We're All Insane - 15 Days in Afghanistan

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

A USMC veteran shares his experiences during the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan in August 2021. If you have a unique story you'd like to share on We're All Insane, send a message to [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me DeVora. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. Took your smoke? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. So how long have we known each other, Jason?

Seriously. Since fourth grade. Wait, you actually remember the exact time? Oh, yeah. Fourth grade. Okay, because fifth grade I went to private school. How old were we? Nine.

Oh, I think you might be like one of my longest friends. 16 years. Wow. That is crazy. I'm glad that you remember that. I was like, I've known it for so long, but I can't remember how long. But I know we were talking on the phone when we were, you know, we FaceTime a few weeks ago. And I was telling you how crazy it is.

Like if somebody, when we were, how old did you say we were? Nine. When we were nine, if somebody gave us like a little glimpse or like a flash forward of today and just like you coming on here and like explaining your experience in Afghanistan and like your life story in general and how it's affected you and just everything that went on because, you know, we don't learn about this in real life. Like nobody, I feel like you don't really know unless you experience it. You know what I mean?

And that's with anything in life, I feel like. But I just think it's amazing. and it's just, I think it's something that should be shared and talked about, like, by all means. So I wasn't sure if you wanted to kind of skim over like your childhood or high school or if that had any kind of like impact on you or introduction to, you know, serving it over in Afghanistan or anything like that or if you just wanted to jump right into it. I mean, we can talk about the childhood and stuff like that. I mean, there was definitely influences that I had joined the Marine Corps.

I grew up shooting guns. Like I've probably been shooting guns since I was three, four years old. Just kind of way it was. My old man brought me into it. I really took a liking to it. And then I made a career out of it. I very much enjoy that. So that kind of led me into it.

Growing up, I always watched a lot of war footage, seeing stuff on the news after 9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan. I always really took an interest in it. I always wanted to be a part of that. And then I specifically remember, I was probably about 12, 13 years old. I was sitting at my buddy's house. and we're watching TV. The military channel comes on and I see these Marines hiking up this freaking mountain in Bridgeport, California. They're doing cold weather training, freezing their nuts off.

And I'm like, man, those dudes are fucking hardcore. Those dudes are some badass motherfuckers. And then my first deployment, I went to Norway and I fucking skied up mountains and I fucking hated it. Really? Yes. I never want to do cross-country skiing again ever in my life. Wow. Just wasn't what I thought it was.

But at the end of the day, it was still a good experience. I've definitely got a lot out of it, you know. Yeah. So it was, so basically, like you said, it was just growing up and seeing all of those, like just, you know, like having an introduction with shooting guns, I guess. So was your, but did your dad have anything to do with, like, serving or not really? Not really. I mean, he was always kind of like, hey, man, if you want to do it, do it.

Serving the country is a good thing. Yeah. You make a man out of you, you know. So how old were you when you went over? So it's the Marine Corps? Okay. I'm going to need you. Like I said, I need transparency.

I don't know my terms. But so how old were you when you did that? And like how was training and everything? Because you know like with TikTok nowadays, we see like these, I guess, behind the scenes of, I think it's like police training and stuff. And they do the pepper spray in the eyes. But like I said, we, I think as a lot of people, as individuals, we don't really learn about what actually goes on or what happens. And as far as training goes, then when you're actually. over, you know, overseas these at these places. And I just think that we don't know enough.

And I feel like if you could just shed light on all of that and just, you know, explain it. That would be. I mean, you start your training out. You go to boot camp. I went to Paris Island, South Carolina. And then I went to infantry training battalion, Camp Geiger, a part of Camp Lejeune. And then from there, I chopped in my unit, First Battalion, Eighth Marines. That was in August of 2018. From there, we start the training process. A lot of what we do is just in a backyard teaching how to use your weapon systems, tactics, just general knowledge, all that kind of stuff. And then you go to the field. The field is where you train.

You go hang out in the woods for days, weeks on end. We went out to, in 2018, November, we went out to California at 29 Palms. They do what they call an integrated training exercise for about five weeks is how long I was out there for. And you do all kinds of desert warfare type training. You're going through the mountains and assaulting objectives and shooting rockets and shooting machine guns and mortars are firing. And it's a whole combined arms assault is what they call it. So it's very cool. You know, you're running through these very deep, what they call them is wadis.

It's, you know, big walls. It's basically like a very scaled down valley is the best way to explain it. You know, 20 foot walls on either side, you're running through that. Machine guns are firing overhead, hammering the targets so that you can maneuver up and get to a position where you can get closer to the enemy objective, take out that objective and seize and secure. So how long were you in training for? I mean, training is always, like, it's always a consequence. Okay. Unless you are in active combat, then you're always training. Okay. And basically they're just, they're setting it up so that you're basically getting

the real experience that you would when you're actually serving over there, right? As close as you can get to it. Nothing, nothing compares the actual combat, but training to a combat standard is what is going to make you good. And then what year, did you go into combat? Yes. No, I said what year? What year? 20-21. Okay.

And you were there for how long? I think about 14, 15 days. Okay. So it wasn't even like a month or more. It was, okay. And then you come back to the U.S. Is that how it works? We came back to Kuwait.

So before we were in Afghanistan, we were on what they call a Mu. We were on the 24th Mew. We're an expeditionary unit. So leave Camp Lejeune, get on a Navy ship. We're then partnered with the Navy. And we go float around the world. Got it. So we went to England, Portugal, Spain, Greece.

From there, we chopped over to Fifth Fleet, which is the Middle East. We went to Jordan, did about 30 days of training there. Went to Bahrain, hit a Liboport. So we got to get off the boat, go out, buy things, drink, have a good time. From Bahrain, we pushed over to Kuwait. We were there for about four or five weeks. Did some training. mostly what we did was work out, train, and just kind of hang out and relax.

And then from there we got the call. We were going to Afghanistan for the evacuation. Okay. Because I do want you to really talk about that as well. And before we get into that, I just wanted to ask you also, did you have any type of fears leaving home and like your family and friends? Or did you feel like you were ready? And this was really what you were meant to do.

I mean, it wasn't really like a fear or anything. I'd already been on deployment. So I knew what it was going into it. Like, I'm not going to talk to my family very often. Like, you don't have service on a Navy ship. You're in the middle of the ocean most of the time. So we were on that boat for about five months. Wow.

Yeah, all we did was work out, smoke cigarettes, train, teach knowledge, like that kind of stuff. So it wasn't really glamorous. It wasn't really fun. But, you know, it's just part of the job. Right. And that's the thing, too, is also what we were talking about when we had our call, a few weeks ago of there's all of these movies that I feel like come out. And this goes for anything that's more serious. I feel like they do glamorize a lot of stuff and they make it seem like

fun and you know, whatever else. And that's not the reality of it. And it's not the reality of what's actually going on or what, you know, the people that are serving experience and all of that stuff. So that's why like I said, I think it would be really good for you to talk about your experience in combat and all that stuff. So if you want to take it away and just explain it or wherever you want to start? Um, so yeah, I'll start with, uh, so in Kuwait, we weren't getting really much word from our chain of command about what was going on to Afghanistan. We were watching the news on Facebook, on Instagram, on whatever news channel we could get in Kuwait. That's where we were getting most of the word from as when we were going over there. Like,

When I found out that we were going to Afghanistan, I found out off of an Instagram page. They said my unit by name and another unit by name for the Marine Corps that was going over there for the evacuation. And it's like. So it wasn't even like a person telling you. It was just, wow. Okay. It's like, oh shit, we're fucking going. Yeah.

And I mean, the whole time we had been hearing about it for a few months at this point. And it's like there's a 1% chance of us actually going to do this shit. And for Marines, especially infantry Marines, that's what you want to do. That's what you signed up to do. you sign up to go to combat. So I do have a question before you continue also. And this comes down to me having no idea about like any of the terms and stuff. What are the different?

I get, would it be called divisions? So the Marine Corps has a few different divisions. They have four divisions. Okay. First division is West Coast, California. Second division is East Coast, Camp Lejeune. Third division is Okinawa, Japan. Fourth Division is the reserves.

Okay. And then as far as like Marine Corps, like Army, what is the difference? Is each term, do they have different meanings or how does that really work? Or is like the, you know, because I never really understood. Marine Corps is a small force. Okay. As opposed to the Army. Okay.

I think now the numbers are down to less 180,000. So, but we're the dues that you send in there first. You want, you want shit to get done. You send the fucking Marines. Got it. Okay. So it is different than the Army. Yes.

And then there's also the, what is it called? National Guard? Yes. Okay, so there's so many different things, but you're Marine Corps. Yes. Got it. Okay, so you find out from Instagram that you're going to Afghanistan, and they don't, you didn't, when you do that, you have no idea how long you're going to be over there, right?

It's just kind of like, we're going and. We'll see what happens. Okay. And then do they tell you what you're walking into it all, or it's just, or not really? No, so when we were in Kuwait is when, or when we were in Bahrain is when we started the training for the Neo. So a neo is a non-combatant evacuation operation. So civilians, women, children, men, people who are not fighters.

So that's who we were there to get out of Afghanistan. And we started training for that in Bahrain. The training was nothing near what we actually didn't solve it. Really? It was watered down bullshit. When we got in Kuwait, we started doing that training and like I kind of had an idea of what I thought was going to go on I knew that these people were not going to be as civil as everybody thought they were going

to there was a lot of other people in my unit that had those same suspicions you know when you see so like not civil in what sense um just true human despair okay like you can't you can't replicate that unless, you know, it's actually happening right in front of you. So, you know, they would have, you know, everybody's in an orderly line. We got a few hundred people, you know, while we're in Kuwait that are coming through our notional gate. And we're checking them in, checking for their, you know, passports, green cards, visas, that kind of stuff. And, you know, we process them through and it's all honky-dory and nice. But that wasn't the reality of the situation when we hit the ground.

And I'll hit on that in a little bit. Okay. So I remember one time we were doing it at night because it was, Kuwait's usually like 120 to 130 degrees during the day. Gets down to about 100 degrees at night. So still hot, but not as bad. At least the sun ain't being on you. So we're doing the training at night one time.

And while they told the crowd to start getting rowdy and all the crowd is made up of all Marines, I think it was just Marines that our crowd was made up of. And we're working, you know, the processing center and the gate. And I don't know what exactly happened because I wasn't there to see it firsthand. This is just a story that's passed down to me. And I was there on the back end for it. But somebody got a little rowdy and they pushed one of our Marines and, well, they got handled. They got dealt with.

And they didn't like that. The higher ups that were running the training, they didn't like that. you know we had to rough handle these people but that's that's just the way it is if you're going to you know if you're going to step on our turf and step in our face you know we're going to push you aside we're going to do what we have to detain you um so with that being said the training just wasn't relevant at all it was complete watered down bullshit so and also it's like how can you really know what's going to happen until you're like you said right there experiencing it's like they can try to prep you as best as they can, but it's not the reality of it.

