having to put up with listening to me for hundreds of hours. Do you want to pin it? You do this. Brandon Brandon turn your microphone around nope nope whoa there we go say say but talk to Brandon neck. Eli, are we killing the joke right now?

We're retiring. We're not killing anything. That's too dead a joke. Real jokes don't die. They live on forever. Oh, I'm so sorry, Brandon. No, you're not. I'm not.'m not your dedication to service after receiving not only this is your third medal of honor fifth purple heart this microphone that you've speaked in will forever be remembered for its heroics intrepidity

I don't know what word they use for that I'm sorry I said oh oh oh oh at least Obama didn't give it to me. Thank you.

Eli, hold on. We haven't asked this yet. What have you raised for veterans so far? Oh, shit. Good segue. We're like 60 grand in 11 days. What have you raised for veterans so far? Oh, shit. Good segue. We're like 60 grand in 11 days. This is also the 12th. The 12th.

12 days. So 60 grand we have raised in 12 days. And I know that's going to go through the roof even more in the next 17 days. 18 days. 18 days? 18 days. 18 days. 18. Oh, for this one, never mind.

It's a week-ish. It's going to be a hundred-ish thousand if we do this right? Question mark? I don't know. We are killing it. All of you are killing it. Chase will put up the actual number raised for this. And then, which is awesome.

Great segue. You actually have a nonprofit that you stand behind, which I think out of anyone that knows the trials and tribulations of veterans. One drink. Drink, I know. It'd be you. So you would have a good idea and you actually brought this up you're like hey i support these guys because they support yourself and they support other veterans if you want to open up on them so i've been with the america warrior partnership for

six years now um it's a great organization out of augusta georgia and what really attracted me to them because of course as a medal of honor, you get asked to be on a lot of boards and a lot of nonprofits. Why? I'm joking. Well, maybe other ones do. I was asking Brandon's microphone. But it's... I just pictured the board.

It's a microphone. Okay, Mr. Hat. It's like the sorting hat from Harry Potter. The board has deemed you Gryffindor. So I've been with the American Warrior Partnership for six years, and what really attracted me to them is you get a lot of veteran nonprofits out there talking about stuff they're wanting to do. And the big part of AWP's initiative is we hear about ending veterans. Yes, we wanna end it, but the reality of it

is to get to zero isn't a realistic goal. So to decrease veterans is not a program, it's a result of doing good work. And it's not one pill solves it all, not one magic wand. You can wave to do that. And AWP has been amazing with building those relationships with veterans, advocate when they hit obstacles, collaborate with local communities, because local communities are going to solve the best problems at the lowest levels, and then educate the veteran, and then sit there and tear down the roadblocks that might come up as they hit them. Because it's not just a mental health issue, it's relationships, it's financial, it's access to care,

it's dealing with the bureaucracy of the VA. And AWP has done that along the way since I've been with them. It's been a great organization to be with because of the fact that they don't look at it, like I said, as just a program. We're going to end veterans, but we're going to decrease it by a result of outcomes. That's a, I mean, and that's, we're going to donate at least at minimum, like we, as much as we've raised, we're allocating, uh, 30, uh, it was a 33% towards that nonprofit. Cause again, one of the individuals that knows it's dealt with the VA and then dealt with the military and then knows about, Hey, trials,

tribulations, and then the PTSD and everything. Yeah. Drink on that. An individual that has been through all that at every level, you are the one we want to lead. Like if you're the one waving flag, like,

Hey, this organization actually does good and needs funds, that is what we will put towards what we're doing this month. I think all the guys are on board for that. To be honest, we're a bunch of dipshits, dude.

We may come jokes, but we got amazing people like him coming on here and Brandon's microphone. We're sharing life advice about, you know, you only break one lot

at a time. It's just really cool to have organizations that actually identify the root of the problem and try to help. There's still friends of mine that are active duty here in San Antonio you know they're talking about how their superiors uh want to do a uh veterans initiative and i'm dead fucking serious their their idea was oh let's do a 5k and hold signs on the side it's like wow yeah i'm sure that's

doing wonders for for veterans people shot themselves that day i would you know what makes me want f*** myself? Waking up at 5 a.m. to run five kilometers. When you're depressed, you're like... And that's why it shouldn't be a program. It should be an outcome of resources. Yeah. Yeah.

And then just like bros being bros, honestly. Yeah. That's what we talked about on our panel in Las Vegas. Bros being bros. It's what we talked about on our panel in Las Vegas. Bros being bros. It's what actually makes a difference. And all of you that reach out, we have had hundreds of thousands of messages to this date of like, hey, I was in a bad place. And this is what got me out of that place. And that is because it is like hanging out.

What we miss, and i guarantee you can speak to this is the camaraderie from the gang you're just like man you are and you're you are wrapped around these guys you are enveloped in it and then you do that for 16 months to three years and then suddenly it's taken away i mean you you can sit there, and as I reflect back, like I still know what Raz's freaking stinky feet smell like sleeping next to that guy for 12 nights. Freaking corn nuts and freaking onions. It's atrocious. And one thing I always get to brag about still to this day,

knock on wood, is we have yet to lose one of the the members of red platoon to it's been over a decade later those those guys went through that type of shit and are still alive today i bet you guys have one of the i get do all of you stay in really tight we have this stupid uh platoon text that goes on and 99 of the time we're just talking shit to each other but it's those moments when you're like hey so-and-so isn't responding and then we start kind of tag team and hey what's going on you know hit a hit them on an individual level and find out oh man you're going through a divorce you just lost your job. Your car just broke down. It's maintaining those communications and building those relationships that is key. Because you can't just, like I said, you can't just show up one day and expect to, like, wave that magic wand and solve those problems.