Correct. So, like I said, we were getting word from the news. We, we, the process of getting there was very, it was long and dragged out. At least I felt it was. It took us a little while to get there. So Alpha and Charlie Company, they had already pushed over there. There was already some other units over there from what I understand. and Bravo Company is who I was with.

We were the last ones to hit the ground. And I'm getting a text from one of my buddies. Like, dude's very, very close to me. He's already on the ground. He's from Bravo Company because we had sent a few dudes over there, probably about 13, 15 dudes. They're already over there. And it starts getting very real.

They had a, I believe Taliban starts shooting at them while they were on the air strip. And after the gunfight happened that my buddy was involved in, he's texting me, hey, bro, get ready for a gunfight, get ready for anything, because shit is very real over here. And it's fucking going down. And it's like, once I saw that text and I read that, I'm like, oh, shit, what the fuck are we getting into? Right. Because it's about to get very real.

So we got issued ammo. We packed all of our stuff. We threw it on buses and we went over to one of the other air bases in Kuwait. We sat around that airport for probably 12 to 24 hours. I don't remember exactly. Everybody's, you know, adrenaline's pumping a little bit because the unknown, nobody really knows what's getting ready to happen next. All we know is that we want to get the fuck on the plane and get the fuck over there and start doing our damn job, start helping out as best we can. So it's hard to sleep in that environment.

know. But everybody got a couple hours. Next thing you know, we get loaded on a plane and then we're sitting there on a tarmac for fuck three hours. And I'll show you a picture of how cram-packed they had us in this plane. And these planes are they like bigger or smaller than your normal planes that you would travel on? I mean, they know they're different planes in general. They're huge. They're, they're, uh, C-17s. So they can fit like how many people would you say? They packed, I think, 250 of us on there with full gear. Now, we don't have seats. The only seats are lining the sides of the plane.

Everybody else is just sitting on the fucking metal ground. Wow. And that's with every, like with take off everything. Oh, yeah. Do you hold on to anything? No. You hold on to fucking the buddy next to you. Oh my gosh.

That's crazy. Let's see. I got a picture of all here. Okay. So this is how tight they had us packed on there, like sardines. Yeah. Wow. So that was like, you'd say like 200 of you.

About 250 of us. We didn't have seatbelts. Like the Air Force came over and threw a ratchet strap over us and called it a fucking day. Right. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. So we're sitting on the plane and it's like fucking hours are going by. We're in Kuwait so it's hot as shit.

It's like 130 fucking degrees. We're sweating our asses off. We're running out of water. Everybody's got to take a piss and there's like one bathroom. So you've got to climb over people to go take a piss. Well, then the plane finally takes off. But we're not going straight to Afghanistan now. We're going to Qatar.

And we fucking sit in Qatar once we land for three hours. We get off the plane. Everybody has a cigarette. And we get back on. And it's like, oh, shit. How long is the flight? Four or five hours. That's what the Air Force tells us.

Everybody kind of passes out because, you know, get as much sleep as you can. We don't know what the fuck's going to happen when we get the ground. So we fly over. Where they wake us up, they tell us, hey, get ready for. fucking landing. Well, instead of landing right away, there was apparently a crowd on the tarmac or something. I'm not sure exactly what happened because I was still in the plane, obviously. But they went to land, but they had, like, and we were pretty close to landing, they had to

fucking pull up because there are people on the tarmac. So right there, it's like, oh, fuck. Like, we'd already been hearing about this kind of stuff. And it's, you know, it's affecting our flight at this point. So they loop back around. We end up landing. everybody gets unstrapped whatever we get all of our shit ready to go they move the pallets because they had the pallets of all of our gear behind us right next to the fucking loading

ramp so they let the loading ramp drop they move all the shit out of the way and well then you step off the plane and fucking time just stops like you take one foot maybe two feet off that plane and you just look around you're like holy fucking shit we're actually here we fucking made it. Like, we are in Afghanistan now. And then fucking, it's, I mean, it's like two seconds and time just fucking snaps back in. Right. And then just this smell of shit and piss just fucking hit you immediately. Like, the entire city over there just smells like shit, like unfathomable. Like, I'll never forget that smell. Wow. Um, we walk off the, we walk off the plane. We head over to like where the processing center is. We make sure that we have all of

our gear. We have all of our people. And then we kind of start getting word. They told us that the army had already taken a casualty. Somebody got hit in the leg or something. I'm not sure exactly what happened with that. But then we, you know, we find out where our barracks are. We go fucking drop our shit off. I pass out for a few hours and then wake up, find out what's going on. By the way, the barracks are not like nice. Like it's a one room. It's one small room. It's one small room with one bed in it that's meant for one person. And we're stuffing fucking five, six people in these things. We got dudes laying on the ground. One person gets to bed. We all take turns with that. So the rest of you would like sleep on the floor just basically wherever. Okay.

So from there, we wake up, we find out what's going on. So we go to stand post. And we go out towards the game. So I was working at the Northgate pretty much the entire time. That was our like, That was our center of operations for private company. So we, and they got like all these small, it's basically like a shed, but a little bit nicer. It's got air conditioning and shit in. They got this fucking whole row of, um, of these small buildings and stuff. The contractors that were over there used them as offices or whatever. Um, so we hang out in them.

We kind of commandeer them because, well, don't sit outside if you don't have to. We got dudes up on post and I'm standing, we, me and my buddy, we go outside of this little fenced-in area. So they have this big berm, this big dirt berm that we got dudes standing post on, watching the crowd, watching out for Taliban, ISIS, whatever might be out there, and just securing our position. So me and my buddy, we go outside of this little fenced-in area to smoke a cigarette. And, I mean, we've probably been there for six hours.

Me and him are literally having the conversation of, holy shit, bro, we fucking made it. So at this point, you guys are just basically monitoring. Yes. Yes. This is day one. we'd probably been there six, eight hours. And me and him are like, holy shit, bro. We finally made it to Afghanistan.

I had already been three and a half years into my contract at this point. I never thought that I was actually going to get to go to Afghanistan. And for us, it's an honor to go there. There's so many, so many people who had served before us that, you know, we just want to be a part of that club. And we made it there. We got our feet on the ground and we're in it. We're having a fucking cigarette. and we're having that conversation.

And next thing you know, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. We hear these gunshots go off and they're way overhead, but it's like, holy shit. It's fucking real now. Me and him look at each other and we're like, oh shit, take that last drag, fucking flick it out. And then you see these buildings of where all the Marines are fucking sitting in. And it's like cockroaches. They all fucking swarm out. And you see these dudes just sprint towards the fucking gunfire.

And all these dudes start occupying this fucking burn. And, you know, we're looking for whether. shots came from a couple dudes returned a little bit of fire fucking purb the enemy that kind of thing and yeah like that was that was the first like eight hours there you know so like you said that was kind of for in more in the distance so that wasn't like was it at you guys or it was overhead okay i i believe that talban or isis whoever it was probably just letting us know that they're there too. Got it.

Okay. That was the most motivating fucking thing I've ever seen in my career. That shit was cool because you always hear stories of, yeah, man, Marines fucking sprint towards a gunfire. And I'm fucking here to tell you they fucking do. Right. So that was pretty cool. A few hours go by, you know, we kind of, we had fucking settled down off of that.

But that adrenaline high, I was up for fucking the next three, four days straight. That was, I mean, that adrenaline rush is insane. So they call me up and a couple of my other buddies and they're like, hey, they need you at the fucking gate. So the gate is this big like 15 foot, you know, double steel door. It's fucking massive. And outside of that is technically outside the wire. So that's where all the civilians are congregating, trying to get into the air base so that they can

get processed through, put on a plane, and get to safe. So they call us up there and I walk out. I walk out and around. And it's probably like a couple hundred yard walk, maybe like two football fields of a walk. And I'm walking up there. And I look down to my left and I see my buddy. He's a Corman. And he's a good dude.

And I'm like, I also see this dude next to him who's laying on a litter. A litter is like a foldable stretcher. He's a casualty. he's an Afghani and well he had gotten shot in the leg by something I don't really know what happened I wasn't there but I saw the aftermath of it he got shot the ankle so look at my buddy and I'm like yeah what happened dude got shot an ankle um and my buddy fucking like I said he got a bunch of ketamine he pumped this motherfucker so full ketamine just so that you know he wouldn't fucking feel what was going on with his ankle he dude was high as a kite you know he was living on fucking cloud nine

Yeah. And, you know, they had to push him back out. And that just is what it is. I don't know what happened to that dude afterwards. But, you know, that's part of the job. Yeah. Can't keep everybody happy. And we got to get in as many American and European fucking citizens as we can.

And that's exactly what we did. Right. Because that's what you were sent there to do. Yep. Okay. And at the end of the day, you know, we saved over 122,000 people. Wow. So that's something to fucking be proud of it.

Yeah, that's incredible. So after that, we push out to the gate. I make my way up there. And I see what's going on with that, like what's going on with the crowd of the time. And at the time, it was very calm. You know, we were processing people through. It wasn't, it wasn't too bad. Some time goes by.

Some days go on. And the crowd starts getting rowdyer and rowdier. Like for the majority of the time that we were there, we probably had about 20,000 people outside of our gate trying to get in. And how do you deal with a crowd of 20,000 unruly people who are, you know, in true human despair trying to get into an air base and get to safety, you know? Right. There was some, there was some shit that we saw and some shit that we didn't like.

Like there was grown men over there, not all of them, some of them. There was grown men that would, you know, push, Children two, three, four years old, younger than that, older than that, but children into barbed wire. But not just regular barbed wire, like barbed wire with fucking razor blades. And, you know, they're using children as shields basically. Pretty much a shield to get through. So these men were trying to get to the base also. Yep.

Okay. And just pushing through. Mm-hmm. And, well, how do you deal with that? Because these people are very unruly. And they're, you know, we see people with American green card, American green cards and passports and European green cards and passports. And they're holding them up. And like, we're grabbing these dudes out of the crowd as fast as we can. But we have to keep it organized. And, you know, it has to be a single file line. So we can only get, you know, as many people through at a time as we can. Because it takes a while to get them in, get them searched. Because we had to search them twice. There was an initial shirts where we pat them down. see if they have knives, guns, drugs, whatever. So they get patted down real quick.

And then they get pushed through to another section of where we were working. And then they get, you know, they really get frisked. They really get patted down good. You know, everything from their hair, their neck, armpits, ankles, pockets, everything. We did a very thorough job of searching these people. A lot of these people had bags on them as well. So backpacks, duffel bags, you know, whatever you can, whatever you can imagine there. We had to search these bags and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, there was a possible IED threat. There was an IED threat. So IED is improvised explosive device. There was an IED threat all the time over there. You don't know what anybody can have in their backpack. So is that basically like similar to a bomb? Yes. Okay.

Yes. A bomb that somebody just pretty much conjured up in their fucking backyard alley. or their fucking basement, whatever. So you got to really do a very thorough job of searching those people because once they're inside that gate, they are inside the air base. They are getting processed through. They're getting put on a plane. They are going to a safe haven.

I don't know what country that might be, but a lot of fucking countries accepted these refugees. So, you know, let's just got to make sure you do a thorough job. So it takes a while. It's not, you know, it's not a process that happens in a matter of seconds because it can't. It has to fucking take a little bit of time so that we do a good job. But yeah, seeing like the people at the gate, they're, again, they're using children as human shields. Not all of them, just some of them, but, you know, they're beating up women. They're fucking beating up kids.

They're beating up each other. And it's like, I'm not going to sit here and let someone fucking beat up on a child. I'm not going to sit here and watch someone beat up on a fucking woman. Like, absolutely not. I'm not going to sit here and watch some other man. some other grown man get beat up just because you think your life is more precious than anybody else's. Everybody's life is precious. Life is precious. So with that being said, we used the minimal force that we had to. I mean, I cannot count how many times somebody tried to grab my rifle. And that is a hostile act with a hostile intent. If you grab a service member's rifle, they have the authority and they are legally allowed to use force.

And it's up to you as an individual to determine what force to use. And there is not a single person in my unit that fucking raised a gun and shot anybody to do that. Yeah, we might have punched someone in the face. We might have hit someone in the ribs. It just is what it is. But we didn't kill them. Right. We brought them through the gate.

We use the minimal force necessary to bring those people in and keep them out of our, you know, out of our personal space. That's my bubble. You're not going to touch my rifle. You're not going to touch anybody else's rifle is what it is. So kind of to piggy, like kind of to go off of that, you know, that happened every day, damn near. So like the whole 14, 15 days you were there, it was just that every single day, just trying to get the people. Yes, until like the last couple days they ended up closing our gate. We weren't accepting any more people in. Was that just because there was there was no more room? Yeah, the planes

weren't coming in as frequently as they were before. Like we were shutting down the operation at that point and that's when we really started to fortify our defenses because we were sitting ducks on that air base. You know, we were the only U.S. forces there at the time from what I understand. And that is what we had to hold was that air base. So with that being said, it was an interesting time. So the last few days, what was that like when they, so then you guys closed the gates up and then? Yeah, like I said, we really just started fortifying the defenses at that point. And I'll kind of hit on that in a little bit.

Okay. So there was some other stuff that happened over there besides just a gate. Like that was the main focus was getting as many people into the air base as possible and evacuated on planes as possible. But there's a lot that goes into that. We got to feed these people once we bring them in. We got to keep them fucking hydrated, you know. We got to keep ourselves fed and hydrated. So you guys brought over the necessary supplies?

Yes. There was already some supplies there. The Air Force was bringing us in, MREs and fucking pallets of water. So we had all that. But then we had to figure out, well, how are we going to, like, move this stuff without fucking, you know, taking a whole bunch of Marines and hand carrying this? So we had to start commandeering vehicles. Everybody who had left and been evacuated, so a lot of the contractors and whoever else was over there that worked on that air base, I'm not 100% sure. But they had left all of their vehicles.

So there was pickup trucks, flatbed trucks, like up armored toy. to land cruisers, all that kind of stuff. So, well, I grew up. My father was a mechanic, so I took to that very quickly. I know how to work on cars. I know how to do things. And well, one of the things my father taught me when I was probably about 12, 13 years old was how to use a fucking lock pick. I had a fucking, well, commandeer vehicle if I ever so had to. And that's exactly what I did. So day one, after all that stuff had happened that I told you, I was like, fuck this shit. I'm tired of walking already.

And one of the buildings that I had, you know, gotten into, yeah, we'll say that, gotten into it. I had this bag of tools, perfect bag of tools for me, everything I fucking need. So day two, I wake up. I take one of my buddies because, like, when you're over there, you always got to have a buddy with you. Just the way it is. So I find this fucking flatbed Ford truck sitting in the parking lot, and I'm like, I always wanted one of them. Never had one. So I walk over to it.

I take my hammer out of my fucking bag, smash the passenger window out. I hop in. I stick a screwdriver in the fucking ignition. Beat it in with the hammer, take a pair of pliers and break the lock mechanism, and now it's fucking mine. All you need is a screwdriver to take one of them fucking trucks.

Now I'm ready for something to do. So I'm fucking hopping this thing. I put my little JBL speaker up on the dash. I got my buddy in the truck with me. And I'm fucking fist pumping out the window. I'm like, yeah, this motherfucker's. now. Oh my gosh.

And there's this German dude that's, you know, keeping a watch on the Afghan citizens and, you know, making sure they're getting processed through and everything. And they're looking at me and they're looking at my buddy and they're looking at the truck. And they're like, what the fuck are these crazy ass Americans doing? That was your like few minutes of joy. Yeah.

Getting the truck you wanted and making it yours. Yeah, it was mine at that point. Well, it was mine for a little bit. Yeah. gosh, that is funny. So what we ended up using that truck for, so like I said, fuck that walking shit. My feet were already hurting at that point. So we used the flatbed to once the Afghans got processed through and, you know, got searched and everything.

Well, then we had to take them probably three, four, 500 yards up the road to get into the processing center. And after the processing center, they get loaded on a plane. They get, you know, evacuated out of there. but how do you get the people there most efficiently? So we loaded them on the flatbed. They all fucking stood up, sat down, got in the back of a truck, and we drove it around, making sure these people could get in and out.

So was it a pretty fast process of once some of these people got through the gate and then you would take them over and to get processed? How long were they usually, I guess, in the getting processed or in that area before they would be taken away? I mean, it could take hours towards the middle of this operation. It would take days sometimes because we just weren't. So it wasn't immediate? No.

Okay. And we just weren't getting as many planes in as we were in the first few days. So it took a while. And we had. They were just like, like you said, like sitting ducks, just waiting. They're just waiting to get processed through. Yeah, so, you know, that was the first thing I took. And then I passed it off to a buddy of mine.

What did he do? Well, he left it unattended. And, I mean, the truck's already fucking broken into. You can't lock it because the fucking window is bashed out. And all you needs a screwdriver to start the motherfucker. So he leaves it unattended in the middle of the night. And, well, some dudes from a foreign NATO force, they come and take the truck. And was that the only one you had at the time?

At the time, yes. I was like, God. So that was your transportation method for the person here? Okay. And, well, he lets the truck get taken. And I'm like, I wake up the next day. I'm like, God damn it. Where'd my fucking truck go?

Somebody stole my truck. I could literally like hear you saying it. So I look at my buddy and I'm like, bro, where the fuck did our truck go? He's like, dude, I don't know. Who'd you leave it with? I'm like, well, I left it with so-and-so. And he's like, well, that was fucking stupid. Why'd you do that?

So I ended up, you know, I commandeered another vehicle from a friend of mine. They weren't using it. It was just sitting there. And I'm like, bro, can I get the keys to your truck? And he's like, yeah, just bring it back when you're done with it. I'm like, okay, I can do that. Yeah, I wouldn't bring that motherfucker back. Right.

I don't know when I'd bring it back, but like don't expect it anytime. Yeah. So, yeah, we fucking take this thing. And now like, oh, we're living the life of luxury. We got this fucking nice ass up armored Toyota Land Cruiser. I mean, the thing is pretty much fucking bomb-proof. And now we're riding in style. It's got a fucking, it's got a cooler in the center console, keep my drinks cold.

You know what I mean? So I grabbed the JBL speaker. I put it up on the dash and we start listening to music. And, well, for some reason, I had gotten a new card in fucking Bahrain. My card had lapsed. So my Apple music had lapsed. Oh, got it. Okay.

And I only had like certain songs downloaded. So like the entire time we're listening to fucking 90s East Coast rap the entire time that we're over there. That's just what I had downloaded. And so we take that truck. We go out the fucking next night or we go out that night. And I'm like, bro, we got to go find our fucking flatbed. Nah, you ain't taking my shit.

That's my shit. So we go out and do a little reconnaissance. We find the truck. And it's sitting in this parking lot all the way like the other side of the area. base and I'm like, hmm, okay, let's go find this motherfucker. And we fucking walk up to it. I'm like, damn, they got this fucking, it's like this little tiny fucking chain. They got the steering wheel chain to the brake pedal and this massive padlock.

And I'm like, well, that was fucking stupid. I'm just going to get my bulk cutters. Right. Can't fool you. Yeah, like, come on, bro. That's my shit. So I cut the fucking chain off of it. I go up under the hood, hook the batteries back up.

I already knew that they were going to do that because that's exactly what I would have done. So, hooked the batteries back up. It was my fucking truck again. Took it again. Took it again. So now you're up to two vehicles. Back up to two. We're doing good now.

So have the truck. I give it to somebody else. I had other shit to do. I think I was on post working the gate or something. So I passed the truck off to another platoon. And, well, I gave it back to the same platoon that fucking lost it. 12 hours later Guess where my fucking truck is

Not where I left it I'm like these motherfuckers So Well me and my buddy We hop back into Land Cruiser The next day We go do a little reconnaissance again And I knew where to find it

And they had it fucking blocked in this time And I'm like Shit Well there ain't nothing in front of it So he had to go stand post So I had to go drop him off I grab another buddy And this is where I fucked up.

I only took one buddy with me. And it's the middle of the day, 12 o'clock noon. Don't go do this shit in the middle of the day. You do it a night. You know. But me being young and dumb, things happen. So I grab my buddy. We roll over to the truck.

I fucking hop out. I get all low. I fucking run over to it. Hook the batteries back up. Throw my fucking multi-tool in the fucking keyhole. And I take off. And I'm fucking hauling ass down the road. And I see these fucking.

dudes come out of their barracks and they start running after me. There's four of them. They're hollering. I'm giving them the finger out to back fuck a window. I'm like, fuck you. This is my truck motherfuckers. And well, again, I fucked up. So I get to the end of this parking lot and there's this massive ditch in between the

parking lot and the road and I'm like, oh shit, that's not good. How am I going to cross that? I ain't crossing it in this fucking truck. So I whip it around and I start heading back the other way. Well, where the guys were hollering. Yeah, but on like the other side of the building. So I whip it around. And here come these fucking four angry men.

And they are fucking pissed. God, it's like a back and forth like truck stealing game. It was like a turf war or some shit. So I fucking, well, you know, what am I going to do? I can't run these fucking guys over. So I fucking stop the truck. And they start yelling at me. The one dude speaks broken English.

The other two dudes are like standing and like leaning up against my hood and he's got another guy kind of behind him fucking he's all pissed off yeah he's not happy with me well yeah whatever right so the dude starts yelling at me he's like why are you stealing my truck why are you stealing my truck and I'm like fuck you this is my truck I rightfully took this and he's like you know all this fucking bullshit back and forth for about five minutes and he's like get out to the truck get out to the truck and I'm like oh shit they're pissed he's getting ready to hit me in my fucking face I don't feel like getting hit in the face I should hurts.

Yeah. So I hop out of the truck and I got my gun in my hand because like everywhere you go in the Marine Corps, if you're in the field, you have your fucking rifle on you. If not, you're getting fucked up. Somebody's going to chew your ass, whatever. Or you're going to be doing fucking push up, something. So I got my rifle on me. And the dude's like, why do you have your gun?