It's knowing what Raz copious has been through running out his GI bill and wanting to be a, be a lawyer and go back to school, but finding him help to, to figure that out later. And if we're not, like I said, as veterans kind of keeping the pulse on each other, we can't expect the VA to do that for us. We rely on other human connection. That's next year's Veterans Month t-shirt. Bullying saves lives. Yeah, it truly does. There you go.

I love it. That's something that I've harped on, on like Darwin Award and stuff like that, because sometimes that does come up with, you know, people just deciding to end their own lives. It's like, man, if you want to stop stop veterans you don't need to necessarily donate to groups you don't need to get agencies involved all you have to do is pick up the phone dude nope yeah it's free the answer is free so i just got to utilize it and that's what what i like about awp like i said we're not trying to end veterans to get it to zero is an unrealistic goal, but if we can decrease it, because there, there are going to be those times

and I'm just going to be real here that people are going to make that choice. And you're trying to put a rational explanation to an illogical result. Some people are just, that's just going to be what it's going to be. be and i'm gonna be real and say that like to get it to zero is unrealistic but if we can decrease it by continuing those relationships and at times it's either picking up that phone it's making that derogatory comment it's letting each and every one of us know that we're not doing it alone and there's always going to be someone to have your back because it's still better to be here and suffering than being gone and all of your other battle buddies over because you didn't give them the opportunity to step in

and have have your back what is the saying it's a uh Don't be a bitch. Permanent solution to a temporary problem. Yeah, exactly. That is the saying. Because it is... It's a wild one. You have the exact opposite. Where it's like the guys I deployed with. You have 16 KI and then 28.

Since being back. And you're like, what the... But then it is the individuals that stopped reaching out or talking. And when you're in platoon size elements, you're like, oh, like that guy was in my company or that guy wasn't in my specific platoon and then or in my team. So you don't think about it. But versus you guys, you have that like super tight, especially after after that. That is baptism by fire on a different level. It is. And that's the thing, too, though, is, like I said, there's guys we're not as tight with as other guys.

There's always those cliques in a platoon. But as I sit there and like to describe them, we're all one big happy family. Not going to like you all the time. We're going to have those political discussions at Thanksgiving where we're gonna flip a table and throw a chair. But at the end of the day, even though I might not like you in a certain moment, always gonna love you. And I think that's the benefit we get as veterans is that exposure to love more than all the hate you kind of see around the world.

And we are abusing that opportunity we've been given just because we think, well, they're probably handling it okay. Or, or the mentality is I don't want to be someone else's problem. I don't want to be that guy. That's the other thing that creeps up is the easiest way not to be that guy is I'm going to eliminate myself from the process. That's not the case at all. That it shouldn't be the go to, but that's also kind of the double edged sword of military service is you've been taught kind of that for so long.'s the easiest way to kind of eliminate eliminate that problem um but again that's where we haven't we haven't embraced as much as we should that camaraderie of taking that uniform off and knowing you've got someone that's always going to be there no matter what um you were talking about um the world war ii vets you just had on like night 90 99 years old yep 99 still dying now our boys like it's a it's such a special thing that we have that so many people that haven't worn the uniform that's Brian's like

that was the part I was okay with Brian's like I'm so comfortable thank you thank you take that away from me lift this burden I'll bring him back do you know who you're talking to back to my life do you know who you're fucking talking to you stand a parade rest when you rub his back

I thought it was a parade attention for this one. He's like, hold here. Hold on. Sorry, Brandon. I love you. And again, if Eli stopped doing those, I would think he hated me so there we go we gotta bully our friends fun yep like whenever i was going through anything like kind of rough i would always say like oh no as long as i'm joking about you guys have nothing

to worry about oh yeah that's a very true statement if you guys are like, huh? Look. Hey, dog. What's up? What's going on? Are we good? What's going on? America Warrior Partnership out of Augusta, Georgia. AWP.org is our website. One of the cool things we've done is our partnership with Duke University.

We've been doing a study for the last eight years. We're getting into the states because what we end up wanting to do is to figure out where kind of the red flags are. And instead of going to fish for veterans

that might be at high risk, call the hotline. We want to go hunt for them because the veteran that's committing suicide in Florida doesn't look like the veteran that's committing suicide in California. And when we can kind of start breaking down the data, we're seeing every veteran is unique kind of geographically, and everyone needs to be addressed in a different way. And it comes back to building that relationship long before ideal ideations happen.

I'll give you an example. We've been doing this study for eight years. Florida is one of our biggest case studies. The veteran that's taking their life in Miami is typically a veteran that served four years, non-combat MOS that's been out less than 10 years, and they're dying from drug overdose. It is wild because we have a higher percentage of people that were non-combat MOSs taking the lives then individuals in combat, right? Yep. And what do you think that is? I actually have no idea because I just read that the other day. It was a weird statistic.

Part of that is the psychology of they didn't do anything that way. They didn't contribute. They missed their time. They were there in service support, not direct action support. I really do feel like I need this microphone over on your side now. I was just feeling like you earned that. You earned that microphone. Everybody's just saluting.

Cody, close that beautiful episode out before we do the after show. Bye, everybody. Thank you for joining the unsubscribe podcast I was joined today by Eli Doubletap Clint Romanche Brandon Herrera myself Donut Operator catch us on the unscribe after show on Patreon Clint where do we find you

or not find you because you never use social media why not North Dakota I've been known for playing pull tabs and bingo at the Ranger Bar on Mondays at 8 o'clock. That's that. Let's fucking go. Mwah! We'll see you again You know my name We'll see you again.