I'm like, motherfucker, I don't know you. I don't know what you're going to try and do. You might try to beat my ass. Was this outside of the air base? No, this is inside the air base. Okay. And he's like, I'm like, I don't fucking know you. I don't know what your intentions are.

You might try to beat me up, fucking kill me, throw me in jail. And his other buddy, who's kind of standing behind him, well, he don't speak any English. And he starts taking off his fucking plate carrier, taking off his helmet. And that is universal language where I'm going to beat your ass. And I'm like, shit, I ain't getting my ass beat by these four fucking dudes. And my buddy, meanwhile, the whole time, he's fucking like 30 yards across the fucking street. So he kind of sees what's going on. He starts walking up.

And I'm like, well, that guy, at least I got somebody. and me and this dude he don't speak any English we're going back and forth fucking cussing each other out whatever and well it just kind of is what it is and then it's like getting to the point where well it's getting ready to pop off these guys are going to fuck me up right somebody's got to get the truck yeah yeah I'm not giving it up so so it got very very escalated and then the one dude who speaks broken English he's like he looks at me and I'm I'm like, oh shit. He's like, I have the paperwork right here.

I have the paperwork right here. And I'm like, motherfucker, why ain't you just tell me you had the paperwork the whole time? Yeah. Because I'm not trying to get my ass beaten and fucking killed or thrown in fucking jail for this shit. Fuck that. And so, yeah, I'm like, man, you could have just told me that the whole time. It was your truck. Well, the paperwork was in the truck when I initially took it.

I just fucking hit it under the seat because I didn't think anything of it. He was smart enough to take it out. So now it's, you know, technically his truck. truck. And that was right about the time my buddy got there. And I look at him and he looks at me and I'm like, no, bro, it ain't worth it. Let's fucking, let's just get the fuck out of here. Taking the L on the truck. Sometimes you just got to take the L, you know, it just is what it is. Right. So me and him fucking walk back. It's like, well, at least we didn't get fucked up. I'll take the truck another time. I'm going to get that motherfucker back. Towards the end of it,

they ended up leaving before we did. So we ended up fucking making up. We hugged it out, you know, shook hands all that shit and they ended up giving me a fucking truck back. Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, they were done with it at that point. But in the meantime, I had also taken another truck and a piece of heavy equipment. So I had found some other vehicles that I had wanted.

There was a fucking suburban that was like an up armored suburban that was in the parking lot. And I tried taking it, but it, well, Chevy's got good security systems. That one didn't work. Okay. Screw driver wasn't going to work for that. But, and the only way I realized that, so I had cell phone service the whole time we were over there. And again, my father's a mechanic. So I fucking get on the phone with him.

I'm like, hey, what's going on, dad? Like no fucking small talk. Listen, I got to take this fucking truck. I need a goddamn vehicle. He's like, all right, well, what do you got, son? I'm like, this fucking Chevy Suburban, it's like a 07. How do I fucking take this thing? He's like, well, how bad you fuck up the ignition?

And I'm like, it was pretty fucked up. He's like, can you use the key? I'm like, I can't find the key. He's like, well, okay. Can you disable the security system? I said, well, how the fuck am I going to do that? He's like, well, do this, this and that. If that don't fucking work, then you just got to move the fuck on and find something else.

So, yeah, I ended up finding something else. We went to this, like, they had like this fucking bone yard of vehicles. And me and my buddy, the same buddy who I had been riding around with the whole time that we initially took the truck with. we go to this bone yard we find this fucking another Ford pickup and I'm like perfect these are fucking easiest shit to take so we walk up to it and it's fucking you know it's a big diesel truck

it's fucking up armored and everything and I'm like oh man this is badass I had one of these when I was fucking you know like in high school or whatever the fuck so a little nostalgia there so we get that thing going I got pictures of it too we ended up fucking I found a can of spray paint.

I got to tag up my shit so nobody else takes it. And it was, I mean, it was a beater, but, you know, perfect for me. Just scroll to the right. So you did all the spray paint on it? Yeah. That is funny. There's a giant number three painting on the side of the door for fucking Dale Earnhardt. So we got this fucking Ford diesel truck.

I got the number three painted on the side of the door, got my buddy's sitting in there. We're fucking smoking a cigarette. I'm like, hey, man, let's see if this motherfucker will be a burnout. So we're sitting in the middle of fucking, in the middle of Afghanistan, in a fucking Ford pickup truck had a stop sign doing fucking burnouts with our truck that we just commandeered. And I'm like, well, hell yeah, this is fucking bad ass. And yeah. So there was also something else that we had taken while we were over there. That was probably the most useful thing that we had acquired. And it was this big ass forklift, like an off-road forklift.

And, well, we also, we had a couple of vehicles over there. Me and my buddy, we had a fucking fleet. Like, we had five vehicles at one point. And you were using all of these vehicles basically just to transport these people. Transport supplies. Transport people. Like, everything that we had had a purpose. Got it.

So, yeah. So. It was just a little bit fun to just steal on. Oh, hell yeah. I won't say steal. Tactically acquired. Oh, yeah. That's better word.

But yeah, it was like that kind of shit was fun, you know? That was like your little release at the, you know, throughout. So this was probably fucking like day three or day four while we were there. I'd get off the gate after fucking working it and, you know, holding the crowd back and bringing people in and all that good stuff. And well, one of my higher ups comes up to me and he's like Goldstein. He's it. Big ass fire truck over there.

And I'm like, yeah, that's a nice fire truck. And he's like, well, it's fucking yours. You know how to use a fire truck? I said, fuck. Oh, I ain't a firefighter. He's like, well, you're going to figure it out. I was just like, you're going to become one. That's going to be another one of your talents.

Yeah. So I walk up to the thing. And he tells me, he's like, yeah, we're going to get some firefighter from the Air Force over here to show you how to use it. I'm like, look, man, come on. You and I both know that's fucking bullshit. I'm going to have to figure this shit out for myself. So I end up figuring it out.

I've ended up figuring out how to use it. And well, we didn't really know what we were going to do with it. But they said that they wanted to get water in it so that we could spray over top of the fucking civilians. Because in Afghan, it's, you know, it's about 90, 95 degrees during the day, about 60, 65 at night. But where the crowd is, it's fucking 120 with like 100% humidity. Like you walk up there for fucking 10, 15 minutes and you are completely drenched and sweat. so we wanted to spray way over top of them to kind of missed them you know missed the crowd so that it's not as hot cool it down kind of thing but the fire truck had foam in it for I'm not a firefighter

so I'm fucking know but it was some kind of foam I was saying maybe like they mix it with the water yeah for putting out like certain types of fires I don't fucking know but so we had to drain out the foam tank flush out the system we ended up actually not using it to spray over top of them. We ended up using it as a blockade. But one night, me and my buddy, same buddy who I was fucking taking all the other vehicles with. Me and him did a lot of shit together. And we're like, hey, let's go try and find some water for this fucking thing. And it's like 2 o'clock in a morning. And, you know, we, so we have females over there that are working with us as well, who are Marines. And they are there to search the females because foreign men or, you know, American men,

we are not allowed to touch their females. It's against their culture. So obviously we abide by that. So that's why we have what they call lioness teams. And they're there to search and deal with the Afghan females. So we grab them because they're, you know, things aren't really going on. The gates kind of closed up at this point just for the night. And, you know, they're like, well, can we come with you guys?

Like, we're bored. And we're like, sure, come home. So one of my buddies, another one of my buddies, he hops up on top of the fire truck. He's like our fucking, you know, he's like our security on top of the fire truck. This thing's fucking massive. I got pictures of that too. Pictures of everything. You got to take pictures.

Things fucking huge. Wow. Yeah. Like you could fit two king size mattresses in the fucking cab of that thing. That is crazy. So you, and this is what you ended up using used it as like a blockade thing. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So there was a couple roads that ran on, like, that were coming to our gate. one of them was right up against the wall that it was the wall between um the air base and the city of Kabul so that's you know like we're not really driving down that like you know you don't want to be that close um there's another road that's offset that goes around you know it'll take you from gate to gate and it's just it's just a fucking road that goes around the airport kind of thing so you know that night we grabbed the fucking you know we grab all of our shit and you hop in the truck.

I take the land cruiser. My buddy hops in the fire truck. And it's a really tight fucking road. And there's blockades that he's got a fucking bob and weave in and out of. And he backs this fucking thing up like two and a half miles. I'm like, dude, you're a hell of a lot better driver than I. I cannot fucking do that. And this, like, this thing's 75 fucking feet long sitting fucking eight feet off the fucking ground.

And he just backs the thing all the way up like is nothing. I'm like, dude, that's fucking legit. Yeah. So I'm in the land cruiser. So once he backs up and gets to a point where we can turn around and kind of start heading further in towards the airbase, I take the lead. And so we start going around and looking for, you know, a source of water. Well, I don't know where the fuck we're going to find this water at, but. And I really don't know where I'm going either.

But everybody just assumes I know where I'm going. So I take the lead. and we start cruising through the air base when we get to the fucking air strip. And I'm like, fuck it, let's go down the air strip. I ain't no planes landing right now. So I hop on the air strip.

He's falling behind me in this massive fucking fire truck and we're hauling ass down this air strip, like in the middle of the air strip where apparently they were trying to land planes. I just didn't look up above me. Okay, got it. And I fucking pull off to the side like in this parking lot where these planes are parked.

go off to this fucking Air Force dude and he's in a pickup truck. I'll walk up to him. I'm like, hey, bro, like, you know where I can find some water for my fire truck? And he's like, no, man, get the fuck off my air strip. We're trying to fucking land planes here. And I'm like, oh, shit, my bad, bro. Just looking for some water. So we like pull off into this like maintenance hanger area. And I'm like, I thought it was, because they told us we could find water where the fuel farm was. So fuel farm is basically just a fucking gas station for military vehicles. Well, it wasn't the fuel farm. And there was no water source, but it was like an undeveloped construction site, still under construction.

So they got a whole bunch of construction equipment there. And, well, I used to be a heavy equipment operator. So I'm going to go find me something else fucking take. And that's how I ended up finding the fucking forklift was we were looking for water for the fire truck initially. But I ended up finding this all forklift. And I just kept it in the back of the back of my mind like, I'm going to come back and get that motherfucker because we need that.

So end up not finding water there. We go fucking riding around and shit and we end up finding the fuel farm, which didn't have water at it. And they also had like a concrete plant there for some reason. I don't fucking know. So I figured we could find water

at a concrete plant. No. No water at the concrete plant, of course. So I went driving around the fucking rest of the night talking to people trying to figure out where I can find water at. Two days later, guess where I fucking find water at for a fire truck at the firehouse that has a fire hydrant. And this is why you're not a firefighter.

And this is why I'm not a fucking firefighter. That is hilarious. Luckily the Air Force dudes were super cool. Much love to the fucking Air Force. Like they hook it up all the fucking time for us. And these dudes, you know what I mean? These motherfuckers know what they're doing. I just barely know how to drive this thing.

My buddy knows how to drive this thing like a motherfucker. being a firefighter either. So they end up helping us out, getting the fire hose hooked up and getting the fucking water pumped in it. And then like I said, we ended up just using it for a blockade because people would come down that fucking road that we backed all the way up. And, you know, come talk to our chain of command or like try and grab people out of the gate or whatever the case may be. But we didn't want people that we didn't want coming down our fucking road. So, you know, it was a movable blockade. And the thing was fucking massive.

If we got into a situation, you can, you know, you can use it as cover. all that kind of stuff. So that was cool. Well, and then we ended up going back a couple nights later to take that fucking forklift. Nasty about the fordift, whatever happened to it. So you went back and you got it. Yeah, we went back and we fucking took it. Pop the gate.

Keys were fucking into the thing, which was fantastic, because I didn't have to do any work. And yeah, we ended up using the fucking shit out of that thing. Like we were moving pallets of water, pallets of food, sandbags, all kinds of shit. Concrete barriers and everything. Um, and then it kind of got to the point where shit was starting to get a little bit hairier around the air base, just, just the general atmosphere of it. Um, so I talked to one of my higher ups who I, you know, very close with. And he's like, look, Goldstein. Um, what can we do? Like,

how, you know, start reinforcing this motherfucker. So I'm like, all right, well, we'll go see what I can acquire because our forklift isn't going to, so our forklift wouldn't pick up these big Texas barriers. They call them Texas barriers. They're like fucking 10 feet tall. It's like a Jersey barrier that you see on the side of the highway, like the little three foot concrete things, but way taller and way bigger. Okay. So I'm like, well, our forklift isn't pecking that up. Let's go see if we can find another one. So me and my buddy hop in the land cruiser and we go for a drive. we ended up going to the Air Force because the Air Force had these gigantic front loaders that I might be able to talk my way into and drive over to them.

And like, so they're using these things to take the like the big pallets of all of our equipment and ammo and fucking food, water, all that kind of shit off of the airplanes that are coming in. So they obviously need them. But like, well, we kind of need it more because we got to start reinforcing our defenses. Right. So I walk up to the dude. I walk up to like one of the higher ranking guys that's over there. And I'm like, hey bro, can we borrow your big ass forklift?

And they're like, I mean, you can't take it. But let me talk to somebody see if we can give you one with a driver. And I'm like, okay, that'll work for me. It just saves me fucking time. And then I can coordinate from the ground. So they end up giving us one of them. And they're also like, big shout out to the Air Force on this. they're like, hey, we know you guys are like working hard out there and shit.

Like you guys want some Red Bull and like whatever. I'm like, fuck, yeah, let's get some Red Bull. So they give us like three, four cases of fucking Red Bull. We loaded in the back of the truck and like, you know, they give us pretty much everything else we need. I need it like a whole bunch of chains and stuff so that I could fucking rig this thing up to the forklift and all that. So yeah, they really hooked it up, man.

They're really fucking looking out for us. So yeah, we ended up moving around these big fucking concrete barriers with that thing. And, you know, they really hooked it up. So, yeah, that was, that was legit. Let's see, what happened after that? I love the stories. They're like, they're good. Yeah.

And they're definitely like, they add some humor because obviously everything is, I feel like there's no word to describe, you know, like everything that you've seen and gone through. So to have some sort of, you know, thing or like humor within it that you can kind of look back and, you know, find, I don't want to say some sort of positivity, but just like have something that you can laugh about looking back on. I think that that's also important because I feel like to some degree it keeps you

mentally grounded and sane throughout everything. Oh, yeah. You know, so it's cool that you have stories like that as well. And that was the thing, too, is like, you know, amidst all of the shit that was going on over there, morale was still pretty fucking high most of the time. Like, we were all, you know, we were all sitting around laughing, joking. when we weren't working, like, you know, that's just the way it was. And we sat down to fucking have an MRI.

We'd light up a cigarette, talk about our fucking day, like, talk about what the fuck was going on, talking about what we're going to do when we're getting the fuck out of here. So were there, like, shifts that you guys had? So it was like people that would, you know, sit out during the day and then at night and then vice versa and stuff like that. Yeah, so it broke down for our company, like per platoon. Each platoon would, you know, for X amount of hours, like six to eight hours, whatever it was, we'd fucking work the gate.

And then after our shift, we'd go work and stand post. Keep the area secure so that the dues of the gate could do their job. And then you would be on what they call QRF, so a quick reaction force. And that's your rest cycle. Well, you weren't resting a whole lot. I'll tell you that. Because then the crowd would get really rowdy and we'd have to go reinforce the fucking gate.

So every time you're on QRF, you know, you might get an hour or two, maybe three hours of sleep, if that. Like, it was very few and far between. Yeah, we were awake for most of what happened over there. So, yeah, they would fucking, you know, QRF would go and reinforce the gate. And that was the thing is like, like I said, we really didn't get much sleep. I mean, I've never seen dudes fucking performed so well under stress. And with no sleep, minimal food, you know, just drinking as much water as you can to fucking keep it in your body.

Like, those dudes fucking performed. every step of the way. You know, mentally they were still fucking, they still had their wits about them every time. Like, we had what they call a Modi. And that is used to jam radio frequencies for IEDs. Like I said, the IED threat over there was pretty high. And one of my buddies was telling me a story. He's like, yeah, man, the Modi had gone down for, you know, X amount of time.

I really don't know how long somebody fucking batteries didn't get changed in it. And they just, you know, they automatically knew, like, hey, we got to go. fucking fine batteries for this thing and get this thing back operating as soon as possible. They just took that initiative. And these are fucking, you know, junior Lance corporals, their fucking first deployment. And that's the kind of shit that they were doing. They just knew the fucking job. They knew exactly what the fuck they had to do all the time.

And it worked out very well. One thing that I will say is like the amount of fucking cigarettes I smoked over there was fucking insane. How many packs do you think it was? Three packs a day. I was smoking three packs of fucking. day. I've heard like maybe one pack a day from people was a lot.

Three packs a day. I smoked probably over five cartons of fucking cigarettes while I was there by myself. Well, not by myself. I'd fucking intermittently pass them out to people and shit. But like for the most part, yeah. Did it ever make you feel like shit or it was just like? No, my throat hurt like shit. I'm sure.

Oh my God. Yeah. How many of you smoke now? Like a pack? Half a pack to a pack a day. Okay. I've cut it back. Mm-hmm.

Just working on it. Yeah, working on it. Ain't about perfect. No, definitely not. Everybody's got their thing. So I'll kind of hop back into it. So this is obviously not everybody, but a lot of people know that while we were over there, our fucking brother unit that we were over there with, they got bombed at the Abbey Gate.

And that shit fucking sucks. But so I'll give my perspective of what was going on while we were over there. Like, while that shit was happening. So the morning prior, it had literally just turned to the day of August 26. I know that because I have a picture of what I was listening to, the music on my phone with the date and the time. And I remember exactly where I was standing at post before all this shit happened. I was on post from midnight to 4 a.m. And we're at what we called the breach site.

It's a low point in the wall between the airbase and the actual city of Kabul. And there's a highway that fucking runs all the way through that. We're watching cars driving by. There's a gas station 30 meters across the road 30 yards. And it's a known Taliban like outpost hangout. There's a bunch of buildings and stuff, obviously, because it's a city and there's probably one about 75 to 100 yards to the left of that gas station from our position. And also, again, most likely a known Taliban outpost. There's also about 600 yards away.

There's these couple of unfinished high-rise hotel buildings that there was potential snipers in. I believe there were snipers in there because if I was the Taliban, that's where I'd put my fucking seat. snipers. So we're standing this post and, you know, we're just watching the cars go by. It's fucking hustling, bustling like New York City in the middle of the fucking night, right? And there's probably about 100 of these fucking Afghans hanging out, whether they're Taliban, whether they're civilians, I don't know. And they're doing, you know, hanging out like people do at a gas station.

And time goes on. I get off post. Fucking take a quick nap under like this little fucking pretty much like a little piece of cardboard. And so time goes on. I don't know. I think we fucking probably worked the gate after that. I don't remember exactly.

But, you know, we kind of get into the afternoon time. And we heard that the chow hall was closing down. So they had a chow hall, which is, you know, just a mess hall, cafeteria, whatever you want to call it, that they had on base for us. And if you had time or if, you know, you wanted to, you could go to the chow hall and get like a halfway decent meal so you're not fucking eating MRIs all the time. Well, all the contractors that work at that chow hall were leaving. They were getting on a plane, so they're shutting it down. And they tell us like, hey, this is what's going on. I mean, if you guys want food, go get food.

So I grab buddy of mine. We hot in the land cruiser. We fucking drive over to the chow hall. And we fucking walk through that thing. And my buddy, he used to be a chef at Popeye. So he knows how to cook. So he goes in that motherfucker. He lights up a fucking cigarette.

He's smoking in the chow hall, which you're not supposed to do. He's smoking in the chow hall. He finds some chickens, some eggs, some fucking potatoes. And he starts firing it to fuck up on the friars. And he's like, bro, I got to cooking. He's fucking smoking cigarettes. He's got the fucking grease going. He's got everything.

He's fucking shepping it up for us. So I fucking walk out back and they have these big sea containers full of fucking food, like drinks, chips, ice cream, fucking. anything you want. And I'm like, hell yeah. The boys are going to be happy when I bring this shit back. So I load the entire, I'm like a fucking, I'm like a dad at a grocery store. I fucking get all the bad fucking food.

I get all the fucking sodas, the boxes of fucking chips. I got a five-gown bucket of ice cream, fucking basket robin strawberry cheesecake, baby. I find a fucking, I think I grabbed an MRI spoon or something. So we load up all that shit. I'm looking, I've got some fruit and shit. Like, we got the car packed and we're going home fucking happy because we got fucking chicken and fucking eggs and like all this shit. We're eating good the night. It's like the fucking last meal.

So I ride back and fucking drive up to the fucking, because like outside the barracks, there's like these big ass fucking walls and this steel door and shit. You know, in case something happens, we start taking IDF, which is indirect fire, some mortars, artillery, whatever. So that's just why all that shit's there So we go into the barracks I grab some of the dudes I'm like hey boys go unload the truck Got fucking chips drinks Whatever you all want

So they unload the truck I go park it I come back in I'm eating my fucking chicken And I'm having the best fucking meal Like this is like I literally couldn't ask for better That motherfucker shipped it up Like no one's business Right you were eating good that night

And so I'm sitting there Finish my meal I bust out my five gallon bucket of fucking ice cream I got a picture I'm going to be eating it too. Oh my God. I got to see it. Now, mind you, I've probably been up for fucking days on end, head and showered in probably

five fucking days. That's just the way she goes. At least you got ice cream. Chicken and ice cream. Let's see. Oh, my God. Wait, that's the whole tub in front of you? All that's ice cream.

Oh, my God. So how much did you eat at half a tub? Fuck, no. I had things like five fucking gallons. Well, maybe you didn't have ice cream for a while. I didn't, but it was good. I had a few bites of it, and I'm fucking sitting there, and then we hear this call coming over to radio.

And it is, they're like, hey, I mean, they, you know, it's radio talks, so it's very professional and everything. And we heard over the radio that 2-1 had just gotten fucking hit by a suicide bomber. And it was like, oh, fuck. So how close was that? to where you were? Probably as the crow flies, I don't know, maybe a mile or two. Okay.

Per the road's probably about the same. I'm not sure exactly, but it was relatively far away, but like hearing it over the radio, I mean, it was, I don't know. Close enough, right. It was weird. It's like, holy shit, this is fucking, this sucks and this is fucking real. And we all just kind of like did one of these, like all looked at each other. and everybody just sat there in silence for about 15, 20 minutes.

So when you guys got that call, do you have to take action? Like, is there something that you guys had to go do? Or is that, or they just kind of give it as a warning? No, they were just letting us know what was going on. Like, obviously all of us wanted to fucking hop up and hop to and go do something. Right. But you can't. They're units down there.

And they're, you know what I mean? They're doing what they can. So if they needed you guys, they would let you know. Yes. They could have. And I mean, I just don't think that there was anything that we could have done further. Right. So we all just sat there for about 15, 20 minutes in silence and just it was like, what the fuck.

So I go upstairs into the barracks room. This is like the first time I probably slept in a bed in fucking days because pretty much the entire time I was over there, I was sleeping in the land cruiser that me and my buddy had. And we were sitting like right at the fucking gate pretty much. all the time because if if someone everybody in my company pretty much knew my set of skills they knew my background um if they needed shit done like kind of different things things to be tactically acquired they could call on me and i'd go take care of it me and my buddy and um so yeah i passed out in the bed for the first time in a few days i get woken up by a ground attack siren um which is a very odd feeling. It's just a fucking, it's basically like, it's like a fucking tornado siren,

except it yells out, ground attack, ground attack, ground attack. And it's like, holy shit, we just got hit again. So does that mean they're just running towards you guys? Or like, no, they got bombed again. So it was another bomb. Yes. Okay. And so that's when I was like, well, I ain't going to fucking sleep after that. So I hop to, got my fucking shit on, grabbed fucking three packs of smokes, threw them in my pockets and I fucking walked on out to the gate. I don't even remember if I had my truck. I think my buddy had taken it. So I walked down there.

And I meet up with my higher-ups who were at the gate. And I'm like, hey, gentlemen, like, what can I do to start reinforcing the fucking defenses over here? And one of them was like, well, we just had three Afghans jump the fucking wall down at the breach site. I'm like, well, what the fuck? Okay. And this was a known breach site.

The combat engineers had a, already reinforced it prior to this happening. May or may not have done the best job, but is what it is. And again, if somebody jumps over the fucking wall and they're not getting processed through the gate, like we have to fucking, you know, we have to detain them. We have to send them back out because they cannot do that. We cannot make that a fucking thing. Like if they start doing that, our lives are at risk.

We don't know who the fuck these people are, especially after just getting fucking bombed. No. Like, you cannot have that. So, I grabbed, I grabbed some dudes and I grabbed the most competent dudes I could find. Heavy hitter type fucking dudes. Dudes that would have my back no matter what. So I grab these dudes. I grab like a whole bunch of fucking strands of razor wire and we walk down. And I fucking, it's just like one of them things, you grab another fucking cigarette, you fucking, you light that motherfucker up and you go walk into the shit. Because we don't know what the fuck we're getting into. We don't know what the fuck's on the other side of that wall.

We don't know shit. And especially after just getting bombed, the atmosphere is very fucking odd around there. It's not like how it was all the days prior. So we grab the dudes and I think it's five or six of us and we go on down. So a couple of the dudes post up on the left side of the fucking of the breach site. Another dude posts up on the right side. and they're making sure that I'm fucking safe and secure when I go up there. They're standing security.

So me and a couple of my buddies, we fucking roll out the fucking razor wire. And I'm like, well, shit, guess I got to go do this the fucking right way. And I put my gun down, which you really never supposed to do. But it's just one of the things I had to put the motherfucker down. It was easier that way. So I put it down underneath this wall. and I go and I climb up on top of the wall. So there is,

I'm not behind cover anymore. There is nothing covering me. I'm standing on top of this fucking wall. It's probably 10, 15 feet in the air. And I'm just going to fucking work. But when I fucking hopped up on that wall and I looked out into, you know,

what I had seen the night before. Remember, it was hustling, bustling cars driving by, people hanging out, shit going on. I stand up on that wall and there ain't motherfucking anything. There is, all the lights are turned out.

the gas station. There's nobody hanging out there. There's no fucking cars driving by. And it's like, holy shit, this is eerie as fuck. It was fucking eerie. And I just went to work for probably about 20 minutes, fucking putting this razor wire up,

tying it off to everything that I could, making sure that if somebody fucking tried to jump over this gate, they're going to fucking think twice about doing it. Or not the gate, but over this wall, they're going to think twice about doing it. Like, you're not going to want to get cut up by fucking razor blades.

You're going to go somewhere else and get processed through the right way. And I have been up there for about 20 minutes. And that's when I realized that shit, I can fucking die at any minute. Right. Like reality set in. Oh, yeah. Reality fucking reality hit me.

And it's like, you know, I'm a spiritual person. It was like I could feel the fucking Grim Reaper scratching my back with this fucking sithe letting me know, hey, motherfucker, it's time to get down off this wall. If not, I'm going to fucking, I'm going to get clapped. Fuck that. But I thought to myself, I'm like, well, shit. At least if I get fucking shot up here, I ain't got to be the motherfucker that carries my body. So I fucking get down off the wall because it kind of like tapered off.

It was either stand on top the wall or stand like below it and fucking, you know, everything from my belt line up was still exposed. And I did that for probably about another two and a half hours. But as soon as I got down off the wall and I kind of got back into. cover. I looked down at my buddy. He got his fucking phone out. He's fucking recorded me. And I'm like, damn, man. If my fucking mom knew what I was doing right now, she'd be fucking pissed. Oh my gosh. So yeah, I did that for probably about two and a half hours finishing up that job. But it was just like, shit, man. I'm not immortal. I'm not invincible. I can get fucking shot at any time. And I had visualized what was going to happen to me. I figured I'd get fucking shot in my goddamn head.

And it would have just been it is what it is kind of thing, you know? But luckily I didn't. I'm still here to fucking tell the stories about the shit. I made it out of there, thank God. But, you know, just another job to do. But that was the most calm I had ever been in my entire life. Like the amount of adrenaline that was going through me, yeah, it was a lot. And like, I definitely fucking felt that shit.

But I don't know. I was just very calm in the whole scenario. It was just going to go to work. Sometimes that could even be like the body's response. It's like there was so. it was probably the most chaotic it was around you in the sense of like I know that you said it was eerie but I just mean it was the most intense like you literally that's when you realized you could die at any moment but it was almost like your body was like it almost had to remain calm and cool

so that you could like you said just do what you're there to do and get it done and whatever happens happens but that's interesting get the job done and keep moving that's probably like that's probably one thing that really sticks out to me the most was that whole fucking that whole thing uh and And after that, I had just went to work probably for the next 18 to 24 hours. First couple hours I was by myself. I hopped in the fucking forklift that we had and I started building a very hardened defensive posture. Because at this point, we weren't letting anybody else in the gate. We went into a full defensive posture.

I started building fighting positions so that anybody that stood those posts were completely covered from pretty much their fucking shoulders and down. about daybreak sunrise type thing my buddy woke up the same buddy that we drove the fire truck and everything uh me and him we went like we we just fucking clicked me and him could fucking just look at each other and know what the other person was thinking uh that's just how deep our relationship was and he was also a construction worker a heavy equipment operator uh mechanic as well me and him are fucking very similar people and one of my best friends of this fucking day. And yeah, we just started fucking moving concrete blocks, fucking getting sandbags. Like we were taking sandbags off of IDF bunkers that, you know, weren't being used.

Nobody's going to use these fucking bunkers. So we might as well start taking all these fucking sandbags as fast as we can. We got the help of a couple of our other buddies. One of the dudes that was, that the one dude that was cooking the food in the chow hall, he was one of the guys that was helping us out. We're fucking taking these sandbags, loading them on the pallets, putting them in the back of the fucking truck.

And yeah, so me and my buddy, we drive over to one of these IDF bunkers. And it's time to go take some more sandbags. And I stand up on top this fucking thing. And it's like in the middle. I guess right next to the air strip, like in the middle of the fucking open.

But it's in the middle of the air base. And this fucking army dude walks up to me. And he looks at me because I'm standing up on this fucking thing. It's like 10 feet in the air. And he's like, Hey, bro, like, there was a possible sniper over there, you know, like way out in the distance, like a couple hours ago. And I'm like, okay, end. Like, I don't fucking care. I'm going to get these fucking sandbags. If he's there, he's there. If not, he's not. I don't care. I don't know. Either way, I don't know. But I'm going to get these fucking sandbags loaded in this truck so I can fucking reinforce our damn defense. And there was just like some bizarre shit that was happening over there, too. Like, again, we're reinforcing the defense. One of my higher ups. who like I said, I'm very close to, he hopped in the fucking forklift. He's got a fucking cigarette hanging out of his fucking mouth driving this fucking

forklift around. And, well, OSHA wouldn't be real happy about this. But he had a couple people on the fucking fork truck, like on the pallet, loading these fucking sandbags onto this wall, 20 feet in the fucking air, filling every possible gap that he can. And I mean, shit, it takes some fucking balls to do that, to stand up on top that fucking thing. And it takes some balls to fucking sit in that truck and put people's,

lives in your hands like that. So yeah, I mean, just, but like shit like that was going on all the time. It was, you know, bizarre shit. Right. But it's just the way it was. Yeah. So yeah, we reinforce that defense. One of my higher house comes up over like over to me after I had fucking done everything I could do. I moved all the fucking shit I could, built all the fighting positions I could, me and the fucking group of dudes that I had with me. And he's like, looks around he's a man a few words he looks around he's like looks good and that was it and just walk the fuck away like thanks a lot hey man i'll take that yeah better than nothing um so yeah that was uh yeah that was one of the fucking it was just one of those things right so one of the dudes that's in

that story um i got a story of when we were working the fucking gate together um so the earlier days of when we were over there the first week, they didn't really have a set process of how to process people through. And it got to the point where it's like, let's just start letting everyone in and we'll kind of deal with it once they get in. Still single file, still organized as best as we can make it. But we had what they called the clean side for good paperwork, good American passports, European passports, green cards, both sides, and Afghan passports. Again, at the time, we were not letting people in with Afghan passports. So the dirty side, the first night, they put the dudes who are like big and mean looking

on that motherfucker. It is what it is. So me and one of my buddies, one of the dudes who's in that story, definitely one of the most badass motherfuckers I've ever met in my life. Was that the one with that backed up the fire truck or no? No, different guy. Okay. And he, uh, man, me and him been through, me and him have been through a lot of stuff together prior to the whole Afghan experience.

Me and him were very fucking close and still are. And, uh, well, we're working the dirty side. And there's like this very small, like turn style kind of thing almost that you'd see at like a train station or an airport or whatever the fuck. and, you know, has to be single file, like just enough room for one person to get through. And this lady comes in. She's probably about our age, about 24, 25. And she only has one hand. Well, Taliban probably chopped it off a couple years ago.

She's got a fucking nub. And it's like, shit, that sucks. And she sees what's going on because they would come in the dirty side, the Afghans, with just Afghan passports, and they would fucking go back out after they got through the gate. they would circle around and go back out into the fucking streets of Kabul. And, well, that fucking is what it is. So this lady starts having a panic attack right in front of me, like the fucking full breakdown. And like, I can completely understand that, you know.

But here come these five people, again, probably about our age, three males, two females. And they come in and they start trying to trample her to get through. And again, they're just going back out into the streets of Kabul. they're not getting processed through the airport. But they try to trample her and I have to fucking hold these five people back by myself. And there wasn't really anybody around to fucking help me. But here comes my buddy. Fucking out of nowhere from left field.

This dude comes over and just grabs one of these dudes off me because I lost my footing. And like I started to slip and these people are now getting ready to trample me. So again, hostile acts. hostile intent, like if these people are going to fucking trample me, my life is now in danger. I am now susceptible to getting hurt and not being a part of this operation anymore. And they need every single fucking marine they can possibly get here. Um, so this dude fucking comes over and he just fucking grabs one of these dudes by the back of his fucking shirt collar and throws him to the ground, throws him across the ground. And it's like, get the fuck off him. Grab's another dude, throws him off

me and then I you know once he got a couple dudes off of me I was able to get my footing and fucking push these guys back around and allow this fucking lady with one hand to get through the fucking you know to get processed I'll call it processed through but just back out and the fucking streets of Kabul but yeah like that's the kind of shit that was going on and that shit was happening like all the fucking time like I had I remember a couple times I was outside I was outside the wire I was working the fucking gate and I had kind of gotten pulled into of the fucking crowd and I got Marines on my back. I got fucking the crowd in front of me and I'm getting sandwiched. I lose my footing. Like I'm getting caught up in the fucking razor wire to barbed

wire, whatever you want to call it. And it's like, holy shit, I'm getting ready to fucking get trampled. What the fuck do I do? You know what I mean? Luckily, I was able to fucking push them off me. Somebody grabbed my fucking plate carrier and fucking pulled me out of that situation. Thank God. But like that kind of stuff was going on all the time. I think most people, that were fucking working the gate had something similar to that happened to them. Right. And if there wasn't somebody there to help you, it's like, like you said, what do you do? There's not much you can do when it's, yeah.

Yeah. But that kind of stuff happened a lot. That shit was freaky, you know? It was bizarre. It's like, I've never been in a situation like that. How do you deal with that? Right. So you just do the best you can.

You push them off you, you know, get them out of your way. And you fucking keep moving, keep holding back the crowd as best you can. So, you know, I'm sure people are going to be wondering, like, what happened, like, how we were dealing with the crowds. Again, it was hand-to-hand combat for the majority of this. Like, there was a few gunfights that happened. But not like the rest of the fucking GWAT, not like the rest of the global war on terrorism. It was mostly hand-to-hand. and it was the best way to explain what the crowd was like dealing with is like if you've ever seen the movie 300 it's like that but mixed with a fucking bar fight like just a massive bar brawl some people have said it was similar to a fucking prison riot that kind of shit because it's pretty much 50 60 dudes maybe less than that sometimes 30 sometimes 20 whatever on you know tens of thousands of fucking people right and it was you said

it was men, women, and children all in these crowds. Yeah. Okay. So were there, were you guys able to let kids through? Like, were there kids with the, okay. Yeah, we were trying to get as many kids through as possible. Okay. You know, obviously the fucking, you know.

Were there any kids that made it through that weren't able to go with their parents? Like it was still just the kids? There was a lot of that happening. I mean, you know, the news and the media portrayed it in such a way that was pretty wrong. in a sense. Because again, we had cell phone service while we were over there. Like, this is the first time this has really happened. Like other combat deployments, people didn't have fucking phones.

And like before I'd go to sleep for the night, you know, I'd hop on Facebook, Instagram, just fucking scroll through as best I can. The service wasn't good, but we still had service. And like shit that I had just seen and done six hours, 12 hours prior, I'm now watching unfold on fucking Facebook. And there's a picture of me fucking, you know, guiding this kid through the fucking gate, but the media portrayed it in such a way that, like, you know, we're saving this kid's life.

But I don't know if that actually happened because I was working the fucking dirty side at that time. And that kid went right back out into the fucking streets of Kabul. I don't know what happened to him, you know. So the media didn't really tap into the exact stuff that was happening. No. They were the, apparently from what I heard the, um, combat hammer dudes dudes who take pictures

and videos and stuff for the fucking Marine Corps they were told to only portray what was going on in a nice light so only fucking have Afghans

that look happy getting processed through only post pictures of that shit but that just wasn't the reality of the situation they're like I said I'll show you the picture of me

and this kid's holding his hand over his heart fucking smiling and well he went right back out like he did not get processed through from what I know And so yeah, I mean, shit like that was going on all the time. And, you know, dealing with the crowd, again, it's fucking 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 people against 10, 20,000 people. I mean, people were literally lined up outside of this gate for fucking miles down the road. We had acquired a lot of non-lethal munitions. So beanbag rounds for shotguns, flashbangs, stingball grenades, which are,

a rubber pretty much a rubber grenade that instead of blows out fragmentation and like high explosives, it just shoots out little rubber BBs. So pretty much like a fucking airsoft grenade.

So that's the kind of stuff that we were also using besides our hands. And, you know, we would use the shotguns to if we saw somebody trying to jump over the razor wire in front of us or somebody do something harmful to a child or a fucking woman,

well, then they'd get hit with a fucking bean background. And again, it's not lethal. It's not going to kill someone, but it's going to hurt like shit. And that dude's going to fucking think about doing that shit twice. Right. Yeah, that happened a lot. And that's the thing, too, is like the moral dilemma of all that. Because, again, most of these people are civilians.

They could be Taliban. They could be ISIS. But a lot of them are civilians. So, you know, 19, 20, 20, year old kids, some of us older than that. I was 24 at the time, you know, that's what, that's what we're doing over there. Right. You know, we're not getting in fucking gunfight day after day with the fucking Taliban.

We're, we're in hand-to-hand combat with fucking Afghans. So it was different. It was a very different experience from all the stories I had had growing up in the Marine Corps. Okay. But yeah, so going off of all that, we had kind of closed down the gates towards the end, like I had said, pretty much after the And I think maybe a little bit before that, I'm not 100% short. We started to, again, reinforce the defenses and that we had started to go out and just find stuff that we could utilize to further enhance our abilities to do our job. So there was some more of the fun, funny shit that happened, like the land cursor that we had.

It had police sirens in it and a fucking line. loudspeaker. And me and one of my buddies, we're rolling around. He's an officer, but, you know, me and him are friends after the fact. We're good friends now. And we talk about this story from time to time. And, well, we're fucking rolling around in the land curbs of one day. It's like the last couple days we were there. And they had, you know, higher ups had come down, generals, whoever, they had told us, don't loot anything in any of the buildings, whatever, da, da, da, da, da. Because people were, you know, tactically acquiring things that they could use to enhance their ability to do their job. But we hop in a land cruiser.

We're fucking patrolling around the airbase making sure nobody's doing any looting. We come across this fucking army major, I believe it was. I don't know who the fuck the guy was. I'd never seen it before. But I see him go into this fucking store. Because like, again, the airbase is a fucking town. There's stores. There's chow halls.

There's convenience stores. Like all kinds of shit. I mean, I'm pretty sure they were selling like Gucci and shit. over there. So it wasn't just like a big empty space with just like, okay. No, there was like actual stores. Like it's an operating base, which in and of itself is pretty much a small town or city. Got it. And we see this dude walk in there. And I fucking light them up with the sirens. And now, mind you, I'm a corporal at the time. I have no authority to do this. But hey, I was told make sure nobody's fucking looting. And I got my- And you had the sirens. I got my buddy sitting next to me.

He's an officer, you know, but he's a low-ranking officer, field grade. And, and, and, and, And I fucking light this dude up with the sirens. I fucking pop the door open because the windows don't roll down. I'm like, hey, what are you doing? I know they set no fucking looting in the buildings and shit. And he's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. He's like, oh, sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to fucking do any of that.

Da-da-da-da-da. And my fucking buddy looks at me. He's like, bro, you know that's a major, right? I'm like, I mean, it is what it is. He shouldn't be looting. Yeah. That is funny. Yeah.

And then, you know, a few hours. later, another one of my buddies hops in. He was a sergeant at the time. We go fucking, we go looking around and see if we can tactically acquire anything that we can use to further enhance our ability to do our job, right? And there's this air hanger that is just full of equipment, full of stuff that the Afghan National Army had turned in that was gifted to them by the U.S. government from what I understand. And, well, there's these two Air Force. higher ups that are like fucking around with some helicopters or some planes and shit. And again, we're in the land crews.

I got the sirens, baby. I fucking, whoop, whoop. I light them off. I'm like, hey, I know you all shouldn't be fucking doing no looting. It's not your patrol. Yeah, we're fucking, we're like cops on patrol or some shit. And, you know, we cleared everybody out just so we could fucking go in there and see if there was anything that, again, we could tactically acquire.

And it was just, you know, it was fun. It was just shit to do. You got to try a couple different careers in there. Yeah, something like a firefighter, fucking mock up police officer, whatever the case may be. Yeah, but I will say, I think probably the shittiest thing that happened over there out of all of that was the betrayal that was placed upon us from way higher than my direct command. And so whoever the general was in charge of the fucking operation, I'm not exactly sure. Again, I'm too low ranking to know who the fuck it was. But it wasn't any of my, wasn't anybody in my unit that made this call.

But after all this shit, the last fucking two days were there. They come down with the order. And again, we're in the fucking Marine Corps. You have to follow orders, you know. they tell us hey the Taliban says there's too much trash on the air base and before we fucking turn it over to them we're going to go fucking pick it up and I had never fucking seen any of my higher ups so infuriated in their they're like in my entire career and like what the fuck we just fucking fought this shit for fucking two weeks straight you know we dealt with

shit. And you got guys who are in our unit that have been four, five, six, seven combat deployments. Dudes who've fucking been around the block many of times. And you're going to tell those fucking dudes to go pick up fucking trash for the enemy. The enemy of 20 fucking years, that's what you're going to fucking tell us to go do because you want to play fucking nice guy. Because you want to fucking look good for the Taliban? That's fucking bullshit. But we fucking did it. We picked up fucking trash for the Taliban. And that right there was the last straw that made me get out of the fucking Marine Corps.

That's why I got the fuck out because I'm not going to fucking... I'm not doing that shit again. That's fucking bullshit. So that was the last two days that you were there? Mm-hmm. And then after that, they kind of just wrapped it up and they were like, we're done here. I bounced out on a fucking plane. Went back to Kuwait for a couple weeks.

Came home. And then you've been home since. Well, I went back to Kuwait, stayed there for the majority of September. I could be wrong, but I think the date we left was like September 21st or 22nd, something like that. We left Kuwait, got on a plane, flew back to the States. I took leave October, like end of October, beginning of November, and just enjoyed my time home. Hung out with friends, hung out with family. and, you know, did some drinking, had some fun.

Went back, and then I got out back in January, January 18th. And then I started working construction after about a week of being out. I was a heavy equipment operator once again, did that for about six months and realized, well, this just isn't the path that I want to go down. I want to do something different in my life. I want to get into international business. So that's kind of where I'm going now. Okay.

But the aftermath of all that, you know, it just kind of is what it is. Like it's a part of who I am now. I did it. I was there. And it's just one of them things, you know. I've done some shit. I've seen some shit. And you just fucking keep moving on.

Yeah, because I was going to say, I think a lot of people, they wonder like, oh, what, you know, did you get hurt really bad? and things like that. And I think a lot of people tend to forget the mental strain it can put on people, you know, and to experience that as a human, it's kind of like what I was saying earlier. Any trauma you go through, you know,

even if it isn't considered or labeled as PTSD, it's still something that sticks with you and it has an effect on you. And that was going to be one of my questions of just mentally, you know, how you felt when you came back because it's, there is no returning back to like your normal life. Like once you experience. something like that.

There is no, I feel like there is no sense of normalcy. Like you said, it almost is you have to put it as it is what it is. I did it. But is there, was there any mental struggles that you dealt with kind of coming back? Or you just kind of tried to keep it pushing?

I mean, yeah. I mean, everybody deals with shit, you know, some more than others. There was one thing that really fucking pissed me off when we got back from Afghan back into Kuwait. They had a bunch of chaplains.

So a chaplain is, Navy personnel who is religious personnel. It's someone to talk to or, you know, whatever. Well, they held this fucking brief for us and they brought each platoon in a platoon's about fucking 30 to 40 dudes. And they brought all of us into this fucking auditorium kind of thing, I guess you could say. And, you know, they sat in there and they told us, they're like, hey, you know, in five years, you guys might feel bad about stealing cars and doing this. or doing that and it's like, no, I'm not going to feel bad about fucking stealing cars. I was doing that shit to fucking survive.

And the thing that really pissed me off about it. And also to help people too. Yeah. And that's the whole reason we were there was to help people, was to evacuate people and get people to safety. And again, 122,000 or more people. We did our fucking job. You know what I mean? We did our fucking job very well.

And we got all of our fucking Marines from fucking 1-8 home with 10 fingers and 10 toes. And that makes me fucking proud. But the fact that they had people fly out from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to come to Kuwait and tell me how I should fucking feel about shit, fucking three, four, five days after all this happened. Now, fuck that. Fuck you. That shit pissed me off. And those aren't even people that firsthand experienced it.

Exactly. They weren't there with us. Right. No. And that's telling me how I'm just. on it. That's the last thing you're going to, you know, think of. Is that, you know what I mean? Like, looking back, you're not going to think, oh, shame on me for stealing, you know, trucks that we needed for supplies and for people. And at the end of the day, we weren't, we weren't fucking stealing it.

It belonged to nobody. We just tactically acquired it, again, to do our job the most efficiently in the best way possible. As you could. So that really fucking irritated me. I did not like that. I damn near walked out on it, but I didn't feel like getting my ass. for it. So I just fucking sat there and fucking listened to the bullshit they had to spue. But anyway, so yeah, getting back, I was working construction. And, you know, every day I'd come home. I'd sit on my back porch and I'd fucking smoke my cigarettes, drink a little drink and do my thing. And I'd call my buddies that I was over there with. I'd call my buddies that fucking trained me. And, you know, I credit a lot of our success to the dudes that had a hand

in training my peer group, the dudes who had already been on a deployment. That's what I mean by peer group. And, you know, they taught us a lot of good life lessons. They taught us a lot about the Marine Corps and the Old Corps especially, because there is a certain stigma about the old Marine Corps that we kept alive because of the fucking traditions and values that were instilled into us. I'm a firm believer that that's what fucking saved lives. Some people say that, you know, my old unit were fucking cowboys. Oh, it is what it is.

We don't look the best in the rear. We don't look the best in Garrison, which is, you know, the more professional environment, you know. But we fucking do our goddamn job and we do it very fucking well. I don't fucking stand behind that every fucking day. I didn't look good in my uniform. I had, I might have had a couple holes and my boots might have been a little old and, you know, whatever the case may be. But I was good at my job because I was told, I was told unto me that the only thing that matters in the infantry is fucking war fighting.

That's your fucking job. If you're not going to fucking, you know, if you're not going to look the best, whatever, you're going to be fucking good at your job because that's the only thing that matters. because that's what saves lives when you go to fucking combat, is being good at your job and knowing how to fucking do that shit. And so, yeah, you know, coming back home, back to fucking Maryland. It was different. You know, I didn't have all of my buddies to my left and right. But guess what?

Every single one of those people was just a phone call away. And all of my buddies that I was close to, every single one of them got a fucking phone call. They still do. And they still call me. And that is what has helped me through all of this, you know, through life, through that experience, you know, transitioning out of the Marine Corps. It's not the easiest thing in the world because you go from a very structured environment for four years straight into, okay, you're thrown back out into the real world. And in the Marine Corps, there's a, you know, yeah, people are relatively selfish to an extent because you have to be. You know, you can't do everything for everybody else.

It's just the way it is. But at the end of the day, when you do something for yourself, you're doing it for the greater good of everybody around you. When you come into the real world, everybody's only out for themselves. No one gives a fuck about anybody else. So that was a little bit different to come back into, you know. I didn't realize that. And, you know, it just is what it is. So, yeah.

the best advice I can give to anybody is if you're going through some shit or you want to just fucking you just got some shit on your mind man call one of your fucking buddies talk about it and it definitely sounds like that helps too because you guys were in it together and it's like I think that that's something that people don't really understand is it's hard to talk to somebody who can't really get it so it's nice that you still you know even though because they live in other states I'm assuming right okay so it was nice that you guys are still able to keep in contact talk and actually work through it and get through it together because it's like you guys have your experiences in common, you know, from being there and experiencing what you guys did,

but then also coming home and having to kind of just jump back into normal life, which is no longer normal. Yeah. And, you know, I wouldn't say that it's not necessarily normal. It's just a change. And change is good. You know, it's all about how you adapt to that. Right.

It's, you know, if you don't take risk. risks and take that quote unquote leap of faith and make a change in your life, then you're just going to get complacent and you're going to do the same fucking thing, the same mundane shit that you do all the time. And that's boring. And some people like that shit, but that ain't for me, you know. Well, I do think it's important that you recognize too, like the mental strength that you have because there are people that just don't, you know, and it and everybody's different as humans. You know, some people can't get, can't get past what they've been through and can't, you know, it's hard for them to get through.

And then they are, you know, they end up having PTSD and other things. So I think the ability that you have to be so mentally strong, you know, to come out of it and to lean on your buddies too when you need them. But, you know, to just keep pushing forward and realize that you're, this is what you're meant to do. And I think that you're the perfect person for it. Like I was telling you, it's just, I couldn't imagine you doing anything else. So, and, you know, I also want to just say in general, like, thank you for your service

and everything you do. because a lot of people could not do it. And I think it's incredible that you've experienced it and you've done it and you got through it and that you're even able to talk about it and share it with people because like we were saying, I feel like more people than not, they don't know what's going on. And a lot of times, like we were saying too, the media kind of shows, just kind of skims over it. And it's like, yeah, this is what's happening. Just letting you guys know, but they don't actually go into detail.

And people don't know the reality of things. And I think it's important for people like you to talk about it and shed light on it. because I think it puts a lot of things into perspective of how lucky, you know, we really are to just go to sleep at night in our bed, you know, because you didn't even, you know, you didn't even have a bed some night. So it's things like that. And then just hearing, too, that even just the smell that you're talking about when you walked off the plane. And it's just, it, no one can imagine that, you know, except for the people that actually experience it. Yeah. And that's the thing is, is no one's really going to ever understand it unless they were there. But I've got a few bugs. I mean, my one buddy, Steve, man. That motherfucker has been there every step of the way since I've been home. He knows my whole story five times front to back. That dude, that's a good fucking dude. And, you know, every Wednesday and still to this day, even yesterday, Steve and another

friend of mine, Ricky, they came home. You know, I come home. These dudes get off work. They come over to the house. We have a couple beers. We smoke some cigarettes. We fucking sit around. And we just talk about shit.

We talk about life. We talk about experiences. We talk about hard times, good times, all of that. And it's great to have that sense of community. You know what I mean with your friends and that fucking support group. Because at the end of the day, that's what you need. Absolutely. You know, takes a village.

It does. And yeah, every fucking Wednesday since I've been home, Steve has come over my house. And we've fucking sat around and we've bullshitted for hours. and hours and hours. And you know what? I cannot be more thankful for that. So at the end of the day, what really helped me process it is just talking about it.

And talking about it with dudes who were there, talking about it with people who weren't there so that I can get the other side, the other perspective of, you know, people who really don't understand what goes on in the Marine Corps. And I think that's helped me a lot too because it's helped me understand how to process it better.

So yeah, that's really like, it's really the fucking gist of it. Yeah. And obviously like we were talking about, this is just like a light skin, you know, and it's still a lot of information, but it's,

it doesn't even really touch on every little detail and every single thing. So, but, you know, I think it is so important that you came on and talked about it. And we're saying, too,

we're going to link in the bio. What is a new documentary? So there is an HBO documentary coming out. Um, buddy mine sent me the trailer. It's coming out September 21st. I just heard about it yesterday. But I'm very excited to see it.

It's got some of the footage that a friend of mine took, and it's got a lot of interviews from my old chain of command in there. Interviews from the other side from what I saw looked like fucking Taliban or ISIS or whoever it may have been. Also in this documentary, and I think if people are watching this podcast, they should definitely go take a look at that. because that'll really shed some more light on and show the environment that we were working in. Right.

Like actual visuals of it. Yep. Awesome. Well, seriously, thank you so much, Jason. And once again, thank you for your service. I think you're incredible. And, you know, to be, like I said, as mentally strong as you are, I think is not something to take lightly. It's, you know, you should recognize that.

And I do. So as long as I do, then tell them matters. But no, seriously, I think this was amazing. and I think it was such good information for people because even for me like I was telling you there's so much still that I don't even know you know and I am so interested in learning more and I'll definitely watch the documentary and get more information because you know it's just it's stuff that people should know about that's what what actually is going on and what you experience the reality of the situation at the end of the day exactly yeah awesome thank you yeah